Random What If: Abolishing the "Official Faction"

[sindroms]

Over my years here I've seen official factions do very interesting things. And very dumb ones as well. For this weeks ''what if'' thread, I would like you to consider the thought of what would happen if we abolished ''officialdom'' as a concept.

Again, this is just a what-if thread. I highly doubt that such a suggestion would pass these days.

The reasoning for this is very simple - official factions stifle roleplay in terms of variation. They are a blanket concept made to allow players to impact lore for future Discovery updates, more or less. An admin-approved group of players who have the ability to work and progress their chosen ID. But we all know that not all NPC factions lore-wise would have an ''official'' faction representing them and at the same time, only maybe a handful of factions actively try to work on their ID and lore.


The alternative to the Official Faction would be a Lore Designer. A single person, whose single most duty is to conduct roleplay events and other changes within the NPC factions they are responsible for, and through those events and changes, the factions and groups of that ID would have the ability to influence them through ingame RP and forum presence.

This would, for the most part, make official factions more interesting to fly mainly due to the fact that they themselves aren't responsible to setting up their own game. It is like DnD in a way. DMing is fun, but sometimes you would rather play out the scenario someone else designs for you.


Another thing to consider is that this Lore Designer would be an admin-approved ''developer-esque'' position of power. Not a bunch of people who have elevated themselves to a faction title and now act as if they have some saying in how the lore should progress. No. Official factions often make up a fraction of people flying their chosen IDs. While on the other end of the spectrum - all of them.

A Lore Designer would responsible for making monthly or bi/tri-monthly changes to events, commodities or ZOI and diplomacy related things. And in an ideal scenario they would be anonymous to the community and with no contact to the faction leaders, where these changes would then give the factions and groups a chance to try and advance the lore with.

In other words, the Lore Designer prepares the possibility to advance lore and then the groups running that ID are given a chance to play it out. Keyword, a chance.

Depending on the quality of RP given by these groups, the lore designer then will apply the more fitting one to dedicate the outcome.
This would make it so that the group with the best roleplay quality and ideas will have the most chance to influence their NPC faction. And mind you the keyword here is the ''chance to influence'' since, IMHO, a faction changing their NPC faction's lore and progression with their roleplay is not a ''right'' but rather a ''privilege'' and we currently have too many people raging over who has the most influence over what.

Tl;DR, regular non-staff players should not have direct input on Discovery lore. They should have an ability to contribute if their contributions are sounds, but only through staff. "Faction power" and such is imho one of the many cancers of Disco. And still one that makes it fun in a way, so obviously abolishing it would take away a LOT of what keeps people around.




So yeah, feel free to provide this little thought with your very constructive and mannerful replies.

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[Gulryz]

how about a "NO"

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You can ignore reality but you can not ignore consequences of ignoring reality

[sindroms]

how about a "NO"

Yes, I am sure that you read this whole post in twenty seconds. Come now, I am sure you are able to write up a more constructive reply than that.

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[Skorak]

So yeah, feel free to provide this little thought with your very constructive and mannerful replies.

how about a "NO"

I'd like to see acting more according to the Thread. Watching this.

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[sindroms]

Anyway, the obvious flaw in a what-if scenario like this is that, judging by the amount of factions ingame, we would need a team of ~65 individual members, or have one person work on a few factions at once. Either way, it would be a plausible system, but not something we could do right now.

So no, I am not advising this to be done. It would be impossible to do right now. This thread is more about how such a system would work out in a RL scenario.

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[Gulryz]

how about a "NO"

Yes, I am sure that you read this whole post in twenty seconds. Come now, I am sure you are able to write up a more constructive reply than that.

I read your post, The thing is your are trying to focus on few people who will RP actually , RP done by others like indies will be in vain, In the RP enviornment of Disco Official Factions play an important role, Interacting with other official factions , Official faction actually represent NPC their actions effect NPC like recent Zoner Core thing, If there will be a lore designer he will predict stuff but things like Zoner COre will never happen, So be it the way it is when your every action as a member of official faction can change things

[sindroms]

Yes, but at the same time, indies already do not impact anything. Especially since official factions reserve the right to retcon any events that they seem as undesirable for - mind you - THEIR progress, rather than their ID or NPC Faction. How many times we have heard the following line "...was done by indies, so not like it counts IRP.''

With this system, the suggested changes could be impacted by both indies, unofficials as well as officials - it would be up to the Lore Designer to chose which of the provided roleplays to make canon.

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[Gagadug.]

Some things would probably evolve into problems.

1) The lack of control. You would give a single person the right to change the lore of the whole mod. And single persons with not strictly limited power never do their job in favor of others. Why should they even.
Without another instance (or others on the same level) it would lead to problems.
(especially if the person isnt even known to the community)
2) Deciding the outcome of events due to player counts/mass of RP or anything playerbase related will kill off small factions. I think of the Gaians for example. They have good RP and are quite a stable faction (from what i see) but they are low in numbers. Other factions dont even have an active playerfaction.

The current system is ok since enought players ae involved to hinder single persons to decide alone.
In fact this ideas would just make the problems we aready have more extreme

[Gulryz]

Yes, but at the same time, indies already do not impact anything. Especially since official factions reserve the right to retcon any events that they seem as undesirable for - mind you - THEIR progress, rather than their ID or NPC Faction. How many times we have heard the following line "...was done by indies, so not like it counts IRP.''

With this system, the suggested changes could be impacted by both indies, unofficials as well as officials - it would be up to the Lore Designer to chose which of the provided roleplays to make canon.

You only read the first part of my post not the second one , Actions done by members of official factions effect many things

Also

1) The lack of control. You would give a single person the right to change the lore of the whole mod. And single persons with not strictly limited power never do their job in favor of others. Why should they even.
Without another instance (or others on the same level) it would lead to problems.
(especially if the person isnt even known to the community)

A single person will favor only what he likes

[Corile]

The obvious flaw with this system is that it assumes the person in question would be competent.

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