IDEAS FOR RYZOM

Salyn -- in your example, you can kill it faster and easier by making a cross-religion team and sharing the goodies. Or the neutrals can form a big team, take it down and sell the loot to the highest bidder. (Or the neutrals could form a team and kill it so that neither Faction could get the credit, thus frustrating both sides. :) )

Any scenario that can be set up can be gamed to produce a contrary result unless the setting up is done *very* carefully, a process that takes a lot of time.

Not to say that the Faction role-play couldn't be made more interesting, but a simple example like that is unlikely to work. Remember, the Temple Wars are coming (it said so in an announcement). The outposts were only a start.

And to reiterate your tl;dr comment: *nothing* is going to keep friends who are playing toons of opposite alignment from collaborating unless a game mechanism is set up to prevent it.

Our take on our responsibility is not to actively kill the kami, but rather to instead coerce them with kindness to see the light and join Jena's side.

One doesn't accomplish this solely by war, one must be allowed to offer acts of kindness - blocking trading is not faithful to the lore's vision of the struggle of kami vs. karavan, the factions are encouraged to trade if it may enlighten the unwashed masses of the kamist... err other faction (/ooc: a little poke meant by that last bit =) /occ).

Being a bigot to the other faction is not the only way to roleplay factions at opposite purposes, one can also be known to team/assist/trek/forage/level with the other faction, and even trade them things from time to time, to encourage them to join your faction.. as an aside this is the single biggest difference in the communities' visions of ryzom.. one community all decided to go for the hard headed approach, the other a blend of war and peaceful interaction between the factions..

And it would impinge on the spirit of ryzom to do too much of this, there's already restricitons on who may guild as a game mechanic, this would limit players freedom, which is not something ryzom is known for.