New city?

Mithridates

What are the chances of a new city? I'm just wondering. I'm quite sure it's not in the works, at all. Or even reasonable, but I'd like to know if there's a chance that maybe in the future there might be another city?

Jovolo

I'm obviously not an admin of the game, but as a casual observation... our playerbase just isn't large enough to support further factions. It would do more harm than good, unless another city was destroyed in its place. Think: Hashan removed to create a Dark/Moon faction and then all the idiot stragglers go to Cyrene or join the Curia

Antonius

It's always a possibility. There'd have to be a significant increase in the playerbase to make it feasible and justify the work involved though. Sarapis has commented on this before in threads, though I think that was partly about having cities on Meropis too.

Mithridates

Jovolo said:

I'm obviously not an admin of the game, but as a casual observation... our playerbase just isn't large enough to support further factions. It would do more harm than good, unless another city was destroyed in its place. Think: Hashan removed to create a Dark/Moon faction and then all the idiot stragglers go to Cyrene or join the Curia

I was thinking that we wouldn't have enough. @Sarapis get on some facebook adds. 

But yeah my general idea was cities off-plane. A city in the Tundra, offset by a city in Meropis. 

Siduri

When I came back from dormancy, and I read about Targossas being set on islands, I thought we had our first oversea city. Trufact.

Blujixapug

Why do we need one? What role would it fill, what's its reason for existing, why would people join it, what would its themes be, how would it play off other cities? Unless you can answer those questions immediately and in detail, any new city risks becoming a placeholder organisation that flails around, struggling for membership. And an organisation like that risks attracting people who want a leadership position only for the sake of holding a leadership position, and then you're in a groundward spiral.

The last two cities were Eleusis and Mhaldor. You can see how they fill major fantasy archetypal roles: nature and evil. Anyone playing one of those very common RPG archetypes, an evil character or a druid/Legolas/Storm, immediately has an obvious city to join. I can think of ideas for a new city, eg. Arcadia, or in the last 'design a city' thread I made a proposal for a toxic sciencey alchemist + geomancer + pirate city set into the cliff walls of that huge gorge on Meropis. But those cities don't necessarily fill strong archetypal roles, with strong and obvious identities, so they would probably struggle for membership.

If a new city pops up, I can only see it coming from a dedicated player clan.

Mithridates

Imagine a city in the Tundra, where the leader is selected through singular combat. It is at war with every city on the mainland, sending raiding parties down south every so often to pillage the unfortunate souls of the dainty, wussy lands of Achaea. 

Keneanung

Mithridates said:

Imagine a city in the Tundra, where the leader is selected through singular combat. It is at war with every city on the mainland, sending raiding parties down south every so often to pillage the unfortunate souls of the dainty, wussy lands of Achaea. 

So... Ashtan?

Mithridates

Ashtan has wussies in it. 

Sylvance

@Methridates: Are you saying that you see the need for a new City? Or literally just enquiring as to whether they are ever going to make another City?

Blujixapug

The thing about off-plane or wilderness or island cities is... how do you get there? How do your newbies get there? When people are chilling at its cool kid hangout spot, how do they interact with the world at large? I can barely be bothered to walk 30 rooms from Ashtan's gates to a guildhall, so joining a city on Meropis or an island or up in the wilderness, when I'd have to navigate to and from it all the time, is unappealing. I remember when I was new, how enormous the game felt, and what an odyssey it was to walk even to places like Hashan or Eleusis or Mhaldor once my portals ran out.

Also, if you put a city on Meropis, alone, where there's nothing to do, I don't think that works. You kind of have to create 2 cities on Meropis, so they can have a relationship or rivalry with each other, raid each other, and generally keep each other busy. But that's even less practical, because two cities is twice the work and twice the fragmentation of the playerbase.

Achimrst

Jovolo said:

I'm obviously not an admin of the game, but as a casual observation... our playerbase just isn't large enough to support further factions. It would do more harm than good, unless another city was destroyed in its place. Think: Hashan removed to create a Dark/Moon faction and then all the idiot stragglers go to Cyrene or join the Curia

The Curia is not a city, and Dark/Moon faction is the Night faction that Hashan already struggles with.

Destroy Hashan and build a city on Meropis, I can deal with that might even move to it since I freaking love Meropis. Could always have them settle in the ruins of Seleucar and work toward imperial domination of the other cities of Seleucar. Alchemist/geomancer/pirate sounds awesome although there is the problem of getting to Meropis. Not to mention how to support newcomers when everything on Meropis is rabid and can kill them in one bite. 

Nim

Blujixapug said:

But those cities don't necessarily fill strong archetypal roles, with strong and obvious identities, so they would probably struggle for membership.

If a new city pops up, I can only see it coming from a dedicated player clan.

I feel like a specific identity reduces citizenship, not bolsters. Compare Ashtan/Cyrene/Hashan vs Eleusis/Mhaldor/Targossas. I suppose they still have an identity and fill an archetype, but I wouldn't say their identities are "strong" or even necessarily "obvious."

Alrena

Nim said:

But those cities don't necessarily fill strong archetypal roles, with strong and obvious identities, so they would probably struggle for membership.

If a new city pops up, I can only see it coming from a dedicated player clan.

I feel like a specific identity reduces citizenship, not bolsters. Compare Ashtan/Cyrene/Hashan vs Eleusis/Mhaldor/Targossas. I suppose they still have an identity and fill an archetype, but I wouldn't say their identities are "strong" or even necessarily "obvious."

In terms of sheer numbers, that might be true. But when you look at motivated players who are in leadership/combat/roleplay, I do not think the latter three cities are behind at all, and might even be ahead of the former three. 

Strata

Mhaldor should sink into the Sefyric Ocean. Then Targossas should be turned into a crater. Followed by Hashan simply blinking from existence and nobody cares what happened.

Finally, all the refugees from all three cities join together and start a new city called Bitchlandia. It has one entrance called Issue St.

Mithridates

Targ's been doing good on that front lately. STFU strata. 

Tecton

No plans for new cities at this point, I'm afraid! 

Nim

You win roleplaying by having fun. The fact you have less people means less people find your org fun. You could argue that your roleplay is better than CIJ novice X's roleplay because yours is srs, but that's elitist hufflepuffery (whatever hufflepuffery even is). Your srs plotlines may look just as goofy to someone else, also.

Ashtan says otherwise on the combat front, but really combatants go where combat is. Cyrene doesn't get a lot not because of a lack of specialized focus but because what direction they do have says "be peaceful with others."

I guarantee my and @Strata's eventual founding of Candyland will also lack hardcore combatants in spite of its strict regiments in tea parties and compulsory hugs because of its indoctrined focus in snuggling enemies.

Leadership is especially nebulous and subjective.

What you have is external motivation to make up for any lack in internal motivation, resulting in a stronger group dynamic (potentially).

Mithridates

Tecton said:

No plans for new cities at this point, I'm afraid! 

Worst year under @Tecton ever.

Sarapis

We don't have the population for a new city, which is the #1 reason it's not going to happen unless/until that changes. Working on it, but new player acquisition is a very tough nut to crack.

Jovolo

accessibility and incentives would help, sir, but you've heard that argument a million times before.

Mithridates

Make an add on redtube

Edrin

Id rather see an independent House rise up before another city. 

Aalm

I think a "pacifist" faction could be fascinating if pulled-off correctly. So, 16 Mhaldorians come in to raid. Next thing they know, due to the city's defenses, one is in the Underworld, another is in Zanzibaar, a third in the very bottom of Morindar, forth in Annwyn etc. To successfully raid the city they have to prevent that from happening somehow.

But the city's denizens and citizens won't bring the invaders to direct harm. And the characters living in the city have to keep from killing anything sentient, being either a player or a denizen such as Qurnok. It would open up a class or tools that allow them to do so. They'd have to level on things like gours and mountain lions, nothing sentient.

The rest of Sapience would need to figure out whether this makes them sympathetic or facepalm, so now the 16 Mhaldorians getting the urge to bust up the city are themselves getting busted up by people from the established cities that don't want this to happen -- but the citizens of the city aren't happy to see the Mhaldorians get busted up either, so off go the Targossians to Zanzibaar, etc., themselves. Maybe you could even make a mechanism where they could end up on a raft in the middle of the ocean and their city has to mobilize a ship to go get them before the giant sharks do.

I think this would be exceedingly difficult to conceptualize properly and execute, but it's a faction that I don't think would be anything like the others and could be interesting if pulled off. The RP would certainly be unique... and there would have to be belief mechanisms whereby people not previously subscribing to this philosophy could enter it. Not really sure who but Lord Oneiros could be Patron, and didn't He die in the Bal'met disaster?

I know most of you will think I am an idiot for suggesting something this bizarre, so I am just going to go duck in a dark corner over there.

Nellaundra

If I ended up getting ported to random as fuck places when I attacked a city, I would attack that city literally anytime I was bored to see where it sent me next.

Aalm

Nellaundra said:

If I ended up getting ported to random as fuck places when I attacked a city, I would attack that city literally anytime I was bored to see where it sent me next.

@Nellaundra : well, the game DOES revolve around conflict. And having your force scattered in this manner leaves your city completely vulnerable for an enemy city to swoop down and kill all your guards and trash a bunch of rooms while you try to get back to Sapience. There could also be other things, like a temporary plague that reduces stats and does temporary but incurable afflictions as well as a ton of other stuff. Such a version of (temporarily incurable) stupidity that makes you take off your pants every time you take a step, or you get magically glued to the saddle of your steed and are physically unable to get off of it for 2 Achaean days. Flying that does not allow you to land. Being stuck On the clouds without being able to exit.

There's plenty of exceedingly undesirable stuff that could happen to somebody that does not revolve around outright death.

I honestly don't know if such a city would be a great idea, but the RP seems different than what's currently available. I've seen a lot of stuff in Achaea in my day, but I only am aware of one pacifist, and she was highly creative about her RP.

Kaiden

A pacifist city that ejected enemies, or prevented them from entering, would probably work better in the long run. Enemies unable to cross the border, and if enemied, taken outside immediately, like when you level up to 21 in a newbie area. There'd have to be rules about abuse of the mechanic, too, and I'm not sure how complicated those would get.

But, then you'd get a bunch of people flocking to the city and literally never leaving, just to avoid combat. Not sure I like the idea of a place that's truly "safe" in the game.

Aalm

Kaiden said:

A pacifist city that ejected enemies, or prevented them from entering, would probably work better in the long run. Enemies unable to cross the border, and if enemied, taken outside immediately, like when you level up to 21 in a newbie area. There'd have to be rules about abuse of the mechanic, too, and I'm not sure how complicated those would get.

But, then you'd get a bunch of people flocking to the city and literally never leaving, just to avoid combat. Not sure I like the idea of a place that's truly "safe" in the game.

@Kaiden : Having various serious obstacles to enemies entering and having the element in uncertainty would be more interesting than a 100% certainty of the whole city being a safe zone with simple rules. That way there's a point to raiding it, but the defenders can do some pretty unpleasant things to you, though not kill you. Still conflict, just in a different light.

Sena

Just giving the city a single entrance with a closable and lockable door (maybe even with a permission system so only citizens or only certain city ranks can open it) would be a lot easier than teleporting/ejecting enemies, and wouldn't require any new mechanics (either for the defence or for raiders to get around it). If such a city was a good idea, which I doubt (primarily because of the limited playerbase).

Nellaundra

More seriously, this would be abused straight to hell and back. People would hide in there constantly to avoid being attacked when say, they just got done raiding another city or skirmishing or something. We don't have the population to support a new city anyways, and while new mechanics like that would be an interesting novelty for a while, they'd eventually just fall to obscurity until the only people who even bother with the city are the ones who are easily amused (like me).

Aalm

@Nellaundra : I wasn't expecting the garden to take this idea seriously. If they did, there would have to be a ton of balance, classlead-like modifications and testing involved because the city is so radically different than anything this game has seen yet.

There's also the question of who would want no PK whatsoever -- or PK that prevails over the enemy in various ways without killing him -- and a severely curtailed list of places to hunt. Even if the garden wanted it, I am not sure enough players would be interested.

It would be extremely interesting to me to see such a thing happen. However "I" is not the same thing as "all the players," and I won't pretend otherwise.