I typically go with a faction that feels more "good" than "evil" unless I am given a strong reason to do otherwise. Where this doesn't apply, as in DAOC where none of the three factions were particularly good or evil, just normal people with competing objectives, I will try for characters in each. If it is an important faction affecting much of the game. If there are 100 zones and each has three factions I will not try for 300 characters.
Nephele said:Hi everyone,
I wanted to throw a topic out there for the community to discuss. It's been a while since I've done one of these, so standard disclaimers apply: This is really just something that I am curious about and I would like to see how you all feel about it. It is *not* going to radically alter or influence any design decisions we are making. So please just treat this as what it is - a community discussion :)
When it comes to NPC faction choices in the games you have played, where you have to choose to side with one group of NPCs or another, how do you approach them? What factors influence your decision? Once you've chosen a faction to support or oppose, how likely are you to try to change that later and what motivates you to change (if you do)?
There's no wrong answer here - I'm just interested in how everyone approaches these kinds of choices. Looking forward to reading all of your responses!
Excellent initiative, thank you Neph for that :-) I hope my answer won't be interpretated as too cynical though...
I would say, globally, that my faction decisions in games are purely utilitarian and have nothing to do with lore or epic/symbolic thoughts. Let's face it, MMO players talk a lot about ethics, esthetics and history/lore on the forums but when it comes to gameplay, they base their decisions on less romantic factors - such as access to loot and zones.
As an example for that, let me use EQ and the Velious expansion. Every player had to choose between Dwarf, Giant or Dragon faction and to side with the corresponding city : Thurgadin, Kael Drakkel or Skyshrine.
When Velious opened, I was in a small casual guild which was not able to raid high-level content. Therefore I choosed to side with Dwarfs because the quest armor pieces (the access to quest armor was directly tied to the faction you opted for) were dropping in Kael's arena which could be done with one or two groups. Of course, the dwarf armor (the rewards were given in Thurgadin) was the lower tier armor from the three factions.
During Velious, I got a transfer to the european AB server and joined a larger guild who was able to raid Hall of tests in Temple of Veeshan. I changed my faction to dragon faction to get access to Skyshrine quest armor.
Later on, that guild started to raid North Temple of Veeshan which ruined dragon faction but we didn't care anymore because loot was way better than Skyshrine quest armor...
And so on...
I am aware the EQ example is only an example but in my opinion it reveals the player's psychology. It is extremely rare to base gameplay decisions such as faction choices on symbolic elements. The roleplaying aspect of MMORPGs vanishes as soon practical things like access and loot have to been dealt with.
Just my 2 cp, feel free to disagree of course.
Nephele said:Hi everyone,
I wanted to throw a topic out there for the community to discuss. It's been a while since I've done one of these, so standard disclaimers apply: This is really just something that I am curious about and I would like to see how you all feel about it. It is *not* going to radically alter or influence any design decisions we are making. So please just treat this as what it is - a community discussion :)
When it comes to NPC faction choices in the games you have played, where you have to choose to side with one group of NPCs or another, how do you approach them? What factors influence your decision? Once you've chosen a faction to support or oppose, how likely are you to try to change that later and what motivates you to change (if you do)?
There's no wrong answer here - I'm just interested in how everyone approaches these kinds of choices. Looking forward to reading all of your responses!
The lore of the faction, items they provide (and the look of them) and how they fit into the persona of my character. As someone who is drawn to lore and history I tend to gravitate towards factions that offer that as their backstory.
I would only change factions if it fit what was going on with my character in game at the time, not to be part of the flavor of the month.