Update on everything

[Igiss]

The recent weeks were not easy times for our server. Now it's time to make some decisions - and conclusions - about what was going on. I'll try to sum up what I see as preferable solutions for our problems.

1. System claiming issue

From this moment, Omicron Gamma is a neutral territory that does not belong to AW. No faction can claim it as home or controlled system.

As for the claiming issue itself, I think that we will have to remove the 'faction territory' in any form from this server. Whatever we do, there still will be individuals like Dab that consider territory, controlled systems or influence zone (no matter how we call it) their private property. Freelancer is a free game with free space. Disclosing parts of space for specific players seem totally unfair to me, and I hope I'm not alone about it. If you think that it's a problem only for Dab, I won't agree - and won't blame him for this proprietorial attitude to AW systems. Other factions don't behave this way, but that's only because we are lucky to have patient and non-agressive people leading those factions.

PvP in Omicron Gamma is no longer restricted.

2. PvP issue

I will be brief on this one. Some people have suggested that if a player loses fight 3 times to another player, he should leave a system where the fight was going on. Well, I think that everyone has a right to stay in any system and on any base they like, whatever fights they win or lose. However you are right, death is too easy now. This makes me think that we might try to introduce player looting feature. Discovery mod already supports looting as an option, as you probably know.

3. Creating new factions

This part of rules definitely needs to be cleared up. There were many requests recently about creating new factions.

First, anyone can create a faction as an informal player union. There are no restrictions - you may create new character with any new tag, you may post a thread on our forum to recruit members.

Second, to become an 'official' faction represented in Factions thread you need at least 3 active members from different accounts, clear goal and roleplaying alignment.

Third, to have a home system for a faction you need at least 5 active members from different accounts and reputation ties to any existing NPC faction that was not yet chosen by another faction. Any free system that contains at least one base of NPC faction you've chosen may become your home. After you have 5 members and made a decision about alignment, contact server administrators - they can approve or disapprove your home system choice. I believe that one more step should be added here - payment, so that beginning players couldn't claim home systems for new factions right away. Cost of home should be somewhere between 150 and 250 million - difficult to collect, but not impossible.

4. 4.79 beta, when is it coming?

I'm sorry for the huge delay about 4.79. But beta is coming, and coming quite soon. Normal Discovery server will continue to run so you needn't worry. Beta server will be separate and have a real lot of starting credits (in addition to all current characters), but your characters from Beta won't be transferred back to normal server if you decide to participate in testing.

And yes, 4.79 will contain many things that will significantly change the way Discovery is played now.

5. Forum flood

I'm patient, but even my patience has limits. Useless, careless posts, hardly readable posts that contain no signs of grammar of any kind, and posts where it's difficult to find a single word without a spelling mistake... If you are too lazy to input normal text, readable, sensible and correct, and there's no way you are going to change - leave this forum for your own good, find another one.

Topics and posts that cannot be read as normal English will be deleted on spot, and don't complain that it's unfair.