The Hydlaa Octarch has died!

[Under the moon]

Originally posted by Sarrow
Whose to say that the same desease wont kill the next octarch?

It will. Remember, the \'Wipe\' (plague) is coming. It will kill us all.

@ Buddha> I don\'t think it is such a great problem. Many people will rise to the challenge just to be named \'The Leader\', even if it means nothing. I my mind, the experience is worth the trouble. Think of all the strategy game you have played. When you come to the end, what, really, did you accomplish? I see this the same way.

[buddha]

After thousands and thousands of hours of Diablo, I had a really cool bow!

No, you have a good point.  I just think that the espionage factor would go waaaay up if people really had something to fight over.  But, thinking about it, we could do that culturally.  So long as everyone agrees to \"obey\" the mayor or whomever, the title would be worth something.

Given that, I still like the \"always accept guild war\" idea to open yourself up to assassination.

Further, I think this could be implemented immediately.  All we need is someone who is willing to put in the effort to become the first target, I mean, um, mayor.  If we place the little fiefdom somewhere away from the \"l33ters\" we would have a chance of making it work.  I\'d participate, for sure.

In fact, we could begin by a massive Capture the Flag to see which of two factions gets to inaugaurate the office.

[Under the moon]

*takes the stick*

Agreed. Well, what I was thinking was that the guilds could put forth hopefuls (or puppets) from their own ranks. Any guild that did so would agree to somewhat obey the new Octarch and his/her/kran council, helping to enforce any reasonable rules they write (not likely, but a man can dream) That would provide the carat you ask for.

So, if the guilds would agree to this, they would be granted the right to nominate a member. The ones that don\'t would not be allowed a vote, and would be left out to do their own thing.

Once members were nominated, and after a round of brief \'why you should vote for our member\' statements, maybe in a single specific thread, the guilds and community would vote. Not for the Octarch, but for who will become the councle. One of the councle would then be made Octarch after much more campaigning and goodnatured (ya right) mudslinging. The vote could come from three dirrections. Popular vote ingame, guild vote, and counsel vote. Then a fiesta!

This plan has many holes in it, I know, but the ball needs to start somewhere.

*added*On assassination attempts, there would have to be some further rules besides just auto-accept. I don\'t like the idea of any lowlife leeter walking right through guards to kill the leader. First off, an assassin would have to have auto-accept on. Then I think he should have to do something like roll a die to see if he took the Octarch and guards unawares. Of course, OOC, this would alert the Octarch and anyone around that an attempt was being made. IC, however, would rely on the outcome of the roll. Higher number= less chance of discovery. Lower number= not a good day for Mr. Assasin. This would depend partialy on good RP and the honor system.

But first, an Octarch would need to be elected, or all points are...pointless.

*hands the stick off*

[buddha]

I\'ve thought of the technical bit.  If you have \"guild war always on\" then you can decline any duel.   Thus, no flunkee would be able to challenge without taking on ALL the guards.  If you declare war on a guild, I believe you are at risk from every member.

It doesn\'t make sense for the King or whomever to fight his own battles, so setting accept duels: never would be best.  Let the guards do that.

As far as sneaking up... Well, that\'s what guards are for.  If you can\'t afford a good bodyguard, another PC, then you shouldn\'t be the leader.  Get someone to be your right hand man.

Once more, I don\'t think we need to have a democracy.  Let a warlord reign.  What\'s wrong with some thugs running the town for a while?  Why do we need an elelction?  Fundamentally, we are in anarchy.  Whomever stands up and shouts \"I am in charge\" is, well, sort of in charge.  I nominate you UTM!  Declare yourself sovereign.  I will follow.

If you want someone everyone will respect, let potential leaders appoint champions.  The wealthier ones will have better equipment and be able to hire stronger knights.  This creates a market.  How cool is that?

[Scribe]

Why not have both the warlord and democracy system?

I\'m a little new here, so I hope you don\'t mind me poking me head in.  I\'m intrigued by this game, and I love the idea of a democratic election system.  It is interesting that the players themselves could cooperate and pull it off.  There are two large problems with the idea, however:

1.  Cooperation on such a level is more than unlikely, which leads to many forseeable problems, the most prominent being that the entire process is  likely to devolve into a bitter contest of bickering and butt kissing, with an end result of only the victor being happy.
2.  More importantly, direct politics are boring.  People play games, in part, to escape from boring reality contructs such as jobs and politics, and a simple voting machine lacks any sense of adventure or escapism.

On the other hand, the warlord option is sound in the aspect that good players should be rewarded, but it is as fallible as the direct election.  Anyone who has played other online mmorpgs should already be aware that the player with the highest score isn\'t necessarily a good leader, and that is often the kindest thing that can be said about many players with high scores.

I think a decent compromise would be a contest system in which the player who contributes the most to the coffers of Hydlaa, during a certain period, such as festival week, would be declared Octarch.  The money could be used to help maintain, protect, and expand the community.  Money isn\'t the only option however.  Perhaps Hydlaa is under attack by (creatures) and the player who contributes the most (items looted from creatures as proof of kill) could be proclaimed leader.  A simple NPC script (give X item to Y npc) could facilitate the entire process.

I think this compromise is a middle ground of both politics AND skill. Guilds would be forced to cooperate, electing and promoting candidates internally, to have any chance of success.  But it also adds to gameplay, as players petitioning for the position of assisting other candidates must actively participate by questing to have any chance for access.  In theory, it would also guarantee that the eventual winner would be both a good player and politician.

warm regards,
~Scribe

[Under the moon]

*all right, who took the stick, give it up*

I\'m sure warlording would be fun and all, but the government page on the main site points to a more civilized approach. *edit* Unless of course we had a little revolution?

On another note. Me? In charge? A warlord? 8o I think not. I\'m a writer and thinker. And the character I would have to put forth would be Arnigus Faymore (not Aeden Shalcoen, he has no intrest in politics). Do a little forum search on him. Look at the \'Sheeple\' thread in the guilds forum. Then see if you if you would kneel to him.

Besides, I think more people would follow someone they had a hand in giving power, as opposed to someone who took it.

*sees someone run off with the stick*

Hey! bring that back!

[Zan]

I still say that whoever can dominate the economy will have the power of the masses.

Say we hold simple elections .. wait .. this might not be so simple. First off will there be a right to vote or an obligation to vote? If it \'s the latter we need demographics, we need records of all people in Yliakum. And will players only have one character voting or all characters? That  goes along with a great heap of paperwork and enormous work. So I suggest we keep it at a right to vote but nobody has to. Of course this risks there will be unfair results since only a handful of people voted. But alas ...

Now we only need volunteers to collect the votes at specific locations .. people go see them and whisper them their vote. They note it down, write down the person that voted and share it with their collegues so that person can\'t vote twice. Remains fairly simple aside from the fact that you will never get everyone to vote.

Back to the candidates now and why I think the kapitalists will win the election. Suppose a rich noble runs against a warlord. The warlord will go around scaring people into voting for him, while the noble will bribe people, hand out free weaponry to the newbies in exchange for popularity and voting, give a mage a new glyph, ... He will most definitely defeat any warlord since there is nothing to fear from warlords except being annoyed by a gazillion challenges to refuse.

There could be one threat to the previously mentioned rich blueblood. That would be a very charismatic person, someone whom everyone knows, someone who helps out where he can, contributes to the world and someone who is always there for you and always cheerful. Now that person has a small chance of gaining more votes than bribery could but I still doubt it since if you have money it is so much more easy to gain the love of the people. We are all materialistic people .. even in a pixellated universe.

[Phinehas]

I think the warlord idea is interesting, but unnecessary as we have a guild system. To a large extent, each guild leader is a warlord, and each guild is his \"horde\".

Anyway, I\'d be very interested in this idea, Under. As for voting, it could be done by /tells with just the name of the person you vote for.

Let me know when you\'re ready to run it. I have a nominee.

[Kaseijin]

buddha, you speak as if murder is the only or most important part of politics, despite what current state of the world might lead you to believe, it\'s not.

In addition i don\'t think it\'s even the most entertaining part of it, i think it\'s lying and bs-ing. I think creating a political scene would be benifical for many reasons.
Each candidate should have a point of view, besides \"I am the best, pick me\". It\'s been said Hydlaa is a more civilized place so such caveman politics shouldn\'t work.
Now each voter who supports a candidate supports his/her ideas. This adds to the voter\'s character depth.
It would provide material for tavern chats which now usually revolve about mining, killing or at best map making.
Basically like economy politics would add a little \'meat\' to the planeshift universe.

Now you might argue that politics will cause nothing but trouble and hostiliy. YOu might be right there.

[Madcrimson]

I find all this election thingy very funny

*stumbles over some stange stick in picks it up*

Sticks... well sticks are quite an inspiration when it comes to ruling, aren\'t they?
Let me put down a few thoughts....

* Ethologists[1] say that up to a group size of about 160 no formal organisation is needed because humans (or races with a similar intelect) are able to organise the social system of relations well in such groups.

* If groups grow larger they seperate into subgroups (guilds, clans etc) which split the to-large group into manageable chunks.

* When more than one group is present the groups need some kind of representative fo group-group interaction. How this representative is chosen i group specific.

* When groups join into a larger conclomerate (like an alliance, a state etc.) they need some kind of government to organize all interaction.

So when do we need an octarch?
Of course when the population of PS demands for such an elevated position.

How is the octarch elected
This question can and should only be answered, when the groups that need to be organized are present. At that point the groups should have choosen representatives wihtin themselfes and those in turn should discuss how to choose an octarch.

But of course all this organisation and government and interaction will only be demanded for when there is any use for it! Why should we organize if the city is allwways there any anything can be accomplished by a small group?
The need for government occures when there are larger goals to go for. When large accomplishments like a temple need an upkeep, when the city needs to be sustained or detoriates otherwise.

So if you want the players of a game to develop some kind of government let buildings decay.
I wrote a lot more about such a game down but it\'s german. If somebody is interested in reading more about a self organizing city concept, tell me. I\'ll make the texts available.[2]

MC.

Footnotes:
[1] Very smart people who tell us hwo we behave and why we do so.

[2] Its written down in a wiki on the home server of a friend. The wiki is not running ATM.

[buddha]

Fundamentally, organisation will grow if there is some driving need.  I feel that right now there is no driving need for leadership, though it would be great for RPing.

Historically, the production of food has been an organising force.  Agrarians started the notion of taxation and public employees in Eridu in ancient Iraq.

We in PS have no need to produce food.  We have no outside enemy trying (in an organised way) to destroy us.  We have no economy.  We have no urban decay. We have no trade negotiations.

I think that a leadership structure will appear once there is need for one.  I would support artificially installing one for the sake of RP, but it will change if a real necessity ever emerges.

Perhaps we could entertain ourselves with this question: Why do we need an Octarch?  What purpose would he fill?  I know the PS history says he exists, but there needs to be some stronger driving force if the position is to mean something.

Now I am beginning to sound like a nay-sayer.  Sorry.

[Phinehas]

I\'d honestly have to say that there are many things that an octarch could do, but he\'d have to have the power to enforce them, and he won\'t. That\'s the main problem.

I think, though, that Under\'s point is that he\'s not trying to fill a need of some kind, he\'s just trying to have fun RPing, and to that end, I\'m with him all the way.

[Kiva]

Just a serious note.

As long as this is just a look-good kind of image, for fun thing, it\'s okay, but if you start demanding that this person becomes someone of importance, I\'ll have to say no-no, as that is nothing for the masses to decide. The masses have no clue what they want, and trust me, you don\'t. I know that. Besides, a fulltime event manager requires someone who\'s part of the settings team to spend time on arranging ingame things once in a while, not just someone who thinks it\'s fun to \"MAKE A RAID ZOMG KILL KILL KILL!!!!!!11one\". If that kind of stuff is wanted, the GMs will just be given lvl9 access instantly.


As for the topic:

Xordan - you\'d never get my vote, even if you paid me!

As for the guild leader suggestion, well... No. Bad idea. Why, you ask? Heh, think about it and you\'ll realize it sooner or later.

Building an organization, like buddha and probably some other people suggested, is much more convenient. Then it won\'t be a single person who is responsible for boring and pointless events, but a lot of people, and that means there will be more people to make fun of when it flops because they don\'t know when to stop.

[Under the moon]

Just for fun, Kiva my dear. And nothing permanent.

------------

All right, I\'ve decided to start working on a plan to do this thing. I should have a basic workable outline of my previous idea by this weekend (sorry, no warlords, unless you elect one). So I guess I\'m in charge of this thing until someone smarter takes over.

Preemptive answer: Why my idea? Because I\'m the one going against the flow and challenging the structure of the game. The ban sign will go around my neck if the winds turn wrong.

If anyone would like to help plan my little rebellion give me a PM, and we\'ll work out some ideas (or just post your ideas here). Take note that I am not very net savvy, though, so you won\'t see any web pages or forums from me.

[Zan]

I have one question if you don\'t mind me asking ...

When will these be elections taking place?

It \'d be handy to know the final deadline for all of this and I suggest giving people ample time to start looking forward to it and of course to let candidates run their campaigns.