I've been thinking... with all the recent changes, where will this game end up in?
Large vs Small Realm sizes:
At the moment there are codes that discourage realms from being large while devs are allowing realms to merge at the same time. The devs have been saying they want to increase the density yet the game mechanic doesn't really encourage it much. It certainly discourages realms from being too small.
I think we can all agree, small realms are not good for the game for now. More people you have, more events you will get. That is a fact. Luria Nova is probably the best example of this. Before its split, it was one of the most active realms. After the split, both Lurias aren't as active as they once were despite them being connected through a large guild. The problem with this system is that the game doesn't really support the guild system that much. For Luria's current system to work, the game needs to allow nobles to join certain guilds right off the gate when they create their characters.
Since that is too much work, why not just encourage realms to be larger for now? I think 30 chars should be the new minimum. We already have the density limit at 1.7 (Maybe it will go a bit higher in time) and that should be more than enough limit. But for now we have another layer which discourages realms from getting large called 'base tax rate' which changes as you require more regions. I think the current version was added when the devs wanted more realms to be created? At one point, there was some push toward single city realms thinking that would encourage more conflicts. I think we now understand tiny single city realms are just not going to work. So why not remove base tax rate limit which pretty much hits bottom at 20 regions and cripples large realms. I think the game should go on with less realms to increase the activity level first. Once realms become full of people, they will fight among themselves and split even without codes or dev interventions.
