Lord Gilbert wrote:
If you do play the Influence Game, why? What started you and why do you continue?
Personally, I hit a wall when I maxed out all my skills and had $100M+ in the bank with nothing to spend it on. The Influence Game represented a new- and constantly shifting- set of goals to pursue.
What I like about it most is that it gives an opportunity to interact with other members of my faction, and to work as a team to achieve a goal. I don't really RP, so Influence gives me a social outlet, and I've always loved games that encourage teamwork and communication.
One idea would be to give more of a role to Wings. Influence could be tracked for each Wing, both in total and per skyland. Maybe a title could be given to a skyland's leading Wing-- for example, if the highest-inf individual is the Governor, maybe the highest Wing could be the legislative branch (Senate, Parliament, etc)? Or maybe some executive-checking body (Tribunes, High Council, etc.)? There could even be different titles on each skyland, representing regional variations in government. Seems like this could open up some RP opportunities, in addition to the extra competition.
Another idea would be to allow Skyrates to declare citizenship to a particular skyland. Citizenship could grant some small boon, say a 10% inf increase or access to special high-level missions. This would give a slight boost to Skyrates seeking governorship (after all, you have to be a citizen before you can run for office), but would limit their advantage to one skyland. Obviously there would have to be some incentive to keep people from switching citizenship all the time-- maybe the application could cost a decent bit of money and take a few days to "process". Or, switching would wipe out all your influence on the previous skyland, similar to changing your faction.
Just a couple ideas, feel free to tear them up...