Factions

[morva]

I mean I apped for the armada. But I got denied. What am I supposed to do, just keep on apping forever untill I get in. I moved on with something else.

[Ladocicea]

It's not our fault if your application fails.

[morva]

Your complaining about why people wont join your factions. Im telling you why I havent for instance, and im sure alot of people failed apps. So there is part of the awnser to your question.

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

So far- I have made Four APplications.

One of which I had to re-apply about 5 times.


Join Factions people, awesome is in the making.

[Lupine Grace]

If you really want something approved you can get it approved with work. If it gets rejected you can get feedback as to why. If you give up on something you ~really~ want to play you may as well not ever try to app for anything fun since it'll only turn out the same way.

Accepting feed back and turning around a rejected app is a learning experience that will open a whole new world of interesting concepts to you for now and forever more!

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

Maybe it's because we know very little about said factions. The History and goals of the EFU factions were documented and well known, the info on factions ehre are...well, not so readily available.

[SnottySnitch]

We know this. That, however, wasn't what the thread was about. The thread was about "Why aren't people joining DM factions?". Well, there it is. We know that they are awesome. We know that it's supposed to be easy to join them. Yet we choose not to. Because, quite honestly, there's just as good fun to be had outside of them, right now, without having to go through applications and NPC-controlled factions. It's a much more interesting world when the control is in the hands of the PCs - and personally, I rather like it. The only way to change this is to restrict player influence - and quite honestly, it would feel rather silly to restrict or fix a system which works well, just so that people will be under NPC purview and in DM factions again.

Just trying to answer the question. Not trying to insult anyone, or degrade someone's efforts. Just sayin', is all.

[lovethesuit]

I dunno about you guys, but as soon as my current character is gone I'm gonna check out one of these DM factions.

That being said, I think Laddy is a little premature. I can think of 3 Fleet characters, 1 Armada character with several who have tried for it, at least 1 Flowery Elf character, and tons of Malatestas. Actually, I think that for new factions there's way more people than I expected.

Not only that, but you've excluded one DM faction with 22 active characters. Now I'm not saying that we -win- because we have more people or anything, but...

[ZugThaEadBasha]

These factions are not, I repeat, NOT these ridiculous copy/paste affairs that you compare them to. Each faction introduced all have their own unique history, and maybe, just maybe if you tried to find some of that out, you would be rewarded! I'm not going out of my way to troll the people that have criticised the factions, but I fail to see were any of it comes from! Having worked towards joining a faction, successfully doing so, meeting the npc's and learning the history has been immensely rewarding. You just need to keep at it! The dms here have put an enormous ammount of work and time into these factions, and if you show them that you've put some thought and depth into your own character, it will be that much more rewarding on both ends. No, I'm not saying you have to slave away at efu to enjoy a faction, I'm only saying that you shouldn't expect to be blown away in awe of these factions while making no effort to find out what they are truly about. As for the history complaint, these factions not only already HAVE long and intresting histories, but you as a new player on a fresh server have the unique opportunity to truly shape them, if you really want to do so. I guess that's the end of my rant.

[Mort]

You can always ask others for help. Those within the faction- DMs- or those that seem good as to why the character may not be a good fit or may not be deserving of the many perks associated with a faction.

I mean, usually, those who have been successful at something tend to like sharing their wisdom (usually).

There is always a good reason why the application is denied. If you dont make efforts to improve or simply learn what was the problem with the current app., well.... It's too bad I suppose!

[Gwydion]

Lado,

I just sent a PM to Deputy Cool about this very thing, but specifically concerning the Fleet of the First Bolt.

Some of the reasons why the factions in EfU were so popular in my opinion:

1.  Clearly visible, central headquarters close to the main areas of the server.  PCs could hang out there, and they usually had permanent storage.

2.  Clear goals or missions, with evidence of this obvious on the server.

What's the unique mission of the Malatestas?  The original Milita?  The Armada?  Other than power, gold and domination?  If they aren't obvious and up front with their goals, then they should be actively recruiting members via NPCs and PCs I think.

3.  There were faction-specific scripted quests that aligned with plausible missions of the faction.  Seekers - gobbo fort. Society - hook horrors - Spellguard - stinky sewers.  And so on.  It was fun to RP that you were a part of the action, and PC faction members would "hire" people to do something for "their" faction.

4.  Clearly recognizable uniforms and/or faction loot.  Face it, having cool gear is fun.  Even veteran, RP-first players love getting cool stuff.

5.  Prominent NPCs that help to play a role in server plots - each with their own goals and machinations.  I don't know who the prominent Faction NPCs are in the current setting other than Fassaud and First Mate Lyrin.  They need to kick start the faction a bit more.  Hiring people.  Sending people on quest for just about anything.  Giving new members a mission or way to serve the faction.  

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How about having DM possessed NPCs actively recruiting and RPing (some) of the process?  Maybe even going on adventures and pwning shit, impressing recruits and getting them to sign aboard?

I think if some of these things are addressed you might see an increase in faction membership.

Just some thoughts, and hope they are constructive.  Love the setting so far, tabula rosa and all that.

Gwydion

[SnottySnitch]

You're taking this too personally. We know the factions are awesome but, I repeat - Player factions are right now just as, or even more, awesome, in my mind. They are public. They do not require apps. They have little feelers and tendrils everywhere, and we don't have to go through NPCs do to or pursue our chars' goals. It's all pure 100% human-to-human interaction, with lots of plots and fun stuff popping up organically - instead of orchestrated.

DM factions are great. But for better or for worse, they are background things right now. They don't run the show. On old EFU, the DM factions ran everything. You couldn't walk across an area without stumbling across Spellguard or Watch or Seekers vying for power.

I personally like the way things are now. Without a revert to the massive DM factions of old EFU with great central places and spider-like webs of control, I think you'll have to accept that DM factions have to step back a bit in terms of influence and popularity over player factions.

[Mort]

And yes, Player factions were meant to have a very central role in EfU:A, hence why the DM factions didnt have a really SECURE grasp over the land and were meant to be negociated as well. We didn't want to lose them as we feel DM factions are important element of the game-world, but that is certainly true that we didn't want player to arrive in a world where all the big players are already in place...

Now, there has been some problem by giving too much liberty and not enough structure and we have long been in the process of thinking how to address that to strike a perfect balance that will seem good and fun for most, if not all, players.

[SnottySnitch]

Well, you probably know all that better than I do, but to this humble player it seems better to just leave the PCs in control and see where they take things, than to create a balance just for the purpose of preservation and stability. If you don't mind me saying so, a lot of the reason for the stagnation of old EFU was due to the extreme balance. Anything that shifted it was fiercely put to a half, and that didn't make for much dynamic factions, or pure awesomeness (although there obviously were awesome chars). To reinforce the point, allow me to direct your attention to the Rebellion, which was probably the least "stable" period on the server, but still one of the most fun to play in. And, at that, one where it fealt as if we had a great impact on the server as players, even though it was much (admittedly) railroaded. It made for awesomeness on an entirely different scale than old, stable, EFU.

It should be noted that the most awesome player faction, the Montezzis, arose in an area where there were very little DM factions or DM faction control. I personally think that was a very good thing. It made for much more fun, player-driven and flexible roleplay than had a DM gone in and made it too "structured".

But what the hell do I know? I'm just a player.

[Mort]

Exactly. Off you go, peon.