It's unfortunate that the vast majority of successful polities will be run as a strict dictatorship. Democracy doesn't work in MMORPGs. It doesn't matter if you happen to own 51% of the land in your village; if the village is run by a group, then that group controls the village. Don't agree with them? Vote against them? Then prepare to be run out of town.

Sure, Village Elders can vote on stuff. But the reality of the situation is that the real leader of the group will tell the Elders how they are supposed to vote. And they will, because if they don't then they will suffer from their neighbours starting up a lynch mob.

Even though Zygethia is not a democracy we will not be a dictatorship.

@Morbis Since you'll be registering at a Count to become a town etc. you can always go to the Count if you're in trouble.

That assumes that the count has more power that the group that is pushing others out of town. Or that the count wants to face political repercussions by deciding one way or the other.

I'm sure there will be counts or higher that will have real influence, but those will be people who have significant political backing that no one would challenge them. It is not the title that matters, but what that person/group can bring to the table to back it up.

That only works if the Count has the power to enforce his edicts. Counts with that level of power will rise to that power on the shoulders of those groups that act as dictatorship. And so who will the Count listen to and act to help; the single troublemaking Elder, or the collective will of the group leader that holds the loyalty of 20+ people.

Do not forget about NPCs and OPC's they have there own wishes and desires as well so that 20 you talk about is more like 200 or 2,000.

NPCs and OPCs only matter if the skill ceiling is really low, making intelligent AI that can contend with players simply isn't possible without also lowering the skill ceiling. It means that 200 AI players might only play with the force of 100, because they can't react fast enough to attacks/easier to kite/any number of reasons that make them less than useful against a player.

In high numbers they might be alright, or if the skill ceiling is low, but than you're just playing a numbers game, and eventually one group or more than one group will have enough people that you can throw as many NPC's as you want and it wouldn't matter.

Have the developers released any information at all about the level of control high titled players will have over the NPCs that happen to live in the areas that his title gives governship over? Sure, if the Count can rally up an army of 200 NPC soldiers, then his title will have very real clout. But if not, then I don't see how that is supposed to act as a layer of protection against self governing policies.

And since OPCs needs and desires are entirely under the control of players, the reasoning behind their lack of importance in changing a random Counts political clout should be obvious.

This is one of my biggest fears for this game. I don't want power blocks to ruin it like they did in Eve Online. Do what we say, or else we will crush you!

Or: you wanna live here? Pay us rent!

There is, adverse possession as long as you own the building on the land you want to claim and stay alive it is possible to take it from the original owners.

I hope I am the only person that want to live in a swamp.

I'm so excited about owning land and building up a family with a few of my friends!! Politics looks interesting but I hope we will able to land even in large towns slowly to become something in that town instead of the people owning the most land having a monopoly on the town.