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Faction/Race Choice?

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Jan 09, 2015 davejohn link
" As a leader in one of the most successful Serco nationalist guilds of all time, "

Really, Espionage/ The Red Spy said this about himself. read the rp forum. RED is now a dead guild,it only lasted a short while in vo terms. Espionage/ TRS is just an arrogant forum troll.

So, I really would suggest any new players regard anything he says as garbage.

Play the game, find out for yourselves.
Jan 09, 2015 TheRedSpy link
^ That's Ecka by the way, leader of the Itani trading conglomerate.
Jan 10, 2015 cellsafemode link
this entire thread is a stupid pointless waste of what amounts to free space on some harddrive.

You have 6 character slots. You have no reason to choose any one nation. You can be all. You can be a bunch of opposing guilds in any of the 3 factions. You can be in the biggest guild and you can be in any other, at the same time. You can create guilds populated almost entirely of throwaway accounts and alts by yourself.

Choice doesn't matter. There is no balance of power because there is no need to decide.
Jan 10, 2015 Phaserlight link
Choice doesn't matter. There is no balance of power because there is no need to decide.

Except that it does matter.

I have my main, and I have my five alts. I have over twelve times more experience accumulated on my main than on my other five alts combined (credits are more evenly distributed, but that's another story).

My main is of a single nation, and that is the nation I identify with: that is the nation I play. The others... I sample.

Granted, this may be different for other players, but to say that choice doesn't matter misses the important mark that not everyone has the time to level up a character in all three nations; not only this, but part of that process includes interacting with other players of the same nation (and opposing nations!) going through parts of the game at certain times, and the cumulative experience that this creates.

For example, if there was a station battle in Latos I-8, and I were playing a UIT character, the relationships fostered through that interaction may have an almost Lamarckian effect on future play. Because Johnny Blue shot me up as I was turning to repair and reload, I suddenly am a little less trustful of Itani characters. Because a Serco player sided with an enemy at a key point, I learn something which affects how I navigate relationships with players belonging to that group. To an extent, these phenomena are irrecoverable: I was at that station, at that time, playing that character. So, by having a major character, and bringing that character to a majority of engagements (whether PvP or PvE), I develop and foster relationships with other characters and, to a lesser extent, the game world itself. This then affects how I may choose to play characters of other nations in the future.

That's my 2c. To determine whether it has merit, I'll need a research grant and a 5-year longitudinal study on player behaviors (/joking).

I'll also point out that selecting a nation determines initial faction standing, and affects what missions become available; not only ships, but some missions will only be available to Itani, or Serco, or UIT. This may not be as important to some as whether they will have access to the Prom or the Valk, but there are more effects to choosing a nation than what top-tier ship one eventually gains access to.
Jan 12, 2015 joylessjoker link
Phaserlight, you're basically saying that you suck at roleplaying and cannot separate alt characters from each other? Tsk tsk. Well, I can understand that. Not everyone plays the game for the RP element. Some people come here just to blow things up, with or without consent.

I have a few alts too. I kinda disagree that the nationality of your first alt "matters." It's not the color of skin that matters (racism much?), but the individuals that that you make friends with and enemies with. The color of your first character's skin may have some bearing on that, but it has more to do with personality and ideology compatibility I think.
Jan 12, 2015 Phaserlight link
Role playing is a whole can of worms I'd rather not get into in this thread. I understand there is a Role Playing Forum, and that it is an activity encouraged by the devs.

I don't think that I "suck" at role playing; I have a good deal of experience role playing, going all the way back to tabletop pen and paper Star Wars campaigns in college, and playing Thomas Moore, Don John, Bassanio, and Rolf in highschool. I was Fritz in the nutcracker before hitting puberty. There are layers to everything: in every single character I've ever role played, there have been aspects of what I call my "self". I find that what people usually mean by role playing is the top-most layer. This fails to recognize the effect every single layer underneath can have.

I'm not claiming it's impossible to totally compartmentalize separate characters; just that there will always be so-called "primary experiences" affecting what is presented on the outside. The usual trend I've seen around the net when someone introduces the concept of role playing is:

- The extent to which one separates one's "self" (or what I would call "primary experiences") from the role one plays is the extent to which one is a "good role player".

To me, this attributes undue weight to the top-most layer, practically ignoring the interior world being drawn on to transmit a behavior in the form of a role. By translating personal knowledge in the form of a role, one is able to communicate aspects of the self which may have been formerly tacit, unacknowledged, or unexplored. It's a subtle but important difference.

One's first character will not determine national affiliation, but I put forth that over the long term one player will develop a national affiliation (although this may change at given junctures). I don't think this argument makes me "racist", any more than Ursula Le Guin's claim that whites are the only group that can afford to ignore skin color is a racist argument:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2004/12/a_whitewashed_earthsea.html

True value works from the inside out: some of this is heritable, mutable, and other parts are aspects of the rational conscious that are being presented at any given time. The interplay between these is too complex and important to disregard, or attribute to bad role playing.

I don't mean to drag this thread off-topic; suffice that to me, there is plenty here worth discussing.
Jan 12, 2015 joylessjoker link
Oops, I seem to have walked into a psychologist's office. Sorry, I didn't make an appointment. I'll see myself out.
Jan 12, 2015 Phaserlight link
Oops, I seem to have walked into a psychologist's office. Sorry, I didn't make an appointment. I'll see myself out.

:-)

Having a younger brother who majored in it, I find it hard to avoid the topic.
Jan 12, 2015 csgno1 link
There seem to be two basic RP styles in VO.

1. Alts are separate people with separate goals and behaviors.

2. Alts are the secret identites on my main character and are largely used to promote the welfare of the main character or allies of same.

The thing I find interesting is that it seems people that do RP style number 2 can't understand that many people can do RP style number one successfully.

I've seen VO players on these forums brag about how they infiltrated this or that guild like it was some sort of actual accomplishment (you know who you are). RP style #1 is the accomplishment.

Next time you're tempted to PM me in game and brag about how you infiltrated my guild, remember that there is a good chance I'm already in yours ;)
Jan 12, 2015 yodaofborg link
I don't think I've ever PM'd anyone to brag, but I've been in just about every guild in VO! RP is what you make of it, what I find strange is sometimes people expect you to buy into their version of RP, and get pissy if you don't.

Also these same people who are "hard core" RP types always seem to be the ones who call out alts when discovered. I mean, the amount of alts I've had outed by people who are supposedly the hardcore RP types is just fekking stupid. Anyone remember Miharu? (/me giggles). Anyway, I guess I'm also one of them who cannot separate characters well. But it's not about faction choice, it's more about the folk I click with during my first *alt*. It's hard to be friendly to the guy who's pissed you off already, just because you've changed colour or alignment.

Back to the topic at hand though, before the devs made the retarded mistake of limiting "faction" special ships (I mean come on guys, wheres the balance in this?) it really didn't matter what faction you started out with. You could do anything that anyone else could do, with a bit of effort. Since the change though, I guess you make a choice depending on which ship you want to end up with at end game - which is a retarded state of affairs - in more than my opinion.
Jan 12, 2015 Dr. Lecter link
*Manharu

Other than that, no concerns.
Jan 13, 2015 csgno1 link
Anyone remember Miharu?

Yes. That was you? Well done, I never suspected. And you never PMed me to brag about anything. That was not directed at you.