Important Role Play Change

[Eagle]

Our role play system has been around for a long time and all that time its been far from ideal which is why we've decided to get rid of it in its current form. A new system will be introduced instead.

What you'll lose is the ability to set specific roles such as pirate, trader etc. It will not be possible to hire anyone anymore so that means roles like buccaneer, deputy and escort will also be dropped. Losing the trader role also means the trade bonus system will become obsolete. RP bonusses, for killing hostile roles, will no longer be awarded. All role play commands such as setrole, hire, rplist etc will disappear.

What will stay are the pvp kill bonusses and the cargopod piracy bonusses. Nomads will also still be available to new players as they will be fully supported by the new system to replace the old.

So what will we get in the new system?
One command will replace the former RP system with which it is possible to restart in a new "role", this command is called StartAs. With this command you will have the ability to start a fresh character which will be tightly coupled with the faction of your choice. Selecting Nomad will restart you on Dyson Sphere in a nomad fighter for instance. Players will also be able to start as Outcast for instance and in doing so will not only end up in a base of that faction, but will also get a reputation to match.

What about clans?
At present clans have roles assigned to them which are "soft", meaning that apart from inter player relations (who appears hostile etc.) there are no hostile factions forced upon clan members who remained Freelancer. In the new system clans will have to select a faction instead of a role and this will be set "hard", which means that if a clan were to choose Liberty Navy as clan faction, that all its members will become hostile to Liberty Rogues and remain that way (can't be rep fixed). Clans are therefor adviced to take this time to think about which faction they would want to fly as so this can be set up properly in advance. Note that we will have to select a faction for each clan who has not made a choice by the time that we go live.

[Human Tragety]

NICE .....
but i will miss my traider bonuses

[>3MAJ<>Cveki<]

Still thinking where to put a point

But as a pirate clan their taged traders chars will also have rep of pirate faction? How will they dock most of planets?
Will once set clan faction be able to change - and this way to try different hostile enviroment to chose proper?
Does this clan faction is aplyed to all clan characters (exept nomads)?

In general its cool to have this way of setup cose clan will not have neutral setup and lose ability to relax in space

[EDIT] *WHY IN THE LIST IMG NOT EXIST???

Login out...

END

[Eagle]

Oct 15, 2008 11:38:30 GMT >3MAJ<>Cveki< said:

But as a pirate clan their taged traders chars will also have rep of pirate faction? How will they dock most of planets?

Pirate role as such will no longer exist, instead a faction such as Red Hessian, Liberty Rogue, Mollys etc. has to be chosen by pirate clans and by doing so their tagged characters will all get a specific set of hostile factions assigned. Trading would be diffiult but not impossible and would ofcourse depend on the faction chosen.

Oct 15, 2008 11:38:30 GMT >3MAJ<>Cveki< said:

Will once set clan faction be able to change - and this way to try different hostile enviroment to chose proper?

A clan faction can be changed, but that would mean all members would suddenly get a set of hostiles and the ones they had hostile previously they will have to fix by themselves. We'll post a set of factions clans can chose from in this thread as soon as possible.

Oct 15, 2008 11:38:30 GMT >3MAJ<>Cveki< said:

Does this clan faction is aplyed to all clan characters (exept nomads)?

We could use the same strategy we do now, where characters hostile to the clan faction are excluded. We are however considdering to include everyone with the proper tags, and in doing so overwrite the set of hostile factions, nomads included. That means we could actually get friendly or rogue nomads as long as they are wearing clan tags.

[Destroyed]

I like the sound of it ;D hopefully it will work much better than the current system.

Though in other mods Clans are themselves an actual faction, with interchangeable hostilities depending on actions from either clan, would they be possible to implement? It would kind of work like the Dynamic Economy in a way, just with players actions rather than Market and Economy actions taken.

[Eagle]

Oct 15, 2008 12:09:37 GMT Destroyed said:

Though in other mods Clans are themselves an actual faction, with interchangeable hostilities depending on actions from either clan, would they be possible to implement?

This is the case in the current system and it will be available in the new system as well. This would for instance make it possible for 2 Xeno clans to be hostile to eachother, yet members of either would be regarded as xeno in terms of reputation toward any other player.

[>3MAJ<>Hunter_Killer<]

and if our clan desaid 2 be a zonar joke xD
my chart almost have nomad rep lol the other npc who is good with me are pirate so i will be hostil 2 all now ?
and if there is no trader bounas!! u will keep the dinamec economy ?
and if 3maj become police !! how we can defend O5 most of our system are pirate system's and O41
and beascly 3maj are mercenary '' not BH '' there is no role 4 that
i like the idea but befor i vote i need 2 mack sure that i know what im voting 4
and thanks ;D

[StarYoshi]

Uhm... I like the idea... but a few things seem awkward.

I loved the trader bonuses, and the pirate role allowed people to be associated with multiple pirate groups.

I dunno, I think that, as an idea, this is great. I've always wanted to see what a Zoner would be like.

However, I'm sure this will have drawbacks.

I'll keep my poll vote for now. We'll see.

[Human Tragety]

okay then ill pic Xinos ...
why
because i like the part of SHOOTING everything ;D

[StarYoshi]

I'm going with Optional.

I say: Keep the older tags for Pirate and Police so that clans based off these factions can be kept.

HOWEVER, keep those changes permanent. Make the StartAs one changable (like you've said) and have setrole permanent. This way, it ENCOURAGES the changes you want to see, Eagle, yet will allow for a gradual change and allow people to sit back and see what this'll look like before making an absolute decision.

Just saying =/

[Destroyed]

Oh i also meant to say would it be showable in the Reputation Meter aswell? if thats not too troublesome lol ;D

[-]LrdD[-Apocalypse]

One set of 2 questions

What will happen to owned systems like tokara, sig31 and others? They have different NPC factions but are systems owned by real people like tokara owned by the [UP] clan.

What would happen if the clans want to enter their owned system but have a problem because their role play is attached to NPCs that are hostile to them in their home system?

And...

Players have 5 chars, can they make and choose different chars with different reps? For ex. Can i choose 1 char for Zoners, One for outcast, one for liberty, one for xenos, one for mollies?

If this would be the case of having a choice with different chars, would this defeat the the idea of implementing this new system of choosing reps?

[Elatan]

I guess clans have always made their own systems to hunt NPC's and have a base of operations. Having some hostile factions in your system seems totaly ok to me, because normaly people don't only want to sit around but having some action there . If it comes to bases I guess you just have to choose the faction, or maybe the base faction can be changed if it really means problems for those clans....

I'm pretty sure it will stay as it always was, that you can choose 5 different character types. And tbh I don't see a problem with that. I also have a nomad and a pirate char next to my EFS, which I use now and then. That's absolutely no problem, as long as you make clear that you do roleplay...

[Eagle]

Dynamic economy and system ownership are seperate concerns, both of these concepts will remain in their current form and use thereof will not change once the new system is in play, this goes for added systems as well.

Everyone must understand that roles such as Police, Pirate, Bounty Hunter and Trader will dissappear:

Oct 15, 2008 16:22:19 GMT >3MAJ<>Hunter_Killer< said:

and if 3maj become police !! how we can defend O5 most of our system are pirate system's and O41
and beascly 3maj are mercenary '' not BH '' there is no role 4 that

We'll offer 26 factions to choose from initially, so instead of thinking in terms of roles you would want to think in terms of factions. The options are:

• Blood Dragons
  
• Bounty Hunters
  
• Bretonia Armed Forces
  
• Bretonia Police
  
• Bundschuh
  
• Corsairs
  
• Gaians
  
• Gas Miner Guild
  
• Golden Grysanthemums
  
• Hogosha
  
• Kusari Naval Forces
  
• Kusari State Police
  
• Lane Hackers
  
• Liberty Navy
  
• Liberty Police
  
• Liberty Rogues
  
• Liberty Security Force
  
• LWB
  
• Mollys
  
• Nomads
  
• Outcast
  
• Red Hessians
  
• Rheinland Military
  
• Rheinland Police
  
• Unioners
  
• Xenos
  

Oct 16, 2008 0:20:51 GMT StarYoshi said:

Keep the older tags for Pirate and Police so that clans based off these factions can be kept.

We'll find suitable replacements for the current Roles, Freelancer role for instance will be replaced by a Zoner faction which will show up on the reputation sheet, unlike Freelancer role, but in other respects its exactly the same so its simply a name change. Other roles will not be a 100% match to the old, but we'll use the closest match so there shouldn't be any drawbacks in the transition.

Just like now, players can set different factions for all 5 chars in the new system if they so desire. Clan characters however will be forced into the clan faction so if all your characters belong to the clan, all will share the same faction between them. For instance, all Liberty Rogues.

[Archangel]

Oct 17, 2008 10:06:47 GMT Eagle said:

We'll find suitable replacements for the current Roles, Freelancer role for instance will be replaced by a Zoner faction which will show up on the reputation sheet, unlike Freelancer role, but in other respects its exactly the same so its simply a name change. Other roles will not be a 100% match to the old, but we'll use the closest match so there shouldn't be any drawbacks in the transition.

So the base role for all new players/new characters will be the Zoners?
As we all know, Freelancer role does not have all-neutral reputations, is that going to be the same case with Zoners?

Oct 17, 2008 10:06:47 GMT Eagle said:

Players can set different factions for all 5 chars in the new system if they so desire. Clan characters however will be forced into the clan faction so if all your characters belong to the clan, all will share the same faction between them. For instance, all Liberty Rogues.

And non-tagged characters on a Clan Player's account will remain free to choose whatever role they decide..

I guess it's Option 3+1 then ;D


[Edit: Have you considered modifying some reputations, that could solve some problems - like the ones Cveki pointed out before?]

[Eagle]

Zoner role is merely to replace the current Freelancer role on existing savegames, its not neccessarilly a faction we'll use for new players, this is more likely to be one of the factions listed in my previous post. Also note that we will not be altering reputations of anyone if we dont have to, hence the idea to use Zoners as a replacement for Freelancers as this will allow everyone to fix their reputation to full neutral still.

I'm not sure if we should hold on to a Freelancer type start character, it would be far more interresting if the faction you start out as has enemies which it will keep. Use of /StartAs will ofcourse allow you to pick a different faction by starting you off as such. It is even possible to set the initial faction to be random rather fixed, which could ofcourse be overridden by /StartAs again. That way there's a more natural spread in factions each of us plays as, creating a more dynamic environment. The latter however goes beyond the scope of the system being introduced, so will not be part thereof just yet... if at all

Oct 17, 2008 11:09:26 GMT Archangel said:

Have you considered modifying some reputations, that could solve some problems - like the ones Cveki pointed out before?

The issue addressed by Cveki, as I understand, was about the inability for certain clan ships to dock possible trade destinations. This however should not be a problem at all as such ships would be able to dock all places other clan characters would be able to dock. Infact the problem we had is eliminated this way. A pirate clan using traders for instance could not use the Trader role if they wanted to smuggle goods as that role would exclude them from alot of pirate bases, next to that they could not use the role as it would show their own traders as being hostile to regular clan ships and neutral/friendly to clan enemies. All this is a thing of the past if we pick proper factions for clans.

Factions that we'll use to replace the current roles are:

BountyHunter	Bounty Hunters Guild	No change
Freelancer	Zoners	No change
Nomad	Nomads	No change
Pirate	Liberty Rogues	+Xenos hostile
Police	Bounty Hunters Guild	No change
Trader	Liberty Police	-Mollys, -Red Hessians hostile

The replacements were chosen that way because they least affect the current system. Bounty Hunter, Freelancer, Nomad and Police roles are identical once converted, the Trader role conversion to Liberty Police means reputation with Mollys and Red Hessians are no longer permanently hostile and thus can be fixed. The Pirate to Liberty Rogue conversion means they get an additional enemy known as the Xenos. As you can see, these are very minimal changes in respect to what we have at present so I expect it'll be a smooth transition ;D

[StarYoshi]

Hmmm, I'd agree with keeping Zoner/Freelancer character from start. Any changes to that would really make participation in this system mandatory.

Though the system in and of itself is good, I think that making participation mandatory would put off a few people for their inability to make a Neutral character.

[>3MAJ<>Cveki<]

... and if 3MAJ decide Blood Dragons - for Kusari BS we might need put purchase in Draconus.

Login out...

END

[Nosferatu]

A few questions:

If this plan is implemented, will it impact the server's "vanilla" status? In other words, will un-modded players coming to the server for the first time (and we are still getting a few examples of that rare bird) notice any appreciable difference?

Which of the current FLAC based player commands will be effected? And, how will they be effected? Some of those commands are obvious; /setrole, and /rplist being those that come to mind. Which other commands will be dropped or modified? ... I have noticed that /rplist and /hire are no longer valid commands. ... When/If this plan is fully implemented, I for one, would like to see a list of the effected commands.

I have noticed that the trade bonus is still awarded under the partial implementation which currently exist. Will that bonus continue under full implementation, and if so, how will that be handled? (One way might be to make the Trader role based on one of the factions which are primarily traders in the game rather than to have it based on Liberty Police.)

I presume that, as with the old role play system, a starting character will default to Zoner unless another role/faction is specified?

Will a "default" character be able to reset it's role/faction?

I also presume that once a particular character's role/faction has been changed from Zoner, or specified on creation, it is set for that character?

[Eagle]

Oct 24, 2008 3:07:09 GMT Nosferatu said:

If this plan is implemented, will it impact the server's "vanilla" status? In other words, will un-modded players coming to the server for the first time (and we are still getting a few examples of that rare bird) notice any appreciable difference?

We'll remain vanilla compatible as always and new characters will not notice any difference in the 1st version.

Oct 24, 2008 3:07:09 GMT Nosferatu said:

I for one, would like to see a list of the effected commands.

Oct 15, 2008 8:27:41 GMT Eagle said:

All role play commands such as setrole, hire, rplist etc will disappear.

Oct 24, 2008 3:07:09 GMT Nosferatu said:

I have noticed that the trade bonus is still awarded under the partial implementation which currently exist. Will that bonus continue under full implementation, and if so, how will that be handled?

Oct 15, 2008 8:27:41 GMT Eagle said:

Losing the trader role also means the trade bonus system will become obsolete.

Oct 24, 2008 3:07:09 GMT Nosferatu said:

I presume that, as with the old role play system, a starting character will default to Zoner unless another role/faction is specified?

Correct.

Oct 24, 2008 3:07:09 GMT Nosferatu said:

Will a "default" character be able to reset it's role/faction?

Oct 15, 2008 8:27:41 GMT Eagle said:

One command will replace the former RP system with which it is possible to restart in a new "role", this command is called StartAs.

Oct 24, 2008 3:07:09 GMT Nosferatu said:

I also presume that once a particular character's role/faction has been changed from Zoner, or specified on creation, it is set for that character?

Correct.