The Force Next Timeline (important post on page 6)

Discuss all things THE FORCE in here. How prevalent should jedi and sith be? Should we do another exciting era 1 with no forcers? Share all your wacky ideas here.

Wacky idea:

Cheap/free force. Jedi and Sith everywhere. Ever wanted to play a Jedi? NOW’S YOUR CHANCE!

Though we’ll have to keep people from hiding them into future eras. Maybe a one-off era that’s Jedi vs. Sith? An interlude timeline that’s six months long that recreates the Jedi Civil War from KOTOR or something. I like that idea a lot.

Normal idea:

Era 1: Yes Jedi, rule of 2 on the Sith. I always enjoyed the ones where the Sith secretly crept up the Republic command chain a la Palpatine right under Jedi noses.

It is certainly a wacky idea. I am 100% against the idea of making force more available than it currently is. Having tons of force users in game makes things really shitty for nonforcers and it would basically freeze out anyone who doesn’t want to play a forcer in the combat game.

Rule of 2 is also extremely hard to do well with the game’s mechanics and the prevalence of OOC communication.

I agree on not making force any more available than it is. That’s why I was suggesting it would be a one-shot, single era timeline just for fun.

I kind of like Domovoi’s suggestion, actually. People are always discussing how they’d be the greatest forcer or whatever. Why not give everyone a chance to put their roleplay where their mouth is for an era?

For those of you who don’t remember/weren’t here for it, they DID do that one time. It was called Neru Bas. It was a fucking joke. If anything, it should be less accessible.

I was here for Neru Bas but only towards the end of it at which point it seemed like no one wanted to log in anymore. Maybe I was just not in the right group but that’s my memory of it. That being said it was light and darksiders in a clan together if I recall. A mini TL that pitted good vs evil against each other with no engi clans could be fun. I don’t know how many players would roll jedi/sith engis at that point however to make armor etc.

If it were a regular era 1 the whole forceless era we had this TL was pretty fun for myself so I wouldn’t mind seeing something like that again with an influx of force come era 2.

The Force is a central theme to Star Wars and its absence->overabundance are both detriments to my personal enjoyment, not to mention it appeared the game was more erratic->stagnant in the extremes. While I OOC love the force and forcers, I IC love to hate them. At ideal ratios they provide a stabilizing effect to the plots and storylines.

What is the ideal ratio? @#!& if I know. More than none and less than 1/10? I fully realize accounting for all the forcers that will never get discovered makes maintaining /any/ ratio a fool’s errand. When you add in the variance of forcer power levels, my brain starts to melt.

Neru Bas was bad. One suggestion mentioned before that I think bears consideration is forcer CG. Downside, it would pull back the curtain of mystery and wonder over the forcer experience, but positive it would give more people that don’t have forcer combat experience a go and sate those forcer cravings.

*WARNING POTENTIAL SPOILER*
In the movies the idea of the secret mystic is prevalent, from the rise of the Dark Lord of the Sith, to the hidden Jedi, to the (hinted) disappearance and reclusive study of Luke. In games, comics, EU, key characters go off into the unknown and come back (sometimes). From Revan, the Exile, Cadeus, Cade, and many others, distant masters keep cropping up.
*END POTENTIAL SPOILERS*

I like my forcers few and out of the way, popping up to say ‘BOO! Go to Dagobah.’ Then again when something critical is happening. For meta reasons, having them be a part of a major clan is good for alts and keeping plugged in, but for the forcer experience I much preferred when they were their own orders. I /think/ allied factions used to permit multiclanning way back, which is why that probably worked. A couple thoughts:

1. Tap one Grandmaster and one DLoS, let them build their orders. Set the force rolls and see how they fall.
2. Parcel out some specialized force roles, spread out the skills and make them seek each other.
3. Discovery of the Force, Tython. Start with no Jedi or Sith, just light and dark (maybe grey) forcers and let them figure out why they hate each other. (Didn’t we do this once already? Maybe it was an Ossus thing, I think I liked it).

There are probably some changes to the force system (some have already been discussed) we could make to enhance it, but its good to talk about and be careful of change. It’s easy to break things (codely, balance, or story-wise). I’d like to see more ways to ping or zero in on sensitives, more discretion in awakening. Add a cooldown (three/four weeks) on awaken (optionally suspend when there are low numbers or imm-determined need).

I vote for no forcers in Era 1 like we did this timeline. Personally I could go without seeing force for the whole TL, but the popular opinion is that it’s important to the Star Wars theme and all that. I think Era 1 this TL was pretty awesome and I attribute a lot of that awesomeness to the absence of force.

In the event that force does inevitably make it into the game, I’d like to see some better counter force play available. Having some cortosis available, even if in moderation, would be really cool to see.

As someone who started this TL where there was no force, then joined the force game, left it, lived with it all around me and are once again going through the forcer world I’d like to see no force for era1.. it seems that people were not scared of ‘oh they will just send in a forcer’ for most of era 1 but the moment forcers popped up (most) non-forcers immediately got turned off of making big moves because they’d just be squashed the moment a clan / group sent in their forcer. It also seems like players/clans get lazy when they can lean against a forcer for things that can easily get completed by ‘regular’ army.

If there are forcers era1 it needs to be subtle and not in your face and not a race to stack one side over the other. As suggested earlier perhaps ONE Master/DLoTS and let them slowly and naturally build their orders. The ‘forcer war’ should really be subtle(ish) and in the background like it was (sorta) near the end of last era1: For every saber waver on the public channels we need 5 in the background making moves so the ‘normals’ do not feel helplessly overwhelmed.

–edit–
we also need to STOP POINT GRINDING.. it seems (from what i’ve heard on OOC) the SAME people get force over and over because they (not denying it) know how to game the system to get 1+ forcers every TL. If we want variety and a break from the same ol’ there needs to be different people who get force on occasion.

There are also people like me, who value force HIGHLY and have never had a good chance to roll a forcer. The whole concept and ideology of Star Wars is the forcer, and is the token achievement for accomplishment in a roleplaying environment.

I think that it would be a good idea for people to roll force more often, because I don’t see myself saving up 20k points again in my life. I did the grind off and on for years and finally got my chance, and somehow botched it up. I want a solid chance and think others who have always wondered what the experience is like also want to try it. Let people see how fun and interesting it is. Why not?

Some people have had forcers like back to back and are flush with their force experience, while others have had the dreams of it and have yet to see them come true.

Mix it up. Or if you do, don’t give force to the same people. Pick a rando newbie and give it to him. One thing that always turned me off of the game is OOC chat spammed with guys that have had countless jedi, always picked, always the badass, and know their RP is better than anyone else’s.

If you maybe made all forcers start in one clan (dissuading people from leaving until trained), like the Order of the Jedi, to be trained, then you could have all kinds of jedi, light jedi, dark jedi, Jed pirates, whatever they want after they went through the process of training. It would get more people involved and invoke a sense of community to build the backbone of their later RP on with each other. Would also encourage more rp, from master to apprentice.

Just my thoughts, I’ve had too much sugar this morning and have been thinking about joining LotJ again..

I agree the Force should be limited. If everyone has it all I forsee is chaos. I personally have never played a force (if my character ever had it he/she was never awakened) and would enjoy a chance at the attempt to RP one. Granted it’s been about 10 years since I was an active MUDer.

I’m not sure if forcing all forces into one clan to begin with would enhance or take away from RP but it could always be attempted.

I do like the idea of it being forceless in Era 1 then start to see awakenings in late Era 1 to  early-mid Era 2, would give the feeling of the growth of the force in the galaxy but also depends which TL background again.

The Star Wars story line does not revolve around force users. They do enhance the lore of Star Wars and play a meaningful role in many of the events and stories, but there are entire books in the Star Wars series without a single forcer in them.

Emmeline, I empathize with your plight because it took me over 10 years to have my chance at a forcer and I had to pay the 20k to do it. Previously the force always had this tantalizing mystery to it that made me want it all that much more, because I had never experienced it. Now that I’ve had the chance to play a couple of forcers, I’ve gotten it out of my system.

My primary beef with force was summed up by what Veric stated. They dissuade people from taking action because a single forcer can negate an entire army of combatants by themselves. Even low level forcers, who would get eaten alive by a force master, can wreak destruction on non forcers.

I think one era without having to be concerned with forcers would be a delightful luxury. Forcers would inevitably pop up again later, because everyone finds them so pivotal to the Star Wars theme, which is fine. However, I think the environment that is created without them is highly enjoyable and allows for a lot more high risk/high reward scenarios that simply are not possible with force users in the mix.

I eventually felt really really bad as a forcer because I was a loaded gun that could be fired at any time and very few people would be able to counter me even if I was a horrible PvPer because of the innate force combat perks. People 180’ing the moment a forcer gets involved is frustrating especially if they feel that you can sense/awaken them.

I know this would be heresy but what if Padawan/Apprentice level Forcers were closer in combat ability to high end combatants?

I remember reading in at least one EU novel where a forcer in training was able to be bested by a veteran combatant without the use of force blocking equipment/life forms.

Granted they would still be a force to be reckoned with but maybe some of the stigma of encountering a forcer would be alleviated.