"New faction creation process and representation" discussion thread.

[Korrd]

In some cases, perhaps. In many, absolutely not.
There are many occasions and examples where someone having monopoly over an NPC faction would be indeed detrimental to the state of the server.
Not all factions have a sensible leadership, and some people, frankly, are addicted to power just a bit.
Some people have a problem admitting they are wrong.
Having someone have monopoly over an NPC faction just because he was there first is totally and utterly wrong.

The RP and diplomacy of NPC factions who have more than one official faction should be governed by an equal council of their leaders.
There should *not* be a monopoly on NPC factions. Of course we can't have two RM's, LN's, or BAF's, but that's just exceptions to the rule.

And furthermore, the control of NPC faction diplomacy from factions that are official should be divided according to the activity and merits of said factions.

If one particular faction represents the NPCs for say a year, and then comes another one, for example..
The power to control NPC faction policy *must* be divided between the two if both show enough prowess to capably lead it.
If one fails, the other one should get more power.
Simple as that.
Personally, I believe and always SHALL believe that a democratic system is an utter pre-requirement to everything.

Rather simply said:
No monopolies. No no and just no.

I see your point.

So you basically mean that it would be better to have all factions that go under the same NPC group to form a council that would then decide the course of action they should follow?
If so, it's a great idea that addresses a problem that is currently present on the server.

That would also give place to new RP opportunities, since there could be civil wars, splits, ingame and forumside council meetings, and a lot more things that do not happen often around here.


Now, in order to decentralize the power of a single faction over an NPC group, the following could be done:


On this graph, all factions whose alignment falls under the same NPC tag would form a council which will determine the common direction they should follow, along with policies regarding other factions, status inside the NPC group, functions of each other, etc. That way, no single faction would monopolize and NPC group, as the role of those would be played by the council instead of an individual faction.
In the case of the houses, which have multiple NPC that pursue the same goals but have different tasks, )like Police, Navy, etc), the situation should be different, as some of those should be allowed to perform certain actions that others wont or can't do.
Having the police looking for contraband instead of the navy, and having the navy to fight threats that require of military prowess to do so.

Now, should only official factions be permitted to be part of the council? Or should unofficial ones be allowed to form part of it too?

In order to answer that question, bear in mind that a new faction creation process would have to be taken into consideration, which is the one we are discussing now on the Admin forums.

Such process goes as follows:

- A new faction must be first created as an Unofficial faction. We'll call it Group from now on. Official factions can no longer be created from the beginning.
- That group will get the right to apply to became official after some time on the server and after having been reviewed and sufficient merit for it found.
- If they get that right, they then can submit the request, and be reviewed. They can then became official and get all the rights official factions can have, specially a seat in the council of factions, giving them some power over the NPC group they are part of.

So basically:

If you want to create a faction you start with a group and then after some time you make your petition to become official. If approved, you get a seat on the council of factions.


Remember that it's just a draft I just made. It needs to be developed if it is to be tested or implemented.

Okay. I've set the house on fire. Now, lets debate about it!

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[Korrd]

Questions that arise from this idea:


- In order to differentiate Factions from Groups, what kind of rights should [Official] Factions have over Groups or Independent players?

- Should the 500m fee stay or go?

- Should we limit the amount of official factions for each NPC group depending on the group? And what about Corporations whose headquarters are under the flag of a house?

- Should Independent players have a representative on the council?

- Should Factions be able to lose those rights if they go the wrong way?

- Should Groups have to abide by the policies set by the Council too?

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(Really, I speak terrible English, so please, tell me if I make mistakes. I'd like to improve it a bit )

[bluntpencil2001]

Effectively, this seems to make factions under the same NPC banner the one faction, if they have to go along with a policy decided in their own council. I'm not saying that this is either good or bad, just pointing it out.

For instance, the Corsair Council decides that Orbital Spa and Cruise are not to be pirated. The OPG say 'No, up yours' and do it anyway. Would they have to obey the Council? If they did, the Council is effectively a faction, whereas OPG is a subfaction.

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[Linkus]

Yes.

This does have issues though.
What of the [LN], [RM], IMG etc?
Are they to be still the ENTIRE NPC faction? Or must they only be part of the overal NPC faction?

I personally think that no player faction should control an entire NPC faction, since it removes RP possibilities for others for no good reason and actually restricts the player faction in question to the NPC faction's pre-set RP.
When the [SA] existed and not the [LN], people could say they took orders from the Northern Fleet etc. Now they are accused of lying about such things if they do not follow the [LN]'s orders. Simply because the entire admiralty must be in the [LN].
It effectively means all independants do have to follow the [LN], otherwise they are being OORP in roleplay.
If the [SA] existed instead, people would have more freedom.


EDIT:
- In order to differentiate Factions from Groups, what kind of rights should [Official] Factions have over Groups or Independent players?
They, through the overall Council, can set the uniform RP for the NPC faction and the groups and independants not on the Council must follow it. Otherwise they are being OORP.
Official factions should have complete control over their system. Move the say, the Liberty Capital ships to a new Guard Station in Texas etc. Let the Official factions do what they want with their system, though regulated in terms of reality. (No 500 Outcast Dreadnaughts in the LR system for instance)

- Should the 500m fee stay or go?
Stay but allow a refund of the money if the faction does not want a System or Barge.

- Should we limit the amount of official factions for each NPC group depending on the group? And what about Corporations whose headquarters are under the flag of a house?
No to the limit as a set rule. Yes in terms of proposals. This could be raised during the Officialisation proposal, as it already is.
Corporations should have their own Council. Considering the limited interest, it wouldn't turn into a monster of paperwork.

- Should Independent players have a representative on the council?
Yes. Somewhat like the Order Council, or the Council High Command over in Gallia. Both independants and the other Council factions are in it.

- Should Factions be able to lose those rights if they go the wrong way?
'Destabilize' the jumpholes to their system. In other words, yes. There must be consequences to bad form.

- Should Groups have to abide by the policies set by the Council too?
Yes. If they want to affect the policies, they should be elected by their fellow players as an Independant or form their own Official faction.
If the majority of players don't like the person's RP then well, majority rules I'm afraid.

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[Benjamin]

I don't see any problems with this really. Beyond the fact that, to my knowledge, most NPC factions just don't have more than one official faction? The corsairs and outcasts do, and the corsairs at least already have a council thing, with all the official factions and also indies represented on it. I think that's a pretty good method for it, really. But those two factions are fairly unique as far as I can see. But of course, if other factions for NPC groups crop up, I don't see why they shouldn't use the council method.

As for the faction creation method, I like it. It looks good. How exactly will it work, though? When you make a 'group,' do you post information about your faction on the forums for everyone to see? Or do you keep it all off the books until someone decides you're ready for review? Because at the moment, you have a somewhat similar situation. A lot of factions have submitted their review for officialdom and been waiting around for quite a while. I think the RFP is the oldest at the moment? In my mind at least, these factions are somewhere between unofficial and official.

So you'd make a thread for your faction, saying what it's about, how it works and so on, and leave it open for a while, absorb feedback, make changes, and so on, and then after a month or whatever, you'd get a vote, and if you passed, you can submit yourself for admin review?

Works for me, anyway.

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[n00bl3t]

Questions that arise from this idea:
- In order to differentiate Factions from Groups, what kind of rights should [Official] Factions have over Groups or Independent players?

- Should the 500m fee stay or go?

- Should we limit the amount of official factions for each NPC group depending on the group? And what about Corporations whose headquarters are under the flag of a house?

- Should Independent players have a representative on the council?

- Should Factions be able to lose those rights if they go the wrong way?

- Should Groups have to abide by the policies set by the Council too?

1) Will elaborate on further when it is not 3:30 AM.
2) The fee should go.
3) Unsure, would take work if yes.
4) Yes.
5) Yes.
6) Yes, if the council contains independent representatives.

Also, as stated before, there needs to be an appeals system which overrides the council's decision.

Edit:
Basically a faction does what it wants to. The council however, can stop them from doing what it deems to be bad. Council can be overruled.

Swift and Tazuras should be able to explain my idea about the council better than I can at the moment.

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Anything I say is not intended as offensive, and to try and deliberately misinterpret it as such would be an attempt at trolling via misrepresentation.

It's not a conspiracy, it's localised bias. They're not intelligent enough to form a conspiracy.

[bluntpencil2001]

Also, factions should not force people to go along with policies which violate NPC faction behaviour. If a BAF independent isn't allowed to shoot Outcasts, I shant be best pleased.

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[Spear]

Questions that arise from this idea:
- In order to differentiate Factions from Groups, what kind of rights should [Official] Factions have over Groups or Independent players?

- Should the 500m fee stay or go?

- Should we limit the amount of official factions for each NPC group depending on the group? And what about Corporations whose headquarters are under the flag of a house?

- Should Independent players have a representative on the council?

- Should Factions be able to lose those rights if they go the wrong way?

- Should Groups have to abide by the policies set by the Council too?

1. Official factions should control diplomacy and command fleet actions
2. The 500 mill fee should stay, if you want to be official, not only should you pay, but you need a solid RP application
3. I would prefer 1 official faction per NPC group but I realise this may be about as popular as a fart in an elevator
4. Indies that prove themselves by solid RP should be allowed a seat, but that would have to be at the support of the official faction.
5. No , rather they should be informed by the admin's that they have went wrong or too far and change their stance.
6. If there was a faction council, then yes, all groups aligned with that faction should follow council diplomacy

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=LSF=

[hribek]

This sounds reasonable. In some factions (like Corsairs, Outcasts - as far as I know) there have been there councils of sorts, as well - is this different from those? If it is, then how? Just to avoid confusion.

Also, let's keep this as simple as possible. Looking at this concept, only official factions should have an equal vote in the council.

But maybe this structure doesn't fit some factions, as you said yourself. From what I know, there haven't been any power struggles or hostile disagreements between the Lane Hackers and Hellfore Legion, for instance. So perhaps it's worth to ask ourselves where the problem is. Entire factions don't hunger for power, in my opinion. Some individuals might.

Politics. Eeeew.

[n00bl3t]

4. Indies that prove themselves by solid RP should be allowed a seat, but that would have to be at the support of the official faction.
5. No , rather they should be informed by the admin's that they have went wrong or too far and change their stance.

Why only at the support of a faction?

Also, removal of power should be after refusal to correct behaviour.

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Anything I say is not intended as offensive, and to try and deliberately misinterpret it as such would be an attempt at trolling via misrepresentation.

It's not a conspiracy, it's localised bias. They're not intelligent enough to form a conspiracy.