Community Feedback: Official Factions Proposal

[Xithon]

@St.Denis Your criticisms are indeed legitimate based on this small discussion. However, I hope that the suggestion to buff OF's in terms of SC earned is not dismissed too quickly.

A %50 increase on event payouts might be too much. But I'm sure a fair increase can be worked out creatively across the board for all official factions. Not just on event payouts, but for day-to-day activities unique to the various types of factions.

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Xithon
Discord: xithon86
Liberty Navy 46th Fleet

[St.Denis]

Also, Denis - I mean cmon, you are THE poster child for Ofs not being important to get - you should be the first one explaining what is missing from making you want to go Official - fact is, you just don't need it to play the game right?

In the 11 years I have been playing this Game, I have never seen the reason to go Official.

It always appeared more hassle than it was worth.

Even back in the 'old' days, there wasn't anything I could see that was worth going for it and I have yet to see anything to change my mind.

OFs get some 'extra' perks, but I can quite easily play the Game and have fun without having the 'perks'.

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'I would like to be half as clever as some people like to believe they are'
Life is full of disappointments, it is how we handle them that helps to define us, as a person

[SeaFalcon]

Only official factions can have POB, no one else. :x
That would be quite the perk and would solve the POB spam.

[Erremnart]

There cannot be a defined form of OF's influence on the story because it is more complicated and freeformed than just requesting things like better lines in IDs or better mining bonuses.
That's why the story devs have to have their final say in any lore or story related matter so we won't have more spaghetti lore than we already have. Every serious roleplaying game or community have some sort of control over the story and its lore. Players simply cannot have such power or it will become even greater mess, that's the unfortunate reality of any RPGs. If you don't believeIt would add even more bureaucracy into the matter than we already have just to have all possible influences defined.

If any faction wants to influence a story, it simply has to submit a request and/or talk to us if it makes sense or not. They can also ping us to keep us informed on what they are doing or trying to do so we won't forget about it or might take an inspiration from it.

I'm trying my best to be as professional, helpful and open minded as possible in this regard.


As for the Official Factions themselves and their officialdom - it us true that some factions need some help, especially the lawfuls in my opinion, as their gameplay is currently kinda lacking with most of their stuff to do including only shooting. There used to be an option of catching smugglers, but current smugglers are too allergic to risks that they watch player lists too carefully. Other encounters include grumpy or mute powertraders or smug and edgy freelancers, which aren't exactly interesting things to log for.

Giving them option to use governmental or House RP general to supplement their activity checks in especially dead regions is good in my opinion as the forum RP might get more people interested in playing in said region. Say whatever you like about forumlancing, but it's visible.

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Captain Virginia Belle
Task Force Phoenix
Battlecruiser Roanoke
Feedback Thread

[Haste]

Say whatever you like about forumlancing, but it's visible.

Keep in mind this is a personal bias. I personally try and keep my roleplay in-game as best I can, only using the forums if the game's limited chat message length just won't do. I keep my forumlancing pretty limited and as such also read the (RP portions of the) forums very little. And I've been here a while. I'd imagine a pretty large portion of our playerbase barely glances at the forums.

It's visible if you're personally into it, virtually invisible if you aren't.

As for the proposal: it's a step in the right direction, as I think the current activity-time-based OF system is dreadful, so any change is bound to be a good change. On the other hand, I don't really think we need to further encourage people to barely log in and instead spend their time typing up fanfic on the forums. Still, probably a net positive to make this change.

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[SnakThree]

This needs to happen because doing the same thing over and over ingame gets boring after a while. And the game doesn't get more influx of new players in comparison to departing ones to keep growing.

We used to have OF quarterly activity reports, that could easily highlight roleplay that is being conducted on forum.

We have 72 hours activity requirement since forever, but when you peak at 30 players per day on average, that's just not sufficient to provide interesting and continuous encounters on server.

And sure, there are factions that have enormous activity through the quarter, but it is usually concentrated in one area where followup activity might naturally increase, while the rest of game map can be left void and activity decrease and factions struggle to remain active enough.

Perhaps a middle ground could be reached, factions can request for activity requirement to be lowered to 48 hours, but keep on forum roleplaying with others and requiring to provide quarterly report with such summary?

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[FallenKnight]

I see this is an old thread but an interesting one none the less. I remember queues to enter online and server being full 200/200 with average online 75+. Recently I've returned and noticed the huge difference - tons of factions are nonexistent, money are easy to made but due to changes in the economy and special equipment (from PoBs and etc) a new player would need some time working out until reaching a point of "Nirvana". Like @St.Denis pointed out the example with the cars, we are all aware that most people (not all) have dozens of ships around instead to focus on a specific area ZOI they spread out, join multiple factions and here comes the activity problem...too few players, similar groups of them, participating in too many factions. Then comes the question: Why would "you" join 5 factions? You will most often find yourself ending in same basket with different colors. Tired of your ZOI? Nothing to do there? ...

This whole problem reminds me of the movie Matrix:

“ The first Matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime; a triumph equaled only by its monumental failure.”
― The Architect

I am sure everyone gets the point and for those not getting it - the first Matrix was done perfect allowing you to do all you want (similar to disco) go out there be pirate, trade, join police, join order, play a nomad, play an A.I. and etc...and one day (which seems happens "today") the matrix fails slowly and humans "wake up" for there is nothing to do.

What can be done? A lot of things - but firsthand we need to consider "Disco" as a whole organism, where every faction participate to keep it healthy. If an "organ" (faction) crumbles, the rest that depends on this "organ" will fall one by one like a domino effect. The Below examples will use this sort of comparison - Disco as a living organism:

Economy: Current economy is far more different that the old one (I have seen its growth from 2008-2017, shortly in 2019 and recently experiencing it now with my return). For me what Disco offers now for new/old/returning players is to earn cash in any way possible, which is super good but inflation hits hard then...Well, I am sure 90% of the players are using OORP money (your lawful trader spoinsoring your unlawful battleship...nice) but this is a RP server and there must be more focus to realism of the ingame Economy within RP...otherwise one base owner with a good shop can buy a whole House (nothing against Pob owners though). Currently POB owners and pure traders are doing fine to present they have money due to trading goods/equipment. What about the military? They can go to battlefields or earn donations from the same trader groups that were protected by them. What about the pirate groups? They can pirate the first group - traders, which would then require military to defend them which will make bounty hunters both lawful and unlawful to enter for a hunt...which will generate activity.
Best example: @Rubber_Duck 's Merchant Navy...10 shires and heavy gunboat escort carrying gold ore moving around ...a lot trying to pirate/destroy them, a lot trying to defend them - one convoy meant a lot of activity for a lot of factions.

What can be done?Below is a buildup drawing of how it could work
A) Mining- It all starts here but it's fine, leave it as it is. Officials got a bonus to mining which will assist them in the taxes mentioned below.
B) official mining factions Money Sink "The alveoli of Disco, creating its oxygen" - low monthly tax, compensated by the bonus to mining which will not afflict them at all but will give them meaning to ...mine more which will...make pirates hunt them and catch them more often...which will make House militaries/police forces do something about it = activity
C) official trading factions Money Sink "The red cells, delivering oxygen to all cells"- To pay monthly tax (huge number of credits like 1b per month) via Government RP done on forum but money sent to "Admin Bank" ship. 20% to be delivered to the official House government (to represent they are paying taxes) and rest 80% - deleted by the admin. I found that a certain faction got a bonus if selling a specific cargo to a specific destination - similar bonus can be applied to the official faction that trades a specific resource, forcing it to trade with that resource and to make more sense for RP (You wont see a cargo of 5000 oxygen send to a base but if a specific NPC base requires it and wont buy it for 280 but...3280...you get the idea). That can be easily manipulated with monthly events per each House, giving diversity. All those money generated easily by the mentioned trading factions bonuses will help them pay the governmental tax with ease and still have tons of money for themselves. All this power-trading around will influence pirates and whatnot to interrupt them which will generate activity by simply...being online (for the traders and pirates)
D) official police factions "The immune system" - they are nonexistent for simple reason - they are providing nothing that the military can't do better (sadly). With the above points working, the police factions would be most important - they are the scouts of the House. They are best RP platforms for any pirate, civilian, smuggler and whatnot - they represent the House and must be rewarded. By doing RP forum reports (similar to what we all did so far) a police officer can report of a captured smuggler with specific cargo, destroyed pirate or simply being present in a battle. Then the House Government can pay the said police officer. Best solution would be - ALL military faction players to have police char and simply using it primary when inside House space, assisting civilians. Military flying around when there is no ongoing battle is kinda not cool in RP. In this way police factions will be active, represent the House more better, open them for corruption RP or whatever they think, protect miners, escort traders and foreign traders in and out of House...this will generate simple activity and give them reason to exist. And when thins get rough ...they call point E)
E) official military factions"Immune system response, natural killer- NK cells" When plaers from point D) require heavy support due to foreign invasion, heavy piracy assaults...then comes the cavalry or the House military. Simply put, a police officer NOT engaged can switch chars and assist - which will represent the whole concept in a very cool way. If all points so far are working on the server, military will have a lot to handle. Also due to battlefield existence, a military faction can always move there for some activity, easy EC for RP sake and etc. The Goverment can pay salaries to both Police and Military once a month and each faction can distribute the said money to those that were active with both RP on forum and ingame activity.
F) official pirate factions and general unlawfuls "The Viruses" - if you could imagine all i said so far and reached this point, then you would "see"Disco full of people doing daily routines and the pirates/unlawfuls will have every opportunity to strike wherever they find an easy target. The Mining fields...trade lanes...invasions and etc. Money wont be huge problem for them, for they will earn a lot from piracy, smuggling and etc. They also - wont pay taxes. Simply put - their activity will depends on A) B) C) D) and E) .
G) official factions cosmetics, special items for RP that carry RP possibilities and interesting bonuses
H) Disco has a lot of factions for very few people to play with. Some factions are not so needed for activity sake (every house got some) - I would point we focus on primary core factions instead to spread around.

Summary: If you read the above you may say disco is not a job but disco is RP server and without the above we find what we have now (which is not bad at all just could be better) The economy is the key of activity, most dont need money because they have a lot...but if a proper money sink is invented and needed for official factions to have better bonuses then sooner or later these money will vanish and then people would have to work around for sake of restoring them to some extend.
As someone that recently came back - I have a lot to do in disco if I had the time to do it. For those that have more time - they are getting bored due to lack of general activity. Why do we work in Real Life? To get salary...to pay taxes...to buy food, cool stuff...Disco as a RP server is close to the Matrix as an example, that is why I started with it. But imagine for a minute you are a millionaire in real life...what would you do...and for how long? And what will you do when you are bored. To me, from what I encounter ingame and at forum in disco - I see a lot of millionares bored from "Disco Life" . And yet we are all here, we might be few but we as community should heal this mod as a whole...because this 20 years old game ROCKS and is COOL and Nostaglic and like the intro of Freelancer ending narrator mentioned: "we will never...forget!"

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Discovery Bridges[Feedback] Baron Piett[Biography]

[Lemon]

Staff doesn't care at all. E.g. in Gallia the Gendarmerie (by definition a fully enlisted military police) is under the Navy in canon. We have a faction that has both Navy and gendarmerie, that's how it was made and that is it's premise but the use of dual ID under same tag (want to play gends and have /net? Ok, you fly GB and smaller) that'd solve this issue and be in line with canon was denied because - reasons?

Then there are amazing reasonings like this


note the date - 9 months ago, nothing happened

There's zero OF impact on systems and story, even the most minor perks are blocked by devs, and more and more you see from staff that they give zero shits about OFs in the first place. You wait months to even get your OF logo added to a sub-forum. They just don't care and these threads are pointless to make. Frankly, having an OF is just about ego at this point and about fixing out-of-date info and screw ups in IDs

[Major.]

I suggest some of you write a mod or dev application. We already had so many threads about the same topic over and over again.

Nothing will change except if you manage to get into the team and hope that the Dev Team Lead or the majority of other dev‘s agree with you.

But for now, I suggest we hope that the new patch will either bring a lot of new and old people, otherwise we will just continue with the way discovery always worked…

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[Karlotta]

Official Factions are dying because disco is dying, and the proposed "solutions" will only make disco die faster.

Nothing will stop disco from dying if you don't work on this one thing:

Keep more people actively playing on the server, stop them from ceasing to play out of frustration and boredom.

Mandatory ingame time requirements for OFs are far from being the only way to achieve more ingame activity.

There are more than 20 strategies to help achieve it, involving new player experience, letting more people contribute to development of mod and community, keeping people from harming other people's game experience so much, encouraging OFs and people in general to be more welcoming of new blood, changing rules and mod layout to encourage more player to player interactions.

All of these strategies have been proposed and repeated by me and other people ad nauseam for years and years, but are ignored again and again without providing a single valid argument against them, with excuses like "game is dying because it's old".

The sad truth is that the people who hog the power to make these changes would rather let the ship sink with them and their friends still at the helm, than let "outsiders" contribute in ways that would make the powers that be feel less important.

Letting forum RP count as "game activity" will only make that problem worse by allowing this kind of people to stay in control without even playing the game.

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