Closing Islands ?

[Wolfang]

One something I must mention is that decreasing regions will increase number of knights (and decrease number of lords) whilst one of the points made here is that playing as a knight is not the most entertaining thing to do. This may have an adverse side effect of turning people away from the game faster.

Just sayin'

[Foxglove]

I've got to admit that I've been wondering whether the blighting/monolith wasteland approach will actually help matters (and I was one of those who thought it was a good idea at first). I think Scarlett might have a good point about it creating a general atmosphere of decay about the game.

Just a thought, but before doing anything too dramatic, what about issuing an in-game GM announcement appealing to players who aren't currently using all their playable character slots to use them to create a new character/s on a islands where they don't normally play? Some gentle encouragement might nudge players into boosting the character count as an alternative to losing an island. If the situation with low player density is explained ('cause not everyone reads the forum), some people might be willing to give an extra character a try.

Going back to the original idea of merging islands, what about creating a new, empty, island (based on an inverted, or otherwise messed around with, version of a current map to save on the workload). Then have portals appear in the capital cities of every realm on the two islands intended for merger so that nobles can pass through from the closing islands to the new island. Then have a free-for-all to establish or re-establish realms on the new island. The new island could also have its cities named after cities in the closing islands to transfer some of the history. I know it's not perfect, but I'm trying to think of ways to minimize the upset amongst players - i.e. keeping region names and most realms. I'm suggesting portal emmigration, rather than by sea, because sea emmigration gives too much of a land grab advantage to coastal realms with existing sea ports. The whole process would ideally happen over a few months - maybe close/blight one region on the closing islands every couple of weeks to give people a gentle nudge to emmigrate.

At least by creating a big event, it might stir up excitement amongst the players. I don't know. Giving people a new toy to play with (a new island) seems better than taking away about 70 regions (Anaris's estimate).

[Kwanstein]

Going back to the original idea of merging islands, what about creating a new, empty, island (based on an inverted, or otherwise messed around with, version of a current map to save on the workload).

If there is a new map, it should be unique. Reusing an old map is boring and would kill enthusiasm. Making an entirely new map, like was done with Dwilight, would get people exited and would offset misgivings about being jerked around.

[Geronus]

I ran some numbers on optimal noble-to-region ratios for the continents and how to achieve them. I went in with the assumption that "optimal" is about 3.5 nobles per region on average.

Based on this, if we followed the plan of blowing up regions in one way or another, the mean number of regions we would have to remove to push a continent to an optimal ratio is about 70.

With that sort of volume there are some possible negative consequences. One is that we may end up with smaller realms that have large wastelands between them. This will have a big effect on warfare. What's the point of realm A fighting realm B if all the regions between them are wastelands? You can't really accomplish anything, and the starvation would be a disincentive to travel through it.

The optimal distribution would be more random; a region here, a region there, but nothing that interrupts the contiguity of the map. Unfortunately that's very unlikely to happen if the players have some control over which regions end up on the chopping block.

[Anaris]

With that sort of volume there are some possible negative consequences. One is that we may end up with smaller realms that have large wastelands between them. This will have a big effect on warfare. What's the point of realm A fighting realm B if all the regions between them are wastelands? You can't really accomplish anything, and the starvation would be a disincentive to travel through it.

The optimal distribution would be more random; a region here, a region there, but nothing that interrupts the contiguity of the map. Unfortunately that's very unlikely to happen if the players have some control over which regions end up on the chopping block.

I could see making travel through the wastelands faster, to prevent it from impeding war too much. Also, some care with targeting can mitigate that, too.

[Geronus]

I could see making travel through the wastelands faster, to prevent it from impeding war too much. Also, some care with targeting can mitigate that, too.

If players can control where the monoliths go, all the careful targeting the world isn't going to prevent them from doing things with them that aren't necessarily a good thing for the game (they might be good for a particular realm or character, but bad from a big picture perspective).

Faster travel would be good, to an extent.

[vonGenf]

the mean number of regions we would have to remove to push a continent to an optimal ratio is about 70.

Do you mean 70 regions per continent? So removing 420 regions in total?

That's absolutely huge.... much bigger than I thought.

[Geronus]

Do you mean 70 regions per continent? So removing 420 regions in total?

That's absolutely huge.... much bigger than I thought.

It stems from the relatively high optimal character-region ratio that Anaris started with. 3.5 per region is a lot in today's game. Think about Dwilight in particular. The ratio there is more like 1.5 characters per region. To reach a ratio of 3.5 characters per region, greater than 50% of Dwilight's regions would have to be turned into wasteland, something over 100 regions. And I'm only including regions currently under a realm's control (not including the Zuma).

The exact percentage of regions lost on any given island will depend on its current character density. The further from 3.5 characters per region it is, the more regions would need to be removed to increase the density.

In the end this just goes to show how bad the problem is and how thin the character population is getting.

[pcw27]

How about distributing a few rare and very hard to assemble magic items which can sink a region?

[Zakilevo]

So are these scrolls or w/e supposed to sink a region or turn it into a wasteland?

Why not turn it into a wasteland which cannot be taken over or something? Something along the line of 'wilderness has taken over any sign of civilization in the region due to lack of maintenance' or something like that? And allow people to take those regions over again once we reach a certain player base?

[pcw27]

That's actually how it used to work. A region would slowly go rogue if you didn't have at least one estate set to authority.  It was possible to hold a region with only a lord however you'd have lousy production. If the region had no lord you'd eventually lose it.

The thing is losing your region simply because there aren't enough knights is frustrating and likely to drive more people away. Losing it because your enemy blew it to kingdom come is exciting and gives you motivation to seek revenge.

[Tiridia]

Ok, this is a new take on this. Cities produce "documents". You need to buy them for your region or risk it turning into wilderness. The total amount of produced docs depends on noble density.

The result will be that not everyone can afford them, so the regions go rogue. Or wild. Or something.

[Scarlett]

One something I must mention is that decreasing regions will increase number of knights (and decrease number of lords) whilst one of the points made here is that playing as a knight is not the most entertaining thing to do.

But that's just the thing: being a knight used to be fun if you were in a fun realm because it had a much larger social aspect. Your region lord needed you, both for estate reasons and for politics, and the realm was larger, so there were more factions and more fights to be had. That's the stuff that any game like this needs which you can only facilitate rather than code outright: the human interactions.

Right now I have characters in super-busy realms that 'have a lot to do' from the game standpoint but it just ain't what it used to be: not that the players aren't as good because there are quite a number who are great - it's just that wars with realms that each have 20 people in them are kind of meh while wars with realms that have 50-60 (each) are much more exciting because you have a lot more avenues for intrigue and allegiances.

[Foxglove]

Do you mean 70 regions per continent? So removing 420 regions in total?

That's absolutely huge.... much bigger than I thought.

I also took it to mean 70 regions per island. Even if the numbers were modified down a bit from 3.5 nobles per region, that sort massive region removal is going to have a huge negative impact on most realms, religions, and other stuff people care about.

[Poliorketes]

But that's just the thing: being a knight used to be fun if you were in a fun realm because it had a much larger social aspect. Your region lord needed you, both for estate reasons and for politics, and the realm was larger, so there were more factions and more fights to be had. That's the stuff that any game like this needs which you can only facilitate rather than code outright: the human interactions.

Right now I have characters in super-busy realms that 'have a lot to do' from the game standpoint but it just ain't what it used to be: not that the players aren't as good because there are quite a number who are great - it's just that wars with realms that each have 20 people in them are kind of meh while wars with realms that have 50-60 (each) are much more exciting because you have a lot more avenues for intrigue and allegiances.

I don't know... I was in Atamara, in a huge realm... and it was totally boring: Move, move, battle, move, refit, move, battle... I was a zombie knight! It has been in small realms where I could make some 'impression' and change things!... probably if I only had stayed in Atamara I would stop playing long time ago!...

Maybe the problem is not the density, but the players had changed. There are a lot more MMO games now, than 10 years ago. Maybe the 'active' players plays better more 'active' games... (the kind of game than eats your life)

Honestly! We are giving a big effort in this 'shrink BM'... but I can stop think we would better be making this big effort in making the game funnier and better, not smaller.

This is my honest opinion... maybe I wrong...