COMMUNITY - FORUMS - GENERAL DISCUSSION
The Citizenry of Servers

Hail, Elyrians!

I was part of a hypothetical conversation last night in Discord in which people raised questions about what we might do if people from one server interfered unfairly in the outcome of another server. I made light of the situation and made jokes but, based on information I've received this morning, feel this to be less and less hypothetical. So I wanted to take a moment to respond strongly once again.

Each server is a separate world in Elyria. With their own geography, their own technology, their own political landscape, and their own stories. Map Voting is not the place for cross-server interference as the Dance of Dynasties is server-specific. It is an opportunity for the citizens of a server to exert their will on the server in a way that's never been possible before. It's the ability for the first couple thousand citizens on a server to make decisions that will impact the hundreds of thousands of people who will play on that server in the future. It is not a right. It's a privilege. But it is also an obligation. An obligation to, through your voices, come to a decision as to what best represents the will of the people on your server.

To that end, each server acts as a collection of citizens made up of the people who genuinely and honestly plan to play on that server. The right map for a server is the one people who will be playing on that server have chosen for themselves. In the same way that the leader of a country should be elected by the citizens who will follow that leader.

Now, it's come to my attention that after an attempt to organize and ensure the outcome of Map Voting for their server, NA-East believes they have gotten a large majority of people on the server to vote for a single map. I will neither confirm nor deny the truth of that. But regardless of the truth, some people from NA-East allegedly feel their voices no longer matter on that server, and so have decided to use their voices to influence the outcome of NA-West - a server they have little-to-no interest in being on, and a server for which they are not truly a citizen.

Allegedly, this is being done at the request of a certain group on NA-West. This is unfortunate. It saddens me to think that when a group is unable to rally the support of the other citizens of the server - those citizens whose voices matter just as much as their own - that they would seek aid outside of the citizenry of their server to rig the election results in their favor.

If this is true, this is neither in the spirit of the Dance of Dynasties, nor the wishes of Soulbound Studios. Our wish is always for the citizens of a server to control their own destiny, to write their own stories; and not to encourage the interferece by outside forces to sway their future.

If this is all true, it is unfortunate that people would use their influence in such a way. If it is indeed true, then there are people who do not understand what it means to influence the success of their server, or the success of the game. If this is true, there are influential people in the community who have abused their influence at the community's expense, calling into question whether or not they deserve that influence or a voice in future community events.

Let this be a strong warning to those who are involved in any such alleged actions. While the servers are not locked, and you are free to play where you wish, please make sure you are upholding the Spirit of Democracy, and using your voice only where your voice should matter.

Pledged to the Continued Development of the Soulborn Engine and the Chronicles of Elyria,

Caspian


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11/14/2018 6:45:19 PM #1

Thumps up!

Selene will certainly be united under the Map B!


11/14/2018 6:46:56 PM #2

Indeed. Well Spoken!


11/14/2018 6:47:38 PM #3

Hear hear.


11/14/2018 6:48:25 PM #4

Well said!


-Lief Von Corvus

11/14/2018 6:48:31 PM #5

Awesome <3 everyone should be able to influence and add to the voice of the dynasty!

11/14/2018 6:48:50 PM #6

Well said casp.


Just a lonely peasant on the road looking towards a distance future with the sweat on my back and a tear of cloth in my hand a family crest it must be. A adventure will i have, I dream of dreams my destiny awakens me.

Friend Code: A48E0C

11/14/2018 6:53:35 PM #7

Indeed, any such action found should result in a warning, removal of the influence involved from the server, and potential for further actions based on how the person involved acts from there out.

I say the last part because where some might have done so already out of frustration it would be... inappropriate to punish too harshly them acting as if to help a friend.


11/14/2018 6:54:32 PM #8

Totally agreed.

11/14/2018 7:01:49 PM #9

Yay, Caspian has saved the west from the eastern invasion.


11/14/2018 7:03:42 PM #10

I don't understand why server selection wasn't done LONG ago. Would have been so very simple to implement.

I know people want to play on other servers using an alt, but your vote should only count for your main. An alt should have 0 say in which map a server gets.

Also, there are those who have yet to decide on a server or even will switch servers based on the map that is chosen. Those accounts should have been ineligible to vote.

Lax rules allow people to game the system. This is not the fault of the players.


11/14/2018 7:05:16 PM #11

I absolutely agree with the sentiment of this post Caspian. I suppose a concern would be if there will be any action taken how will you track who is guilty and who is not.


11/14/2018 7:13:36 PM #12

This sets an interesting precedent. One I think is for the better.


11/14/2018 7:13:42 PM #13

Posted By Kinoss at 7:03 PM - Wed Nov 14 2018

I don't understand why server selection wasn't done LONG ago. Would have been so very simple to implement.

I know people want to play on other servers using an alt, but your vote should only count for your main. An alt should have 0 say in which map a server gets.

Also, there are those who have yet to decide on a server or even will switch servers based on the map that is chosen. Those accounts should have been ineligible to vote.

Lax rules allow people to game the system. This is not the fault of the players.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment of Caspian's post I agree with Kinross, if you don't want people to vote on other servers then server selection should have already been done...


11/14/2018 7:30:58 PM #14

A few people have responded regarding server selection. So let me quickly add this:

  1. Nothing in my post says we don't want people voting on multiple servers. We just want them voting on multiple servers for the right reasons.

  2. We didn't do server selection because there was a large % of the player community who wanted to see the maps for the different servers before committing to a server. Chicken, meet egg.

  3. While people feel that "alts" have no rights, alts are people too. :-) I have family on the NA-E server that I will regularly play on, and I will also play on NA-W. Thus, we made a decision to allow people to have a voice on more than one server.

There's no reason to be defensive. Responsibility always comes with accountability. People want the ability to vote on more than one server; they must be accountable for doing it ethically.

Could we have prevented people from voting on more than one server? Yes. Could we have server locked everyone at our discretion? Yes. But neither of those things builds a trusting relationship between the community and developers.

Our objective is to be different than other studios; to groom the player-base to be the kinds of players we want in our game, through repeated opportunities to learn what it means to be an Elyrian.


11/14/2018 7:32:06 PM #15

I appreciate that when jokes are done the developers take this seriously and respond to things in a matter I feel is appropriate for them given their position.

What will make or break this game is the great devs and the great community and it is my hope that we can continue on this path.


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