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Bloodloch's government system is unfair and doesn't make sense
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Comments
- 'It works in Duiran'
It probably works better in Duiran because it's the standard there, not the exception.
- 'A compromise'
I'm not really sure what the compromise would be, but I'm skeptical of a compromise here being the best route. I'm interested to see what, if anything, is done here. A 56/53 vote is extremely close. That's basically half and half.
- 'Vampires are important in BL'
I don't think anyone is disputing that. People are deliberating over if a forced Overlord seat is mechanically necessary to achieve that aesthetic. If anything, I personally think an uncontestable slot weakens the Dominion's stance in BL, at least from a meta perspective. It's easy for others to think that an uncontestable slot is unearned, even if it is and has been.
I'll give some insight that's not been asked for. In Calli's position right now as Primus, I would step up to the plate and revoke my own power to be uncontested. I think that's the ultimate chad vampire move. Would stay in power anyways, while gaining respect and helping to mend the divide currently in Bloodloch.
But hey, I'm just an outsider and my only real horse in this race is named 'the health of the game'. BL is a popular org and I think we all would like to see it thriving.
originally, except arguably more Dominion-favoured because non-guilded vamps can't contest for it."
Callidora says, "Okay, so it upsets me because I don't see the problem with the position. I know, from personal experience,
that I don't have a majority over the city. On the Overlord Council, I am usually in the minority on many decisions. This is
slapping a bandaid on the issue, because people are still going to be pissed that a vampire can have a position no matter
what."
Callidora says, "I think that considering my vote weight, and other people in the Dominion's, it was not close. My vote
weight during the election was 2. So was Corvo's. It's not like a million people sat here and voted with the full 4 vote
weight."
Callidora says, "People will still be mad. They will still be nasty. They will still be angry and hurtful, and as per the
orgreq that was submitted under why the referendum ended the way it did -- point 2 -- people just don't like Callidora."
I don't agree with the assessment "I don't see a problem with the position" because of all the reasons listed in this thread, but I DO agree that this is AT BEST a bandaid on a broken leg. A "compromise solution" is not addressing the core issue at hand at all. Players are still going to be upset that there's a random mechanical special case and that, in order to preserve the aesthetics of Bloodloch, we're mechanically mandating that 20% of the player-run government be a sure thing for one guild and not others.
Bloodloch... is the city of CONSANGUINE. Up until about the time the Carnifex were leashed back to it and dragged back by -force-, Even being an UNDEAD in the city was not the same as being among the CONSANGUINE. You want to point and talk about mechanics.. but the LORE is the fulcrum of the city. And the LORE was compromised as it was when the Carnifex was dragged back to the city and Abhorash straight up went, "Okay. Despite -centuries- of the city being all about us Consanguine, no tolerance for living citizens who aren't Azudim, and us treating even the Undead non-consanguine like crap, we're tolerating living, we're treating them -and- undead as equals, and y'all can shut the fuck up and deal." The fact that they're in the Minority of leadership as a guaranteed position is a mechanical compromise in and of itself of the Lore of a city of dignified Consanguine. If it were still sticking as closely to the lore as it should've been, there shouldn't even -be- non-consanguine in leadership.
The correct action for the LORE would've been for Abhorash to say "Okay. We're dragging our wild, rabid mutts back to the city and we're going to demand they shape up and fall in line. Or end up as slaves themselves." And Abhorash smacking down dissenters and vocal noncompliance with the command because he was THE big bad bastard in charge of Bloodloch, the shadow leader behind the player run leadership. But I remind you: This is a -game-. Compromise was made in favor of the mechanics -because- they were already performing what was an unpopular action, leashing guilds to the cities because they were falling out of intended line of the lore as it were. It's why the Cabal got blown up, it's why the Carnifex were leashed back to the city they were originally bound to, it's why the Indorani got blown up too. The Admin moved to make something -feel- more fair to the players who were going to be suffering for this drag back into place. And now you're screaming "unfair" because they chose to compromise instead of falling unfalteringly to Carnifex demands.. when Carnifex shouldn't even have HALF the culture it currently has as "We're big badasses who don't answer to -nobody- but the Carnifex leadership. Guild above ALL OTHER TIES, this city can fuckin' -burn- for all we fuckin' care." and I say that as someone who -knows- Carnifex Culture, seeing as one of -my- old alts is cited as a source in one of the first books you hand to novices in the guild. The culture of "Guild first" shouldn't have been tolerated in the first place in the city. The Teradrim, and the Consanguine guilds don't have that culture. It's the Carnifex standing out in that regard.
Citation needed on.. pretty much everything in that post. That's not why the Cabal nor the Indorani were 'blown up'.
Expecting a guild that are aesthetically supposed to be No-Fricks-Given soulstealing deathknights to act subservient to their vampire masters is a big, and pretty unusual take, too. IDK what the Carni - Dominion drama is really but it seems very unreasonable if that's what y'all want. Let guilds, and cities for that matter have [reasonable] agency.
I guess we all have our opinions.
To forgo this accusation at the pass, trying to frame this as a personal attack against members of another guild also feels disingenuous to me. This system isn't fair, and while I think it's a little messed up to defend it as "not a problem" when it benefits you, ultimately I don't care if members of certain guilds are in positions of power. I just want the barest semblance of a fair metagame, which we currently do not have.
* Yes, each guild has a designated Speaker seat to represent the guild’s interests. There is also one spare seat meant for people not in any of the city's guilds.
* Only members of the respective guild can run for guild Speaker, but last I was aware, the Speaker is still open to voting by the entire city.
* Anyone can run for the 'free' seat, but the general practice tends to be that the free seat should be occupied by someone not in any of the city's guilds.
* It's an accepted convention that a GM shouldn't be holding both the GM position and Speaker position. This is usually done to both spread power and experience around, and to also ensure that a person isn't overloaded with work.
There's still pros and cons of this system, though, which have already been mentioned.
Pro: Each guild does get council representation, and removes most worries of one guild holding almost every council seat. So you don't have one org dominating over everything.
Con: Dead guilds = dead weight. If a guild is small or inactive, you pretty much have a useless council seat. BUT, this does encourage a guild to try and find more active members or try to change things to encourage more activity.
Pro: Council seats are locked to their respective guilds, but the entire city can vote for candidates. What this means is that guilds are still accountable to the city and still need to foster good relations.
Con: This still won't stop things like people guildhopping with the purpose of grabbing that council seat so they can help their friends maintain power within the city. There's always going to be cliques, and always people trying to help out their friends no matter how many checks you try to put in place. People can be dicks, and if they really want to swing things in their favor, they'll find ways.
Pro: On the other hand, you would REALLY have to go out of your way to stack power. While there are probably people willing to play Magnificent Political Bastard Chess, having things done in a Duiran style political structure makes it so there's more hurdles to that.
Con: Having how the ruling council is elected won't change anything regarding ideological divides or hostility within a city. You'll always have different groups resenting or trying to undermine each other, and any thematic, identity, or ideological problems like it seems like Bloodloch is having won't be fixed from just changing how you elect your ruling council. It's just a symptom of a larger problem. Even with the way Duiran's elections work, there's been a lot of times where stuff has been derailed to the point where the resident lore NPC in the city ends up popping up on the city channel and news boards.
You can TRY to make things as fair as possible, but the reality is that not everyone is going to happy, there will always be pitfalls for every political system, and given the kind of environment the game has, you can't account for everything.
Edit: for clarity, that's not what I think you're arguing here, Phoe, but the speaker system is loads more fair than the current BL system, so I'd still rather have THAT than the current iteration.
I've been in the Dominion since I came back (month or two?), I think because when the Bloodborn were dissolved those vamps automatically got put into the Dominion? Not sure.
The general vibe of the guild I get at the moment is that of an oppressed hegemony, rather 'woe is me' for being oppressed when in fact they have huge numbers and influence. While I should be the last one in the game to criticize anybodies roleplay, and if people want to play this way I think they have every right, I do think this type of play tends to get internalized by the player. The really jarring thing is whenever Abhorash speaks, his style is completely orthogonal to this and it feels like Abhorash and the Dominion don't fit together whatsoever. I've seen a few people push back against this sort of helpless sycophantic narcissist style of play (@Rebra, @Tirria, probably some others) so credit to them. I've also seen a fair bit of unchecked metagaming and bringing clearly OOC things IC, over GT and from people in leadership positions, which bothers me.
Not sure if I've got a point with this, except I can definitely get why people are aggrieved with Dominion having a guaranteed council seat when the vibe of the guild isn't in a good place and doesn't mesh well with the rest of Loch. It feels like non-organic roleplay forced by the admin to give a guild a lore position when the players of that guild don't play that lore very well in the first place (as a group that is, some do great).
Organizations are never just "one thing" that is set in stone and doesn't change. Most cities have fluctuated in power and leadership over time, and I think that's part of the beauty of Aetolia. Having admin say "this is the way the story is and it can't be affected by players" when the material reality of what it might be without those rules is what causes this stress.
I don't care if a rule is somewhat unfair, as long as it's not truly insane. It's not the craziest city leader gating I've seen, as former Stavennite nobility. One guild spot means at best they get a 20% pull, which is strong but not a deathgrip without people that can win in the other elections/enough pop to win the votes anyway. That's why I didn't feel bad voting yes, though I will say it wasn't a cut and dry decision for Vharen.
Otherwise, I've mostly been staying out of things cause it's just not what I'm here to do.
(And to reclarify even if I wasn't at the meeting, Vharen strongly dislikes Tet now, but I still like the player and their discord thirstposting
We watched a player-led movement to move Spinesreach from a theocratic meritocracy to a secular, Soviet-flavored republic. I personally created a paradigm shift that changed one of the most thematic guilds in the game - the Syssin. The Cabal were almost entirely without direction for the better part of a decade, so the loyal players in that guild invented their identity whole cloth.
Why the sudden change of heart? Is this something we can't do anymore?
This is a bad system. It doesn't make IC sense given how governments even work, and it doesn't make OOC sense because it's arbitrarily putting players on an uneven playing field in a way that impacts the social balance of a largely social game.
- Is Bloodloch's government system fair?
- Does the system make sense?
- Was the system always like this?
- Why was the system changed?
@Axius You're right in that Bloodloch was originally the City of Consanguine but that was primarily in name only. We cannot forget undeath did not exist then and while vampires were the game's flagship class/race (and arguably still are treated as such), mechanically speaking vampires were treated like any other organization. Bloodloch since changed to the City of Undeath as a result of the various mechanics being introduced at the time to support the multiple types of undead now in the game and the evolving storyline. In any case, that's all besides the point.Nope. It has not been fair for a long time: Not from a lore/rp standpoint, nor from a mechanical standpoint. The system clearly gives the Dominion an advantage over every other organization in the city by having a mechanically guaranteed seat. No other organization in Bloodloch has that.
It's a mixed bag but it's entirely dependent on Admin intention which is information we do not have. We can speculate and try to guess based on the history and legacy of Bloodloch but as this thread of hot emotions can attest, it's going to leave a lot to be desired and unsatisfactory. Almost anything can be justified story-wise so again it's going to come down to game design and what the admin desire/intend for Bloodloch.
No. Prior to the implementation of the Dominion, every seat was contestable and winnable by anyone in the city. The only hard lined requirement was that you had to be a citizen of Bloodloch and had 10,000 gold on hand. Anything else after that was player RP. That's the default system Aetolia's had since the beginning.
I... honestly don't remember. I believe it had something to do with the deletion of Houses in favor of creating the Dominion. It might've been just a consolation to smooth over the controversy of the Houses being merged/deleted but I don't really know and that is just speculation on my part.
Each organization had its own agenda and vied equally for a shot at power. The system in place now artificially inflates vampire influence in the city because... reasons that aren't quite clear or supported by Bloodloch's legacy since the controversy of living citizens has been around since Bloodloch's inception by virtue of the fact that the other guilds of the time were not and are still not linked to vampirism.
My questions to @Tiur and the admin team would be: what purpose is this system supposed to serve in Bloodloch and is it working as intended? Is it worth keeping? Why or why not?
I think it's at the very least worth an evaluation considering a sizeable chunk find the system unfun (and there's no denying that it's not fair).
Carry on.
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Let's say this issue further polarises the city. In theory what would stop the majority faction (even if only slight) from contesting the remaining 4 Overlord seats and essentially controlling the city? Nothing, really.
+1 to electoral overhaul where all seats in every city are up for election on a cycle, in the same STV election. At least we'd get some semblance of representative democracy, which would actually be a big step in solving a lot of player political disputes.
@Callidora. The power is 100% in your hands. What happens is 100% up to you.
It is not up to Tiur. Tiur has already stated that he believes compromise is the solution, and it has been stated by multiple people on varying sides that the compromise is just a bandaid, liable to be ripped off down the road, or scraped off over time. Tiur's solution is a non-solution. Tiur probably feels his hands are tied, because no matter what choice he makes he will make some group of players mad. Tiur has decided that making everyone mad is the better solution so he can say 'no one is happy and we just have to deal with it'. I have no idea why Tiur is doing this, when it is incredibly obvious that the mechanical constraints are unwanted, unnecessary, and causing problems for the organization and the players in them, and that a bandaid is not going to help. The 'lore' argument has fallen flat, proven inadequate in this thread in a variety of ways. But for whatever reason, Tiur does not want to do the Obviously Correct Thing.
Those of us who view the system as wrong, or odd, or unnecessary, or as some constraint on how we get to play the game, or just opposed to it for whatever reason, clearly cannot do anything about it. We've pushed an IC option, there was a meeting about it in the pools, and the posts on this thread have proven their points quite well. But, it is a coded mechanic, and the only thing we can do is ask Tiur to remove it, and Tiur does not want to.
So, it is up to you. It is up to you to take a step back and understand the system that has been created from an objective view point. It is up to you to recognize that at least two people on this thread have stated they voted yes in the referendum for IC reasons, and are against it or ambivalent towards it on an OOC level, completely changing the results. It is up to you to realize that both IC and OOC resentment grows as a direct result of this constrained city leader position. It is up to you to realize that the structure holding you in power is actually also hurting you, by causing players in a city to dislike either you, or your character, or both, purely because of these power dynamics and how the game is being forced to be played within the organizations.
It is up to you to relinquish control. It is up to you to let go of the power that is given to you as a guarantee, instead of the power granted to you, through voting, by the characters and players in the organization you help lead. It is up to you to understand that you are not just the IC leader of the Dominion and Bloodloch, but an OOC leader as well. It is up to you to understand that this means part of your responsibility is to do the right thing, even if it isn't the thing you want to do. Even when you have dealt with sleights and unfair treatment by other players, or forced decisions by the admin, it is still up to you to make this difficult decision.
I do not want to bump heads with you. I feel like I have been talking at you without ever talking with you. I, as a player, have never harbored any ill-will towards you or your character. My past character and current character have had either amicable interactions or no interactions with your character. Any bad mouthing of the Dominion I've done on web, I've only done specifically because of this mechanic. I have also shit talked Bloodloch, the Teradrim, @Bulrok, and Spinesreach (fuck spinesreach). But mostly I shit talk myself because I love self-deprecating humor. And frankly, Tiur and the pools will tell you I am extremely critical when I have a critique or criticism, so if anything I've probably handled this with kids gloves compared to what I throw at them.
I guess, in the end, I'm asking you to be a leader of Bloodloch. Not a propped-up leader of Bloodloch.
P. S. Considering the post now above this one, I should mention that doing this isn't going to be some panacea for tension in BL. But if there is a desire for cohesion, then it has to be up to the players and their characters to push the city in that direction. A mechanic that constrains that possibility of cohesion is going to work directly against any chance for BL to works towards unity or mending wounds or seeing eye to eye or whatever else.
It's just. This ain't it, y'all.
Edit: To clarify, I'm not asking anyone to step down as OL, just that the lock on the OL spot be removed so anyone can contest and fill the position, not just Primus.
I'm not sure Loch really wants the Speaker system. I wouldn't. It works for Duiran, sort of, but it also comes with its own set of problems as others have mentioned.
I don't think vampires really are the cornerstone of Loch as they used to be though, so I kind of wonder if there really needs to be an un-contestable overlord spot for the Dominion. That's just my outside opinion though.
Currently what we have is:
There are five boxes with toys in them. Kids get to choose whatever box they want to play with through an electoral process--save for one box. This one box is automatically given to the leader of a group of special kids. Meanwhile, the entire group (special kids included) have to fight over the other four boxes.
The proposed fix is to make it so any kid from the special group can now have the box, not just the leader, and SOME kids can vote on it (but not all of them).
This isn't a compromise solution, this is just a more complicated version of the first system, and it's still unfair, and we're still going to be angry about it.
Like, I don't love the idea of taking something from @Callidora or the Dominion, which is why the speaker system, however flawed, is the ACTUAL compromise. Instead of taking things from the Dominion, it's bringing everyone up to the same level playing field.
It has flaws, but it's MORE fair than what we have now. I'd personally rather have all five seats be elected, but the speaker/warlord system is the one you choose if you want to avoid the problem of taking someone's box of toys away. In this system, every group of kids is guaranteed a box of toys, without taking it away from the original group.
Take real world politics for example:
On Nov 4, everyone was told to vote between Trump and Biden. There's people on both sides of the spectrum that would say as to why either person would be best to be the next US president. When it came time to counting the votes, Biden ended up winning the electoral college and became the President-elect (51% to 47%, the Dominion referendum was 56-53 with a 54% voter turnout). People went out into the streets demanding recounts, demanding democracy come to a charging halt, claiming that there was voter fraud, court cases filed, and people saying that Trump was the actual winner while others were arguing that Biden was the winner. Furthering the lead up to the election, there was -excessive- toxicity, fighting, and even families being torn apart by the very politics that are meant to govern a single country. There have even been rumors of entire discord servers of Aetolian nature being torn apart because of the huge divide in terms of real world politics and people getting verbally attacked because they stand on one side of the fence or the other. In the end, democracy won out and the president was still selected by majority vote.
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There has become this culture of people demanding change because they don't agree with a decision/ruling made and while protesting is a good, verifiable way of laying down the foundation and walking the path to get something changed, it's also bred an environment of negative reinforcement behavior as well. By negative reinforcement behavior, I mean rewarding those with the outcome that they wish to see which further makes them believe that if they do it again on something else, they'll get what they want on topic #2+. This very same behavior is similar to giving a child candy to be quiet when they won't stop crying, but now the child knows they'll get candy when they persistently cry, but then when you deny the candy then they cry even more. It becomes problematic in and of itself, along with a feedback loop of behavior that is undesirable.
Countless times over, things in Aetolia have changed because the players in the game have started a motion demanding change. The admins, for the most part, are forced to change things due to the demanding nature of the masses because one side is extremely vocal in their belief and half the playerbase is completely disregarded under the guise of "You stayed quiet, so your opinion doesn't matter.". Suddenly, when it was changed, the people who were on the other side (the generally not so outwardly vocal) suddenly become vocal because -their- belief was disregarded and -they- make demands to get it changed back. However, the admins being the admins, have to stick by their decisions (regardless of how difficult it might have been) only to get very hateful and toxic comments spewed at them from the now negatively affected side, while the winning side preens themselves because they won.
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Iosyne and Tiur made a decision that was a compromise in (ultimately) two parts: lore/history and the outcome of the democratic referendum. While the Speaker system is viewed as "fair" to one side, it is adversely viewed as "unfair" by the other. If BL did get the same outcome in the Speaker system, you're now sitting at 50% of the cities having this new electoral system. So in order to squash any further problems such as this arising ever again, they'd start having the discussions to turn both Enorian and Spinesreach to have the Speaker system as well. This is both fair and unfair, because Enorian and Spinesreach haven't done anything wrong to warrant such a political shift in nature (unfair), but then they'd be in line with the other two cities (fair).
If BL stayed with the system of making Primus an uncontestable OL, you'd still run into the problems of comments being made about fair/unfair. Half the playerbase would want it changed, but the other half would prefer it stay. This leads to the same outcry we are seeing right now.
If BL moved to the "All OL seats are contestable", you'd still run into the problems of comments being made about fair/unfair. Half the playerbase would want it changed, but the other half would prefer it stay. This leads to the same outcry we are seeing right now.
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Ultimately no one is happy, no one wins, and the admins have to stand by the decision that was made until such a time that it proves to not be working anymore.
We're talking about SOCIAL SYSTEMS, and what's more/less equitable is actually really simple. There's no reason Eno/Spinesreach have to have their governments changed, because BL moving to a more fair system is specifically addressing s city that is already itself a special case. Bloodloch is out here being the normal city leader system with a big fat wart on it, and avoiding fixing it because of a slippery slope argument regarding other cities that, to my knowledge, don't have a system that half the population utterly loathes and is causing massive IC and OOC acrimony and infighting is just...not helpful.
Also I'm pretty sure this system is definitionally not working already.
I'm not going to touch the real-world politics stuff because that really seems like it's just adding some gunpowder to this conversation which it really doesn't need any more of.
Earlier there was a jab toward Tiur about the discussion.
Argument: 2+2=4
Counter Argument: 2+2=5
Tiur: 2+2=4.5
This received a derisive remark and pointed at as being unfair. It literally is a demonstration of meeting halfway, meeting in the middle, attempting a compromise. Both sides get some but not all of what they want.
I understand those in this thread feel they are getting none of what they want, but it seems the only thing wanted equals nothing approaching a compromise. And tell me, how is that fair?
In any case, the warlord/speaker system is the compromise that sidesteps this problem entirely. It doesn't take away a guaranteed Dominion seat. Revolutions were started over less disagreement than this.
There is a reason radical and sweeping changes tend to require a 2/3 majority to institute to ensure some sense of acceptance lest you run into what @Rhyot pointed out, that the silent portion now finds their voice when what -they- wanted is changed, ignored, or otherwise taken off the table.
Doing nothing is wrong, I agree. Is the change 100% fair? No, but given that the referendum was, as you stated, a 50/50 split, it can be easy to see why a radical and sweeping change that impacts the entire Bloodloch Council rather than just one seat may not be seen as a favorable motion.
If closer to 2/3 voted in favor of changing how the seat was filled, I think we would have seen a more radical shift, but we didn't. We saw a split down the middle.
I don't think we need to look too far to players' reactions when radical and sweeping changes are made to systems in Aetolia without overwhelming player support to understand why ANYONE may be reluctant to institute such a change.
If the argument in return is that adopting a system like the Speaker system from Duiran into Bloodloch is not a sudden and radical change, well, then we've identified another talking point. But I'll leave that to others to debate.
We're offering compromises, and, frankly, y'all in different cities entirely would be singing a different tune if Archivists or something got a guaranteed seat because of being the legacy of the Ankyreans or some such nonsense.
Another reason you're seeing such a huge outcry over this is that the administration has never reached out to have a genuine conversation about this. Even the most recent meeting was sold as a problem solving meeting, but when it came to the biggest problem all of us were having, it was handed down to us-- no real discussion other than clarifying. We were TOLD what the solution is. This, right here, in the forums, I think is the first time I've seen a transparent conversation about the pros and cons of this problem and how to deal with it.
I don't buy that radical change is bad. Bloodloch originally had the same system everybody else did before it was arbitrarily taken away without player input. This conversation should have happened then, instead we're having it now.
Edit: what's more, I think the referendum DOES suggest radical change is necessary. We're talking about people's opinion on the system of government, and 49% of people think the system is unfair. That's a big big problem that needs handled. It's not the same thing as a leader squeaking by in an election, because this is about the fundamental system itself. If 49% of a country said "this system of government isn't working" that country would be in some deep, deep trouble, but if most people agree with the system, they generally accept a leader that barely scrapes a victory in that system.
Fair - adjective - in accordance with the rules or standards; legitimate.
Fairness - noun - impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination.
From an objective point of view, the admins are acting in fairness because they are acting in an impartial manner, within the standards of the rules, without showing any favoritism to either side because either side wants a specific outcome (one side says it's ok for the Dominion to have a seat while the other wants it to be completely contestable)
The ideology of fairness though here is completely subjective. Due to the fact that everyone wants something to happen that falls in line with their view. Only when something falls in line with their view, is it deemed as fair.
For example:
When Chaos Lord was first released, I was able to go into a fight of 1v5 and walk out the victor in three rounds. This was due in part to the fact that the Havoc hits were hitting for nearly 2K damage apiece while Shock was able to give instant sensitivity (without the need to strip deafness). Chaos Lord is hectic as all hell and has no real ability to hinder/aff someone down, so it's kill method is primarily damage. I thought the high damage output was fair due to the inability of being able to have an actual instakill route, while other players thought it was completely unfair to have such strong hit abilities. After it was nerfed with the only real reason of "Chaos Lord is not meant to be PVP viable", I felt it was unfair while others felt it was exceedingly fair. In both cases, fairness was subjective because we both wanted a specific outcome. Though in the defense of admins, they had allegedly received a bunch of issues/emails regarding the fact that I had a really strong level 200 class that others couldn't use and were forced to do -something-. Sure, nowadays I think it's a fair assessment that getting level 200 through primarily bashing alone doesn't mean I should get a class that does 2K damage every 2.6s, but at the time... it was seen as subjectively unfair/fair.
When the forums ended up having a thread about there not being enough gold sinks in the game, everyone wanted a fix to the gold system. People made comments about how bashing for gold was absurdly easy and people had stockpiles of millions (still not sure how accurate that statement is, but sure, I'll bite). Admins decided to nerf the gold drops gained from bashing, later changing the curative system and providing more gold sinks. However, despite the gold sinks now, gold is still somewhat difficult to gain via bashing while more emphasis is put on questing. A lot of people saw this as both fair and unfair, but the admins saw this as far.
When forums blew up about the Bamathis thing that caused the player behind it to quit. Many points were made as to the perceived negativity behind some of the symbolism and players viewed this as unfair to the point that they were exceedingly nasty in their messages about why Bamathis shouldn't be a god or about why his symbolism should change. When he stepped down, a portion of the playerbase thought this was fair while another portion thought it was unfair that he stopped playing.
Lastly, about two years ago when the way experience was given in group combat, because of the fact I was level 212 the code behind it broke when I died. This caused an integer overflow and made people -lose- experience when they killed me rather than gain experience. Obviously, this led to a couple issues because of an abused bug for some shits and giggles type of laughter (of which there were a lot of and to note I only died four times on purpose even after realizing it was a bug). Tiur made the decision to Curse me for 14 days AND tack on the fact that any added experience would result in lost experience. I thought that was a fair punishment for abusing a bug, but others did not. Others wanted me banned/shrubbed for abusing a bug, as many others in the past had been banned/shrubbed for bug abuse. Had that been the decision that was made, I would have deemed it unfair had I been shrubbed for something that was inadvertently easily reversed within an hour, but others would have felt it was (and probably would have been thankful).
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Fairness -is- primarily subjective in nature by the very people who are trying to call it fair/unfair, because one side feels is fair the other feels is unfair. The admins are in a precarious position otherwise about making sure they follow the rules given before them by IRE as a whole.
This would be like if we balanced vampires to have instant locking capabilities because they were supposed to be a superior race. We're talking about metasystems here that are meant to mediate play between players with minimal problems, and the meta fairness of those systems matters. People seem to be taking this less seriously than they do PVP, but player governments are a form of PVP, just a more social framework. What's more, people in those positions have mechanical authority over other players. The fairness of the system in place matters, and has always been the topic here. Shifting the goalposts isn't going to help us find a resolution here. Fairness in the meta systems is why, if we had a war system, no other city could wipe another completely off the map, no matter how lore-friendly or realistic it would be. This is a game, and we very intentionally need our meta systems to be reflective of that.