TBH, we need to rethink what we expect from OF's. Attaining officialdom in itself is a huge chore that few successfully accomplish - and for little or no tangible benefits unless they're trying to make a new kind of faction or canonize a new NPC faction.
The process of maintaining officialdom has little or nothing to do with contributing to the server in any real capacity - a lot of people either just log out of sheer obligation and do the bare minimum to keep the legacy of their hard work from dying, and it's not a good look.
(01-02-2021, 05:38 AM)EisenSeele Wrote: TBH, we need to rethink what we expect from OF's. Attaining officialdom in itself is a huge chore that few successfully accomplish - and for little or no tangible benefits unless they're trying to make a new kind of faction or canonize a new NPC faction.
The process of maintaining officialdom has little or nothing to do with contributing to the server in any real capacity - a lot of people either just log out of sheer obligation and do the bare minimum to keep the legacy of their hard work from dying, and it's not a good look.
Cannot really input on farming time but I wholeheartedly agree to the post above: the whole system of OF is worth being reconsidered. As of now there are little to no incentive becoming and therefore staying OF. If we require of OF RP contribution, activity, and else, then the benefits should correspond their expectations. Right now the benefits are really really meagre and can easily be achieved on an indie or UF with the correct approach. Unless the OF really have something unique to benefit from their status except for ID (that can be tailored by UF by choosing the ID corresponding their gameplay), unique tech-comp (again, UF and indies can SRP/find the proper ships available to generic IDs), farmable CAU VIII (that is still to be waited for ages), and almost never used FR5, I see no point becoming an OF.
(01-02-2021, 05:38 AM)EisenSeele Wrote: TBH, we need to rethink what we expect from OF's. Attaining officialdom in itself is a huge chore that few successfully accomplish - and for little or no tangible benefits unless they're trying to make a new kind of faction or canonize a new NPC faction.
The process of maintaining officialdom has little or nothing to do with contributing to the server in any real capacity - a lot of people either just log out of sheer obligation and do the bare minimum to keep the legacy of their hard work from dying, and it's not a good look.
On top of that, not all factions are equal in terms of offering gameplay aveneus. It's much harder to keep active as purely trading faction than it is to be active as mining+trading faction. Same with police and navy or intelligence comparison - you can see every house have rather stable active military faction, while there is only LPI (in most active house) as longterm official faction at this moment. At least police factions get the TLAGSNET and /nodock as their features, while trading factions have no edge over mining factions.
Take The Wild - Indie ID is borderline unplayable for a faction, where getting to OF has amassive overwhelming jump in terms of how you can play the game and what you can do.
The jump is so huge and the indie ID so weak I'd be shocked if there ever would be anyone mad enough to event attempt to suffer on it to try to get officialdom after Division Vipere.
Then there's trading mining factions - mining get 4.0. It's not a big deal at all. Trading factions gain nothing in terms of gameplay. We made OF in ALG, but then what...It's All the same, the guys didn't even bother to update Mactan or rephack sheets and we imploded, because it's the same thing but for extra work.
Now there is newly circlejerking present where even if you make it to OF, you won't make it to government of the house as a lawful (Liberty and LIA). And there's a possibility you wouldn't even have a rep in a working group - you will be "considered" because there is "too many". And people actively discourage you from going for OF. 46th were told by people they wouldn't event get it by now because of some staff opinions, despite playing the game more than all other factions combined by a large margin and bringing huge activity.
Where some factions cruise to officialdom by afk farming time for 2/3 of their activity. Or staying there by mass logging to AFK in their system in last days of the quarter
fringe factions
Now when it does come to restrictions
If you make them, you kill the NPC faction and discourage people from making and keeping a faction on them long enough to consider going official
Take the outdated restriction on rewards boards - you want to make a faction nobody plays
You want to give to community by opening a blanket rewards board for the ID, on targets they can already shoot anyways. You have to jump through bureocradic hoops and need a lawyer to figure out what you can do, and the npc factions stay dead.
Restricting gameplay is not the way to go either, and needs to be rethought too to not discourage dead factions from being played.
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