It was unanimously decided by Rheinland unlawfuls that the movement of Corsairs into Rheinland, and the Unioner/Hessian Volksrevolution civil conflict should have ideological conflicts. Several devs expressed doubts about the sustainability of the LWB into the future. There wasn't a gameplay niche amidst the larger-than-normal number of domestic unlawful groups that Rheinland possesses. It was a way of giving consequences to player interactions. The decision is widely popular within Rheinland.
The LWB is still there - it's just been divided between factions, and may reform. I am going to try to preserve LWB's lore and history by merging the LWB elements that joined the Unioners, with the Unioners, as has been done once before within the official storyline, partly because it makes sense, partly because I'm as big a fan as you are of the LWB; yet it still had to go as an entity. You still can roleplay as an LWB (which is what most people were drawn to), under the gameplay domains of the other Rheinland unlawful factions (or the Gaians).
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)
(01-26-2018, 05:27 AM)Tænì Wrote: It was unanimously decided by Rheinland unlawfuls that the movement of Corsairs into Rheinland, and the Unioner/Hessian Volksrevolution civil conflict should have ideological conflicts.
I agree with you on this part, thats why Unioners and Hessians should go largely separated ways. This essentially boils down to the Unioners (who should be largely unideological) siding with the Corsairs to get to upper hand against the Hessians (and SCRA).
The LWB has always been caught in the middle, but resource wise would be forced to side with the Hessians (they also dont exactly like Corsairs anyways, which made bonds with the Unioners somewhat loose many years ago and resulted in neutral relations at best).
(01-26-2018, 05:27 AM)Tænì Wrote: There wasn't a gameplay niche amidst the larger-than-normal number of domestic unlawful groups that Rheinland possesses. It was a way of giving consequences to player interactions. The decision is widely popular within Rheinland.
The LWB has its RP-niche (much more than Hessians or Bundschuh when you compare their RP nowadays). So, it was just a way to remove something that people didnt consider to be necessary anymore for rather fishy reasons and in a way thats not exactly cool. I also doubt that the decision is widely popular within Rheinland.
(01-26-2018, 05:27 AM)Tænì Wrote: The LWB is still there - it's just been divided between factions, and may reform. I am going to try to preserve LWB's lore and history by merging the LWB elements that joined the Unioners, with the Unioners, as has been done once before within the official storyline, partly because it makes sense, partly because I'm as big a fan as you are of the LWB; yet it still had to go as an entity. You still can roleplay as an LWB (which is what most people were drawn to), under the gameplay domains of the other Rheinland unlawful factions (or the Gaians).
If you do this, you either destroy Unioner RP or LWB RP, if you try to bring the Unioners closer to the LWB, you essentially remove the distinctions to the Hessians and people wont have any reason to chose you instead of Hessians (which can do more with much better toys). If you neglect LWB RP in favor of Unioner RP, then there is little sense in even doing this, except for the Unioners getting access to some new toys.
Somehow trying to balance it out also wont work, because at some point you will encounter something that forces you to pick one side for this whole construct to make any sense inRPly.
If anything it RPwise would be feasible to have the bulk of the LWB join the Gaians, which are close to them ideology-wise (nature first, synth is bad, farmer food is good,...). The RP to get both factions on closer relations based on this has been done many years ago, so its backed up. And if that means that the Gaians will have to get access to LWB technology (including the snubs, guns and RPC) and a ZOI that covers larger parts of Rheinland, then thats obviously
(01-26-2018, 05:27 AM)Tænì Wrote: a way of giving consequences to player interactions.
I understand the weight of feeling concerning the LWB. I was in an LWB RP faction for four years on a different server before I came to Disco.
However the LWB and the Unioners are too gosh-darned similar. They're both labour protection organisations born out of government-sanctioned foreign interference in the domestic economies, brought about as a consequence of unfavourable war debts. The only distinction is that one group are farmers and the other are shipyard workers ancestrally. Discovery made the problem worse by making them difficult to tell apart from the Hessians and the SCRA - right down to their ship infocards basically stating that the SCRA and Hessians handhold-constructed all their equipment for them. It's infantilising.
Discovery basically put the LWB in a corner. Look at Liberty - every faction is distinct: Xenos are massively distinct from rogues, hackers distinct from both. Hellfire survives as a concept because it's an inverse of what the Liberty republic stands for, Harmony works because it's firmly grounded in Vanilla in that it's quite Marcus Walker-esque. Liberty can support all of that because it has the activity for it.
LWB suffered from the following:
1) An ID that was categorically worse than every other Rheinland unlawful ID and lacked uniqueness.
2) A lore which was cool in concept but gave the faction no original paths. It was basically relegated to a vassal for the other groups. Not cool.
3) No really fleshed out political philosophy different than "I'm a yes-man for all the other unlawfuls".
4) Lots of fans in the community but nobody who actually wanted to push the boat out and play an LWB for very long. I saw more Bundschuh flying the LWB fighter than I ever saw LWB.
5) More people made farmer memes than bothered playing LWB. Which is disappointing, frankly. The people who wanted LWB to be around should have played LWB. Content doesn't get cut if it's played.
6) At the end of the day it had no distinct niche apart from being able to shoot synth foods anywhere - which required an active Synth Foods - an attempt at a Synth Foods UF happens every year, and I hope the current one succeeds in opposition to the track record - so what is LWB meant to do? Shoot lawfuls? Unioners can Texas raid when Rheinland is inactive and Hessians get to meme about how OP and overbuffed they are whilst flying into Omega 3 with Jorms. Bundschuh can fly a vast range of ships with great allies. That doesn't give LWB any leg to stand on.
I've always personally viewed LWB as less ideological and more pragmatic. They're laser-focused on protectionist farming economics. That's not really full-on international socialism as they're probably anti-collectivisation, more anti-Globalism. They're getting screwed over by the 1% business class, not the bourgeois service class.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)
(01-26-2018, 02:49 PM)Tænì Wrote: Discovery basically put the LWB in a corner. Look at Liberty - every faction is distinct: Xenos are massively distinct from rogues, hackers distinct from both. Hellfire survives as a concept because it's an inverse of what the Liberty republic stands for, Harmony works because it's firmly grounded in Vanilla in that it's quite Marcus Walker-esque. Liberty can support all of that because it has the activity for it.
Liberty is a bad example to cite in this case. HF has effectively made Xenos obsolete. It's why this change scares people. Because if LWB is first to go, factions like Xenos can easily be next.
(01-26-2018, 02:49 PM)Tænì Wrote: 1) An ID that was categorically worse than every other Rheinland unlawful ID and lacked uniqueness.
2) A lore which was cool in concept but gave the faction no original paths. It was basically relegated to a vassal for the other groups. Not cool.
3) No really fleshed out political philosophy different than "I'm a yes-man for all the other unlawfuls".
4) Lots of fans in the community but nobody who actually wanted to push the boat out and play an LWB for very long. I saw more Bundschuh flying the LWB fighter than I ever saw LWB.
5) More people made farmer memes than bothered playing LWB. Which is disappointing, frankly. The people who wanted LWB to be around should have played LWB. Content doesn't get cut if it's played.
6) At the end of the day it had no distinct niche apart from being able to shoot synth foods anywhere - which required an active Synth Foods - an attempt at a Synth Foods UF happens every year, and I hope the current one succeeds in opposition to the track record - so what is LWB meant to do? Shoot lawfuls? Unioners can Texas raid when Rheinland is inactive and Hessians get to meme about how OP and overbuffed they are whilst flying into Omega 3 with Jorms. Bundschuh can fly a vast range of ships with great allies. That doesn't give LWB any leg to stand on.
None of which is their fault, nor a plausible reason to cut them from the mod - especially without a discussion prior.
There was a tonne of discussion open to Rheinland players, yeah. Just because you weren't there for it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Suddenly a load of edge-world people are trying to stick the oar in. It's like if the passenger went up to the cabin door and demanded to fly the airliner because he didn't like how the crew were flying the aircraft. Imagine if you made loads of work in making a drastic edge-worlds based development happen, Lyth, and then I barged in and demand retcons to fit my vision of the server - you probably wouldn't be very happy.
Stick to your own experience base.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)
(01-26-2018, 03:12 PM)Lythrilux Wrote: Liberty is a bad example to cite in this case. HF has effectively made Xenos obsolete. It's why this change scares people. Because if LWB is first to go, factions like Xenos can easily be next.
NOBODY IS REMOVING, WRITING OUT, OR RETCONNING THE XENOS IN ANY WAY. EVER. PLEASE, STOP.
(01-26-2018, 03:12 PM)Lythrilux Wrote: Liberty is a bad example to cite in this case. HF has effectively made Xenos obsolete. It's why this change scares people. Because if LWB is first to go, factions like Xenos can easily be next.
NOBODY IS REMOVING, WRITING OUT, OR RETCONNING THE XENOS IN ANY WAY. PLEASE, STOP.
This. The Hellfire legion don't even believe in the same systemic ethos as the Xenos, nor do you play them in the same way or RP remotely similarly. You don't even fight them in the same way. Yes, Xenos need better toys, but the Hellfire Legion is not the reason behind Xeno unpopularity.
Edit: Let's stay ontopic or moderators will do the moderate.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)
(01-21-2018, 10:43 PM)Silverlight Wrote: Why don't we just get a few Pirate ID'd ships and start up an unofl LWB, do the RP, info page and then go for ofldom?
If you LWB back, do that. Why Xenos even coming into the conversation?
(01-26-2018, 03:13 PM)Tænì Wrote: Suddenly a load of edge-world people are trying to stick the oar in. It's like if the passenger went up to the cabin door and demanded to fly the airliner because he didn't like how the crew were flying the aircraft. Imagine if you made loads of work in making a drastic edge-worlds based development happen, Lyth, and then I barged in and demand retcons to fit my vision of the server - you probably wouldn't be very happy.
Stick to your own experience base.
("Discovery Mod General Discussion")
You accuse me of overstepping my bounds by talking about Rheinland when I'm an "edge worlds player" when you've cited Liberty as an example to use. Besides, I've actually got experience with Rheinland that's sufficient enough for this discussion.
If I was going to do work to remove a faction from the mod, I guarantee you I would have handled it a lot better than this. That aside, effort =/= good work. I put effort into projects in the past, only to realize it's a waste, and then I've terminated them.
The controversial parts of this issue are that a vanilla faction is being taken out of the game. And that's something that concerns more than just Rheinland players. A forum discussion should have been made at least.
(01-26-2018, 03:27 PM)Durandal Wrote: NOBODY IS REMOVING, WRITING OUT, OR RETCONNING THE XENOS IN ANY WAY. EVER. PLEASE, STOP.
Then help the factions that are/were afraid of such.
(01-26-2018, 03:13 PM)Tænì Wrote: There was a tonne of discussion open to Rheinland players, yeah. Just because you weren't there for it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Suddenly a load of edge-world people are trying to stick the oar in. It's like if the passenger went up to the cabin door and demanded to fly the airliner because he didn't like how the crew were flying the aircraft. Imagine if you made loads of work in making a drastic edge-worlds based development happen, Lyth, and then I barged in and demand retcons to fit my vision of the server - you probably wouldn't be very happy.
Stick to your own experience base.
Sorry, but I dont recall anything in that direction going on or being made public so that people could actually voice their concerns.