A third in-depth response offering some thoughtful ideas/suggestions also warranting its own post:
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Some sincere recommendations for a future event of this type and how I would implement these recommendations in a sample event include:
Do not use factions that already exist. Create new, temporary groups with new names that characters and factions can support or oppose according to their tastes and roleplay. For example, a conflict between two independent NPC pretenders to the Imperial throne might appear: a dogmatic human mage-aspirant associated with Tlaxcala and an aberrant half-elf mercenary associated with the Imperial Navy based in Seawatch.
Taking a page from history, the event kicks off as Imperial nobles decide to challenge the Emperor: the resulting debate within the House of Lords winds up getting violent. Soldiers from nearby barracks arrive to put down the unrest, but significant damage is done to the House of Lords and adjoining courtroom and many of the Bright Star's brightest young stars lie dead. In a rare moment of deceptive mourning, the imperial elite cause the courthouse to be demolished -- they're really doing this to undermine the Emperor's power structure -- and create a "memorial" garden filled primarily with two plants: trillium and nightshade.
Suddenly, nobles and soldiers start popping up wearing one of these as a badge or token. The message is obvious: support for either pretender is expressed, War of the Roses style, with these little tokens. Players, too, can travel to the "memorial" garden and take their side by plucking the appropriate flower, to be worn ... dun dun dun ... as a symbol. Allegiance now becomes fluid, detectable by non-participants, and a layer of roleplay that allows everyone to make tangible choices. Cost: one room and two object vnums.
If I had all resources at my disposal, I would represent faction membership as quest bits, too. Code could be copy-pasted from the Valley of Ashes. That allows for "secret" membership, betrayal, and a host of other diverse options as a stable "genotype" and fluid "phenotype" of allegiance are made. Once you hear the story from an NPC, you can accept the quest to go grab your chosen symbol: harvesting it completes the quest and aligns your faction quest bit one way or another.
Whenever there are numbers involved, use odd numbers and use majority instead of addition. Establish a "lead" required to win and a time limit for defaulting to draws or "whoever has more" scoring. To continue the example event, the Imperial nobility breaks into in-fighting over which pretender to support in a challenge against Emperor Max. In an attempt to gain more resources against the Tlaxcala faction, corrupt generals of the Imperial Navy squirrel away resources and build a forward operating base -- a beachead -- somewhere near the Chancel, where they intend to go on productive raids against unspecified targets. The Tlaxcala faction learns of these plans and sends a party to capture this base. The result is inconclusive.
At regular intervals, supporters attempt to rally and gain control of this little garrison. At first, the first event determines which faction's banner is hung outside the fort in the wilderness room. From there, it's attack or defense as the entrance is assaulted whenever the rival faction's NPCs collect sufficient resources to launch an attack. The event is kicked off by either a magical construct or band of pirates (a nerfed outer guardian clone) shows up to be killed and throw open the gates of the area when dead. Could be scripted copy-pasted CRS code or staff facilitated. This allows, also, for some diverse tactics: do you defend by sitting inside and preparing the area? Do you attack your enemy outside? Do you attack by swarming the guard? Do you attempt to soften your foes before entering with the various tactics available then sally forth and mop up the guard to claim your victory?
Whichever group wins based on pre-defined conditions (guard is dead if you are not of the guard's "faction", kill/route all non-faction members or have more faction members alive at the end of a time limit) sees their banner unfurled over the ramparts. The reward is pride and RP knowledge that holding this garrison builds resources for their faction. There's an upset factor: if whatever group wins doesn't have majority representation from either faction, the garrison, in fact, is held by no one for that time period.
Attacks are launched every week. Whoever is the first faction to lead the other by 2 victories wins. If at the end of five weeks, no one is leading by that much, whoever has more victories takes it. If they're tied, no one takes it.
In Tlaxcala, a magical portal exists for Trillium loyalists to get a transport to the garrison if the Trillium faction controls it. In Seawatch, a makeshift dock has ships that, with different flavor, transport Nightshade loyalists under similar conditions. This will allow defenders to get inside to defend the area. If we get quest bits, loyalist status is determined by an or statement: you are a loyalist if (you are wearing the right flower and are not in the rival faction) or (you are in the right faction and not wearing the wrong flower.) We wouldn't tell people how it worked: this allows for intrigue risk-taking with reward for certain scenarios.
Don't staff sanctify any character: let leadership in the event be earned and maintained by RP. If this is intended to be an organic event, we wouldn't bestow SupComm status on any character. It would be up for characters to decide who they feel is best to follow.. this could allow for in-fighting within a faction in a safer and more wholesome way than if a faction leader bestowed with the fasces makes choices that other people don't agree with.
In the example scenario, the NPC leaders are the two pretenders to the throne of the Imperial Emperor. They, in their resourcefulness, would not rely on any one adventurer to handle their affairs. Players and their characters are left to decide what side they're on, find one another, and come up with their own leadership and organization. If necessary, staff might agree to perform menial tasks like collecting votes from players, but no authority figure, in-character, is established.
Some magnate might arise for either side, or there might even be unexpected quality displayed by other groups. The Midnight Council might decide to actively oppose both groups in an effort to remain loyal to Max: if they come up with a way to coordinate themselves, let them be coordinated. This also makes vaguely OOC coordination impossible: there's no one Vortex to look at in guarded privacy, no OOC forum to plan on. It's forced to work how SK is desired to work without imposing restrictions on what people do with that work.
Advertise objectively and publicly. Summaries have the problem of perspective. Unless objective system logs and raw datasets can be posted, whatever's provided is subject to the interpretation of staff who -- in this model -- are safest and most productive as silent facilitators. Instead, in-game signs should be designed to convey all summary information, and public announcements and bonanza bonuses should advertise and draw in people to increase interactions and the chance that people ask questions about what's happening.
For example, for this event, it'd follow the standard bonanza model. The epoch RP events would be written up like the bonanza events are, and some bonus XP would be offered during select windows: I would, personally, divide up the theoretical five-week period like so for bonus XP: During the first week, UTC 12:00AM - 8:00AM gets bonanza. During the second week, UTC 8:00 AM - 4:00PM gets bonanza. During the third week, UTC 4:00PM - 12:00AM gets bonanza. During the fourth week, Saturday and Sunday get bonanza. During the final week, bonanza is RANDOM (but we'd decide a pattern amounting to 8 hrs/day.)
This provides us with something extremely important: manipulation of the independent variable. We could analyze ONLINE_AT data and bonanza timings to determine whether or not bonanzas significantly impact player times, allowing the staff to use this tool more accurately and with better understanding of its uses in the future. A worthy, true experiment.
Do something that's never been done before. Without risking too much, it'd be worth it to use this time and energy to "stir the pot," because I think we can all anecdotally agree that SK gets more interesting and sees more life when rumors get around that things are shook up a little.
If it were up to me only, I'd do that by posting a keyword on the unofficial log site and explain that it works once per account and provides you with 20 loyalty tokens that don't count towards hero. It really works once per IP and sends a message to the staff if multi-account silliness is detected: whether acted on or not would be up to them, but it provides an interesting social experiment nonetheless. If the staff doesn't want to openly use the site, it can be blamed on a leak and the spiders can be left to believe that.
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