Message #117429

[Tom]

I'm trying to sum up past discussions and my thoughts and want to invite you to join me to find the best way to move forward.


Locals / Roleplaying Forum
There are a number of good ideas here:
http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,5022.0.html

...as well as scattered over other topics.

The basic gist is that we should have a board to discuss in-game events, but it needs to be moderated so that it does not take gameplay away from the game.
For roleplays, that is fairly easy, the requirement would be that you may only post stuff that has been posted in-game, and only after it has run its course in-game (i.e. other people have reacted, the event is concluded).

I propose to rename the "roleplaying" forum into "gameplay" or something similar, and merge the locals boards into it. This way, we have one place where all in-game discussions take place, giving it less of an impression of being a closed circle, opening it up more since everything mixes with everything else.

This way I think we can satisfy both those who want to spread the in-game events that make them happy to a larger crowd and the many silent players who would rather just play the game and still be sure they don't miss anything.



Island Closing
It's become clear from the discussion that all islands are loved by many people, and closing any will upset people. Yet we must. The game was always designed with a certain player density in mind and the additional game world (we started with one island once!) were always opened in response to increasing player counts. The only logical answer to dropping player counts is closing an island, at least temporarily. I would love there to be another way, but there isn't.

It's also clear a forum discussion won't give us a result, and on such an important point we really need to ask all players, not just the 10-20% that frequent the forum.

I propose (and will discuss the details with the dev team) to run an in-game survey, so we get everyone's opinion. Then we will make a decision, and it'll be one of the toughest ever made. One thing I know for certain is that whatever island(s) gets the axe won't be deleted, but frozen. Should player counts increase again, it will be opened up again. There will also be some kind of option for whole realms to move collectively so they can keep their culture and community.