@Volthorne
Sooo you want me to argue against myself? Ok.
By allowing players to form IP Canonical groups it allows a higher level of immersion for those people that get in, something which will be sorely lacking without permanent mech loss, character death, and salvage.
It /could/ allow for continuity from other MechWarrior games (at least for the single group that snagged McCarrons Armored Cavalry that is).
Umm... That's really all I've got now that I think about it. Every other benefit of a player made group is the benefit of a player made group and not a benefit of being a /canonical/ group.
I can start listing tons of negatives to allowing it though:
1) Everyone else who wants McCarron's Armored Cavalry is out in the rain.
2) The inability of the Devs to have complete control over McCarron's Armored Cavalry for story purposes.
3) The angst that people who are told 'No' will generate bad publicity for the game as they go off and generate negative publicity.
4) The chance that the players who have taken McCarron's Armored Cavalry behave in unrealistic patterns that shatter other people's immersions and the lore (My god, McCarron's Armored Cavalry is all tanks and vehicles, they don't use mech's! Apply to Zellbrigen etc)
5) The Drama Llama's that inherently affect player groups and their inherent instability, as population fluctuates and leadership changes you get situations where whole companies could collapse, and if that happened to McCarron's Armored Cavalry it now affects anyone else who wants to play that group.
Now:
Jaroth Winson, on 06 May 2012 - 11:05 AM, said:
Does a company thinking of laying off workers, put out ads for new employees? If the unit is inactive for instance & someone wants to join why would we accept them in good faith knowing they most likely will not get to play? How is the application a "screening process"? Take WSB (the merc unit I joined) for example, I submitted my application & was accepted. Based on the information I gave them, they put me in the group that is made up of mostly US players because their time & mine is almost exactly the same. Someone else from say Spain for instance would have been placed in the Euro division because of the info he put in his application. Yes you can have it. It is just doing things in an organized way. A slow yes is still a yes.
You can try as hard as you like, but the beauty of logic is, in the end it will stand up to your arguments.
You're still failing to see my point. You are having to go through extra hurdles to play in a group you wish to. With a group as popular as the IP companies will be everyone needs to have equal access and equal ability to play them. Period.
If I was claiming myself Archon of House Steiner and had built a Steiner web page and told everyone that if they wanted to play in House Steiner that they'd have to sign up on my web page and be approved, by me, or my council, or whatever to play in House Steiner I'd get the blue laughed off my Steiner Fist.
It's the same thing for the Mercenary companies. I'd posit even worse, the Houses are big and generally nameless, but the books give us insight into the inner workings of the popular mercanary companies which creates even /more/ attachment to them. This is why it is imperative that they be equally allowed to all, or equally disallowed to all.
You have yet to even acknowledge this point. This is why being inclusive or exclusive /is/ such a big point and really the crux of the whole thing rather than some 'little' thing I am trying to put forth as others have suggested.