There’s a General Election here in the UK tomorrow, and after decades dominated by two-party politics it seems as if the political landscape is fragmenting. For the benefit of anyone familiar with MMOs but confused by this situation, who doesn’t have access to Wikipedia, or the internet (apart from, because of some plot, this site), or books, or newspapers, or a telephone, or a vaguely knowledgeable friend, or a sufficient number of typewriter-equipped monkeys, we present the KiaSA Guide To UK Political Parties:
The Conservatives are in favour of hard working raiders getting just rewards, with strict performance checks and a full and detailed DKP system to appropriately grant loot to those who put the work in. They’re appalled by low-effort epic items handed out to all and sundry just for logging in or other trivial tasks. Some people think that’s a bit rich when many of them have inherited super-extra-deluxe Platinum With Strontium Edging Founder’s Packs, granting them exclusive gear, massive bonuses to XP, in-game currency and the like.
Labour used to have a natural constituency when 40-man raids required large guilds, collective bargaining power being a key factor in securing fair participation and loot for all, distributed via Loot Council, though the system was rather cumbersome. With heavy raiding being broken up and more small-group and individual content they had to reinvent themselves, initially with some success, but some are still angry about an ill-considered foray onto a PvP server under previous leadership. Very keen on Healers.
The Liberal Democrats try and invest individuals with the power to make their own decisions of whether to raid, roleplay, engage in PvP, run small instances or just solo, but they’re a bit ineffectual and don’t have enough members to properly form groups. Promised to abolish consumable requirements for new raiders, but started hanging around with the Conservatives to fill raid groups and abandoned the idea.
UKIP were perfectly happy back in the good old days when everyone got into raids, unless you were a Warlock, but that was fine because everyone hates Warlocks and you could say that in those days, not like now, and you could leave your guild bank unlocked and nobody would nick anything, back before the dungeon finder started including players from other servers, and they came over here and rolled on our loot and tanked in instances so that local tanks on the local server couldn’t get a place, not that there were enough local tanks because nobody wanted to tank but that’s not the point. Many are hardcore PvPers who demand full, unfettered always-on PvP with no namby-pamby interference or wishy-washy safe areas, until someone kills them, at which point they demand Kent police investigate.
The SNP really want to be playing a different MMO, but were narrowly outvoted, so they’re grudgingly tagging along, mumbling about how much better the other game would be and lobbying the devs to make the rules more like it. Plaid Cymru are much the same, with more daffodils. The Greens aren’t at all keen on all the nasty fighting that goes on, and would rather everyone focuses on crafting as long as the resources are gathered from renewable sources, which fortunately turns out to be everything in an MMO.
There is one politician with no MMO analogue, though, Independent candidate for Salisbury Arthur Uther Pendragon. I mean, some bloke in robes waving a sword around? That’s just silly.
Loved it! Particularly the “..some are still angry about an ill-considered foray onto a PvP server under previous leadership”.
Well, that’s certainly helped me make up my mind. Thanks for the advice!
You did miss the bit about the Conservatives promising the players a referendum on a server de-merge, but only after negotiating with the devs for another balance pass. Apparently the devs are willing to go along with this as long as it doesn’t result in anything more drastic than nerfing Warlock DPS by 2% (because hey, Warlocks…)
This is interesting, and demonstrates the complications of your multiparty system. Here in America, we have one party, with two branches: one which roughly aligns with your Tory party and is called the Democrats, and one which roughly aligns with those members of your Tory party who consider the UKIP to be a lot of right-thinking chaps and is called the Republicans.
The aim of the American party is two-fold: First, to keep America engaged in a perpetual state of RvR, even against servers that don’t want to play with us; and second, to ensure that top tier Guild Leaders who do not raid, or craft, or even do much leading of a guild — i.e., our most “productive” players — are empowered to decide all loot distribution, after they have received their just portions. Some Democrats, being wild and youthful, wish to extend this consideration to Guild Officers and mid-tier Guild Leaders.
Trying to please everyone has created some confusion. For example, the party is generally opposed to allowing transfers from other servers, but at the same time it must concede that few Americans are willing to do the Gathering necessary to keep raiding afloat. Cleverly, the American party keeps the playerbase fixated on mock debates it stages over issues that the balance of civilized servers settled long ago, such as whether to allow two players of the same class to start an Arena 2’s team together, or whether or not it’s acceptable to Ignore, Gkick, and Ban players on account of character race.
Drat. I should have gone with “. . . choices made during character creation.” Ah well.
Bravo! A quite splendid summary.