Nation Application Community Feedback

[_RoyalCrafter_ 5285]

11 minutes ago, GibbousKong said:

Now we have vassal bloat, hence why I believe the cost of tile maintenance should scale exponentially rather than linearly. Having a few vassals wouldn’t be difficult, but having 10-15 wouldn’t be feasible. We can’t war these vassals if they’re all protected by three different nations pretending to be one, and their countless allies

 

well yeah if you war every nation they are gonna have to go some where. where are you gonna put communities all in a shitty capital that not even the nation og's want to be in lol? This can also be fixed through warring, if a vassal is protected by different groups then pick a different target, them being protected or having good diplomacy that ensures their survival is part of RP. Just because something cant be warred immediately doesn't mean its bad.

I will concede that the amount of vassals is high and everyone has a "i want my own thing" mindset, but I don't believe this can't be overcome by roleplay incentives, rather staff enforced rules.

[Nectorist 12869]

8 hours ago, PrimnyaQuorum said:

 

me when i hate anyone else but me and my friendgroup having fun.

 

This is a RP server not a live-action test of one of those 1000 people simulation civilization. At the end of the day, any system that exists should be engaging to interact with and be something to work alongside with, not prevent anyone except the same 5-10 people from making realms.

 

I think settlements could come back. The same strict standards that are going for realms would keep settlements unique and functional for those with a more unique niche

 

This isn't really an exclusionary sentiment from Fishy. The least successful nations are those made by a group of friends who thought up a quirky idea at 2pm one day, banded together to write up a cool culture, made a $150 build, then got 25 people to log on for day 1 of the launch of their new nation. I just can't think of a single successful nation that has arisen without already existing in RP. The two freshest and most culturally unique nations atm, Numendil and Koyo-Kuni, both had months of RP behind their existence before they became nations. Make people try out their ideas within the current nation system first, just as a test of their viability, before launching them off into nationhood. Sometimes people might need a few months with their concept before it really takes hold (as was the case with Petra), and throwing them the challenges of being a nation prematurely can just kill any RP momentum that they could've made.

[bickando 3967]

My big problem with forum signature nations is that they are not incentivized to interact with the rest of our ostensibly roleplay server. Anyone, literally anyone, can get 25 signatures, and anyone with drive can put together 25k if they really, really want to. Neither of these have ever been measures of success.

 

The existence of hub nations, or worse, would-be hub nations that are buoyed up by 3 people abusing activity checks through one-on-one rp, should be disincentivized at all costs. A, they'll be destroyed by all the other ones the moment wars are enabled, because their barrier to entry being so low makes it impossible to promote sustainable or healthy rp dynamics with the other nations. B, that then creates bad blood and hate with literally everyone else (see Elysium). C, these nations spawn with the feeling that people are out to get them (Elysium, Vortice, Vansk, etc) and will close off their playerbases from the rest of the server to "protect" them, reducing post-nation player mobility.

 

All nations die eventually. It's just a matter of if their players can easily reintegrate into other nations or if they're doomed to leave the server due to the belief everyone else is an evil pedo domestic abuser or if they've done diplo or multinational literally ever and learned this is not the case.

 

The settlement systems, the CT systems, the town to kingdom systems we had in Asulon/Anthos era were good ways of preventing what we nowadays would call shitter groups from occupying full tiles. A better, cleaner solution would be to make anyone that wants to be a nation have to have proven activity or time as a vassal of someone else. Every successful group, which I define not purely as being active but as creating dynamic rp and interesting plot-lines/story threads for its users, as well as every properly integrated group, has done so.

[NotEvilAtAll 10906]

4 hours ago, GibbousKong said:

Now we have vassal bloat, hence why I believe the cost of tile maintenance should scale exponentially rather than linearly. Having a few vassals wouldn’t be difficult, but having 10-15 wouldn’t be feasible. We can’t war these vassals if they’re all protected by three different nations pretending to be one, and their countless allies

Players are supposed to be able to strike out with their friends on the server and interact with it in some way. If that can’t be through freebuild or a settlement system, then it has to be through vassals. If vassals are also restricted, then players lack the ability to create new communities entirely and lotc becomes more of a static city-RP server with multiple cities.

 

I do not think it is unreasonable that I should, with a few of my friends, be able to get a small place of my own somewhere outside of an existing city. All lotc land systems believe in this and accomplish this in different ways (vassals, freebuild, settlements, etc). If we remove this concept then lotc is not the same server anymore.

[Borin 7645]

13 hours ago, wowj said:

re-add settlements so 5 man nations can get a small plot of land

if settlements were used properly, ppl could set up lil tiny weeny keeps n villages without big walls and stuff, it'd be cool. lil farming villages plonked here and there...

[Zindran 590]

2 minutes ago, Borin said:

if settlements were used properly, ppl could set up lil tiny weeny keeps n villages without big walls and stuff, it'd be cool. lil farming villages plonked here and there...

Colonies and Settlements would go hard 

[sam33497 7356]

Accept them easily and allow them small camp/setup builds, then let them try to meet activity checks, if they can't do it on launch its gg

 

Realms only functionally exist to interact with the war and tile system, so small/inactive groups do not need them and will skew the roleplay due to being afforded protections and abilities that are meant for large player groups

 

But of course an arbitrary gate on the number of people you can get to post on the forums is not the solution. We've been known people just clout farm on the forums, soliciting comments on your realm post isn't a far cry 

[River 555]

Are the physical requirements of nation apps (player signatures & money) too high or too low?

Player signatures on a forum post are not a good representation of active players or players who will dedicate to building up said nation, or their main persona being associated with said nation.
 

While I’ve seen a lot of good ideas pertaining Mina itself and its value, I don’t see an issue with the amount required for form a new nation. If anything the other ideas regarding Mina are worth looking into and addressing. 
 

Should the subjective requirement that a nation be unique (or fill a unique niche) be removed or modified?

 

I don’t think the subjective requirement a nation be unique be utilized. I think it was initially a good idea, to allow nations with unique aesthetics or cultures to be made in the hopes that players would join them and partake in said culture.
 

However It is not an indicator that a nation will provide enough substantiated roleplay expected of a nation. 

Do you feel there should be a new, separate qualifier for new nations? 
 

I think the reason a nation should be created is because a player base in particular have already demonstrated through either enough active players, mustering force, income, and activity that they’re capable of already holding their own and are already capable of nation status.
 

Vassals and their performance, the above mentioned metrics already seem like the perfect nation trial-run in my mind, showing demonstrable evidence that they’re ready. 

[Samson Option 9652]

3 hours ago, Nectorist said:

 

This isn't really an exclusionary sentiment from Fishy. The least successful nations are those made by a group of friends who thought up a quirky idea at 2pm one day, banded together to write up a cool culture, made a $150 build, then got 25 people to log on for day 1 of the launch of their new nation. I just can't think of a single successful nation that has arisen without already existing in RP. The two freshest and most culturally unique nations atm, Numendil and Koyo-Kuni, both had months of RP behind their existence before they became nations. Make people try out their ideas within the current nation system first, just as a test of their viability, before launching them off into nationhood. Sometimes people might need a few months with their concept before it really takes hold (as was the case with Petra), and throwing them the challenges of being a nation prematurely can just kill any RP momentum that they could've made.

 

2 hours ago, JustMeMorgan said:

All I read from a lot of this is 'bring back freebuild'

1. Allows smaller communities to create small settlements and have mobility in roleplay and also a nice creation aspect.
   1. Allows them to also garner more attention and recruit people to make such a nation application as they organically outgrow the freebuild space available
   2. Allows them to see if it's sustainable: freebuild groups that want nation status need to have evidence of activity throughout the period which could be seen in events, signatures that are not just 'yes I want to be here' but genuine reviews of the settlement that can be reviewed to validate whether there's a playerbase dedicated to it, not just 'hey can you comment on my thing please'
2. Freebuild also allows groups forming to begin with some initial diplomacy, so they don't burst 25k and months of waiting just to get nuked in the first week of being a settlement
3. It also allows players to come together to develop a culture organically, rather than just slapping a tile down and appearing out of the blue with a niche never seen before, or testing whether it offers something different if its culture isn't wholly different.
4. It also tests the build capabilities so we don't get shit cobblestone fort cities built: heavily regulated and squirrelled away freebuild where smaller groups can test out, unify, divide and so forth: hell could have a region of the map which is de-tiled and turned into a land of small city-states.

Idk, maybe I just really miss freebuild.

 

4 minutes ago, sam33497 said:

Accept them easily and allow them small camp/setup builds, then let them try to meet activity checks, if they can't do it on launch its gg

 

Realms only functionally exist to interact with the war and tile system, so small/inactive groups do not need them and will skew the roleplay due to being afforded protections and abilities that are meant for large player groups

 

But of course an arbitrary gate on the number of people you can get to post on the forums is not the solution. We've been known people just clout farm on the forums, soliciting comments on your realm post isn't a far cry 

 

I recommend a good synthesis of the following suggestions here:

 

#1. Nation Apps require 20 signatures belonging to players who, upon investigating via /seen & forum searches, have a clearly defined character with X number of hours of playtime that is tied to their signature. I'll let you all debate the number of hours you want to set. This will be a quantitative tool to separate legitimate characters from throw-away alts.

 

#2. Require a paper trail of forum posts & screenshots similar to MArt artifact "creation" that help Implementation Team gauge the organic development of X nation. You can determine # of pieces of evidence, timespan of evidence, etc to your discretion.

 

#3. Permit encampments first upon acceptance (or if you want to tier this as a pending phase) that will warrant growth that leads to an eventual tile takeover based on player population growth or continued activity.

[___ 361]

6 hours ago, NotEvilAtAll said:

Players are supposed to be able to strike out with their friends on the server and interact with it in some way. If that can’t be through freebuild or a settlement system, then it has to be through vassals. If vassals are also restricted, then players lack the ability to create new communities entirely and lotc becomes more of a static city-RP server with multiple cities.

 

I do not think it is unreasonable that I should, with a few of my friends, be able to get a small place of my own somewhere outside of an existing city. All lotc land systems believe in this and accomplish this in different ways (vassals, freebuild, settlements, etc). If we remove this concept then lotc is not the same server anymore.

And you certainly still could. This wouldn’t remove vassals completely, it would just make it more difficult for nations to maintain the absurd number of vassals that they are right now. It would incentivize larger nations to replace their dead, inactive vassals with newer, more active groups. It would also encourage people to spread out across the various nations instead of all making vassals under the same realm. That’s not even mentioning the fact that they have an entire lair system specifically for those smaller groups with its own separate activity checks and requirements in place.

[PrimnyaQuorum 3999]

7 hours ago, Nectorist said:

This isn't really an exclusionary sentiment from Fishy. The least successful nations are those made by a group of friends who thought up a quirky idea at 2pm one day, banded together to write up a cool culture, made a $150 build, then got 25 people to log on for day 1 of the launch of their new nation. I just can't think of a single successful nation that has arisen without already existing in RP. The two freshest and most culturally unique nations atm, Numendil and Koyo-Kuni, both had months of RP behind their existence before they became nations. Make people try out their ideas within the current nation system first, just as a test of their viability, before launching them off into nationhood. Sometimes people might need a few months with their concept before it really takes hold (as was the case with Petra), and throwing them the challenges of being a nation prematurely can just kill any RP momentum that they could've made.

 

I would argue that being dragged into a PvP only warclaim will kill any momentum you might have since most nations enter into pre-drawn, slop treaties that basically conjoin PvPers but /shrug it is a fair point; most nations are DoA. Most Lairs, honestly, end up DoA.

 

I think honestly the overwhelming agreement seems to be to bring back something like settlments, and maybe a smaller system. I would go a step father and say only Lairs/Realms should be able to lair claim to full tiles, and that these colonies/villages/settlements can only get a increasing large plot of large, but never more then, say, half a tile's worth. I think its worth importing in old settlement rules about the ability to WC smaller places and just keep a limit; Vassalization is rapidly growing into a luxury underneath 1 of 3 places, of which only 1 really accepts anything not an offshoot of the primary culture. With expansion to a Realm/Lair should come the risk of WCs and whatnot; smaller places should just be able to exist.

 

At the end of the day, and a point that a lot of people [human players mostly] seem to miss is that the point of the server is to have fun and tell a story. It is really hard to do anything if 2 PROs get to decide for the entire server [because realm applications are made impossible besides the super warclaim body] if you get to have region perms or not. I don't really get what the fuss is with some of you and this believe that you have to earn the right to...rp on the server? I promise I don't think it'll kill anyones activity if a few 50x50 places exist that just Are their own thing as they expand and form, or just die and the land is returned to the godless, greedy monks

5 minutes ago, GibbousKong said:

And you certainly still could. This wouldn’t remove vassals completely, it would just make it more difficult for nations to maintain the absurd number of vassals that they are right now. It would incentivize larger nations to replace their dead, inactive vassals with newer, more active groups. It would also encourage people to spread out across the various nations instead of all making vassals under the same realm. That’s not even mentioning the fact that they have an entire lair system specifically for those smaller groups with its own separate activity checks and requirements in place.

We are trapped in the eternal cycle of

 

"We have too many nations, these small ones should become vassals!

 

"We have too many vassals, some of them should become nations!"

[___ 361]

9 minutes ago, PrimnyaQuorum said:

 

 

I think honestly the overwhelming agreement seems to be to bring back something like settlments, and maybe a smaller system. I would go a step father and say only Lairs/Realms should be able to lair claim to full tiles, and that these colonies/villages/settlements can only get a increasing large plot of large, but never more then, say, half a tile's worth. I think its worth importing in old settlement rules about the ability to WC smaller places and just keep a limit; Vassalization is rapidly growing into a luxury underneath 1 of 3 places, of which only 1 really accepts anything not an offshoot of the primary culture. With expansion to a Realm/Lair should come the risk of WCs and whatnot; smaller places should just be able to exist.

 

At the end of the day, and a point that a lot of people [human players mostly] seem to miss is that the point of the server is to have fun and tell a story. It is really hard to do anything if 2 PROs get to decide for the entire server [because realm applications are made impossible besides the super warclaim body] if you get to have region perms or not. I don't really get what the fuss is with some of you and this believe that you have to earn the right to...rp on the server? I promise I don't think it'll kill anyones activity if a few 50x50 places exist that just Are their own thing as they expand and form, or just die and the land is returned to the godless, greedy monks

We are trapped in the eternal cycle of

 

"We have too many nations, these small ones should become vassals!

 

"We have too many vassals, some of them should become nations!"

Who said anything about making vassals into nations? My proposed suggestion would force them to consolidate multiple vassals onto the same tile or limit the number of vassals they have, both of which would centralize RP and make the nations feel less empty. The issue might be fixable through RP, but only by specific people who have the power to do so, all of which are the same people who enabled this stuff to begin with. 50x50 castles aren’t the issue. It’s the large cities people build as vassals for a player base of five. These 50x50 castles wouldn’t really be impacted anyway, as they wouldn’t need their own separate tile.

[River 555]

Alright, finally back home after a busy day of giving and thanking.

 

 

20 hours ago, rigorous said:

Ensure the scale of nation builds/lairs remain compact. Design rules limiting shitty ugly builds.

 

This, I hate ugly and oversized builds.

 

19 hours ago, Unwillingly said:

Almost literally everything @Unwillingly said.

 

19 hours ago, Islamadon said:

Everything @Islamadon said.

 

19 hours ago, Nectorist said:

...why not instead go a more RP-intensive route and have ... them actually roleplaying establishing this colony and new government. Planning out where to settle IRP through scouting, establishing small camps ..., developing their governing principles through whatever RP method (if it's a republic, some kind of town hall convention. if it's a monarchy, obtaining a pontifical dispensation and gathering prospective vassals. stuff like that). ... I'd very much like to see new nations have to go through the effort to legitimize themselves and actually have a story about their founding, which I think will also benefit the nation's RP in the long run. It's a harder standard to assess, but it's a much more rewarding one.

 

I like a lot of the ideas here. Regardless of the system and its shape, a sort of preliminary or introductory period would be nice. Perhaps the payments could be broken into different stages. Instead of a nation being declared and then everyone going inactive until someone finishes building a massive capital over several months. Except this is all just kind of like, "fun/interesting, would be nice stuff" and not essential.

 

18 hours ago, Fishy said:

Everything @Fishy said.

 

11 hours ago, _RoyalCrafter_ said:

...I will concede that the amount of vassals is high and everyone has a "i want my own thing" mindset, but I don't believe this can't be overcome by roleplay incentives, rather staff enforced rules.

 

Bro, that’s what I’ve been saying since before map launch, during mapdev when I saw how many vassals there were and how large they were.

 

8 hours ago, Nectorist said:

 

This isn't really an exclusionary sentiment from Fishy. The least successful nations are those made by a group of friends who thought up a quirky idea at 2pm one day, banded together to write up a cool culture, made a $150 build, then got 25 people to log on for day 1 of the launch of their new nation. I just can't think of a single successful nation that has arisen without already existing in RP. The two freshest and most culturally unique nations atm, Numendil and Koyo-Kuni, both had months of RP behind their existence before they became nations. Make people try out their ideas within the current nation system first, just as a test of their viability, before launching them off into nationhood. Sometimes people might need a few months with their concept before it really takes hold (as was the case with Petra), and throwing them the challenges of being a nation prematurely can just kill any RP momentum that they could've made.

 

This.

 

1 hour ago, PrimnyaQuorum said:

I think honestly the overwhelming agreement seems to be to bring back something like settlments, and maybe a smaller system. I would go a step father and say only Lairs/Realms should be able to lair claim to full tiles, and that these colonies/villages/settlements can only get a increasing large plot of large, but never more then, say, half a tile's worth. I think its worth importing in old settlement rules about the ability to WC smaller places and just keep a limit; Vassalization is rapidly growing into a luxury underneath 1 of 3 places, of which only 1 really accepts anything not an offshoot of the primary culture. With expansion to a Realm/Lair should come the risk of WCs and whatnot; smaller places should just be able to exist.

 

I’m not sure if people are suggesting we implement settlements on top of lairs/realms plus vassals. If anything, I’d rather see vassals replaced with settlements, because I don’t agree with the notion of handing out land—and large amounts of it—to the sheer number of player groups that have been given land so far.

 

I’m curious what the metrics are on the player activity of every vassal and whether those spaces are dead-RP, dead vassals, or if those players would’ve been more active had they been integrated into the capital—just living together in a manor or something.

 

My thoughts mirror those I quoted above on the questions posed in this thread.

 

I’d take it a step further, get ready for Rivers daily hot take: if those suggestions were implemented, the next issue affecting player activity—and ensuring active nations stay active, active vassals stay active, and new nations can actually emerge—is addressing inactive vassals, and perhaps removing the idea that it’s purely up to nations to decide how many vassals they can have. Allowing players to decentralize their own RP can be detrimental to an already functional nation, and by extension, damages the server and all involved nations/vassals.

 

That’s where I think staff intervention becomes necessary—regardless of how many people dislike that outcome. In my view, it’s simply part of maintaining a healthy and functional world. But, this last part is just my opinion.

[PrimnyaQuorum 3999]

14 minutes ago, River said:

I’m not sure if people are suggesting we implement settlements on top of lairs/realms plus vassals. If anything, I’d rather see vassals replaced with settlements, because I don’t agree with the notion of handing out land—and large amounts of it—to the sheer number of player groups that have been given land so far.

 

I’m curious what the metrics are on the player activity of every vassal and whether those spaces are dead-RP, dead vassals, or if those players would’ve been more active had they been integrated into the capital—just living together in a manor or something.

 

You can't really have a lived in world, and optimal tile activity. The Empire Spans [iirc] 5-6 tiles and the capital is just one 1 tile, with i think a vassal on it. Obviously, that vassal with have an insane amount of activity. With Numendil and Haelun'or [before the great massacre] Haenlun'or was booming/bustling often, on par with Petra [a prior nation] and Numendil [a nation]. Does this mean every other numendain vassal should be taken out back and shot because they weren't a nation before, or aren't competing with the capital region? 

 

My own hot take is that "Vassals" are a poor attempt to quantify the Feudal system of LoTC via rules and systems. A realm can exist, and that realm and produce however many subregions as they want and the rules permit; if one of those sub-regions is, say, a farm while another is a mine, and another is a road checkpoint, and another is a vassal, is that not the system working as intended?

 

I think settlements function because let's face it - Haelun'or really did not belong under Numendil. Putting aside the OOC that went down the resulted in allthat, it was a nation that basically maintained nation levels of activity in excess of what it was achieving before under new leadership. Same with Petra, a prior nation. I would much rather have the realm/region system go over the idea of a vassal subregion type, and have settlements for playergroups like Haelun'or, who may struggle with activity but have a clearly defined, historically present and in-depth niche of RP.

 

Equally, Settlements and the fact they can't be WC'd fits somewhat neatly into RP - if your a smaller group of people and you get wind a large nation is marching its entire army halfway across the world...you just pack up and move somewhere else. That army is not bringing enough food to engage in a sustained campaign across the entire continent to hunt you down, and even if they do find you...it's a PvP warclaim. The following sunday you just make a new build. I don't think staff have the leeway to say the idea of packing up, moving up, and settling down somewhere else is an invalid course of action. 

 

Basically all that aside, vassals are a poorly-written byproduct of the Tile/Realm/Region systems LoTC uses, which really only exist to feed into the Warclaim system; they have 0 actual bearing on RP, just permissions. 

 

23 minutes ago, River said:

I’d take it a step further, get ready for Rivers daily hot take: if those suggestions were implemented, the next issue affecting player activity—and ensuring active nations stay active, active vassals stay active, and new nations can actually emerge—is addressing inactive vassals, and perhaps removing the idea that it’s purely up to nations to decide how many vassals they can have. Allowing players to decentralize their own RP can be detrimental to an already functional nation, and by extension, damages the server and all involved nations/vassals.

 

That’s where I think staff intervention becomes necessary—regardless of how many people dislike that outcome. In my view, it’s simply part of maintaining a healthy and functional world. But, this last part is just my opinion.

 

I would be happy to cite the number of times I've watched individual staff members use their bias, or their ties to a clique or friendgroup, to force or achieve a particular outcome in matters large and small. I [and probably most other people] do not trust any staff, individually or as a collective or subteam, to decide for themselves, OOCly, who does and does not deserve to have literally a vassal. If a playergroup having a vassal kills the nation, maybe the nation didn't deserve to exist, or should handle it IRPly! Hell, Aaun ceased to exist because it got so weak the church [A non-realm entity btw!] took them over, renamed the nation, then warred through the realm they effectively stole to create what is now the Empire of Man, and have now returned to be a psuedo vassal/psuedo realm/non-realm entity. Should the Church of the Canon be dismantled/removed from the forums/shut down by staff because they take OOC activity away from the Empire of Man? I think generally the answer is no, thats ridiculous. 

 

Staff intervention should end [in regards to the nation making process] when they decide to approve a realms existence, or deny it. If that playergroup vassalizes as a result of being unable to get land, they [staff] should have 0 say in that vassals existence. Otherwise, it seems like you are suggesting a 5-7 member team have a total, unchallengeable monopoly on who gets to make a Realm based on the logic that a vassal that takes away from capital activity % is a bad vassal and should be OOCly closed by staff, regardless if that Vassal would even be permitted to pass the realm application process and become its own thing.

 

I think, frankly, this speaks more clearly to the fact staff dont seem fully aware the vassal spam is a direct byproduct of 2 things

 

1) Realm applications closing, while players continue to develop their own RP niches without caring about realm apps

2) The Empire War destroying multiple nations and vassaling most of them [to my understanding, at one point staff even forcibly made the empire split into multiple realms after it tried to create vassal kingdoms beneath it, like norland and numendil. Could be wrong tho, no tile maps or implementation friends]

 

#2 is a result of RP, and frankly should be the basis of which the system exists; to make these sorts of things possible and fair. It seems almost paradoxical - you are unable to get the MMO-esqe resources you need to defend yourself and pay for your own existence [and build/protect it] unless you produce an application, which requires that you already can pay for and defend your own existence. The grind still sucks and takes multiple hours for multiple people - either you are grinding, or you are RPing. One cannot both build the required material reserves for a realm-sized entity and engage in the RP to build the backbone and culture of that entity. 

 

Some of this is probably nonsensical [happy thanksgiving] but I think in general we should have systems to get people into the pipeline to reach realm/lair status, and this system should offer SOME basic protections [like no WCs] with the cost of land limitations and other such [maybe no nation mine, maybe no castles/forts, etc] - things to encourage people to either dig into their part of this pipeline and embrace it, or actively seek to build themselves and their culture/group up to be ready for the next rung

 

[River 555]

14 hours ago, PrimnyaQuorum said:

...With Numendil and Haelun'or [before the great massacre] Haenlun'or was booming/bustling often, on par with Petra [a prior nation] and Numendil [a nation]. Does this mean every other numendain vassal should be taken out back and shot because they weren't a nation before, or aren't competing with the capital region? 

 

I mean, based off their activity, and the fact that they're still performing at the level some nations are if not better, based off the suggestions so far of utilizing the current vassals as demonstrable proof that they're ready to become a nation if they chose (as stated by fishy, Islamadon, Unwillingly, and many others here), I'd say they're more likely candidates to be able to apply for nation status, while a number of the other lesser active; but not dead vassals are still functional vassals.

 

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14 hours ago, PrimnyaQuorum said:

I [and probably most other people] do not trust any staff, individually or as a collective or subteam, to decide for themselves, OOCly, who does and does not deserve to have literally a vassal...

 

Staff intervention should end [in regards to the nation making process] when they decide to approve a realms existence, or deny it. If that playergroup vassalizes as a result of being unable to get land, they [staff] should have 0 say in that vassals existence. Otherwise, it seems like you are suggesting a 5-7 member team have a total, unchallengeable monopoly on who gets to make a Realm based on the logic that a vassal that takes away from capital activity % is a bad vassal and should be OOCly closed by staff, regardless if that Vassal would even be permitted to pass the realm application process and become its own thing.

 

I think, frankly, this speaks more clearly to the fact staff dont seem fully aware the vassal spam...

 

I think you missed the part where I said this was my opinion. I know for a fact that the other members of staff don't agree with my take and say exactly what you just said. So don't blanket the entirety of staff with the typical buzz words and catch-phrases of "staff aren't fully aware". You literally saw countless other staff in here just make varying claims and opinions, some or most whose views match your own. It's counterproductive and baseless, and a waste of conversational space, and a waste for me to even address it. 

 

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14 hours ago, PrimnyaQuorum said:

My own hot take is that "Vassals" are a poor attempt to quantify the Feudal system of LoTC via rules and systems...Basically all that aside, vassals are a poorly-written byproduct of the Tile/Realm/Region systems LoTC uses, which really only exist to feed into the Warclaim system; they have 0 actual bearing on RP, just permissions. 

 

 

I hear you bash vassals, while supporting settlements, and my original confusion still stands as to why I'm confused;

 

15 hours ago, River said:

I’m not sure if people are suggesting we implement settlements on top of lairs/realms plus vassals.

 

 

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I'd still like for you to elaborate how you'd see realms, vassals, and settlements working in the same environment, as well as expanding on what you meant by vassal subregions. "and that realm and produce however many subregions as they want and the rules permit", "and the rules permit" I was just saying there are no rules, I was merely suggesting there be rules in the first place, not dictate who can have vassals or who can be a vassal. Because this;

 

On 11/27/2025 at 3:08 PM, _RoyalCrafter_ said:

...I will concede that the amount of vassals is high and everyone has a "i want my own thing" mindset, but I don't believe this can't be overcome by roleplay incentives, rather staff enforced rules.

 

 

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It sounds as though you heavily favor settlements, you spent like half of your post attempting to make the argument to reimplement them. Which I was against removing them in the first place way back when. On this it sounds like we're on the same side, I always thought there was a place for them. My only issue is with vassals, and that alone is my only issue, I'm not alone in that opinion, there've been ramblings about vassals since even before map launched from plenty of the community and staff-alike, and they're not wrong that something feels off about them.

 

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Final note, attack me, not the overall staff. People have an issue categorizing groups because it makes arguments sound more compelling, but ignore the fact that it's wrong to begin with and is surface level. You don't see staff chats, don't presume to know what the staff think. I'm the oddball, not the majority or rest of the staff.