Who should control the factions?

[Sir_Cedric]

Ok no brainer that the DEV team will run the game, and control the in game events.

BUT

When it comes to the factions, who should control them?

A. Should we the players control the day to day operation of what the faction does?

B. Should the faction direction be left up to the DEV Team?

IMO if the DEV team gives us a big enough sandbox to use for the factrions, then why not let us control what goes on with the faction. One fail safe could be making sure there are active accounts, with different home addresses. We don't want guys with 36 or more accounts trying to run the show. A 2nd fail safe could have elections each week for leadership. See the time to 7 days, after 7 days we vote for a new leadership. The leadership would be a player council, and they would run the faction for the week.

It's just an idea, I know not the best of ideas, but I just got to thinking would it be better if we the players ran the show, and the DEVs just had the powers of Q to keep everything under control. ;)

What do you think, or do you have a better idea on this topic?

[Vicelance]

Would be interesting to for players to run the factions as long as I don't get campaign ads coming over the com every few seconds.

Though I'm not sure exactly what the players will run, will we be able to make and break alliances every week? Decide how many resources to gather and who gets those resources?

Will the leaders have the power to make players do what they want them to? Which is something I'm against since I'll be playing a game which is one of the few times I get to be my own boss and I don't want to take orders from another person telling me where to go and what to do.

[STO-Stucco]

I had this thought cross my mind also earlier this week. Wasn't sure how to phrase but you summed it up pretty good. I think the idea is sound but it would boil down to whoever is in command of a faction for that week, what powers do they really have and what would be their primary goal.

I can see it now:

"Order from Start Fleet, Captain." "They want every responding ship to gather at the Neutral Zone to prepare for the invasion of Romulus..."

Again, a good idea but would require serious thought and structure to pull it off.

[ajaco3025]

I had an idea that covered this topic with a different idea for the roles of those in the "Faction Leadership" positions.

Personally, the only "orders" I will listen to from a player will come from the Fleet "Admiral".

Rather than have them actually be "in charge" of the entire faction, which I wouldn't listen to, you could have them be the "voice" of the players as a council that takes ideas, suggestions, bugs, and other reports directly to the DEVs where the info comes from the player base in-game. They can be a mainstream voice for the players of each faction and come together with their reports. This would take out the spamming of Dev emails, forum trolls, 50 threads of the same topic, and other headaches.

[Azurian]

Well, from what I experienced in other MMORPG's, factions are generally guided by the storyline.

Yes, it would be nice if you can converse with the Chancellor of the Klingon High Council or the President of the Federation. But afraid that would lead to manpower and cost for Cryptic (or whoever ends up running STO down the road). And if STO ends up being on seperate servers, well it could mean the storyline would be different per server.

But doesn't discount GMs could act as Admirals (or the faction leaders) and play out major events in the story, which can lead to real-time decisions.

[Sir_Cedric]

Recoil I think you idea is sound, and could be one part of the leadership role of the faction. But another function could be to help maintaining the faction contested areas.

One way I would like to see it, the fleets will control different sectors of space, and from these sectors they will be getting resources. To help maintain the faction zones, the leadership can request whatever they need from the fleets around the differentr zones, and send faction feighters to pick up the supply. The suppies would be needed to help maintain the day to day operations, and build up a good defence network within the contested zone. IMO would should have faction structures that can be destoryed 100%, and without keeping an eye on these places within the contested zones, we will lose that foot hold in the area. Same with the faction feighters, they would be open to attacks, and would need someone to escort them back and forth.

Part of the duties would be to call for an escort to watch the convoy, if no players are around, then faction NPC ships will escort them, but you can still have players join the convoy to help it.

Anyway, part of having to run the faction is to make sure everything is running as it should within the faction. If nothing else the contested zones could be a joint project of all the fleets, and leadership to help maintain the different zones could be voted on by each fleet.

This idea is going to need a ton of work, but Ithe bottom line I am looking for, is to give guilds/ fleets a purpose in the game. There are far too many games out there that have guilds, but really what does a guild do in the game, besides hunt and level people? So in STO with adding a leadership role, maybe it's a good way to to make it mean something to be in a guild.

If you want to really shake up the idea a bit more, you can have a split of fleet members voted, and have solo players voted in. Make it a 4 fleet members voted in from the fleets, and 3 solo members voted in from the solo ranks. Anyway, the idea needs work, but it might be something doable in the game.

[Debaser]

Putting players in charge of game events is a recipe for disaster, imo.

[Syphus]

Vote Syphus for Praetor ;)

[Mailman653]

I think this was covered in another topic, or something similar. Like having a players control the Federation Council/Presidency and being Chancellor for the Klingon's.

In theory it sounds pretty cool, but I think it's best left to the AI or some kind of story driven contraption. Maybe high level players can try to influence the decisions the leadership might take, but I think it's a bad idea to let players manage the politics of their faction. Where is the fun when you have to manage a whole empire and fleets of ships representing hundreds of players across the globe? You'll spend more time in front of a computer approving trade treaties and drafting legislation to govern your factions' behavior and its players than actually being on a star ship and playing the game.

[ravenkind2]

Putting players in charge of game events is a recipe for disaster, imo.

I agree totally. Besides in Star Trek the officers weren't elected. They were promoted based on their career experiences. Also to hold such a position all you would do is log in and be a logistical officer. I'd rather not have to do this, it's a game who wants to do paper work in a game.

[Sir_Cedric]

No one is saying do paperwork in the game. :D

Anyway, I can live with have control over the contested zones with Faction vs Faction, if you want to limited the powers of the player faction leadership. Example could be as follows:

faction A has gained control of 12 zones in space, and Faction B has control of 8 zones. 4 zones are very close to each other, and become contested by the other faction. Now the leadership can organize a defence force faster, to deal with an attacks by the other faction. The other thing they can do is get the needed resources into the right places, so any faction structures can get built faster. Be it to defend or attack, this process in the game MUST be organized.

Now a game like WOW, were you can be on a 40 man raid group, at times it can get out of control. Why cause people do there own thing way too much. If you going to defend anything, you need to be organized, if not all your left with is chaos, and nothing is done for the good of the faction.

Like I said if you don't like the idea of control in all things of the faction, that's fine, but lets at least have some control in the contested zones, so we know what needs to get done, and were we need to be when in these zones. The DEvs won't be telling us how to work together, so lets try to get ideas on how to keep everyone on the same page. At least in the contested zones.

[Hagon]

I had an idea that covered this topic with a different idea for the roles of those in the "Faction Leadership" positions.

Personally, the only "orders" I will listen to from a player will come from the Fleet "Admiral".

Rather than have them actually be "in charge" of the entire faction, which I wouldn't listen to, you could have them be the "voice" of the players as a council that takes ideas, suggestions, bugs, and other reports directly to the DEVs where the info comes from the player base in-game. They can be a mainstream voice for the players of each faction and come together with their reports. This would take out the spamming of Dev emails, forum trolls, 50 threads of the same topic, and other headaches.Ya I can't see anything beyond that being feasible, or even desirable for most players. You can't have players controlling what other players do on anything beyond a smaller scale fleet or guild. I wouldn't even want to be part of a fleet that was too controlling.

Things will get done that need to get done or the faction won't be competitive. There doesn't need to be any kind of leadership set up.

[ajaco3025]

Putting players in charge of game events is a recipe for disaster, imo.

I agree which is why I didn't say anything like that. Eve's Council system works very well. Representatives of each faction communicate among each other and talk about the needs/wants of the active player base and what to send to the Devs.


Rather than have them actually be "in charge" of the entire faction, which I wouldn't listen to, you could have them be the "voice" of the players as a council that takes ideas, suggestions, bugs, and other reports directly to the DEVs where the info comes from the player base in-game. They can be a mainstream voice for the players of each faction and come together with their reports. This would take out the spamming of Dev emails, forum trolls, 50 threads of the same topic, and other headaches.

[cocoa-jin]

The Devs need to direct Faction policy...so war declarations/conflict need to be strictly controlled, politics and diplomacy directed by devs....the factions have to remain canon or at least consistent and reflective of canon.

[Sir_Cedric]

So once your past 20 years from the last movie, how do you know what is canon from that new starting point? Just wondering. ;)

[Hagon]

Well in the case of this game, it's pretty much up to the devs to establish new canon as it relates too new in-game canon, and to adhere to previously established canon as much as they see fit (or however their licensing agreement is set up).

[Sir_Cedric]

I am still hoping we see a TV based off of what happenedd in this game, that and the hopes for faction leadership with meaning. ;)

[ajaco3025]

Rather than having faction leaders, how about a representative democracy that combines majority consensus and a representative authority to be a direct line for consumer/community feedback to Cryptic?

Every individual will be considered equal and will have the right to voice an opinion that carries weight as every other voice in our society. The proposed implementation of this concept will rest upon representative individuals to steer a common voice.

Any influence that that we would like to have to assist Cryptic in developing this virtual world will need to have a relationship that goes beyond the usual vendor-customer relationship.

I have a "proposal" (I guess it would be called) I've been working on that shows the setup, implementation and duties of a Player Council, which DOES NOT include ruling over everyone in any particular faction. I just haven't posted it because I don't know where everyone's thought is on player/developer interaction.

[RookActual]

I always had the idea if you were going to have an MMO with a rank structure, and you wanted people to follow your orders, they had to have some sort of incentive to do so. Punishment does not lend well to subscription services, but reward does. At the Commodore level and above(if we can even have those ranks)...I always thought it a neat idea for that player to have access to an general objective menu, which you can task an objective to a map. This creates a waypoint, but also a small, but desirable, modifier to XP. Perhaps it would only work within your Fleet, or it could be globally effective if your achieved rank is high enough. Personally I think keeping it within your Fleet is better, but independent players would gripe that the social players are receiving unfair benefits, so I included a compromise.

For example: My rank is Rear Admiral within my Fleet, that allows me to make any objective worth XP x .5%. I've noticed we're low on dilithium, so I open my objectives menu and select the mining menu, and then the dilithium option. If I want, from there, I can set a waypoint to a known region rich in dilithium. This will establish a radius that, if anyone in my fleet mines dilithium there, they will receive a boon to their XP. Now, I don't necessarily have to establish a way point for an objective like that, but let's say for this example it was made because we agreed with another Fleet to not mine a certain area.

[kevinj]

I do believe that might be an okay option for fleet use. If your in a fleet, hey thats cool, use it to your advantage. Some fleets might go all military style, and attract people that prefer that enviroment. Others may take a different approach to it to attract different players. You are correct that the difference in a negative punishment vs a small, but positive reward will be rather significant. Personally I do not care to play a game where players can have a negative affect on me, even if I chose to join their organization.

[RookActual]

I do believe that might be an okay option for fleet use. If your in a fleet, hey thats cool, use it to your advantage. Some fleets might go all military style, and attract people that prefer that enviroment. Others may take a different approach to it to attract different players. You are correct that the difference in a negative punishment vs a small, but positive reward will be rather significant. Personally I do not care to play a game where players can have a negative affect on me, even if I chose to join their organization.

I like to reward cooperation, but not punish independence. It could also be done a 'standing poll' with higher ranking officers having more votes per individual.

[Mysticone622]

Ok no brainer that the DEV team will run the game, and control the in game events.

BUT

When it comes to the factions, who should control them?

A. Should we the players control the day to day operation of what the faction does?

B. Should the faction direction be left up to the DEV Team?

IMO if the DEV team gives us a big enough sandbox to use for the factrions, then why not let us control what goes on with the faction. One fail safe could be making sure there are active accounts, with different home addresses. We don't want guys with 36 or more accounts trying to run the show. A 2nd fail safe could have elections each week for leadership. See the time to 7 days, after 7 days we vote for a new leadership. The leadership would be a player council, and they would run the faction for the week.

It's just an idea, I know not the best of ideas, but I just got to thinking would it be better if we the players ran the show, and the DEVs just had the powers of Q to keep everything under control. ;)

What do you think, or do you have a better idea on this topic?

"players" should not be able to vote for which players run a faction, all this will do is leave the big fleets in control....like it did for the light jedi in SWG when they had voting to decide who went up in rank....

I think they should actually have a dev, per faction, as leader.... Klingon Dev will play as the head of the High Command, Federation could be the Present or the Head Star Fleet Adimal... same goes for the Romulans, Dominion and the others when added.

These Devs should then play againist one another like in a RTS style and have acess to fleet locations(the faction player base) and let their ships know were they are needed if a big conflict takes place..

Example: THe Klingons are attacking a Federation system, the Federation Dev Leader will then see what ships are close enough to aid that system and open a channel to that ship requesting that they aid.

[Trekkie]

I think that, in general, the general direction that factions take should be dictated by the developers, but it should be able to be influenced by players in that faction.

[damo]

Wouldn't it be cool if the players could vote in council members across the Federation by a vote?

Anyway power to the people!

[AugustusTirion]

Ugh.
PLEASE!
NO DEMOCRACIES!!!

Democracy is a wonderful idea with a tendency to fail spectacularly in practice.

The major flaw in Democracy is the people.
People have a nasty habit of voting for their own desires instead of what's in the best interest of the whole group, and the desires of the individual rarely coincide with the needs of the group.

[RookActual]

Ugh.
PLEASE!
NO DEMOCRACIES!!!

Democracy is a wonderful idea with a tendency to fail spectacularly in practice.

The major flaw in Democracy is the people.
People have a nasty habit of voting for their own desires instead of what's in the best interest of the whole group, and the desires of the individual rarely coincide with the needs of the group.

I really hope you mean this in the sense of gaming communities. They are very destructive there. If you provide democratic resolution in a gaming community, you provide this misnomer that the individual has power. What happens is the first time someone doesn't get their way, they quit.

[amdg3x7]

I like the idea of a democracy. But why choose people? That would only, in my opinion, give the big and powerfull fleets more power. Isn't the possibility to make a NPC election better? That there are NPC's who represent certain tendencies, like 1 is very aggresive the other is more into exploration and zo on. That way we could have our democracy and still let it be fun. What do you guys think?

[Father_Origin]

Given the average mentality and maturity of the average gamer, I am not even sure they
should be in charge of thier own ship.

Never give the players control of anything that other players depend on.

[sylvermane64]

Basically, the reason why this would be a bad idea is the fact that it becomes a Popularity Contest. Plus, if one of the established guilds out there, namely BoB or Goonswarm, were to come into STO, they would have the numbers to win due to their 'very' large guilds.

The Factions need to be run by NPC characters. I'm sorry, there 'could' be someone out there that would make a good leader, but it would be like giving players the power of a Q. They might have good intentions in using the power, but ultimately the power would corrupt.

Gamers don't want to be 'ruled' over in a MMO. That isn't to say they don't want to group or join a guild, they do. They want that sense of brotherhood and working together as a team, but the moment that a leader started demanding or ordering members around, then it will sour on most members and then the guild will die.

[ELITE-Kaos]

No way in hell would I ever listen to some spotty 12 year old tell me what to do. I pay my bill for MMO's, I choose what I want to do!

[RookActual]

Given the average mentality and maturity of the average gamer, I am not even sure they
should be in charge of thier own ship.

Never give the players control of anything that other players depend on.

That is more of a negative attitude than would be conducive to the sort of cooperation you seem to desire. I

Basically, the reason why this would be a bad idea is the fact that it becomes a Popularity Contest. Plus, if one of the established guilds out there, namely BoB or Goonswarm, were to come into STO, they would have the numbers to win due to their 'very' large guilds.

The Factions need to be run by NPC characters. I'm sorry, there 'could' be someone out there that would make a good leader, but it would be like giving players the power of a Q. They might have good intentions in using the power, but ultimately the power would corrupt.

Gamers don't want to be 'ruled' over in a MMO. That isn't to say they don't want to group or join a guild, they do. They want that sense of brotherhood and working together as a team, but the moment that a leader started demanding or ordering members around, then it will sour on most members and then the guild will die.

I agree. This is a game. I always had a saying when I was on active duty "I love being a Marine, but I hate being in the Corps." What I always meant by that is, I didn't like taking orders, no one likes taking orders, following them is a different story, but the good thing about the Corps is there wasn't a lot of micromanagement because they realized this. You have to let people do what they want, or they may not do it at all, or at the least, not exactly how you want it done.

Yeah, in the Corps we had to do a lot of things would rather not have done, but the idea is to make you want to do them, that was good leadership, when you were motivated and encouraged. I'm not trying to make it sound like we weren't disciplined and it was all happy times. I think this may be one of those areas that explanation can never substitute for experience.

However, in a game, you have to have an incentive to follow orders. That incentive should be fun. I see a lot of 'reality' being injected into this and sometimes I wonder if people really are trying to make this their own reality. Laugh, but I'm sure we all know people who take MMOs a little bit too far and too seriously.

What I'm trying to illuminate here is very simple: The first person that yells at me or orders me to do something in the game, will be the first person I ignore. I'm willing to cooperate for the sake of fun and perhaps some immersion, if someone has a suggestion that may lead to a positive result, I'll gladly take it and execute it. I don't need another 'rank' structure in my life.

We've all have had parents, bosses, sergeants, officers or teachers whose authority we didn't respect. Whether it was a misplaced respect or not, I really don't want that levied upon me when I'm paying for an entertainment experience. It's often the most difficult thing in life. That'd be like me paying my cable company to tell me what channel to watch and when. I think fleets, but not the faction, should be well structured, but based on the concept of incentive, not punishment or subjectivity. The latter two only work well in a voluntarily disciplined environment.

Do you really want a sixteen year old that simply had a clever and attractive name for his fleet to be the leader of your faction?

[War_Eagle]

Bottom line is- regardless of the MMO being played, true leadership is a quality shown, and as all of us are Homo sapiens sapiens (I hope), no amount of legislating or pandering will disturb the natural order. Some humans have natural command talent, others trained, either way- those who have it will rise to the top and those without will fall in line regardless of how loud they shout, whine, post, or cry.