Could you elaborate on your idea Tunicle, it's rather vague. Do you want to merge factions under one set of guildelines and have independents an another?
I got the wrong impression entirely. Opening up the system and removing the idea of official factions is an interesting concept, there are certainly a lot of independent and unofficial factions that have some fresh insights and RP routes.
Would such a devolution encourage people to particpate more if they knew their idea could potentially make it into the storyline?
Love the idea, in the grand scheme of things? It would never work. There are some factions (indy or otherwise) who hold the sole purpose of destroying other factions. About the part of 'making it into the storyline', I'm sure people would love such to happen however putting it in a larger picture of things, again it would never work out as there is so many conflicting idea's and even worse of all is how the current official factions would react; which I'm sure most of us here would know would end in more chaos then its worth. Perhaps weening people off would work after a while however if one was to suddenly remove official factions, I know that a lot of people would leave. I personally would of not spent 3 months and 500m working on the Blood Dragons, as well as organizing events for the civil war (On the BD side), getting the faction shared ships together and everything else if there was no such things as official factions
HOWEVER
That's not to say I would not of tried. I originally was the founder of a faction called the Solar Runners, unofficial for almost 3 years here, still are yet we were treated like something else while on the server. Zoner ID, Zoner IFF and all that stuff. "Dumb faction, this will never take off!" I though to myself..my oh my how I was mistaken. Within a week we had almost 20 players in the faction, and not to long after we had massive RP with Phoenix, the Order, LN and other factions around the server. Sometimes daily, myself, King Boo, Explorer, Big_B or other members of SolarR would just sit near Newark station and just RP with people and have fun in group or local chat.
Did our RP make it into any official storylines? No not really. Do I care that our RP didn't? Again no I really don't. There are many, many, MANY players who just enjoy doing non-cannon RP with their friends, with others or just random people they meet ingame. The idea sometimes gets so powerful that people will join it. Such in the case of the Maltese Exiles. They originally just formed from the Outcast raiding Delta, when a OC destroyer and their leader bombed the NPC stationary BS's in the RP of saying "YOUR SPIRITS ATTACKED US!". After a week or so, a faction was formed, their leader even got the okay from Scourge himself.
Let me use another example, 5th. They had many many downfalls from their kickoff almost a year back, they even got denied officialdom once or twice because many believed they brought nothing new to the server..now look at them, their perhaps the 2nd most active LN faction ever next to LN and even have stories to boot! Again another example, [Cryer]! which was funny enough, just an idea that me, Laz and his friend made up for the heck of it..and now there are players in it, they got a story and act as the official Cryer group (Even if their not actually official) or the same thing for Wisp, they may not be official but the same happened there.
I think people are missing the point here and there, people normally will join a faction if they find out its something they enjoy and want to be a part of. If its something they understand or are willing to understand and play as; be the leaders welcome them with open arms or deny them outright. Does that stop them? Not at all, look at Kusari. BD formed and had many faults..and in return? The Rising Sons kept coming back, the idea of their RP being different is what caused people to join either or, or even if they were official or not. Same thing for the Exiles or GMG, there was 2 factions going for officialdom, and players flocked to both, thinking they could be part of something thing..they were not wrong in the end to be fair, we may hate some, or like some of the players in the end, but the fact remains that they made an impact to begin with, even in the smallest of forms.
What I'm getting at is that each and every faction has their own unique style or play, and many are different from each other. Depending on the player, will depend on whichever faction they join. Want to be a black ops officer that fights nomads? Join the Order, want to be a black ops researcher/captain? Join O'Rhu, want to fight against nomads and steal their tech and sell it for money? Join Core, want to be part of something new in terms of military? {B}, 5th, KPT, BDM| or other new military factions! Its not that people hate others that want to join, its normally not that most of the time. Its the simple fact new players have no idea what they want when they first join discovery, their like kids in a candy shop, so many different things to try, so little time to do it, perhaps few have barely any time at all. What I think we need more of is unofficial factions going for officialdom, that's not to say for power or rule rights or whatever, but for the simple fact of..flavor I guess I will call it, more kinds of official factions, more verities of players that will search them out, more people joining factions and so on from there.
There are things that kill factions off sure, the number 1 thing however that is at the top is just that things have gotten bland. Nothing..new happens (I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT ANY UPDATES OR PATCHES!) for most of these factions, it could be for the simple fact there is barely anyone who wants to log for it because they get killed or die to often, in which case is why some people leave..rarely is it because of their PoB's getting blown to pieces, some try again regardless, some just leave again. The number one killer of someone's joy here is watching their work fall into ruins, be it with a PoB, a Convoy..an RP situation, whatever.
In the end it comes down to a few things about factions...
1: A factions uniqueness
2: What there is to do on the faction
3: Who are their enemies/allies
3.1: (Trade factions) is it possible to trade or not
4: People willing to work with you or not
5: People willing to do anything for the faction (this mixes with 4 a bit)
And 6: Will their work be ruined in the grand scheme of things
I appreciate the insights Shizune and I agree we do need more factions pushing for officialdom. However as I've found when discussing it in the OSC| chat, going official can be more of a hinderance than a boon particularly if the perks have little to no positive effect for the faction members which leaves them nothing but a required playtime.
I like Laura's present idea of giving Official factions slightly better IDs, but considering the fact you can emergently Rp your way into a better ID in the present state of the mod, shouldn't factions just make more requests?
Perks by default sounds fun as well, however, but I would have it in addition to the current system, instead of substituting. Anything to get people to join official factions is a good proposal.
Edit: Having been an Unofficial faction lead for three years in various factions, I don't differentiate between OFs and UFs. I treat them exactly the same. Now I'm doing a lot of Official Faction Roleplay, I act InRp as if the UFs have the same privileges I do. It works out rather neatly. Nevertheless, Official Factions should have more staying power since they have actual lore control. Let the OFs have bigger ZOIs and better gameplay than the UFs and Indies, because that's how you get people playing them.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's outlawed trade unions, determined to take the underworld for themselves.)
In theory we could break down the faction system into tiers rather than the official/unofficial we have currently so that factions can apply to which ever tier matches their acceptable responsibilities. The base tier could be something simple like being added to the tracker, mid tier could be added to the forum section and the ability upgrade a PoB level and top tier would be all the bells and whistles, or something like that.
(11-21-2015, 08:15 PM)Croft Wrote: In theory we could break down the faction system into tiers rather than the official/unofficial we have currently so that factions can apply to which ever tier matches their acceptable responsibilities. The base tier could be something simple like being added to the tracker, mid tier could be added to the forum section and the ability upgrade a PoB level and top tier would be all the bells and whistles, or something like that.
what? What's the difference?????
The current system makes sense to me...
(11-21-2015, 08:15 PM)Croft Wrote: In theory we could break down the faction system into tiers rather than the official/unofficial we have currently so that factions can apply to which ever tier matches their acceptable responsibilities. The base tier could be something simple like being added to the tracker, mid tier could be added to the forum section and the ability upgrade a PoB level and top tier would be all the bells and whistles, or something like that.
Sounds overly complicated. How do you tier a presently two-tier system (official and indie/unofficial)?
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's outlawed trade unions, determined to take the underworld for themselves.)
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