I'm putting my comments here (driven from another thread) because they're more general in nature...
I would be happy to provide lots of alternatives to play, provided we have enough clans to play in them. I started with the seven factions because that's the history everyone is used to, but I'm not opposed to killing off some of them and replacing them with new ideas, just so long as we're not running around with only a couple of clans in each faction. But I was hoping that simply redefining the "standard" factions to have other abilities that you have come to know and love in the "extra" factions, might give players enough incentive to play them. After all, if a faction's benefits are all the same then the only real difference is the factional name, isn't it?
For a (rather extreme) example, what if you changed the Boda to include the basic capabilities of the Merk Verk? Would you then need a separate Merk Verk faction or would playing the Boda fill your desires for that sort of play? What other combinations might be reasonable, where you get favorable abilities from different factions merged together into one (regardless of what its name is)?
As far as adding new factions later on, I think that would be quite reasonable if we have enough population in the game to support them. In such a case, I'd be willing to relax the rules on changing factions if the players would rather switch to one of the new ones at around that time. I have no interest in keeping people from having fun - that's what the game's all about! Those kinds of restrictions are there to prevent abuse more than anything, and if you're not abusing the system then I'm happy to let you do many things that are technically "against the rules".
If we do start switching around though, I'd rather not end up with factions devoid of players. If that's the case then the faction wasn't fun enough to play in the first place, and that's what I'm trying to avoid here with this "group redesign". Let's make the factions fun from the beginning! If a faction can't be made fun to play, then let's drop it now and start over by designing a different faction to replace it.
If we have to, we can rewrite the whole history and start completely over with the factions. If you ALL wouldn't be upset by not having the Imperials, three Families, and three Religions, then I see no reason to keep that structure. We could start over with maybe a half-dozen brand new factions to choose from. I just figured that most people like seeing those available, even if they also have preferences elsewhere. Or, as mentioned before, we can merge things together and create more diverse factions. What would happen, for instance, if we combined the Seekers with one of the religions giving the benefits and play-ability of both?
What sounds like a structure that everyone would enjoy? Would you rather have two feuding families, one standard religion, the heretics, and a pure military group? I'd rather not have a faction that everyone likes or that everyone hates - each should have its pros and cons, its friends and enemies. If you need a religion like the B&F, then also give me a non-religious faction that they are willing to cooperate with (perhaps something similar to the SoA?).
Does that help explain what I'm trying to accomplish? Not too many choices for the population, good game balance, some built-in friends and enemies to provide conflict and cooperation, and above all everything should be fun to play!
I would be happy to provide lots of alternatives to play, provided we have enough clans to play in them. I started with the seven factions because that's the history everyone is used to, but I'm not opposed to killing off some of them and replacing them with new ideas, just so long as we're not running around with only a couple of clans in each faction. But I was hoping that simply redefining the "standard" factions to have other abilities that you have come to know and love in the "extra" factions, might give players enough incentive to play them. After all, if a faction's benefits are all the same then the only real difference is the factional name, isn't it?
For a (rather extreme) example, what if you changed the Boda to include the basic capabilities of the Merk Verk? Would you then need a separate Merk Verk faction or would playing the Boda fill your desires for that sort of play? What other combinations might be reasonable, where you get favorable abilities from different factions merged together into one (regardless of what its name is)?
As far as adding new factions later on, I think that would be quite reasonable if we have enough population in the game to support them. In such a case, I'd be willing to relax the rules on changing factions if the players would rather switch to one of the new ones at around that time. I have no interest in keeping people from having fun - that's what the game's all about! Those kinds of restrictions are there to prevent abuse more than anything, and if you're not abusing the system then I'm happy to let you do many things that are technically "against the rules".
If we do start switching around though, I'd rather not end up with factions devoid of players. If that's the case then the faction wasn't fun enough to play in the first place, and that's what I'm trying to avoid here with this "group redesign". Let's make the factions fun from the beginning! If a faction can't be made fun to play, then let's drop it now and start over by designing a different faction to replace it.
If we have to, we can rewrite the whole history and start completely over with the factions. If you ALL wouldn't be upset by not having the Imperials, three Families, and three Religions, then I see no reason to keep that structure. We could start over with maybe a half-dozen brand new factions to choose from. I just figured that most people like seeing those available, even if they also have preferences elsewhere. Or, as mentioned before, we can merge things together and create more diverse factions. What would happen, for instance, if we combined the Seekers with one of the religions giving the benefits and play-ability of both?
What sounds like a structure that everyone would enjoy? Would you rather have two feuding families, one standard religion, the heretics, and a pure military group? I'd rather not have a faction that everyone likes or that everyone hates - each should have its pros and cons, its friends and enemies. If you need a religion like the B&F, then also give me a non-religious faction that they are willing to cooperate with (perhaps something similar to the SoA?).
Does that help explain what I'm trying to accomplish? Not too many choices for the population, good game balance, some built-in friends and enemies to provide conflict and cooperation, and above all everything should be fun to play!