Good morning,
As I write this, it's 9:15am PST. I'm fortunate enough to have internet access because I'm in the libray just before my first class starts. Most other americans are not so fortunate, as most people with real jobs and obligations are at work or school at this hour.


38 minutes ago Dairuchi went up.

Once again a village influence has occured in the wee small hours of the morning, when population is almost at its lowest point. While this is fantastic for European players and possibly aussies, it is completely inconvenient for American players.

(We're going to disregard the Seal of Chaos influences because in terms of "population present at time of influence" were complete anomalies)

Here's my proposal: Set up the influences on a rotating timeschedule. The vast majority of villages should go up at approximately American prime time, perhaps between 5 and 12 midnight EST (2 to 9pm PST). Every influence cycle(that is, a rotation through allt he villages) at least one village will occur outside that window(this will be the Euro village).

This would refocus the village battles and allow many more players to get involved, instead of leaving it to a small battle between the "morning crew". I know I'd like to be able to help fight for the biggest power source my city can gain through combat, and I know many of my fellow players do as well.

thoughts?

I think chopping should be looked at as well. I can't find an axe, therefore I cannot break a demesne despite knowing chop, yet a druid can easily just learn realitycheck and break mine.

And a druid doesn't need anything to break the demesne of another druid.

This is not about axes, do not derail!

I play mostly at off peak non american hours and I agree with visaeris, put them up at the most popular times with a few exceptions, missing a revolt is better than sitting there with about two other people wondering what to do.

Fine fine. I do agree with Visaeris though. I know not ALL players are American, but a good majority are.

Times are a bit iffy.

It's almost 10 AM here, and this is SUPPOSED to be a school day, but it's a snow day.

On the subject of influences, though-

Is it illegal (Help Seconds) to switch to a different character during an influence?

This isn't about what any one person or group of people are going through. It's about shifting the focus to villages being a prime-time event rather than just whomever happens to be lucky enough to be around.

I think it's something to be said when I've been on at a lot of prime times over the past few months and this is the first village revolt I've seen occur when I was around in a long time.

Perhaps what would be most fair is dividing up the villages into timezones.

I'm not saying that Daruchi always revolts during Aussie prime time, but rather that within the cycle of the 5 different revolts, once a revolt has happened in one timezone, then none of the next 4 revolts will be in that timezone.

We can have PST primetime, EST primetime, England Primetime, Eastern Europe/Western Asia Primetime, and then East Asia/Australia primetime.

That might work if populations were equally distributed, however they're not. Even under your system, the vast majority of players would miss out on the majority of the village influences. Namely PST/EST players would miss out on the other 3 zones almost all the time.

I don't know if it is illegal per say... but it's super duper scummy.

As for times... I don't know... I mean, if you focus on Prime times, well, then the folks who can't play during Prime times will miss out all the time... but if you leave it random like it is now, then there's more of a chance it won't occur during a Prime time because there are more non-Prime hours in the day.

Honestly, completely random is more fair.... cause when you start focusing on specific Prime times, someone'll feel put out... but with it being random, you can just say "Well... it IS random."

And that concludes my rambly, and rather random, thoughts on it.

When I saw the subject was about influence and timing, I was hoping it was touching on the timely use of the sanctuary. As in, there should be a timer after a violent action before the aggressor (or even the victim) can call down sanctuary and cease all violence. I hit you, you sanctuary, you laugh in my face while I turn blue from frustration.

Anyway, I don't mind at all that the influencing times are completely random. And, as for Dairuchi being uninfluenced during the wee hours in America, it was still uninfluenced during my lunch break, which is the middle of the day here on the East Coast.

It may be more "fair" in that everyone has an equal chance, the reality is that it shouldn't be about an equal chance; something that has a huge impact on the power/commodities income of a city should be focused on getting the most people involved. As a consequence, prime time is the most logical time for revolts.

Naturally people who are non-prime players should get to play in revolts, hence why at least one influence should be outside of primetime.

As it stands though, non-prime players are the only ones who get to get involved.

I have not been able to participate in a single influence since they went random. While I understand that a lot of things cater to the Americans, and non-Americans want to be involved too, I don't think it should come at the expense of the majority of us who do play during American peak times.

I like the suggestion that rather than being completely random, influences should be weighted by the number of people currently in the realms. So, during peak times, it's more likely to happen than during off-peak times. The biggest downside I can imagine is that this will encourage villages to revolt in the middle of big events as well...

I like that there is some randomness, I dislike weighing things against Europeans. If there is to be some weighing towards a specific time, how about the period from about four/five hours before the weave change to one or two after. That way, it would be late in Europe, early but not to early in America, and everyone is happy. Except the Australians.

Alternatively, there should be a 24 announcement of when a village goes into play. At least that way people can plan for it.

Um.. most events happen at prime american times already, meaning I can either stay up to like 2-4 am in the morning (which I can't do if I have classes) or I can miss it. Not sure if villages should really be put into this category as well even though I loathe them so I wouldn't particularely mind missing out 90% of them.

On a side note..


down with revolts, village feelings FTW

I am completely befuddled by village feelings....

I mean, for example, shouldn't 'sacriligious' be a bad thing? Then why would one of Celest's villages feel that way about New Celest?

I don't remember which one... but I remember seeing that and feeling completly confused and unsmart.

Yeah, village feelings confuse the hell out of everyone, good thing they don't matter at the moment. As to village timing, I'm perfectly happy to miss them all