Citizenship, Settlements, Elections

[Dreams]

Feedback: Players have multiple characters and end up being able to vote in every settlement by logging into their character for that settlement. This is unfair.

It would be more fair if each player was only able to vote once per IG year. Tie this into a CD key in the same way that it is currently tied into characters when considering eligibility to vote. Consider it similar to the ruling about one quarter per player.

For example in the proposed change, Player A has Character 1 in Myon and Character 2 in Brogendenstein. Both elections come on at once, Player A can choose to vote with Character 1 in Myon, or Character 2 in Brogendenstein. Not both. Nor can they vote in another election until 1 IG year has passed.

[Petrifictus]

I agree with this feedback.
+1

[kiljaedon]

I think it goes worse than this. We need to maybe start looking at using ip info for limiters. There are plenty of people with multiple cd keys. It is so easy to swap between keys to bypass the rules of owning one home/quarter and shop.

[Lady Astray]

In my opinion we also need to stop characters from being able to register for citizenship in multiple settlements if we want to stop this sort of behavior. An IG year isn't that long and right now it's easy for a single character to register as a citizen in every settlement and always be able to vote for their OOC buddies whenever an election comes up. Voting is a privilege that should be restricted to the characters who actually live in that settlement. Foreigners who obviously don't have that settlement's best interests at heart shouldn't be allowed to walk in and vote just because they gave some NPC 10k gold a little over a month ago.

To give a real world example, the US doesn't let Canadians and Norwegians show up and vote for president. They sure as heck aren't letting Russians vote. But someone who lives in Sibayad can show up and vote in Myon, someone from Brogdenstein can walk into Cordor and vote, someone from Bendir can walk into Guldorand and vote. This ends up being used as a way to sabotage or take over other settlements that makes little sense from an RP perspective and causes resentment between groups of players.

Of course, the main argument against this is that players don't want to lose access to having storage space in multiple settlements. This could be solved by simply expanding settlement storage to something like 20 or 24 items instead of just 12. If a character has a storage space of 24 items in one settlement instead of 12 items in five different settlements it would actually use less memory. So I see no reason why this shouldn't be implemented. Unless of course you think election stealing and aggressive OOC settlement PVP is healthy for the server's community. I for one am hesitant to even invest myself in a settlement because I know it's only a matter of time before a large group of foreigners move in, elect a new leader, and evict all the previous townfolks from their homes and shops.

[Nitro]

How are you going to classify a foreigner? Someone who owns property outside of where they're a citizen? The available properties in every settlement are extremely limited, so it's a given a large portion of the voter base can't secure a quarter there. 1 IG year of cooldown on voting after switching your citizenship is reasonable, it means you can't gangrush elections out of nowhere with established characters but instead have to join over a RL month ahead of time if you want to partake in the next election.

Foreigners who obviously don't have that settlement's best interests at heart shouldn't be allowed to walk in and vote just because they gave some NPC 10k gold a little over a month ago.

And this comment strikes me as especially odd. I don't think I've ever in Areliths history seen a group take over a settlement with the explicit OOC goal of driving it into the ground. Just because someone wants to vote against the current leadership of a settlement doesn't mean they don't want to do good for the settlement, that line of thinking is dangerous because it implies a degree of being able to separate the characters running a settlement at the moment from the settlement in general. No one on Arelith can lay absolute claim to any settlement because that's not how Arelith settlements work. They're not designed for one group to get total control of it for all time and that's a good thing.

On the OP's points, I agree entirely. Voting should absolutely be tied to CD key, one person having a vote in every election sounds extremely unhealthy for the server. If it was restricted to once per IG year it has the same cooldown as changing citizenship so someone with several active characters would have to choose which elections they care the most about.

[Dreams]

To give a real world example, the US doesn't let Canadians and Norwegians show up and vote for president. They sure as heck aren't letting Russians vote.

This example isn't really helping your argument. Once those Canadians, Norwegians and Russians have become US Citizens, they are able to vote. Citizenship gives you voting rights. Same thing on Arelith.

The rest was actually really well answered above.

[Memelord]

In my opinion we also need to stop characters from being able to register for citizenship in multiple settlements if we want to stop this sort of behavior. An IG year isn't that long and right now it's easy for a single character to register as a citizen in every settlement and always be able to vote for their OOC buddies whenever an election comes up.

Characters cannot register for citizenship in multiple settlements. Players can. Characters are limited to a single settlement and (if it is not the FIRST TIME they've registered for citizenship ANYWHERE) are locked out of voting for 1 IG year after purchasing citizenship. There is no genuine concern about settlements sending some of their people to vote in other elections because there isn't a single settlement on Arelith (no, not even Brogendenstein) which has enough dedicated manpower to be able to do so in any meaningful fashion without leaving themselves wide open to having their own elections be sniped out from under them by some outlier party - or by Harper opposition (because when the Harpers can all get together and decide you don't deserve to be in office anymore, you lose. Period. Full stop.)

So that's not the issue at hand. Characters are effectively tied to a single settlement. The issue is that Bob McAnonymous can be playing a dwarf in Brogendenstein, but then also have a character in Guldorand who he only ever logs on to ensure Brog's allies stay in power there, or an elf in Myon who he only ever logs on a week before the election to justify voting there. That's the problem that's plaguing the settlement system, presently, and it is something that actually happens.

[Durvayas]

And this comment strikes me as especially odd. I don't think I've ever in Areliths history seen a group take over a settlement with the explicit OOC goal of driving it into the ground. Just because someone wants to vote against the current leadership of a settlement doesn't mean they don't want to do good for the settlement, that line of thinking is dangerous because it implies a degree of being able to separate the characters running a settlement at the moment from the settlement in general. No one on Arelith can lay absolute claim to any settlement because that's not how Arelith settlements work. They're not designed for one group to get total control of it for all time and that's a good thing.

I'm not sure if you were around during the banite wars back in 2012-2013, but the above was absolutely standard fare. Voterushing and settlement account pillaging were a routine part of playing on the surface back then.

[Lady Astray]

I'm relieved to know the one settlement per character thing is already implemented. Thanks for correcting me on that. But yeah, the fact people are just using alts still needs fixed. I agree with the OP on that.

[Blood on my Lips]

Unless something has changed, I'm pretty sure players were restricted to one vote per CD key per game year.

[Astral]

I agree on most of the OP. It's that or locking every CD-key to 1 citizenship per settlement so you can only vote in same settlement once every elections and not 5 times with all your alts. Something needs to change, I think.

[DM Atropos]

Unless something has changed, I'm pretty sure players were restricted to one vote per CD key per game year.

This is only accurate per election. I.e. you can vote in Myon on one character and Brog on another so long as you only vote with one in each. HOWEVER. If we suspect vote tampering and we look and see your elf hasn't been active or only logged in and ran to vote without any RP prior to even let them know they should? You will receive a talking to, and should enough of that happen we can, will, and have done, recall the election.

[Subutai]

I think it goes worse than this. We need to maybe start looking at using ip info for limiters. There are plenty of people with multiple cd keys. It is so easy to swap between keys to bypass the rules of owning one home/quarter and shop.

This is entirely tangential, but I imagine if someone is already willing to A) buy multiple copies of the game, and B) use those multiple copies of the game to break the rules so severely, they would probably have absolutely no trouble in just getting a VPN to skirt IP restrictions.

[kiljaedon]

I think you underestimate a 4 dollar sale every few months and the levels some people will go already. When certain quarters have been owned literally by the same few people swapping hands around for years and the cheap and ease of buying many cd keys you underestimate what people will do.

And if it happens in order to trade major properties around I am sure it would also be abused for elections.

[Subutai]

I think you underestimate a 4 dollar sale every few months and the levels some people will go already. When certain quarters have been owned literally by the same few people swapping hands around for years and the cheap and ease of buying many cd keys you underestimate what people will do.

And if it happens in order to trade major properties around I am sure it would also be abused for elections.

I'm not saying it's not an issue. It absolutely is. I just don't think that an IP ban is necessarily going to fix it. A $5/month VPN is going to make it as easy to change IPs as buying another copy of the game is to change CD keys, and I don't think players who are already circumventing the rules by using multiple CD keys are any more likely to stop circumventing the rules just because now they're using IPs instead of CD keys.

If the DMs want to address this issue, it would need to be on a more thorough investigative level than just IP restrictions.

[Richørd]

This thread is ridiculous.

I myself have some bad faith at times against some people and will openly admit that. Bad experiences can sour all future interactions and it's hard to forget some stuff / totally brush aside all rumours you hear about player or character X.

But going so far as saying that people will have characters in their vault that they will only use to vote for their OOC buddies in case an election comes up? Saying that there needs to be more DM supervision and more investigations? Actually asking for a mechanic such as 1 vote per CD key each RL month? Making uninformed statements about things that have been long fixed already?

Holy damn, people. Now this could perhaps be the pinnacle of bad faith. At least from what I have seen so far since the launch of EE.

I might come off like the Wannabe Social Forum Crusader type right now but I'm surprised threads like this one even need to be created in the first place.
Y'all need some more Jesus. And milk.

[TimeAdept]

But going so far as saying that people will have characters in their vault that they will only use to vote for their OOC buddies in case an election comes up?

This has verifiably happened, though.

[Dreams]

But going so far as saying that people will have characters in their vault that they will only use to vote for their OOC buddies in case an election comes up? Saying that there needs to be more DM supervision and more investigations? Actually asking for a mechanic such as 1 vote per CD key each RL month? Making uninformed statements about things that have been long fixed already?

It does happen. Even with DM supervision and investigation, it still happens. The mechanic would prevent something like this from happening, without ever impacting those people who don't do silly things. What I have suggested in the OP hasn't been long fixed, which is why the feedback was needed in the first place.

[Richørd]

Alright. To the two posts before me.

What's your guess on how many out of a hundred active players actively commit such abuse of the system as you described it? 2? 5? Let's say it's an even 10.

Ten out of a hundred active players have vaulted characters with which they log in once a IC year to not loose their citizenship and then go vote for whoever they're OOC friends with.
The chances of these ten people turning the tide in an election is , as far as I can see from how many players Arelith has in total, super slim.

Now to "why do you care, that change won't even affect you if you don't abuse the system".
Oh, it absolutely affects me. Should I really get barred from voting with an Underdark character I have because my other character that I also actively play happens to have already voted in a surface settlement?
I don't see how that makes a whole lot of sense.
There's also the argument of chance one could make. What if elections get decided only due to the factor of people having already voted less than 1 RL month ago on another character and now they weren't able to vote on a different character they also play?
All of this seems way to convoluted to me and would just add further OOC pressure on IC mechanics.
There is already enough stuff that does not make a whole lot of sense when leading a settlement. Not being able to look up IC lists of registered citizens would be one of them. But imagine having trusted IC friends and allies that you ask to vote for them and they're just standing there, shrugging and unable to give you a real explanation for why they can't vote. All because of another OOC based system added.

There is the saying of how "a few rotten apples can spoil the bunch".
I don't think that saying has to be applied to everything in life.

[Nitro]

I think it's a lot more than 10 considering there were so many doing it in Cordor the DM's had to reset an entire election for it that one time.

[Dreams]

Should I really get barred from voting with an Underdark character I have because my other character that I also actively play happens to have already voted in a surface settlement?
I don't see how that makes a whole lot of sense.

It's the same as 'Should I really get barred from owning a quarter on an Underdark character I have because my other character that I also actively play happens to have already bought a quarter in a surface settlement?'

In my opinion, the answer to both is: Yes, because it will ensure the enjoyment and fairness of all players across the server. It limits the ability of a single player to influence (specifically by voting) in all settlements at once.

[Durvayas]

Alright. To the two posts before me.

What's your guess on how many out of a hundred active players actively commit such abuse of the system as you described it? 2? 5? Let's say it's an even 10.

Ten out of a hundred active players have vaulted characters with which they log in once a IC year to not loose their citizenship and then go vote for whoever they're OOC friends with.
The chances of these ten people turning the tide in an election is , as far as I can see from how many players Arelith has in total, super slim.

Its really not. Ten votes is the equivalent of a an entire midsize faction voting bloc, and each of those votes cancels out votes by people opposing them. It very much turns the tide of elections.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I think it's a lot more than 10 considering there were so many doing it in Cordor the DM's had to reset an entire election for it that one time.

I think this is probably a ways off the mark, and closer to the field would be that in the particular election where a public announcement was made those ten or so people probably happened to do so in an election that was close enough that it made the difference.

I intentionally kept my head down for that whole fiasco and can happily say I don't know a damn thing about what actually happened, though, so I'll admit your conjecture is as good as mine, albeit I find it leans on the cynical side.

I agree that this can (and very obviously has) happened, but from my perspective there are apparently systems in place to catch this kind of behavior already- since it was caught. It would be nice if the people who aren't abusing it weren't punished for it.

[Dreams]

I guess it's easy to be cynical about something after seeing it happen over and over.

However, this topic is more about the way to fix the specific problem of players who have a character in each settlement and log onto those characters to vote in multiple settlements.

Many of the other issues brought up in the thread have already been dealt with or are watched, but this is something that players are currently able to do.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

So, I was wrestling with the idea of making a post about this shortly after my brief stint as chancellor of Cordor, but I decided not to because some of the context leading in may have come across more hostile then I intended. This thread however gives me the perfect opportunity to lay out what I think are good suggestions for the system going forward

1) make citizenship free, give everyone citizenship in their starting location to start. If they leave citizenship of a settlement at any time, they can never regain it to stop people from switching back and forth. This will make election time more exciting then it currently is, as I was pretty much certain I was going to win my election despite being a character that was a god awful politician and really didn't know that many people. I just knew the right people. Having a bunch of new characters to deal with and try and persuade would make the elections a lot more competitive.

2) Start the election cycle a few days before the voting starts. Debates, campaigning, stuff like this is fun to do but completely irrelevant currently. Most votes apparently happen in the first 24 hours of the cycle, so once it triggers people tend to just decide. A smart mind would actually trigger it without anyone knowing it was time giving themselves a nice jump on the competition since they are the only person running. While I can certainly commend the political savviness of this move, it does seem unrealistic in the grand scheme of things.

3) Give the bannites and the KotRH more settlement perks, so they can deal with their own inhouse stuff instead of focusing on Cordor. This is a double edged sword of course, because you don't want to spread things too thin, but I'm assuming not all if any of these suggestions make it and both of these can represent a huge voting block in any town they decide to focus on if some of the other changes are not made.

4) Remove the Harpers ability to vote in any election, make them be citizens like everyone else. When I was new here and read that this was a thing, it was actually pretty cool in my mind because I thought that's a great way for the harpers to turn the tide of a close vote. Now I know better, and know that 8-10 votes can totally lopside an election, making them pretty much the power brokers of the entire server. Harpers are supposed to shun power, not revel in it. I could go on for hours on end about the harpers as a giant fan boy myself, but I will just leave it at they should have to work to be influential not just be the end all be all of political power on the server.

5) Make the terms two months instead of one. I realize that two months can seem like a lot if there is a deadbeat leader, but the dms can always step in if enough is enough. This may sound odd coming from a person that actually stepped down before my month was over, but hear me out. I would have stayed had I the time to rebuild my Ministry. I got in on the coat tails of others, but I had a bunch of ideas....I just didn't have the time to get to them because one silly argument lead to me being told my time was limited by someone with the power to make that true and there was no way to fix it as people just stopped logging in and two and a half weeks was not enough time to rebuild. So I gave up.

6) Make the elections one vote per cd key total in a month, so as to stop alts voting for their buddies when their main is a big part of another settlement. Yes there are still ways to get around this, but if they do this and get caught there is no question that they are just straight up cheating as opposed to the multitude of grey areas that can arise in the current system.

So, that's what I got. Overall, I would say the system is fun if flawed, but the flaws can be easily fixed.