DeletedUser61
Guest
This thread is about SHIFTING ISOLATED CITIES towards the interior of the World Map.
This is a feasibility study, rather than a suggestion, as I mostly want to ensure that all of the moving parts are accounted for. While some algorithmic approaches are offered, based on educated guesses, without actual knowledge of the database schema there's no point in being overly specific. We'll be discussing three areas:
My earlier approach was comprehensive, and emphasized frequent small shifts for all cities, such that
ARCHIVING
When a city hasn't been developed, when it's not sponsored by a premium account, and when it's been inactive for 30+ days, simply deleting the city is the obvious thing to do.
If you look at the global roster, and find the lowest ranked city with a positive score (it will be somewhere near the 30th percentile), you can verify that ALL of the cities with a positive rank are on the world map, while only a few of the zero or negative score cities have been assigned a sector on the world map.
There are good business/legal reasons for retaining cities that have taken a lot of time to develop and/or cities that are sponsored by premium accounts, but there no need to display cities on the world map if they've been inactive for 30+ days. Archived cities might as well stay in the global roster (for at least several weeks) so that the city could be visited, without cluttering up the map. This is already the case for most of the cities in the lower third of the roster.
When a city is removed from the world map, it leaves an empty sector that can be:
There are a great many opportunities to improve database efficiency when you're looking for an empty slot, but for our purposes we'll assume that a new player gets dropped into the oldest available sector, while returning players will be dropped into the oldest available sector that has the right boosts.
This is a feasibility study, rather than a suggestion, as I mostly want to ensure that all of the moving parts are accounted for. While some algorithmic approaches are offered, based on educated guesses, without actual knowledge of the database schema there's no point in being overly specific. We'll be discussing three areas:
- Archiving unattended cities, even though they have substantial development and/or are sponsored by a premium account
- Retrieving archived cities, if and when the owner logs in, and their placement on the World Map
- Moving a city, which can be accomplished by archiving and then immediately retrieving the city, and the selection criteria for selecting eligible cities.
- https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/climbing-the-penrose-stairs.2312/
- https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/climbing-the-penrose-stairs.116/#post-975
My earlier approach was comprehensive, and emphasized frequent small shifts for all cities, such that
- Highly ranked players spiraled toward the center of the map
- Low activity players drifted toward the fringes of the map
- There was no preservation of local city + relic combinations
- Isolated Cities, those with fewer than 9 active neighbors out of the nearest 18 city sectors, are moved toward the centerline of the map ONLY if there is an appropriate empty city sector.
- City + Relic combinations are preserved, so you'll simple have some new/different neighbors.
- While there is no deliberate attempt to group advanced players, all movement is toward the centerline of the map, so advanced cities will thereby tend to cluster near the center of the World Map.
ARCHIVING
When a city hasn't been developed, when it's not sponsored by a premium account, and when it's been inactive for 30+ days, simply deleting the city is the obvious thing to do.
If you look at the global roster, and find the lowest ranked city with a positive score (it will be somewhere near the 30th percentile), you can verify that ALL of the cities with a positive rank are on the world map, while only a few of the zero or negative score cities have been assigned a sector on the world map.
There are good business/legal reasons for retaining cities that have taken a lot of time to develop and/or cities that are sponsored by premium accounts, but there no need to display cities on the world map if they've been inactive for 30+ days. Archived cities might as well stay in the global roster (for at least several weeks) so that the city could be visited, without cluttering up the map. This is already the case for most of the cities in the lower third of the roster.
- The archived player should receive a notice that their World Map will be temporarily unavailable while their city is being archived. Their explored sectors, relics, and rune shards will remain the same, but they will have a new set of neighbors so the visitation timers will all be reset.
- The archived player's OWN notification log should be cleared, and they will potentially lose the benefit of supplies that they might otherwise have obtained by returning a visit.
- The archived player should be purged from all other notification queues, although this is a moot point for a truly inactive player, as the notifications would have long since expired.
- Ancient Wonder with a partially completed level that has OTHER contributors dshould remain available for a few weeks, so that the Rune Shards can be harvested, but perhaps the Ancient Wonders would be the ONLY interactive element in the archived city. Once the city is altogether pruned from the roster, any Knowledge Points that were invested in a partial level would no longer be accessible unless the owner started playing again
- If the "archive" is part of an immediate move, then the member should not be expelled from their Fellowship, but otherwise an archived city/player would be expelled from their Fellowship, with an appropriate note in the Fellowship mail.
- If the archived player was an Archmage, then the most recently active Mage or else Ambassador (if no Mages qualify) or else Fellow (if no Ambassadors qualify) would be promoted.
When a city is removed from the world map, it leaves an empty sector that can be:
- Claimed by an active, isolated City (which we'll discuss later)
- Claimed by a returning City/Player who has a matching boost
(There are only nine unique city + relic combinations) - Claimed by a new player, without regard for the boosts
There are a great many opportunities to improve database efficiency when you're looking for an empty slot, but for our purposes we'll assume that a new player gets dropped into the oldest available sector, while returning players will be dropped into the oldest available sector that has the right boosts.