Player created factions in an MMO? (including poll)

Aaror

lchmilen on another of my threads came up with a great idea, player created factions.

The question is, how do you make them something more than just guilds?  As I see it, a faction should have a "moral position."  This is more than just good and bad, but it is a good starting point.  A faction might be "evil, likes undead, dominant color red, sign of a skull, likes civilization."  Even that is still just a starting point.

Maybe a way to do it is allowing a group of guilds to petition the devs to allow them to create a faction?  Start off with a few generic factions, but allow any group of guilds that have 1000 members to come up with backstory and information to make a faction.  I suspect that only groups that want to roleplay will actually make a faction, unless factions give some sort of game benefit, min/maxers would just join an existing faction.  Players should not be in charge of factions, but can suggest who/what the leader should be.

Of course, the obligitory poll:

Yalexy

EvE Online has working player-factions allready, but they're called alliances.

So I don't see any problem with players building up their own factions, writing their own stories, setting their own rules and fight against other player-factions.

Works like a charm in EvE Online for years allready and it's better then any faction-system the developers can put in place.

Ihmotepp

Nothing that requires developer approval is practical for a game with potentially 100's of thousands of players.