Topside Inactivity Causes?
Discussion of percieved activity issues topside

What follows from here is my opinion and open to critique:

Whilst the risks and lack of activity topside are perhaps being a little overblown (crime does happen topside, but perhaps not enough), enough people have suggested it is an issue that I feel it should be treated as one and analysed accordingly. Perception issue or not, perception is how we gain our enjoyment of the game. What is being referred to here is mainly a lack of criminal activity topside and as with any activity whether or not it happens can be broken into two base factors; risk and reward. If the perceived risk outweighs the perceived reward then people likely aren't going to try to do something.

Risk:

Judges

Corpsec

Fines

Loss of Equipment

Loss of Job

Clone Death

Banishment

Share price goes down/up

Reward:

Paydata - (This has a really intangible value unless actionable in another way to make money)

Physical items - More easily stolen from mixers

Promotion - This could go either way

Share price goes up/down

At least five of the risks of crime topside aren’t present in the mix but the reward doesn’t rise proportionately (or if it does the nature of the rewards available are far more obfuscated) which is why crime is so much more rife in the mix than it is topside. To an extent that is how it should be, corporations pay for the security and so they should get it. From what players have been saying however it seems this security has gone too far and the vast majority of players are no longer willing to operate topside, the risk far outweighs the potential rewards associated with doing annnnd that is where I feel sindome is perhaps why topside is stagnating and a potentially somewhere sindome is falling a little short of the theme.

Thanks for reading. I look forwards to hearing your own opinions on this matter!

Relevant further discussion at time of posting:

Increased Mix / Corp Interdependence:

https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/increased-mix---corp-interdependence-1954/

New Topside Crime Protocol:

https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/new-topside-crime-protocol-1952/

No NPC Judges on Gold:

https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/no-npc-judges-on-gold-1951/

This is no way a slight towards GMs. They are volunteers and already doing a ton for the game. I've just never seen this mentioned in this conversation. I appreciate everything they do for sure!

Topside is a much slower and quieter game and probably needs some fresh PCs right now but otherwise it's probably fine.

There are of course still boundaries, the difference between actually trying to shoot someone in the street and getting caught -hiring- someone to shoot someone in the street, but finding these boundaries are part of the mystique of FOIC.

There's been some instances of these in the past year, so you can certainly ask around without having to get a job, huck a grenade at your boss, and see if that gets you shitcanned lol

Guys, FOIC, -then- make your suggestiins. Plenty goes on, and just because you don't know about it doesn't mean things are stagnant.

The corporate-mix divide (or intercorp divides?) are a contributing factor? Definitely. That was my experience absolutely. I don't think corporate life would suddenly come alive if those divides were loosened though. As I say, there are just so many fewer players.

I also agree with Vera here, but blaming GM support on this is just completely untrue. It's easy as 'xhelp and wait for confirmation'.[i/]

It is as easy as that, however, I've tried five+ times in the past for permission over the course of months, and no one was available on any of those occasions. So it isn't completely untrue. I wasn't "blaming" the GMs, I'm just saying it's a factor that I haven't seen thrown into the discussion here. I'm happy other people are getting it done though.

I totally understand the need for GM support in these situations to RP out the Judges if shit goes sideways. I wouldn't want to be doing crime out there anyway if that wasn't the case. Also, like I said, no shade thrown the way of the GM's, they're busy as hell.

Maybe if they felt slightly more threatened by Mixers they would consolidate more often and bond under a common enemy.

But there's absolutely a self-fulfilling prophecy where there's a pervasive view that topside is 'boring' so some people don't pursue it or ever even try it, or try it very briefly / superficially, don't understand how to play it differently than the mix, and just give up and reroll a mixer, perpetuating the view. And yes it can be more 'slow burn', but it absolutely does not have to be.

I do NOT agree that it was 'not drastically different' when it had more players, say, ~1.5 - years ago, or so, topside play was rather fantastic at times, this was also before all the inter-corp mingling became so taboo so I'm excited to see that getting relaxed again. topside player count is definitely a factor, I've seen it at both extremes over years and years and years and years, and it's always been one of the biggest factors.

Something i think might help a bit, and it's been rehashed already a lot and it's something that can just sort of be handled ICly how people feel like I guess, but treating service mixers a bit more in kind with how they're acting -- if they're RP'ing hard that they're working service positions to climb into corporate citizenship ASAP, more corpcits would probably do topside a favor to treat them more as cultivatable assets and near-future coworkers (don't have to treat them as if they already are of course, nuance and subtlety...) than someone who's going to be your waiter forever. It'd probably mean more of those folks not feeling so bored and burned out getting through the 'servie limbo' on their way up if they got a little more interesting RP, and they might actually make corporate and stick around.

I heard a quote once I'll never forget.

"Midwife the paradigm shift"

This. I think a lot of the people who find themselves burned just did something that breaks Topside taboos. And then you also have this weird loop where nobody frequents the Topside social scene because it's 'boring and nobody is there' so as a consequence, it's boring and nobody is there.