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Page 4 of 7
Evolutionary Player Interface Model
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Evolving right now, and promising much fun and gaming activity for the future, is the concept of Player run political bodies, which not only shape and occasionally dictate game storylines, but also act as a bridge ( or direct neural interface for all you Matrix fans out there ) direct to the developers, even sometimes dictating long term trends possibly. Implicit in this type of interaction is the freely evolving player led storyline and long term play that makes the dynamic of an institution work.
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In MMORPG games this seems to be going down the path to a pseudo democratic, one player – one vote situation. This is dictated by the avatar path these games follow. Existing structures, such as guilds etc, will easily dominate these in the early days, as the numbers involved will outweigh any unified solo vote. This may change rapidly if it proves popular with the majority of casual gamers and infrequent gamers participating on a low but widespread level ... Seeing activity within the political sphere may provide interesting revelations about actual online activity, highlighting also the numbers actively participating compared to those who are just grinding on to achieve high level before participating themselves. |
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Eve is the current babe in this area and I may as well ride that wave like a piece of cargo in the English Channel. Democratic elections are being held for the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). This could be the first pseudo democratically ( though is the real version any better? ) Elected online council in a MMO. Eve seems to be pushing the MMO boundaries and this could ignite the gaming community and burn a few more traditional developers on the way. Candidacy was opened on the 18th March ... and ends with a two week election between the 5th May and the 19th May.
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Serving six month terms ( sentences? ), the nine representatives and five alternates will lead the discussion in game and work with the team from CCP direct over the future evolution of Eve.
"A democratic election process of representatives is one of mankind's greatest inventions. We are bringing a version of that to EVE now with hope of it allowing us to expand EVE Online in a similar way to what we've seen on Earth."
Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP.
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Indeed, game wise this could prove to evolve differently, with Eve possibly falling prey to indifference and a similar situation to many forums developing, with an increasingly tight circle of posters dominating. Who knows, given the real life aspiration for the Eve model? The existing democracy suffers sadly from indifference and detachment, pressure groups and plain old fashioned corruption and ineptitude (call me a cynic lol). Certainly I foresee some exciting events spinning off from this story wise, though how it impacts the typical small scale player remains to be seen.
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| For MMORTS, where assets denote a larger scale of power, and the balance and flow of said power can alter rapidly, depending on the outcome of many incidents and variables, we have a system based on a much more fluid universe. Here, major long term plots could easily lead to huge levels of game activity in areas such as war, trade, alliances, and online/offline activity. The results of this are usually settled by war and the relative winner/loser player adjustments thereof. This will typically impact all within large areas and will lead to a rise in guild/faction recruitment to influence the vote. |
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