Ranks... well, they're a bit rubbish really...
- Thread starter PopePhil
- Start date
Read what i wrote above. There's plenty of historical precedence of exactly this. It might not be logical in our present day mindset, but it was very common throughout history. Which also makes it valid in terms or roleplay.
nice to know thx
im not familiar with european history
Actually it's not just an European thing. It's more along the line of Feudalism, the code of honor of that time, how loyalty was seen, etc. Another big factor of course was warfare of that time. To a high degree, war was something the leaders did among themselves, while the population actually most of the time experienced little of it. The massive damage on the civilian side of present day wars is a result of modern day warfare and weaponry.
I could now write an essay (after having to do some googling, i don't have all necessary information memorized) on how examples of this were also seen in other areas, including an example of China during the time of the three kingdoms, but i rather link back to ED.
Here wars are fought between spaceships. For the normal civilian that's the equivalent to the noble knight. Where the peasant of old times wasn't bothered much by nobility going to war and killing each other, as long as it didn't just happen on his fields, you can see the same in ED. Two sides trash their spaceships. The one with the more spaceships left in the end is the side he will in the future pay his tax to. He can just hope that they don't raise the taxes to compensate for their losses.
And last not least, the Empire is a grand example of a society structure based on nobility. This might not be true for the Federation, but when you look at it in more detail, it's actually not that far off. Just instead of being all about nobility, the Federation is quite a dystopian structure of megacorporations and bureaucracy, with the visible figureheads in front having limited meaning.
So in terms of RP, you have all the options there. The federations bureaucracy has lost track of your case, one megacorporation still likes you and blocks everything, you sent bribes to the right person, etc...
(And yes, this still got much longer than i wanted it to be. I better stop now. )
so here I am... now a KING! (or Queen, I suppose, when I swap to my female avatar...)
...
wadda-I-get? nuthin. A brief "you've been promoted to King" popup. a fanfare would have been nice!
and a planet
I want my own planet
I'm a KING, and I want a planet
or a few words of RESPECT when I arrive at a station... a nice " welcome back Your Magesty. It's an honour to have you here... (by the way, fuel and repairs are 1/2 price for you wink)
AND A PLANET
...
wadda-I-get? nuthin. A brief "you've been promoted to King" popup. a fanfare would have been nice!
and a planet
I want my own planet
I'm a KING, and I want a planet
or a few words of RESPECT when I arrive at a station... a nice " welcome back Your Magesty. It's an honour to have you here... (by the way, fuel and repairs are 1/2 price for you wink)
AND A PLANET
You realize that FD would rather have this be an in-game purchase right?
You can hear them laughing on the way to the bank,
I'm not worried about rank insignia and 'greetings, my liege' messages.
What I do want is some notion in the game that we have two huge military powers who have been at each others' throats, on and off, for a thousand years. There's so much opportunity, and so much readymade lore, with the military situation, and I feel it's such a wasted opportunity that it has no real gameplay to offer beyond ships and permits.
What I do want is some notion in the game that we have two huge military powers who have been at each others' throats, on and off, for a thousand years. There's so much opportunity, and so much readymade lore, with the military situation, and I feel it's such a wasted opportunity that it has no real gameplay to offer beyond ships and permits.
Especially with Arx on the way, I think this would be fine, as long as they actually had it available.You realize that FD would rather have this be an in-game purchase right?
You can hear them laughing on the way to the bank,
You realize that FD would rather have this be an in-game purchase right?
You can hear them laughing on the way to the bank,
They could do it in a way similar to the ship/system unlocks for various ranks. You can buy them at any time, but the game wouldn't allow you to apply them until you achieve the associated rank.
Just a thought.
But none of these excuses, and others that you may not have mentioned, hold any water if you don't RP your cmdr in this way. Not every player roleplays a sneaky, backstabby kind of character who'd sell out his own mother's virginity just to make a quick dollar(or credit in this case).
What if you are an honest, hard working, law-abiding, pilot who just so happens to be one of the best in the galaxy as a CMDR, and maybe an Elite one no less? How do you explain the fact that he/she's both King(or Queen) and Admiral of the two biggest superpowers who are mortal enemies with each other, basically?
20 years ago I remember playing "X-Wing" and look at my uniform with rank, historic mission medals, TOD patches, the Kalidor Cresent... It was really cool.
It would be nice to have something like that here.
Very camp
Ooh, I 'member!20 years ago I remember playing "X-Wing" and look at my uniform with rank, historic mission medals, TOD patches, the Kalidor Cresent... It was really cool.
It would be nice to have something like that here.
And could get a tattoo that gets more and more elaborate as we do missions for Dark Wheel, like in TIE Fighter.
But I'm getting way ahead of things.
My twopennysworth,
Ranks should change in one of two ways:
1) The two ranks should be mutally exclusive.
2) Ranks progression is determined across the total universe
- The Federation and Empire allocates a certain percentage of the community to each role - e.g. Recruit - 12%
Cadet - 12%
Midshipman - 12%
Petty Officer - 10%
Chief Petty Officer - 10%
Warrant Officer - 10%
Ensign - 5%
Lieutenant - 5%
Lieutenant Commander - 5%
Post Commander - 5%
Post Captain - 5%
Rear Admiral - 5%
Vice Admiral - 3%
Admiral - 1%
- Everyone playing across the entire universe is ranked on their progress over the past n weeks. Each week, on the weekly tick, the server sums everyone's Federation or Empire points.
- The player scoring is then mapped against this ranking matrix. If the player's scoring rank is above his current rank then they are promted by one rank. If they under perform, they are demoted. (Worked example. The player has put an strong Federation effort in and is in the top 8% of the players completing Federation missions this week. The Commander is currently ranked as a Chief Petty officer so on the tick gets promoted to Warrant officer. Second example - Commander doesn't do anything for the Federation in a particular week, they are therefore demoted by one rank.)
It'll be a similar mechanism as used in the Power play for unlocking the various power play specific weapons / shields so wouldn't be an entirely new experience.
Ranks should change in one of two ways:
1) The two ranks should be mutally exclusive.
- The ranks can go down as well as up.
- As you progress in one rank chain, you are demoted in the other (think of it as Ferderation or Empire hierachy not liking you siding with the other side but not completely discarding you because you have shown your worth in the past.)
- Permit locks and ship unlocks are retained as you progress (...it's an older code, sir, but it still checks out...) but you still need to hit certain ranks to unlock certain permits or ships.
2) Ranks progression is determined across the total universe
- The Federation and Empire allocates a certain percentage of the community to each role - e.g. Recruit - 12%
Cadet - 12%
Midshipman - 12%
Petty Officer - 10%
Chief Petty Officer - 10%
Warrant Officer - 10%
Ensign - 5%
Lieutenant - 5%
Lieutenant Commander - 5%
Post Commander - 5%
Post Captain - 5%
Rear Admiral - 5%
Vice Admiral - 3%
Admiral - 1%
- Everyone playing across the entire universe is ranked on their progress over the past n weeks. Each week, on the weekly tick, the server sums everyone's Federation or Empire points.
- The player scoring is then mapped against this ranking matrix. If the player's scoring rank is above his current rank then they are promted by one rank. If they under perform, they are demoted. (Worked example. The player has put an strong Federation effort in and is in the top 8% of the players completing Federation missions this week. The Commander is currently ranked as a Chief Petty officer so on the tick gets promoted to Warrant officer. Second example - Commander doesn't do anything for the Federation in a particular week, they are therefore demoted by one rank.)
It'll be a similar mechanism as used in the Power play for unlocking the various power play specific weapons / shields so wouldn't be an entirely new experience.
With this, it will bring the Cutter/Corvette back up to their deserved status as being "It is possible, but extremely rare, for a private citizen to own one of these vessels." as per the in-game and lore-wise description of being special and rare.
So the game should adopt to your style of roleplaying? Awesome ! I usually roleplay that my character is a pink fairy who just uses spaceships to fly from one unicorn farm to the other. Clearly the game needs to be adopted to that. Fairy characters and unicorn farm POIs confirmed!
Without the sarcasm: the game depicts a the world as it is seen by the developers. As i wrote above, it's not as unrealistic as some people think it to be. For large portions of history (before the binary world view created during the cold war era) the games handling of ranks was not that uncommon or unlogical. You are free to do all your roleplay within the boundaries of this world. Which most of us do by just playing the game.
And to answer the final question you wrote, i have to reply with another answer: how do you explain the example i gave further above? How do you explain that Zar Nicolas II was granted honorary senior rank in a number of foreign armies, reciprocating by extending similar distinctions to a number of his fellow monarchs. These included the Imperial German, Spanish, Italian, Danish and British armies. Remember that Zar Nicolas II was the last Zar, the one during WW1. So in the "war of all wars", he still held honorary ranks in armies which he was fighting against. You explain this to me, and i can easily answer how you can roleplay somebody who holds rank in both superpowers.
I've been seeing this analogy being thrown about like free samples in a wal-mart in this thread.
The Elite universe isn't taking place in the 50's-70's, I'm sure societies, cultures and politics have changed a lot in over a thousand years at this point. You can't just default to using the Cold War the sole reason why this is a thing, game reasons or not.
It's like the President of the U.S. is also the Furher or The Dictator of the enemy country. It makes no sense and it's a conflict of interest on either side, a compromise of security and just plain silly.
I shouldn't be able to be both Admiral in the Federation while at the same time be King/Queen in the Empire. Period. Cold War or not, these 2 super powers do not like each other at all, whether or not they're fighting each other right now
Hmm. I get the feeling you haven't even read what i wrote. Enjoy continue posting...
I did, and I explained to you why what you said should not be the sole excuse to justify such a stupid rank system.