Archived Overpopulation!

[JeanLucMontou]

It's frustrating finding a home for a faction when the worlds are ffilled with littering and land-raping lone-wolves (which I can understand to a point) and land-hoarding alt factions. I've seen entire islands (the size of small nations) owned by ONE person in a faction that gets on once every day or so for 5 minutes or less. The 16 chunk rule, which I totally understand, prevents a lot of choices for a nice home because of these alt factions or barely active (in my opinion, this is WORSE than inactive) that have been there for months, yet have done next to nothing with it. I feel that creating new worlds, while it is a time consuming process, would only be a temporary fix, until the same thing happens yet again within a month of its freshness. I've seen active players leave their lone wolf chests about in 3 different worlds and since they are active, the chests cannot be claimed over or destroyed. I feel as though allowing enemy land claiming would be an effective measure to solve this, though it would have to be HEAVILY tailored for specificity to prevent the powerhouse factions from steamrolling over baby factions. Perhaps with enough feedback, this measure would be effectively tailored for a non-grief war, involving ONLY neighboring factions (or nations). This would also demand more specific and reasonable calls for war, as to prevent reckless and trolling War Declarations only to have a good view instead of making room. On the positive side, this measure would be effective in ending these unfair alt factions that serve only to take free space from the worlds.
On this subject, I also feel that the heavier enforcement of the 3x Rule would help save space in all worlds, where I have personally witnessed one person who is barely active holding 300 land with 20 max power. I don't care who your main is, it's unfair to factions with enough max power that can't find a large enough space because of this. Not only are the alt factions annoying with this, as are the infamous "ghost factions" as I like to call them. Factions of 12 or so members and there are about a maximum of 3 members who are active (that are usually nothing but regular members!) at different points of the day and about a week apart.

In summary, my opinion is that creating worlds is effective, but only for so long (two weeks - a month tops). Allowing for War-Claiming would be effective at preventing crowded areas, but could go horribly wrong if not severely controlled and held by a short leash. And finally, enforcement of the 3x rule would be most-likely the most efficient and effective measures that could be taken to help with the problem, but the rule would have to be tailored for the ghost factions that get away with that 1 member that is active for half an hour a week.
If you have anything to add (positive or negative!), please do so! I love a debate, so long as there is a maturity and intelligence level maintained.

 

[XvW]

I agree with you that there is way too many minor factions but I feel that I have to disagree with your methods. Here is why:

1. Harder Enforcement of the 3x power rule: To check every faction if they have too much land will take ages and require a ton of effort from the game staff. If I recall correctly the owner of the faction must also be warned before land is unclaimed so that they have time to fix it, this means that the gamestaff not only have to find these factions but they must also log them and schedule a check-up this too will take time, time that can be used for more urgent matters. It would be easier just to do a /ticket or file a report against a faction if you want to claim nearby and they have 200 land but just 1 member.

2. Claming enemy land: There are way too many ways that this can be abused and it will have to be coded and constantly supervised by staff so that clams are only made by factions with a legit war thread.

3. More Worlds: Atm we have 7 large worlds that can be played upon, 6 of these are editable.
The amount of players that are online at once usually stays around 200 on a regular day. Lets say atleast 40% of these are RPers that hang out in Regalia. That leaves about 120 players to be spread among the various worlds. The average amount of players per world will then be 20 per world. Every world consist of millions of blocks and the chance for these players to be close to eachother (without organising it) is very low, meaning 20 different areas are loaded at once. This is resource damanding even without adding a few more million blocks that will have the same issue in about a month.

Everyone has a right to their own faction, however small it may be. This is a suggestion I made a while back:
http://forums.massivecraft.com/threads/faction-wars.17009/
One of it's uses is to encourage players to join bigger factions to recieve better awards, thus decreasing 1-man factions. Though even this idea is flawed because of all the work and resources that have to be put into it but it will last longer than a new world.

I believe it is better to encourage players to join large factions than forcing them to leave their small ones.

 

[Made_By]

Increasing the price of factions could slow down the growth.

 

[JeanLucMontou]

But none of this is a long term solution. Here's a list of solutions in mind that would immediately stop the growth of, reduce the over space allowed, and keep the land freer for others.

1. Increase the costs of beginning a faction. Some people would say this is cruel, but in my opinion, the price is too low. If the price were doubled, you'd get a lot more serious leaders and less alt facs, incapable leaders, and what I've take to calling them, litter legions.

2. Reducing the max land to the 2x rule. If I have 3 people, that's 60 max power. Double that (120 land) is plenty of space for them. The problem people will have with this solution is that "people leave or stuff happens". Well honestly, if you have less people, you don't need as much land. Doubling what you already have is enough without tripling it. I also think the 3x rule shouldn't be a regulation, but a warning. "You have 150 land but you only have 60 max power. If you reach too close to 180, we will unclaim your land." The 2x rule is enough for even small factions.

3. I think the 16 chunk rule is all well, but I think enemy-claiming land should be allowed, while heavily moderated and tailored. It sounds cruel, but there needs to be regulations in place to control the "lol raiders" and trolls from being too much. While adding a realistic warfare option, this could be abused. Perhaps the war would have to last a certain period of time before enemy claiming? Perhaps only so much land could be claimed at one period of time, like the 2 hour raid rule. It would create a realistic war scenario. "They're coming! You two, move all the supplies while we hold them off!"

4. TAXATION! The most effective of any of my solutions. I played on a well managed server where one had the option of leaving citizenship of the main city, but when starting your own faction, you were responsible for paying taxes appropriate to the size in members of your faction. If you went in the whole too far, your faction was auto-disbanded. This could be incorporated to land claims, as it is in real life. If you are a big faction with 500 land, you would be required to pay so much in regals every other rl day or every week or so. The timing doesn't matter as long as the amount is proportionate. While I agree that everyone be allowed to have their own faction, it's not exactly compliant with life as we know it unless you are an efficient, powerful, and competent individual. Now if land were taxed, this would keep people from "abusing" the 3x (hopefully 2x) rule. If one person having 20 max power holds the full amount of land (which is ridiculous and absurdly over the need) he would need to back his claim up with producing the regals. These inactive face that have one person on for 30 seconds once a week, or as I like to call them, litter legions, would fall behind on their taxes, not producing enough to prepare for them. If a vacation was coming, any intelligent person would do the math and prepare their taxes ahead of time for their absence so that isn't an effective excuse. I feel that if any of my solutions would be chosen, this would be the most effective by far to keep the greedy, land-grabbing alts and baby factions from over stepping their coin purses at the same time as conserving space for everyone to exist.

Being a veteran, I enjoy a little realism in games. I like emersion. This over population gets frustrating but enforcing these rules would create a more political environment. Not necessarily forcing anyone to ally, but encouraging strong diplomacy for the same of your land, while preserving space for others.

I have many effective and logical ideas for the smooth running of a server. Ideas that this server needs. If any staff or controller would like my opinion on server ideas or solutions, feel free to ask for my email.