Monster Problems

[Nosferatus]

Perhaps it doesn't make sense to move a realm at all.

My Character i'd consider a Madinan, grown up in the original Madina (not the half baked monarchy that calls itself Madina now, Ulfgang ), will always take Madina with her where ever she goes.
Any place she goes to will be introduced with a little bit of seafaring, liberal pirate like Madina.
Which will motivate her to do certain things, or form certain opinions.
This will in turn influence her actions and which ever realm she is apart of.

The values, the people and the ideas of a realm can be moved, but moving the realm it self is perhaps not even theoretically possible.
Moving the country Russia into the USA for example could be done, but that still woudn't be the same Russia.
Even if the white house would be knocked down and replaced by an exact copy of the Kremlin, and all the Americans where moved as well, it still wouldn't be Russia.
Sure after generations or so of propaganda and or guns put against peoples heads, people could start calling the USA Russia, but that would be the same as forcing people to call cats dogs instead of cats.
Its definitely interesting to see what it WOULD be, but it wouldn't be Russia.

If we agree that realms can and should be destroyed then i agree with Zakky that it would proabably benefit gameplay to keep the realms close together, kill off the few which are furthest away from each other.
If we don't want to destroy realms but do want to reduce the size of them, we should hit all realms equally (with rogues) in order to remove about the same percentage of regions per realm.

Another point which i haven't really heard thill now is that perhaps changing or influencing anything in the game is doomed to fail or create negative effects and also create an expirience of injustice amongst players.
Perhaps it was wrong in the first place to change something.
If realms don't have enough nobles, let it be and let it either destroy its self by the hands of players, or not.
Eventually people could leave boring realms, or be destroyed by more crowded other realms.
Perhaps its best to leave everything up to the players and stop interfering with their game by adding or changing the rogues.
Remove the whole mechanism currently in place that increase rogues when noble region ratios are low.
The Adam Smith or the natural evolution way.
Looking back i think i would have personally preferred that.

[Chenier]

On a tangeant note... is Dwilight heading towards a new food crisis?

Realms are focused around city cores and as realms were shrunk to increase density, rural outliers were abandonned. The monsters enforcing density are not only eating through a ton of the realms' stocks, but also cutting down their production capacity, while barely lowering their consumption. I remember calculating back in the day that if Dwilight was at 100% population, it would starve itself, having too much population for its potention food output. I think the values might have changed since, and thankfully Darfix isn't colonized (it was a huge part of the problem), but looking at the food stats, the only realms in the "safe" food supply zone are tiny, almost all realms are at the unsafe or outright deficit level.

Devs might want to think about the food situation the monsters are bringing before an actual crisis breaks out, because I suspect Dwilight is burning its stockpiles fairly quickly.

[Ulfang]

On a tangeant note... is Dwilight heading towards a new food crisis?

Realms are focused around city cores and as realms were shrunk to increase density, rural outliers were abandonned. The monsters enforcing density are not only eating through a ton of the realms' stocks, but also cutting down their production capacity, while barely lowering their consumption. I remember calculating back in the day that if Dwilight was at 100% population, it would starve itself, having too much population for its potention food output. I think the values might have changed since, and thankfully Darfix isn't colonized (it was a huge part of the problem), but looking at the food stats, the only realms in the "safe" food supply zone are tiny, almost all realms are at the unsafe or outright deficit level.

Devs might want to think about the food situation the monsters are bringing before an actual crisis breaks out, because I suspect Dwilight is burning its stockpiles fairly quickly.

I think you're spot on there. I know D'Hara has be struggling for a while as have some other realms. Madina is surviving but every region is on reduced rations.

[Nosferatus]

Speeding up the process due to food shortage is probably good, the sooner we can get back fighting each other.
As long as it isnt too lethal.

[Ulfang]

Moving the country Russia into the USA for example could be done, but that still woudn't be the same Russia.

It couldn't actually. Russia's landmass is almost twice the size of the U.S.A 

[Foxglove]

The interesting thing is that the three highest populated realms in Dwilight are those that border the West - Westgard; Astrum; and D'Hara. Below that, you have Westfold which is a bit further inland to the East. As has been said before, those realms are not really the problem. They're all clearly doing something right to maintain their player levels. In Westgard, we've managed to maintain the highest player density on Dwilight in spite of constantly being hammer by monsters and undead. Or perhaps partly because of it, since we probably attract people who enjoy the PvE gameplay.

The thing is that to obtain the 'desireable' player density over all of Dwilight is probably not achieveable if it involves losing 42 regions as Zakky mentioned the other day. Given the current flow of monsters from West to East that probably means losing 4.5 entire realms (some combination of Madina; D'Hara; Astrum; Westgard; or Avernus or Arnor or Fissoa) depending on how the monsters migrate.

We know that enforced player migrations due to realms being destroyed simply don't work. Please let's at least say we've learned that from the disasterous ice age experiment. Players will quit the island (and inevitably the game in a few cases), which will drive down the playerbase on the island, also driving down the player density. Then you need to lose more player controlled regions because your player density has gone down again. Rinse and repeat until you're left with just a small core of players who are left clinging to their devotion to the island. We saw exactly this happen on FEI following the ice age. We don't need to repeat old mistakes.

[GundamMerc]

The interesting thing is that the three highest populated realms in Dwilight are those that border the West - Westgard; Astrum; and D'Hara. Below that, you have Westfold which is a bit further inland to the East. As has been said before, those realms are not really the problem. They're all clearly doing something right to maintain their player levels. In Westgard, we've managed to maintain the highest player density on Dwilight in spite of constantly being hammer by monsters and undead. Or perhaps partly because of it, since we probably attract people who enjoy the PvE gameplay.

The thing is that to obtain the 'desireable' player density over all of Dwilight is probably not achieveable if it involves losing 42 regions as Zakky mentioned the other day. Given the current flow of monsters from West to East that probably means losing 4.5 entire realms (some combination of Madina; D'Hara; Astrum; Westgard; or Avernus or Arnor or Fissoa) depending on how the monsters migrate.

We know that enforced player migrations due to realms being destroyed simply don't work. Please let's at least say we've learned that from the disasterous ice age experiment. Players will quit the island (and inevitably the game in a few cases), which will drive down the playerbase on the island, also driving down the player density. Then you need to lose more player controlled regions because your player density has gone down again. Rinse and repeat until you're left with just a small core of players who are left clinging to their devotion to the island. We saw exactly this happen on FEI following the ice age. We don't need to repeat old mistakes.

Exactly this. I just don't see why Zakky is stuck in this old mindset when it's been demonstrated to not work repeatedly.

[Zakilevo]

The interesting thing is that the three highest populated realms in Dwilight are those that border the West - Westgard; Astrum; and D'Hara. Below that, you have Westfold which is a bit further inland to the East. As has been said before, those realms are not really the problem. They're all clearly doing something right to maintain their player levels. In Westgard, we've managed to maintain the highest player density on Dwilight in spite of constantly being hammer by monsters and undead. Or perhaps partly because of it, since we probably attract people who enjoy the PvE gameplay.

The thing is that to obtain the 'desireable' player density over all of Dwilight is probably not achieveable if it involves losing 42 regions as Zakky mentioned the other day. Given the current flow of monsters from West to East that probably means losing 4.5 entire realms (some combination of Madina; D'Hara; Astrum; Westgard; or Avernus or Arnor or Fissoa) depending on how the monsters migrate.

We know that enforced player migrations due to realms being destroyed simply don't work. Please let's at least say we've learned that from the disasterous ice age experiment. Players will quit the island (and inevitably the game in a few cases), which will drive down the playerbase on the island, also driving down the player density. Then you need to lose more player controlled regions because your player density has gone down again. Rinse and repeat until you're left with just a small core of players who are left clinging to their devotion to the island. We saw exactly this happen on FEI following the ice age. We don't need to repeat old mistakes.

And that is exactly why I do not agree with this idea of forcing players into a certain scenario. I do not know why after failing it on multiple times, some people think forcing people into a smaller area will work. It will only make people leave. Sure we have plateaued but doing this to destroy more realms will simply just make us probably lose another 50 players. Then what? Do we go down to 40 regions? I just feels like the whole idea relies on people's love for the game to be strong enough to stay with the game. All of this should have been done in one go back during the ice age. You can't just repeat the same thing over and over. But for now, the plan is to shove people into a smaller area and limiting growth. If you want to convince the dev team to drop this idea, then you will have to convince Anaris or Vita so come up with something brilliant to convince them because I can't.

[Chenier]

While I enjoy my time in Westgard, it should also be noted that it considerably dwindled over what it once was: it now has a lot less nobles than before, and the great density is partly a result of losing almost all regions it had. That  being said, it remains one of the most populous realms.

[Gabanus family]

Personally I a much more in doubt on this subject.

I was among those in Barca when the decision was made and after LN took back Shinnen Purlieus for the first time I decided in stead I was done with Dwilight for a while and moved Goriad to the Far-East and only much later moved him back to Dwilight when I heard some interesting stuff was happening and Far East was meh (no, this was before the sinking, would have been worse to have him relocate 2 cause of that !@#$ xD).

With this in mind I very well understand the position that many are expressing here. Starting over entirely is difficult enough (I know, had to do it often enough in my entire BM career) but doing so not because you lost a war but because you were forced to move through code will make it far worse.

With that said I also understand the devs though with their argument that the player density has decreased greatly and no longer allows for complete expansion over the entire island. This is their answer as solution, although I am starting to agree that forced migration hasn't worked well so far, which means we should try to avoid it.

At the same time there must come a solution, or not? I once proposed recently to allow longer travel again without the moral penalties to allow long range warfare to become a thing again. If that would be coupled to closing the West again (meaning Astrum loses Eidulb, Westgard moves to the north-east but are allowed to do so properly) I think we would create a situation that's atleast manageable. That is the solution that I could think of, but the question then becomes, how many would disagree with this again because of... whatever.

[Zakilevo]

While I enjoy my time in Westgard, it should also be noted that it considerably dwindled over what it once was: it now has a lot less nobles than before, and the great density is partly a result of losing almost all regions it had. That  being said, it remains one of the most populous realms.

Well some people left when they realized, Westgard was never going to become a dominant force and will always fight monsters. Some thought they could establish a very strong realm to influence other eastern realms but that was not why the realm was created in the first place. People wanted some stuff like game of thrones and when they got it they wanted another BM realm.

[Foxglove]

I've never actually been convinced we've correctly identified the problems. Perhaps that's why the solutions fail. Also, each island will have different problems and any solutions need to be specifically tailored to each island rather than trying a catch-all fix like the ice age.

Looking at Dwilight, there does seem to be a pretty good level of interaction between many realms and there are already enough realms close to each other to provide wars. There seems to be a reasonable level of international diplomacy going on. It's hard to say what interaction is like inside each realm, but that's a player problem rather than a game/Dev problem since no-one can force people to write letters to up the levels of internal interaction within a realm.

So what problems are there specific to Dwilight that need solutions? Well, we have Madina and Fissoa isolated down in the south. Whether that's a problem depends on if the players down there are bored and frustrated by their location. There might well be enough to keep them busy with fighting monster hordes. There seems to be a bit of an assumption that the western hordes kill the PvP aspect of the game, but that relies on a very narrow interpretation of PvP as battles between realms. But there's also the political aspect with people trying for political power; also opportunities for internal religious strife if people create it; and stuff like that. It's entirely possible to have both external PvE situations running alongside internal PvP situations. Also, the Zuma could be used to increase levels of interest in the south of the map. They don't really seem to do very much.

Trying to restrict expansion over the entire map isn't necessarily a bad thing in itself. But destroying realms to do it is a bad thing. We know that has a negative impact on players and their feelings about the game. Nevertheless, if the idea is to use the monster hordes to push people into smaller areas, perhaps it needs to be pushing them towards the middle of the map rather than into one side or the other. If you had all of the realms arranged around the coastlines of the central body of water you then have the central islands as natural battlegrounds and you also maintain the seabourn warfare aspect. With all realms arranged in a loose circle around the central body of water, you pretty much have the chance for anyone to fight anyone else.

While I enjoy my time in Westgard, it should also be noted that it considerably dwindled over what it once was: it now has a lot less nobles than before, and the great density is partly a result of losing almost all regions it had. That  being said, it remains one of the most populous realms.

Westgard was always going to lose a proportion of the nobles who migrated there simply because not everyone would decide to continue playing on Dwilight.

[Chenier]

The most logical place to concentrate realms is in the North-East, and Luria Nova is the only realm without any significant proximity (and it also happens to be the one with the worst density, or close to it if not). But I also don't really think destroying realms for the sake of destroying realms is beneficial. I also think that obsessing over density can be dangerous. If you kill Luria Nova, for example, and all six players quit the game, you'll have increased Dwilight's average density. But did you really do it a favor by chasing away 6 players? While they might not all quit, the risk remains, and it goes to illustrate that a continental average is an indicator that isn't without flaws. Equally, if Fissoa, Swordfell, and Luria Nova take over a bunch of regions, the average density will decrease, and what will happen? More hordes will spawn and shrink Madina, D'Hara, Astrum, Westgard, and Avernus. And there's very little to prevent this cycle from just continuing forever, untill all frontier realms die. The very realms that also happen to be the most populous. Do you really want to risk killing all the most populous realms, because the least populous onces decide to overexpand?

Personally, I feel if the eastern rogue regions would spawn large hordes (as I am told they once did), the rest would be pretty much fine. Luria might die from the hordes, but for the reasons stated above, if one realm is to die to increase the continental average, that's probably the best one. Not sure why they lost all their nobles, but fair to say they aren't what they used to be. And even with the crap ton of nobles they once had, their geography severely limited their capacity to interact with neighbors.

PvE was a large part of Dwi for a long time, and I think it'd be reasonnable for many realms to experience a certain level of it. But I also think it'd be fair to offer some realms which are largely protected from it, or at least don't have their existence threatened by it. I think any "one-size-fits-all" measure that applies equally to everyone is bound to fail, because not all players seek the same thing from this game, and diversity is the spice of life, not having 4-7 cookie-cutter carbon copy realms. If the monsters were no longer able to travel any body of water by any means (sea routes or sea travel), then all those people who absolutely despise the idea of rogues destroying their realms could flock to Madina, D'Hara, and Astrum, according to how much of a safe core they desire, and how much potential to project power abroad. You'd then have a broad spectrum of realms to fit everyone's taste in monster exposure, risk from monsters, and potential to project onto neighboring lands.

[Ulfang]

Having read a lot of comments on this thread I do believe that some Dev's and probably some players don't understand how a lot of the player base view this game. Although on the face of it this is a wargame it isn't really. It's partly a wargame but it's also a role playing game. Many players love the rich RP and the history that's been created by player the role of a character. Saying well you just need to move the players of this realm here or there is abhorrent to some players. You're ripping the atmosphere from the game. The very reason some enjoy the game is for that background that it has taken years to create. Background not only for characters but for regions and cities, families etc.

So NO! Forcing a realm to fall. Forcing players out is a backward approach. I've invested too much into my character on Dwilight just to quit but I would move to another continent before being forced to leave my home. Not so for met realm mates. Many have already said they would just quit. I assume the same would happen in other realms such as D'Hara. It does seem that the plan for this continent will lead to its own destruction.

Madinan nobles will fight to the bitter end against the hordes but will not leave their homes for another realm or for the relocation of their realm. Madina isn't in the north or in the midlands. It is in the South and always will be.

[Zakilevo]

Maybe removing southern realms from the character creation selection will work. If you don't want people to end up in the south, just don't allow players to join them but leave the existing players to enjoy what they have.

Wish we had more players. That would solve everything but we don't and there isn't too many options left that meet the requirements.

The current method is pretty much a minor copy of the ice age which devs admitted it did not work.