Closing down locals is stupid, one of the reasons I decided to play this game was because of the interesting talks and politicking I read reading the Dwilight local. Now I will have absolutely nooooo idea what is going on with the war in the north, or pretty much anywhere at all except in my own realm. This is a pretty dissapointing move and will probably have a negative impact on player attraction and retention.
True, before then, unless you were one of the lucky people "in the know", most people were totally and utterly clueless as to continental events... heck, even about their own realm's politics in many cases.
It used to be so that realms would actually force their rulers to give e.g. weekly updates of what was going on on the continent, so everyone stayed involved. That way you could easily distinguish the good realms from the lesser ones (or the good rulers from the apathetic ones). I don't think people should get their information from the boards on the forum. It is a OOG medium and will, deny it as much as you will, influence the way your character behaves. Simply put; perhaps it is better you cannot know what is going on everywhere all the time. Your character don't, why should you?
I've never seen this. Some rulers did (I did my best to), but often they'd get replaced every now and then by rulers who would never give a single word about global events and I never saw a soul complain. I like to think that the "good" rulers were the active ones that tried to keep the others engaged, but, especially in the days, the popular rulers were often the ones that simply had the most days in realm and never really uttered any words.
