(03-14-2018, 06:19 PM)TheJarl Wrote: I was inactive for a while so I'm chipping a bit late I know. I just wanted to remark that removing the LWB is one of the dumbest things I've seen in a while. Just because something doesn't have a big impact or may appear redundant does not mean there is any benefit to cutting content. Cutting content is only good if something has a noticeable negative effect, which is not the case with a minor vanilla faction.
A mod is supposed to add content, not remove it. Niche factions may provide fun to a small group of players and do no harm to others and have little relevance for the spread of activity etc., exactly because they are so minor anyway. It's like things are being cut for the sake of being cut and I think such logic should seriously be reconsidered.
The faction was annexed as a result of the Volksrevolution literally going to war with itself. RP development. It's what the Rheinland underworld was doing.
There's nothing to stop the LWB reforming if people want to play it that way.
Just because some shabby justification was thought up doesn't mean it becomes legit. LWB was basically ignored for all storylines and then suddenly it went down. And if so how could it be a trial according to the OP? An trial storyline sounds odd?
Aside from the justification being really weak, it's not relevant. It's a justification not the reason. After all the policy is that player RP is not relevant to the storyline and if it's not player RP you don't come up with this without planning to remove the faction, right?
Appreciate three OFL's 2 years of RP not being called shabby. You can make your point without adding the hammy hammy hominem.
If nothing changes when crap happens, no development happens. LWB and all of its RP exists, there's currently three sects of LWB operating with other NPC groups.
Self-justifying cutting is "Oh btw, Supernova"-ing Maine out of existence, stuff like that.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)
(03-14-2018, 06:22 PM)Death.RunningVerminator Wrote: I personally disagree with the above above statement. I think even more should be cut, of course with RP reasoning. I think whole systems and factions should be cut, so the game scales down to the level the playerbase is at. We have Gallia because years ago we had 200 players. People will not like things getting cut. But, if they are keen on specific factions that get cut, they can simply take the core concept of that faction and create something themselves.
Removing content is the best way to destroy the mod. Discovery offers freedom, chances, possibilities and niches. People should never be forced to fill gaps, forced to interactions other people would like to see or join bigger groups because whatever reason. None of you is entitled to force players to anything, because the player decides what they do. Take features and content away and the only thing you will receive is less stuff to advertise, to discover and to play with.
If anything, you should have thought about your statement the moment you wrote "people will not like things getting cut" - because if people don't like things, they are more likely to leave.
Looking at numbers instead of what players actually want is the worst mentality to be encountered in this community.
I can understand where you're coming from but if anything i think there's more evidence that adding content has destroyed this mod. Simply because as far as i know we've never removed things, only added, yet activity has steadily declined. I think it's worth a shot to see what happens.
Also, if you take the least visited system and chop that, i really don't think it would be that big of a deal. Same goes with least played faction. Nobody would be forced to do anything at all afterwards like you suggest.
Let's be real though i don't think those drastic measures would ever be taken. Although i would like them to be! So if your next post is an attempt at vilifying me because i dare say disco should scale down, just realize that it probably actually won't be.
Activity has steadily declined because the Mod is for a game that was aging when the mod itself was released in the first place. Not because of any other reason. People moved on.
As for removing systems/factions etc: It's ridiculous to believe that that is going to fix a mod that is already broken in the way that it's community operates. Player choice is what made Discovery so appealing to many, and the fact that it had something for every branch of players was a major selling point. Reducing the numbers of systems to increase 'interaction' is heavily favouring a few types of players instead of giving everyone the opportunity to do what they want - which would be fine would it not be coated in the guise of 'we're trying to improve the mod for everyone, not just for us'.
Oh, and on the topic of it being a logical consequence: The decision to remove LWB was made way before the Unioner/Bundschuh conflict became a thing in this extent, and using it as a justification itself is rídiculous because developer standards had so far refused to accomodate player RP in story decisions. If they do it just for this one faction, it's quite evident that the RP justification is nothing more than an afterthought to satisfy the vocal Rheinland playerbase.
(03-14-2018, 06:49 PM)Death.RunningVerminator Wrote: yet activity has steadily declined
In the past few months activity has shot up dramatically and we've managed to reach 115 players. The graphs on flserver.de are showing a nice steady climb, which is finally breaking from the trend of decline caused by 'A Heavy Decision'.
On topic: put LWB back in, there's no negative to having them as part of the mod still.
If I remember correctly there was a LWB faction in the process of forming, working on going official, when the LWB npc faction was removed. The players then left discovery out of anger, or at least they said they would. I'd really love to know how exactly it was decided to remove LWB.
Player activity can be focused with positive incentives (like more rights, less restrictions, and making things easier) instead of removing content and throwing restrictions in the hope that people will be coerced into doing something they don't want to.
(03-14-2018, 06:49 PM)Death.RunningVerminator Wrote: I can understand where you're coming from but if anything i think there's more evidence that adding content has destroyed this mod. Simply because as far as i know we've never removed things, only added, yet activity has steadily declined. I think it's worth a shot to see what happens.
It's not really adding content that destroyed the mod, it's destroying pre-existing focal points of activity (mission grinding to get better gear in minor, alpha, and gamma, for example) without replacing them with something similar.
Right now few people want to add more content, but are against removing things that could still have benefit.
What difference does it make to you to chop off the least visited systems and the least played factions? It's not like to take the players that visited those areas and played those factions and make them play something else. You take away something to play as, play in, something to discover and something to RP about. Interaction alone isn't the whole game. While you ask for things to be removed for no reason, others ask for old systems to be added again, even if only to blind-jump into them and have a feeling of nostalgia. Like or it not, people like things for just being there. People miss Omicron Zeta. People miss the old Omicron Kappa and the old Omicron Iota, people miss Omicron-74 for the Zoner home that the system was. People feel cozy with all those things.
Instead, you should take a look at what made people leave matter-of-factly. Name 10 people who left because of the existence of specific NPC factions? Name 10 people who left because of Unknown, Dresden, Tottori, Tau-29 or Omicron Psi? I tell you what made people leave: Hostile behavior within this community, constant salt and drama on forum and skype/discord, the lack of appreciation of their RPs, the destruction of things they worked for months and years on, friends who turned into enemies for pixels, faction leaders and their ooRP lobbying and pretention of BEING the NPC faction while they are just player faction leaders; people thinking they are entitled to be interacted with to get cheap blues by seal-clubbing, people who matter-of-factly log to kill activity by doing the former, the fact that there are more and more alternatives to Freelancer and Discovery on the market that have better graphics, more people playing and less restrictive rules and laws, the constant arbitrary behavior of bittervets on forums who completely forgot how they started on Discovery, comparing factions and their assets with other factions and their assets, the lack of matchmaking, weird "balancing" adjustments that come out of nowhere without any explanation (Aux slots, Codename revamp, HFs rendered to useless ships, etc), the dev-sided attempts to streamline things that work perfectly well for years and most importantly: The fact that after 2-3 years, you know Discovery inside-out and simply need a break or play something else. Discovery "only" offers so much, and taking away more of that for the very sake of scaling down is straight-out stupid. There are many better approaches to increase the numbers of players - one being advertising, something everyone can do, and another one being saying hello to newcomers in Penny, helping them getting into the game instead of throwing the first-best Scylla at them. Another thing everyone can do.
This is an RP server of a mod of a very old game. Discovery is suffering from natural decomposure, not from over-saturation of content. Because something can't have enough content.
(03-14-2018, 06:49 PM)Death.RunningVerminator Wrote: yet activity has steadily declined
In the past few months activity has shot up dramatically and we've managed to reach 115 players. The graphs on flserver.de are showing a nice steady climb, which is finally breaking from the trend of decline caused by 'A Heavy Decision'.
Do you mean 110? That is what i see the cap as. But i see what you mean anyways so then pardon my ignorance. I also have a different frame of reference so i'd personally say 110 is still low. However if this is an improvement from before then that is good. Which also means, why is the cap at 110? Can it be moved up more if the server is constantly reaching 110? Is it a matter of funding?
Removing systems would not be the end of the world. That is primarily what i would be in favor of. Factions i think i would also like to be removed but i can see that being tough. However systems with only a few notable items in it can have those items placed elsewhere. Even if it's just 1 system. The scale of the game shrinks, so people bump into each other more. ALSO it is worth noting that i have not completely explored these new updates yet so i have not reviewed any potential systems that i would personally think would be worth cutting. It could very well be that each system is integral and meaningful and can't be removed. But, i would have to look at each one myself and come up with a decent argument for that specific system.
EDIT: Omicron Kappa was removed?! Now you've gone too far Disco....
EDIT2: @Sombra Hookier I think if that is how you feel then your issue is certainly not with me but rather with the mentality of the community at large and the way things are done generally speaking. That is something worth making a separate thread about and discussing with the community. But it sounds very similar to how the past was and if all of that is still a thing then.. i dunno. People will always be discontent in some form or another.
(03-14-2018, 06:49 PM)Death.RunningVerminator Wrote: yet activity has steadily declined
In the past few months activity has shot up dramatically and we've managed to reach 115 players. The graphs on flserver.de are showing a nice steady climb, which is finally breaking from the trend of decline caused by 'A Heavy Decision'.
Do you mean 110? That is what i see the cap as. But i see what you mean anyways so then pardon my ignorance. I also have a different frame of reference so i'd personally say 110 is still low. However if this is an improvement from before then that is good. Which also means, why is the cap at 110? Can it be moved up more if the server is constantly reaching 110? Is it a matter of funding?
I could have sworn I saw 115 on the player list recently. I might mean 105 then.
Back in my prime it went up to 140 and people couldn't even log in, but I'm happy with what we have now. It's a far cry from the <42.5~ player weekly average we had last year.
Kappa wasn't removed, Omicron 74 was merged with it. Which made people angry because... reasons.
Anyway content is not an issue, fat is. @"Auzari" once said that Discovery needs more meat. What it has right now is a lot of fat with very little meat, which is to say a lot of content with absolutely zero impact or relevancy on gameplay or story. Right now, we're working on trimming that while at the same time adding content which is more accessible and useful for everyone, as well as working on ways to streamline activity in existing areas. It isn't going to be anywhere near as dramatic as some people are calling for, but you're definitely going to see some changes.
@DRV Hey man, nice to see you back again. While I definitely sympathize with the loss of ye olde 200 player count, what @Lythrilux said is correct. Its been steadily rising since about November or so and I think we can continue to make that number rise. Maybe I'm an optimist, an idiot, or both, and I've certainly been the patron saint of lost causes in the past, but I firmly believe that Discovery has a future if we're smart about it.
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