Most people dicussing on this thread appear to be somewhat “seasoned” community members or have been around a certain extended while.
I reckon it might be a good insight for some if a completely new player gave a statement.
That would be me, Hi, I have been here about three days.
The dilemma discussed here is a typical problem on a lot of different roleplay enviroments that allow custom maps and custom building. Centralization of roleplay is a good staff or leadership utilized tool to concentrate activity on a certain area. As we have established.
To be honest, I am much like some people here on this thread. I prefer a small to medium sized village a bit away from the cities though somewhat close to the main roads, strategically placed on hotspots where players tend to come through.
If I could choose freely, I would love a small community of 5-10 people which all are reasonably active within the village, and other travelling or visiting players passing through thanks to main road connection. Events would be player or local leadership coordinated.
I agree that an influx of lingering travellers or visitors are essential to make small villages more active and more enticing. I believe thats because in my experience, rarely in a community of 7 people can all seven come online at the same time, meaning external influx is imperative hand in hand with an active leadership.
That’s all a good fantasy of mine, and those types of villages I just described /may/ exist or are attemtped to be raised right now, but my god when I first arrived here I was hit with a wall of different things but no dynamic list of sorts to overview all places my character could settle in so I can choose according to my preferences. I believe the place and its local community are one of the first deciding factors when it comes to dynamics, lore and types of roleplay.
There is barely any way without battling the convoluted chaos that is the forum to accumulate data on things like..
..Classification (Settlement < Hamlet < Village < Town < City)
..Average Activity
..Player led Events Yes/No
..Economic Focus
..Typical Type of Roleplay
..Number of total residents/members
..Number of active residents in the last X days
And these are all variables that vary depending on a players taste!
Fair enough, some people may say “Yes but there is the “settlement” list in the Wiki.” but that hardly gives an impression sufficient enough to asess the dynamics and other factors that hint at activity or type.
I for one just ended up somewhat confused going to Helena.
I mean I might be totally wrong, it just was my impression that choosing a place to dedicate my activity to had very limited choices through poor display it seems