Corpies

But yea, the general guidelines I agree with. Corpies should be using Mixers left and right. ;)

We are in the midst of balancing it. Most of the people who start in the corporate world start on the lower pegs. Wage-slave status. Rent-a-cop status. Coffee-boy status.

These people do not get paid enough to do much more than survive.

What has typically happened in the past is that no corporate character has lasted long enough as a corpie to move up rank in a corporation. On top of that, we have not fully defined our corporate economic structure. It makes if very difficult. Half is the players not staying corpie, half is us staff without our shit together.

We are working to fix this. We have a whole passel of initiatives we would like to try, and are arranging to get them into the game. I would look to see some of them coming within the next 6-8 weeks, give or take.

As to the club on Gold, yes, I think we have a plan for more than one that will be located in corporate tower blocks. Like many office towers, some of our corporate towers will have the first few floors as more 'public' areas with shopping, restaurants, night clubs. That sort of thing.

Now, Grunen's is not the only corpie hang-out. There is Rosa's, and Cafe Bizou as well. They are not clubs, perse, but they are interesting bars/restaurants/locations to meet and greet with other corporate players.

Now, that is also an issue. The number of corporate players. We only have two. Would be nice to get some more players who were willing to stick it out longer than a month before running to Red to get into trouble.

:)

Cred Chips topside: planned, and in the wings.

And, finally, corpies on RED are a no-no. You want to hire a mixer? Use a go-between to set things up. That is what fixers in the mix are for, and what those rare people who can cross the boundry of corpie and mixer are for. To get the dirty deeds done without your corpie hands getting dirty.

1. I think Corpies ought to stay topside. Only go to RED if it is imperative.
2. They should think, no, know that they are better then the mixer. Educational-wise, and financially.
Now those are two guidlines I make my corp characters follow.

Staying topside is unfortunately a lot more boring that checking out the RP in the mix. This is the -ideal- though, one day, we will be able to have it. :)

Some things I'd like to see topside…
1. A nightclub. Grunens and the Cafe are not nightclubs.
Have a bouncer that keeps the dirty mixer from getting in, they can go to carnal..

Already in the works, both the nightclub and the bouncer.  No details though. ;)

2.Make most if not all stores and shops topside, as well as the mall should just take Cred chips in my opinion. No stores at all on RED should either.

Been the plan since … 1997.

3. Make the desk jobs more obvious.
Just some things I personally would like to see.

Like posting job openings on the grid? *scratches his head*

Yeah, something like that. I don't exactly know how, but the Grid seems to be the only logical way. Kinda like how it's been going. Maybe like, when the Corp character comes around, and starts doing his job history, a GM could scan their history, and a related corp could conveniently post a now hiring sign?

I hit up a GM before I had my previous character offed, or if they weren't around when one gets permad, write your history accordingly, and park outside the gates until its approved :-) If they don't go along with it, threaten violence.

As to whether or not that would affect the balance between red/topside, obviously there'd have to be plenty of dis-incentives to keep rich corpies crossing the line. Not only should it be tabboo, but corps would most likely fire, imprison, possibly execute or banish workers that meddled with things on Red. Even if any old corp could probably *afford* to buy up most of the casual labour ot on red and make a friggin' small, starving army, that massive corporate wall, the pen they live in and comfortably call home and privilege should prevent them from escaping.

Are you forgetting this is the age of the nano-assembler unit? Of the robotic space construction factory? Of the 'we've replaced all those icky people with clean, cheap, and programable robots that do not talk back'?

The only reason Shinohara has a work room for humans in the dome would be as a humanitarian gesture. I bet they write off all the expenses of that place as a charitable donation!

What purpose do mixers serve? To many corpies nothing. To some they are lab rats. To some they are people who are outside, or on the boundaries, of the system who can get illegal activities done when needed.

What are mixers? They are the dirt poor.

Why are they in the dome? Because the corporations realize that if you ignore the poor to the point of utter desperation they will form big ass mobs and burn your buildings down. So they keep them inside. Give them little bits of food and cast offs from above. Keep them fighting each other for those scraps.

That way they never look up. Never stop to see the real problem, which is the corporations holding 99% of the global wealth (physical resources and ephemeral monetary transactions). Does the average salary man think this way? No. The average salary-man sees the mixers as a waste of space, something to be used and at best pitied. But the CEOs and the Transnational Heads, they see the big picture, and they run the Corporate Council in Withmore.

As to anyone who wants to be a Judge, I played one. He's been in the NLM news recently :-)
Take it from me, it is fun as hell. Sure, some baddies are gonna target you from time to time, but the sheer fun and power to the Judge character is something to be considered.

And yes, they do come in many flavors. MY favorite two..

The straight shooter. All about keeping order and law enforcement. Never stepping outside the book.

The Dirty cop. The guy who steals your gun to plant it on someone else he really wants to bust for -SOMETHING-, but just never catches them at the right time. The guy who will pocket the money on your corpse instead of turning it over to evidence. The guy that will beat a confession out of you.

And that is just Street Judges. You got your CSI type judges too. I dunno if there are any actual CSWAT like Judges, but hey, that may be an option too. And for those less combat oriented, you got your Operator.
And trust me, all of these positions come with some really sweet gear, and opens up a whole new side of the game.

I think the only resolution for this is really a huge effort to make that whole 'massive, faceless entity' thing an actuality game wise. So we get various hints game wise that things are moving behind the shiny corporate facade of Gold, and it would be stupid if things were any more 'obvious', but at the same time we need to make being a corpie a part of the massive entity, need to make them feel *membership* in a community like Red residents sort of get.

Since there are fewer people topside it's would seem more likely that 'membership' in the corporate world would be a lot more communal and closely knit than Red.

But again, to get that feeling of membership across would require tons of GM puppeting which clearly is not a feasible thing. And since we don't have enough players to make the whole 'large Corp.' idea even close to a reality, there has to be more done in the way of 'cushioning'. 'Padding' in the corporate world. What I'm getting at is:

More automated activity.

A corp. is a machine. So automated stuff wouldn't be unrealistic. Automated activity that could be followed by players, that wouldn't necessarily involve tons complicated code in the interaction between NPCs and players, but keep them a part of 'bigger things'. So instead of idling aimlessly and making fun of Red residents over SIC they could actually be kept as busy as corpies are supposed to be.

Plus, even though Judges, as I've read, were once a source of RP topside, and that would have been exciting and violent and whatnot, it really doesn't contribute to the overall vibe of the game, the 'corpie atmosphere', as it were. Violence and crooked cop based action should happen only at the *margins* of the whole. It can't be allowed to form the whole focus of 'excitement' or activity in general on corporate levels. That would suck.

Corpie players should be completely immersed as members of the machine. Things should happen automatically that *imply* a huge corporate structure at work behind the scenes, so that the core operations would happen even without GM intervention.

In short, we can't ever expect GMs and players to create Gold and topside levels into a working, believable, gargantuan machine. There's just too much to be done, and I fear that any attempts to do so will just result in failure and loss of morale. I'm committed to this game and I want to see it expand because I believe it has great potential, but to succeed more has to be done that would make Red and Gold and Green *really* different experiences.

I've posted a bunch of ideas to try and help make this a reality and to try and consider some issues surrounding the problem of 'automation vs. player action' balancing and flexibility, and I think automation could contribute and enrich the individual players experience. Sitting in a bar for hours on end and idling on a street corner or lobby or something get draining and irritating after a while.

The Ebola cola can is a case in point. You don't talk to it, but it contributes to the atmosphere. An industrial robot doesn't care if you treat it with respect or not. That's what makes it what it is… but just like automated Judge patrols contribute to the atmosphere and keep you on edge, even when you know there is probably nobody around to  control them.

I think it's all about making a framework that's dynamic but allows people to operate within it as they wish.

I think if you want to stick to a corporate only world, it would be boring by definition.

I completely disagree with that statement; What do you think Judges are?

Playing a well-funded criminal can be just as fun, if not more fun than playing a not-so-well-to-do mixer.

I don't, however, disagree with anything else being said in this topic.

-Kevlar

I love the idea of a corpie being like a puppet master pulling mixer strings and putting things into motion, without ever setting foot on RED.  That would be awesome RP for all involved.  The hard part is deciding what exactly you -want- to set in motion and -why-..  But that too, is good RP.