Hmm, I have to say, this version of ranks seems probably the most condensed and adequate so far.
The only concern I have is grouping trusted in with honoured etc... Players are still going to want to try to do rank games, so would still probably be eager to pester, or request a promotion... Making it so they are required to be considered as a "trusted" member of the community just to progress to a rank with higher building recognition isn't the best idea in my opinion... I mean there are still going to be really good builders, whether some people trust them completely or not...
So, how about this: either we bring back the whole, slightly redundant debate about the trusted prefix... or, swap the order of architect and honoured. To be perfectly honest, I see more sense in this; first the player would try to attain their own individual building style, since really the whole game ethos is based upon building... and then they can focus if they so wish on contributing to the community, allowing them to be considered for OP etc with honoured. The architect rank could still have the long wait, either 2 months or even more... but instead of needing to be considered trusted as well, they just have to have proven their building skill, and for a group of players/ OPs to agree.
On the other hand, it could be done that a player doesn't exactly need to get architect before being promoted to honoured... since of course, not all players who would be considered for OP have to be great builders... Not only that, the way it's suggested here, honoured kinda works as a buffer rank... somewhere between an average builder, and someone who is great at it... so still gives some form of recognition...
I don't know, it may be that a trusted prefix would work better than what I've suggested afterall... I just don't think it's a good idea mixing ranks for building with something that requires trust from OPs... both types of ranks should still require a long wait period, but knowing the mixed opionions of OPs, as well as how some OPs won't see players enough to gain a feeling of trust... maybe the wait period would help that.
Tl;dr version, I believe that "being trusted/ suitable for OP" shouldn't be a requirement for a rank which shows "high building skills", and the same with the other way around.
Also, Justin, who exactly are you talking about with people getting t6 who you don't trust? As far as I see, there aren't many players who have trusted that don't deserve it right now... apart for maybe a select few. All I am going to say on this is just because you don't agree with another OP's judgement on a certain player, it doesn't mean the decision for the rank was rushed, or taken less seriously as you have put. =/
I'm actually raising this now since this is also an important part to the post... Obviously OPs should take this whole trusted thing seriously right now as it is, since technically players getting it SHOULD be players who we would be happy with being OPs, but also with a shortened rank system, this would have to be even more strict... Longer wait periods are bound to lead to players getting impatient, and not only that, OPs may end up feeling more sympathy because of it. This will also need to be monitorred more carefully since we won't have a set of tiered ranks...
Phew.. okay... that was a lot of writing... for the people who managed to get all the way through that, here's something stupid for ya to watch, lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oL53h8nlfg
The only concern I have is grouping trusted in with honoured etc... Players are still going to want to try to do rank games, so would still probably be eager to pester, or request a promotion... Making it so they are required to be considered as a "trusted" member of the community just to progress to a rank with higher building recognition isn't the best idea in my opinion... I mean there are still going to be really good builders, whether some people trust them completely or not...
So, how about this: either we bring back the whole, slightly redundant debate about the trusted prefix... or, swap the order of architect and honoured. To be perfectly honest, I see more sense in this; first the player would try to attain their own individual building style, since really the whole game ethos is based upon building... and then they can focus if they so wish on contributing to the community, allowing them to be considered for OP etc with honoured. The architect rank could still have the long wait, either 2 months or even more... but instead of needing to be considered trusted as well, they just have to have proven their building skill, and for a group of players/ OPs to agree.
On the other hand, it could be done that a player doesn't exactly need to get architect before being promoted to honoured... since of course, not all players who would be considered for OP have to be great builders... Not only that, the way it's suggested here, honoured kinda works as a buffer rank... somewhere between an average builder, and someone who is great at it... so still gives some form of recognition...
I don't know, it may be that a trusted prefix would work better than what I've suggested afterall... I just don't think it's a good idea mixing ranks for building with something that requires trust from OPs... both types of ranks should still require a long wait period, but knowing the mixed opionions of OPs, as well as how some OPs won't see players enough to gain a feeling of trust... maybe the wait period would help that.
Tl;dr version, I believe that "being trusted/ suitable for OP" shouldn't be a requirement for a rank which shows "high building skills", and the same with the other way around.
Also, Justin, who exactly are you talking about with people getting t6 who you don't trust? As far as I see, there aren't many players who have trusted that don't deserve it right now... apart for maybe a select few. All I am going to say on this is just because you don't agree with another OP's judgement on a certain player, it doesn't mean the decision for the rank was rushed, or taken less seriously as you have put. =/
I'm actually raising this now since this is also an important part to the post... Obviously OPs should take this whole trusted thing seriously right now as it is, since technically players getting it SHOULD be players who we would be happy with being OPs, but also with a shortened rank system, this would have to be even more strict... Longer wait periods are bound to lead to players getting impatient, and not only that, OPs may end up feeling more sympathy because of it. This will also need to be monitorred more carefully since we won't have a set of tiered ranks...
Phew.. okay... that was a lot of writing... for the people who managed to get all the way through that, here's something stupid for ya to watch, lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oL53h8nlfg