dcdc
Shartist
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Post by dcdc on Mar 3, 2014 23:02:58 GMT -5
And those who use it as an excuse to close off even more of the known, to get rid of more quit/save rooms, should feel bad.
I admittedly maybe... kind of just spend my time a little far out, not always interacting with city folk.
But I find city life at times, with a dead rinth, or a dead town... shitty. So shitty.
At lest out in the sands I can role play peacefully. Out there, coming across another character can lead to some... interesting scenes... sometimes dive you head first into a plot.
I find that when some one says " diluting the playerbase" what they are really saying is " I want to force more players to deal with my city character" or "I don't like wilderness/ranger characters so I'll make it harder for them to play, or give them no reason too"
Although I maybe taking Delusion's post out of context in that thread, its the whole concept that bothers me.
Dilution isn't an issue, it doesn't exist. It's this made up thing to force more solo explorer types to confine to the preferred social play style. It's to force magicker characters to expose them selves earlier and thus more vulnerable.
It's to further control the player base.
Because lets face it, everyone is a control freak. They don't like the concept that a story may unfold leagues from any city, and that it might be awesome and that their Lord Fancy Pants is going to miss it.
It's a way so staff can skate by. The can remove content at a whim, and never have to replace it or bother to build onto it.
Diluting the player base isn't a thing, and you should feel bad for even thinking it.
/rant off
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2014 23:20:18 GMT -5
Yeah, I tried to explain this while I was on staff in 2010. Deleting quit rooms isn't going to force the playerbase to consolidate. It's just going to chase off the people who would play but only in those areas.
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Post by lulz on Mar 4, 2014 0:21:24 GMT -5
Just forces more people to play rangers. That's never a bad thing.  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2014 1:27:26 GMT -5
People's play where they want. They play where the fun is, where they find their fun.
Making other places less fun or more difficult to play is a disservice to the overall game. A more effective strategy would be to make the desired areas of play (the two cities) more fun or attractive to players.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2014 1:44:42 GMT -5
That's the tack I've always taken, same with clanned vs indie. If you want more people to be clanned, the way to do it is to make clans more enjoyable, not to make indies more shitty.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2014 2:05:13 GMT -5
Something does have to give. The game is currently set up in a way that it would take about 200 players online at a time to fill it properly. There's four starting locations and what, thirty? clans that can be joined from scratch. It just doesn't really function, so they do have to either consolidate the playerbase or cull the clans that are never sufficiently populated.
The latter might seem more sensible, but it wouldn't do a whole lot to change the fact that the cities are chronically underpopulated. Say what you want, the problem stems from the fact that half the playerbase is living in caves and camps and just wandering around the desert roleplaying with themselves and the three people they meet per day.
There's no sense claiming that there's no such thing as diluting the playerbase. It has been going on for years, helped along by things like the Reborn farce which made people try all sorts of advanced roles and thus lose touch with the fundamentals of the game. As long as people prefer to dick around in obscure places without contributing to the game in any real way - regardless of the fact that the blame lies in part with the staff's failure to keep city-play interesting and attractive - this problem will persist.
With 50-60ish players online at peak (and all the way down to <5 during off-peak), having like thirty open clans and four starting locations is the epitome of dilution. There was a time when most people chose to play in the cities and their clans, and it was rare to live out in the wastes, but those times are long gone.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2014 2:35:35 GMT -5
Frankly, I think they should nuke Tuluk, thus closing about 1/3 of the clans. And consolidating city players together into a main city. And leave the wilderness as it is.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2014 2:45:52 GMT -5
They won't.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2014 2:51:21 GMT -5
I know they won't. They can't be assed to do a whole lot less than that. But that is how I would solve the problem, personally. And not just that, I would make the entire northlands much more dangerous the further beyond Luir's you get, and add in some less lethal wildlife in the south to make the hunting better and more diverse.
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Patuk
Shartist
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Post by Patuk on Mar 4, 2014 2:58:46 GMT -5
I do think it's a thing. The more places you could feasibly live in, with people seeking those out, the more diluted the playerbase does get.
The question is whether or not you think this is a problem, and if so, how you want to solve it; do you add players, remove areas, and if yes, which ones?
It isn't an easy matter, I guess. I'd like to have any actual hard numbers on the amounts of players in places, but yeah, not gonna happen.
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dcdc
Shartist
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Post by dcdc on Mar 4, 2014 6:31:35 GMT -5
I still disagree. It forces players into a box.
For a world that's suppose to be vast wastes fill with secrecy and intrigue, slashing parts the world in a whole sale manner doesn't make much sense to me.
And thus Anaiahs point is very valid. Some of these players who prefer the lone wanderer roles or wilderness role play will just quit. Their preferred play style isn't supported, in fact its attack from all sides.
Whats worse? A supposed "dilution" or lose of 10.. maybe even 20 players? It's possible, if more roles/styles are further gimped or made difficult to even pull off.
Also these character tend to move towards the plots anyways, so the eventually end up where they need to be, when they are needed.
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Patuk
Shartist
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Post by Patuk on Mar 4, 2014 6:47:10 GMT -5
I'm not saying it's a good phenomenon, just that it's there, and that the playerbase -is- diluted the bigger you make the game. I don't know whether or not slashing game areas or expanding them is good for the game, so I'm not going to comment on the effect of it. I just don't know.
I can say however that a veritable fuckton of people seem to either play in the middle of nowhere or just keep to themselves 24/7. I regularly check all taverns in whichever place I am every night whilst spamming the WHO command, and the numbers never add up. Something is not right there.
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Lizzie
Clueless newb
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Post by Lizzie on Mar 4, 2014 8:15:13 GMT -5
Everyone's playing sneaks with master hide, just to avoid you nantafiria.
That, or, y'know, tavern sitting is lame as hell and nobody does it.
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Post by musashi on Mar 4, 2014 8:48:19 GMT -5
Everyone's playing sneaks with master hide, just to avoid you nantafiria. That, or, y'know, tavern sitting is lame as hell and nobody does it. Agreed. Who gives a shit if you can't find someone to talk to on a barstool at a given time. It's a game, not IRC. If you want more interaction you're certainly welcome to join a clan, move to a more populated area, or whatever. There's always going to be lows in available people, but it doesn't mean the playerbase is dilluted. Is the Byn taking Kadius to Tuluk? -15 players in the city. Is Tor and the AOD out killing spiders? -15 players in the city. Did you miss the arena bells? -25 players in the bar. "My preferred gameplay style suffers, therefor we should amend that other play style" is a false sentiment. Asinine level: Politics. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2014 14:00:51 GMT -5
Allow me to restate my thoughts here: Dilution exists. Deletion is more harmful.
While, yes, there are places for players to be in cities to find more interaction, and some people in cities aren't finding it (due to clans, unless things have vastly changed since 2011, because at least half the players are typically NOT in the wastes or the taverns but in PRIVATE CLAN HALLS because of SCHEDULES), but that does not mean that nuking the wilderness will be helpful. Ways I think this can be addressed:
1. Nuke a city state (not likely, but 1/3-1/4 of clans gone, off the top), make it Tuluk (even when Tuluk is 'hopping', there are only about 2/3 the players there that there are in Allanak, and it would thus inconvenience fewer players). Then city based people who enjoy clans and tavern sitting will, for the most part, be in the same place, and this will increase interaction abilities for all of them.
2. Leave Luir's and Red Storm alone, because they both have a valid reason to exist. Luir's is actually a trade outpost, and a clan hall, and should really be treated as such. Red Storm is a lawless outpost that supports a more egalitarian system, and thus is has a good sized niche.
3. Add onto and build secret findable places in the wilderness while keeping its size much the same so that wilderness players have a better chance to encounter each other in the wastes looking for them, and/or fight over them.
4. Allow unlimited people on an apartment lease on all apartments left over to encourage player to player interaction even among indies in private rooms, it also allows for things to feel grittier because much like in a 3rd world country, more people are lumped into that small, shitty room.
5. Make the world progressively more dangerous as you move out from the one main city, so that it is genuinely risky to go to Luir's or Red Storm and PERILOUS to get to Cenyr, thus encouraging more of the low powered wilderness players to consolidate while still letting them roam, and also setting up an opportunity for truly dangerous people to be found the further from civilization you go, to a more logical extent than it is now (you know the group I am referring to - 85% of players will never get to that area of the game, because the PLAYERS don't know about it or how to get to it, and it's too dangerous if they did.)
6. Give the merchant houses something more to compete over, like a very SMALL deposit where metal can be mined rarely (maybe one in 5000 forage attempts kind of rare), let them hash it out over the thing.
7. Open up the Tor academy again, so that the Wyverns players have someone to feel like they can have rivalry with. I think this will lead to more longevity.
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