Added thread for new Goblinworks Blog: LFG! (Looking For Group!).
Goblin Squad Member
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You'll be able to track those you've been in a party with and see what happened during those adventures, and you'll even be able to note if those individuals were friends, enemies, or neutral for later encounters.
Should we read this to mean that we'll have a permanent record of our adventures that we'll be able to refer to after the fact? If so, that is fantastic!
I'd prefer to see support for being a member in multiple "chartered companies", even allowing one chartered company to join (or leave) another. I think there's going to be plenty of clamoring for alliances of several chartered companies who really want to utilize a lot of the same guild management functions without having to disband their existing guilds.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It sounds excellent. However, no word on that dreaded tool that did so much to take the social aspect out of MMOs - the dungeon finder. If players only choice to group is by making the effort to meet people in game then it will work. If all you need to do is press a button and consume then it won't. So I hope you're not thinking of putting any LFG tools in there.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It sounds excellent. However, no word on that dreaded tool that did so much to take the social aspect out of MMOs - the dungeon finder. If players only choice to group is by making the effort to meet people in game then it will work. If all you need to do is press a button and consume then it won't. So I hope you're not thinking of putting any LFG tools in there.
Your suggestion works for serious roleplayers and people who have a lot of time to spend, but if I don't have a lot of time to log on each evening, every second I can save finding a group is better. Otherwise it will just push many people into soloing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It sounds excellent. However, no word on that dreaded tool that did so much to take the social aspect out of MMOs - the dungeon finder. If players only choice to group is by making the effort to meet people in game then it will work. If all you need to do is press a button and consume then it won't. So I hope you're not thinking of putting any LFG tools in there.
Well I think to an extent that will be less of a threat here, with the exception of modules, the majority of the game will be generated with less notice, IE there aren't consistant dungeons, meaning you don't just flag up as looking for group Blackrock spire or whatever, since nobody will have heard of the place that was just created, and such won't exist after it has been cleared.
Yep, sounds totally awesome. Especially player driven cities-kingdoms. I can already see all those intruges, politics and wars @.@ Mhrau! Count me in!
But I'm little curious about player towns. You guys mentioned workshops and other buildings, but what about player houses? I guess it might be little hard to accomadate eg. two hundreds of players in one city, with building for everyone(just imagine how much space it will take). Much more possible with connected districts or houses which can accomodate few different people(You know, like block of flats. Few rooms with corridor. Funny thing to have neighbors in MMO :D)
I always loved housing in the games. It improved my overall RP experience and well, I had that "little place" for myself to "relax" after adventuring/crafting. Age of Conan city system was little different. "Cities" were just buildings used by all citizens, without a real place for private person. That wasn't bad, but kinda missed the point. And totally missed the thing I was looking for.
So, will we see player private properties/rooms/flats in player cities?
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Goblin Squad Member
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If there aren't tools to make it easy, then there absolutely needs to be mechanics that produce significant rewards for putting your group together in a tavern or whatever, so that people will know to go there to look for a group.
I see this as a productive step in the right direction for reconciling rp/immersion aspects and convenience.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It sounds excellent. However, no word on that dreaded tool that did so much to take the social aspect out of MMOs - the dungeon finder. If players only choice to group is by making the effort to meet people in game then it will work. If all you need to do is press a button and consume then it won't. So I hope you're not thinking of putting any LFG tools in there.
Yes there shouldn't be a magic button that makes a team.
There should however be an alternative to running around spamming shouts. The system in City of Heroes would be good for this game, but not a vastly reaching allowing you to see every player online.
We should be able to click a button, or type something like /who and a window pops up showing nearby players, and you can set a comment for what you are looking for.
-Or-
You click a button and it guides you to the nearest "grouping board", where you can find players to group with.
Both systems require a player to take initiative and start a group.
Just to elaborate on the "Grouping board", this would be a network of boards that players can interact with to be put into a forum with other players, this is better than just going to a singular designated location, because players don't all have to travel to a singular spot, and you get a wider selection of players, especially when players aren't being guided through a path and will not always be around everyone else that is near their level.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Snippet#1 "There won't be automatic systems to enforce the law—you'll need to do that yourselves. There won't be a mass of random characters just itching to put down an invading horde; if you're not monitoring the lands you control, things can rapidly get out of hand."
I absolutely love this. I cannot wait for this form of challenge. I do wonder how in-depth they plan on going with it. For instance, how often random events will occur? Will the AI system be smart enough to strategize? For instance, a roaming group of barbarians encamp near a settlement only to watch the activity of the guards. As they stalk their victims, they notice the guards are missing between the third hour of daylight and the ninth hour of night. Ambush!
Snippet#2 "The economic structures of kingdoms will be varied as well. The kingdom may tax its members on their earnings to fund its operations, and that tax rate could vary from nil to 100%. Ayn Rand to Karl Marx and everything in between."
Love it! I can't wait to unleash my Utopian system on the masses! Ha ha. :-)
Snippet#3 "We also want to avoid some of the missteps that have happened in other games. We want to ensure that there's always enough space so that new settlements and kingdoms can form. We want to avoid the problem of choke points that restrict access to key resources, making whomever got to those points first the de facto "winners" in the economy. We also want to retain the sense that the land is wild and untamed. You'll be able to leave civilization behind and go out in the dark areas of the map where nothing rules except monsters, robbers, and cults."
Guess, what? I love this too! I hope they are alluding to a resource system that generates per X day to create varying quality resources that will never be seen again until the generator produces new resources with similar quality standards (a la SWG's resource system. ;-)). Love the phrase, "...the land is wild and untamed." Let's see how wild it will be!
Snippet#4 "We're sure that these ideas have already sparked your imagination. We want to encourage folks to begin self-organizing even before the game is ready for testing. We'll do our best to recognize those organizations that get created early, especially if they announce their existence on our messageboards."
I would like to announce my intentions to establish a trading company that will utilize the talents of both merchants and mercenaries. I started another thread discussing the idea. If you are interested, please post a reply here.
I don't see how a 'dungeon finder' tool would fit with the way it appears content has been laid out according to the previous blogs. I can't imagine that they'd turn the world into a lobby in which we wait to be teleported to tiny pockets of pre-scripted content. That just seems to totally go against the grain of everything else they've laid the groundwork for up until now.
Tools for encouraging group play and tools that make putting a group together convenient is one thing, but obviously the whole 'sit in town on our mounts and wait to be whisked to an instance, rush through it as fast as possible, barely acknowledging each other, so we can quickly get back to sitting in town on our mounts' system destroyed open world interaction. I'll be walking away the second I catch wind of anything that resembles that situation - luckily I don't think that's what they have in mind.
As for the estimated upper limit on groups being 24: My initial reaction is to think 'Please no, tell me they're not looking towards perpetuating the cliche hamster wheel raid system we've been stuck with for almost a decade!'. I really hope activities for large groups are something that make sense in a sandbox MMO and are a special occasion. I personally have always had the most enjoyment in small intimate groups of 4-8 people over the years, and really hope this is a reasonable number to expect to get something done with.
24 people for special events, kingdom based mechanics and PvP is all well and good, or coming together to take down some giant rare spawn, but if every day requires 'raid' numbers of people to accomplish anything worthwhile, well, that just sucks a lot of the charm away for me.
24 people for rare world events or pvp battles, fine, but I really hope the majority of in game activities are perfectly doable with a more traditional party size (4-8 or so). I'm never going back to the 'raid' grind. They were great back in the days when they were a special once or twice a week occasion (dragons & gods often on a 4-7 day respawn timer), but once WoW began trying to emulate that with it's nightly raid grinds - well, it just really wasn't so special anymore. Please tell me I have nothing to worry about.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I read that as "Groups larger than some arbitrary size will be unsupported."
That means that "A couple of dozen" is the absolute largest that 'groups' will ever be. Not the smallest, but the largest.
Is the rollout of player settlements going to be a hard rollout, or a soft one? Is everyone going to get the ability to form a settlement in the same patch, or will there be skill and resource requirements that simply take months to acquire?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I urge you to not have any kind of 'limit' for grouping.
I have always played in smaller guilds, where there is anywhere between 3-10 people online depending on the day and time.
The problem we always run into is grouping up, we rarely had the perfect amount on, and there where always players being left out.
The 'limit' you place on anything should simply be the reward. If an activity is designed for 10 players, make the reward for 10 players. Does this mean that only 10 players will run it? no. Will all 10 players have use for the reward? maybe. If we want to take 11 people or feel like bringing 7 for a challenge, let us. If we want to take 60 people into a 25 man mission, let us. Everyone goes in to have fun, not just to get the rock of shiny +5 at the end.
As long as simply using your equipment advances your character in some way, uncapped grouping would be fine. If there are 0 reward situations, groups should still be open but there should still be some size flexibility.
Bottom Line: Don't set any group size numbers, there should always be some padding.
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I hope they dont allow one person to disband a guild, i mean whats the point? if they dont want to be in it they can leave, but they shouldnt make it dissappear for everyone else who wants to continue playing in the guild. a guild should only be disbanded if the size is reduced to a few players and they all agree to disband or when no one is left in the guild.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think this is true, unless by "rewards" you mean "it's easier to find people there," which ought to be an emergent tendency anyway.If there aren't tools to make it easy, then there absolutely needs to be mechanics that produce significant rewards for putting your group together in a tavern or whatever, so that people will know to go there to look for a group.
I didn't phrase that well. There shouldn't really be "significant" rewards in the sense that already-formed groups would disband and go back to that place and reform just to get the reward. But I do think there should be a reward of some kind for picking up group members in certain locations. The whole purpose of this is to create well-known places where people can go to find groups or members, rather than leaving everyone out in the cold running from landmark to landmark chasing groups when they only have 30 minutes to play.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan, you describe Chartered Companies by saying:
They can grow to be quite large, on the order of several dozen characters (exact sizes have yet to be determined).
Now, I can clearly read the part that says "exact sizes have yet to be determined" and I understand what those words mean :)
But I was wondering if you could give us a little more information about the scope you'd like to see for Chartered Companies.
Do you expect most Chartered Companies will tend to focus on a couple of areas of game play, and that you won't see single organizations that fully engage all aspects of the game until we get to create Settlements?
Or should we go ahead and plan as if we'll be able to create a large guild that's fully engaged from the get-go?
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Goblin Squad Member
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In my mind Chartered Companies will act like guilds do in most Theme Park MMOs. They'll be primarily concerned with adventuring content as opposed to the kingdom game. On the other hand they're a good stepping stone for people looking to build the nucleus needed to go into the Wilderness and start a new Settlement.
In reality I'll be stunned by the wild and unexpected uses people put them too in practice. See Red vs Blue in EVE, for an example of an emergent, unexpected use of a game mechanic.
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I hope that the inns/taverns will have plenty of dark corners for people to sit in while they wait for a party (with their hoods up, naturally) :)
Seriously, I don't have any great ideas on how best to go about joining parties in PFO. What I *do* know is that in FF11, the effective level span in a party that could still get reasonable XP from monsters was so narrow that you could spend HOURS trying to get a party together, only for one member to quit 20 minutes after you left the city and put you back to square 1. It would be nice if we could avoid that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Really digging what I am hearing.
I think that you guys should offer a framework for groups forming prior to launch, or for that matter after launch. The earlier you offer a particular direction the better chance you have of creating a particular atmosphere. It also helps, when you deny a group because they are obviously not what is wanted in-game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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elorebaen, read that quote again.
We want to encourage folks to begin self-organizing even before the game is ready for testing. We'll do our best to recognize those organizations that get created early, especially if they announce their existence on our messageboards. How awesome will it be to start playing Pathfinder Online and already have the seeds of the early social order in place? We can't wait to see it all develop and we're so excited to have the community along for the ride!
especially the part about self-organizing and how they wanna see it all develop. the way i understand it, they want us to start building up organizations. and i disagree on denying groups for whatever reasons before the game is even released.
i'm curious as to how this will work out. never got into EVE so i can't really comment on the system they use. the whole concept seems rather clever though. let the community build their own world, that should pretty much shut up the whole whining about how there is no content, we will have to create our own.
sounds promising all in all, each blog gets me more excited.
good job guys
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Goblin Squad Member
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Considering how much spam there can be even on LFG channels, a limited LFG tool that only works in designated areas might be a good idea. Have it work only in taverns, guild houses, or other thematically appropriate areas and only for characters in that area. So you won't be able to group with four people from all corners of Crusader Road, but the rogue, the cleric and the fighter in The Squeaky Door Inn who are looking for adventure can be grouped with.
Maybe allow players to also post set invitations. If you know you will be online and ready to rock between so-and-so times, you can post an invite so that you can pop in, have a group in seconds because they signed up, and be ready to go.
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Goblin Squad Member
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More and more excited for this game. It seems to be the dream combination of all the things I love, but the biggest thing is that the game is focused on grouping. I miss games where grouping was just how you played, and soloing was considered odd. Goblinworks, I shall beseech Abadar daily that your venture is successful!
I hope they dont allow one person to disband a guild
A definite no-no, in my opinion. Guilds or other groups should never be at the mercy of one member in this way. Perhaps the way to go is to have a guild fail only when it hits a minimum of members, without ever allowing individual members (including the leader) to do anything other than resign. That should take care of just about every foreseeable eventuality,.
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Goblin Squad Member
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zOMG.. :) This sounds awesome.
Like something I would like the invest a decade of my time playing :)
I really like what I read, and I am so much looking forward to be able to play this. I hope you will be able pull this off, and that there will be enough people coming in to actually sustain larger kingdoms.
Also good call to start small with smaller community-units, and then scale up.
A lot will happen in the first couple of months, and it would be a shame if pre-formed guilds/companies rushed in, made settlements, just to disband a few months later (there is a high risk of this in the early period of any guilds life - seen it so many times in other MMOs).
Right now the 'buzz' about PFO seems mostly to be on these forums, but lets hope that will change in the future.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I hope they dont allow one person to disband a guildA definite no-no, in my opinion. Guilds or other groups should never be at the mercy of one member in this way. Perhaps the way to go is to have a guild fail only when it hits a minimum of members, without ever allowing individual members (including the leader) to do anything other than resign. That should take care of just about every foreseeable eventuality,.
A guild or a alliance of guilds?
If I am the founder of the "Red banners" and sole Owner, Ruler and Dictator of that guild I don't see why I could not close it when I feel it has run its course.
The important thing is that all guild members will know I can do that and that there will be the possibility to crate different guilds with different rules.
Essentially my guild would be very similar to a industrial or mercantile activity. The owner can close it when I want (possibly it will not be a instantaneous effect but require some time to be put in effect).
Closing the guild will not destroy the physical structures it own or its assets, but they will go to new owners determined while closing it or they will become abandoned structures for the taking.
An alliance of guilds would be a different thing, it they have something shared between them it should not be possible for a single guild to close the alliance. But that kind of structure would be very different from a guild.
Note:
that closing a guild shouldn't have immediate effects on allegiances and access to structures or doing that in the middle of a fight would create plenty of mayhem.
There should be some fairly long cool down period, something like:
- Day one: ruler or ruling council decide to disband the guild and activate the procedure. Every guild member get a warning.
- after 24 hours there will be a confirmation or annulment of the decision. If the decision is confirmed there will be a further 24 hour delay before it take full effect. all the guild member will get a second warning informing them if the decision was confirmed or annulled.
If I am the founder of the "Red banners" and sole Owner, Ruler and Dictator of that guild I don't see why I could not close it when I feel it has run its course.
Perhaps the way to go is to allow for a number of different options when the guild is first formed. If the guild is to be very much a private, personal enterprise whose assets, plant, goodwill etc. are all the property of a player, then the option might be "fold at leader's discretion". On the other hand, if a group of players get together to form a guild, they most likely wouldn't want the leader, whether elected or appointed, to suddenly close it down on a whim or a fit of temper; in which case, the option might be "fold only upon a unanimous/majority vote of the officers/members".
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Diego Rossi, I'd actually prefer to see it take a week or two, to maximize the chance that each member has to see the message telling them the guild is being disbanded. But I totally agree, that if the guild is run by a single leader, it should be that player's decision whether or not to allow that guild name to continue to be used by others.
@Skamander, I agree that kind of stuff should be clearly stated in the Charter, and I can definitely see the value in having the game itself enforce certain mechanics. Most guild management interfaces usually just give a particular rank powers. PFO would have to build something innovative to enforce rules such as requiring a majority vote of members at a certain rank to perform certain functions, such as promoting, demoting, or disbanding.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with both of you and hope that there will be a way to create and enforce different charters.
The aforementioned "Red banners" probably would be a mercenary company, whose members receive a salary in exchange for services, or a mercantile endeavour.
Its founder probably is someone that was willing to spend time and money in the game to start his activity and then is willing to accept member in the chartered company (to use the term used in the blog) in exchange for a specific number of hours of service each week or some other form of compensation (crafter producing wares for him and so on.
The advantage for the other members? They would have access to more advanced structures brought or constructed by the founding player.
To make an example, a mercantile/crafting company can offer the access to his forges that give some kind on benefits upon less costly forges, sell your wares in its stores without the need for you to manage one and so on.
Done well both parties will profit, done purposefully badly in the preparation of the charter and the company founders would absorb most of the member profits (great for a LE guy: your work make me richer).
As it is a game the characters should always have a way to renounce to a chartered company membership, even in the middle of a war (but not in the middle of a battle).
When we are speaking of "The Keep on the Borderland" and "The Kingdom Game", things change. In that kind of political game no one should have the possibility to disband the structure. Even the king can't disband a kingdom.
He can join it with another kingdom but even that should have enough checks that it will not be a single player decision on the spur of the moment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Solution:
There is a baseline membership, any members in this tier of membership have no power in the charter. There should be no option to disband a guild. If a guild is leaderless the leadership is voted on by the next tier down from the leader, if this tier is the baseline tier the guild is disbanded.
This is the only way i would support the system, and it would really only function as a contracting charter.
I don't support a system where you have a single leader that needs to feed their need to control people.
The position of 'leader' should never be set in stone and a coup d'état should always be possible in every tier of player organizations(excluding the above contract charters).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Solution:
There is a baseline membership, any members in this tier of membership have no power in the charter. There should be no option to disband a guild. If a guild is leaderless the leadership is voted on by the next tier down from the leader, if this tier is the baseline tier the guild is disbanded.
This is the only way i would support the system, and it would really only function as a contracting charter.
I don't support a system where you have a single leader that needs to feed their need to control people.
The position of 'leader' should never be set in stone and a coup d'état should always be possible in every tier of player organizations(excluding the above contract charters).
I agree, at least when it hits the tiers of settlement and above (when the players will likely have pooled major resources, and everyone has much to gain or lose) than a guild leader should be impeachable and replacable.
Unless there are options from the start as to how to found the settlement. if uppon founding the charter members know right off the bat that they are founding a dictatorship, then that is their right and the consequences that come with it, but a democracy should also be an option at founding. People joining a dictatorship should be aware that everything they have can be lost at the wims of the dictator, in exchange for the kingdom possibly having better advantages due to faster more decisive decisions. Even a dictatorship should have a higharchy that automatically appoints the next highest ranked member for leadership upon the guild leader not logging in in a weeks time.
While I understand the My name my guild because I founded it mentality, in many games I have played, the guild leader turned out to be the one who invested the least into the guild, which is fine when there aren't tangible assets, but when everyone else donates say 200,000 gold worth of materials etc... to a guild, everyone deserves some say in what happens to them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We had previous discussions, such as here and here...about trying to set up factions and in-faction fame systems that would allow members of that faction to remove missing or incompetent leaders (or even allow internal rebellions).
While I agree some of the ideas proposed and discussed were unnecessarily complex...there was a lot of resistance from people who just thought no one should be able to challenge their power or position as a guild leader.
While I agree some of the ideas proposed and discussed were unnecessarily complex...there was a lot of resistance from people who just thought no one should be able to challenge their power or position as a guild leader.
As the call-girl Mandy Rice-Davies replied in court to the barrister who said that Lord Astor denied having any dealings with her, "Well, they would, wouldn't they?".
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would not like the game to provide an outlet for narcissism and sadism.
I am strongly opposed to griefing and anything that involves having fun at the expense of another player.
People who don't want leader positions to be contestable are those that i really don't want in the game. I can't see why anyone would be against a system that requires to leader to be liked by the community they lead. History shows us that when you have bad leadership the people revolt, kill those they are against, and seize control.
If its the 'oh so special name' you created that you don't want to lose, fine you can have the name when you are kicked out(if you founded as leader)
All types of governments will probably form, but I don't want to see the classic guild mechanics where there is one character that has to have ultimate power, IMO power should always be divided to some extent, one person may hold the majority but never the entirety. The social systems in the game should be setup to simulate many types of governments, and have to tools to overthrow them.
Overthrowing a leader shouldn't be a quick undertaking, it should take a while and possibly a civil war between settlements when dealing with the kingdom level.
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Goblin Squad Member
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All types of governments will probably form, but I don't want to see the classic guild mechanics where there is one character that has to have ultimate power, IMO power should always be divided to some extent, one person may hold the majority but never the entirety. The social systems in the game should be setup to simulate many types of governments, and have to tools to overthrow them.
I do not want to see it not possible either...it is up to the player to do their homework if they care. There have been dictators and monarch through history who did well to and for their people, and their country.
Overthrowing a leader shouldn't be a quick undertaking, it should take a while and possibly a civil war between settlements when dealing with the kingdom level.
100% agree. At the charter level perhaps I should just be able to leave when I want and join a different group if I am not happy. But at the town or kingdom level...it is assumed we have a house, a family, etc...then rebellion and revolution becomes the easier route and this should be possible...(i.e. Beware of raising the tax rate too high town/kingdom owners.)
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Goblin Squad Member
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LOL, so you want to exchange dictatorship of the founder with dictatorship of the masses or the more charismatic.
At the chartered company level (and please, stop mixing them up in the replies as this part of the discussion is only about the chartered company level, not the other organization levels).
To address some of your comments:
"There is a baseline membership, any members in this tier of membership have no power in the charter. There should be no option to disband a guild. If a guild is leaderless the leadership is voted on by the next tier down from the leader, if this tier is the baseline tier the guild is disbanded."
So:
a) a condition for automatic disbandment - I don't think it is a good idea
b) how you define that it is leaderless? Unless the leader has erased his character there no way in which you can fairly define that (unless the project change, it will be possible to play even without paying a monthly subscription).
"I am strongly opposed to griefing and anything that involves having fun at the expense of another player."
And where that is the same thing as building a LE company? Maybe I have played too long at EVE, but I find them normal.
The players can always vote with their legs and leave the chartered company
"If its the 'oh so special name' you created that you don't want to lose, fine you can have the name when you are kicked out(if you founded as leader)"
And leave behind all that you have put in the chartered company. Evicting someone is not griefing?
Usually if you are joining a chartered company it is because there is something in it that you think is useful to you. You can be mistaken, or there could be better options, but usually the founder has to put some value in it.
As already stated there should be other options, but the LE chartered company should be one of them. If not we would be removing a piece of the sandbox.
It could not be pleasant (especially seeing how many benefits his industry has received by the state during its life) but Marchionne has all the legal rights to close the FIAT industrial plants in Italy and even to disband the Italian subsidiaries of the industry.
The workers have given a greater value to the company that the direction in the years of its life? Too bad, what count is who has paid for the structures and who own the company shares.
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Related to higher tier organizations:
"Even a dictatorship should have a higharchy that automatically appoints the next highest ranked member for leadership upon the guild leader not logging in in a weeks time."
I hope your leader never get a vacation, is hospitalized, has connection troubles or need to move to a new house. All things that can easily remove him from the game for more than a week.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Related to higher tier organizations:
"Even a dictatorship should have a higharchy that automatically appoints the next highest ranked member for leadership upon the guild leader not logging in in a weeks time."I hope your leader never get a vacation, is hospitalized, has connection troubles or need to move to a new house. All things that can easily remove him from the game for more than a week.
Right, which is why the default response is to put the second in command in charge... assuming a leader had good enough judgement to pick someone responsible to hold the guild together while he was away, I think automatically handing the leadership role to whoever the leader set up as a backup as a good thing.
Lets take the hospital scenerio
Option one, leadership holds to the hospitalized leader for 2 weeks he is in the hospital, With no one able to sign in, declare war, set to peace or whatever major function a guild leader has, the guild falls appart, city is taken, the leader returns in 2 weeks to a guild with almost no members, lost territory etc...
option 2. Trustworthy second in command takes over in leaders absense. keeps things together, secures relations and territory etc... 2 weeks later, leader returns and the backup gives him his old position back.
In an expected leave of absense any leader worth his salt would appoint someone else as interim leader, why not have a system that lets him pre-emptively set someone as a temporary leader in an unexpected absense.