The Rheinland Military would like the community's feedback on our faction. Hopefully we'll get generally positive, but constructive criticism is VERY welcome.


-Reinhardt, Malte, Hiltraud, Engels
-Malexa /Caylith/AznSlumHustla
Rheinland High Command

The only feedback I have is that I see more pirates in New Berlin than RM by far. I remember one day when the Black.Pearl stayed parked by the Ring pirating for an hour or so, no RM in sight, and even this morning there was a corsair gunboat right at the jumphole to sig-13.

And 9 times out of 10 the pirates, when they do get run out, are run out by BH's or Mercs rather than RM.

I can't really comment on interaction with the RM, because it is almost nonexistent. I remember once being asked to state my intentions by RM out of hundreds of trade runs and that's about it.

Be.More.Active.

You guys disappeared almost completely.. AW is more active than you right now, and trust me, you have a LOT more stuff to do than we do..

My traders have always had good RP interactions with the RM in the past, but lately I dont see many on.

I did see two on last night, but they left shortly after I logged in.

And pirate activity does seem to be up in New Berlin in their absence.

Perhaps you need to recruit a bit more?

We're all busy and more spread out than before.

I hear it a TON nowadays that we need to be more active, but guys keep in mind, we do have other factions and responsibilities.

I'm on at least 1 hour every day.. but usually around 12 GMT

Also mostly there is not so much to do... endless queue of traders that never really respond => gave up

if a pirate comes half of them switch to the BCs they have parked around and pirate gets wasted....


EDIT: So after this I logged in to check it out... found 5 traders and 3 BHG BCs sitting there

Well ... right now its rather Bountyhunter-ooRP-cap-land than Rheinland =/

If RHA comes up in larger groups, we always have to bring lots of bombers along since we rarely find any lawful fighters but BH-caps

The last bigger fight we had with RM was more than Three weeks ago.

Oddly enough, there's about 30 members, I think. However, like Mjolnir said, flying in Rheinland is fairly aggravating when you get either pirate swarms or trader swarms that ignore you. -.-''




I will, personally, be more active in Rheinland to help keep that down. (I've been spending most of my time trading or working with the lower-echelon Lane Hackers, training 'em and such.)

And to add, there seems to be quite a few exams still going for a lot of our players (me being one of them). Hopefully once they're over and the summer fully begins, we'll have more then just one or two of us in game.

Try not to worry, I'm going to be back on once my exams are done. Its really busy here right now with work and school.

Verg/Axel topf

Overall nice, I used to come around on [BLS]-Zapp, but haven't done that in a long time. Nowadays, I go with Wesley.Richter[LWB], I think you all know him. Had an interesting RP with the new guy (in-char girl) on Wesley, if you want to see it I made a post of it with screen shots. Very good, enjoyable experience.

You should try limiting BH BCs like you limit Rheinland caps; I hear the crews are a disheveled lot who cause trouble planet-side.

Anyways, besides 'get active', that's all I gotta say. I can fly a fighter with ease knowing that if I fight the RM, 1. No indie caps (besides BH) and 2. No RM caps (rarely. hopefully.).

I believe there is a "no capital ship within 5k of a populated planet" policy that needs enforcing. Maybe we should ban BHG capital ships in Rheinland space period, but tell them they are welcome to come in fighters. The RP (Rheinland Pirates) would love that.

And you're welcome for the fun talk, zapp.

Right now there are three pirate cap ships in NB at the sig 13 JH. A molly tagged and ID'd outcast dessi, a dragon tagged and ID'd dragon gunboat, and the neutral Black Pearl Rogue gunboat with a generic pirate ID.

The RH faction is pretty much nonexistent now days and it's the indie pirate cap ships that run NB.

Oh for Christ's sake, Heaven FORBID we aren't on ALL THE TIME!

We're on as much as we can be with our RMs, not "nonexistent". If you want to be protected when we aren't there, hire an escort. As previously stated, we're all pretty busy right now so don't expect to see a lot of us...

Ugh, yeah. I'm going into my exams shortly, so I don't think I'll really be on this weekend, but after school's over I expect to be around far more frequently than I currently am.

Guys, this is a feedback thread about the faction, not a thread to complain about Rheinlands whorage of pirates...

Verstanden, Vizeadmiral.

That is a valid complaint about a faction, a faction that is scarcer than hens teeth isn't doing it's job. You need either more members or more active members.

New Berlin is a major system, if you can't protect it you are not really the RM, are you?

Sheesh, give us a break here, we kinda all have real lives here. RM recruitment IS open, we have many, many applications coming in and we are quite active. No, we can't be there 24/7, we aren't a paid service and are forced to play. We play when we can, simple as that.

*A dagger shaped ship floats aimlessly in space. The glint of a far off Planet New Berlin shimmers in the distance*

The Commander looks up from his chair. His eyes appear to be glazed over from tedium.

"Officer" he shouts, "anything on long range?' "No Sir!" "How about VERY long range?" "Its all clear Sir!"

The Commander slumps back into his chair.

Miss ya guys...

Commander, RH Cruiser Varyag

\\heh, yeah I have finals this week too, Accounting/Economics....

You asked for feedback. The other main houses, even bretonia seem to have more server presence than you seem to have, and your far more populated.

A major faction should be able to mount a presence that reflects a major faction, imho.

Hey Aku, this is feedback, which means you suggest something. "You need more memebers" or "your memebers need to be on more" is a suggestion or legitamate feedback, so why dont you go play in traffic.

I assume you mean members and legitimate?

But thanks for saying I have a legit suggestion!

feedback: i don t like the ship policy of [RM]. even if you do make compromises, you haven t written them down in your acclamation to restrict the use of warships. - its a point blank refuse to allow them within RP. - but you allready received a PM when you installed that, so there is no more need to address it.



other than that. - rheinland is ... quite.... almost boring. what i miss is a concept in rheinland other than "we rule with an iron fist". - there is a lot of RP potential that is untouched - like the relationship to liberty, the wilds roaming in dresden and new berlin, one of the strongest pirate force of sirius ( hessians ) etc.



i haven t been around too much lately - but the days when there were major events against the corsairs appear over atm. its just a regular battle against some scattered pirates, but nothing that "serves a greater sheme" ( hard to explain what i really feel about.... i don t see the faction drift into a certain direction within the political enviroment of sirius. - they are standing still, stunned sort of. )



i d like to see more stories / stuff about what rheinland ( and other houses ) is up to. - what is their ambition other than fighting off pirates. - how will they affect the greater history of sirius. - power of factions may not only be the power to directly govern, but also to steer the whole faction into a direction you want it to get to. - we are very blessed with such a tight community - and a mod creator that reads and listens. - we CAN affect sirius which may be reflected each mod update. - its an opportunity that a faction like RM must not miss.



so the only critizism is the lack of future prospects and larger campaigns initiated and developed by the faction, - something "greater" than just fending off pirates ( and bounty hunters )

Whilst I'm not a huge fan of the religious aspect Rheinland has been given, that's a personal opinion.

I would suggest that the official greeting be changed from 'Guten Tag' to 'Heil Rheinhardt!' though.

that was a joke, - i hope. - anything in rheinland thats associated with nazi - germany would be detrimental to the gameplay. - microsoft set the german setting apart from a ww2 scenario. - the characters shown are not at all the obedient soldiers that just execute orders without any thoughts.



switching to anything like "heil" would have a negative impact. - i m biased though.. i don t like this side of germany much ( in terms of showing it publicly )... i don t think anyone "likes" it anyway....

Come on... the RM had a trend of naming pilots after WW2 Luftwaffe aces for a while and create a very dictatorial atmosphere. On purpose.

'Heil Rheinhardt' would be awesome.

My own harmonization theory of Rheinland (regarding the "screwed economy" vs "powerhouse" views) basically has Niemann as Wilhelm II (they even have reports of Rheinland having to pay reparations and taking loans from Liberty!), Pryde as Hindenburg and Rheinhardt as you-know-who.

Also, Jinx, have you ever actually roleplayed with the RM? They are actually even more fanatical than the Nazis, because they view their head of state as God, and are known as among the most disciplined and ordered militaries in Sirius. We hardly see any non-infested Rheinwehr officers in vanilla, and the whole infestation thing greatly complicates our ability to evaluate their loyalties, along with the limited sample size of defectors.

And Adrian is correct. A sizable chunk of RM character names, including my own and half of Adrian's defector, is taken from World War I or World War II Luftwaffe aces.

"Heil Rheinhardt" simply means "Hail Rheinhardt" in English, in any case. There's nothing strictly Nazi about it, unless you add the graphical ability to make a Roman salute. But, kind of a moot point, given Chapter 4.

no, i have not had a deep RP with rheinland, i gotto admit. - but i allways rather looked upon rheinland as being the era of the Weimar Republic ( between ww1 and ww2 ) with certain nationalistic tendencies, but also with strong resistances ( the various pirate groups - they originate in the middle ages sometimes and they are messed up there anyway ... but i allways thought of rheinland as NOT being nazi germany, which i usually considered a positive feature, cause it wouldn t reduce the nations to their very stereotypes )

as for the "heil, ... " stuff. i don t care where it orginates, but it associates nazis - and its usually ( in professional mmorpgs and rather anonymous internet games ) to "try" to keep such political tendencies out of the context.

just cause rheinland as a faction may or may not refer to ww2 germany, i wouldn t like to see an official faction named ( SturmStaffel with a [SS] tag ) ... or would you? - its a concern, biased from my pov. i know that the other nations are reduced to streotypes aswell, but the german stigma is more important than others in that context. - referring to liberty as the heart of liberal thoughts and capitalism of the 1930s is one thing, associating rheinland to a nation that brought the european jews to a near extinction viewing them as second class humans ( if humans at all ) is another. - its a different quality. and i would like to keep such thoughts out of a game, even if they might drag the roleplay further on.

I'd compare Rheinland, as depicted, to 1933-1938 Germany, rather than the Weimar Republic. Not quite at the stage of war, but past the stage of a peaceful, democratic government.

Some Neo-Nazi invader actually did try to start such an SS faction pre 500 mil days. He got booted quickly for slinging insults and swears towards Caylith, and probably for offensive names and symbols.

There's no policy of discrimination in Rheinland, as far as the material I've read goes. It's at least strongly implied Rheinland is gender equal (half of the Kriegsmarine is run by a woman, there was a female Kanzler, there has been at least one senior woman officer), and by far and by large Rheinland is relatively isolationist anyway, far from a "master race" or "extermination" notion.

Lighten up. Israel can enjoy "The Producers", a movie featuring a tap dancing effeminate Hitler singing "Springtime for Hitler" in a play penned by an ex Nazi to help finance the tax scheme of two Jewish media moguls.

I actually call the SA fascists as my SCRA... good propaganda with the Sturmabteilung...

Good luck enforcing that. I have a lot of time for RM and endeavour to be as cooperative as I possibly can, but I will not abide by a complete BHG-wide ban of my BHBC entering Rheinland. Reason being is because Rheinland is the safest way to and from the Bounty Hunter home system, I really don't plan on taking to the Omicrons alone or attempting to navigate lower Omegas in an enemy warship. I can understand the issue with balance and that is something of concern to RM (which is the primary reason for the restrictions on acquisition of their capital vessels), so loitering is a problem that I generally avoid, but simply passing through the house should not be an issue. Furthermore, Bounty Hunters are allied to House Police and subsequently House Militaries, therefore there should not be any reason for conflict.

The Bounty Hunters Guild attack Rheinwehr ships and are based in and steeped in Liberty and it's culture. Plus, they are foreign capital ships entering during a time of near-hostility with Liberty.

No true BH would ever be hostile towards any Military or Police (okay, let's overlook the ridiculous NPC requests for Fleet Admirals). If ever that occurs then I advise you make contact with their superiors, should they be acting alone then alone they will remain. As for being of Liberty, BH are generally of no specific House. As for myself, I am neutral to all Houses and as such have no concern for the relations between them (except for obeying any resulting restrictions, such as an embargo).

You should not be passing through Halle to get to your Guard system anyhow. If the RM and RFP knew of that, then Bounty Hunters would probably have a tough time in Rheinland space.

Go to Dresden, then through the Omega-15 jump hole, then to Omega 56. Simple, no Guard npcs to annoy.

I was talking about Dresden, I don't intend on entering Halle. Either way, it brings us to the point of a BH capital vessel entering Rheinland.

Anyway, sorry...this isn't really feedback, it's a whole new discussion now.

Oh. Well, anyway, in my opinion, the Bounty Hunters Guild Capital ships should not be entering Rheinland or any houses in fact... The Guild Core (which is the sole user of Bounty Hunter Captitals, they are NOT used for bounty hunting or anything like that) resides in the Omegas and the Omicrons.

I guess you've got a point there.

still, that was a RM feedback thread - so, .... to get back to my only critizism, is there a greater plan for this faction? - what political direction does RM as the established faction wants to go? - sure there must be more planned than simply defending the state.... .

I have to say that even though the RM isnt really active right now, when they are on they give solid RP and try their best to be what they are supposed to be.

Jinx, thank you very much for the points you've made about us needing another real purpose. I hadn't really considered that our current RP was getting a bit stale, but you're right. We need something else to do otherwise RM is going to stagnate and die. I'm going to personally brainstorm some ideas and present them to Virus and Dustin for consideration. Hopefully we'll be able to start posting some interesting stories etc. for you guys to read.

Needs fresh blood. Always has ideas and turns the oldies on with their enthusiasm.

I've seen the RM go after a noob who had a wraith, it wasn't solid RP, it was oorp "you can't fly that because you're not in our faction, sell it or we will kill you.". I wish I had screenied it.

I guess with the current ship policy it's impossible to RP that, especially with the vast majority who are unaware of the RM's intolerance (especially when today there was a rhiendland cruiser at manhatt where all the newbies are) but there probably is a better way to try to RP this sort of thing.

Couple of points-

First off, there is talk in the RM forums of both a weekly RM vs RP (Rheinland Pirates) event and the workup to skirmishes with Liberty.

Second off, the BHG BCs need to go more for the sake of the pirates than the RM, they aren't fun to fight and we always win if there's a bomber and anything else online- if there isn't, then we run and there is no fight. Passing through to Omega-15 is fine, going after pirates is not. Perhaps a restriction on capital ship activity of all sorts, in addition to the "no caps within 5k of a populated planet" rule something along the lines of "no engaging pirate fighters with non-RM caps, ooRP it isn't fair and inRP that's our job" kind of thing?

Third off, the lockdown on indies is mainly because a good seven-eighths of them are power whores or idiots. For whatever reason, this kind of scum is attracted to the green lights of Rheinland- if a person RPs as they should, I'll group up with them and put in a good word as well as encouraging them to join the faction, but most of them are completely clueless or just want to boss people around. Thus, the indie restriction, which while not optimal ensures that Rheinland doesn't become another New York. The Rheinland pirate groups help police the indie RM population too, if they act like idiots then we'll hunt them down and murderize them to get them to leave.

Its more of enforcing a standard than repressing indies- two nights ago, there was a guy in a cruiser named RMS-Admiral.somethingorother, and I told him "I don't recognize your name, are you a new promotion?"

That's a pretty open-ended question, if he says "yes" then its all well and good, I RP just being out of the loop until I get Virus to talk to the guy and figure out something to keep everyone happy.

I almost didn't believe it.

He said "No, I'm one of the 'indy' military."





ooRP, I already knew that. inRP, he's off his rocker. I responded "Uh, are you feeling okay? Either you're in the military or you aren't. Are you?" He tells me that "I'm not in the Rheinland Military but I'm in the military, yes."

If you, as a person in the navy somewhere, heard a commanding officer talking like that, being totally serious, and really meaning it, you would remove them from command for being totally nuts. On the forums or marked "//" its okay to talk like that, but in RP... WTF, man, I handed you a chance to help out like you wanted to, and you're effing it up and acting like an idiot.

It got worse and worse, with him giving me all kinds of bull about his independence from the RMHC, and then asked me what his orders were.

I almost cried. Someone RP'ing an Admiral, and asking a private for orders. And being totally serious.





THAT is why there is a restriction on indie military. Because this isn't out of the ordinary. When we went to PMs to try and figure out a happy ending, I suggested he join the [RM] to get a better understanding of the roleplay. He asked if he could keep the cruiser, and I told him "you can't tag it [RM] until you get to Captain, but we'll give you a free fighter" and he acted like I just shot his dog or something. At one point I brought up that he should get a namechange anyway, since RPing one of the fourteen admirals in the RM is pretty big stuff (and implies a battleship as things would have it) and... dear god, he acted like I was the Evil Wicked Witch or something for suggesting he hadn't put that much thought into his investment.

>.>

</rant>

If we get good indies, they usually join up with the [RM] or defect into good pirates (Exhibit A, zapp's Wesley.Richter-[LWB]). The rest are about as good at RPing as tar is at cleaning hair. I really wish we had more good indies, but until the playing field changes and they stop acting like their "indie-ness" is what's important and focus on actually RPing as military ([IRM]Camtheman, wtf is wrong with you...) then there isn't much we can do. Why would we facilitate the garbage that comes through? Better to purge the idiocy from them than foster it for the sake of indie rights.

What he said.

I also hope that the people who said we needed more activity were on today, there was at least one RM on all day and at one point there were I think four of us on at once for about 40 minutes.

Yeah, we eat babies for breakfast too... (oh, that's blunt)



Blosse Sterblich and Georg Morass. Both not [RM] tagged RM:


Everytime I see anything bigger than gunboat class ships loitering in Rheinland space I order it out. Why people consider nations would allow third party warships to troll unhindered inside their territory is beyond me.

I eat a bowl of nails for breakfast, with a side dish of scrambled orphans. Did I mention that I substitute gravel for milk?

In any case... RM will be getting more active (I hope). I have a couple of changes going on (hopefully to get people more active and give individual goals; i.e. promotions).

More than that, I'll also be taking into consideration Jinx's ideas. Rheinland does need a direction, and she's actually quite right about there being little to no real "quest" for Rheinland. War with Liberty has always been on the plate, but that's kind of seeming to wait until the next mod version... We'll think of something.

Thank you to those who are contributing.

On a side note, please STOP telling us we need to be more active... But if you do, come up with a way to fix it. This is a critique of our RP in-game and on the forums (perhaps we need more of this, too?), critiques mean gives at least one good thing before the bad stuff... And give SUGGESTIONS.

There seems to be a proud tradition of strange eating habits among Germanic dictators;



@Gronath; It was Onyx (Caylith) who invented the deep fried baby, actually.

Since you are confined to rheinland, I'm not sure, but I have found just logging on with my character, and suggesting we raid the noodlemunching barbarians or trap the corsair rats in their holes in omega 5 will rouse a good amount of activity rather quickly...

Any sort of combat experience, especially when led by the faction leader, often attracts many, many people. If its activity you seek, and excuse me if you're already doing this, a regular presence from the leadership will help bring it out. Even more so if you give them something to do.

I do know of one specific snubnose that is running rather amuk, and you may want to try and recapture it.

Unseelie has a point, Rob. I know you prefer to lead the faction from a political standpoint (by portraying the Reinhardt internally) rather than coming to the field in the shoes of the high ranked military leader. Problem is that when you come around as Lt. Engel or Cpl. Zirzow, our low ranked pilots don't recognize them as being Virus' characters or worse, they do, and all may gather mixed feelings about leading or following somebody else's orders when you could/should(?) be doing it yourself. I'm not proposing that you give up playing these characters. What I'm saying is that it wouldn't hurt us for you to have a military character from which you could lead us in the field, or at least share leadership with Caylith and Kane. I think it would add to RM's identification with its leader. Even though we have access to Reinhardt in our forums, he is not there flying with us.