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+--- Thread: Something that has always irked me about official factions... (/showthread.php?tid=95436)
Something that has always irked me about official factions... - sindroms - 03-12-2013
Before we begin, again, keep it civil. I know that the topic is potential drama material, so my apologies beforehand and any moderator can close this thread at the first sign of namecalling.
This post is only my own opinion, you have all right to disagree, but do not try to force that view on me via arguing. We know that it will not happen.
Factions in general have many bonuses and rights, but is it just me, or are they slowly starting to slack on their responsibilities. The main one is to progress and evolve the RP of their chosen NPC faction and it is an important thing to do, but there is something I have noticed over the years and no doubt this has been brought up before, but I think that now would be a good time to take a jab at it.
Now, this is coming from me as an ex leader of a faction (LR), ex member of a faction (RM, 101st, Keepers, .:j:. etc) and the creator of multiple groups (MD, Allertons, Cyprus, Tridentes, [*], Torpedoes etc) and I must say, that when it comes to RP interaction and RP opportunities, an official player faction should not represent the whole NPC faction.
NO! SHUT UP! STOP SHOUTING! And let me explain.
Obviously, this is not currently the case with every faction on the server, because for some factions it does make sense to represent the whole faction, such as RM, BAF, LN and KNF. But in other cases, it does not- Liberty Rogues (Unorganized, individual mix of pirates, smugglers and unlawful freelancers), Xenos (Moderately organized, but without a leader or ''admiral'') And so forth. Again, to note, I am using the examples because those are the factions I know the most about.
The reason why I say that one faction should never represent the whole NPC faction is simple. They have too much responsibility. It is not about the power they have, it is about the current way that interfaction diplomacy works.
Let us take an example of the Junkers in Liberty. They are constantly walking on the edge of a knife because of both smugglers and pirates docking on Rochester. The LN will instantly flack the .:j:. because of this, and they will have to pay for every individual mistake made. This is convient, because they can FR5 the offenders, but it does not make any sense in the Junker RP.
Keeping neutrality between them and the locals is a must, of course, but this can be done better. If the .:j:. did not represent the whole Junker faction or the ownership of their bases, then the LN could not pin the fault on them and if it came to LN marking all Junkers in Liberty as unlawfuls, the .:j:., as a group, could always develop individual ties to the LN leadership without this RP effecting other Junkers.
In other words, if this would be implemented, individual groups could evade the drama caused by their official faction and vise-versa. This is profitable to BOTH sides.
Same with the Zoners and Corsairs- The mistakes of individual groups ended up with the Theta drama.
Same with the Allertons and Zoners and Xeno Alliance. The actions of Allertons ended up with massive QQ between the Zoners in Keplar and the XA.
The only downside to this is that factions would instantly lose the right to us FR5, because they are not representing the thoughts of their faction and, having served in a lawful military faction, I can imagine how annoying would it be not to be able to FR5 smugglers.
Even more so, the official factions would lose their power within their own NPC faction. If the LN were only a subgroup of the navy, then surely their power over independents would lessen. And this is not always a good thing, since one of the faction responsibilities is to make sure fights are fair and the officialdom does grant some sort of rank and respect.
But this would also be a good thing, because the RP evolution of an NPC faction could be influenced by multiple groups. As far as tech chart requests go, if the individual gets a green light from one of the many groups, why shouldn't they be in the green.
It is not really the fault of official factions or groups, mind you, this is more about the fact how interfaction diplomacy is handled right now. Actions of a few instantly causing drama between groups which, no doubt, are sometimes looking for a reason for such accusations. Sometimes.
Anyway, this is just a rough writeup of my thoughts on this. Comment and tell what you think. The bottom line is, should official factions represent the WHOLE npc faction. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it does not and we have no right to deny other factions their rights only because their NPC faction is different from others.
Such a suggestion has multiple pros and cons, sure, and it would result in a complete faction rule overhaul, not to mention it would cause some confusion and disorganization between factions of the same ID.
Keep it civil.
RE: Something that has always irked me about official factions... - Veygaar - 03-12-2013
I approve. Which means you're good to go love
RE: Something that has always irked me about official factions... - Eduard - 03-12-2013
if they wouldnât represent, which us the case fir a numver of factions, then i assume that the 1 official faction per id rule( exception zoners & corsairs) should be definetly rethinked
(on phone)
RE: Something that has always irked me about official factions... - SMGSterlin - 03-12-2013
Eh... I don't think you can apply this to all factions as a whole. As stated, in some cases it makes sense for factions to have one head honcho, and in other cases, it doesn't make sense for a faction to have one head honcho (like the Zoners).
So you would need to specify which NPC factions can have more than one official faction, and which can not.
RE: Something that has always irked me about official factions... - Vrabcek - 03-12-2013
(03-12-2013, 10:11 AM)sindroms Wrote: Factions in general have many bonuses and rights
I don't know when you were last part of an official faction that was trying to use their faction rights, but I'm having the impression official factions turned into "clans" we know from other multiplayer games. So just having shiny tags, but thats about it.
Why should the official factions still represent the whole NPC faction? Simply because someone has to take care of the roleplay of the faction. We are already seeing that some bored independent players are doing pretty much mess on the server without any consequences ( like shooting people they should not, going to places they should not, using technology they should not). The consequences for out of faction roleplay actions are actually based in the faction rights.
RE: Something that has always irked me about official factions... - Alley - 03-12-2013
Before the admin decision of having only 1 official faction per NPC faction, this could have been done and this is why having multiple zoner/corsair official factions has never been an issue for the game itself, but it was more of a paperwork issue as one faction might not agree with another when it comes to a FR5. In a way, restricting 1 off per npc was a good idea as such things can't happen anymore, but then comes the question of how reliable the only official faction is.
Realistically when it comes to pirate factions I don't see what's the use of being official as the only thing that's remotely useful is the FR5 and that will usually only be for extreme retardation cases. An official pirate can't do much about an indie that's simply playing his role. In fact, the joke is that an indie pirate will have much less issues than an official one.
Most unlawfuls factions have seen very little (real) progress in their storyline (aside of stupid unrealistic bases designed by someone on acid ofc). It's generally the same thing over and over in a different package done by the dev team that don't really care about what the players would like.
Lawful factions have to be represented by a single official faction, it's a matter of consistency. Unlawful/borderline groups have much more freedom and are not required to be consistent.
RE: Something that has always irked me about official factions... - Omicron - 03-12-2013
So, you break the lore of the faction you fly for as an indie and try to get away with it... ok. Explains a lot.
RE: Something that has always irked me about official factions... - Anaximander - 03-12-2013
I concur.
It makes no sense that some of those factions, which are distinctly organized flatly as per lore, are run by single individuals and entities on the server. It's box-thinking, and more conducive to power games than development of a roleplayed dynamic setting. But as we know, some enjoy power games a whole lot and wouldn't be able to stand that loss of power; whether or not its backed up by lore.
RE: Something that has always irked me about official factions... - sindroms - 03-12-2013
Currently there are two main problems.
First of all is the RP equality, having all factions have the same rights, powers and duties.
Secondly, we have the PVP equality, where the factions have similar pvp options, even if the RP does not make sense (OC vs IMG, RM vs Hessians vs Corsairs) and so on.
Noone wants to have less. Right now, again, the whole equality thing is what makes it the most difficult to implement such things.
RE: Something that has always irked me about official factions... - Loken - 03-12-2013
I agree completely.