Proposed Governor Vote System Change

Quite simply you should be allowed to vote only one shard. Either once per character or once per account, but either way you should only be allowed to vote on one shard.

The current system only encourages candidates to get votes from off-shard. Which of course means that most of the electorate has nothing to do with the shard where the voting occurs. As an alternative to cross-sharding votes, one could create endless new accounts, which is problematic in its own right.

Agree, 1 shard per account.

Can ej accounts vote ? If so this rule or any worthless...

McDougle said:

Can ej accounts vote ? If so this rule or any worthless...

No they can not.  But that does not stop the hate against them.

 The issue as I see it (all jokes in another thread about voting aside) is that you can in theory play on more than one shard. 

 Given that they track the age of  characters and  accounts though, I think a  character should need to have a minimum amount of time on a given shard to vote. One other safeguard might be to say require any such character also have at least 90 or  100 in  a single skill, to discourage people from simply parking characters on different shards to gain age and doing nothing else with them. 

 That would be my solution so as not to alienate anyone who seriously plays in more than one place, while discouraging the described cross shard voting. 

Therumancer said:

 The issue as I see it (all jokes in another thread about voting aside) is that you can in theory play on more than one shard.

I play 50/50 origin and pac with 3 accounts and visit other shards frequently (not counting Atlantic for shopping trips) 

McDougle said:

I play 50/50 origin and pac with 3 accounts and visit other shards frequently (not counting Atlantic for shopping trips) 

Please see the post above yours.

McDougle said:

I play 50/50 origin and pac with 3 accounts and visit other shards frequently (not counting Atlantic for shopping trips) 

Are you running for Governor on more than 1?

If not you still get a vote on a shard, if a vote on another shard is that important to you, you can ask a player that was not going to vote anyway to cast for that Governor.

Are governor races really still that competitive these days? On ATL (most populated shard) there are towns that will have people run unopposed and other towns where the incumbent isn't even a nominee. 

JohnKnighthawke said:

No voting system will be perfect and, truth be told, the Governor system may well have run its course as an idea.

Overall I think this pretty much sums it up. Aside from setting the town buff, I'm not sure what else the average governor does. I haven't seen a governor sponsored event (using an EM) in years. I've only seen the New Mag net toss happen by the governor, but TBH you don't have to be in office to run a public net toss (or any public event). At this point, being governor just seems like an additional title to have.

Voting mechanics should be left alone.   Each account should be able to vote once on each shard. 

keven2002 said:

Are governor races really still that competitive these days? On ATL (most populated shard) there are towns that will have people run unopposed and other towns where the incumbent isn't even a nominee. 

JohnKnighthawke said:

No voting system will be perfect and, truth be told, the Governor system may well have run its course as an idea.

Overall I think this pretty much sums it up. Aside from setting the town buff, I'm not sure what else the average governor does. I haven't seen a governor sponsored event (using an EM) in years. I've only seen the New Mag net toss happen by the governor, but TBH you don't have to be in office to run a public net toss (or any public event). At this point, being governor just seems like an additional title to have.

Atlantic is not known for community things that don't involve greed. They don't have complete artisan trees.

Merlin said:

Voting mechanics should be left alone.   Each account should be able to vote once on each shard. 

i know a lot of people with 40-50 accs that help people on election, I mean, guarantee win

magrodnyc2 said:

Merlin said:

Voting mechanics should be left alone.   Each account should be able to vote once on each shard. 

i know a lot of people with 40-50 accs that help people on election, I mean, guarantee win

And they paid for every one of those accounts.  1 vote per account per shard.

 Lord_Frodo said:

magrodnyc2 said:

Merlin said:

Voting mechanics should be left alone.   Each account should be able to vote once on each shard. 

i know a lot of people with 40-50 accs that help people on election, I mean, guarantee win

And they paid for every one of those accounts.  1 vote per account per shard.

 So basically an endorsement for buying elections and super-PACs via an MMORPG.... interesting. 

 Perhaps one day The Avatar Of Virtue will return to Brittania and set all this right!

 All that aside, is there any benefit to actually becoming a gubbernor? 

Merlin said:

Voting mechanics should be left alone.   Each account should be able to vote once on each shard. 

“Merlin, this is not the first time you’ve expressed an opinion without explaining any reasoning behind it. Please attempt to do so rather than random blanket statements as this does not aid in any discussion.

I don't really care about the votes. What I care about is the people who have all these accounts, use them to get voted in and then DO NOTHING.  Nothing. City Report "The coffers are full and everything is good." Or they do one event per month, right before the meeting. They make no announcements, they don't show up half the time or more than half and put the bare minimum in. 

I mean, they put in all this work to log in with their gazillion accounts and get people from the actual shard they play on to come over to the shard they don't play on and vote for them to be a governor so they can get a title and do nothing. That is what I have an issue with. If you can get people to do this, why can't you get them to stay on that shard and play and make shards other than Atlantic more vibrant? *shakes head* 

I think the goal was to get people on each shard who actually had like a group that they play with to get them elected and then parlay that into more shard participation with other groups. In some cases, they already do it but in other cases, like I mentioned above, they seem to just do it for a title, because they don't play on the shard, they don't care about participation and they certainly don't put any time or thought into RP or player run events. 

Therumancer said:

 The issue as I see it (all jokes in another thread about voting aside) is that you can in theory play on more than one shard. 

 Given that they track the age of  characters and  accounts though, I think a  character should need to have a minimum amount of time on a given shard to vote. One other safeguard might be to say require any such character also have at least 90 or  100 in  a single skill, to discourage people from simply parking characters on different shards to gain age and doing nothing else with them. 

Back when you could have more then one house I placed across all the American shards small towers, it was when they went to one house one shard (when you upgraded a house) you lost all those other houses.  Now I play across several shards today, and mine main characters are citizens of cities for the needed buff, so I vote for the ones that keep me happy.  I will say I would not mind seeing skill requirements for votes, I could live with that.

“One vote per account is consistent with any other electoral voting system. I can’t vote in every county, and you can’t vote in every state, and it’s like that for a reason”

Therumancer said:

 Lord_Frodo said:

magrodnyc2 said:

Merlin said:

Voting mechanics should be left alone.   Each account should be able to vote once on each shard. 

i know a lot of people with 40-50 accs that help people on election, I mean, guarantee win

And they paid for every one of those accounts.  1 vote per account per shard.

 So basically an endorsement for buying elections and super-PACs via an MMORPG.... interesting. 

 Perhaps one day The Avatar Of Virtue will return to Brittania and set all this right!

 All that aside, is there any benefit to actually becoming a gubbernor? 

LMAO  Nothing in my statement endorses selling/buying vote it only supports the LAW that each paid account is entitled to a vote on every shard.  Typical leftest tactics stating falsehoods

Yoshi said:

Merlin said:

Voting mechanics should be left alone.   Each account should be able to vote once on each shard. 

“Merlin, this is not the first time you’ve expressed an opinion without explaining any reasoning behind it. Please attempt to do so rather than random blanket statements as this does not aid in any discussion.

(Disclosure, I have no interest in this topic)”

My opinion, including any "blanket statements", are as valid as anyone else's.    If someone wants a change, the onus is on the person who wants the change to make their case, not the other way around.  I don't believe any change to the system is necessary and I don't feel the need to argue on someone else's turf. 

magrodnyc2 said:

Merlin said:

Voting mechanics should be left alone.   Each account should be able to vote once on each shard. 

i know a lot of people with 40-50 accs that help people on election, I mean, guarantee win

There is nothing wrong with this.   I have 30+ accounts.   They are all paid for monthly.   I deserve the right to vote all of those accounts as I see fit. 

“The OP has indeed made a statement for their case, your statements as valid as they are, are contributing nothing.

John from Tipton says he agrees
Leslie from Southbank says she disagrees

well now we have a balanced opinion…”

Yoshi said:

“The OP has indeed made a statement for their case, your statements as valid as they are, are contributing nothing.

John from Tipton says he agrees
Leslie from Southbank says she disagrees

well now we have a balanced opinion…”

Lucky for me, no one voted you the arbiter of what's considered a valid contribution and what isn't.  So troll elsewhere.  If you have something further to add, perhaps it should be on the OP's topic and not on whether or not my posts meet your personal standards. 

I further repeat that voting mechanics should be left alone and don't require any of the changes discussed herein. 

Yoshi said:

"so rather than contributing any point at all to this thread, you've resorted to namecalling, and repeating your non post..

The OP did not set up a poll, which is all you've contributed, a vote for no, with no reasoning. Perhaps if you could help us with how you came to your vote it would aid us to understand your perspective, this is what words are for"

Read your signature.  He does not suppress his conservative views. He wants no change.

Other than drama in some election cycles, the current method has been working.  Cities that have candidates have Governors.  

Yoshi said:

"so rather than contributing any point at all to this thread, you've resorted to namecalling, and repeating your non post..

The OP did not set up a poll, which is all you've contributed, a vote for no, with no reasoning. Perhaps if you could help us with how you came to your vote it would aid us to understand your perspective
(just to re-iterate, I have no personal interest in this topic)”

"Cool story.  Thanks."

Pawain said:

He wants no change.

Other than drama in some election cycles, the current method has been working.  

^^^ This.

It's not a broken system.  No changes are required.  Current system creates opportunities for some cross shard wheeling and dealing... alliances, if you will.  Forces players to go outside one big guild on one shard to win a competitive race.   The current suggestions would eliminate that.  Cross shard relationship building is a positive and should be encouraged. 

Merlin said:

Yoshi said:

"so rather than contributing any point at all to this thread, you've resorted to namecalling, and repeating your non post..

The OP did not set up a poll, which is all you've contributed, a vote for no, with no reasoning. Perhaps if you could help us with how you came to your vote it would aid us to understand your perspective
(just to re-iterate, I have no personal interest in this topic)”

"Cool story.  Thanks."

Pawain said:

He wants no change.

Other than drama in some election cycles, the current method has been working.  

^^^ This.

It's not a broken system.  No changes are required.  Current system creates opportunities for some cross shard wheeling and dealing... alliances, if you will.  Forces players to go outside one big guild on one shard to win a competitive race.   The current suggestions would eliminate that.  Cross shard relationship building is a positive and should be encouraged. 

Other than spawns it seems the large guilds do not control much.  You would think they could get together during the Castle design contest and make a Guild house Castle specifically for their use.

That has not happened yet.

Our guild on LS is able to have most of the Gov seats on LS.  We just want to make sure the Govs go to the meetings and all the wanted buffs are available somewhere.

Pawain said:

Other than spawns it seems the large guilds do not control much.  You would think they could get together during the Castle design contest and make a Guild house Castle specifically for their use.

That has not happened yet.

Our guild on LS is able to have most of the Gov seats on LS.  We just want to make sure the Govs go to the meetings and all the wanted buffs are available somewhere.

I understand your point, but I don't know if its an apples to apples comparison in the context of the Governor elections.   Big guilds can dominate the Governorships if they're coordinated.  UWF had five seats on Atlantic last cycle.   I would guess that on some of the less populated shards, other guilds have had more then that.   I think the Castle voting process is a bit more messy (i.e., list is too long, you have to visit each house to know what they are, it's all done on Test Center), but that's another topic altogether. 

Each account should be able to vote only where said account has a house. Period.

Still wondering why being governor even matters (aside from having the town buff); maybe I'm missing something.

Does being a governor allow you to have EM like abilities to run events (ie place decorations that cannot be picked up and create a prize) or are they just like every other player run event? My understanding is that it's the latter (I believe it was once a colab with EMs but has long since stopped?). 

keven2002 said:

Still wondering why being governor even matters (aside from having the town buff); maybe I'm missing something.

Does being a governor allow you to have EM like abilities to run events (ie place decorations that cannot be picked up and create a prize) or are they just like every other player run event? My understanding is that it's the latter (I believe it was once a colab with EMs but has long since stopped?). 

Governors get to sit at the table with the king during meetings. They can bestow titles upon citizens. They choose the town buffs. They control the content of the city news. They can put a poll on the town stone.

I think that is all.

Archangel said:

Each account should be able to vote only where said account has a house. Period.

This makes the most sense.
It would improve a system that as it is, is easily corrupted.

Archangel said:

Each account should be able to vote only where said account has a house. Period.

“This does mirror real life general election rules”

Yoshi said:

Archangel said:

Each account should be able to vote only where said account has a house. Period.

“This does mirror real life general election rules”

Except that it doesn't.  House/property ownership was removed as a voting requirement by a Constitutional amendment. 

Tjalle said:

Archangel said:

Each account should be able to vote only where said account has a house. Period.

This makes the most sense.
It would improve a system that as it is, is easily corrupted.

Removing cross shard voting will result with more corruption. It will give rise to people winning governorships simply by having the most accounts open.  The current system requires deal making across shards, which helps prevent one guild (or one person) from achieving control.  In effect, winning a competitive race requires a wider reach and building a coalition.  

I simply find it reasonable to think that, when the consequences of these elections will fall primarily on the shard the election takes place on, the decision should be made primarily by the folks on that shard. No system will 100% ensure this (for example there's no way to fight people with money to spend who are willing to pay for more and more accounts just to vote, but that's true now too), but my proposal will at minimum ensure that players need to make a choice as to which shard a given account of theirs is mostly associated with.

lot of people dont care about the GOV job or anything realted.
On Atlantic and couple other shards , we had situations where the new Gov was elected by enemy PVP guild or just random Trolls that changed the city buff to something that no one use, causing a lot of headache, forcing people to change towns, which they have to wait 7 days (really dont know why this long). so now, past couple elections people vote fir A or B, just to make sure that person will keep the town bonus.   I already suggested that all towns should have a drop down menu with all buffs and let the player choose what he want, than people would care less for been a citizen of wtver town.

JohnKnighthawke said:

Outside of roleplaying with the King at the King's Council meetings, Governors have a limited role. Someone else has outlined what the 'powers' are pretty well earlier in this thread I believe. The mechanic by which an EA-affiliated person with EM-type powers (known as a Player Event Coordinator) could assist in the running of in-game events is long-since gone and never was limited to Governors to begin with (though the Great Lakes Governors made extensive use of it). Further, any player can host an in-game event, not just Governors.

It has always struck me that too many people who seek this role are not interested in RP (which is the primary purpose of the mechanic at this point) and primarily are interested in it for other reasons which have little to do with the actual role of the governor.

This is what I was thinking. The biggest "thing" the governor can do is pick a town buff but outside of that it sounds like just a lot of RP with zero actual impact to most. Rather than change anything to how voting is done, maybe they should just assign a buff to each town based on it's history (ie Moonglow would have some sort of magic buff like SDI or FC). At that point whoever ran (and won) at the very least couldn't grief from their position.

hmmm, srry to spring this upon you so short notice, but.... RP is an integral part of the game, and many people play for it, not giving a darn about gains or whatnot. RP is a thing.

Archangel said:

hmmm, srry to spring this upon you so short notice, but.... RP is an integral part of the game, and many people play for it, not giving a darn about gains or whatnot. RP is a thing.

I think you might have misunderstood my comment (or maybe I didn't do good enough finishing it out) so allow me to clarify; by removing the ability to change the town buff it would also, at least in my opinion, heavily reduce anyone not looking to RP from running for governor. 

Side note - I don't think the sarcasm was necessary and honestly misplaced. Doth not worry mighty wiz-nerd; I woth not attacking thee role play!

Pawain said:

Agree, 1 shard per account.

I agree!

keven2002 said:

Archangel said:

hmmm, srry to spring this upon you so short notice, but.... RP is an integral part of the game, and many people play for it, not giving a darn about gains or whatnot. RP is a thing.

I think you might have misunderstood my comment (or maybe I didn't do good enough finishing it out) so allow me to clarify; by removing the ability to change the town buff it would also, at least in my opinion, heavily reduce anyone not looking to RP from running for governor. 

Side note - I don't think the sarcasm was necessary and honestly misplaced. Doth not worry mighty wiz-nerd; I woth not attacking thee role play!

Beg thine pardon respectable sir, see arth correkt!

Oops I better be careful with number 5 up there.

Like i said years ago, they need to remove the town buff system from governors.  Make it a gold sink for whatever buff you need.  Thatll solve the voting nonsense and help remove duped gold from the game.  Easiest two for one in the history of UO.  

Yoshi said:

Archangel said:

Each account should be able to vote only where said account has a house. Period.

“This does mirror real life general election rules”

Yay, I own 4 houses.
4 votes for sale, any shard!

I voted more than 90 times across four shards in ten different elections this past week. 

In that process, I made new friends on other shards, was invited to other guilds Discord servers and helped coordinate a few electoral victories for friends.  During this cycle, I saw more comradery and willingness to exchange votes from one shard to another than in quite a long time.  Everyone was willing to help with ingots and gating.   Everyone was grateful and extended invites to guilds and other groups.    It was probably one of my favorite election cycles. 

The changes being proposed in this thread would eliminate the possibility of that happening in the future. 

I urge the developers to reject any of the changes proposed herein. 

We demand governors for fel cities 

McDougle said:

We demand governors for fel cities 

We need a governor in shadowguard, he has power to reward cameo to supporters...

Pawain said:

keven2002 said:

Still wondering why being governor even matters (aside from having the town buff); maybe I'm missing something.

Does being a governor allow you to have EM like abilities to run events (ie place decorations that cannot be picked up and create a prize) or are they just like every other player run event? My understanding is that it's the latter (I believe it was once a colab with EMs but has long since stopped?). 

Governors get to sit at the table with the king during meetings. They can bestow titles upon citizens. They choose the town buffs. They control the content of the city news. They can put a poll on the town stone.

I think that is all.

All of what Pawain said, but I also believe that governors are encouraged to create at least one player-run event during their term. (At least on my home shard.)

JenniferMarie said:

This will probably be a very unpopular opinion - and I recognize that it may get a lot of flack - but ...

My personal suggestion for governor elections is that the ability to reject/claim town loyalty should be suspended 7 days before the nomination period begins, opening back up after the elections are over.

This would prevent the cross-shard and same-shard bribing.

It would result in a three week suspension in the ability to reject/claim town loyalty only twice a year and allow for less toxic "campaigning".

My fear for this, by itself, would be that it doesn't actually remedy the issue I see, but rather just force folks to plan further ahead.

JohnKnighthawke said:

My fear for this, by itself, would be that it doesn't actually remedy the issue I see, but rather just force folks to plan further ahead.

John, we both know that a lot of UO people can't plan that far ahead. 😂