Site Discussion: Factions

[Emma]

HI GUYS. As you probably saw in the latest announcement, no more characters allied to Ilirea (unless they're specially applied for Riders) are allowed due to being overpopulated. You also probably saw that the Hive is no longer an official faction for the exact opposite reason. This leaves the remaining three factions, Broddring, the Hand, and ESPECIALLY Du Weldenvarden, nearly empty.

I know everyone wants to be part of Ilirea because obviously, the Riders end up being the good guys after all. It's okay, I understand. We all secretly like being the hero, even me. -shock- Not to mention this is an ERAGON RP, so naturally people probably come in here expecting to see Riders and nothing else... which may be a huge part of the problem, actually. =O I will address this. But the thing is, this makes a really huge imbalance in the site and very few people are interested in the three factions I mentioned, even though two of them are canon. And another thing I know is a problem is that everyone likes having the lone wanderer (nearly every character NOT allied to Ilirea is only out for themselves).

So, what I'd like to know is, what's keeping you from making a character who is allied to and actually cares about Du Weldenvarden, the Hand of Leona, or Broddring? If Broddring seems useless because it's so poor right now, or I made the elves of DW seem like they're all evil, or the Hand doesn't have enough options or is too strict with its membership, please tell me, and any ideas you might have to improve popularity in those factions. PLEASE post here, I do mean it when I say your opinion means a lot to me and I'd really like to hear any ideas. =)

[phrostphyre]

The elves are all jerks to begin with, live as jerks, die as jerks, and go to the Fly Spaghetti Monster in the sky as Jerks.

And Organized Religion (Read the Hand) is evil in any universe that exists.

[Emma]

Thank you, Phrost. XD

I also had one person tell me that the faction they dislike the most is Broddring because it seems like it doesn't do anything. This is EXACTLY what I want to hear, so everybody toss in your critiques!

[ryan]

For me I was hesitant creating an elf due to the fact that I don't see any activity, which is the main problem. I for one love being the villain and killing good guys ;D. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that having a dragon makes you powerful, and actually makes you really important to the story so it may seem as though the other factions aren't going to be as important.

[[-Kay-]]

Some of the factions I just don't agree with, because I have a difficult time making my characters religion blinded fools, being as I'm barely religious myself. I'm just lacking in a church xD

Other times it just doesn't fit the character's personality.

-My opinion

[elvishbanana]

I usually try to go with minorities, which is half the reason I went with elf for my charas. But the other part is, I try to figure out which faction is the most suited to the character. I don't have any real objection to DW, Broddring, or Leona- I guess I just knew the most about the Riders, so that was what I went with at first.

[Nayeli]

I agree with Emmz completely, we need more in the other fractions and once we have more, we might be able to have little plots with them that just focus on them. Small missions and such that just concerns them and not the other fractions.

[Emma]

Ryan- thank you tons, I just realized that our tags like Age of RIDERS and pre-ERAGON roleplay are actually probably leading people to think that this site is all about Ilirea. I'll address this. =) And as for factions that don't have much activity, I have at least two characters active in each one, so you could just RP with me! XD And then other people wouldn't be turned away by lack of activity. So there's nothing about any faction in particular that turns you off?

Kay- being part of the Voyage doesn't mean your character has to be blinded by religion. The Voyage isn't even REALLY a religion, it's more spirituality, a way of life, although Broddring sort of twisted it. In fact, to be in the Hand, your character doesn't even HAVE to be religious, which I specifically mentioned in its info post. My characters Pele and Malandra are both in the Hand, and neither believe in Nyx- Pele only got there due to her magical strength, and Malandra murdered and cheated her way into being the Prophet. Or they could be forced to join, like my character Euryale will eventually be.

Lenni- I know each faction doesn't have a lot of information (I had to think up about 95% of everything since Paolini left such huge gaps in his histories and most people wouldn't bother to read more than those little paragraphs) but I always leave the rest up to the MEMBERS to decide. If you're unsure of something, you're more than welcome to ask me about it, but you can use your chosen faction however you'd like and your own interpretations to build a character off of. Paolini unintentionally left a huge, free world for us RPers to have fun in, and I want people to embrace that. I'm sorry for the rant, but, yeah. If it was just knowing about something, then... what I said. XD

Nayeli- but is there anything about the factions that turns you off? I know you had a problem with making Hand and Hive characters, so is there anything that just bugs you that you think should be changed?

[Nayeli]

Sorry... I couldn't think of the right personally for Hive or Hand... Grayson was a lucky thought... You know my characters, they are always the good guy or the occasional person who actually hates someone

[Kite]

The only way factions gain power and prestige and influence is if they gain players, so if no one is in it that is the perfect time to get in. That means you get a head honcho spot, more people are interested because it now has activity, and all the sudden, your one early character is running a third of the site.

That being said, I think my main thing about factions is that you are not rewarded for being a part of those factions. You get no real in game advantage for being inside "the family" so to speak, and no real disadvantage for being outside of them, so why is someone going to submit control of their future to another person for nothing when they are the same power for being outside of it?

[Emma]

Alright then, Nayeli, and thank you, Don. Factions with little to no members ARE the most lucrative places to join.

As for the reward, that's a helpful thought, although I'm not sure how many other people feel the same. Really, the only faction you get a notable in-game advantage from is the Hand, with uber-powerful blood magic, although it hasn't been helping at all with getting people to join. All the others offer only political protection, I suppose. I'm not getting anything for what the other factions could offer, except maybe Broddring, but that's a major plot thing so I won't mention it here. XD Any ideas for what DW or Ilirea can shell out?

[phrostphyre]

We could do it like modern nations. If a citizen of Elfland is arrested in Broddring, Elfland can raise a shit storm politically, like what the US does if someone is arrested for no reason in say....NORTH KOREA or IRAN. And vice versa.

As to the Hand, aside from Blood Magic, said High ranking characters could also be provided with NPC guards, to offer real time protection.

[Kite]

Make areas faction oriented. Inside the faction's specific areas, say the higher up they are the less repercussion they face. However, they cannot enter the opposing faction's areas without an opposing faction's player involved, or if they get too noisy or rambunctious, have NPCs ran by the staff enter the thread and seriously attempt to apprehend them, having serious consequences in-game if they are caught. Make it a trade off like that. If your in a faction, your free to do as you please inside certain areas and always get preferential treatment by NPCs, but entering an opposing faction's boards mean extreme caution or in-game repercussions. A Rider character is free to enter all boards and are treated with fake respect, and independents can go where they please but are pushed around.