New faction 3 month rule.

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

Expansion with factions is weird, Rascaldess. We have buildup limitations to ensure nobody tries to make some grand and overpowered faction. The amount of shipyards and ships for example is limited not to activity. And even then in my opinions SARP shouldn't be a pay to win game where you can find a way to cheat weird forum credits, But ive not tried this new credit system wes wants so ill hold out on that.

I'm withdrawing from this thread, I've said my piece and cast my vote and it seems the majority of others are on the same mindset as me. You clearly have no desire to RP with many of us and seem to want to meta-game this new faction of yours in the future. I'll say that this wont work in your favor, Because no matter how large this meta faction thats been mentioned. Even with the MOD, NDC, whatever leonardo is making it would seem, and this new 3 trillion strong factions. It wont ever even be powerful enough to take on any of the major factions of the site. Who are major because of the time and love and people invested in it.

So I wont deny you RP with/within nepleslia, because i dont take OOC biases IC. But Nepleslia is a constant on this site and is the second largest player faction and if i see any attempt to circumvent buildup limitations as part of some massive macro faction attempt with other smaller factions in your corner of the sector, or simply making something clearly better than a faction like Nepleslia or even Yamatai who have more scientific and manufacturing powerhouses in their faction than any scientific progress through S6 would bring you, I will remind that in the NTSE which you should/will have to learn as you make wiki articles which i hope wont be an issue with how well written you seem to be.

We wont let there be a new zack.

 

[Miko]

I like this idea of a point system. At least as a way to reach milestones.

What about the idea of a testing period for new factions? Clearly the concern is a brand new faction coming in and not integrating well.

 

[Wes]

Please don't bash Zack or the other ex-members. Be kind.

With a point system we'd be measuring real activity and not just counting accounts like the military buildup limitations currently do, which could cut down on things like sock-puppeting.

 

[Rascaldees]

Once again, you seem to mistake my intention which either means that you’re not reading what I’m writing or you’re blatantly disregarding it. I haven’t come here with the intention of changing things at all; only helping to make them better than they were before. Wes has proposed a new system and therefore it is not just my duty but the duty of ALL of us, site-wide, to help make it a system that is fair, will function largely on its own (automation) and will provide a basis for everyone to work with that doesn’t depend on another person constantly tracking their movements.

You say I wish to meta-game yet you have no proof or evidence stating that I would or would ever do so. Considering I pointed out a potential flaw which you took offense to, it would be more evident that you yourself would meta-game your faction since you apparently don’t want people to fix potential problems.

I can play the guessing game too by the way.

FURTHERMORE, STILL NOT A SINGLE ONE OF YOU OTHER THAN CLUB24 HAS EVEN BOTHERED MESSAGING ME TO GET THE INFORMATION YOU SO DESIRE TO THROW IN MY FACE! THIS DOESN’T MAKE YOU SEEM SMART! IT MAKES YOU SEEM ARROGANT, WEAK MINDED AND INSECURE!

Since people seem to miss that last part quite often I put it in caps. Perhaps now it won’t be ignored. Additionally I see talk that I might be breaking other people’s factions? Somehow? And somehow skyrocketing ahead of the power curve despite having severe limitations and logistical issues with a fleet that is already subpar in many different aspects?

Where is the logic here? Am I being purposefully ignored?

 

[Alex Hart]

I think a credit system might not work too well, as it would encourage short and low-quality posts in high quantity.

 

[Wes]

Well, the alternative is doing it by months/time which doesn't encourage any posting at all.

Additionally, I could probably set this thing up to reward more points based on bigger posts if you think it would help with the issue you mentioned.

 

[Ikate Keda Studios]

Hi. Unaffiliate here. Couldn't help but notice this little conversation going on, though I would put some thoughts into the ideas I could actually ((probably not)) comment on? That being the points system?

So, feel free to correct me if I am woefully misread in this, but I did some quick reading so I could at least understand how a faction works here?

A faction is a collective piece of the setting which is capable of generating a Government, Economy, Planets, and so forth. All things considered, there seems to be a hierarchy that is built here with your roles system. Player, Game Master, Co Faction Manager, Faction Manager, Setting Manager? Being a businessman, I look at this more from a business perspective,

Players just post. They make characters and participate in the various games run by the Game Masters.

Game Masters are the ones that do the detail work for the Players, similarly to a DnD campaign. They are all the non-player characters and so on. They, however, are restricted to the Faction Managers, because if they could go against the faction managers, there would be no point in having a faction manager.

Faction Managers have to make sure the faction itself isn't imploding on itself, and that the goals of the Faction are being met in the plots and in the setting submissions(?) that are being passed through your element board, hence the requirement for their approval.

Setting Managers (Just Wes I assume?) make sure all the Factions aren't blowing up the Setting as a whole.

Seems a bit like a business. A Franchise to be specific. Players are general employees, Game Masters are Store Managers, Faction Managers are Owners of a cluster of stores, and, well, Setting Manager is the actual Corporate body the owners bought the stores from.


Taking that (Almost forgot my point), the point system kinda makes sense if you fiddle with the details of the Franchise system. Being a Faction Manager would require a lot of Capital, which is what these points are, but then you also have all the levels of tech and different things and such. Makes sense. But I'm going to pose a question using myself as an example because why not.

Let's say I sat here, I logged in, I posted, and because I would like to give myself the benefit of the doubt, I didn't do anything underhanded or cheap to collect the points to build my faction (buy my stores), went through, built the faction, and everything was fine.

What's the point of the economic system now? Seems a little pointless to have a system that would just collect dust with anyone who either built the faction already or had no interest or desire to build a faction. Would just be an additional addon that would be worthless once it achieved its 3-month vetting and said "You can build a faction" so why not throw in an additional requirement to need to use these points to expand any further? Do you want a planet? That's going to cost X points. Do you want a shipyard? That's going to cost X points. Do you want a population upgrade? X points. Do you want a level of technology? X points. This way, building a faction would either require a lot of people be willing to work together because these costs would start to get real expensive, real fast or the player making the faction be on the website for months, if not years tirelessly posting and playing and interacting. Both of these things seemingly being unspoken requirements of making a faction if I am reading all this correctly.


Like, obviously there are the site rule requirements. Sites have rules, but other than having a quality wiki page and being on the website for X-period of time, it doesn't seem too intense. But there is, very obviously an unspoken rule, and while the site rules seem totally okay new players coming in and wanting to make a faction, the player base obviously has a problem with that given the many posts I saw referring "Is what we have no good enough?"

So I think the thing the staff need to look at, if I may be so bold, is what is it going to be? Are the rules going to decide, or are the players going to decide? If the rules are going to decide who has done enough to obtain and build a faction, then do that and the point buy system is clearly going to help maintain that people who have these factions have empirically done enough on the website. The players would have to lose the ability to say "Is what we have not enough" and you would have to firmly stand behind anyone who has done the website required amount to post and only go after people once they actually start abusing the power a faction has granted to them.

If the players are going to make that decision, don't advertise the ability to make your own factions. It's setting new players who may join the website because of that very thing to walk into a massive trap and immediately upset people. Which will never be good, because then you have new players backed by the rules against older players who have the clout to invalidate the rules if there is ever a problem.

My suggestion would be, if you go with a system, is to set it up to give points based on the number of characters in a post. 100 characters = 1 point or something along those lines. Then you have GM's who could clearly be your quality control there. They have to read all these posts so they can say "Hey, that post is filled with useless garbage" but then you have to define what useless garbage is. Maybe someone is just very flowery with their details. It's a hard game to balance and it'll probably never be perfect but at least there would be a system. Rules need to be clearly defined, and whenever a loophole is found that can be manipulated for or against a player trying to build a faction, it will have to be closed the moment it is found.


If anything I said here is seen as an attack, sorry. Really though, I don't know anyone here well enough to actually make any attacks? Just going based on what I am seeing happening. If I'm utterly wrong please tell me and I'll just remove myself from the conversation and let more knowledgable people when it comes to the site and the inherent politics communities have deal with this.

 

[Alex Hart]

I'm personally of the opinion that in any points based system will result in some form of exploitation. I think that if I were to come up with a way to make sure that people were being active and "earning" their right to influence the setting in such a major way, it would be to require a total of 3 months of active, quality posting, (Active is determined by posting frequency, what frequency that is can be decided later)

The issue I see with using GMs as a barometer for post quality is that GMs might have a vested interest, and might unconsciously lower the bar.

If Rascaldees is planning to spend roughly that amount of time IC getting things set up before establishing the faction in-universe, that shouldn't be much of a problem. The time spent RPing could also be spent revising the faction's concept and getting the requisite wiki pages done.

 

[club24]

From my conversations with him at present the force that arrived isn’t really a faction more like part of the faction, and I’ve explained the requirements for making articles gor all the gear so I don’t believe it would technically be going full faction just yet.

That seems like a reasonable basis for the solution here too, until it comes time they could perhaps be refugees. I’ve also suggested that a portion of their gear become unusable to promote them using local assets, which then ooc allows time gor articles yo be written.

 

[Syaoran]

I played DnD, went to sleep and this happens. Really this again? Okay this is I've only skimmed all this. And I do not have the tolerance or mood to read all of this. But I'm just going to be frank; just about everyone here is wrong in some way shape or form. It's really annoying, have you guys forgotten what the purpose of SARP is?

I'm not the owner of SARP but I'm going to throw in my opinion on this, and I'm also going to warn everyone involved in this on or off the forum. Act civilized, or you will receive moderation.

Now, there is a reason that any time based or post based ruling on when a faction can be started is a poor idea. The reason is that it doesn't measure what is important in the slightest. The easiest way to tell how much someone gets what's going on is to talk with them and communicate with them as they're making their faction. Have you all forgotten there is still an approval process? If their faction doesn't fit the setting, it will not be approved. There is no reason to fear that they will make a faction that doesn't comply with the setting, because it needs to be approved. If it's approved then it's more a question of why did the NTSE let it through. People should be happy to see new people wanting to get involved so much they want to make a faction. As a veteran member what you should be doing is guiding them into doing it properly, not trying to shut them down. And if there is a problem with their behavior, you bring it to the staff, not making threads that are antagonizing a heated debate topic. This doesn't solve anything it only pisses people off.

 

[Soban]

Wow this blew up pretty quickly. Here is my perspective,

Star Army is a deep setting with a lot of history in it. Because of this, we have a lot of mechanisms for a very nieve/new player to play someone who doesn't actually know the setting. Nekos are a good example of this. The Nieve Neko who doesn't really know anything is useful not only because it makes sense in character but also sense out of character. That said, if you want to you can make a very advanced character who is deeply tied into the setting and the oddball bits. One of the concerns is people getting tripped up on all that history.

Me? I jumped in feet first and made a Separa'Shan, which was in my mind one of the oddball bits, and made it work. I would like to think I've significantly expanded the sneks. I think it's possible for someone to jump in and create a good faction that is tied into the setting on day one. A lot of new factions aren't tied into the setting. They are 'hey we just moved in, we're your new neighbors!'. Then are gone in three months and no one remembers them. I don't think anyone wants that.

There are also a lot of new players who have great ideas for their own games and own plans for their own factions. I'll admit that I kinda wanted to make one on the first day too. What kept me back was the fact that establishing a new faction is a lot of hard work and red tape. I'm not just talking about the rules for factions, but also the wikiwork that you need to do. It should be fairly easy for a new person to go out and hang their shingle.

I feel that the idea of a kind of a minor-faction is perhaps a good one. I think we should have a FM for Independents. Unlike with other FM's, it's not their job to create roleplay, but to manage the roleplay that exists. If someone wants to come in day one and create a faction, they can do so by writing up a faction wikipage and submitting it to the NTSE, where the Independents FM will review and approve it if it fits the setting. Then there should be a 'meet and greet' joint post or thread where diplomatic relations are established between the minor-faction and at least one and preferably more major-factions. At this point, this minor-faction can hang their shingle and start up a roleplay in the Independents section of the forum. To go from minor to major, they need to completely flesh out their wiki articles and get a few plots behind them. This is where the time and posts requirement could come into play. If they have a few completed roleplays, some players, and two concurrent plots then they can ask Wes to become a major-faction.

 

[Alex Hart]

If their faction doesn't fit the setting, it will not be approved. There is no reason to fear that they will make a faction that doesn't comply with the setting, because it needs to be approved. If it's approved then it's more a question of why did the NTSE let it through.

My fear, as an NTSE member, is of pressure from above to approve anything related to this faction, if the NTSE were the only deciding factor. However, I personally feel that we've gone far astray from the original topic of this thread, which is to find out what people think of a two to three-month hold on faction creation with the caveat that members must have been active during that time.

 

[Syaoran]

My fear, as an NTSE member, is of pressure from above to approve anything related to this faction, if the NTSE were the only deciding factor. However, I personally feel that we've gone far astray from the original topic of this thread, which is to find out what people think of a two to three-month hold on faction creation with the caveat that members must have been active during that time.

Okay I'm gonna be a little more transparent with my wording here.

@Wes Because after some review, this topic and a lot of people's responses are entirely reactionary to essentially an argument, I'm going to stress that this poll, but ignored. This is much to important of a topic to be discussed with heated heads and left up to this matter. To much of this has been based not on objective thinking but opinions of an individual case.

There does need to be consideration of this topic, but this is not how it should be done, there is too much bias going around.

 

[Alex Hart]

That's why I was trying to bring it back around to discussions of ideas for a general guideline, and away from the specific case.

 

[Syaoran]

I admire the effort, but there is no way this discussion can be held without bias right now with all that happened.

 

[Legix]

I have no idea what this thread is about apart from the poll and I honestly don't care what the context for it being made is.

As the Nepleslian FM, I voted for restricting.

1. When I originally joined, I started creating a faction immediately. Back then, it taught me just how much work things were. It was what led me into being able to accurately gauge and tackle wiki projects in the future when I took on more creator-oriented/leadership roles, but it still wasted a lot of time working on things for the Brolt.
2. Even though I was helping Ame and Gunhand with Nepleslia, it was still not a great introduction into running the faction. Even now I do think there are things I could have done better starting off. Newer members definitely do not understand the scope and aides necessary to get a faction properly involved so early in joining.

There are more points but for the sake of keeping this short, these are the two biggest. There's a lot of work with new factions between creation, management, and communication. Just the viewpoints of an old snake and his experiences in tackling faction creation + FMing.

 

[Wes]

I had another idea this morning: Playable side factions should be made playable after they've been introduced in an RP. For example, if you wanted to introduce the L'Kor as a playable faction, they'd first be introduced as NPCs in the YSS Kaiyo plot. In the past this method has been very successful. The YSS Nozomi introduced the Kodians and Separa'Shan, which become playable species. The YSS Eucharis introduced NMX nekos, which become playable for a while and had a plot.

The logic behind this is that new factions are not as useful to the site if they just sit in a corner playing with themselves instead of interacting with established factions (Yamatai in particular). Additionally this gives the species creator a chance to show, by example, how the species/faction is supposed to be as envisioned by their creator(s).

There is an inherent unbalance when:

• some players are being told to make normal SARP characters that are a Santo Hei or Private First Class with 3000 KS/6000 DA; they're starting from the bottom to grow their characters
• other players are using faction-building to instantly acquire characters who are admirals and heads of state with unlimited money and resources

As this has been allowed to continue we've seen more and more of a "brain drain" where the factions that Star Army was built on are not getting the GMs they need and the creative investment they need (and by this I mean people are rebuilding the wheel over and over again on the wiki by making the new faction's version of whatever Yamatai has, instead of improving Yamatai or Nepleslia. Nepleslia in particular is in dire need of wiki helpers right now and only a handful of people have stepped up).

 

[IQ]

I've personally never played with Nepleslia. It's a cool faction with awesome tech, but it just doesn't seem to fit my style of play. So I'm only able to speak up at Yamatai RP and what I think would be some of the issues and why I tend to stray away from it, on top of the obvious drama in the past - which I have no intention of digging up here. It's not relevant.

One of the things about Yamatai plots is that they often feature a lot of players. Which is a good thing for some, but for others like me, it's very uncomfortable to post for threads with such large amounts of people in it. I disliked it back then, I still dislike it now. There is so much to keep track of, certainly when you're attempting to play off one another and form proper interactions between not only your GM, but fellow players. It often feels like you'd be hogging the spotlight or slowing the thread down when there's so much people present.

Another issue is that it tends to make you feel like a number, or at least, it did to me. I'm fully aware that in our daily lives, no one's that special - we're just people going through the motions. And I'm also fully aware it's difficult to put everyone in the spotlight, which is yet another consequence of so many people present in a thread or plot - I know I'm here to write having fun. And having fun is still subject to preference. Anyone who enjoys playing in Yamatai plots and enjoys a more realistic a'd strict approach to it all, that's their preference. I'm the last person to argue about preference. But it's just not my jam. I'm sure there's other people who have similair views to mine. So it's kind of a double edged sword to state that we need to buckle down and focus on Yamatai or Nepleslia when I rarely enjoy writing for Yamatai. (Leaving Nepland out of the equation as stated before )

Does that mean I hate Yamatai or dislike people for playing in it? Absolutely not. As I said, this is still a place to have fun. Not a place to feel obligated to write for a certain faction because of antiquity.

On the other hand - I agree that there's a semblance of imbalance, but as it's standing now. Anyone can play both a low rank infantry grunt *and* make their own faction or race and have a character in power of that. It's what I did with the Tsumi. So, it's difficult to actually make a statement on this because it just can't be taken lightly.

 

[Arbitrated]

In short: I like that idea, Wes. This is a roleplay community, and playing with one of your faction's/species's people in an already existing faction helps cement ties between people, ICly and OOCly. Not only would you RPing your character(s) show what you want that faction/species to be played like, and also help "flesh out" some parts of them you might not think of when you're staring at the wiki's editing UI for hours on end, but it also helps you get a scope for what the setting actually has in it - the experience goes bolth ways!

To a degree as well, you can also have these RP interactions be part of some of the wikified stuff that I don't really see happening all that often in RP: Proper first contact, the potential for cultural differences to cause shenanigans, the way a new faction would be interacting with any future "aliens" would be likely influenced by how they view those first aliens: Star Army, Kuvexia, Nepleslia, or whoever else happens to encounter them first.


A question to add on for this: How much RP would be "enough"? If I wanted to make a new faction called the Aeon, and had one of their people show up for a single mission in a plot as a random SAoY soldier, then that wouls be valid RP - personally, though, I don't think that'd be enough to actually have any meaning. So some sort of gauge of how notable the RP is would benefit this idea very well. I don't think it should necessarily be "solid", though: No "You must RP at least x characters over a time period of y months"... More like "You must demonstrate, in character, how significant and long-term interactions between this faction and others are likely to progress": Effectively allowing for you to do a few "big" interactions (Politics, first contact, mobilization and the like), or a lot of "small" interactions (Individual people who don't have major power behind them - civilians, soldiers, scientists and the like) to give the new faction some connections to the setting.

 

[Syaoran]

I think this is a step in the right direction Wes. This system would not only show off the new faction to players and get them interested, but it would also demonstrate the FM's ability to make connections with FMs and GMs to get a plot started and working. Also since the faction wouldn't be stopped in approval, we can see how the FM handles the wiki work as well, and have time to see how dedicated they are to their faction and the setting. I assume we're going to set some guidelines for minimum requirements like Arbitrated is suggesting. I would say to add to those, that the faction needs to have a plot idea and GM(could be the FM) ready to start up soon after they become a playing faction too. We don't want them to switch to playing faction and then sit around because no one has a plot idea ready..