Random alliances - Can they work, and how?

[TheNamelessWonder]

(Disclaimer: I'm not coming out and saying we should switch world 1 to random alliances. But I do think it is a topic that should be thoroughly discussed.)

Here's some thoughts of mine to kick around, feel free to flame.
- You're put into a random alliance as soon as you sign up. Assuming you want to be in an alliance maybe? You could opt to be solo if you want perhaps? And then if you choose you can put yourself up to join an alliance, and be randomly inserted in one?
- The alliance leader is chosen by a majority vote of the alliance members, and can then appoint officers and stuff. If opinion changes the people can just move their votes and elect a new one.
- You may leave your alliance at any time (maybe a limited amount of times per round? 1? 3?), but have no say in where you end up.
- An alliance can expel members by some means - maybe the leader puts it up for a vote, and alliance members have to vote to expel by a majority? Or by a supermajority? 2/3? 3/4?
- The alliance begins forming as soon as signups begin, giving alliances time to plan and stuff before the round begins. Some mechanism will have to be implemented to ensure that there are enough alliances, and that they have a fair distribution of members. If there's 10 alliances with 20 members and someone else wants to join an alliance it wouldnt be fair to put that person in an alliance of one right away.
- Alliance leader gets to choose alliance name. Can it be changed during the round? If so, will there be some way by which to ensure that others can still identify the alliance after it changes its name (assign a number to it or something)?



Also an idea to throw around - even if we wouldn't implement this in W1, maybe still in a public W2 or something?


Just some thoughts of mine.

Discuss.

[Iamsmart]

This would be a major upheavel (though many people know i'm totally for it )

- Alliance leader gets to choose alliance name. Can it be changed during the round? If so, will there be some way by which to ensure that others can still identify the alliance after it changes its name (assign a number to it or something)?

give the alliance a number and be able to change the name throughout the round whenever they want number=identification.

Also: Add a draft system even maybe. E.G. you can draft like 4 of the 20 members of your selection but the rest

[blockatiel]

Though I do think that random alliances are interesting and a way to get more people to play alliances instead of solo, I think a lot of people would not play if they knew they could not be in the same alliance as their friends, and currently, there are many more people in certain time zones than others, and alliances work hard to fill these gaps. Random alliances could very easily result in little to no night cover.

TBH, I think it's a bad idea

[TheNamelessWonder]

Disclaimer again, in case I didn't make it explicitly clear: I'm not suggesting we change World 1 to this. Far too drastic a change. But let's kick some ideas around, and if we come up with something awesome we can see if we can take it somewhere from there.

[Iamsmart]

<Iamsmart> to make it less of a drastic change
<Iamsmart> make a draft system
<Iamsmart> you can 'draft' 4 players into an alliance
<Iamsmart> but the rest have to be random

[Mattheus]

Pretty much the whole thing described in the original post is a carbon copy of the galaxy system in Planetarion.

[TheNamelessWonder]

Originally Posted by Mattheus

Pretty much the whole thing described in the original post is a carbon copy of the galaxy system in Planetarion.

Actually, I pretty much ripped it off from when I used to play Utopia back in the day

But just the same, perhaps it can apply here.

[Alcibiades]

No they cannot work. Period.

1: People won't want to play without their friends.
2: Timezones won't be covered evenly as there aren't enough players
3: It won't level the playing field because good players won't want to play with bad ones, and then the good ones will quit/delete and the **** players will be stuck in a **** alliance again.
4: The ability to vote out a leader (and other members) could (possibly) be abused, but if you take away that right you potentially ruin the round for an entire ally, unless they ALL want to delete and restart and be subject, possibly, to the same circumstances again.
5: So you get the option to leave, and then be stuck in another shitty ally? No i think not.

Those were the first reasons off the top of my head, I'll add others as I think of them....

[Iamsmart]

Drafts.

[TheNamelessWonder]

Originally Posted by Alcibiades

1: People won't want to play without their friends.

Perhaps. Hard to say how many it would affect. I'd be happy to play with whoever.

Originally Posted by Alcibiades

2: Timezones won't be covered evenly as there aren't enough players

Of course. But will things balance out? Maybe your alliance has absolute **** for night cover, but a bunch of North American west coasters, and at 2:00 server time you can go forth and own? Some changes may have to be put in place (high injuries or insurance) so an alliance doesn't get decimated during its weak times, but perhaps it could work.

Originally Posted by Alcibiades

3: It won't level the playing field because good players won't want to play with bad ones, and then the good ones will quit/delete and the smeg players will be stuck in a smeg alliance again.

Or they'll get over themselves and play the best they can, and try to turn their alliance into something.

Originally Posted by Alcibiades

4: The ability to vote out a leader (and other members) could (possibly) be abused, but if you take away that right you potentially ruin the round for an entire ally, unless they ALL want to delete and restart and be subject, possibly, to the same circumstances again.

Elaborate further please. When I say vote out a leader, I just mean remove them from the leadership position, demote them to a common member. And as for booting members, I intend for it to be difficult to do. Maybe 2/3 or 3/4 of the alliance vote needed, to ensure that really only the crappiest members get the boot.






Also, new thought - maybe alliances can stay together between rounds? So if you turn your alliance into something good it can carry over to the next round, same people together? Just another thought to kick around.

[Alcibiades]

Originally Posted by TheNamelessWonder

Perhaps. Hard to say how many it would affect. I'd be happy to play with whoever.

The reason this was proposed in the first place as I understood it was to even out the good players who recruit by word of mouth and the players who don't get to play in the 'super allies' as Iamsmart termed them. If these people wanted to play with totally random players, they would be happy to be recruited willy nilly. As it stands, I don't see people willingly giving up a camaraderie they've forged over at least a round if not more for a completely new, probably bad experience.

Originally Posted by TheNamelessWonder

Of course. But will things balance out? Maybe your alliance has absolute **** for night cover, but a bunch of North American west coasters, and at 2:00 server time you can go forth and own? Some changes may have to be put in place (high injuries or insurance) so an alliance doesn't get decimated during its weak times, but perhaps it could work.

As you admit there, the time you are weak you'll get absolutely mullered. This won't change with random allies or with picked allies. Unless you add some changes as you say, but that means you may as well just have picked allies and get the changes anyways.

Originally Posted by TheNamelessWonder

Or they'll get over themselves and play the best they can, and try to turn their alliance into something.

That would be nice, but I'm pretty goshdarn skeptical.

Originally Posted by TheNamelessWonder

Elaborate further please. When I say vote out a leader, I just mean remove them from the leadership position, demote them to a common member. And as for booting members, I intend for it to be difficult to do. Maybe 2/3 or 3/4 of the alliance vote needed, to ensure that really only the crappiest members get the boot.

Fair enough. I didn't quite understand what you meant. But really, if you're voting a leader out of the leadership position, what are the chances he's going to calmly and rationally accept being just a plain member again? IMO, not very likely. As for booting players, if it's only the crappy ones who get the boot that's fine, but i can see people ganging up out of personal dislike for someone, or voting in the heat of the moment and then having done something stupid that can't be undone.

Originally Posted by TheNamelessWonder

Also, new thought - maybe alliances can stay together between rounds? So if you turn your alliance into something good it can carry over to the next round, same people together?

Then you may as well just be a picked alliance. Not to mention having an alliance 'stick around' together after the round end completely, utterly, and totally demolishes the whole basis for this thread, that is, random allies. Are we back at square one?!

[TheNamelessWonder]

Not going to respond point by point again, but I do want to address the one about members being removed. Is an ex-leader likely to be happy about being dethroned? Probably not. But maybe the leader wanted to step down. Or maybe who knows. And while there are potential problems with removing members as you laid out, getting 13 or 15 members out of a 20 man alliance to agree to remove somebody is not likely to happen lightly.

[Alcibiades]

if the leader wants to step down he can hand over leadership to someone else, like the system currently works. Correct?

[TheNamelessWonder]

Originally Posted by Alcibiades

if the leader wants to step down he can hand over leadership to someone else, like the system currently works. Correct?

Sure, why not? And if the leader is a Mugabe, or just incompetent, or simply leading the alliance in a direction it doesn't want to go in, the alliance members can choose a new leader.

[Alcibiades]

And the chances of getting a large proportion of players to agree to that is almost impossible if it's only the 'direction' they don't like because it would have to be one helluva big direction to get 13-15/20 players to agree to a booting as you indeed said.

If he's incompetent it's another story. but then assuming he gets booted, i doubt he'll remain happily in his player spot and will probably leave. Great, have to find another player... will that be randomly assigned, with the potential for having another useless mouth to feed? (so to speak)...? how does recruiting work once the round is started... what if there is no pool of potential randoms; does that mean we limit the number of players that can play in W1 at any given time so it matches perfectly to the number of alliances? That would be hard, not to mention stupid.

And then you pick the new leader by vote? What if people can't agree? Are we stuck with no leader until someone breaks the deadlock? will it be randomly chosen if after XXX amount of ticks there is still no leader?

There are too many problems with this idea to make it workable when we have a somewhat flawed, but more or less functional system already.