Discovery Gaming Community

(11-11-2016, 05:13 PM)Ramke Wrote: [ -> ]I've learned the lesson that you just play a part in the storyline, but you have no influence on it. It's not a dynamic universe where the universe may respond and be changed by your actions, it's just you playing in the given scenario and trying to make the best of it.

As it stands at the moment, player accomplishments have zero weight. If what you're doing is neutral or (god forbid) against the established storyline plans, then regardless of whether you're an official faction of 20 active members or not, you won't see any changes to reflect it in-game.

Good point, but not absolute zero. You can win tactical and economy benefits for yourself and groups through gameplay (PoBs, credits), and through RP (Special Roleplay Characters), but you can't do anything for a group in any meaningful way, let alone houses. The level of control people have goes down with teamwork, not up. You're not rewarded for 3 or 4 factions working together to start a new story development, you're rewarded for doing your own thing. You should be rewarded for both, since this is obstensibly a game based upon player interactions, with fun usually proportional to the number of players present (give or take).

The problem is that the Official Faction Right over NPC roleplay is a sham. It exists only in name. You have gameplay rights, but your RP rights are minimal.

I'm very careful about making this distinction because gameplay is RP in many ways. Even ingame text is gameplay because it has gameplay consequences and is part of the game. The forum is also part of the game. It's how people impact the universe.

The problem is that the "Universe of possibility" sometimes gets pooped upon because people who arn't doing the RP get to determine the RP of the others. You can argue that there are limits to this, say, Zoners trying to take over an Omicron system by building POBs at the jump holes. But if an interaction is going to raise activity by being fun, not frustrating, and a majority support the idea, what is the rational cause for preventing that story development?

Support means people log, increases playercount, brings people into the roost, makes game more fun.

If it's compelling then it's good. I've repurposed story arcs that have annoyed people - it's a common problem in disco - your story gets in the way of my story, and we're really rather adept at working out compromises in the end. If it's good for the diners, why not for the cooks?

I think if Kishiro and Samura start shooting each other in Kusari the rp of a good civil war will follow.

Speaking as the person who started the Blood Dragon end of this civil war thing, were not so much involved as people like to make it out to be. Thats not to say were not involved but the main thing we are aiming for is to take Nagano by force.

The main problem is the lack of Samura people who are willing to log out there to stop us and RP with us at all, each time we did it, as of late, the Samura was a poor RP'er that was only out there to trade and could barely understand piracy. The other lack of the scale is of KNF action out there.

If anything, I get were suppose to take the planet (its a given) but the lack of opposition while doing so is kinda one reason why the whole thing in Nagano is at a standstill, just because there's no one there to interact with to being with.

I'm not going to blame anyone for as to why, but it'd be cool to have KNF park some ships in Nagano, including FA and Samura just to 'resist' the blood dragons, and maybe even RP about the planetary invasion and do some events out there, because from what I understand, FA and Samura have a huge play out in Nagano and the lack of interaction kinda is one reason why BD has stood still on their half of the civil war.

At this time we are mainly pushing for Nagano, however the main piece of the civil war is focused on the Exiles return to Kusari and the invasion in Kyushu, while the BD invasion of Nagano is less of an impact and more of the Dragons just trying to claim the system.

Achilli hit the nail on the head there, the thing about the atmospheric fight was a good idea but really only BD have an incentive to be there as there is only the BD docking point there (which apparently is just an icon to show there the ground base is?) and due to that fact, there's no reason for KNF or even Samura to go there. It'd be a cool idea to expand that little area and say, putt a KNF BC in orbit as a staging grounds and keep the icon for the Dragons so battling in the sky is possible

Also in the way of samura and FA. Those are the two factions were mainly suppose to be fighting out in Nagano yet with the repetive death of each FA over time and the lack of Samura that logs has kind given BD no reason to log in turn, unless we can force guys to raid at which point KNF then log but...after a while, raids get boring as there's nothing to push the lore along.

If anything Zelot, if you do plan on making FA a thing again, and this is me asking as the BD 2iC, I beg you to do some stuff in Nagano, it'd be wonderful if BD had some form of RP and opposition from the Alliance out there, and maybe in turn you'd get Samura to become active again as well? Who knows but its just an idea.

That being said, again, the civil war is mainly focused on the Exiles returning to Kusari, AKA the Imperials VS the Republic while the GMG raid in the Sigma and the BD Invasion of Nagano are more of side stories. I'm sure Meph can also agree to this fact that, the lack of Samura and FA has kinda been a buzz kill for GMG and BD's invasions as sadly, with the lack of an enemy to fight, there is no insentive for either faction to log beyond trade or for small ingame raids...which hopefully we can fix here

I don't think its a dev issue that factions can't have huge influences its more a restriction in order to have a cohesive storyline/lore.

Factions can still get things done but they need to be cohesive and thought out with a clear ending rather than just starting something off and seeing where it goes, after all you can't write a sensible story if one of the subplots its swaying in the proverbial breeze. I would suggest planning out a course of action for Kusari, getting the feedback of the various factions (official or not) and then submitting it to the dev/admin team, worse case its shot down with some feedback on how it could be changed.

(11-11-2016, 07:07 PM)Croft Wrote: [ -> ]Factions can still get things done but they need to be cohesive and thought out with a clear ending rather than just starting something off and seeing where it goes, after all you can't write a sensible story if one of the subplots its swaying in the proverbial breeze. I would suggest planning out a course of action for Kusari, getting the feedback of the various factions (official or not) and then submitting it to the dev/admin team, worse case its shot down with some feedback on how it could be changed.

I like this idea and it really shouldn't be a huge problem to get something done every faction can agree on (and we can take ourselves some time for this anyways).
I just really hope that the devs and admins will understand after such an action that things have to be changed. If they don't, well rip. Speaks for itself then.

I would be in for a try on this idea. Let's get something written done/decided between all kusari factions.

(11-11-2016, 06:30 PM)Shizune Wrote: [ -> ]Speaking as the person who started the Blood Dragon end of this civil war thing, were not so much involved as people like to make it out to be. Thats not to say were not involved but the main thing we are aiming for is to take Nagano by force.

The main problem is the lack of Samura people who are willing to log out there to stop us and RP with us at all, each time we did it, as of late, the Samura was a poor RP'er that was only out there to trade and could barely understand piracy. The other lack of the scale is of KNF action out there.

Uhm. This is more or less a finger pointing at other factions. And as a Samura|- member i don't want to start a 'No U!' Contest here but a BD| saying to a Samura|- at Freeport 10 'You didn't see me, i didn't see you' and then running away in his Akegata is not the high quality rp you and i want to see i guess. We can agree on this one here. I am also in the KNF and i know that our peeps are REALLY interessted in good RP in Kusari an a bit of a pew. Doesn't matter where.

And i agree with you with Nagono. It is almost dead. I guess the Faction leaders should get their butts up and talk about stuff.

There already exists a Kusari discussion chat with faction leaders, and a few other representatives / lore knowledgeable people.

The Development Team used their advice and input to shape our plans for 4.88.4 (released January 2016), and have built future plans (for direction, not railroading) off of realistic possibilities from that. As we get closer to the release of 4.89 Initial, we will again review plans with them.

It is important for us to talk to factions. Numerous times, we have changed our plans based on the feedback we receive. However, it is hard for us to account for the changes of leadership, drama, officialdom status, in-game occurrences, more drama, and other player-based fluctuations, hence the slight separation between NPC Faction Lore and Player Group Roleplay. The former provides a foundation and objectives, while the latter gives life and depth.

So to respond precisely to the original post:

(10-18-2016, 12:55 PM)Yaoquizque Wrote: [ -> ]Given how successful this civil war thing has been, could we have some insight about what Dev team is planning, granted they planned anything at all?
Will the Exiles/Imperials cease to exist as a NPC faction?

Sarcasm detected? Either way, the civil war was initially actually very successful after the release of 4.88.4. The unfortunate happenstance of the {343} being grieved into nonexistence is a shame, but does not directly affect our plans. And yes, plans we do have. While some storyline developer predecessors of mine did accumulate an unsavory reputation for ignoring factions and working on whims, the current story planning group does its best to have plans for all seventy factions of the game. Including Kusari.

At this point, whether the IKN will win or lose, the will indeed cease to exist as they are merged back into the KNF. If they win, of course, the KNF as a whole will change slightly, but the end result is mostly the same.

Quote:1) War against Gallia.
The Republic dies and the Empire is restored. Kusari sides with Liberty / Bretonia against Gallia. While this makes sense lore wise, it's probably a not so good idea. GRN has almost no allies and a lot of enemies already. And it doesn't seem GRN is really active, so how giving them even more things to shoot would improve things?

2) War against Liberty.
The Imperials disappear. Kusari either becomes a Gallia protectorate or is partially annexed. Kusari sides with Gallia against Liberty (potentially Bretonia). Due to the weakened state of Kusari military, Shikoku is probably partially invaded by Liberty. Gallia sends assets to attack Liberty from Kusari borders.

3) Keep the civil war going.
Lol, Kusari is boring anyway.

Options 1 and 2 will only make Kusari a worse place, as you'd likely have Valors and Overlords (or both) flying into the extremely weak and divided House. That would almost certainly be no fun for many Kusari factions. Anyway, at this point, Gallia is trying to focus all of its efforts on killing Bretonia. They're letting Kusari try to handle their own mess right now and are happy as long as the Lyonnais-Rishiri trade corridor remains untouched - a sleeping dragon which both IKN and BD are wise to avoid waking. Meanwhile, Liberty is also focusing much of its efforts against Gallia, along with the HF Legion to an extent. Kusari would get nowhere attacking Liberty (Gallia knows that, and regardless, they're not a total puppet state), and Liberty has no intention to have another war.

Option 3 is what will be pursued, however not for too much longer. When one of the three sides is eliminated, there will be something ("Option 4", if you will) that occurs to give Kusari a lot to do and give them a direct external foe to fight. During the time until then, I ask that you have patience.

Thank you for the official response, Teerin! We appreciate the input.

Thanks.