There is no doubt that EM simply is THE best game I have ever played. I have pointed this out quite a few times. However, there is still one thing I really miss. And that's a way to really affiliate yourself with a particular side of the law and play your role accordingly.
We talked about this before, and the conclusion was that if you wanna get strongly affiliated with one particular side or more specifically, faction, you would have to do contracts for this faction until your rep with said faction would be 100%. If you accomplish this, you could call yourself 'Navy', 'Miner', or whatever faction you affiliated yourself with.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this was the only way to achieve some form of affiliation.
Personally, looking at it from a role play point of view, I find this somewhat dissatisfying. There is not a real way to side yourself with either of the factions occupying the EvoVerse. Per example, in most systems, it doesn't matter which faction you're affiliated with because the system houses them all or at least most of them. So when you're friendly with the Navy but hostile with the Rebels, you will find Rebel ships popping up and attacking you, but also the other way around. And it doesn't matter a whole lot on which station you are docked or in which system you're at, it more or less works the same way everywhere (I know it's not quite as black and white as I portray it here as there is some level of finesse involved, but it's basically what it comes down to). In most systems the same thing happens one way or the other.
What I'm missing I guess is, a more dedicated way to affiliate with factions.
Below are a couple of ideas which I feel might be really helpful in establishing this (most or all examples are taken from Freelancer, where I think they worked really great):
- Systems that are dominated by bad guys ie Rebels, Guild, Vonari.
Ships from let's say the Navy or Energy factions that would enter into these systems, would find themselves smoked in no time.
You could call this region of space the 'Badlands', or 'Tartarus' or something. It would be a region not a lot of people would venture into because it would be infested with rogues, pirates, rebels and other outcasts, outlaws and general space scum.
Riftspace would be a system that at first glance gives me the impression of being such a space scum-invested system, but if you check out the contracts offered on the stations, you will conclude otherwise.
Also, an outlaw system would be somewhat remotely situated in regards to the popular systems, but at the same time close enough for the Rebels or Guild factions owning the system to conduct raids on neighboring Navy and Energy systems. It would therefor have to have at least one (semi-)direct connection via a gate (or a wormhole!...) to such a system. - Stations owned solely by any of these outlaw factions, located in these outlaw systems.
These stations would sell weapons, equipment and commodities which would suit and be unique to the criminal nature of the faction owning the station in question.
They would also offer contracts that would be specifically aimed towards their side of the law. Like for example, 'take the gate to Pearl and attack & destroy a Navy convoy en route from ... to ... '.
The way things are now, you can get contracts from pretty much any faction on most stations. This doesn't always make a lot of sense from a role play point of view. You would expect for stations to be owned by one single major faction (ie a 'Navy station' or a 'Rebel station'), and the contracts offered (and items sold) on that station should reflect the nature of the ruling faction. - Same as previous point, only then located in remote regions of popular systems dominated by Navy and Energy factions.
Using my imagination, I could see these outlaw stations located in say a cloud or a dark nebula, obscured from view, or some other hidden or at least somewhat secluded area, imaginably somewhat apart from the central area of a system (but yet not too far either...).
- In addition, I would also like to propose an idea which is also taken from Freelancer: faction licenses.
This would involve the possibility for players to purchase a license for a particular faction. The availability of the license in question would depend on the nature of the station selling them. For example you would be able to buy a Navy (and maybe also an Energy) license on a Navy-dominated station. And you would have to look for a Rebel license on a Rebel or Guild owned station.
Once bought, the license would automatically set your faction reputations to suit the nature of the purchased license. For example let's say I just bought a Rebel license, I would see my reputation with the Navy and Energy faction dip into the red, and the Rebel and Guild ones into the green. Not sure about the miners here.
A possible expansion to this concept would be the inability to dock at stations that would oppose the faction you would be affiliated with. So if I were to be affiliated with the Rebels, I would not be able to dock on a Navy owned station. - Also, in addition to the license idea (and also taken from Freelancer), it would help role play a lot if players would have a faction tag appearing in front of their ship name. This then would be visible for other players within visible range. For example, if [SW]Busch was affiliated to the Navy by either doing a lot of contracts for them or because he bought a Navy license somewhere, he would appear to me as 'Navy -- [SW]Busch'. His name would appear in red, yellow/orange or green to me, depending on my own standings towards the faction of his affiliation (assuming I am affiliated to the Rebels, I have made it red for now to show what I mean).
This is what has been on my mind and how I think RP and game immersion could be improved. Feel free to spill your comments below!
~ Viper.
[Edited on 10-8-2012 by Viper]
I'd want the name of the game changed from something besides "Mercenary" ... since, by definition, a mercenary doesn't align himself with any specific faction. Also, a lot of what you propose already exists, in a way, in the single-player version of the game. With the exception of the hidden rebel stations in ... ummm ... well, they are hidden and rightly should remain so to the open forum. But, yes, you can currently dock at a rebel station even if your reputation isn't that good with the rebels. And keep in mind that factions are split among Federation and Alliance star systems.