IS THERE A CHANGE COMING TO THE SYSTEM THAT DELETES INACTIVE PLAYERS? ANOTHER 'BIG MOVE'?
What is SUPPOSED to happen with player deletion is that any city that has been inactive for more than 30 days, and the owner has not spent real money on Diamonds, and the city is lower than chapter IV - these cities should be flagged for deletion, and a while later when they need space a script is run and the cities are removed and replaced by 'Goldmines'
What SHOULD then happen is that active players from the poorly-populated outskirts of the World Map should be moved in to the vacant spaces - and inactive cities that do not meet the criteria for deletion, should be moved out to the fringes of the Map - so if they start playing again one day, their city should not have vanished, and once they demonstrate that they are active, they should soon be moved back to the better-populated center of the Map.
On practice, it seldom happens that an active player fills the vacant spaces; these days those places are taken by 'newbies' - who can't offer much in the way of trades, and only about ten percent of whom continue playing after the initial euphoria. So instead of the center of the Map growing stronger and stronger in terms of neighbor help and trading - recently the opposite has been happening; strong players in one's neighborhood give up the game and they are replaced by weaker or inactive players.
Deletion has always happened in a spiral wave radiating out from the center of the Map - removing just as many players as they need room for.
This week the whole of Beta has seen massive deletions or 5 - 10% of neighbors (or at least three of my cities - which are widely separated - have experienced this).
I am watching eagerly - are they preparing for another 'Big Move'?
Happy New Year everyone!
NOTE: There is DEFINITELY something on the go!
They are testing something - so next week's Tournament in Beta has been cancelled / postponed!! (see screenshot below).
The issue is being discussed in Beta - and you can follow comments from Community Manager Marindor here:
https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/next-tournament-timer-broken.12001/#post-67932