Reasons for changes

[Jinx]

for me , there is a hirachy. first of all there is the

fun factor - if a game is no fun, why spend an evening with it. then its just what is needed to make it fun.
roleplay/flavour - if its a roleplay game, and everyone is roleplaying, i wouldn t care much about balance. roleplaying activly prevents abusive behaviour. in a classic pen&paper roleplaying game ( for those that remember those ) its usually more fun to roleplay a character with strengh but also with severe weaknesses. playing an allround hero that is master of all trait is boring. so in my opinion its rather weaknesses that form a charakter before powers he has.

so reasons for a change including nerfs, buffs, additions .. in short a new mod version.
- increase the fun factor. new things inspire new ways to play. but in the end, its down to the roleplay. if a server offers solid roleplay, there is little need for drastic changes - unless its something like a chronological change. the term might be wrong, but what i mean is:

in large online games, i think a big factor of motivation is being influencial. some are by being extremele strong, overpowering other players, some are by being unique by the looks and their ways ( looks are a very important factor in an online game, cause its the most obvious way to be individual ) and the last way is to activly form the world you re playing in. the last point can only really applied to a community like that server. 100 - 150 active players is small enough to have a rather ... personal relation ship to the creator.

when you compare it to everquest or world of warcraft, there is hardly any personal contact between the professional GMs and the players. feedback is given, but its not from one equal to another. in this mod - well its not from equal to another - but closer.

players here might have a chance to really take part in what the world developes into. wars are faught. but the npc world wouldn t change. with a new mod version, such a change can be done. it IS possible to wage wars on a house system and possibly drive even the npcs out. players can gain and win, and the changes are sort of persistant.

with that said, i think changes are important parts of a game like that. player, strive to see consequences of their play. if they attack a system again and again, and drive the inhabitants out every time, but once they log off, its all back to normal - things become pointless, even for the best roleplayer. if changes are made after serious and well discussed attempts - such raids become vital part of a game, they start to make sense. its not fighting just to fight, but its actually fighting for a cause.

example:
if gaians were damn successful in terrorizing traders out of leeds and new london. - it would start making sense to replace both systems with a clearer version. if they keep doing so - maybe untill the systems haven t got any dust cloud at all anymore. - in the end - making the faction of gaians obsolete though.

all that has nothing to do with balance. as much as i dislike when a game is not balanced, its not really a problem when its about roleplay. i do not think that all factions must be equally strong. i do believe that a civilian faction like zoners does not need strong weapons - that means - compared to a warmongering faction like corsairs, its just natural that the zoners weapons are weaker - they simply don t need them so much.
in a pvp, i would allways expect a zoner pilot to be defeated by a corsair pilot. if it was the other way round, or even if the fight was even, the corsair pilot should be ashamed, cause the zoner dedicates his life to - probably anything else but fighting. while the corsair pilot spends most of his time practicing, fighting.

balance should just be applied when it starts to hurt the fun factor. fighting without a chance to win lowers a morale, as much as fighting with no risk to loose. i do exclude the people from that point of view that play only to "own" other players. i don t really consider them roleplayers as they don t care what role they play. ( there is no role that just wants to "own" others - everyone, even or especially terrorists have a reason why )

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