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Nation & Charter Team Update


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Nation & Charter Team Update

| The management of Arcas |

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As we move into the new year, the World Team is charged with the task of managing the Nation & Charters System which governs the distribution of land through regions and tiles. Much discussion has taken place and we begin to realize that the current system that was implemented at the beginning of this map has left the communities of the server suffering and the map scarred. Something must change. 

 

With the task of tackling this issue weighing heavily on the team, we move forward to enact the following changes.


Charter Lock

At the time of this post, there are currently 68 charters. To us, this is an absurd amount of charters that have negatively impacted the server. Many of these charters that are created are soon abandoned and the map is left notably scarred as a result of this. 

 

After much discussion within the World Team, we have decided that we will move forward with the implementation of a ‘Charter Lock’. What this means for you, the players of LOTC, is that the formation of new charters will be removed. If you have already begun the process of creating a charter and gathering signatures, you will be permitted to continue with the creation of your charter. However, we will not allow new charters to form for the foreseeable future.

Activity Update

 

Activity has been a hot topic for the entirety of Arcas. It is in our opinion that we will not be implementing the old system of maintenance of activity which proved to be too much of a strain on many of the larger groups on the server. 

 

We are however faced with the task of implementing a way to measure and judge which regions are truly dead in terms of activity and can have their regions removed so that clean up may begin.

 

With this in mind, we will be implementing a very low bar for our expectations of what is considered to be an active region that will be implemented in the near future. This activity requirement will begin to roll out when the server has stabilized with the 1.15 update and a period of two weeks has passed for the server player count to recover.

 

Once the system is announced as coming into effect, all charters will need to maintain a minimum of 0.02% activity. Currently, this will see the removal of ~20 charters that have been under the requirement for quite some time.

 

From that point forward, we will reevaluate charter activity and adjust it to continue the thinning process.

Charter Team

Recently on the NCMT, we have taken on more members and are still open to fleshing out our roster a tad bit more! If the management of the communities of LOTC is something that interests you, or you feel that you have an idea that might help shape how we manage these systems going forward, I encourage you to make a World Team application!

As side note, no system is without flaw and without criticism. As such, I encourage anyone who desires to express constructive criticism to do so by contacting me over discord.

 

((NCMT updates will continue to come out as needed to give updates to these implemented changes and our path forward.))

|Brought to you by the Charter Team, Kaelan__, Erik0821 , Cpt_Noobman, and Qizu.|

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Why are players being punished with a charter lock because charters weren’t properly dealt with before the whole lag situation happened. The Activity System itself needs a proper overhaul so NLs aren’t competing against each other the entire time there needs to be some form of cooperation involved in this system.

 

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37 minutes ago, ElvenMomma said:

Why are players being punished with a charter lock because charters weren’t properly dealt with before the whole lag situation happened. The Activity System itself needs a proper overhaul so NLs aren’t competing against each other the entire time there needs to be some form of cooperation involved in this system.

 

Nothing was said about nation leaders having to compete against each other?
Along with the point of cooperation, I continuously talk with NLs through their conjoined chat with staff. 

As for your point about ‘punishing players’, this is not a punishment. It is taking time to clean out a bunch of space on the map of dead charters, which will further help the newer charters as they come in. Once the lock is lifted as it provides much more space for the charters. This is only a temporary thing.

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6 minutes ago, Qizu said:

Nothing was said about nation leaders having to compete against each other?
Along with the point of cooperation, I continuously talk with NLs through their conjoined chat with staff. 

Nothing was said, but the system is geared towards that mindset where charters need to compete against each other for the most activity. The cooperation part I meant in terms of NLs cooperating with smaller charters, not with the staff.

For the lock again, is there then an ETA when it would be removed? Seeing the words “We will not allow new charters to form for the foreseeable future” makes me feel like this is going to be another thing that we staff say and nothing ever gets done.

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So what exactly do we do if a racial group has control of zero charters, and wishes to open one up? If say the Kha’ wanted a charter and had 10-15 people, we just can’t have one? What does that group do with no place to go, given Kharajyr are commonly aggressed upon? Nothing? Charter lock sounds like yet another additional 4th wall rule to inhibit roleplay on the server, due to the actions of others; a mass punishment.

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First off I'm glad to see a temporary charter lock down to help thin out dead or dying charters. There's no reason split the role-play between so many places on the map. There no good reason for every race to have a racial hub, races when they can should try working and living alone side each other to build a diverse rp community not put up walls. Slice of life rp is fun, but doing rp that involves compromise and looking for common ground can be very rewarding as well. Yes I know that of rp isn't always the easiest but as rpers I feel we should strive to welcome such challenges and not shy away from them.

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4 hours ago, Scorpio_Sage said:

There no good reason for every race to have a racial hub.

Races without a racial hub usually don’t perform well. It’s culturally disruptive to not have a place for the race to do its own thing, run its own events, and have its own politics/religion without  outside interference. Forcing two races to share a single settlement as their racial homeland only works well when said settlement functions as if it were divided into 2 sovereign entities, one for each race. At that point they might as well have their own settlements instead of pretending to be unified.

 

As long as racial hubs are close enough to interact with one another, there’s no need to purposely destroy less active racial hubs, for they’ll just go be inactive somewhere else instead. If destroying them and forcing them to rebuild somehow makes them active again, they would’ve been capable of becoming active again in their current location if the rebuilding effort were instead used to improve their current settlement and population.

 

LOTC’s community is fairly decentralized. Humans, the largest race on the server, purposely decentralize themselves for political reasons. Elves are divided into several sub-races that don’t want to live with one another. Dwarves and Orcs, while mostly living in the same settlement, have clans/families that hold lots of political power. Trying to force the server to be more centralized than its community is will only cause problems. Preventing the Humans from engaging in feudalist decentralization would destroy the politics and roleplay of the race. Forcing the Elves to live together would run contrary to their character’s desires and roleplay attitudes. Making the Dwarves and Orcs into unitary states without somewhat decentralized power dynamics would ruin the atmosphere of the races.

 

It is impossible to prevent decentralization entirely, for decentralization is desired by all nobles, clan leaders, sub-races, and other small groups that come together to form Nations and Empires. The best we can do is fend off unnecessary decentralization that doesn’t promote RP, yet decentralization itself is unavoidable as long as there is a method for non-Nation groups to obtain land or for Nations to spread out their territory.

 

Decentralization that helps RP:

 -Human Nations creating vassal settlements in order to engage in feudalist roleplay (so long as there aren’t more vassals than the Nation can keep semi-active).

-Culturally unique groups/sub-races getting their own settlements so they can run events, religious activities, and politics according to their culture (so long as enough people are active to run them).

-Small guilds/communities/races owning small parcels of land roughly proportional to their population size and how much they use it.

 

Decentralization that hurts RP:

-Two settlements of the exact same or very similar culture/race/community in a community that does not have the population to support two active settlements (for example, having there be two halfling settlements is a bad idea if there’s only enough halflings to support one). This leads to two dead settlements instead of one active settlement.

-Pointless “settlements” that only exist to store resources and aren’t roleplayed in.

-Settlements whose entire community has moved elsewhere, either creating different characters or having their current characters live outside the settlement. These settlements are dead with no hope of revival, and it’s unlikely that the community who created it would care if it’s destroyed.

-Settlements that are way too large for the population contained within them. This can also affect Nations and centralized communities who either built too much or are in a long-term period of decline.

 

How to promote Centralization without screwing over small groups/forcing incompatible cultures together:

-If a settlement is much too large for its population over a long period of time, and it appears to be suffering in activity as a result, the settlement should be downsized.

-If a settlement appears to be dead and does not have any active leadership that could bring it back to life, it should be given time for it to obtain active leadership who can promote activity, and if such does not happen, the settlement should be turned into ruins. If a settlement constantly fails to revive itself, it should be destroyed even if it has the theoretical potential and leadership needed to become active again.

-If a culture/race/sub-race appears to be struggling, the staff should give it advice, help it out with maintaining its culture, etc. in order to get it back on its feet. If this fails, then the sub-race/culture’s settlements can be turned into ruins just like any other settlement. If one of the four main races goes completely dead, a Your View should be created to see what the community wants to be done about the situation.

-Smaller communities shouldn’t be able to live on their own in the middle of nowhere. That’s a recipe for disaster. Settlements should be close enough to one another for meaningful interaction to occur.

-Culturally/racially similar communities can be made to live next to one another in order to promote each other’s activity. This should prevent there from being multiple dead settlements of a certain culture/race instead of a single active one.

 

tl;dr: Settlements should be given a chance to revive themselves before being turned into ruins due to inactivity. Prevent communities that don’t have the population to decentralize from decentralizing. Prevent people from building massive settlements 10x larger than what’s needed for their population. Give cultures and races some assistance if they go inactive before deciding whether or not to destroy them.

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29 minutes ago, NotEvilAtAll said:

Races without a racial hub usually don’t perform well. It’s culturally disruptive to not have a place for the race to do its own thing, run its own events, and have its own politics/religion without  outside interference. Forcing two races to share a single settlement as their racial homeland only works well when said settlement functions as if it were divided into 2 sovereign entities, one for each race. At that point they might as well have their own settlements instead of pretending to be unified.

 

As long as racial hubs are close enough to interact with one another, there’s no need to purposely destroy less active racial hubs, for they’ll just go be inactive somewhere else instead. If destroying them and forcing them to rebuild somehow makes them active again, they would’ve been capable of becoming active again in their current location if the rebuilding effort were instead used to improve their current settlement and population.

 

LOTC’s community is fairly decentralized. Humans, the largest race on the server, purposely decentralize themselves for political reasons. Elves are divided into several sub-races that don’t want to live with one another. Dwarves and Orcs, while mostly living in the same settlement, have clans/families that hold lots of political power. Trying to force the server to be more centralized than its community is will only cause problems. Preventing the Humans from engaging in feudalist decentralization would destroy the politics and roleplay of the race. Forcing the Elves to live together would run contrary to their character’s desires and roleplay attitudes. Making the Dwarves and Orcs into unitary states without somewhat decentralized power dynamics would ruin the atmosphere of the races.

 

It is impossible to prevent decentralization entirely, for decentralization is desired by all nobles, clan leaders, sub-races, and other small groups that come together to form Nations and Empires. The best we can do is fend off unnecessary decentralization that doesn’t promote RP, yet decentralization itself is unavoidable as long as there is a method for non-Nation groups to obtain land or for Nations to spread out their territory.

 

Decentralization that helps RP:

 -Human Nations creating vassal settlements in order to engage in feudalist roleplay (so long as there aren’t more vassals than the Nation can keep semi-active).

-Culturally unique groups/sub-races getting their own settlements so they can run events, religious activities, and politics according to their culture (so long as enough people are active to run them).

-Small guilds/communities/races owning small parcels of land roughly proportional to their population size and how much they use it.

 

Decentralization that hurts RP:

-Two settlements of the exact same or very similar culture/race/community in a community that does not have the population to support two active settlements (for example, having there be two halfling settlements is a bad idea if there’s only enough halflings to support one). This leads to two dead settlements instead of one active settlement.

-Pointless “settlements” that only exist to store resources and aren’t roleplayed in.

-Settlements whose entire community has moved elsewhere, either creating different characters or having their current characters live outside the settlement. These settlements are dead with no hope of revival, and it’s unlikely that the community who created it would care if it’s destroyed.

-Settlements that are way too large for the population contained within them. This can also affect Nations and centralized communities who either built too much or are in a long-term period of decline.

 

How to promote Centralization without screwing over small groups/forcing incompatible cultures together:

-If a settlement is much too large for its population over a long period of time, and it appears to be suffering in activity as a result, the settlement should be downsized.

-If a settlement appears to be dead and does not have any active leadership that could bring it back to life, it should be given time for it to obtain active leadership who can promote activity, and if such does not happen, the settlement should be turned into ruins. If a settlement constantly fails to revive itself, it should be destroyed even if it has the theoretical potential and leadership needed to become active again.

-If a culture/race/sub-race appears to be struggling, the staff should give it advice, help it out with maintaining its culture, etc. in order to get it back on its feet. If this fails, then the sub-race/culture’s settlements can be turned into ruins just like any other settlement. If one of the four main races goes completely dead, a Your View should be created to see what the community wants to be done about the situation.

-Smaller communities shouldn’t be able to live on their own in the middle of nowhere. That’s a recipe for disaster. Settlements should be close enough to one another for meaningful interaction to occur.

-Culturally/racially similar communities can be made to live next to one another in order to promote each other’s activity. This should prevent there from being multiple dead settlements of a certain culture/race instead of a single active one.

 

tl;dr: Settlements should be given a chance to revive themselves before being turned into ruins due to inactivity. Prevent communities that don’t have the population to decentralize from decentralizing. Prevent people from building massive settlements 10x larger than what’s needed for their population. Give cultures and races some assistance if they go inactive before deciding whether or not to destroy them.

 

Well written and I totally agree. #1 problem for me has always been creating a way to fairly represent the activity of a settlement. I'm interested in seeing what the team has some up with. I really hope it not the same system just with tweaked percentages.

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7 hours ago, Scorpio_Sage said:

First off I'm glad to see a temporary charter lock down to help thin out dead or dying charters. There's no reason split the role-play between so many places on the map. There no good reason for every race to have a racial hub, races when they can should try working and living alone side each other to build a diverse rp community not put up walls. Slice of life rp is fun, but doing rp that involves compromise and looking for common ground can be very rewarding as well. Yes I know that of rp isn't always the easiest but as rpers I feel we should strive to welcome such challenges and not shy away from them.


A lot of cultures on LoTC do not cope well with diversity. Several of them are isolationists, and are highly discriminated against. Compromise and common ground are extremely difficult in many current nations to obtain, and the ones where it can be found, there are other factors that drive away groups of players. You can not find equality between two different cultures. There will always be problems. If some can be dealt with, that’s great; but it can’t all be dealt with.

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I do realize peace between rp communities isn't always possible and living together is always plausible. Yet hopefully after we clear out some of dead charters the staff will reopen the process again for those that need it. Though I'm curious what the future will holds for charters and maintaining them.

1 hour ago, Ryloth said:


A lot of cultures on LoTC do not cope well with diversity. Several of them are isolationists, and are highly discriminated against. Compromise and common ground are extremely difficult in many current nations to obtain, and the ones where it can be found, there are other factors that drive away groups of players. You can not find equality between two different cultures. There will always be problems. If some can be dealt with, that’s great; but it can’t all be dealt with.

 

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Preventing new charters for the time being seems like a harsh, but fair measure currently. Charter cleanup has been so neglected, this is needed.

 

I know it takes more effort, but seeing old charters turned to ruins would be really cool, rather than just being nuked. If that’s still possible.

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I don't think it's space issue per say, I believe the staff and others feel there are too many little dead and dying charters spreading out the the players base.

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Honestly these other people above me have all made great points but I think the one issue your forgetting to address is this

On 1/17/2020 at 1:30 AM, ElvenMomma said:

For the lock again, is there then an ETA when it would be removed? Seeing the words “We will not allow new charters to form for the foreseeable future” makes me feel like this is going to be another thing that we staff say and nothing ever gets done.

 

Considering previous events I think we do need a semi-solid ETA, im not saying put in a hard deadline (that will just lead to rushed and sloppy work), but give us a guesstimate of how long it will take and keep people updated on the process

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