Server Balance, Beyond Protocol Basics

The other really big thing about the Galactic Senate is, regardless of how binding everyone feels the discussions and votes are, they are transparent, provided the history of the votes and discussion points on each item are recorded (which the GS interface is designed to do). This would give the whole player base warning about impending changes, since they would be revealed in advance via discussions on items, items that could be brought to a Senate vote either by players through the Emperor's Chamber or directly by the dev team.

Galactic Senate discussions could, at the very least, be taken as suggestions to SirP and others who have volunteered to keep the server going (if passed) and would serve to reveal as a warning of what the player base would be against (by way of the reasons given in discussion if not passed). If the devs decide to put something in place based on a previous vote or discussion, a "confirmation vote" could be aired through the interface, which would again clearly show what is being put in place and would also act as a public opinion "poll" on the specific measure. It would also act as a record of changes that have been made and implemented (through The voting history).

Either way, it is a feature that has the potential to be useful, it is fun for the player base to participate in Senate votes either directly or through discussion, and it is a feature that anyone who's played BP back in the day remembers as being a cornerstone of the game itself. How many veteran players remember BP without also remembering fondly Galactic Senate votes? Probably not many.

Ya i like the idea of the new system (controlling the majority of a system or a space station for full visibility). This would encourage more fighting between well established players and guilds and should minimally effect new players until they get to the point of trying to take over control of said system or space station or whatever ends up being implemented. And I also agree that there should be some sort of notice before a change like this is made in the game that could effect many players. It would be more balanced if the full visibility only showed stuff of players currently online. Then those offline would not be affected until they logged and everyone on could see each others ships and what not and commence battling or moving ships to safe locations.

I definitely miss senate votes.

RE: the full vision in T3's, I agree, advantage was given to everyone who was on at the time of the implementation, but I disagree that it gave anyone an advantage beyond that first happy go lucky killing spree. Disadvantage to people who like to leave units plopped all over the place in T3's. But really, the only AO advantage was due to the fact that more of us were online at the time when it happened.

The system ownership idea is great as it will really make you think twice about where you station units, and it will give a clear objective to aim for and protect. There will also probably be ships to find somewhere to battle. It's easy to take out colonies, but finding assets in space is next to impossible. This encourages people to build enormous resource hogging armies that sit around doing nothing 99% of the time.

The system ownership idea would encourage people to design more robust colonies and empires in general.