Author Topic: 15 Nobles! 15!!!!  (Read 17572 times)

pcw27

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Re: 15 Nobles! 15!!!!
« Reply #15: March 07, 2019, 12:39:36 AM »
Then volunteer your time rather then putting more expectations and responsibility onto our volunteer devs.

Activity/Viability is subjective. There is no real objective metric by which you can run an analysis, pretending we even have the required data stored to make an attempt. As with many things in BM the new limit is no doubt not set in stone, and will be reviewed as we move on, just like recent changes to militia.

Otherwise make your own argument about the limit to convince the devs that is more objective then "I want to colonise Darfix and the new limit makes my goal harder."

I don't know how to code but if you could supply the data I'd be happy to draw up some cor-plots for you. If the concern is new player retention then you would want to calculate the number of new characters that autopause in each realm in each game world and see if there's any recognizable pattern based on realm size, player density or message traffic.

It's a bit unfair to demand an objective assessment when it's already been admitted there is no objective information in favor of this change, however I can offer one even based on the limited information I have access to. Consider the fact that the majority of realms on Dwilight could never have been founded under these rules. I suggested 8-10 because in my experience that's the most you can reasonably expect to get together for something like this. Niselur was founded by over ten nobles, but definitely fewer than 15, which was considered an almost absurd number at the time. Remember this was back when the continent was new and we had a lot more players. Moving forward to today Tol Goldora, the newest realm in Dwilight had seven nobles at it's founding, it now has the third highest number of noble characters on the continent. The only realm in all of Dwilight I can think of that might have started with 15 nobles is Luria Ferratta. The only realm right now that could realistically found another under these rules is Westguard and as with Luria this would require splitting their population in two.

Nearly every realm in the history of Dwilight came into being because it was possible for a group of characters to get together for the sake of creating something new and exciting. You didn't have to be a king or a duke to do this. Anyone could put together a colony effort if they had the leadership skills necessary to gather enough ambitious nobles and it would succeed or fail based on the inherent challenges involved (and many failed, even now founding a realm is far from easy). Under these rules founding new realms, one of the most exciting and rewarding undertakings a player can be a part of, will be impossible for all but the single largest realm on the continent, and in that case would be of such a scale that it could only happen in a top-down manner involving the realm's highest elites deciding to partition themselves for some reason. The pioneering expeditions composed of enterprising characters looking to make their mark on the world and carve out a place for themselves from a hostile wilderness will be impossible. We might never see such an undertaking ever again. Words cannot express what a loss that will be.

You might say "well if we get more players..." or "well if character density improves..." well that's a hell of a thing to gamble on seeing as it hasn't happened in a good ten years. I honestly don't think our retention problem can be fixed by tinkering around with the mechanics, so any change made on the off chance that it might get newbies to stick around longer is little more than wishful thinking.


Although I hate the idea of having a hard limit on 15 chars required to create a realm, I think this is going toward the right direction.

To be honest, realms just don't function under 15. Heck even that isn't enough to have an 'active' realm. You probably want at least 20.

What I do not like is while the game now is encouraging people to merge realms, the old mechanics that punish large realms(basic tax rate) is still in place. Can we at least have that removed now that we have all these limits like 1.7 density limit and so on?

I think people should just try to form realms of 20+ nobles. 30 would be even better than 20. But from seeing what happened on 4th War Island, going over 40 seems to be too hard on people. People aren't used to hyperactivity. So I'd say the sweet spot is 20~39 area.

I must confess while all these changes are implemented to improve the density, there haven't really been that many changes to make the game more fun. There has been too much focus on how to increase retention rate by increasing density and so on but with more limits being added, you probably want to think about making the game more interesting and fun. You can add more limits but with each limit being added, the game does become less flexible.

The thing is, on Dwilight at least, new realms don't just stay small, they either grow or they die. Point in case, Tol Goldora.

Also I've been in underpopulated realms that were plenty active. Morek was far from silent when I was there and they still have just five nobles.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2019, 12:55:27 AM by pcw27 »