Someone bugged me on Steam about this so I shall now proceed to do the least possible amount of posting so I can return to my hermitage.
The posts about the Kusari Storyline, and Gallic (omg it's an unbelievable mess) stuff;
Last I saw, there was nothing happening in Kusari except "lets reshuffle systems because that sounds like a good idea!"
So I shall share with the community what I had posted to the dev forum to try to fix the house of Sirius I loved most (even if it had Zelot in it <3). It's pretty long, but detailed and with reasoning to explain the choices made. It got a "idea is interesting" comment from AD and then promptly gathered dust like so many other dev threads appear to have done.
This is also the path I was planning to take Kusari when I was doing its development, if it were approved.
I did realize, as I pasted this, that I forgot to add in the Exile bit, but that wouldn't be difficult.
Also note date, in case anything since then has made parts of this no longer a possibility, keep in mind it was written quite some time ago, back when 4.87 was about to be released.
Quote:Dec 26, 2012:
So I got contacted by Ktayn on Skype asking about what my original plans for Rishiri were. I guess so Samura would have some idea of what they were supposed to work towards in-game. Unfortunately, I'm not in the loop on the dev team anymore since I've ejected from Discovery, but his Skype question did tell me I should probably post a clear concise description of what the plans were before I left. As, as far as I'm aware of, I hadn't done that yet. So here goes.
(And no I'm not coming back.)
Rishiri is on the edge of a massive and dense nebula. The plan was for Samura to discover a Dom K'vash Gate (Not the massive kind found in the Omicrons, but a smaller, shorter-distance gate) that leads deeper into the nebula. Inside, there was to be a Dom K'vash structure that was "harvesting" the energy from the Stellar Nursury inside. We know that the DK used Dyson Spheres to harvest energy from suns, so it seems likely that they would harvest energy from stellar nursuries as well. This would lead to a renewed conflict between Samura and Kishiro/GMG. GMG wouldn't want Samura to get that structure online and working, as it could further threaten their hold over the fuel and energy market, and Kishiro wouldn't want it to happen because it'd give Samura massive technological discoveries that could be used to catapult them past Kishiro in that field as well, further threatening their fragile hold over Kusari's government.
This would lead to border skirmishes between the groups, with the unlawful factions taking part on their benefactor's sides. As the region is outside of KNF/KSP's jurisdiction, the different factions would use only small detachments of their own security divisions to do the fighting and sabotage, while using the unlawful factions as proxies both in Rishiri and throughout Kusari to hamper the opposing groups. There was no immediate plan for Infected Kusari to be involved/know of it, as as far as I know, the player faction for that is gone and never allowed to be remade. All 3 sides would keep the discovery fairly quiet so as to prevent any foreign interference and risk having some non-Kusari entity get control of it.
However, despite those precautions, Liberty and through them Ageira, would find out about the Discovery and they would also attempt to gain control, or at least information, from the site, given their connection to DK technology, using both Liberty Special Forces and Ageira Security. Further, with the GC's faith in Kishiro's gender role reformations broken, they have no primary benefactor inside Kusari anymore with GMG only supportive to get them to attack Samura. This could open the door to Liberty, a nation with gender equality, to offer them an olive branch ad use the GC to assist them in their efforts both at the site and inside Kusari to destabilize the Kishiro-Gallia relationship.
This would give purposes back to a lot of factions that have little presently.
Samura - While their goal is to retake control of Kusari, there is no activity for players to perform towards that. This gives them something active to do in-game and in-RP through the forums other than just trading for great glory (or credits to fund their Corsairs). Also see Liberty section.
GMG - With the KNF on Kishiro's payroll, the Sigmas and Okinawa are safe from Kusari's overreaching hand. This gives them a conflict to fight, which GMG needs given its large paramilitary background. It also takes advantage of the new Kusari region I developed for this border conflict - Okinawa, Nagano, Rishiri.
Kishiro - They now have a real internal threat to their newfound power, which they did not have before due to the Emperor being in Bretonia. They also have a threat to their prominence in the technology market.
Golden Chrysanthemums - With the leadership transition they didn't get what was promised to them by Kishiro. Now alone except for their alliance with the BD, and support from the GMG, they have nothing to do that is new. They've been fighting the police and Samura since Vanilla for "gender equality" with no progress made and nothing new happening. This is why that faction suffers greatly, because it has nothing better than the BD. Worse ships, less background roleplay, worse diplomatic relations, and it's an all-female faction which is off-putting to many players. This change gives them a real uniqueness that no other Kusari faction has ever had, and gives them some real activities and roleplay to pursue that people can't get elsewhere. The GC were, in my mind, one of the most underdeveloped factions not just in Kusari, but in the game. This would fix that with a relatively simple, but effective, stroke of the Developer pen, without breaking balance or existing lore in any way. It also is a natural roleplay result of Kishiro's abandonment of their goals. Thus it all works quite well.
Farmer's Alliance - Kyushu and Nagano, the two systems with their "babies" (farming planets) are, or were, firmly under control of Samura. But with this new border fight, Nagano would be in danger of falling to the GMG, and Planet Tomioka being harvested by a fuel-hungry capitalist megacorporation ready to strip mine it for the previous metals to be found under its surface. The FA would be vehemently against any GMG progress in the Outer Regions, putting them in conflict with the GMG and BD over hard real estate.
Ageira - An unfortunately under-utilized faction, all developmental work that has gone towards Ageira has been in providing lore that makes for good forum roleplay, but nothing to do IN the game. This is why Ageira has largely been dead for a long time, with nothing but a tiny bit of forum roleplay by die-hard lovers and some trading. This gives them something to do, and something to fight over, and some nice new roleplay with Kusari and the GC.
Liberty - This gives them a new path to disrupt the Kusari-Gallia relationship by using the GC and manipulating this border skirmish. It could also lead to an agreement between Liberty and Samura, who hated each other in the past, to undermine Kishiro's power and put Samura back in charge, thus ending the Kusari-Gallia relationship and cutting Gallia and Rheinland off from each other. While Liberty and Samura have no love of each other, they need one another in order to get what they need most; A weakened Gallia for Liberty, and control of Kusari for Samura. This would be left up to bar rumors and player action and roleplay. Whether Liberty and Samura players can put their differences aside to work together and reinstall the Emperor is up to them. If they don't take advantage of the opportunity, Kishiro would only further cement their control.
What you guys do with this is up to you. But it could go a long way towards revitalizing a house that has been the worst in terms of activity for a very long time, and give some factions some real gameplay, rather than just loreplay.
If there are any questions I'll be on Skype, I'm not likely to be reading the forums since, well, I don't play here anymore. Just Ktayn's skype message reminded me of something I forgot to do when I left.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, this wasn't all meant to happen in one mod version, but over 2-3, or over one (which usually lasts a year) with continual updates using the auto-updater.
EDIT2: You'll notice I didn't post an end-game, or outcome. That's because I think that by watching player roleplay and action around this, the outcome would become clear. Also because it may change from original plans due to other lore changes, and I hate making something with a predetermined ending.
The following were my suggestions on fixing Gallia's sprawling, uncontrollable system connections and rabid overdevelopment. These were formed from the viewpoint of playing as GRN and UC, and noticing the problems of too much system interconnectivity that resulted in players have little contact and the lack of centralized locations (such as NY, Leeds, NB, etc).
Orange lines are jumpholes
Thin grey lines are jumpgates
Thick white lines are connections with both.
Updated with the new gate system and full overview.
With this setup, Burgundy is a hub for the upper border, Dauphine for the lower border, Lyonnais is the transit system between them, and Ile de France is the core hub.
There are also now 5 entrances into Gallia, as opposed to only two.
Orkney<->Languedoc
Omicron-80<->Lorraine
NEW
Languedoc<->Tau-29
Franche-Comte<->Tau-37
Corse<->Tau-44
One new entrance to revitalize the Kusari-Gallia trade, and two entrances for smugglers. The O-80 entrance is good for Cardi smugglers and OC in general, but there aren't any entrances for the Hogosha, who by lore should be entering Gallia, as well as other Smugglers, including Cryocube exporters. Franche-Comte<->Tau-37 provides an entrance to the northern systems, while Corse<->Tau-44 provides a semi-dangerous, but closer entrance, and provides a good middle meeting point for the Hogosha and Unione Corse on their station in that system.
I think this setup provides a good balance of new entrances, trade tunneling/pipeline-ing to help the pirates have a chance, and keeping the general structure of Gallia to allow for trade with Sirius while preserving the ability to have good inter-house trade.
Note; Zelot, you probably still have access to dev forum through your old forum account, I still do (otherwise I wouldn't be able to get quotes of my posts, what a travesty that'd be).
Note2; In case anyone was still wondering, the primary reason for my departure from Disco was the utter ineptitude of the dev team's leadership of the time, the complete lack of direction or remotely sensible decision making when it came to enhancing or refining gameplay, and the hard-to-find evidence of progress in getting out updates. I was told I was also told I couldn't remove systems (what Gallia needs most), because it'd be a lot of work (I offerred to do it all, and I'm fairly fast, as those who were familiar with my NPC Disco Ship Pack project saw. And considering this was June 2012, I think I could've rebuilt Gallia from scraps a dozen times over by now. xD But that's not important I suppose). The proposal above was with many useless (guard) systems removed entirely, though I would've preferred to cut the system number down even further if possible, especially considering how large each system is. The house also needed all NPCs nerfed further than what I had already done with the NPC Ship Pack.
I will check back on this thread a time or two if anyone does have questions of the above.
Oh
Quote:(And no I'm not coming back.)
is still accurate, though I can still write up further detailed versions of the above if someone would like them, I think I still have many of the writeups about those.
