How far are players and factions allowed to diverge from the storyline in the mod?

[Cannon]

I'm interested in the community's view of how much are players and factions allowed to change from the story defined in the mod.

I believe this affects things like:
- Are imported and non NPC factions allowed.
- What sorts of alliances are allowed. For example could LR get docking rights on RM bases; could they RP the use of RM equipment...
- Potentially allows players to write their faction IDs.

Some recent examples I think of groups and situations that might fall into this category are
- The Virulian Enclave official faction request
- Corsair and BHG non-agression pact.
- Corsair and BHG attacks on Zoners.
- Outcast agreement with BAF.
- Order attacking Corsairs.
- GMG thing with Outcasts.
- Zoner/Corsair/Order/RHA/RM/RoS/BAF/VR/HF funfest in Omega-3 (did I miss anybody)
- Molly agreement with Bretonia.
- SCRA/RHA/Molly attacks on the Zoners.
- Liberty Navy and Rogue attacking the SCRA (together).
- Secret IND/Admin alliance.

I'm looking for statements like:
- I think we should let all players RP what they want to do.
- I think we should let official factions RP what they want to do.
- I think we should restrict players to the story line because it makes it easier for people to understand how they should play their character.

There are many other positions. I'm interested in hearing what people think. Try not to get caught up in "zoner zoner zoner stuff" please.

EDIT: Added a couple of other examples.

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Proud member of "the most paranoid group of people in the community"

Old Avatar #2 | Old Avatar #3

[Cosmos]

- I think we should let all players RP what they want to do.
- I think we should let official factions RP what they want to do.

I rarely play the game, But yeah that would make better sense of a roleplaying environment, Allowing your character to "Evolve"

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[22:50:33] ☆ҳ̸̲Ҳ̸ҳEternal†Nightmareҳ̸̲Ҳ̸ҳ☆(illi): i cyber with leather torps (smoking)

[Jinx]

i have stated some my view about it in the past at some point ( its not like the recent outbreak of ooRP and personal grudges is the first time )


every faction has core traits - and additional traits. - those traits summed up together are the "stats" of the faction - they MAKE the faction what it is.


if you alter some additional traits, you alter the faction - and the whole faction may bend this way or that. - official factions can do that - non-factionized usually don t have the organization and power to do it.

altering core traits however is reserved for igiss to change or the dev team ONLY. - touching those as a mere player, factionized or not - is a violation of the roleplay basics of the faction.

now - we are playing a free-roam game - and even more, we play a roleplaying game.

some players are of the opinion that everything is RIGHT if you

-get away with it
-do not get sanctioned
-have enough other players who cheer at you on the forum, backing you up
-you re really really sure about yourself

however - some people question what the development team wrote and or the core traits of the factions over and over. - that is ... for the m ost part... a very detrimental attitude...

cause players often lack sufficient clarity to look at ALL the consequences ( and they are rarely prepared to take responsibility for them ). devs might be a bit better off, cause they simply have easier access to more information - and things are discussed in a smaller circle of players ( which devs are, too )




the baseline is:

- an official faction can make a few changes that alter some parts of a NPC f actions RP - but not the core. - what exactly the core traits IS - is up to the devs, the admins and igiss... but NOT the players t hat with to change it in the first place, cause we must assume that those are biased too much.


if we let players RP with utmost freedom, they twist and turn the NPC faction balance so much - that nothing is recongnizable in the end... and it will NOT be the players that initiated it that will unwind it - these players depart with a smirk and a "uh - its only a game, why so serious?!"






--> i think we need core traits that MUST NOT BE BEND OR BROKEN by NO ONE but the devs! - everything else is up to whatever reason is left of both individual players or packs of players - usually known as factions.

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[Ceoran]

The Mod storyline should be taken as a guideline for the players to play along. Where's the point in having one at all if noone is using it?
Roleplay means to play your character within certain pre-defined limits and not to do whatever you want.

edit: Also, what Jinx said.

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My Stories Outcast laws and structures Join Samura|-

Go play the game, within the given limitations. That is how role play games are played. Not by trying to work around those limitations or whining about them.

[Heraklion]

A little bit of both

- I think we should let all players RP what they want to do.
- I think we should restrict players to the story line because it makes it easier for people to understand how they should play their character.

If we would restrict players to the storyline... then it would just get pretty boring after a while, although I have to say some people come up with ideas a little farfetched...

EDIT:

The Mod storyline should be taken as a guideline for the players to play along. Where's the point in having one at all if noone is using it?
Roleplay means to play your character within certain pre-defined limits and not to do whatever you want.

What he said!

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[Linkus]

- I think we should let official factions RP what they want to do.

We are a community.
We play this game and this mod.
We create this mod.
We shape this mod.

Why not let factions, and players alike, progress this mod?

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Facilitating the rise of robotics since 0 A.D.

[Sturmwind]

Imo, official factions should more or less follow the guidelines set by the NPC faction RP. Seeing that there is only one faction allowed per ID, I think that the official faction should be the manifestation of that NPC faction, simply that they're role played by players.

I don't see anything wrong with factions amending diplomacy though, especially in-RP small ones like the SCRA and the Bundschuh, as long as it doesn't get to a ridiculous extent, like an RM-LR alliance would be (no, it will never happen). Personally, I oppose all shapes and forms of lawful-unlawful alliances or even NAPs due to morale that should be present, basically.

Alliances and new wars are justified in-RP, if it gets out of the line, it can be settled with an update anyway.

[Moreton]

- I think we should let all players RP what they want to do.
- I think we should let official factions RP what they want to do.

"I think we should let all players RP what they want to do, with the full in-RP consequences." by somebody I won't name from SKYPE.

Too many people seem to think they can act how they want, then when inRP consequences come smashing down on their heads everyone screams power gaming. Too many faction leaders are too scared too act as they should when somebody tries too screw the faction because of the backlash they might receive. What people don't realise is tell faction leaders they can't act as should in RP when RP action is needed is hypocrisy. /mini-rant over.

EDIT:I like the story lines the devs give out, however would it be possible to edit the storyline as a player? It's no secret that in the coming updates, Bretonia is getting screwed over, but if Bretty players gained a significant amount of victories over Gallia, and a much larger ratio of winning| losing, could the course of the war be changed?

[SeaFalcon]

Well I guess I get Q_Q'ed upon when saying I want the factions to stay within their place as vanilla.

Which automatically means restrictions.
All the official faction groups have grown pretty big and this meant more friction between people their opinions within a faction.

Some things make no sense to me
(When I say that people start looking at "This is disco get used to it")
Okay not everything has to, ad least not to me. But it has to make sense for the faction where it stands for.

So the thing I'm trying to say is.
Let the official factions stick to the vanilla point of view of the faction.
Okay they can make small deals outside it.
But the deal shouldn't come up in conflict with to many things.

Example:
LR deal with RM = LR has nothing to look for in Rheinland
But ofcourse the LR can take advantage of invasions.
Although LR's withing the LR faction might have different thoughts about the rheinlanders. One might see them as things going to worse if they would rule liberty others might see them as heroes to come and safe liberty from ... liberty?

BHG pact with Corsairs = It's just to high up the ladder to make it actually work in game or INRP.

So in short I'm for a more supervision of official factions.
Let all involving parties have a vote also in-direct parties.

and official faction stands for a group of people but also most indies since they get dragged with the factions verdict.

But things must not get to complicated because people still like freelancer because you can do about everything and it ain't like real life.
But with a big community some things need rules and supervision, thats just a fact.

Although I have no solution to this issue
IMO is that people should still be allowed to RP freely although factions need to look carefully at the consequences some of their decisions might mean to others.

[Zelot]

I think any player driven changes to the game should be done very slowly.

Examples of why we have to be careful of things like this.
- Discussion of adding a Buccaneers NPC faction, then before it could even be implemented the faction goes tits up. (No offense to the players involved, it's just how these things go sometimes)
- The Necrosis is added to the game, and Monstar leaves the game.


There is another issue of poor planning for long term rp effects that will come into play. We can see in the game today, the effects of some of the poor planning in the actual story line of the game, (Order/Corsair, Hessians/Blood Dragons/Outcasts) just imagine the long term effects if the players in general or even the factions were given control of the storyline.

I think the end, any player or faction driven changes in the story line should have to pass some kind of test of time, so that they can be demonstrated to have, understood long term consequences, long term viability of any factions involved, and to make sure any created relations are more than a flash in the pan.

At what point does this stop being an RP game? If we are no longer playing the roles we are given, and instead just go about creating the roles we want to play? Where is the line between player and game master if the players control the parameters of the roles and story?

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