official faction owners/HC. What are the advantages and disadvantages of creating, maintaining and developing an official faction and its player base? What makes it better than staying an indie? is it even worth the hassle?
The only real advantage to me as an-ex 1ic and a founder of several factions that have become official over time has always been a possibility to have a dedicated forum subsection where I could keep stuff tidied and easily accessible for unfamiliar with the faction. Other than that, the official faction leadership was rather a headache for me as a person that doesn't possess any management skills or leadership traits.
When Foxglove and I founded and made the Vagrants official, we took it more as a challenge than an attempt to become official for the sake of officialdom perks. Back then, the Vagrants were different from what they are now, mind you. We simply wanted to have an alternative to K'Hara with our own little bit of lore, an evolution system, missions and achievements (trials) and generally wanted to provide a less shooty-shooty and more strategic approach on nomads. Eventually it lead to the Vagrants becoming an NPC faction, which I myself did not really want but Foxglove enjoyed that thought so he went through with it.
Another advantage of being official is that people are more likely to contact you as established and approved faction than a faction that was conjured into existence within a month or two and pretends to have a say over anything while not having accomplished anything yet. Without official factions, that is something anyone could do. Just spawn a faction and respond to comms any way they like.
It is mostly a passive boon of official factions, but to people like me, they have worked hard to have a better roleplay foundation than unofficial factions. That being said, there are obviously a few unofficial factions that either used to be official (like [LN]) and some unofficial factions that never were official but managed to become seen as an established group to contact for serious and valuable roleplay. So even that is not a firm thing.
If you want my honest opinion, there is no negative thing from trying to become official, but I would also avoid stressing out over the process. All in all, it is just a nice achievement with a bunch of perks, but what should always be the primary goal for any player is to enjoy the game and never turn it into a job.
I've led a few factions in the past that managed to get offdom, some of those, arguably, are fondly remembered. So here is my take.
Pros:
personal subforum (catches attention of potential recruits/partners in rp + simple to navigate)
customised ID (if needed. For factions like Sairs and OC it is not needed, for FL-based factions it's a big upgrade)
own BB (more of a convenience, but can attract some PvP dudes to cooperate with your faction)
And tbh, that's it for me. Quality of RP is subjective, so I won't list OF as superior in RP. I've seen both subjectively good and terrible Rp coming out of OF, not to mention that OF also do have silent traders. Same for quality of interactions in general. These days with small population of server and many ppl fed up with their old factions, etc, there are a lot of indies/unoff that can offer you better interactions.
Cons:
activity check (it is not difficult to meet, but it is tedious at times and causes an annoying feeling in the back of your mind that there is yet another chore you have to do. Personally, I have too many of those iRL and I would rather not worry about this in a 20 y.o. game and not bother with OFdom. Naturally, for active OFs it's not an issue).
community expectations (you are supposed to be x,y,z, good at RP/PvP/forumlancing, insert your stuff. Expectations lead to stress and disappointments. Or you simply do not want to meet the expectations)
burden of leadership. The leader has to please the members and give them something to do, to attract new members, to keep the internal harmony ,etc etc. this is taking its toll and can lead to a burnout with the game. At this point it becomes a job rather than a game. And too often after the passionate leadership of an OF falls off, the faciton goes into a lifesupport mode or outright dies).
Ofc, all of this is subjective. In my opinion, the benefits are too insignificant and situationally advantageous compared to cons that spill into irl. It's simply not worth it unless you are really passionate about the faction and/or have plenty of time to invest.
(09-16-2023, 04:21 PM)Shimamori Wrote: I've led a few factions in the past that managed to get offdom, some of those, arguably, are fondly remembered. So here is my take.
Pros:
personal subforum (catches attention of potential recruits/partners in rp + simple to navigate)
customised ID (if needed. For factions like Sairs and OC it is not needed, for FL-based factions it's a big upgrade)
own BB (more of a convenience, but can attract some PvP dudes to cooperate with your faction)
And tbh, that's it for me. Quality of RP is subjective, so I won't list OF as superior in RP. I've seen both subjectively good and terrible Rp coming out of OF, not to mention that OF also do have silent traders. Same for quality of interactions in general. These days with small population of server and many ppl fed up with their old factions, etc, there are a lot of indies/unoff that can offer you better interactions.
Cons:
activity check (it is not difficult to meet, but it is tedious at times and causes an annoying feeling in the back of your mind that there is yet another chore you have to do. Personally, I have too many of those iRL and I would rather not worry about this in a 20 y.o. game and not bother with OFdom. Naturally, for active OFs it's not an issue).
community expectations (you are supposed to be x,y,z, good at RP/PvP/forumlancing, insert your stuff. Expectations lead to stress and disappointments. Or you simply do not want to meet the expectations)
burden of leadership. The leader has to please the members and give them something to do, to attract new members, to keep the internal harmony ,etc etc. this is taking its toll and can lead to a burnout with the game. At this point it becomes a job rather than a game. And too often after the passionate leadership of an OF falls off, the faciton goes into a lifesupport mode or outright dies).
Ofc, all of this is subjective. In my opinion, the benefits are too insignificant and situationally advantageous compared to cons that spill into irl. It's simply not worth it unless you are really passionate about the faction and/or have plenty of time to invest.
Very much agree to this. I have to add that faction perks in a form of mining bonus, additional ID lines or extra technology cells is also important advantage.
As for cons, I will also add that becoming and official factions leaves you stagnant and sticking to same old routines. Unofficial factions can spur out of interesting ideas that are not usually available or possible as an already established official faction
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