Closing Islands ?

[pcw27]

When they open up, if you control an exit point then your realm gets to emigrate first

Actually this is an interesting idea for making a continent closure more fun. Suppose you set a time limit and claim the island is being destroyed by a series of storms and earthquakes. The storms make the oceans near impossible to traverse except for a few key sea lanes. Each lane will only lead to one other game world. If you don't exit by one of these lanes in time you will end up adrift in the storm wracked sea and wash up on some random continent.

This encourages realms to leave the continent in an organized fashion and it can make things interesting in other game worlds as swarms of foreign refugees show up, potentially disrupting their status quo.

[Tom]

What if you simply closed down all islands and created 2 or 3 new islands?

I will shoot the next one who proposes new islands.


NO NEW ISLANDS


What the !@#$ do I have to do to get this into peoples heads? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

[Tom]

Also, no total game wipe. Are you bat!@#$ crazy? I could just as well shut the whole stupid game down and call it a day.

[Qyasogk]

The problem with that is that closing or freezing an island will lose players from the game. Some players only choose to play on one island and don't use their full playable character quota. Furthermore, some other players have such an attachment to certain islands that losing the ability to play on that island with see their interest in the game diminish (several players have said that on the forum - and that's not even taking into account the bulk of players who never post on the forum).

There's absolutely no guarantee that closing/freezing an island will increase player density elsewhere. Basically, it comes down to either finding a better idea or rolling the dice on the closure/freeze and hoping it has more of a positive impact than a negative one.

People are attached to their CHARACTERS, only kings and dukes are attached to their fiefdoms. As long as they can take those characters and live on in a new location, no one has lost anything.

People taking their characters off sinking island A and moving them to island B & C will absolutely increase the player density there.

A new island for your character is still a new island to explore and conquer, without the devs having to make a new island which they've said a million times they're not doing.

Call it Noah's Ark, call it Atlantis, call it Numenor, there are lots of exciting ways to roleplay this with a little imagination.

[Qyasogk]

Also, no total game wipe. Are you bat!@#$ crazy? I could just as well shut the whole stupid game down and call it a day.

Tom you're sounding a little angry, and that's not constructive. Perhaps you could respond and dialog with those ideas you do like, rather than just pounding everyone's face in with the one thing you're not going to do? Pretty please? 

[Tom]

Tom you're sounding a little angry, and that's not constructive. Perhaps you could respond and dialog with those ideas you do like, rather than just pounding everyone's face in with the one thing you're not going to do? Pretty please? 

I am angry when people make the same proposal that was already declined clearly and strongly 20 times for the 21st.

[Foxglove]

People are attached to their CHARACTERS, only kings and dukes are attached to their fiefdoms. As long as they can take those characters and live on in a new location, no one has lost anything.

I don't think that's accurate. Quite a few people have declared their particular attachment to an island/s here on the forum. I can think of quite a few players who only play on one island. Perhaps they like the atmosphere and dynamics between the realms on their chosen island. I know I certainly prefer playing on two particular islands more than others.

[Gustav Kuriga]

I am angry when people make the same proposal that was already declined clearly and strongly 20 times for the 21st.

Perhaps that should be taken as a sign, since it has been different people supporting the idea each time? Honestly you are the most stubbornly obstinate person I've ever seen in some regards.

[Chenier]

People are attached to their CHARACTERS, only kings and dukes are attached to their fiefdoms. As long as they can take those characters and live on in a new location, no one has lost anything.

People taking their characters off sinking island A and moving them to island B & C will absolutely increase the player density there.

A new island for your character is still a new island to explore and conquer, without the devs having to make a new island which they've said a million times they're not doing.

Call it Noah's Ark, call it Atlantis, call it Numenor, there are lots of exciting ways to roleplay this with a little imagination.

A lot of players are really attached to realms they hold no significant titles in.

[egamma]

Perhaps that should be taken as a sign, since it has been different people supporting the idea each time? Honestly you are the most stubbornly obstinate person I've ever seen in some regards.

Yeah, I mean, who does Tom think he is? It's not like he's the game's creator and primary source of funds or anything.

Oh wait... 

[Indirik]

There are a LOT of people attached to their realm. When Eston lost their war earlier this year, not even getting completely destroyed, at least three people quit the game completely. The same can be said for just about any realm that has been around for years. Look at all the people who's character dies, so they make another character in the same realm and keep going like nothing has happened.

Hell, I've even seen people delete a character, then immediately start Jr. in the same realm, just because their old character wasn't getting enough hours per turn any more.

[Kwanstein]

That mentality is the manifestation of stagnation.

It's also supremely weird. Most realms do not have much if any inter-realm interaction any more, so what does it matter if a realm dies if it's only a name. I'd guess that people who'd leave over the death of a realm aren't very involved in the game to begin with, and that a realm loss would merely serve as a wakeup call to that fact.

An adventurous attitude is what's required for a vibrant realm; a willingness to put everything on the line. It's not a sure bet, but it's better than nothing. Clinging to realms is not only pointless, it's counteractive. So do away with these realms of today and create new and better realms tomorrow. Sitting in the same realm for ten years and expecting it to last ten more is just about the lamest thing I can think of.

Perhaps the reason for the player loss is stagnation. While the East Island was waging that massive and drastic war five years ago it was very popular. Players started draining out of that place shortly after the war ended, when prospects for another such war began to look grim.

[pcw27]

That mentality is the manifestation of stagnation.

It's also supremely weird. Most realms do not have much if any inter-realm interaction any more, so what does it matter if a realm dies if it's only a name. I'd guess that people who'd leave over the death of a realm aren't very involved in the game to begin with, and that a realm loss would merely serve as a wakeup call to that fact.

An adventurous attitude is what's required for a vibrant realm; a willingness to put everything on the line. It's not a sure bet, but it's better than nothing. Clinging to realms is not only pointless, it's counteractive. So do away with these realms of today and create new and better realms tomorrow. Sitting in the same realm for ten years and expecting it to last ten more is just about the lamest thing I can think of.

Perhaps the reason for the player loss is stagnation. While the East Island was waging that massive and drastic war five years ago it was very popular. Players started draining out of that place shortly after the war ended, when prospects for another such war began to look grim.

You're really missing the point. The realms Indrik is talking about aren't stagnant places where people stick around out of habit. They're vibrant places filled with internal politics and nuances. These are places where people put things on the line. There's a big difference between being willing to put things on the line and being willing to have an outside force show up and take it away in one fell swoop. If people don't like the idea of carrying on with their character or a new one after their realm is taken away that isn't a sign that they weren't involved with the game that's a sign they were very involved with the game. That shows they thought enough about their characters to see them as a product of their environment with strong opinions about the institutions around them. That shows that they acknowledge that their characters will be understandably lost if their entire continent were destroyed and that some of them would be unable to carry on and choose to die themselves rather then abandon everything they ever held dear.

I would never carry on with Turin on another continent. Not because of habit, not because he brings in lots of gold or wields a lot of power, but because his existence is defined by a religion which exists only on Dwilight. I have a very strong sense of who Turin is and what he'd do in a given situation. He would never leave Dwilight in the face of some cataclysm. Based on his fanatical religious beliefs he would conclude that achieving enlightenment was impossible without a geographical proximity to the blood stars. Therefore he'd probably choose to die floating in a boat like Boreal Arrakis rather then leave.

Commitment to character integrity should be encouraged not punished and inevitably if people are putting real thought into their characters they'll get attached to them and to the story surrounding them.

[Qyasogk]

I would never carry on with Turin on another continent. Not because of habit, not because he brings in lots of gold or wields a lot of power, but because his existence is defined by a religion which exists only on Dwilight. I have a very strong sense of who Turin is and what he'd do in a given situation. He would never leave Dwilight in the face of some cataclysm. Based on his fanatical religious beliefs he would conclude that achieving enlightenment was impossible without a geographical proximity to the blood stars. Therefore he'd probably choose to die floating in a boat like Boreal Arrakis rather then leave.

Woah. We kind of have to go with plan B now: Restrict the influx of new characters to a particular island (to be decided by contest or the gods or activity levels).

When put this way, I envision "I Am Legend" the last surviving human in a continent of undead and monsters chasing me down... That almost makes me WANT my island to be the one that shall be sacrificed to the God of Death so that the other islands would become stronger. I only request that those who can dream of their characters having a future in a new place be given that chance.

[Revan]

I recall when the Ash Sea Islands was crumbling, a few players there left the game for good. One in particular had been around in the Ash Sea Islands since near the beginning and without the Ash Sea Islands he just didn't care any more. I can sympathise, as I really fell out of love with BattleMaster for a while after that myself. Ash Sea Islands had had her ups and downs but she had been a wonderful vibrant realm. I remember a time when we had had 130+ nobles. By the end we were reduced to 50~ but we still had a lot of good and spectacular players still completely engaged in things.

It is hard to lose a realm you have put a lot of time and effort into and especially to be prised away from all those players you've had such good times with. Probably no matter what happens we will lose players by seeking to reduce the game in any way. Still, that was why I felt freezing was a better idea than anything else. Everything you worked for isn't all gone. There is hope of a return and restoration. Either way, it seems necessary that something is done.

It might seem strange to some of the player base today, but there was a time when a 15 region realm in Atamara could have in excess of 130+ nobles. In fact, nigh on every realm in Atamara had at least 70 characters, most had over 100. It might be hard to lose a continent, but if we start seeing every realm with scores of characters again, as in BattleMaster's heyday, it will have been worth it. The game is so much better up and down the whole hiearchy when you have so many comrade-in-arms and not just a handful as is the case in a lot of realms today.