The town is growing!

Discussion in 'Empire Updates' started by Krysyy, Mar 8, 2015.

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  1. I'd suspect they will stay the same and the numbers of the new residences will just carry on from the last one on that server. Someone correct me if I am wrong! :p
    FDNY21, Mar 9, 2015
    #81
    pascal1881 likes this.
  2. That wouldn't make sense, and here's why: Empires are made up of colonies. Town, Wastelands, the Wilderness, The Nether, and the End are EMC's colonies :p
    They will stay the same.
    synth_apparition, Mar 9, 2015
    #82
  3. In all honesty I think we need to sort out having enough slots for players to play, before adding more residences... Having said that more res' should be an interesting addition :)
    AnonReturns, Mar 9, 2015
    #83
    crystaldragon13, PandasEatRamen and FDNY21 like this.
  4. Current residence numbers will stay the same. Nothing is happening to old residences. We're just continuing the numbering pattern for at least one more round, depending on demand for that server. Utopia will likely get 3 =P

    Here's what some of the community members are missing:
    1) Res 108 is only going for that much because of the community assigning the value to it. Notice the starting bid was 1,000r. We never stated it was worth more.
    2) We have never guaranteed that the town would not grow. In fact, I believe Aikar mentioned in a few separate posts that some infrastructure would have to change to support growth.
    3) We discussed this idea months ago, but wanted to throw out some alternatives before taking this action. One of those alternatives was changing the derelict policy for voting. However, when asked that very specific question in the Empire survey, close to 95% if not more (haven't ran exact numbers) said that they would want it to stay at the 30 day mark and not drop. Using that knowledge, we had to throw that idea off the table. We made the decision for a town expansion to be set in motion once the demand required it. The Senior Staff have done multiple clean ups recently, each recovering less and less residences. This last cleanup on utopia only gave us 10.
    4) At the moment, the limit is 40 on at a time per smp, but look at how many active people we have in the last month: 18794. Tbh, the main issue with lags are giant farms in town limits, but how do we limit that without having other players upset with us. The fact of the matter is that we cannot please everyone. (And yes we are looking at the res cap soon).
    5) Some players can't get on all the time. Some have school, work, and other engagements so they can only get on every month or so. And yeah I'll pull this card here: some are in the military and can only come on for little spurts of 3-4 weeks, then they are gone for 3+ months before they can come back on. Personally, I don't think it's fair to discriminate against those people and limit the derelict.
    6) Things such as max res vouchers and permanent derelict vouchers only add to the strain on the number of residences. Each player can now own up to 6 residences technically. It's going to affect our system. We've put this off for as long as possible at this point. It is time to expand.
    Krysyy, Mar 9, 2015
    #84
    crystaldragon13, Damiensmom11, MrsWishes and 9 others like this.
  5. Military is my situation! Hooyah!
    Marshmallow369, Mar 9, 2015
    #85
  6. I don't think you can really compare these 2 events like that. The issue of residence 108 started because the player got banned and the staff got overwhelmed by requests and claims for it.

    I also think its fair to mention that the starting bid was 1,000r. So if we're talking about staff putting a value on a residence then I would conclude that the staff valued 108 at 1,000r. Its the community who decided to throw a lot more money at it. It could be because of the location, but it could just as easily have been triggered by the cool (low) residence number.

    And yah, the auction is hosted by the admins. But the gain flows right back into the community through the means of events and such. Its not as if the admins will actually profit from all this, in the end all this gains them is having to deal with more time consuming issues.

    Quite frankly I think it was more fair to actually try and get this residence to be used by the community again than to simply lock it and label it "to be used in the future". This way at least some player(s?) will get some fun from it, and rightfully so.

    One player got banned and lost his residence because of it, the players who own corner / edge residences get to keep them?

    I honestly don't see how players got treated differently here. Apart from the banning part perhaps, but that's also a completely different issue.
    ShelLuser, Mar 9, 2015
    #86
  7. I might missed it, but are the new ring being added to the outside of town, or outside of just the /town plot?
    Kyzoy, Mar 9, 2015
    #87
  8. New ring, stated in the OP :)
    FDNY21, Mar 9, 2015
    #88
    Kyzoy likes this.
  9. Currently the square of residences for non-utopia smp is 39 x 39.
    This expansion will add one res to all sides = 41 x 41
    Krysyy, Mar 9, 2015
    #89
    Kyzoy likes this.
  10. I was not able to tell what it meant, as long as it is outside ring, I'll be able to retain my sanity.

    Thanks for the clarifications!
    Kyzoy, Mar 9, 2015
    #90
    ShelLuser and FDNY21 like this.
  11. You guys created the problem, and now we pay the price. Find a new solution. It is out there.
    Standsinlava, Mar 9, 2015
    #91
    PandasEatRamen and 00void like this.
  12. Not necessarily.

    Keep in mind that there are 2 "streams" of players: those joining and those leaving the Empire.

    Although I don't know any hard numbers I do think its safe to say that those numbers will vary a lot. So one moment we'll be dealing with more players joining than leaving while at other times it will be the exact opposite. One situation fills up the Empire, the other will empty it.

    So the main thing to do, at least in the way I see it, is to make sure that you have enough capacity to 'overlap' those periods.

    And I think that's the main goal here.

    Doesn't mean you're wrong of course; if the Empire continues to grow then eventually we'll be here again. Absolutely true.

    But do I think this is a much safer way to expand than adding another server at the risk that in a few months the player amount could have decreased again. Not only does a server cost money to buy, it will also take its sweet time to set it all up. And as Aikar shared some time ago: spare time is something he doesn't really have right now.

    Which is also something to keep in mind; the staffs options seem to be somewhat limited. Even if they wanted to add a new server I'm not too sure that they'll be able to pull it off quick enough. Although my guess is as good as yours of course.
    ShelLuser, Mar 9, 2015
    #92
    crystaldragon13 and M4nic_M1ner like this.
  13. You've been suggesting this 'new solution' thing for a long time now, yet you haven't yet clarified upon what you think that solution might be. Can you do this for us? :)
    CadenMann, Mar 9, 2015
    #93
    crystaldragon13, Kalia1784 and ShelLuser like this.
  14. Read my posts. I already have.
    Standsinlava, Mar 9, 2015
    #94
  15. Corner res problem: turn town into a cross shape. Current is 39*39, so make the new rows 29*29 (centered). Corner reses are preserved, new reses are created, it's a win win. And for the "oh but this makes town not simple/over complicates things", nah it doesn't. Sometimes the best solutions aren't the easiest. I personally don't see the appeal in corner reses, but can understand why some people do.

    Res 108 had a value of 1000 rupees put on by EMC staff, so yes, reses do have a value. It has a bid of over 2 million rupees on it right now - that looks like a value to me. Just because a value isn't staff set doesn't mean it's not perfectly valid (see Empire Shop vs Player Shops). Also, arguing that they don't is pretty dumb - even if you don't see the value in a res, other's might do. Similarly, I don't see the value in collecting tons of promos, but there's sure as hell plenty of people that do.

    Town needs expansion: 100% can agree with this. I get that new reses need creating. I remember the whole "OMG CRAP UTOPIA'S FULL WE NEED TO UNCLAIM STUFF" madness that happened when I was a mod. That said, server side lag etc. is a undisputably a problem with adding more reses (and yes, I know that it's been tried to be fixed, and failed), so seems to be a strange focus right now. Especially since the lag means lower slots (I think that's still happening?), meaning that some new players won't even be able to get on to claim the new reses.

    Max res vouchers exist in limited quantities and are no longer buyable. Tbh, I think they're completely irreverent in the discussion, since they were $100 (I think?), so only exist in very very limited quantities. You could even go through Paypal and check exactly how many of them were ever created and just make that many extra reses if it's really been seen as a problem.

    Long term residence absences: yeah, people might be away for a while. I'm sure they can ask people to vote for them. I'd honestly cut down derelict at this point if more reses are needed, and just ask people to get someone to vote for them every X days - it's not exactly a difficult thing to do.

    Not exactly a beautifully written post, and doesn't exactly cover everything, but hey, it'll do.
    JackBiggin, Mar 9, 2015
    #95
    jkjkjk182, GeistKitsune, M4nic_M1ner and 5 others like this.
  16. I hope you're right. :)
    I hope EMC will continue expanding.

    TLDR:
    - I think town expansion is the logical thing to do, it is easy and cheap to do that.
    - SMP "town" is not really a town - it is more just a grid of residences.

    - It can easily continue virtually indefinitely - more and more space can easily be added.
    - It can not grow too fast because of the limit of number of active players per server.
    - What is being added is not that much space for active players, but more space for inactive players.
    - Frontier towns are the way to go.

    I'm not addressing the edge-and-corners res question here, just town growth.

    SMP town growth
    As long as it is easy to just add, and keep adding residences and expanding towns, I think this is the logical thing to do. The "towns" are already too big anyway - too big to remember what is where or to walk to the next shop. Most probably nobody does that, all use teleports and /v commands. There is no transport problem in the SMP town. So if the town gets twice as big, and then again, it is not really a problem from this point of view. The town is not really a "town" - it is more just a grid of residences.

    Number of active players per SMP server is limited by processing power limits. So we can not have indefinitely more active players in a town. But we can have much more residences for the less active and inactive players at a very low cost. Residences that are not in active use are usually not a problem - they use some space - which is not really a problem, but they do not use processor time.

    More natural residence politics
    I think it would be good to gradually make residence politics more natural:
    Introduce monthly residence fee, so that it is adjusted to the income from "free rupees".
    - each player gets one free residence with the current derelict policy
    - when / before a player goes derelict, they can choose to pay the monthly fee to extend the derelict time for the residence(s). If the player is active, one res is free. If inactive, then it costs the fee or it goes derelict.
    - active players can earn rupees and pay for more residences, it is up to them to decide what they need and how much it is worth

    Frontier Towns
    The other thing, as stated somewhere above, is residence claiming in the frontier. New towns will form and the space is virtually unlimited. This will be more really towns, as they will have the transport problem and it will be up to players imagination to make them well organized and a pleasant view.
    M4ster_M1ner, Mar 9, 2015
    #96
  17. nooo! My edge Res!
    aww... okay.
    LittleRobotSeffy, Mar 9, 2015
    #97
    BlackKnight1021 likes this.
  18. I love you. :D
    Uber_Corq, Mar 9, 2015
    #98
    PandasEatRamen, GeistKitsune, B4DMAN5IMON and 1 other person like this.
  19. As mentioned in a previous post, we had an idea to make them circles or another shape too, but here's the issue:
    -Simply creating new corner residences doesn't appease those corner dwellers that live there not because the res has no neighbors on 2 sides, but because they can claim they are the nw corner of the map, etc. A plus shape would upset these people. Plus it would upset those that believe the town should be square.
    -You still have to upset some edge people. If we make concessions to appease the corners, why are the central edges being ignored with their requests?
    -We can't please everyone. Yeah it sucks. I'd love to make you all your own little island so you can claim you are the only one around, but then the players who want neighbors would be upset. It's a town. Real life neighborhoods expand and so must our virtual one.

    Bottom line is that some people are going to be upset. No decision can please every player involved. Our decision at the moment is to stick with the previous set design of the town, but not for simplicity of commands. It's the same amount of typing and building either way. We're sticking with the traditionally set design because it's the fairest decision possible.
    Krysyy, Mar 9, 2015
    #99
    crystaldragon13, Damiensmom11, M4nic_M1ner and 5 others like this.
  20. Truer words have never been spoken. We need more space for new members because the Empire has expanded, just like real towns expand when they need to house more families.
    FDNY21, Mar 9, 2015
    #100
    crystaldragon13, M4nic_M1ner and hashhog3000 like this.
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