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I cannot speak on behalf of any group but my view is that the support shifts should be just a summary of all the actions that actually happen in RP. So if nobles diss a justiciar and refuse to work with her, that would make her job very hard. Even more so when they actively undermine her, for example paying folk to not help reeves with cases, give statements while that justiciar is in power etc (don't nit pick on bad examples please!). If that went to go on for long enough then something would have to happen as this would render reeves rather ineffective (which criminals can abuse which will make even more people affected by it) which would call for change in leadership - either by force or just current one stepping down.
This doesn't require IP pooling, just effort on players end. I am absolutely not sure how would that work out in practice, as it is a game and it requires simplified means, which is why I am on the neutral side.

This bit, Kinky:

There is a significant disconnect between the amount of coded support you have and how much support you can actually get IC, because when it actually comes down to it the points don't mean much of anything in RP. My character has been the 3rd most influential person in the Knights on more than one occasion, for example, but has no tangible influence with the Knight PCs in RP. While Grand Magnate the Merchants all knew who I was and knew they answered to me, but for the majority of my time as GL I was codedly the 11th most influential in the guild. The RP relationships just don't really equate to the IP and support system.

It's the disconnect between RP and the support system that I mean to eliminate when I say "RP it instead." We all kinda do RP it instead already. While there are IC reasons for supporting or subverting, having a huge amount of influence in a guild doesn't mean much in actual RP. When you're interacting with members of a guild how much or little influence you have within it, codedly, doesn't really come into things.

Edit to avoid a doublepost: If we're specifically talking about the support system in regards to GLA, just needs some tweaks, I think. It's definitely the most tangible part of the support system and has an important place.

And when I said "outside" that group, I was referring to the fact that I don't believe ousting GLs can be a purely RP'd thing. It needs code to support the IC actions. You definitely need to RP, but that RP needs the code support that GLA provides.

I agree with Rabek - physically speaking, ousting a GL would take some sort of code shift or marker to indicate the RP has happened.

I do think it's a fair criticism that support seems to be quite GL-centric, and have very little effect beyond determining if a GL should remain in office. We have set it up so that IP crops up, but IP has minimal uses - which is another fair criticism of the system.

I love the system, but I do think it still needs improvement to represent what it is intended to in a nice, smooth way.

I am generally ok with it, but having had now three different characters targeted for ousting it gets old in a hurry. Seriously I don't know what I do that gets me this joy, but that is another issue.

What all of that has taught me is that the pbase has a very narrow definition of what a GL is supposed to be and one step outside of it and you have to be prepared to fend them off if you want to keep your position. It leaves absolutely no room to actually be thematic.

If Tomas wants to be a blood thirsty tyrant, he can't. The moment he attempts to abuse his power he will be out of office.

I don't know, it just doesn't seem very thematic to me that outsiders can remove a GL. Frankly I think some GLs should be unoustable. Attempting to oust the Regent should be viewed as treason.

I could do away with the support system and its tethered significant function to influence gls. Code is great for deciding things based on the world's physics; like how much damage you take falling from the sky. However, attempting to create a system to monitor and control the shifting politics and opinions of human beings... I do applaud as being an absolutely fascinating project at an intellectual level, but invites a precarious metagame aspect into the world that is not how I want to deal with politics in a role play game. Politics and guild/clan changes in leaderships exist separate from any code at all in many mmos and muds that may or may not have rp requirements of the players.

For GL popularity, we have rumors by which we can subvert others by spreading tales true and not with a great deal of anonymity. Most importantly and, central to any rp mud, have our live, in game characters themselves sitting about chatting with one another gossiping about who is good and who is not. That is more "real" than any number any code spits out.

For GL ousting, I would have each guild have an ic bylaw helpfile written up where a certain rank may call a vote of no confidence on the primary GL. Certain ranks may vote if they have confidence or not, and there you have it. You can code that, or have staff monitor it, or.. not and let players do it themselves and invite ic corruption into play. That really is all that is needed. If outsiders want to oust another guild's gl; they will have to convince/corrupt the members of that guild.

Additional random rules can be tossed in for flavor. How long between calls for no confidence. How long the vote runs (I like two rl weeks). If a member needs a certain number of hours rped in said guild to vote. If a member needs to have been a member for a certain amount of time. For the lawful/crown supported guilds like Reeves, Knights, Order, Physicians it could be a fun twist to allow the Regent a vote, to represent the power of the monarch. And soforth to address whatever concerns incly or oocly we may have.

I have seen this sort of simple system function in most games I've played. It allows for everything and more we should be able to incly do in the world of urth.

I don't see the reason behind the needlessly complex metagame that is the support system. Aside from that it is kinda fascinating in a social experiment sort of way. This, however, leads a drawback to the system in that it is difficult to understand/master and so it invites game domination by an elite class of players who can bring it to bear with great effectiveness against those that don't get it, or don't want to deal with it.

One day I politely asked a player behind a character that I was certain should probably be supporting mine due to their ic behavior, but I did not notice any code evidence of such, if they knew/understood/used the system. Unsurprisingly, they were not using it, nor did they understand the system. :/ At present, success in politics in ti requires minions.. er.. collaborators and colleagues who understand and use the system. I'd rather it just require basic intelligence, social skills and a great party line.

I feel kinda mean saying to toss all that hard work, but I'd be perfectly content without the support system. The system at present does not always represent what characters on Urth may be thinking or doing, but what players who understand and are willing to manipulate the code wants Urth to think it is thinking and doing.

Truth be told, I'm ok with the support system, but I feel like it needs improvement to actually make it worth while. As it stands, I don't use the support system at all, I mean yeah sure, I codely support... one person on misune, but that is a command that literately is a one time use, unless something drastic changes, that I soon forget all about.
And I have to agree with Dice on this. Part of the reason I don't take advantage of the support system is because it's so freakin awkward bringing it up icly. I mean I can't think of a good way to ask somebody for support without frankly just asking 'Hey, I got your support?" and that just feels weird. And it also just really sucks when you do take the risk of asking someone if they will support you, and you can check your support show, and know for a fact they they are not codewise supporting you. I mean that opens up a whole another can of worms. You can't go up to a person icly and say "I noticed you weren't supporting me despite saying you would." because how would you know they aren't supporting you icly? And you can't bring up oocly. It's just a mess of awkwardness at that point.

Also to tack onto what Bureaucrat said

I don't see the reason behind the needlessly complex metagame that is the support system. Aside from that it is kinda fascinating in a social experiment sort of way. This, however, leads a drawback to the system in that it is difficult to understand/master and so it invites game domination by an elite class of players who can bring it to bear with great effectiveness against those that don't get it, or don't want to deal with it.

One day I politely asked a player behind a character that I was certain should probably be supporting mine due to their ic behavior, but I did not notice any code evidence of such, if they knew/understood/used the system. Unsurprisingly, they were not using it, nor did they understand the system. :/ At present, success in politics in ti requires minions.. er.. collaborators and colleagues who understand and use the system. I'd rather it just require basic intelligence, social skills and a great party line

Also before I get into this, this is just my opinion based on what I've personally seen and experienced in the nearly three years I've been playing TI. I make no claims that this is the view of the entire community, though some of what I say is from what I've heard others say or talk about. You are free to disagree with me on this, but ultimately it is my view on the matter.

I've mentioned this before, but there are niches in this game. It's typically the same people who are often able to garner the support to do anything meaningful in the game, which mostly equates to ousting someone. You know, this was actually talked about in great depth before when we had the regency campaign quest thing, and quest for that one noble slot... For those who may not have been around at the time, There was two separate 'quests' that pretty much revolved around who could garner the most support. The first was for a noble slot, and the next was for the the position of regent. Infact there were two separate regency events. Now for the regency quest it was unique, because people were allowed to create 'temporary' nobles to via for the spot of regent. The noble with the most votes, and the runner up would be allowed to keep the noble character.
Now the biggest gripe and complaint during the regency quest was the fact it was next to impossible to have a chance if you weren't already an established character, aka had the support of many people already. This created a huge divide between the new 'temp' nobles who didn't have the benefit of being established and having people know them already and the nobles that had been playing for quite sometime already.

And honestly it came as no surprise when, guess what, during both regency quests, it was already established characters who managed to claim the spot. Specifically Herazade and Ariel, two characters who have been in the game for many years, not just ic years, but ooc years as well, not to mention their characters already had strong ties with the royal family. I'll be truthfully honest here, and people are more than free to disagree with me, but I don't understand why staff even bothered with allowing the creation of temp nobles to via for regent. It was a stacked quest from the start, and it seems like the temp nobles was more so just a 'For good show' attempt.

Long story short, Support in TI is a stacked system, with only a select group being able to wield it masterfully and benefit at the same time.

bureaucrat36 wrote:For GL ousting, I would have each guild have an ic bylaw helpfile written up where a certain rank may call a vote of no confidence on the primary GL. Certain ranks may vote if they have confidence or not, and there you have it. You can code that, or have staff monitor it, or.. not and let players do it themselves and invite ic corruption into play. That really is all that is needed. If outsiders want to oust another guild's gl; they will have to convince/corrupt the members of that guild.

Additional random rules can be tossed in for flavor. How long between calls for no confidence. How long the vote runs (I like two rl weeks). If a member needs a certain number of hours rped in said guild to vote. If a member needs to have been a member for a certain amount of time. For the lawful/crown supported guilds like Reeves, Knights, Order, Physicians it could be a fun twist to allow the Regent a vote, to represent the power of the monarch. And soforth to address whatever concerns incly or oocly we may have.

I know I am probably a bit biased on this, but even removing the Regent vote from this, I think that it might be a good way to deal with removing GL's in a way that makes ic sense (as opposed to the somewhat nebulous, enough people don't like me I'm backing out, because lets face it some of them would stay in there short of a mob) It's not as if it hasn't been done before, at least as I understand it the merchants had done something like this just before I came to the game.

bureaucrat36 wrote:This, however, leads a drawback to the system in that it is difficult to understand/master and so it invites game domination by an elite class of players who can bring it to bear with great effectiveness against those that don't get it, or don't want to deal with it.

This is very true. It often ends up being a bludgeon rather than the cutting back and forth I think the system seemed to be intended for. I know once or twice I've asked for support, because despite it being awkward I've got no shame and make myself do it, the response has been 'this system is confusing, couldn't figure it out' This was, admittedly a while ago, but there is a barrier for entry into this system. And one has to think to even use it and some players just plain forget about it even if they rply support someone. Maybe if the effects weren't quite so dramatic on the game world (ousting gls is quite a dramatic effect) it wouldn't be such a big thing?

bureaucrat36 wrote: At present, success in politics in ti requires minions.. er.. collaborators and colleagues who understand and use the system. I'd rather it just require basic intelligence, social skills and a great party line.

Just more of the above. I quoted it because I thought it was a good line and was a good point. I am in general in favor of the system and think we need a way of removing GL's, but some points here I liked.

Voxumo wrote: Now the biggest gripe and complaint during the regency quest was the fact it was next to impossible to have a chance if you weren't already an established character, aka had the support of many people already. This created a huge divide between the new 'temp' nobles who didn't have the benefit of being established and having people know them already and the nobles that had been playing for quite sometime already.

...

Long story short, Support in TI is a stacked system, with only a select group being able to wield it masterfully and benefit at the same time.

I really, really get tired of getting dragged into this in such a personal way every time. To be perfectly clear: As stated before, I mentioned that I hate asking for support. In fact, I hate it so badly that I never asked people for support prior to the regency quest. I had some support bonds that were mutually established with powerful PCs due to IC relationships, but I didn't go out soliciting people as backers because of the artificiality of the system. I made myself get over it for the Regency quest because there was no other way to win, and it provided me a good IC excuse to actively ask "Hey, will you back me?" But I did not enter the system with an impossible lead in terms of pre-existing support. I entered the system with a very powerful lead due to years of RP that gave people reasons to back my character when I asked.

I won't deny that the temp noble idea didn't work out, and probably was never workable. That's why we never had a third Regency quest, because it was obvious the idea had been tried and had flaws. But what I'm annoyed about is this suggestion that support only works for a few people due to the nebulous evil of cliques.

Support has many flaws, but being stacked against people for OOC reasons is not one of them. If you play politics ICly, you will get supporters ICly. Maybe not everyone, and it's going to depend on your character's position and personality as to how many, sure. It is in no way impossible to achieve significant weekly IP gain via support so long as you work actively to make it worth people's while. And it does not rely on being one of the 'cool kids' OOCly - but it may rely on sucking up to the 'cool kids' ICly. That is how power and politics work.

Just to note: I do agree not everyone knows how to use the system, and that can be a problem, but it's okay to tell them "in case you don't know, my PC's icly angling for support - help support". So long as it doesn't turn into pressure OOCly. After all, somebody may pretend they're backing you but not mean it...

But the only important part of the system is support add <name> and support show. The rank data there is irrelevant and confusing. Perhaps if we stripped that the difficulty of using the system would be greatly reduced?