Dab, what you and many others didn't understand so far, is that its not a task to set an example for others when being a member of an official faction or even leading it.
Its your god damn right!
Your are and will always be surrounded by people who hadn't much guidance, since they started playing on discovery. Those are the very people which WE can shape into the likes of people we find entertaining to role-play with instead of raging about their ooRP behavior day by day that's mostly driven by a lack of knowledge anyway. By being in an official faction, YOU are given a chance to have a positive influence on this community by helping its new members to integrate them self's. And believe me, if you approach them with your fellow faction members and don't try to bully them around with the very first sentence (bet that sounds strange to the 101st :> ), you will have a hell of an effect on them. Promise. If THAT is too much for you sir, then suggest you stay away from official factions (and maybe RP in general) as they are "too much trouble" :rtfm:
' Wrote:I think we should keep official factions, just pull down the 500million, or switch it back to allowing anyone to post, or whatever.
Or, illegalize unnoficial factions who aren't trying for officialdome, and hold every group that looks like a faction to faction standards.
I think the first idea is a good one, or at least reduce the cost to around 200mil. Even my poor ignored trader has 200mil.
The second idea, while an interesting thought, would end in flames. It'd be like it was before that 500mil got instituted, with a dozen bad faction creation requests per week, all of which end in flames (usually after dragging on for quite some time).
I think the 500 mill are a necessary clause, since it helps to sort out who has been long enough on disco to be serious about starting a faction that lasts. And I think anyone in here will agree that it shouldn't take much time for everyone to chip in 100 mil if they are serious with their request.
What one might think about though is to give them the 500 mil back after, say, 4 months or so. That would be the "candy of persistence";)
' Wrote:Dear Lord, eight pages ... Shall we bother with official factions at all then. If we don't, I for one shall quietly
take my leave, and you can live with the infighting, the civil wars, the lack of roleplay and respect, and of
course, a PvP server, just like all the rest out there ... Be a shame, but hey, you all seem to know best.
One other minor thing, if we ever, God forbid, have another total player wipe, only the official factions get
any form of financial help to start up again.
Be very very careful what you all wish for ... Food for thought.
Hoodlum
If your not going to actually discuss the situation, why post? At least Del took the time to read what its about and then post according to the issue and with some content.
' Wrote:Well Gentlemen, let me chip in my two cents here.
Dab, what you and many others didn't understand so far, is that its not a task to set an example for others when being a member of an official faction or even leading it.
Its your god damn right!
Your are and will always be surrounded by people who hadn't much guidance, since they started playing on discovery. Those are the very people which WE can shape into the likes of people we find entertaining to role-play with instead of raging about their ooRP behavior day by day that's mostly driven by a lack of knowledge anyway. By being in an official faction, YOU are given a chance to have a positive influence on this community by helping its new members to integrate them self's. And believe me, if you approach them with your fellow faction members and don't try to bully them around with the very first sentence (bet that sounds strange to the 101st :> ), you will have a hell of an effect on them. Promise. If THAT is too much for you sir, then suggest you stay away from official factions (and maybe RP in general) as they are "too much trouble" :rtfm:
I'm sorry? I don't see how this has to do with my question in this topic. It seems more like some massive misunderstanding actually. And watch the language please. I don't want this thread to turn to flames more than it already has.
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EDIT: The 500mil I also think is necessary, at least the idea behind it.. But then the faction doesn't get anything in return. Thats my problem with this whole thing. The factions don't actually GET anything for being official. Everything said so far are all things you can do whether in an official faction, unofficial, or even independent.
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' Wrote:Because a large number of people (in fact, I'd say the majority. See siggie) disagree with the official ruling.
Did you ever bother to read the fourth post of the thread, in which the leader of the faction cited in the poll states that RM does not engage in the behavior that the poll assigns to them? Virus's post obliterates any meaning that poll might have to assist your position, because the policy of the RM that you seem to think that the poll is about does not even exist! I voted in favor of the recent Admin Notice, and I could just as easily vote Yes in that poll, because the actual RM policy is not contradicted by the Admin Notice.
The term "non-canon roleplay" is being bandied about quite too much as well. It is an entirely inaccurate and inappropriate term to use, and there is no server rule or Admin Notice which utilizes it.
The only term that might even come close in here : http://discoverygc.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=24488
might be "anti-canon roleplay", but not even that term is used. The ONLY prohibition is against forcing other players to follow roleplaying conventions that are CONTRARY to canon. That means opposite, opposed to, contradictory to, in opposition to.
Roleplay that is "other than canon" / "non-canon" is entirely permissible, and is in fact the subject of most of what goes on in people's stories. An example of "other than canon" / "non-canon" roleplay could be the Liberty / Rheinland embargo, which it is entirely permissible to enforce, and is only possible due to the existence of official player factions who create it.
But what I find most interesting is this : when player factions are prohibited from enforcing "anti-canon" roleplay on non-player faction characters, and when player factions are prohibited from preventing non-player faction members from setting up their ships as they desire to, suddenly some people claim that there is no reason for a faction to be official at all.
Is that what the great benefit of being an official player faction is : The ability to force everyone else to contradict the intended and established roleplay in the mod and prevent other characters of your own npc faction from pursuing their own storylines and ship choices? Must be, since that is all that is prohibited.
The necessary inference from this is that those are the two most important abilities that a player faction could have, because only the loss of something that is the centrally important role of a player faction could render officialdom meaningless.
I'm sure that must come as quite a shock to all of the official player factions who A) Do not own a system and/or may never own a system B) Have no desire to restrict other people's ship/equipment purchases.
I guess Fellow Hoodlum leads a merry pack of fools in IND, along with BMM, Gateway, IMG, NLH, OPG, BLS/SOB, and numerous others including, lets see, oh yes, The Lane Hackers. How stupid I have been this past year in missing out on all the restrictive fun I could have been imposing on all these non-player faction Lane Hackers. Maybe I'm alone in believing that its best to lead by the carrot of a good example than by the stick of "thus sayeth the system owning faction leader", which is both ultimately vain and an onerous distraction from, dare I say it, fun...which is what this is supposed to be all about.
Guard systems are a faction resource to every character which is affiliated with that npc faction, and it is nothing less than abusive oppression for the owner of the system to lock away its use from those characters. If you want one that only your player faction members can use, then buy one for which the restriction does not onerously and negatively impact every other member of the same npc faction.
Or are we to be told now that the only reason that any player faction has bought a system was so that they could prevent their own non-player faction npc faction affiliates from using it?
I don't know what else to conclude after that is what is prohibited and people demand to get that power back.
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Guard systems!
Many stations.
- Public stations for all of the NPC factions players, independants and factions.
- Faction stations for only factions.
Both sell the same ships, equipment etc* but the faction can enforce laws on the faction stations.
Laws in the system would be decided by the faction players, but they cannot stop people from docking on the public stations to get equipment etc, as the rules state.
Outside of Guard systems!
'All of faction' Factions
- Control all of the ZoI of their NPC faction.
- Enforce RP laws and ensure people obey them. They cannot shoot independants etc who do not go along with their laws but they can shoot people belonging to any other NPC faction (Rp allowing, can't see allies blasting each other) if they do not obey the RP laws they set down. They cannot make OORP diplomatic decisions however (The [LN] attacking the [BAF] for the lulz, maybe for other reasons but would need damn good arguing)
'Wing/Fleet/Section of faction' Factions
- Control part of the ZoI of their NPC faction. They can do all of the above but only in their small section of ZoI. Can set the diplomacy for their group and thus their ZoI.
That ought to solve any issues with laws and diplomacy.
Now, you might wonder about the public and private stations in the guard systems.
It is essentially no different than the current system except there would be seperate stations, ones only for player faction players and ones for everyone in the NPC faction. What point does this have you might ask.
Simple: Official factions can have a/many specialised ship/s or piece/s of equipment that can only be found on their stations and not on the others.
The ships or equipment may not be better than their normal counterparts but different, suiting their player faction's style etc (Some factions like to get into big brawls and like armour etc, others prefer quick attacks etc). That's another matter however.
You might scream 'Elitism!' but lets face it.
Official factions have spent 500 million credits buying this system. To what end? If everyone can travel to all the stations and places in the system, there is no reason to own the system. Yes it looks good and is impressive but that 500 million could be spent doing less (often) 'boring' trading and more time doing more 'RP' flying in their main characters, among plenty of other reasons.
Guard systems currently serve only to be pretty little trophies that are more like a hotel than a home for the player faction.
Give them something special to help, instead of clearly trouncing upon people.
Battlelines are being drawn here, and I'd rather they weren't. I actually agree with points on both sides, by Dab, Del, Drake, etc..
And Dab has brought up a good point. The amount of power an official faction actually has in practice seems light, recently. There are some grumblings, and these shouldn't be ignored.
So to summarise, the two positions are (Way I see it, anyway)
ONE : "As an official faction, the RM (BAF, 101st, KNF... etc) we should be able to dictate capship assignments, alter the diplomacy status with other factions (ie, BAF/Molly Ceasefire, etc) as well as having all the logical privileges of the Rheinland government (Crown, Council of Dons..) itself. I mean, are we the Rheinland Military (BAF, 101st, KNF.. etc) or not?"
TWO : "I'm an independent player, who has no interest in playing in a faction, not because I hate them, but because that's my thing. If I want to get a large capital ship, obey the rules, and co-operate with the faction (who are, in-RP, my allies), while not kowtowing to them, why can't I? If I want to follow canon RP, why not? Why do I have an obligation to keep track of the subtle intricacies of faction politics and agreements? I got an infocard, and knowledge of the canon RP, and that is what I am going to use."
The problem, ladies and gents, is that both of these positions ARE PERFECTLY VALID, and they are contradictory. They lead to situations like the Bs members getting sanctioned for following internal policies which are not consistent with canon RP. (Maybe that's a simplification)
In theory, BAF could have had a similar situation develop. For instance, if were we still peaceful with Mollys, pursuing a ceasefire, an Indy BAF Battleship going into Dublin and blasting UOG or MR players, would have posed a serious challenge for us. I mean, how is one supposed to respond to a rogue battleship blowing up people you are trying to make peace with? Hunt for Red October anyone? But to kill the guy would be against the rules, right? Not to kill him, or to ignore him, makes no RP sense. (And would lead to a zillion PM's to me, asking me to control my indies.. Which I can't do.)
Don't get me wrong. Official factions do have advantages over unofficial ones, including respect/recognition, a post on the Factions Status thread, right to recruit on recruitment forums, system ownership, being the go-to guy for diplomacy for the NPC faction....
But a way should be found to resolve the abovementioned contradictions. (Quite a magic bullet, that, and I have been wracking my brain trying to think of a magic bullet or 2, but the ones I think of, I shoot down in my own mind..)
Failing that, finding a way to provide greater mitigating privileges to official factions, without adversely affecting indies, would be a step in the right direction.
The "In event of player wipe only official factions get $$" thing is a hell of a privilege in that situation, granted.
Also, I'd like to add, I have personally had very little dissatisfaction, in the big picture, with BAF Indies, with a couple of notable exceptions. I don't feel strongly about this. Just trying to help.
"Thanks for clarifying the situation, Dieter, but we were after solutions here.." <---------Beat you to it...
My opinion on the whole "non-canon"/"anti-canon" issue: Things change. It is not reasonable to assume that the way things are now is the way they must be and shall be for ever more, amen. Hell, the way things are isn't the way they were in vanilla Freelancer.
In vanilla Freelancer, Jacobi pardoned the Order for saving her life and every human in the colonies. Yet, here in Disco, Powell has once more resumed hostilities because he wants all those Nomads for experiments.
HOWEVER: It is not unreasonable to assume that the Order, who have their hands full with the Nomads and the Phantoms and whoever else, and Liberty, who are pretty much on the brink of declaring war on Rheinland, would say to each other, "Listen. Buddy. I don't like you, and you don't like me. But we've each got way too many problems of our own right now to be constantly sniping at each other, so howsabout a truce until we can get this whole thing sorted out?" Which, I understand, is pretty much what happened with Bs| and Liberty.
Now, think about this. If you've nearly given your right arm to ensure a ceasefire with possibly the most powerful House in the sector, what you DON'T want is some gung-ho idiot in an Osiris charging into New York and massacring LN left, right and centre. That would lead to all sorts of diplomatic headaches. So, should the Order enforce this ceasefire among its members? When looked at from a RP standpoint, yes. Yes they should.
Another example.
In vanilla Freelancer, Bretonia would never have DREAMED of having anything to do with the Outcasts. Yet, in Disco, we see Bretonia forced into a situation of at least neutrality with the Outcasts, due to the war with Kusari (another aspect of the game that is decidedly not vanilla). Should the BAF, RoS, SOB and whoever else enforce this neutrality, to avoid diplomatic headaches and another front in their respective wars? Yes. Yes, they should.
Bretonia-UOG ceasefire. Liberty-Rheinland tensions. Bounty Hunter-Order conflict. The entire SCRA faction. Things have changed since vanilla, and things are bound to change in the future. Making the universe less dynamic in favour of enforcing "canon RP" is not the way to go. That just stifles RP. Things can change, and should change, through mutual agreement of both parties.
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