I have absolutely no problem with factions in the lore, and would certainly love to see it happen, but as I've heard in the past, factions are not the most solid structure. They die and begin every day, even larger ones. What happens then, in the lore?
Well, it's not too hard to imagine a group breaking up. I mean the Fellowship of the Ring didn't stick together throughout the entire story. Eventually it split and went different ways that ultimately lead to the success of the quest. If a faction were to split or break apart, that doesn't mean the story would end, that just means that you'd have to specify in the lore that the faction broke apart. You could simply say Group A went to do A thing, and Group B went to do B thing. Not too difficult.
Also I'd be okay with factions being part of the lore, but for obvious reasons, none of them would automatically be canon. An application process to become part of the lore would be needed, of course, for quality and consistency.
And if a group that was previously lore-accepted broke up and later wanted to reform, they could simply re-apply for a continuation of the faction's story.
Mainly what I'd worry for is the capitalization of roleplay, and stress under scrutiny. I think roleplaying would feel a lot more confined and creativity might be a little stunted with such a close relationship with the lore.. Which has a reputation for changing a lot. That is something I've disagreed with a lot over the years, and has ultimately dissuaded me from roleplay here on Massive- if the lore should change and drastically affect a faction's story plausibility, that would make void a lot of their work.. But I guess by applying, they'd be knowingly taking that risk, so maybe that's not an issue worth discussing.
Capitalization of roleplay would be a pervading issue though- the community is small enough, and a lot of cliques have already monopolized great swaths of the community as it is. To spread it thinner would make it a lot more difficult for outliers or new people to find it at all. I already feel as if factions sort of have the run of the world as it is- for them to begin heavily affecting roleplay as well might create a whole new hurdle. The thing is, not everyone knows what they want to do when they first join. So making activities numerous and accessible is pretty paramount for community upkeep.
This makes it very unlikely people can have a lore compliant faction if they aren't high nobility in regalia. I don't think the high nobles/nobility of roleplay would want to have a canon faction either, since they can just have their roleplay family canonised. Most role players are in regalia because they don't want to do survival.
Because it's not worth it. I truly believe that survival and roleplay cannot be integrated. They are opposite ends of the gameplay spectrum, and trying to bring them together is doomed to failure because of their inherent differences. Not a lot of survivalists care about lore. Not a lot of roleplayers care about survival. The small middle area that does generally exists in limbo because both of the more extreme ends hate on them for being the "other side". The server can't bring the community back together, so it should just focus it's efforts on making both communities happy in their own setups.
Usually I like what you have to say, Mecharic, but I highly disagree with both you and Ryria. Survival and roleplay can absolutely coexist- in fact, roleplaying in survival is really fun if you're creative about it. Gathering materials, building your house, farming, hunting, exploring, traveling.. A lot of these form the very essence of what living in the given era would actually be like, and isn't that the entire point of roleplay? To fill the shoes of someone else and experience their life through prose?
I don't think any play styles are completely unable to support roleplay- in fact survival is probably one of the most capable of doing so!
The problem is that playing in survival on Massive also means taking the risk of being attacked by other players when you are trying to do other things, which can be very disruptive if you weren't looking for that type of roleplay experience. It's not the play styles, it's the setup and the attitudes of other players that pose a problem.
I don't know where people are getting this false idea that roleplayers don't like or cannot play in survival mode. There are other servers, and Minecraft does have singleplayer.. My guess is that a lot of roleplayers just don't like the survival format here- myself included. If they were given a survival world that gave them an ability to opt out of PvP, I bet a lot of roleplayers would be giving survival play a second look.
