no, the comment wasn t aimed at the roleplay background as such. - it was about certain situations that led to complaints that were about the general roleplay doctrine of the factions. i think one of the very first attacks from keepers into the omicron-delta space was met by a joint force of corsairs - and ... by coincidence, there were outcasts, too.
now the whole defenders fleet gathered hurridly together and rather reluctantly build up a defense with a mute agreement to lay down the weapons against each other to meet the common foe. ( corsairs and outcasts together against nomads, yes )
the result was a warning to the defenders factions - that their behaviour was ooRP and sort of "if that happened again, there would be consequences". - this led to one of the countless discussions of how the facitons would have to react when faced by a foe that drove the whole human race to the brink of destruction ( allmost ). the corsairs know about the nomad war, so do the corsairs. ( they were both involved in the SP campaign )
but yes, i m just being nasty - cause i like fairness. if the humans are not to team up against a common and well known enemy for their benefit. i don t think the halfgod and alien races should do either. wether it makes sense or not - i wouldn t consider it sportive if factions like the phantoms and the wild / keepers were not shooting each other. you re free to call it unreasonable.
I think "sportiveness" is a largely meaningless concept in relation to roleplay discussions. Sportiveness is a notion relevant to discussions about pure-PVP areas or server rules, but roleplay concerns itself with the patterning of situations based on common demonstrable models.
Another issue I have raised previously but has not been discussed much is the likely cultural gulf between Nomads and Phantoms. Phantoms appear to be a hedonistic, sadistic oligarchic utilitarian society that abounds with sadomasochism and sociopathy, in addition to certain levels of maltheism (the frenzied self proclamations of "Death. Sin. Hate" of one Phantom, Desecrator during the Tau 31/GDD crisis is a good example of this), whereas Nomad culture, from what very little we have been shown of it, appears to be totally alien to most human concepts with vague hints of fascination and contempt for humans.
If one was to draw a comparison to the expanded universe of Frank Herbert's Dune, Phantoms would be Harkonnen and Nomads would be Ordos.
sportiveness is important though. roleplay does not care for balance. - in terms of roleplay, each side wants to gain an advantage over the other - the more unfair, the better. efficiency and power is what drives most factions ( except those with a strong cause, - which one could call irrational )
in RP, there are many options to change the alliances of sirius around, twist them and rearrange them around as one likes. but we still don t do that. most stories of characters are about how a single person breaks out of the strict faction structure to be - unique.
sportiveness is a security measure to ensure basic game mechanics. - its got nothing to do with roleplay. it can, but its not a necessary part of it. - a balanced enviroment is one that allows a great amount of roleplay with a compromise towards sportiveness of course. - sometimes its not needed or unwanted, sometimes its applied even against what feels "right" ( like shield running ).
nevertheless, the wild and the phantoms ( if we get down to that ) won t have too many places where they deal with each other anyway. the wild is busy in 58 and supposedly channels most of their power into that project. the phantoms are hardly ever seen in 58 or other wild systems ( other than rheinland ) - but rheinland wilds appear not to be part of the greater plan.
edit: i think when you compare it to dune... - phantoms may be harkonnen ( allthough i think the phantoms aren t that "simple" ) - while the nomads are rather the honored matres or the bene gesserit ( do the ordos appear in the books at all? - can t remember, i thought they were just made up for the game )
True, 90+% of all phantom characters weren't exactly shining examples of humanity before the C'tan got to them. I think it's more a case of it being easier to RP as something like a murderous sociopath.
I keep dragging this character up and I'm sorry but it is the best example I can think of on short notice:
Bloodfrenzy liked killing things yes, but he only really, really enjoyed it when it involved liberty navy pilots and crewers, due to what the liberty navy scientists put him through in the name of 'research'.
When he met up with Aridane it was two people who shared a common hatred more then anything else, they had both been treated badly by liberty navy researchers in willard and that caused them to have a deep hatred and mistrust of people, especially those who 'just want to help them'.
But you do have a point.
Like I said, I really doubt relations between nomads/wild and the phantoms would ever be better then neutral or unfriendly.
But mostly because the phantoms will happily hand over a transport or 6 full of passengers to the nomads/wild, as seeing the result confusion and panic when the houses discover the infested/possessed passengers would be more then worth it.
Not to mention that the phantoms can easily match (more likely exceed) any destructive rampage the nomads/wild could manage because they have so many more bases to stage from and alot more groups who can be manipulated into helping, regardless of whether those groups know or like it.
I'm not saying the phantoms and das wilde should be anything more then neutral/unfriendly, mainly because both groups were once human and are now something else, so they have at least those two things in common, they were all once human, and neither of them wants the house goverments around.
As for the keepers/nomads, unfriendly at best would be my guess, depends on whether any phantom they meet has nomad tech or anything else the keepers/nomads don't like.
I just don't see why phantoms and das wilde should be KoS to each other is all I'm trying (and failing it seems) to say.
May I suggest limiting the Rheinland ships to the Valkyrie and the Subnose bomber UNLESS there is a forum RP story that allows for something more advanced...and even then that story should be continually updated so that new people don't go "huh?" about a ship the Wilde shouldn't be flying really. I'll use Eppy's Fantasia to support my reasoning...when he made that story it was nice and iRP but now someone new like me looks at the [66th] tag on a Bertonian BS and I feel very confused cause I've never seen the story behind it.
so in short, for anything over a fighter from Rheinland, write and update a story for it.
Despite Yuri put an excellent effort in the Keepers concept, they have still been limited in terms of operating, based on the frequency of their actions regarding the non-nomad but player controlled targets and being watched over by the admins is the surplus. Thats at least how I observed from my point of view. They did quite good job though, which is another story.
The Wild were created as an addition to the mod's own history of the Roleplay progress attached to vanilla. The question however, needs to be answered clearly that is whether having a faction using the alignation of the Wild concept has the possibility of damaging or enforcing the inner Roleplay in any way, originally set for the sole purpose of an npc branch of Nomads, famed with being known to be a family of the so called infested ex-Rheinlander militia or not?
Das Wilde were not intended to be a solely NPC faction, as Igiss coded in IDs for that faction, which the NPCs don't use and only Wilde players could logically use.