Replacing Inactive Founders

[Marcuslandia]

Hmm. Now you've got me thinking devious again.

The practice of switching out the WA from one nation to another. We've already been kicking around the idea of Influence "weight". What if the "weight" of a nation's WA vote was weighted by how long that nation has been a member of the WA? Hmm.

Here we are in region X. Residing there for the last year has been nation Native Son, which has been a WA all that time. In the last couple weeks, a dozen invader infiltrator puppets have arrived in region X. Those puppets have been in the game for a couple years each, but none have had a WA for more than a month at a time. D-Day minus 1, all 12 get their WA membership. D-Day and they make their move -- and bounce, because Native Son's WA outweighs all 12 of their WAs combined.

Hmm.

[Martyrdoom]

Devious indeed!

Again, I can see why you'd go for that Marcus.

It seems these 'solutions' over-complicate the matter and breed other, larger problems for my two cents.

[Erastide]

Here we are in region X. Residing there for the last year has been nation Native Son, which has been a WA all that time. In the last couple weeks, a dozen invader infiltrator puppets have arrived in region X. Those puppets have been in the game for a couple years each, but none have had a WA for more than a month at a time. D-Day minus 1, all 12 get their WA membership. D-Day and they make their move -- and bounce, because Native Son's WA outweighs all 12 of their WAs combined.

Influence wise, nations in the WA already are ahead in a given region. I wouldn't be at all in favor of delegacy being determined by influence, then whoever is oldest would have an easy time controlling the region. I'm not quite sure I'm understanding what you're proposing though.

[TannerFrankLand]

Here we are in region X. Residing there for the last year has been nation Native Son, which has been a WA all that time. In the last couple weeks, a dozen invader infiltrator puppets have arrived in region X. Those puppets have been in the game for a couple years each, but none have had a WA for more than a month at a time. D-Day minus 1, all 12 get their WA membership. D-Day and they make their move -- and bounce, because Native Son's WA outweighs all 12 of their WAs combined.

Influence wise, nations in the WA already are ahead in a given region. I wouldn't be at all in favor of delegacy being determined by influence, then whoever is oldest would have an easy time controlling the region. I'm not quite sure I'm understanding what you're proposing though.

I think he means that an endorsement from a minow is worth much less than an endoresment from an Eminence Grise. (so a player with an endorsement from a Eminence Grise would be delegate even though another player has three endos from minows.) So when raiders rush in, they will all be minows, and the natives of the region have a much better chance of holding the delegacy because their endos count a lot more than one endo from the raiders...

Yet another solution that would make ALL raiding next to impossible...

[Erastide]

Yeah, not in favor of that scenario either.

[TannerFrankLand]

Yeah, not in favor of that scenario either.

Dittoed. Although that may not have been what he meant...

[Kryozerkia]

Instead of making the successor the "founder", designate the successor "Successor" and leave the founder as the player who did the founding, that way, should they return, they retain their original position but have to share power with the successor. If they return, they can't appoint a new successor, only the successor can appoint someone to take his/her position. But that's just my own little idea.

[Tanaara]

Oh not a bad idea Kryo, I rather like it. It's simple and doesn't require voting - so no yells of puppets / invaders ballot stuffing.

[Erastide]

So you would then end up with 2 founder positions? And what if the founder and successor die off and return? Do you get a third? You could make your whole region all founders that way.

[Marcuslandia]

Yeah, not in favor of that scenario either.

Dittoed. Although that may not have been what he meant...

I keep coming back to this image of a large pack of Chihuahuas dragging down a small herd of elephants. When you factor in WA longevity, the image changes from a pack of Chihuahuas to that of a pack of _new-born_ Chihuahua puppies.

The invader/defender game as it has been practiced is all about Quantity, with not the least concern about the realistic impact of Quality.

[Naivetry]

Yeah, not in favor of that scenario either.

Dittoed. Although that may not have been what he meant...

I keep coming back to this image of a large pack of Chihuahuas dragging down a small herd of elephants. When you factor in WA longevity, the image changes from a pack of Chihuahuas to that of a pack of _new-born_ Chihuahua puppies.

The invader/defender game as it has been practiced is all about Quantity, with not the least concern about the realistic impact of Quality.

But Longevity does not, in any way, shape, or form, equal Quality.

[Marcuslandia]

But Longevity does not, in any way, shape, or form, equal Quality.

But is does mean that the nation/player has been active enough to avoid a CTE.

The thing about Quality is that it is NOT a single value; something that you either have it or you don't. It's a variable. No more than say, number of posts on the forums is a guarantee of Quality. (Like I am sure that there are several people that would loudly contend that the large majority of my posts are pure tripe.)

But just because there are no guarantees, must its influence on the game be _totally_ disregarded? I figure it's at least suggestive that the player is interested enough in the game, he has been a participant long enough, that perhaps his participation is _likely_ to be more....substantial than someone else whose nation's longevity could be measured in hours.

[Naivetry]

But Longevity does not, in any way, shape, or form, equal Quality.

But is does mean that the nation/player has been active enough to avoid a CTE.

Log in once every 60 days. And if you forget, revive and try again. We're talking about activity on the scale of 30 seconds, 6 times in a year. I've got 30-40 of those nations sitting around right now.

But just because there are no guarantees, must its influence on the game be _totally_ disregarded? I figure it's at least suggestive that the player is interested enough in the game, he has been a participant long enough, that perhaps his participation is _likely_ to be more....substantial than someone else whose nation's longevity could be measured in hours.

Participation is measured by the player behind the nation, not by any individual nation's longevity. If I created a brand new puppet nation right now, its importance would be connected to mine as a player. That is as it should be, so that new players who are highly skilled and dedicated are not handicapped by the accident of when they stumbled on the site.

And (incredibly unfortunately, from my perspective) longevity is already taken into account by Influence, so it's not totally disregarded.

[Marcuslandia]

As a counterpoint, my observation is that MANY players enter the game, are quite active for about two weeks, lose interest and wander off, and then their nation CTEes.

Then there's the active _players_ that may have a primary nation, but then also have umpteen puppets.

It seems that having so many puppets is NOT to play the game so much as to exploit a loophole. In particular, "parking" a puppet in a region, strictly to build up Influence for the eventual invasion. How is that _playing_ the game? The puppet is incredibly 2-D; it exists only for ONE purpose. A whole nation of people?

Has anyone ever suggested putting a cap on the number of puppets you can have at one time? Did anyone other than I/D players object to the suggestion?

[AP3 10]

The idea is to have a mechanism to replace founders. Perhaps a vote that can be initiated?

If region residents were voting to replace founders, wouldn't it then be the same as delegates?

Yes a vote would be the same as delegates. it would also introduce a new method of invasion (capturing a election for founder) and since founders aren't affected by influence. this whole would allow invaders ultimate control (if they won, which they would). I don't think founders should be elected directly. (Indirect elections, where the founder agrees to do what the region wants, is another thing and some regions would do that, others wouldn't.)


Sorry Violet and others. Much of my post was establishing my argument that the only certain native of a region, in the event invaders and natives are arguing for mod action, is the founder. ### The Founder is always a native... and in that respect the only nation coding can be expected to know for sure is a native is the founder.###

I said that a problem of establishing who owns a region, is that, under our normal way of looking at who owns a region, everyone living there has some ownership. Now that varies from place to place obviously, but we all seem to think (or defenders anyway) that a new influx of nations, despite the fact they a majority (of WAs), should not then exclude the older nations who we call natives. The problem with that is that only the invaders, the natives and the defenders know who the others are (to a extent), they are human and are capable of this, as code is not human and complex code to try to be would go wrong (and require to much mod effort to write to be considered) then the simple (relatively) code we use has no means of knowing which nations are owners/residents in this 'normal way'. Therefore the normal way of looking at ownership is unenforceable in convenient ways (ie automatically through code) and unenforceable through inconvenient ways (mod intervention) because they can't do this. Therefore I suggest the point above (surrounded by ###s) is the way to code away the worst of this.

Who is the founder?

Now that Founder could be anyone, of any view. I even pointed out they may support the invaders (say if they are these mythical lets build up and colonise the region types). In that manner 'invasion' would still be possible. Its even possible the founder won't much mind eitherway. It will be these regions which would still be at risk of damaging invasion, and that's quite a number of regions (so it doesn't have to kill the invader/defender game), on the other hand I believe founders deciding this, rather than inaction by mods (mods can not be expected to act, they are volunteers and do not need the hassle- that is the established view I believe we all hold) will cause less people to feel disheartened and leave the game, a possible cause of degradation of the present game which had been identified. I also believe founder involvement is a better angle to look at rather than changing how passwords work (where we started the conversation), and think this is a fair point of view.



Now a lot of regions don't have founders at the moment. That is a problem, and something in my view we should try to take action to reduce. I am glad this discussion has moved on to ways of doing this.

[Marcuslandia]

Hmm. You've got me thinking about programming code......

1) How difficult would it be for the program to calculate how many days a nation has been in a region?
2) How difficult is it for the program to compile a list of region residents, said list ordered by duration in region?
3) Founder (or whatever title is chosen to describe the player with the Founder powers) = longest resident.

Period, end of story.

It's obvious who the actual Founder is. If he leaves his own region, it is with the understanding that he is surrendering his Founder status. If the Founder CTEes, the same effect kicks in.

If someone inherits the job that doesn't want it, all he has to do is pop out of the region for a day or so, then the job moves to the next oldest resident.

In the case of a tie for longest duration of a replacement Founder, the computer rolls a die or whatever to randomly deterime which of the 2+ equal-duration candidates gets the job.

All automatic and premised on the actual Founder criteria: He is the one amongst us that was here before all the others.

[Valipac]

That's just silly. Why should a founder lose his status by leaving the region? Perhaps he wants to have a certain region for his puppets, but he himself wants to live in another region. Under your proposal, he would not be able to continue being the founder of that region.

Furthermore, this would force every region to have a founder, and in the cases of some regions, would allow people to become founders who shouldn't be. Just because someone has been there the longest doesn't mean they know how to properly govern the community, and it could tear some regions apart. And since every region would gain a founder, raiding would once again become impossible.

[Whamabama]

I don't like this idea at all. It eliminates the military aspect of the game. The founder has the power because it's his region, he created it. Yes I understand that others choose to be there, participate within the region. Helped it grow, and called it home. It however still belongs to the founder. If the founder CTE, well then the power of the founder does as well. Then the natives should then think of who they want to refound, and work towards that goal. The best way to get around all this is to have the player give the founding nation to another player, so while he maybe gone, the founder remains. Do this, and all the other stuff is moot. Most importantly you don't eliminate a huge chunk of playerbase playing the game.

[AP3 10]

raiding would once again become impossible.

Really? I doubt more regions having a 'founder' would do that. These raiders are very clever and planning members of our community, they know the rules the mechanisms in a way which the regions they generally go after wouldn't. One simple way for raiding continuing is the fact Founders are often/sometimes off-line, asleep, or apathetic. They'll keep on raiding.

As for Marcuslandia idea, I think that could be an idea but I think it would only be needed when the founder cted. "All automatic and premised on the actual Founder criteria: He is the one amongst us that was here before all the others"- that premise is important and I think that as secondary to a Founders own choice of replacement, it is a good idea to have a system which fits that. The Founder position is a strong and ongoing position which can last years, a big benefit of it is that is someone of authority to outlive WA Delegate terms. When WA Delegates leave they lose position; i think founders should be able to travel around as now. Stopping them moving does not help retain players, whereas passing the future of the region into the hands of another resident might mean new spurts of leadership to attract new players for longer.

The founder has the power because it's his region, he created it. Yes I understand that others choose to be there, participate within the region. Helped it grow, and called it home. It however still belongs to the founder. If the founder CTE, well then the power of the founder does as well

Exactly. Thats the big problem...

As we've said the options right now just aren't greatly affecting the numbers of founderless regions out there...

[Marcuslandia]

That's just silly. Why should a founder lose his status by leaving the region? Perhaps he wants to have a certain region for his puppets, but he himself wants to live in another region. Under your proposal, he would not be able to continue being the founder of that region.

Furthermore, this would force every region to have a founder, and in the cases of some regions, would allow people to become founders who shouldn't be. Just because someone has been there the longest doesn't mean they know how to properly govern the community, and it could tear some regions apart. And since every region would gain a founder, raiding would once again become impossible.

There are soooo many holes in logic going on here..... (I'm saying "faulty reasoning; NOT "stupid", okay?)

1) Why should a Founder lose his status? Try "commitment to purpose". What was his purpose for founding the region in the first place? If he voluntarily walks away on his own, he should _know_ that he is making a statement to everyone else that he's leaving behind. That statement being, "I no longer feel totally commited to the reason why I founded this region that I remain here myself.
2) There is ABSOLUTELY no reason that the Founding nation needs to leave a region. _Exactly_ like how a WA status transfers to a player's other puppet. What does the player accomplish by moving the Founding nation out, instead of dispatching a puppet? If he truly, sincerely wants to retain control of his region, he leaves _that_ nation there and sends off an alter ego.
3) Do you REALLY want for a single player with a single nation to be able to Found 20-50-100+ regions, all with Founder powers in all of those regions? The exercising of the potential in that ability smacks of something underhanded and detrimental to other players.
4) Your counter-argument forces others to deal with NOT having a Founder. Which approach injures the regional inhabitants more? Hmm. Replace the Founder, we retain protection. Do NOT replace the Founder and we either have to jump through a myriad of hoops re-Founding the region -- plus dealing with the civil war as multiple players vie to be the new Founder. Or do NOT replace the Founder and risk becoming Invader fodder. Hmm. Which direction should we move on this?
5) Just because someone Founds a region, given how easy that is to do, is most definitely NOT a guarantee that he knows how to administer a region either.
6) Kills the I/D game? Got me there. But given the full population of players, what percentage would you guess don't want to be playing that game in the first place. Buutttttt, since this whole discussion would require a game change anyway, then make another game change as well: Specifically allow a region to opt into the I/D game. (That would clarify things even more than having regions opt out!) Of course, an opt-in Founder would have to have weaker powers than an opt-out Founder, just to make it possible for a region to be invaded.

[Erastide]

1) Why should a Founder lose his status? Try "commitment to purpose". What was his purpose for founding the region in the first place? If he voluntarily walks away on his own, he should _know_ that he is making a statement to everyone else that he's leaving behind. That statement being, "I no longer feel totally commited to the reason why I founded this region that I remain here myself.
2) There is ABSOLUTELY no reason that the Founding nation needs to leave a region. _Exactly_ like how a WA status transfers to a player's other puppet. What does the player accomplish by moving the Founding nation out, instead of dispatching a puppet? If he truly, sincerely wants to retain control of his region, he leaves _that_ nation there and sends off an alter ego.

I don't think that's quite a fair argument. People are known by certain names, even if they have multiple puppets. And founding a region under that name shows you're a part of that region. I think it's a good suggestion that people would found a region with a separate puppet to give them the ability to pass it on, but making it a requirement or you lose your founder powers seems pretty steep.

3) Do you REALLY want for a single player with a single nation to be able to Found 20-50-100+ regions, all with Founder powers in all of those regions? The exercising of the potential in that ability smacks of something underhanded and detrimental to other players.

If that player can keep those regions alive in any sense, why not? There's not really a huge space issue with the game, so why not have a huge number of regions founded by the same person?

5) Just because someone Founds a region, given how easy that is to do, is most definitely NOT a guarantee that he knows how to administer a region either.

There's never been a requirement that by founding a region you "know how to administer" it. What that means can mean different things to different players.

[Marcuslandia]

5) Just because someone Founds a region, given how easy that is to do, is most definitely NOT a guarantee that he knows how to administer a region either.

There's never been a requirement that by founding a region you "know how to administer" it. What that means can mean different things to different players.

That one is directly in response to

Just because someone has been there the longest doesn't mean they know how to properly govern the community

[Valipac]

That's just silly. Why should a founder lose his status by leaving the region? Perhaps he wants to have a certain region for his puppets, but he himself wants to live in another region. Under your proposal, he would not be able to continue being the founder of that region.

Furthermore, this would force every region to have a founder, and in the cases of some regions, would allow people to become founders who shouldn't be. Just because someone has been there the longest doesn't mean they know how to properly govern the community, and it could tear some regions apart. And since every region would gain a founder, raiding would once again become impossible.

There are soooo many holes in logic going on here..... (I'm saying "faulty reasoning; NOT "stupid", okay?)

1) Why should a Founder lose his status? Try "commitment to purpose". What was his purpose for founding the region in the first place? If he voluntarily walks away on his own, he should _know_ that he is making a statement to everyone else that he's leaving behind. That statement being, "I no longer feel totally commited to the reason why I founded this region that I remain here myself.
2) There is ABSOLUTELY no reason that the Founding nation needs to leave a region. _Exactly_ like how a WA status transfers to a player's other puppet. What does the player accomplish by moving the Founding nation out, instead of dispatching a puppet? If he truly, sincerely wants to retain control of his region, he leaves _that_ nation there and sends off an alter ego.
3) Do you REALLY want for a single player with a single nation to be able to Found 20-50-100+ regions, all with Founder powers in all of those regions? The exercising of the potential in that ability smacks of something underhanded and detrimental to other players.
4) Your counter-argument forces others to deal with NOT having a Founder. Which approach injures the regional inhabitants more? Hmm. Replace the Founder, we retain protection. Do NOT replace the Founder and we either have to jump through a myriad of hoops re-Founding the region -- plus dealing with the civil war as multiple players vie to be the new Founder. Or do NOT replace the Founder and risk becoming Invader fodder. Hmm. Which direction should we move on this?
5) Just because someone Founds a region, given how easy that is to do, is most definitely NOT a guarantee that he knows how to administer a region either.
6) Kills the I/D game? Got me there. But given the full population of players, what percentage would you guess don't want to be playing that game in the first place. Buutttttt, since this whole discussion would require a game change anyway, then make another game change as well: Specifically allow a region to opt into the I/D game. (That would clarify things even more than having regions opt out!) Of course, an opt-in Founder would have to have weaker powers than an opt-out Founder, just to make it possible for a region to be inrvaded.

1. You completely ignored my potential scenario. Good job. Here's another potential scenario. You found a region that is your alliance's main region. You also found a region for nations who want to be in your alliance but aren't "good" enough yet. In your scenario, you would no longer be able to control one of those two regions.
2. Yes, there is. See both of my examples above. It's a lot easier not to have to log in to a puppet whenever you want to access regional control.
3. This has never been a problem before, why would it become a problem now?
4. Since my region has a password, we don't need a founder, thank you very much. The same is true for the region my puppet is in, which actually doesn't have a founder. Your statement of purpose shows what this is truly a means to, an effort to eliminate raiding completely. Which I had already surmised.
5. Yes, but in that case, we can move out. In this case, we have already moved in and grown attached to our communities. By adding a new founder, a person whom the residents would never elect into a position of power could gain the control and ruin the community that they had built during the reign of either the previous founder or the time that they had no founder. If the first founder is tyrannical, it won't be a big deal, the region is small and young, relationships are only just forming. If the second founder is, it will ruin the entire region, and all of the well developed communities within it.
6. Ah yes, killing the I/D game. Yep, we should definitely ruin the game for a fairly high percentage of the players... We shouldn't be aiming to destroy the raiding game, we should be aiming to rework it so as to prevent griefing as it was previously defined. Also... Opt-in founders weaker than opt-out founders? Way to make the coding extremely complicated.

[Marcuslandia]

1. You completely ignored my potential scenario. Good job. Here's another potential scenario. You found a region that is your alliance's main region. You also found a region for nations who want to be in your alliance but aren't "good" enough yet. In your scenario, you would no longer be able to control one of those two regions.

Player has nation. Player founds region with that nation as Founder. Player starts puppet nation. That puppet nation is used to Found second region. Two regions; one player. With no cap on puppets, there is no limit to how many regions one player can Found.

2. Yes, there is. See both of my examples above. It's a lot easier not to have to log in to a puppet whenever you want to access regional control.

Think of it as the price to be paid if you insist on running more than one region. What is EASIER for one player may not be the best solution _for the game_. Having ONE nation be simultaneously Founder for umpteen dozen regions is NOT a Good Thing.

3. This has never been a problem before, why would it become a problem now?

Because it can become a problem. Once upon a time, invaders didn't have such an easy time of locking down regions -- until they learned to twist the rules to their advantage. It's just a matter of time before a player decides to make the Guiness Book of World Records for most regions Founded by one nation -- because he can and it hasn't been done before. {Hmm. Gee, I've got all this free time coming up now that it's summer....]

4. Since my region has a password, we don't need a founder, thank you very much. The same is true for the region my puppet is in, which actually doesn't have a founder. Your statement of purpose shows what this is truly a means to, an effort to eliminate raiding completely. Which I had already surmised.

I have no desire to flat out eliminate the I/D game. What I _would_ like to see is for every region that does NOT want to play the I/D game to be able to do so, whether they have a Founder or not, or whether the region is passworded or not. And I can likewise see that you are NOT concerned about players that are forced to play that portion of the game, whether they want to or not. As long as you get what _you_ want, then what happens to them isn't your concern.

5. Yes, but in that case, we can move out. In this case, we have already moved in and grown attached to our communities. By adding a new founder, a person whom the residents would never elect into a position of power could gain the control and ruin the community that they had built during the reign of either the previous founder or the time that they had no founder. If the first founder is tyrannical, it won't be a big deal, the region is small and young, relationships are only just forming. If the second founder is, it will ruin the entire region, and all of the well developed communities within it.

Your argument loops back around onto itself. How many players move to a given region because of who Founded it? The way you state your case, that's the ONLY reason they do so. From what I've seen, most immigrations come about because the region itself interests them. Unless you have a serious change in management styles, they probably wouldn't even notice. And if the alternative is to have no Founder at all -- THAT has a very serious change in regional conditions. The same holds true if regional management transfers to the Delegate, you get the same potential for drastic change. If your argument is, "At least they got to vote for him!" then you should likewise argue for an election for a replacement Founder for the one that CTEed. (Which is, in fact my preference, but all the old-timers are dead set against _that_ idea.)

6. Ah yes, killing the I/D game. Yep, we should definitely ruin the game for a fairly high percentage of the players... We shouldn't be aiming to destroy the raiding game, we should be aiming to rework it so as to prevent griefing as it was previously defined. Also... Opt-in founders weaker than opt-out founders? Way to make the coding extremely complicated.

This is probably the most maddening aspect about the whole debate. Of the estimated 10,000+ players in the game, just how many actually DO want to play the I/D game? 10%? 20%? 30%? 40%? (Excuse the caps) NOBODY KNOWS! We can make some educated guesses: We know that there are almost 50,000 active nations in the game. Quite a few of those are puppets, and of those puppets, my guess is that most of those are owned and operated by I/D players. So, how many I/D nations do we currently "see" as being in motion? (They _do_ tend to draw attention to themselves when they go stomping about.) So, 5,000 I/D nations? (10%) 10,000 I/D nations? (20%) 15,000 I/D nations? (30%) How many does it take to get to "fairly high"? Conversely, as the poll queries, how many players/nations really would prefer to NOT get involved in the I/D game at all? What about the desires of _that_ "fairly high" percentage of players?

As for the opt-in/opt-out, it's an either/or approach to the programming. If regions would opt-in, only nations in those regions may participate in the I/D game, and they would be limited to only invading other opt-in regions. If the programming identifies only those regions which have opted-out, then invasions could take place in any region not identified as opt-out. Programming for opting-in is easier than programming for opting-out.

[Valipac]

1. You completely ignored my potential scenario. Good job. Here's another potential scenario. You found a region that is your alliance's main region. You also found a region for nations who want to be in your alliance but aren't "good" enough yet. In your scenario, you would no longer be able to control one of those two regions.

Player has nation. Player founds region with that nation as Founder. Player starts puppet nation. That puppet nation is used to Found second region. Two regions; one player. With no cap on puppets, there is no limit to how many regions one player can Found.

So then you're argument in #3 is invalid. Someone could still go found a ton of regions if it was their choice.

2. Yes, there is. See both of my examples above. It's a lot easier not to have to log in to a puppet whenever you want to access regional control.

Think of it as the price to be paid if you insist on running more than one region. What is EASIER for one player may not be the best solution _for the game_. Having ONE nation be simultaneously Founder for umpteen dozen regions is NOT a Good Thing.

Except your solution for the game steps on a lot of toes. I hardly see eliminating the invasion game (which I myself choose to not partake in) as the best solution for the game. Attempting to eliminate it in this manner goes even farther and steps on even more toes (such as those controlling multiple regions).

3. This has never been a problem before, why would it become a problem now?

Because it can become a problem. Once upon a time, invaders didn't have such an easy time of locking down regions -- until they learned to twist the rules to their advantage. It's just a matter of time before a player decides to make the Guiness Book of World Records for most regions Founded by one nation -- because he can and it hasn't been done before. {Hmm. Gee, I've got all this free time coming up now that it's summer....]

The problem with this is that it is all hypothetical. For one, it has never been done before, and for two, 95% of the regions that person founds will die that night, unless he places a puppet in each one. It's not a logical outcome that the player in question would continue to tend to those regions despite the fact that no one is going to move in to them.

4. Since my region has a password, we don't need a founder, thank you very much. The same is true for the region my puppet is in, which actually doesn't have a founder. Your statement of purpose shows what this is truly a means to, an effort to eliminate raiding completely. Which I had already surmised.

I have no desire to flat out eliminate the I/D game. What I _would_ like to see is for every region that does NOT want to play the I/D game to be able to do so, whether they have a Founder or not, or whether the region is passworded or not. And I can likewise see that you are NOT concerned about players that are forced to play that portion of the game, whether they want to or not. As long as you get what _you_ want, then what happens to them isn't your concern.

Say what you like, but all of your proposals would indicate otherwise. The fact of the matter is, you're correct, I'm going to look out for my own ideal NS before that of the say, Defenders, or WAers. I am, however, going to try and look out for the wellbeing of NS as a whole, by noting which that killing off one group of players for the benefit of another is not the way to go about running a site. The funny thing is, you could care less about the invaders or people like me. You just want to see to it that people in unpassworded regions with no founders get to be perfectly safe. The rest of the game could go to hell. Ah, the hypocrisy.

5. Yes, but in that case, we can move out. In this case, we have already moved in and grown attached to our communities. By adding a new founder, a person whom the residents would never elect into a position of power could gain the control and ruin the community that they had built during the reign of either the previous founder or the time that they had no founder. If the first founder is tyrannical, it won't be a big deal, the region is small and young, relationships are only just forming. If the second founder is, it will ruin the entire region, and all of the well developed communities within it.

Your argument loops back around onto itself. How many players move to a given region because of who Founded it? The way you state your case, that's the ONLY reason they do so. From what I've seen, most immigrations come about because the region itself interests them. Unless you have a serious change in management styles, they probably wouldn't even notice. And if the alternative is to have no Founder at all -- THAT has a very serious change in regional conditions. The same holds true if regional management transfers to the Delegate, you get the same potential for drastic change. If your argument is, "At least they got to vote for him!" then you should likewise argue for an election for a replacement Founder for the one that CTEed. (Which is, in fact my preference, but all the old-timers are dead set against _that_ idea.)

If my argument loops back on itself, then you're argument falls flat on its face. You're exactly correct, the players move to the region because it interests them. That does nothing to invalidate the fact that a tyrannical founder could take over and ruin everything that they moved their for. If the original founder is bad, they will leave quickly, and the region's growth will stall and die. If the new founder is bad, everything that had been established under the old founder is lost. You claim that the delegate has the same chance for change, but these tyrannical types would hardly ever be elected as delegates. Usually, people know who they are voting for as a delegate. They don't have the chance to vote here. Furthermore, if a delegate does start to attempt to ruin things, all it takes is a few people changing endorsements and suddenly a new delegate takes over.

Oh, and fancy that, the ones benefited the most by foundership being given by age requirements want to keep it that way. That's like asking a poor man if welfare should be eliminated. Although I would still be against replacing founders if it was a vote, I'd be much closer to warming to the idea than I am now.

6. Ah yes, killing the I/D game. Yep, we should definitely ruin the game for a fairly high percentage of the players... We shouldn't be aiming to destroy the raiding game, we should be aiming to rework it so as to prevent griefing as it was previously defined. Also... Opt-in founders weaker than opt-out founders? Way to make the coding extremely complicated.

This is probably the most maddening aspect about the whole debate. Of the estimated 10,000+ players in the game, just how many actually DO want to play the I/D game? 10%? 20%? 30%? 40%? (Excuse the caps) NOBODY KNOWS! We can make some educated guesses: We know that there are almost 50,000 active nations in the game. Quite a few of those are puppets, and of those puppets, my guess is that most of those are owned and operated by I/D players. So, how many I/D nations do we currently "see" as being in motion? (They _do_ tend to draw attention to themselves when they go stomping about.) So, 5,000 I/D nations? (10%) 10,000 I/D nations? (20%) 15,000 I/D nations? (30%) How many does it take to get to "fairly high"? Conversely, as the poll queries, how many players/nations really would prefer to NOT get involved in the I/D game at all? What about the desires of _that_ "fairly high" percentage of players?

As for the opt-in/opt-out, it's an either/or approach to the programming. If regions would opt-in, only nations in those regions may participate in the I/D game, and they would be limited to only invading other opt-in regions. If the programming identifies only those regions which have opted-out, then invasions could take place in any region not identified as opt-out. Programming for opting-in is easier than programming for opting-out.

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You're right. No one knows. But we do know one thing. It makes up a substantial portion of the players in the game. Maybe not 50%, maybe not 30%, but even a 5% loss in players would be bad. Especially with invaders, who control tons of puppets. The poll you started can hardly be construed as official, as very few raiders actually frequent these forums, and the poll could easily be rigged by voting with puppet nations anyways. The loss of these players would be a crucial blow to the NS community, and no group should be valued above another.

An opt-in opt-out system would hardly remove raiding. What you would have is raids going on in the opt-out section, and then the mods would have to make judgement calls on whether or not it was actually raiding or whether said nation was a "native". And if his followers were natives. Which would simply mean invaders would need to move puppets in a few weeks before the raid, then just switch them to WA status at the time of the raid. Which would be complained about. Which would lead to more judgement calls by mods. Which would lead to questioned decisions. Which would lead to nothing better than we have now, if not worse.