Rygan_Deathblade
Evil
I'd like to open a discussion here about our current spawn, and why I believe it isn't the greatest for the current state of our server.
We're all aware that our server is not currently the most active it has been, compared to even a few months ago. We had a boost in activity directly before and after the first event of the campaign, but it would seem as though that's died down for now until the next bastion is found. There are few places to roleplay if your character is not one who travels to random regions or who isn't politically neutral. We simply don't have the population to keep more than one or two cities half-alive with roleplay at a time. As I type this it is 1:30PM EST and we have thirteen players online, on a Sunday. Our current spawn is, I believe, crippled by our current ports system.
We receive a healthy amount of whitelists but very few stay, and I think this is due to how unfriendly our current spawn is, partially due to there being absolutely no organic way to explore. There is no docks or ports and no ships or carriages to use to randomly explore, easily having a way to justify sending your character about. The first roleplays (which are likely to be the deciding factor in their staying or not) these new players experience is purely sitting and drinking ale, next to what I personally find to be a very off-putting destroyed nicer spawn. Spawn will always be our most active 'region', and that's not really a bad thing. What is bad, however, is having a bad spawn.
Many of our current active players avoid spawn because it's cramped, there's little to do, and you're extremely likely to run into rivals and enemy factions. Compare this to the old spawn, which was an entire city filled with various roleplays around it and plenty of places to avoid people while still experiencing the activity of spawn. After a few days of the former experience, many of these newly whitelisted players get bored and leave for more 'exciting, active servers'. I put my air-finger quotes around that as we're obviously not mind-numbingly boring the majority of the time, but our spawn does not give a new player a proper trial of the server.
EDIT: I spoke of the current system of ports being unfavourable, but I did not elaborate on the alternative. Way back when, before this plugin, you had to take boats that went to one region and one region only. To get to where you wanted to go you may have had to even hop on multiple ships crossing multiple regions.
We're all aware that our server is not currently the most active it has been, compared to even a few months ago. We had a boost in activity directly before and after the first event of the campaign, but it would seem as though that's died down for now until the next bastion is found. There are few places to roleplay if your character is not one who travels to random regions or who isn't politically neutral. We simply don't have the population to keep more than one or two cities half-alive with roleplay at a time. As I type this it is 1:30PM EST and we have thirteen players online, on a Sunday. Our current spawn is, I believe, crippled by our current ports system.
We receive a healthy amount of whitelists but very few stay, and I think this is due to how unfriendly our current spawn is, partially due to there being absolutely no organic way to explore. There is no docks or ports and no ships or carriages to use to randomly explore, easily having a way to justify sending your character about. The first roleplays (which are likely to be the deciding factor in their staying or not) these new players experience is purely sitting and drinking ale, next to what I personally find to be a very off-putting destroyed nicer spawn. Spawn will always be our most active 'region', and that's not really a bad thing. What is bad, however, is having a bad spawn.
Many of our current active players avoid spawn because it's cramped, there's little to do, and you're extremely likely to run into rivals and enemy factions. Compare this to the old spawn, which was an entire city filled with various roleplays around it and plenty of places to avoid people while still experiencing the activity of spawn. After a few days of the former experience, many of these newly whitelisted players get bored and leave for more 'exciting, active servers'. I put my air-finger quotes around that as we're obviously not mind-numbingly boring the majority of the time, but our spawn does not give a new player a proper trial of the server.
EDIT: I spoke of the current system of ports being unfavourable, but I did not elaborate on the alternative. Way back when, before this plugin, you had to take boats that went to one region and one region only. To get to where you wanted to go you may have had to even hop on multiple ships crossing multiple regions.