Time for BGS 2.0 – Politics, Local Politics

[Dillon Fallon]

Where did I wrote about replacing Discord? I wrote that FDev should keep gameplay, game activities for squadrons. PP is not for squadrons - there are ~10 Powers, and ~1000 squadrons (more or less active). Minor factions (thus BGS) match squadron scale.

You're talking about how players organise themselves within the game. That's pretty much all done outside the game now - I can't remember the last time I went in the squadron tab in the right panel, so it's probably already a pretty dead feature. I don't think FDev are particularly bothered by that as long as people keep playing.

If they were bothered about it, there would already have been some significant updates in the areas of in game communication and team mission acquisition.

 

[Marcus Bronco]

Actually, BGS is the only thing that makes squadrons meaningful. You don't need to coordinate your gameplay for any activity, but BGS. Well, PP also needs some coordination, but with 10000 pilots per Power - squadrons are not a good way to organize peoples. So, if FDev will keep BGS broken and not taken seriously - squadrons will degradate and eventually die. And peoples will leave this game. Honestly, after one have tried each kind of activity (exploration, mining, bounty hunting, etc) - what else can keep us to play the game (and make servers alive)? Only common goals with squadron pilots. PP is depersonalized, it does not helps to find friends in the game. Only small groups of players (5-20-100 players) produce new friends, this is a squadron level of communication. And BGS is the only (currently) activity that fits squadron scale. That's the reason why pilots took BGS seriously.

Stories that motivate actions, content that explains why such functional stuff needs to be done will retain, purpose, peer to peer talk, not imposed from the high.
This and else in the alliance is and will be possible.
Players do shape and can shape what and how deep the game can be. Cooperation with other people defines the fun. And then how you do this cooperation is everything.

All the stuff I am suggesting in the message above of mine has been disregarded in your post which speaks of something you complain about, I am instead reading the original post and commenting on that with additional thoughts.BGS if updated needs to define what the Super Power play can do, so to have deeper studies needed as costs of moving in a place that has electors and residents that oppose a power due to the factions inside that system, time they are in, government type and so on... will basically make Super Power play be defined from BGS "colors"...

This is still in some degree possible right now as players might say "no" to someone that is taking a system where a faction not "aligned" is present, but if this was also written in game check and balances, by making logically harder to raise the "merits" for a system in which there has been 5 factions out of 7 of a different allegiance ... or other elements ... like the system is unhappy and on bust.. then the merits will also be changing in how they go up..

It's bascially put shades and various multipliers that have meaning (IRL just as in game).
If a place is in civil unrest or civil war or war.. and you go there to conquer it (as super power).. well you gonna have problems or advantages...

Players will have to study what is the best way to conquer a place... maybe a revolution is best as you are able to keep everything as it was before (along the Lesson of Tomasi of Lampedusa in the "Leopard"... (book) which is also how often things are in life) ... or maybe a moment of happiness is best to change super power in a system?..
Or high population systems will be harder to change power of.. or again how long a set of said allegiance have been into a system? that time amount will also have to affect how is the power play take over gonna be.

Instead right now it's not that deep. Sure.. players by their shared or non shared set rules invented between them will be able to still create plus or minus kind of "enough" deep motivations and depth... but if some stuff was put in game that would mean not only PP defines BGS but also BGS defines PP which is not really true right now.

This is very important like all the suggestions I try to share.

 

[aRJay]

…

This is very important like all the suggestions I try to share.

To you and those of similar interests.

To those with no interest in deliberately interfering with the background simulation or the various levels of in game politics it is only important if it affects their ability to play the game as they wish.

 

[Jmanis]

To you and those of similar interests.

To those with no interest in deliberately interfering with the background simulation or the various levels of in game politics it is only important if it affects their ability to play the game as they wish.

TBH, the only reason the BGS remains as successful as it is, is because of the failure of PP1. Many, many faction supporters (my own included) were all set to down tools and move to PP, until we saw what it was. It and PP2 both fail to capture what the BGS does, imo, even though PP really is the home for that sort of activity.

That said, PP2 is in a good position to, with a few tweaks, architect the BGS back into that role of the shifting background of the universe that isn't front-of-mind... which should really be the "fine tuning" to the effects PP inflicts.

I saw a statement somewhere (this thread? Somewhere else?) that PP was for big groups, whereas BGS was for Squadrons... I'd disagree and suggest PP is for Squadrons, and BGS is for everyone.

 

[Marcus Bronco]

Negative, BGS is for everyone, PP is for everyone. This game is limited by the players ability to imagine. That's all.
This is why this game is good, this game is extremely bad if players switch off their imagination (and I regret to say, I have seen this over and over), but will never catch up with the power of imagination and freedom to create. Have a good journey.