War never changes...

[Altejago]

Are we talking about future wars, or past? Either way, I shall answer both.

Future:
DSE - Universal - Interspace Commerce ( I say "war" lightly ) All three of the corporations have been trying to one-up each other, for money ( If I remember ) And ALL of these factions have ties to some sort of dodgy dealings. USI - XA | IC - RHA/GC. Imagine if they went full-blown "Destroy their profits!" Liberty would have a full-blown Corporation war to deal with, whilst dealing with their own pirates - LR and LH.
Okay, now I said that... It's a full-blown pirate invasion funded by Liberty Companys. - Sounds stupid, yet interesting at the same time...

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[Immortality23]

Oh ! the Zoners, they need to get up off their arses, and being to wipe out Nomads left right and centre, while also causing Bretonia some beef as well.

I have no idea of a faction that's already doing that or currently working toward that

Time for a bit of mindless rambling:

Also, the current assessments on Bretonia, being realistic - It's still a House, but it's been in total war for the past several years with massive casualties. Realistically, it's the weakest of the houses. I'd actually argue, with the toll the wars have taken, putting any form of "Devtonia" aside, they realistically wouldn't be able to withstand any more conflict for at least a few decades. The sort of war that Bretonia has been in, is equatable from the real world of World War 1. It's been constant back and forth, but with little to no actual gain, and then out of nowhere, despite what people may think, they've completely lost.

Bare in mind as well, Bretonia is only alive because of the support it had form other factions and Liberty as a whole, and is now on a life support machine. Can we stop with the whole "Devtonia" stuff and be realistic here.

I'd make the argument, given recent times, that all the houses are mostly in a state of repair more than a state of any real strength. The only two that have any real strength left would be Liberty and Rheinland, and even then, those would be heavily weakened compared to what a lot of people would want to believe their precious houses would be.

[Querious]

I really don't care what conflict the GMs focus on next, as long as it has a good RP setup and is fun. I know, however, that most of you have specific preferences, so I'm glad I got a proper discussion started on this. Some of the answers so far have been rather enlightening, to say the least.

[Binski]

I just hope they go back to the way it was years ago, and add a few things. Meaning, I hope for future wars they actually set it up to allow a real time 24/7 war. That means setting destructable npc ship targets. We don't need everything micro managed by the devs, all they need do is set a war scenario in motion, and sit back and watch to see how a battle plays out. Then, they could prepare updates around those developments. Doing it the opposite way is terrible, it only works well for staff but is absolutley brutal for individual RP and player involvment.

The Gallic war was neutered so it would go a scripted way, and that threw everything off. Letting situations develop freely that could lead to big activity (happening on its own!). The scripted nature of wars and back story rp is killing the server and players feel their ability to do more in depth stuff is locked out. Player development isn't encouraged, when its part of why people come here at all. Players come here to get involved or dig deep into a project only to find out the devs don't like it themselves so its a no go. When the whole point of playing here is to be able to develop situations from our gameplay and actions.

Long story short, how these future situations unfold and are administered by staff is super important. They need to loosen the reigns again and keep things open ended. Doing so opens the possiblity of a bigger reason to participate. That opens up gameplay options.

Like for wars, they should almost always hinge around active siege events, and always have real time 24/7 destructable targets. we can rp around the actual events and battles that occur like we always did, with no need for fixed outcomes. Lets set up battle situations, and let players go to work organizing things. Lets just not bother with wars that have to go a certain way. Go into it knowing a system could be lost to another house, etc. And no reason a losing side can't re challenge for a lost territory after some time to regroup. These issues are what motivates players to grind for more so they can do more.

We NEED to think outside the box again, and not be afraid to do something different. The only way to attract people back to the game is to give them more to do, and wars here can do that. All events, and if we had real time targets, would and could involve players from every trade. Suppliers help in their own way, snubs, caps, all the same. There are so many options on how to do all this I could write all day.

Because many here in the staff seem to think the server is just fine but its only fine if you don't care so much. We could be adding games within the game (racing), and real time wars. I'd love to see us trial making all bases have health bars and make them go dead upon 'destruction'. Or reactivateable with repairs. Suddenly police and navy would NEED to patrol and keep track of bases, supply ships or repair ships can be a daily thing to maintain wear and tear on all bases. If terrorists attacked overnight, get repair ships out asap. How could stuff like that be bad? Cuz we can make stuff to do here, but there's a twisted irrational fear of it! There are a group of players here though that want to sit pretty where they are and don't want to do any more work to stay there. But the prevailing attitudes of the dev team and staff seem to be that they want players here to keep coming to be cannon fodder for vets and not to get involved or care about things players normally do on a roleplay server. This is a game, as opposed to many other types, that is all about caring about the details like story and rp.

We need to do things differently to stop the shrinking. We need more things to do, plain and simple. I can't believe I actually have to beg here to have open ended battle events with real targets that die or not which determine a winner. In wars, battleships and cruisers can just be placed and forces can fight over them. Deactivated ones get removed upon next patch, etc. Factions could have a FR to build 1 new BS a month if they have a shipyard (example). Maybe it should require items too, and where a BS is placed can also determine if sieges of npc bases or planets can occur. This stuff can all be worked out by a battle system of rules which would detemine all of that in advance.

Freelancer always allowed for the potential for some serious space battles. We just need to open it up again so we have real battles and basically the wars are more like competitons with teams where people invest in stuff and skill to be effective. All we need is a month notice to players of a change, and when new war comes players will be well prepared to strategize. We can keep the first one simple too, a couple systems get invaded, junctions and lanes get blocked by BS's. Imagine Rheinland invaded Honsu, placed a BS by the sigma13 gate, the first junction, and Planet Honshu. Set hp to 1 billion each, allow repair ships to work on them, then let both sides compete to see if they can take out the other side's base ships first! If they lose 2 ships, the house can ask to withdraw the last, etc. And that is where, if you think things are unbalanced in your favor, grind for superweapons! Recruit freelancers! if people get a heads up real battles are happening here again, with open ended consquences, they just might log on! If staff wants help hammering out the details of battle rules, scenarios and how to set up such wars, I'd be happy to volunteer to help make it happen!

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The Further Exploits of Captain Antares (August 2015) │ (alt) JonasHudson
*Argo | Special Operative ID (Approved Request)* | Argo Compilation Video
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