You engage, Skrag, in the time-honored argumentative style that's made you a popular lad on these boards, but that hurts your posts on a substantive level.
No, the post I responded to specified that if the system erected statues or gave out items then "griefers" would descend upon it. As if the system needs to be completely unincentivized so that a handful of irrelevant roleplayers can rearrange the furniture in an empty city without the unwashed masses coming in there to get items or recognition or otherwise participate.
The posts you were responding to were about griefers.
Not everyone who is not in an RP community is a griefer, not every RPer is part of a formal RP community, not every player who does not understand themselves as RPing is a griefer.
This is not a difficult concept for most to understand. Indeed, in a more-rational mood you likely would understand it quite well.
I find it hilarious that you even try to conflate the two. I expect the developers to create a thematically consistent world. What I don't expect them to do is excercise judgement over which sorts of players are more worthy than others. If SirPwnzAlot has more friends willing to vote for him than you do, then suck it up. Don't expect the developers to craft a system nobody else cares about so you can have it to yourselves.
The two issues, your war mace having Force of Nature and the issue of griefers or the like sitting on the player Council or whatever it'll be called, are in fact highly similar for the reason you cite: A thematically consistent world. One that breaks the spell as little as possible.
The only thing in this discussion that has anything whatsoever to do with some kind of judgement of worthiness is that, yes, I feel that regular players are more worthy than deliberate griefers. So do most of us regular players. Some, such as yourself, Skrag, insist on defending those griefers, and that is regrettable.
The real answer as to why you consider the quite comparable issues different is that you feel more-directly impacted by one than the other and hold your own preferences, needs, and experiences sacrosanct. Remember that time when you stated flatly that no one had ever intentionally hunted snow elementals, then when confronted with several folks who'd done just that flipped out that they didn't count somehow? It's kind of like that. Same dynamic. You hold something you consider true sacrosanct and remain ridiculously closed to everything else.
We'll see how far your magical invisible hidden roleplayers are able to go, the minute some billionaire decides "Mayor of Yew" would be a neat unique title to show off at Luna bank. Uh oh, better not let the system give out titles!
We are neither magical (save of course for the fact that, like all of us, we temporarily inhabit a fantasy world for a monthly fee, but that includes you as well) nor invisible nor hidden, though many, such as yourself, choose to ignore or dislike us for whatever reason.
You are of course correct that some billionaire may well beat us out for whatever title he or she deems interesting at that moment, or for that matter the GM of some griefing guild.
The former may well be more of a RolePlayer than you find it convenient to give him credit for. Such is, as stated, my experience: That more people RP than ever understand themselves as such. (There's really nothing pompous about this statement, and for that matter nothing particularly pompous about RolePlayers. We've just had enough people such as yourself, Skrag, keep saying it over and over again until too many people believe it.)
The latter will be regrettable if it happens, but there's really no good reason to reward it either. Though you might like it, that doesn't make it good for the game. Rather like how you've argued, correctly, that the rampant PKing and thievery pre-Trammel were good for some but not good for the game.
Really, Skrag, I don't know why you keep letting your hate get the better of you. 'Cos that's really all your arguments on this issue are at this point. No substance, all rage.
-Galen's player
