Ave allies, friends, and representatives of the assembled High Hermertian Court.

I have been in meeting with the Heir to Scrios III, Freyr Eberhartd, and have come up with a number of plans in order to change the way that you can apply to become a King for the betterment of the Server.


The current rules for Kingship/Queenship application:

- Prospective King/Queen Applicant must have: 3 concurrent Duchies as voted on my the Council, and must gain 100% of the active Council Members votes to become a King/Queen.

Reasons for desiring a change to the ascension requirements:

- Three Duchies is a huge amount of Builds. It is a Grind and can put anyone off.
- Three Duchies is 9 (nine) Counties. That is 9 separate builds that have to be constructed.
- From observed evidence in some cases, builds have included a formulaic approach, building one or two builds and building multiples of them.
- Lack of spirit or soul to areas or builds as a result.
- The rise to King has a requirement for builds only. There is no specification as to the build types, no added flavour to areas is necessary or only up to the discretion of the Voting members of the Council.

Isolation: This is a personal least favourite of mine. 9 Counties requires a phenomenal amount of time to build. It promotes unhealthy isolation which is relatively toxic to the social aspect of the Server. People who want to be social while playing and helping others should be able be social and be involved with the community while still being allowed to work towards their Kingship/Queenship bid.

- The rise to Kingship/Queenship has no requirements set in law for:

- Nether lines and their quality/safety

- Lore. Building is awesome but the accompanying lore is important and provides immersion and improves the richness of our world.

Requiring at least some attempt at some backstory, outlining a character's past, current lives and deeds etc.

Proposed Changes:

- Change the requirements focus away from sheer number of builds to a more choice based system that will benefit the lore with Guild creations, lore writing and character development, social multiplayer interactions, and cooperative building aspects.

As myself and Scrios had discussed, it was thought that a certain number of points from each section must be attained in order to become elligible for a bid at King/Queenship. Each section will have different choices that will have higher or lower points values. Still a Work in Progress

Builds

A Kingdom cannot exist in abstract alone, it must have its own footing in the world, of course.

- Must have at least one Duchy comprised of three individual Counties or equivalent (extraordinary build quality/size/complexity). A King/Queen must have their own sovereign lands from which to rule.
- Co-build. Can opt to include a number of Co-Builds with another player as part of your bid. This demonstrates your willingness to get involved with the community and desire to contribute to more than your own lands or just building by yourself.
- Infrastructure. Must have safe, complete and finished Nether Line Access to your Portal, where ever it may be situated. (More on the wording for this needed).
- Roads and paths connecting your Duchy. A duchy is a connection of multiple areas. It does not make sense that they live in isolation unless it has a good lore explanation. Roads also look great, and help guide people who are visiting. Trade and travelling could not occur without safe routes, monsters are not friendly to those who stray out of tame areas.

Lore

This is a world building server, and our Lore is what sets us apart from a great deal of others. It is the driving force behind our characters actions and their builds. It is the essence of the server in short.

- Must be able to show that lore has been developed to a strong degree as befits a King/Queen rank through wiki/library/forum posts.
- Takes part in Lore events on the server and seeks to create opportunities to do so when suitable.
- Has character development and a storyline to their actions. Takes pride in the creation of a new character when passing on the torch with a decent back story etc.

Organisations

Guilds, Religions and Organisations have the potential for an enormous amount of in game activity, fun, and lore opportunities. Syrah de Gaul's Skyhold Guild was one such example which made a huge impact on the server and helped spark the Golden Crescent building rush, transforming an area positively.
- Creation of a Guild. Guild must have a purpose in lore and have evidence of its presence in the World in the form of buildings. Must have suitable lore behind its creation and be seen to be active by hosting events or outputting lore regarding itself. Co-Guilds are encouraged.
- Creation and continued running of a Company or Organisation. Look at Stock'em trades from Perth, this company has market stalls and trade posts dotted around the world. Look at the Vahnic Exploration Company, founded by Alexander Stark and continued by his heir, Albus of Arahn, which provides mapping and exploring opportunities and lore creation, in addition to super handy maps.

Community Involvement

The community lives and dies on the input of it's members. We've come a long way and have stuck together because we are all awesome and love what we've created.

- Strong forum presence in the form of thoughtful posts, adding to discussions and being generally active, on serious matters as well as silly ones ( off topic, ahem).
- Willingness to join in with other players if possible for alternate games to Minecraft, i.e. Guns of Icarus plays, Counter Strike etc. This has a lesser weighting in the proposed points system but still can count for something, almost to the point where it is the icing on the cake, more than anything else.


More to be added but i'll post what I have just now. This evolution is for the betterment and long term survival of the server. Plus is makes things more fun overall. Discuss.

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Petra Ravnikaar of The Veil

Ehhh The guild bit is iffy. I certainly dont care for creating a guild and don't really want to have to make one. I don't feel like I could even make/run something like that anyway.

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Duchess Celestine of Reinen
-Marshall of the Scrubby Scrubby task force.


"Music in the soul can be heard by the universe" ~Lao Tzu

The Guild option is likely to be a part of a choice. You certainly can make these kinda of things. Just requires a little more thought. Queenship is a big step

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Petra Ravnikaar of The Veil

Guild:
I'd switch that to "organization" which might encompass any guild, society, religious order, etc.

Alternate games:
I wouldn't want a rank ascension request be denied because someone isn't into, say, the Civ V club. I know I joined the server because I want to play Minecraft. Likewise, if someone is very involved with alternate games, I don't think it should count so much as to be a decisive factor in one's ascension. I think requirements for Kingship in Hermertia should be based on Hermertia accomplishments and interactions: Ingame, on Mumble, on the forum and in the Library.

Builds:
I'd add contribution to infrastructure, be it overworld roads, Netherlines, creation of stables in Concordia (we really gotta do that some time!) etc., infrastructure is a long, tedious, often dangerous task that benefits everybody.

I love the rest, nice job

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Lady Liserett of the House O'Kleefe
Countess of Chester-le-Ford, Wysteria
Deputy Minister of Hermertian History
Appointed Minister of Wysterian Architecture

Thanks for the pointers, I wrote this at 4am and didnt quite finish it.

Each of the sections above will be added to or have more sections, and within each part there will be a points weighting, with things like " Alternate Games " having a lower points balance than most other things, but will still count.

Scrios and myself did bring up Relgious aspects, as well as other societies, i'll go back and add/clear up some of the language.

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Petra Ravnikaar of The Veil

Here are my thoughts on changing this process (some ideas may be repeated from above):

I think it is important to establish prerequisites for becoming a king; that is to say things that are necessary, but not sufficient, to become a king. In my opinion, this would include things like:
-having at least two duchies (I think it is important to establish a clear distinction between the in-game content requirement for becoming a duke and becoming a king)
-having safe nether lines (people should not be afraid to come visit)
-lore development of both characters and realm
By having the above three things, a potential king will be contributing to the server in three important ways: world development, socialization, and lore development. All of these are fundamental pillars of what makes Project Hermertia what it is.

The above conditions are bare minimum of what we should expect of a potential king, but there are certainly other ways that a king can contribute to the server. This includes:
- co-writing lore with other players
- co-builds
- organizing and/or participating in lore events
- creation of guilds/organizations
- pursuing Minister positions
- creating maps or other artwork
- working on the library
None of the above are necessary to become a king, but I believe we should expect our kings to do at least some of the above on a regular basis. Not everyone will want to or be able to do all of these things, which is fine. There are many ways to contribute to the server, not all of which are necessary to becoming a good king. Introducing flexibility into the process here will help reduce some of the 'grind' of becoming a king.

Those are my thoughts, let me know what you all think.

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Guardian of Casadia
Master of the Slayers Guild
Minister of Hermertian History

Great thoughts so far. I agree, a change that is ripe to be made.

I agree with most of the thoughts expressed here. We down in Wysteria know first hand the perils of isolation in that it truly is counter to the community relations we want our Kings to achieve and maintain. I agree fully with the points well-made that a Kingdom requires proud lore, expansive infrastructure, and strong international relations.

In the real world, I agree that we need to strive for candidates for Kingship to be around, to make a good effort to travel the Empire and get to know Hermertians and their work.

That said, couple of things I am iffy on, just in what we have so far:

- Involvement in other games: I agree with Liserett here: the path to Kingship in Hermertia should take into consideration only what occurs inside the realm of Hermertia. Some of us love Civ, GOI, etc, and some of us want to stick to Minecraft; there shouldn't be a difference for the purposes of the path to King. Now, I absolutely understand the point that these games are a measure of how involved a person is socially - something we want to measure in our applicants - but we should stick to measuring social activity solely in Hermertia. Are you active on the forums? Around to answer questions? etc

The points system personally is a bit of a turn-off: So, in school right now my chemistry assignment are festooned with tasks that resemble a grab-bag: "answer three out of five questions that add up to 30 points". I get the same feeling with the proposed idea that each category or level of involvement, pre-requisite or lore undertaking would award a certain number of points, and that, say, 25 points would be needed to qualify for Kingship.

Now, I very much support changing the way in which we consider who is suitable for kingship, making the process more stringent and dependent on more than just 9 possibly rushed, possibly formulaic, possibly isolated builds - but I don't think we should mandate that certain requirements are more valuable than others and that an applicant has to attain arbitrary points.

What I would love to see is a comprehensive document, containing all these well-put ideas for what is necessary to become a King or a Queen of Hermertia - voted on, and then put into law as the document the Council of the Crowned are required to consult when making the decision if an applicant is ready for Kingship. Perhaps it wouldn't be as stringent as if the points were explicitly spelled-out, but I think we can trust our Council to be transparent in that regard.

In my view, we are trying to regulate activity and the social qualities that make an outstanding Hermertian: an appealing goal, but one I think might in the end be less effective that a transparent Council decision, taking into strict account the guidelines we collectively decide upon.

I would replace the current language:



To something like:



In Conclusion: I agree wholeheartedly with the need to reform the current requirements for ascension to King/Queen. I disagree with teh idea of explicit points. Discuss

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Wysterian Labourer's Council
Currently Holding Stewardship of Wysteria
Minister for Applications and Settlement
Forums Administrator

Another huge problem with the old law is, simply, it didn't happen all the time. Take Kaine for example. Kaine has had 3+ Duchies for well over a real life year. Sure not all of them were perfect and some were not complete, but builds never truly are. In fact after waiting for Kings to visit and vote after sending out a call (and other outside factors) I stopped playing for a few months because I was so damn frustrated, I had worked for over a year and no one seemed to care enough to come visit for an hour or so. I believe with other factors that can be seen easily without having to travel to peoples lands across a vast empire, people will be more willing to try to become a king. Not much to add, just helping some newer players to understand some other problems with the old system.

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Gimpy/The Italian Stallion

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door, You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." -Bilbo Baggins

Duke of Kaine

I agree that there should not be a point system. I think it makes the process too formulaic, which is part of the problem right now. I also think it could create some problems of entitlement to ascension and remove the power of discretion from the Council.

Edited

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Guardian of Casadia
Master of the Slayers Guild
Minister of Hermertian History

I think those of you who don't seem to like the bit about outside interaction should maybe rethink that position, I agree it shouldn't be 100% necessary and definitely should be very low priority as we want people to spend more time in Hermertia. However, should this be put into place it in fact would allow those who want to be kings leeway, or rather, creative balance. I for one know that spending literally every day playing Minecraft (it's all I could play on my old computer) can be right good fun, for a time that is. However, I got tired of the game at a point and didn't enjoy building as much, I despised most of what I was creating and just gave up trying any thing new and fun in my builds. BUT I didn't just take a break because I thought that it might make the kings think twice about voting for my kingship if I was so didn't seem commited. I think having this section lets people know that it's okay, even encouraged for our all powerful rulers to take a break sometimes and play something else with the gang.

Just my two cents

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Gimpy/The Italian Stallion

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door, You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." -Bilbo Baggins

Duke of Kaine