[quote=Anne Auclair]Feducci stands above them all, laughing.
Ah, maniacal laughter at one’s victory. That’s always a good sign :P[/quote]
I feel it’s more like he’s laughing about the jeers he’s getting. Which is pretty charming. No one likes a sore competitor- or loser ;)
[quote=Gillsing]
And it wasn’t until the flash lays and investigations for the second week that Feducci appeared incompetent. [/quote]
I don’t think he ever appeared incompetent, that glimpse into his disorganized election campaign was simply to show the player that he didn’t have an actual platform and was just saying stuff to get himself elected.
Where did it say he got less than 50% of the vote? I must have missed that. Or is Anne still in Spin Doctor mode, making stuff up even though it is all over?
First sentence of winner announcement. "with almost half of the votes". So, less than half, probably.
edit: Oopsie daisies.
edited by gronostaj on 7/10/2017
[quote=Kukapetal][quote=Gillsing]
And it wasn’t until the flash lays and investigations for the second week that Feducci appeared incompetent. [/quote]
I don’t think he ever appeared incompetent, that glimpse into his disorganized election campaign was simply to show the player that he didn’t have an actual platform and was just saying stuff to get himself elected.[/quote]
It comes down to two unfortunate revelations.
Or, more disturbingly:
Potential Solution?
I think one easy solution would be to make it so that you aren’t punished from defecting from the candidate in the lead. If it was easier to swap to a new candidate at the halfway point (moving to the 2nd and 3rd place candidates only, to prevent bandwagoning to the lead candidate), you may see a lot more people making the change. It would also make the race a lot more tense which what I am sure FB is trying to do. Both years have had a winner locked in from day one and while there was a lot of back and forth on the forums, the outcome was pretty clear both times. Making votes be allowed to be a little more fluid and not punishing to the player may make the votes actually shift at the halfway point instead of basically staying the same.
Actual quote is “Feducci claims victory with nearly half the vote!” Certainly reads as just under 50%
Ah right, couldn’t see for looking. Apologies for the snarkiness. It’s been a fortnight for it.
Just done that: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Professor%20Strix?fromEchoId=12072389
As a player, I wasn’t invested in last years’ election because I didn’t particularly like any of the candidates. This year, I wanted to support the Detective at first (sticking with your bunch and all), but I know that my character has her reservations about the lady and her platform (me too, to be honest). The DTC ended up being a pleasant surprise and I have no regrets about sticking with her and reading her final reaction. If anything, it endeared me more to her, which is one of the things that the election is supposed to do, after all. I liked to know more about the Detective, too, and even if I disagree with her policy, I ended up respecting her. I consider this a plus.
Feducci always was the candidate that I liked less and cared less about, but eh. I can live with one opportunity card about him showing up in my deck from time to time, if that will make half of the players happy. (The Professor might have to spend an year in Port Carnelian or doing research on those small zee-islands, though. Pretty sure that neither him nor the Presbyterate are happy about the direction her research is going.)
I don’t think there really IS a solution. We’ve just proved that we can elect someone who might as well wear a sign that says “evil cackling monster” and not face any consequences for it. If nothing else, this proves beyond a doubt that the election is just popularity contest for who is “coolest” and things like candidates’ actions and platforms ultimately don’t matter, because they have no consequences.
Unless they have three “cool” bad guys running against eachother in all future elections, I don’t see how there can be much of a contest.
[quote=Kukapetal]I don’t think there really IS a solution. We’ve just proved that we can elect someone who might as well wear a sign that says "evil cackling monster" and not face any consequences for it. If nothing else, this proves beyond a doubt that the election is just popularity contest for who is "coolest" and things like candidates’ actions and platforms ultimately don’t matter, because they have no consequences.
Unless they have three "cool" bad guys running against eachother in all future elections, I don’t see how there can be much of a contest.[/quote]
Alas, that is most likely true, but we might as well try, no? The other option is to simply assume people are the worst and that makes my heart hurt.
I supported Feducci because I had reasons not to support the other candidates. Everything that was revealed about him during the election I already knew and what came to light about both the DTC and Detective didn’t make me want to change my candidate.
So I don’t appreciate hearing all this anti-Feducci supporter stuff. I didn’t mind reading all the reasons why people thought the other candidates were the better option during the election. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs.
I wish we could hear what the Bishop of Southwark’s reaction must have been like. I mean, people might as well have voted a devil for Mayor…
This might also be a good opportunity for FBG to actually show some real repercussions to London, such as a non-discardable “Mayor’s Universally Harmful Policies” card that would force a negative choice on you. Just to show that it actually DOES matter who you vote for, if in a minor way.
Agreed about the hats, it’s a poor idea for two sides to have BIS items while the third does not.
That was another big part of it. Not just that Feducci is a rogue, but the other two, well… it may be unwise to say, but they were associated with factions that are seen as “conservative” in the real world (church/upper-class and police), and I’d hazard a guess few people here lean that way.
innit that a little too much? Plenty of Londoners are criminals, rogues, yadda yadda bad people all around. What might be harmful to a respectable lawful-leaning citiziens would be beneficial for a criminal.
Last year we had Sinning Jenny, this year it’s Feducci. If it happens again next year, having a Mayor under foreign influence can be considered traditional.
edited by Curious Foreigner on 7/10/2017
From what I’ve read, it seems that there is a divide between the players on why they did/didn’t vote for the mummy. People are either playing the game straight as though they themselves were in the city, they’re gunning for roleplaying as a different person, or they play the election as a player picking the most fun candidate. Honestly, it can be hard harmonizing between them, and no one is going to be fully happy with the outcome. You either end up with the roleplayers and fun-seekers groaning at the application of real world morality winning over a candidate or you have those playing seriously confused as to why a candidate wins despite their amoral character and/or platform. I think the best way to meet in the middle is to have equally known characters that aren’t too lopsided in morality. I don’t think it’s any secret that the fairness in choice for the past few elections has been…poor, to say the least? As soon as the sexy progressive ninja nun and the murderous immortal blood-knight came into the fight, popularity leaned in their favor. There needs to be more consideration put into choosing who will be running with the foresight to not choose one that will overshadow the others. I want to say that they also shouldn’t be too extreme in how straight-laced good or downright evil they are, but that’s kinda hard when many characters are goofy or absolute in some of their ideals. I think we can do better than "staight-laced old lady reformist vs London’s most anti-police detective vs dubious cool dude who killed you before", at the very least.
There’s also the matter that, well, politics kinda suck. There are certainly better ways that we can improve the election, such as fixing the debate mechanics or ranking which candidates receive your vote should they be in the running, but some of the finer issues like the subtle vague nature of the characters’ platforms and backstories or boiling the win down to a popularity contest are kind of linked to politics in general. By making a game mechanic about elections, you’re building an inherently flawed system to begin with to little fault of your own. Some of these things are just bound to happen, but hopefully Failbetter will continue to improve on what they’ve already established.
Either way, we’re finally through will all this mess. Thanks to everyone who participated this year, and congrats to the Feducci supporters. Here’s to an exciting (if not destructive) new year!
edited by Sir Joseph Marlen on 7/10/2017
Huzzh! Never any doubt Feducci would win! Yes the selections were…unfortunate but i went with who i think be best.
Okay, I have to admit that made me laugh. Hard :P
[quote=Kukapetal]I don’t think there really IS a solution. We’ve just proved that we can elect someone who might as well wear a sign that says "evil cackling monster" and not face any consequences for it. If nothing else, this proves beyond a doubt that the election is just popularity contest for who is "coolest" and things like candidates’ actions and platforms ultimately don’t matter, because they have no consequences.
Unless they have three "cool" bad guys running against eachother in all future elections, I don’t see how there can be much of a contest.[/quote]
I understand your annoyance, but this IS a game after all. Failbetter never stops remembering us that the forums are only a tiny fraction of the fanbase. And let’s be honest here, people do vote on who they already know and Feducci is a much bigger part of Fallen London as of now than the others, particularly to players who are still in the beginning. I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of people just chose him and stayed with him because changing would be too much trouble and "eh, it’s just a game, who cares".
While I do appreciate when content makers challenge our morality and help to encourage better life choices to the ones who consume the content, it is important to note that no game will be as complex and accurate as real life, neither a game has the duty to ‘punish evil and reward good’. (Especially in FL, in which the ‘lawmakers’ of the Cosmos are potentially as corrupt and selfish as any human, so the setting barely even allows for some "karma" system.)
All that I said up until now is assuming Feducci is really the evil choice, for the sake of the argument. But is he?
I mean, real life isn’t as clear cut as a FL election. In real life, it would totally be possible that, after elected, the DTC ended up being as corrupt (or corruptible) as everyone else, even if she started with good intentions. It would be possible for Feducci to start for apparently all the wrong reasons and end up surprising us positively in some way (by standing up to someone trying to harm London in a way that the ladies wouldn’t). The point of an election is that, unless you know a candidate for years before it, you simply don’t have enough evidence to conclusively say that they are better. It’s always 50% leap of faith even after you do your research, and faith is always up to debate in a world in which people might lie and be a hypocrite for years before being caught.
That said, as Lady Ciel pointed above, every person had their reasons to pick their candidate, and just because someone decided on something we don’t approve, it doesn’t mean that they did so for morally wrong reasons. Don’t lose your faith in Humanity just yet, people. ;)
Oh, petals. If you wanted London to be ruled by an amoral, egomaniacal, narcissistic, Social Darwinist spy with a penchant for sadism and grand dramatic gestures, whose crimes have no refuge but in audacity, and who is only known by his faux-Italian code name…
…you could’ve just, you know, asked.