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Re-open Per Character Voting, but...

Pandora_CoD

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... lock it down to one shard per account.

Folks should be able to vote on all their characters, especially since different characters have different city origins.

The problem is more about the buying of votes from players of other shards in return for votes on theirs. Most folks with one account have one server they consider their home. That's where they should focus.

The inability of my various characters to vote on different cities is completely stifling my role play in this political system. And I think the majority of folks would agree that the character lock-out is really limiting.

Thoughts?
 

Riyana

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I agree. One vote per shard pretty much guarantees that people will cross shard votes. Better to allow voting on just one shard, but for all characters.

As it stands now, people are having to decide which friend to vote for, and I know that some players (not on my shard to my knowledge, but on others) have dropped out completely rather than compete with their friends for the single account vote even though they would have run in a different city. And indeed, each character may well have his/her own city and rp backstory in different cities.

You shouldn't be able to run for governor more than once per account (per term), and you shouldn't be able to vote except on a single shard--the one you ran on if you ran.

I know people play multiple shards, but each shard's community is pretty distinctive and having other shards influence so heavily isn't right. As it is, cross shard voting is likely to be a greater influence on individual elections than the shard's home population.
 
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Pandora_CoD

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I do not think that governors should be locked to 1 term only for the LIFE OF THEIR ACCOUNT, that's just going to end up in no one being able to run at some point. But I would not be opposed to having a 3 term limit per year, let's say. Or just 3 on and then you cannot run a 4th time... timer resets after that. I wouldn't mind that one bit.

The cross shard voting has gotten out of control. No joke! Now its been reduced to a popularity contest. Lock that down, Devs!
 

Kyronix

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... lock it down to one shard per account.

Folks should be able to vote on all their characters, especially since different characters have different city origins.

The problem is more about the buying of votes from players of other shards in return for votes on theirs. Most folks with one account have one server they consider their home. That's where they should focus.

The inability of my various characters to vote on different cities is completely stifling my role play in this political system. And I think the majority of folks would agree that the character lock-out is really limiting.

Thoughts?
This would require an external database to manage voting much in the way housing works. Is it impossible? No, but given what is currently on our plate this is not something likely to be implemented any time soon.
 

Pandora_CoD

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Okay, then just re-open per character voting, like it was originally. Its been made worse by the restrictions... almost completely promoting cross-shard vote buying.
 

Riyana

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I do not think that governors should be locked to 1 term only for the LIFE OF THEIR ACCOUNT, that's just going to end up in no one being able to run at some point. But I would not be opposed to having a 3 term limit per year, let's say. Or just 3 on and then you cannot run a 4th time... timer resets after that. I wouldn't mind that one bit.

The cross shard voting has gotten out of control. No joke! Now its been reduced to a popularity contest. Lock that down, Devs!
Oh, no no, I didn't mean per life!!! I mean per term! I don't think one person should run in multiple cities OR shards at the same time. Sorry if I worded poorly.
 

Riyana

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Okay, then just re-open per character voting, like it was originally. Its been made worse by the restrictions... almost completely promoting cross-shard vote buying.
The 'respected' restriction is fine I think. But the shard restriction, as you say, is making other shards have more say than the home shard population in elections.
 

Riyana

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This would require an external database to manage voting much in the way housing works. Is it impossible? No, but given what is currently on our plate this is not something likely to be implemented any time soon.
Hmmm... would putting a limit on total votes per account pose the same problem? Let each account have, say, 7 votes to be spent on any shard?
 

Dot_Warner

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Without the database that Kyronix mentioned, there is no way to limit votes to a per shard basis. And, honestly, I think that will only cause more of a problem at this point. The original way it worked was just fine, 7 votes per shard that were each in a different city. It was a hassle for the player, but that acted as a minor limiting factor to how many people would bother doing it all 7 times. It did benefit organized groups, but that's not technically a bad thing.

If there were to be a limit placed on who can vote, it should be made that only characters 60 days or older can vote (or better yet, an account that is 60 days or older). This will help deter people from opening up an account JUST to skew an election, then shutting it down. I think it should be 60 days simply because most people won't want to waste the money just to vote, 30 days would be too cheap. An account should have to be active for 30 days prior to an election to vote as well, regardless of its overall age.

As antidemocratic as it is, vote buying can't be stopped in an online game, its simply not possible. Unless something omniscient ran the elections, we're stuck with it. Its hard enough to prove in the real world.

Vote trading is definitely less scummy and it is also something that we can't combat for the same reasons. Personally, I'm also not really against it. Most RP groups just don't field the numbers the non-RP people do. Unless we accept the fact that the "Governor of X" tile will be just another vanity title, we have to fight to keep the system RP centric. While I know there are non-RPers out there who have good ideas, do we really want to let the system devolve into "lolz" and txt speech? Elitist, I know...and I hate RP elitism. :confused:
 

Bianca_CoD

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Well now knowing the database limitation there, I would say that you revert it back to how it was originally and allow all characters on an account to vote as they see fit. My RBG character August is from Skara Brae and would love to vote there, but because I am running for re-election as Gov. of Minoc on my other character Ariana, I am denied the right to vote in Skara or to vote for Pandora on Bianca (my CoD character). That's unfair and very limiting to my role play on those characters.

~ Sue.
 
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