How to make Discovery better?

[barrenwzste]

*Sigh* Once more into the breach....

First and foremost, joining a faction is a requirement to playing on the discovery server. You must choose and join one and then mount the proper id for one. Factions are what define what roles we play. This game is about, and always will be about, your faction and it's relations with the other factions in the game. Rant against that all you want, it is the truth.

Now, having chosen your faction, you are to play the role of a member of that faction. That means you fly the ships, use the weapons, stay within the systems, and enact the philosophies, mores, and actions of said faction. To do otherwise is to be ooc. You can have special circumstance role play, but it is just that. A special circumstance. For example, as a special circumstance, you could be allowed through anothers territory to visit "Family". This is fine, so long as you don't also special circumstance a new ship, routes, and philosophy. If you change that much of the faction role play, you are no longer of that faction, and consequently, ooc.

Also, many ships declare rarity and difficulty, as well as roleplay within thier discriptions. This means that your character should not have a stable completely of these ships. One, yes. Three or more and you are again, ooc. This includes capital ships. Only a few are supposed to have them, therefore, if all you do is run around in capital ships, you are ooc.

Player factions place controls on all these aspects. They restrict certain ships, require that you not enter certain systems, set down laws and regulations that if you break, you are punished for. With members of your faction, as well as allied and enemy factions, watching and reporting to your superiors. If you violate the role of your faction, you are punished, and if the violation is bad enough, or often enough, you are removed from the faction.

Independants have no such checks and balances. They have no superiors that can remove them from thier faction, no brothers/sisters watching and correcting them. They decide how many special circumstances they have and how many restricted or rare ships they can fly. I could go on, but in short, they are not regulated, and most do not regulate themselves. And this is what has lead to the problems we are having. The ooc violations have gotten to a point that the actual role players are loosing interest and leaving. That is why the original thread was posted. To try to find ways to curb the ooc violations and get people playing the actual roles, again.

There are only so many ways to fix this problem, and all of them place some kind of restrictions on the people committing the violations. If you give the player factions special bonuses to encourage player involvement, then the Independants have to be restricted from having them. Period. Or, you could simply limit thier ability to do and have things that are already in the game, so that only the player factions have access to them. There is also the posibillity of player faction controlled sanctions placed on those who commit to many ooc violations, the bounties were a good step in this direction.

Regardless, what this kind of thing is saying is that the days of making up your own faction and disregarding the actual factions and faction roles are gone. And, I for one, am heartened by this. It is not right to let some get away with violating the rules simply because they don't like them. I have said this before, I will say it again. The way to help Discovery is to follow the rules and role play. Anything less and the comunity will die out.

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"Two things I know; Gravity sucks and Ion Storms blow. And that proves the universe is trying to kill us all" - Barren Waste, Captain of the Wasteland Wanderer

An approximation of my reaction when I see my next victim...er, these forums.