Faction leaders and Devs alike, please hear me out.

[Jansen]

The main issue I have here is that the game we play involves a heavy ingame-consequence related focus. Most things that impact a faction's lore, be it a Player Faction or NPC one, happen ingame, rather than the forums and Skype chats to a lesser extent.

Can you give me a few examples of factions here? You should be able to count the times when ingame actions had any influence on the lore at one hand. (You do have to exclude the special factions like CR, HF or SCRA here, because they are obviously special)

The latest moment that forced me to write this thread was something I read in the LR feedback thread, where the group is about to simply lock out Pirate IDed players from Rogue bases, ignoring any sort of RP done between other Rogue groups or independent players.

Thats what you get as a 'Free Pirate' you dont get to have friends everywhere, if a faction decides to do it this way thats fine. I wonder that no other pirate factions have had that idea yet. If you are honest, it makes sense that a pirate faction wouldnt offer shelter to potential competitors, that might harm their business in any way.

I fully understand how annoying freedom can be and how many troublesome individuals can be seen using your bases, be it a freelancer or an ally. But this is just not the solution to it.

It actually is, see above.

I am strongly opposed to Player Factions being in charge of the whole faction's diplomacy in most cases, because unlike factions like the house military, which is one large entety, we also have factions like Zoners, Junkers, Rogues, Freelancers and others, which have a rather large or unlimited ZOI, have a lot of bases, therefore allowing interaction between different factions and may lead to different views. As an example, Rogues in Galileo and Keplar have the added bonus to manage IRP deals with Hogosha, BDs and GC, unlike Rogues in, say, Hudson, who can deal with the Rheinland unlawfuls.

4.7 Official player factions have authority over players of the same NPC affiliation, as long as RP justification is provided. This authority applies in forums and in-game, and applies to player faction diplomacy, and strategic and tactical direction. However, exercise of that authority, on the forums and in game, is restricted to official faction members with the rank of the official faction leader and one rank below him/her. The authority may be exercised through the use of in-game in-RP orders, which, if not obeyed, can result in in-game in-RP consequences (arrest, court martial, and even "lethal" force in extreme circumstances). Official player factions cannot, under any cicrumstances, require another player to follow non-canon RP if that player doesn't want to.

RESPONSIBILITIES ASSOCIATED WITH RIGHT 2

2) Official factions that are attempting to represent the entirety of a NPC affiliation have the responsibility to be caretakers of the history and evolving storyline of the NPC faction in such a way that it remains open to involvement by non-player faction affiliates to the extent that is permitted by the server rules. Official factions have a responsibility to incorporate willing and responsible "independent" characters belonging to their NPC faction affiliation into the ordinary operations and activities taking place in the faction's territory as much as possible. Official faction members have the responsibility to set a high standard of roleplaying within character, as well as courtesy and respect during all OOC communications. Official faction members should strive to follow the spirit of the server rules to the best of their ability, and avoid rules-lawyering, loopholing, or exploiting their knowledge for personal gain. Official factions should strive to be the primary instigators of fun within the faction affiliation, and excel as problem solvers and conflict resolution experts when there are player difficulties.

Thats solved really. If you do not agree with the way an official faction does things, make your own faction and play it your way. As long as you stick to the general idea behind that faction you can pretty much do what you want there.

This leads me to the main problem I have. Almost each faction like this brings something new to the NPC factions lore, which does not represent the views of the rest of the playerbase for that faction or even outright goes against it.

Thats necessary if you want to keep the faction alive somehow. Stagnation is bad, evolution is good. Its that simple really. Without these new ideas we would still be where vanilla left us, ever wondered if this place would even exist then?

First and foremost. Give the official faction their own ID. Use the Guard ID to save the trouble. This would allow these factions to build their own diplomatic ties, while not harming the original ones of the NPC faction they are a part of and would prevent them from forcing their views on their indies. This would also have a benefit of quick changes to technerfs. The Bretonian Armed Forces could, for example, ask the admin team via RP to remove the nerf for the LN official faction's official ID. This would make things easier, not to mention reward the factions in a different manner, which has no negative impact on their indies.

The option to get an own faction ID already exists, its up to the faction to take or leave it. I dont see any need to 'force' faction to use this way.

Give the Guard Rep to the official factions. This way they can, again, modify their diplomacy, or have their rights added or removed. This would make the interaction between factions much more intimate without screwing over the reputation of non-faction members.

Thats a good idea, but again not necessary.

Each faction gets one personal base in addition to their Guard bases. For the Rogues it can be Buffalo or Alcatraz. For the Outcasts and Corsairs it can be Malta and Crete respectively and so on. This would allow them to FR5 people from their bases without interfearing with other peoples RP. Mind, this does not mean that people docking on hostile bases cannot be FR5ed to the whole faction.

I dont see how anyone would benefit from this. It just gives some additional work to the Devs. Its also going to add a lot of Q_Q.

Move the faction's "elite" gear (EDIT: And ships) to normal systems and give them normal rep. There is NO reason why you should fly 90k for a ship, nor there is a reason to grind 35 missions for guard rep. Setting up a character is an OORP process, this sort of things do not apply to it. Even more so, we already have Omi Kappa, where, I kid you not, I see BD IDed players, LNSs and even RMs flying to get their capital ship turrets. Let the Guard system thing fall as a Official Faction property.

This is definitely necessary. There is no need to keep this equipment locked away for the simple reason of locking it away, to make repping a more frustrating process then it already is.

Last but not least, allow official faction IDs more rights in terms of ZOI, cargo, ship types or mining/trading bonuses. Because people doing things right need to be rewarded. Not to mention it would cause some healthy competition for the official faction seat.

Thats a nice idea, could help to make being an official faction a rewarding thing.

Say that the LR want to be buddy buddy with the Congress. No worries. They can trade tech np. The LR want to be hostile to Pirate IDs? Let them. Their base, guard system and ID will be hostile to said IDs.

If a faction wants to be buddy buddy with a ex enemy, let them. The rest of the indies may not want to be.

There is always the option to make an unofficial faction, Indies are also not necessarily bound to the official factions decisions.

Some suggestions can be good, some can be bad. More and more we can see that most of the times official factions have a completely different lore and mindset than the NPC faction description would suggest. Time to distance them away from them without harming the rest of the ID users.

I wouldnt really say that there are many official factions that drift away from their NPC faction.

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