"New faction creation process and representation" discussion thread.

[Spear]

To be the boss of yourself is something that Freelancer was built around.
Really people, it's rediculous yapping on that it's "Too complex" etc. How bloody more simple could it be?

You have currently: Proposed:
Independants Independants
Un-Official Factions Un-Official Factions/Groups
Official Factions Official Factions

The NPC Faction controlled by single Official Faction. The NPC faction controlled by Council of Official factions.
Now how exactly is that complicated?

"The NPC Faction controlled by single Official Faction. The NPC faction controlled by Council of Official factions." So which is it, simplify it for me, it's either one or the other.

It's all very well to claim other people's points of view are ridiculous Linkus, but hardly constructive.

I have to agree with elgatodiablo, nothing in the server is that far from broken. The 500 mill fee should stay to prevent unlimited new player faction proposal spammage, new official faction requests should remain solid.

I favour official factions having an element of control over non-official faction in there own space, but that should not restrict new solid RP being created like the BP.

Overall I think a faction council for every single faction is not required.

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=LSF=

[Blodo]

Instead of calling it some pompous council, simply have this: if a leader of an official faction wants to change a certain policy of his NPC faction in the mod itself, and there is more than one official faction under that particular NPC faction's banner, approval from the leader(s) of that other faction(s) is needed in order for the change to be approved and passed on to the devs for either implementation or Igiss veto depending on the change:P

[Edarim]

Maybe for the factions without enough members to fill their council, seats be filled with their allies? And if they have no listed allies, their closest business partners. Or simply make those business partners a conglomerate. Effectively making them 1 faction. Just some ideas.

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You hate me to say and I did not obey.

[sovereign]

Whatever does happen, things need to be spelled out clearly, and the entire admin team needs to in agreement on what they are doing, even if parts of them dislike it. For example- with the council of official factions idea, can or can't they set player diplomacy? If, theoretically, Blood Dragon ships were frequently being disrespectful toward Bundschuh operations in Sigma-13 could the Volksfront and/or Bundschuh "council" declare that Blood Dragon ships were to be shot on sight? So long as neither group is breaking server rules (stuff like KNF lollygagging in Rheinland over and over again would reasonably constitute a sanction) but are simply developing different feelings toward each other, can they make adjustments to their diplomacy to take this into account? If any of these were deemed unreasonable they could quite easily be contested, but are they allowed in the first place? While I can agree that it's a far cry to have, say, the LN and the Order declare a full alliance (something best left to Igiss), could their factions/faction councils agree to not raid each other's home systems or something of the sort? If so, how would they be able to enforce it? Could they shoot at indies who disregarded their notices, or deny them equipment?

These are the things that need to be spelled out clearly, and stuck to. One admin cannot, for example, say that official factions have the right to restrict access to battleships and then another admin reprimand or sanction someone for doing so without a large announcement that the system has, in fact, changed. That, I think, is the biggest issue with the current system- for the most part it works, but people bitch and whine because they don't agree on what powers they have.





As for indies on faction councils, I don't think that they should be entitled to a position. Take, for instance, the Bundschuh. We have one official faction, the Volksfront, and at any given time we have no more than one independent RPing as a Bundschuh. Should official factions get only one representative and the indy population get one representative, it really doesn't matter how they are chosen here- one person, regardless of depth of story (could be a paragraph or a book) has as much say as an entire faction that waited for over a year to get official. Unjust concentration of power is what we're fighting here, right?

I suggest that faction councils be originally made up of one delegate from each faction, who is appointed by that faction and can be replaced by them should he/she do something the faction at large is not happy with. However, I would allow the faction councils to, from that point forward, be allowed to decide to reorganize themselves to allow more delegates from a given faction/factions, independent representatives, etc., with further decisions being based on the newly organized group. Basically, start with a very simple "faction republic" (there's a distinct difference between a republic and a democracy, what has been suggested by Korrd is a federal republic) and allow them to build their own system of coming up with decisions. This should both allow factions to support the commitment of particularly dedicated indies as well as allow them to retain their rightful place as more important than an individual.

From each faction council/monarchy/whatever they decide it to be, they can make certain decisions (such as diplomacy, ship usage, system regulations) as agreed upon by admins/this thread/a magic 8 ball. These need to be treated as RP law, or the whole point of making a faction official is meaningless. If the Rheinland (Police) council is allowed to decide system regulations, and they decide that no non-Rheinland trader is lawfully allowed inside of New Berlin without paying a tariff on pain of death, then they need to be allowed to shoot said traders who don't pay the fine. If they get sanctioned for it, then the system has failed completely. If a rule seems unreasonable, then admin action on the question needs to be brought up before the "offense" is committed, otherwise it's unreasonable to sanction the "offenders" who were more than likely doing what they thought they were supposed to do. The last time this came up, Xoria mentioned how the "I was just following orders" defense is silly, but... it is very real, and essential to the operation of, say, a military. I could refute the logic of prosecuting people following "illegal" orders but that's another subject entirely.




At any rate this post is rambling, there's just too much to cover at once.

Korrd, I would like to ask you to split this question into several threads, each dealing with a very specific issue that can be debated cleanly without getting muddled by sheer post volume. Currently we are debating:

• How one becomes an official faction
  
• The distinctions between an official faction and an unofficial faction
  
• How one becomes an unofficial faction, if anything is necessary at all
  
• What an official faction is allowed to do, must do, and cannot do
  
• How much control official factions have over the independents that reflect upon them (that independents do reflect upon factions is no longer a question, thank god)
  
• What policies and/or diplomacies official factions are allowed to adjust, by how much, and how they can deal with people who don't play along (sanction, RP consequence without fear of sanction, or nothing at all)
  
• How having multiple factions with the same NPC affiliation plays into all of these questions
  
• How to incorporate indies into these questions while both respecting the vastly larger amount of work factions do as well as the rights of all players
  

...to name a few. And a lot of those points are compound issues. Trying to discuss all of that is destined to be full of rambling posts, vast seas of text to read, large and non-cohesive rebuttals, and general confusion. The results are likely to be unexpected by all and liked by none.

Please, please split a least some of these issues into separate threads and deal with them there.

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[Linkus]

Sorry, the forum doesn't like lots of spaces unfortunately, re-did my post to make more sense though.

I just wanted to point out that honestly, it is very simple.

A council would exist for every faction but it will be simply one faction for most NPC factions. That's perfectly fine. There's no reason to worry about the Council not being neccessary for every faction, they won't be but instead of creating lots of exceptions, just let it flow naturally into it.

The Idea is that an Official faction can't completely take over an NPC faction simply because they got there first. If a player faction exists and is the only one in the Council, they have the power and control that you want for them Spear and many others.
However, once another Un-Official Faction/Group comes along and gets Officialised, the Player faction that has already been in the Council on it's own for ages will now have to share it.
They both will have a say in how to control the non-Official players (Including indies and groups etc) now.

The method of Official faction proposals are a different matter than this Council thing. While related, the actual proposals are seperate.

The 500 million is currently put up against a System Purchase or a Barge now. It could probably be put towards other things too.

I'm going to make a proper post consolidating all my thoughts on this properly, without the holes having to be filled in with later posts, far simpler >.<

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Facilitating the rise of robotics since 0 A.D.

[pchwang]

The Idea is that an Official faction can't completely take over an NPC faction simply because they got there first. If a player faction exists and is the only one in the Council, they have the power and control that you want for them Spear and many others.
However, once another Un-Official Faction/Group comes along and gets Officialised, the Player faction that has already been in the Council on it's own for ages will now have to share it.
They both will have a say in how to control the non-Official players (Including indies and groups etc) now.

I don't mean to be rude, but why not?

Why should I cede my parking spot to you if I get there first, and you second?

The issue here is not that people's lives are at stake, or that people's imaginations are being suppressed, but because they can't bother to walk the extra 30 meters to the door of the mall.

Excuse my metaphor.

Things are good as they currently are. The only reason this thread(no offense, Korrd) and so many other threads are being brought up is because of negative reaction to Tenacity's sanction and the events surround it, complicated by the fact that everyone is sitting around with nothing to do because the server is down.

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[7:42:05 PM][6:51:36 PM] Igor (Smokey): btw terry
[6:51:48 PM] Terrance Cooper: Ye?
[6:52:00 PM] Igor (Smokey): nothin
[6:52:03 PM] Igor (Smokey): just sayin btw
[6:52:05 PM] Terrance Cooper: &lt;_&lt;

Johnny_Haas: you shot anti criuse speed rockets!!!
Johnny_Haas: but why????
Johnny_Haas: ??
Johnny_Haas: why you shoot criuse speed rockets?

[Spear]

Sorry, the forum doesn't like lots of spaces unfortunately, re-did my post to make more sense though.

I just wanted to point out that honestly, it is very simple.

A council would exist for every faction but it will be simply one faction for most NPC factions. That's perfectly fine. There's no reason to worry about the Council not being neccessary for every faction, they won't be but instead of creating lots of exceptions, just let it flow naturally into it.

The Idea is that an Official faction can't completely take over an NPC faction simply because they got there first. If a player faction exists and is the only one in the Council, they have the power and control that you want for them Spear and many others.
However, once another Un-Official Faction/Group comes along and gets Officialised, the Player faction that has already been in the Council on it's own for ages will now have to share it.
They both will have a say in how to control the non-Official players (Including indies and groups etc) now.

The method of Official faction proposals are a different matter than this Council thing. While related, the actual proposals are seperate.

The 500 million is currently put up against a System Purchase or a Barge now. It could probably be put towards other things too.

I'm going to make a proper post consolidating all my thoughts on this properly, without the holes having to be filled in with later posts, far simpler >.<

Yeah I noticed the edit after I posted. I should point out that I disliked the term "power" in the poll Korrd made, and my posts should back that up. I am utterly against faction power abuse and it should be stamped on without mercy. What I do wish to see is factions like the RM and LN maintain a semblance of order in their space, like it or not, they were there first, they have made a solid faction proposal and have been role playing here for ages.

What we have now is massive indie spammage, I remember fighting on my RHA char recently against the new Rheinlander groups, I was in my Odin fighter, the enemy was in 3 Battleships 1 Cruiser, 2 Gunboats, 2 bombers and 6 fighters. All of them attacking me in my stupid fat VHF, caps were even cruising to catch me up as i pulled the escorts away, a few of them ate a sanction for this.
The next day I was in my RHA attempting to rescue Koolmo in his SCRA. RM were there in 1 Battleship and 5 fighters, once Koolmo escaped and I was alone, the RM dis-engaged their battleship and 2 fighters, leaving me outnumbered 3 to 1 but with a chance instead of utter gankage. Kudos to the RM for showing restraint.

This is the kind of control I would like to see, official factions calling off idiots ruining other players fun, other than that, there is not much wrong with the current system.

Edit: I should point out that in the above battle against the new Rhienlanders a RM pilot flew up to me and offered me regens //ooc via PM, I politely declined but the RM knew he was watching something beyond stupid.

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=LSF=

[hack]

Yeah I noticed the edit after I posted. I should point out that I disliked the term "power" in the poll Korrd made, and my posts should back that up. I am utterly against faction power abuse and it should be stamped on without mercy. What I do wish to see is factions like the RM and LN maintain a semblance of order in their space, like it or not, they were there first, they have made a solid faction proposal and have been role playing here for ages.

What we have now is massive indie spammage, I remember fighting on my RHA char recently against the new Rheinlander groups, I was in my Odin fighter, the enemy was in 3 Battleships 1 Cruiser, 2 Gunboats, 2 bombers and 6 fighters. All of them attacking me in my stupid fat VHF, caps were even cruising to catch me up as i pulled the escorts away, a few of them ate a sanction for this.
The next day I was in my RHA attempting to rescue Koolmo in his SCRA. RM were there in 1 Battleship and 5 fighters, once Koolmo escaped and I was alone, the RM dis-engaged their battleship and 2 fighters, leaving me outnumbered 3 to 1 but with a chance instead of utter gankage. Kudos to the RM for showing restraint.

This is the kind of control I would like to see, official factions calling off idiots ruining other players fun, other than that, there is not much wrong with the current system.

/Signed.

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Formerly known as LPI Police Chief Hull O'Brien.
Creator of Sgt. V. Price, 207th Precinct out of Chula Vista Station

[Blodo]

I agree with the above Spear post.

[pchwang]

What Spear has mentioned is the current situation.

Unfortunately, there are members of all the current official factions who have a problem with independents. That really isn't representative of the actual factions.

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[7:42:05 PM][6:51:36 PM] Igor (Smokey): btw terry
[6:51:48 PM] Terrance Cooper: Ye?
[6:52:00 PM] Igor (Smokey): nothin
[6:52:03 PM] Igor (Smokey): just sayin btw
[6:52:05 PM] Terrance Cooper: &lt;_&lt;

Johnny_Haas: you shot anti criuse speed rockets!!!
Johnny_Haas: but why????
Johnny_Haas: ??
Johnny_Haas: why you shoot criuse speed rockets?