Should official factions have more power?

[FooFighter]

Absolutely yes (although of course in a semi-controlled environment).

I'm second in command of a player group that does not base itself on any NPC faction. One of the most enjoyable aspects of that is not being bound to RP which somebody else (who does not actually RP as a member of our group) dictates you to follow - instead, our diplomacy is bound on our own interaction as both individuals and a group towards other players. We aren't told "you're now at war with House X and allies of Group Y". We decided to ally with group Y, and did that through both IC and OOC talks. Since we're only a small group both in RP and in actual player numbers, this player-made diplomacy has been rather limited so far, but still held great RP potential - now imagine how awesome this potential would be for a whole House.

In my opinion, the mod itself should mainly be a structure to build RP on. Mod lore is nice and fine, but I think official player factions should actually have huge impact on it. At the moment, official factions do not really have much rights unofficial factions lack. Essentially, all they have is prestige status (and in some instances, their own system in which they can pewpew everybody not carrying their ID and IFF). What if we gave official factions the right to shape the NPC faction they're aligned with?

Let's take the example somebody in this thread made up about Rheinland. Place a autocratic Gottkanzler in charge of the RM and the government itself. Tell players that if they dislike that, they should join the Hessians or Bundschuh, and have them lead their revolution against the Gottkanzler. If they are successful, have *them* overtake the government and style their own Rheinland house government. The remnants of the old RM and the Gottkanzler, in turn, could now either be assimilated into the new government or form their own faction. Such a takeover could even be highly dynamic: at first, you schedule an event. Side B achieves victory through both RP and PvP, so they are told to write a new infocard for the base which - along with various other adjustments - will be inserted with using the awesome autoupdater we have. The big House wars could have actual front lines, and player-created news agencies would keep the player base up-to-date.

Control should exist, though, through admins and/or the community itself. Nobody is served when faction leaders declare random people (or even entire factions) KoS just because of "personal preference". But it should never be like what has been done to the Order faction (which made an attempt at player created diplomacy and where not allowed enforcing it - something which IMO is very much contraproductive to RP on this server).

Note: This does not, in any way, indicate any complaints towards Jimmy Patterson's [1st] group, because he actually does it correctly.

Oh, and Jimmy is <3

Hey, *I* am the 1st's leader...although since Jimmy is the only other active member, that does make him second in command, so you're not that far off the tracks xD. But yeah, he's awesome indeed (and I bet he's flattered as well now);).