The Order of the Lion

[pbrione]

The debate has, again, gotten rather sidetracked and I wish to try and summarise the points so far and address what I feel is at the heart of most of the criticisms, and what can be done about them. First there are the empirical claims that the RP is unrealistic, such as this:

Some people here,screaming how weak are corsairs have not in mind that corsairsare the only unlawfull faction that invaded whole hoyse and tryed to defeat it,i mean planned invasion.(corsairs vs rheinland)they failed(it was planned so)but that is changing nothing on fact that they are still the biggest unlawfulls in sirius.
On other side,bretonia is openly loosing war. So they need all people on the front with kusari,because corsairs are only pirating in bretonia ,not trying to destroy it.
And when still bretonia can have free people for fighting with pirates,they start with home pirates that have bases near - mollies,and not with someone much stronger and based far far away...
Someone things that is something not logical in this post?when yes,give me counter arguments please

In one sense this is entirely correct - the Bretonian government and BAF would not fund or send forces to fight a "crusade" against the large and powerful corsair empire when they have a Kusari threat in Leeds and the corsair homelands are so far away. However, I also beleive this fact is largely irrelevent. The faction proposal, as I read it and as I asked Zig to confirm to me, clearly is that of a group of independent, largely wealthy, citizens choosing to go off and fight their own crusade. The Bretonian government is not funding this. The BAF is not fighting this. Bretonian shipyards should also not be building extra ships for this. And nor is Bretonia losing pilots, as we are certainly a long way from implementing a policy of universal and compuslory conscription. Hence this group of people choosing to go off and fight their crusade does not, providing my above points are met by the faction, in any way detract from Bretonia's war effort against Kusari.

However, nor is it likely to have much "real" impact on the corsairs. As I say, you can debate over the corsairs relative power compared to other npc factions all day, but in general a small (-ish) group of crusaders, however elite, are not going to be much beyond a minor annoyance to the corsair empire as a whole, when compared with vast groups such as the RHA, nomads or even RM and BAF. On that point, I would suggest that the faction proposers amend their mission statements slightly to tone down references to "pushing back" the corsair empire or any "seige of gamma" and particularly any bases in Theta or thereabouts. If your current aim is to get people to approve your faction, you would be better off not starting with such ambitious and controversial goals. Even having such goals inRP is controversial, never mind advocating them OOC as genuine possibilities. Even the KNF aren't coming forwards claiming their desire to stage a RP "seige of New London" with us, and it is wrong to set your goals as a victory that may well be unreasonable in both RP and gaming terms, even in the long term. In the short term, given how controversial this appears to be already, it is downright foolish and turning people against you.

Start small, concentrate on proving yourself in small, personal engagements, resucuing individual civilians from the corsairs and with good minor RP events like fundraisings, kidnappings, espionage and so on, to prove your worth to the community and dispell accusations of being PvP abusers. Personally I don't greatly know Zig or any of the others involved that well, but whilst I am not prejudiced some respectable people here clearly doubt your ability to handle this quite delicate proposal with the sensitivity that it needs. I think you should at least have the chance to prove yourselves in game, but dropping the more controversial aspects of this proposal such as the "campaign leading to ultimate victory" references and the derogatory comments about corsairs general RP and PvP ability, as well as the Bretonian aspects I mentioned earlier is an essential first step towards proving those intentions. I would suggest an update of your first post to take into account some of the more obvious flaws as soon as possible.

If you want my personal advice I'd change your mission statement from pushing back the corsairs and defeating them to something about saving lives, protecting civilians and upholding Bretonian honour. Make it sound more defensive and less aggressive. You can still fight a war out in the Omegas and near Omicrons for defensive purposes by heading off enemy forces, but the emphasis should be on doing it to protect people, both from corsairs and other threats such as the Wilde, not crush the corsair empire. That will make you sound less interested in PvP for the sake of it and persuade people that you would not just engage on sight every corsair IDed person you came across. Then you need to go in game and show you really mean it.

Do this, and you will dispel most reasonable critics and prove yourselves worthy of carrying this through.

Fail to do this and you will confirm the reputation that some people appear to have of you as PvP orientated.

I reserve judgement.

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Sir Stanley Nelson




<span style="color:#000066">Charles Canning </span><span style="color:#000066"> Foreign Secretary</span>