Anarchy Breed as Playable Faction?

[Torg]

When i started playing NC1 on jupiter in 2002, my faction was Anarchy Breed. I guess it was a bug, and i somewhat was the only AB on jupiter, so i moved on and joined some other faction (and clan). From that we know it's technically possible, but why would we want it ingame? Just for giggles?

[Kalonji Faya]

When i started playing NC1 on jupiter in 2002, my faction was Anarchy Breed. I guess it was a bug, and i somewhat was the only AB on jupiter, so i moved on and joined some other faction (and clan). From that we know it's technically possible, but why would we want it ingame? Just for giggles?

I'd like it to be the way it was before : negative SL runners went AB iirc...

Kalonji

[bmurph101]

When i started playing NC1 on jupiter in 2002, my faction was Anarchy Breed. I guess it was a bug, and i somewhat was the only AB on jupiter, so i moved on and joined some other faction (and clan). From that we know it's technically possible, but why would we want it ingame? Just for giggles?

So that you can PvP without any allies? Have a different playstyle that involves you living out of somewhere other than P1? So that you can be a natural enemy for everyone else, without completely griefing yourself out of the game by bleeding SL and dropping everything when you die?

[William Antrim]

It's a double edged sword though isnt it.

On one hand you have the ability to literally kill everyone and suffer no consequences over and above a normal death but on the other you have the blatant abuse that would follow when you let regular people loose on the game this sort of behaviour.

Unfortunately, as much as I love pvp, I think that the AB are/were a really badly designed faction in that way. Giving people one faction only in order to kill with impunity just means people want to all join that faction.

Adding AB as a playable faction at this point would literally send anyone who likes to pvp to that faction in order to fight everyone else and then not have any kind of repercussion. The background game wouldnt be able to support this mass exodus, not to mention it would do nothing to promote the future for any new player coming in either.

Not enough people look at the big picture, I believe. Yes it would be nice for "you" the solo player but this game is supposed to be about playing in groups. The original concept slogan was "you will never die alone". Unfortunately as an AB - a proper one according to the lore - you actually WILL do just that. Forget about PPUs, clans, any of that other stuff. No system or mechanic in game supports AB as a playable faction.

The frenchies, i suspect, added it as a USP (unique selling point) to draw a crowd away from the "original" servers to theirs to provide their fledgling community with a small panel of experts which would help the community to grow. It was a sound business decision in my mind but the plethora of basic services the average runner needs would not/should not be available to the AB runner. I dont know how they managed it on the french server as I didnt play there but for me being a purist AB I dont think you ever would set foot past Pepper Park 2 at best.

Many years ago someone did try to live as a permanent RED sl runner. One of the FA tanks, might have been Naimex although I might have made this up. He lasted a few weeks one summer living off the land and eventually got massively bored because nobody came to hunt him and nobody really pvped outside a safezone or outside of an op fighting group.

Contrary to popular opinion most people actually DONT like to pvp solo, they prefer odds of 2:1 or better, or with a PPU in support and a safezone near by. They will front plenty and pigeon chest a bit more but for the vast majority of players, myself included at times, I think the fear of losing (an item/pride) stops them from going the whole hog so to speak and actually playing the game in this manner.

I would say wholeheartedly no to this idea because where previously I supported it, in todays world I could see it fracturing an already small community into its constituent parts and thus turning it into the CoD style FPS game that Zoltan said he wanted to avoid the last time any of this sort of thing was brought up.

Personally I would be more in favour of some other changes to current mechanics to encourage more pvp but not this one. I think it would be too far reaching and too damaging. It would actually be worse than the "red vs blue" team mechanics that NC2 brought along and that was a terrible idea.

[bmurph101]

snip

But that's the point Will.

You have the ability to kill with impunity, and zero SL hit. But everyone else on the server can also kill you with impunity and zero SL hit. On top of that, as you said, stepping into any inner city sector of NC would result in the Copbots/STORMbots laying you out. You also lose out on being able to access Plaza 1, arguably the most important sector in the game (pokes, repairs, buying/selling).

It is essentially opting for the same thing as playing as a "red" SL runner; the only saving grace is that you don't bleed Soullight and therefore lose everything. It'll give the game villains. Villains who can also indiscriminately kill each other as well.

[William Antrim]

I see the point youve made and I can agree that you like it. It is the reason BD/TG was always so popular in the times of higher population, more targets.

It gives the few people who are here more people to kill but it also empties out every other faction because the last few people who play will all go to this faction in order to kill one another.

The risk is that none of you will play the game the way AB is meant to be played. People WILL team up and go on the gank just because killing other players is fun but getting killed by them isnt.

As a new player if I logged on today and saw all of this mindless killing with nobody really supporting any OTHER faction I think it might actually deter me. I think the richness of the appeal is in the different factions and their lore. This idea will provide a "go to" faction which is superior to all others and thus create a centre of gravity which ultimately could prove the undoing of the community.

For me, as an alternative, I would prefer to see more focus on the corporate espionage/war style stuff. Have the factions who are currently "friendly" be more aggressive to one another. Perhaps lower the penatly for neutral kills or something like that? I think this would be more in keeping with the lore than a full on AB faction which turns into a free for all.

[Torg]

an enemy-to-all-faction? just let's put up CA faction guards (120/120) to plaza one and listen to the cries of all TG, BD, BoC etc runners not being able to idle at medicare any longer. that should do for the time being. on second thought: if you want to play NC as faction-less, you're in the wrong place. get toxikk or any other online-shooter, as NC is an MMORPG.

[bmurph101]

an enemy-to-all-faction? just let's put up CA faction guards (120/120) to plaza one and listen to the cries of all TG, BD, BoC etc runners not being able to idle at medicare any longer. that should do for the time being. on second thought: if you want to play NC as faction-less, you're in the wrong place. get toxikk or any other online-shooter, as NC is an MMORPG.

Your responses have degenerated in quality so much so that I'm convinced you're actively trolling now and should be banned for it.

Cons of AB:
- No access to any of the inner city sectors
- Difficulty in getting pokes, trades, or repairs
- No access to any Faction HQs
- Inability to hold an Outpost
- Ability to be killed by every other Faction with impunity

Pros of AB:
- Ability to kill every other Faction with impunity (including your own) - Red SL runners have access to this
- Preservation of SL, helping you hold onto your valuables a bit longer


The entire point of AB as a playable faction would be to give players the incentive to play the bad guy. When's the last time NC has had a bad guy? The last guy I can think of is Fedai, who went full Red, and quit because when you're Red in NC, you get griefed out of the game almost overnight as a solo player.