Glorious Alpha Two Testers!

Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!

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Taxation without representation

Chuck ZittoChuck Zitto Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Since we are getting close to phase 2 I wanted to share are experience with the node and mayor system so far. My guild and I got in on day 1 of phase 1 starting and got our mounts and out of the starting zone to the node we intended to live in. We started killing the low level mobs in the node and started seeing progress on the node. When we would stop to bank we would notice that the progress would stop which made sense because we havn't seen anyone and the mobs are level 6-7 plus. We get the node leveled up to 3 and a few of us hit level 10. We wait for the mayor election to start so we can try to run for mayor of the node we just worked on. We have not seen any other guilds or level 10 players at this point. And we wait and we wait some more then go to bed. We get up the next day it still hasn't happened. Finally It announces an election starting so I register. A few more people are in town and level 10 by now so I figure I will be running against somebody. With 2 minutes left till voting starts the server goes down. It comes back up 3-4 hours later. I log in and see someone hop on a flying mount and leave to the node his guild actually lives out of. For the next several weekends we basically have no mayor. He doesn't log in he doesn't speak english. There is no way to vote him out. But we have to keep paying taxes.
So then duping weeked happens and all of a sudden are town has buildings built in it. So we log in the next weekend and the mayor is now deleted for duping and pretty much his entire guild are gone and another election is going to happen. So the announcement happens and somebody posts in global and before long there are hundreds of players in our node as citizens where usually about 30-40 of us actually live in the node. The election takes place and again where we should have like 30-40 registered voters who actually live in and use the node and the winner got 189 votes. Again he got on the flying mount and havn't seen him or the 150 mysterious citizens since. But we still sit here paying taxes.
Its only alpha and we are testing networking and stuff so im not upset but there was a similar system for picking the faction commander in ultima online and it was insane the stuff we had to do because its just so easy to rig a popular vote. Im gonna give just one example of what I see. Your guild buys all the player houses in town and put all kinds of cool stuff in it. You work really hard with the citizens spending tons of hours to build up a server crafting center. Now some 10000 player guild comes along and has 1000 alts join your node as citizens and out vote you. Set all the taxes to 100%. Out vote you cus i think thats how it works to destroy all your buildings. Drain all your treasury. Hop on the flying mount and leave.

Comments

  • Kiwi_Kiwi_ Member, Alpha Two
    I absolutely agree that there currently are issues with how the system works especially with the big (streamer) communities/guilds. And partly because there are flying mounts in the first place, which they won't be at some point as flying mounts will be restricted to mayors of metropolis nodes, so at least that will hopefully change some time in the future.

    However, I'm not sure that you're aware, but mayors cannot withdraw gold from the node. Any money payed in taxes goes to the node funds and can only be used for node stuff like buildings, commissions or buy orders.
  • wakkytabbakywakkytabbaky Member, Alpha Two
    alot of the systems are missing, for instance its 1 citizenship per realm so alt voting wont be a thing eventually. its popular vote atm on all nodes whereas come implementation there will be other ways , questing, pvp tourney, bidding system.

    the one thing i hope they add is that you should have to be a citizen for a minimum of half the mayors term length to vote, so if voting is every 4 weeks then you should have to be a citizen for 2 weeks minimum to vote and must be a citizen for at least the 4 weeks to run for mayor ( obviously this wouldnt count for the first vote)
  • TiberiusTheronTiberiusTheron Member, Alpha Two
    edited December 4
    Flying mounts should be removed from Mayors, and each guild should only be allowed to have one Mayor. Mayors should also have specific daily duties they must perform within the node they lead; otherwise, the position should go up for reelection. After experiencing issues in New World, where an entire area could be mismanaged by a single guild, it feels like the same mistakes might happen here.
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