Suggestion for dealing with non-players.

[DeletedUser23637]

I am in a wasteland surrounded by non-players in Arendyll. I'm on Level 4 going on 5 and although I offer help to every single player surrounding me every day, my return helps are less than 5 per week. My suggestion is every time I, or other players offer help in those cities where no help is returned and no progress made- that city earns vulnerability points. Once that city has "X" number of vulnerability points, it becomes eligible to be commandeered and all items in that city can be pilfered. Some of those dead cities have some pretty sweet stuff that I could place in mine and/or disenchant. Only actual neighbors who have offered help in a dead city should be eligible to commandeer that city.

I would like to see the abandoned cities that have no play for a year eliminated. Then if it is possible, divide the bounty up between those that visited regularly. Being surrounded by so many nonplayers makes it hard to recruit new players. There has been times when life had to come before the game for me and others in our group. We all understand that, but obvious dead cities (a year) should be eliminated. Send the owners an email giving them a chance to come back or close their account.

 

[Ashrem]

Any attempt to get rid of something that people put a lot of time and/or money into is already risky. Dividing up between other players is riskier.

If Inno decides to divvy up the value of abandoned cities among other people (which I think is incredibly unlikely) I will trash every building in every city I have and never return to the game.

 

[shimmerfly]

Abandoned cities have been rehashed for years in this forum. I bet there are hundreds of pages on the subject.
Some with good, decent and fair ideas. None have been considered so far.
. This is not one of the better ones. It's a no vote here.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

Inno has 2 policies in effect for dealing with these cities
- cities without a stash of diamonds AND not into chapter 3 yet get removed after a while
- cities get resituated closer to the centre once in a while.
Especially the last option could use a tweak, with inactive high-level cities being moved further towards the rime for instance, to make room for active cities again. But as @shimmerfly mentioned, there is multitude of pages on this topic.

 

[KarlD]

Inno has 2 policies in effect for dealing with these cities
- cities without a stash of diamonds AND not into chapter 3 yet get removed after a while
- cities get resituated closer to the centre once in a while.
Especially the last option could use a tweak, with inactive high-level cities being moved further towards the rime for instance, to make room for active cities again. But as @shimmerfly mentioned, there is multitude of pages on this topic.

What does it mean to move closer to the centre? The center of what or where? The game makes us all feel like we are all the center of the world, but there is no center. Moving an idle city further toward my rim is moving it closer to somebody else's center.

 

[Ashrem]

What does it mean to move closer to the centre? The center of what or where? The game makes us all feel like we are all the center of the world, but there is no center. Moving an idle city further toward my rim is moving it closer to somebody else's center.

No, there is an actual center of the map.

See this post

 

[KarlD]

No, there is an actual center of the map.

LOL. Silly me. Of course, there is. Another example where even reasonably intelligent people get something in their head and assume it is so even though it doesn't really make any sense. I'm a computer programmer and it would be a programming nightmare to design a sphericalish world made of hexagons and quite pointless. Yet, I had that in my head because ... well worlds are spheres. I scrolled to the edge of the discovered Elvenar and beyond, but couldn't get to where you fall off the edge into the great nothingness.

 

[NightshadeCS]

I had not done so before, but actually found the center in Arendyll and then zoomed to my city. I am pretty close! Probably one of the reasons I have always had such good neighbors and is good to remember when others are speaking of the difficulty in getting trades and visits. I am definitely in a privileged space.

 

[DeletedUser23214]

I think something should be done about abandoned cities. At the very least allow the play to identify it is abandoned and trigger a move of the city to the edge of the map. I have several cities around mine labeled "Quit", "Abandoned", "No Time", "Gone", etc. Clearly a good number of people would use the feature when they left the game.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

It would require some additional programming, but it should be possible to look at activity and based on that move cities towards the center of the map if they are active, and start moving cities that have been inactive for, say 3 months or longer, towards the rim. Even if such moves are done on monthly or even a bi-monthly basis it should help a lot
There already is some kind of moving cities around present, it just needs to be tweaked

 

[Yogi Dave]

Totally opposed to the idea of taking/receiving/getting anything from another city. Fun to fantasize about, but so are many things that should not be done.

There are rules for removing from the game cities that are inactive and haven't been developed much. There are also rules for moving cities. I'd prefer inactive cities to be moved into less active areas and active to more active on a more regular basis as the solution.

In two worlds I was in a wasteland. In one, I was moved into an much, much better area. No longer was I the big cheese. In the other, I was never moved but slowly over a years time or so most of the tiny inactive cities were deleted or moved away and new cities appeared which people played. Many were just there for a day or two and abandoned. They too were eventually removed. The area has grown up to contain mostly active to semi-active cities. In both places I thrived since I was in active FSs. Interestingly, in the weaker area, where I took the tiny trades from small neighbors, I had several AWs filled by them, with many saying they couldn't trade or visit me yet and this was how they repaid me.

 

[Ashrem]

it should be possible to look at activity and based on that move cities towards the center of the map if they are active, and start moving cities that have been inactive

I'll repeat my suggestion for probably the fourth or fifth time. The map should cease to be a static place and take advantage of the fact it's a fantasy world. Every week should start with a refresh of the map, with cities active that week moving in and cities not active that week moving out. It would add a whole new dimension to scoring and once people got used to it, I think it would be an interesting extension.

 

[AlaskanSunflower]

No, there is an actual center of the map.

See this post

There IS?!

I had no idea, there's no reference to it or seemingly end to it... I had no idea there was a "center". What happens to ppl on the edges? Do they get less zones to scout losing a direction? Do they lose two if they're in the corner?

 

[Ashrem]

There IS?!

I had no idea, there's no reference to it or seemingly end to it... I had no idea there was a "center". What happens to ppl on the edges? Do they get less zones to scout losing a direction? Do they lose two if they're in the corner?

There is a ton of space out past the furthest players, Not less to scout, but fewer neighbours. Some people are in a virtual dessert, with no active neighbours at all

 

[DeletedUser2870]

I'll repeat my suggestion for probably the fourth or fifth time. The map should cease to be a static place and take advantage of the fact it's a fantasy world. Every week should start with a refresh of the map, with cities active that week moving in and cities not active that week moving out. It would add a whole new dimension to scoring and once people got used to it, I think it would be an interesting extension.

Weekly might be a bit often (not opposed to it, but it might need a lot of effort and keeps players having new neighbours a lot until they hit the center with pretty much only active players, which can be both fun and annoying I guess).
I would opt for monthly changes, and gradual movement to or from the center. It would mean people who are temporarily inactive will find their cities moved a bit further out the longer they are inactive, but not all the way to the rim right away if they have some kind of RL situation.

One way would be to have something like an activity score, 1 point for each consecutive day of play for instance and swapping cities with the same boosts inwards or outwards based on that score. So someone who is at the edges but online (almost) every day that month would be moving further in than someone who is online once a week. Same goes for not being active, someone who still looks in once a week would not be moved out as far as someone who does not look in at all

@AlaskanSunflower There sure is. If you have some time, just start scrolling through the map until you hit the rim area where there are few players. On the other hand, look at the top players, look at their city and then from their to their map and where that is on the world.