Eluvatar wrote:Digory Kirke wrote:To be quite frank, this seems like Eluvatar's pet project. While that's alright, there has been near-unanimous opposition to it in this thread. To implement this would be not only to endanger GCR politics and ensure stagnancy for years in certain GCRs, while ensuring constant instability in others, it would be to dangerously and chaotically change R/D. Eluvatar, I beg you to take off any rose-colored glasses you might have and look at this idea for its repercussions. This idea does not stand pn its merits. By any measure, it would reduce meritocracy and democracy in GCRs to zero, and would almost certainly change R/D into a much bigger and more destructive game.
I would agree that this is, in some sense, my pet project. I've thought on these matters considerably.
I think it's too soon to consider opposition near-unanimous. However, I am certainly going to be watching the overall picture.
I don't understand how this Delegate-Elect mechanic would reduce meritocracy and democracy in GCRs to zero (nor, indeed, quite what that means). I'm interested to know what you mean by it, and why.
I will agree that increasing the size of Gameplay by allowing more to participate is a goal of this possible feature, but I'm hazier on it being more destructive. I'd be interested in why you think that is the case.
(Main nation of Digory Kirke here!)
I'm glad to hear that our admins are putting thought into their work and proposed gameplay changes. I appreciate that you're willing to listen to us.
Alright, on to the beef of my argument. Here's why GCRs would have no incentive to produce meritocracy: you can't appoint anyone a BC RO without fear of a coup. Your argument earlier was, "know who to trust." That, of course, is at best a dismissive chortle, at worst an intentional ignorance of GCR politics. You cannot know who to trust in GCRs. A good example of this would be Milograd's coup, or most recently, Funkadelia's revolution. Those in government entrusted these people with carrying on the culture of their region. These people, though they were loyal for a long time, even as delegates, eventually couped. These were people who began as entities intent, most likely, on being a positive influence on these communities. Can you imagine the scale at which this would be increased if (as discussed earlier) ROs, or even external raiders could coup GCRs on a whim with enough dedication, effort, and timing. You're essentially eliminating all potential to defend from coups if GCRs, especially sinkers, want to keep high-endorsement guardians as ROs. The reasoning for this was discussed earlier, I shan't repeat the rationale. What you've got, then, is a dichotomy: either these regions keep guardians and risk almost certain coup, or demote all guardians, banject all high-endorsement individuals, etc. Some regions, like The Pacific and Balder, would almost certainly be safe because they have already implemented similar policies for endorsements.
However, let's take a region like Lazarus, which is still recovering from a change in government, or a region like The East Pacific, where it was not too recently that the elected delegate was surpassed in endorsements by a benign guardian. These regions may be doomed, given a careless delegate, or a time where the delegate can't attend update, to a perpetual cycle of coups. These regions may recover from a coup, only to have their new low-influence delegate surpassed by one of his ROs, who could then coup himself. This would almost certainly lead to power-plays within coups and countercoup movements, to the extent that these regions would be strife with mistrust, slave to UCRs and to more secure GCRs. Coupled with the other proposed changes, establishing a stable government, a place where new or returning players can establish themselves, would be very difficult. Drama leeches may like those regions, but any player who loves being a productive individual and building something up will be chased away to a UCR or a more stable GCR. I don't want our GCRs to look like battlefields, or to be filled with more drama than they already are.
The remaining GCRs, the stable ones, would fall into a period of facilitated stagnancy and autocracy. Gone would be region governments like The West Pacific, where guardians are appointed on their merits. I believe that the addition of regional officers was a positive development, especially for GCRs. It allows positive members of a community to contribute to and protect that community. While ROs can overthrow, without the proposed system, the more loyal ROs you have to the security of the region, the less likely a rogue one is to succed. This would not happen under the proposed system. This is not to denigrate regions like The Pacific or Balder, with a high-endo delegate and most everyone else low-endorsement, but one has to remember that they implemented these systems early in their development. For regions with cultures like, say, TWP or Osiris, this would mean a degradation of the meritocratic systems on which their governments and communities stand.
As for my point on Raiding/Defending, most detractors of this idea have cited that R/D would become a piling game. They claim that this would be boring, and I have to agree with them on a personal note. However, raiding and defending would continue, if not becoming more political as a result of GCR factionalization discussed in the previous point. Many here have experienced the pilers CAIN was able to amass to take The NSIA, and many as well remember the raid of Nazi Europe. Imagine if you had two CAIN-sized factions of pilers fighting over regions. Eventually, they might even be able to fight over sinkers. I may be exaggerating to a small extent, but this is not out of the question. The other changes combined with this will incentivize pilers. R/D regions will adapt to this change or die. These changes will result in a factionalization of two monstrous leagues, a dichotomy of vitriol and terror. The sinkers, and possibly even some feeders, may become slave to the will of UCRs, and become tools in a game, as opposed for regional communities for new players to become involved in.
I cannot support this proposal. I enjoy politics to an extent, but this is asking for a Cold War. This will result in a much darker and divisive metagame. I am not for a more heavy-hearted game, this game as-is drains my emotions enough.
