Even though I agree there are faction leaders who remain so for the power it provides over a specific NPC faction, there are also those who invested a lot of time and effort into their respective factions. What's to stop a certain lore designer from fueling his OoRP grudges towards a faction leader by automatically denying every idea that is thrown at him and trying to hurt the NPC faction in a not so obvious way? I've met way too many people who passionately hate a certain NPC faction. There's also the issue of possibly having a lore designer who isn't as knowledgeable about a faction as its leader is, and has a lot less experience with it. What criteria should be put in place for someone to become a lore designer, considering that the position would be ridiculously open for abuse?
Isn't this already handled by a combination of the storyboard team and the admins? For what little room official factions have to wiggle they are still bound by the constraints of the storyline and the approval of the admin team albeit not handled by a single person so conflicts of design and permission can happen but it also prevents bias and agenda from seeping in. I would assume that the Lore Designer wouid also be under the same constraints as to keep progress moving in the same direction which basically renders the position into the same bracket as faction leaders, merely requesting or suggesting various routes to take their respective faction. However without a group of like-minded people to discuss these ideas amongst, the Designer may lead the faction into an undesirable direction requiring retcons which in turn could effect any other Designer's faction involved, making any RP towards that direction inert.
Then there is the ingame aspect to consider as factions, official or otherwise, present players with a face (so to speak) and character with which they can interact making the RP seem more meaningful, not to mention a sense of community instilled into those who work together in the factions, something I believe is of far greater importance than anything else the faction creates. The communal aspect forges friendships and connections between players, it drives creativity and if done properly inspires us to improve upon ourselves.
Without that aspect I imagine Disco would be reduced to something far more basic and uninteresting, we'd be characters in someone elses story, only able to give reactionary feedback to things that happen rather than being an active party in moulding those events.
People argue now about factions but I don't think replacing them with a single person wouldn't solve anything, I believe it would be quite the contrary as we've seen several times in Disco's own history, one person can make huge differences if given power. Thats not to say things do need improvement but that in turn requires people to give contructive feedback, to be civil and respectful even in the most heated of debates so things can be changed without masses of drama.
TL;DR: If factions cause negative outcomes perhaps we should be looking at the people in the faction and not just the system.
(05-08-2016, 01:05 PM)Croft Wrote: TL;DR: If factions cause negative outcomes perhaps we should be looking at the people in the faction and not just the system.
Yeah I agree with Croft here. I'm against making the Admin/Dev/Faction Leader relationship anymore complicated than it already is.
I feel like this is just an added unnecessary bureaucratic move that just has more potential for power abuse. So currently we have an official faction leader who is decided upon by the people in that faction and the previous leader. That faction will probably choose someone who has demonstrated RP ability and will probably manipulate the lore in some way or drive their faction towards new goals. Under what you're suggesting, we have another person who is decided upon by staff instead of other people. I gather the main purpose of this is to give unofficial factions, smaller groups and individuals more power when it comes to deciding NPC faction lore and politics. But I don't feel like the best smaller groups and individuals who have a significant forum RP in the comms section and in-game presence go unnoticed or are downplayed by the community. If they still lack influence, there is still a viable and fair path to becoming official that is achievable.
But I must agree, official factions (assuming it's the same as it was a couple of years ago, which it probably is seeing as this relates to how we interact as a community) don't have as much influence as your post seems to suggest. Getting your ideas noticed and supported and incorporated into lore is more a matter of who you know rather than whether or not you are an official faction leader, or just sheer forum influence. I just remember a lot of my roleplay ideas back in the day being ignored or shot-down by people that had more influence among devs, admins and other leaders than I did (not necessarily relevant official faction leaders either), without receiving actual criticism, even as an official faction leader. And that really hurt. I feel like this would be worsened if every and all roleplaying progress is to be made by an official group of elite community buddies. In short, official factions have a decent amount of influence, but they still need the backing of established community members and developers to get all of their stuff done (dev wise and even event or communcations RP wise). Under the proposed, factions have no influence, and need the backing of established community members to get anything done. And more importantly, RP opportunities should be determined by how dedicated you and your faction are to RP, not how much people like you or your faction. But bias in this area is inevitable.
