Campaign was introduced with the Wings Of The Goddess expansions.  Like SE’s earlier attempt, Beseiged, these battles are intended to include a large number of players and enemy forces.  Each battle, taking place during the Crystal Wars, focuses on a zone, which can be controlled by an Allied Nation or the Beastmen.

Participants in Campaign battles earn Allied Notes (currency), experience points, and promotions within’ the army they’ve joined.

From Wikipedia:

Evaluations are conducted on all participants of the Allied Campaign. Individual data is collected by the Allied War Council from various sources, such as Campaign Arbiters and the leaders of the armies in which the soldiers serve. This data is then used to determine whether or not a decoration is to be conducted. Some of the areas that are considered in this evaluation are performance in Campaign Operations, as well as valor shown during Campaign Battles.

The problem is this (again from wikipedia):

To maintain one’s status, he or she must continue to exceed previous expectations. If a soldier fails to fulfill the duties that are required of all those who possess a certain medal, then the Allied War Council will be forced to confiscate that decoration.

…

Effort accumulated towards a promotion will decay slowly over time.

So, SE has essentially created a mechanic that punishes players for not staying online.  I know more than one person in my Linkshell that is currently looking at getting a demotion because they have holiday plans that will not allow them to log into FFXI and put time into Campaign.

While re-gaining ones promotion isn’t overy arduous, it still smacks 1999 when Everquest was built around the notion of on rewarding you for how much time you put into it.  The flip side to this mechanic is if you aren’t online enough, you lose.  This is the core design philosophy behind the Everquest, and a prime aspect of much of the criticism the game fairly earned.

I can’t tell if SE intentionally re-created this mechanic, or just didn’t think it through, but it’s a step backwards.  As my friend Darrian would say:

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