What does it mean to powergame? We're doing the same stuff raiders did in FO2, only we're doing it in a more efficient manner because we're, you know, humans and this is a player driven environment.
Yeah right. Being player driven enviroment alone changes all your goals. I bet that you're just doing everything that's possible, rather than doing what raiders would do. If you could force everyone in the game to carry an apple on their primary slot and worship brahmins, you'd do it just out of interest. Killing people and taking their stuff just happens to be the most interesting way to interact with other players right now.
And what do you mean by changing the gameworld? There were at least 3 historical events that basically reshaped the wasteland po-wipe:
- BBS domination
- NA was formed
- DA was formed
... and all of these influenced basically EVERYONE including the NCR dwellers whether they have the honesty to admit it or not. The fact that one side is blasting the other more, hence gathering more stuff is enough to change the gameworld and actually have a lot of influence on the towns the given faction choses to
camp.
I don't know a single DA member, let alone NA. I don't even know which faction member you are. From my point of view the only influence the gangs seem to have on the game world is to make the unguarded towns unsafe, fill the worldmap with caravan cars and occasionally try to stir up some confusion in guarded towns. Basically none of the unguarded towns have something so important that a player has to visit them more than once, so camping there doesn't have such a big impact on the game world.
By changing the world I mean simply changing something of the gameworld towards your own favour. For example right now there's no way to defeat or conquer anyone for extended time period. If you're a gang who decides to establish their own rules and laws in Den, they may do it for 8 hours in row but when they leave its all for nothing. There's no way to declare that you have gained a significant checkpoint in the timeline of the server. I would call it an achievement if some group could establish their own city in the middle of all this chaos.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somehow not many people are really willing to enjoy their membership in the Enclave or the Vault City. Maybe because, you know, having your own faction that is actually 100% player driven instead of being a collection of repetitive scripts is, you know, more fun
That's why best you could hope for in the NCR is stirring up the slums for a few minutes. It's already there. As for changing the bigger schemes - as you've said, those factions are a) npc driven, b) have no business in open military confrontation and c) too big to be influenced by some random wasteland dudes.
That's why TC is restricted to the smaller towns.
Players could choose the factions whiches rules suit them best. Raiders, slavers and New Reno gangs would be closest to total anarcy. NCR rangers and brotherhood would be the wasteland police, but with rules that prevent cruelty towards innocents. Because players that are fans of total anarchy would basically destroy the whole world if they could, their factions have to have limited power.
There's nowhere near clear picture how exactly this whole npc faction system could work. There's no telling yet how and how much players should be allowed to change the npc faction's policy or extend its influence over the wasteland. But it certainly doesn't have to be repetitive scripts. Maybe a player could become the general of vault city's security forces, the president of ncr or the leader of raiders. He would have to make decisions that make the faction stronger, not fuck it up.
However I do admit that freedom to have your own gang and being part of its conquest over the gameworld is fascinating. This fascination is the engine that runs many mmo games but in those games there are always rules, boundaries and common goals which all the gangs follow or they perish or fail have any influence.