When ever things are taken out of game, it becomes problemati
That's an oversimplification of the problem. The voting could have been done in game and the person would have gotten all his friends to create or use trading characters on the server to vote for him/her.
While it would have been great if there was a way to limit it to Origin players only, honestly there is no fair way to do it.
At the same time, devil's advocate, how do we know for certain that the person who submitted doesn't play on Origin? Do we know that for a fact? There are a lot of players who play Origin part time, especially after the patch comes out before it hits production servers. They don't have a home, but they have developed characters and do contribute to the shard some how. Is it fair to say that since they don't play just on Origin that they can't contribute?
What about folks who are currently playing on Origin who submitted names but have openly declared they're transferring off the server soon? Is it fair for them to participate since they are leaving the shard?
What about people who don't currently play, but would play if they could. Is it fair that they can't help name a Silver Steed on a server they would normally be active on?
How bout those players on the shard, like myself, who play UO now days only a couple days a week for a few hours (like 5 hours max). Should I have a say in the name since I don't have time to play?
And before someone gets pissed off at me, I'm playing devil's advocate. A can of worms was opened. Before it goes further, people will be asking if all votes given were valid or not. I faced similar problems with the Deco Contest I held at Christmas time. And honestly, you just have to roll with the blows, whether it's fair or not.
Because honestly, if the name that is currently winning (Quicksilver) has the most votes, it should be the winner. I voted for that name and "Ghost Writer" because I like the name Quicksilver. One of my characters when I resided on Oceania, was best friends with a guy named Quicksilver. He no longer plays. I can honestly think of no better name for a Silver Steed.
I worry that it will come down to a fact of "We don't want this name, even tho it has the popular vote, because someone cheated". We don't know how many of the people he/she mass ICQed voted. We don't know how many of those people might actually play Origin. There's a lot of things not known.
And let's be honest here folks. A lot of folks will cheat and vote from home and if they can from work. If it had been done in game, folks would have cheated that way too. It's an unfortunate consequence of running events, as I can quickly tell you.