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+--- Thread: Making Rheinland more attractive (/showthread.php?tid=26856)
Making Rheinland more attractive - Malexa - 09-19-2009
[font=System]Guten Tag meine Damen und Herren!
Well, I thought of a Rheinlandish introduction due to the matter of fact, that we are talking about Rheinland here.
My purpose of making this thread is to point out a few things that Rheinland could use.
Furthermore this should be used for brainstorming and maybe getting some attention towards Rheinland.
I am aware this happened in Kusari before and I am witnessing it happens in Rheinland too.
Talking about this matter really worries me.
It is about the player population inside Rheinland space.
Currently there are two big active factions inside Rheinland space.
As you can guess that would be [RHA] and the [RM].
Some smaller factions like the ALG and REP-EX are also present here and then. REP-Ex is also becoming a bit rare.
The Hessians are something special, since their activity drops to nearly zero and suddenly they move around with 15 ships at the same time.
I still see some of thema round, that is why I count them in as definately active.
Looking at the lawfull side, we have the RFP as well, but since I joined this community I could never witness any real activity and comeback of this faction.(was it even verry active at some point?)
The unlawfull side is also verry thin. We have the Bundschuh, Unioners and the LWB to mention, but still the only ones with their flags at the front line, are the NPCs.
It dropped completely. Some time ago, we still had them around. Not many like the RHA were, but still a few to recognize their presence.
When I talk of "back then", it is mostly the old version of the mod. 4.84.
What is the case of the dropping activity inside Rheinland?
Is it the server population?
A clear no. Taking 10 minutes to log in, is a clearly sign that we have enough people around.
Is it the mod?
Yes and No. With 4.84, we still had some times when Rheinland was empty. Back then, only traders passed by.
The [RM] was pretty inactive too. I could witness this my first ranks. Suddenly it got a few new faces and some of the older ones came back. It managed to float again.
Suddenly the pirates and unlawfulls came back to Rheinland space and it got quite a good population and some action.
Now talking about the "Yes, it is the new mod". Maybe the new trading system cuts off the traders from Rheinland. No Traders means no Pirates around. No pirates....you know the rest.
So what could we change here? Place 2 Rheinland Battleships, a few shiny Wraths in front of Pittsburgh or Manhattan?
"Oh! 1 want 2! Giv big ship. Where I buy?"
That would not be really a sollution.
Still the most player density can be found in the house of Liberty.
A boon and a bane.
Do some of our community members know some ideas, how we could repopulate a house and make it attractive?
The [RM] playercount is stable now, the Ranks are filled. Rheinland is not.
Also the recruitment is reopened, but only populating the military wont help bringing it back to life.
[color=#33FF33]Malexa
Making Rheinland more attractive - Jinx - 09-19-2009
as you observed - the grain of activity is traders. - traders go NOT only where the money is - but where the money is in relation to the efford needed.
right now - there are many traders in the edgeworld ( zoners ). that doesn t mean they are doing ooRP stuff, the very contrary even - but the edgeworlds are "draining" activity from the core.
now - you may say "but liberty is full of players" - yes, but thats not the players that populate the core systems. - liberty is full of mostly new players or players that still need time to get used to the whole mod. - many players that feel "safer" pick the edgeworlds over houses.
why is that so?
for one - there is a thicket of playerrules. - players have trouble knowing who is with who, who is my enemy, who is neutral to me, who is my friend? - what is contraband? where does what ZoI start and end?
and to complicate matters - travelling by tradelane and jumpgates is ( sadly ) more complicated than travelling via long cruise distances and jumpholes.
the tradebalance made it so that cooperation traders were the new pinacle of traders over independent traders. - but self restrictions, restrictions and rules made it hard. - not particularly hard per se - but harder than a zoner trader in the edgeworlds.
things are easier there - clearer, more transparent. you don t make more profit there - but you sure don t need to read up dozens of pages of legal codexes or other rules. and you re not caught in muliple pirate clans that have a much easier life at lanes. - you rae never confronted by zealous police ships that think they need someone to boss around.
all in all - the edgeworlds drain your activity - and the reason is - its simply easier there.
its hard to get a balance. - in order to get traders, you must offer them something they don t have in other places. - but the idea is not only to get traders - but also pirates - which is again ... contra-productive to being attractive to traders. - unless you offer a flawless police. - all in all, its rathe complex.
many traders ( in 4.84 ) felt at least as much harrassed by some police / military as they were harrassed by pirates. - yet - the routes in the core were ... all in all ... shorter and easier than the edgeworld routes. ( diamonds / niobium is a bad - but also a good example )
truth is - if you consider trading "money making" and not really "roleplaying" - the edgeworlds are better suited. - you jump in, press the autopilot and get a coffee. - chances that you re intercepted in open space are tiny ( compared to be pirated at crossroads of tradelanes ) - you also have less NPCs annoying you ( since even friendly NPCs shoot down a lane and make delay you in the MOST annoying way )
all that boils down to is not that the edgeworlds need a nerf - but that the core needs something to be more attractive to traders. - that can be quite a lot. - from safer lanes to more profit, better or shorter routes, safer "checkpoints" where traders can run to when chased by pirates ( like stationary cruisers ). etc.
the only advantage in the core is that - IF a trader is confronted by a pirate - he can usually make it to the next station to dock to safety. - in the edgeworlds in the big wide nothing, - a pirate has an advantage ... IF he can catch you in the first place ( which again is easier in the core )
Making Rheinland more attractive - darthbeck - 09-19-2009
i think some rheinland -kusari routes could use a profit increase, perhaps a route from kyushu-stuttgart or something.
i think the real problem, is the fact that the most profitable trade route for rheinland that i know of, is about 175 credits persecond, while the best i know for the edgeworlds is about 188 credits persecond.
while the difference is not that big, the profit, combined with the ease of edgeworld trading, makes corperations seem less suited to grinding then the zoners.
hopefully, some of the changes to the zoner whale and zoner id should help with this.
Making Rheinland more attractive - Weedalot - 09-19-2009
I have a small suggestion here.
The Angels help new player usually in the house of liberty.
They can direct them to their new home instead of staying in liberty.. When i saw new player wondering around in Rheinland i was happy to help them pick it up and learn the RP of rheinland.
We do need police force, We do need more Traders.. but i like to use my pirate chars to pirate. When i am on my RHA (like Today) i must say there is lots of traders.. The pirates of rheinland not doing their part of Pirating those traders.. i do not understand why thee is not more pirates in those rich trade lanes.
Shame we dont see much of AU anymore.. it would be great seeing them in large numbers like before.. was always fun and nice RP.
LWB is not as active. The population of liberty is sky high.. and i believe someone should start evicting or helping those "New Comers" migrate outwards.
Making Rheinland more attractive - n1kodemus - 09-19-2009
Competely own and unique ship lines for Bundschuh, LWB and Unioners could attract more players.
Especially bombers, as they're mostly used for piracy.
I am not sure whether the said factions would have the resources to build their own ships, though.
Making Rheinland more attractive - Benjamin - 09-19-2009
Our traderoutes are terrible. The jumpholes are terrible, and some of the systems are pretty lame (Dresden. Munich has a couple of traderoutes in it but it's bad for players because of its layout. Frankfurt and Hamburg and Stuttgart are dead in terms of routes, and exist only as highways.)
I can log on my LWB or my VF and see that there is maybe one trader in the whole of Rheinland and he is in some place I can't get to. I can wait 40 minutes and see that no more traders have appeared. I can then check for lawful activity if I feel like a fight, and see that there are 3 battleships and 5 fighters in Hamburg, and nothing anywhere else. I can fly to Hamburg and be ganked, sit in Stuttgart and never meet any traders, or log off and switch characters and do something else. If I'm on my RHA, I'll probably notice there is something more exciting happening in the Omegas and go there.
Basically everyone is too busy smuggling in their zoner whales on their own, and Rheinland is the first major gameplay casualty.
Also yeah really Rheinland is horrible to get around in. Munich is just a joke, it's way off on one side of an otherwise useless system, and is joke huge. And for unlawfuls, the jumpholes, my god. At least with the sigma 13 hole around it was possible to get from stuttgart to hamburg in less than 400 years. If I see a trader in Frankfurt when I'm in Stuttgart, there's nothing I can do. He'll be back in Kusari by the time I get there.
Making Rheinland more attractive - Malexa - 09-19-2009
Thanks for all your vaulable posts!
Jinx and Bejamin brought up some verry good points and described the situation.
Having the unlawfulls describe their view, or the view of the traders as well, is the key I believe.
The Lawfulls mostly sit in hamburg, because there is the highest chance of getting player interaction.
Also the Embargo may harm the trade routes, but if the really good routes go from rheinland to liberty, then nobody thought of the RP behind the war.
Some may think this woudl encourage blockade running, but as we already see, the only interaction we get is mostly in hamburg.
Which means lots of pilots there and nearly no chance for runners.
Making Rheinland more attractive - Xareck - 09-19-2009
I don't go there because no matter what, I always end up being blown up - whether I'm RPing as a Rheinland citizen or a smuggler.
Making Rheinland more attractive - Wuselkobold - 09-19-2009
I'm not a regular Rheinlandplayer, although i am in the LWB. I can totally agree with what Ben said. The only Jumphole node that makes sense to use in all of Rheinland is in Dresden.
I don't know about the other unlawful factions, but for the LWB, its kind of impossible to do our RP. Syth Foods is quasi non-existent in Rheinland. Only thing we can do is to go and have a good brawl with the lawfuls, and even those are supposed to like us (or at least not to hate us), and the LWB has no reason to look for them/raid military installations. I've had some great RP with the RM and RFP as well, but they are really the only people i've met in Rheinland who actually RP back. And even then its mostly 'we go chase the single criminal with 3 to 6 ships because we don't have anything better to do' with me ending 30k above the plane. Basically, logging on in Rheinland on my fighter means PVP, even if i don't want it.
The trade in stuttgart lives from traders comong from and going to Bretonia. But this traderoute dies as soon as a single pirate loggs on in Omega 3 or 7.
The smuggling routes for the Rheinland unlawfuls are awul. The only good one is the Blood diamond/Slave route the Hessians have (and even this one is broken because it takes ahes to get through Hamburg since the JHs are awul far from each other. The other unlawful factions don't trade slaves and the other options are really bad compared to other unlawful smuggling routes.
The embargo is another problem. Rheinland is supposed to be very dependent of the products coming from Liberty. Being in a region of space with many raw materials is fine, but all the sophisticated tech comes from Liberty and Kusari. Rheinland needs those Superconductors, the Platin, the Superalloy and all that stuff, so why don't let the traders in? Letting them out again is, of course, something completely different. Take an example on Bretonia, they welcome every shipment of goods from Kusari as a diversion of materials.
The mining spots in Rheinland are terrible. Maybe factions like Daumann would get more love when they were actually profitable? Its about time that the Niobium and Iridiom mining gets movet to the Houses to increase activity.
Thats all i can think of for now, there might be more coming later.
Making Rheinland more attractive - NerdRage - 09-19-2009
Perhaps moving the high-profit newb friendly scrap metal fields to Rheinland somewhere?
i am all for this idea, as my favorite house is Rheinland and i spend most of my time there.
remember all those ranty charts?