Topside sux?
Y does nobody wanna play with my toys

I have had a blast with all my corporate PCs but I also OOCly feel I am equipped to make the most of it because of my varied and long experience with the game. I think that if more players were better equipped, we would se more lively corporate play. BUt I can't say this is true 100% of the time.

I have also tried to train and educate corporate PCs and players in various roles. To empower them. Very rarely did the player behind the PC actually WANT to do more than they already were. That's fine but it is going to impact the corporate experience.

Lastly, I do feel that, in the past at least, staff tends to overly limit how much corporate PCs can go and do. I get it in part as most corporate PCs has the potential to be a player GM on the scale of someone in a syndicate and we should encourage them to play in such a way.But at the same time, sometimes it's just fun to go and DO SHIT and not always have to play the puppet master.

Just my initial thoughts. I could go into more detail on any of them if asked but that's a decent overview from my perspective I think.

I don't think that every PC thinks of corporate status as being something they would fall over their feet to get. Nor should they have to. I know many poor people IRL who mock and ridicule the rich and actively enjoy and choose to be poor. Maybe it's crazy when looked at from outside in a more general sense but I think it's understandable when you are in it. To me topside is different. Not objectively better and it certainly doesn't need to be every PC's wet dream.

On a serious note, people in that situation will often placate themselves with enjoying every little thing, every little win they get. The violence and the fear is always in the back of their minds.

Typically affluent people are bored more often, when you are winning all the time you forget the feeling of want when you can just get what you want. On the flipside there's the type to want more and more and they go down dark paths to more power and more excitement. You see this in every scandal around politicians, actors and socialite.

Best to not do anything IC that might go against IRL morality otherwise you might get shit for it on an OOC basis.

What are some ways for corpies to start conflict and plots in a fun way?

Less seemingly random killing followed by a terse phonecall that leaves no real information, more interactivity. The most satisfying corporate menace I've seen doesn't simply open the discussion with a bounty or murder and instead builds a relationship and allows for interactivity. This can be accomplished through propaganda campaigns or cloak and dagger methods, but honestly it can be very frustrating as a player just being attacked and not really having anything or anyone to strike back at. Just suffer silently at the hands of someone much stronger than you.

Additionally, I feel like corpies are sleeping on a lot of plots that could A) make corporate life more appealing to mixers and increase their player base, and B) aren't inherently violent. Find excuses to bring mixers into their business, give them a taste of the good life, use that expense account to its fullest. Start up focus groups like Slither mentioned once, contract out work to a group of mixers. Make it a less lonely and more social experience.

Ultimately it's a problem with appeal, and honestly from a gameplay perspective the good life looks a lot more miserable than the suffering bad life in the mix right now.

- Kidnapping, whether or not you get out alive

- Persuading a judge to come after you, whether or not you get executed

- Slander/Reminding everyone what you did months ago

- Spies

- Paying your friends to betray you in some way

There's a lot of options other than sending a solo to vat you with no explanation.

I felt CPI was good at the time (and I pushed for something like it in the lead-up to it, and praised its immediate effect) but in the long run I feel it ended up being detrimental to the game overall (even though it was a huge improvement for topside players) because it made topside more sociable and comfortable, which caused it to become dramatically overpopulated which was a major factor in huge problems in the game and community. If topside had to continue to exist at all, it would be best as a difficult path that did not promise much typical socialization to discourage too many players playing there.

That is not to say that players cannot thrive topside, or have not created great corporate characters in particular roles, but ultimately there is simply not enough players to have two cities functioning on their own and both telling cyberpunk stories.

To me it sounds like you're implying that topside and mix players are all pulled from the same pool, and if you get rid of topside then everyone will go down to the mix. I disagree, and feel like quite a few of the topside players would simply not play anymore.

If the game doesn't have enough players for you, then restricting what people can do isn't the answer. The current state of topside already doesn't promise much socialization like you want, since it discourages players from socializing with most of the other players. In my eyes at least, topside is already underpopulated like you want. There are times when there's not a single player online topside.

I feel like you should be encouraging different types of roleplayers to play this game, not trying to lock it down so everyone does the same thing as you.

I am saying that, very explicitly, and have been for quite some time.

I think there are design and theme issues with topside, and I've written about them at length for years, but now my feeling is this is ultimately a bit of a red herring in that these smaller factors get amplified and that if there was 100 active players topside and 100 active players in the Mix it is likely these issues would be dramatically mitigated.

There is also the ultimate issue that the game's systems cannot physically support more than 80-100 simultaneous players so knowing that I am much more picky about what is being selected for in design biases, because it simply cannot be something for everyone and in my opinion the Big Tent approach led to serious cultural problems.

What I would call the game's lowest point in the past few years occurred when topside populations were highest and there was the least amount of staff available, and its highest point when topside was smallest and there was more staff to focus on the Mix. I think design and culture and theme and other factors are not as relevant as who is where, and my view is the game should focus on the Mix for the best overall outcome for the largest number of players and for the greatest adherence to the theme.

The highest point of the game's recent history is, in my view, about four years ago when there was a very high population in every major Mix faction and considerable amount of conflict between them. These conflicts were very taxing on GM resources and player efforts though so it's not as if fingers can be snapped and return to it, it caused a fair amount of burn out in the short term.

Topside had a significant Renaissance after this in 2020 and it transformed the gameplay and social scene there in a good way, but it's taken a long time for the Mix to come back from that, though I would say it's doing much better these days recently!

Players have to buy into the divide. Just like players have to buy into being blackmailed, tortured, getting their asses kisses and kicked, knowing they won't die from one direct headshot so that person holding the gun to their head isn't codedly as big as threat as they would come across as in real life.

People have to buy into the class divide. Help push the class divide beyond pointing to technicalities and coded functions and saying, 'But it's not really all that different'.

Buying into the class divide means people have to roleplay an acknowledgment of the vast and sheer power of the corporations and behind corporate citizens (not all, big difference between a junior and management) rather than acting as a player and knowing the coded limitations - there's not going to be a swarm of a hundred agents after a terrorist group, because there's like three to five (at high peak corporate eras) in each corporation. And they don't have a budget of millions, they have a budget much, much less.

Part of helping corporate life thrive is a combination of many factors, which I'll post about later, but one of them is all sides buying into and pushing the idea that corporations are as dangerous and capable as they are in lore. And not only looking at it from a coded function and the mechanical truth. Waving the looming threat away because of the coded reality hurts everyone, it makes Red seem less under the thumb of corporations, it discourages corporate citizens from putting themselves out there as threats (and in turn targets) towards Mixers and doing much more than death when it's treated like a joke/not a real threat/etc, and that makes everyone just sort of withdraw into their own shells and social groups and become complacent.

Anyone can do a project. But for the best fulfillment of a project as a player, it's going to involve other people. A junior character absolutely has the same type of access as any senior to getting those done, but it's also possible those may be gatekept by more senior characters to junior characters (which if is being done should be resolved ICly).

Corporate characters of of some ranks can do similar to some 'automated work' that you can find in Red, but they're not going to have access to the delivery stuff for a bevy of IC reasons and theme.

Corporate characters have access to budgets, which they should use more frequently and for plot-building. I'm not against giving a small bump in raise to corporate characters and also putting a little more money into budgets, but players should be using these when and where they can.

But also the Mix characters should probably also not expect to be paid an arm and a leg for basic or even standard jobs. It's just not realistic to expect consistently from a gameplay perspective and also I think tends to make corporate characters withdraw a bit from offering when it's treated like a baseline rather than an exception.

This leads to some false expectations of how much corporate players should be earning, when really every part of the game has pretty comparable earnings out of gameplay balance. There is not any leisure class player characters in Sindome and has never really been, and the highest status characters ever are still on the bottom of the real corporate ladder, always scrabbling to maintain their meager hoardings.

I actually feel the balance of the game economy very accurately reflects this part of the theme, and is in a relatively good place overall. Players have relatively similar levels of wealth and resources overall, and both corporate and Mix characters have somewhat similar highs and lows based on their ability and activity.

So I simply urge caution if it's ever decided to up corpie wages. Maybe do it a bit at a time. Small increase, see how it goes, small increase. See how it goes. And so on until it feels right.

Also, while I admit that corpie side hustle might be more limited than mixer (I don't know as I haven't played a corpie with some of these new systems in place), I do think that it's important to keep in mind that there always have been interesting hustles. They just look different than mixers.

I have seen a lot of characters go from mixer to corporate then get frustrated when their mixer hustles don't all seamlessly transition or when there aren't more or less equivalent side hassles. Sadly, I think that many of these players/characters just don't know how to hustle as a corpie or get put off on corpie hustles when they learn it's not just like mixer hustles.

And opinions may vary, but I have never really been a fan of a lot of the side jobs some corpies try to establish. I have always felt that in exchange for health, safety, money and pretty places corpies sacrifice freedoms. Not all of them but some for sure. It's always rubbed me raw to see something like a NLM Producer running a massage business or furniture installation service on the side. It just doesn't feel right to me personally.

Every single person that I've seen 'go topside' has killed themselves or fallen back down within like, a few months.

My OOC perception is that it must be the most soul-crushing experience ever to the point where I don't think I ever would even want to play a corporate character just from the sheer 'Wow, people REALLY don't want to play there.'

Pair that with in-character shenannigans going on, why on earth would you ever play a corporate character? Especially if it's been described in the thread that they don't even make that much money, and that their entire livelihood is based on some stupid 'project' system? Sit around and basically do nothing and hope you win the lottery? Who the hell would want to play a game where you're playing a character doing that?

As someone who has been involved with the flow of immigrant characters fairly readily for the past year, I see an overwhelming amount of them immediately seek corporate employment after very short stints in Red. I don't agree with the premise of this thread and I don't think the answer is to make corporate jobs even better.

There are players who I feel and have felt flourish topside, but there's about five of them total in the game at the moment. If it was more difficult to become corporate and less of a 'why not' option, I think it would self-select better for the players who were really suited to it. Oftentimes players think they'll hate the Mix for whatever reason, but will do much better there if they stick with it, whereas the opposite tends to be true of topside. It being characterized as the casual Slice of Life area was a major mischaracterization, in many ways its far more demanding of players in terms of what it requires to flourish in the long run.

With that said, I will attempt to offer a variety of reflections I have had based on my various topside experiences.

1) Topside (and Sindome) does best when we have a BBEG or Four

Each corporation (and faction) is in of itself its own Big Bad Evil Guy. As a topside player, your job is to become a part of the amalgamation of your faction. You should be an asset and simultaneusly a risk to everyone - if people don't have to account for your PC when dealing with your faction or what is your factions jurisdiction: you are literally an empty suit.

This is a lot easier said than done. Finding the balance between brutality and handholding to create a themely environment is a constant struggle for even the most seasoned players and staff.

2) Withmore is about being squeezed and caught in the middle. That isn't happening.

The real trick to making topside and the mix meaningful is putting people in the middle of conflicts and factions which have jurisdictions and a bit of overlap. Being caught between a vigilant lawman and a remorseless terrorist while trying to maintain a reasonable job and not die - super tricky.

Lately, I rarely see anyone being squeezed for anything but lackluster gang tolls. It really does seem the sentiment is to stack chyen and ue for a day in the sun which never arrives because people aren't taking chances. This ultimately results in abrupt and significant losses leading to PCs boothing.

3) Topside requires a lot of GM assistance

A lot of what made topside special a few decades ago was access to GM assets that other jobs didn't permit. This isn't far off from it is now with TV, the Globe, biomeds, etc. However, to do anything meaningful and more importantly unusual with them - you need thumbs-up from a GM. The amount of effort generally required here from all parties typically has diminishing returns compared the wham, bam, thank you ma'am nature of Red Sector, and worse-still, if you're player who takes it upon yourself to add meaningful direct conflict such as terrorism to the topside sphere - you're probably going to get burned out unless you really, really know what you're doing, and even then...

I'll cease my tangential thoughts there, but I am really curious as to what people want, or expect topside to be. My biggest takeaway from this thread is no one seems to be arguing that it doesn't suck.

However I view this less as content development or salvaging something important and more spreading the same tiny amount of butter across an ever larger piece of toast. There is a pretty consistent amount of players, and a dwindling supply of staff (3 GMs now for ~100 players across what amounts to two separate games at times). The former can't really rise much more, and the latter certainly won't change that greatly either.

It's possible to dedicate ten town halls to what could be done to make it more fun in theory or what people can do to get out there and make things happen, but the inescapable reality is everything requires players and staff and development and at this point all three are scarce resources. Sindome has a lot of virtues (or highly addictive qualities) that allows it to maintain a relatively high player population despite its, shall we say, colourful reputation but I see the calculus now as that population contributing towards having either two poorly supported games, or one properly supported one with a clear focus.

Players who like intrigue and politics and spycraft and deception can still be catered towards in the Mix to benefit of all, as can slice of life players, but there was never any requirement that it should be done in a sequestered way and having completely different physical and political areas for different desired gameplay styles was always going to be untenable with such a tiny player population.

I don't believe any in-game overhaul is necessary to effect this sort of outcome overnight, making it simply more difficult for characters to become corporate would over time select for the players who really served the story by being there, and the slowly diminishing population would in turn make the casual audience gravitate to the Mix. Topside can remain a useful tool of GM storytelling with tyrannical NPCs, and a place for talented players in very specific roles to do creative and interesting things in service to the game's overall narrative, but needn't necessarily be something that can stand on its own with complex factional competition and a separate economy and independent social scene.

It was my experience that in between projects and paychecks, there was enough chyen for me to advance my own character, and also provide opportunities to Mixers.

If there are corporate characters gatekeeping project work, they are impoverishing the entire game by doing so. I can see why there can be a number of IC reasons why a character would want to bogart the project work and subsequent payouts. From an OOC perspective, that is super lame though. Projects are a fantastic opportunity to work with a diverse group of people.

As a corporate character, I felt some responsibility and duty to drive RP for other people. For me, it was implicit in the position. My character was given a relatively safe life. They were given resources. I spread those resources around. And I found that the more I spread resources around, the more resources I was given access to.

I think a well played corporate character is like a player GM, to use a term that someone else brought up earlier in this thread.

I will agree that "topside RP" is boring. I never got into it. My character is too adversarial and unlikeable to fit into the cliques.

I will disagree that going topside somehow locks characters out of being involved with what is going on in the Mix. It was my experience that I was more involved with things in the Mix as a topsider than I was a Mixer.

I have said this in other posts but I will re-iterate it here. I believe that corporate characters should be forced to interact with projects. It should literally be part of their job. And if they don't want to / can't be involved with the projects, they need to find a way to pawn that work off on / give that opportunity to other characters.

I also believe that those projects should require more interaction with the Mix. The systems are already in place for that to happen. The project steps just need to be tweaked to make the Mix side interactions more frequent.

I also think that the game would be more active and there would be more conflict if corporate characters / teams who skip the Mix side steps and turn in incomplete projects were punished for leaving chyen on the table. Characters who gatekeep projects and achieve lower project payouts should be punished for leaving chyen on the table.

I realize that these might be unpopular opinions. Where as I think they would liven up the game, they might also push players away. Being forced to "work" in a game might seem too much like, well, work for people. =) But it would be super themely. As others have stated, even the most powerful corporate characters are still at the bottom of the corporate food chain. They are just cogs in the machine. "Easily" replaceable by any of the 10s of millions of starving Mixers who would literally kill each other over a safer place to live and a steady paycheck.

I probably bore the fluff out of some players and know for a fact I'm not everyones cuppa. I try to read the room and usually won't bring out the stuff I really care about rping with just anyone because its probably pretty niche. These scenes are usually behind closed doors. The really good connections and explorations into things that interest me are very rare but they're why I come back. I tend to leave little scatterings about it around to engage with (or ignore).

Personally, I actually find a lot of Red rp tedious. (EEK sorry) This is definitely not how everyone feels and I'm so so glad they don't!! There are plenty of rich themes in the mix too and its fun to explore both sides, but topside just is always going to be my favorite. I worry sometimes I contribute to what people don't like, but I just know how I like to play.

I could count on one hand the number of times that character had 6 figures saved up and not once in his existence did he have 200k liquid on hand. He was almost ALWAYS broke due to the expenses from conflict. Clone costs alone were crippling. But maaan was it fun. The point is, there's RP to be had whether you have a surplus of money or not. I struggle with this idea myself because, yes, money buys things and is its own kind of power, but it isn't a pre-req for good RP. That said, I don't think corporate wages -need- to be raised. I wouldn't care if they were, but I agree with Ox1mm's sentiment that your corporate status doesn't make you any less of a cog than WCS sanitation staff are, and those living in the clouds at the top of the ladder consider you with about as much humanity as they do mixers. They aren't going to pay you what you think you're worth.

I spent considerably less time playing corporate on other alts, and overall I haven't enjoyed it. It wasn't the fact that I felt underpaid for it (I did, but I recognize that as an OOC feel bad even while I think the IC income matches what I'd expect it to be for corporate cogs), but because I had a sense that I didn't know how to properly use the tools I had to game the IC system, because I couldn't figure out how to generate RP from the corporate position or earn money without the automated systems in place, and because I had no IC mentor able/willing to show me how to do those things.

This left me feeling like I was sitting around collecting a weekly automated paycheck and hoping RP would come to me. Other than that it was slice of life - RP that I personally have minimal interest in. All in all, not a great experience for me. That said, I recognize the awesome force of past (and some present) corporate PCs. I know it's entirely possible to own these positions and be a powerhouse RPer.

So my opinion, Soultune, is that corporate work should be ICly perceived as a golden ticket right up until you get the job. The reality your character finds themself in is one where they slave away for paltry wages no different than in the mix. To top it off, actions are more restricted than the mix because actions reflect on the company, etc. So what does the smart baka say? The same thing a mixer might say. "I'm fucked either way so I'm gonna get mine." To me, that means Corp or Mix, you resort to crime to get ahead.

The basest difference between mix/corp for me is in what kind of position you do crime from and the extent to which you need to be discreet about certain crimes.

The mix offers freedom at the cost of security.

Topside offers security at the cost of freedom.

Criminality is the key ingredient for both because both suck equally unless you're at the very top.