Main Faction Membership Limits

[Brandon Rhea]

I agree, there needs to be a balance, but now we've swung so far in the other direction we've ended up with the same problem of nothing really happening.

Except now we have the added bonus of the OOC boards looking like a bunch of Xbox live chat transcripts.

We need a chosen one to bring balance to the Force.

A lot of that has to do with how people operate in the RP. We have a very limited amount of rules - mindsets need to change more than rules. That's not to say rules can't change, but if people want to see change then they need to start looking in the mirror too.

If all anyone sees is competition, perhaps they should take a good look at their RPs and ask why there isn't more of a coherent site storyline. Because if I was to try to explain what Dawn of the Republic is about, I wouldn't be able to do it. I could tell you a series of events that have happened, but a 1-2 sentence elevator pitch/meta summary? No dice.

That's why, in my retirement from Head Admin, I've chosen to focus on story development over site management.

 

[Prudence]

Well I'll say this:

The one MF rule forces players to pick their faction one of two ways: which one needs me? Or which one will I enjoy most? And as this is a free time activity that we come to for enjoyment the answer will almost always be the second.

However we've gotten ourselves into a situation where the FLs of 2/3 of our MFs ( @Fyreleader @Vosrik ) will admit their factions are dying or in poor shape. And they will likely also admit that the experienced and active players on this site are gravitating towards one MF.

We've had players who choose to switch sides in order to try to fix this issue (@Sreeya @Jabonicus @Loco @Arclight ) and others (myself, @Proleptic ) who would like to, but doing so would require an unnatural twist in our characters story, or parting with them. And I can tell you this - it isn't fun fighting against someone who can't fight back. But it also isn't fun to part with a character you enjoy playing.

So when you've literally got active players potentially ruining, or ending some of their stories in order to try to level the playing field, and more willing to do so but not wanting to part with characters, why make it more difficult?

 

[Brandon Rhea]

That's happened in the last two timelines as well. People like going where they think they're going to win. Whatever pros and cons there are to the main faction limit itself, the main faction limit has nothing to do with what you described.

 

[Jabonicus]

That's happened in the last two timelines as well. People like going where they think they're going to win. Whatever pros and cons there are to the main faction limit itself, the main faction limit has nothing to do with what you described.

Regardless, the majority of people seem to believe that it should be lifted. Something may have its reasoning, but it the people it applies to simply don't agree with its use and purpose, then perhaps it shouldn't be enforced.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Regardless, the majority of people seem to believe that it should be lifted. Something may have its reasoning, but it the people it applies to simply don't agree with its use and purpose, then perhaps it shouldn't be enforced.

That's not the point I'm making. The rules aren't up to me. I'm not the head admin anymore. :)

 

[Gaiaverse]

That's happened in the last two timelines as well. People like going where they think they're going to win. Whatever pros and cons there are to the main faction limit itself, the main faction limit has nothing to do with what you described.

It seems it does...those guys either have to archive characters they enjoy playing simply so one faction doesn't steamroll the other. That's...not a good thing. That's terrible design.

I honestly don't see the point of the one main faction rule. This is a story telling forum right? The one main faction rule seems to promote an unhealthy amount of "Us vs Them" and suspicion of others and seems to be more for a solely PVP focused game then a RP forum.

Heck, even PVP driven games allow you to teamswitch.

 

[Gaiaverse]

I have to ask-What was the idea behind the one main faction rule?

In every RP thread, guild and site I've been one (I think it's...at least 20 or 30. Probably more) I'm been in, there was no rule about being limited to one faction/guild. (Through Sokan for example only lets you be an officer in one), even with ones that have a PVP focus to them (In fact, Sokan also does cross-faction PVP about the fate about planets/battles) and...everything went fine.

 

[Gaiaverse]

A lot of that has to do with how people operate in the RP. We have a very limited amount of rules - mindsets need to change more than rules. That's not to say rules can't change, but if people want to see change then they need to start looking in the mirror too.

If all anyone sees is competition, perhaps they should take a good look at their RPs and ask why there isn't more of a coherent site storyline. Because if I was to try to explain what Dawn of the Republic is about, I wouldn't be able to do it. I could tell you a series of events that have happened, but a 1-2 sentence elevator pitch/meta summary? No dice.

That's why, in my retirement from Head Admin, I've chosen to focus on story development over site management.

I mean, if you ever need a site-wide plotline....I literally send most of my day daydreaming about plots. Mostly of the military variety, but that doesn't always equate to PVP.

 

[Prudence]

That's happened in the last two timelines as well. People like going where they think they're going to win. Whatever pros and cons there are to the main faction limit itself, the main faction limit has nothing to do with what you described.

While I don't remember it that way, if that's how it was it's fine. Luckily we have some generous members, and the rest of this still applies:

However we've gotten ourselves into a situation where the FLs of 2/3 of our MFs ( @Fyreleader @Vosrik ) will admit their factions are dying or in poor shape. And they will likely also admit that the experienced and active players on this site are gravitating towards one MF.

We've had players who choose to switch sides in order to try to fix this issue (@Sreeya @Jabonicus @Loco @Arclight ) and others (myself, @Proleptic ) who would like to, but doing so would require an unnatural twist in our characters story, or parting with them. And I can tell you this - it isn't fun fighting against someone who can't fight back. But it also isn't fun to part with a character you enjoy playing.

So when you've literally got active players potentially ruining, or ending some of their stories in order to try to level the playing field, and more willing to do so but not wanting to part with characters, why make it more difficult?

 

[Gamov]

If all anyone sees is competition, perhaps they should take a good look at their RPs and ask why there isn't more of a coherent site storyline.

Not going to mince words, but maybe the reason there isn't a grander sense of story going on is because there wasn't much sense of a backstory for anyone to build off of. The lore for this timeline is very thin, and the factions (I feel) were poorly structured - designed more to mimic the set up we saw in The Fore Awakens than trying to be something more creative.

The Sith Brotherhood is this site's First Order, right down to the title of Supreme Leader. The Border Alliance was (up until it was reformed as the GAR) our "Resistance" in that they were the ones who decided to take the fight to the Sith while the Republic remained largely complacent - and at the time, the Republic as a faction was 100% useless as it's membership consisted exclusively of Senators.

I don't mean to sound particularly harsh, but we were basically given a cookie cutter rendition of TFA with a vague "capture the flag" objective (the Sith to capture Coruscant, the Jedi to capture Korriban) and allowed to just have at it. While the notion of a player driven story isn't an inherently awful idea in and of itself, it's very hard to continue telling a story that barely existed to begin with. To this day no member among the Sith faction - leadership or otherwise - can answer an oft posed question by newcomers: "how long ago was the last Sith Empire?"

And we kinda just have to shrug and tell them, "a long time ago. Don't worry too much about it."

It's those kinds of details that help people tell stories and get a grasp for where things could go next. Omitting them for one reason or another doesn't help give people any clear sense of where things were, so we can look at where we are now and say "okay, let's go here".

Just my two cents.

 

[Gaiaverse]

I've seen people say that they aren'there to hold people's hands and we should do what we want so and so forth.

The problem with that is that makes everything seem directionless. What would yo say if the DM of a DND didn't provide scenarios and play the NPCs, insteading giving you complete free reign? It be fun for the first session or so...then things would grind to a halt as no one knows what to do.

There's also the fact that the lore and backstory on this site....is lacking. Information that I would think would be important to know, such how long the last war was, were it took place and the scale of conflict are not even hinted at. The Jedi Council are just nameless NPCs that are only mentioned in the Knights backstory and the political landscape of the Republic is the most schizophrenic thing I've ever seen.

Which leads to everything feeling disorganized and like nothing you do has an actual effect. Why would I care that a council member is dead when I don't even know their name? Would should I care about a battalion of Sith troops being massacred NPCs don!t matter and we don't even how expensive those troops were to train, nor if they were an elite unit.

Heck, writing lore isn't hard. Just say 'The Great War lasted from 1020 BBY to 1000 BBY, taking place around the galaxy but mostly around the Tion cluster" and that would be fine. It gives us something to work with.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Not going to mince words, but maybe the reason there isn't a grander sense of story going on is because there wasn't much sense of a backstory for anyone to build off of. The lore for this timeline is very thin, and the factions (I feel) were poorly structured - designed more to mimic the set up we saw in The Fore Awakens than trying to be something more creative.

It's not based on The Force Awakens, since none of us had seen the movie at the time. Plus, if you're seeing similarities, that's a bit of a stretch. TFA had two tiny factions. Here we have a major galactic government, a fairly large Sith organization, and an army of Jedi. None of which existed in the foreground of TFA, since the New Republic was barely a factor in that movie.

Additionally, that thin backstory and lore is also how we always do things at the start of a timeline. Members generally build on that. This time, it's barely been built upon. And sorry for going light on lore when half of you spent the last timeline calling us the devil for trying to tell a story.

Stop blaming rules and admins for everything. There are issues there to be sure, but members need to take some responsibility too. If you can't do that, then nothing's going to change.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

By the way, y'all, remember something - I'm not an admin. I don't set the rules anymore. So when I say something like "this rule isn't to blame for X," I'm not advocating against a rules change. If the rules change, it's not up to me. So you don't need to treat my posts like I'm arguing against your proposal. The only comments I'm making here are to bring context and clarity, because if you want to change a rule then you should at least have all the facts around it.

 

[Loco]

We're getting incredibly off topic.

 

[Toska]

Really. The topic should never have been, "We should lift faction limit to disperse hostility." Freedom of creation, wanting to write multiple stories, and fostering those opportunities should have been the focus instead of tertiary mentions.

 

[Shalken]

Really. The topic should never have been, "We should lift faction limit to disperse hostility." Freedom of creation, wanting to write multiple stories, and fostering those opportunities should have been the focus instead of tertiary mentions.

To be fair, at least from what I can tell from @Loco's original post, lifting the rule to disperse hostility never was the intent of this poll or thread. In fact, whenever the topic was brought up and started to head deep down that slippery slope, he has often jumped in to keep us back on track and focus on discussing the impact the rule has from a storyboarding point of view, which I commend him for.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

We're getting incredibly off topic.

Who cares? There's a poll. People have made their points. Let the convo evolve. Good topics are being raised.

 

[Toska]

To be fair, at least from what I can tell from @Loco's original post, lifting the rule to disperse hostility never was the intent of this poll or thread. In fact, whenever the topic was brought up and started to head deep down that slippery slope, he has often jumped in to keep us back on track and focus on discussing the impact the rule has from a storyboarding point of view, which I commend him for.

Amigo, I commented after Loco as a reinforcing perspective, not a combative one.

 

[Mistress]

For feeling disconnected, one of the things I did like about a previous site I belonged to, is the Admins designated a few people to write DM posts into randomly selected threads. These were based around what was developing site wide. Instead of joining posted threads, characters dealt with issues they weren't expecting. Writers could even request a turn of events be posted into their threads when they just seemed stagnant. While a dead thread is a dead thread, there are some here who don't like to leave a good story without a completion. During holidays, while most could be online, lots of writers joined together to write in these random situation threads. If people designated someone else as a DM to host their threads, it could help to keep things moving. One creative enough, could turn out to be pretty amusing.

 

[FinnSimmons]

That's happened in the last two timelines as well. People like going where they think they're going to win. Whatever pros and cons there are to the main faction limit itself, the main faction limit has nothing to do with what you described.

To me this is the most important and noteworthy thing about this. Has the open system aka “no one main faction rule” worked? No according to what has been said above. Did the “one main faction rule” fare any different? No, again according to what has been said above.
Two things are causing the flow of players imo.
The most obvious of course being which side is winning/losing right now. This too has been stated by others before.
The second most important from my experience would be where are most of the people someone writes with. Factions will loose some players/activity if some especially liked person with their character switches to another faction.

I don't think the solution to this whole issue is simply doing away with all restrictions that people don't like or enjoy. Instead we should be thinking about what would be a better way to handle faction loyalty and how we can still allow people, who feel they need to have a character in every faction, to do so.
Rules should give everybody the largest amount of wiggle room without giving anyone a way to abuse them and/or be a douche.

Closing words on the issue of competitiveness:
Why do people argue like crazy in the PvP OOC threads if it's all just in good fun and not about winning? Because that looks plenty competitive to me.
Just because its a written RP and even the lack of UI notwithstanding PvP is still a game and it's about winning. Winning means having competition and that makes it competitive to me.