Abandoned Cities

[KermitsDad]

Has the policy of removing abandoned cities from the world maps on a regular basis stopped?

I ask this because at one time the abandoned cities in my neighborhood would periodically be removed and be replaced by a mine that could be clicked on to collect some coin but I have not seen this for many weeks now.

The situation seems to be getting worse and the former policy of leaving cities in place if they have reached Chapter 3 or spent diamonds I'd suggest also needs a rethink. Players will leave the game and advanced ones too. Over time this number goes up & up.

Below is a city which is local to my town. This city has remained unchanged since I started with Elvenar in November 2016.
Chapter 3 or not, it's of no use as a trading partner having just the 5 buildings and no goods factories.

Today I took some statistics from player rankings:

Arendyll - 83,904 total players - 59,180 have a score of 1 or more - 24,724 (29.5%) have a score of zero.
Winyandor - 81,103 total players - 56,617 have a score of 1 or more - 24,486 (30.2%) have a score of zero.

I'm assuming a score of zero means that the city owner has never built or upgraded a single building... ever.
So presumably these ~50K cities with zero score were started and immediately abandoned.
Goods boosts not as required perhaps?

With the recent change to the wholesaler it is now essential that you either have a good fellowship or that you can trade with local neighbors.
Preferably both.

My concern is particularly for new players just starting. Initially they will not have a fellowship and with the current abundance of abandoned cities, they will really struggle to get the goods they need to progress.

In fact the situation may become self perpetuating. Can't get the goods, so they leave the game and we have yet another abandoned city.

This abandoned city issue really needs to be sorted out as a priority.
As a starting point I'd like to see active players redefined as players that place or take trades at least once a week.
Non active players could be moved to a separate area of the map.

Your thoughts ?

 

[DeletedUser3337]

Arendyll - 83,904 total players - 59,180 have a score of 1 or more - 24,724 (29.5%) have a score of zero.
Winyandor - 81,103 total players - 56,617 have a score of 1 or more - 24,486 (30.2%) have a score of zero.

My thoughts:
-Dad I remember a lil freak, who did some investigations, wanted to find out the amount of actual active players in a game.
This Watson made us come to the conclussion, that the impression of a huge community is what matters too.
Players that bought diamonds will never loose them, even if their account is zoof gone.
So for cats sake, why hang on to them so long? Like nearly half a year gone and still on the worldmap ...
-I still see the mines
-And ... that avatar looks familiar. (very important)
-Mebe one of them polls come in handy wif zis topic

 

[cwgiii]

I totally agree with you KermitsDad. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt this policy will change.

 

[DeletedUser2324]

I can well sympathise since I imagine that something like 75% of all the cities in my visit orbit are pretty much inactive, some going back to the same day I started. They had about 4 buildings in place when I started and they are still thee now. How in well over 6 months they have not been removed puzzles me, but even as Moderator, I do not have any answers since this is beyond my 'pay grade' s our American friends are wont to remark.

I know new players are appearing on my orbit map all of the time and have not seen a mine in a long time, so perhaps the game is merely adding new players into the game on the basis of them taking the place of old dead cities where the next old dead city removed is the next worst rank in the list of inactives. This might mean that those who quit further along in city development are in the "To be removed" category but there have not currently been enough new recruits to take their place.

Of course, none of us would thank the Devs if we were moved without our consent to a new orbit but there needs to be some method to migrate ever larger players closer whilst still retaining their Fellowships, all of which whilst not local per se as being in everyone's orbit is certainly within a confined region of the board.

 

[Tonton-des-bois]

They can't legally remove the city of someone who bought diamonds... It would be like if the car shop would take your car back to the shop if you don't use it... when you buy something, even virtual, it's yours until your death, no matter if you use it...

And they are not thinking deeper enough to move the inactives and the newbies to the border... so... their "city moving" is just stupidly unusefull and unefficient because they only solved half the problem... It's the usual short range sight that leads their work.

 

[DeletedUser3407]

I was under the impression that cities were removed from an abandoned account. Monthly? However: I see a lot of these zero cities or ones with permanently under-construction buildings, where the player has decided not to play in both worlds. Abandon the Arendyll city but continue on Winyandor, and the dead city is still part of an "active" account and so stays there. One of my closest neighbours on Aren has been under construction since at least October last year, but has a 100k+ city on Win.

My 2 cents/pennies/copper would be to treat the worlds individually. Also, to have buildings auto complete even if the owner hasn't visited! Seriously irritating to have so many cities you can't visit on your daily rounds because everything's under construction for the nth week running.

Eeeeehh, now I need a cuppa.