Orex Industries - Official Faction Request [2]

[Orex Industries]

Wrong edit

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[Venkman]

I've updated the info page and added a bit of flavor, feedback is appreciated.

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Orex Armaments

[Haste]

If you want honest feedback, it would really help to actually put some meaningful, gameplay/lore/Freelancer-related information in there. It still reads like soulless, meaningless ChatGPT-generated drivel. The typical ChatGPT bullet point list isn't really helping, but:

Safety
All staff members receive safety training to make sure they understand and can properly execute our safety procedures. This training is consistently refreshed to integrate the safety regulations and techniques.

Wow! That's so cool! I bet your stock would go up by 0.27% at the very least reading this amazing blurb. But what does this mean in the game universe? Could you elaborate? What safety procedures?

I don't know if the nonsense about "abiding by laws" (What laws? You're Zoners in the Omicrons? The Order's laws? The Core? Which ones?) and "sustainability principles" (Are you worried about polluting Omicron Delta? Could you elaborate on this? Is this epic Gaian roleplay?) or whatever is still in some of your infopages, but it all has just come across as utterly lazy. I have yet to be convinced a human being was even involved in the writing of most of the supposed lore of this faction.

Personally I wouldn't have had the balls to draw attention to any of this.

You copy-pasted some text twice here - perhaps from a ChatGPT thread, but I wouldn't make such baseless accusations - and it's still in post-edit:

Orex Industries owes its existence to two extraordinary founders who combined their passion for innovation, entrepreneurship, and humanitarianism: Orex Industries owes its existence to two extraordinary founders who combined their passion for innovation, entrepreneurship, and humanitarianism:

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Let's put it this way. If you don't care at all about your faction's lore and it apparently all just boils down to "We mine Iridium, here's some Lorem Ipsum about how we do it", why should anyone else care? And if nobody cares, why do you want to be official?

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[Venkman]

If you want honest feedback, it would really help to actually put some meaningful, gameplay/lore/Freelancer-related information in there. It still reads like soulless, meaningless ChatGPT-generated drivel. The typical ChatGPT bullet point list isn't really helping, but:

Safety
All staff members receive safety training to make sure they understand and can properly execute our safety procedures. This training is consistently refreshed to integrate the safety regulations and techniques.

Wow! That's so cool! I bet your stock would go up by 0.27% at the very least reading this amazing blurb. But what does this mean in the game universe? Could you elaborate? What safety procedures?

I don't know if the nonsense about "abiding by laws" (What laws? You're Zoners in the Omicrons? The Order's laws? The Core? Which ones?) and "sustainability principles" (Are you worried about polluting Omicron Delta? Could you elaborate on this? Is this epic Gaian roleplay?) or whatever is still in some of your infopages, but it all has just come across as utterly lazy. I have yet to be convinced a human being was even involved in the writing of most of the supposed lore of this faction.

I took Tunicle's advice and added a bit of flavor to what Orex does, which is mainly like it says on the info page - Iridium extraction. Sure, it is a bit vague when it comes to safety procedures, but I believe that going into very detail about that is simply unnecessary.

The bullet point is but a simple formatting thing that adds to the aesthetic of the info page. The information provided in that bullet point narrows down how things are done within the company.

You copy-pasted some text twice here - perhaps from a ChatGPT thread, but I wouldn't make such baseless accusations - and it's still in post-edit:

Orex Industries owes its existence to two extraordinary founders who combined their passion for innovation, entrepreneurship, and humanitarianism: Orex Industries owes its existence to two extraordinary founders who combined their passion for innovation, entrepreneurship, and humanitarianism:

That was just a bbcode formatting mistake, as I was editing the page in another tab and then copy-pasted it onto a different tab, I didn't realize that I didn't delete the copy.

Let's put it this way. If you don't care at all about your faction's lore and it apparently all just boils down to "We mine Iridium, here's some Lorem Ipsum about how we do it", why should anyone else care? And if nobody cares, why do you want to be official?

If I didn't care about it I wouldn't try to go Official nor would I meddle with the info page and other RP, I would just mine Iridium. So yeah, I do care, hence why I'm looking for feedback. And to be perfectly frank with you Haste, the very reason why we got denied the first time and why it took you guys almost a whole month to respond to our request is simply because you had to nitpick everything and come up with some bullshit that would justify our denial, to which I went along with, I took the L, but that's beside the point. The point is that I very much care and am doing my best to write RP, come up with an interesting info page, and give create something for my members to do.

So if you have any suggestions on what gameplay/FL lore would be a good addition to this, I'm all ears.

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Orex Armaments

[Haste]

So if you have any suggestions on what gameplay/FL lore would be a good addition to this, I'm all ears.

That tends to be the job of the faction creator, who no doubt is passionate about their original and fun faction concept and wants to share it with the world.

You have successfully written an infopage that is either the result of some ChatGPT wrangling or not. Well, no, let's not beat around that bush: it's just a ChatGPT prompt with or without some human editing to put in some key words and maybe change some phrashing here or there to throw people off the scent. Unfortunately, however, the result is that it doesn't actually mean anything. Nobody cares about how Safe and Efficient and Environmentally Friendly (this one will never stop being funny, sorry) your Mining Processes™ are. It's just filler text. Reskinned Lorem Ipsum.

You know that, I know that. There's not actually anything wrong with using ChatGPT as a helpful tool, either. I'm not a native speaker and it's helped me find some synonyms and alternative ways to phrase things more than once. But by still doing most of the writing myself, there's sometimes a small nugget of meaning hidden in my roleplay (posts).

What I would like the infopage to read is information about what sets this faction apart. Zoners have a bonus on Iridium, and you've basically used a couple hundred words to say that you are in fact using the Zoner ID and, believe it or not, mining Iridium. But let's say I wanted to join your faction, what particular traits would I hook onto to create an interesting character to fit in? Your mining safety standards? Do I roleplay a living hard hat?

You used the word "flavor" when describing your edit to the OP, but that's the one thing I can't find in it.

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You could've at least moved Site Preparation a little further down, almost every ChatGPT prompt about operational procedures for Iridium mining literally opens with it.

The more I look at this the more I just want to ask the following question: are you actually serious? There is nothing wrong with admitting that this faction is just a fun mining & code manufacturing group for you and your friends, and that the degree to which people care about roleplaying it is up to your members. I'd respect that. Obviously, that would mean that chasing OF status just isn't particularly fitting, which is why we're here reading meaningless robot-speak. But it's almost insulting that you'd encourage people to read your ChatGPT prompt and marketed it as "some added flavor". No. It actually is just flat-out insulting.

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[TheSauron]

Nobody cares about how Safe and Efficient and Environmentally Friendly your Mining Processes™ are

I care

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One MD Admiral

[Venkman]

The more I look at this the more I just want to ask the following question: are you actually serious? There is nothing wrong with admitting that this faction is just a fun mining & code manufacturing group for you and your friends, and that the degree to which people care about roleplaying it is up to your members. I'd respect that. Obviously, that would mean that chasing OF status just isn't particularly fitting, which is why we're here reading meaningless robot-speak. But it's almost insulting that you'd encourage people to read your ChatGPT prompt and marketed it as "some added flavor". No. It actually is just flat-out insulting.

It is a fun mining group for me and my friends, it always has been, but it's also a faction that we're trying to develop, and the fact that you're insulted by our info page is, I don't know how to put it... strange(?).

I mainly use Thesaurus for my writing, it helps with finding fitting words and phrases, but the way you're putting all this is like everything is AI written, which is not by the way. Maybe I'm just a sick iridium-mining robot.

Though I get what you're trying to say here, I do, and I'll try to elevate this faction by further editing the info page, perhaps until it has enough flavor that it satisfies the reader instead of insulting it, as you say.

Appreciate your feedback.

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Orex Armaments

[_WOLF_]

Nobody cares about how Safe and Efficient and Environmentally Friendly your Mining Processes™ are

I care

[jammi]

I've read through the writeup, and something that jumps out at me is it really doesn't read like it was written with Discovery (or even Freelancer!) in mind.

It's a generic blurb that explains how IRL terrestrial mining operations work (talking about 'rock formations' in the context of asteroid mining is very strange!). The paragraphs on the founders read like cardboard cutouts of generic corporate executives. You've talked about implementing the requirements of safety regulations, when there is no government to enforce them or regulations to apply in the deep Omicrons.

What I would hope to see and is conspicuously missing is the group's in-universe history. Why are they Zoners? How did they get started? What are their supply lines? Who are their clients? How are they adapting to Delta, probably the single most dangerous frontier in the sector? How are the founders associated with the Zoner movement, its philosophies, etc? Which "society" (mentioned in Hartley's writeup) are they trying to benefit?

The word Zoner appears 4 times in your writeup. Once to set the IFF and ID, once in the opening paragraph which honestly reads more like a reaffirmation of the ID, and once in your linked thread to other Zoners.

There is literally nothing that describes how or why the group self-identifies with the Zoners, and how that identity impacts their approach to or interactions with other groups. It would be nice if this was addressed, rather than leaving the inference that there isn't actually any strong reason for the ID choice beyond the mining bonus.

Your description of Iridium doesn't reference any of Discovery's core uses for the product (including those explicitly noted in the commodity infocard!), but does talk about aerospace applications, which is an incredibly strange choice of words given the context in Freelancer.

I don't want to beat a dead horse and relitigate the issue of whether this writeup was AI generated or not, but regardless of who actually wrote it, there really is little of actual substance being said. You could lift this writeup and apply it to any generic mining operation by simply find+replacing the ID, IFF, ore and system.

I would strongly suggest rewriting this to be more specific to your group and its actual circumstances.

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News article library, feedback and content requests.

[Chxlls]

Thank you, @Tunicle, @Haste, and @jammi for the constructive feedback and criticism.

It is clear that the info page needs some updating. As someone who was brought into the command structure only recently, I will see to it that it is updated to the standards you'd like to see an Official Faction operate at.

What I will say, not as a counter-point but as an aside, is that @Venkman has put a lot of time and effort into this faction, alongside the other members, in other ways besides the info page. I understand how important the info page is to a faction, as it represents not only who they are, but who they came from and what they look to be. But, Venkman has done an incredible job with the aesthetics of the BBCode, the pages themselves, and the overall activity of the faction on Discovery as a whole, which to me, speaks more volumes than any info page or writeup could do.

Orex has, since it's inception, provided positive and impactful roleplay in various forms across much of Sirius, and has provided a vital trade artery in Omicron Delta, something that other Zoner factions have been unable or unwilling to do, much like the RPA and the Mollys in Dublin. Additionally, Orex has not only centered a large amount of roleplay around Earhart through forums, but has also had positive interactions, both from a PvP and Roleplay perspective, and is one of maybe 4-5 factions to have actively used Earhart as an extension of its Zone of Influence, rather than people making a bunch of indie ships and trying to avoid interaction at all costs while collecting their much needed code-weapon materials.

Now, Venkman is not a native English-speaker, and obviously, it's much more difficult for him to make perfect-sounding posts when it comes to more in-depth storytelling that an Official Faction should have to be respected amongst the community. That is why I was brought in. And it doesn't need to be reiterated that AI was used to make the original forum pages. As a group, we have higher aspirations as a faction, although, yes, it did start as a group to mine and do Zoner stuff together. We'd like to expand that beyond it's original inception. Perhaps our OFdom request was a bit hasty (no pun intended), but Venkman, and the rest of the leadership, is excited about the faction and wants to share it with others, in a more official capacity.

From now on, if anyone has something to say about the faction's writeups, lore, or quality of storytelling, it falls on my shoulders alone. I will make it my personal responsibility to get Orex where it needs to be in that respect. Feel free to reach out to me on Discord, which you all have, to discuss what needs or does not need to be updated.

Thank you.