The Daily Grind: What's your favorite MMO political system?

I still like Final Fantasy XI's region system where the players weren't face to face opposing one another, but moreso required each other in order to progress through the game, but always wanted to be ahead of the other regions. It would also be neat to see how the influence of the countries would change and allow you to adventure to different parts of the world in order to gain the benefits of being in an area your region has control of.

All of this and on top of that, the system has a sort of rewards program in which you can earn points by wearing your region's signet to get neat powerful items and experience boosts, providing you with benefits for your endeavors of representing your region.

I forgot to mention, each region has its own storyline and quests, too... They did a REALLY good job on this aspect of the game.

I enjoy Eve online's political system.
Although I am looking forward to seeing how TERA pulls theirs off. It could be really good and win me over. It sounds like the Warlord (If that's what they are calling it) will be in charge over the entire zone. And he or she will be able to say whether or not it is an open pvp zone or strictly a pve zone. Sounds like the political factions are dividing already lol.

I really liked the diplomacy system that Vanguard implemented.

Vanguard diplomacy system.

Eve

I can tell you my least favorite....which is the /vote kick feature in WoW.

In a nutshell, I don't trust fellow players to decide what is fun for me.

So, any system where other players could potentially make my gameplay not fun results in me leaving the game as soon as that chance becomes noticeable.

BTW, this applies not only to political systems, but to group content, open PvP, crafting, etc; if it looks like I would depend on the goodwill of other players (including for refraining from things they might enjoy, such as ganking) to reach my objectives and have fun, I usually leave the game. I don't trust other players to do anything that doesn't benefit themselves, and I don't put my fun in the hands of anyone I don't trust.

(On the other hand, if some developer actually found a way to make it be in the player's best, selfish interest to actually help the community and make the game more fun for other players, I would be much more willing to accept player-driven government in that game.)

Vanguard.

The Alliance system was really good, you could change factions by killing enough of your enemies (or their allies) and they had the Diplomacy card system which was fun too.

Even could wear Diplomatic gear that helped in the game that you could quest or crafters could make.

Best thing I've seen to date.

Nexus TK's

I don't mess with anything that has a complex political system. I'm not a assertive guild leader type, so I'll just end up at the bottom and have my fate dictated by players I don't even know. Even the bare-bones realm war in Warhammer worked out that way for me.

Vanguard diplo does sound like a cool side-game, but I've never tried it.

I love hearing stories of intrigue and subterfuge in Eve. And knowing that it's all player-driven makes it so much more compelling. Unfortunately, I'll never get into it since my schedule wouldn't really allow for that game's steep learning curve or formidable time investment. (I have a few hours each night at best and I'd prefer to be active. I'll play through Escape Velocity a few more times before I consider Eve).

In a game like that, it's perfect. But for themeparks, I prefer having the politics be controlled by the devs. Usually they're telling some sort of story with the balance of power in the world and letting that shift based on player whims makes it seem shallow in a way. For instance, if two factions are on the brink of war, it would be out-of-place for their territory to keep changing hands. Because that's called open war. If a game wants to have a feature like that where land can change hands based on player actions, devs need to write a story where it makes sense.

But it should also be meaningful. Contested territory is cool, but it's not really any more dynamic if you think about it. It's just an illusion since its contested status is persistent. Instead of being owned by one faction, it has some PvP objectives that change the flags based on who captures them. This is definitely a nice feature to have in the right context, but as such, its existence is dependent on the story of that area.

Then again, that's more of a military consideration than a political one, so I might have been on a tangent there.

L2 alliance systems figthing over castles

oh god how I miss the golden years, Aden was our private party for months

I'd say the bigger and more involving the better.

All the player driven non-combat nonsense is the reason MMO's stand out, the reason I at least get interested in them. It's where they fit.

The political stuff is something else that makes the MMO look very different from say your average online go shoot people game like Quake, Counter, MW, and the player interaction makes it different from any standard RPG where it's all predictable.

There is no political system in any MMO to date, the mechanics are simply not there, its a vote by guild size, nothing more.

Puzzle Pirates. As long as it has a population lol.

A Tale in the Desert! Real Democracy in an MMO - basically anything that the coders can manage to do you can vote to make law in Egypt :D Every citizen can vote on the issues that matter!

I hate politics in games. Any system where another player can walk all over you and make your play experience miserable/inferior due to their in-game popularity or influential power is a bad design in my book.

Even something as simple as the top players cross-realming with each other in Aion was enough to really put a damper on my enjoyment of the game.