Allow tribes to expand please.

[MrDDT]

A paid account is not inactive. Even if the owner never logs in, he should be counted as an active one. He pays for the service so he has the right to get it.

Some accounts dont even have the option to pay right now because its not working. Which is why there is a problem.

On top of this, what if Oak's totem issue is caused by a player that is paying but doesnt actively play?

He will still be unhappy.

[inhabit]

I have to agree I'd be more pissed about losing the terraforming days/weeks/months or whatever rather than getting my items back as the game stands at this point.

The right to a totem starts off firstly with your sub, simple no sub no totem. Until decay is active noone should be deleted. As for mass emails if they want to they could but people still interested would mainly be checking in on forums from time to time I would have thought?

Tribe radius and how it works comes into this topic because we were talking about inability to expand a tribe due to 1man or really any size inactive tribe nearby. Think about if 2 large tribes are nearby one is inactive or has 1 person in they don't shrink the other active one can't expand.

A tribe who had 50+ at one time but now has 1 active should not have a divine right to 1 huge "safezone" (key word here).
Effort seems to be labelled with large tribes here oh they would lose land after all the effort they put in. Well how about the solo guy who has also put in a lot of effort and been active why should he be stuck in a small homestead and have to recruit to expand.

Basically the system needs reworked and until then they shouldn't use their god powers to remove people, it should be done through an ingame mechanic such as decay or zombies spawning inside an inactive tribe like has been suggested elsewhere. Noone should be allowed to decide oh i dont think you have developed you land enough..DELETE. Although its their game they can do what they like I suppose

Controversial one for you here - you blame the devs for making a game which wont hold peoples attention, i blame the tribe leaders for blindly mass recruiting without any thought into the future in a my tribes bigger than yours ego :P

[banden]

All this squabbleling is pretty much academic. The devs should focus on designing and implementing a system that is fair for everyone, not halfbaked solutions. The totem-radius-for-membercount feature was bad from the start. Mistakes have been made and you cant please everyone, but all current issues with totems will be fixed once a proper system is in. Id say this should be nr 1 priority, as it is a rather pressing matter at this stage.

DDT, we can talk promises and plans all day long. At the end of the day, a developer reeeally cant promise anything. It ties up their hands and the devs on this game is tied up enough allready. A working totem system should be implemented as soon as possible and inactive players should get fair warning, 6 month is a ridiculous timeframe to put on gamedesign based on a "promise". 1 Month is plenty imo, from email to complete totem decay. I mean its not like these people are stranded on deserted islands with no hope of rescue, if they care about the time they invested and the game they played they will react to an email. What it really comes down to is, is it fair to ask these people to invest more of their money into this game at the state it is in now. Id say yes, and the rest would be up to the individual player. This is all that can be done.

[tomduril]

My believe (and thats a believe) is that clustering is still not available, which makes it virtual impossible to send emails to (my guess) 2000+ players to ask them to return. Without working clustering more than 400 players would literally crush the server (lag at the level we had at the start) - this said - I understand why devs and jorky are reluctant to ask people to either return or disbandon their space.

So if what I believe is true - the situation will stay as it is - cause they can not risk too many people "comming back" as it would result in chaos and high lag times (possible killing the game for those who are left and still active).

Or it could be that everything is wrong and your ideas would be good - and Xsyon would be ok with more people playing ... we`ll most probably never know

[Shaggy]

inactive players should get fair warning, 6 month is a ridiculous timeframe to put on gamedesign based on a "promise". 1 Month is plenty imo, from email to complete totem decay. I mean its not like these people are stranded on deserted islands with no hope of rescue, if they care about the time they invested and the game they played they will react to an email.

I said it in the other thread and I'll say it here: this game will absolutely not survive if they give people more than a month. With all the shortcomings and misfires by the devs, they can't afford another big one like this. If these people really cared about their stuff, they'd either be playing still or at least respond to attempted communication. The game feels like a ghost town, and it doesn't help that the entire world is littered with inactive homesteads claiming all the decent spots. The devs need to just bite the bullet and begin the process of dealing with these totems or they're gonna lose the last remaining players they have left.

[Mactavendish]

If it turns out that the one man totem by me is a paid player I will no say another word.

What really seems odd to me is that ddt keeps defending players that have not been here in 10 month. This makes me feel strongly that he has inactive totems holding some resource that he is in fear of losing.

Such a strong reaction from him indicates to me he has something to lose.

If a totem is held by a paying customer, ( and you ARE a paying customer right ddt? ) then my suggestion does nothing to harm you.

It is all well and good that you want to be lord over all ... but abusing a billing error to hold resources that paying customers cannot have a chance to control is not good for the game either.

You say that some don't have the option to pay.. wow that is so sad that they are playing and NOT paying when I have to pay to play. You can see why that argument hold little interest to me right?

I have no way to know if you have paid accounts or they are all gifted to you. I do know that on the forums you still show as a guest.

So, really... what is it you are afraid of losing?

[banden]

... you know. Personal attacks dont really help your arguementation Oak. He might just be on the fence about keeping promises. Thats a virtue in a game developer... promises shouldnt be made in the first place anyway, they ultimately lead to disappointment.

[Mactavendish]

I appreciate what you are saying Banden. I hope you say the same thing to him as well, since his reaction to my comments have always felt like an attack to me.

I am really more trying to keep things transparent here. I have not mentioned anything that is not common knowledge.

Besides, you cannot "win" an argument with some people. What I am doing is more to be sure folks are not conned than anything.

[banden]

It doesnt seem like that to me. Im sure DDT doesnt need me to do whiteknighting for him but just FYI what hes been saying is that your tribe is artificially inflated by a lot of inactive players and that is completely right. It is in fact just as bad as inactive 1 man totems, what makes it different? It is still territory being held by inactive players. In both cases. You on the other hand have been argueing that yours is an active tribe... well this doesnt really matter does it? Your territory is still inflated. Should we remove all inactive members from your tribe then? You wouldnt want that, so we shouldnt demand inactive totems to be removed either.

So a decay system should be implemented as soon as possible and territory should be held by labor, not by accounts. Removing totems manually would be a waste of time and determining which should be removed and which should stay would cause all sort of other issues.

All this "did he make a promise" stuff is really an ethical problem. So forget about it, its up to Jordi. Personally Im a fan of Utilitarian ethics.

[Mactavendish]

Then I guess we are left with just waiting to see.

But don't be surprised when they do some advertising, it causes an influx of many players and this issue has not been solved, and this comes back up on the forums.

On a side note, what is good for the goose is good for the gander as they say.

I will adjust to any change that happens in game like I always have. If they decide to remove inactive accounts from even active tribes then I will adjust that too...
You won't see me whining about what I have built or what I may have to do to restore it. I have already had to do that twice, so it wont cause any problems to me.

It was suggested that I kick all my inactive to even have a valid point. However the person suggesting it surely would not do the same... so.. moot point.

This is a game after all.. this is not life. If people get pissed about some adjustment they need to make in a game, then they have no life, or this game may be their life.. and that is just sad.

I don't want to be the biggest tribe in this game... I am happy with the members I have. I recruit because as you add a few you lose a few.. that is just me playing the game.

I have maintained a very active tribe since it was created, by kindness and freedom to my members, the latter being something this game is attempting to provide to all players.

And before any of you think I don't care about the work folks have put into a tribe even a 1 man, think again... the tower on our land was started by a player named Testop... he no longer can play due to financial issues. I feel sure he will one day return. And when he does he will still have his place in the world due to active fellow tribe mates keeping his work alive until he returns. If he does not, we will finish his work and make sure folks know who did it.

If he was a 1 man tribe, first off he would never have been able to make it. Second, terraforming is not removed even when a player kills his totem so it is unlikely their "work" go away if they decide to return. shoot look at all the abandoned dirt walls all over the place.

This really is about whether or not a former player has enough interest to respond and come back.. if they don't so what? They were not here in the first place.

If they do show interest, they do not lose anything at all.

Also, these arguments about inflated tribe areas with inactive members keeping it larger than it would be in reality, is very hypocritical. NONE of the larger tribes can Honestly say they have NO inactive members. This includes anyone in these threads.