123101-remove-faction-barrier-page-3

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			US was at war with North Vietnam, don't remember every American saying all North Vietnamese should die..........	
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			What happens to PVP realms if factions merge?	
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doesn't the starter zone for dominion kinda give a lore reason for their being sympathisers with the exiles.
 
Remember we kill a whole host of sympathisers at the very start, which means the lines aren't that drawn.
 
Personally I would happily keep the exiles and dominion, with all their racial NPC's being the races they are now, but introducing a "turncoat" system. Where players can choose which faction to be based on personal beliefs, rather than race.
 
You would still have 2 factions, but it might balance the factions a lot if the choice isn't between being a god ugly Chua and an awesome Cat-elf or space-zombie.
 
Additionally you could make an option that allows players to be mercenaries and none allied, completing quests for both sides with no thought of the moral or ethical implications.	
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What happens to PVP realms if factions merge?
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doesn't the starter zone for dominion kinda give a lore reason for their being sympathisers with the exiles.
 
Remember we kill a whole host of sympathisers at the very start, which means the lines aren't that drawn.
 
Personally I would happily keep the exiles and dominion, with all their racial NPC's being the races they are now, but introducing a "turncoat" system. Where players can choose which faction to be based on personal beliefs, rather than race.
 
You would still have 2 factions, but it might balance the factions a lot if the choice isn't between being a god ugly Chua and an awesome Cat-elf or space-zombie.
 
Additionally you could make an option that allows players to be mercenaries and none allied, completing quests for both sides with no thought of the moral or ethical implications.
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Maybe like Rift. Rift has PVP servers, but only allows cross-faction parties and guilds on PVE servers.
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Factions are stupid, period.
Limits the story
Splits the player base(fine n the case of WoW, but not Wildstar as it currently stands)
Splits the entire world
 
It's also balls deep in the ugly pool when you have the same assets being used on both sides.
 
Fire=Hot
Water=Wet
Ice=Cold
Factions=Stupid
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That, and I strongly doubt the Dominion, a closed minded (which one of the reasons I love them), stubborn, judgemental faction is going to turn around and accept the Aurin? The Granok after they spat in their face?\
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Small FYI, story is not limited by faction lock. Do you think Star Wars would be as good if it didnt have Empire vs Republic!?
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Your whole argument falls apart when it's this obvious that you haven't even looked at any of the Lore from the Dominion's POV and just ignore the fact that the factions are already mostly shades of grey instead of black/white. A thing which becomes even more obvious when looking at your hilarious example of the dominion ever wanting to commit genocide on their own people, directly contradicting multiple storylines in the game (most notably in Auroria). Also you not knowing that the factions currently already don't mean anything at level 35+, and both factions tell pretty much the exact same story from that point onwards where they constantly work together and have bases right next to eachother without ever firing a shot.
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			I think it would be nice to see them introduce a neutral reputation faction in which both sides can work towards to see the other sides point of view Once your toon reaches XX (with that rep) you are able to corss communicate and even join forces guilds etc with the opposite faction HOWEVER the current NPCs are still adamant about not being able to reconcile with the other IE they would still KoS.	
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The reason they're next door without firing a shot has nothing to do with lore, and you should know that. It's about faction equality in zone placement and play balance. They don't fire a shot because that'd keep the guards from being able to defend against incoming threats, and they're next to each other so both factions can have a similar zone play experience. If you think that specific instance of game balance dictates world lore, I'm sorry to burst your bubble.
 
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My theory is that the bases are placed in close proximity simply to encourage Open World PvP on the PvP servers. Putting them there makes players of opposite factions run into each other again and again (at least on a server with high population density :D ), which theoretically would trigger lots of PvP. How it turned out in practice, well...
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First of all, my argument doesn't "fall apart." 
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It kinda does, love.
 
Your whole argument was that making things shades of grey instead of black/white would mean disaster for the lore, story and the game. When in fact it's already all kinds of grey. Also saying things like "Granok and Draken can never live together!" is nonsense when it's already established they respect each other and interact with eachother on multiple occasions. What's more, when you look at real life you see that the biggest enemies can become the biggest allies in no-time.
 
Also "the dominion have no regard's for each other's safety"? How did you come to that ridiculous conclusion?
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The Dominion have their hands bloodied in political subterfuge and internal power-play.  It's not difficult to find.  Play through the stories in Lightreach and Hycrest for easy examples.  Plus, the Highborn routinely look down on the Lowborn, and it's canon that those without Luminai blood are treated as lesser beings and given lesser duties.  It's all on the Cassian loremageddon page.  I'd copypasta here but I'm on lunch at work.
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Play through the stories in Lightreach and Hycrest for easy examples.
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More reasons not to be on pvp server, preciesly what is needed ;)
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Well, to be fair, people don't play faction-based games on PVP servers to group up with the enemy faction. The "Us vs Them" factor is a big draw in the appeal of PVP for many people, and removing the faction barrier would do more to drive people off the PVP servers than attract them back.
 
Basically, any change they would make would be something like changing some server settings so some content can be done cross-faction on a PVE server. If they allow it, Carbine shouldn't be expected to change the lore or develop special content to support it.
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You keep bringing up early game examples.  The faction divide is pretty apparent in the pre-20 game but just fizzles out early on in Whitevale and is rarely seen from then on like the dirty little secret nobody wants to acknowledge.  There's that lame daily in the Defile (kill enemy soldiers soldier) that just screams "whoops we forgot to rub your face in the faction divide for the last 30 odd levels".
 
As much fun as debating the should they / shouldn't they from a lore standpoint, the whole argument is moot unless there's engineering time spent to make neutral faction support possible.  Unfortunately those sorts of design mistakes tend to be so fundamental to the architecture that it becomes an oops, lesson learned for our next title.
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Just wanted to point out that the faction barrier / server disparities are basically the reason that no one is on the PvP server, anyway.
 
... seriously, Dominion NA is ALL on entity
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 As a new IP, it would be somewhat pointless to do very little with the world that you've created and focus on "War War War! Faction Faction Factions!" Especially when you want people to look at EVERYTHING you've created. Doing factions stuff for the 1st half of the game, and then focusing on the greater aspects of the world, is not only better to give players a sense of scale (with not just how small their problems are, but with how small they are in comparison to the planet) but it's also better for pacing, storytelling wise. Making new players bounce between a bunch of brand new things constantly, is a pretty awful was of getting people to care about your writing. As that's how you overwhelm people.
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Er what?  If your game enforces hard factions it has to be your major narrative.  At the very least you shouldn't be floating a Greater Evil theme.  If they were serious about the faction separation there should have been at least one mission per hub that puts you into direct conflict with the opposing faction otherwise the sense of "we better work together or else" gets reinforced to the point of "faction boundaries are stupid."
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That's exactly the point I've been trying to make.  o_O
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Which point?  We have hard factions the war must be the major narrative?  Or: Carbine has gone off in the Greater Evil direction that hard factions are looking like a sad joke?
 
I really don't want to believe that they were that inept.  I prefer to think that they got told they had to have hard factions.
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			The sooner this game becomes a modern mmo, the better.	
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Well, neither, kind of.  You'd said "... otherwise the sense of "we better work together or else" gets reinforced to the point of "faction boundaries are stupid.""
 
That's the slippery slope I mentioned earlier, and why I'd like to keep the factions so clear-cut.  The Greater Good often turns into The Greater Gray Area.
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The narrative doesn't even ahve to be altered though really.
 
I can't say for sure how factions are coded, but I'd imagine that id' be easier just to break down the restrictions than to create a 3rd faction or a mercenary system. That's just an educated guess from how I would program it with my own work experience. However it could be easier the other way too. It'd need time obviously but I'd rather it just happened. For all I care a Yatish could conquer the Dominion and Exiles if that's what it takes for it to happen.
 
Regardless fo the method I don't see the lore, story, or quests structures being needed to be changed for a mechanical feature. We're getting Esame faction battlegrounds oddly enough and
 
 
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Why not alternatives to Greater Good objectives?
 
Here's a thought I haven't put forth but seems (maybe too) simple... if all the PVE non-leveling content we run is based on simulation, can't our allies also be simulations while doing that content? Aren't WE simulations while doing that content? Unless I misunderstand that part.
 
Anyway, the concept of a repeatable dungeon or any other instanced content is nonsense in the first place. I don't see why it would be so difficult for players to accept, in the tradition of 'suspension of disbelief', that some players from one faction would cooperate with some players from another faction. It doesn't even have to be for the 'greater' good— it could simply be that it helps both sides without necessarily requiring shared opposition.
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The narrative doesn't even ahve to be altered though really.
 
I can't say for sure how factions are coded, but I'd imagine that id' be easier just to break down the restrictions than to create a 3rd faction or a mercenary system. That's just an educated guess from how I would program it with my own work experience. However it could be easier the other way too. It'd need time obviously but I'd rather it just happened. For all I care a Yatish could conquer the Dominion and Exiles if that's what it takes for it to happen.
 
or like what if a Chua strapped a bomb to an Aurins neck and forced the stalker to tank the dungeon? See what I just did??
 
Because indeed there are alternatives to "Greater good" I agree. I believe most of us are jsut throwing that ou there as a possibility, but not the end all be all that I feel Vince thinks some of us are implying.
 
The simulations thing is more part of the adventures aspect which is technically managed by CoGs, but I do see your point.
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In my frail defense, I got pretty burned by CoH's writing on co-op stories, as well as seeing that trope in TV.
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Er what?  If your game enforces hard factions it has to be your major narrative.  At the very least you shouldn't be floating a Greater Evil theme.  If they were serious about the faction separation there should have been at least one mission per hub that puts you into direct conflict with the opposing faction otherwise the sense of "we better work together or else" gets reinforced to the point of "faction boundaries are stupid."
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			Part of the issue of this was that most of the game's story was built around these two factions fighting each other with no hope of a truce (a concept that has been beaten into the ground). Most of the games story (especially early on) is about getting dicked over by the enemies' army, though to create an enemy or thing that requires both parties' participation is not actually that difficult considering the setting, i.e, the Strain/Entity becomes such a world-destroying threat that the two forces have to work together.	
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			Simple as that - this game needs cross fraction group PvE content and probably needs cross fraction BGs. This is gonna happen sooner or later, the later it will be the higher possibility of more RIP players. I just hope it will be at very worse drop 6 addition.	
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The number of Dominion and Exile NPCs that interact in many friendly ways with each other in the open world and in instances would like to have a word with you.
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So much focus on the lore...
 
The lore and overarching grand theme of the story would remain the exact same. What we choose to do at the individual level should be our own personal choice and story.
 
Having artificial mechanisms in game that prevent players from deciding who to group with is anti good gameplay and anti role play.
 
Again, the "meta" lore and story remain the same. At the micro level, the individual decides if they want to group with the opposing player	
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The sooner this game becomes a modern mmo, the better.
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Sorry but no.
Exiles are nice people to kill and pursue with laser cannons,but I can't bear the thought of
having to play with them on the same team.	
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Sorry but no.
Exiles are nice people to kill and pursue with laser cannons,but I can't bear the thought of
having to play with them on the same team.
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Sorry but no.
Exiles are nice people to kill and pursue with laser cannons,but I can't bear the thought of
having to play with them on the same team.
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			What if...The world is in such a bad state that we are forced to team up to fight entity or a different bad force in a new drop or expansion, and then like, the world is saved and we all live happily ever after together.I have no idea how far pappy/the team is with writing the lore, but there's so much room for this to make it work in the lore.To convert from 2 faction to one faction, doesnt mean that it have to change right now and change the current lore, but could change the lore that is yet to come. So maybe, someday we all get to be friends. 	
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What if...
The world is in such a bad state that we are forced to team up to fight entity or a different bad force in a new drop or expansion, and then like, the world is saved and we all live happily ever after together.
 
I have no idea how far pappy/the team is with writing the lore, but there's so much room for this to make it work in the lore.
To convert from 2 faction to one faction, doesnt mean that it have to change right now and change the current lore, but could change the lore that is yet to come. 
 
So maybe, someday we all get to be friends.
 
 
 
 
 
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If we can get Pappy in here to sort of explain how Carbine feels about the necessity of the war, it might let us get a better idea of just how set in stone this all is. I'm not sure how much we have to have here before this gets marked as something to look at by the team. 
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If we can get Pappy in here to sort of explain how Carbine feels about the necessity of the war, it might let us get a better idea of just how set in stone this all is. I'm not sure how much we have to have here before this gets marked as something to look at by the team. 
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No, Pappy doesn't need to explain this. It's explained because the game is writen that way. That's the explanation. It's the very core of the entire thing. You think a Granok would stand next to a Cassian without ripping their head off? The factions fuel the story.
 
This is not something the team "needs to look at."
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No, Pappy doesn't need to explain this. It's explained because the game is writen that way. That's the explanation. It's the very core of the entire thing. You think a Granok would stand next to a Cassian without ripping their head off? The factions fuel the story.
 
This is not something the team "needs to look at."
 
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If we can get Pappy in here to sort of explain how Carbine feels about the necessity of the war, it might let us get a better idea of just how set in stone this all is. I'm not sure how much we have to have here before this gets marked as something to look at by the team. 
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I really wish people would let Carbine tell the story they want to tell, and be content in roleplaying in the context of the campaign world as it is, not the campaign world as they'd like to rewrite it. There are games that have factions and there are games that don't. This game has factions. It's not a mistake. It's not an out-of-date concept. And where Carbine goes with the story is certainly not something that is up to the players to decide. It wouldn't bother me if Carbine did open up cross-faction grouping (like Rift does) as a concession to players and to allow more opportunity to group up, but the setting of the game is a galactic war between two sides, and that's clearly the context that the story they want to tell takes place in. There's a whole timeline on the main website. The "necessity of the war" is explained there.
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Got about 200 some posts of people on both sides that say you might not be right. 
You can say you don't think it needs to be changed, but saying it is not a player concern is unjustified. 
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I really wish people would let Carbine tell the story they want to tell, and be content in roleplaying in the context of the campaign world as it is, not the campaign world as they'd like to rewrite it. There are games that have factions and there are games that don't. This game has factions. It's not a mistake. It's not an out-of-date concept. And where Carbine goes with the story is certainly not something that is up to the players to decide. It wouldn't bother me if Carbine did open up cross-faction grouping (like Rift does) as a concession to players and to allow more opportunity to group up, but the setting of the game is a galactic war between two sides, and that's clearly the context that the story they want to tell takes place in. There's a whole timeline on the main website. The "necessity of the war" is explained there.
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Yes multiple factions may fuel a story the easy way, but there are many other solutions to do so.
Have you played Tera? There is only one faction, but they have played very much into the guild roles on the server. You had to vote for a guild and those became presidents for a certain area and decide if open world pvp was on or off, how much tax you'd pay etc, etc. So they sort of created a 'faction' like that. (And not to forget the full elin guilds running around stomping others with their cuteness)
 
There are many posibilities to work with. Things that some people may not like or prefer, it's impossible to please everyone. 
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Tera is a very different game, and not even in the same league as WildStar especially in terms of story. There are mechanics there that not only wouldn't work in WildStar, they aren't even present. You're asking for an entire set of systems to support something you perceive to be a "solution" to a "problem."
 
It would make zero sense from a creative or strategic standpoint to eliminate the faction barrier in WildStar. You can't please everyone, but everyone bought the game with this in place. Therefore, it's the best solution and changing it really cannot be an option.
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Players generally don't know what's good for them. This is one of those cases. It's a misguided suggestion based on a perception.
 
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When the story's constraints weaken gameplay, that is in fact a serious problem. It doesn't matter if it's the story causing the issues (which isn't the case) or the story blocking potential resolution of those issues (which is the case). The key point to remember is that this is a game, not a novel or comic book, and gameplay is the priority. If factions are getting in the way of easy access to content then they need to be reassessed and potentially overturned for a new story direction.
 
I don't think many people pay a monthly sub so they can get the next installment of Wildstar's world story.
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It was mere an example that there are other solutions to create a situation that could create 'faction' feelings and story fueling things out there ;) 
 
A little reminder, people bought this game when it was focused on pure #hardcore gamers only. They have now changed ALOT to make it accessible for more casual players aswell ;)
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Like I said, I don't have a problem with WildStar doing something like what Rift did (regarding cross-faction guilds and groups) in order to ease group access to content. I just have a problem with people calling for some kind of overhaul of the lore to get rid of factions.
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			A game that really went wrong with their approach to factions is Aion. Not being able to roll different factions on the same PVE server was one bad decision, but making one faction essentially traditional popular heroic fantasy races and the the other some kind of copy of the first, but with non-human palette skin colors and soft, poofy back-hair/tails pretty much sealed the faction-imbalance deal.	
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I don't want the war gone at all. No Chua in Thayd, No Aurin in Illium, ever. Out in the field I would like a little more flexibility in how I deal with the other faction. For some this will mean giant raid mobs that are mixed faction to take on giant group content, for others it won't. No arm twisting, you get to play with the people you choose. Neither Carbine, or other players should ever make you have to group with the other faction if you don't want to. 
 
I would even throw in a faction bonus for people who only had people from their faction. Like a 10% reduced cost on vendor items ect. For the people that want to group with the other faction to clear content, or just to be social, I don't see a reason to stop them. 
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I think that's more of a biproduct of the discussion. Seems to me that most people just want the gameplay changes and don't care how it's handled in lore terms. But I imagine that the folks who are talking story/lore changes, are talking it because they don't want gameplay changes to ravage the existing plot.
 
So it's a situation where there are a bunch of groups in this thread with variations on the main theme. Carbine certainly won't please us all but I think if they can address the most important concern in an MMO (queue pressure), then they'll have done an overall good thing.
 
Hopefully it works out for everyone though.
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This ^ 
 
I personally would love if we could choose whom we'd like to play with. That you have factions but that it wouldnt limit you to interact with the other side. That you perhaps could be like an outcast? That people could turn against you from your own faction if you interact with the other faction and the more rep you gain of the other faction by doing stuff with them the more hostile the faction you once belonged to gets towards you.
 
/just rambling thoughts
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People have been proposing the ability to defect for a while. It's an interesting idea, and I don't think it would be impossible to implement. Although I would imagine it would be simply done through a faction change service, since the races are, for the most part, simply cosmetic, and swapping faction rep would require a lot less work on the part of the devs than putting some kind of system in place to account for a gradual in-game change. Any of the faction NPCs that refer to the character's race would have to have their dialog updated, though. Animations for interaction with faction-based mounts, as well, I imagine.
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The defection idea I pretty much don't see happening and if it were it'd be a bad idea as it'd jsut make one faction the "go to" more than there already is.as mentioned. It would also be far more work I'd imagine as they'd have to create an entire process, add in more variables to NPC dialogue interaction(unless they want to just half-ass it)
 
Story doesn't need justification or changing at all and continue as is. It's just a theme setter and really nothing more than that. I'm not expecting Aurin in Illium or Draken in Thayd on a friendly basis, but when im in queue for a dungeon I honestly don't care if the tank is an exile or a dominion.. I just want to do the content and have fun. When I'm in the open world I will care more since I'd be flagged and looking for other people who are as well.
 
The funny thing is we already technically on Entity do crossfaction in openworld as it is now anyway with quest and objective credit being shared with exception to R-12 and it's VERY noticeable the difference between population of the two factions during those events in many cases. During these events as well you do have those that will flag for pvp and go at eachother as priority over the objective(I know ive been in a few fights during these events and sure others have too) while others will focus on the pve and work on that ignoring the opposing faction. While those doing the PvE may not be able to heal/buff eachother they're still contributing side by side to the same goal.
 
If lore dictated so strongly the gameplay I don't see how this should be possible and credit should only be given to the faction that contributed the most and or has the tag. At one point it was this way for some fights, yet not others and now it's consistently this way for everything.
 
Now I noted that in my observation people would flag as well during this time and reason I did so is to emphasize moreso that it was the players themself unprovoked whether it was to pvp for the sake of pvp or as part of their view on lore enforcing the faction war. This was not imposed by Carbine, these people did not get forced into being flagged(because last i checked you cant force a flag like in other games), these people chose willingly to participate in that role(or forgot they were flagged and if they were decent laughed it off)
 
If cooperation to a degree with the option to do the opposite exist in open world I do not see why instanced content(raids, dungeons, adventures, housing, warplots, battlegrounds, and shiphands) which bares no effect on the open world, is rarely considered a time for roleplay, and limits the playerbase mechanically(in the sense of bodies available for content) as well as creatively should be so restricted. I believe it would be a far different case if this game was setup in the manner of Warhammer Online where open world pvp is THE core, but it's not.
 
I don't really have much more to add than this and my previous posts on the matter though and will just leave it at that. I do hope to see faction restrictions loosened more and allow for players to conduct it further as they see fit, but we'll see.	
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The defection idea I pretty much don't see happening and if it were it'd be a bad idea as it'd jsut make one faction the "go to" more than there already is.as mentioned. It would also be far more work I'd imagine as they'd have to create an entire process, add in more variables to NPC dialogue interaction(unless they want to just half-ass it)
 
Story doesn't need justification or changing at all and continue as is. It's just a theme setter and really nothing more than that. I'm not expecting Aurin in Illium or Draken in Thayd on a friendly basis, but when im in queue for a dungeon I honestly don't care if the tank is an exile or a dominion.. I just want to do the content and have fun. When I'm in the open world I will care more since I'd be flagged and looking for other people who are as well.
 
The funny thing is we already technically on Entity do crossfaction in openworld as it is now anyway with quest and objective credit being shared with exception to R-12 and it's VERY noticeable the difference between population of the two factions during those events in many cases. During these events as well you do have those that will flag for pvp and go at eachother as priority over the objective(I know ive been in a few fights during these events and sure others have too) while others will focus on the pve and work on that ignoring the opposing faction. While those doing the PvE may not be able to heal/buff eachother they're still contributing side by side to the same goal.
 
If lore dictated so strongly the gameplay I don't see how this should be possible and credit should only be given to the faction that contributed the most and or has the tag. At one point it was this way for some fights, yet not others and now it's consistently this way for everything.
 
Now I noted that in my observation people would flag as well during this time and reason I did so is to emphasize moreso that it was the players themself unprovoked whether it was to pvp for the sake of pvp or as part of their view on lore enforcing the faction war. This was not imposed by Carbine, these people did not get forced into being flagged(because last i checked you cant force a flag like in other games), these people chose willingly to participate in that role(or forgot they were flagged and if they were decent laughed it off)
 
If cooperation to a degree with the option to do the opposite exist in open world I do not see why instanced content(raids, dungeons, adventures, housing, warplots, battlegrounds, and shiphands) which bares no effect on the open world, is rarely considered a time for roleplay, and limits the playerbase mechanically(in the sense of bodies available for content) as well as creatively should be so restricted. I believe it would be a far different case if this game was setup in the manner of Warhammer Online where open world pvp is THE core, but it's not.
 
I don't really have much more to add than this and my previous posts on the matter though and will just leave it at that. I do hope to see faction restrictions loosened more and allow for players to conduct it further as they see fit, but we'll see.
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There isn't currently anything in place that makes people want to put alts on the other faction.
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What if...
The world is in such a bad state that we are forced to team up to fight entity or a different bad force in a new drop or expansion, and then like, the world is saved and we all live happily ever after together.
 
I have no idea how far pappy/the team is with writing the lore, but there's so much room for this to make it work in the lore.
To convert from 2 faction to one faction, doesnt mean that it have to change right now and change the current lore, but could change the lore that is yet to come. 
 
So maybe, someday we all get to be friends.
 
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As it is, playing my Dominion alt cuts me off from all of that, which makes it just not all that appealing no matter how much I love her.
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Which would be fine if it was that easy.  But the faction system is DEEPLY rooted in this game.
 
As an example of how deep, I was playing a vet SoTR the other day.  The last boss bugged, and we found ourselves being fired on by our own turrets and guards (on a boss I don't think that was meant to happen on).  We had, essentially, switched factions.  We killed the boss, and the "hostile" forces showed up, completely friendly and milling around.  We were avoiding our own turret fire.  We ran under the generator, wiped the adds, then saw all the little cheering NPCs were hostile to us.  Even after the adventure ended.
 
It might take actions straight down to the root of how the entire game reacts to you to make faction a non-issue in any part of it, and would take a correspondingly long time.  Time that might be well spent, but time nonetheless.  IF it's that deeply rooted, though, I imagine it's more than swapping a D for an E.  Rewriting whole lines of dialogue might be the least of their problems.
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Like I said, I don't have a problem with WildStar doing something like what Rift did (regarding cross-faction guilds and groups) in order to ease group access to content. I just have a problem with people calling for some kind of overhaul of the lore to get rid of factions.
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Which would be fine if it was that easy.  But the faction system is DEEPLY rooted in this game.
 
As an example of how deep, I was playing a vet SoTR the other day.  The last boss bugged, and we found ourselves being fired on by our own turrets and guards (on a boss I don't think that was meant to happen on).  We had, essentially, switched factions.  We killed the boss, and the "hostile" forces showed up, completely friendly and milling around.  We were avoiding our own turret fire.  We ran under the generator, wiped the adds, then saw all the little cheering NPCs were hostile to us.  Even after the adventure ended.
 
It might take actions straight down to the root of how the entire game reacts to you to make faction a non-issue in any part of it, and would take a correspondingly long time.  Time that might be well spent, but time nonetheless.  IF it's that deeply rooted, though, I imagine it's more than swapping a D for an E.  Rewriting whole lines of dialogue might be the least of their problems.
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I know what you mean by this, but it doesn't feel right. They shouldn't need to change how the instanced content itself works, only how the queue system selects participants. Unless I'm missing a good reason why they'd be referencing an actor in SoTR as Dominion/Exile, instead of simply enemy/ally, which is all that should matter to the AI.
 
Why would they need to 'factionize' players at a coding level? I could be missing something here, my knowledge is limited.
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Cross-faction social constructs (circles, channels and guilds) would go a long way to mitigating some of the glaring QoL issues hard factioning brings to a game.
 
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Who knows why anything is coded the way it is? We have no idea what good/bad decisions were made over 10 years of coding on this game. It's not a stretch to believe that it would be inflexible and difficult to change with lots of coders working in it over a long period of time, and it's hard on the outside to judge what is easy or hard.
 
I've had plenty of users complain about changes that "should" be easy that aren't, because most code bases don't remain clean and easy to work with. Most are messy. I've only worked with one code base that was truly clean and malleable- it was a sad day I had to leave that team.
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I don't want the war gone at all. No Chua in Thayd, No Aurin in Illium, ever. Out in the field I would like a little more flexibility in how I deal with the other faction. For some this will mean giant raid mobs that are mixed faction to take on giant group content, for others it won't. No arm twisting, you get to play with the people you choose. Neither Carbine, or other players should ever make you have to group with the other faction if you don't want to. 
 
I would even throw in a faction bonus for people who only had people from their faction. Like a 10% reduced cost on vendor items ect. For the people that want to group with the other faction to clear content, or just to be social, I don't see a reason to stop them.
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You're in luck. War and story would remain the same. What you decide to do at the bottom of a cave in order to survive... Should be up to you and not restricted by some artifical game code. 
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Who knows why anything is coded the way it is? We have no idea what good/bad decisions were made over 10 years of coding on this game. It's not a stretch to believe that it would be inflexible and difficult to change with lots of coders working in it over a long period of time, and it's hard on the outside to judge what is easy or hard.
 
I've had plenty of users complain about changes that "should" be easy that aren't, because most code bases don't remain clean and easy to work with. Most are messy. I've only worked with one code base that was truly clean and malleable- it was a sad day I had to leave that team.
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I know what you mean by this, but it doesn't feel right. They shouldn't need to change how the instanced content itself works, only how the queue system selects participants. Unless I'm missing a good reason why they'd be referencing an actor in SoTR as Dominion/Exile, instead of simply enemy/ally, which is all that should matter to the AI.
 
Why would they need to 'factionize' players at a coding level? I could be missing something here, my knowledge is limited.
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However from what I would guess it is coded in such a way because the instances themself take into account what NPCs spawn depending who comes into said instance. War of the wilds also does this and has two sets of opposing faction NPCs. I'd frankly say that it is because Wildstar probably started off thinknig factions would still be a thing from the time it was first started, but the idea has since faded into more of "it was a good on paper idea at the time..."
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This still doesn't suggest to me that the scripting recognizes players as factions (which we figure would need to be changed), rather than hostile/ally (which should not need to be changed). The only real issue I see here is deciding which NPCs to spawn, but they wouldn't necessarily have to change much code there either, just think up a lore-based explanation for why the races are suddenly mixed and then either flip a coin or go with majority representation to determine which NPCS show up.
 
As immortals in a ground hog day universe, it can't be that hard to come up with a lore explanation that doesn't require uprooting the whole system. I hope. :unsure:
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I believe you misunderstood me...as this was an additive to previous posts on the topic.
 
If you're referring to my statement on defection.
 
I'm not saying nor implying it would be easy in anyway shape and or form of the actual process. Rather the mention of me ever saying it would be "easy" would go toward an educated guess on my own experience that removing some of the current limitations within the instanced and party system compared to having to create a system by which not only would you need to remove said restrictions, but have on top of that a system by which it can easily/smoothly allow an individual to switch factions. This is to say that from what I know from past experience and work that it is most likely easier to do a blanket system change as opposed to a dynamically changing state for the individual.
 
The notion of NPC dialogue interaction is NOT major, but reading this thread lore and immersion has pooped up frequent enough to mention that if it were included within the integration of said system it'd be even more time and resources needed to go through either a point of progression(progression meaning level 3 to the current end game).
 
Added to this would the defection be a paid service?A quest chain? A simple talk to an NPC that goes "heya bob wanna be exile/dominion!". Thered have to be a system put in place for this stuff as well even if it was the last one.
 
The example you cite could be related to the faction code, but it's also not the first time that adventure has bugged in some rather funky ways either. However even drawing from this example I've already taken this into consideration because there are various points by which your faction determines what spawns as a hostile or friendly NPC toward you like in war of the wilds to add. This would be counted among other things that needed to be changed either way. The question then turns into how does one manage this system?
 
For me personally I would go with making the NPCs them-self independent of relying on the players faction type and either have them all mixed or leave them as is and randomly spawn one set or the other. However I'm not Carbine and for all I know if they chose to do it they could replace all the bosses with Lopps and Skeech.
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For the sake of queues, perhaps the game would benefit from a mercenary-styled system, where the game will group together individuals regardless of faction limitations, for example:
 
Bob, Donald, and Samantha are all Exiles and queue together for Stormtalon's Lair.
Dominic and Claire are both Dominion, also queued together for Stormtalon's Lair.
Normally the game would search for players of the same fighting force (Dominion or Exiles respectively) but because of the Merc-System, matchmaking would allow both parties to group together, regardless of their faction limitations.
 
The matter of lore limitations becomes simple, as it means that by using the Merc-System, the characters involved are all working to achieve the same goals, regardless of faction boundaries or character creed, meaning that beings such as Stormtalon are deemed such a grave threat to the planets stability that it requires drastic changes in tactics to defeat them. Though admittedly the system would create some problems for the faction-specific Adventures, like Riot in the Void or Siege of Tempest Refuge. Perhaps a fix for it would be to change the player's character model and faction a la a Caverns of Time style buff.
 
Of course such a system change would have an impact on PvP queues, but at the same time it could in theory help alleviate faction imbalance in PvP queues and help those servers effected by it.
			
				
	Edited March 13, 2015 by THICKMANFIST	
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"The factions are at war!!!"
 
Except for on PvE servers, where they're only at war if they want to be.  
 
I'm not really sure how this discussion is still going, as I don't think anyone disagrees with the idea of removing the faction barrier.  A player should be able to queue up for GA, DS, Dungeons, PvP, etc, with anyone he pleases.  Instanced environments need no faction barrier.	
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Just came back to the game and not having a level capped toon I figured I would start over. I am on the pvp server and while not having anyone to group with hasn't been an issue if finding groups at end game is an issue game wide, then removing faction barriers is huge. Lore wise you just take the stance that factions are banning together to defeat a common enemy. PvP you're all just mercenaries. From a game play perspective it definitely helps a struggling population as you can now Que based off current overall population and aren't limited to faction populations. This greatly helped rift when it was struggling for PvP ques.
 
Overall it benefits the entire game population and has little impact on overall enjoyment of the game. You can even allow cross faction guilds and limit the PvP server to same faction. Again not knowing everything as I just came back, but if populations are struggling removing faction barriers will improve the majority of the player bases overall enjoyment of the game.	
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Just came back to the game and not having a level capped toon I figured I would start over. I am on the pvp server and while not having anyone to group with hasn't been an issue if finding groups at end game is an issue game wide, then removing faction barriers is huge. Lore wise you just take the stance that factions are banning together to defeat a common enemy. PvP you're all just mercenaries. From a game play perspective it definitely helps a struggling population as you can now Que based off current overall population and aren't limited to faction populations. This greatly helped rift when it was struggling for PvP ques.
 
Overall it benefits the entire game population and has little impact on overall enjoyment of the game. You can even allow cross faction guilds and limit the PvP server to same faction. Again not knowing everything as I just came back, but if populations are struggling removing faction barriers will improve the majority of the player bases overall enjoyment of the game.
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I agree. It works in swtor. When playing imp side I had more imp vs imp warzones then imp vs pub.
 
So lets take that a step further and imply it to all instances. Think of the short que times and all those cupcakes people would be enjoying.	
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I recently joined this game after the 10 day trial and, while I find the game immensely enjoyable (I need 80 more plugs for my house though, please), up to lvl 20 I haven't been able to find any groups for instances apart from one for Protostar Academy (as a healer), which is a shame and could probably turn people off the game. I know it's a very unpleasant choice (it's like admitting a defeat) but in my oppinion the game would benefit from being able to group among the two factions, considering the population isn't as big as we would like and dividing players into factions isn't helping, unfortunately. Like it's been mentioned, some other games like Rift have had to resort to this and while some people didn't like it it helped the game a lot (include a checkbox to not group with other faction group members if you so desire).
 
As for the lore, there should be some kind of evil faction invasion on Nexus which forces both sides to cooperate (cliche, I know) even if just temporarily so you can check whether this is helping the game or not. If population started to grow and you'd like to end the cooperation between factions there should be an option to group with specific members of the other side in case you made friends and wanted to keep playing with them.
 
This has probably been said 80 times already in this thread but I haven't read it entirely, so apologies for saying it once more. Just my 2 copper.
 
Cheers.	
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I recently joined this game after the 10 day trial and, while I find the game immensely enjoyable (I need 80 more plugs for my house though, please), up to lvl 20 I haven't been able to find any groups for instances apart from one for Protostar Academy (as a healer), which is a shame and could probably turn people off the game. I know it's a very unpleasant choice (it's like admitting a defeat) but in my oppinion the game would benefit from being able to group among the two factions, considering the population isn't as big as we would like and dividing players into factions isn't helping, unfortunately. Like it's been mentioned, some other games like Rift have had to resort to this and while some people didn't like it it helped the game a lot (include a checkbox to not group with other faction group members if you so desire).
 
As for the lore, there should be some kind of evil faction invasion on Nexus which forces both sides to cooperate (cliche, I know) even if just temporarily so you can check whether this is helping the game or not. If population started to grow and you'd like to end the cooperation between factions there should be an option to group with specific members of the other side in case you made friends and wanted to keep playing with them.
 
This has probably been said 80 times already in this thread but I haven't read it entirely, so apologies for saying it once more. Just my 2 copper.
 
Cheers.
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I agree. It works in swtor. When playing imp side I had more imp vs imp warzones then imp vs pub.
 
So lets take that a step further and imply it to all instances. Think of the short que times and all those cupcakes people would be enjoying.
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I recently joined this game after the 10 day trial and, while I find the game immensely enjoyable (I need 80 more plugs for my house though, please), up to lvl 20 I haven't been able to find any groups for instances apart from one for Protostar Academy (as a healer), which is a shame and could probably turn people off the game. I know it's a very unpleasant choice (it's like admitting a defeat) but in my oppinion the game would benefit from being able to group among the two factions, considering the population isn't as big as we would like and dividing players into factions isn't helping, unfortunately. Like it's been mentioned, some other games like Rift have had to resort to this and while some people didn't like it it helped the game a lot (include a checkbox to not group with other faction group members if you so desire).
 
As for the lore, there should be some kind of evil faction invasion on Nexus which forces both sides to cooperate (cliche, I know) even if just temporarily so you can check whether this is helping the game or not. If population started to grow and you'd like to end the cooperation between factions there should be an option to group with specific members of the other side in case you made friends and wanted to keep playing with them.
 
This has probably been said 80 times already in this thread but I haven't read it entirely, so apologies for saying it once more. Just my 2 copper.
 
Cheers.
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Hugor, unfortunately the queue system pre 50 isn't too healthy, but there's an easy way to find groups with a little extra effort. I just leveled up a fresh dominion DPS class and was able to put together a group in less than 5 minutes for all 5 man pre 50 dungeons. Just make sure you are in the lfg channel (type /chjoin lfg) and when you want to run a dungeon, just advertise a little in the channel... so /1 "New healer wanting to run Stormtalon (normal) looking for a group"
 
This will work wonders in finding low level dungeons groups.  Myself and many others love jumping into a low level dungeon to help out the new players.. we just need to know when you're looking
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Perhaps there should be a well advertised "join-random-anything-pve" button in the LFG tool for pre-50 peeps that provides a decent exp bonus and a random loot bag after finishing and that allows you to group for lower level instances (make this a checkbox) for faster queues.
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			Are you EU or NA Hugor? Which faction?	
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Please understand I'm speaking about players in general when I post, not you or anyone specifically :)
 
That sentence contains nearly everything I feel has gone wrong with the MMORPG genre. Hand-holding, auto-matching interface, bonuses, rewards, and so on.
 
It removes every ounce of the social glue that once held these games together, and made them fun in the first place. You had to figure things out, meet people and have adventures.
 
Now folks seems to feel they should just be able to show up at any time, and immediately be able to jump into content designed for a group of players, even though they are playing solo.
 
Players aren't willing to even try anymore, which is why these games are having trouble. Any effort whatsoever is regarded as "game sucks" and players move on. Meanwhile game designers are asking themselves "wtf" because the design principles are well-practiced and sound.
 
I dunno, I guess I am too jaded at this point.
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			No no no! The Chua destroyed the Aurins home world... we will have our revenge! 	
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Just make sure you are in the lfg channel (type /chjoin lfg) and when you want to run a dungeon
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We do not have a channel called lfg afaik. In EU Exile /chjoin Global
 
Some murricans tend to forget there are other regions in the world. :D
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Hi Evade,
 
Many thanks, I wasn't aware of that. I guess the low level dungeon population isn't that bad then. I don't mind joining a chat channel and asking for groups in there, but I fear that most of the joining population won't know about this since for example I just found out after you told me... Perhaps there should be a well advertised "join-random-anything-pve" button in the LFG tool for pre-50 peeps that provides a decent exp bonus and a random loot bag after finishing and that allows you to group for lower level instances (make this a checkbox) for faster queues.
 
Of course, this may have probably been discussed to death in many other threads and is totally out of topic here so I'll stop now.
 
Cheers.
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Perhaps there should be a well advertised "join-random-anything-pve" button in the LFG tool for pre-50 peeps that provides a decent exp bonus and a random loot bag after finishing and that allows you to group for lower level instances (make this a checkbox) for faster queues.
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Not a day goes by that I don't regret rolling dominion and not a day goes by that I don't hate my friend who refused to roll Exiles and made everyone else go Dominion. He quit the game first from all of my friends, naturally.
 
Today was the worst day so far, I made the mistake of making an lvl 1 alt on Exiles and went through all the zones using /who. I really, really shouldn't have done that.
 
The faction imbalance is *cupcake*ing ridiculous. Exiles Dominion ratio is something like 6:1. You can't do adventures so you can't really do the attunement. Luckily, you can leech world bosses from Exiles by making a char on Exiles, joining their global chat and spamming that WB is up and relogging back to your Dominion char. Too bad you can't get to that step. But at least I'll have all the world bosses killed so once I get to that step, I'll get through it instantly. It'll never happen, but it's a comforting thought.	
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Not a day goes by that I don't regret rolling dominion and not a day goes by that I don't hate my friend who refused to roll Exiles and made everyone else go Dominion. He quit the game first from all of my friends, naturally.
 
Today was the worst day so far, I made the mistake of making an lvl 1 alt on Exiles and went through all the zones using /who. I really, really shouldn't have done that.
 
The faction imbalance is *cupcake*ing ridiculous. Exiles Dominion ratio is something like 6:1. Game over dommies, game over. Can't do adventures so you can't really do the attunement. Luckily, you can leech world bosses from Exiles, too bad you can't get to that step. But at least I'll have all the world bosses killed so once I get to that step, I'll get through it instantly. It'll never happen, but it's a comforting thought.
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