It's no secret that Korvara has been somewhat stagnant on the world scene for a while. Although some things happen on the smaller scale, there are very few things that happen between nations and on the larger scale in general.
I'm not saying this with the intent to blame anyone or point fingers, but I think it would be good for the game as a whole if there was a time limit to a leader's term. Then a successor could be voted for oocly, and ICly chosen or elected in whatever means makes sense. The same leader could be re-voted in, so if people are happy to continue with the same one it's alright.
I'm thinking about 2-3 months is a long enough amount of time for a single leader to be ruling and to leave their mark. Of course it wouldn't be a hard number of days, like for instance if a big thing is going on we don't want to have an election in the middle of it.
It's no secret that being a leader is a stressful job. I don't think it's reasonable to ask of them to keep going until they burnout, and currently, the only way for leaders to rotate is to have a voluntary step down or a violent revolution. It just doesn't make sense to me to rely on such a thing because from what I understand, some leaders don't necessarily enjoy being leader and when it becomes a job there's still this pressure that remains on their shoulders to keep being active and do things. There's also that sunk cost fallacy of having spent a lot of time in the game and not wanting to let go of a position like that. Having a rotation would put a time limit to that, and if they wish to keep going and are doing a good job, they can just be voted to stay in. Overall I just think it would be healthier for the game and the people.
New leaders could bring new perspectives and shake things up in the diplomacy scene. It prevents this perpetual status quo from turning korvara into the great 6. It's not like it's the leaders' responsibility to make it entertaining, but having a rotation would provide a steady influx of diplomatic rp to be had and general worldwide stuff happening.
Let me know what you guys think, I'm especially curious to hear what the leaders think of this
I feel this makes more sense for some nations rather than others. No shade to any leaders, but it would make most sense in this order
Telegrad-actually has some level of democracy
Duyuei/Meiaquar- Tribal/Oligarchy, easier to fluff the tribal unrest/economic upturn resulting in the power flowing to new hands
Geladyne- you're gonna need a coup baby
At the very least, I think there should be some form of election every so often. People shouldn't be forced to cycle out if they're not feeling burnout but they shouldn't burn out before having the chance to pass the torch.
So a term limit is great...What if everyone votes for or wants the same leader back in for another 2-3 months? Or worst we get into one of those situations were the leader role is a joke and everyone listens to the second in command before he won't suddenly be removed in 2-3 months? This is always a problem when it comes to many any temporary leadership role is the fact people might move to the first long term position and follow them instead. Both great IC RP potential but ruins OOC.
If everyone votes for the same leader, then clearly they're doing a good job and want to keep going so what's wrong with that?
I don't see how term limits would make the leader role a joke. And it's not like the second in command has more power.
And yeah it would make sense for telegrad at the very least, but for the other nations I see it as an OOC election
I don't exactly see this as beneficial to the IC or OOC of Korvara. Two significant issues appear in my head when I consider it.
1. Despite being an "OOC election", this would be disastrous in character because it's impossible to separate the IC from the OOC of leadership. And they shouldn't be separated, because the intention of the game is to form a collaborative writing environment which means some things need to happen out of character.
2. This does not address the fact that there are hardly people who WANT to be leader. And if they do want to be leader, then they should already be speaking with the current leader on an OOC level so that they can orchestrate it to make sense in character and out of character, so their nation doesn't catch on fire from bitterness and a lack of communication.
Fair point. I guess the issue for me is that there aren't really any systems in place for power to change hands at all. It never occured to me to literally go up to a leader and tell them you want to take their place, since I'd assume people would be defensive about that, or even metagamey, but thinking about it that does make a lot of sense.
I proposed this suggestion as an answer to my own perception that things aren't as they were advertised. Namely this idea that korvara is a changing place with conflict between nations. The only real conflict happening is either some drama or literal antagonists.
But I realize the idea of term limits is bad. I just don't know what else should change about the game to keep things interesting. I've found myself playing less and less and I don't see the appeal of the current state of the game personally beyond just making more antagonists. If anyone has other ideas I'd love to hear it.
Well if the concern is mostly stagnation, leadership changing hands will do little to alleviate that as most of these nations tend to have close aides and are hardly the work of a singular person.
The main issue that I see with nations on a larger scale is that there isn't much reason to seek out tension or conflict with another nation as every nation is set up specifically to be in a dead lock of sorts. The two 'opposing' nations are on the direct opposite side of the isle and the ruins aren't an accessible option, along with there being no real reason behind initial pre-established lore which set them at odds initially, which... didn't last very long. On the other hand, Duyuei has to maintain the wall and has assistance from both Telegrad and Geladyne, while Meiaquar would have reason to influence tension between Geladyne and Telegrad for monetary gain, a resource that we all have plenty of from just grinding. This is just going off of the base concepts for each nation and a bit of NPC text here and there.
Another core issue is that a fair amount of the player base either don't feel comfortable with large scale conflict and sometimes even small scale, not everyone is going to consent for danger level 3 or 4 as well, which is entirely fair! But this leads into another issue, sometimes there won't be enough players to sustain conflict. Not saying this is definitive by any means though but this circumstance can happen quite easily on a game like SL2, which is more relaxed compared to other roleplaying games of the same breed.
As for the election idea in the OP, it's kind of hard to get behind an OOC election; there was already a fair amount of controversy around the shifting of Telegrad's leadership in early Korvara which was ICly handled, it can very much come down to being a popularity contest rather than a proper transition of power. This is before accounting for issues such as players having a stake in multiple nations at a time and potentially being inactive in one they voted in.
Ultimately, there's no real singular answer to this issue that'd address everything, but having more reasons for nations and players to contest each other and build tension is a good start rather than trying to shift leaders around and see if they influence the world singlehandedly. In the end though, a lot of this comes down to the overall community; if they want tension or conflict, there should be more active pushes towards such, otherwise any new introduction that could potentially break the mold would have short-lasting effects in my opinion.
Very fair, thanks for the answer. You're right, I think what is truly missing is stakes, an actual reason for conflict to happen besides lore going "hate each other please"
But the other big issue is the division of the playerbase. It's true that a ton of people don't really want conflict, even when they take up positions that imply dealing with conflict
The only nation this would really make sense for is Telegrad, where re-elections are held to decide on a new leader like most democracies would have. And even then I doubt that just about anyone becomes a candidate for when that rolls around.
New leaders have already been decided for each nation at least 3 times now, 1 for Geladyne, 1 for Meiaquar, and 1 for Telegrad, with Geladyne's being resolved through a coup obviously and Telegrad's with a re-election after they were dissatisfied with their current leader.
What's actually missing is someone who has the charisma and know how on how to spark a nation against their current leader, and its harder to fault that leader if they are actually doing a good job. Which makes things like these come across as something akin to "Mom said its my turn to play on the xbox"
If its any consolation, re-elections should be a discussed topic in Telegrad in IC anyway.