Every religion wants to believe they are incorruptible. Nonetheless, individuals can be found within all who are corruptible. Just ask my parents about their pastor who got indited. again.
As for Kami's being all knowing, that's preposterous. Sure, they have better surveillance technology than mere homins, but as experts in their own technology they must also know how to circumvent it. If we are to assume that they are remotely intelligent beings, it would not be remotely out of line to assume that a few of them have divergent interests. The same goes for kara.
This has nothing to do with an interest in fighting vs. pvp or what have you. This has frankly to do with the fact that I have serious problems with the lore of both factions. Although I don't do serious roleplay, I cannot help but think of my character as an individual on atys. She can get along with factions, sure. And she's happily ensconced in a neutral-friendly, loosely kami-aligned guild. She also has kara friends in strongly kara aligned guilds. She can understand reasons for joining either side but sees the cons as overwhelming. But if she were to actually go join a faction herself, I don't think I'd like her anymore. If I didn't like her I don't think I'd enjoy playing the game anymore. But when I get to the point where I'm too high level to advance with my team mates because of all the extra trekking and DPs, I won't enjoy playing the game so much either. If server population is indeed a problem, as other threads seem to indicate, this ought to be taken into account. If I, who haven't been playing long at all, have already seen people leave the game because they take this as an incentive to quit rather than, as Loryen suggests, simply an incentive to join a faction, it obviously isn't working as intended.
Marelli says that 95% of the players would go neutral if they weren't severely penalized. Assuming his figure is correct, that would indicate that there are serious problems with the factions. If factions add nothing to gameplay such that 95% of people would rather not have them, why use game mechanics to attempt to force people to be in them? If they do, in fact, add something important to gameplay, then it is a problem of lore: 95% of people find both factions to fall somewhere on the scale of irrelevant to repugnant and they are only in it for the TP pact, that qualifies as a game design Fail. If that is the case, the lore should evolve to the point where the other 95% want to be in a faction because they find it's lore compelling.
If the game designers want to encourage people to be in factions without evolving the lore in a direction that would make people want to be in factions for RP reasons, I think corrupt officials who make penalize neutrals moderately instead of making it overwhelmingly difficult to group with others is an entirely appropriate solution.
As for Kami's being all knowing, that's preposterous. Sure, they have better surveillance technology than mere homins, but as experts in their own technology they must also know how to circumvent it. If we are to assume that they are remotely intelligent beings, it would not be remotely out of line to assume that a few of them have divergent interests. The same goes for kara.
This has nothing to do with an interest in fighting vs. pvp or what have you. This has frankly to do with the fact that I have serious problems with the lore of both factions. Although I don't do serious roleplay, I cannot help but think of my character as an individual on atys. She can get along with factions, sure. And she's happily ensconced in a neutral-friendly, loosely kami-aligned guild. She also has kara friends in strongly kara aligned guilds. She can understand reasons for joining either side but sees the cons as overwhelming. But if she were to actually go join a faction herself, I don't think I'd like her anymore. If I didn't like her I don't think I'd enjoy playing the game anymore. But when I get to the point where I'm too high level to advance with my team mates because of all the extra trekking and DPs, I won't enjoy playing the game so much either. If server population is indeed a problem, as other threads seem to indicate, this ought to be taken into account. If I, who haven't been playing long at all, have already seen people leave the game because they take this as an incentive to quit rather than, as Loryen suggests, simply an incentive to join a faction, it obviously isn't working as intended.
Marelli says that 95% of the players would go neutral if they weren't severely penalized. Assuming his figure is correct, that would indicate that there are serious problems with the factions. If factions add nothing to gameplay such that 95% of people would rather not have them, why use game mechanics to attempt to force people to be in them? If they do, in fact, add something important to gameplay, then it is a problem of lore: 95% of people find both factions to fall somewhere on the scale of irrelevant to repugnant and they are only in it for the TP pact, that qualifies as a game design Fail. If that is the case, the lore should evolve to the point where the other 95% want to be in a faction because they find it's lore compelling.
If the game designers want to encourage people to be in factions without evolving the lore in a direction that would make people want to be in factions for RP reasons, I think corrupt officials who make penalize neutrals moderately instead of making it overwhelmingly difficult to group with others is an entirely appropriate solution.