128794-factions

== Content ==
			Due to the issue of one faction completely overwhelming the other I thought I'd post an idea to resolve this issue. Faction changing. This could be a really useful feature because many people might want to play on the other faction without the need to level a new character. A faction change could be bought by real money or in-game currency depending on what Carbine wants to do. When someone buys a Faction change they should be able to choose a race relative to their class, for example an Aurin Spellslinger can't change to a Mechari because the Mechari can't be spellslingers, it's as simple as that.	
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			Or remove factions because it's an archaic story crutch and makes the game worse for everyone?	
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Or remove factions because it's an archaic story crutch and makes the game worse for everyone?
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I vote for Rift's way: you can keep the stupid factions grudging against each other, but you make the player characters and a select number of NPCs to realize "You know what? If we keep shooting each other the Strain is going to eat both of us whole. Better team up until that's solved!"
That way, players who believe in the Factions Must Mean Something mantra can be completely loyal to their side and choose to never ever team up with the other. Meanwhile, everyone else enjoys the better queues.
 
Of course, with our luck Pappy will have the Strain issue solved in the next drop just to spite us. :p	
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So i just started a Chua alt on the Dom side and I have access to all my Exile costumes but can't mail........ illogical, pointless and a real turn off that I thought they had over come this silly barrier.
 
The Doms and Exiles may have their issues, but their master and lord, ME does NOT!!!
 
Makes me feel a tad dirty. We can share underwear but I can't even send a thank you note :P
			
				
	Edited July 6, 2015 by LordJJag	
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Or remove factions because it's an archaic story crutch and makes the game worse for everyone?
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IF Domis wipe out every Chua, they can join the exile otherwhise no.
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Why would doms kill chuas? I'd like to think even the science crazed chipmunks would recognize a common threat.
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It honestly wouldn't be too far-fetched, either. Considering the massive threat of the Strain and the Entity, it would make sense to put aside prior grudges and band together for the sake of the planet/universe.
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			Doesn't need some faction-merging story, IMO. Just let players queue OOC together regardless of faction. Your potential playerbase to do stuff with becomes immediately doubled; nothing to lose there.	
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Doesn't need some faction-merging story, IMO. Just let players queue OOC together regardless of faction. Your potential playerbase to do stuff with becomes immediately doubled; nothing to lose there.
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In a world where Vind literally consume boulderback farts for "food"(this is actually canon, I'm not even joking)...anything can happen.
 
 
But really, just do what Rift did essentially...
Said it so many times, I just don't feel like typing out long explanations anymore.
			
				
	Edited July 6, 2015 by Typrop	
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But here we have a problem:
- The dominion has issued a kill order against the Mordesh due to their plague.
 
 
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But really, just do what Rift did essentially...
Said it so many times, I just don't feel like typing out long explanations anymore.
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Also, that's a bit unfair to the Eldan. That the races and civilizations in the galaxy exist at all the way they do now is essentially all because of the Eldan. I'm not sure how exactly revolutionizing Life for Cassians (curing most disease and injury outright with nanites, weather and planetary control, materials and metals far beyond their techniques, etc) falls under 'abuse'. Manipulating, sure, but we manipulate all the lesser life forms on our planet too (cattle, poultry, intelligent marine mammals, etc). That Tresayne Toria is still alive wouldn't destroy the Dominion.
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So like... what does Rift do? Never played that game.
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Ah ok. That sounds a LOT like Everquest 2 then. They too let you even form dual faction guilds. Everquest 2 goes a step further than any other MMO I've thus far seen ans lets you faction change 'in game' without a race change.
 
Faction there seems to only effect which set of NPC guards will attack you... And I never tried nor even saw that game's PvP in the short time I was on it, so I don't know how that worked out.
 
 
All of the above said though - I'm not convinced that the factions here are as imbalanced as people think. At least on the PvE server - I'm not seeing a difference in the time it takes to pop queues for PvE content during the leveling game. Maybe its very different at max level and Dominion suddenly loses all of its players?	
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IF Domis wipe out every Chua, they can join the exile otherwhise no.
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Ah ok. That sounds a LOT like Everquest 2 then. They too let you even form dual faction guilds. Everquest 2 goes a step further than any other MMO I've thus far seen ans lets you faction change 'in game' without a race change.
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All of the above said though - I'm not convinced that the factions here are as imbalanced as people think. At least on the PvE server - I'm not seeing a difference in the time it takes to pop queues for PvE content during the leveling game. Maybe its very different at max level and Dominion suddenly loses all of its players?
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			We have a cross-faction auction and commodities exchange already. All Carbine has to do is add cross-faction chat, cross-faction circles/guilds and cross-faction housing.	
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The Dominion has done that for all Exiles. They don't suffer terrorists :3 The Mordesh are virtually extinct anyway.
 
 
 
The Dominion would never "nuke" Nexus; it's a sacred planet to them. Also, that's a bit unfair to the Eldan. That the races and civilizations in the galaxy exist at all the way they do now is essentially all because of the Eldan. I'm not sure how exactly revolutionizing Life for Cassians (curing most disease and injury outright with nanites, weather and planetary control, materials and metals far beyond their techniques, etc) falls under 'abuse'. Manipulating, sure, but we manipulate all the lesser life forms on our planet too (cattle, poultry, intelligent marine mammals, etc). That Tresayne Toria is still alive wouldn't destroy the Dominion.
 
 
TBH we already have cross faction groups (such as C.o.G.S.). No need to get rid of the factions, take a page from SWTOR's book and toss that W* flair into the mix. 
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They should just scrap the barriers that prevent Exile and Dominion grouping and communicating (without a translator addon). It might have made sense at the planning stage, but in practical terms it makes no sense anymore. The storyline converges, let the factions converge too. Keep it optional of course.
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I do not agree with just shoving everyone into the Dominion. The CoGs is a cross-faction in-universe group already. The loremaster can come up with another group like that if he really wants to or just keep the factions and simply add the functionality on an 'out of character' basis. We don't need to put everyone on the same faction for cross-faction gameplay elements to work. Leave it at the discretion of the players.
 
Also, why have the Dominion subjugate the rebels? Why not make the Dominion collapse fantastically and force everyone to work together against the Strain? Why not have the Exiles win? Or any other choice? We know for a fact that the Dominion is incapable of crushing the Exiles. Every time they face off against each other, they seem to have similar or equal might:
- The Dominion is powerful enough to quarantine Grismara, but the Exiles are powerful enough to go in there and evacuate the non-ravenous Mordesh.
- The Dominion is powerful enough to ravage Arboria, but the Exiles are powerful enough to go in there and evacuate the Aurin.
- The Dominion was NOT powerful enough to defeat the granok in the War of Gnox, despite being a galactic empire fighting one single planet.
- The Exiles are powerful enough to keep as many footholds as the Dominion all over Nexus, including most of a continent.
 
Having everyone join the Dominion seems fairly logical but, at the same time, it's not. It's also a very good way to alienate everyone who doesn't like the Dominion for whatever reason. Best to leave any cross-faction tools as strictly Out of Character (like the Auction House) at the discretion of the players themselves or, if you really want the lore to acknowledge it, make a CoGs like group but military based.
 
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Mordesh: for the good of a galaxy, the infestation has to be purged. And here also makes a counter-point vis-a-vis the Strain... The Mordesh plague is equally bad. If one band of malcontents is willing to let a plague that bad loose on the galaxy because those with it swear they have it under control... what is to keep another band of malcontents from accepting some Strain people into their numbers and letting that spread? So we come back to: if this is really dangerous, nuke the planet from orbit, wipe out all life down there... and send bots and folks in contamination suits down to investigate things / purge counter-doctrinal evidence.
 
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			Since people are trying to find reasons to justify merging factions, it just dawned on me. Why are we talking about making people join the Dominion? When the vast majority of the players like the Exiles. Making them join the faction that they very clearly don't like would be a huge blunder. Make the Dominion join the Exiles, regardless of whether or nor it makes sense. Especially when people on the "merge the factions" side say "Screw the lore, make it happen!"
			
				
	Edited July 7, 2015 by Dharnell	
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Also, why have the Dominion subjugate the rebels? Why not make the Dominion collapse fantastically and force everyone to work together against the Strain? Why not have the Exiles win? Or any other choice? We know for a fact that the Dominion is incapable of crushing the Exiles. Every time they face off against each other, they seem to have similar or equal might:
- The Dominion is powerful enough to quarantine Grismara, but the Exiles are powerful enough to go in there and evacuate SOME OF  the non-ravenous Mordesh.
- The Dominion is powerful enough to ravage Arboria, but the Exiles are powerful enough to go in there and evacuate SOME OF the Aurin.
- The Dominion was NOT powerful enough to defeat the granok in the War of Gnox, despite being a galactic empire fighting one single planet cause guerrilla fighting, do you remember vietnam, its not like vietnam was better than USA military
- The Exiles are powerful enough to keep as many footholds as the Dominion all over Nexus, including most of a continent i feel like the bulk of dominion is in other planets, like the big part of their army and colonies, just wait and see
 
 
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I've actually theorized that the Dominion will have its own revolution.
 
Basically, one of two ways:
 
Scenario one:
 
Myrcalus returns, sees how the current Dominion is pretty fanatical and downright cruel, goes WTF! and starts change. Except there's powers that be that are content with the Dominion as it is, and civil war breaks out.
 
Scenario two:
 
After the revelation that the Eldan are not actually gods at all, all of the Nexus colonists - American Revolution style - seek freedom of the bindings of the empire, and revolt against the oppressive regime. Cassus and the Dominion at large sans Nexians, thinking this is propaganda, fights back. Myrcalus would then become the badguy. Mechari get out of being part of the evil NPC faction by some sort of revelation hinted at in Omnicore-1 (I'm super curious what it is!) This is actually my favored option, as it still allows the tension between Exiles and Dominion to be played out - it's hard to get over many centuries of total war - but gives them reason to work together. Cut off from the main Dominion supply chain, the Nexian Dominion would be fairly weak, but cause the main Dominion to turns its full attention upon Nexus.
			
				
	Edited July 7, 2015 by Bloodrose	
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			 Im just hoping for a neutral city where everyone hangs out .. and paint balls are the toy of choice within city limits :D	
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			Why we gotta merge one faction into the other...we got a lot more of races in wildstar, I vote for the lopps to conquer both exiles and dominion and we become their slaves	
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fixed, i am an exile but i admite  lore wise the dominion is the one who call the shots on this, seems like nexus is only another of their colonies
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Doesn't need some faction-merging story, IMO. Just let players queue OOC together regardless of faction. Your potential playerbase to do stuff with becomes immediately doubled; nothing to lose there.
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			Chiming in to say I agree. I don't see any reason why the dominion and the exiles couldn't begrudgingly work together to tackle a larger threat. Cross faction matchmaking or even guilds sounds good to me.	
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The Dominion would never join the Exiles lore wise... The Dominion supports a massive galactic empire (quite equitably for that matter) and has actual resources and infrastructure. At best the Dominion might accept the exiles into the fold; perhaps even with adjustments to the structure of the Dominion (best case scenario it reinstitutes the Cassian commonwealth). But it makes zero sense for the largest, best supplied, and most powerful political entity in the galaxy to join a minute band of rebels, traitors, vagrants, and... wait for it...  exiles.
 
Illdur is correct; we already have cross faction groups (e.g C.o.G.S.) it takes little effort to use existing ones or make new inter-faction groups for a common purpose. Solves the problem of factioned players working together while maintaining the factions. 	
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			I think that if they really want to destroy that barrier it's not enough with the bigger threat, basically for all the reasons people have said in here, we would need the bigger threat AND the destruction of the empire status of the dominion	
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Scenario two:
 
After the revelation that the Eldan are not actually gods at all, all of the Nexus colonists - American Revolution style - seek freedom of the bindings of the empire, and revolt against the oppressive regime. Cassus and the Dominion at large sans Nexians, thinking this is propaganda, fights back. Myrcalus would then become the badguy. Mechari get out of being part of the evil NPC faction by some sort of revelation hinted at in Omnicore-1 (I'm super curious what it is!) This is actually my favored option, as it still allows the tension between Exiles and Dominion to be played out - it's hard to get over many centuries of total war - but gives them reason to work together. Cut off from the main Dominion supply chain, the Nexian Dominion would be fairly weak, but cause the main Dominion to turns its full attention upon Nexus.
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I really, really like this.
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The problem is that the Eldan are gods... Drusentity is what became of the top Eldan. For better and for worse, the Dominion and VC are correct in that the Eldan indeed ascended to godhood.
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Except they didn't. Drusentity isn't formed from every Eldan that was left. It was a select group, as you said, which immediately means the Eldan didn't become gods: only some of them did. Every other Eldan we know about died or got infected with the Strain, which cannot be considered part of the Drusentity. If you do consider the Strain as such, then we have to say that actually every infected species ascended to godhood.
 
Another problem is that Drusentity is most definitely not an Eldan itself. It's a completely different creature, the same way all the Primevals seem to be distinctly non-Eldan creatures despite using one as a material. Or how the Luminai are not actually Cassian despite being engineered from one. Drusentity doesn't show any signs of being an Eldan, or of ever having been an Eldan.
If we didn't have all the datachrons stating that she was made with a bunch of Eldan, how could you tell that she was the ascended Eldan?
 
And the last problem is that I'm very sure that most Dominion citizens wouldn't be glad at the idea of the Drusentity. Do you think the believers would raise their hands in praise and sing "Well, it's a schizofrenic god-like creature, but we were RIGHT all along"? When Jarec did his declaration he meant: "All Eldan are gods and are beyond our comprehension now!". This is evidenced as how very little the Vigilant Church actually speaks of the Eldan beyond 'they are gods'. All of their morals and teachings are based on Dominus and the Scions, who were Luminai and not Eldan. Remember, Jarec and the Mechari didn't have any evidence of what the heck had transpired.	
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Also, why have the Dominion subjugate the rebels? Why not make the Dominion collapse fantastically and force everyone to work together against the Strain? Why not have the Exiles win? 
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Eh, depends. Drusera/Entity can easily be viewed as a huge mistake, considering what else it created. Very obvious fodder for disillusions masses. (I also tend to disagree that they became a god, as that has a bunch of mystical religious connotations. All the Eldan did was just science really, really hard. :P)
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Because that kind of thing just doesn't happen.
 
The only reason the Dominion doesn't absolutely crush the Exiles on every meeting is basically because for 'gamist reasons' Carbine has decided to have two factions survive.
 
Unfortunately in lore, they did NOT write them as equal. This is not the Soviets versus the USA. This is not even the English versus the Colonists (the Colonists had allies in France and India - India indirectly in that it went into rebellion, aided by various European powers trying to kill the British Empire... and the British cut their losses with "13 unimportant colonies" to keep their important colony of India, and to head of a French attack in Europe - because well... they still had the northern colonies and just assumed, wrongly, that the 13 would collapse in a few years and come begging back to the crown.)
 
No... the Dominion versus the Exiles is more like the entire Roman empire versus David Koresh's Waco Texas compound. The Exiles had one spaceship. The only reason they didn't get blasted out of the stars was because the Dominion couldn't locate that ship for 300 years...
... Now... they know where it all is. And the very moment any reinforcements arrive on Nexus... its all over...
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Because that kind of thing just doesn't happen.
 
The only reason the Dominion doesn't absolutely crush the Exiles on every meeting is basically because for 'gamist reasons' Carbine has decided to have two factions survive.
 
Unfortunately in lore, they did NOT write them as equal. This is not the Soviets versus the USA. This is not even the English versus the Colonists (the Colonists had allies in France and India - India indirectly in that it went into rebellion, aided by various European powers trying to kill the British Empire... and the British cut their losses with "13 unimportant colonies" to keep their important colony of India, and to head of a French attack in Europe - because well... they still had the northern colonies and just assumed, wrongly, that the 13 would collapse in a few years and come begging back to the crown.)
 
 
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Not sure if it was about faction walls being torn down or simple multi-faction queue, but on that topic, Timetraveler said in an STOS stream: "Soon".
  	
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Not sure if it was about faction walls being torn down or simple multi-faction queue, but on that topic, Timetraveler said in an STOS stream: "Soon".
 
 
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Gods usually are mistakes. [note how I originally mentioned for better AND for worse ;) ]
 
Any science that is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.
 
Drusentity can create matter and life from nothing; can wield primal energy directly, is immortal, etc etc etc insert just about every definition and notion of a god here) personal religious qualms aside, Drusentity is pretty clearly a god (compare to the gods of Rome and Greece; India, Japan, JCM, etc). 
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You missed my point that the simultaneous creation of the Entity and the Strain could very easily disillusion many in the Dominion towards the Eldan as perfect beings worthy of their worship. Perhaps many decide they don't want to be a part of an Empire founded on revering a people who brought about a universe-threatening plague in their misguided hunt for "godhood".
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			Agreed, Yas. And that spells for some really interesting story, to me!	
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Why we gotta merge one faction into the other...we got a lot more of races in wildstar, I vote for the lopps to conquer both exiles and dominion and we become their slaves
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Honestly if any race could pull it off I think the Lopp could.
They've literally pretty much gone unchecked and are all over the place in neutral, dominion, and exile territory, and while they may prefer not to be hostile they've certainly shown they are capable of it if they really want to. Yattish is an army in and of himself...All it would take is for the little time bombs to just snap and we're all screwed.
 
 
Though just putting this out there...I would not mind my new overlords being the Torine....not...at....all...
Would kill for those lovely locks of theirs
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			Marshal Yattish kill stons of dudes effortessly (but only off-screen), just like a Player character. So if you think about it, he is basically a Lopp Player Character. 	
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Yep, if the faction walls do come down at some point I anticipate that this will be why. It won't have anything to do with which side has greater numbers or better tech. It will have to do with an altered understanding of who the Creators of the Dominion really were and what really led to their downfall.
 
I was very interested to note that at the opening of the OMNICore-1 arc, when Myrcalus decides that he wants to help Drusera and then asks his advisors for their opinions, he gets 3 "yes" votes and one abstention. Who was the person who couldn't bring themselves to just endorse what was not only the pragmatic choice to fight the Strain, but also the Emperor's preferred course of action?
 
Varonia Cazalon, head of the Vigilant Church. She has found Nexus to be the source of, in her own words, "many disturbing revelations". 
 
The Vigilant Church is being faced with the reality that the Eldan's Chosen People aren't going to be following the Eldan to any paradise and that the Eldan went extinct trying to fix their own mistakes. That's gotta be a bitter pill to swallow. I see hard times brewing for the "heart and soul of the Dominion".
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While Cazalon was the lone voice of descent (with Toric abstaining), I'm fairly certian it's not for those reasons. I find Cazalon's caution to aid Drusera to be linked to the fact that you would in effect be helping both Drusera and the Entity; and things like that often backfire. Knowing Cazalon got her position by ousting a leader who twisted the truth to manipulate his follwoers though, does make me doubt her intent is solely to preserve some religious dogma, and lies more in the realm of pragmatism in not wanting to inadvertently arm the Entity while trying to help Drusera. I have a feeling at least if it was so important for the church Toric would have done more than just abstain.
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Can you point to a specific source so we can get the exact context?
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			Oh such infuriating deliberate vagueness! XD	
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Yeah, I'm sure the Luminai, Highborn, and Mechari would broker a peaceful power-sharing arrangement with the lowborns--and that the lowborns would be eager to accept such an arrangement with the people who have been subjugating them based on false pretenses for hundreds of years.  :rolleyes:
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			At this point, I don't care about lore in regards to keeping factions separate. I'd be psyched if we could open up the raiding and battleground pool for everyone to make teams as they see fit.	
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