Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
Questions about political systems
Cubey
Member Posts: 333 ✭✭✭
Hey there. I've been lurking around Starmourn's updated for a while now but it's the political systems that I have more inquiries about and that's what made me register on the forum.
1. Is there a non-pvp way to gain influence in Song and Scatterhome (except bribery for the latter)? This question was answered already and I believe the answer was "capturing a cosmpiercer can be pve depending on whether other players show up or not". Frankly I don't accept that answer - it's still pvp, just pvp where the others decided not to bother. Can you provide an example of other non-pvp activity that results in gaining influence?
Additionally, many tasks players perform for their org help that organisation a lot but are really hard to codify and put into game rules. I'm talking stuff like administrative work, helping newbies, organizing or defending against raids. Other IRE games allow the player to get rewarded for those through org favours. What about Starmourn? Can you "favour" someone to increase their influence?
2. What is there to stop the Song Lord Commander from abusing their power? I'm talking really abusing, not just in an in character roleplaying way but in a way that actively screws over other players: kick out all political opposition or just people they don't like, force players into participation in events they don't want to participate in, or just tell someone "give me all your cash/sleep with me or you get punished". No other IRE game has had absolute leadership to this extent, which means there's a lot of room for abuse and the fluff supports and even encourages it 100%, while the rules don't seem to have any safety measures against it other than "if you don't like the Lord Commander elect a new one".
3. Back to Scatterhome - it's governed through Calls that take 24 RL hours to go through. However many IRE veterans can recall situations where immediate and decisive action was necessary and waiting 24 hours would be disasterous, for example kicking obvious troll alts, enemying disruptive people, etc. Will Scatterhome have a system for such swift emergency actions that won't need a Call, or at least one that won't run for 24 hours?
0
Answers
I foresee a case here where a very disruptive individual may find some prodding from the administrative staff.
An NPC coup ousts the Lord Commander and instills another Dominion player rather instantly. We got good admins here. They'd do something.
Has something like this been confirmed? There's something mentioned for Scatterhome where things work significantly differently on a thematic level but I haven't seen it for the Dominion.
It's also an incredibly messy solution.
An LC that actually manages to do this without the players themselves replacing them, in theory, enjoys majority support. In turn, if they are replaced, do the admin force someone upon the players? Someone that could be replaced at an election called immediately if they're not "on the right side"? If they don't then it's likely that someone from the same group would replace the then former LC.
And that's also relying on the people that had been kicked being willing to actually give it a second chance after that experience.
But in the context of Lusternia, even the other games, it's harder to achieve. Getting enough council votes to oust high ranking members means you'd need majorities in two guilds most likely. (For Lusternia at least)
The Dominion seems like it's pretty well set to be a place where this can happen more often because it's just so easy.
They've done this plenty of times before. I've seen NPCs take control of the org, kick a bunch of people, appoint a new leader and announce that there will be elections 2 weeks later but until then that leader can do what they want. All sorts of things.
I once approached the city patrons (IC gods, played by people who are also the admin and devs, for the non-IRE people here) making a suggestion that we kick everyone out except the 5 leaders, take 2 weeks to define a new system for the org, new laws, roleplay etc etc, then start bringing people in again. A fresh start. They agreed and told me to do it (I'd expected they would do it or possess an NPC for it).
I was part of a city where the lead developer held an OOC town hall meeting with the citizens, discussing what they need to do and achieve to stay relevant. None of that was achieved and some time later (perhaps 12 real months, I forget) the city was nuked in a world event.
Especially if you aren't involving people outside the leadership in a overhaul of rp, legit I've seen so many leaders who have no concept of what their org/guild rp is. (I've had an admin think I was making stuff up when I relayed what a long time guild leader had said their guild rp was once.)
But, I feel like if the only answers being offered are "The admin will swoop in" then that's an issue. The admin step is damage control, it's after you've had a bunch of people kicked out (who likely, and rightly, probably don't have much interest in coming back).
Other structures have a step before that, where there are multiple leaders you may need confirmation from one or two other leaders to do things. Even in situations where you can use the command on your own, politics acts as a limiter given you need to work with the other leaders outside the mechanical stuff you're forced to.
Again, the suggestions provided are damage control, what's before that?
(also, town halls seem generally a fail, you only get the a lot of people that are still really invested but not many of the people that have left. So the complaints are potentially different, like the invested people might be focused on PVP issues and so the focus goes there but the people that have left were just incredibly bored with bashing and no one else being around. So you can end up focusing on the wrong issues.)
And really, there's a lot on us to make it work too, in the sense of being patient and letting the bugs and kinks get worked out.
I, for one, even though I plan on playing in the Ascendancy, look forward to seeing how the rest plays out.
The latest info release has instead changed the minds of at least some people excited for the Dominion and has them looking elsewhere. The latest civ poll has a total of one person voting for the Dominion at this point when it was previously beating the Ascendancy.
I'd also point out, your last sentence highlights the issue with this thread. It's overwhelmed by people who are not going to be personally impacted by this decision. It's nice that you're interested in seeing how much drama and frustration this might cause for other people, but like... I'm probably not signing up for it, afaik others have also been turned off the org.
If an org can't gather a sufficient amount of enthusiasm as we get closer to whenever release then it's likely dead in the water. No one in a thread talking about an org actually wanting to be in said org... pretty good indicator.
That you might play Song one day, ultimately, isn't relevant as this is all in reaction to what we currently know and, from your voting and posts, that has moved you in favour of the Ascendancy. For an org to flourish it needs dedicated players who are maining in that org, someone on a vacation doesn't help.
It just really visibly seems to have killed hype for the org (if only based on the poll). That hype might transfer to other orgs but that leaves the Dominion in a potentially bad starting position given how low pop can be a downward spiral that is hard to break.
Similarly, the "the admin will swoop in and fix it" carrot makes it sound like this is the sort of thing that would just happen. Lusternia has had players complain about stuff for years, guilds got to the point where they were a complaint for the majority of the existence of the game before they were overhauled a couple of years ago. So yeah, nah, I'm not really convinced on the whole "just try to make it work" thing,
If we're misunderstanding the admins intentions or some mechanical aspect of the system that allays these concerns then the admin are the only ones the can provide any meaningful information, no amount of potential players trying to address other potential players concerns is going to change much.
Only possible if there were too many cities to begin with.
A restart is different - still drastic but sometimes the only way. If someone is that pissed off at the admin-forced restart that they don't want to be part of the frest start, it's probably because they were part of the problem itself.
Generally, they (the admin) take as light a hand as possible when dealing with the situations. Hopefully they never come up, but if there is a toxic environment that is bad for the game they'll do whatever it takes to fix it. That can happen in any org, and any political system. If one of these 'new' political systems encourages bad behaviour/situations/environments, I'm sure they'll change that system.
Also your description of the Aetolian Ashtan sounds like an example of where the admin didn't get involved given the phrasing pretty significantly implying it was all up to the players.
To rephrase your section on the "restart", one clique that happened to be in charge at the time convinced the admin that they were the right ones to reinvent the org.
Seemingly without notice nor potentially the involvement of players representing interest in other aspects of the org, they recreated the org to suit themselves and declared that those who weren't happy with their work were the bane of the org (as opposed to you know... people who liked aspects you didn't).
Like... this seems like the sort of thing people are worried might happen in the Dominion.
Right now, all you're really doing is exacerbating concerns not allaying them. Had the "restart" you talked about happened in Serenwilde, half the org would have been alienated regardless of which group actually did it.
The other restart I mentioned worked well in that situation and at that time. That the city patrons agreed and said to go ahead probably means that they had similar plans on the table and for whatever reason were happy for it to go ahead in role, driven by players.
Obviously, a similar solution would not have worked for your Serenwilde example. I'm unfamiliar with the org or its past problems, but my point is that whatever problems occur in an org at a particular instance will always require a unique, tailored response (if any).
Just... trust in the game admin. They've been doing this for a long time. They know all of the examples we're giving, and probably several dozen more we're not. They'll know the solutions that failed, that worked, the ones that angered lots of players and the ones that did not.
My examples weren't about saying 'hey, they did this so it will be okay'. It was all to point out that they try to give orgs space to sort themselves out, they try to help where they can, and if it truly is beyond recovery they'll do something drastic. They also have many past experiences to draw on.
Just expanding: Yeah, the Song Dominion isn't what I expected. It's so different from what I expected that I won't be playing there at this time, but it was also one of the things that was really attracting me to the game.
I'm not greatly interested in either of the other orgs, which in turn would negatively impact my desire to play if I forced myself into one of them.
All you're really achieving is magnifying the frustration of this situation, you're highlighting all the painful as F stuff that has happened in other orgs across the games, and really pushing towards the question of "Why bother investing my time or money"
EDIT: As far as I've seen the admin haven't actually commented on any of these concerns yet, mixed with the lack of visible hype for the org this may actually indicate the admin are having discussions on their side on how to fix it.
Basically, you're overreacting. That last piece of lore about Song turned you off? That's too bad, but rest assured others will pick up the challenge and you'll be missing out.
Scatterhome maintained it's position at number one with 50% of the participants, the Ascendancy improved slightly in theory as it now has half as many as Scatterhome. What you're actually suggesting is that for some reason the people interested in the Dominion were more likely to drop off in forum participation.
It's also not just based on the poll numbers, it's based on comments from others I've seen, however, you can also see from avatars how some people have shifted around between the polls.
In theory if with your assertion about it being like Mhaldor/Mag/SSG, that shifting should have also included players shifting from the other orgs towards Dominion, rather than the reality that players have only visibly moved away from it. (There's three people I can see that voted in both polls voting SD first and elsewhere in the second)
Like... come on, let's be honest, we haven't even had sockpuppet accounts turn up to say "I'm maining in SD" in this thread.
As for the "the challenge" I'll be "missing out" on. Playing an org shouldn't be a "challenge", your org should be a place that you play because it's fun, that's a selling point for a game. Not forcing yourself to do stuff you're not interested in/don't enjoy so a system functions.
So take your Eleusis, Serenwilde, Elvandar and mash your Mhaldor, Magnagora, Sar-Sargoth into them and see how many players from either group want to play in the result?
1) About polls, all I'm saying is that you cannot rely on them to have an exact impression because they do not include all players. Basing your opinion on them is just jumping to conclusions, pure and simple.
2) About people shifting around between the polls, like I said, people change their minds. They changed once, they might change again. Nothing dramatic about it.
3) About the challenge comment, not what I meant at all. The challenge referred to is to bring your org to the top position. All org have that challenge, none escapes it.
Again, if you feel the Song Dominion is not for you, that's too bad, I'm sure you'll find your place somewhere else.
Just don't make it sound like SD will be empty as a desert, it won't be.
2) Yes, people change their minds. That why when you're checking things out you look at the differences between the sets of results and what could cause such. If the SD hadn't moved from second position to only having one vote, it would be a different situation. Heck if the one person who voted SD wasn't someone who voted for it previously it'd potentially be different.
3) What you're now saying was your intention makes no real sense in the context of this thread. i.e That the political system in the SD seems like it will make it pretty easy for crappy things to happen in the org, stuff we know players will do to each other cause it's happened elsewhere. And that that along with other info in the release appears to have caused a pretty big drop in stated interest for the org (only not complete cause one person is still voting for it).
If the concerns play out, the "challenge" would be being functional in the first place.
As far as playing somewhere else, probably not. I'm the type that invests heavily in one character and I tend to abandon characters when they're secondary choices, so again it's potentially more at a stage of whether or not I'd play at all.
And with making it "sound like the SD will be empty".
The release has been out for a month, this thread has been going for over a week, this is the sort of thread you would expect people interested in the org would be dropping their thoughts into but doesn't seem to be happening. You can easily find a bunch of posts from people looking forward to the Ascendancy and Scatterhome, the poll demonstrates obvious enthusiasm for them, the same just doesn't seem to be there for SD.
On another note I'd say the popularity of Scatterhome is probably a combination of a renegade population that you can either get heavily into that RP or you can essentially play as a rogue while being part of an org. Participation is more optional, that is.
Regarding the popularity of Scatterhome, it's certainly not unexpected but that also means that the other orgs need to be just as attractive to prospective players, if not more so, cause yeah Scatterhome also likely gets the ones that don't want to deal with the orgs politics/rp stuff.
There are many ways to play the game and approach social interaction in it. Starting in the slums and working your way up if you can amass wealth and influence--this is a compelling system for the Celestines, as is their business-savvy, "we are the 1%" sort of RP at the top. But my first impression of that one was that this might be too much work and I do not want to be stuck at the bottom if I don't put in the hours.
For the Song, I saw a very green and natural city on an inhospitable planet and pictured a united population, supportive and encouraging of each other because of their shared adversity. I guess I pictured it like a tree-hugger org. For these games, I sometimes favor the org that is welcoming, friendly, easy to get into. This is not what everybody wants, nor is it what I always want. But sometimes I just want things to be simple and cooperative.
When the lore of these places came out, they kinda did a switch in my head. Now the Celestines seem more united and helpful. Song seems militaristic and with clear abuses of power.
I think all the orgs will attract players to them, especially because many see things differently than me. But maybe one thing to consider is how alienated segments of the population will immediately be due to the polarizing nature of the factions. I think ultimately that is why I have favored Scatterhome from the start (well, that and also that it's the human city... and an asteroid city sounds dope). I just want to explore and hang out everywhere at first, and get to know the different characters in the game without swearing my allegiance to one side and enemying the other. I want to contribute to making this all feel inclusive, and it feels that Scatterhome might be the only place that provides that, ironically enough.
I'd imagined the Ascendancy would have started you in the middle class though. Like, owning a ship seems a massive sign of freedom and capability to generate wealth for yourself that the lower class probably wouldn't be able to access.