RP and Map Size

[Unwillingly 18106]

So I was talking with some people in OOC earlier-- we were discussing the size of Atlas, where RP is at, why it always seems so spread out, etc. A lot of us agreed that RP is indeed quite spread out and it seems difficult to find outside of the few active nations that there are right now. It could just be the fact that map change is coming up soon, but I feel like this has been something that’s been happening for a while now. Tbh

so I guess do you guys also think RP is spread out or do you think it’s fine/the map size is fine

**** I still didn’t finish that presentation that’s due tomorrow 

[AgentMemory 69]

RP is way to spread out and scarce, I want to say that it’s because people are sitting in their freebuilds alone but I don’t actually know for sure. Carolustadt is always active and Sutica has a few people on at most hours of the day, I don’t go much else so I would know. What’s everybody else’s RP hub like?

[Toffee 2843]

I think the map size is fine-- having a large map means that explorers have a wealth of places to discover and can be searching the continent for the entire duration of the map. However, because the map is so large, and nations like Sutica and Fenn are so far out of the way that it takes 15 mins or more to walk from Cloud Temple, some form of paid-for fast travel should be implemented.

 

This could be a sign that teleports players to a ship or carriage where they wait for a 5 minute cooldown, and mina is automatically deducted from their account. This way, people could also at least do a small amount of RP while they’re in the process of traveling, instead of having to sprint along the roads to get to where they’re going.

[Pinsir99 526]

Large maps are only okay when the extra size is wilderness and not used for nations. Nations need to be closer together (especially to the CT) so that it doesn’t take a shitton of time to get everywhere. 

Look at a lot of the more liked/active maps and they were for the most part smaller. It’s kind of baffling that the World Dev team still refuses to understand that point. Atlas is too big and as far as I know, the next map is roughly the same size.

[Unwillingly 18106]

2 minutes ago, Pinsir99 said:

 Atlas is too big and as far as I know, the next map is roughly the same size.

 

@ world devs correct me if im wrong, but I heard the next map was going to be bigger than atlas

[MangoArt 399]

I think the map size here is fine but we have so many microstates that its very difficult to have a cohesive RP hub for a lot of races

[HurferDurfer1 2978]

i blame freebuild homes

[NotEvilAtAll 10906]

40 minutes ago, HurferDurfer1 said:

i blame freebuild homes

The main issue is that Nations like to spread out a ton by giving out duchies and baronies regardless of whether there’s freebuild or not. On maps with freebuild you’ll see baronies and castles spread out everywhere controlled by Nations, and on maps without freebuild you’ll see the exact same thing done via giving out plots on tiles owned by Nations. While this is mainly an issue with Human Nations, Dwarves, Elves, and Orcs aren’t immune to it either.

 

In my opinion, the server would be a lot more centralized if there was a limit on how many vassalized settlements can operate under a Nation. If each Nation could only give out a couple of baronies/duchies/villages in total, they’d give out vassal settlements to people who’d roleplay and be active there instead of just vassalizing literally anyone who promises to rally for Warclaims. They’d try and make non-dead cities, lively villages, and inhabited castles instead of random places that are only used to store things and give their owners fancy titles.

[Merkaken 516]

I’ve always been a firm believer that smaller map sizes are better to centralize roleplay. Athera (At least I think it was Athera) was fantastic since most nations were a stone’s throw away. However with a lot of larger maps RP tends to be... Spread way too far out. This is probably the worst I’ve seen it in terms of travel times. Not to mention there’s one nation or another every 2 steps you take that’s completely abandoned. I mean, I was only on atlas for like the very last part, so take what I say with a grain of salt, maybe it was fantastic up until this point. However I’ve just found smaller maps to be more successful in terms of keeping RP hubs active and roleplay more together. 

[Hiebe 2493]

4 hours ago, Pinsir99 said:

Large maps are only okay when the extra size is wilderness and not used for nations. Nations need to be closer together (especially to the CT) so that it doesn’t take a shitton of time to get everywhere. 

Look at a lot of the more liked/active maps and they were for the most part smaller. It’s kind of baffling that the World Dev team still refuses to understand that point. Atlas is too big and as far as I know, the next map is roughly the same size.

 

Maps large but the nations are close to spawn. Map is roughly a bit smaller with more oceans

 

4 hours ago, Unwillingly said:

@ world devs correct me if im wrong, but I heard the next map was going to be bigger than atlas

 

Smaller, with better land grant system and activity checking and free build and everything.

[Chryasor 269]

The map isn’t too big, I think its about the size of Axios?

The issue is rather that the map is full of nothing. A large area full of absolutely nothing with the active nations spread far apart which makes it extremely discouraging to ever leave the place you are because it’ll take half an hour to go to the place you want to check for RP, and another half an hour to walk back to where you started if there’s nothing there.

Along this sprinting on the roads you’re likely to pass dosens of abandoned freebuilds just sitting there, not being removed, not being used, they’re just there for no seeming reason other than for one random person to sit in a few of them alone, proclaming themselves leader of some big group thats never around.

Basically, if the nations were all close to the cloud temple it’d be fine, if freebuild didn’t cover the entire map it’d be fine, if the out edges of the map were wilderness with stuff to explore like ruins and forests with event sites instead of just more freebuild it’d be fine.

In my opinion, at least.

[monkeypoacher 8055]

The last three maps have been way too big but crucially there’s been no coherent planning as to where each group gets their plot. Vailor, Axios, and Atlas were all designed with almost no player input and plots for each of the main player groups were just shoehorned in after the entire map was basically finished. The travel times on this map are entirely out of whack because what seem to be prebuilt roads (never do this) follow completely nonsensical paths around the map (see the Sutica road, which makes a long detour around a mountain only to loop into a gigantic underground tunnel anyway) The next map transition has managed to make it even worse by implementing this dumbass lottery and auction where groups that had activity in November of last year got first pick of whatever plots they wanted. It’s an extremely broken system that’s going to make the next map even more inactive than this one, whatever the difference in size may be.

 

Compare this to the development of Anthos and Athera, where shiftnative livestreamed worldpainting the map while listening to player suggestions and took pains to make as much of the development public as he could. To put the finishing touches on the map he recruited a diverse group of players to furnish every region with little details that you’d notice in every nook and cranny as you wandered around through it. Groups had a fair say in where their capitals were placed, what they wanted their terrain to look like, where they wanted the roads to run. These maps were designed for and around the community and the difference between them and Atlas is just night and day. I’m aware SeventhCircle can’t time travel, but what the world devs need to do right now is to hold a live community meeting and make crucial decisions with the everyone as to what the next map is going to look like. 

 

 

 

Postscript: There’s only a certain extent to which the map size and the availability of land actually affects RP centralization. RP decentralization isn’t purely a function of how big the map is. I’d argue that it depends on how many plots there are, how close each plot is, and how close every plot is to the Cloud Temple. Centralization is only going to work if there’s a limited amount of land that people can actually settle. Charters killed activity in Vailor & Axios because people were able to ditch the community altogether and live in a tower on top of a mountain on the edge of the earth. Freebuild killed activity on this map because everything BUT nation tiles were accessible for players looking to start a farm or a homestead or otherwise not live in a 5x5 messymedieval hovel.

 

Every single capital on this map has been planned in such a way that it’s either too cramped and unappealing to players (Carolustadt) or too massive and spread out with no hub for roleplay (Druid Grove).  I think players are naturally repulsed by nation capitals, because of sloppy planning, tiny houses, and a general unfriendliness to role-play. I hate to say it, but people like large mineman houses, and if they can’t find one in a capital they’re going to forge out and build it somewhere. An effective land grant system for a new map wouldn’t try to stop this behavior altogether (if such a thing is even possible) but instead would contain it within a certain playable space. 


The answer to this problem is sprawl. Developing the land around capitals so that guilds, businesses, farms, and simple private homesteads spring up, allowing players to find employment and upward mobility in nations.  Nation leaders should essentially be forced to auction unused land around their capitals to private landowners, as retarded as that sounds, to create room for players to live. Otherwise we’re going to see hundreds of charters pop up in entirely random places that decentralize RP, and we’ll have Vailor 2.0
 

 

[AGP 3169]

Basic physics tells us...

Increased volume → lower density. 

 

Therefore...
Bigger map → lower population density → less rp.

[monkeypoacher 8055]

On 2/1/2019 at 4:58 PM, AGiantPie said:

Basic physics tells us...

Increased volume → lower density. 

 

Therefore...
Bigger map → lower population density → less rp.

 

Do you run around LoTC completely at random? If given the option to, do you prefer to go as far away from everyone else as possible?

 

Map size is important but it’s deceptive how it’s important. You can easily get decentralized RP on a much smaller map than we have if it’s not planned very well, and you’d need an absolutely tiny map with a single RP hub for RP to be completely centralized. Athera would have been a total mess if it wasn’t for the king’s road, with people shuffling at random between the dozens of plots. 

 

The next map is smaller, but it’s going to feel more difficult to find RP because there are no direct routes to capitals, no racial spawns, and because every active settlement gets land instead of every nation. The biggest problem with RP and maps on this server is that the staff makes dumb design decisions without input, like deciding how big the cloud temple plot is going to be before they’ve put the capital of Oren on the board. 

[AGP 3169]

On 2/2/2019 at 3:20 PM, xxx said:

 

Do you run around LoTC completely at random? If given the option to, do you prefer to go as far away from everyone else as possible?

 

Map size is important but it’s deceptive how it’s important. You can easily get decentralized RP on a much smaller map than we have if it’s not planned very well, and you’d need an absolutely tiny map with a single RP hub for RP to be completely centralized. Athera would have been a total mess if it wasn’t for the king’s road, with people shuffling at random between the dozens of plots. 

 

The next map is smaller, but it’s going to feel more difficult to find RP because there are no direct routes to capitals, no racial spawns, and because every active settlement gets land instead of every nation. The biggest problem with RP and maps on this server is that the staff makes dumb design decisions without input, like deciding how big the cloud temple plot is going to be before they’ve put the capital of Oren on the board. 

That’s a general theorem. ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, a larger map means less RP density. Of course, there’s more to the map than just the size, and what REALLY matters is the ‘settled/inhabited area’ and not the total area, but bad map design and placing plots far away from each other does spread out RP by increasing the travel times etc to go between plots.