Official faction activity

[Politus]

I think that the necessity for Official Factions to exist arises from the need for consistency in RP and for factions which NEED a centralized command and control structure to have one. The system available for official factions now works well enough, the real problem regarding activity seems to be something that can't really be solved by changing rules; people get bored. Disillusioned. Real life takes them. They simply don't play as much, and it's no fault of anyone involved. Hell, it's why a lot of trade and mining groups trend towards untimely departure from anything but hopeful daydreaming, without ever reaching official status.

If the problem is making sure that official factions have a presence, the solution I'd suggest is to make it easier for a succession, so to speak, so that when one official faction loses its momentum in representing the NPC group, a new group can reorder the ranks, redistribute the power, or whatever you want to call it, to get new blood in and keep things working. Above all, keeping a tangible continuity for the RP, maintain a general sense of authority and central structure without dropping a deuce on the indies, and as Evan said, taking that tech management load off of the Admins' collective back.

As it stands, the system is a pretty good one. There are official factions to provide central RP continuity and represent the mainstream, and there are indies and unofficial factions who can affiliate with the officials or not, and create ancillary but equally vibrant RP to bolster the mainstream continuity. Imagine if you will, officials being the spine of a faction's roleplay, and unofficials and indies being the bones branching off of it. The problem is balance, and making sure that when the spine is weak, when the activity of the official group lags a bit, the others can be incorporated or somehow adapted to support that central continuity. The roleplay must flow.

edit: To clarify, what I'm suggesting is not increasing or decreasing time requirements for Officials, or creating restrictions. What I think should be done is to create infrastructure that will give an incentive to adapt, incorporate, and include unofficial groups and indies into the umbrella of the Official faction for the purposes of pumping in new blood, without a hostile take over, on a relatively equal basis.

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"Things will not calm down, Daniel Jackson. They will, in fact, calm up."