Agon Traders League (proposal)

[Isse-Istar]

Jan 13, 2009 15:23:36 GMT -5 belthize said:

Members (must meet the 150 skill pt req in crafting or harvesting I mention above)
Craftsman (must have 250 pts in crafting skills with at least 75 in one skill)
Master Craftsman (must have 400pts in crafting skills with at least 90 in one skill and 75 in one).

I would like to state my complete support for Belthize's policies listed here.

Nevertheless, in this particular issue I would take a more liberal approach. I think they should not be imposed too harshly and definitely not until later in the game, because until that point people will definitely not to be able to have 400 points in anything.

Also I do not think we have to follow these policies to the letter later in the game. If a person has 130 points it should not be a big deal.

Archmage Isse-Istar.

[Wolvyn]

IRL im against unions, it should be in indivual merit for pay and whatnot.

With your proposial though, from a harvester PoV what is the point of joining for a voice if all you can do with it is bribe others to say what you want on the council?

I not im a position to speak for my clan that is our matrons call. But if both crafting and harvest clans/independents had the same rights I might be inclined to lend my support. It just seems to me that if the ATL mostly is for crafters then someone or other will need to for a AHL for the harvester clans, which is so overly complicated IMHO its not worth it.

Dont get me wrong, this is a very good idea.. haha im just leary of too much control over the market falling into the hands of but a few that craft.. if that 6% poll is correct for crafters, then with this ATL we got 6% of the population in control over 50% at least that will harvest.

Even if it did become a defacto harvest union type thing whats so wrong about that IF they are the clear majority?

Im late going to be late for a meeting if I truly give you the responce i feel that I need to so until tomorrow i hope yer not too offended.

[Si'aan Anoura]

I agree with you somewhat, Ranger Wolvyn (as I do with you Isse-Istar as well). I mean, in some respect, it would make me happy to see crafters/harvesters wield some level of power in-game by controlling the flow of resources and products, as I do suspect they will be the most frequently targeted players. Though to be perfectly honest, as a mercenary, I have little direct involvement (or care) in joining it specifically. I just hope they would be earning enough money to pay someone like myself for their services

[belthize]

Jan 14, 2009 16:17:38 GMT -5 Wolvyn said:

With your proposal though, from a harvester PoV what is the point of joining for a voice if all you can do with it is bribe others to say what you want on the council?

I can see a few.

1) The suggested price is really more of a 'here's where the market is at' kind of thing. There's no pressure in the proposed charter for a league member to buy or sell at that price, it's informational only. It's just something that would be on the league website so folks could see what's somethings worth. Kind of like the commodities list in the business section of the newspaper. It's possible/probable that crafters would try and push that price down somewhat but not a lot and a small bribe would fix it. Harvesters get to vote for council members, if you don't like a crafter that submits high prices .. vote him out of office.

2) Unlike most MMO's, if things work the way I think, individual clans may have a lot of control on certain resources. They'll be warned if resources in their kingdom are being harvested and rarer resources may only exist in a few kingdoms (attracting the biggest clans).

3) The *fixed* price is a much rarer thing. That's a weapon used to encourage people in and out of the league to raid a clan that's hording a resource. The fixed price is *higher* than the controlling clan's price. League members would buy from anybody but the controlling clan at that price. It would hurt members in the short term but lower the price in the long term. This *directly* benefits members who are harvesting raiders since they could then go raid the clan in question and make a quick buck. It actually hurts crafters not harvesters.

I see the league's 4 roles in order of importance as:

1) Website for members to easily interact with each other for trade. It'd probably have some form of trade tool and a lot of other bells and whistles.

2) Website for external members to find league members for trade (advertising).

3) Price control. The latter is more of a natural result than a goal. It's inevitable if you have a large group they can exert influence over the price. The rules are there to limit not encourage the use of that power. It requires a majority of both the membership and council to do.

4) Potential vehicle for a game inside the game above the player/clans/alliance interactions. An independent or casual player could potentially influence entire alliances if they were smart and so desired. For folks that enjoy RP it has a fair amount of RP potential. The tools in 1 and 2 should probably appear 'RP'ish' since doing it doesn't hurt. For instance put the price list up on the web page as if it was hand written on a piece of paper posted through all the cities.

I not im a position to speak for my clan that is our matrons call. But if both crafting and harvest clans/independents had the same rights I might be inclined to lend my support.

Useful data point none the less.

It just seems to me that if the ATL mostly is for crafters then someone or other will need to for a AHL for the harvester clans, which is so overly complicated IMHO its not worth it.

I'm aiming toward 'equally for harvesters and crafters' but harvesters are likely to outnumber crafters 3, 4 or 5 to 1. They normally do. Since harvesters will so outnumber crafters they have more power for placing their preferred council member. If harvesters could be council members it's essentially guarenteed the council would be harvesters rather than crafters sympathetic to harvesters.

The latter seems more likely balanced though, as I said, I'm still on the fence.

Even if it did become a defacto harvest union type thing whats so wrong about that IF they are the clear majority?

IMO the same thing if it became a defacto crafter union, a Merchant union is the target. May not be possible.

Im late going to be late for a meeting if I truly give you the responce i feel that I need to so until tomorrow i hope yer not too offended.

No worries, no good idea ever arose by a bunch of people agreeing. The time to find the flaws is now which means dissenting opinions. Plus it really helps me clarify my thinking and write the eventual draft in clearer language.

[belthize]

Jan 14, 2009 16:17:38 GMT -5 Wolvyn said:

IRL im against unions, it should be in indivual merit for pay and whatnot.

Heh ...

I'm still casting for a name. ATL was picked purely to be far from DMA.

If harvesters got to hold office and crafters were mostly for show we could call it ....

Agon Federation of Labor-Crafters Included Ostensibly (AFL-CIO).

After some thought I think the best solution is to remove the crafter rule and re-strengthen the clan membership rule.

I've re-written the 2nd post to reflect the 'current state' of the idea.

Thorsen Belthize

[Wolvyn]

OK here goes.. you asked for it.

Basic guidelines
The league's fundamental purpose is assistance for merchants and influence on the economy.

The league has to have a purpose beyond, we have a name and a website. The most obvious purposes are assisting fellow league members and attempting to influence the economy to league members benefit. Basically a carrot and stick. If you play along it's to your benefit.

The league would likely have a web interface for non-members to see prices and members to support direct sales. How that would work is beyond the scope of this discussion.

Assistance is primarily in the form of information, DNS lists, (scammers, griefers), skill help, pricing suggestions, partner creation, increased exposure for more sales etc.

Specifically how this achieved is a matter of much debate but I have some suggestions further down.

Since there will be multiple clans in the league death is inevitable as member clans declare war on each other. Protecting members from death in general is a dicey topic. DF is a PvP full loot game. I think death should be an expected state for all players and single kills shouldn't have any real bearing on the league as a whole (more on this further down).

I like this, something like eve-central.com/ or even eve.grismar.net/ore/full.php would be very handy, if it could somehow give a listing for the average market price for something somewhere. coding for it, no clue maybe someone could find the guy that did auctioneer for wow and work something out.

skilling advice would be very helpfull, more on that later.

The league must exist on a single server.

It really doesn't make sense to try to enforce rules across multiple servers. I could see forks based on the same idea on each server (they could even be hosted on the same website) but each incarnation of the League has to be on a single server.

Since EU is the first server I'd suggest it. New servers (particularly NA) could result in a fork or a mass migration if that's what the majority wanted in which case the EU side could fork.

I agree with this as well, perhaps other servers could use the leagues prices as a base, though i know everything fluxiates with time and server needs.

The league probably has to be ARAC.

There's no one race or faction that really has sufficient clout to pull off a league with the expressed fundamental purpose. If trade was very very local only it could fly but if it's at all global then it has to be ARAC. Additionally a lot of clans may be ARAC, what to do with a predominately H/M/D clan that allows a handful of other races ?

No need for the league to be racist, after everyone has golds to spend or make. even those our characters dislike and will eat on sight.

The league probably should be limited to people with harvesting/crafting skills.

People with harvesting and crafting skills are the focus of the league, and the ones with a vested interest, therefore they should be the true members. They're free to call themselves, mercs, traders, crafters, raiders etc but they have to have crafting or harvesting skill.

Pure combat protection contract style mercs can certainly play a role interacting with the league but its not clear to me what their role would be as actual members. It's possible they could be non-voting members but I predict they'd probably not even join. There's certainly room for discussion here.

Initially I'd suggest limiting it to only those with harvesting/crafting skills. I'd suggest a minimum of 150 points in harvesting or crafting skills with no less than 50 in at least one of the skills counted toward 150 (ie 3x50 is ok, 4 x 40 is not). If there's some question as to whether somebody is really a crafter/harvester then they'd have to prove it via crafting/harvesting an object which required a skill of 50 to achieve while being observed by a known member not in their clan. This also means existing members must continue to craft or harvest. Temporarily gaining the skill isn't sufficient if somebody catches and calls you on it. Some objective measure is necessary to differentiate crafter/harvester from spy/random tag along/clan padding.

I'd also suggest not requiring the test unless there's some question. The vast majority of potential members and applicants will have the requisite skill or be on their way to obtaining it.

Makes sense, though what about the rare merchant character that does not craft or harvest but buys cheep here and resells for a profit there? personially i dun think they would want to join as it could limit there profits.

More on the test and qualifications later as well.

The league must allow potential representatives from all clans and independents to apply for membership.

Initially any qualifying crafter/harvester from any clan, sub-clans, alliances or independents should be allowed to join. There are some limits discussed later but they're distinct from this fundamental principle. No favorites, if goon wants to join that's their prerogative. If they screw up they can be booted.

Clans may have to be limited to X members per 100 members. A clan with 1000 members each of whom have some skill would dominate/destroy the league. I'd suggest a 5 member limit plus 1 for every 50 members over 100. The 1 per 50 is just a stab in the dark, too small and they have no influence, too big and they have too much though clan influence is limited even more further down. I'm going to suggest 1 per 50 for now. In my experience the average clan ends up with about 40% of its members capable of crafting and harvesting. The limit only kicks in at additional members over 5 so a 10 member crafter clan has as much representation as a 100 member normal clan, they'd both be allowed 5 members. A 200 member clan would have 7.

Aye agree, we would need both clan crafters/suppliers as well as independents otherwise it would not be an ATL but just TL insead.

I would limit sub-clans though.. because they would have access through there master clan (for lack of proper namology).

I would limit it to 1 member per clan, with all the independents being considered 1 clan and elect their own rep for voting needs. With the exception that if someone is a grandmaster (100 in 2 or more craft or 4 supply skills) they get a vote as well.

The league must have control of who is a member both in game and out of game.

This means members must use their in game name within league forums. Creation of alts are inevitable but at first pass you have to be able to equate somebody on the forum to somebody in game. Access to all but the most general information within the league is limited to members.

This makes sense.

The league must have the ability to exert influence on members in game.

If there aren't any rules for membership the league isn't fundamentally different from DMA. If the league can't act in its own defense from infiltrators it won't survive.

The rules should be focused on general behavior without interfering in clan politics, wars, faction killing etc. If they go against the fundamental game play nature of DF it'll fall apart.

The rules are there to protect the league, not necessarily the members of the league. I think this is a very important point.

Exactly what those rules are open for debate but I'll add some ideas in the next post.

Sensable, without a code of conduct for the league.. then whats the real point beside if someone could work out a thingy that works simular to the two links i posted above do for EVE.

The league should have a mechanism for setting prices.

What's the fun in having a league if you can't influence prices. Since so many items can be crafted I'd suggest the league set prices for raw resources and then a formula for crafted items. Each combine takes 'N' seconds so something like M * 10% + N*X. M is the total cost of the materials (including the gold required to use the station), N is the number of combines and X is a gold per combine constant. The more mats and number of combines the higher the price. Factoring in rarity isn't necessary since it's already incorporated in the mat price and combines.

This allows for a smaller set of suggested prices and a method for deriving other prices.
Trying to set recommended prices on *every* object would be too hard, it almost has to be a resource based measure.

I think their should be two states for prices. Suggested and fixed. Suggested is merely a method for everyone (member or not) to know what we think something is worth. You do not have to conform to it.

Fixed prices are a big deal. Those and DNS lists represent the might of the league. By fixing a price the league could potentially exert its will over an outside cartel or clan. They should be rare and should require a substantial backing of the members. It's essentially a declaration of war and is likely to hurt some members in the process while helping others. If the league fixes a price it will vary greatly from the suggested and it's expected members will follow it.

While fixing prices on materials makes me kinda sad cuz for the smaller orders Ill have to agree with whatever fixed price the ATL sets.. If the fixed price however is the market average + tiny bit of price.. then I dont see a long term issue with this as it will allow crafters to know that they can buy 1000 units of oak for N silver per unit. Which would basically make the price of a galleon fixed at the cost of oak + iron + a little markup for pressing combine (with the skill to make it).

The league structure must allow for adapting to change.

There are simply too many unknowns now and even later. As Alliances form and the game changes the league has to adapt. Once some 'charter' is ratified I'd suggest having a voting block to make changes.

A representative form is easier to deal with than a mass voting democracy so I'd suggest having a 9 member council that votes on DNS lists, price changes, rule changes and member removal. Each month any one can throw their had in the ring a week ahead of time. During that week every member gets to vote for a candidate. The top 9 vote getters are that months representatives.

9 strikes me as a good compromise. It's small enough to not grid lock in endless debate and balkanization but not so small that one faction can gain control. It's certainly subject to debate and change.

Decisions by them are a simple 5 vs 4 majority vote. Each item for vote would be publicly visible with some window of discussion amongst all members. The 9 would then vote and their votes would be visible.

A monthly cycle means fresh ideas are potentially appearing and a horrible rep can be pulled relatively quickly.

Changes to the charter passed by the 9 would have to be ratified by majority vote of all members. It should be a rare but possible occurrence.

Clans would be limited to one candidate per 100 members. This means independents gain greater control but a large clan could have more influence if it can get its members elected. Since clans are already limited in the number of members it would actually take a large alliance of clans to create a majority voting bloc. The independents and small clans could easily block them by getting behind 5 candidates of their own.

The member council, call it Masters Council? post gold require that one must be atleast 75 in a craft/harvest to sit upon it, Each of the seats elected by the voting body of 1 person per guild/independent?

I still think 1 person per clan is more then enough for a voting body, too much more gives power to the zerg, which isnt want we want.. is it?

The league should be created to encourage 'fun' not 'work' within DF.

Rules should *not* be set up to completely stifle intrigue and attempts by internal factions to gain control. Part of the fun of the league would be the politics. For example you could get harvesting cartels out maneuvering crafting cartels for votes to try and sway the market prices by buying up independent votes (maybe in exchange for resources).

Alternatively member clans at war with one another could try to influence the league internally in their favor.

nothing to say about this part..

(((to follow specific comments on the 3rd post)))

[Wolvyn]

Terms/Definitions
Some terms probably need to be defined. The definition only has meaning in the context of this thread.

Independent: A solo player or member of a clan with less than 25 members. Independents can't be a sub-clan of a clan.
Clan: Any tagged group greater than 25 members in size.

Crafter, Harvester, Traders: Anyone with at least 50 points in a single crafting and harvesting skill and a 150 points in total. Traders meet the requirement by mixing crafting and harvesting skills.

Craftsman, Supplier, Merchant: Anyone with at least 75 points in a single crafting or harvesting skill and 250 points in total. Merchants meet the requirement by mixing crafting and harvesting skills.

Master class Craftsman, Supplier, Merchant: Anyone with at least 75 points in 2 crafting or harvesting skills and 400 points in total. Master Merchants meet the requirement by mixing crafting and harvesting skills.

I would suggest adding the following as well..

Change grade from nothing to Apprentice for your low grade.
Change grade from nothing to Journeyman for your mid grade.

Grandmaster Craftsman, Supplier, Merchant: Ayone with atleast 100 points in 2 crafting or harvesting skills and 500 points in total. Grand Master merchants meet the requirment by mixing crafting and harvesting skills.

Member: Any member of the league regardless of rank.
Senate: A voting group made up of equal number of clan and independent Craftsman, Suppliers or Merchants.
Council: A voting group made up of 9 Craftsman, Suppliers or Merchants of Master rank.

Simple Majority: greater than 50% of all cast votes.
Majority: greater than 66% of all cast votes.

If you don't vote it you don't have a say.

Change simple majority to 51% and Majority ot 67% not a huge deal but weve had issues with 50% and 66% before in votes for other worlds before.

Membership

Must maintain a minimum of 150 points in harvest or crafting skills (ie 1x100 + 1x50, 2x75, 3x50) with no less than 50 in any counted skill.

Clans and independent membership is limited to 5 plus 1 per 20 clan members rounded up. A 10 person clan can have 6 (5+1) members, a 98 member clan can have 10 (5+5) members.

Still think that is too many people to allow, but maintained skills agree with.

Membership removal (by council vote)
Sould have to be ratified by a simple majority vote of the voting body, not just the council as over time a whole clan of zerg could control the council and remember anyone they dont like. with the current limit of 10 people for a 100 man guild.

If a guild of 2k people join the league that is a total of 25 general votes they will have and a possibility of holding the entire Council seats.

Forum rules (by council vote)Ownership and control of the website is a *very* complicated issue.
Don't be an asshat. Some inter clan rivalry is to be expected. Keep it friendly. If enough people get tired of you you'll get punted. (maybe just a true majority member vote).

Moderators will be selected by council. Additions/removal can be suggested by members but requires a vote by council to take effect.

If you're generally annoying people may just kick you out.
Forum rules need to be ironed out but not now.

Whomever handles the ownership of the site, should be granted mod status over the various forums exception of council chambers.

DNS
Price Fixing
Charter

Agree as you have them written.

Senate Senators are more permanent fixtures.

Selection

Senators must be of Craftsman, Supplier or Merchant grade.

Each clan with a qualifying member can appoint one Senator.

Senate is made up of an equal number of clan and independent representatives.

Initial Independent senators and additional independent senators are selected by majority vote.

Independent senators can be challenged once per month, and replaced via a runoff between the challenger and challenged.

In the event a clan leaves the junior independent senator is removed, in the event of two or more senators with the same status, removal is by vote.

Only independent members can vote in independent senator elections.


Purpose

The senate submits issues to the council for vote.

Member or clan removal

Rule/Charter changes

Forum moderator changes

Adding or removing an item to suggested price list.

Fixed price declarations

DNS additions

Senate votes as an issue comes up and have one week to vote.

Issues are passed as soon as a simple majority is reached.

Term limit should be six months, not indefinate.
-I would increase the grade to Master rank, not Journeyman grade.

Beside that I think that covers my suggestions to post 2 and 3.

______________________________

Hope that is what you were looking for in terms of a proper responce.

[belthize]

Jan 15, 2009 21:36:49 GMT -5 Wolvyn said:

Grandmaster Craftsman, Supplier, Merchant: Ayone with atleast 100 points in 2 crafting or harvesting skills and 500 points in total. Grand Master merchants meet the requirment by mixing crafting and harvesting skills.

With decay, 100 or even 90 could be hard to sustain ... I was shooting for something that differentiated committed but not nuts.
I'm inclined to leave them vague until there's more in game info.

Change simple majority to 51% and Majority ot 67% not a huge deal but weve had issues with 50% and 66% before in votes for other worlds before.

Good point, my (unexpressed) thought was that ties fail. I think I'd prefer that since with 200 people 50 vs 51% is two votes. Certainly ties have to be expressly dealt with ... I'm pretty easy with how.

Membership removal (by council vote)
Sould have to be ratified by a simple majority vote of the voting body, not just the council as over time a whole clan of zerg could control the council and remember anyone they dont like. with the current limit of 10 people for a 100 man guild.
If a guild of 2k people join the league that is a total of 25 general votes they will have and a possibility of holding the entire Council seats.

I don't think it's a concern. Say a zerg with 2000 members joined. They'd have 105 (5 plus 1 per 20) league members but only one vote on the senate and one in the council (limit of one clan rep on both). I may have left out the council limit in my post.

Even if all 9 council members were friendly to the zerg they'd still have to get through the senate. In the senate it's one per clan + an equal number of independents.

The council can't bring up issues for vote. They only vote on things brought before them by the senate (except for the job of suggesting prices). If it doesn't pass the senate it never even reaches the council so it's DOA.

The intent was that senate is the real power. It decides what gets voted on and is essentially clans vs independents. Each clan gets one vote off set by an equal number of indy votes. The council is primarily a sanity check on them. (Doc gets most of the credit here, he suggested the senate) They set prices and punt the stupid ideas from the senate (or pass them). For the truly significant issues the entire membership has to ratify at 66% (like changing the rules/charter).

I'll try and clarify things in the 'current state' post. Some intent was lost the way I worded things.

Term limit should be six months, not indefinate.

I assume you mean for the independent elected Senate members ? That makes sense. They roll over from month to month if unchallenged but are limited to 6 consecutive months. Pretty simple to make the first senate have limits of 6, 4 and 2 months as a function of top, middle, bottom 1/3 of vote getters. That way they don't all expire at the same time.

I'm kind of torn on term limits. Except for clan senate members (who are appointed by their clan) everyone can be voted out of office. If the majority is for it fine by me but I think it'd only serve to remove a good person from office.

-I would increase the grade to Master rank, not Journeyman grade.

I read through your post and I couldn't quite catch if you were recommending a 4th grade or just re-naming the 3 I'd listed.

If it's adding a 4th, I'd like to leave it at 3 grades since that's the number of 'post' grades (ie member, senator, counselor).

If it's re-naming that's cool. I'm not married to the names, was trying to use everyday terms like crafter vs craftsman, trader vs merchant to show 'success' rather than prefixes. That's another one of those majority opinion things. If/when this gets off the ground I'd leave it up to vote.


Many thanks for the feedback, I'll try to clarify parts of the current state that are weak.

[Wolvyn]

With decay, 100 or even 90 could be hard to sustain ... I was shooting for something that differentiated committed but not nuts.
I'm inclined to leave them vague until there's more in game info.

Far as decay goes.. I had read somewhere that the decay idea was removed. thats why i suggested the GM rank at 100 skill.

Good point, my (unexpressed) thought was that ties fail.

That works just as well as bumping the vote margin up by 1%. Just make sure its noted somewhere or rules lawyers will tear it appart down the road.

I don't think it's a concern. Say a zerg with 2000 members joined. They'd have 105 (5 plus 1 per 20) league members but only one vote on the senate and one in the council (limit of one clan rep on both). I may have left out the council limit in my post.

Even if all 9 council members were friendly to the zerg they'd still have to get through the senate. In the senate it's one per clan + an equal number of independents.

The council can't bring up issues for vote. They only vote on things brought before them by the senate (except for the job of suggesting prices). If it doesn't pass the senate it never even reaches the council so it's DOA.

The intent was that senate is the real power. It decides what gets voted on and is essentially clans vs independents. Each clan gets one vote off set by an equal number of indy votes. The council is primarily a sanity check on them. (Doc gets most of the credit here, he suggested the senate) They set prices and punt the stupid ideas from the senate (or pass them). For the truly significant issues the entire membership has to ratify at 66% (like changing the rules/charter).

I'll try and clarify things in the 'current state' post. Some intent was lost the way I worded things.

I think i missed the introduction of the senate, that negates my big worry about membership limits. after rereading the whole thread id go with what you said bout 5 + 1 per 100 clan members for the membership body.

I dont like that the council cant bring up an issue to vote on and have ratified by the full body. I mean the council is to be the leadership they need to well lead. OR just call them admins/price fixers.

I assume you mean for the independent elected Senate members ? That makes sense. They roll over from month to month if unchallenged but are limited to 6 consecutive months. Pretty simple to make the first senate have limits of 6, 4 and 2 months as a function of top, middle, bottom 1/3 of vote getters. That way they don't all expire at the same time.

I'm kind of torn on term limits. Except for clan senate members (who are appointed by their clan) everyone can be voted out of office. If the majority is for it fine by me but I think it'd only serve to remove a good person from office.

No when i replyed above i glossed over everything to do with the senate in my head. I ment for the masters council a six month limit. perhaps the 6, 4, 2 mth limit could apply to independent senate seats as you suggested.

Having multiple elections at one time is sometimes troublesome to figure out just how to make the polls and which poll to vote for whom on.

You see my clan is a multigame clan run by a 5 elders overall in chracter and various chapter heads in charge of each game worlds. We have anual elections for the elders of all full members of the multigame side of the clan.

If there are more then 5 people running for the elder seats it sometimes got confusing as to which poll to vote on which elder, before we dicided to trust honour and make a sepeate poll for each runner with a yes or no vote. Even so with our current system a simple misclick could skew the vote.

If i could redo our system it would be to stagger the elder votes to 1 seat each season and 2 in the winter to cover all five seats.

So I would suggest.. since your going by a 9 seat council. Each spring 3 council seats up are, summer 2 seats, fall 2 seats, winter 2 seats.

For the first year going by simple majority vote.. whichever 3 counclers get the most votes hold their seat for for 1 year. Next two hold their seats for 9 months, next two highest votes for 6 months, lowest highest votes for but 3 months to establish the seats cycles.

The more I am thinking about this.. Perhaps if the above voting cycle is gone by.. then each seasonal vote would be 1 can seat and 1 independent seat on the Council with 2 clan seats in the spring and 1 independent seat. (for the 1 year mark when 3 seats would be available)

I read through your post and I couldn't quite catch if you were recommending a 4th grade or just re-naming the 3 I'd listed.

If it's adding a 4th, I'd like to leave it at 3 grades since that's the number of 'post' grades (ie member, senator, counselor).

If it's re-naming that's cool. I'm not married to the names, was trying to use everyday terms like crafter vs craftsman, trader vs merchant to show 'success' rather than prefixes. That's another one of those majority opinion things. If/when this gets off the ground I'd leave it up to vote.

I was proposing the following change..-->>

Crafter, Harvester, Traders: Anyone with at least 50 points in a single crafting and harvesting skill and a 150 points in total. Traders meet the requirement by mixing crafting and harvesting skills.

Craftsman, Supplier, Merchant: Anyone with at least 75 points in a single crafting or harvesting skill and 250 points in total. Merchants meet the requirement by mixing crafting and harvesting skills.

Master class Craftsman, Supplier, Merchant: Anyone with at least 75 points in 2 crafting or harvesting skills and 400 points in total. Master Merchants meet the requirement by mixing crafting and harvesting skills.

Becomes this for naming purposes and title too for that matter.

Crafter, Harvester, Traders: Anyone with at least 50 points in a single crafting and harvesting skill and a 150 points in total. Traders meet the requirement by mixing crafting and harvesting skills. Title granted = Apprentice Crafter, Harvester, Trader.

Craftsman, Supplier, Merchant: Anyone with at least 75 points in a single crafting or harvesting skill and 250 points in total. Merchants meet the requirement by mixing crafting and harvesting skills. Title granted = Journeyman Craftsman, Supplier, Merchant

Master class Craftsman, Supplier, Merchant: Anyone with at least 75 points in 2 crafting or harvesting skills and 400 points in total. Master Merchants meet the requirement by mixing crafting and harvesting skills. Title granted = Master Craftsman, Supplier, Merchant.

(new rank added as per below)
Grandmaster Craftsman, Supplier, Merchant: Ayone with atleast 100 points in 2 crafting or harvesting skills and 500 points in total. Grand Master merchants meet the requirment by mixing crafting and harvesting skills. Title granted Grandmaster Crafstman, Supplier, Merchant.

A Senate seat awarded for indeffinatly reguardless of clan/independent status, subject to proving at each month that you still hold the skills to merit the seat and title of Grand Master.

[Si'aan Anoura]

Jan 15, 2009 23:56:20 GMT -5 Wolvyn said:

With decay, 100 or even 90 could be hard to sustain ... I was shooting for something that differentiated committed but not nuts.
I'm inclined to leave them vague until there's more in game info.

Far as decay goes.. I had read somewhere that the decay idea was removed. thats why i suggested the GM rank at 100 skill.

I hope they haven't removed decay! No decay will really detract from the game imo - everyone will just max out everything if that were the case! If anyone finds the quote saying that, can you please post it? That way I can be genuinely disappointed!

[Wolvyn]

i doubt it was confirmed at no skill decay, perhaps my hopefully interpurtation of something Tasos (i think) said. (roughly)"players will be able to roughly learn 95% of all skills with the remainder being baised on race."

I took that to mean i could learn every skill but the racial ones and be good at them.

also something about there being no hard cap to skills just a soft cap where gaining points above N would be alot slower.

I dont remember reading anything in over a year or so about skill degradation. Hence I disagreeumption that it was changed/removed.

[celestine]

I can't imagine them removing "skill decay" either and if they somehow did I would be very sad and worried for the direction of the game - but I'm sure they won't It would indeed pretty much make choices meaningless and allow everyone to master everything.

That recent interview with tasos and the learning 95% of skills I took to also mean - it's possible to learn all/any skills except those few racial-specific ones of other races.

Also, read somewhere there or comments after that a person might indeed be able to push the soft-cap and train more and more skills but it would take a very, very long time to do it (i.e. 7-10 years to train them all up)



Not long until we all get to find out, let's hope.