Dark Legacy MUD Forum

Tier 1 (Owner Decided) - Coders

Tier 2 (Elected) - Questors

Tier 3 (Elected) - Builders

Tier 3 (Elected) - Arbitrators

This is the basic design (I had to change the format and spacing to work in accordance with the forum, I forwarded a copy to Celeborn in my original format) for the hierarchy for a democratic vote on different leadership positions. The coders only input to the game would be stricly limited to the code alone. The rest of the MUD would be player manageable dependant upon the result of an election. An election would occur during a period of one week, real life time. During this one week there would be nobody in power, it would be a time for candidates to post what they feel they could accomplish for a term of 3 months (This would constantly have a majority idea being implemented into the game, making an enjoyable, democratic environment). A candidate may serve as many terms possible if voted in by the players. There would be these 3 different positions for the players to vote upon during elections week (perhaps have it as an option when you logon to Dark-Legacy during elections week). Something like, "Do you wish to vote for a candidate in any of the three positions (Questor, Builder, Arbitrator) at this time? (Y/N)" As said before during elections week, or as I like to call it, "neutral week", the candidates would be able to present their case as to why they should be voted into this position of power. They could do this via the forums, the noteboard (perhaps have a special noteboard set up for this), advertisements, etc. I think this would bring a revival to the MUD and one that would stay for a long time as it would keep the majority views being implemented and as well as actively played upon. Also the number of positions available would be based upon the game's population. Anyways, these are just some of my thoughts that I had after Raolas said the word "democracy" to me after reading a link that Celeborn had posted on the forums, which sounded very familiar to me (http://www.memorableplaces.com/mudwimping.html). Now, know that I truly care about Dark-Legacy and it's future and the people who play in it. I consider this place my home, and I would love to bring back the joy it once gave to people. These thoughts are new and still fresh, and perhaps others could help elaborate more with me here. This is just a rough idea that I had, still could use some tweaks. I'd love to know what everyone would think of this type of system being implemented because I truly believe it would bring back life to the game. You may say this is just Binkly ranting, but I honestly care and I think we should all get together to form some sort of conclusion. Please, just consider. I thank you for your time. Lets work together to get this thing into action guys! I'm sorry I know this is kind of a quick description but I've been up all night and it's now 8:00am lol I just got so excited when I thought of this and I thought I had to share, be it a brief outline or not. Raolas and I will design a more specific article to describe it better soon. Until then, I'd love to hear feedback. Thanks again Binkly

Tier 1 (Owner Decided) - Coders [-] Simply put, the coding work is done by these fine people.

Tier 2 (Elected) - Questors [-] These representatives would be the people who devise, plan, and implement Quests into the game. They could also work on mob generated quests, control IMM games (tag, gauntlet, etc), and also set up their own special quests. This position would have to create at minimum 1 quest per term or they would not be allowed to serve another term.

Tier 3 (Elected) - Builders [-] These representatives would be responsible for the creation of areas, items, progs, etc. They would build on to the environment in accordance to what they campaigned for. This position would have to create at minimum one area or one area that could be continued upon by another candidate or the same candidate in the following term or they would be allowed to serve another term.

Tier 3 (Elected) - Arbitrators [-] These representatives would play the role of a detective, judge, jury, etc. They would play this role without any biases and with an open mind. They would be proved with a command to view a list of problems that were submitted by a submittee. They would view the information submitted and investigate the matter, gather facts, draw conclusions, and pass judgement. If at any time a player sees an arbitrator to be unjust, biases, unfair, etc; then the player has the option to petition for a new tier 3 election. This could only be achieved with enough majority support of the pbase. (deciding vote upon election or not).

These are some more quick thoughts I had that could help this system out. Again it is quick, I know, still haven't slept and it is now 9:00am lol. I will try to get a final hard copy all organized and fancy set up soon. I will be leaving until Sunday so it would be great to come back to some feedback. Let me know what you guys think. Binkly.

The philosophy behind the idea is that: Due to the immortal base being semi-permanent and the monotony of the job, it forces the immortals away from us players. This, I believe could be caused by the "Mob Affect". Essentially, because of the environment the imm is placed into they are forced to eventually distance themselves more and more from the players, which as we all know is the main reason the game starts to get dull, not enough imm to player and player to imm interaction.

With a short term rule for the simple jobs like; Creating quests, Arbitrating between players and those who /can/ fix the problem, and Creating areas. We help to eleminate the possability of the caretakers losing focus towards the game being what it should actually be, fun.

The reason for a vote is: If someone was to step in, and abuse power, the player base could essentially vote a new person into power and the persons who abused their rights, once voted out of power, would not have the ability, nor the nessecary favor from the majority to regain the position he/she had..

This idea as well does not have to affect higher level imm function, I almost see this as a program that should be run by a higher level imm. This imm would be responsible for actually handing out any reimbursements, and as a 'guide' if you will, to warn them what not to do in imm world.


So essentially what we're looking at is:


OWNER
|
CODER
|
High LVL IMM
|
Elected

The Questor's job, essentially, would be for player entertainment. Questors should generally be people who are on fairly often, at random times of the day and bloodthirsty (mob death :P, we dont need kamikaze missions). Questors should be able to open the Gauntlet as well as a few other pre-made cookie cutter events. This type of elected head should get no say in reward items or anything of that nature, reward items should be alotted from quests premade, as to prevent the liklyhood of cheating due to accessability.

The Builder's job, easy, to build. Maybe Celeborn could reprogram Dragonfly to work with the new code? I'm not sure, however as a requirement the Builder should be required to build a single area per time elected, or at least complete a piece of a multiple area quest, cooperative areas (where multi areas are all tied in one to another), things of that nature. However one work per time elected is required to be completed. The builder should also be responsible for fixing simple bugs on dark-legacy such as typos. Any typos found within the room descriptions of the game, or other should be directed to the builder. If the builder is unable to fix the issue, then delegate to the higher level imm, and so forth until the problem is fixed. Obviously review of all mobiles, programs, and items is required before areas can be introduced to the live game, high level imm required to do the reviews.

the Arbitrator, this is a weird one and would require some work for it to work safely. the Arbitrator should have access to a command prompt, sort of like how the bug command works now, called problem. Problems reported would include a quick description, a list of peoples involved, a full and detailed description of the event or issue, suggested (by player) solution.
That information should then be taken by the Arbitrator, and he should investigate the occurance, gather as much information as possible, and then basically document his findings, and write a suggested solution himself on the same problem page. Once the Arbitrator has submitted his form, it will then raise to the Higher Level Imm where it is there final choice on what to do in the matter. the suggestion made by the arbitrator should be the obvious choice, but if the higher level imm feels the need to intervene then so be it.

Elections should be a bi-monthly or tri-monthly event, taking place for a full week inside of this month. During the week, there will be /no/ elected immortals to prevent tension between the players and elected imms. In addition, the candidates for immhood should not be released until the morning voting begins or, simply time when it is the elected imms lose their immhood to occur before the candidate information is released.

Voting should be an extremely private manner, You should be prompted to vote preferrably inside of your user account screen, where you select a character. Possibly give them the option to vote when the time comes, if they do it could be displayed like:

alright, i'm gonna sit down and read this, be right back with words

'kay so yeah. the idea seems good and all, but i've got two issues:
a) the high-level imm sounds like it'd be the mud's bitch
b) we've seen before how one person can apparently round up all their lackeys to go a certain way... but obviously common sense would dictate that if that happened with the vote to not include their votes. but, if that were to happen that way, then it wouldn't really be "democratic", 'cause it's only looking at a few of the votes cast by a select group. i don't know what a solution might be, or if i'm even making sense, but it seems to me like it could be a problem

other than that, it looks solid and like a good idea, though it'd take a lot more imm effort, and probably (a) new imm(s).

alright i'm done thinking for the day, bye

a) since the high level imm has no need to interact with the mortal characters of the mud, period, it eleviates him of all other heirachical duties with the players other than the end of it all.

Also, it is thought that the high level imm be a pre existing immortal, who wants to continue to contribute to dark-legacy in a means most people cannot. It frees them of the time that it takes to deal with players, and enables to do exactly what is nessecary. and if it comes time for a reimbursement (which are few and far between) then the imm could, at any time, load the character needing the reimb, and distribute according.

The high level imm would have the ability to intervene with the elected immortal affairs with the mortals, however, it should only occur if severe catastrophe should ensue otherwise.

Because the high level imms job is to do High level imm tasks, he/she will be busy doing these, and their tasks are seperate from that of the elected staff. The elected staff's tasks are controlled and run by the elected immortals, who relay any information as required by the high level imm, which is to be stated when the imms provide their mission statement at time of appointment.

The job of the high level imm is not to control the elected staff, but to guide and aid them when they need it.


B) Now, essentially, if a person or persons tries to control one or more people(s) and pressure them into leaning the vote it should then be the job of the high level imm to identify this happening, as people usually make a big scene about things on DL it should be obvious. And intervene, as mentioned previously. This incident would be an abuse of the game mechanics, and abusing the game to gain immortal rights would be punishable by perma-ban. (see: Chubbukoku)

my worries are appeased and also i love the reference.
bless you, sir

Incase you all are thinking that this would not work because of it using a character... well, i think there should be a special slot available in ur account for a premade char with the name of the job required. Only if you were elected will this slot be visible.

NAMES:

Arbiter (Arbitrator elected official)
Questor (Questor elected official)
Mason (Builder elected official)

OMFG I love this IDEA!!! Oh, but whose job would it be to catch me botting?

the arbiter would have the ability to snoop

everything sounds great. now lets bring up reasons how it may not work. Lets talk more about the possible abuses.

I like the overal idea, but it needs some work in the avoiding-abuse department.

The biggest issue I see is caretakers being hired based on how many friends they have or the promises they make. While this could work out ok for Arbitrators, Questors and Builders have many other suitability factors; do they have good writing and/or building skills, can they work together on a project, do they understand the economics and balance requirements of building, will they hand their friends gear in secret, can they keep their cool, etc.

Second issue for me is damage control; it is really really not my idea of fun. It takes one bad or malicious builder to wipe tarsonis, flood the market with eggs and rare runes, or create a 'give me an apple for 1.000.000 gold' quest. By the time the emergency elections start, the damage is already done.

Plus the obvious issues with automated democratic voting. If you have 15 PVP-ers and 14 PVErs who vote you end up with the PVPers in control of every aspect of the game. While a person can understand these nuances and make sure everyone is tailored to in a form of consensus democracy, an automated system cannot. (I know, the pvp vs pve example is a bit black and white but you get the picture)

Moo?

Let the powerstruggle begin!

I say we remove all immortals from their current position, else we'll not have a true democracy. It'll be like Canada's senate: unelected and completely undemocratic.

Everyone, except for Celeborn obviously. Should be removed form their positions and a new form of government should be implemented else this is all just a farce pulled over our eyes to make us think that things are better when they're just the way they were.

I believ Celeborn HAS to have some people that he appoints, otherwise he may never be sure whether HE can trust his own caretakers or not, and to me that does not seem fair to him

I thank you for your points, all valid... tuler, ill get to you after

first off, ill touch base with what celeborn mentioned:

I see how you regard it as well how they get hired, this is what i think would be the biggest part to get around. The people that apply would, said and done, have to be approved by the imm above the arbitrator, questor, and buildor... hopefully this would help filter out the people who would try to abuse the positions of power.

Questors, now, as I had mentioned should only have the ability to run pre made quests... i feel that the builders for the first while should work in conjunction with the questors to build multiple things like the gauntlet that the players could run when prompted by the questor for the quest to begin. the only bonuses that would be assigned, unless approved and created by the higher level imm (as the questors do not have the ability to create items, and so forth, just initiate premade "cookie cutter" if you will, quests).

Builders now, they are the bit that I can see causing a bit of hesitation as well... I think that if you were to not permit the builders the ability to built on the mainport, just give the builders the simple abilities like to change descriptions / room names to clean up some miscellaneous typos and things that may be scattered around alora... Let them build offline, I think dragonfly should probably be remade to work with the current system. Maybe advance the coding of dragonfly a little so you can make premade mobs for it, of varying strength that you can assign names, or varying afflictions with an easy interface. All areas should be reviewed by a caretaker, maybe post a log file of all the item stats and mprogs in an area to a seperate text file as well as the area file, record the checksum and encrypt it onto the textfile so you can also test for it's legitamicy.

We as well will not have to worry about them handing gear to their friends as they will not have the ability to oinvoke, drop, minvoke, slay, or anything like that... strip them of those so they CAN'T cheat... essentially.

By not allowing them the ability to cheat, we strip the cause and need of damage control. If they said elected staff were to have their imm-ish commands removed, and replaced with an interface seperate of that current it could thusly eliminate the ability for the elected staff to have access to any commands that would enable them the ability to cheat...

We do not have to worry about them making quests like that, because they can only enable premade quests, so anything that if a prize is given throughout the quest, or by the higher level imm as per the killing blow, or per the quest requirements... if the questor was to speak with the higher level imm in order to arrange the prize, and as long as it is a reasonable prize, why would it be a poblem?

They are not really control in every aspect of the game, the PVPers would still have to abide by the "dont touch the peacie" policy, etc...

I see this being an issue with the arbitration system, however the arbitrator should only be elected into position if they are a person of good conscience... As well, we have to remember, the higher level imm has the ability to "filter out" the bad apples at the time of the election process... As well, we have to remember the arbitrator has no ability to punish (other than say... silence... or something else like that) and then they have to process the request to the higher level imm, if available, otherwise the request gets logged like mentioned in the posts above.

Now, Gaitika, I completely and utterly agree with you, why don't we continue to have Kiasyn as the high level imm, he is a good immortal that way, he knows what he's doing. Why not free him the bother of needing to worry about us mortals, let us deal with our own affairs...

Hrm... Tuler, when you think about it, this really does solve the issue, i mean, Kiasyn would be in charge of the show still, under Celeborn's management that is, and he wouldnt have to worry about dealing with us dumb asses anymore, other than to quickly do a few things... he wont take the blame, he wont really take anything... hes acting off the recommendations and notes of the elected staff, also in review of their work, in combination with the notes, where applicable, of the mortals.


Blah, that was a lot, hope I didn't lose any of you there.

I skipped everything and read what you said about me.



Leaving the person who drove away all the good imms and prompted the second most respected/powerful (obviously cele is first) person in Dark Legacy to tell me to quit because Kiasyn had the game wrapped around his finger is a good thing. Obviously.




This should never have happened anyways. That's what immortals do.. wait.. that's what immortals are supposed to do. Our immortals seem bent on illegally performing favours for characters and scoping out things they wouldn't know without their imm powers, driving away the pbase, the good immortals, telling the players other characters' alts, etc.



He's acting off the recommendations of Kiasyn and Radyn (if radyn is still around), maybe brit.... is britt here? Maybe Britt will be promoted to head imm and actually do something good buuut from what I gather kiasyn and britt aren't the best of friends so I don't see that happening..


Anywho, all in all it's the same with the facade of democracy and player contribution.

I hardly see how this accomplishes anything except the consumption of time that could be spent making the game better... There have been requests for quests for how many years, and Cele, I'm not attacking you, you're a super guy and I understand you've made it hard for them to do certain things, but edit programs? I'm sure they can edit programs, britt was fixing eq's stats...

Unless there is a real democracy there's not point in establishing any semi-democracy. Cele, I know you're a smart guy, but I don't understand how you've been able to be so blind to what happened. Before Isabelle quit red flags should have shot up. When you hire an imm that causes immortals to quit, you've got a problem.

Kiasyn, you're gonna read this and hate me (if you don't already). You might be a good person, from what I hear you're a conceded ass, but I personally have no knowledge of such and can't hold you to hearsay. I don't mind you.. I mind you as an immortal, if you were imming where I was in charge, you'd be banned forever.

(Bet this post is gonna spark some controversy and flames!)

i seriously laughed reading this thread - thanks for the fun =D

You big communist!

sssh

Well, im thinking forward, no one else seems to be other than Celeborn, Binkly, and myself.

Something needs to be done at this point in time... we're down to 1 barely-active imm, kia. The players are bored, no imms are on to give us stuff to do, this is solution that comes to mind, if we all wanted there to be more diversity and activities in the game, I believe this would help solve not only the issue of boredom, as we'd get to do some random quests, or if we needed to, we could talk to the imms about how buddy just took an emer pick that u loaned him, under contract, and wont give it back... and the builders could build more quests for us to do... other than say, gauntlet...


now, tuler:

Big deal, with this in play kia will not as an imm have a reason to communicate with mortals in game unless directly on a mortal himself... actually, you know what, to further prevent cheating and exploitation, lets make it so the high level imm cannot interact with mortal characters unless to perform certain imm commands... lets make reimbursements REQUIRE to go through arbitration before the high level imm can get to it, and also make the reimbursement process change so that once the high level imm gets the invoice about the reimb, he has to thusly create the items missing, or whatever it was, and then attach it to the reimbursement invoice in some way (maybe combine the invoice to the reimb'd item's container?) and then arbitration gives it to the players, and when players open it, it breaks a seal so that the players will know if its been tampered with from the high level imm through to the arbitrator

if its an issue like that, i mean jeeze, if we're modifying one system may as well modify the other to compliment

imms should still be able to ooc, mark, ban, silence (other than the elected, they cant) anad all that, bubt should loose the ability to drop items, or to essentially interact with items in any way other than oset or whatever it is on DL things like that, keeping with the "strip their ability to cheat" part.

It's not possible to have a high level imm unable to interact with the players. The only way that true protection can be seen is to allow someone access to the mudlogs so they can check on a regular basis in order to see if there is cheating.

If there is cheating then it actually must be dealt with.

Why don't you talk to Bink about this.. I have.

What you're attempting to do is not actually help the mud in any way. You're simply making it seem like you're helping the mud. I understand that this may not be your intention, I believe that you want reformation in order to have a successful mud.

We'll use communism as an example (thanks cele)

You have a communist government. You take that, disband it and place the leader of the communist government as the leader of your new government. What do you get? Communism under the veil of democracy.

Kiasyn is satan. She's the worst thing to happen to Dark Legacy.

But, I in no way support Britt staying as an imm, unless the players elect her either, but I feel that they should because she's proven herself. (Does she still play?)

We all know this is not true. I think there are other ways to revive the mud. I think that we should take a good look at the past and see what worked and what didn't. A good place to start is to question "what went wrong" and try to fix that before implementing something new.
As for looking forward to something innovative, there's nothing wrong. I'm glad that you and Binkly spent much time planning out this whole democracy thing with the intention of reviving the mud. I've talked to binkly before and I do believe that he truely believes in DL. Tuler, Binkly, many others and I feel that DL is our home and we will always try to find ways to contribute. We sought for changes not because of selfish reasons but because of what we sincerly believe to be best for the mud.
One problem i find with the whole democracy thing is that it is too unefficient, too many elections, too many buracracies, too many things can can go wrong because of too many reasons. I think the idea would be very good if the mud was a bit bigger. I'll have more say about the democracy thing when i'm less discouraged of reading long posts. heh. lol




There is a general consensus that DL has gotten boring simply because there's no quests. There's only so much epic and mining that we can do before we get extremely bored and bot at TSQ with script(!).
The solution to this problem is quite obvious to me. Why not appoint a new questor? I have an idea, why not make me? You don't even have to even make me a caretaker (obviously i'm not trusted-why?), just make me a mortal questor. All i need is a caretaker to make me a few items. make a few echos, and allow me to make a new account specifically for question purposes. You guys gave Bruteus the opportunity to prove himself worthy of a caretaker, now take a chance on me. there's nothing to lose.



=SHE=!!! LOL
is that intended or is it an honest, but highly understandable mistake?

She's always been a she, and always will be. Just like Isabelle was always a she. If I refer to Kiasyn's actual persona (whoever he is out of dl) then I'll refer to appropriately.

Celeborn. It's difficult for me to think of what to say to you. You're highly intelligent and sickenly generous. The fact that you've spent some much time building this game, then listening to the pissing and moaning of people who (at least some) don't even know what the heck they're talking about, or what they're asking for requires. I have the utmost respect for you. But, in your choice of immortals, I think you need to deal with them when they become troublesome. You can only be nice and generous to a point, then people are stepping all over you.

5 (aprx) years ago, when DL had 30+ people on at 2am est when there used to only be a handful, what was the difference? Why were there so many people then, and not now. That's the question you have to answer.

I agree with you but I just want to point out that this quote is a bit unfair. WoW and other technological advances in the gaming world may have contribute a bit.

1. People will come if they find it interesting
2. People will play if they find it fun
3. People will stay if they enjoy the community

The biggest problem that we are currently facing is point 2 and 3.

Lingolas for IMMHOOD!!! OMFG thats one of the best ideas I've heard in sooo long!!!

NOW FOR MY FLAME ON KIA TIME:
Too freaking involved, seems like he just gets bored and decides he should do something funny/imm like. When he does decide to do something imm like he either gives out emeralite like its fcking candy on halloween or jails someone (yes botting is illegal; no we don't need botters arrested 5 times a week -.-)

And I think Lingo would be an outstanding imm. I've know him since I started playing and he's always been like a mentor to me; Another player I would recommend for Immhood would be Jerardo.

REASONS: Lingo and Jerardo have fantastic leadership skills; they are both very intelligent and (key thing here) CAUTIOUS WITH THEIR RESPONSES!!! They don't get angry and cuss people out and are extremely fair. AND notice how many ideas Lingo comes up with to try and help the mud? I think he puts alot of time thinking about this game and how to improve it and he has been around for forever!

Yes I realize this is not an intelligently organized post or really very well-written. BITE ME.

This is around my 6th time regestering. Woo, go me.

Anyways, Malkor calm down a bit, we really don't need this thread to be closed off because it is a nice idea that seems to have the ability to close off the one sided power that are just immortals.

As for the immortal idea, ling would be a good imm in my opinion, but he does still have thorns seperating him from other people and then we'd get the same situation as we did when we found out Bruteus was an immortal. Jerardo on the other hand i dont think has any enemies, but is also not playing so that wouldn't exactly help .

And quick question, the builders are able to create new mob items within the area that they're creating, right? Because if so that would help dearly with the mob item - craft item seperation.