A lot of people have been commenting on the ratio of NPMs to Actual players.

Being a number nerd my self I thought I would try to estimate this. The results, if accurate are quite startling.

Let us assume every active players does jailbreaks. From this first hypothesis the stats page tells us we have 185 active jail breakers.

So for arguments sake let us say we have 200 active PLAYER accounts.

The recent OOC competition also fits with this hypothesis (assume 60% of people posted)

Of these 107 are ranked consig or above leaves us with 93.

Again lets assume a nice round number of 100.

So...

Ranked Boss to gangster we have 100 REAL PLAYERS

Ranked Boss to gangster we have 731 NPMs.

Even more frightening is we now have 35 crews.

200 active player accounts gives 6 real players per crew.

So we take out the obligatory Leader, RHM and LHM. That leaves 3 people per crew (on average)

THREE REAL PEOPLE! This is the state of things.... your comments welcome.

wow. thats... complicated. so we onyl have 6per crew. thats little lol

I guess you know better than me :p

However I was specifically not counting Thugs or below so as not to allow the people who come here for a one time only visit.

Users active in the last 24 hours: 441.

107 Dons / Consigs.

724 ranked Gangster --> Boss

441-107 = 334

334 'users' ranked Boss --> Civilian

Say 10%? of these are one time only visitors.

Leaves us with 300 active users out of 724

So still over 400 NPMs by my reckoning. But like I said you will know better than I ;)

Still leaves us with the fact that 400 REAL PLAYERS are split between 35 crews.

Again taking out the Leader / RHM / LHM.

Only 7 REAL PLAYERS PER CREW

You could take out Godfather crews and their members from your fuzzy math calculation as well (plus, afaik, one retiring CL?).  They like to lowball numbers with their pesky HQ limit.

Also, ~10 members a crew isn't like its a horrible thing anyway.  In 50 person HQs, there is usually sub-crews or some form of structure that groups people into similar numbers.  Using in-place game mechanics with additional benefits to the positions is only natural.  </devilsAdvocate>

EvilClown my opinion on this...

If Im a new player there are so many crews it is confusing.  Ive only just started playing again after being away for many years (they keep pulling me back in etc etc)...  & what im seeing is what I used to see on other RPG sites - lots of leaders.  With out counting I bet 75% of the posts on pg 1 of the streets are new crew announcements.   

Maybe Im glamourising the 'old' days but what made the game so good back then was 'great' leaders speechs which then usually was followed by lots of debate etc.  Again, this is my personal point of view...

Whilst Im at it...

Perhaps part of the reason everything seems so much slower is that fact there are so many families.  Why go rogue when being authd is so much easier (statistically compared to how it previously was, less crews so less chance vs more crews so more chance...)?

However, cant knock the current crop of leaders for this!  They have made there situation very strong which is surely what any leader would try and do? 

An Excellent point Equilibrium.

Let me point you in the direction of the suggestion Kurtz is making here:

http://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/159597

Its pretty apparent that NPM's have gotten out of hand

I'm a fan of multiple smaller crews actually.  Here's the thing, from any mob lore I've read there were very few huge syndicates per city.  There were maybe 2-3 (5 in the case of some massive place like NY) and then a smattering of smaller gangs who pushed for bigger pieces of the pie, sometimes succeeding sometimes not.  In my own city, I've toyed with authing way more crews, it's something I did with the ThomasRourke character many moons ago.  Here's the thing, the conglomeration of crews that was suggested would lead to far fewer opportunities for people, and I'm much more a fan of giving people chances that have earned them even if their crew might not grow for a month or two. 

I mean Drexler couldn't buy a member when he first started, but persistence led him to become a Godfather.  The parity in the game is actually producing some of our best leaders, because you NEED to be active and on the ball to grow.  Those that don't have it in them might lead smaller crew, but may never break through the ceiling.  I can say this truthfully, I've never seen any leader NOT succeed that didn't throw themselves fully into the role.  It might not be an overnight success, but who cares?  I guarantee you that working hard for it and developing more personal relationships with people as they came in one by one made leaders like Drexler, Cherokee, Marcus, and Prem (the most recent city auths I can think of) stronger and more capable. 

I've seen what happens when someone gets too many people all at once, it happened to me!  When the great Colin and Evangeline fell, I inherited a LOT of people that I had no knowledge or background of, and it took me months to catch up and become personable with different people.  So, in my opinion, this is definitely a case of beware what you wish for.  NPMs might inhabit a lot of crews now, but eventually they will be actual players, and the journey to become a top dog will have been worth it.

I dont like the idea of them at all, I prefer when there are real players, but i have been away for a wile and am sure there is a good reason for having them, i just cant see any.

I actually agree with Roman. I too was around at one point, many moons ago (during the time of ThomasRourke).
I lost this game for a long time, and just recently came back and I can definitely see the differences between now and then; but when it comes to the NPMs, honestly, I can't see how it hurts.
The "numbers" may be startling, but the actual gameplay isn't harmed, so the impact of these numbers.. well I cannot see.
It neither hurts nor benefits (from what I've read in this thread). So what's the issue?
Would you really want 50 people to get to know on a personal level if you were a Crew Leader? To be honest, I would rather have 7-10 people who I could trust, than an army I couldn't turn my back to.

That brings us to the size of the game in general, because you also mentioned how many crew there are.
I've noticed we've added a couple of cities since the old days. I see this as a good thing. It encourages more politics therefore enhancing the game experience through role play.
The number of families in a city though, I feel shouldn't exceed 5. But that's my opinion, and a different discussion.
The actual number of active people in the families, and therefore the city, are a very decent amount.

 In the end, I see no issue.

I don't consider the number of NPM's an issue.

The real issue is the structure of the game itself.  This game does not include the real enemy that most 30's era mobsters fought against, that is law enforcement and the state. More should be done to address this issue, because the inter-city wars that occur are not in the interests of any Godfather or Crew Leader.  There should be a Godfather initiated "strike" against all wars until this issue is addressed. Why should the only fighting going on be against other mobsters? The real enemies that all mobsters identified in the 30's were law enforcement and other State forces.

This is just a suggestion:

- All the Godfathers agree not to go to war until a larger element of fighting law enforcement is added to the game.

Some sort of government/FBI crew has been suggested in the past. I believe it was rejected on the basis that, even if it could be implemented, such a change would be unappealing due to the fact that there are many other games with the cops/robbers model.

That being said, while it would obviously be more realistic to largely be concerned with some sort of police/FBI task force, it's not like there were never wars between different factions of families in the mob. Considering that any sort of violence between different cities has now been spread out on a monthly/yearly scale as opposed to the old weekly war model, I don't see an issue. In fact, I think if you polled the population, most people would think that the pendulum has swung a bit too far in the static/peace direction.

all i know is if it wasnt for npm's i would rarely get an oc completed, and the game would make a lot less attractive to a new user due to lack of players.  I do not see them as a replacement for new players, but is pretty much to a degree what they do in visability.