As players gain influence in their NPC organizations, could they influence the politics between those organizations? For example, if I have high influence in an NPC pirate pack and I attack a member of another pirate pack, that might start a war between the two pirate packs.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he's saying that given his stature within his group, it makes it more of an issue when you attack a member of that other group, such that they're more likely to respond.

But I think that's kind of what we already have, because that's how the reputation system works. Well, I'm not going to say it already works that way, but the design of it is that you have a reputation that's not just your own one, but also the kind of associations you have. So therefore, if I'm a member of Pirate Pack 1 and I go and attack some other group, I'm doing it as me and also as a member of Pirate Pack 1. So therefore, there'll be hostility from that other group against Pirate Pack 1.

But he's saying the extent of their retaliation would scale according to your standing within your pirate group. In other words, if my group is 1,000 strong and I'm the low guy and I do it, it's probably a non-issue. But if I'm number one on the list, then that's it. They're going to war. It's reasonable to me.

No, I'd agree. It seems reasonable to scale it. But it's purely a factor of how much you do it. When you're talking about organizations with 100 or 500 or 1,000 players, it's kind of like the economic simulator. You don't want one player to ever be able to cause two gargantuan organizations to go to war. And so it may scale. It may become two, three, five times as significant as a lower-ranking member.

I would say your ranking probably is a multiplier on kind of a reputation adjustment when things happen. So the higher ranked you are, instead of adding two hostility points, it adds six hostility points on the reputation.