I love both NPC and Player factions, it gives me a sense of my own standing in the world. I love when working with one faction upsets another faction and you have a juggling act to balance their views of you or when you have to make a choice of who you want to work with in terms of factions at the expense of another. I don't want factions to necessarily separate players however, but at the same time if I'm playing a race my friends characters race hates, then I'm going to have a hard time going into their city to meet up with them, perhaps we will meet outside. Another feature could be that while I'm working with friends doing questing, dungeons and tackling situations my standing or reputation with the races im playing with could build up, as my friends talk to other Npcs and talk about our travels together.
I like Factions, but as some have mentioned the EQ faction system was tedious and felt unfulfilling to me. it was also quite hilarious to think that a random NPC halfway around the world was keeping track of my actions, and able to magically know that i killed XX mob XXXXXXXXX number of times.
personally i would like to see a more lifelike faction system. one where i would get faction by assisting people of that faction with quests and such. also if i dont let anyone leave the area alive how would anyone know that i know that i am the one who killed the bartender in Kaladim? or the waitresses and various other staff? generally if i Kill all the witnesses to a crime who is to say that i am the one who did it? Is there a CSI: Kaladim? Did i miss it? i thought i had seen all the CSIs
Also i would like to think that if one is powerful enough maybe that could override faction. put yourself in the NPCs shoes for a moment. if you are a scroll merchant who is just going about daily business and in pops this new tough guy. now noone can prove anything, but one of the other shops had refused to serve him and the owner and his entire family disappeared that very night leaving only blood and a few severed fingers in each bed. would you tell him that he cant buy the spell he wants? or would you say "Yessir, right away Sir!"?
if there is going to be a faction system it should be a living and breathing one, and even possibly include nefarious ways to circumvent factions. make it deep. not your neighbor's pool deep either, more like Pacific ocean Deep!
