' Wrote:There was a roleplay forum I was a part of that had a problem much like this. The admins had a system for special requests; Specifically, player-designed technology (guns, spaceships, etc.) to implement into the game's lore and universe, as it was a forum-based RP.

They didn't have enough admins/mods to handle the workload, so their response to the issue was to completely delete/ignore the workload. This pissed people off.

We have the same issue here. If the workload of running things cannot be handled by the collective administration, then the solution is not to cut vital pieces of the roleplay infrastructure out, it is to increase the amount of workers to accommodate the workload and manage effectively. That way, discontent can be handled more effectively.

Since players will act like players first, as Jinx said, the responsibility falls upon the Administration to make sure that the workload is handled. If the Administration is unable to handle the workload because the workload-per-admin is too much -and I am not blaming the Admins for this, it's a natural occurrence that comes with more players- then the obvious solution is to add more Admins to accommodate the workload, or a moderator team which specifically works on a particular chunk of the workload, thus allowing the administration to focus their efforts elsewhere.

The current tech chart system is a perfectly reasonable one, but it relies upon the assumption that any anomalies requiring special can be handled by the administration.

Thoughts, responses? Anyone want to flame me for suggesting an expansion of the ruling bureaucracy?

' Wrote:one thing that should change a little is to relax some faction guidlines - which may help the SRP.

judging by the SRP - it looks a bit like we re living in a world of superheroes and supervillains. - everyone is special, everyone wears his cape. - but the really unique people are the common people - those that are not SRPing anything and just want to be "the common liberty rogue", or the "common bretonian captain" - with a family, without having lost half the family to a bloody murder etc.

if you took the stories and the number of SRPs as an indicator about the health of the sirius society - you d think we live in a madhouse.
SRPs are a bit like FR5. - they should only be applied when any other means or RP cannot support it anymore. - but in an internet game - everyone wants to be special - cause its the only way to have a real personality ( unless you manage to do it by your own charming nature of course )

becoming special is a major goal - once achieved - things become a little boring.

you see most effords in GAINING a special identity and role.... but you see less efford maintaining it - often such characters just fade away..... only few of them are really roleplayed on an appropriate level for a significant time - others maintain a status - and thats it.

' Wrote:I agree with what Jinx said: even if there were more admins to treat the requests, human subjectivity will always add sourness to the process of giving to some but not to others. The judgement would have to be made on 2 things: the quality of the SRP writing and the story behind it, and unavoidibly the reputation the player has with that particular admin. Both dont guaranty that the SRP ship will really be RPed well and accepted by others as valid ingame, and in any way it will attract the jealoussy of people who dont have a SRP.

A better way to add more variety to the game may be this: to make the differences between different ships and different weapons smaller. If there is is one type of ship/gun/ID that is noticably better than all others, players will always flock to that partucular ship/gun/ID. If the advantages became smaller, people would concentrate more on whether their RP makes sense rather than trying to get the stuff that makes them stronger. Players will also be less jealous when they see another player with things which they know they can never have.

' Wrote:Indeed. This would be a workable idea in theory, but not in practice.

One of more interesting social phenomena of this community is the level of PVP-denial it lives in. "This is an RP server, not a PVP-centric server" is the mantra here, but after being a player here for nearly 3 years, I thinks it's just smoke and mirrors. Sure, RP is important here, but PVP is a vital linchpin in the majority of the RP that we see here.

I remember waaaaaay back in the heady days of 4.84 the RP of certain unlawful group. Without commenting on the entertainment value of their RP, it nonetheless enabled them to get some rather lethal vessel-equipment combos. A less generous soul would say they basically knew what ships and guns they wanted beforehand and thus they scribbled down an RP-backqround to give it all a modicum of respectability.

I'm all for creativity and thinking outside the box. But when SRPs seem to lean towards OPing and elitism, that kind of gets me cranky. And apparently it gets other folks cranky too.

Can you think of a particular RP or SRP that grants the player anything less than optimum equipment or ships? I'm sure that they exist, but the majority seem to lean in the direction of getting good vessels and weapons (not necessarily always top-notch stuff, but certainly not sub-standard junk). Why is that?

It would be an interesting experiment to alter ship and weapon attributes to close the gap in performance. How would that effect player behavior? To what factions would they begin to gravitate to? Would stay in their earlier factions? Would they create characters that they wouldn't have bothered to before? Would overall server RP be improved or would it degenerate?

' Wrote:Voluntarily SRP'ing a barge for RP purposes involving travel beyond one system.