Government System Feedback

[Vivian Fellows]

I love all the ideas except for the Town Criers. There's just too much room for abuse. It's bad enough I see all the other smack talk spam while trying to communicate in chat....

I really think it could be done in a way that doesn't become spam talk.

I myself have been running a character named Event Announcer to announce the events for several of our governors on Great Lakes. Because I know it annoys people to be spammed, I'll pick about two or three, thirty minute stretches a night during prime time where I'll have him do an event announcement every five or so minutes. So far I think it has played a large part in increasing the attendance to several of the shard's events as well as spreading the word on where to find news on upcoming events. I've even had some players from outside the governor or rp player pool ask me to announce their events. So it's clearly popular. The only drawbacks are that I of course had a jerk from a guild I wont name, but most GL people will figure, call a GM on me claiming I was impersonating a member of EA somehow by having an event announcer. The other is that unless I am around, it probably isn't done. A few people have helped with it, but it's way too player dependent.

A system where a herald shoots out a short event announcement every five or ten minutes I think would be acceptable. It wouldn't be like the random news spam from current heralds where it seems every time someone walks on screen or says something out loud it starts spamming.

You are very correct that it is a target for abuse, but the culprit would easily be found since it is limited to one person, the governor. The question is Broadsword enforcing the RoC that would of course include such abuse. It is a shame a game this old still hasn't learned you have to enforce your RoC. Almost every game since has learned it's better to lose that $10 from that one person forever than eventually $10 from twenty people forever.

 

[Aurelius]

Also, since almost everyone enjoys deco for their houses, or to sell for profit, perhaps a random donation to the stone gives a random decorative item that appears in that particular city.

Nice thought - I've also been suggesting for a while that crafters from a given city be able to make something that is stylistically linked to that city - the artwork exists, I have still never heard any good reason why (if you remove their special properties) people cannot make armour pieces that look like the Virtue set, the 2-handed sword, tons of furniture and deco items that are already in the game, statue types....

Why not let the city 'licence' crafters to make such things? You could either buy a 'recipe' from the town stone if you are loyal to that town, or get a 'licence' to make it (which would just add the option to your crafting menus) at a given price if you are a loyal citizen and double that if not... update the available designs every few months so new ones replace the 'old'.

 

[Aurelius]

You are very correct that it is a target for abuse, but the culprit would easily be found since it is limited to one person, the governor. The question is Broadsword enforcing the RoC that would of course include such abuse. It is a shame a game this old still hasn't learned you have to enforce your RoC. Almost every game since has learned it's better to lose that $10 from that one person forever than eventually $10 from twenty people forever.

Completely agree. Whilst it's not exactly a Governor specific topic, actually applying their own rules would do more good for the game than any amount of extra deco items - but sadly I'm not taking any bets on which of the two we get soonest, I fear we all know the answer to that one...

 

[Riyana]

In regard to the possibility of greiefing:

Supposedly the EMs already have the power to remove abusive governors, so I really don't see why this keeps coming up as an issue. With something like a city town crier it would be painfully obvious who did it. EMs can easily identify a griefing governor and remove them from office. Or, better yet, direct them to the GMs for account suspension/banning.

Enforcing the rules is always a preferable strategy to making something so narrowly focused that it can't work as intended. Does UO not have enough staff to police nine people per shard? Because that is what we are talking about.

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

Also, to clarify, I wasn't suggesting players having access to the current town criers. I want the city stone heralds to function as criers for the governors and for there to be a place in each city where all the city heralds are repeated. There are nine loyalty cities, therefore nine possible governors. It would be extremely easy to figure out and remove any governors abusing the system.

I like the crafting tie-in idea. Maybe crafters with high city loyalty could create things with a special exceptional tag that says "Exceptionally Made In Vesper" or something like that for an extra fee--not a rare, not pixel crack, just a special crafted tag that goes well with RP and that anyone can do if they put in the effort and loyalty points.

Or maybe a conversion system... I really like how the Blackthorn artifacts have given more options for how your characters look by replicating common artifacts with different graphics. (Like how you can have mace/shield glasses stats on a tricorne hat for example.) Maybe crafters or even regular citizens with high loyalty could pay into the city stone to convert, say, a necromancer's shroud (something not available as a Blackthorn artifact) from a robe to a dress with the city name on it. Or shadowdancer leggings from leather legs to a leather skirt or ninja leather. Or something along those lines.

Either of these could also make fantastic prizes for governors to give away at player events!

I'd kind of like to see governors able to make a limited number of clothing items per term have special city tags as prizes (like a sash that says "Vesper Fishing Contest Winner" for example, maybe limit it to a pre-approved selection of tags to choose from) but I know some would just create and hoard or sell them as rares. Meh.

 

[Scribbles]

I have one Idea for this.

Please let Reds be apart of this system.

Let us have Bucs Den! Only reds can join, that way they cant ever bother the RP on tram side. Imagine the Fun RP we could have between murderers and proper citizens. The plot lines could get really thick.

You want your RP to be popular and prolific stop excluding half of the subscribers to this game.

Sincerely,

Scribbles

 

[Bianca_CoD]

I really like the idea of a special deco item.

Like for example, I run a Miner's Competition for Minoc. It would be great to be able to award "Trophies" or "Medals" for that term... Like "Gold Medal Winner, 1Q 2014" or "First Place for Miner's Competition, 1Q 2014". Things like that that the citizens can donate to get created would be awesome to see.

@Flutter Your idea for the "Britannian Olympics" could have medals... now that would be cool!

~ Sue.

 

[Kyronix]

One issue I see repeated is the lack of ability to communicate with and amongst citizens. What I think might work best is re factoring the bulletin boards to work something more like this...



In this example one would double click the bulletin board and regardless of the City location you would see what falls under "Some of the latest news." These snippets would let the Governors change the headlines (what appears in red) and also what message accompanies them (the secondary gump resulting from clicking the blue gem).

What falls under "voice of the people" would be specific to each city. Anyone, regardless of citizenship may read, but only citizens would be able to post. These messages would be exclusive to each City's bulletin board, as making them global is not feasible. The same would be true of the blue gem in this case in that it would open a secondary gump with more details. This is a rough mockup, and would look different-ish in final implementation, but you at least get an idea.

 

[Dot_Warner]

Definitely give the bulletin boards more usability! But...don't rely solely on this as a solution to the communication problem. Most people don't know about the boards, or think they don't work at all like the boards in inns. This also requires them to go somewhere and DO something. If its not shoved in their face or handed to them on a silver platter, 90% won't bother.

We need a combination of communication options.

• Enhanced bulletin boards
• Access to town criers (as pointed out, 9 people isn't much in the way of policing per shard. The benefits FAR outweigh the "risks.")
• A built-in city chat channel like alliance or guild chat, or like what the faction commanders have. /t to talk to just people loyal to your city. Governors should also be specially identified in the chat with a 'Gov.' before their name in global, this is more important then the trailing title to display.

I am also increasingly motivated to see UO's ToS/RoC actually enforced and to have the poorly conceived harassment policies updated from their 1950's silliness. Expecting the victim to be the one to change the way they are playing to accommodate the harasser only puts more power in the harasser's hands. It is ethically wrong.

 

[Thom]

One issue I see repeated is the lack of ability to communicate with and amongst citizens. What I think might work best is re factoring the bulletin boards to work something more like this...

View attachment 20079

In this example one would double click the bulletin board and regardless of the City location you would see what falls under "Some of the latest news." These snippets would let the Governors change the headlines (what appears in red) and also what message accompanies them (the secondary gump resulting from clicking the blue gem).

What falls under "voice of the people" would be specific to each city. Anyone, regardless of citizenship may read, but only citizens would be able to post. These messages would be exclusive to each City's bulletin board, as making them global is not feasible. The same would be true of the blue gem in this case in that it would open a secondary gump with more details. This is a rough mockup, and would look different-ish in final implementation, but you at least get an idea.

I think that would go a long way towards helping communication in the cities.

Sent from my SCH-S738C using Tapatalk

 

[Riyana]

Definitely give the bulletin boards more usability! But...don't rely solely on this as a solution to the communication problem. Most people don't know about the boards, or think they don't work at all like the boards in inns. This also requires them to go somewhere and DO something. If its not shoved in their face or handed to them on a silver platter, 90% won't bother.

We need a combination of communication options.

• Enhanced bulletin boards
• Access to town criers (as pointed out, 9 people isn't much in the way of policing per shard. The benefits FAR outweigh the "risks.")
• A built-in city chat channel like alliance or guild chat, or like what the faction commanders have. /t to talk to just people loyal to your city. Governors should also be specially identified in the chat with a 'Gov.' before their name in global, this is more important then the trailing title to display.

I am also increasingly motivated to see UO's ToS/RoC actually enforced and to have the poorly conceived harassment policies updated from their 1950's silliness. Expecting the victim to be the one to change the way they are playing to accommodate the harasser only puts more power in the harasser's hands. It is ethically wrong.

Yes, this, all of this! Bolded one line for special emphasis. Exactly!

Though personally I would like my Governor title to show up as part of my name just walking around too ("Governor Ivy of Vesper" instead of "Lady Ivy the Naturalist")... but that's a minor quibble.

 

[Kyronix]

Definitely give the bulletin boards more usability! But...don't rely solely on this as a solution to the communication problem. Most people don't know about the boards, or think they don't work at all like the boards in inns. This also requires them to go somewhere and DO something. If its not shoved in their face or handed to them on a silver platter, 90% won't bother.

We need a combination of communication options.

• Enhanced bulletin boards
• Access to town criers (as pointed out, 9 people isn't much in the way of policing per shard. The benefits FAR outweigh the "risks.")
• A built-in city chat channel like alliance or guild chat, or like what the faction commanders have. /t to talk to just people loyal to your city. Governors should also be specially identified in the chat with a 'Gov.' before their name in global, this is more important then the trailing title to display.

I am also increasingly motivated to see UO's ToS/RoC actually enforced and to have the poorly conceived harassment policies updated from their 1950's silliness. Expecting the victim to be the one to change the way they are playing to accommodate the harasser only puts more power in the harasser's hands. It is ethically wrong.

Access to global town criers is not something that is likely to be given. Loading up the town criers with the messages from our Event Moderators, whatever global events may be happening, and the added messages of up to 9 Governors is too cumbersome. The Town Criers are also severely limited in the length of text they can announce. Instead, what I think would work better is if the City Heralds perhaps would announce headlines from the bulletin boards. Perhaps even having a "newspaper" feature when a player logs in, that can be toggled on and off, that updates them with a host of global, EM, governor, and player events alike. Of course that is a major undertaking but I think would pay off in a big way.

As for changes to the global chat, that's something I'll have to kick around with engineering as well.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Dot_Warner]

Access to global town criers is not something that is likely to be given. Loading up the town criers with the messages from our Event Moderators, whatever global events may be happening, and the added messages of up to 9 Governors is too cumbersome. The Town Criers are also severely limited in the length of text they can announce. Instead, what I think would work better is if the City Heralds perhaps would announce headlines from the bulletin boards. Perhaps even having a "newspaper" feature when a player logs in, that can be toggled on and off, that updates them with a host of global, EM, governor, and player events alike. Of course that is a major undertaking but I think would pay off in a big way.

As for changes to the global chat, that's something I'll have to kick around with engineering as well.

Headlines would work, if they were long enough to get the point across event/day/time/place.

A newspaper-type MOTD has been sorely needed in UO for years and would alleviate so very many people's lack of knowing whats going on. This feature is a must!

 

[Riyana]

Perhaps even having a "newspaper" feature when a player logs in, that can be toggled on and off, that updates them with a host of global, EM, governor, and player events alike.

This would actually be the best. I didn't suggest login news because I thought it would be more outlandish than town criers... but it would definitely get the word out!

Having the heralds announce the news from the boards sounds like it would be pretty close to having a limited town crier system in practice. It would be nice if they could be placed in houses too along with the improved bulletin boards if they do become a reality.

 

[Speranza]

Why is the corn all gone!? Did someone let out the rabbits again!?

 

[MalagAste]

I love all the ideas except for the Town Criers. There's just too much room for abuse. It's bad enough I see all the other smack talk spam while trying to communicate in chat....

Abuse would NOT be tolerated... anyone abusing the system for such things would be REMOVED as Governor... I wouldn't dream of jeopardizing my Governorship for something silly like that. Would be no different that using racial slurs or other things in Gen chat...... NOT tolerated.

Simple as that. But Town Criers are needed to promote community.

 

[the_gooch]

I love all the ideas except for the Town Criers. There's just too much room for abuse. It's bad enough I see all the other smack talk spam while trying to communicate in chat....

I think the town crier idea is wonderful but all messages should go through a verification period. Submit your message and dates then an EM has 24 hours to approve or deny the request.

 

[Aurelius]

One issue I see repeated is the lack of ability to communicate with and amongst citizens. What I think might work best is re factoring the bulletin boards to work something more like this...

Good start and certainly helpful!

 

[Speranza]

I have one Idea for this.

Please let Reds be apart of this system.

No, and here is why: You already own Felucca and have control over it's cities via the faction system. Ignoring the glaring issues with factions you already have your cake! Should the governor system or something similar be extended to all cities and facets? Sure, but not in it's current state for purely RP reasons.

Edit: Ivy just reminded me about Virtue Vice system. Hopefully that will have similar systems for Reds!

 

[Scribbles]

No, and here is why: You already own Felucca and have control over it's cities via the faction system. Ignoring the glaring issues with factions you already have your cake! Should the governor system or something similar be extended to all cities and facets? Sure, but not in it's current state for purely RP reasons.

Edit: Ivy just reminded me about Virtue Vice system. Hopefully that will have similar systems for Reds!

Blues Own Trammel as they are free to leave it. We dont Own Felucca. We are exiled to Felucca, which is absolutely fine except the blues that come to felucca have special bonuses that Reds in Felucca (the place they are exiled) cannot have. Get rid of the bonuses in Felucca and I wont have problem. WE cant go to tram and you shouldnt be allowed to come to fel with special bonuses.

Or on the more fun and positive side. We could join forces and create great plots of RP together. Build a community that supports all of its members instead of a small percentage.

I prefer the second option. Whats the harm in giving us Bucs den a place that no Blue RPer would ever go.
We would obviously be a limited part of the RP event being almost all of them are in Trammel, However I do think there are some fun things we could do together. And perhaps through the process you could gain more followers of the RP community.


I by no means speak for the entire PvP community, as i am probably the worst pvper out there. However I can say there are a small amount of us that would love to be apart of the RP fun.

In Short, REDs are people too...

 

[MalagAste]

Access to global town criers is not something that is likely to be given. Loading up the town criers with the messages from our Event Moderators, whatever global events may be happening, and the added messages of up to 9 Governors is too cumbersome. The Town Criers are also severely limited in the length of text they can announce. Instead, what I think would work better is if the City Heralds perhaps would announce headlines from the bulletin boards. Perhaps even having a "newspaper" feature when a player logs in, that can be toggled on and off, that updates them with a host of global, EM, governor, and player events alike. Of course that is a major undertaking but I think would pay off in a big way.

As for changes to the global chat, that's something I'll have to kick around with engineering as well.

Thanks for the feedback!

This would be something that I would endorse and Highly recommend ...... and I'll say this... at least 70% of the player base NEVER reads the forums. They have NEVER really gone to Stratics... they do NOT even read the splash screen before logging in.... (Not that that updates like it should!!! *pokes at Kyronix*).... so something like that would be extremely beneficial. Almost no one even goes to the UO site. Unless they want to buy something or manage their account they don't really go there.... they just log in and ask friends who are "in the know"... trust me ...... I've been "in the know" for years... and have felt like a freaking town crier. Can't even get more than a handful in a guild to read the guild forums...

I think something that popped up and had short but good headlines would be extremely useful... For EM's as well as players.

I also really do want to suggest strongly that you take my suggestion and make bulletin boards change color when they have something "new" on them you haven't read. This would make them easier to use and far more user friendly. People are more likely to notice them if they were a different color like that. I think most people are so used to the years and years of the public boards not working and not having anything really on them that they honestly don't even notice them.

 

[Lord Gareth]

Deputy Governor
Any chance a option could be added to the Town Stone to Appoint a Deputy Governor? The position wouldn't serve on the Council and its only ability would be to Re-new Trade Agreements. The option would be beneficial to players so they they don't have to wait around to receive the Trade Deal Buff in case the Governor is not online or on vacation. As for the technical details on what the Deputy Governor can should select that would all be worked out between the Governor and Deputy Governor.


Secondary Trade Deals
The Secondary Trade Deal is an addition to the Primary Trade Deal and
can be purchased through the City Defense Rating for 45,000 points


Secondary Trade Deal
Guild of Arcane Arts: +10% Lower Reagent Cost
Society of Clothiers: +2% Eater bump to all Eaters
Bardic Collegium: +5% Lower Mana Cost
Order of Engineers: +5% Defense Chance Increase
Guild of Healers: +25% Enhance Potions
Maritime Guild: +5 Hit Point Increase
Merchant’s Association: +250 Luck
Mining Cooperative: +30% Weight Reduction
League of Rangers: +20% Lower Ammo Cost
Guild of Assassins:
Warrior’s Guild: Battle Lust


City Defense Rating Points
City Defense Rating Points are generated by the Citizens acts of Defense in the name of Britannia. Citizens would receive points based on slaying monsters and mob bosses. Cap Limits would be added to each monster and mob boss to prevent players from chaining Despise or script killing Dread Spiders. It would also encourage players to get out and hunt different areas and for Britannia Cities to host Adventure Hunts.... (that's all I got right now)


~ Lord Gareth
(Governor of New Magincia)
(More Powerful then Blackthorn)
(Overlord of the Mesanna)
(Recipient of the Citizen of Britannia Award)
(Destroyer of the Drosselmeyer Fellowship)
(Annihilator of the Dramnar Clan)
(Professor of Chaos and Brutal Enforcement)
(Slayer of the Virtuous Men and Women)
(Recipient of the Britannia Humanitarian Award)
(Enforcer of Realm Peacekeeping)
(Guildmaster of the Britannia Mage Tower)
(Devastator of Kyronix's Ego)
(Petra Fydes Boss)
(King of Making Up Random ****)

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Sorry for chiming in late to this thread... I did not actually know this board existed until tonight (shame on me!).

If I might suggest, as a programmer, there may be a way for shards to keep their individuality AND to make items permanent on each shard. I understand that it would be a bit of a transition of how things currently are, but might be worth the development time. In writing this, I also understand that larger shards would likely benefit more from the system than smaller, and that certain additions might be an issue, but, let's look at this as a suggestion anyway:

1) EMs -- I think, or at least someone in the program -- is currently allowed to build changes into the world. They are admittedly small, but many small things could build up to a large one. The first part of my proposal then is to allow the EMs to mark certain creations as intended to become permanent. This would be a searchable part of the system that the developers could see, and then, in tandem with modifications to the world-building tool, could add into a queue to become permanent on the next publish after verification and approval.

2) Then, implement a "shard differences" file. Many moons ago, before the map could be patched, I suggested the very system that is in use today to patch shards: what eventually became the differences system that does not patch the entire map, but only the differences within the map (or at least, that's how it appears on the outside). So why not have a specific "shard differences" file that would take a moment to process prior to a person logging into a shard for the first time since a change (something reading "updating map" would be nice), and voila, you now have the ability to keep individual shards unique in some ways, while still being able to affect large areas of terrain.

A MAJOR benefit of this system is that a report system could be built for the developers so that it would be possible to at least see areas where permanent items have been placed, making it easier to determine where something should be placed for future events on a world-wide scale. Or, at very least, if a position is global, and only affects a shard or two, at least the dev team would know something does exist there, and could work in tandem with the EMs to move whatever it is to a suitable location.

Again, I understand developing such a system would be a bit of an undertaking, but some of the underlying systems are already in place. This just seems like the logical extension to me, and would address the issue of shard uniqueness. I would, of course, reserve this for smaller things, and agree that larger things -- such as docks in Minoc -- probably should be rolled out across the shards for the benefit of all.

 

[TandaBSK]

It really is grand to see so many Governor's trying to make this system better for all.

I think we're all agree on communication being a big, huge part of getting anything done. EM events have a set date and time at least most do, you can pencil them into your calendar an attendance varies when drops are due attendance goes up when they're strictly RP talking no killing sorts of events attendance drops.
In game auction, ours has held the same night and time for nearly a decade, we have some regulars who come rain or shine with or without a person gating and barking at the bank. However, attendance is under 1/3 of typical. Having someone in your face, making it easy for you to go, or to know where to go and how to get there has a big impact. Advertising on Stratics boards has an impact in an AUCTION.. it is more limited in RP.

The bulk of people playing I think fall between the Red PvPers and the Role playing communities. They are folks who come home from work, college, high school
etc who create their own little personality, find a few trusted friends and escape the real world. It's trying to reach those people and draw them into a city community. They have their friends, guild, routine... may not have ever considered where their character was "born" because it's not a "character" its the avatar/toon they need to interact with the game. Other than to buy things from an NPC there has been little reason to have ANY town affiliation or loyalty and other than clicking the trade deal.. still there is little reason to "live in or be loyal" to a town UNLESS you know and interact with the Governor or a Guild that gathers there. Most Guilds have built their own little communities if they can manage to acquire the housing site proximal to each other.

I can offer events (limited in scope), I can offer a trade deal, I can't as most cannot devote 40 to 50 hours a week to being in game (though there was a time when I did)it comes down to WIFM (Whats in it for me) not me as Governor, but me as the player. The one thing that had been outstanding about UO was community.
Many things have moved it toward being much more segmented and independent. I think the closest thing we've found to a guild laying claim to a city is GV in New Magincia Felucca on Great Lakes. Can we create a reason for Guilds, individuals to gravitate to some place besides Luna? I don't know.

One thought I've come back to is perhaps 1 house within the city that is customizeable by the renter or EM so that say a player run auction house, or player run event or game could be within the city. We have the Arena in New Haven which is a great boon. Perhaps the one house could be themed to the city by either virtue, trade or something.. not sure on that. Some way to draw life into the cities. Most Governors I've dealt with are willing to use their private houses, utilize what exists on our shard in game such as the Jollier Fairgrounds. I think though that stable, predictable and permanent make it easier for folks to plan. EM events begin at the EM hall, MOA auction hosts from the same player owned auction house every week... it's just easier if you remove some of the randomness. Maybe this facility is time shared like a condo. I feel a little like Whoopi in "Sister Act" "we need to get some butts in the seats"