Proposed Governor Vote System Change
Quite simply you should be allowed to vote only one shard. Either once per character or once per account, but either way you should only be allowed to vote on one shard.
The current system only encourages candidates to get votes from off-shard. Which of course means that most of the electorate has nothing to do with the shard where the voting occurs. As an alternative to cross-sharding votes, one could create endless new accounts, which is problematic in its own right.
The current system only encourages candidates to get votes from off-shard. Which of course means that most of the electorate has nothing to do with the shard where the voting occurs. As an alternative to cross-sharding votes, one could create endless new accounts, which is problematic in its own right.
Further, anyone who wants to win basically has to resort to these tactics or similar tactics.
Keeping things to one shard would technically not ensure cross-shard votes would not occur but it would mean that a vote on one shard would be a non-vote someplace else. The likely outcome would be that, in general, local elections would be kept, for the most part, local. And that makes sense.
Others have posted on this in previous years, I guess it's my turn this time -- if someone else did it this cycle, I missed it.
I wanted to post this before the elections are concluded to drive home the fact that my thoughts on this are unrelated to any particular outcome.
Comments
Given that they track the age of characters and accounts though, I think a character should need to have a minimum amount of time on a given shard to vote. One other safeguard might be to say require any such character also have at least 90 or 100 in a single skill, to discourage people from simply parking characters on different shards to gain age and doing nothing else with them.
That would be my solution so as not to alienate anyone who seriously plays in more than one place, while discouraging the described cross shard voting.
Please see the post above yours.
If not you still get a vote on a shard, if a vote on another shard is that important to you, you can ask a player that was not going to vote anyway to cast for that Governor.
Overall I think this pretty much sums it up. Aside from setting the town buff, I'm not sure what else the average governor does. I haven't seen a governor sponsored event (using an EM) in years. I've only seen the New Mag net toss happen by the governor, but TBH you don't have to be in office to run a public net toss (or any public event). At this point, being governor just seems like an additional title to have.
Voting mechanics should be left alone. Each account should be able to vote once on each shard.
i know a lot of people with 40-50 accs that help people on election, I mean, guarantee win
So basically an endorsement for buying elections and super-PACs via an MMORPG.... interesting.
Perhaps one day The Avatar Of Virtue will return to Brittania and set all this right!
All that aside, is there any benefit to actually becoming a gubbernor?
I mean, they put in all this work to log in with their gazillion accounts and get people from the actual shard they play on to come over to the shard they don't play on and vote for them to be a governor so they can get a title and do nothing. That is what I have an issue with. If you can get people to do this, why can't you get them to stay on that shard and play and make shards other than Atlantic more vibrant? *shakes head*
I think the goal was to get people on each shard who actually had like a group that they play with to get them elected and then parlay that into more shard participation with other groups. In some cases, they already do it but in other cases, like I mentioned above, they seem to just do it for a title, because they don't play on the shard, they don't care about participation and they certainly don't put any time or thought into RP or player run events.
Governor of Moonglow
Discord: txeggplant
maithceol@gmail.com
for
Treasure Hunters
There is nothing wrong with this. I have 30+ accounts. They are all paid for monthly. I deserve the right to vote all of those accounts as I see fit.
John from Tipton says he agrees
Leslie from Southbank says she disagrees
well now we have a balanced opinion…”
I further repeat that voting mechanics should be left alone and don't require any of the changes discussed herein.
(just to re-iterate, I have no personal interest in this topic)”
Other than drama in some election cycles, the current method has been working. Cities that have candidates have Governors.
^^^ This.
It's not a broken system. No changes are required. Current system creates opportunities for some cross shard wheeling and dealing... alliances, if you will. Forces players to go outside one big guild on one shard to win a competitive race. The current suggestions would eliminate that. Cross shard relationship building is a positive and should be encouraged.
That has not happened yet.
Our guild on LS is able to have most of the Gov seats on LS. We just want to make sure the Govs go to the meetings and all the wanted buffs are available somewhere.
I understand your point, but I don't know if its an apples to apples comparison in the context of the Governor elections. Big guilds can dominate the Governorships if they're coordinated. UWF had five seats on Atlantic last cycle. I would guess that on some of the less populated shards, other guilds have had more then that. I think the Castle voting process is a bit more messy (i.e., list is too long, you have to visit each house to know what they are, it's all done on Test Center), but that's another topic altogether.
Does being a governor allow you to have EM like abilities to run events (ie place decorations that cannot be picked up and create a prize) or are they just like every other player run event? My understanding is that it's the latter (I believe it was once a colab with EMs but has long since stopped?).
I think that is all.