In Game Governments/States

Basically are there any?

Nbugh (its neagubegh or something (sorry spelling not my strong point) runs a democracy of kind

And Minerva has a constitutional monarchy - broken into an Executive, Council of Guilds and Justices

I'm sure there a massive amounts of dictatorships! LOL

Neualtenburg has an elected representative government running it's estate sim.

Lol

Slavko, SL is presently in a state one might regard as "feudal," in which there are privately owned sims, with each sim owner much like a feudal lord, deriving his or her powers from the Sovereign (Linden Labs) in return for payments of rent. Those owners can set most of the rules on their land, and enforce those rules within limits.

But those owners seem to have no power (other than persuasion) outside of their sim. Linden Labs may respond to complaints about violations of the Terms of Service, but largely exercise "laise faire," allowing SL members to self-organize businesses and associations.

Some of these sims are owned by groups, which have certain options under the SL interface. At least one of those groups, Neualtenberg, has established a democratic protocol that is complex, but involves participatory government and land use management. Other group owners have issued notices or agreement documents describing mutual rights and responsibilities in their sim. About the only sanction against abusers is denial of privileges in the owned sim.

Because movement across sims is so easy, enforcement of agreements to be performed in the future is difficult or impossible under current structures. So, abusers, griefers and vandals have plenty of territory to go to if they are banned at one.

So far, I've observed no federations of more than one sim to enforce reciprocal enforcement of banishment, but suspect that such may emerge as the need appears. If such federations are attempted, governmental-type processes may emerge with them to establish mutual norms, reciprocal enforcement of bans and incentives and resolve disputes between their "citizens."

Because of the Linden Lab philosophy, these developments are likely to be "self-organizing," that is, dependent upon the dynamics of the whole group of SL citizens. We are seeing some experiments in this area, although some citizens seem to oppose any establishment of governmental structures for reasons of their own.

The recently established Law Society of Second Life is focusing on the objective study of those dynamics and on issues of contracting and dispute resolution. There are some active threads already in this forum on related topics. We expect a Group Forum for the Law Society to be established soon, in which members will share observations and objective analysis of such things.

You may want to look at those now and in the future if this is a topic of interest.

Frank

There are also many informal arrangements that lead to commonweal among land owners.

Example: In Alice, four created a walking path between properties - low prim, high aesthetic value, plus we all maintain a bit of forest. It did wonders for the sim, and people explore it every day.

Such arrangements are likely fairly common, I'd imagine.

No ban lists are necessary, let alone federated ones, although I probably should. I had to activate auto-return due to a few characters trying to copy my antiques - that's about as far as 'crime' goes in Alice. Unless you consider the bad copies they were making an aesthetic crime.

Thanks all for your replies. My reason for asking was that I have been involved with various forum-based online political sims/micronations, and I was hoping to either join or start something similar on here. The main problem with the forum based sims is a lack of a viable economic simulation, and when diplomacy fails, a way of fighting a war. It seems to me that SL can solve those two quite easily.

Slavko, when you say 'forum-based' do you mean there is no graphical representation of the game world such as combat units on a world map or avatars in the game world of a traditional or instanced MMORPG?




SL is ideal for development efforts in this direction, and SL would benefit by tapping into those markets. Chat and playing house has little appeal to hardcore gamers who are used to the challenge and intensity of games like Guild Wars. Obviously the SL platform needs serious upgrading to meet the required level of performance, but they're working on it. : )

The outstanding advantage of SL over the online games currently available is the potential to fight for meaningful territory. Imagine the psychological draw of discovering, acquiring and defending territory you can use to build your own fortifications and your own means of production, possibly including enterprises from which you can derive enough real world income to pay the cost of tier.

It can. In conjunction with a very talented third party, I'm hoping to offer traditional Duels of Honour on my land, done the old fashioned way - black powder pistols and all.

It won't be cheap, but can be *very* public... and perhaps we could hold items of dispute in escrow for the victor.

Where the concept of escrow fails, I suppose we could offer a wedding discount on the grounds instead.

Turn, walk ten paces, aaaand... Fiahhhh!!!

*distinctive sound of black powder*

Actually! The Representative Assembly is just one branch of our three branch Government system.

Thank you for noticing this thread Bond!

Slavko if you, or anyone is interested, you can learn more about Neualtenburg here: http://neualtenburg.org/

Or follow the link in my signature!

I also learned at the SLCC of two other government experiement sims that are opening in SL. I'll see if I can find some more information for you and post back here.

Correct. There is a "world map", but it is only really used to show where your neighbors are. Warfare is now conducted by making posts in a forum, "I did this" "i did that" type of thing, (There are weapons such as "smiley bombs" but use of those goes against most forum TOS's now).



That is exactly what the sims I am involved with lack. Basic realism.

@ Pendari: Thanks I'd appreciate it.

Economic items - such as how much Iron Ore is produced, the price paid for in the shops (by the computer controled shops) the number of weapon makers

We have guilds that compete for prizes, and as Minerva is a PvP game we have vendetta's (as other forum posts show! LOL)

We have a monarch (me - Well I do pay for the sims - we have 2 now)
We have the guild council (4 guild members elected until recalled) which create the laws, handle economic items and future development (although I am the only person who does the scripting and actual development)
We have Justices to uphold the laws created by the council and to hold court on apeals


We do have problems, PvP is a pain when you nearly beat someone and they TP out! So you can't get their items!


Here is a link to the set up of the goverment (although we are using UK Common Law there is no written constitution just what is passed by the council and monarch).



/invalid_link.html

MA

Many.

Most private sims operate under a government of some sort, most often a parnbership or conglomerate of like minded individuals.

There are also dictators. beware the Lapine Empire! o.o