All in all, I've been quite impressed with the Keepers. I especially liked the way they used the defenders' system chat to escape them, leaving a couple blank lines of chat before disappearing into Iota.:)Their very presence is often enough to spark speculative roleplay, characters wondering what the heck they're up to when they're in-system but don't show themselves.
Some telepathic visions might go well occasionally, too, adding to the mystery of it. Particularly if they have special relevance to a character or faction, even more particularly if said faction/character is known for harvesting Nomads and/or using their weapons.
I also noticed that the last couple of times Keepers appeared, the defenders' responses were much more within roleplay than previously. Today, when two Keepers passed through Delta it was two Zoner-tagged IMG gunboats and a battlestar advanced that responded, and we kept to our respective installations to defend them rather than running off all willy-nilly to try and get a kill. I feel it was a much more balanced response than some of the earlier Keeper encounters generated, and I think that the communities' interaction with the Keeper faction is enriching. I look forward to more of it.:)
Erm i really wanted to post in the last one of these but the thread got made and then closed in the time i was asleep, thing is now i cant really remember what i had to say.
I think things are going good, it niggles me that Freeport 11 always seems to get attacked when no one is there to defend it.
I also don't see the point in clogging the chat screen with Keepers.Something: (No words here).
It was stated last time that one of the factions that where having RP events with the Keepers are the BSG? nothing against them but i really can not see what a bunch of miners would have to do all the way up in the omicrons. I can see NovaPG having an event being next to Tohoku, but i don't understand why the BSG would have something to do with it so soon when there factions much closer like the Zonors and the Corsairs.
Also nothing against Treewyrm but i agree with what mal said just before the last thread got locked which was you did come across alittle condescending in your posts.
the roleplay is ok. .... if there are results like damage freeport, it should not be a result of a random attack, but must be an announced attack.
the keepers are defenders / police - thats fine. i think that attackign when players have nomad equipment and/or nomad samples aboard is a good thing. but i often see *vengeance* ... thats not very police like. that can be done for a certain time, - but should end at some time.
the keepers can t go after players saying *vengeance* when there are no "violations" to their law about, at least not after the last violation is long ago. - or the reason to attack is meaningless. it ends up in a spiral where its all out pvp. - its unpredictable ( i am referring to taurvi attacking Jinx when she was flying from kappa to minor - hold full of deuterium ( which is not contraband for nomads to my knowledge ) no nomad weapons, no nomad samples aboard - but a reputation of putting a bounty on the death of the harbinger - which at that time was quite some time ago // and the harbinger had its vengeance by the destruction of the persephone I in magellan )
other than that - its OK - .. treewyrm was referring to different means to communicate with the nomads, but i think - even if its ooc - those means must be clearer to the community, or many players ( me included ) will take the easier way to equip up against them.
so much for the keepers gameplay... now for the general concern...
i still think that keeping a balance is HIGHLY difficult. only by threatening the players with out-of-roleplay ( that means admin ) sanctions... it is possible to keep players from massing up to defend. it is true that the corsairs would not leave gamma unprotected to head to the nomads - BUT, its artificial.... . only when there is indeed an attack at that time .. the corsairs really have a reason not to come. that will involve a roleplay by the nomads in whatever way, to trick the outcasts or other enemies into attacking gamma then.
the defense of FP11 has increased, but is usually at a "healty" level... but if the nomads would attack with a force that is considered strong, there will still be calls for help and more numerous defenders will show up. ( but they ll all not fear the nomads, but they ll prolly rather fear admin sanctions, which is bad )
i don t know how much communication happens behind the scenes right now - but there has to be a good and regular communication to keep the balance between nomads and all he factions involved, aswell as factions that will try to get involved. - if it turns out that delta / iota is "regular pvp" - more people will try to find reasons to participate.
---
now for the positive things...:
i like the way the nomads roleplay, allthough my character jinx doesn t give a damn about it. i simply ignore it. the "no-chat" way creates some sort of secrecy but i think it has to evolve, - it cannot stay that way when the faction becomes "mature". there needs to be more and easier ways to interact.
the nomads create a good amount of fear. enough to make defenders to take up passive roles, unless they greatly outnumber the nomads. but so far the keepers haven t had to face a real faction, i think. its usually been casual players. ( the fear they imply to players in delta is VERY well done. nomads are considered highly dangerous, and so far the keepers appear dangerous, even if they are not even attacking, but players rally up when they only "log on" ... <-- thats awesome, and a great effect, imo )
as a result i d say:
good basis for a promising roleplay. its interesting and adds to the game - it must remain well cared for, or it ll be detrimental to the roleplay - and i do not think it should be an "elitists faction" like the phantoms. a faction that only invites special players and admins lives outside of the true community.
like i said, the phantoms might be an intersting clan - and they might have a great roleplay cause, ( which they don t reveal ) but all in all, they are meaningless to the general server. - and i d not like a faction like nomads to become like that, too. there is a great potential about them - and that must not be ruined.
edit: if the nomads had more numbers, it would widen their roleplay greatly - i am sure there are plenty of players out that are no pvp-whores ( hate that term ) and have a solid and good roleplay... a faciton like the noamds should have at least 10 - 20 members, imo - most of them active. - i do understand bulldogs concern that when the nomads attack with 3 ships its inappropriate when there are hald a dozen defenders at FP11, but its not really the fault of the defenders that the keepers only had 3 people at that time, yet, the defenders were blamed for it - so, yes, once the keepers HAVE the numbers, they can actually do attack crete when all the corsairs head towards the defense - awesome thing - and very good roleplay, - - - once they have the numbers to do so....... .
- so keep the faction and build upon the foundation , which is a very good one
- evolve the communication and maybe try to add more perspectives to the nomad ways, so the players can react different than just with brute force
- plan and announce ( but please no GM events ) attacks on stations, bases, when there is a "relevant damage"
- open the faction up for more people that take the roleplay seriously, the more the merrier!
Just like i said in the other Keepers feedback post, the Keepers are going to have to find some neutral or allied factions because without them the RP possibilities are more or less reduced to PvP encounters with a couple of *** revenge *** *** defend *** messages in the middle.
I must say i don't really envy the guy who's writing this RP because its going to be difficult, everyone hates the nomads, except if:
A- They have something to offer and someone is crooked enough to accept it, or
B- There are some seriously infected people around doing the Nomads dirty work again
And like Jinx said, i sincerely hope this doesn't turn out to be an "elite" PvP unit, with little or no interaction, like some RP exhausted factions out there.
I believe Tree has been giving a decent effort for bringing a fesh new challange into the server with a Nomad RP affliated faction. I am personally in favor of this action and would like to see the progress and outcomes of this labour.
' Wrote:i still think that keeping a balance is HIGHLY difficult. only by threatening the players with out-of-roleplay ( that means admin ) sanctions... it is possible to keep players from massing up to defend. it is true that the corsairs would not leave gamma unprotected to head to the nomads - BUT, its artificial..
You say that the Corsairs wouldn't leave Gamma undefended? (Could you tell me when this actually happened?) You can say the same thing for every faction, the BSG, Zoners, the Keepers themselfs, When the Keepers attack you could say they left there system undefended. When all the BSG came to Delta you could say they left there system undefended, The same with every single faction if you look at it this way.
But lets look at it differently, no faction by sending 4-5 ships to defend there base or any other reason to go to delta are really leaving there system undefended, don't forget we have allot of NPCs that make up the big bulk of any one faction.
' Wrote:only when there is indeed an attack at that time .. the corsairs really have a reason not to come. that will involve a roleplay by the nomads in whatever way, to trick the outcasts or other enemies into attacking gamma then.
Don't fully understand what you mean by that part?
@Equinox:
it refers to the roleplay part. keepers complained that there are too many defenders in delta, which was considered out-of-roleplay, cap-whoring, pvp-whoring. the reason it was told that is, that there were groups of corsairs ( in that case ) heading from gamma to delta. - it was said that the corsairs would never abandon their posts in gamma just cause some freeport in delta was attacked. ( leaving gamma unprotected ) - the roleplay reason for that issue is understandable of course, but so far, it only applied to keepers - when other factions leave their bases unprotected, no one really cares much.
what i mean is: if the keepers argue like that, they must make sure that there is actually danger by leaving gamma unprotected; and not only some made-up-thingy like "there might be outcasts coming to rape crete while you are away" - unless there are really outcasts coming over ( which will involve communication from the keepers to the outcasts or the outcasts must be very well informed about whats happenening )
and that only works when they have the numbers. a small faction that is hated by everyone has no chance, no matter how good their pilots are, provided their equipment is not far superior from the rest of the players. with regards to that, i wasn t happy about being criticized for getting too many people to defend delta - only cause the keepers came with a minor force. ( allthough its been beta, but again.... no one announced a maximum number or ship class for the defenders, so there jsut happen to be some around, they might not be involved in the roleplay much, but thats what the beta is for - it shows that it drives many many more people into that otherwise lonely place - and i don t think anyone should expect that number to decrease when the faction is out of beta - but rather increase... )
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