Discovery Gaming Community

Disco diplomacy needs more critical approach, but that won't happen. Oh, come on, who can think critically here, it's just a game?

For example I'm not cool with Rheinland players, who think they just MUST hug Kusari/Gallia and shouldn't be fine with Bretonia. Or Bretonians, who're all about Liberty alliance.

Also Disco diplomacy needs more flexible approach, but I guess it'll never work well with vanilla lore. For example IMG-Gateway relationship. It's cool, but right now (and probably for last 4 years) it's hard to see they're close parthners.

Yes Stolt, i used that comparison- for a specific reason: many disco players are neitehr diplomats, politicians, CEOs, Generals, security company leaders, pirates, murderers for hire and whatnot, thus might have not a very broad insight of these other than the media or entertainment. School, on the otehr hand is a thing that many people here visited or are visiting right now - also dynamics at school are similarish everywhere to a certain extend, thus everybody has a clear cut view what he is talking about- maybe with first or second hand experience of such a situation even.
Furthermore the situation is knowingly simplified, as i firmly believe that if you want to judge, evaluate and interpret a extremly complex situation like real world politcs and transfer them to the wishfully similarly complex disco politics, then you should be able to judge, interprete and evaluate a simple situation such as the one i presented. Esy things are easy....complex things are complex( and easier to tackle by small steps)

Now you quoted a complex theory...thumbs up for reading and doing your homework- what you missed out thoug is for one- theories are just that, theories...and especially those that are not dedicated to natural science are noptoriously hard to prove or contradict, also they are limited in scope due to their very nature. Summed up- the next best Prof. will have his own and if he is good his explanations will be "waterproof" as well.
Now i boldly claim that with enough twisting and wriggling you will be able to justify everything that happens as "diplomacy" on disco, maybe you can even force-squeeze it into a theorem. Still at a certain point things fall apart - and while the exaple of the Order you gave might be a nice one i am also sure you picked it with a bit of thought...and didn`t pick one of the big screw ups i targeted. Grey areas always exist, but claiming everything is grey instead of admitting that some things are very wrong(and not grey) in our nice little dissco diplomacy is a bit short sighted.

To loop back- my littly bully exaple fits perfectly for the disco complexity even if you don`t add in additional factors( which could be parents, teachers, police..yada yada) it simply shows that conflicts of interests can not be ignored in some(/most) cases by claiming their influence stems from different parts of your existence.

(08-14-2013, 06:22 PM)Rodnas Wrote: [ -> ]You were in school, representing faction A(you) ....you have a very good friend (B) who is quite the nerdy kid but you like to game and learn together(allied) -you have another friend ©, who is your drinking/partying/sports buddy and you get along great (allied).
Now the problem is while you and C get along fine and are best buddies he is quite the nerd-hater and likes to rough them up.

(08-14-2013, 06:22 PM)Rodnas Wrote: [ -> ]Situation A: You bud C robs some nerdy kids of their lunch money, B sees this, is not victimized but knows that guy is your best bud and robbed his best buds

(08-14-2013, 06:22 PM)Rodnas Wrote: [ -> ]Situation B: Your bud C borrows your signature baseball bat "to show that nerds some respect" and once again beats up the friends of B, he sees he is using your stuff for it, still e is not victimized

(08-14-2013, 06:22 PM)Rodnas Wrote: [ -> ]Situation C: Your dearest C does what he always does, and in terror B runs to you and asks why you don't help his friends and keep your hands idle, he can't stop C on his own

(08-14-2013, 06:22 PM)Rodnas Wrote: [ -> ]Situation D: C beats up B - B comes to complain while you are still friends with the guy who beats up him and his friends

(08-14-2013, 06:22 PM)Rodnas Wrote: [ -> ]Situation E: C uses your bat to beat up B and you run into the fight, both asking you to help

(08-14-2013, 06:22 PM)Rodnas Wrote: [ -> ]The question is how long will he tolerate your knowing-but-not-acting-yet-supporting.

(08-14-2013, 06:22 PM)Rodnas Wrote: [ -> ]What will watchers from the outside think of your triangle?

(08-14-2013, 06:22 PM)Rodnas Wrote: [ -> ]Will it be acceptable to them that you say these are friends in different areas of your life, thus you keep them seperated and they should deal with that? Will you be able to tell that reason to B with him "understanding" it?

(08-14-2013, 06:22 PM)Rodnas Wrote: [ -> ]Generally speaking, whatever makes my enemy stronger is something i don't like- i like my enemies weak or weakening. If a friend of mine supports an enemy of mine to reach his goals that are unrelated to me- doesn't my enemy gain more options and capacities to harm me? Yes or no? Would i like that?

Hm, i appreciate your dissecting of the situations - i was kind of implying that you would interpret them as if you were the "you" of the story...but it doesn't matter in fact- you sorted out the most "common" things one would expect as an option. The difficulty everyone has to face, no matter the character - a reaction, even with the hands off approach( which you subtely favour?)

What i want to get across is that, in my opinion there is a threshold and a limit to every faction on how much conflicts of interests/screw ups/ backstabbing it can handle without being powergamey or blatantly facepalming. By no means i stated anywhere that i want things black or white...common sense is the magic word.

And to Thyrs question: no, it is not an exhaustive list, there are many more gems to find- i simply started with the sairs and went from branch to branch until i finished my coffee

The threat of violence.and none sense is behind all diplomacy, no matter how charming the smile or how warm the handshakes are. Diplo in disco is what people want it to be, if you put it or in the real world, its not diplo its theocracy masquerading as diplomacy.

Well...i was not under the impression that skype buddyismm/not-caring-lazyness counts as a very religous kind of rulership but ok...
Thing is- do you want things to stay as they are(or let them degrade even further) or do you want that things change to the percieved better...and with all the nonRPly stuff happening more and more, a little re-orientation towards rp in the purely rp parts of the game( aka lore and forumlancing) would be a good thing.

Let me tell ya something bro, I've seen dozens of factions violating every code of conduct that in a real diplomatic world would be otherwise ilegal and outright insane. People claim upon individuals that what they do has an equal reaction - The opposite effect, or "consequences" - But when these self-rightouess preaks do something everybody is busy looking at the floor. Now you may think Im angry but thats the general attitude that I have toward people like that. Consider the ZA case, ( i think it rivals zonerzonerzoner nower days ;] ) - They went anti-cloakwise against zoners at first, but have changed since then, and as a reaction, The Order + "unheard" of zoner factions went the same way ~ again, everybody is busy looking at the floor.
My personal advice to you is, dont give a damn - Can't be smart in a dumb place - Disco is a tumor, it's a fact, consider your personal health - If you talk about sairs, I think were doing just fine - we get to shoot anyone that pisses us off, I hardly look at diplo while Im a sair - unless they are rephaxed.

Yes indeed^^
Personally, i would very much favour that the faction leaderships and the dev team crash their heads together as a sort of comitee to agree on more or less iffy things, maybe a voted commitee would be another option.
If the common sense and goodwill approach fails(most likely) i would put in some hardcoded rules.

Like this: each faction is forced to check if any ally or friendly (not neutral) is also allied or friendly with its enemies. All these should be nixed, to level the field - leaving the ally of a only the option of being neutral or worse to the enemy of his ally.
After that, i would propose to hand out the "grey areal allowings" as in either giving each faction the right to have one "irregular" ally, or more upon dev/comitee approvement.
If done sensibly this shouldn't change much for many factions other then giving the time to rethink if maybe a trade partner is just a mere "neutral" thing instead of an ally...ore for the worse offenders if it is really possible to be friends with everyone minus Nomads.
This is not a very refind system but a quick way to bring out the trash and breathe some fresh air into things (after all, diplo changes could and should be rp able and so on..)