So as those of you who've been paying attention know, it's less than a week now until the scheduled opening of the new War Island. I thought it would be a good time to make public some more information about it.
- There will be three realms on the War Island—Taselak, Sandalak, and Ikalak. Adding a fourth realm (Toren) causes too much disruption to the balance of the island, at least for the time being.
- All players will be given a free character slot specifically for use on the War Island. This slot will be non-transferable, and characters for the War Island will remain there for their entire lifetime—no immigration, no emigration, no deportation. Relatedly, it will not be possible to use family gold or contribute to family gold with characters on the War Island.
- All characters on the War Island will be mortal. This means that pretty much anything that can wound you will also have a chance to kill you, and you can die from wounds getting worse.
- There will be no adventurers on the War Island. There will also be no monster or undead spawns. Pure PvP.
- While it will be possible to found a religion on the War Island, priests will not have any options for influencing peasant behaviour. They will essentially function like guilds.
- Since there is no diplomacy on the War Island, there will be no Diplomats or Ambassadors.
- There will be several changes to the amount of time or effort needed to complete various tasks—such as population recovery or running a takeover—and other tweaks designed to make war on the War Island more fast-paced, with less waiting around, and (hopefully) very little region maintenance.
I'm consulting with Tom on just how previous island startups have been run, but for now, I'm planning to handle it like this, based on my memory of the startup of the South-East Island and Dwilight:
- On the 22nd (probably morning US Eastern time), signups will be opened up, with a limit on the number of characters allowed on the island. The limit will be raised gradually to allow a few (dozen) people at a time to create characters there. No turns will be running at this time.
- After a day or two (or once the island has reached what we consider its maximum safe population, which is probably a few hundred characters), referenda will be created in all three realms to elect the first Rulers. Since all characters will be new, exceptions to the usual prestige requirements will, of course, be granted.
- Those referenda will run for 3 days. Once each realm has a Ruler, they can start appointing a Duke each, who can appoint Lords to the starting regions of each realm.
- Turns will begin to run, and travel will become possible, but for another few days, no one will be allowed to leave their realm. This will give everyone some time to build the initial recruitment centers their realms will require.
- Once that period is over, the floodgates will be opened, and everything will be set to "normal" for the War Island. Let the games begin!
Questions are welcome.