Bump for this.
Makes sense to have them from a roleplay perspective.
Makes sense to have them (with appropriate lockouts and requirements) from a gameplay perspective.
They already exist for Agents and have no ill effects on the game.
There's literally no reason not to have them.
Bump again...
The old Omni-Tek Employee, tired and weary, cashes in his retirement and moves to Newland.
The grizzled old Clan Verteran, having lost his purpose, and desire to fight, resigns and does the same.
Young soldiers on both sides, suffering PTSD, go AWOL and Crawl into one of the Neutral bars.
The Cagey opportunist who realizes he can make better money working as a Mercenary Freelancer and be able to choose his risks.
All of these are valid RP reasons why there should be Omni/Clan->Neutral forms.
Bump.
The Independent Rubikans - The oldest Neutral Org on RK1! 10.5 years and counting!
Namiru - 210/30/58 Neutral Solitus Martial Artist, Advisor - Always accepting new students in the Art
Thalona - 199/25/40 Neutral Solitus Meta-Physicist, Veteran - Pondering higher thought
Weefleboy - 150/20/40 Neutral Opifex Fixer, Member - Wheeling and Dealing somewhere on RK.
Johnnysokko - 60/6/14 Neutral Solitus Engineer, Member - Still trying to twink that Slayer on.
Keepdafaith - 60/6/14 Neutral Atrox Keeper, Member - IR Temple Services
Powerbender - 100/6/14 Neutral Nanomage Nano-Technician, Member
Deleetful - 65/7/14 Neutral Solitus Adventurer, Applicant
Lumbergh - 60/5/10 Neutral Nanomage Bureaucrat, Applicant - "M'yeah, I'm going to have to ask that you go ahead and come into work on Saturday...that would be great..."
WTB a 4th faction then. Dustbrigade/Xan worshippers.
With all the advances from the Dustbrigade to help them overthrow all those evil people.
Goodbye Omni-Tek for exploiting the people, goodbye neutrals for not taking sides, goodbye clanners for being unable to chase the exploiters!
More on topic, make that side change back to neutral EVERLASTING! No swapping back and forth! Or, if not the change to neut, the change back out of it has to be EVERLASTING. Choosing twice for a non-neutral side means you aren't meant to be neutral.
220 opi RK1 keeper § 220 opi RK1 Doc § 220 opi RK2 Fixer
Originally Posted by Enno Rehling
1 month after Funcom implements this the three existing factions will complain that it's unfair that the Dustbrigade / Xan have this and this.
2 months later most of the Dustbrigade / Xan gear can be used by anyone.
3 months later everybody will request neutral application forms.
...sorry, I'm sleepy. O_o
I'm so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I say.
go back to old system : neutral = no pvp, no towers, no token board, no side xp bonus.
if you want to change faction system (it has been suggested a few times already), add a new faction like Sol Banking, the "other" company
if you want to add new factions like dustbrigade or (why not) ability to play aliens (or any other breed), you really need to accept the idea that these factions should have a huge technological advantage over other factions.
but as said previously, peeps will QQ about that stuff (like clans did for omni stuff, when omni was supposed to have technological and ressources advantage...)
ps : gief unicorn application form plx.
The problem with all your suggestions is that they add or remove factions to the game, and cause massive changes. Neutrals are already a faction, whether you look at it from the roleplay or gameplay perspective. They're in-game, you can't deny that. This is a tiny change which makes them slightly less neglected compared to the other factions.
There's already an "other" company that supports Neutrals, it's called ICC. They don't get involved in any official means, but they supply technology so people don't get helplessly caught in the crossfire between the Clans and Omnis. The Neutrals don't just use this stuff for self-defence, however.
Problem is ICC ingame is like the UN IRL: a laudable idea but as much use as a chocolate coffee mug in practice. Neutrals are the Faction who think OT are fascists and Clans are terrorists and have taken a moral stance against both in a war noone can win. Or we're a bunch of mercenary sods selling to and looting from both the other two factions and coining it in with smuggling, gun/blockade running etc. Which would explain why we get shot entering/leaving Tir and why OT invaded Borealis...
I'm a Froob Neutral Trade Skilling Nanomage Engineer- by definition I hide round corners and let the bot do the fighting.
Exactly. Neutrals have a reason to fight, and they have things to fight for. They also have a unifying statement, at least as much so as the Clans or Omnis do.
So why can't we join the Neutral side and help them out?
In fact, if Funcom didn't hate Neutrals so much, this would be a fine tie-in for some Neutral-specific quests. "ICC won't supply us with technology to fight the Clans and Omni-Tek from stealing our cities, so we must obtain it ourselves!"
Last edited by Litestrider; Jul 29th, 2011 at 18:40:21.
this thread makes me lol
"FC hates neuts" LMAO.... you know EXACTLY what are u gonna get when you chose not to pick sides.
Reroll or go sided if u dont like...
Funcom, in fact, does hate Neuts, Aram. The fact that people chose to remain neutral threw a monkey wrench in the way THEY thought things should go, and we've been paying for it ever since.
And your "reroll or go sided" is nothing but trolling.
I have cited several RP examples of why clans and omnis could go neutral.
I have cited sevreal RL examples of people doign the same thing.
And I have seen NO good reasons on why it can't be done.
The Independent Rubikans - The oldest Neutral Org on RK1! 10.5 years and counting!
Namiru - 210/30/58 Neutral Solitus Martial Artist, Advisor - Always accepting new students in the Art
Thalona - 199/25/40 Neutral Solitus Meta-Physicist, Veteran - Pondering higher thought
Weefleboy - 150/20/40 Neutral Opifex Fixer, Member - Wheeling and Dealing somewhere on RK.
Johnnysokko - 60/6/14 Neutral Solitus Engineer, Member - Still trying to twink that Slayer on.
Keepdafaith - 60/6/14 Neutral Atrox Keeper, Member - IR Temple Services
Powerbender - 100/6/14 Neutral Nanomage Nano-Technician, Member
Deleetful - 65/7/14 Neutral Solitus Adventurer, Applicant
Lumbergh - 60/5/10 Neutral Nanomage Bureaucrat, Applicant - "M'yeah, I'm going to have to ask that you go ahead and come into work on Saturday...that would be great..."
If clan, or Omni, or whatever your chosen side was, had a significant disadvantage to the other side, would you merely reroll and play the more powerful side, or campaign to get your side a bit more attention from FC?
Don't you mean reroll and go sided?
Anyway. Still living in Hope (geddit?). Still maintaining that a resignation form makes far more sense than an Omni Application form: You can play a hyper-militant clanner and then defect to Omni-Tek without one sniff of an Omni-Reform cell, but you can't resign from either side?
Advisor of Lumen Orien
"Chose not to pick sides"
Actually, neutrals did pick a side. There are three sides presented in the story of AO. That of the monstrous Omni-Tek, who controls the planet legally, and uses it as it sees fit, even if this means stomping all over the locals. There's also the side of the Clans, militant revolutionaries who want to see nothing less than the total annihilation of Omni-Tek, and will stop at nothing to see it happen, even if it means stomping all over the locals. And then there's the locals, who want to not be stomped all over, and seek a more peaceful resolution to the whole crisis, though this will obviously involve a lot of military action, since they're dealing with two heavily armed, fanatical groups.
And that's the problem, the third party, which Funcom apparently never really intended as a proper faction, wound up being far more attractive to a lot of people than the previous two. That's what happens when you have two groups of frothing fanatics and a group of moderates, a lot of sane people will walk the moderate route.
Anyway, 10 years says that Neutrals are a proper faction, 10 years of lore, and 10 years of gameplay. If it weren't for the Yuttos, nothing in the shadowlands would have gotten done at all! Removing the neutral faction, or saying "go sided or reroll", would be akin to, say, removing Mongo Slam!, or the entire Meta-Physicist profession. Instead they should be making Mongo scale better over the various levels, and make MP more desired in groups overall instead of being a buff mule in most peoples' eyes. And their balance documentation is aiming to do just this.
Edit: argh, now I can't get Rush's "Freewill" out of my head! "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!"
Here's an idea for faction changes in general: (semi-)permanent penalty to faction.
Turncoats are not to be trusted, so changing faction will incur a 20% penalty to max faction of the side you joined (you used to be an enemy) and 40% penalty for the side you left (you're a traitor). These stack, so if you then change back, you'll have a -52% penalty (0.8*0.6=0.48), meaning you can only get 29000 max faction, etc. A similar system would be required on Rubi-Ka to lock traitor scum out of the best token boards.
Neutrals and Ergo don't much care about the conflict, so GoS faction is unaffected.
If a permanent penalty seems too harsh, the penalty could be made to dissipate over time, slowly. Say, 2% every month.
I have a level 200 froob, sided, and I really don't want to reroll and re-level it all the way up.
Can I just turn it neut already, please?
Being neutral is so 2009. Just kidding, don't shoot.
{removed by Anarrina}
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Its a shame this kind of thinking isn't employed by FC.
Faction should be a much more dynamic part of the game with your actions drastically effecting your standing with your faction and the world of RK/SL.
It would certainly produce a much more emmersive world where your actions directly effect your character.
I like this idea, actually.
I was thinking about that suggestion, and I really think it's perfect. Faction is the perfect thing to assault in such a way, because it has an effect, and is annoying, but won't bring someone's gameplay to a screeching halt as they wait out a month-long timer. There should also be some relatively difficult and/or time consuming way to purposefully gain some of your faction back too, like maybe killing the big bads of the opposite side, and perhaps the PvP quest on RK.
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