"New faction creation process and representation" discussion thread.

[tazuras]

Alright, after I have read all of your posts, I now get to make my post of huge longness, I hope you enjoy:

I will get to the council later, I am going to start with some of the other issues that have been raised.

The 500 mill
Keep it but split it. First to be listed as an unofficial and use a tag and get guaranteed representation (although not a guaranteed vote) on any NPC faction council. Perhaps 200 mill than 300 mill? There is no reason that 5 members cannot spend 4 hours each trading to make a faction. If they cant they are obviously not committed enough.

Limiting the number of Official factions per NPC faction
Absolutely not. Disco should not be first come first serve, it is already far too much like this IMHO, new players should not be told they cant accomplish things because others got there first, it is simply unfair and discourages new players from trying to accomplish great things. I don't think we want to set this precedent. In order to do this though the standards for official factions may need to be changed:

Official Faction Standards Update

• If it is something that is 'one faction' in RP then multiple factions would represent different divisions. Each faction must be different enough from all the other factions and serve a unique RP purpose. Otherwise it should not be a new official faction.
  
• Unofficial factions need to be registered so long before becoming official.
  
• If there are more factions than is reasonable, the standards should be raised.
  

Official Faction Status Maintenance
Old factions should be periodically reviewed to make sure they continue to meet current standards. If not they get a warning, after which they have X amount of time to get back in shape, otherwise, the lose their official status. If you get 2 warnings within a certain time, you get suspended and temporarily lose some degree of power. You get a third within X time after the suspenion is over you lose official status. Or something like this.

Review of factions should include community opinion. Opinions given must be justified though, hersay will not be tolerated.

Potential New Powers

• A Greater voice in affecting their NPC faction
  
• A guard system they have full control over.
  
• Higher ranks can give certain orders to indies. Failure to follow order repeatedly can lead to a KoS order to every player in the NPC faction
  
• Access to new RP commodities
  

The Faction Council

Alright here are my thoughts on the council. I would like to say that any council will be complicated and create more bureaucracy. They should only be instituted in order to grant more power, otherwise they would be pointless. I would also like to say that it would clearly be an OORP body that would be represented differently in RP based on the individual faction. The I see potential benefits of a council as such:

• Increased power of official factions.
  
• More indy involvement/inclusion.
  
• Greater player affect on NPC factions.
  
• Agreed upon laws of space that more players will follow as they had a say in them.
  
• Less sanctions (this is not likely, but possible I believe.)
  

Structure

• A faction council would consist of a majority of members from official factions with equal representation of each.
  
• Indies and unofficial groups would be represented by player nominated, admin appointed players. To become appointed a player would have to make his case on why he should be on the council to the admins and provide at least one written recommendation.
  
  • They would comprise of about 1/3 of the council. If there is only one official faction than they will provide two members while the indies and groups will be represented by one.
    
    
  • These reps should be those willing and capable of representing as many other indies as possible, they will have to do work in game, on the forums and on chat to accomplish this. This may require non voting indie representatives depending on the size of the indy community.
    
• Each council will have a chair that is member that is elected by them. The chair will facilitate civil, productive discussion and will bear most of the responsibility. The chair will vote last on every issue. The chair will represent the NPC faction on the house council or appoint a rperesentative.
  
• The house council will be an OORP body who's task is to represent the government of the house. It will be composed of the chair of every faction that operates in that house. Reperesentatives of factions more closely related to government (police, military and secret service) shall have a greater say (perhaps 1.5 votes?). All unlawful factions in the house may have a non-voting member on the house council. If the house council were down any other way either there would be too many members or not everyone would be represented.
  

Powers
All powers must be well defined and thought out. Any decision made by either council may be overruled by the admins. Their powers might include the following:

• They would have the power to affect the NPC faction including every player in it in the following ways:
  
  • Changing NPC faction diplomacy relative to other NPC factions. Major shifts in NPC diplomacy, like the change of a long time enemy, must be submitted as a request to Igiss or an appointed representative or representative body.
    
    
  • Changing equipment usage, with admin approval.
    
    
  • Granting exemptions to NPC faction diplomacy to player groups or factions.
    
    
  • Issuing KoS/expulsion orders to against indies that violate faction RP/rules.
    
    
  • Issuing KoS/expulsion orders to against player groups, with admin approval.
    
• Requesting an official faction review of any faction by the admins, with sufficient evidence that such a review is warranted.
  
• They may send a representative to the house council.
  
• Represent the faction in an official capacity both in RP and OORP.
  

Their powers would not include the following:

• Setting diplomatic status of the NPC faction to any player faction or group, they can only set diplomacy to NPC factions.
  
• Issueing KoS orders (other than on betrayers) or attending to minutiae, they represent the leadership of the NPC faction, who would also never deal with minutiae.
  
• Suppressing the RP or words of official faction representatives in RP. Every official faction leader or appointed representative would have a voice in RP, their RP position should be carefully defined relative to the NPC faction leadership (as represented by the council OORP).
  
• Affecting indy, group or official faction RP in any way not described above.
  

And last but not least:
Should there be a council that represents each NPC faction?
*shrug*
I dont know. I think it is a very big idea that could change a lot of things here. What they are, I really dont know. If it is tried I suggest it be done on a limited basis at first with perhaps two factions within a house, then the whole house, etc.

Ironically I think that by working so hard on this I have shown just how complicated it will have to be to be fair and will make people think it's a bad idea.

Whether or not any of this is implemented I feel the power of official factions need to be better defined, like in the server rules.

Comment away!

---