Hi everyone. Welcome. That's "Let's discuss the future of Kusari and it's very concept to make it into the place where players would like to play" thread.
So here I'm going to drop out my own vision on that conception so we can start from something. The other versions and detailed ideas and coceptions are welcome aboard.
I was motivated to wright the text below because I feel that Kusari deserves some more love and must be different in it's own way from the other houses to give players another immersion to play with.
The current situation in Kusari is a stagnation. I belive we'll agree on that since there is alot of factions in Kusari with very interesting rollplay background to play with and they are all collecting dust. Can't say it's only Kusari's problem - we can always check out how the Bundschuh's nothing is doing. But let's give this thread a try to work out the playable and interesting base ground for the Kusari tweaks if any of the dev team will come to check out the people's opinions before makeing any moves. So here we begine.
Kusari. It is meant to represent the feodalic Japane. History was playing a fair part in the Freelancer's factions background and the Kusari is sending us back to the Emperor's authority restavration which ended the Shogun Tokugawa's rule. I'm of cause not talking about the current Kusari. Current Kusari is a mistake from how I see it because the whole idea of Kusari and it's background was blown away painting it all gray. From my opinion Kusari must be built around the Blood Dragons and their war with the Imperialists backed by Samura.
Kusari was always built around 2 sides of same conflict.
First side is represented by the Samura. It is backed by the loyal KNF. It's Emperor is sitting on the throne and it have connections with the shady organisations such as Hogosha, the Freelancer's variant of Yakuza. This side have traits of isolutionism, imperialism, traditionalism. The factions of this group are using the shady methods to gain more authority and power - they don't see it as something unlawful or wrong - this side feel it's okay to use Yakuza's connections and methods to rule the Kusari.
Second side is represented by the Kushiro. And here we meet the first problem because Kishiro have only 1 faction backing it's cause - the Blood Dragons. Kishiro itself can't act openly so this reduces all the possible RP around this down to forum posts. Traits of this factions are kinda different: they are more open to "gaijins", outsides, less imperialistic, more honorable and refrains from using Yakuza methods in the fight for power and authority.
I think something must be changed to make it into the better.
As you noticed I didn't mentioned the KSP, GC and AFA yet. They are a little bit different. From my opinion from how that must be done - the KSP must be less corrupted, Kishiro backed organisation which will be opposing the KNF. KSP is the force that can reduce the influence of Hogosha in the Kusari and must oppose to KNF to balance it's acceptance with Hogosha's behavior in space.
AFA is kinda messed. It outweights the Samura's side making it to have too many factions to play on the same side and thus it's less popular. It must be somehow made neutral into the Junker-like factions or IMG like factions. Something like that. I'm not familiar with AFA's part so fix me on that.
GC is, as well as AFA, something that falls off from the concept. It must be a side faction as well and be more affiliated with the Outcasts to justify their presence in Kusari. GC are political faction in vanilla and since political factions are currently starving hard they must be remade into something more fitting. GC can work well as Kusari's "Xenos" but with different vector.
So basicly to summ it up I want to say that, from my personal view, Kusari need to be reversed back to what it was. Really, the whole situation was messed up and the immersion of the fight for power between large groups was faded away and actually found no place in the new Kusari with nothing taking it's place leaving an empty scar that can't be easely filled with something new.
Kusari must get an Emperor. But in the less powerful status then it used to have it. Kusari's space must feel more distant and decentrolised because the fight is still going and sides can't get the significant advantage. It's political advantage, not military advantage, so the amount of BS KNF have should play little role.
Hogosha must get their rights to pirate in Kusari back. Maffia can get away with it easely and KSP must be meant to fight the Hogosha. KNF on the other hand must be closing eyes on what's happening and it's a KSP's play to bring them on the light to point the people's eyes on those shady deals to reduce the opponent's power and influence.
Hogosha must be granted the right to pirate anything but Samura since it represents the isolutionistic side. But Kishuro side must be given some new faction to back it up Quasi-Legally in Kusari to competit with the Hogosha.
Kishiro is democratic-sided company but we all know that you can't avoid using dirty tricks when the future is on the table.
Next is - Kusari's systems. I don't want to say something bad about the people who put the effort into making new systems such as Rishiri and Nagano but REALY. Those systems have no use except miners sitting in them and it's only nagano. Remove those systems and move the mining spots inside the already existent systems. They really have no place or use any then going there and back to get ores\pirate miners. Stratching the already tiny player base for 2 more huge systems is not vise at all, sorry. Put more love into the vanilla territory so it will be easier for people to find each others.
On Hogosha - pirating lawful ore transports 15k from the selling point, with the ability to land there and sell pirated ores?
No, thank you, I think community already went through that....
As for the rest - it takes something else, than just lore, IDs and shipline to make the House alive.
what - I can't say for sure, since the only truly alive House got a newbie starting system in it.
I think that a discussion about future of Kusari is really interesting. Unfortunately, I'm not a player with sufficient seniority to can criticize or comment your proposal. I'm just a bit puzzled why you insist on the idea that Kusari Emipre must be built around the Blood Dragons!
And why not... for example... we should take in consideration as Samura to be considered an illegal society by KNF, due to their collaboration with AFA ? In this way, could begin an internal war and maybe then the things will be more exciting. I don't know... just another idea, but maybe is not the best.
AFA has a very interesting story, btw.
Proper kusari civil war. exiles make a play to retake kusari and re-install an emperor. Loyalist supporting factions fight republican factions.
thats all i got. feel free to expand from there.
Edit: As Knjaz said, the only really active house is the one with the newbie starting system. perhaps have newbies start in kusari instead.
Proper kusari civil war. exiles make a play to retake kusari and re-install an emperor. Loyalist supporting factions fight republican factions.
thats all i got. feel free to expand from there.
Edit: As Knjaz said, the only really active house is the one with the newbie starting system. perhaps have newbies start in kusari instead.
4.87. Also OP a lot of data you have in your post is actually wrong or out of date. Or otherwise eskewed. I appreciate your concern about my house but you have the wrong idea's.
Honestly 4.86 was wrong for kusari because it totally crippled us. And even now and in the next version Bretonia somehow still has a bigger battleship fleet then Kusari will. (logic!)
Quote:Kusari. It is meant to represent the feodalic Japane. History was playing a fair part in the Freelancer's factions background and the Kusari is sending us back to the Emperor's authority restavration which ended the Shogun Tokugawa's rule. I'm of cause not talking about the current Kusari. Current Kusari is a mistake from how I see it because the whole idea of Kusari and it's background was blown away painting it all gray. From my opinion Kusari must be built around the Blood Dragons and their war with the Imperialists backed by Samura.
I dont think it should be built around the blood dragons but rather Samura vs Kishiro. I think the reason behind that is all too clear. So I will not adress your second point because it builds up on your idea of Samura vs Blood Dragons
The 'sides' if you will are indeed a bit more concrete for Samura. Its Samura, Hogosha, AFA and it used to also include KPT (since they adressed directly to the emperor, they do not anymore since 4.86) As 'indies / both' sides you have KSP and KNF. They can however be sympathetic to the Farmers Alliance and sometimes outright ignore their piracy
The other side is a loosely tied bunch of factions. Kishiro works closely with the GMG, the GMG has close ties with the Blood Dragons who has close ties to the order and GC, who in turn have close ties with the Outcasts. Again kishiro also benefits from the KSP / KNF but neither side really commands them. This does put kishiro in a weaker spot indeed. Since so far in the lore of our house I do not believe that kishiro has tried to exploit the BD or GC. The reason behind that is kind of easy to figure out why. The BD is seen as terrorists only wanting to overthrow the government while the GC only wished (wishes) for more rights for women but also deal cardamine and generally turn people into cardamine addicts. Their goal has now switched to getting a matriarchy since kishiro is introducing more rights for women (right to vote, equal pay, equal jobs iirc / afaik)
Kishiro shot themself in the foot a bit with what they did. They cant exactly have blood dragon support or GC support if they are seen as undermining both factions. And this is exactly what has happened this version and I do not see that change in the next one.
Quote:GC can work well as Kusari's "Xenos" but with different vector.
wrong analogy. The farmers alliance is Kusari's xeno's. the GC are more like the Liberty Rogues where as the blood dragons are more like the hellfire legion. (that is using liberty examples)
Quote:Next is - Kusari's systems. I don't want to say something bad about the people who put the effort into making new systems such as Rishiri and Nagano but REALY. Those systems have no use except miners sitting in them and it's only nagano. Remove those systems and move the mining spots inside the already existent systems. They really have no place or use any then going there and back to get ores\pirate miners. Stratching the already tiny player base for 2 more huge systems is not vise at all, sorry. Put more love into the vanilla territory so it will be easier for people to find each others.
I disagree slightly. Simply for the fact that you cant exactly make up a story as to why there is a bunch of platinum in a system in kusari (read the back ground on how the platinum in nagano appeared) I do agree slightly in rishiri but that system will get more usage in 4.87
Quote:Also: Give Kusari a new war.
Start of Civil war in 4.87 and full blown civil war in 4.88 I imagine.
Proper kusari civil war. exiles make a play to retake kusari and re-install an emperor. Loyalist supporting factions fight republican factions.
thats all i got. feel free to expand from there.
Edit: As Knjaz said, the only really active house is the one with the newbie starting system. perhaps have newbies start in kusari instead.
4.87. Also OP a lot of data you have in your post is actually wrong or out of date. Or otherwise eskewed. I appreciate your concern about my house but you have the wrong idea's
Proper kusari civil war. exiles make a play to retake kusari and re-install an emperor. Loyalist supporting factions fight republican factions.
thats all i got. feel free to expand from there.
Edit: As Knjaz said, the only really active house is the one with the newbie starting system. perhaps have newbies start in kusari instead.
4.87. Also OP a lot of data you have in your post is actually wrong or out of date. Or otherwise eskewed. I appreciate your concern about my house but you have the wrong idea's
Im not sure if you are talking to me or the OP.
4.87 bit was aimed at you. The rest at OP. Anyway I updated my post a bit with a lot more info on how it is seen by someone who has RPed all sides in Kusari. (I do not feel the OP has a great grasp of the Lore of Kusari)
edit 2: as for starting system. have it be a neutral system with 4 one sided jump holes. That head either to NT, NB, NL or NY.
I'll just drop my thoughts in here rather randomly:
> Reduce the level of xenophobia.
In a game that is meant to be played together and which is only really good when players actually talk to each other, extreme xenophobia and "gaijin!"-standard-rp is not attractive at all.
> Concentrate on a few factions and awaken them to life instead of spreading activity so thin it stays invisible
How many unlawful factions are there in Kusari? How about we concentrate on making one work, or perhaps two instead of... lots? But that's not only a Kusari problem: generally, too many competitors for a roleplay segment (like "unlawful baddie" or "lawful moneymaker" exist everywhere.
> A House needs a war where massive capfleets can batte
Assuming that in the next version cap fights will not crash the server any more, I would love to see Kusari joining Gallia fully and attacking Liberty's northern front. Or... I don't really care who they fights, but they deserve a real warzone where players can pit their big toys.
Wonder if this will become a one million page affair like that thread about Rheinland's stagnation.....
Honestly, I don't see Kusari as being in such a bad shape at this time - it was certainly worse a little while back.
The AFA is back and fairly active, the Isejin are back and fairly active as well.
Then there are the rebels, which are also fairly active.....
For me, Kusari has always been the most roleplay-oriented house. The vast majority of interesting roleplay encounters I've had in house space were in Kusari, and that's not just because I spend quite a lot of time there.
I'm not entirely sure why, but Kusari seems to have a particularly large amount of interesting and unique characters.
Now, geography.
(I'm going to talk a lot about unlawful activity now, because let's face it - interesting gameplay and roleplay generally doesn't occur much between lawfuls and traders)
Kyushu is a pirate hotspot, probably only behind parts of Liberty and neighboring Tau-23, largely because of the amount of ore coming through.
But also because it is well accessible from several sides - Ainu can be used by Outcasts, Dragons, and of course GC, while Samura unlawfuls have Kagoshima.
The other systems are more problematic.
I think part of the reason for that is the lack of unlawful bases, and the relatively low number of jump holes.
Shikoku - There's an FA base near the hole on the Kyushu side, and a Hacker base near the hole on the Galileo side.
That means it's mainly easily accessible only for FA, which haven't been active until very recently.
We'll see if we see more of them.
The problem is, it's not an attractive place to go for the Dragon/GC unlawful side because of it's remoteness.
GC have good relations with Hackers and could probably base out of Leiden. However, that would mean being incredibly far away from all the other places they might be active. Returning to Ainu means cruising.....uh, probably more than 200k.
And their other base? Who knows why that battleship is in Okinawa. I'll get to that.
And Dragons? Well, I don't know about their relations with Hackers, if there actually are any. It definitely doesn't seem likely that they'd base out of Leiden.
Even if they did.....they are lightyears away from any of their other bases.
The infocard for Fuchu mentions Blood Dragons staging raids against the place, and I've got to wonder.....from where? The nearest Dragon bases are literally on the other end of Kusari.
And perhaps more importantly, simply reaching Shikoku as a Dragon or GC involves either passing very close to a FA base, or going through a jump gate with a police border station right next to it. Neither of those options are realistic in roleplay.
Suggestion: Add another jump hole to Tokyo or Honshu, and/or a Blood Dragon base.
New Tokyo. Once again, this system suffers from poor accessibility for the Kishiro-aligned unlawfuls. GC based out of Ainu either have to head to Chugoku, Honshu and to the hole, or take the jump hole from Kyushu, which has hostile bases on both sides. (unless they take the jump gate - might actually be more realistic)
Blood Dragons coming from Kyoto have it a bit shorter, obviously.
Of course, that puts them far on one side of the system - generally the side with less traffic. And getting to the other side involves immense amounts of cruising, if one wishes to avoid attention.
Suggestion: Add another jump hole from any neighboring system. It only has holes to Kyushu (realistically, limited to Samura-aligned unlawfuls) and Honshu.
Or, possibly, add a Kishiro-aligned unlawful base.
Honshu - likely the only system that's easier to access for the Kishiro-aligned unlawfuls, which makes sense as it is the system most influenced by Kishiro.
Still - a combination of a total lack of unlawful bases, a small amount of not-exactly-super-convenient access jump holes, and the layout of the lanes makes it unpopular for unlawfuls.
Unless one is sure which direction someone's going, the only realistic spot to pirate is right by the Tokyo gate - and obviously, pirating right next to the gate to a capitol system is very risky.
Generally though, Honshu is pretty okay.
Okinawa - I don't have much to say about this place.
It makes sense inrp that GC and Dragons have bases here, but they're not terribly useful gameplay-wise. The GC base would be useful to pirate the Honshu lane from, but a lot of the traffic on that line is GMG - which they don't (shouldn't) be pirating.
The Dragon base is very remote and only really useful to access Nagano and hope Samura ships show up.
Hokkaido, Rishiri, Nagano - these systems are more or less okay.
Samura unlawfuls can stage from Nagano, and Kishiro unlawfuls from Ainu or Chugoku.
Still, they don't really have enough traffic to see much action.
Of course, this will change massively anyway when Rishiri gets a jump gate to Gallia (it was Rishiri that gets it, right?).
There, geography covered.
Now, the factions themselves. I agree totally that the change to a so-called democracy has caused some problems.
So earlier, the system was a conservative monarchy, with Samura being the dominant corporation.
At the same time, the Hogosha were generally viewed as criminals, tolerated only by Samura and elements of the authorities.
Now, we have a democracy (at least in name), with Kishiro being the dominant corporation, yet suddenly the Samura-aligned Hogosha have become a legitimate corporation?
That just makes no sense whatsoever - and it leaves the Hogosha confused and with no real role.
Suggestion: Hogosha become fully outlawed, something that would only make sense in a Kishiro-dominated government.
They get rephacked hostile to Kishiro, KSP, and KNF (though not Samura, obviously).
In return, they get the right to commit piracy.
FA are, I'd say, pretty much fine the way they are now - conservative unlawfuls that focus on foreigners and Synth Foods in particular (though the complete lack of Synth Foods ships is a little sad).
Now, what to do with the GC and Blood Dragons?
The thing is, they've both achieved a great deal of their main goals - the fall from power of Samura and the Shogun, the end of the patriarchal monarchy (GC) and the illegitimate monarchy (BD).
Of course, neither has really fully achieved their goals.
In case of the GC, either a matriarchy (for the more radical members), or at least an end to the still highly patriarchal, sexist structure of Kusari society.
For the Dragons, the reinstatement of their own emperor and themselves as the emperor's guard (if I understand BD lore correctly).
I'm not entirely sure what to do with these factions, as I don't really see a huge problem with the way they are now - except the aforementioned lack of bases.
However, what I see as an option is the GC becoming semi-lawful.
Focusing on smuggling cardamine and pirating outside of house space (which would include Samura-owned Nagano), as well as in Kyushu, and Samura ships within Kusari (both of which would conveniently be ignored by the government, though not the KNF).
The Blood Dragons, on the other hand, are unlikely to give up arms until the government reflects their ancient ideals exactly.
This could lead to a falling out with the GC - it was always kind of an alliance out of necessity in the first place, the conservative samurai and the young, radical, drug-abusing feminists have no reason to cooperate anyway, except against hated Samura.
With Samura now having lost most of its power, I'd see it as realistic for that uneasy alliance to come to an end.
(06-12-2013, 06:57 PM)Jack_Henderson Wrote: I'll just drop my thoughts in here rather randomly:
> Reduce the level of xenophobia.
In a game that is meant to be played together and which is only really good when players actually talk to each other, extreme xenophobia and "gaijin!"-standard-rp is not attractive at all.
Totally agree. It's fine that FA and to a lesser extent Hogosha are xenophobic, but really, this constant gaijin spam is not going to draw more people from other houses to Kusari.
Kusari is supposed to be a fresh, new, optimistic democracy. Sure there are conservative elements, but the "old guard" has lost its power.
Xenophobia should be "uncool" in most of modern Kusari society.
My KSP is always nice to foreigners :3
Quote:> Concentrate on a few factions and awaken them to life instead of spreading activity so thin it stays invisible
How many unlawful factions are there in Kusari? How about we concentrate on making one work, or perhaps two instead of... lots? But that's not only a Kusari problem: generally, too many competitors for a roleplay segment (like "unlawful baddie" or "lawful moneymaker" exist everywhere.
Possibly......but not necessarily. Kusari has four unlawful factions (yes, I'm counting Hogosha), like Rheinland.
But look at Bretonia: They only have two (Gaians and Mollys) and both are totally inactive. So fewer unlawful factions don't necessarily mean they'll work better.
Quote:> A House needs a war where massive capfleets can batte
Assuming that in the next version cap fights will not crash the server any more, I would love to see Kusari joining Gallia fully and attacking Liberty's northern front. Or... I don't really care who they fights, but they deserve a real warzone where players can pit their big toys.
I don't know about that.....admittedly, I'm biased because I have no caps.
But aside from that, theoretically, they already have this option: There's an Outcast base just one jump away, in fact the Outcast home system is only three (rather short) jumps away. And we do, in fact, see Outcast caps in Kyushu fairly often.
Aside from that, the BD have an entire capital shipline - so the potential's there, Kusari already has enemies with capfleets, these massive battles just don't occur for various reasons.
The potential new war for Kusari that has been mentioned would be a civil war. However, the stage is not prepared yet. For the time being it seems the Outcasts will serve for interim-capital-ship-battles.
' Wrote:Go play the game, within the given limitations. That is how role play games are played. Not by trying to work around those limitations or whining about them.
(j/k. Partially.)
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