Third Faction Poll

[sidusar]

Imagine that the anti-homin factions gained control of surface and and used "loyal" homins as their soldiers in the war against each other (similar to how it is now, but more escalated). However the pro-homin factions decide to work together to try and expand, which brings the Trytonists to light.

That'd be awesome.

Well, not so much the idea itself, as the underlying thought that the story could evolve so much. I'd love to be able to tell the newbies in a few years: "You know those Kami that invade our cities regularly? They used to be our protectors, you know. And those giant insects we breed to fight for us, they used to be our greatest enemy."

But I agree with Pero that whatever they make of it, it needs to be introduced properly, not just pop up suddenly in a patch. Another species of mysterious beings could plausibly appear on Atys overnight, but building an entire faction of followers takes months at the least.

I also agree that any political entity they introduce, be it faction or government or tribe or whatever, needs to have it's own flaws and dubious morals. No side should have the moral highground, and so far Elias has quite obviously held the hero role (though personally I rather like the idea of him turning into a powerhungry megalomaniac as his cult grows in power. )

[michielb]

The third faction could be made up of those who do not believe Jena and Ma-Duk are gods; leaders yes and certainly powerful but not gods. They would not be organized as the two other factions are but rather made up of individuals with similar idea’s and ideals. They would be thinkers, explorers and builders. Their goal would be to discover the truth about Kami and Karavan and to uncover homin’s lost history and use this information to unite homin kind.
The third faction would not be a pacifist one though some of it’s members might be. It is however their believe that the faction war weakens homin kind and should therefore stop so that homins can focus on the fight against the Kitin and the Goo.
In terms of game mechanics this “faction” would need missions/quest lines to uncover lost knowledge, skills to find and identify artifacts and of course artifacts to find. Perhaps they could even learn to reverse engineer certain technology or decipher ancient scripts to learn new spells.

The search of this third faction could be used to drive the story and expand the world and while some of the knowledge they gather would be considered forbidden by one or even both of the factions the rest could be shared freely.
There’s much more that could be done with this but I’d be writing for weeks and probably lose myself in details… I think that this idea could be implemented in small steps and with relative ease while at the same time introducing some new and exciting elements to the game.

[acridiel]

Thing is, the search for lost knowledge was supposed to be one of the main driving goals for all homins. As indicated in the, still dysfunctional, encyclopedia.

Sadly all of this was lost when Nevrax went downhill.
No-one to blame but bad financial managing.

But it would be awesome to have this finally implemented for real, for everyone to participate, as was promised.

As I had explained before, the trouble with a third faction having some form of "contend" others would not have, will always bring down the envy and the wrath of most players down on Devs and other players alike.
So it´s simply not an option to put in such a thing.
Factions could safely differ in ideologies. But never in playable content.

CU
Acridiel

[michielb]

Thing is, the search for lost knowledge was supposed to be one of the main driving goals for all homins. As indicated in the, still dysfunctional, encyclopedia.

True but what I'm suggesting isn't just knowledge it's finding out what the two powers are hiding, the stuff they don't want us to know.

As I had explained before, the trouble with a third faction having some form of "contend" others would not have, will always bring down the envy and the wrath of most players down on Devs and other players alike.
So it´s simply not an option to put in such a thing.
Factions could safely differ in ideologies. But never in playable content.

CU
Acridiel

You have a point however there's allready faction exclusive "content" available only through honour points (PvP(different rewards for both factions)) and it would be hard to maintain the lore while at the same time allowing factioned players to gain knowledge that is outlawed by their gods.

Either Atys will allways be ruled by the Kami and Karavan or someone will have to find the truth about them. Maybe that will mean they will abandon homin kind or maybe it will simply change the relationship between homins and the two powers, it could even mean open hostilities but it is the only way to move the story forward.

Of course if the Kara and kami are simply to justify PvP then this is a mute point but if it's not exposing them as false gods will be the only way for homin kind to advance...

Moreover I never said the rewards would be neutral only. a Kami follower could decide to find out the truth about the karavan, a Kara could seek to expose the evil kami. Both would gain forbidden knowledge both could get away with it as long as the knowledge gained is no threat to their own faction.

However, anyone who would port to a Kara TP holding a gun based on Kara tech would be in serious trouble regardless of faction...

Anyone can work secretly to overthrow "the powers that be" even from within the system....

[acridiel]

True but what I'm suggesting isn't just knowledge it's finding out what the two powers are hiding, the stuff they don't want us to know.

Uhm, but isn´t knowing what they don´t want us to know knowledge? 0ô

You have a point however there's allready faction exclusive "content" available only through honour points (PvP(different rewards for both factions)) and it would be hard to maintain the lore while at the same time allowing factioned players to gain knowledge that is outlawed by their gods.

And you´re deliberately mixing Ingame-Factions with Offplay preferences of Gamestyle.
Sorry, but that´s not a valid argument.

Karavan vs. Kami, does not automatically mean Non-PvP Players vs. PvP-Players.
And even if at the moment these items are only avaliable through PvP, that does not mean that this will be so forever. Nor that these are needed to do anything about any supposed oppressors by pacifists or neutrals.

Either Atys will allways be ruled by the Kami and Karavan or someone will have to find the truth about them. Maybe that will mean they will abandon homin kind or maybe it will simply change the relationship between homins and the two powers, it could even mean open hostilities but it is the only way to move the story forward.

Right, but why would that have to be a third "faction"?
Why coud it not be done by those within the "Factions" that don´t fully trust their benefactors, like you obviously do. Insurgents, so to say
This would of course evectively form a "third faction", but not one that would be in any case different from the other players, except for their loyalties.
So, why always the mechanical approach if a purely RP approach would also suffice?

Of course if the Kara and kami are simply to justify PvP then this is a mute point but if it's not exposing them as false gods will be the only way for homin kind to advance...

True, so a third faction would be moot indeed.

Moreover I never said the rewards would be neutral only. a Kami follower could decide to find out the truth about the karavan, a Kara could seek to expose the evil kami. Both would gain forbidden knowledge both could get away with it as long as the knowledge gained is no threat to their own faction.

Again true, but even here more of an RP approach, backed up by some mechanical quested knowledge maybe, or thus gained through RP Events.

However, anyone who would port to a Kara TP holding a gun based on Kara tech would be in serious trouble regardless of faction...

Anyone can work secretly to overthrow "the powers that be" even from within the system....

Exactly, but if the one holding the gun, which was maybe even given to him by the Karavan trough a special rite/mission/quest, was a "trusted" Karavan follower, with mechanical 100% fame in that faction, he´d be in no trouble at all.
So again, a mechanical third faction would be moot.

CU
Acridiel

[jared96]

But then they still should not be able to reap any significant advantages over or equal to the other factions. Simply because they don´t „fight the good fight“ in this warlike setting......Now, if a supposed third or fourth faction would grant advantages for staying pacifistic it would again make sense. But only if these advantages were significantly different from those gained by way of fighting.

Why ? Who gets to define what the "good fight" is ?

What I define the "good fight" as the one against the kitin and since it's "homin vs. kitin" then anyone who reduces homin population is fighting the "bad fight", threatening the very existence of hominkind and needs to be penalized.

Way back when there was a patch that changed how weapons work. In relation to the "base weapon (sword) axe got a boost in damage but with a penalty in speed. Adjustments were made to all of the weapons with the goal being that each would be very different but that there was no "best" weapon. Each had an advantage and each had a corresponding disadvantage. Now if the patch was axe got boosted 20% damage and 20% speed and everything else stayed as is now, how many people would not be using an axe as their primary weapon ?

If you are going to have any segment of the population that has an advantage over another segment, the disadvantaged community will simply have a lower retention rate than the advantaged one. In other words, if you want to reduce game population, create elitist classes and rewards that a segment of the population can never participate in.

I find it quite amusing when I hear preaching about "faction loyalty being rewarded" when said preachers are happily using weapons made with OP mats generated by opposing faction drills. Why not a call to make them useless to opposing faction players useless ? Why not a call to disable the 100s of stored opposing faction TP contracts that peeps have stored in their apartments ? Why not a call to have faction boosted weps "less functional" in regions native to the opposing faction where their chosen faction holds less sway ?

Why does the entire argument always boil down to "I want an extra advantage that other players can't have" ?

This **IS** the heart of Ryzom's attraction. No race has a "built in" advantage over another. No class has a "built in" advantage over another. Ryzom's attraction is that you can "be all you can be".

Let me propose this scenario....The Matis Marauders declare on the Tryker Troublemakers. As soon as this happens, the Kitin Observer announces that the Kitin, having gotten wind of this attack, KP's are now going to invade the attacking guild's region since it's now weakened by their absence, and the KO issues a call to arms. The game calculates the amount of cats and other goodies that the OP's of participating guilds have made or that guild members have used since they last participated in an OP conflict. When the kitin invade this region, they continue to attack until they have "dropped" all those calculated items. No member of guilds participating in the OP attack / defense will be able to loot them however.

Before you attack this scenario, recognize that that is exactly what I am intentionally setting up. Because any scenario that does not create elitist groups which a proponent can be a part of will be immediately unacceptable. And if that's the case, why would you not expect the same reaction from anyone else ? Why must anyone be excluded from any of the rewards in the game ? Not suggesting they be handed to anyone, but why shouldn't equal reward value for equal effort be the "law of the land" ? An emerald a diamond and a ruby can have the same calue without being identical. The effort doesn't have to be indentical, just equivalent in time and difficulty.

Look at it this way....a guy rates various colleges he is thinking of attending narrows his choices down to two colleges. He likes certain things about one school better than the other and visa versa but overall he ranks them about the same .... he was varsity player in both football and baseball but his heart really isn't in baseball. For academic, season overlap and injury risk reasons, both schools allow students to participate in only one sport. One school offers him a full scholarship if he goes there and plays either baseball or football. The other school will give him a full scholarship for baseball. Which school is he going to attend.

Two games side by side with all things being equal, the one that provides the most attraction to the widest group will have the greater likelihood of success. If you like Ryzom, why make it unattractive to a significant player segment since that does decrease it's likelihood of success ?

[0balgus0]

Two games side by side with all things being equal, the one that provides the most attraction to the widest group will have the greater likelihood of success. If you like Ryzom, why make it unattractive to a significant player segment since that does decrease it's likelihood of success ?

You know, I used to feel as strongly as you about this idea. But then, little by little, my neutral family started to just not log on any more. So at the end of the day, I just ask myself "why fight it?" If this is the nature of the game, catering to Faction vs Faction, pvp + politics, with goodies for all who are factioned (and no such goodies for neutrals), then so be it. Then those who want that type of game can have their cake and eat it. I'd like for Ryzom to be successful, but then if the owners don't care that they're losing a certain group of player-type, then why should I care. I'll just move on to the next one that does. Most everyone of my guildies have.

(Why am I still here? I loved Ryzom as a n00b. Maybe I want to see its last days, just like you'd want to be at the bedside of a loved one as they pass on to the next world). *shrug*

[acridiel]

Just what I said, only in far more words

To sum it up once again:
It´s not a valid option to create a significant advantage to any faction by game mechanics alone. If at all, players would have to do significant and adequate work to gain said advantage, but with equal options for the other faction(s) to regain said advantage. (In effect that´s how its supposed to work today)

CU
Acridiel

[thlau]

Ok, that's it. How do I gain guild membership with the Rangers?

You tried to ask?

[0balgus0]

You tried to ask?

Re-read prior post to that. Context, Trini. XD

<3