Neutral Application Form

[huckleberry]

- Hello, how are you
- Hello I'm very well, i just found something new today
- What is it
- I found 2 + 2 = 4
- It is absurd
- No it is true, mathematically tested by myself
- No it is absurd
- Why you keep saying that ?
- Because 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4
- Ah yes that too, but why 2 + 2 = 4 is absurd ?
- Because 1 + 3 = 4
- I'm agreed, that to, but why 2 + 2 = 4 is absurd ?
- You ask me why it is absurd ?
- Yes, I'm asking
- What you are asking ?
- I'm asking why 2 + 2 is absurd
- Why then ?
- Yes why
- Why of what ?
- Listen, you just said 2 + 2 = 4 is absurd
- Yes it is absurd
- But why
- Ok look, 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4, it is not absurd ?
- I'm agreed, it is not
- Ok now look again, 1 + 3 = 4, it is not absurd ?
- Yes, it is not
- Now look carefully, because 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4 and 1 + 3 = 4, therefore 2 + 2 = 4 is absurd
- Why, it look good to me
- You ask why again ?
- Yes I'm asking again
- Can you stop asking me ?
- No, I insist
- Ok i will tell you why it is absurd
- I'm listening, please tell me
- Because 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4, and 1 + 3 = 4, everyone got 2 different ways to make a 4
- Yes I'm agreed there are 2 ways to make a 4, but mine is the 3nd valid way to make a 4 too
- Listen, if ppl can make 4 by 1 + 1 + 1 + 1, and 1 + 3, what is the usefulness to make 4 by 2 + 2 ?
- I dont know but 2 + 2 is a 4 too, mathematically tested by myself and sure 100%
- That is why it is absurd
- Is it ?
- Yes, if you need a 4 and you can take only the 2 + 2 to make it, then what will happen to the 1 and the 3 ?
- Well i guess we can take them and make others 4 too
- That will make too much 4 in mathematic leading to too much uncertainty on the essence of the number 4, we can't accept that
- But if ppl can't make 4 with 2 + 2 then what will happen to the 2 ?
- Some numbers need to sacrifice for the good of the mathematic
- But why we will not sacrifice the 1, instead of the 2 ?
- If we sacrifice the 1 then the 3 alone never can make 4
- Ah yes but let sacrifice the 3 instead of the 1, then we still have 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4 and 2 + 2 = 4, only 2 ways to make a 4
- We cant do that, it is absurd
- Why ?
- I'm the 3
- You are ?
- Yes, and now you see why it is absurd
- From your personal perspective it do not look good
- And you, who are you ?
- I'm the 2.
- Ok, i will make a mathematical research and find a solution for your problem of 2 + 2
- If you can i will be glad
- Ok, i just got it, you want to see ?
- Sure, tell me
- Now look, 2 + 2 = 2
- I'm not sure here
- It do not look enough good for you ?
- I have to say it is not easy to take
- Ok, how about 2 + 2 = 2,5 then
- Well both choices are a bit strange to me
- Both of them look very reasonable to me, but 2 + 2 = 4 is simply absurd.

[Caighil]

This my post that is similar, but shows how i see it fitting into the story line.

http://forums.anarchyonline.com/showthread.php?t=581607

[techprince]

All long term timers on each and every character that changed the side will require more resources.

1) I will suggest to create a integer variable that can have either 0(neut) or 1(sided).
2) Every x months, assign a week or two for side change, declare it as a (Side Change Period or something)
3) As soon as a player switches side to neut, change the variable to corresponding side.
4) Repeat after x months.

This will resolve the long term timers problem and it will give people a pre-defined period to switch the sides.

[ArienSky]

Bottomline is, there is nothing wrong with neut status, it should just not be considered a faction. It's a learning phase for new players that has been unnaturally extended to be an almost faction, a state in which players stay and safely does pvp and can pick and choose who they want to fight and when...

"Yes Mister Unicorn, I know I blew up the precious tower field belonging to one of your devoted employee organization last week, but I am not really against omni you see, I just like to blow things up and kill people, so please let me walk past here so I can get to that mission inside your city. I'll promise that on Wednesday I will blow up a clan field, deal?"

Thank you for your many good posts, a shame that people get so angry at you, keep up the good work.

Strange thing that neutrals are SO subjective..
I can clearly see the benefits, that is why I changed from Omni to Neutral..
But I would never expect both sided twinking items AND the freedom of movement all over Rubi-Ka, Shadow Lands and Battle Stations..

Who ever thought up "neutrals should have all the benefits", which neutral tokenboards is..

The shade profession is more limited in item choice than the neutrals are..

If you want the good stuff, pick a side.. if it was to me sided toons should have even better equipment. It is strange how interplanetary mega cooperation have as bad equipment as people spanning two towns of a single planet..

Clans have Sol Banking backing them up.
But I still think that OT should have the better weapons, Clan the better armor and neutrals.. the bad armor of OT and the bad weapons of Clan.

Then there would be a choice.

My choice?
I went from Omni to Neutral..
so don't come and say that oh neutrals have it so bad..
just look at the amount of people wanting to change to neutral..
they would not do that if they did not think it was worth it..

and to the neutrals for being so sad over not having good items:
you are very welcomed to change side.
it is YOUR choice to be neutral, if you want the items all you have to do is click an item and change side..
is it that hard?
clicking one item to get what you want?

if you can not be bothered with that, you do not deserve the items (tokenboard).

Kind Regards
-Ariensky

PS. you can also choose to play the game without spending IP ever.
should we base ingame items on the minority that plays the game like that, or is it ok to say "Grow up and spend those IP"?
Isn't it in the same way ok to say "grow up and choose a side to get the tokenboard"?

again.. you would actually have to push more buttons to distribute IP than to sign a side application form...

[Shrubberyman]

I would advise ppl to go back and read all Aethyrguards posts, he pretty much got everything right.

Just thought I would highlight that particular humor climax of your participation at this discussion.

I can't help but chuckle (a bit) when I think of the face of Aethyr when Collector was released...
The awesome Aethyr, so sure in November 2009 that the Omni/Clan distinction would be the next fashionable thing, who had to already suffer the disgrace of seeing us get the xan board reviewed (though it was prolly not the best way to satisfy our claim), and was suddenly discovering that the nearlly very last scraps of what made Clans and Omnis different ingame, short of SBs, had just flown out by the window...
Fred sleeves? Omni and Clan. Gunship? Omni and Clan. I guess the poor chap considered it a personnal insult, him who was so sure "the big man" was on his side... Or knowing the self-contradictions of the guy, he might just have loved those changes, completely oblivious of the effect it would have on his Ô so beloved traditional sides distinction...

...

Time to wake up, Ari and for what it's worth, to actually read the threads of the last Neuts War, that as a matter of fact, we mostly won.

Omni > Clan > neutrals is utterly 2006 in dev eyes. It's dead and it's not coming back. Time to adapt and adjust to the new trend that is more equality (balance), less diversity (differenciation). Think for a second at what FC would have done to SBs if they had known back then...

As for what other neutrals than you want, most of those of us who made a fuss back then at LoX release just wanted the gap kept in check, the ways and means were of no real importance. The easy way was a neck item, it could have been something else. Eventually, the debate cristallized over tokenboards, but we would have welcome other ways. Funniest part being that our opponents were sooooooo scared that we would get something without at least twice the effort needed for them to get their boards, and in the end we got reviewed LoX boards that all we had to do to upgrade was relogging...

Well, second funniest part tbh, the really funniest would be that you don't see the "omg no lub for neuts" crowd yell at Means' door for a boosting of Omni gear and/or nerfing of Clan gear, all of course in the name of the holy hierachy of power ...


PS : Talk of a derailing. Bump for Means following the storyline and for ways for sideds to join the real men side.

[huckleberry]

"Yes Mister Neutral, I know I blew up the precious tower field belonging to one of your devoted employee organization last week, but I am not really against Neutral you see, I just like to blow things up and kill people, so please let me walk past here so I can get to that mission inside your city. I'll promise that on Wednesday I will blow up an Onmi field, deal?"

And

"Yes Mister Neutral, I know I blew up the precious tower field belonging to one of your devoted employee organization last week, but I am not really against Neutral you see, I just like to blow things up and kill people, so please let me walk past here so I can get to that mission inside your city. I'll promise that on Wednesday I will blow up a Clan field, deal?"

Do both seem very reasonable to you, everyone ?

[Edta]

...

I wonder why you start about itemization, because that's not what we're asking for. I'd say that (taking our other advantages into account) we still lack a little bit in itemization, but its not to such a degree I can't live with it (we obviously shouldn't be as advanced in combat items as Clan or Omni). I think the choice is pretty balanced right now, except that we're not able to perform the choice Clan/Omni --> Neutral if we'd make it (except for an agent like you).

I believe it's impossible to look at all the factors that affect The Choice. It can be silly things like the first recruiter they run into or a fancy name or 10.000 other things. You can look at the results though:
(according to auno, it's not exact numbers, but it should be more then sufficient as estimates)

* 519966 people
- 233657 Omni --> 44.9%
- 221147 Clan --> 42.5%
- 64909 neutrals --> 12.5%

Don't get me wrong: I don't mind being a minority. But if you'd want to balance the choice, it should be about making neutrals more appealing. I'm not arguing that the choice isn't there, there is people choosing for neutral (like you), which is sufficient for me.

Btw, this minority of neutrals doesn't seem to be an effect from not being able to change towards neutral: for agents you get about the same numbers.
* 36574 agents
- 16853 Omni agents --> 46.1%
- 15645 Clan agents --> 42.8%
- 4057 neutral agents --> 11.1%

Time to adapt and adjust to the new trend that is more equality (balance), less diversity (differenciation). Think for a second at what FC would have done to SBs if they had known back then...

Sorry, but I can't really agree with this part of your post. I want balance through diversification/variation. It's harder, but more fun. I like that in AO everybody is quite unique. Right now Omni is exactly the same as Clan, I'm glad that I'm neutral and different!

[Shrubberyman]

Sorry, but I can't really agree with this part of your post. I want balance through diversification/variation. It's harder, but more fun. I like that in AO everybody is quite unique. Right now Omni is exactly the same as Clan, I'm glad that I'm neutral and different!

I'm not saying this is what I would have picked, given the choice, I'm just saying this is the way it is going.
The trend is not at following the storyline. Nor logic (hacked stuff, but not quite hacked as far as Neuts are concerned...).
So, if the two main sides overwhelmingly represented ingame don't bother to be unequal to fit the background, we NEED to be very careful at remaining competitive. I'm not very regarding toward the means, as long as we remain within the limits of what has been defined several month ago as an "acceptable gap".

[mocs]

Keeping the topic alive
1,2,3... 1% of devs time to make players happy

[Escapegoat]

We still need this.

[soapdistant]

This is just about going from sided to neutral, not about geting more goodies for neuts.

Bump

[salamander123]

It's already in game, just don't switch side If you truly want to be neutral, you wouldn't have picked one in the first place. If you "accidentally" did it on the island, big deal you can just reroll. If you did it later there is probably some shady reason why you want to leave the side scenario. Besides there seem to be so many loaded issues related to this, it will be really hard implementing this in a game balanced way. Almost no matter how you turn it around, there is a way to abuse this or it won't fit in anywhere. I also want to point out what somebody else said earlier, that this choice is really one of the only one with real consequences, apart from leveling out of level range for bs, apf or instance and breed choice.

[Biancha]

i wouldn't really want people turning neutral just to level 220 inf easy missions.

if one could "resign" their post as a clanner/omni employee, and not be able to rejoin again ever it might work.

[Edta]

It's already in game, just don't switch side If you truly want to be neutral, you wouldn't have picked one in the first place. If you "accidentally" did it on the island, big deal you can just reroll. If you did it later there is probably some shady reason why you want to leave the side scenario. Besides there seem to be so many loaded issues related to this, it will be really hard implementing this in a game balanced way. Almost no matter how you turn it around, there is a way to abuse this or it won't fit in anywhere. I also want to point out what somebody else said earlier, that this choice is really one of the only one with real consequences, apart from leveling out of level range for bs, apf or instance and breed choice.

People make mistakes, that's how it is. I never made the mistake to spend IP wrongly, but I did make the mistake to make a high level omni. My story goes like this: when I 'just' started this game I made a lvl 28 omni trader because I thought Omni+tradershop gave the best profit. Later when my main NT was about lvl 100, I decided to make 2 slaves: a trader and an agent. I made a new NT to powerlevel a new-made agent and the trader I already had. I picked this trader because at the time I thought being Omni would increase my profit when selling to tradershop and having higher level would increase it even more + I was lazy to make a new toon + I thought Omni wasn't that bad to play + the extra side xp was a nice bonus. My new NT stopped at lvl 60 to become a totw twink (never got so far) and my main NT took over kiting the agent and trader when they were lvl 72. With all 3 I went on till about lvl 150. Later I found out that:
- Neutral and Omni tradershop give you the same amount of creds
- I played a bit with the trader and hated it to be a side, I missed being neutral
- As a tradeskiller being neutral is quite an advantage

Yes, I made a stupid mistake, as did many other people that for example spend IP wrongly, went Clan instead of Omni, got wrong perks, ... But all of those can undo their mistake. 'Going sided' being one of the only things you can't correct is actually an argument that support resignation forms: it's like saying, "we respect everybody but neutrals". Or maybe I should take it as a compliment and interpret it as "neutrals are the only ones that don't make mistakes"; too bad this isn't the case. And other 'mistakes' you can make get easier and easier to correct: jobe platform perk-reset-guy, cheaper IP-resets (+yes-drop),... Heck, they even promised a one-time breed change with the Rebalancing...

And if you absolutely want things with consequences: there is a lot of other options that makes much more sense! Like not being able to change freely between Clan and Omni. Why don't you fight for that instead of against resignation forms? Resignation forms wouldn't hurt you in any way if applied properly, so I don't know why you are doing this :S.

i wouldn't really want people turning neutral just to level 220 inf easy missions.

if one could "resign" their post as a clanner/omni employee, and not be able to rejoin again ever it might work.

Agreed. It should be an extremely long time at least, like 6 month in-game time or something, or even 10 years . If AO is still alive in 10 years and you were logged in all the time, I think you deserve your new faction change :P.

[huckleberry]

"It's already in game, just don't switch side" - The form do not exist in game, and everyone know it have a problem when you join Omni or Clan that is the Neutral application form do not exist to go back. That is why ppl are asking to make it exist. Stop fallacy, it will not help anyone and anything. And it waste my time.

"If you truly want to be neutral, you wouldn't have picked one in the first place." - What is truly Neutral or truly Omni, or truly Clan do here ? I have a toon that just changed from Omni to Clan last days just by buying a Clan application form lesser than 1K creds from a shop, and i can do that again in some days to go back to Omni. Am I truly Clan or truly Omni or truly Neutral ? And why i can do that but if someone ask to join neutral then you come and tell them "you wouldn't have picked one in the first place" ?

You see problems of rational and consistency ?

[ArienSky]

i wouldn't really want people turning neutral just to level 220 inf easy missions.

if one could "resign" their post as a clanner/omni employee, and not be able to rejoin again ever it might work.

The form do not exist in game, and everyone know it have a problem when you join Omni or Clan that is the Neutral application form do not exist to go back.

Agreed. It should be an extremely long time at least, like 6 month in-game time or something, or even 10 years . If AO is still alive in 10 years and you were logged in all the time, I think you deserve your new faction change :P.

I seriously do not get your point of view.. it _does_ exist..
Agent Undercover Kit - Neutral

One talks like chaos would break out if it was ingame..
.. it IS ingame, available to all Agents.
Do all Agents flip side?

The second denies it's existance in the game..

The third talks about locks lastings years being necessary for such an item..
The item, the side change form to neutral, that already is ingame and rollable in missions.. has a lock of 7 ingame days.

People, please know what you are talking about, before just writing on the forum.

Thank you

I agree that it should be available to all professions, but please keep to the fact people; that 1/12 of the professions already and FOR YEARS have had access to a neutral application form.
Don't lie, keep to the facts in this debate please..
and keep all the "if this was ingame"-theories out of this.. because it IS ingame..
And the lock is an ingame week.

Kind Regards
-Ariensky

[Biancha]

i wouldn't really want people turning neutral just to level 220 inf easy missions.

One talks like chaos would break out if it was ingame..
.. it IS ingame, available to all Agents.
Do all Agents flip side?

i'm not sure how that makes my concern any less valid. it was just an offhand remark based on the fact that people will do anything to level faster, and if someone figured out it was faster to level as neutral and get tokens in BS or wherever they get them later on after levelling, they might do it. geez louise.

and, User Level <= 200!

People, please know what you are talking about, before just writing on the forum.

i take offense at you implying my opinion has no merit in this discussion.... so, i suggest you put a sock in it, my undercover neutral friend

[huckleberry]

What i understand, is ppl are asking for something like the application forms that are selling in any shop that allow anyone who want to join Clan/Omni. And that is what i'm talking about. But maybe you think if ppl want to join neutrals they will need to reroll all their toons that are not agent to be agents first, then use this kit to join Neutral after, then reroll again to the professions that they were before, then problem solved ? Bravo.

[alderwaran]

People make mistakes, that's how it is.

would you do me a favor? please put all your most valuable items in a backpack and trade it to me... then click "yes" when the confirmation dialog comes up.

i was neutral on rk3 long before the at this time very small neut community there could do pande... one of my first toons was lured by an omni to click an omni application form to buy a medi suite. guess what, even as the noob i was at this time i rerolled.
in the spirit of the truly neut community that was bashed, denied existence, harrassed by overwhelmingly many sided i DONT WANT THAT CRAP to join my side. if you want to be neut roll a new char and stay neut.

[MassDebater]

First name change and now this. I can't wait to start my new life as a TL7 neut tower griefer and FFA ganker!