Does Disco still have enough player base to keep running all factions ?

[Adam_Spire]

This, this, this.

An indie should obey, or wait, that's a bad word... Follow, the official faction rules, ID restrictions and allowances, and help out the officials when they need it (A new question: How will the officials know who's the member of their faction, and who isn't? That's why the community needs indies to join the officials, for just one reason: Team play).

I do see some indies that have above average RP, but that's just one in... 10 or 15, example given. Now, as Ryoken said in one of his posts, maybe someone doesn't have time or the patience to fly a light/heavy fighter, then a GB, and so on, and so on... I would personally like from new players to follow my example (no bragging here) and start with fighters/bombers, and realise how much fun they bring. Maybe that's what the officials are trying to do: Make you have fun with small craft, and determine if you're going to get something bigger, or stay with the ship you began to familiarize with, and began to love.

My 2 cents, correct me if I'm wrong somewhere.

I'm getting really tired of this argument. The moment one of us says independents can be helpful to the community if they choose a faction, they think we're saying Indys should choose or die. The problem is, they choose to be their own faction and finger the rules when ever it pleases them. Ignoring ZoI, ignoring House rules, grabbing as many battleships they can and do what ever the heck they want.

I've said this again and again, I should make this my catch phrase. Indy players take the privilages, status, and perks of a faction, using their ID and their crap while having no required loyalty to that faction, no nerfs that a real independent freelancer must endure. They are not Independents, they are lolwuts. I see more Indys on the sanction board and cause the most grief to faction players, all in the name of "fun." Then they blame factions for forcing them to do what they do.

How can these type of independents be a resource to the community as a whole? So what, they play one independent character who is straight and roleplays so they can say, "See how important Indy players are?" While they play another indy zoner battleship that goes around blowing the hell out of things.

These independents cannot a faction make. If this is what we're headding to, may as well get rid of factions.

How can a game of football or baseball even work if random players switched sides, became a different person, all in the middle of play? It be flipping chaos. Isn't that what we're seeing? We don't know who the frack we're fighting against any more. We don't know who are allys are any more. We don't know who to ask for help, who will mine for us one moment then switch to pirate us the next. Factions we used to rely on keep changing so much we have no idea if they will escort us one moment then sanction us the next. And we wonder why players don't want to stick to a faction?

Maybe players see rules as bad, restrictive, forcing someone to do what "I" want. No you dolts, they are there to have a sense of structure and order, a direction and a goal. Disco isn't all about one player. Making it a free-for-all makes any rule just a stepping stone to a faction-less game.

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Sometimes, when all you want is to gain your freedom, you must be willing to risk it all.

[Curios]

The relations between factions have changed with the behavior of the players on the server. If previously connections and faction RP had any value, encounters and fights were controlled to keep the fair play, sportsmanship, numbers, ship classes, etc in order to make sure everyone have fun. Back then factions had authority because their members were those people who are arranging things for all the bunch to have fun.

Now, on the down going road to the 'must win' syndrome, the official faction's strictness towards ship classes for their members (read "fly snub") and fairplaying (read "no ganking"), it become a weakness if snubs are going against a capspam from the 'must win' point of view. Those who wants to win nothing in the game where is nothing to win or to loose are going tard and making cap-only factions ignoring the official faction's entire existence.

So here is your problem.

Official factions are either have to become history or to go a cap-ganking force to attract members.

<div align="right]You reap what you sow.

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[монолит]

We are losing more players then we are getting.

Because there are too many rules and too much information to absorb right off the bat. Also, power play.

[Curios]

Because there are too many rules and too much information to absorb right off the bat. Also, power play.

Implying the amount of rules and information was decreased like ... 1,5-2 times....

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[ryoken]

This, this, this.

An indie should obey, or wait, that's a bad word... Follow, the official faction rules, ID restrictions and allowances, and help out the officials when they need it (A new question: How will the officials know who's the member of their faction, and who isn't? That's why the community needs indies to join the officials, for just one reason: Team play).

I do see some indies that have above average RP, but that's just one in... 10 or 15, example given. Now, as Ryoken said in one of his posts, maybe someone doesn't have time or the patience to fly a light/heavy fighter, then a GB, and so on, and so on... I would personally like from new players to follow my example (no bragging here) and start with fighters/bombers, and realise how much fun they bring. Maybe that's what the officials are trying to do: Make you have fun with small craft, and determine if you're going to get something bigger, or stay with the ship you began to familiarize with, and began to love.

My 2 cents, correct me if I'm wrong somewhere.

Sorry dis-agree. Indies do not "need" to join official factions. As i said before. I got Liberator/avenger/bomber/gladiator/GB/LSC/Dread but if i joined [LN] i would basically lose the Yorktown Character. I would need a new "character" flying a snub and work his way up to a cap. So I would join [LN], but not my character. That is why i stay Indie. Sure i could drydock Yorktown for like a year, and play that char in a fighter on up, but i work 10 hour shifts. takes 2 hours to and from work. I get 2 hours to play a day at most, so why waste time grinding to a ship in [LN] i can just use now as indie? Really. The advantage of "official" does not out way the grind. Also Indies can be as good as, or better then Official players. 6 years i been here. Been in and out of many factions. Ran and led 2 factions. I know RP, and i know rules. I just choose not to put the many hours needed into factions when i can just play for fun as indie.

I'm getting really tired of this argument. The moment one of us says independents can be helpful to the community if they choose a faction, they think we're saying Indys should choose or die. The problem is, they choose to be their own faction and finger the rules when ever it pleases them. Ignoring ZoI, ignoring House rules, grabbing as many battleships they can and do what ever the heck they want.

I've said this again and again, I should make this my catch phrase. Indy players take the privilages, status, and perks of a faction, using their ID and their crap while having no required loyalty to that faction, no nerfs that a real independent freelancer must endure. They are not Independents, they are lolwuts. I see more Indys on the sanction board and cause the most grief to faction players, all in the name of "fun." Then they blame factions for forcing them to do what they do.

How can these type of independents be a resource to the community as a whole? So what, they play one independent character who is straight and roleplays so they can say, "See how important Indy players are?" While they play another indy zoner battleship that goes around blowing the hell out of things.

These independents cannot a faction make. If this is what we're headding to, may as well get rid of factions.

How can a game of football or baseball even work if random players switched sides, became a different person, all in the middle of play? It be flipping chaos. Isn't that what we're seeing? We don't know who the frack we're fighting against any more. We don't know who are allys are any more. We don't know who to ask for help, who will mine for us one moment then switch to pirate us the next. Factions we used to rely on keep changing so much we have no idea if they will escort us one moment then sanction us the next. And we wonder why players don't want to stick to a faction?

Maybe players see rules as bad, restrictive, forcing someone to do what "I" want. No you dolts, they are there to have a sense of structure and order, a direction and a goal. Disco isn't all about one player. Making it a free-for-all makes any rule just a stepping stone to a faction-less game.

Indy players do not take advantage of IDs without the work. Sorry mate. but in Disco the Indys were here before the factions. If you claim some group that started 2 years ago has more right to a ship, or ID that i was using as an Indy 6 years ago because they got together with some others and made a little "TAG" for their names you are sadly wrong.
Everyone is equal as a certain admin stated earlier. Being "OFFICIAL" in no way makes you better then any other player. And that my friend is what is truely screwing over Discovery. Indy or Faction player you are just a body infront of a computer. No better or worse then the next guy/girl 1000s of KMs away on annother comp. A player who has been here 1 day is not a lower being then another that has been here 5 years. Again, just a body, and nothing better or worse because of time/age/status in game/gender/indy/Official/admin/mod/dev/ whatever. A person is a person and allowed same rights as any other in this game. Thats the way we like it, and that is the way it should always be.

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[Curios]

Official factions lost any good about being one. Not official faction is now have almost same power as official one. Sine there is no difference except the separate section on forum.

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[Marburg]

I could swear I posted something like this in the past few weeks somewhere, but I'ma do it again anyway.

Bigger does not equal better. A massive drop in player numbers would be the best thing to happen to the overall health of the server. Yeah, I know...easier said than done, but a man can dream can't he?

I can remember back when half as many people equaled half as many rules, half as many headaches & half as many people wearing asshats on their epeens complaining about all the other asshats waving their epeens around...& even then it seemed like alot at the time.

There's really zero difference between now & then except that the player base is larger & the headaches they create are yammered on about more often to the point where it only seems like things are different than they used to be.

Like, every summer (wait for it...you'll see) there are a string of reports on the news about an increase of coastal shark attacks & those reports birth other stories on how shark attacks happen more frequently today than they used to in all those other years, when the fact of the matter is, the only thing that increases is the air time devoted to reporting about shark attacks but not the number of attacks themselves. Those remain steady year in & year out in spite of how it appears on a superficial level.

You only see what you choose to look at. It's just one of the drawbacks of being human.

I reckon that people that complain about too many rules, too many PVP whores, not enough activity, disco is dying, ect are just filling in the blanks with these old standbys to fit the limits of their understanding of how cyclical it all is around here.

See Y'all in the next thread when someone re-says the same things many others have many times before to the point of parody, but next time, somehow it will be magically different and more relevant in the future present than it ever has been now or before

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[Blodo]

Basically Curi and Spire is right here... I used to take a hard stance against official factions myself, having the idea that it's a bit stupid that a bunch of old players should have more privileges than indies. Why? Just because they are old?

It took me a while, some 5 years here (or more specifically the last 6 months) to change my mind. At the moment official factions offer the same things unofficial factions offer - but - official factions are subjected to community scrutiny and flight time requirements, as well as being accounted for their in RP actions, while unofficials aren't. Back in the day they rode completely on the fact that they were organised while indies weren't. But with organised indie squads appearing and pvp balance starting to favour combined arms instead of bomber spam, all that changed. Now official factions are in decline almost universally, except for a select few.

But there is one thing that many official factions brought to this server that unofficials haven't: an example. The official factions act as a conduit between new players and the discovery community. New players join official factions, slowly get to know the people, get to know the ways in which RP works, get to know the forum... and they soon realise why it's important to be courteous to one another in this online game. Because that's how we all have fun here, not by absolute winning.

Without the example of the official factions we instead have unofficials led by people like Nikita Ivanov who continue to claim that opposing factions should hate each other with a passion over the internet, and should try and maliciously sanction each other or things like that. Yes, not all unofficials are like that, but those that are cause a lot more harm than those that aren't cause good.

The way I see it, it's a transaction: official factions get to have the privileges over the unofficials, in return for which they get scrutinised by the admins and the community for the purpose of ensuring that they promote good sportsmanship and RP. The official factions should provide first and foremost an example to new players and good natured activity on the server. If they fail at any of those, they should be scrutinised heavily. The transaction must work both ways though...

And yes some factions have abused their rights in the past. That's why we have admins though... there will never be a system that guarantees no abuse. There will either be a no rules free for all or a system where admin oversight is required in some capacity.

And with this post I am officially switching my opinion from pro indie to pro faction rights/privileges...

[Ursus]

There is a pretty good rate of noobs coming to the server. Problem is they aren't staying. Got nothing to do with the factions.

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[phileditin51]

Unfortunately, as a faction leader on Dusa, I lost most of my long-term players to PTC because they wanted more PvP events, RP is dead, this version of the mod has killed the server I was on due to players being forced into factions too. Now I too have given up Disco as it's gone in the wrong direction, tech nerf and impossible missions prevent new players from doing what Vanilla said they could, which is be whatever they chose to be, instead we now have factionlancer or sanctionlancer.

The saddest part of Disco is the attitude of certain factions wanting everything their own way as opposed to being being just a faction that encourages teamwork.

Disco will die, it's on the cards, unless we see a return to logical changes, we all lose and groups like SOPA and PIPA win by default.

I've had the feeling for some time that Microsoft would love to see this game and all it's mods die, so carry on being numbnuts and I'll just watch and laugh at ya.