Six Months Seems Like A Long Long Time

You claim there was a legitmate vote. A vote where people with all their different accounts could vote, and then copy the same account to Test and revote on them again.

A vote on the actual TLP would only have subs voting that play there.

The vote that was actually taken included subs that don't play here, and copied accounts on Test duplicating the votes even more.

Yeah... the box army thing is a problem. I agree with the above poster, too. 1 person, 1 vote.

Oh, but you pay for 6 accounts? Gratz. You're still ONE person and your opinion is no more valuable than anyone else's, no matter how much money you spend.

In the real world, can I go to the polls and fork over some cash to get a few extra votes? Would you really want it to work that way? C'mon, man.

Read Roshen's post and watch the twitch. Then say this with a straight face.

Hardcores don't and won't quit because they are almost exclusively after loot. They won't even quit if they BiS one character because they can BiS two characters, and some of them dedicate their lives to EQ or gaming. Why would they throw away their whole reason for being?

Casuals quit, and they quit for a huge variety of reasons. If they get to 50 and raids aren't instanced, they will quit. If they get to an expansion that doesn't appeal to their nostalgia, they will quit. If progression is pushed too fast, that's one fewer month that DBG will be able to collect subs from the casual crowd because eventually, they WILL quit.

Until I see a mass exodus of hardcores (unlikely), I doubt very much that DBG will side with them because they are the most impatient of the customer base, and no matter how fair of a generalization it is, tend to cause the most trouble. They don't have lifestyles that fit the norm of society in a game this old so I'm very skeptical that they are the customer base that DBG will cater to. Let's wait and see.

You said "The great many people calling for a revote here are the select few (though not all) who have already hit 50 and happen to post on the forums."; so I guess to be more specific I should have said "how do you know that the great many people calling for a revote are 50 already". For the record, I'm 29 (if I hadn't rerolled Lockjaw after getting to 23 on RF, I suppose I'd be 50 already).

The above isn't really meaningful, just being specific .

That said, you restated my case pretty accurately; it's a matter of interpretation: you just don't see it as a problem that potentially, people who aren't playing here affected matters. I see the vote as never having had any real meaning to begin with because of that. The only way it could be proven that the vote was skewed would be to conduct personal interviews with every voter.

I firmly believe that future TLP servers should only allow the entire Live community to vote on things that are absolutely necessary to be voted on to get the server launched, and wait until 4-6 weeks in and allow only the TLP servers to vote on the more permanent aspects of the server's administration. That would absolutely guarantee fairness (notwithstanding boxers, which I'll address last).

For RF/LJ, since they did not, in fact, pre-plan to do those vote that way this time, I suggest a compromise- wait the full 6 months of Classic. But after that, adopt a schedule of running a vote every 3 months, permanently, as to whether or not the next expansion should be unlocked. If the community wants to unlock it they will vote to do so and if they don't they will vote against. If the community wants Velious after 3 months of Kunark they will vote it in and if they don't they will not. If it needs to be bumped up to a 4 month period instead of 3, so be it. In fact - make it 4 months guaranteed, and then if the vote fails, the next ones come at every 3 months after.

As to boxing, what can I tell you? Daybreak will not consider any policy shift at all on this matter. Makes me wonder how they are going to address this issue in EQN and beyond; and if those games can be profitable if they don't have that extra revenue.

Oh yes their opinion does count more and should.

This mess was created by DB for conducting the poll the way they did. At least it sounds now that they will try to correct it.

You already know that I deeply respect your arguments from our prior exchanges so I won't be long winded here.

I did try to restate your argument accurately, I wasn't trying to be overly antagonistic. I'm not even saying the original vote was superb. And as I've said a few times now, I lost that vote.

My only problems here are two fold.

1 - even if the original vote wasn't perfect, nobody here has the ability to prove that it still wasn't representative. A vote won't ever be perfect (there are studies that show that people sometimes answer polls falsely just for the enjoyment of it). So the only thing you can evaluate is whether or not it was representative.

2 - if it turns out the original vote wasn't representative (which is really what we need to know) then DBG needs to make certain that the follow-up vote will be. I'm not anti-boxer in gameplay but I am anti-boxer when it comes to voting. Boxing is incompatible with a representative vote at the primary level. And I don't see a way to fix this problem before instituting a revote.

In conclusion, the reason I'm against a new vote is because it reduces the meaning of the original vote without knowing for sure that it was actually not representative without offering a meaningful solution to determine what is actually representative.

You need to be a little more specific here.

If it's a question of does a poll constitute a meaningful representation of what players want, then no, a person who pays for more accounts should not be entitled to more of a say in a vote to determine that. Not out of malice, just out of definition.

However, should their opinion count for more in a non-representative sense? That really depends on a lot more factors than are being discussed right now. Would you agree that just because somebody is able to amass more support for racism, for example, it should be enforced? Clearly not. A little less inflammatory here - because they are pro-training, it should be enforced? No. That's why I am trying to be extremely clear in the distinctions I've been making in this thread.

And why is that? I understand that from a "bottom line" perspective to the bean counters a DBG it may "count for more," but from an ethical and practical standpoint, what in essence boils down to vote-buying is not only unfair to THE MAJORITY of players, it usually ends up NOT working in the best interests of THE MAJORITY of players.

You want the 2 or 3 guys each with 6-boxed mage armies constantly stealing your spawns to decide how the game is gonna work for you? Puhleeze.

Assuming you really aren't trying to troll, let's take this one step further.

How do you propose to replace this so-called illegitimate vote with a completely legitimate vote that constitutes a majority of what the current TLP player base wants, without artificial inflation from box accounts?

And now let's say we can manage that.

Should we hold a new vote again in a few days? A week? Two weeks? To make sure it continues to be representative?

A paying sub gives that sub 'ALL ACCESS'. All access includes voting. Case closed.

This is a valid argument but it's incongruous with an argument based on representative majority.

I have no problem with this argument, just don't be duplicitous about it.

And if you don't care about a representative majority than what is the justification for a revote?

Seriously, you are literally mocking the entire concept and intent of voting if you think it's ok for people to literally just buy the ability to have extra votes.

Why not be honest about it, not hold any "votes" and just let people pay to have lobbyists at DBG ala the US Congress? haha.

This is 100% going to happen, and it's going to be exactly the same people whining.

(idk why edit doesnt seem to work for me)

So... say the server has 11 ppl actually playing. 10 ppl with 1 account, and 1 guy with 11 accounts. The guy with 11 accounts should dictate server policy even if and when it goes counter to the will of the other 10 ppl? that's so ridiculous I shouldn't even bother arguing with someone of such an illogical mindset, yet the very concept offends me so much I cant help myself.

That type of thinking is cancer.

Your opinion worth 15$ a month. their opinion worth 15$ X6 a month. their opinion IS more valuable to daybreak than yours. Sorry, this isn't democracy, this is business. Reality dosen't care wether you like it or not.

Even if you arn't a zionist adept, you'd have to be pretty blind to believe the richest 1% in the USA do not have any more influence over state affairs than the poorest 1%.

that one guy will bring 15$ X 11 to daybreak. those other 10 guy will bring, together, 15$ X 10. if you are an investment firm like Daybreak' owner is, you cater to the one guy paying for 11 account.

but that's not even the point.... the vast majority of anti-instancing crowd / 6month crowd do not realize what classic is if you want to raid / once you've been 50 for two or three week. The whole idea is to get vote moving before hundreds of player leave because they are bored... TL won't leave. hardcore raider won't leave. it's the casual guy that ends up leaving.

As I said, I understand that reasoning as it comes from the bean counters at DBG. Doesn't mean anyone should like it other than those who are willing to participate in the fraud themselves.

I'd also like to point out that some companies DO choose integrity over "the bottom line." I've been an Eve Online player for several years. A while back, CCP (the company who runs Eve) banned ISBoxing across multiple accounts. You can still use the software itself for non-botting purposes, but you cant click one button and have 6 accounts all respond to that click and perform the same action from that 1 click. The on the forums coming from the botters was legendary.

So yeah, there's a bottom line to the company, and there's also other gaming companies out there willing to be fair to their player base even if it means some lost subs.

I agree 100%, that was sorta my point. Money influencing decision-making works out pretty rotten for THE MAJORITY of people.

Actually, you wouldn't because the guy paying for 11 accounts is going to drive the other 10 people away from the game. If you kept the other 10 people happy, the guy with 11 accounts is unlikely to leave because he'll have someone to sell his mage-boxed gear to.