Proposed OF Check Overhaul

[Xenon]

Pretty nice topic to discuss @TheKusari, and your thread is a nice start as @Tunicle says
Everyone, keep bringing in more constructive feedback and suggestions, cheers all.

---

NEBULA INFORMATION BOT ☆ NEBULA DISCORD SERVER
XENON WEAPONS MARKET ☆ NEBULA GRAND PLAZA ☆ NEBULA TECHNOLOGIES
THE DISCOVERY POBCAST ☆ DISCOVERY SERVER RULES

[TheKusari]

permit requests, recruitment threads and servicing Bounty Boards should also feature heavily

Thanks! Exactly the type of stuff I was after! Even the mundane stuff should be considered, regardless of their overall "weight".
Though if this system was to be approved and implemented, a lot of tweaking will need to take place in order to appropriately gauge how much RP qualifies to pass the check.

---

---

Discovery's Best Faction:  Starfliers
Second Best: Liberty Navy 46th Fleet

---

[SnakThree]

I think that Official Faction status is no longer so sought after, because it's harder with dwindling server population and activity. Instead of pure activity timer that is applied to all factions, even those that are slight disadvantage (shipping corporation has less to do than mining corporation, some unlawful factions not having access to capital ships), it should simply be judged if factions overall activity is beneficial to community.

For example, Ageira~ was more interested in forum-side roleplay, but the projects are big, long and sometimes you just run out of ideas. Reporting trade runs in message dumps is exhausting and boring. The only benefit to being official faction was some ID lines that we could utilize once in a month (and at this level of activity, that would already be strech)
While I was in lawful factions, doing patrol reports was much more exiting, but that activity in game is very dependent on local criminals being present to be worthwhile to log and go out to find them.
And finally, leading The Lane Hackers, which is very character-driven and objective-based faction, is hard to find enough people that want to go through such challenge and career. So activity is hard to accumulate, unless we spend time trading through jump holes (which by itself is boring and not really conductive to roleplay interactions on multiplayer server).

So to sum up, I think that activity requirements don't match the actual capabilities of current times and staff should judge each faction individually, whether their overall activity (ingame and forum) is beneficial to community. Some factions have inherit disadvantage and is bound to have difficulties in attracting enough players willing to play it and staff should be more gentle with such factions.

---

[Tunicle]

Differential requirements are an interesting idea.

The why? join an official faction is something that could do with more input.

---

[TheKusari]

I brought up that approach with @Haste. Different kind of factions having different weighted requirements. It would be different between let's say House Militaries, Research Groups, Trading and such. The same weighted list may not apply to all. Though that's more a branch of my own idea in combination with @SnakThree

---

---

Discovery's Best Faction:  Starfliers
Second Best: Liberty Navy 46th Fleet

---

[Chronicron]

We had this kind of a system back in a day and it kept the game more or less alive. Can't see it feasible by modern day standards because official factions have almost little to no say in how things are progressing.

---

[Lemon]

We had this kind of a system back in a day and it kept the game more or less alive. Can't see it feasible by modern-day standards because official factions have almost little to no say in how things are progressing.

Yeah at one point official factions seemed to "matter" as actual NPC Faction voice/representatives who had a bigger say in the development process, were the "voice of the players". Now there's just no difference whether your faction is OF or non-of.

So I hope when we talk about different requirements, we aren't talking "must have 3 days" plus "must reply to recruitment" plus "must have X quality of posts" on top. Just to keep the 3 days, and give alternative paths to keeping officialdom - e.g.
Faction A has 3 days with little forum presence = stays OF
Faction B has 1 day, but a very strong forum presence + pays off bounty boards + makes events - all of which generate reasons for OTHER players to play the game = stays OF

[Tunicle]

"Faction A has 3 days with little forum presence = stays OF", even if that faction has no relevant forum posts this year including none to recruitment requests?

It quickly gets complicated.

---

[Lemon]

"Faction A has 3 days with little forum presence = stays OF", even if that faction has no relevant forum posts this year including none to recruitment requests?

It quickly gets complicated.

They are having literally at least x3 bigger in-game presence than the other faction, giving chance for people to interact, run into them, increase player count that attracts more players to log etc. You'd also force "filler" forum activity without substance just so people pass. You just cannot increase the requirements for OFs without making being an OF matter more + adding more benefits. (small point for old-timers: Recruitment is often handled on discord these days even by OFs -,-)

But you could give a chance to those that can't log 3 days to pass too even without making OFs matter more again.

[Tunicle]

Even old timers can use Discord, but not if the Recruitment page has no details and directs to on forum template. (Although I have no idea how old the players behind unanswered recruitment posts are.)

I agree that OF's need a buff if we are realistic in expecting them to help server community.

If currently OF then there are expectations not just activity wise, I can see why it becomes jaded and people do not bother, but that does not help.
Personally I think not answering recruitment, permit, bounty boards etc. is a big problem and not likely to attract players.

---