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Cross Shard Voting

should there be 1 vote only per acct,to be used on 1 shard only?


  • Total voters
    70

Governor Ma Nerva

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
of the things wrong with the election system,This has got to be the most disturbing thing there is. After watching 14 votes jump on the stone this election early Am. I can see this as a problem. I don't think people from other shards should be able to decide elections on shards they don't even play on.
I would like to have 1 vote per acct period. That will stop cross shard voting, or at least limit it to their one vote they should get. I am sure I am not the only one seeing this as a problem. So for the sake of vanity a player can run, manipulate a system, and win. Regardless of what the actual players on the shard may want. Sounds familiar? no mud slinging or name calling please, lets keep responses simple so as not to get the thread locked prematurely. I want to see 1 vote per acct. period. You can use it on which ever shard you like. But only one.
 

MalagAste

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This has been happening since day 1. I've seen everything from buying votes to folk using the system to try to drive others out of game. Some of the worst things like attempting to confuse voters by naming characters exactly the same down to even trying to make the guild letters identical has been addressed and resolved somewhat. I still think that just like in the chat it should give us the characters <unique number> so that there isn't a possibility at all of any confusion. But that's just me maybe.

I wouldn't know how to address such a thing though Ma Nerva... trouble is people have characters everywhere. How would they implement this? This goes right along with my beef which is x-sharders coming to EM events on other shards just to grab and go with the drops. They can't stop that and they can't make that more "fair" for those who live on the shard then I honestly think that they can't really address this without addressing that too. Just my opinion...
 

Deraj

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I think a better solution is to qualify vote status based on dedication to a town over time. In other words, declaring citizenship and donating X number of ingots isn't enough. Unlike simply raising cost of getting vote status, or creating a time delay between declaring citizenship and achieving vote status, this requires that a character is regularly active in serving or interacting with a town. The result is that a player becomes much more invested in a town than someone who donates a paltry number of ingots once, or who declares citizenship and does nothing more.

Of course, it would also be nice if there were more ways to interact with a town and gain or lose status to make it seem a little less arbitrary.
 

Merus

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I know people get bent when you compare a game to real life, but voting is voting. Tie it to residency. Yes, there are people who travel to other shard, perhaps even spending most of thier time there... But that happens irl too. You vote where you live, no where else. 1 house = 1 vote. If you are one of the few with grandfather houses, you can vote once per shard that you have houses on.

No voting system will be perfect.
 

petemage

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Magincia also has a bit of twisted history, but I'm fully rooting for you Ma Nerva. Never let me down on what humble expectations I have of a governor.
 

Merlin

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I agree 100% - one vote per account. That is the bare minimum that can be done to help resolve this.

I also believe that before obtaining 'voter status' to become a full citizen of a town, there should be some town-by-town quest to be done. Doesn't have to be anything majorly overbearing. It could even go back to some of the Ultima lore a little bit by giving a brief prompt about the Ultima history for the particular town, which is something I would hope players young and old would enjoy. Just a thought...
 

Governor Ma Nerva

Adventurer
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well,perhaps a fix for it could be as merlin suggested quests to do to get citizenship.but, if so,the quest should not be doable during a election. That may make it harder for such exploits of the current system that is in place. I still don't see why we can not make it 1 vote period tho.either way merlin's point is well brought up as a change that could make it more for the actual citizens of the shard.kudos merlin.
 

Smoot

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theres no fair system for voting. it never should have been in the game to begin with. as long as 1 person can have multiple accounts there needs to be offsets. currently, being able to vote on more than 1 shard is that offset. if theres one vote per account, the next complaint will be "so and so wins every time because they have 50 accounts" (yes there are people like this) a short city quest would probly be fine.
 

GarthGrey

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When Trade Deals were implemented, they should have reset every registered citizen and based citizenship off of your trade deal titles that are only earned by doing trade deals.....
 

Captn Norrington

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I think the "wherever your house is" voting system would work the best. It ensures that only people who live on that shard, can vote on that shard. Most of the people who actively play multiple shards also have multiple accounts, so they could place a house on each of the shards they play on the most if they want to vote there. This would also distribute the voting more evenly, since Atlantic has the most people it would also have the most votes available, which makes sense. This type of system would prevent smaller shard governors from having to worry about someone calling their Atlantic friends and completely taking over the election in 5 minutes.

Siege would need a special system of course, since everyone can place a house on siege even if they already have a house.

As for people with 50 accounts being able to control elections due to their extremely high number of votes, there really isn't any way to avoid that since no matter what system is used, each account will have to be counted separately. I don't even see that as a bad thing, if someone is paying for 50 accounts, they do deserve special things like extra voting ability just because they are giving UO so much more money than the average player, which helps keep UO alive.
 

MalagAste

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I think the "wherever your house is" voting system would work the best. It ensures that only people who live on that shard, can vote on that shard. Most of the people who actively play multiple shards also have multiple accounts, so they could place a house on each of the shards they play on the most if they want to vote there. This would also distribute the voting more evenly, since Atlantic has the most people it would also have the most votes available, which makes sense. This type of system would prevent smaller shard governors from having to worry about someone calling their Atlantic friends and completely taking over the election in 5 minutes.

Siege would need a special system of course, since everyone can place a house on siege even if they already have a house.

As for people with 50 accounts being able to control elections due to their extremely high number of votes, there really isn't any way to avoid that since no matter what system is used, each account will have to be counted separately. I don't even see that as a bad thing, if someone is paying for 50 accounts, they do deserve special things like extra voting ability just because they are giving UO so much more money than the average player, which helps keep UO alive.

This is fine with the exception of Siege... anyone and everyone has or can have a house there... What happens to them?
 

Captn Norrington

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This is fine with the exception of Siege... anyone and everyone has or can have a house there... What happens to them?
I'm not sure if it's even possible for the developers to do this, but perhaps to vote on Siege the person would have to own a house on Siege, and also "declare Siege residency" before they could vote by clicking on something, and after they click on it their account can only vote on Siege and will be locked out of all other shard elections. Once they have declared Siege residency, their account would stay like that until the election ends. Once the election ends all residency could be reset, allowing the person to either declare Siege residency again during the next election, or choose to vote on the other shard they own a house on instead.
 

Lord Frodo

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I love the house voting system idea, you should own a house on the shard you are voting on. What I disagree on is the one vote per, every one of my Chars are Adored to different cities, this was done for the town banners so every one of my Chars should be able to vote in that town. I have vested interest in 7 Towns but can only vote in one. Voting should be conected more to loyality than it is now and each char that is adored should get a vote as long as they are different cities.
 

Governor Ma Nerva

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i think norrington might have something in the idea that a acct should possibly have to declare residency to a shard and thats the shard that acct can vote on.as far as owning a house on a shard i do not see how that would matter if you have to declare residency before being able to use their one vote. i like this idea also.
 

Captn Norrington

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The main reason they no longer allow each character to have a separate vote is because people were pretty much using 1 or 2 votes for friend, then selling the rest of their votes to the highest bidder. They would also trade votes with other shards, sometimes as unbalanced as 1 vote on shard A in return for 7 votes on shard B.

I ran in the 2nd governorship of Atlantic Yew, (the last term where each character had a separate vote) Believe me, the drama caused by the 1 vote per character thing on Atlantic that term was BAD in most of the cities. I honestly think that 80% or more election related drama has disappeared on Atlantic ever since they started doing the one vote per shard thing. It was pretty much a "who can trade votes with other shards faster" competition for most of the people running that term, across most of the shards. The one vote per shard system definitely does not eliminate the problem of vote trading or vote buying, but it has significantly helped.
 

Lord Frodo

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The main reason they no longer allow each character to have a separate vote is because people were pretty much using 1 or 2 votes for friend, then selling the rest of their votes to the highest bidder. They would also trade votes with other shards, sometimes as unbalanced as 1 vote on shard A in return for 7 votes on shard B.

I ran in the 2nd governorship of Atlantic Yew, (the last term where each character had a separate vote) Believe me, the drama caused by the 1 vote per character thing on Atlantic that term was BAD in most of the cities. I honestly think that 80% or more election related drama has disappeared on Atlantic ever since they started doing the one vote per shard thing. It was pretty much a "who can trade votes with other shards faster" competition for most of the people running that term, across most of the shards. The one vote per shard system definitely does not eliminate the problem of vote trading or vote buying, but it has significantly helped.
I have 7 chars adored or better to 7 different cities on my main shard. Because I have put in the time I should have a vote in each city and should not have to pick which city I support the most. An account that puts in the time should get 1,one and only one vote per city and in order to vote you should be able to buy the city banner. I did mine with BODs so not sure what it would take to become Adored any other way.
 

Captn Norrington

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I have 7 chars adored or better to 7 different cities on my main shard. Because I have put in the time I should have a vote in each city and should not have to pick which city I support the most. An account that puts in the time should get 1,one and only one vote per city and in order to vote you should be able to buy the city banner. I did mine with BODs so not sure what it would take to become Adored any other way.
I can understand that, since they do let you get the banner in each city, I can see being allowed to vote once per city as fair to people who have characters in all of them, however it is not really fair to people that only play 1 or 2 cities because of the whole vote trading and vote selling stuff. it just seems like no matter what system they use someone isn't going to be treated fairly. As for what it takes to become adored the way most people do it, dropping about 20k iron ingots or plain wooden boards into the city donation box gets you the highest level available, takes 4k ingots or boards to get to respected which is the minimum level for voting, so Adored is somewhere in between.
 

Jirel of Joiry

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Okay I'm gonna throw my TWO cents in here. . .

I stand with Captain Norrington 1 vote per account. I have seen first hand how the one vote per char got used, abused and totally screwed! As you all know I have played Legends since 2002, it is my home. We had an outside guild-that-shall-not-be-named basically come in and try to take over. The-guild-that-shall-not-be-named were paying or trading votes for their buddies from other shards to create chars on Legends and vote for them. The-guild-that-shall-not-be-named were total scum going as far as smarting off over gen chat that they were going turn Legends into their guild's PRIVATE shard. Well some of the die hard Legenders stood together and showed them we will NOT go down without a fight! Unfortunately on the low population shard that is all it take to have a shard taken over: a large guild with deep pockets. So yeah I stand with Captain Norrington 1 account = 1 vote. Unless they can come up with a way the system can't be exploited, and I don't see that happening.
 

Aurelius

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Last time I looked an account has 5 to 7 individuals (excluding seige of course), and each one should have a vote! Doesn't anyone care about atmosphere and immersion anymore? :(
In principle, absolutely, In practice when you have a totally flawed and corruptible system, with no controls on how it is abused.... no.

The one character one vote argument is perfect if people have characters they 'play' as citizens of a town and have some investment in those characters - it all falls over when a mass of people regard their 'characters' as ways of making in-game cash, so sell their 'votes' for what they regard as profits - the thing is, when you have a sandbox allowing all styles and approaches to how you play, some things that we might not like much are just as legal and valid a playstyle as any others, and when those styles clash in something like an 'election' system where in-game benefits from town buffs, and ego boosts from status gained or simply being able to claim the nonsensical notion that some guild 'owns' a shard by getting all the Governor posts..... it all rather goes to hell.
 

Miri of Sonoma

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In principle, absolutely, In practice when you have a totally flawed and corruptible system, with no controls on how it is abused.... no.

The one character one vote argument is perfect if people have characters they 'play' as citizens of a town and have some investment in those characters - it all falls over when a mass of people regard their 'characters' as ways of making in-game cash, so sell their 'votes' for what they regard as profits - the thing is, when you have a sandbox allowing all styles and approaches to how you play, some things that we might not like much are just as legal and valid a playstyle as any others, and when those styles clash in something like an 'election' system where in-game benefits from town buffs, and ego boosts from status gained or simply being able to claim the nonsensical notion that some guild 'owns' a shard by getting all the Governor posts..... it all rather goes to hell.
Indeed I guess that sums it up nicely *sighs* As far a limiting it to one shard..sure why not. It is just another plug in another hole that has little to do with making the game experience better IMHO.
 

Lady Lavendar

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I want to set the record straight here. I am the person who cast 14 votes on Atlantic while Ma Nerva watched. I have 14 accounts. I play on Atlantic. The entire time I tried to vote I kept getting error messages while Ma Nerva stayed by the stone. I don't know why I got the error messages. I feel it is presumptuous, erroneous , and misleading for Ma Nerva to say there were 14 votes cast and imply they were off shard voters. They were not. If Ma Nerva was concerned who was voting , a question could be asked. I have been on Atlantic for years. So any who are getting riled up about this, it didn't happen. I get to vote for who I want, as everyone does. I will also say that many people play on more than one shard, so limiting them to one vote per account for the entire UO world is unfair. I do also play on Siege where I have houses as well.
 
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Governor Ma Nerva

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i was being nice it was 16 votes and i watched as each had to give ingots to vote. to stop the sake of argument i said 14 and also i did not mention the names of those new players because i did not want to imply who it actually was, lavender was not one of those names i saw that night. and as far as the error messages we all are getting at times I have no idea why its doing it. Its not only you voting that its happening to.
 

Lady Lavendar

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Of course the characters had to give ingots. We all need to get to Respected with the current voting requirements. Last time I voted for New Magincia a while back, we didn't need to be respected, so most of them had to give ingots, though some already had done that. I sent you a list of the 14 names in a private message, and you will see Lavendar Rose among them. I voted 14 characters which is why I answered this post, and I saw someone popping into my gates throughout the process, which was extremely annoying. If you were watching me give ingots , I guess it was you.I am well known on Atlantic. Belladonna and Briar Rose, Emissaries in UWF, as well as Lavendar Rose, Lavendar, and a good many others. Jade Vine was my character who was gating in the others.
 
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Poo

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sounds like some sour apples going on on the mighty ATL shard.

as for only having one vote per the entire game.... i think that might be a little overboard.
in this day and age i think most people are playing at least 2 shards, most probably 3 (siege).
 

Longtooths

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If I have 5 accounts and they are all 7 characters. Under the current rules, I have 35 votes to vote with. If you make it one character per account it goes down to 5 votes. But it does this for everyone. Therefore all you have accomplished is decreasing the total amount of votes from everyone, but the ratio stays the same.
 

Herman

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If I have 5 accounts and they are all 7 characters. Under the current rules, I have 35 votes to vote with. If you make it one character per account it goes down to 5 votes. But it does this for everyone. Therefore all you have accomplished is decreasing the total amount of votes from everyone, but the ratio stays the same.
Most people play so casual that no matter how many votes they have they only vote once or care so little that they do not vote at all
so your 35 votes will always be more effective than your 5 votes
 

Lady Lavendar

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Actually, the rules were changed a while back to one vote per account. The voting character must now be "respected" in the voting city. This can be done in a number of different ways, the simplest being donating 4000 ingots or 4000 boards to the community chest.
 

Herman

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Actually, the rules were changed a while back to one vote per account. The voting character must now be "respected" in the voting city. This can be done in a number of different ways, the simplest being donating 4000 ingots or 4000 boards to the community chest.
it is 1 vote /shard per acc is it not ?


There use to be a lavendar that played europa some or many years ago is that you?
 

Lady Lavendar

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Yes, it is 1 vote per shard per account at this time. I have not actively played Europa in a long time, though I do have a character named Lavendar there.
 

Governor Ma Nerva

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so as i watched the votes go on today some of them actually said hi to the voting crew and told them there from sonoma and other shards. I just hehe'd each time knowing I was done for. Good job to my opponents voting crew. I hope this issue is addressed by next election.
 

Lady Lavendar

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Everyone I brought plays on Atlantic. Whether they also play on another shard as well is irrelevant. I also play on Siege. However I voted on Atlantic. It wouldn't have changed the vote by even one vote if we all had only been able to vote only on one shard as for all I know of, they only voted on Atlantic. I would not even be posting here if you hadn't said my accounts were not from Atlantic. I wish you luck next time.
 
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Poo

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so polite yet so mean.
smiling at you while she twists the blade.
god i love this game!
 

Promathia

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The cycle goes on. I remember the past elections where the OP was the one being posted about for using "Underhanded" tactics. And now here we are. Finding ways to get ahead is what us humans do. No matter what changes they do, people will find a way, they always do. Thus, the cycle will continue each time, with something new to gripe about.

Everyone needs to relax a bit ya know? Its a video game.
 

Lord Frodo

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however it is not really fair to people that only play 1 or 2 cities because of the whole vote trading and vote selling stuff. it just seems like no matter what system they use someone isn't going to be treated fairly.
I chose to do 7 cities and they chose to do 1 or 2 cities, that is their choice but I am the one being punished for it. 1 vote per city and make town loyalty have more of a say in it. Place a timer on voting that in order to vote your loyalty has to be more than 6 mo old and every year you must do at least a few things in your city to maintain your loyalty for voting. Votes are bought and sold everyday but bringing that BS as a reason to punish players is not right. This is a game and if you are taking this voting that serious then maybe people should suggest people need some real help outside this game and just play the game for fun. This is not the real world but this voting BS sure sounds like it and the way some people are going on about it they may have worse problems than a stupid voting system in a make believe world. Get a grip people this is just a game and the way people are going it is getting out of control and I don't mean the voting part but the OMG I just got ripped off of a Governorship in a online game, are you people for real. I am not saying this is you Capt. and I think you know who I am talking about.
 

DJAd

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If being a governor awarded the player with more power or abilities then I see why it can be an issue. As for seeing more people in the cities, yeah right that didn't seem to happen.

I do see people in the Felucca cities more but that's for VvV. Do any of the current governors participate in VvV out of interest?

I did attend many of the white net tosses in New Mag on ATL and this would be the only time I would see a few people actually in the city. By the way I would like to thank @Governor Ma Nerva for organising these. Lots of fun!
 

Rage Munkie

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If being a governor awarded the player with more power or abilities then I see why it can be an issue. As for seeing more people in the cities, yeah right that didn't seem to happen.

I do see people in the Felucca cities more but that's for VvV. Do any of the current governors participate in VvV out of interest?

I did attend many of the white net tosses in New Mag on ATL and this would be the only time I would see a few people actually in the city. By the way I would like to thank @Governor Ma Nerva for organising these. Lots of fun!

I participate in vvv on Lake Superior. I think alot of the voting problems could be solved by having Governor elections on the fel side too. I seen alot of x shard voting happening last night and when it started to happen against certain people their panties suddenly were all in a bunch!
 

DJAd

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I participate in vvv on Lake Superior. I think alot of the voting problems could be solved by having Governor elections on the fel side too. I seen alot of x shard voting happening last night and when it started to happen against certain people their panties suddenly were all in a bunch!
Imagine if you had to fight to gain a position as governor, that would add a neat twist to it all. Guilds battle it out for the town they want. The guild who wins then gets to elect anybody of their choice to become the governor. They can then select the city buff and maybe add something like a discounted VvV artifacts for the rest of the winning guild.
 

Rage Munkie

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Imagine if you had to fight to gain a position as governor, that would add a neat twist to it all. Guilds battle it out for the town they want. The guild who wins then gets to elect anybody of their choice to become the governor. They can then select the city buff and maybe add something like a discounted VvV artifacts for the rest of the winning guild.
Wishful thinking on what I am about to type but resource vendors re added would be great!
 

Spock's Beard

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They STILL haven't changed it so you can only vote where you own a house? The idea of taking this system seriously is a joke to me at this point.
 

MalagAste

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Well ... let me be the first one to say if that's the case and they start doing that... then I say you can't run for Governor unless you have a home within so far of the stone.
 

Smoot

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They STILL haven't changed it so you can only vote where you own a house? The idea of taking this system seriously is a joke to me at this point.
but what if you want to run for governor on multiple shards, lets say 5. you should be able to at least vote for yourself on all of them no?
 

Smoot

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I am going to go with a solid "no."
so your saying that a persons gameplay should be artificially limited to only 1 shard when were provided with over 20? if im running for governor, i think its only fair that i should have the option to vote for myself on every shard i run on.
 

Zuckuss

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so your saying that a persons gameplay should be artificially limited to only 1 shard when were provided with over 20? if im running for governor, i think its only fair that i should have the option to vote for myself on every shard i run on.
I guess I am of the opinion that one person shouldn't govern more than one town. I was formulating my answer under the pretense that this whole governor thing was meant to promote community growth and interaction. The answer seemed more than obvious to me.
 

GarthGrey

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I guess I am of the opinion that one person shouldn't govern more than one town. I was formulating my answer under the pretense that this whole governor thing was meant to promote community growth and interaction. The answer seemed more than obvious to me.
On Siege at least, this has promoted pretty much nothing but self interest.
 
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