Forgive me if this is posted already, I couldn't find it.

Is there any reason why Bioware has made cross-faction RP nearly impossible? I would understand if they didn't want the sides talking to each other at all, but whats with the half way communication?

Things you can do cross faction:

• /say
  
• /wave (and other such built in emotes)
  

Things I would like to be able to do cross faction:

• /em (emotes you write out)
  
• Have cross faction channels
  
• Cross faction friends on my friends list
  
• Sent whispers/tells cross faction
  

Is anyone else finding the current system limiting for role-players as well?

Forgive me if this is posted already, I couldn't find it.

 

Is there any reason why Bioware has made cross-faction RP nearly impossible? I would understand if they didn't want the sides talking to each other at all, but whats with the half way communication?

 

Things you can do cross faction:

• /say
  
• /wave (and other such built in emotes)
  

 

Things I would like to be able to do cross faction:

• /em (emotes you write out)
  
• Have cross faction channels
  
• Cross faction friends on my friends list
  
• Sent whispers/tells cross faction
  

 

Is anyone else finding the current system limiting for role-players as well?

These suggestions have come up, and I have given my reasons as to why some of them cannot exist.

Emotes should be there, it's silly that they can hear you, but not see what you are doing. (ie, Joe Republic slaps Jim Empire across the face, but if he uses /em to do it, Jim Empire is perfectly oblivious.)

Cross faction channels... Oy... We need to think as more like players than RPers. That is, see from all aspects of the game. Especially PvP. Kill trading and "spying" on the opposing team is already an issue with third-party programs like mumble, but if we added RP channels to the game, it'd be all the easier to do it, and might actually be seen as encouraging it, increasing the moderators' workload for something that is only really useful in specific, ie RP, situations.

Cross faction friends is an okay idea.

Cross faction whispers... Eh... Could follow the same train of thought as cross-faction emotes, just to a more personal extent. That, and why would we blurr the lines between Republic and Empire? This is a two-faction game, we need to remember that. We can already talk to each other in /say, and if we decide, why not extend it to /tell? Then why not just let them guild together? And why not raid together? I am not saying this would happen, but it very well could.

Just my 2 creds. (Not a lot in this game. )

"The lack of /em cross faction is easy to remedy," ClydeBaneheart explained, "Simply format your /say as if you were writing prose."

The rest of the stuff on that list though... I can sort of understand why/why not. Tells would invite harassment, as would friend list. Same with cross faction global channels.

Since all objections seem to be PvP related, how about implementing this only on RP-PvE servers?

Alternatively:

- friend requests should be able to be declined, and set up for both sides if accepted

(It would be nice if you could send a pending request to a player who is currently offline, too)

- people on friends lists can send cross faction tells

- Custom chat channels (but not Global open channels) should be cross faction

This should minimize the opportunity for harassment.

It may be a two faction game, but my friends are my friends, no matter which side they happen to be playing at the time.

I think the idea is that while you can converse with the other side, no problem, you're not supposed to be fraternizing with the enemy.

While it is certainly feasible for them to do what is proposed, I don't think they will, as it would dull the line between factions.

Since all objections seem to be PvP related, how about implementing this only on RP-PvE servers?

And shut off the server type that it would be most useful in coordinating RPPVP events in?

- friend requests should be able to be declined, and set up for both sides if accepted

(It would be nice if you could send a pending request to a player who is currently offline, too)

- people on friends lists can send cross faction tells

- Custom chat channels (but not Global open channels) should be cross faction

I've played 2 MMO's pretty heavily over the past two years and have seen 2 very different set ups that lead to very different kinds of RP.

WoW: Absolutely no cross faction communication

• Stroy lines were kept to your side of the war
  
• In-fighting was a common theme (bloodelves against undead etc)
  
• The epic fights were always against NPCs
  

EQ2: Totally open cross faction communication

• Meaningful rivalries of good vs evil
  
• The ability to change 'faction' and work with the enemy
  
• Epic fights could be against the oposing faction
  

Which of those sounds like a more awesome base for story? Having the option to RP with both your side and the enemy opens up the world for a huge amount of possibilities. Neither of these is right or wrong per say, I just had a much more positive RP experience being able to go cross faction.

I understand the argument of harassment, but that can just as easily happen on your side of the fence as the other. The ignore button was invented for a reason!

To hell with harassment and "spying". Eve allows everyone to talk to anyone (There are no factions, its FFA or Corporation vs Corporation) and that's one of the wonderful things about the game.

The harassment line has never been defeated by someone logging onto a different character to whisper rage me, unless the game forces you to roll only one faction on your chosen server like WoW (though last I heard, they removed this function)

Besides, if I want to spy on the enemy, all I gotta do is log onto my republic and tell my guild over vent, who can then relay everything to the rest of the people on Ilum or wherever.

Let me RP properly with the "enemy" please.

This factional crap is old, and a pointless mechanic where every defense is easily destroyed by other options that nearly everyone is capable of using.

I have never seen a legit reason for not allowing full factional communication. Not one.

HEY GUISE

I HAS AMAZIGN IDEAR. SRSLY GUISE. SRSLY!

K so what you do is, you completely disable all cross-faction speech and emotes in pvp. Out of pvp, there are no emote or speech barriers. In places like Ilum, the same anti-cross-faction-talk would occur just as it would in a warzone. So I can actually have a trooper-to-agent talk with emotes in it rather than the very awkward situation I have now.

Sorry if stuff in this already got posted, I didn't bother to check due to time restraint.

I've played 2 MMO's pretty heavily over the past two years and have seen 2 very different set ups that lead to very different kinds of RP.

 

WoW: Absolutely no cross faction communication

• Stroy lines were kept to your side of the war
  
• In-fighting was a common theme (bloodelves against undead etc)
  
• The epic fights were always against NPCs
  

 

EQ2: Totally open cross faction communication

• Meaningful rivalries of good vs evil
  
• The ability to change 'faction' and work with the enemy
  
• Epic fights could be against the oposing faction
  

 

 

Which of those sounds like a more awesome base for story? Having the option to RP with both your side and the enemy opens up the world for a huge amount of possibilities. Neither of these is right or wrong per say, I just had a much more positive RP experience being able to go cross faction.

 

I understand the argument of harassment, but that can just as easily happen on your side of the fence as the other. The ignore button was invented for a reason!

Never played EQ2, so I do not know the story there. But in this game, we are at WAR. Save for a chance encounter on Nar Shadaa, there is no reason that an Empire and Republic would, IC, meet up and chat. There is already cross-faction communication, to the extent that is realistic for the game.

And what makes a fight epic? Monologues? taunts? I don't see why an organized RPPVP battle over Ilum would not be "epic". One thing I never liked about a lot of people RPing out battle is that they spend more time typing taunts and monolgues, and less time actually describing their attacks.

The risk-reward ratio is just not enough to justify cross-faction channels, cross-faction whispers, or anything like that. Just be thankful they didn't go the WoW route and say that the Empire and Republic spoke different languages.

Never played EQ2, so I do not know the story there. But in this game, we are at WAR. Save for a chance encounter on Nar Shadaa, there is no reason that an Empire and Republic would, IC, meet up and chat. There is already cross-faction communication, to the extent that is realistic for the game.

 

And what makes a fight epic? Monologues? taunts? I don't see why an organized RPPVP battle over Ilum would not be "epic". One thing I never liked about a lot of people RPing out battle is that they spend more time typing taunts and monolgues, and less time actually describing their attacks.

 

The risk-reward ratio is just not enough to justify cross-faction channels, cross-faction whispers, or anything like that. Just be thankful they didn't go the WoW route and say that the Empire and Republic spoke different languages.

Because Ilum is an open world area where something organized with a story could easily be interupted by an opportunistic player/s looking to pad their valor. Not to mention also that it would isolate rp possibilities for a majority of rp'ers as you have to hit 50 to even be viable for Ilum.

If you were around monologers and taunters then they weren't very good at writing action rp, but that doesn't mean that everyone does that.

I don't see how an rp channel would be used for pvp since it's intended purpose was for RP. If it was taken over by exploiters for pvp they'd simply be reported. Sure it might be a problem initially if it came up, but it wouldn't have a lasting effect after the violators were cracked down on.

Most pvp'ers don't really have time to type much. You know....cause they have to move around to not die, kill, and get objectives. Using a channel to call locations would just be silly. They'd be better off micro communicating with their own team to actually win.

Your only reasonable arguement I've seen so far as have been the fact there is a tentive PEACE to a previous war. And as such they probably wouldn't be too communicative with each other. Or not, who knows? But we won't be able to find out with constrictive options either.

I've played 2 MMO's pretty heavily over the past two years and have seen 2 very different set ups that lead to very different kinds of RP.

 

WoW: Absolutely no cross faction communication

• Stroy lines were kept to your side of the war
  
• In-fighting was a common theme (bloodelves against undead etc)
  
• The epic fights were always against NPCs
  

 

EQ2: Totally open cross faction communication

• Meaningful rivalries of good vs evil
  
• The ability to change 'faction' and work with the enemy
  
• Epic fights could be against the oposing faction
  

 

 

Which of those sounds like a more awesome base for story? Having the option to RP with both your side and the enemy opens up the world for a huge amount of possibilities. Neither of these is right or wrong per say, I just had a much more positive RP experience being able to go cross faction.

 

I understand the argument of harassment, but that can just as easily happen on your side of the fence as the other. The ignore button was invented for a reason!

Someone already put it best, this game currently has the extent of what one might consider to be 'reasonable' cross faction communication.

I agree that we should be able to emote and yell at the opposite faction, but that is really where it stops. I can't think of a single reason as to why you would need to whisper your enemy, add them to your friends list, or have a channel set up to communicate with them for IC purposes.

Batman didn't call the Joker, send him emails, or meet him at a bar to throw back drinks. He didn't friend him on Facebook or subscribe to his news letter. If you want to spy on the enemy, roll an opposite faction character and befriend them then use that character to 'funnel' information back to your main character.

If you want to organize RP events, you can do so on the forums. There is a PM system if you want to keep it private.

I don't understand why people want every form of communication to be open for the opposite faction. What's the purpose? Are you going to prank call the Sith Warrior your Jedi Knight is rivals with and pretend to be the IRS?

But in this game, we are at WAR. Save for a chance encounter on Nar Shadaa, there is no reason that an Empire and Republic would, IC, meet up and chat. There is already cross-faction communication, to the extent that is realistic for the game.

 

If your going to use the in game story as a reason then it should at least be correct. The Empire and Republic are technically not at war. The Treaty of Coruscant suspended hostilities between the two sides. It even comes up in the Esseles mission where Sateel Shan points out that the attack by the Empire is a violation of the treaty. So the being at war excuse doesn't really hold up.

But if you want to argue that they are in a "Cold War" state of relations that is similarly flawed because over the course of the "conflict" relations opened up between the US and Soviet Union. They had diplomatic, intergovernmental, and military contact as well as trade relations and we even accepted immigrants and travelers.

The point of this long a stupid rant is that even in a state of "war" as you say there is still contact between the two sides. That shouldn't be a factor for limiting contact between factions in this game. I can see if there are technical limitations. In which case I hope BioWare is working on them. But the state of cross faction communication now seems arbitrary. I hope they work on cleaning this part of the game up.

Reasons why someone would want to be able to talk cross faction:

• Open plotlines (Jedi turned sith is a classic case)
  
• Ease of event set up
  
• Ease of over arching story colobration
  
• Talking to my friends in our republic-side sister guild
  
• Agents cordinating with the person they are spying on
  
• Creating meaningful rivalries
  

It seems from the responses that not many of you see the value in an open system and I doubt the developers of this game will change their mind on how its set up, but I thought it was worth discussing. Thanks for the input!

We can already talk to each other in /say, and if we decide, why not extend it to /tell? Then why not just let them guild together? And why not raid together? I am not saying this would happen, but it very well could.

 

Just my 2 creds. (Not a lot in this game. )

I have no problems with dual faction guilds, cross faction whispers, or cross faction Operations. To me, the MMO should be a social arena and the limited cross faction communication stifles that.

On my main server, which is not RP, my guild is dual faction. Just today we had an event where we got together for a guild picture to celebrate the end of the month. Afterwards, my Bounty Hunter friend and I wanted to go to a cantina on Nar Shaddaa. First, we can only communicate through /say, which isn't always effective. Second, it turns out that the casinos on Nar Shaddaa or faction-locked. I didn't know until we had already departed and we were then separated with no one to communicate and meet back up. If our guild could be dual faction, that wouldn't have been a problem. If I could send him a whisper, then that wouldn't have happened.

From an RP perspective, it would be neat to be able to have Light Side Sith join my guild and even more so with Bounty Hunters, who have no strict allegiance to either faction. As an Imperial, why shouldn't you be able to enlist the help of fallen Jedi or overly shady Smugglers? The factions could still be separated, but I think it'd be nice for players to be able to switch factions. That will never happen, though.

As for the whispers, yes, you're bound to get a nasty one from the opposing faction every once in a while, but /ignore is your friend and you never have to listen to that person again. How would it be any different than someone on my faction harassing or trolling?

I'm not a fan of cross faction channels for the reasons that you listed. I just don't think that it would be the best idea.

Reasons why someone would want to be able to talk cross faction:

 

• Open plotlines (Jedi turned sith is a classic case)
  
• Ease of event set up
  
• Ease of over arching story colobration
  
• Talking to my friends in our republic-side sister guild
  
• Agents cordinating with the person they are spying on
  
• Creating meaningful rivalries
  

 

It seems from the responses that not many of you see the value in an open system and I doubt the developers of this game will change their mind on how its set up, but I thought it was worth discussing. Thanks for the input!

My general answer is to stick to planets like Nar Shaddaa -- I am always running into Pubs in the cantina there -- BUT, it's hard to do much more than casual rp with them due to the lack of ability to whisper. The main need for this is to faciliate OOC communication and coordination, so you can plan and explain stuff w/o annoying the hell out of everyone around you.

Some of us deal with this, if we have compelling reasons to play "both sides", by making mirror-alts of our characters on BOTH sides... (we simply don't level the alt very much). The alt looks exactly like our main, of course, and should have a similar class (but for example, bounty hunters can play smugglers just fine).

This way, after meeting someone in a more casual setting, we can continue RP with them in their own setting, when things may need to get more serious. Plus, it's sneeeeaky.

Force-wielding characters may have a much harder time pulling this off, of course.

Never played EQ2, so I do not know the story there. But in this game, we are at WAR. Save for a chance encounter on Nar Shadaa, there is no reason that an Empire and Republic would, IC, meet up and chat. There is already cross-faction communication, to the extent that is realistic for the game.

 

And what makes a fight epic? Monologues? taunts? I don't see why an organized RPPVP battle over Ilum would not be "epic". One thing I never liked about a lot of people RPing out battle is that they spend more time typing taunts and monolgues, and less time actually describing their attacks.

 

The risk-reward ratio is just not enough to justify cross-faction channels, cross-faction whispers, or anything like that. Just be thankful they didn't go the WoW route and say that the Empire and Republic spoke different languages.

Just like another said, Team Speak destroys any legit reason for having the no cross-faction talking in the game.

I am tired of having to switch back and forth between light side and dark side just to see if any of my friends are online. This no friending across factions silliness is, to put it simple, extremely annoying and will ultimately hurt the game in the long run.

It is just my opinion, but whoever came up will such and mind numbing idea as to do that should be examined by a head shrinker, because something is loode up there in their head. It, at least for me, like I said before, extremely irratating and makes it very difficult to communicate with friends without using TS or some other service.

Again, TS crushes any and all reasons for making this issue with communications legit and is ultimately a killer for interactions with your friends in game.

Never played EQ2, so I do not know the story there. But in this game, we are at WAR. Save for a chance encounter on Nar Shadaa, there is no reason that an Empire and Republic would, IC, meet up and chat. There is already cross-faction communication, to the extent that is realistic for the game.

 

And what makes a fight epic? Monologues? taunts? I don't see why an organized RPPVP battle over Ilum would not be "epic". One thing I never liked about a lot of people RPing out battle is that they spend more time typing taunts and monolgues, and less time actually describing their attacks.

 

The risk-reward ratio is just not enough to justify cross-faction channels, cross-faction whispers, or anything like that. Just be thankful they didn't go the WoW route and say that the Empire and Republic spoke different languages.

Um, yeah, since you don't seem to know what you are talking about, Everquest 2 has two factions opposing each other just like WoW.....just like TOR.

Sooooo yeah. TOR isn't really built for RP though because it is based heavily around WoW. It is a WoW clone. I enjoy the game but that's just the way it is. With the exception of /say crossfaction, I wou

But anyway, I AT THE LEAST want customizable emotes and /yell available for the opposite faction. When you have to use /say for....well...everything, all the chat starts to blur together and it's super easy to miss things. More chat options could be an alternative where we could change the color of someone's text.ld say TOR is more limiting to RP than WoW is.

Batman didn't call the Joker, send him emails, or meet him at a bar to throw back drinks. He didn't friend him on Facebook or subscribe to his news letter. If you want to spy on the enemy, roll an opposite faction character and befriend them then use that character to 'funnel' information back to your main character.

I am not my character. I have friends I play the game with. Sometimes they play Republic alts, and sometimes they play Imperial alts. I want to get a notification when they log in Imp-side and I'm on a Rep alt. I want to be able to say hi if I choose not to swap sides.

It's not about spying, it's about keeping in touch with my friends in game. The social bit of the whole MMO deal. It doesn't have to be a public channel. Cross faction friends/whispers and private channels would work just fine.

...But in this game, we are at WAR. Save for a chance encounter on Nar Shadaa, there is no reason that an Empire and Republic would, IC, meet up and chat...

Aaaactually... according to the current story, we are not at war. Both sides are still abiding by the peace treaty. Any conflict that happens is done far from the public eye so as not to prove any defiance to the treaty. That said, it is very probable both sides would meet up and socialize to keep up the illusion of peace.

Aaaactually... according to the current story, we are not at war. Both sides are still abiding by the peace treaty. Any conflict that happens is done far from the public eye so as not to prove any defiance to the treaty. That said, it is very probable both sides would meet up and socialize to keep up the illusion of peace.

STORY SPOILER BELOW

I cannot understand the criticism of the current system. The ability to speak to other players from the opposing faction is amazing. So what if you can't emote? I agree that it should be included, but they got the important stuff out first. In World of Warcraft, you could emote all day long...but not speak. 7+ years later and you're still unable to communicate across factions. So I'm tired of emotes, personally, and I'm so happy the /s is there for us in this game.

On a related note, this is one area where PvE and RP realms shine. You have interaction with the enemy, you can talk, RP, get into arguments, and either duel or both flag for /pvp to resolve disputes. On a PvP server, just try getting close enough before you're fighting to have any of that.

I do not think friends lists should include members of the opposing faction. Oof. What sense does that make? Why have different factions at all? We already have cross-faction trade markets and the ability to speak to them when we meet them. I like feeling as if each side has its own thing going on.

One idea I could support, if you must speak to a member of the opposing faction when they're not around, is some type of communications portal. Make it separate from the mailbox, design it only in certain places, like the cross-faction trade market, and maybe be able to send a message. A holocomm unit or something. But integrate it within the storyline and environment. Because, yes, technically an Imperial could hail a member of the Republic somehow, but they weren't doing it just to shoot the breeze. That's why I'd make it unique, somewhat limited, and nothing like using the common mailbox.