Closing Islands ?

[Anaris]

I would prefer the idea of having Lords be able to hold more regions. For instance say you want to gain the region of another Lord you and your knights go to war with that Lord and their knights.

It would actually give a reason to have knights again.

Um...you're not just proposing changing the code to allow holding multiple regions, which is far from a trivial code change. You're now also proposing being able to go to war with other Lords from your own realm.

Yeah, that's not going to happen.

[Chenier]

The whole point of more blight—whatever the means of applying it—is to reduce the number of available regions.

So assuming we did something along these lines, yes, there will be a limit, but it will be carefully controlled and monitored by the devs, and increased as necessary. If it can be undone, it will not be easy, and it will only be possible if it is balanced by a corresponding additional blight somewhere else.

Turning a bunch of regions rogue would have the same effect on player density as blighting them would, except that it would allow the players to then decide which regions to prioritize if they seek to expand instead of having it forced upon them.

People would just blight the regions that have terrible stats. I expect Skezard on EC to be one of the first to go.

I fear the most valuable regions would be targeted first, leaving the crappy regions behind. Scorched earth warfare. Which, in the end, leads to a bunch of realms incapable of properly fighting each other.

[Anaris]

Turning a bunch of regions rogue would have the same effect on player density as blighting them would, except that it would allow the players to then decide which regions to prioritize if they seek to expand instead of having it forced upon them.

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.

If regions are turned rogue, people will just take them back. Period. That is absolutely plain from the players' behaviour.

I fear the most valuable regions would be targeted first, leaving the crappy regions behind. Scorched earth warfare. Which, in the end, leads to a bunch of realms incapable of properly fighting each other.

If that were the result, then personally, I would try to make sure that things went one of two ways: either the whole worthless area got blighted, or the blight was able to be moved from the valuable regions in some manner.

I dunno about any of the rest of the devs, but I have embraced the maxim of We Do Not Hate The Players.

[Sarwell]

-snip-

I think this is considering things on the scale of maybe scrapping one island, not four of them...

[Foxglove]

Wolfsong, that would probably see players abandon the game en mass. You clearly enjoy Dwilight, but lots of other people don't. For them, the other islands offer them a playing experience they enjoy. Wiping out the entire history of the game across most islands wouldn't be a good idea.

[Indirik]

Trashing all the islands (except Dwilight) and replacing them with a single island? Guaranteed to piss off everyone. Might as well just close down the game and save yourself the trouble.

[Vita`]

Can we stay focused on what Tom has already said he likes? That is, Tiridia's suggestion on blighting/healing scrolls based upon player density and Indirik's timer-delay improvement.

[Miriam Ics]

^This.
We know now what Tom likes. We need to work on that direction.

(But I still think knights need more activities).

[Jaden]

I am also interested in expanding the knight game, it's boring as hell if you have no wars to fight... maybe we should split it into another thread?

[Velax]

Removed posts advocating the destruction of one island or another. It was pretty clearly stated in the OP not to do that.

[vonGenf]

And the "spawn a time-bomb" idea makes sure that the AMOUNT of destruction is controlled by GMs (basically, the amount of "bombs" we spawn) while the location is controlled by player actions.

How quickly would you want to do this? I think I would prefer it it were over quickly, i.e. a certain number of bombs are spawned at once, 30 days later land is blighted, and then we know for sure we won't have any more for at least a year.

I fear the strategic implications of regularly spawning nuclear bomb would have on the general gameplay. Uncertainty creates fear in realm leaders, and many realms will prefer never to go to war for fear that their enemies would destroy their precious lands.

[Tiridia]

I think it is important that the affected regions are wastelands, not blighted. We do not want walls and bottlenecks. They should probably adversery effect joined regions as well, in order to discourage their use on own border regions.

They could start with ill omens that the priests discover. An adventurer could then investigate and find the cursed item. The item grows in power and yields significant bonuses. At later stage it begins to signal imminent doom and then wastes the region.

The holy items do the same, but at the end heal the region. They are seeded only when noble density requires more land.

[Jaden]

just make those regions unable to be TOed, cause if it's a wasteland and still TOable, people would just TO it for the sake of it 
How many islands is this going to affect, cause i don't think blighting 1 island will be enough..

[Wolfang]

I also agree with Miriam's point that knight gameplay is boring unless you are communicating with other people in OOC means, such as irc. You don't hear anything, no one tells you anything, and most of the time you are ignored.

[Tom]

We know now what Tom likes. We need to work on that direction.

I didn't say my mind is set on that. Often, once a good ideas has come up, other good ideas follow, so please allow for that to happen instead of closing the discussion prematurely.