Would love to see a new contintent or a new server .

that's all i have to say, long time game, building empires and lots of people around is whats good, splitting things in half making the world half as active is always a bad idea.

Adding a new landmass with some sea between then, needing ships to travel between would be totally awesome and could create some great wars between them as well as possible trade with having exclusive items on each side, players setting out to explore and settle the new lands, keeping the newbs in the newb ring because maybe you have forgotten but without 100k pop players within 400sq you aint getting any res help.

Creating a new server separate from this one will be the first coffin nail for Illy.  

If you want to play a game that will make a new server every month or so, and thusly create skeleton servers or would like to play 5 servers at once; try any of the hot garbage Gameforge puts out.

I agree. If overcrowding really is a big problem (Which it may be in some regions but there are still a lot of good spots in the North) then the way to fix it is to either be more vigorous in removing inactives or to add another landmass to the game map. 

Other then the standard new server needs for people to catch up, the more in game political aspect may call for a new server to some. 

 

(That was my TD impersonation. Good huh? )

I disagree here. With the good spots running low it will create pressure and eventually begin to change the game on its own. If you add more land it will continue to be farmville.

@raask,

I was refering to this^

It would be a legion of newbie accounts vying for domination over that server, it would not be so peaceful as you would think, I can think that many people who are in charge of tiny alliances here would gladly take a risk to invest time into a new server to see if they could become top dog.

I think that you have 1/3 of the people wanting a new server for more land, 1/3 to get the feeling of everyone kind of on the same starting line (prestige users will always have a slight head ahead) and the other 1/3 would want the new server to have to be a blank canvas for a new political masterpiece to arise. 

The most important part of Illyriad is that it is 1 map, 1 world, 1 consistent land. We are all in it together. There are plenty of squares that remain unoccupied, and if you really want that +7 food square with the +20 food production right next to it, then ready your armies and go take it. If your upset that larger older alliances have already claimed all the great spots, form a coalition and take them out. 

I don't think so, the old alliances will always have a grip thus why a new server would create a brand new world with as of yet no powerful grouping of alliances dominating.

I can say that I will never buy prestige for illyriad on this server for that reason alone^

best said so far

 +1 

Couldn't help it. Sorry EF.

@Subatoi, maybe you've seen it all, but aren't you in a burning farmville war?  If that's boring from your POV, how would a new server change it? 

I don't even understand you, maybe its because I didn't go to sleep till about 6 am and woke up at 9:30 am, tired maybe i dont know or maybe its how you're typing it out.

Elaborate for me.

Yes.. a very undesired war but I get the joke.  kudos

Guess what I'm trying to say is you can get everything your looking for on this server without a new continent currently. You just need to wait a little longer and be prepared.

AUDREY!!!

dun dun dunnnnnn ....

I share your concern.  I find myself being more antagonistic toward others as I deal with a city placement issue pretty much every day.  The latest conceit I've run across is now 10 squares is not enough; someone is complaining about one of my cities that is 10.1 squares away from someone else's.

/me sighs

Wait, seriously? LMAO!

Sounds like you've got a great grasp on the depth of Illyriard. Send me a raven in game if you need anything. 

Really, you have 2 separate topics going on. One of the topics has to do with the lack of spaces left on the map that are good for new players to build on.  The second topic has to do with encouraging PvP by limiting space on the map.  

A lot of the posts in this discussion make the argument that limiting the map will encourage people to PvP over good spaces, but the original post had to do with letting noobs start building to begin with.  

If there are no good spots on the map left for new players to build on, then this implies that that is because all the good spots are already taken by older players.  Older players are going to already to have an advantage over noobs in that they have already built up their cities to a level that makes them able to produce troops in order to fight other players.  

If your argument against expanding the map is that you want people to have to fight over the good spaces, you seem to be ignoring the fact that the people who would be having to fight to get one of those good spaces are going to be people who can't fight yet.  You want the noobs attacking the vets in order to get the good spaces on the map? 

I don't think that that is going to work out so well.  

The people who want to encourage PvP are the people who are ready to PvP.  But those players ALREADY have good spots on the map, so it isn't them who would be bearing the brunt of this encouragement.  

A lot of the people shooting down the idea of a new server are doing so on the grounds that making a new server would cause the game to be like most other mmorts games, and turn the game into a noob ganking free for all like many others are. 

On the one hand, I agree that just adding a new server is probably not the best solution to the problem.  As many other players have pointed out, splitting up the playerbase just ends up causing a different set of problems than an overcrowded server does. On the other hand, I have to say that forcing newer players to fight bigger players for good spots on the map is just as likely to create a noob ganking free for all as adding a new server would.  

I happen to be one of those noobs who is trying to find a spot on the map to start building up in, and I have to tell you that if I were going to have to pick a fight with someone who has been playing for 6+ months in order to get a space to build, I wouldn't even bother trying.  A noob can't build or support an army big enough to even put a mosquito bite on a veteran player, much less steal a spot on the map from one. 

I am to new to judge whether or not what all the older players say is a good spot really is a good spot or not. But I am going to assume that people who have been playing for a year or two, probably have a fairly decent idea of how to play the game, and probably also know in general what is important in city location selection.  Even if they are all wrong, the game is far to complex for someone like me, who has been playing about a month, to figure out a better strategy than the people who have been playing for a couple of years.  Yes, there might be some room in the game for people to diversify their strategies, but the new players are not going to be the ones coming up with those strategies.  We have to learn the basics of how the combat system works in the first place, before we can invent ways of switching the tactics up.  

Several people have also pointed out that there are "plenty of 7 food spots left up in the wastes." 

MMMMMM.......yes......I see that there are......but I have to wonder if there might not be a reason for that.  If the entire rest of the map is packed, and the name of the area is called "wastes," I am thinking that that area probably has some kind of a disadvantage that would not make it a good area for new players to want to start out in.  But I am new, and barely understand what makes a good spot a good spot, so maybe I am wrong. 

But that is rather my point.  Noobs are not the people who you want to aim a requirement to fight at.  We don't know how, and couldn't compete even if we did know how.  

A lot of people keep saying that there is a population cap, so noobs can catch up, yada yada.  But if there are no places for us to make cities that will have comparable benefits to the spots that the long term players have, then that is obviously not true.  Even after we have played for the 6 months it takes to get to vet status, if we couldn't get the spots you need to make cities and armies the size of the ones longer term players have, then we will not have cities of comparable size since the spots we ARE able to get are not capable of supporting cities of comparable sizes and army populations.  The population caps of the newer players will be capped at smaller levels than the levels of the people who got here first. 

My ubernoobness hinders me in making a solid evaluation of the problem being discussed, because I do not yet understand all the statistics in the game.  But I don't have to know exactly how everything works to understand what the underlying root of people's complaints are. 

1. The map is too crowded and there isn't any good areas for new players to start out in.

2. The game does not have enough PvP.

Both of these complaints seem like real problems to me.  This is not the first thread I have read where these two particular complaints were mentioned. 

I KNOW map overcrowding is a problem, because I already have run into problems finding a spot to build in.  I moved my city to a spot where a veteran player in the training alliance I was in told me to, and got chastised approximately 3 hours later by a different veteran player for putting my city to close to his.  So I researched all the information about how to pick spots and went looking for a new area to colonize.  After scrolling the map for two hours tonight, I still haven't found a single spot that would fit the criteria of: 1. having 7 food 2. have nearby adjacent high food 3. isn't within a 10 sector radius of another city.  I can't really even find a spot that simply doesn't have a city within a 10 sector radius of it. Well...I found a place in the middle of a desert and a place in the middle of an ice field that didn't have any cities.  But since they also didn't have any sectors that were actually settleable, they really don't count.  I cant put a city on a 0 resource sector even if I wanted to.  I am sure there ARE some spots somewhere, but 2 hours of searching wasn't enough for me to find one.  And I wasn't being picky, either.  My only criteria were that it be capable of supporting a competitive size army and not be so close to anyone that it made them mad. There are actually a bunch of other important criteria in location selection, such as terrain, region, and nearby sovereignty bonuses, but I gave up worrying about those about 10 minutes after I started looking. 

Making it this difficult for new players will drive them away from the game.  Personally, having played a ton of other mmorts games, I know that to become good at a game you have to be willing to spend a lot of time analyzing stats, and figuring stuff out, and am fully prepared to do so.  I'll go back to searching the map tomorrow when I get off work.

But a new player who hasn't played a ton of mmorts games before probably will just decide the game is to tedious and go looking for something that is easier to get started in. Most players have to get hooked on a game the first couple of days they play it, or they quit and never return.  

Does this mean that they should make a new Illyriad server? Probably not.  But it is an issue that needs to be addressed somehow.  

The lack of PvP is another serious issue.  The game requires a deep time investment to build in, and if there is no longterm goal of fighting other players, then the game isn't really an mmorts.  It is city building game with peripheral strategy aspects.  That doesn't make it bad.  From the many loyal players the game has, it is obvious that the current format appeals to a good number of people.  But it also is going to drive away a lot of people.  

In my opinion, wanting to have meaningful PvP doesn't mean that people just want to act like the people who play other mmorts games act.  If people liked how those games worked, they would be playing those games.  People come to this game because they are looking for something different, and Illyriad promotes itself as being different.  Wanting something different does not mean, however, that players want EVERYTHING about other mmorts games kept out of the game they are looking for.  It isn't generally the fact that there is PvP in other mmorts games that makes them have mean, nasty, bullies for players.  It is the way that the game mechanics of PvP are set up in those games that causes that environment.  To come up with a solution for this problem, you have to look at what people like about PvP in other mmorts games, what they don't like about it, what they like about the current way Illyriad is set up, and what people don't like about it.  Then come up with an idea that incorporates the stuff that people DO like, but that does not include the factors that people do NOT like.  

People play games for fun. Not to have to do stuff they don't like. Not to do the things that other people like, just to make them happy.  The developers have to balance out everyone's wants and dislikes, and come up with a game design that includes as many of the things that people like as possible without including all the stuff they don't like. Games are businesses.  Developers can't just do things to make any one group of people happy.  Their goal is to make a game that is attractive to as wide a variety of people as possible.

In this thread I have gathered that most people do not like the overcrowded state of the map, and a large number of people do not like the lack of PvP.  

Helpful suggestions would solve the problem of map overcrowding, but allow for the people who want to PvP to be able to find someone to compete with, while preserving the friendly atmosphere of the playerbase, and allowing the non-PvP oriented players to continue with their current playing styles.  

None of what I have read so far meets that criteria.  I do not think opening a new server is the answer.  It might temporarily solve the problems, but eventually you will just end up with the exact same problems on two different servers, and will have split your player base up to top it off. I do believe that there are probably ways to accomplish all of these goals, it just requires some creative problem solving.  

I just puked in mouth.

As can be seen from my earlier post in this thread and in any thread pertaining to this topic, (there has been a few, created by the same person I suspect) I resolutely stand against any new server at this time or any time in the foreseeable future.  The reason for this distaste, if it does not blatantly appear obvious to you, can be read in my mentioned posts and any other posts tossing a molotov cocktail onto the idea of serverizing this last bastion of hope in the MMORTS world.

New server will kill the game.  

Expansion would be something to consider for the future.  i.e. send settlers or exodus a maximum of 10 cities to either the misted lands or the rift which would randomly place you in a "fog of war" continent or an extremely hostile NPC environment respectfully, for example.  I think the groundbreaking move for the devs would be to make any expansions accesible and transferable from/to elgea.

We must let Illy "ferment" (had to put that in there -- I'm the person with all the "wine" cities) and change to a new form as a natural process of the game.  In the meantime, I do think an additional continent such as described here would be a wonderful way to let more players into the game. Protect them from "us", let them grow, and then, there could be innovative and exciting interactions in the future between this continent and the new continent.  

I'm finding that the lack of obviously-prime spots has made it necessary for me to think more about what I want each city to do, to specialise.  It requires us to play on a higher or different level.

What is the new server like?

When a new player starts, instead of sending resources, other players immediately bash him/her over the head with clubs.  Someone has already hacked the server to get the players' IP addresses to allow this to happen.

On the new server, there is constant spamming of global chat with advertisements for male enhancement products.

On the new server, the top alliance is called Ravenous! and they have already claimed every 7-food square on the continent.  Anyone else settled on a 7-food square is automatically sieged.

Cleopatra wrote: Yes, there might be some room in the game for people to diversify their strategies, but the new players are not going to be the ones coming up with those strategies.

Almost everybody says you should get a 7 food square near a decent 10+ food special square.  Unsurprisingly, when I looked for a place to settle six months ago, all those squares were taken, or in the harmless range of an existing town, or isolated, i.e., unsuited to settle a cluster.  Therefore I picked 6 food jungle squares (less than 25 res plots) with two river towns before water sovereignty existed.  So far it works, admittedly the potential sovereignty is poor (books+bows+books+bows+...).  Coming up with new or at least unusual  strategies is the only way new players get a chance here, if they don't want to wait until older players with nice squares leave the game.  

Do not follow all (wannabe) rules of established players, some of these rules are only intended to protect the establishment.  Examples, do not send "are you active" mails to inactive players when you want all their saddles, send a T2 spy, watch Illy Stats, make sure that they are really inactive, and go for it before everybody else reaches the same conclusion.  Do not send "can I settle at x|y" mails after you spent weeks to find x|y on the map, unless x|y is near to somebody who might raze your settlers as soon as they arrive.  Untested variant, just build more settlers, and try to settle until it sticks.  Settlers are relatively cheap, but building them is slow.

 

Please consider to post more than one reply, or start new threads, I'm sure that I missed or skipped many interesting points in your long article.  Above all, this is a serious war game. 

There is an alliance that has about eight or so member, all under one thousand population that want to PvP, in other words your statement is FALSE

Exactly right. Smaller players don't have as much to loose, and are fine with sending their 300 spearmen to their death. Larger players don't want their months of troop building to be waisted just because someone wants combat.