Posts: 2,814
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Joined: Nov 2009
Staff roles: Systems Developer
This doesn't solve anything. From what I understand, the main reason it was introduced is to stop a "selected few" to "metagame" via the player list. The problem is, nothing changes for them. "They" (and I'm using quotes because saying player list is metagaming in 2016 after being used for so many years prior to this on top of the admins specifically clearing that topic out is silly) will do one of the following from now on: Either a) sort the forum list by tag and hunt the tag itself, which is worse than the status quo, or b) log in the game to check the player list and still "metagame" the people they wanted to "track down and harass".
The only thing this does is make it harder it for an average user who just wants to find a source of activity and see if it's worth logging rather than being forced to log. That includes RP, PvP, trading, and anything else, not just "PvPwhoring". Cases like Protege's (having to reboot windows and start everything up) don't help the case either, and the ingame part is still here (for the love of God don't change that as well) so it just looks like a half-arsed job. I'm sorry if I'm being too critical for something that's an experiment and will most probably change in some way, shape or form, but I'm giving feedback as if the current status remained. Funnily enough, as crazy as it sounds I barely use the forum player list and usually resort to the in-game one, but I see why people are frustrated.
That's only the first problem. The second one is that interactions are harder to find every single day, events aside. Making that aspect even harder won't help anyone, and this brings back the problem of having too many systems in the game to make this work. Instead of repeating myself, I wrote a paragraph on that topic few weeks ago:
(11-15-2016, 04:25 PM)Antonio Wrote: There's definitely too much factions and systems which the playerbase simply can't cover and it inevitably results in a solid amount of them being neglected. If you ask me, I'd start with a major rework of non vanilla systems which'd ultimately result in nuking quite a few (at this point redundant) ones, with the end result being better overall connections, reduced travel time and increased player interaction. Step two would be the same for factions that are either dead for years or can simply be reshaped into something better coupled with other faction. It's a harsh but necessary task to do, and we'll have to do it sooner or later unless we magically get 50-100 new active players.
Only if all of this criteria is met we can talk about making "tracking players down" a bit harder. My apologies for going off topic a bit, but the current status with so many systems and everything in them being spread out for the amount of players we have doesn't need more disadvantages in finding interaction. If we had 200 active players every evening, I wouldn't mind it at all, but the ratio of players and systems is way off.
And if this does remain, as many pointed out in the thread already it needs clearly defined areas such as Connecticut, Taus, Omegas, and so on. Houses aren't hit by it as much, but anything outside house space will feel it.