Activity and Finding it

[Frank_Dog 808]

Recently on LOTC I have been attempting to stay away from the ooc politics of things that many of us fall into so to speak, instead I've been attempting on my personas to explore the world and make new friends. Thus far I have found more enjoyment from the simple roleplay but I do notice for large parts of the day little roleplay can be found in many places. Times when I do check the realms activity and visit places in search of enjoyment I sometimes find a good clump of players in a general vicinity. When my character tries to engage however, they may get fully ignored or find that it's a roleplay scenario that just leaves little room for outsider engagement. Perhaps my time on lotc has made me a little timid to speak to people on occasion, but it definitely feels like server population has gone down. This could be time of the year, but I do know lots of former friends of mine have left the server after ooc leaning political situations break communities. 

 

I will not be dishonest here in that I was for a very short time an NL of a young nation. I will admit we didn't boost great numbers, but we did pretty well for ourselves. Had a number of users both old and new who enjoyed that we were going for an entity that wished to rely little on ooc discord mechanics instead wishing to do everything from event planning and political meets only ic. Only using to discord to find when the convenient time was for everyone to meet in game. Some of the recently deceased nations found themselves culled, many of their players coming to a decision they weren't a large fan of other nations afterwards, and that their prior location was where they received the most enjoyment. I have seen a good number seemingly quit the server for good. Perhaps that is why I see less activity; it could also be the time of the year. Prayers for the US college students trying to finish their semester on a good mark! 

 

Has anyone else noticed a drop in player base as a whole? I will admit I've always been a solely human nation player but when I visit nations during the day you barely see anyone walking about. I have known some groups who are trying to desperately bring activity back to certain regions but in their attempt's politics from sometimes highly inactive councils keeps them from doing so. Does anyone have any ideas on how to at least place a band aid on the issues of activity? I will admit there may be server bloat but even after a few communities were dismantled I don't see other nations gaining more activity from it, and typically those places that have been dismantled are merely replaced with another community of even worse activity levels. My view is but one, so I am curious to see if anyone has observations and ideas to share. 

[ErosTea 1084]

when personal projects get killed for ooc reasons/irp ganging it can be disheartening to continue on the server entirely. We all aim to separate rp from ooc but as humans it is impossible to truly do so, especially when it feels as if everyone is stacked against you and people who are supposed to be aiding you cant aid you because of ooc reasons.
 

I think the server is in a very particular situation—how do we support the niche roleplay communities players want to join while also promoting a boisterous roleplay environment that is largely dependent upon the centralization of RP. I think that also extends to certain conversations about reforming the empire (not saying that should be the solution per se) but it might be easier to find more roleplay while maintaing your niches if theres a collective hub to go to outside of doing the rp you want. because inherently there will always be someone there - and it might make you feel even more connected if you're a part of the same nation rather than being a foreigner visiting another in search of rp. 

This then brings us to the role of staff in managing a server population. By what means should staff inhibit or guide roleplay as a means of finding that happy balance, and how do we work to support the groups culled in the process, whether the outcome be good or bad? 

[NotEvilAtAll 10906]

2 hours ago, Frank_Dog said:

I will admit there may be server bloat but even after a few communities were dismantled I don't see other nations gaining more activity from it

Dismantling communities only centralizes the server if a similar RP niche exists for its players to move into. This recent war saw the end of cosmopolitan multi-racial realms (i.e Sutica knock-offs) and the end of the halfling realm. Neither of these communities can easily assimilate into other communities. Halflings have just recently gotten a village back and are regaining some activity (mostly from halfling players getting active again after prolonged inactivity due to not having a place to RP). A new multi-racial Sutica-style location has not been established yet for old Vortice and Lurin players to move into (as far as I know).

 

As a result, the destruction of realms from this war hasn't provided a ton of new players for other realms, and we mostly see players growing inactive from the loss of their RP-niche. Regardless of how much people may wish for it to be the case, LOTC can't grow by forcing completely different styles of RP and completely different types of players to all live in the same place. There will always be an upper limit to the utility of centralization due to this.

[Nectorist 12869]

Spoiler

For a long time there was a two-pronged problem of nations being super easy to make, but there also being no mechanisms (mainly war) to take out certain nations and keep things from getting spread out. This peaked on Arcas where you had like 20 nations, most of them with 10 people max, spreading out RP with no actual way to clean the slate a bit. This would disincentivize people from cooperating to make a group under another nation. Why should I have to compromise with other people when I can just go off and make my own nation? 

 

At the same time, nations started adopting the Novellen Oren model they claimed to hate, exerting more OOC control over their vassals and who they allowed to play and gain power. Back in the day, land was given to people and groups who showed any kind of initiative and ambition. There was a greater effort made to integrate, or at least not force out, groups and nations you had conquered because they had something to add. Nowadays, any group that is not entirely loyal to the NL is seen as a threat that must be removed because they could rebel. The way you build up trust and advance through most nations now isn't by doing stuff in RP- it's through sitting in vc with people and playing whatever video game is popular. This isn't anything all that new, but it's definitely more pronounced now.

 

I think this has made nations a lot less accommodating to new people who want to join. If you're not "in", then you're not going to get any RP. It also incentivizes waging wars to totally wipe out groups instead of finding a way to integrate them a bit into your nation and find ways for them to RP in a new environment (otoh, people are sore losers and have a tendency to outright quit). Why put the effort into working with a group you just fought to bring them into your nation when they might pose a rebellion risk down the line? Why let them have their own RP functions, their own army, and their own initiatives? Better to just evict them and leave the tile completely empty.

 

Talking about just RP: what's there to really be done besides personal story lines? There's not really much military RP, court RP, quest RP, intrigue, or anything like that. Ambition is generally stifled, so most of the RP that's around are just ST events or more personal storylines your character has with other people. Maybe some tavern RP as well.

 

Back in the day, when there was a regular cycle of two big wars in the summer and the fall, there was a bit more meaning to peacetime RP. You spent the times in between wars building up your nation, strengthening your vassals, integrating new groups for the next war, reforming your government and armies, forging alliances and ties, among other things. The value to peacetime RP was that everything you had could all be lost in the next war, so you did what you could in the intervening months to strengthen your RP position. A lot of RP wasn't driven by the nation and nation leads themselves, but the vassals and regular people doing what they could to climb the ladder, or just enjoy the few months of peace before they dove back into the next war. It was important to RP with noobs because you needed recruits, it was important to RP with other vassals because you wanted to strengthen your alliances, it was important to RP in the tavern because you might lose it all in two months and be forced under another liege, which means you'd have to adapt to the new order and work your way up the ranks again.

 

There's none of that now. Vassals have been stripped of most power- the most successful ones being the ones with a degree of autonomy- and the object of wars now is the complete and total destruction and eviction of nations. You don't need to go through the effort of bringing new people into your nation, which provides RP on its own, because you can just evict them and clean the tile. As a result, the only RP you're seeing much of now is generic tavern stuff or personal RP that you can't really involve yourself in. There's not as much that's available for large groups, or for outsiders to easily hop in on to get them involved more in the nation. Why recruit noobs? Where do you even put them? What can you give them to keep them around?

 

I don't think the solution is to just go back to the era of accepting nation apps left and right (it's part of why we're where we are right now) or to just make wars free (players on the server have 0 ambition or drive to make a real story). A lot of these problems are player-driven and cannot be easily fixed with new rules. You're probably going to have to change around PRO/tile/conquest/rebellion rules to make it more difficult to outright evict people, instead forcing NLs to give up some of their power and allow RP groups to flourish beneath them. At the same time, rebellion shouldn't be this ever-present threat that can be gamed into nuking a nation. I really don't think much of this will happen, but there are some routes available for staff. Unfortunately, this lays on the shoulders of the players.

[marikandaperc 1817]

i've had the same problem for a long while, but the past few days noticed that it's actually easier than you think.

 

once you see players, try to create your own form of engagement. how? that's up to you. my character is a pious farmer, so i walk up to people and ask if they want free bread, that's started some rp. sometimes, the interaction will be short-lived, but that's okay too, eventually you will find interesting interactions.

other examples could be: asking questions about the specific realm, asking directions, looking for a teacher for some specific thing (i.e history, language) 

[Kaiser 2347]

Hi, I run the Implementation Team, which means we work on realms/economy/activity in general.

There are two main issues that you're addressing, I think. One can be fixed, and is, and the other is more nuanced.

 

The first is server culture. When I returned to LoTC I was amazed that people just straight up ignored my RP a lot. People didn't want to interact with me. Why? Well RPly I was a nobody, and OOCly I didn't know them. I couldn't give them anything, so they didn't want to even waste the time roleplaying with me. You can't really enforce this, seriously. The best you can do is work to form a better server culture. It is a weak answer, but 'being the change you want to see' is not hopeless. I demand a noob-friendly household. I demand we leave OOC bias at the door, and OOC plots less about scheme and more about ambitions and dreams of 'cool RP'.

 

Secondly is the centralization of RP. Despite what @NotEvilAtAllhas said, and I am sorry to be so blunt, but he's actually completely wrong. Our team has the numbers. As groups are removed, by war or inactivity, the playerbases do move around. We're in a transitionary period, and there are a LOT of nations/lairs/etc, and so some nations are dead/dying, and you won't really find much RP there (unless the leadership of those groups changes). While the time of year does effect things (Thanksgiving in a week in the US, and finals!)

Your comment about 'Highly inactive councils' isn't even wrong, per-se. I've had a talk with Llir about groups which hold power on dying nations. They will, in time, be removed swiftly. We will not have dead nations with inactive leaders anymore, once we fully implement the new system. That should allow you or your friends the ability to inject new life into nations and groups, or start new ones, or take them in new directions.

I know the staff saying 'Just wait! The big changes are coming!' does suck, but we've already begun changes, and it's looking promising.

[Frank_Dog 808]

5 minutes ago, Kaiser said:

Hi, I run the Implementation Team, which means we work on realms/economy/activity in general.

There are two main issues that you're addressing, I think. One can be fixed, and is, and the other is more nuanced.

 

The first is server culture. When I returned to LoTC I was amazed that people just straight up ignored my RP a lot. People didn't want to interact with me. Why? Well RPly I was a nobody, and OOCly I didn't know them. I couldn't give them anything, so they didn't want to even waste the time roleplaying with me. You can't really enforce this, seriously. The best you can do is work to form a better server culture. It is a weak answer, but 'being the change you want to see' is not hopeless. I demand a noob-friendly household. I demand we leave OOC bias at the door, and OOC plots less about scheme and more about ambitions and dreams of 'cool RP'.

 

Secondly is the centralization of RP. Despite what @NotEvilAtAllhas said, and I am sorry to be so blunt, but he's actually completely wrong. Our team has the numbers. As groups are removed, by war or inactivity, the playerbases do move around. We're in a transitionary period, and there are a LOT of nations/lairs/etc, and so some nations are dead/dying, and you won't really find much RP there (unless the leadership of those groups changes). While the time of year does effect things (Thanksgiving in a week in the US, and finals!)

Your comment about 'Highly inactive councils' isn't even wrong, per-se. I've had a talk with Llir about groups which hold power on dying nations. They will, in time, be removed swiftly. We will not have dead nations with inactive leaders anymore, once we fully implement the new system. That should allow you or your friends the ability to inject new life into nations and groups, or start new ones, or take them in new directions.

I know the staff saying 'Just wait! The big changes are coming!' does suck, but we've already begun changes, and it's looking promising.

I still appreciate attempts on changes being done! It should be pretty obvious to most who keep up with the updates that staff is doing the work to try make things seem more legitimate. I have seen some users moving into different nations, others and particularly newer members however see it as "Well my experience started as this fun community and then it was removed by a weird set of circumstances that don't exactly seem very roleplay immersed."

 

The only issue I ever have with a limited amount of locations is certain nations can be rather xenophobic in the sense that they are used to a niche/clique of people. When outsiders, especially outsiders who roleplay with a different culture come in they tend to use their power to push those groups out. Some of the most recent nations have been formed to give a more diverse group of players more comfort in joining in, but those nations typically end up being under constant threat but older established nations with alliances. 

[Morigung-oog 5697]

I've been watching both roleplay numbers and roleplay quality drop over the past few years. It is an issue of there being too many realms, a lot of distance between them and caution about OOC. A lot of nations have cliques and seem unwilling to help newcomers integrate, whereas others are far too forthcoming when it comes to problem players which leads to nations appearing unappealing due to the ooc drama and toxic attitudes that fester. Its one extreme or the other, and its quite alarming.

 

My activity has dropped more recently because it is so hard to find roleplay. It is very demoralizing when I spent 20-30 minutes trying to find activity, only to be outright ignored or feeling unwelcome which in turn prompts me to leave.

 

Even in nations I'm familiar with, I've experienced these harmful cliques form where people are forced out of communities and it is a tad depressing.
 

Tl;dr- Too many nations, too much OOC beef. Metaplaying, toxicity, harmful unwelcoming cliques, or the inverse. Too welcoming to players who cause OOC issues and give nations a bad rep.

 

 

[indiana105 5126]

current state of the server is stagnant because there's just two ooc groups posturing on each other and trying to win others to their side before the next hyper war. (this has been going on for a year and a half at minimum lol) doesn't matter if you kill a nation by doing XYZ so long as "they wouldnt be part of our rally". neither of these groups would accept vassals of people associated with the other one because it'd (most likely) be a blatant ooc scheme to abuse the rebellion system to destroy whatever nation took them in. this means there's no storylines of relevance aside from THE WAR, and since nothing will happen until there's an advantage on one side, the server will be extremely boring.

 

as a side note this is why there's so many inactive/not very good human nations. when i was king of haense and trying to start inter-human conflict to clean things up, surprise surprise the guys who fought against us in the other war were messaging people on discord trying to get involved out of spite. you CANNOT have an organic conflict on LOTC right now.

 

this is why there is no conflict between nations (aside from halflings/"""suticans""") because anything can and will be used to spark off the next apocalyptic war. i'm right just wait for the next war in like 3 months. it'll be the same thing repeated, same ooc players on different characters banding together. there won't be any change from systems or whatever because it's a player mindset thing. nobody wants to cooperate at all or let their losses/lame ass beefs go. (if you have longstanding "beef" on minecraft you're a clown)

 

if you just want medieval/human rp i'd say just try to put together a group of like 5 like minded individuals and rp somewhere if you can. will probably find success, but doing it alone sounds miserable with how stuff is right now

 

also hello frank_dog from rpguilds

 

 

[Jihnyny 5233]

from my perspective lotc doesn't offer anything in recent times. the server doesnt have any fun plugins to use and roleplay is getting stale because its the same shit no matter what. If you have a war its always gonna become a shitstorm of a mass of nations because x ooc people hate y ooc people and they'll jump in on the chance to fight them. 

conflict is also dead. it feels like any sort of villainy is frowned upon atp. the recent wars were ass compared to ones in the past. 

human rp isnt as good as it used to be. Councils dont really mean shit because you're only in charge of the capital because vassals cant rlly do anything but grind for taxes. military culture / rp is dead. unless theres conflict it is nothing. 'but darkspawn!!!' who cares. fighting darkspawn is unironically getting old. time for the 3rd crusade against darkspawn, past 6 months just to kill one annoying player who powergames and metagames.

SoL players complaining about things that they hardly / if ever interact with (they sit in their city doing nothing)

The god awful map design and the restriction on pastes and terrain change

the truth is you cant have functioning rp without OOC. even fights these days between darkspawn and other groups is OOCly communicated, unless they're surprise raids. But this tends to escelate into OOC hate. And now atp everyone cant be arsed to communicate anything OOCly because they're scared to be slapped with a metaplay ban for 6 months for simply suggesting to attack x nation

only way you can get unique / good rp that doesnt feel like a chore is by becoming a darkspawn player and slaving away to get the MA's and Feats required

[Frank_Dog 808]

1 hour ago, indiana105 said:

current state of the server is stagnant because there's just two ooc groups posturing on each other and trying to win others to their side before the next hyper war. (this has been going on for a year and a half at minimum lol) doesn't matter if you kill a nation by doing XYZ so long as "they wouldnt be part of our rally". neither of these groups would accept vassals of people associated with the other one because it'd (most likely) be a blatant ooc scheme to abuse the rebellion system to destroy whatever nation took them in. this means there's no storylines of relevance aside from THE WAR, and since nothing will happen until there's an advantage on one side, the server will be extremely boring.

 

as a side note this is why there's so many inactive/not very good human nations. when i was king of haense and trying to start inter-human conflict to clean things up, surprise surprise the guys who fought against us in the other war were messaging people on discord trying to get involved out of spite. you CANNOT have an organic conflict on LOTC right now.

 

this is why there is no conflict between nations (aside from halflings/"""suticans""") because anything can and will be used to spark off the next apocalyptic war. i'm right just wait for the next war in like 3 months. it'll be the same thing repeated, same ooc players on different characters banding together. there won't be any change from systems or whatever because it's a player mindset thing. nobody wants to cooperate at all or let their losses/lame ass beefs go. (if you have longstanding "beef" on minecraft you're a clown)

 

if you just want medieval/human rp i'd say just try to put together a group of like 5 like minded individuals and rp somewhere if you can. will probably find success, but doing it alone sounds miserable with how stuff is right now

 

also hello frank_dog from rpguilds

 

 

What's worse is when you feel as though you don't belong to either group really. I'd say it's two big groups with a few smaller isolated groups inbetween. Those groups can't get any type of good roleplay/role-playing situations because even if they did attempt it would get squashed. Outliers of these groups as well will have to make a decision on joining a side of which they aren't really aligned. Yet if you play middle man then both sides will just hate you  oocly. 

May also be an issue of some people being rather uninformed about certain communities, so one group gets paranoid and goes to gather allies. I know one thing was Silasia being labeled Suticans despite most of our playerbase never having been around during the actual time of Sutica. Yet we got jointed into that mindset probably due to a lack of knowledge on it. Same goes for some rising tension currently on the server where one of those big groups you speaking of playing a game of telephone to where one nation will have a totally warped view on a situation that isn't even comparable to what they have been told. Usually this is target an outlier group. Thus outlier groups will find no decent experience anywhere unless they just fully give up projects and cultures to become mainstream. 

 

Also hi Indi from rpguilds 

23 minutes ago, Jihnyny said:

from my perspective lotc doesn't offer anything in recent times. the server doesnt have any fun plugins to use and roleplay is getting stale because its the same shit no matter what. If you have a war its always gonna become a shitstorm of a mass of nations because x ooc people hate y ooc people and they'll jump in on the chance to fight them. 

conflict is also dead. it feels like any sort of villainy is frowned upon atp. the recent wars were ass compared to ones in the past. 

human rp isnt as good as it used to be. Councils dont really mean shit because you're only in charge of the capital because vassals cant rlly do anything but grind for taxes. military culture / rp is dead. unless theres conflict it is nothing. 'but darkspawn!!!' who cares. fighting darkspawn is unironically getting old. time for the 3rd crusade against darkspawn, past 6 months just to kill one annoying player who powergames and metagames.

SoL players complaining about things that they hardly / if ever interact with (they sit in their city doing nothing)

The god awful map design and the restriction on pastes and terrain change

the truth is you cant have functioning rp without OOC. even fights these days between darkspawn and other groups is OOCly communicated, unless they're surprise raids. But this tends to escelate into OOC hate. And now atp everyone cant be arsed to communicate anything OOCly because they're scared to be slapped with a metaplay ban for 6 months for simply suggesting to attack x nation

only way you can get unique / good rp that doesnt feel like a chore is by becoming a darkspawn player and slaving away to get the MA's and Feats required

I mean in the last several months I have still seen so much of that ooc still occurring, and it being used to also control role-playing situations as well. My brief time as a nl I received a warning to basically cease to a nation in 1 irl day. I received a discord dm to check letters. Woke up like 4 hours later and got online 2 hours after that. Tried to see when my council would be able to meet. Within an hour of that the other nation had declared war. 

In a way it's a weird struggle between what oocly can be done, staff are stressing making  in character rather than discord. Comes from a good place, especially when multiple nls will be planning a whole war together even if not allied irp. Yet it does seem like if I send a single dm regarding role-playing matters it could get me in trouble. 

 

Sorry if this is response has horrible grammar. Away from my pc atm. 

[Lortime 1153]

I think there's an important balance, albeit a difficult one, that needs to be struck between niche RP and centralized roleplay. I disagree with the "destruction" style of warfare described above where mass eviction and decimation are only goals. I feel like we are missing out on a huge opportunity to have a "Occupied Territory" style of roleplay; a clash between the native, and conquering cultures. Opressing local populations, or even just trying to integrate/convert/etc the local population into the folds of the conquering one, seems like it could be something fun. Or at the very least, just the imposition of some taxes and a new ruler from the conquering nation could result in an interesting nuanced region, rather than just ruining what a community has tried to achieve. There could be an interesting dynamic of trying to throw of the yoke of the oppressor, even. 

 

Generally speaking, I don't think people ignore new players as much as some have described. I think most of the playerbase is fairly friendly and welcoming, but it still is absolutely cruical to engage them as early as possible into their stay on the server. To this end, I would suggest that cities open dedicated positions in the government that are for the settlement and integration of new players into their nations; we all want more people in our nations, and it should be partially responsibility of the nation to foster a welcoming atmosphere for new players. This even makes sense in roleplay, excepting the more xenophobic nations- governments have a reason to increase their levies and tax base. We have community team members who get players on the server, and help them with mechanical issues, but after that noobs are let loose into fairly daunting world. We should all be striving, IC and OOC, to find ways to help these players find their place. 

 

There needs to be places and opportunities for new players to get involved. I see this as best being done by groups with a low floor for entry, like armies accept next to anyone. Low-level positions with opportunities to rise through the ranks, or just get involved in group events and communities, are just as important as Generals, and Regents. I'm fairly optimistic that most of these things can be achieved, but I'm certainly happy to hear/see the staff getting themselves involved in these issues and pushing for positive change. But at the end of the day, it's upto the entire playerbase to ensure these problems are fixed. Everyone has a small role(to)play. Those with power, OOC and IC have more opportunities to effect these issues on a macro level, but on a micro level it's individual player that make a community open, or closed off. 

 

That's just my two cents! :)

[𝕾𝖙𝖆𝖗𝖌𝖚𝖘𝖍 2451]

The lack of interaction and activities is, I believe, harming the cultures and interests of each community. Recently, when I visit the server and explore the most active cities, I find that the interactions primarily consist of tavern role-playing or casual street chatter. There are numerous activities that could be introduced, but it seems that only specific roles receive support from the staff on LoTC. Antagonist roles, in particular, are often frowned upon, despite being a legitimate form of role play that has seen strict regulations imposed on them. For instance, the PvP rules were altered in a way that strongly favors magic users and staff signed weapon warriors.

 

Although this is just a factor of many issues, it's often overlooked when we aim for a more optimal gameplay experience. It has always been entirely possible to centralize activity while accommodating multiple kingdoms within a smaller map. However, no matter how often this is pointed out, it seems to go over the administration’s head.

 

Coalition wars have become a significant issue, especially launching off the start of the map rather than at the end. In these cases, alliances expedite the geopolitical situation and easily dominate other kingdoms. However, the war rules were designed for total conquest, which is evident as every single war on this map has resulted in complete conquest. Destruction and merges of communities is complex and has consistently been a problem that the Staff has allowed to persist. There are many unique niches, and many of them are incompatible with each other's cultures or lore. Main race kingdoms should have some sort of sanctuary due to their stark differences, as illustrated by the story of the Four Brothers. Yet, we have repeatedly witnessed the destruction of many core communities.

 

During the siege of San'Kharak in Axios, the Oren Emperor at the time sought to completely genocide the Orcs and make them unplayable or force them to live in wooden huts under Oren's control. It was only due to the scrutiny of myself and other staff members that the Orcs' land was ultimately conquered, forcing us to relocate and rebuild their community from the ashes.

 

While I generally support the idea that alternative kingdoms should be subject to conquest, I don't believe it makes sense to vassalize a community rather than the land itself. I've always favored the idea of tile capture over vassalage, especially for communities with significantly different religious and cultural beliefs. A single nation should besiege a castle, leave it in ruins, and use its gains to expand into a new frontier within its own domain. Otherwise, vassalizing communities that prefer their own ways can drive many people away.

[monkeypoacher 8055]

On 11/23/2024 at 1:14 PM, Morigung-oog said:

I've been watching both roleplay numbers and roleplay quality drop over the past few years. It is an issue of there being too many realms, a lot of distance between them

 

 

Wow, what an interesting thing to say. It sure sucks that the maps are 100 times too big, that there's a continental expanse of hastily WorldPainted terrain between every small settlement, that there's no list of places to go or markers on the map. It sucks that there are like 12 separate 'hubs' and you can only soulstone to one of them every 10 minutes. But no, surely the real problem has to be TOO MANY REALMS!!! You can't have too many people creating things on a roleplay server! You need CENTRALIZED ROLEPLAY, even if it makes 90% of the map entirely redundant. We just have to put in some ACTIVITY CHECKS to trim the fat and TILE UPKEEP to make sure no one ever builds anything again.

 

In all seriousness, the drop in quality and quantity you guys perceive is due to abysmal design choices. Previous LotC maps were designed to funnel players into areas of interaction. You would spawn in and have only one or two choices where to go, guaranteeing you found roleplay. Think the Anthos crossroads, the Athera tavern strip, even the Arcas ring road. But we gave up on having functional, intentionally designed maps so we could have years and years of this slop: 

 

 

It fundamentally doesn't matter how many nations there are. It doesn't even matter how big the map is as long as the playable area (where spawn is, where the capitals are) is reasonably compact. But because everything on this server has to be warped around the Nation Leader and his delusional urge to conquer more Tiles, every reasonably active place is repelled to the four corners of the map, condemned to die a slow, withering death.

[Samson Option 9652]

8 hours ago, marikandaperc said:

i've had the same problem for a long while, but the past few days noticed that it's actually easier than you think.

 

once you see players, try to create your own form of engagement. how? that's up to you. my character is a pious farmer, so i walk up to people and ask if they want free bread, that's started some rp. sometimes, the interaction will be short-lived, but that's okay too, eventually you will find interesting interactions.

other examples could be: asking questions about the specific realm, asking directions, looking for a teacher for some specific thing (i.e history, language) 

 

I swear you hit the mother lode there. I never understood why certain players on this server claim it is "difficult to find RP" when it is & has always been this simple. Unless, & perhaps it'll take some Catholic-style confession-box, said "certain players" are using "I find it difficult to find RP" as a diversion & what they really meant to say was "I find it difficult to build my custom-made sand-castle that I want other players to bow & scrape for & at."

 

PS: You can @ me if you are feeling hot under the collar & claim I'm lying & that marika's comment doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I literally generated RP by sitting on a stupid lightning rod (Minecraft item) pole in the city square in Haense & taught people what a Stylites (claimed it was an Akritian word because off the cuff I was under the impression that Akritian was based on irl Greek) is & basically acted as one of those newspaper columns where you get advice from lmao.