Helper ranks!

I would like to suggest Helper ranks! Barons and other city owning ranks can hire someone to be their Helper for a city.

Love the idea, thought it needed to be added too!

For those of you who are not from Elden, I will try to give an explanation of what "helper ranks" mean.   In the Elden tradition, city owners would be able to choose city "helpers", which would be given special titles according to city size.  City size would also determine the number of helpers.  People who did not have a "good" title, would try to get into the favor of city owners so they could get a helper title, the bigger the city, the more important the title was considered.

In theory, this seemed like a good idea.  As it worked out on Elden, it was a very bad idea for several reasons:

1.  City owners treated their helpers like slaves.  Some city owners even called their helpers slaves.  Almost all city owners required a certain amount from their helpers every week, or they took the title away from them and gave it to someone who would give them that amount every week.  Basically the helper title was given to city owners to sell to the highest bidder, while treating the bidder as a common slave servant.  Some city owners required the new helper to give all their values, money, and sometimes land to become their helper.  I was shocked at how many people there were that were actually willing to do this.  Worse yet, after getting everything from them, it was not unusual for the owner to kick them out, and bring someone else in who was willing to give everything they had for a title.  Elden tried several times to control this by limiting how many times you could swap helpers, forcing owners to give land to helpers, and other things, but nothing they tried actually worked.

2.  Helper ranks create strife.  There are only so many helper ranks, usually there are a lot less ranks then one has friends.  That means one or another of your friends are going to be left out when it comes to handing out ranks.  This means that friends start fighting amongst themselves over who should get the rank.  Owners lose friends because they gave the rank to one friend, and not another.  In general it creates an atmosphere that is completely contrary to everything Fenix tries to be.

3.  Having "helpers" often hurts the city, and the city owner.  To put it bluntly, it makes the city owner lazy.  If something needs to be done, the city owner tells his helpers to do it.  More often than not they don't do it, or if they do it they do it wrong.  The city owner won't do it because he told the helpers to do it.  So in the end nothing gets done.  On top of that the owner is mad at his helpers because they won't do it, or didn't do it right, and the helpers are mad at the owner because he is lazy, and won't do anything for himself.

4.  Probably the worst thing of all is it creates a false class system on the server.  When you have helpers, you divide the server into at least three classes:
  1.  The Owners.  They come to feel that they deserve to be in charge, and are superior to everybody else.
  2.  The Helpers.  They feel they are worth something because they were picked by the owners, or at least provide enough value to the owners to be worth something on the server.
  3.  The Peasants.  Looked down upon by both the owners, and the helpers, as the nobodies.  In Elden this resulted in "going on peasant hunts", and the constant tormenting of anyone who wasn't an owner, or a helper.  On Elden if someone tried to work their way to the top, they were often griefed, hunted, and put down.  Many left.  That is not what we want for Fenix.

Currently on Fenix everyone is friendly with each other, and for the most part people go out and work for themselves for what they want to accomplish.  I can easily see helper ranks ruining all of this.  If someone can come up with a way to incorporate helper ranks that will not create the problems that we have seen it create on Elden,  I am very interested.

Aslong as the Owners don't get lazy and do AS MUCH AS the helper it is fair but the helper CAN quit at any time and it's called 'helper' because they HELP no DO everything if they do everything THEY should be owner...

Ok well I have an opinion based on this! I believe that the server may incorporate a helper type rank like a (H) on there name if everyone feels its needed! However im not sure it needs a defined rank! I actually have a helper to my city and sometimes volunteers to help on builds or other things! Neither has an actual title, nor is required to stop what there doing to be at my command! I have built most of my city on my own, but having a helper is nice and allows someone to make decisions and sales when im not on! He is added as member to most of my land, and knows what to do.
I do not own him, nor control him! I pay him well for his help and supply tools for city work and also to support his own gameplay on the server as well! He can build his own land and play as any other player with his choice on what he does.
If a rank is incorporated, I feel it should be the opposite. Like as in not the helper paying to have rank but the city owner pay or support the helper! The owner must provide a required amount of living area for the helper! The owner provide all materials or means of getting it!
I actually think to keep the corruption out it should not be a rank.. just a title to identify who is a helper for the city. (mostly for staff benefit to know who you leave in charge of things if your not available). Helpers would then work for someone who gives them a benefit for there work and not be based on a server rank! If owner doesn't pay or compensate said helper then helper request not to be the city helper! This would also put the responsibility on the city owner to take care of and respect the help!
So to sum up my opinions here... We all use help/helper sometimes so its not new to the server, And not something we can control. As long as someone is willing to pay for help someone will help. The issue is .. should it be a recognized status. My opinion is Yes as in a title (just to designate who u give perms to in your city). And a No to an actual rank for server. The "rank" for being helper should come from the city owner supporting the helper in gaining either land of his own or city land for an actual server rank! Therefor, a helper would choose to help owners who help there own progression on the server!
So basically (H) basically stands for your designated assistant! And is not connected to any benefits given by the server. All benefits would come directly from the city owner by money they pay them, supply given, and or land given to them. A person looking to be a helper would look for a city owner who supports them. And a city owner would look to provide the best benefits to there helper to get/keep them. Other than a free helper Plot, all other land or possessions given to a helper can not be taken back if you "fire" them. Rules will apply to the treatment and requirements of a city owner. (such as no taking back what helper has earned)

Thanks ASK_YO_MAMA

Hi, guess time to put my thoughts here as well.  I understand and agree with both Owl as well as Ask.  I too hate the idea of calling someone a slave, just because they are helping you in your city.  I feel it wrong to take advantage of them just so they have a title.  I also understand where it could get a little difficult to try and pick among friends who to give a title to.  So for that reason I am against server titles for city helpers.  

But on the other hand, I agree with Ask, in that it is good to have helpers sometimes, especially if the city owner is part of the server staff.  It gets difficult at times to get much done in your city if you are helping a lot of players, answering a lot of questions for players or working on server projects, so yes, helpers is sometimes nice.  

Yes, I feel those helpers should be recognized for their help and compensated for their help.  I personally think it would be nice instead of server rank/titles, that the official city helper be given a suffix in their name, such as the “player name” (H).  That way they are recognized.

Sincerely,

Bee

Excellent Ask!  Contrary to what some seem to have come to believe from what I wrote above, I am not against city helpers.  In fact, our city of Mel currently has at least two people helping us, and the PVP lava pit would not even exist if it were not for Horror_Troll. 

Ask has given us here a very good idea of what a city helper should be.  Someone who is compensated by the city owner to help them manage/build their city.  An employee if you wish.  If we follow that line of thinking, and can keep the server from losing that focus, I like it!  An employee is chosen by the owner.  Once employed the owner gives them compensation, and usually gives them what is needed for them to do their job, and often an office, or work place, that remains the owner's if the employee leaves.  However the owner has no say over the employee's own house, land, and way they run their own life.  If the owner has problems with the employee, they pay them in full, and dismiss them.  If the employee has problems with the owner, they ask to be paid up, and leave.

As both Ask, and Bee have suggested, I can agree with an (H) being added to the name of city helpers.  I would suggest that it be a suffix, rather than an actual rank that would require reworking permissions.  That would also, perhaps, keep its value down a little bit so it would not be so likely as to become a sellable title.

I would note that if an owner wishes to give permission to his helpers to sell land in their city, all they need to do is give their helper membership of the land that is for sale.  Then they can place a sold sign that staff will follow.  Also I think it would be a very good idea if on the main boards of the cities, the owner would place a sign, or signs indicating who their helpers were.

This does raise some questions:

How many helpers can an owner have?
Is this number limited to one owner, or one city, as owners may have more than one city?
Can one owner have a helper, or helpers over many cities?
Can a helper be the helper of more than one owner?
Can city owners also be helpers of another's city?

Not to directly answer these questions, but to look at it from a strictly real world employment view, it would look something like this:
A business can employ as many helpers as it needs.
A business can choose to employ as needed in any one region, or place someone over multiple regions.
A business can require a contract that makes their employees exclusively theirs, and working for someone else would break that contract.  However not all businesses care if you work for someone else or not.
Most businesses require the full attention of their owners, should the owner of a business start working for someone else, it would certainly call into question the validity of his or her own business.

So, what are everyone's ideas?

I see this as copying Eldin to much. IMO, Fenix should come up with a different way to reward "Town Helpers" then giving them a rank.

Yeah i would love to be the squire to one of the city owners like i was when i played eldin