Character Count

[Granpappy]

There are multiple reasons.
1) Amount of harvesters
2) City sizes due to slots
3) server db size/load
4) economy/market due to everyone being self-sufficient

All good points Ed - I'm just saying if you decide to lower the character count please consider grandfathering current members who have spent time on their characters. Consider it like a vet/founder award of sorts

Thanks much!

GP

[Lyris]

please consider grandfathering current members who have spent time on their characters.

Please do not do this.

[Granpappy]

I have a suggestion. Obviously the hope would be that if you been here longer than 30 days there is some sort of grandfather clause. At the same token it will seem somewhat unfair so i have a suggestion.


Reduce it to 7 let people pick their 3 characters that are frozen .. not deleted. Start new players out with 5 characters. For each 20 dollar donation allow grandfathered players to release one of their frozen toons .. For new players who remain here more than 90 days for each 20 dollar donation allow them to unlock up to two addition slots for a maximum of 7.

It's more than the 5 for existing players who are upset about losing toons .. but they could unfreeze them by supporting the server a little bit. If you can't afford to donate you still have 7 characters ... 2 more than someone new.

I just feel people want to weigh in so heavily and get angry at the thought of losing their hard earned toons on a FREE server .. is kind of funny. Anyway it isn't profiting as we all know that ED has been paying for shortages for some time. It's a good compromise and if you are that hell bent and serious about your lot mules then donating a little cash over a few months wouldnt' be that painful

Although the game is free I do donate and will continue to do so monthly so in a sense i AM paying to play. I always thought the 1-2 characters per account was stupid and ended up paying for 6 accounts so I could do what I WANTED to do and I don't regret spending that money - I had a great time.

Big Ed and the devs of course can do whatever they feel is best for the server but I hope they keep things the way they are. I never in my life have seen people playing a game WANTING stuff taken away...unreal.

It's taking away something that makes the game something it wasn't meant to be. You payed for 6 accounts? Cool. It's not what SOE had in mind for people to do, though. This game is meant to pick something you want to do and dedicate yourself to it. You had to go and find other players to get things you needed, even progressing your skills themselves. You weren't meant to be able to do everything yourself on multiple characters. This server is trying to recreate that experience, therefore character limits must be enforced. If you don't like it then you don't seem like you're meant for this server.

Almost everyone I played with on Shadowfire had at least one other account and most had multiples. I understand wanting to promote dependence on other classes and the economic impact but I have a short attention span and like to switch things up or I get bored. I think you'll find that players will quit playing quickly if their play options are limited and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

The original pre-cu design got many things right but limiting players to one or 2 characters was not one of them.

[Granpappy]

please consider grandfathering current members who have spent time on their characters.

Please do not do this.

Answer me this: How many active characters do you have right now?

[BigQEd]

As a compromise and to keep 10 characters... how many would agree to the following ideas that would not require the change to character counts.

- Reduce slots per character.
- Make cities require more citizens.

[Dliscaiwo]

I did not even know about the 10 character slots until recently. When I did find out I thought that this was going to cause issues due to city restrictions and I have been kind of shocked to see the amount of harvesters on decent spawns labeled to one person or the other. I never saw anything like that back when. And this is a new server, growing by leaps and bounds. I think the future data base issues as well as the fact that land and city space is going to be at a premium sooner than later is a no brainer. Too many players are either self sufficient or well on their way to being. This is not in the spirit of the SWG I knew. That being said I do understand those that have a lot of characters put so much work into them and personally feel it is unfair to take them away. Many of them gave this server the start we are all enjoying. My opinion is limit the characters to new players and grandfather in the people that simply must have all of their currently filled slots but put a cap on the lots each person is allowed to have, not grandfathered. I feel grandfathering in more than what is allowed to new players gives a huge advantage that will be a sore spot to many more than those that will have a major issue with it now. From what I am reading most are more than willing to do whatever is best for the server, yes we may all suffer some loss but nothing compared to what most of us went through in the past. I think the Awakening team is showing even more integrity bringing this up and I applaud them!! They rock, period.

[Granpappy]

As a compromise and to keep 10 characters... how many would agree to the following ideas that would not require the change to character counts.

- Reduce slots per character.
- Make cities require more citizens.

I can work with that Ed - especially the cities requiring more citizens.

[Dliscaiwo]

Just LOL. I work forever on my post and post and then there is Big Ed, busy guy roflmao!!

[MisterNudd]

As a compromise and to keep 10 characters... how many would agree to the following ideas that would not require the change to character counts.

- Reduce slots per character.
- Make cities require more citizens.

Yes

Lots per accounts would be better if you are looking at reducing the number of chars to incoming players, They would then get the same number of lots which would only be fair.

[darriandm]

As a compromise and to keep 10 characters... how many would agree to the following ideas that would not require the change to character counts.

- Reduce slots per character.
- Make cities require more citizens.

I feel like reducing slots per character *and* requiring more citizens per city is overkill. They are both trying to solve the same issue, which is lot abuse. Reducing lots per character is enough, if you do both I think we'll end up seeing a lot of city services that are helping out the server right now disappear. I mean, obviously some of them should since they're cities made up of maybe a handful of people, but still.

I also stand by my position that we'll find keeping the 10 character slots was a mistake in the future, and by then it will be even more difficult to fix it. I just feel it's unfortunate that the entire community may have to suffer over those that don't want to give up a convenience that we didn't even have in the original game anyway.

[Centurionforce]

As a compromise and to keep 10 characters... how many would agree to the following ideas that would not require the change to character counts.

- Reduce slots per character.
- Make cities require more citizens.

Slots yes
Citizens No

We just do not have enough players on this server to sustain player cities. Many players come and go. So will there homes in the city. Unless you make it so that condemn homes within the cities (not outside of the cities) do not go poof unless the mayor decides they should.

[BigQEd]

We would be increasing city requirements anyway, it was turned down due to being a new server. It needs to be at least the level of Live (very soon). That's been mentioned before. The reason is limitation of city slots.

To be honest, having 10 characters is WAY over what most individuals had on Live and it does cause long term repercussions. I have no problem with people having more characters (you could argue self-sufficiency but the type of player that does grind out 10 useful characters are probably individuals that would buy 5+ accounts on live) but those characters being used primarily for slots and cluttering the landscape with 234242224242932492483 structures starts getting ridiculous and will eventually hurt server loads (not to mention economic impact). So instead of talking about a reduction in characters... I suggested a reduction in character slots.

These issues are related yet separate. Reducing slots doesn't reduce citizen potential. Simply increasing citizen requirements doesn't resolve the harvester farms.

Current SWGA: CitizensPerRank = {5, 10, 15, 25, 50}
Pre-CU SWG: CitizensPerRank = {10, 20, 35, 55, 85}

[Granpappy]

We would be increasing city requirements anyway, it was turned down due to being a new server. It needs to be at least the level of Live (very soon). That's been mentioned before. The reason is limitation of city slots.

To be honest, having 10 characters is WAY over what most individuals had on Live and it does cause long term repercussions. I have no problem with people having more characters (you could argue self-sufficiency but the type of player that does grind out 10 useful characters are probably individuals that would buy 5+ accounts on live) but those characters being used primarily for slots and cluttering the landscape with 234242224242932492483 structures starts getting ridiculous and will eventually hurt server loads (not to mention economic impact). So instead of talking about a reduction in characters... I suggested a reduction in character slots.

These issues are related yet separate. Reducing slots doesn't reduce citizen potential. Simply increasing citizen requirements doesn't resolve the harvester farms.

Current SWGA: CitizensPerRank = {5, 10, 15, 25, 50}
Pre-CU SWG: CitizensPerRank = {10, 20, 35, 55, 85}

I agree and I'm fine with the reduction of slots - it's the fairest compromise IMO. Thanks for listening and considering all points of view Ed

GP

[ChyldeMyst]

Honestly, I'd rather cut characters than lots-per. Five characters with ten lots each requires far less division of effort than ten characters with five lots each. I'm frankly bewildered as to how those people who desperately need all 10 character slots can keep up with that many characters. I'm a stay-at-home mom with a four year old and I can't juggle more than two or three characters at a time and do any of them justice.

Is there any way we can offer a choice in-game to players, so you can choose whether to take a five-character or a ten-character account?

[Wodaz]

As a compromise and to keep 10 characters... how many would agree to the following ideas that would not require the change to character counts.

- Reduce slots per character.
- Make cities require more citizens.

Slots yes
Citizens No

We just do not have enough players on this server to sustain player cities. Many players come and go. So will there homes in the city. Unless you make it so that condemn homes within the cities (not outside of the cities) do not go poof unless the mayor decides they should.

I agree with Nyrus on this, people will come and go, I already know some that have. I guess you can change it down the road again if population issues become a problem, which I hope it never does.

[BigQEd]

Is there any way we can offer a choice in-game to players, so you can choose whether to take a five-character or a ten-character account?

I'm a stay at home developer (currently due to surgery) and I honestly contribute 18+ hrs a day as it is... this would require so much code change it honestly is not within our realm of possibility.

[ChyldeMyst]

Thank you for the honest answer, Ed. I know nothing about coding, and that's why I ask these questions. ^.^

I hope you recover quickly and without complications.

[MisterNudd]

As a compromise and to keep 10 characters... how many would agree to the following ideas that would not require the change to character counts.

- Reduce slots per character.
- Make cities require more citizens.

Yes

Lots per accounts would be better if you are looking at reducing the number of chars to incoming players, They would then get the same number of lots which would only be fair.

Tbh Ed I was happy with 8 myself

[Anomaly]

As a compromise and to keep 10 characters... how many would agree to the following ideas that would not require the change to character counts.

- Reduce slots per character.
- Make cities require more citizens.

thats a good start, but it doesnt address the problem of everyone being self sufficient in time.
totally your call Ed, but I worry what this would mean for the server in the long term.

[RAH2]

As a compromise and to keep 10 characters... how many would agree to the following ideas that would not require the change to character counts.

- Reduce slots per character.
- Make cities require more citizens.

Ed,

Rather than reducing slots per character, why not just cap the total number of slots per account? This would separate the issue of number of characters per account vs number of lots available. There very well may be coding issues that prevent something like this but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.