Okay I really enjoyed playing an Outcast in the past, but haven't been in it since the factions died. I see a lot of new Outcast factions today, but I am still not keen on joining, despite two of them even have a potential for becoming official.
The thing that stops me is the common goal between those factions.
Every faction has a goal of smuggling and kiel enemi of Maltu. Which is kind of boring. And taking into account that competition between pirates, smugglers and cartels never ends well. To the factions and their leaders, could you set an distinct primary roles for each faction, me it defense of the outcast people, gaining resources(pirating), spreading the orange dream and acquiring slaves(smuggling).
I am not saying that each faction should have only one role, but only that they could focus more on one primary role.
If every Outcast faction has the same goal there is competition, if there is competition than where is the so called Outcast civil war we were promised?
Isnt essentially every faction about either trading or shooting enemies? Dont really see the problem here.
The OC civil war was stopped because it had no real reason to go on and caused more headache than it solved.
Well...the Outcasts themselves don't smuggle. In addition to pirating, they grow and process the Cardamine, and it's the Junkers and independents who smuggle the Cardi into the various Houses, usually via connections with House unlawfuls, who handle distribution.
Okay I am confused. I want to join an Outcast faction. There are about 4 or 5 factions and every single one of them has identical goals. I remember about the time I started I met some faction name the Blue Lotus Syndicate. Encounters with them were really interesting even if you were smuggling cardamine.
BLS' main goal was cardamine distribution, so there is no miracle, that they were nice with cardamine smuggling.
IMO, about numerouse and similar OC's faction. I remember, when OC's had 3 offical faction, including BLS, other two were SOB (Shadow Outcast Brigade) and 101st ofcrs. Each faction had it's own goals, as I said already, BLS were cardamine smugglers, SOB were like OC's law enforcment forces, and 101st were main OC's navy.
Something similar Corsairs unfortunatly currently HAD: OPG-Sails, Benitez, TBH. First were Corsairs raiders and more like pirates, if Im not mistaking, Benitez (Im proud, that I was a part of this faction once) something like PLI and LSF in one body, and TBH are navy. All 3 factions had their own goals, missions and lived together pretty fine.
This story of there being several outcast factions surprised me, as I wasn't aware of any recent activity by any outcast group.
Searching the unofficial and official factions, I came upon these groups:
101st Ghosts, New Contari Lance, Campania Cartel, El Guardian de Malta, and the Crimson Cross.
Is that all of them? How many of them are truly active?
A suggestion I could make for the similar objectives/goals is defining a particular region of space where each faction wants to operate. One might want to protect Malta and exploit the connections to the Sigmas, another is just interested in the Taus, another wants to press on into the Corsair territories, and so on.
The issue of the multiple outcast factions kind of stems from the previous lack of one. All the current factions seem to have low activity because they're all trying to get off the ground at the same time.
Truth be told, I believe there are so many simply because so many of us saw a gap in the previously over-flowing location of the Outcasts on the faction roster, and rushed to fill it.
Now, I can only speak for Crimson Cross here, but we are still fleshing everything out, working on setting up our main goals and getting recruits to start having activity. RL issues are keeping the HC here from being able to do this quickly, so we are a bit sluggish. The Crimson Cross started flying about a month ago, and is only now getting a forum presence because of the aforementioned RL issues.
As to the subject of the civil war, we've heard the rumblings of the previous Outcast "civil war", and seen how the current Junker "civil-war" drama is unfolding. It isn't a plan the Cross wants to pursue, not in Disco's current state anyway.
We recognize that not all the factions can have the same goals and interests. The main plan of the Cross was initially a full-blown outcast faction with no particular specialty, to fill the hole the Lance left when it was disbanded. This, however, was shaken a bit at the sudden re-birth of the Lance, and the Cross is right now undergoing a re-structuring of its focuses to accommodate this. Should we attempt to struggle with the Lance for the spot of "Main outcast faction" Not only would it be a fight the Cross would likely lose, but it would be host to a massive amount of drama as well.
And in the words of... well, somebody:
"Drama is r baed"
We see the same issue you do, and were working to fix it.
This is being worked on funnily enough. CL} were official in the past and mainly concentrated efforts on smuggling. Due to the lack of activity from the 101st, military capabilities kinda came into play. However, 101st have plans and so do we therefore likely splitting those roles and providing each OC faction with a different main objective and working together.
OoRP anyway, as mentioned before the OC's aren't all a "team". Crimson Cross are squid-lovers, as are 101st. I don't know about the Campania's, ask Jansen. CL} are cautious of them so RP with them is limited.
As there is a kind-of-general-chat on Skype at the moment for some background activity that will benefit the OC's, things like this can also be discussed.