EDIT: tl;dr : generally: yes. Thx for the stimulating discussion I just read.
I was thinking something similar recently.
Now I absolutely love the game like it is right now, but I read a review, the author of which claimed it was brilliant and he liked it, just there wasn´t much to do (the person probably didn´t get into PP or the fact that you can actually drive the Background Sim and factions by your behaviour), and I thought how could there be more commitment?
Starting point: I was 100+h just flying around, picking random missions, earning cash, upgrading my ride.
Then,out of a whim, I pledged to a galactic power, because I thought "these guys are kinda cool", and I wanted to feel like I belonged to something, like the GalNet news somehow mattered to me.Then I felt my way into PP, and realized the Vote Nominations you get, once you reached a certain status. Then I ran across systems / starports in the state of elections going on.
That got me thinking...what if this idea was expanded? What if you, as a player/ ally of a faction could join some limited votes.
My idea was also voting / elections on different levels.
I quite like your ideas. I think it would be a boost for immersion and players would feel more participating in the history of the ED Galaxy. I had something very similar in mind
My ideas, in addition:
- - Once you are friendly with a faction, you can drop a vote if you arrive at a station/system in the state of ongoing elections. Idea: At the station, there is an announcement "Ongoing elections", and you can browser through all the factions that are present at the station AND that you are at least friendly with, and have the option to drop one vote for one of them. this way, sheer player presence and participation could potentially swing an election, so there would be a limited impact of average joes to local expansions/faction development in addition to the behaviour of squadrons.
EDIT: Player vote could either count the same as NPC / simulated population member vote (player influence on large and hence powerful systems would be dramatically decreased, as 1000 players can´t overule 35Mio inhabitants), or weighted by a hidden and hence adjustable balance factor.
I agree with the general opinion "Players should influence the game by gameplay, not polls". fully. In addition: Frontier as developer and "driver" should always have the last say, and the possibility to prevent damage. This would render most options into the illusion of choice for immersion´s sake, which I am totally fine with.
The tricky thing, I know, is to come up with a system that has noticeable, but limited influence. It must not be exploitable with malintent, players shouldn´t be able to rig it. Hence my idea, that a position in office only allows you to move several interconnected rulers over a limited range for a total amount (like, 5 rulers, and you can distribute a total of 20% of influence among them), or spread a limited amount of influence points over several options (like 3 points over 10 options). Something similar to the way, how character development is driven in many RPG games. Also, office periods have to be short enough, so that enough players think "ok, it´s only for an Hour/ day/3 days/a week, let´s try that, it´s not much extra effort, I will still have time to do my ingame missions AND go to work in real life, but right now, I feel like it could be fun for a change"
Also, your commander could earn additional bonds for taking office.
This is just a rough sketch of my 2cents of general thought. I am fully aware that it is not thought through properly, and that actual implementation in the current, amazingly detailed political simulation would be a very complicated and delicate affair, and probably requires reigning chaos theory to prevent damage to the gameplay.
But still. Some little thing here and there where it couldn´t hurt, I would welcome that. Just wanted to drop my ideas into the community, maybe sth gets picked up.
K, bye
I was thinking something similar recently.
Now I absolutely love the game like it is right now, but I read a review, the author of which claimed it was brilliant and he liked it, just there wasn´t much to do (the person probably didn´t get into PP or the fact that you can actually drive the Background Sim and factions by your behaviour), and I thought how could there be more commitment?
Starting point: I was 100+h just flying around, picking random missions, earning cash, upgrading my ride.
Then,out of a whim, I pledged to a galactic power, because I thought "these guys are kinda cool", and I wanted to feel like I belonged to something, like the GalNet news somehow mattered to me.Then I felt my way into PP, and realized the Vote Nominations you get, once you reached a certain status. Then I ran across systems / starports in the state of elections going on.
That got me thinking...what if this idea was expanded? What if you, as a player/ ally of a faction could join some limited votes.
My idea was also voting / elections on different levels.
I quite like your ideas. I think it would be a boost for immersion and players would feel more participating in the history of the ED Galaxy. I had something very similar in mind
My ideas, in addition:
- General votes, e.g. about the behaviour of humanity towards the Thargoids, could be open at every station for everyone who would like to participate. Like you sell stuff, take a mission, and before launch, you browse through the stations vote-menue, see what´s up, drop your vote. Or not. GalNet could be a place. Like any democracy, if you don´t vote, you gotta take what comes up.
- Additional options for local votes depend on your status with a faction/Power.
- - Once you are friendly with a faction, you can drop a vote if you arrive at a station/system in the state of ongoing elections. Idea: At the station, there is an announcement "Ongoing elections", and you can browser through all the factions that are present at the station AND that you are at least friendly with, and have the option to drop one vote for one of them. this way, sheer player presence and participation could potentially swing an election, so there would be a limited impact of average joes to local expansions/faction development in addition to the behaviour of squadrons.
EDIT: Player vote could either count the same as NPC / simulated population member vote (player influence on large and hence powerful systems would be dramatically decreased, as 1000 players can´t overule 35Mio inhabitants), or weighted by a hidden and hence adjustable balance factor.
I agree with the general opinion "Players should influence the game by gameplay, not polls". fully. In addition: Frontier as developer and "driver" should always have the last say, and the possibility to prevent damage. This would render most options into the illusion of choice for immersion´s sake, which I am totally fine with.
- - Once you are allied with a faction, you may have a say on internal affairs, say, who are the candidates for an election as station chief, or what the balance of expansion, consolidation etc. should be.
- - Once you are allied AND have fulfilled a given set of contributions, you get voting options for system-wide, later faction-wide voting options. Finally, you yourself get electable (if you choose to) for a limited period (like, one power cycle) for a limited local (station) capacity. During your week in office, you shouldn´t be able to wreck the station/faction, but influence the behaviour somewhat, e.g. distribute some actions points among several rulers over a limited range for. e.g., adjusting trade rates (taxes/customs) towards other systems/factions/government types (tax the commies, we like anarchists, no we like big corporations better, SystemXY needs a little hand with trading, we need an incentive to sell beer here, influence the mix of missions on the bulletin board, that kinda thing).
- - Once you held office, and the faction did well during that cycle, you get electable for system-wide, then faction-wide capacities.
- A similar system with more general options could be applied for the Power you are pledged for, only you get different, more large scale and general options for your decisions in office, with less direct impact on the game (like, if you are district commander, you can influence the weight of a system in your district during consolidation vote between 0.95 and 1.05, or slt; if you are secretary of High Command, you can slightly influence, which other power you have more beef with for that cycle, or how agressive NPCs are in a given sector, or slt.)
- The voting system for a Power should reflect that powers "style", or type of government. e.g., in Alliance, your merits should decide whether you are electable for the next higher level, whereas in the Empire, the higher level decides who is to advance, for the Federation, the influence of the faction you ran for, slt. Edit: i wonder if something similar would make sense for minor factions also. Limit the options according to the factions styles. If its a democracy: sure, come vote. If its a corporation: what did you achieve for the faction? If it´s dictatorship: screw votes!, Communism: go vote for us or get punished! Anarchy: Why vote? just do your thing...etc...
The tricky thing, I know, is to come up with a system that has noticeable, but limited influence. It must not be exploitable with malintent, players shouldn´t be able to rig it. Hence my idea, that a position in office only allows you to move several interconnected rulers over a limited range for a total amount (like, 5 rulers, and you can distribute a total of 20% of influence among them), or spread a limited amount of influence points over several options (like 3 points over 10 options). Something similar to the way, how character development is driven in many RPG games. Also, office periods have to be short enough, so that enough players think "ok, it´s only for an Hour/ day/3 days/a week, let´s try that, it´s not much extra effort, I will still have time to do my ingame missions AND go to work in real life, but right now, I feel like it could be fun for a change"
Also, your commander could earn additional bonds for taking office.
This is just a rough sketch of my 2cents of general thought. I am fully aware that it is not thought through properly, and that actual implementation in the current, amazingly detailed political simulation would be a very complicated and delicate affair, and probably requires reigning chaos theory to prevent damage to the gameplay.
But still. Some little thing here and there where it couldn´t hurt, I would welcome that. Just wanted to drop my ideas into the community, maybe sth gets picked up.
K, bye
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