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Disappearing cities on World Map

SkyRider99

Immortal
I've had a lot of empty provinces on my World Map for a long time. Apparently I am located on the periphery, which is fine with me. I have always had a lot of active neighbours though. But today I noticed empty provinces encroaching on my city, whereas I have always previously been surrounded by active neighbours.

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It seems that a significant number of players are leaving the game. Or have they just had their cities relocated to greener pastures?

If it's the case where they have left the game, could it be a mere coincidence that it is happening so soon after Inno forced that Discord debacle upon us. I have never been on Discord, but from what I've read in this forum it is a populated with spiteful, aggressive trolls. That would be enough to make me leave a game I'm guessing.

Others' thoughts?
 

Lelanya

Mentor
It's a combination of things. The folks who played here during the pandemic, and then returned to work, are finally being swept from the board, as their two years or three years' grace period is up. So we are seeing a need for consolidation.

Yes there are folks out there who equate the Discord launch with a lack of sincerity on the Devs' behalf. But the sad truth is, the lack was always there it was just concealed well by the Product Managers Department (Nino, Thiago) acting in conjunction with the Community Management Specialists (Giada) crew. Both departments were decimated by a large layoff, again due to player shrinkage, post pandemic. The move to Discord was to cover up the missing middle management layer, and bring transparency to the interaction between the CM staff and the players (to where the remaining Devs could see it, see us and our suggestions). What has become apparent on the US Forum, is a toxic situation on the German Forum, between staff and players, that created a mindset in the company, that Forums are no good. They've had some push back, as the Forums are repositories of collected information about the later chapters. Also the Beta CM despises XenForo, the software that the Forums use.

What you will also see, the giant elephant in the room, is the impact of those who rage quit over the AW changes. This Forum didn't get too much of it but there was a great deal of moaning on Discord, literally thousands of messages every day, from players with 4 dozen armories and suddenly no culture who were certain if they complained loudly enough surely Inno would restore their cities.
 

Lelanya

Mentor
Anyway, no Discord is not populated by spiteful trolls. I am there, lol, alongside certain wits. Here if someone is rude to another player, you hit the report button and then the staff edits or removes the comment. On Discord, if we hit report, it goes to Discord, who then try to figure out if the account reported is dropping malicious software on their platform. :rolleyes: which means that the staff have to be vigilant, or we have to snitch.
 

Pauly7

Master of the Elements
Whatever the reason for the downsizing of the player base, the process you are seeing is Inno's constant re-shuffling of players' locations so that they all can be together (closer to the proverbial centre). If you are seeing a lot of new gold mines all at once then this most likely means that Inno is now removing players from your area and pushing them closer to the centre... Especially if it appears to be a wave, originating from one side of your map. If that's the case you'll probably find yourself being moved in the coming days or weeks, once that wave of goldmines catches up to where you are.
 

OldHag

Necromancer
My gold mines to the north east are growing at an alarming rate, but I'm still going to scout that area, simply because they are easy provinces for me and I like to keep it circular.
 

SkyRider99

Immortal
I've had a lot of empty provinces on my World Map for a long time.
Empty neighbour count is now up to 193.
If you are seeing a lot of new gold mines all at once then this most likely means that Inno is now removing players from your area and pushing them closer to the centre...
The 'centre' must be compressed to almost critical mass. What's next? A black-hole? :oops:
 

McBratty

Enchanter
I got moved on Winy after being surrounded by gold mines for absolute ages. I was delighted till about a month later when they took all the people and left me again with sodding gold mines! I swear there are aliens involved here!!
 

SkyRider99

Immortal
I was delighted till about a month later when they took all the people and left me again with sodding gold mines! I swear there are aliens involved here!!
Sounds like what happens in RL around the world. Minus being left with gold mines perhaps. I'm open to the possibility of alien involvement. :)
 
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