I'm assuming that this post is in reply to this post of Arabella's:
If I am right, then for how she reached that conclusion, I think it's important to keep-in-mind
all of the Faction-relevant quotes from the HoC, outlined
here, in a post of mine in a separate thread on this board.
I think Arabella's conclusion stems in part from the following, I think rather telling, quote from a team member:
For a long time, Factions was nearly-dead on most shards, but on some it had a moderate to even high level of activity, mostly populated by people who played Factions for Factions' sake, and/or for the sake of the RP purpose behind it: To fight for political control of the Felucca facet. TB wanting to reclaim the "old lands" for Lord British, the SLs wanting to fight for the mysterious Shadowlords and the weird cult that sprung up around them, CoM thinking that Lord British had lost his way but not wanting to let Min. or the SLs have Felucca either, and Min,. wanting to complete the conquest of the facet she had begun years prior.
From a fictional perspective, there was something both beautiful and tragic about having people who still cared about who had political control of Felucca even when "ground level" control had long-belonged to whatever Champ Spawn Guild was dominant at the moment.
The new point system hinted at by the team last night suggests, rather strongly, that the new system is designed not with those long-term Faction players in-mind, but rather with the newer crowd, who is interested less in Factions' fictional purpose than in acquiring kill points and proving that they can "own" other players.
Further, the new system doesn't appear from the brief description we have so far to be terribly thief-friendly. Thieves tend to play Factions for the purpose of Factions, which is winning cities, not to rack up corpses. Letting thieves obtain points from stealing sigils was a great idea and I'd hate to see it go. The sigil thieves are the heart of Factions. You literally cannot "win" Factions on any terms other than raw numbers of dead bodies on the floor without your sigil thieves.
Further, the fact that the strongholds will be moved from guard zones likely means the TB stronghold, if indeed TB would still exist in its present form at all, would be moved. This has its advantages. Even as a "hero blue" before I rejoined Factions recently, I found the guard zone a tad annoying and didn't call guards on people even when I could have. (My repayment for showing this honor, btw, was to be smacked talked to, which I found amusing and pathetic, and which made me rethink my policy.)
However, by definition it also means that TB wouldn't be fighting for Lord British's physical Throne anymore. When you consider the place of that Throne Room in history, the symbolic value it has is difficult to underestimate.
Think about it....What's 0'0 on sextant coordinates. The Throne. And what shape is the throne in? the UO symbol. The throne, literally, said UO.
*shrugs* I have a luxury that many Faction players don't have, and that is that I'm an occasional, casual Faction player at most. I can see some value in what the team's doing. I can see some value in changing the fiction after I have no idea how many years Factions has been around. I could even see some value in scrapping Factions entirely and starting with an entirely new system.
But, I can surely see the point of view of the people who played Factions before Faction Artifacts and before "punkte" replaced fiction as the purpose of Factions. People who truly played Factions for Factions' sake were a rare and interesting, if occasionally frustrating, breed.
At the time Faction Artifacts were proposed I supported them, because I thought that Factions would benefit from having rewards that were external to Factions. I didn't anticipate the point exploits, foolish me, and thus assumed that the Artifacts' being point/rank dependent would by its nature force participation in Factions.
Instead, however, as we all know, major point exploiting occurred. If one guild in a Faction did the point exploits, then all the guilds in the Faction basically had to do it, or none of the honest guilds could wear the Artifacts, and since all of your opponents are wearing them, that's condemning yourself to losing.
The point exploiting thus allowed Felucca guilds to use Faction Artifacts for non-Faction Felucca purposes, such as Champ Spawns, Harrowers, and random Yew Gate fighting. For some reason, this gets "translated" on your message boards, Petra, as "Trammies" who "bank sit" in their Faction Artifacts and "never go to Fel." While this happens, it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as the scenario I described.
I still feel that Faction Artifacts, without the point exploiting, would have been a positive move. But, alas.
At any rate, from the team member's statements, it appears as though the new system is designed to favor the post-Faction Artifacts Felucca crowd, which isn't interested in Factions
per se, but rather sees the system as an excuse to fight. Sometimes guilds raiding Faction Strongholds don't even have thieves to steal the sigils they will win if the succeed in the raid. Sometimes, Petra, on your boards they will disparage even the idea of having thieves, stealing sigils, and defending strongholds.
We'll see what they have in mind. As a much more casual Faction Player than most, I have the luxury of waiting to see and taking, or leaving, what comes.
I keep my fingers crossed that, whatever it is, the new system will preserve
something from the old.
-Galen's player