[Discussion] Faction Addon: TNG Faction Project

[Leyujin]

So, I found this. http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/gryphonheart-reputation.aspx

This is an addon which apparently allows players on the same side to set up a number of player-made factions, which will display to all people using the mod. Players can flag themselves as members of a faction, and can gain or lose reputation with that and other factions. I believe there is also a functionality to allow gaining reputation with one faction to lower or gain reputation with another linked faction.

Alliance and Horde will not be able to see player-made factions on the other side.

I haven't tested out the mod itself, but comments on the webpage are from 2009, so even though it was last updated four months ago, the mod still seems to be functional.
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This is a brilliant idea. The possibilities are huge for this, and I'm glad it exists because it can be used for an rp project I may be getting on board for. It also has the capacity to be nearly useless or very confusing if there isn't a coordinated, synchronized effort to utilize this, and agreement on the limitations and factions to be created. I also know I'm not the one who should be setting this up.

A major note is that apparently you set up "projects" for people to join, which have the factions listed with them. There can be more than one, but depending on how it works, there should be one "consensus" project per side. Any projects started up independently should eventually be incorporated into the consensus once everyone agrees that the side-factions are important enough to be mainstream, so to speak.

[Tiraline]

Hmm, interesting idea indeed.

[Pyrisath]

I like where this idea is going. It adds a whole new layer to player-made non-guild factions, eg.(But not specifically) the Treasure Hunters. Rather than making it an RP-raiding guild, they make it a coalition of players from many guilds. With this tool, they could add a level of flavor to their RP. 'Exalted' is known by many members, Neutral/Friendly is known by a few, or is new.

This is an excellent idea. Leyujin, I would gladly help contribute to this project when I get back on WoW.

[Swerto]

Chat channels full, I cannot do such a thing. MyRP, Carbonite, and XPerl take up all my channels >_<

(If someone can help me turn off carbonite and xperl's auto joins I'd appreciate it)

[Cristok]

This thing is interesting...I created a project and now I can't delete it...from reading some of the feedback on the add-on it sounds like NEAT stuff. You can bet C-tok will be making some projects if he can...Cristok's Challenge Rep...Free Horde Faction Rep....Cult of the C-tok....you get the idea...

[Xaraphyne]

xperl has a channel? What the heck version of xperl are you using, Swerto? I guess you could leave the channel, then join another before it has a chance to auto-rejoin its channel.

I think this addon sounds very cool. I won't lie though, there's very little chance of drumming up enough interest to get enough people using it, and properly. Hate to be a downer :( But I'm more interested in the project you wanted to use it for, and other options to help develop it.

[Taknar]

I'm leaning with Xara here. I'm normally against any addon for RP, because it makes getting new members to a group all the more difficult. ("Oh, you want to RP with us! That's great! You just need to download blah, and blah blah, and yadayada.")

That said, if someone writes up a proposal that convinces me otherwise I'd sooner use this addon than one that lets people know my self-given titles and description.

[Grayslin]

My Xperl doesn't use a channel either

[Cristok]

I don't think it'd be any real problem getting people to use this. Those that didn't *shrug* simply wouldn't be -in- on the storyline.

I just need to find another person with the add-on to fiddle with the invites and stuff.

[Zarja]

Not mine either ... odd that it'd even need one too ... /shrug

[Grainia]

Cristok, I downloaded it yesterday to play with it. Grainia went to a birthday party - with cake, wine and games! - so I didn't play with it at all. PST me next time we're both on and you can fiddle with Grai all you want. ;)

[Tiraline]

I wonder if anyone else Ally-side is interested in this?

[Keraph]

I think that if there was enough interest for it, this could be a really cool tool to spice up some RP

[Swerto]

Ah, it's not xperl, it's myRP joining the old RP addon channel (xtooltip or whatever)

[Agnarr]

Ah, it's not xperl, it's myRP joining the old RP addon channel (xtooltip or whatever)
From discussions here (as I don't use it) thats been the biggest complaint about it, is that is uses two channels (perhaps solely for compatibility?).

[Aphraelle]

I couldn't get the interface to come up, so I tried to create a project and it told me I was already in one. ???

[Grayslin]

From discussions here (as I don't use it) thats been the biggest complaint about it, is that is uses two channels (perhaps solely for compatibility?).
Yea, that's why I prefer FlagRSP, only one channel to deal with. Though I believe I've heard that you don't actually need the MRP channel, as that was only to interface with some other MyXxxXxx addons that fell out of use. Might want to seek a confirmation on that, though.

[Ignas]

This seems interesting, though I don't really see it becoming widespread. I'm also a little iffy on the practicality of it.

I'm willing to go along with it even if it's just to help someone out.

[Leyujin]

I've experimented with this a little bit. You use /ghr newproject "Project Name" (No quotes). That makes the overarching category, like Horde, Alliance, The Burning Crusade, Classic, Etc. Within that you can make factions. I'm not sure if you can delete a project through normal means, but you can go to Options, Leave Project, which is pretty much the same thing.


I'm leaning with Xara here. I'm normally against any addon for RP, because it makes getting new members to a group all the more difficult. ("Oh, you want to RP with us! That's great! You just need to download blah, and blah blah, and yadayada.")

That said, if someone writes up a proposal that convinces me otherwise I'd sooner use this addon than one that lets people know my self-given titles and description.

I agree with the possible RP exclusiveness that this mod *could* create. However, it provides a tool which at present is impossible in WoW: creating organizations people can belong to *without* leaving their guild to join another. This can be anything from memberships in secret societies to belonging to overarching groups with particular political sentiments, like Sanctuary's Pro-Diplomacy and The Grim's Zero-Tolerance stances. It can tie several guilds together into a coalition while allowing each guild to maintain their autonomy. Because you can see someone's reputation level with a particular faction while targeting them, it makes it easy to know if someone's a friend... or otherwise.

Using this tool would just simplify things for people who want to form a dedicated, organized group. It would be up to the group to how to organize things, but I think, to avoid "Addon exclusivity", rules should be set up for how to join a group *without* the addon, and those should be the "normal" rules. Since the mod allows you to add reputation to someone, keeping an excel sheet with someone's digital reputation means if they ever *do* get the mod, promoting them to their proper rep would be simple. Is this a logistical headache? Yes, but nothing too bad, so long as the person doing the organizational work wants to do it.

In the end, it's a tool which allows us to do things with our RP that create in-game consequences, and builds the world we've made with each other into the game engine itself. Now instead of grinding rep with PvE factions to get purples, we can gain reputation with RP entities for anything from rewards to notoriety. It allows for many things, and isn't very complicated. So, that's my argument for finding ways to utilize it.
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The problem is everyone can make their own project, and if people don't communicate, many projects can be at odds with each other. If that's the case, and the system becomes pretty much just ego-fulfillment, it fails, and is useless. That's why I wanted to get things organized, here, where everyone agrees on the basics, before anything would start up.

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So, towards that end, consider answering these questions if you think the premise is worthwhile:

1. What is a major RP faction?
2. What guilds or groups do they consist of?
3. What would be a suggested name for their "Faction"?

Here's an example just to show what I mean (please bear in mind that this example is just loosely cobbled together, I have no idea the relations between The Raven Cross and The Grim):

1. The Anti-Alliance guilds.
2. The Grim, The Raven Cross, Infection, etc.
3. The Wyverns.

Feel free to repeat this format with as many Major factions as you can think of. This should be at least one large or influential guild that everyone recognizes, or more than one guild.

[Gorymoru]

I'd support this whole-heartedly. And I'd help...but sadly, Gory doesn't know jack shit about programming...or anything really. So all I can say is good luck to the devs.

However, I too believe it may cause some exclusive behavior in RPers, and will definitely alienate those new to the server, or new to RP, if only for a while.

I bet it will need a LOT of improvements before it becomes worth it to even download it. Otherwise, it may just be a hassle.

[Leyujin]

Isn't there exclusive behavior in RPers right now, anyway? If you're not posting on TNG, how many new RPers leveling up ever get to RP with the "bigwigs"?

I'm interested in this addon for helping to organize out-of-guild groups which seem to be hard to get started unless they're focused on PvE raiding. This addon has applications that can range far beyond that, but that's the main purpose I'll be focusing on for the moment. From my experience, RP guilds themselves tend to cause exclusive RP behavior; it's always easier to RP with guildmates who you know and trust rather than some stranger who might "RP gank" you. As an organizational device which allows you to target someone else and see their factional affiliation, I think it could serve to help people cross guild borders more readily and spontaneously. Seeing something graphical can be helpful.

I'll be experimenting with this in the meantime to see its functionality. Those are my two copper.

[Tiraline]

Isn't there exclusive behavior in RPers right now, anyway? If you're not posting on TNG, how many new RPers leveling up ever get to RP with the "bigwigs"?

*raises hand* Issachar and I did.

[Xaraphyne]

Leyujin has a point about RP exclusivity in general, though.

[Tiraline]

Leyujin has a point about RP exclusivity in general, though.

Yeah, yeah, but...never mind.

[Xaraphyne]

Of course it's not impossible to break into the scene despite that! :O

[Tiraline]

Hadn't found the community to be all that exclusive myself, but I'm a very pushy, nosy, big-mouthed person.

ANYWAY. Would this add-on help with greater inter-guild and extra-guild community? If it were widely used, yes. If it's not widely used, it could result in an even worse cliquishness.

So, use thereof needs to be encouraged--possibly with a big shiny RP project!

[Aphraelle]

I'm going to give it another shot, but I'm not sure why it didn't work the first time around - I didn't get any "out of channels" message that I recall, but the interface wouldn't come up no matter what /command I tried to use. Plus, it told me I already had a project going when I tried to create one. :(

Anyone else have that problem? Particularly, but not limited to, other people with Macs?

'Cause Aphraelle r teh sadd because this looks like a really cool add-on, and I would totally make a Court of the Sun faction for various Machiavellian belfish intrigues... I'll try and scrub it and then download it again tonight and see if that works, but suggestions most welcome.

[Taknar]

If this is something that the community is bound to support, there should be a thread with all the factions that can be recognized by this addon.

Heck, going even further I'd say come up with some guidelines as to minimum requirements to create a faction and then put a thread into the RP associations. Something like this:


Taknar's example faction

Description:
This is a faction that stands for laughter in relation to all things, be it jovial or cruel. Also, it's an example.

Agreed Stakeholders:
- Sylennis
- Villy
- Aphraelle
- Xaraphyne
- YouGetTheHint
...

Faction benefits:
Exalted: <Listed Benefit>
Revered: <Listed Benefit>
Honoured: <Listed Benefit>
...
Hated: <Listed Benefit/Punishment>

Ways to gain reputation:
- /cackle a faction member
- Initiate friendly conversations
- Go out of your way to help a faction member

Ways to lose reputation:
- /hug a gnome
- /spit on a faction member
- not listen to Jonathan Coulton's Blue Sunny Day

[Leyujin]

I'm going to give it another shot, but I'm not sure why it didn't work the first time around - I didn't get any "out of channels" message that I recall, but the interface wouldn't come up no matter what /command I tried to use. Plus, it told me I already had a project going when I tried to create one. :(

Anyone else have that problem? Particularly, but not limited to, other people with Macs?

'Cause Aphraelle r teh sadd because this looks like a really cool add-on, and I would totally make a Court of the Sun faction for various Machiavellian belfish intrigues... I'll try and scrub it and then download it again tonight and see if that works, but suggestions most welcome.

I have a mac. You did the /ghr newproject NAMEOFPROJECT, right? The interface is in the reputation bar on your character. In the upper right hand side, there will be two buttons, options and... interface? I haven't been on for a week, but that's how you create factions, leave projects, promote leaders, etc. To be part of a faction, you click on the new faction you've created in your reputation bar, then when the miniature window shows up, click on the box which says "Own Faction" or somesuch. Bam.


If this is something that the community is bound to support, there should be a thread with all the factions that can be recognized by this addon.

Heck, going even further I'd say come up with some guidelines as to minimum requirements to create a faction and then put a thread into the RP associations. Something like this:

Agreed. This would be a great way to set this up. Although personally, I think the less factions in the beginning, the better. Everyone wants to create their own set-up, I imagine, but that will just needlessly splinter things (in my opinion, feel free to disagree).

I feel instead, making a handful of large factions that tie several guilds together might be more useful. Have the factions be antagonistic to each other, or at least have some type of conflict, so as to encourage RP *between* the factions rather than just inside the faction. This will help guilds first reach out to their "allies" or associated guilds within the faction, then start some RP between the different factions.
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I haven't experimented with this enough to know, but I believe several "projects" can be started up and joined at the same time. This would be good, because it allows those who want to use the addon to do their own thing to do so and help their RP with their friends, while still allowing people to join and participate in a central project. As Taknar said, we have to agree on everything *before* the system gets set up, not afterwards.

What we should really do is study how Blizzard has set up their factions, and try to decide the minimal amount of groupings necessary to demonstrate the world that has been set up on TN. Although I've been here for a while, I don't have that great an idea on how the guilds view each other, and how the people on each side view their RP factions. I know there's a rough number of guilds Horde-side who have big problems with the Alliance, even if they don't like each other, and at least one guild Horde-side who tries to be more diplomatic. If people can throw in their personal perspectives, that would be helpful.

[Taknar]

I agree with the generalities, but there will be drama when new people come along to this and don't have an avenue to make factions that are recognized by "the group". Whatever system you use, it needs to be extensible and inclusive.

[Swerto]

I can't get it to work!


HALP PLZ!

[Leyujin]

Did you:

Type /ghr newproject NAME to start a project?
Go to your reputation bar on your character sheet? There are two buttons in the upper right hand corner that allow you to use it. There's an active project right now that's being experimented with, so you might have to go to options and click Leave Project to start a new one yourself.

[Swerto]

Finally got it to work

For those who are interested I created Scarlet Crusade and Cult of the Damned factions that oppose one another.

I might do something similar horde-side.

[Leyujin]

Okay. I've taken a second look at it; the whole thing is really simple. There's not much you can do with it besides making factions, setting officers for factions, setting/adding/subtracting rep to people in the project, and linking factions so that getting/losing rep with one gains/loses rep with another. It's a basic interface, so it's important to put a framework together outside the game to organize things. I'm interested and willing to start putting something together, but I'd need help. This would be *Out of Game* work, putting together spreadsheets, reputation rates, listing factions, etc. I don't think the TN community needs this at the moment, but it might very well be useful in the near future.

All of this should be publicly debatable and accessible. What I want to do now is pretty boring; setting up a consensus, main reputation project containing the major player made factions which everyone can agree on. There's not so much creativity as common sense. What we'll be doing is figuring out the political dynamics already in the game, giving them names, and formalizing them. The Horde consists of the Darkspear Trolls, Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, Undercity, and Silvermoon. But those bases act as groundwork for interactions, and new factions to form. What I want to do with the base reputation project is form the groundwork for the TN community, Hordeside.

None of this needs to be used. But at least it will be there in case people think it would help foster and create more roleplay.

Essentially, what I want to do is this:
-Figure out the very, very basic, in-game, Roleplayer created factions.
1. I haven't been playing for a while, so I really don't know the dynamics between guilds and players. That being said, there clearly are some. I'd like opinions so we can form a consensus everyone agrees on. And I want these factions to be as simple and broad as possible.
-Establish the base reputation project.
1. There can be many reputation projects running at once, but it would be important for there to be one singular one that everyone agrees on and can join. For instance, Taknar's Cackling Faction may be something he and a few friends only participate in, but if there was an alliance between several major guilds, everyone would recognize that.
2. The base reputation project would have all these high profile factions, ones that contain dozens to hundreds of people rather than just five to ten. These factions would be ones the community agrees on before the addon even starts being used.
3. These factions will need set rules for how to gain reputation, how much you gain, and whether gaining reputation with that faction raises or reduces your reputation with another faction.
4. There also should be out of game spreadsheets, so we can keep track of this if something goes wrong in-game.


If you're willing to give input or help, I would very much need it. If you need any clarifications on what I'm trying to say and do, please ask.

Thank you.

[Cristok]

I've spoken with Leyujin about using this to promote/replace Cristok’s Free Horde concept. Essentially the Horde TN roleplay community seems to be broken down into

Warmongers (like the Grim, Infection, ATFD)

Not-so Warmongers (like Sanctuary, PaleHeart, Order o Eversong)

Neutral/In it for ourselves muhahaha (like Raven Cross? Order o Dying Sun? Blades of Lordaeron. Dozens of others?)

Cross Faction (like Cartel)*

Friendly to Partial Roleplay (like Symbiosis, Army of the Undead,)

These are some pretty broad starter factions that would need ‘officers’ or Leaders to begin. Perhaps we can start there? They would need the add-on of course and be willing to meet up at least once. From there we could set out on our own and ‘Build’ our various factions ourselves right?

SOUNDS FUN! Guess what I want to volunteer for? *Signs name next to the leader of the Warmongers*

Can I be in my own project AND someone else’s? Say Jeedup’s Irontusk thing keep spreading while we form this thing, can folks join ours easily or do they have to leave his thing first?

[Leyujin]

The big problem is you can be in only one project at a time. So you'd have to leave Jeedup's project... which isn't a problem, because it's Troll only. You'd have to talk to the author of the addon to ask about making you able to be in multiple projects at a time.

[Cristok]

Thats not a huge problem I don't think. HEY JEEDUP! YOU MIND JOINING US IN THIS THING?

Think he can hear me?

Ok so maybe we can even add in racial factions? Are there ways to make sub-sets of factions? Like Troll Warmongers?

[Leyujin]

Heh, I was working with Jeedup on the Irontusks thing, that's why I found the addon initially. I think making subsets of factions would be too complex. The idea would be though that smaller faction projects, when they get large enough, could join the main project.

[Swerto]

I've been in all 3 categories

Does that mean I win the game?

Oh yeah... you all just lost it.

[Cristok]

Swerto just made a new faction: The D-Bags...


*Has been a member since '79*