A core island

[Doug R.]

Now with dynamic spawning, your odds of spawing in the middle of nowhere are about as good as spawning somewhere. However, this is a big problem in regards to showcasing the game to new players. If I spawn my first character in the middle of a desolate swamp, why am I going to want to continue to play?

My suggestion is that perhaps every English speaker's first character be spawned on a small island, like K-isle or Shai. Even the smallest towns there have at least one active person in them, and new players would then get to see the game in a very good light, and hopefully increase player retention.

[Chris Johnson]

Something like this sounds good for all language areas - What I'd recommend is that we use the original spawning points method in this case (probably just have to remove a couple of the english ones - at least one of the old English ones is now totally deserted - not a great place to end up ... especially as its on Aki ) - or (had another idea as I type) we use the density spawning as normal but only select from locations with populations of 10 or 15 or more of that language

I've moved this to accepted suggestions

[Jos Elkink]

I like the second version of the suggestion - first chars spawn only in towns with N>20 or something ...

[Doug R.]

Wow. I was expecting that one to go over like a lead balloon.

[Rusalka]

If you want to do it Chris, you should make spawning locations, or another option - make a different algorithm for newbies - they should spawn in locations with at least 5 other chars. By the way, I'm sometimes really upset when my char discovers a new, secret island, spend a night on the beach, and it is enough time for 3-4 new characters to spawn.

[Doug R.]

Just kill them all!

[SekoETC]

Or make them your slaves! The problem seems to be that they tend to die off if you can't brainwash them completely.

[Duckers]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but... I don't like that idea. If this goes through, then eventually the smaller islands will be full of idiotic people, spending their days hitting eachother with bone clubs and saying things like "oops gt 2 rfresh screeen". That would be hell. At least, when they spawn on large islands, they tend to be more spread-out.

[Duckers]

What?! Where's the edit button? Sorry about that.

I removed the double posting for you --Seko

[notsure]

Plus, some language areas don't have towns of 15 people altogether.

notsure

[Talapus]

Plus, some language areas don't have towns of 15 people altogether.

notsure

Correct, only the lithuanian, turkish, polish, spanish, german, dutch, and english areas have any high population locations. The french, russian, swedish, esperanto, portuguese, and chinese areas would have to use some other type of choice to place their spawns (although if they tend to be placed in a few specific areas, they may easily start to form some high population locations).

[Rusalka]

although if they tend to be placed in a few specific areas, they may easily start to form some high population locations.

Exactly. That system is good for low populated areas, and bad for dense ones. Cities with 40 or 50 citizens, usually have unemployment, and are trying to send their cantrians to the countryside.

[Black Canyon]

If I understand this correctly, it will only apply to the first character created by a new player. Correct? If so, this shouldn't have a significant impact on cantr populations anywhere.

If I am mistaken, please clarify.

[Doug R.]

You are not mistaken.

[Chris Johnson]

This has now been implemented

Normal chance of any location being selected is proportional to the square root of that languages population. For the first 2 characters of any player the probability of selection is proportional to the square of the population.

This means that there is a much greater propensity to spawn the first two character in a higher population area (of the same language group) than subsequent characters

A straight forward cut-off for high population locations doesn't work with all language areas so this probablistic method works better. This was also a much easier way to implement this feature.

There is also a specific reason why this is done for the first two characters - When an account is opened a ghost character is immediately created - if there is a delay in the account being accepted and a subsequent delay in the new player accessing the account that first character may time out (new player ghost characters only have a 7 day life) - so in many cases the first character played is technically the 2nd
character.