Do you have the ultimate faction locked inside your head (figuratively speaking, of course. Unless I have to carry out Brain surgery on you. I wouldn't recommend it. That last guy didn't look too good afterwards)? Hmmm... Before I give an idea of one (which I will pull out of my ass, as is proper; and mock you ceromoniuosly for coming up with one after a lifetime of work), I'll think I will look to see what others come out with. It'll be intriguing. You can make it about abosolutely anything. Anything, within a Game-related sense. Hey, who am I to judge whether or not your designs are good (Leave that to the Teen posters of the forum!). P.S. I won't mock you. It does take a bit of thought to come up with a half-decent faction. I should know. Almost all of my designs are essentially original (Note that you can never have a truely "original" design, unless you are really prepared to look outside the box).

"Faction" in what context?

As in an RPG faction? I have a few cyberpunk thug and gang factions I can share.

One faction is obsessed with cybernetic upgrading. People who devote their lives to physical perfection through mechanical means. They steal, kill, and research, all for the purpose of obtaining new gadgets and body parts. This is intended to lead to conflict with the player, of course.

Another faction, The Grutta, are thugs who are hired as part of a would-be criminal army, who level out a specific stage-drug. Each member starts out with level 1 of the drug, and can't use level 2 until their system becomes accustomed to level 1, and so on. Once they reach level 50+, their appearance becomes grotesque and veiny, but they obtain superhuman physical abilities. Since it takes so long for the body to allow level 50+, and they don't expose themselves until they reach it, no one else can use their drug.

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Original post by Dex Jackson P.S. I won't mock you. It does take a bit of thought to come up with a half-decent faction. I should know. Almost all of my designs are essentially original (Note that you can never have a truely "original" design, unless you are really prepared to look outside the box).

To be honest, I think that's a horrendously arrogant thing to say; claiming that one knows each and every ideology, fictional or real, that has ever been conceived. Original in your experience, perhaps, but that doesn't mean that your ideas are 'original' in any true sense of the word. Whether we like it or not, we are products of our environment. The idea of awareness/consciousness is so closely tied to our own interpretations of what is around us I don't actually believe it possible to come up with something spontaneously. We are always fundamentally inspired by something else. We aren't always aware of this in the cognitive sense, though.

As for factions? Well, I don't know. The above, perhaps. If just two people share an ideology, we have a faction on our hands. A coherent system of beliefs present among multiple people. If anyone else thinks similarly, there you go.

Also, a disclaimer: I don't mean any of the above in an offensive or demeaning way. It's merely an ...observation.

a thread about factions that I made previously

Since making that, I would add that it would be nice to see cultures that exemplify different time periods, customs, and types of government. One race or country where it's common to settle problems with physical brawls and everyone is a lone fighter; a different one which has courtly formality and arranged marriages and perhaps magical curses, vows, and geases; a third where everyone belongs to some sort of gang/pack/pride/clan; and a fourth where everything is about entrepreneurship and cleverness, industry and economics.

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Original post by sunandshadow a thread about factions that I made previously Since making that, I would add that it would be nice to see cultures that exemplify different time periods, customs, and types of government. One race or country where it's common to settle problems with physical brawls and everyone is a lone fighter; a different one which has courtly formality and arranged marriages and perhaps magical curses, vows, and geases; a third where everyone belongs to some sort of gang/pack/pride/clan; and a fourth where everything is about entrepreneurship and cleverness, industry and economics.

That is a really interesting idea, S&S. I like the thought that your reputation follows you throughout the game, influencing enemies and friends alike. That will probably make it into my game in some form.

Not a very straight talker, are you?

I think of factions as the political topography of a world, so I always envision them as features on a map. A friendly, open-market group with strong peace-keeping forces and clear ways to gain and maintain standing is like a wide prairie with lots to do and gain. An adversarial, fascist regime that quashes dissent and abhors foreigners is like a forbidding mountain range, craggy and treacherous. A serene, isolationist group with no interests in outside affairs and no explicit desires is an impassable desert, with nothing to nourish the player's ambitions.

For me, the fashion, language, and style of the group is just so much window dressing. A race of sentient cupcakes that gather sprinkles and hide from bananas is functionally identical to a race of noble centaurs that harvest magical essence from ancient trees and are plagued by rampaging dragons or a society of self-governing starships that collect hydrogen from forming star clusters and dodge human salvage teams.

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Original post by Dex Jackson Do you have the ultimate faction locked inside your head (figuratively speaking, of course. Unless I have to carry out Brain surgery on you. I wouldn't recommend it. That last guy didn't look too good afterwards)?

I take it (by the tone of your post) that you're pretty fed up with derivative faction ideas. I feel the same way. But your tone ("actual interesting", "truly original", etc.) is probably not going to help you get a useful response.

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Hmmm... Before I give an idea of one (which I will pull out of my ass, as is proper; and mock you ceromoniuosly for coming up with one after a lifetime of work), I'll think I will look to see what others come out with. It'll be intriguing.

Case in point. What's the point of posting this? I wonder whether you are more interested in getting interesting feedback or trying to start some ego contest over creativity. If it's the latter, this thread won't live long.

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P.S. I won't mock you. It does take a bit of thought to come up with a half-decent faction. I should know. Almost all of my designs are essentially original (Note that you can never have a truely "original" design, unless you are really prepared to look outside the box).

I'd recommend you post the content of the idea you're interested in and solicit feedback. That will probably go over a lot better than some highly elliptical post where you threaten to gift the board with creative contents you've unceremoniously derived from your nether regions.

Original post by Kest
As in an RPG faction? I have a few cyberpunk thug and gang factions I can share.

One faction is obsessed with cybernetic upgrading. People who devote their lives to physical perfection through mechanical means. They steal, kill, and research, all for the purpose of obtaining new gadgets and body parts. This is intended to lead to conflict with the player, of course.

Nice. Like it very much. Factions (RPG sense yes, also Space Sim) that stress to modify and augment themselves beyond normal human form are ones that I find particularly find interesting. They always seem to have some intirguing storylines (Thinking of Mechanists, ApostleCorp and other like factions)

A faction on a similar line to this, is a faction of mine, which I have named CSE (Confederation of Science & Engieneering). They are one of the great political powers in an Enlightenment Steampunk world, set in the Age of Discovery & Culture, which takes many of the techonlogies we invented a few decades ago and mimics them a few centuries behind us at the moment.

CSE are made up, just as the other great political powers are, of different parties which take their place as cults, pseudo-coporations or unions. One I particularly find interesting are the Technicists: one of the larger parties within CSE, which strive to achieve a world where technology in all its forms (Agriculture, Robotics, Medicine, Computers, Physics etc...) dominate the landscape. Due to their more hardcore (but not extremist) views on the whole of society and the form it takes at present, many of the other parties within CSE and those of other political powers regard them with uncertainty and a certain touch of anxiety. (Think amazing contraptions and mechanisms, with a penchant for the complete involvement of techonology in every part of society).

P.S. InvalidPointer and Wavinator (and everyone else):

Sorry if I seems like I'm being an ass or jerk. I'm only getting a feel for the type of forum that this is. I'm glad that some members are particularly harsh on new ones. It promotes the seriousness of this forums and what it represents to all other developers, a beacon of help for all (I know it sound corney and like I'm a sycophant, but honestly I'm not). You are going to be getting some crazy threads from me, but if it is too stupid, I wouldn't put it up (Apart from that one which didn't go down so well with every other member). If it might offend others who are hardcore, I'll put up warning, if it so please everyone.