Canon Companies Review

[Cira]

I am bringing this from the original thread to give it its own spotlight.

I want to discuss canon companies. Should we do away with them? Are they working well with how they are working now? What could be done -better-?'

Spoiler: Canon Company guidelines and rules

Due to the timeline, it is assumed most canon companies went south with the declining population of the Galaxy. However, it is the writer's choice in whether or not he wishes to further the future of a Canon Company. In order to properly adopt a canon company, please follow the below rules.

1. Create your Company submission.
2. At the bottom of the submission, please post an announcement in bold. "This is a canon company."
3. Below your announcement, link to the Canon Company's wookieepedia page.

*Please note that adopting a canon company will not give you a boost in tier. You may only start at a maximum of Tier 2.

Owning a Canon Company & It's Subsidiaries

1. Only one writer may own a Canon Company. You, as a writer, may not own more than one canon company.

2. Your Canon Company may not own other Canon Companies as subsidiaries unless they are directly referenced in the Wookieepedia as being owned by that Canon Company.

3. Each Canon Company Subsidiary must have another character not owned by you labeled as it's CEO/Director and must have their own Company submission.

4. Once approved, you may write that Canon Company's storyline as you wish. How did they survive the Gulag Plague? The story is yours.


Inactivity With Canon Companies

1. If a Canon Company Owner is absent for more than 30 days, any writer who does not already own a canon company may contest your claim by creating a submission of their own for the same Company name.

2. The Factory Judge presiding will alert a Role-play Judge, who will then attempt to contact the previous Canon Company Owner.

3. If the Role-play Judge fails to contact the previous Canon Company Owner within 72 hours and deems the Canon Company Owner inactive, the Role-play Judge will then alert an Administrator who will then transfer ownership of the original submission to the new Canon Company Owner, along with any edits made.

 

[Cira]

I don't do a lot of company stuff, so dunno how much input I can have here, but my two cents echoes some of what Rusty and Gir Quee said already. The only issue I've seen or heard of regarding canon companies is that they 'claim' certain canon tech as their own, which can prove especially unpleasant for newbie members who jump into RP only to have an angry canon company owner PM them about [insert canon tech here] that they are using without permission. Honestly, given the fact that canon company owners don't 'work' for their subs like SW company owners do, I think they don't really get to stake a hold on staple tech from the SW universe. As for the tier up rules... ( Cira Bianca )

I think the biggest disconnect here is that the act of requesting development in situations like a new X-Wing, to obtain blueprints or something, is viewed as being protection of that company interests rather than a simple fetch-quest. Maybe we could clarify that in some way?

Do you have any ideas on how we can clarify this??

[member="Cira"]
Well, first, we can make sure the factory team (Judges, RPJs) are aware that this is the case, as the discussion on skype the other day (and the posts here) show that not everyone is on the same page with that. Following that, we can make sure we address this is the case whenever we ask for development in these situations, and maybe summarize this can be the case in our Standardized Development thread thing.

Apparently I'm going to echo Rusty and Mark in saying that the biggest issue that people seem to have with current use of canon companies is people using canon companies to have a stranglehold on certain canon products or trademarks. One of the options we might want to consider is allowing canon company names to be used, but to explicitly have them been reorganized to not be the exact same company as in canon to prevent the stranglehold on products or trademarks. As an example, Seinar Fleet Systems could still produce canon Tie Fighters or their own new derivatives of that design, but it would still allow factions like the First Order, Imperium, etc the freedom to use the TIE name and older designs to help build their RP world in a vein to the traditional Galactic Empire.

My main issue with canon companies is that they more or less hold the keys to the kingdom when it comes to the iconic Star Wars tech. I recon Draco will rant about them at length, so I won't steal his thunder there. While I would argue that 800 years is a long time for a company to stay solvent, I'm not prepared to argue that we should take that away from folks. I would like to see enforced neutrality. If some kid wants an X-wing, by God, he gets an X-wing. Same with anything else canon. For yanking tiers from folks, I'd like to see that. Have a minimum monthly requirement for activity, and if they fail to meet it three months in a row, they get yoinked.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Sharing a Name, fine. I have no problem. Earlier we had a convo in Skype were the attempt to sub a fairly bland Limited production X-wing would either need to be Deved, or Need to have Incom as a manufacturer, where as if the picture hadn't been an X-wing, and the name wasn't that, it would have been fine. Basically, I don't think the Factory should enforce IC patents.

We don't for anyone else. ArmaTech was the first to make dual type shields. If anyone else were to attempt, would they need to dev it? No. Not solely because the were using something someone else had done.

AEL was the first to do a lot of Alchemy stuff that is now fairly common. We do not require dev solely because of that.

We don't enforce it for Arrowhead shaped star destroyers, and that was Kuat.

There are most certainly other examples.

I don't want Canon Company Patents (TIEs, X-wing, R2 Models, B1 Battle Droids) to require dev. I see it as making people Dev because of the Picture and name. It seems we are picky about which ones we enforce. Like we only enforce the Iconic ones as it is. I think, we as the factory, should only bother with the contents of a submission and that's it.

Personally, It had been suggested prior to me becoming a Judge, and several times after, of Making Canon companies obsolete. Able to share the same name, but holding no ownership of the 800+ year old tech.

That's my take, I am sure there are differing opinions. And that's okay.

 

[Rusty]

My main suggestion is mandating that canon companies remain neutral. If a character wants an X-wing and can reasonably be expected to be able to afford one, sell them the damn X-wing. If a company has the resources to afford a Star Destroyer, sell them a damn Star Destroyer.

It's not rocket science. It's been 800 years since the movies, and while one could reasonably expect certain extremely large companies to have survived, the chances of political allegiances staying the same are next to nil.

On an OOC level, canon companies hold the keys to the kingdom when it comes to the more iconic designs. There's no reason the original owners of certain designs couldn't license out proprietary versions of designs to be manufactured elsewhere, but if you're gonna dangle Star Wars in front of someone's face to get them here, you ought to at least let them play with the basic stuff without having to navigate the abyss of allegiances and hurt feelings that makes up an economy here.

If from there they want to add onto the designs, sure, make 'em do dev. Maybe not for minor stuff, but any sort of major modifications? Yeah, dev that stuff, bro.

 

[Cira]

I'm tempted to do another poll...

 

[Quietus]

As an owner of a Canon Company who is really not a big factory user nor have I ever actually submitted anything to the factory under my Canon Company name, I'm curious as to what would be required for these activity checks?

I do plenty of IC rping out of said company (KDY) as the company itself falls under most anything that this character does, but if I'm required to make factory submissions then I'm pretty much sunk. I'm not a techie, I rather dislike the tech side of Factory, and I'll never be a big submitter. I don't see a need - there is so much canon tech out there made by KDY already.

As far as the "stranglehold" situation goes, I like to think I'm not one of those people doing this. I have my IC restrictions as far as who I can sell to thanks to canon IC story with the One Sith, but otherwise I really am quite easy to work with as long as there's story involved. Obviously I can't speak for other canon company owners, but I've never personally subscribed to the idea of being difficult about things.

 

[Cira]

[member="Lorelei Darke"]

I don't think there was any mention of any company checks for IC activity. Besides, this already goes into the current rules for inactivity with canon companies. We wouldn't have to worry about that.

I believe the general concern is about having IC control over blueprints from the canon companies.

 

[Quietus]

I'm referencing a comment from the last Quote shared from Rusty here:

For yanking tiers from folks, I'd like to see that. Have a minimum monthly requirement for activity, and if they fail to meet it three months in a row, they get yoinked.

 

[Rusty]

I think I got shot down on that. Or it was already on the books. Or something.

[member="Lorelei Darke"]

 

[Cira]

I'm referencing a comment from the last Quote shared from Rusty here:

Oh that.

Yeah, no check ins. That got kicked out of the curb. The current rules already cover that.

 

[Quietus]

*nods* Alright. That was really my main concern if check-ins were to make a return.

 

[Cira]

*nods* Alright. That was really my main concern if check-ins were to make a return.

We are, however, discussing Tier Reductions here.

http://starwarsrp.net/topic/77486-tier-reduction-discussion/

 

[Gir Quee]

I think Draco and I were pretty much on the same page. As factory staff, I think we should not enforce trademarks or technology patents but instead focus on the content of the submissions instead. As a caveat to that though, I do think that if people are trying to grab an especially unusual or rare canon technology, they should put some development posts to acquire that technology.

My main suggestion is mandating that canon companies remain neutral.

While I appreciate the intent behind this thought, I think we limit people's RP freedoms and opportunities as well. Right now, if a person wants, they can easily align and often do align their companies with major factions. I'd wager that a fair amount of a RP is based off of those relationships; especially when it comes to things like contracts for bigger corporations.

Moreover in the above example of KDY, I doubt that the OS would be too happy IC if Republic warships were being built in their territory. I think that would make some RP plot lines as rather forced and awkward as well.

Able to share the same name, but holding no ownership of the 800+ year old tech.

I think this is the solution right here.