Cormactopia Prime wrote:USS Monitor wrote:We have discussed the possibility of adding more feeders.
I think there's a fair bit of support for having more places that nations can spawn, but there's some question about how to do it -- new feeders or open up the possibility for nations to spawn in UCRs, how many feeders if we do feeders, etc. -- and it may take some time before [v] finds the time to actually do anything with any of these ideas.
Bumping this thread because, beyond this post, there was never any acknowledgment this proposal had gotten administrative attention or was being considered and it's now been more than two and a half years since it was posted with no acknowledgment or action. Was the idea ruled out? Is it still waiting to be implemented? Given this thread had eight pages of player feedback and this is an idea that has come up again and again over the years, it would be good to have admin input.
Aside from that, I'd like to note that the Feeders' size and power hasn't decreased from the OP's analysis. What has changed is that even more of gameplay and even more WA voting power has been consolidated in the Feeders. The population ranges Souls mentioned have increased for the three Feeders that don't regularly eject nations, and The North Pacific is now approaching the 10K nation mark. Despite some suggesting that Feeder Delegate endorsement counts always wax and wane, if you take a look at Souls' stats and where Feeder Delegates are now, you see remarkable stability in those numbers for the most part from two and a half years ago.
One of the arguments against the addition of new Feeders was that UCRs were still able to remain competitive if they tried really hard, but you've seen across the board decreases in UCR populations so that now you have regions like Europeia that once hovered just above or below 1,000 nations slipping to a population of 753. 10000 Islands is now the only UCR that isn't a puppet dump with a population above 1K, meaning you have one Feeder that is on the brink of 10K nations, two above 8K, and only one UCR that is above 1K with most far below 10000 Islands as the population outlier. That is a gross imbalance, and though the imbalance isn't entirely reflected in WA voting strength with some UCRs retaining more WA voting power than some Sinkers, that number is constantly dwindling. The mentions made two and a half years ago that 10000 Islands' Delegate once had more than 1K endorsements and could again at some point would be absolutely laughable today.
I believe what has also changed in the past two and a half years is a recognition by more gameplayers that this part of the game has badly stagnated, so I expect you would see even greater support among gameplayers today for the idea of adding more Feeders both for the dynamism it would bring to gameplay overall and the degree to which diluting Feeder power and influence might help UCRs be relevant again. I don't know what kind of toll the size of the Feeders might be taking on the servers, but that might be a consideration as well. I'd like to get a discussion going on this again and hopefully hear from an admin this time.
I'm glad you bumped this. Your post, by sheer coincidence, came within a few minutes of a post of mine behind the scenes on this exact topic.
So yes, this is something that we're looking into, and we're aware of the valuable input in this thread. That's not a guarantee that "more Feeders" will necessarily happen (though we are looking at it!), but we are critically examining solutions to the GCR issues you identify above. It may be that a series of changes (of which more Feeders could be a part) will be the end result, but in the meantime nudging this for additional feedback is appreciated.
Let's do our best to avoid the vitriol associated with the "this is a UCR/GCR/Codger plot to [insert nefarious gameplay purpose here] at the expense of [everyone else]" back and forth which will inevitably creep into the discussion to some extent.