Darian Darkmind wrote:Instead of seeing only the possible bad scenarios in it, think about what needs to be changed to prevent and fix it. And like I said, what stops that from happening even with the current draft?
The current draft doesn't allow towns to change allegience based on popular vote. And imho the two possibilities of preventing and fixing what I described are
1) 1 char per account
2) making it not possible to change allegiance with voting
Obviously, option 2 is the possible one.
Also remember that in order to vote you need to register as a citizen. If the mayor of Britain saw Darian Darkmind, Xaeron Rosak and Marius Do'Brim as a citizen, he might think something fishy is going on and kick at least Darian and Xaeron out - because both are known criminals. Same thing if an Imperial town is suddenly filled with Law members. So yes, in theory it is possible, but if you have an active mayor he can watch that the monthly votes are at least some-what fair and not fixed.
Yes, if we go citizens with our criminal/religion chars. BUT if we just go there as alts, on what basis should the mayor kick them out? Cause they have alts in Imp or alts in Law? Cool metagaming!
I know, even with an active mayor I could still have few unknown alts affecting the vote, but that's far from 5 characters and 5 votes. Not to mention, you as a Law member will most likely also "abuse" it and cast 5 votes, one from all your characters to a certain player. So it works both ways.
Yes, abuse from every side, so it's just better not to implement it at all, than just say "both sides can abuse it, so it's ok".
If you're still afraid of the abuse, one way is to make the votes account and house based. You can only vote once per house owned in a town. So if you have five characters, all citizens of Britain, but only one house, you can only cast one vote. In order to vote five times you need five houses in Britain. Or if you have one house in Britain and two in Moonglow, you have one vote in Britain and two in Moonglow - should two of your characters be citizens of that town. I also think the votes should go by the house value so the bigger the house, more valuable your vote is. So one big house equals to multiple small houses. In fact, just like you think we would abuse it, to prevent abuse from Law's side I think account and house/housevalue bound system is a must.
But it still wouldn't change anything in the big picture. Who cares if it's everyone getting 5 votes or everyone getting 1 vote? Still exactly the same outcome, wouldn't it? The problem with your idea as I see it is that it would encourage people to vote based on their OOC preferences or whatever (i.e, metaaaaa). Why the heck would some random merchant or someone buy a house in Trinsic, then vote it to go to Imp, for example? Works vice-versa also, of course. But as I said, this idea would PROBABLY (not definitely) cause lots of metagaming. Yes, it could, at least on paper, cause great RP, but you know what the players are like.
EDIT: The original draft is cool, I just oppose Darian's idea here. Also agree that perhaps merchants could get some buyable perk from it, not sure what kind though, as the arcane and combat advantage only apply for PvP.
EDIT2: I think the current unpaid taxes should be wiped before this gets implemented, as right now some people probably have millions of unpaid taxes
