Mmh, the burden is on the trading faction to make their task appealing. Oftentimes, in a trading faction, you pop a new player in, go "Here's your routes, have fun" and that's that. At least from most of the trading factions I've been in.
Because of that, at least with OSI, Stygian, VIctor, and myself try to give our guys something to do that'll have some sort of reward, whether it be feeding Corsairs, hauling contracts for the Freeports, or scouting out new clients. When you're actually doing something to evolve a faction's RP, it becomes much more about enjoying the roleplay and less about the trading itself. Of course, to back that up, we do hand out credit bonuses at the end of the month. You get a percentage out of 100 million depending on how much you hauled. I can't remember the last time I ran a profit run, even. Been moving a lot of RP cargo lately. I personally find it more entertaining, since it's not really work per se.
Granted, there are people who trade just to make money for their pew ships. I don't think we should necessarily restrict those people, but I'm all for giving a little more control to the official factions over tech. If we kill independent trading too much, you won't get those moneymakers to roleplay any more than they would before, they'll just be grinding their route longer. It'll be traffic, not conversation, which isn't always the best thing.
The most DEADENINGLY boring thing I can think of is trading without having someone to chit-chat with while you traverse those endless bloody trade lanes.
Sucks to be a weight on the wrong side of the brilliance-insanity scale.
None of what has been said in this thread is new to me.
Experienced players have made their money, so unless they want another battleship, they're not going to trade. Leaving new players on their own a lot.
Escorts need people to protect. I've tried getting RepEx to go pi-ratting in Liberty, but unless you go at peak times, there aren't many transports you can rob, mostly because you can only rob traders that have a Liberty Corp ID (IC/Ageria/Universal/DSE). And if you go at peak times, Liberty is the capital of LNS's and pi-rats, both of which shoot us on sight.
I tried to build relationships with Daumann and Kruger for hauling/mining sharing, but those both kinda fell through.
Furthermore, lawful trade factions are supposed to use gates and lanes, which, contrary to lore, are more problematic for trading then using JumpHoles.
' Wrote:Roleplay of trading factions is fun. All the times I log on my Shire I have fun of doing stuff in a good company - regardless of profits. Suddenly, I can trade for money as well - and faction name works for your reputation sometimes. Had you ever heard of trading for the sake of roleplay events? It also happens and is done by factions. Well, on a side note, I think that you take a wrong approach to factions in general here.
You know what the problem here is? Problem is that we're forced to trade. If I didn't have to trade to play my other characters, I might actually trade purely for the roleplay of it. By the time I have enough money to roleplay my main characters, however, I'm just tired of trading and want to do something else. Trading is grinding, pure and simple, and factionalization makes it harder/slower, not easier/faster. If trading was not the primary means of grinding (why do we need grinding to roleplay, anyways?), then people would see it as a roleplaying opportunity, and would focus more on the roleplaying aspect (emphasized by the factions, usually) than the moneymaking aspect (emphasized by indies, usually).
What Denelo said was exactly my point.
I am one of those indie 5k, doing it just for money. What i was trying to say. Me and people like me have zero motivation to join officials. Joining means lot of restrictions. Tag, ships,slower runs for LESS cash. By the time i get enough so i can trade for RP... Thats too far into future.
Also, Gheis, i was in OSI. And i was stuck with BWT. Also, in that month i was there, we did ONE convoy. Rest of time i was alone, making near laughable small sums.
' Wrote:Also, Gheis, i was in OSI. And i was stuck with BWT. Also, in that month i was there, we did ONE convoy. Rest of time i was alone, making near laughable small sums.
It's been a while, hasn't it? I'm pretty sure you'd left long before I'd even joined. OSI was very different then compared to now.
We've changed things quite a bit in the past six to eight months. No more ship restrictions just for the reasons stated before this post. Convoys don't happen as such very often, but when someone's running RP cargo, we tend to group up in pairs or trios and run stuff together. The "profit" routes really aren't that bad either, but not as good as some in-house runs due to the inability to dock a ZG ship there. There's times when you're forced to stick with the BWT simply out of ID restriction, and there's not a thing we can do about it.
It's strange. Last month we had a bunch of people running the contract cargo, but I couldn't for the life of me get them to just log on and trade for profit.
Addendum: I suppose the point is that our allure isn't in the moneymaking, it's in helping to shape the faction. While decent money can be made on an OSI Whale with some of our routes, we often forgo that for just carrying roleplay cargo. It's a strange beast, not one that appeals to many, I realize.
Well, i dare say that OSI players have either a lot of time or at least ONE battleship in pocket(according standard "amount of money" disco determination technique)...
Fighting factions help you fighting - backup
Mining factions help you mining - infrastructure
Trading faction helps you...wait what?
Trading is making money... their RP is making money (sums may vary) yet they cant do it better than indies. Actually they are not even near most of the time.
Also, point that "They help you RP and have fun..." Is just fail... EVERY faction can give you that on top of things mentioned above.
' Wrote:Mmh, the burden is on the trading faction to make their task appealing.
No, you're right, trading factions serve no inherent purpose for providing means by which to make credits faster than an indie. If you're looking to make money, about all a trading faction can give you is a list of routes that have been tried and documented if you don't know any for a particular area. Its the job of the faction to make trading appealing or rewarding in some manner, which is done via roleplay.
The reason for which to have a trading faction is to provide that InRP economic base through which a group can roleplay. OSI, IND, IC, Bowex, Gateway, Samura, Kishiro, et al represent groups that we can use to roleplay with other factions. Most people trade or mine to make credits, yeah. I trade and mine because I enjoy the interaction it creates. It's all about creating roleplay. Some people want a battleship to have fun. I don't. It's a matter of taste. Being in a trading faction helps to facilitate this. That's their purpose.
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