A Land Far Away

Lately, you may have noticed that there is a lot of debate on whether ALFA should essentially retain its current system where pretty much anyone who is willing and able can become HDM and put a server live, or whether we should limit the number of live servers severely to ensure that we achieve better player density... And of course, there are many people who argue for a solution somewhere in between those extremes.

One term that keeps getting thrown around is density. I and others assume that density has been a problem in ALFA so far, without really basing that on anything besides personal experiences.... So this poll is an attempt to see how the community feels that ALFA has fared so far in regards to player density.

The idea with the myriad of poll options is to control for one thing that could slant the poll - the fact that our active player numbers have dropped recently. Also, with enough responses we should be able to get an idea of how ALFA's density has developed over time.

I will be very open with the purpose of this poll: If we see that most members have had a hard time finding people to play with, then this suggests that ALFA has had a density problem so far. This would support admin's NwN 2 proposal where the number of starting servers is limited to ensure better density. If on the other hand the members haven't had much trouble with this, then this suggests that ALFA has not had a density problem so far, and the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" truism applies.

I hope that you will reward my honesty by choosing the poll option that truly reflects your ALFA experiences, and not the one that you think will lead to a policy decision that you prefer. To further encourage this honesty, I promise a poll, 7 days from now (January 31) that will simply ask all members which density policy they prefer from a number of options.

In other words, if your experiences have been good but you still want to limit the number of servers, you will have a chance to express that opinion in that poll... likewise, if your experiences have been bad but you still don't want to limit the number of servers, you will have a chance to express that opinion as well.

Those who have debated with me on this issue know where I stand. Nevertheless, I have tried my best to word this poll in a way that is as neutral as possible, to avoid biasing the result. If you feel that I have failed to be neutral, please let me know and I will edit my post accordingly.

Thanks for your time.

the fact that our active player numbers have dropped recently.

I dont think they have, I think the website is finally speaking the truth. Thats the only difference.

The website has changed to only show active members, aye... but since that change the number has dropped slightly as well. Will get back to you with the figures when I get back to my own computer tomorrow.

Unless I specifically log into a server which has players on it, for no IC reason, I find it very hard to find other players right now.

*shrug*.

idoru wrote:The website has changed to only show active members, aye... but since that change the number has dropped slightly as well. Will get back to you with the figures when I get back to my own computer tomorrow.

Actually, its up 20 peeps since the all time low of 310. I was amazed that that we had more than 200 when the new system was implemented btw.

I started less than 6 months ago, I started on Daggerford in EST, therefore I have had no problems whatsoever with DMs.

The poll lacks an option for "I've been here since live and have never had any problems finding players/DMs to interact with", so I'm tossing that into option one.

Grand Fromage wrote:The poll lacks an option for "I've been here since live and have never had any problems finding players/DMs to interact with", so I'm tossing that into option one.

+1 (except a little after Live)

I'm guessing the intent here is to debunk or build a case for the "ALFA DM/player density is going down the tubes" argument- the "first 6 months" caveat gives potential windows of time to measure perceived density in a "satisfactory/unsatisfactory" format over all of ALFA, across that time range.

My vote was for 1-2 years, no problems- certainly there were dry spells and low points, but in general I was well satisfied with the "density". I played Shadowdale in US evening times though, during a time in which it was one of the most populous servers in ALFA.

Results from the poll should be taken with several confounding factors accounted for:

1. longer-term members are the result, in most cases, of a positive selection for player retention. Those who were unsatisfied 1-2 years ago across 6 months of playing have likely since departed for other communities or hobbies. So we expect to primarily see response from longterm members who enjoyed matters enough to be "hooked" and retain interest in the community.

2. Newer players (esp. the <6 months crowd) may be underrepresented in the respondants, due to lack of forum addiction and such- by considering the data as a ratio it can be calibrated, but will be by nature more suceptible to anecdotal skew.

3. Kindness of memory. The same odd human tendancy that fuels countless "well, back in /my/ day" stories, may paint a rosier picture of the past situation in retrospect.

That said, I am interested to see how it turns out.

I've been around for not quite 3 mo. What it took was finding a server that had people on during my playing period. Having found that I've no problems now...it was that inital idea that I could pick anywhere in the Realms to play that came to a halt when I realized I could only play where others were playing during the same time. Several dead soloers attest to that

Good points acadius.

I guess thats going to be the way with the majority of poles like this.

No reason not to do them tho as skewed info with the knowledge it's skewed is better than no info.

I put difficult at start (2 years + ago) as initially it was hard to find for the first several months. It was a chance invite from a stranger i had played with about 2 times which took me to an almost empty server with 4 others with 2 DMs where i remained and realised how damn good ALFA was. Was getting a bit over it up until then.

I voted 2, because just after I started playing, back when Memneth ruled Daggerdale, I never saw smoke of a DM. However, nowadays, I get DM attention once every other week at least. If alfa is going back to its former "better" density, well... I just dont find the idea very prospective at all. I am happier now than I ever was.

There's certainly been a lot more DM attention available since DMs were allowed to play. It was a lot easier to hook up with player groups when everyone was low level and didn't know anybody, though, so it's balanced out overall. Now that PCs are living long enough to get into things, most servers have a few PC groups that tend to stick to themselves.

Looks like most of the message board regulars are old farts, huh?

Please also take into account that any that have been here over 2 years had half or less as many servers to be spread amongst at the time and may be a contributing factor.


[I am still of the mind that Alfa's wealth and speed of level rise is directly connected to the number of servers a low level PC can manage to access as well ]