Potential for large-scale conflict? (Wars, battles, etc.)

[Swingerzetta]

Actually, yeah, the political stuff, small-scale as it has been, has always been so much more interesting than direct violence. It would be pretty hard to enact such a thing now, though, really. Maybe if consumer culture became thing, and everyone in Cantr was suddenly desperate to get the new iTelescope and the gemstones were being closely guarded...

[kicking jay]

Personally? I think the islands are too damn big and too far apart. Archipelagos are where it's at.

Even Treefeather, lively though it is, would be much more interesting if it were a slew of smaller islands, a couple about 15/25 some towns big, but plenty only 2 or 3 towns small. Regional politics would be so much more interesting.

Noniwrok's pretty good sized, IMO, but even Aki is just huge, really.

Don't even get me started on Fu.

Now, the size of the islands may have been fine previously when there were so many characters, and I don't think the Polish islands have much of a problem, but I really believe that the current situation on the English islands isn't conducive to highly-politicized RP.

[Pies]

Now, the size of the islands may have been fine previously when there were so many characters, and I don't think the Polish islands have much of a problem, but I really believe that the current situation on the English islands isn't conducive to highly-politicized RP.

Polish islands are mostly populated by ghost towns too. Maybe they are a bit more populated then Threefeather (I don't know second island), but only a bit. Set of Polish islands is I think a bit bigger then Threefeather+Pok, and we have about 30% more characters, mostly thanks to worser ratio - I believe not many foreigners spawn Polish chars, while it can't be said about English chars. Simple statistics: 35,5% of players are Poles, while 49% of chars are Polish. And keep in mind, that we play in other languages too.

Often there isn't much politics between towns, as many towns live by them own. It can look a bit different at V*, but, well.. Only cities comparable with Vlotryan are far enough to not give a damn thing about.

[Marian]

Personally? I think the islands are too damn big and too far apart.

I've been saying this for years, but someone usually starts loudly protesting about how we need a hundred billion empty locations so if people want they can still play hermits who only RP with themselves or whatever.

Maybe I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure a few giant continents could be quietly sunk under the ocean without effecting that kind of playstyle at all...I'd love to see some actual statistics on numbers of characters vs locations. And how many empty towns there are.

[kicking jay]

What I'd find interesting?

Every day, out of all the locations that contain nobody in them, nobody in the towns adjacent to them, nor anybody on the roads next to those towns which are adjacent to it, one town is randomly selected and sunk into the sea. The process repeats until the town-killing program can't find any more towns to sink for ten consecutive days, at which point the map stops changing.




I challenge a member of the ProgD to write up a script which does this and let it run but not actually change the map, and show us what the map looks like after a few hundred days.


Of course, Fu's ****ing huge: maybe it should do this once every tick?!

[computaertist]

What I'd find interesting?

Every day, out of all the locations that contain nobody in them, nobody in the towns adjacent to them, nor anybody on the roads next to those towns which are adjacent to it, one town is randomly selected and sunk into the sea. The process repeats until the town-killing program can't find any more towns to sink for ten consecutive days, at which point the map stops changing.




I challenge a member of the ProgD to write up a script which does this and let it run but not actually change the map, and show us what the map looks like after a few hundred days.


Of course, Fu's ****ing huge: maybe it should do this once every tick?!

Make sure not to sink too many places with already super rare things and I'm all for it.

[Pies]

Every day, out of all the locations that contain nobody in them, nobody in the towns adjacent to them, nor anybody on the roads next to those towns which are adjacent to it, one town is randomly selected and sunk into the sea. The process repeats until the town-killing program can't find any more towns to sink for ten consecutive days, at which point the map stops changing.

I challenge a member of the ProgD to write up a script which does this and let it run but not actually change the map, and show us what the map looks like after a few hundred days.

Well... Last time we get protests, that changing pizza to require cheese is definitely too big intervention into game that changes something already established. Because characters will have to create cookbooks once more, recalculate trade rates etc.
I believe, that destroying whole continents is much more distributive, and there would be protests as well, because maps would have to be repainted etc.

There is definitely a lot of work for ProgD (mostly GreeK), and creating such scripts that won't be run on game would be pretty much a waste of time.

Also, pretty much you're asking just for a map where characters live. You would have to ask PD, but I believe, that as publishing maps outside of game isn't allowed, then publishing map showing where characters are would be even more against rules.

[computaertist]

The problem with pizza isn't so much the cookbooks as the character's memories themselves. It makes exactly 0 possible sense of any kind in any universe that suddenly everybody completely forgets how something used to be done. But land sinking into the sea? Happens even in real life. No more iron (a particular natural resource) running out after years of being dug up, so now we have to make it from more complex things? Also makes perfect sense. The introduction of skills where people who used to be experts suddenly become awkward is a whole lot harder to explain away, but it can be done: injury, old age, illness... But the very process by which something used to be made just suddenly not working anymore even though all the same ingredients and machines and fuels are just as readily available as ever? How does one begin to explain that? I'd roll with it mostly by ignoring it, but I can't blame people for not wanting to ignore something that's so integral to their characters, something they do so very often and so recently. (I personally don't have any characters that work quite frequently enough with pastry dough for it to be a big deal to them, but I have seen several who do.)

Of course publishing the maps is an obvious CRB, but I'm all for the rest, minding the super rare things.

[Pies]

So go for it. I'm definitely for destroying most of world, but before any work from ProgD side, there have to be acceptance. There is no reason code something that won't be pushed to game.

[Marian]

What I'd find interesting?

Every day, out of all the locations that contain nobody in them, nobody in the towns adjacent to them, nor anybody on the roads next to those towns which are adjacent to it, one town is randomly selected and sunk into the sea. The process repeats until the town-killing program can't find any more towns to sink for ten consecutive days, at which point the map stops changing.

This is brilliant, give this man a medal of some kind.

Though I admit, even though I know it would never ever happen, a really twisted part of me wants to see Cantr Island and Treefeather do the Atlantis thing as well... I like to imagine both islands are on a fault line and the sheer weight of all the buildings and vehicles and machines and years and years of accumulated resources were just too much for those fragile little plates to take, especially considering all the unfettered mining and drilling that's been done over the years. All it takes is a particularly fat newspawn poofing into existence on a critical spot and BAM, straw that broke a continent's back.

Everyone's characters could be washed safely to shore somewhere else by a friendly passing tidal wave, but still I imagine the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on the forum would be glorious.

[kicking jay]

What was that one dude who spawned back in Olip a few cyears ago?

IDK what happened to him, my char lit out of town but I know Shaudau (is that it?) was there at the time.

The first thing he did was start eating and rolling around in piles of sugar. Another of him and that'd do the trick, no?

[Marian]

In answer to my question in the statistics thread, of how many empty locations there were in the game:

A lot.
8165 of 9217 were not visited in last 20 days.

2635 have no sign of ever being visited (completely empty).
3557 have no buildings, vehicles and objects except notes or envelopes.

Those numbers are more dramatic than I thought, and absolutely insane for a game with 700 players.

So I'm gonna take this to mean that a friendly meteor impact/earthquake/tidal wave combo could get rid of at least 3000 or so locations or so without even a chance of effecting any characters at all. 4 or 5 thousand would probably be better.

[Snickie]

Basically like 95% of Fu just needs to disappear.
And maybe 70% of Pangaea as well (I don't know how many people/active towns in that area).

[Shaudawn]

What was that one dude who spawned back in Olip a few cyears ago?

IDK what happened to him, my char lit out of town but I know Shaudau (is that it?) was there at the time.

The first thing he did was start eating and rolling around in piles of sugar. Another of him and that'd do the trick, no?

Wow. Something about that sounds vaguely familiar, but it must've been really brief or maybe I was away on vacation. We've had a couple of odd ones, though. I remember one guy tried eating cotton, but quickly gave that up. Elzebann?

If we're going for apocalyptic scenarios, though, how about something really creative, like a herd of a thousand wissants stampeding through a town. Or maybe a sharknado! Come on. You know you want it.

[ObsessedWithCats]

I can get behind any plan to sink the majority of Fu I'd like to sink Treefeather too but that's a personal vendetta not something that would achieve much OTOH if you were to sink Treefeather with some in-game warning there would be a lot of people clamouring for boats, and that might lead to conflict.