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World Map Player Movement Changes

Laurelin

Sorcerer
A couple of points, pending a further potential reply WITH GRAPHICS (woohoo!), when (a) the move is finished, and (b) I get round to doing it...! :D

First and foremost:
@Laurelin Just an update to your query! There are still some cities yet to be moved so this will be ongoing. "Normal" Service won't be resuming just yet
... @Herodite : Thank you so much for your quick and very helpful response. I am grateful, and also impressed, as I know from past conversations on several of the Inno Forums that it's not always easy for Moderators to get an answer to Forum posters' questions. You do a sterling job on our behalf.

On a related note - quoted for agreement with both of the opinions expressed:
[...]Herodite you've been doing a herculean effort explaining this major shift in game playing when a full explanation should of been provided by Inno.
... Indeed!

And on a different note:
[...] Don´t see what´s wrong with a better game though. [...] the percentage of players with a negative outcome of the move is nearly negligible small.
based on what?
@Gargon667 : I've re-quoted the immediately preceding comments (by yourself and @Stucon) because I'd also like to bring up this particular point - with the context being your previous posts in this thread, which I'm sure I need not quote in full...?

I'd also like to ask you: upon what actual evidence or knowledge - above and beyond the personal experience of yourself and/or those players whom you personally know or of whom you are otherwise aware (e.g. whose pre-/post-move Map positions you have analysed) - are you basing the assertion that the percentage of the playerbase with a negative outcome from the most recent/ongoing Map move is "negligibly small"?

If I were to argue from my own personal experience, for example, including my own awareness of the views and/or practical outcomes of the move of my own in-game friends, Fellows, and Map Neighbours, I would assert the following about the most recent move [so far]:
  1. I myself have been materially disadvantaged by the present move [so far] (as I was by three of the four previous Map moves I have experienced, including once being moved from the dead outer edges of Map civilization to an even-more-dead locale);
  2. Of my in-game Fellows (meaning the 25% or so of them who have expressed views on the move - of the others, I know nothing), about 75% are pleased by being moved to a better area and about 25% are unhappy about either being moved to a worse location, or having their in-game Trading partners moved away from them and replaced with mostly dead Cities;
  3. Of my Map Neighbours, I communicate routinely with only one, who is pleased NOT to have been moved [so far], and of the remainder:
    • around 75-80% of the formerly active large Trading Cities have been moved out (I don't know whether to better or worse situations);
    • around 80-90% of the formerly inactive large and mid-sized Cities (and one or two tiny ones) are still in place at present;
    • around 50-60% of the formerly actively - usually daily - Trading and/or visiting large Cities near me which have not yet been moved have ceased to visit or Trade over the past week, suggesting either (a) City abandonment in the face of the recent removal of Trading partners in favour of dead small Cities, or (b) a pause or hiatus in playing which logic dictates is probably not unrelated to this event; and
    • around 5-10% of the new incoming [or started-in-place] tiny Cities are currently either visiting me (although few can do so, of course, due to Scouting limitations), Trading, or showing any other sign of life when I visit them, as I am currently doing every day, in all cases.
So, based upon my own experience, I do not see any grounds to state that this move has [so far] resulted, for more than a modest majority [at best] of players, in what can described as even a mere 'improvement' in Map situation - and certainly no grounds to assert something as bold as that those disadvantaged by the move form a "negligibly small" percentage of the playerbase. Your own experience appears to differ from my own, but even so, and with all due respect, personal experience [of anything] is not grounds to argue from the particular to the general (in this case, to argue from one's personal knowledge of the Big Move's effects to the move's effects for everyone on the Map). Or do you actually know more about this move (and/or any other move), and the outcomes thereof, than what can be gleaned from personal experience alone...?

In fact, the only players of my own certain knowledge who have, so far, definitely benefited from the move - because they have said so - are 75% of my [opinion-expressing] Fellows and one of my Map Neighbours (who is pleased NOT to have moved, as yet). I will further assume that any active small Cities which have been moved close to me will be pleased, since their tiny Trades are being taken very quickly - but this amounts, at present, to about five players (generous estimate).

In the case of those of my large-City former Neighbours who have been moved: they might, of course, have been moved to better Map locations (I don't know), but, that said, they were already in a very favourable* and unusually active Neighbourhood in the first place, so while at least some of them will probably prefer their new location, there will be others who will not, for reasons including, but not limited, to:
  • having been moved to a less favourable Neighbourhood with a higher % of less useful (Trade and/or visits-wise) and/or dead Cities (as stated above, this has happened [so far] to some of my own Fellows in the present move, as well as to me personally in 50% of my own previous Map moves, so it's hardly irrational to assume it might also happen to others whom I don't know);
  • losing contact with Map friends and/or Neighbours with whom they used to regularly Trade;
  • having wasted intentional over-Scouting done to reach former remote Trade partners;
  • being generally unsettled by finding themselves in a new and entirely or largely unknown Neighbourhood.
* For clarity : by 'very favourable' Neighbourhood, I mean one where even 1:1 Scrolls Trades offered in units of 500,000+ would be taken typically within a day, and all other Trades, large or small, would almost always move within hours (I check the Trader very often), and where visiting was at a high and reliable level - in my own case, I formerly received 5-6 Notification pages of visits per day [down to 1-2 pages now, at best], and there is, of course, no logical reason why those who visited me would fail to visit their other visiting Neighbours with the same or similar frequency. In fact, I am wondering why anyone in my Neighbourhood was moved at all, since the Trading/visiting situation, and the close proximity of many similarly advanced and thus compatible Cities, were so favourable in the first place. I suppose one can always improve on a good situation, but still - my former Neighbourhood was, to judge from what I read on the Forums and hear from in-game friends and Fellows, already far better than most.

Dont be suprised if 30-60% of all accounts in existence got cleaned up or have been put into storage.
Is your comment here based upon educated guesswork and/or personal observation or upon knowledge I personally don't have, whether from staff on other Forums, from Inno insiders, or from anywhere else of an official nature? According to my own experience (see above), only 10-20% of the formerly inactive Cities in my own Neighbourhood have been removed [so far], with the rest being still in place, and the very large majority of those moved in are already inactive, as well as being small Cities - most at the 'one Residence, one Workshop' stage, and the rest well below Chapter V. This is actually fewer than the typical number of dead Cities removed during an ordinary once-weekly move - what I'm seeing in greater numbers is the removal (presumably elsewhere on the Map, not into storage) of active larger Cities and their replacement with tiny, mostly-dead Cities.
A lot of people stopped in the past 6 years
I've already said it above, but the usual 'standard' level of activity drop-off leading to cessation of play - i.e. around 5-10% per week of Cities in any given Neighbourhood where I have been located - has been far exceeded, at present, by the noticeable and comparatively abrupt cessation of activity, specifically during the days following the recent/ongoing 'Big Move', by around 50-60% of my formerly active, and mid-to-large-sized, Trading/visiting Neighbours. Therefore, and based upon my own experience, I do not share your confidence that InnoGames has suddenly removed "30-60 % of all [inactive] accounts in existence".

Again, though, I will ask : @CrazyWizard - and also @Gargon667, since both of you seem to be speaking in very confident and also highly generalised terms on the subject of how the Map move system works and also how it affects the majority of players- do either/both of you have confirmed knowledge which I and/or other players don't have, upon which you are wholly or partly basing your views as stated in this thread...? (NB: I'm not asking you to state that knowledge, or your sources, here - I'd just love to know yes/no, being the nosy enquiring person I am!)
 
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Laurelin

Sorcerer
Totally [well, pretty much] different subject, so a separate post - and a late response, too, which is my bad:

May I direct my sincere apologies @Hekata, @Pauly7, and indeed @ anyone at all who may have thought (and I'm not assuming that either of you actually did think this - but it seems possible?) that I was aiming personally at them, or at anyone else, ANY of the comments and/or arguments made in my veeerrrryy long post way back in this thread on the subject of why I think it is that Free-to-Play games - certainly nowadays, even if for other reasons in the past - offer (and often heavily promote) the option for players to join, and remain in, Fellowships or any other in-game groups. My intention was certainly not to criticise [or require any response, in particular, from] anyone here - or anywhere - who chooses to join any such in-game group, who enjoys their membership of same, who has made friends in online games, who feels a sense of loyalty to said friends, or indeed any other specific person at all. If anything I said caused any upset or offence, I'm really sorry, and such was far from my intention - which was, as so often, just to philosophise - in purely abstract terms - about some aspect or other of video gaming in general and the Free-to-Play genre of gaming in particular.

I was going to waffle on here about why it is that I so frequently criticise the Free-to-Play monetisation model and/or the habit of increasing numbers of F2P gaming houses to dabble in the murky but often lucrative waters of psychological manipulation when it comes to extracting money from their players, but to be honest, that would not only be off-topic, but it would also probably bore to tears anyone who can even face reading the extended waffle I tend to post here... so I will once again just say that I'm sorry for any perceived criticism of any person at all - such genuinely was not the intention of my previous post, nor indeed has it ever been, or will it be in future, of any other similar post of mine - and leave it at that! :)
 

Gargon667

Mentor
Again, though, I will ask : @CrazyWizard - and also @Gargon667, since both of you seem to be speaking in very confident and also highly generalised terms on the subject of how the Map move system works and also how it affects the majority of players- do either/both of you have confirmed knowledge which I and/or other players don't have, upon which you are wholly or partly basing your views as stated in this thread...? (NB: I'm not asking you to state that knowledge, or your sources, here - I'd just love to know yes/no, being the nosy enquiring person I am!)

Can´t speak for the wiz, but I am nit doing anything half as fancy as you are :) I am basing all I say on very simple low-tech (say high school level) geometry. And certainly nothing as inaccurate as what people say. And yes definitely highly generalized! That´s the point, I speak of players in general, while a small amount of individuals can absolutely and most certainly differ from what is happening in general.

The map is built as a circle. The edge of the circle is always negligible compared to the area of the circle as long as the circle is sufficiently big, and here goes my assumption: the circle is sufficiently big.

People that are in the circle don´t get moved, they only get additional active towns. People that get moved into the circle get an improvement.
People that get moved from the outskirts to the edge or people that used to be part of the center, but end up on the edge because the circle shrunk (because of the removal of the inactives) can potentially (not all of them) have a worse situation than before. The number people experiencing an actual deterioration is therefore a very small percentage of all players.
The vast majority of people complaining are not complaining about a worse map position, they complain about change in general and about losing people they liked, both things that actually happened, but have nothing to do with the quality of their previous and current map positions.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
I have seen plenty of people complain about the move also close to me, then they changed there tune once they figured out the benefits of them.
Elvenar in general has an older autdience, and the older we get the more we resist change. it takes longer to be willing to see the benefits.

And no I am pretty confident that more than 5-10% of the players who reached chapter 5 of better stopped the past few years.
I noticed a massive reduction in ranked players.

I have no statistics on the en server how many players where ranked here vs now. and as said it seems that many players are in storage and those players seem to be still on the ranking list (according to US forums)

On the US forums they had noted the centre players of there world. those players are still on the ranking list, but when you search them and go to the world map you end up in your own city (suggesting they no longer have a spot on the world map)

What we can say with confidence is that the map shrunk significantly.
How much exactly I also do not know and it's different for each world.

But the fact so many people complained that they ended up in a desert because the had moving flagged off should say enoug.
If the shrinkage / cleanup was small only a few would have been affected and complained.

I also got moved and I was at a good position with my main account. on the second world is the only place I did not get moved. but it's hard to be moved to a better position when you are 1 of the very first players on that server. I am like 5 positions away from the CM who is the 1st player on that server and therefore at the absolute center.
 

Pauly7

Magus
May I direct my sincere apologies @Hekata, @Pauly7, and indeed @ anyone at all who may have thought (and I'm not assuming that either of you actually did think this - but it seems possible?) that I was aiming personally at them, or at anyone else, ANY of the comments and/or arguments made in my veeerrrryy long post way back in this thread on the subject of why I think it is that Free-to-Play games - certainly nowadays, even if for other reasons in the past - offer (and often heavily promote) the option for players to join, and remain in, Fellowships or any other in-game groups.
I'm trying to remember the context, but I'm fairly sure you've never said anything offensive. I usually agree with what you say. Occasionally not, but that's just discussion.

I think I was making the point that I don't think anyone is going to keep playing any online game for 2, 3, 4, 5 years, if it weren't for the fact that they had joined some sort of social group, made friends and probably built up some sort of mutual reliance. There isn't any other game that I've played for longer than a month. That's nothing much to do with the quality of the game itself.

That's why I think that Inno should put everything into improving the fellowship experience including, but not limited to, improving the messaging system and developing (or changing) Fellowship Adventures.

I'm sure I agree with whatever you were like to say about online games' monetisation strategies. Games become quickly offensive when it's impossible to compete without paying. Moreso, it's the games where it is impossible to progress without paying and (more importantly) continuing to pay on a regular basis. These games don't keep my attention. I would rather pay £20 for a full game which isn't going to demand my continual investment.
 

rock stream

Scholar
At first I wasn't sure I moved, just my neighbours. I'm still 2 rings from the edge of the map in one direction. When I check in a second direction I've scouted past the "active" zone. While not as bad as the situations you've descripted Laurelin I will be definitely leaving my move button on when it gets reinstated as I'm in a worst corner of the map. I estimate at least 25% of my new neighbors are inactive. As for trading, I have 3 pages of 2 star and 8 pages of 1 star trades available.
I'm still wondering what motived InNo to correct this after 5 years. There must be a part 2 to come.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
At first I wasn't sure I moved, just my neighbours. I'm still 2 rings from the edge of the map in one direction. When I check in a second direction I've scouted past the "active" zone. While not as bad as the situations you've descripted Laurelin I will be definitely leaving my move button on when it gets reinstated as I'm in a worst corner of the map. I estimate at least 25% of my new neighbors are inactive. As for trading, I have 3 pages of 2 star and 8 pages of 1 star trades available.
I'm still wondering what motived InNo to correct this after 5 years. There must be a part 2 to come.
That is never an indicator.
An indicator is if your trades are taken by your neigbours, not how full the trader is.
 

Silly Bubbles

Necromancer
I think I was making the point that I don't think anyone is going to keep playing any online game for 2, 3, 4, 5 years, if it weren't for the fact that they had joined some sort of social group, made friends and probably built up some sort of mutual reliance. There isn't any other game that I've played for longer than a month. That's nothing much to do with the quality of the game itself.

From my personal experience, there's always good, bad and in between people everywhere. Unfortunately, the anonymity of the internet seems to bring out the worst in people. I have seen very good people that made me play longer but I have also seen people that made me nearly quit the game. I had a six month break due to boredom and the only thing that made me come back is the challenge of the game and constant updates to keep me entertained.
 

Silly Bubbles

Necromancer
Can´t speak for the wiz, but I am nit doing anything half as fancy as you are :) I am basing all I say on very simple low-tech (say high school level) geometry. And certainly nothing as inaccurate as what people say. And yes definitely highly generalized! That´s the point, I speak of players in general, while a small amount of individuals can absolutely and most certainly differ from what is happening in general.

The map is built as a circle. The edge of the circle is always negligible compared to the area of the circle as long as the circle is sufficiently big, and here goes my assumption: the circle is sufficiently big.

People that are in the circle don´t get moved, they only get additional active towns. People that get moved into the circle get an improvement.
People that get moved from the outskirts to the edge or people that used to be part of the center, but end up on the edge because the circle shrunk (because of the removal of the inactives) can potentially (not all of them) have a worse situation than before. The number people experiencing an actual deterioration is therefore a very small percentage of all players.
The vast majority of people complaining are not complaining about a worse map position, they complain about change in general and about losing people they liked, both things that actually happened, but have nothing to do with the quality of their previous and current map positions.

I understand that generalisation can make things easier and simpler to make decisions. Unfortunately, there’re dangers that come with it:
1. Discrimination – the minorities need to at least have a say as there can be an easy solution to their problem, a lot of them even suggest solutions to their problems so it is possible to make everyone happy.
2. Lack of Progress – usually new progressive ideas come from minorities. From people that think differently. Unfortunately, these people need to fight to be heard and I don’t believe that it should be the case.
That’s why I believe that it’s important for people to voice their unhappiness with the move so things can be fixed properly. Also, it does help to accept things when we’re at least heard and considered.

And yes, we’re hard wired not to like change. There’s a good reason for it. To accept change, we need to be sure that it’s a good thing because one small change can create a chain reaction of bad outcomes. Change needs to get analysed as much as we can to make sure that the desired outcome is achieved. Once we know that the change is good, it makes up for the bad feeling.
Again, open discussion of all opinions and circumstances of everyone that wants to say how the world map view affects them is important.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
I understand that generalisation can make things easier and simpler to make decisions. Unfortunately, there’re dangers that come with it:
1. Discrimination – the minorities need to at least have a say as there can be an easy solution to their problem, a lot of them even suggest solutions to their problems so it is possible to make everyone happy.
2. Lack of Progress – usually new progressive ideas come from minorities. From people that think differently. Unfortunately, these people need to fight to be heard and I don’t believe that it should be the case.
That’s why I believe that it’s important for people to voice their unhappiness with the move so things can be fixed properly. Also, it does help to accept things when we’re at least heard and considered.

And yes, we’re hard wired not to like change. There’s a good reason for it. To accept change, we need to be sure that it’s a good thing because one small change can create a chain reaction of bad outcomes. Change needs to get analysed as much as we can to make sure that the desired outcome is achieved. Once we know that the change is good, it makes up for the bad feeling.
Again, open discussion of all opinions and circumstances of everyone that wants to say how the world map view affects them is important.

I don´t disagree with the general idea, but I may have a bit of a different perspective on it:


it is possible to make everyone happy.

That is most definitely not possible, it has never happened and it will never happen, but I agree it is possible to make more people happy.

Unfortunately, these people need to fight to be heard and I don’t believe that it should be the case.

I don´t see it as a bad thing, if you have to fight for your ideas. It is part of the screening process. This is the internet, there is no lack of ideas, the problem is to sort the gold from the garbage. An idea that isn´t worth fighting for is not likely to be among the gold nuggets. I certainly am not going to live long enough to be able to listen to the 1 million and 17 ideas out there on every single problem that exists. It is already a big enough job to listen to the good ideas and somehow it has to be decided which are worth listening to and which are not... Willingness to fight for it is of course no guarantee for quality (just think of all the fanatics out there), but the lack of it certainly also says something.
My understanding of democracy may be different from yours, though. I think you have the right to say what you want and you can argue for it as much as you want. Democracy doesn´t mean that everybody has to listen to the first thought that goes through your mind when you wake up in the morning. As much as you have right to argue for your ideas has everybody else the right to oppose your ideas (otherwise you would be the king of the world, which is certainly not something I would agree with). And in a rational world the one with the better arguments would win. Of course that is unrealistic where humans are involved but it is at least an ideal to aim for until somebody comes up with a better alternative :).
Thinking about it I don´t even think the alternative to fighting for your idea is that everybody is going to be listened to, I think the alternative would be that you say what you want and everybody else ignores you.


And yes, we’re hard wired not to like change. There’s a good reason for it. To accept change, we need to be sure that it’s a good thing because one small change can create a chain reaction of bad outcomes. Change needs to get analysed as much as we can to make sure that the desired outcome is achieved. Once we know that the change is good, it makes up for the bad feeling.
Again, open discussion of all opinions and circumstances of everyone that wants to say how the world map view affects them is important.

Now that is exactly what we are doing: We analyzed the change and the result of this analysis is that the change IS good. This is the one and only thing we argue for the entire time. And absolutely nobody said your are not allowed to say how you feel about it. Everybody does all the time, nobody minds, all we do is put the facts on the table that the change IS good for nearlt everybody! We also acknowledge the fact that a very small minority of exceptions exist. And I am very happy to discuss any solution to helping this minority as well as long as it doesn´t negate the huge benefit to nearly everybody.
 

GSV3MiaC

Alchemist
At the risk of getting back on topic, the last move /clean out Of felyndal has left a bunch of empty spaces around me, and my partner, and presumably others. The algorithm is BROKEN folks. The empty spaces don't trade, polish or chat. Been like it for several days, support say nothing they can do, Not happy!!
 

Herodite

Forum mod extraordinaire
Elvenar Team
Greetings @GSV3MiaC It's my understanding that there are going to be some more moves so keep an eye out for any changes either for your City or those around you :)

Hopefully this will resolve your current issue!

Kind Regards

Herodite.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
At the risk of getting back on topic, the last move /clean out Of felyndal has left a bunch of empty spaces around me, and my partner, and presumably others. The algorithm is BROKEN folks. The empty spaces don't trade, polish or chat. Been like it for several days, support say nothing they can do, Not happy!!

Sounds like you´ll have to wait until a spot that fits your description comes available.

As long as the cleaning algorithm keeps working, there´ll be such a space earlier or later. Maybe the big moves are done, but supposedly there should be a weekly move (on a much smaller scale) now, if I understood the announcements correctly. So just give it a couple of weeks.

Just out of curiosity, are the empty spaces concentrated on one side or another or are they spaced out more or less evenly? Just wondering if you ended up on the edge of the active zone (meaning having active cities on one side and nothing on the other) or if you are left somewhere out in the middle of nowhere (meaning only inactives and lots of empty space around you in all directions).
The first case is just bad luck, the scond one could indicate some kind of problem or other. Like being classified as inactive for example. As long as you are reasonable close to the center it could mean no space available as mentioned earlier. If you are way out that seems unlikely.

Did you have the option to not move ticked? Just wondering if there was a trouble with the forced move part...
 

Silly Bubbles

Necromancer
I don´t disagree with the general idea, but I may have a bit of a different perspective on it:




That is most definitely not possible, it has never happened and it will never happen, but I agree it is possible to make more people happy.



I don´t see it as a bad thing, if you have to fight for your ideas. It is part of the screening process. This is the internet, there is no lack of ideas, the problem is to sort the gold from the garbage. An idea that isn´t worth fighting for is not likely to be among the gold nuggets. I certainly am not going to live long enough to be able to listen to the 1 million and 17 ideas out there on every single problem that exists. It is already a big enough job to listen to the good ideas and somehow it has to be decided which are worth listening to and which are not... Willingness to fight for it is of course no guarantee for quality (just think of all the fanatics out there), but the lack of it certainly also says something.
My understanding of democracy may be different from yours, though. I think you have the right to say what you want and you can argue for it as much as you want. Democracy doesn´t mean that everybody has to listen to the first thought that goes through your mind when you wake up in the morning. As much as you have right to argue for your ideas has everybody else the right to oppose your ideas (otherwise you would be the king of the world, which is certainly not something I would agree with). And in a rational world the one with the better arguments would win. Of course that is unrealistic where humans are involved but it is at least an ideal to aim for until somebody comes up with a better alternative :).
Thinking about it I don´t even think the alternative to fighting for your idea is that everybody is going to be listened to, I think the alternative would be that you say what you want and everybody else ignores you.




Now that is exactly what we are doing: We analyzed the change and the result of this analysis is that the change IS good. This is the one and only thing we argue for the entire time. And absolutely nobody said your are not allowed to say how you feel about it. Everybody does all the time, nobody minds, all we do is put the facts on the table that the change IS good for nearlt everybody! We also acknowledge the fact that a very small minority of exceptions exist. And I am very happy to discuss any solution to helping this minority as well as long as it doesn´t negate the huge benefit to nearly everybody.

Thank you for a civilised discussion :)
 

geordianna

Soothsayer
I seem to have more money pits than ever this morning - all on one side - still waiting for new neighbours I'm in Winyandor
 

GSV3MiaC

Alchemist
Gargon667.. The money pits were a group all to one side. My partner had 20 total in several clusters all around her. Today we got moved, at least MOST of our neighbours are new. Some of them still have cities called 'inactive', which is a clue the algorithm didn't pick up on.i guess a money pit is just more 'in your face annoying' than an equivalent moribund city, which you can at least visit.

''don't move me' is not an option on the app. Not sure it is, an option anywhere these days.
 

Laurelin

Sorcerer
@Herodite : Sorry to bother you again, but now that it's close to 10 days after the 'Big Move', are we likely to see any further significant Map moves? I've tried to gather what info I can from this and the US Forum, but there doesn't seem to be a consensus on the answer to this question. I've seen a few additional moves happening in my Map area after the initial large move, but most of those appear to have occurred two days ago (i.e. on the 'usual' Map move day, Monday), so I really can't tell whether or not the 'Big Move' is complete. Many thanks in advance if you can help me out on this!
 
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