Alright, lets say something from a non-PMF leader/owner perspective.
I spent about a year playing Elite with only a few friends who played it intermittently. It was... Lonely? I guess that's the best word for it. Of course, I flew in open so there was the occasional player interaction. It was one of these interactions where I heard the often repeated "Go to Hutton Orbital for a free Anaconda." Lucky me, I had the sense to actually look this up before making the trip, so no 0.22Ly trek to disappointment for me.
This was instead how I got my first PMF interaction, with none other than the Hutton Truckers themselves. It was, in fact, how I learned that players could even get factions put into the game. Quite the revelation to someone who had come over from the likes of GTA, CoD and Halo where the idea of having a clan/group in game begins and ends with a logo and a clan tag. Suffice to say, my curiosity got the better of me and I dug deeper.
With rumours of an imminent alien incursion growing (This was just before the first recorded hyperdiction) I thought to myself, "I'll give this a shot" and decided to try and start my own PMF (The ill-fated LRDF). I actually garnered a fair amount of interest, and began preparations but for various reasons it wasn't meant to be. Something I did learn though, owning/running a PMF is hard goddam work. Even before getting it installed within the game. I have since had an immense respect to those who can run even a moderately successful faction.
In the process of setting up a Minor Faction, I was directed towards Inara.cz where I began participating in RP and writing stories for the community. Hell, I even found myself contributing to the site itself, adding a series of guidelines for new people to follow when joining in the RP Forums. Without a doubt, there is no way this would have happened had I just been supporting 'NPC Faction 42b' for kicks.
But I need not stop there.
Being part of the Inara Community kept me playing the game longer than I suspect I would have been otherwise. As a result I met several members of several factions, Ghost Legion, Black Omega, and Newton's Fusiliers to name but a few. Of course, then Inara got its own PMF and the system became my in game home. I ran missions almost exclusively for the faction as my way of thanking the community for welcoming and accepting me.
I also had the misfortune pleasure of meeting up with Phisto. Long story short I found myself being pulled into the feud between NF and Dentons lot. A war that wouldn't be happening if it was simply a case of Denton v 'NPC Faction 78c'. It seems a lot more personal to me that it involves a group of people who I basically consider family at this point. If the NF minor faction wasn't in game, there'd be nothing stopping them just going "Eh, sod it. Let's ditch faction '78c' and go say faction '94t' is ours instead". I agree with Phisto in that aspect. There's nothing quite like arriving at a station with your factions name on it and thinking "I/We earned that".
It's not over either. The system in question is very important to DP, they're still pushing back. I have plenty to do in game now beyond picking a ship, grinding Credits for it, then rinse and repeat. I have a need to keep returning. I have a purpose to what I do.
At the end of the day, if you haven't at least adopted a faction and raised it from the ground up to owning a System, you won't understand the point. It's not a point someone can simply tell you about. You have to experience it for yourself. Yes, that sounds pretentious. But it's also incredibly asinine and ignorant to say PMFs have no purpose. Is the PMF system in game perfect? God no. But neither are Piracy, Bounty Hunting, Exploration, Mining, Passenger Running... You think PMFs should be dropped because they're not doing what you think they should be doing? I say drop any part pf the game anyone says isn't working how they think it should. How much of the game do you think would be left?
Bounty Hunting can be done by jumping in, flying to a Res Site for twenty minutes and returning to base. Exploration can be a case of jump out the bubble, do a few scans, head back, or it can be a several month endeavour. Picked up whenever the CMDR has time.
PMFs? Best you log in weekly at the very least, depending how busy your system is. Unless, of course, you want to rebuild it from 0% every time you log in... PMFs are a commitment requiring effort from all fronts. They require both an in-game presence and maintenance, as well as an out of game representation from the player(s) in question.
PowerPlay is the same, on a larger scale. But they're impersonal for the most part unless you're a lore nut, in which case you might have a figurehead you identify with.
As for this constant rhetoric that you only accomplish anything by sucking up to the Devs? Please give examples. I'm keen to hear them.
