Letter of concern to the developers of Starbase

[Cavilier210]

I’m Lightfoot, leader of the faction known as the Federation. We’re part of the Federation Gaming Community. I was told of this alliance between the Lodestar Alliance, and the Dev faction, Empire. The agreement of which can be found here [Empire-Lodestar Alliance]. My concern, as well as of those I’ve talked about this with is that this is a bad precedent, as well as situation.

I want to make it especially clear that this is not an attack on anyone. I appreciate the developers work, efforts, intentions, and openness. Their openness with all of us is an amazing and sadly rare trait in the gaming world. I do know that Empire is player run with developer oversight.

I do not personally know much about the internal workings of Lodestar. I haven’t spoken to anyone I know to be a representative of the whole alliance, but have talked to some members of the various companies, and they don’t seem all that bad to me. I have read their charter, and found it rather interesting.

A former member of a group from Dual Universe that had dealings with DSI shares these concerns, and brought my attention to some of these. They have relayed to me that if any questions arise, they’d happily answer them, but they have no wish to be doxxed and so I will act as intermediary for them.

Our concerns are these:

• Lodestar may get preferential, or special treatment, by the developers due to this relationship. Be this intel inaccessible to players at large (station, ship, or player locations for example); access to game mechanics knowledge unknown to the playerbase at large.

• The Empire may not be able to perform its role upon Lodestar while being allied with Lodestar. The Empire being the mediator, moderator, playing field leveler, policer, what have you, of the in game world. This also extending to Kingdoms ability to perform the same as a dev faction, given this special relationship with Empire. Regardless of what it says in the pact, the meta view, which is unavoidable, is that Lodestar may become untouchable to the dev’s responsibilities in the perceptions of the player community.

• Dark Star Imperium is a group in Lodestar, and has a history of griefing, doxxing, and other toxic behaviors in other games. Here you can view the event as described by the developer team of Dual Universe. Feb 27, 2019. This event here led to bans upon DSI members.

I found a another page about this incident and fallout: Here March 6, 2019
Here is another source that describes the timeline of that incident. Here July 19, 2019

This was a concerted effort on the part of DSI. They created a team of players to do these actions, denied them when confronted with evidence, and then complained after the decision was made. These are the signs of a systemic problem in DSI as a whole. The fact that their leader was not removed from his position within their community for his part in these actions show that they condone this behavior.

• The tarnishing of the Empires legitimacy, as well as Lodestars, by affiliating with this group, is possibly great. The developers working alongside Lodestar, who include DSI, may give the air that both the developers and Lodestar condone this past behavior on the part of DSI. While it may be the case that neither party knows of this past, others surely do. I just learned of it myself and have done my own research.

• Lodestar and Empire are the largest dev faction, the largest player alliance, and that alliance includes the largest known player group. Neither entity is in any need of this alliance, and it comes off as too much.

• Being a mutual defense agreement, it leaves the environment ripe for abuses upon smaller groups by both entities. Any reprisal of these abuses by a victim of them will lead to both Empire and Lodestar coming down upon the heads of anyone they see fit. In fact, in order to match the sheer numbers of possible opponents that can be fielded by Lodestar and Empire alone, much less together, nearly every other faction I know of currently would have to join together just to equal that possibility.
  
  
• Going back to special treatment, both parties get free lots on the other parties stations.

• The Archons formed the deal without the awareness of most of the member companies leaders.

I’ve talked to many group’s leaders, and they also have these concerns. Of note is Kenetor of K-bots. Marksman of Dragon Bank. The Federation membership, Galactech, members of the Republic. As well as many other members throughout the community as well.

My hope is that the leadership of the empire changes their minds and severs this alliance, because of these various reasons. Thank you.

 

[Norway174]

Even disregarding everything you said about DSI, and the linkage to Dual Universe.

Just the alliance alone,
seems like favoritism. (Like you also did point out.)

I was expecting The Empire and The Kingdom to be fully run NPC factions.
And not like a player run faction.

I mean, how can they expect players to actually keep the NAP (Non-Agression Pact)?
Are they gonna add some sort of recruitment process?

And if you don't pass, you'll just get rejected, and forced to either join the other side, if you're accepted there. Or just play alone as a neutral?

I thought those two factions were supposed to be open for everyone to join, with a bigger opportunity for team-based PVP fights, against the other faction.

And not all of the other diplomacy involved with other player run factions.

 

[Brushes]

Sounds like SB is relying on role playing for the main factions? I hope not... Really wish the devs would address how this is supposed to work.

 

[Vampiricdust]

As one of the ranking officers of Empire, I will comment some on this. I have responded to the reddit post and I'll do it here for those who don't use reddit.

To be clear, Lightfoot has not contacted Lodestar, the Empire, or the devs over the Empire with any of this. Unlike Lightfoot, DSI did come to us and explained the situation and clarification on the issue. The devs are satisfied for now and as long as they obey Starbase rules and the terms of our agreement, we will not punish an entire alliance over 1 single player's actions 2 years ago from a completely different game. It's very inappropriate to publicly defame someone who has apparently been dealt with by that game's devs and the situation was considered resolved. So to do we consider this issue handled and resolved.

The part about Empire not being able to do it's job is a lie. The agreement specially states both faction members are held to the laws of the other faction if in their territory. We will hold their members accountable within our territory. If you expect us to police everyone, everywhere, then you have misunderstood our purpose. Our goal is to facilitate neutral factions into becoming stable members of the community as well as provide a base level of things to do. We are not the game's moderation team.

...Just the alliance alone,
seems like favoritism. (Like you also did point out.)

I was expecting The Empire and The Kingdom to be fully run NPC factions.
And not like a player run faction.

I mean, how can they expect players to actually keep the NAP (Non-Agression Pact)?
Are they gonna add some sort of recruitment process?

And if you don't pass, you'll just get rejected, and forced to either join the other side, if you're accepted there. Or just play alone as a neutral?

I thought those two factions were supposed to be open for everyone to join, with a bigger opportunity for team-based PVP fights, against the other faction.

And not all of the other diplomacy involved with other player run factions.

So we are not allowed to make any alliances or deals with anyone? How is that favoritism? We might be a faction created by the devs, but we are players who have just as much right to play the game, make allies, and make deals. Just because we're also helping the devs make the game fun, doesn't mean we're not allowed to run the faction like a real faction.

There are no NPCs in the game at all, so it has to be players or they'd get rid of Empire & Kingdom all together..

How do you expect anyone to keep a NAP? Do player factions have a recruitment process? We have a recruitment process for our military.

The dev factions have never been open to anyone to join, they have always been planned to control their own memberships. We are here for team based fights, but given the nature of the game, we cannot afford to give everyone a ship and let them get it blown up. We don't get unlimited money. The devs might spawn ships for special events, but that's more for the dev factions both and not any player factions.

 

[Cavilier210]

Even disregarding everything you said about DSI, and the linkage to Dual Universe.

Just the alliance alone,
seems like favoritism. (Like you also did point out.)

I was expecting The Empire and The Kingdom to be fully run NPC factions.
And not like a player run faction.

I mean, how can they expect players to actually keep the NAP (Non-Agression Pact)?
Are they gonna add some sort of recruitment process?

And if you don't pass, you'll just get rejected, and forced to either join the other side, if you're accepted there. Or just play alone as a neutral?

I thought those two factions were supposed to be open for everyone to join, with a bigger opportunity for team-based PVP fights, against the other faction.

And not all of the other diplomacy involved with other player run factions.

You don't have to join one of the dev factions.

There are no NPC's

Why would you have to play alone as a neutral?

 

[Cavilier210]

We are not the game's moderation team.

Its been repeatedly said that the empire and kingdom factions may be used as tools of moderation for actions that don't require a ban. Or to level the playing field when someone becomes obscenely powerful to where the dynamics are imbalanced.

 

[Brushes]

What happens if player defeat one or both of the dev factions??

 

[Norway174]

I will not comment on the other part about DSI from another game, and that long ago.

As I feel the relevancy of it here is minimal.
And this is not what I wish to discuss.

So we are not allowed to make any alliances or deals with anyone? How is that favoritism? We might be a faction created by the devs, but we are players who have just as much right to play the game, make allies, and make deals. Just because we're also helping the devs make the game fun, doesn't mean we're not allowed to run the faction like a real faction.

Of course you're allowed to play the game, make alliances and deals. That has nothing to do with favoritism. That's a part of running a player run faction.

Which, I do not think has any place as an "official" faction.

Personally, I do not think you should be able to run the official factions as a player faction. If you want that type of gameplay elements, then that belongs in your own player run faction.

There are no NPCs in the game at all, so it has to be players or they'd get rid of Empire & Kingdom all together..

You don't need NPCs to make up the faction. The players will still make up the faction.

The way I had thought it would be, would be much more similar to an EVE starter corp, which is NPC run. But it's not like the NPC is actually in space.

It's this idea that's defined in the lore. Who you'll get to interact with trough missions, or lore posts. Or whatever.

How do you expect anyone to keep a NAP? Do player factions have a recruitment process? We have a recruitment process for our military.

The dev factions have never been open to anyone to join, they have always been planned to control their own memberships.

So basically, there is a chance you can't join. And it's real commitment, as if you were to join a proper faction.

This is probably the part I agree the least with. Kingdom and Empire is even advertised in the trailer as some sort of grand factions you can to pew-pew the other side.

So what happens if some player watches the trailer, and thinks it's an NPC faction he can simply select when they logs in for the first time, and hoping to eventually join in big faction warfare, thinking Empire for example looks cool?
Only to find out, oh no, he has to apply. And his application got denied.

we cannot afford to give everyone a ship and let them get it blown up. We don't get unlimited money.

Of course. I never said anything about giving players free ships. My thought was that people would have been able to, select from either factions or Neutral when they joined.

And from there, they'd start off as normal.
And if they joined either faction, the other factions members would be listed as friendlies, and the other faction as hostile. And Neutrals as neutral.

And if you joined Neutral, the either faction would be listed as Neutral.

Think of it like, World of Warcraft.

Join the Alliance, and you can fight Horde. And vice versa. But with an additional faction less.

The devs might spawn ships for special events, but that's more for the dev factions both and not any player factions.

And kind of funny you mentioned this. As this does seem like a pretty clear example of favoritsm. So players not in either of those two factions won't get the spawned ships? Or even get their own special events?

And, since we're on that topic. Where's the Discord roles for the other factions? Where their showcase in the YouTube trailer?

Personally, to me, this doesn't feel right. And I don't think it's fair you can be both.

• Either, don't be an official faction. And have no official factions.

Or

• Don't allow players into leadership roles for the official factions, and have an open recruitment policy, where players can freely join and leave.

I'm sorry if this comes off as a bit ranty or rude. Please know, this isn't directly aimed at you personally. But more so the developers.
And I'm simply voicing my concerns, and responding my point of view to those points you brought up.

As someone who haven't watched this project long, I may be misunderstanding some aspects. The information I had gotten from watching all the YouTube videos, doesn't really reflect what I'm not learning from this thread here.

And, the idea, I feel like I was led to believe from the videos, corresponds closer to the second option above.

Why would you have to play alone as a neutral?

You don't. But neutral is likely the draw for a lone wolf type of player. And most people looking to play casually and socially, might feel a bit bummed if they, like me, were led to believe there's multiple options you can choose from when starting the game.

Only to learn they must apply to join. Which might not be something that they want to do. Some of these sign-up processes can be complex, and tedious, and slow.

Which leaves them two other options, to make their own, or play alone. And if they're just wanting to play casually. Chances are, they might not be too into wanting to sink a lot of time and effort to make their own.

Now, you could say something like...

Just team up with another random Neutral.

But that again, could lead to whole other issues. Can you really trust this person? I mean, a faction members, even if friendly fire is turned off, is less likely to turn on you. Because you both are working towards a common goal'ish. Common enemy.
A random neutral is simply just a wildcard.

 

[Cavilier210]

You don't. But neutral is likely the draw for a lone wolf type of player. And most people looking to play casually and socially, might feel a bit bummed if they, like me, were led to believe there's multiple options you can choose from when starting the game.

Only to learn they must apply to join. Which might not be something that they want to do. Some of these sign-up processes can be complex, and tedious, and slow.

Well, they have to appy in order to have a say in things, but so far as I know, being a general member of Kingdom or Empire requires no hoops.

Which leaves them two other options, to make their own, or play alone. And if they're just wanting to play casually. Chances are, they might not be too into wanting to sink a lot of time and effort to make their own.

Now, you could say something like...

Just team up with another random Neutral.

But that again, could lead to whole other issues. Can you really trust this person? I mean, a faction members, even if friendly fire is turned off, is less likely to turn on you. Because you both are working towards a common goal'ish. Common enemy.
A random neutral is simply just a wildcard.

Well, you interact with the gaming community I'm in. We're all going in together. We don't mandate you play a certain way (other than don't cause us a war) or with a certain number of people, and it gives you a resource and venue to make friends, and learn to (gasp!) trust someone Do your business, how you want, where you want, etc. We don't care who you even deal with. Trade is good. Good acts are good. I see no reason why any group would not support that sort of thing personally.

Wildcards are the self employed of the SB universe in my view. But, this is a game geared towards team gameplay. It is PvP outside some niche circumstances and locations.

So yes, you can join the dev factions. I won't personally, but that's me. Or you can play alone. Or you can join a player faction. Tbh, neutral is pretty much the opposite of how that area is playing out. They're just non-dev faction options. As we've seen, and as is the topic of this post, that doesn't mean any other groups are actually neutral.

 

[Vampiricdust]

Of course you're allowed to play the game, make alliances and deals. That has nothing to do with favoritism. That's a part of running a player run faction.

Which, I do not think has any place as an "official" faction.

Personally, I do not think you should be able to run the official factions as a player faction. If you want that type of gameplay elements, then that belongs in your own player run faction.

I think there's a very large misunderstanding where you're taking what other games have done and assuming it's the same here.

Empire and Kingdom are factions in of themselves created to give two broad factions for people to work with or under. So there's 3 main aspects of a relationship with a dev faction. The first is as a neutral, regardless of status, and you do as you please. The second is as a citizen which is broadly open, but is moderated. Think of it like a club where you have to get a membership to and the membership comes with some stipulations like following the faction's laws. The third type is active involvement in the faction which is where the player leadership is along with those helping facilitate things the devs would like to see as well do things the devs have approved that we suggested.

The devs are allowed to make their game different and rather rude to demand they adhere to your line of thinking.

The way I had thought it would be, would be much more similar to an EVE starter corp, which is NPC run. But it's not like the NPC is actually in space.

It's this idea that's defined in the lore. Who you'll get to interact with trough missions, or lore posts. Or whatever.

Yes, you can interact with us through contracts and deals, as a regular citizen just doing business while we help keep you safe like a NPC corp, or you can be more active and join our military where we have pew pew with Kingdom or anyone wanting to fight us. Sadly, we do have to moderate membership, but the way I see this is that we're draft what is effectively an esports team. We also in a lot of ways reflect on the devs themselves so we again have to moderate membership for those that violate dev rules.

And kind of funny you mentioned this. As this does seem like a pretty clear example of favoritsm. So players not in either of those two factions won't get the spawned ships? Or even get their own special events?

The devs made the dev factions to be the means for which them to host large scale events and so those events are likely to have spawned ships. Please note I am only a player and I have 0 clue what their plans are in game. This was just a wild guess of when they might actually do anything special for us, which wouldn't really be for us, but everyone that isn't part of us who wants to join in on an Empire v Kingdom mega war.

In general, what happens to the dev factions the devs will decide because it's their game, not yours, not mine, not any player's. If you don't like it, no one is forcing you to play. It does suck to see an interesting game with an aspect you don't like. Trying to inflict your views on the players putting in their time and work to make this happen without spending any time or effort to learn about them first makes it hard to consider your point of view.

There's plenty of information and plenty of people willing to answer your questions. Ultimately, Kingdom & Empire will act as real factions within the game within the scope the devs have given us and continue to approve of decisions.

 

[Venombrew]

they been doing it in AA for years and works even better when dealing with the player ran factions. Raid opportunity for content, much better gold and gear, with better chances as character advancement. Not to mention world pvp, protection from one player faction to the next, faction alliances, faction seiges, and dominations all happen within the player nations. In many ways the game of AA doesn't start til player nations start coming around and castles get built, territories claimed, resouces to fight over, tax, and content to wage war over with other factions.

Not saying it work with SB but there are many games now where player factions call the shots and it works well.

 

[Cavilier210]

they been doing it in AA for years and works even better when dealing with the player ran factions. Raid opportunity for content, much better gold and gear, with better chances as character advancement. Not to mention world pvp, protection from one player faction to the next, faction alliances, faction seiges, and dominations all happen within the player nations. In many ways the game of AA doesn't start til player nations start coming around and castles get built, territories claimed, resouces to fight over, tax, and content to wage war over with other factions.

Not saying it work with SB but there are many games now where player factions call the shots and it works well.

I'm not sure if you're saying dev factions are good or bad...

 

[Venombrew]

I'm not sure if you're saying dev factions are good or bad...

what i mean through my example is many things work many ways, basically we wont know much about this game's real capabilities and future until were behind the throttle. to be honest a game like this existence and life will only be determined in the long road by how many people play and keep playing. I am 100% sure the devs are aware of this and dev faction won't be something we need to worry about in terms of favoritism. I feel like a dev faction is to support the over all player experience in another way. Truthfully from what I seen and read our problems that will exist with favoritism, brute tactics, and a sense of lawness won't lie with what the devs but us player factions. A dev faction is probably the least of many companies issues.

 

[Burnside]

Discounting the DSI incident as resolved, the numerical leverage might become a concern, assuming Emp/LS/DSI/etc leadership doesn't take steps to remain abreast of the imbalance they risk creating. This runs into the "managed politics" and kabuki theatre that I had a problem with alliances back in EVE, but otherwise remains to be seen how much of a problem it is allowed to become. A monopoly on force is a threat to stifle the game as it is, a monopoly with a dev-overseen faction at the core of the controversy does appear worse.

It may, perhaps, be necessary to discuss anti-cartel ethics in alliance making whereby groups and sub-alliances at a certain threshold of membership in the playerbase should be strongly advised not to enter into mergers or alliances. However, that requires the concerned parties to voluntarily abide by those ethics for the alleged "good of the game" and no real measures can be taken to punish subversion of those ethics outside of hard bans, which are also potentially subverted.

 

[Venombrew]

A monopoly on force is a threat to stifle the game as it is, a monopoly with a dev-overseen faction at the core of the controversy does appear worse.

Also keep a consideration where the real power is going to lay if the game takes off big with a large number of players. Go on youtube and look up interviews with lunar corp, hiveminds, and many other guild/companies who have 100s of members and followers getting ready. These massive guild's leaders declared their intentions and most of them have like minded goals. Establish a large outpost, setup warehouses and factories, and establish their own military, make the rush to the first milestone(first moon). Most want to sink their funds into heavy RnD Departments within their stations for weapon advancements, ship and yolo tech. If this comes to pass with the rumors of multiple moons in game during alpha thats rival territories with military and tech to defend each moon these mega guilds are looking to claim. Regardless if it is during alpha but when it does, this is territory these large factions already talking about claiming for themselves.

Meaning you will play by their rules in their designated zones they established themselves. If your not a member, you will probably be trumped by the actions of a member which will appear as favoritism. Anything from one of their members hijacking you in their area and calling it a tax or even just griefing with no retaliation by the only policing force in the area. The more these guilds grow so does the power struggle between one another and eventually a dev faction won't seem as appealing to players when an entire working faction of players is possible to join with actual warfare, alliances, and social laws to follow. In AA on the live servers, most players are trying to drop the two main factions to join a player ran faction to expierence an mmo like they never have before.

 

[Norway174]

The devs are allowed to make their game different and rather rude to demand they adhere to your line of thinking.

Of course they are. And they're not above criticism. This is simply my point of view. I'm not making demands. I'm voicing my opinion, on an open and public forum.

And I'm sorry, it's ny my intentions to be rude.

Yes, you can interact with us through contracts and deals, as a regular citizen just doing business while we help keep you safe like a NPC corp, or you can be more active and join our military where we have pew pew with Kingdom or anyone wanting to fight us. Sadly, we do have to moderate membership, but the way I see this is that we're draft what is effectively an esports team. We also in a lot of ways reflect on the devs themselves so we again have to moderate membership for those that violate dev rules.

Already here, it sounds like you might as well just be a player run faction. Weather or not you're an official faction or not, changes nothing, except how new players sees you.

Which frankly, gives you an upper edge over other factions. And really isn't fair.

The devs made the dev factions to be the means for which them to host large scale events and so those events are likely to have spawned ships. Please note I am only a player and I have 0 clue what their plans are in game. This was just a wild guess of when they might actually do anything special for us, which wouldn't really be for us, but everyone that isn't part of us who wants to join in on an Empire v Kingdom mega war.

Already here you contradict yourself. Saying the devs made the dev factions to host large scale events. And speculating getting free assets.

And then you go on saying it's not for you, but for everyone else who wants join.

I mean, that kind of sounds like a recruitment pitch? "Join us during this event, and get a free spawned in combat ship"?

Obviously, I'm guessing that's not the case, or what you meant to say. But that's how it read for me.

In general, what happens to the dev factions the devs will decide because it's their game, not yours, not mine, not any player's. If you don't like it, no one is forcing you to play. It does suck to see an interesting game with an aspect you don't like. Trying to inflict your views on the players putting in their time and work to make this happen without spending any time or effort to learn about them first makes it hard to consider your point of view.

Well of course it's the devs game. And they can do whatever they want. And I'm free not to get the game.

But I probably will. And I'll probably stay a Neutral. I now know for sure I won't be joining any of the "official" factions.
Which is fine, since I probably wasn't going to join them anyway. And this doesn't really affect me.

But that doesn't mean I have to approve of this. Which I don't. (Not that my opinion matters anyway, I guess.)

There's plenty of information and plenty of people willing to answer your questions. Ultimately, Kingdom & Empire will act as real factions within the game within the scope the devs have given us and continue to approve of decisions.

Again, sounds like you'd might as well just become a normal player run faction. Drop the "official" tag. And that way, you don't have to worry about the legal aspect of representing FrozenByte as a company. As well as the other problems I've previously mentioned in this thread.