City Limits

Right now we have no limits on the numbers of families any city can contain. This is having detrimental effects on the game on several levels. I propose that there be a limit of crews per city and the capacity of those crews be increased to accommodate the exiting numbers of players and NPMs. Doing this would solve a lot of existing issues which are a by-product of the current dynamics. My proposed changes are simple but far reaching.

~

Set a limit of families in any given city to 5.

Raise the possible HQ size to somewhere between 75 and 100 to accommodate the restriction.

Increase all associated CL and GF boosts accordingly.


By restricting the number of crews permitted in any given city, several things would happen:


1: Balance.
There would not be as much room for any given city to stack families into an insurmountable powerhouse as we see now. Granted, some cities will always be stronger than others but the general balance of play across the game would be much more even causing much greater fluency and accessibility to all. It would be far less likely to see monopolies developing, the general cycle of wars and rebirths would be far more balanced and in all probability, far more frequent. Frequent wars = more people interested in play, less stifled regimes and generally a much healthier cycle of life.

2: Participation and general Activity (members).
With larger crews, each individual would be forced to work harder to stand out from the crowd in their own family. In times gone by when there were larger families, it would take time and work just to get noticed by your boss. A member would have to put in work and effort just to earn the right to be on speaking terms, as it is in real life. When you finally established a conversational relationship with the boss and upper structure, it really meant something. You felt a part of. Because you had earned it. The proposed changes will not take things back to quite that extent but it will force members to communicate with each other and participate more than they need to now, in order to get noticed. There would be a greater number of crew roles for players and sub-crew possibilities. This would in turn cause increased forum activity in Business District and Streets, greater activity within each crew and generally a much richer quality of play all round.

3: Participation and general Activity (Leaders).
Crew Leaders would also need to remain active and participate in the general flow of life far more than they do at the moment. After all, with a limited number of CL spaces available, the value of each would increase greatly. What people were willing to do to acquire approval for and maintain those positions, would be far wider reaching than it is at the moment. As it stands there are many leaders who have had long lives without 95% of the game having any idea who they were. That is not a healthy state of affairs. A limit on the amount of CL positions available would almost certainly put an and to the era of mute and anonymous leadership that is dragging down the general quality of play for everyone.

4: Significance of CLs
There would be less chances for people to become Crew Leaders. The significance of the role would be returned to something approaching the huge honour and massive responsibility it used to be. These days crews are being handed out like candy in a school yard for little more than the associated boosts. The gravity and significance of the role has been all but washed away. Limiting the availability of the role would resolve that to some extent. People would have to think more about what real leadership meant, rather than just counting numbers, money and a nice fat suit. Leaders would be forced to think far more about their positions and care far more about maintaining their standing, with their family, in their city and in the country as a whole. Godfathers and mothers would be forced to deliberate long and hard about which individuals represented them best.

5: Spreading Power.
With a limit on numbers per city. Strategic thinking at the highest level would become more significant. It would not be possible to just stack enumerable families on top of one another until you had such an abundance that populating another city would be a low risk venture. If there were only 5 families per city then deciding who went where would become a massive and more importantly, unavoidable issue. There would be no possible way we would end up with the recent scenario of having all the players on the entire game, wedged into 4 cities. Forced diversification is critical to the health and balance of society as a whole. Sure, its not going to be favourable to the already powerful but in the bigger picture, its absolutely essential.

~

I honestly believe that these changes would enrich the game experience for everyone and create a more even cycle of life throughout. Especially with the active players per crew numbers being so low, this change would be immensely beneficial. All those I have consulted about this idea have drawn the same conclusions so I leave it here for your consideration.

I do agree with limiting the number of crews a city can have. I also agree with each point listed, but a crew limit of 100 still worries me.

I think this idea could somehow be worked into a previous suggestion of taking over cities in order to expand. With larger HQs, you still have the likelihood of your majority of players residing in certain cities...protection in numbers. Cities are becoming hubs, and with the stagnant level of gameplay i do not believe this is healthy for gameplay balance, as referred to in point #1. 

I'm all for this idea. Life would flow back in the game, activity would increase. Wars, take downs, strategy, things that really bring people to our game, they would occur with greater frequency. Stagnacy would be gone.

Really believe it is a win win for everyone here.

I would restrict the number of crews per city even more... but that's just me.

Five is a good, round number and it would work, I think.

Also, I wouldn't raise the limits of the HQs either, 100 people is just.. 90 NPMs and 10 ACTUAL people. So why bother raising the limits? Keep it at 50, make the max number of crews in a city 5 (or 3... just sayin...) and, to go even further... limit the number of NPMs in a crew to, like, 10.

Quite frankly, I do not like this idea. Why? Because if you limit the number of crews in each city, you will begin to see the "allies" of today, become one big family over several cities. It won't help anything at all, in fact it will make the game even worse off than it currently is. Just look at the recent auths from Chicago, -Premeir and Drexler. If Chicago were only allowed to have five families, Prem and Drexler would still be Chicago, even though they are Godfather in other cities.

-1

"Allies" eventually turn on each other due to paranoia and greed

On the back of my recent OOC thread I am pleased to see someone else can see the issue we have here at the moment.

The way things are set up Crewleader's are being rewarded for recruiting robots.

Correct me if I am wrong but we advertise our selves as a MAFIA ROLE PLAYING game. Something is inherently wrong when the majority of crews are populated by robots.

I cannot argue or take anything away from these crew leaders, the obvious hard work (for some at least) that they have put in to gain their bold suit, and cannot fault them for accepting the chance to run their own crew. The fact is if I were to go bold, rather than become a laughing stock and have only REAL players as my members, I would populate my numbers with some NPMs. Because of the number of crews in the game at the moment these new crew leaders have no choice to do this.

Restricting the number of crews will force the REAL players to interact more and become less like the NPM zombies we see staring into the sky.

Back in the old days each crew needed to be seperated into sub crews. For the new player this was his first taste of running and guiding a small gang within the crew. Currently we have the associate system but this is meaningless when most have only 1 or more likely 0 associates to give them a sense of a place in the crew hierarchy.

This gives them no sense or training what so ever of what it is like operating a full size crew.

Having larger fewer crews will force the crew leaders to delegate the tasks needed to run a crew more and reflect what it is like in real life. At the moment every crew leader can micro manage his crew, some may like this but in reality all they are managing are small gangs.

We used to have families... We now have nothing more than street gangs.

I realsie that implementing this change would be a massive upheaval, a lot of people would lose the power they have at the moment but we live in intresting times. Shortly I hear we will be given a brand new shiny GUI. Why not start everyone from scratch! A fresh start for a fresh looking GUI(I can hear you all laughing).

I think this is a great idea, I look through my locals and the 60 second list and struggle to find real players. If I was new to the game and joined a crew and started soeaking to someone I would have no idea that they are an NPM. Then I would wonder why they aren't replying and ultimately get fed up with the game and leave.

Now if this was implemented there is more scope to actually talk to a person rather than an NPM. Also like has been said there is an aspect of people to get used to commanding a small gang within there family. It will definitely my the game a lot more interesting.

Great idea!  But 5 is to many, make it 3 including the GF, maybe 2 given there are so many cities.

Sub-crews?  i had forgotten about those and the good banter that would come out of them.  

The low interaction on the streets is worrying.  Before people (mostly) would have to be on the streets to get authed in order to get noticed and recognised by the other family heads.  Some of the current crop of CLs arnt very active at all.  I dont think this would be the case if we had fewer crews.  

An other point would also be to get some perspective on BGs.  I imagine this makes the game unbalenced due to the number CLs have, although, I must admit I dont know if this has been common through the history of the game or if we just aware now that some people have hundreds of them.  Furthermore I have no clue how much they help - but I imagine a lot.  

When was the last time there was a take down of a powerful leader?    

Hey look!  I found out how to limit the number of CLs!

http://mafiareturns.com/war/wack.php

Ha.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Can you explain it a little more?

I think I know where you're going Squishy...almost like punishing...or making it less advantageous...for cities to stack crews. This has some potential...but maybe stuff like extremely high HQ prices if the city is saturated..reduced gun boost for the CL...limited HQ size..

thoughts?

I see it as needlessly complicated. The main reason for restricting crew numbers per city is to force interaction, force more activity, more communication and thus inject some life back into the game.

The game has moved on no end in terms of code and facilities, however it is now possible for 3 people to run a crew full of robots for nothing more than cash and associated bonuses. There is no life in that. There is no politics, negotiation, pressure, tension, intrigue, suspicion or any of the other organic elements that human involvement create. The game used to pulse with activity and creativity on many levels, these are sliding slowly under the carpet of automated advancement and inevitable rotations. When was the last time you saw someone spend months establishing a credible street presence in order to be considered a realistic candidate for auth? When was the last time we saw sub crews holding competitions with each other to try and impress the boss? When was the last time we had several serious candidates for auth but only one space, forcing long deliberation and a tough decision? Just doesn't happen any more. Because there is no need to put in that effort. This kills off, what used to be, a very rich aspect of play.

If you simply restrict the number of crews per city, to 5 or less (as has been suggested and on reflection I am inclined to agree with), the knock-on effects of that limit alone will see a vast improvement in player interaction, street and bar activity, war, politics, innovation, espionage and all the other good stuff that an organic system needs to make it interesting. As things stand we are marching with alarming certainty toward a mechanical totality where a very small number of players control drone crews for the sole purpose of income and associated boosts. Spiritless and devoid of all creative pulse, the life force of role play and people interacting that made this game the truly great thing that it was, will have sadly died entirely. That will be heartbreaking and it is something I, for one, am desperate to avoid.

As much as I like your idea I don't think it is needed. Most of the current problems right now can be fix by the users themselves mainly the top guys in the game by setting their own restrictions. But they don't, why? Cause by using the current faults in the game it makes them stronger which is selfish. The admins are not likely to change things even if they are good ideas and I've seen some brilliant ones that were never put into place. Izzy is now running a business so he has to think about income as well as keeping the users happy which is a hard task. But like I said if the GF's and Cls just worked together they could make this game a lot more fun again, but they won't because they don't want to risk their current positions. Most people complain about how the game is being run but when they themselves get to the top they do nothing too. So if you want to see change or say enforce something like crew restrictions in cities, then get yourself to the top and do something what the current leaders are failing to do and start thinking about the game as a whole rather then your own position in it.

But back to your idea it does seem like a good one and if the admins put it in I would be more then happy with it. I don't see it happening which is a shame. The current state of the game is more financially beneficial for the owners so any changes would have to balance out that as well as game integrity.

Most of the current problems right now can be fix by the users themselves mainly the top guys in the game by setting their own restrictions. But they don't, why? Cause by using the current faults in the game it makes them stronger which is selfish.

That is exactly why I put this here in the first place.

So if you want to see change or say enforce something like crew restrictions in cities, then get yourself to the top and do something what the current leaders are failing to do and start thinking about the game as a whole rather then your own position in it.

The entire focus of this is on the game as a whole, not me as an individual. The point is to put in place a mechanical law to prevent the situation ever being possible again. You can not blame players for 'playing to the whistle' so to speak. Any player will play a game to its limits and use whatever dynamic is permissible, to gain and sustain advantage. That is the nature of gaming. I am not blaming the individuals here. What I am saying is this warped situation could be easily eradicated from all future play and everyone's game experience could be greatly enriched by it.

No one is being blamed for anything. All this is just an eventually inevitable scenario, given the current game mechanics. I am just pointing out that it is not healthy and putting forward a suggestion to resolve this particular issue. Permanently. Nothing more than that.

Well like I said I liked your idea and would love to see it implemented

I don't know what to think of it. However there is only one thing that springs to mind with this.

A city that will have 5 families.. no one else will get their chance to lead a family. The usual people who let leader on nearly every account will continue to do that and no one else will be able to have a turn as leader because they can't auth anyone else due to a limit. We all know that there a multiple people in the game that are preferred leaders and good leaders so EVERY account they get it.

Now.. I don't mean that to be disrespect at all. As I myself in my last 6 accounts, 4 of those have been leaders. This is what makes me think up that problem. As if I am a leader and I am the cause of someone not being able to have a family through the limit and they have never been a leader and is capable of doing it.. then I would feel guilty.

Also, implementing things like this while we are like we are is unfair. As we can't ask people to step down just so we comply with the limit. Thats unfair. Also the cities that then do become newly populated will be a disadvantage because they have to follow a limit.