Authing more people only leads to more people being authed, all the other things are dependent upon who those people are. You're assuming that the people being authed are going to do things or act differently than they actually will just because they've been authed. The people who are authed will be in a world dominated by defence of which they are sufficiently lacking. They will set about cementing their own position and do little, if anything, to risk rocking the boat. They won't shape anything, they will seek purely to ensure their tenure is as long as possible.

Is conflict, any conflict, better than nothing? Possibly, but not much. Conflict between families where there is genuine bloodshed on both sides is what makes it exciting; takedowns offer little entertainment. To achieve that, you're supposing that these weaker families are going to fight other weaker families without anyone intervening. This means they must be independent of the current leadership, free of allies and be strong enough that they will not be taken down in their sleep, whilst not being so strong as to be too difficult a target. Essentially, these people are going to have to be authed in a city of their own, with other people of a similar standing. Isn't that what happened in Detroit when only 5 people setup in 3 months? Hardly sounds like a ringing endorsement for that plan.

There is no pressure for anyone to hone a reputation in the Street and purely by authing someone this will not be achieved, unless they are going to authorised with this remit. See how many takers you get for that as I can count the people committed and active enough to do that on one hand with one being Kuklinski. As to the new crew feeling and the feeling of building a family, these are both derived from the leader you put in place. You currently need to auth people prepared to risk everything, talk all the time, fight everyone and make their members embrace what they are trying to achieve. The list of potential candidates is getting thinner all the time.

My question wasn't "what would you do if you had a HQ" it was "what would you do if we gave you a HQ to alleviate stagnancy and encourage growth", so it is pretty obvious that is the question I wanted answered. If I wanted a list of things you did before dying, I would have asked for that. I'm sure your complaints to your city head alleviated the shit out of the stagnancy and had people falling over themselves to sign up. You say you wouldn't sit around watching cities go unused but nothing you listed suggests you'll do anything to prevent that from happening. Other than complain to your city head before hypothetically killing him for no real reason whatsoever.

I couldn't give a shit who or what you're critical of if your criticisms are logical and supported with evidence. Your whole argument is predicated on the assumption that auth means relief from stagnancy and encourages growth, which history repeatedly teaches us is complete nonsense and it depends entirely on the person. As to the rest of what you've said, I'm pretty sure the Admins are in the process of rolling out the biggest set of changes the game has ever seen in a bid to encourage growth and alleviate stagnancy.

"Authing more people only leads to more people being authed, all the other things are dependent upon who those people are. You're assuming that the people being authed are going to do things or act differently than they actually will just because they've been authed. The people who are authed will be in a world dominated by defence of which they are sufficiently lacking. They will set about cementing their own position and do little, if anything, to risk rocking the boat. They won't shape anything, they will seek purely to ensure their tenure is as long as possible."

I'm assuming nothing, the dynamic of the game changes with each and every person that gets authed, some not as important as others but it does. No one auths people without protection any more, and seeing as someone trusted them with a whole damned city I'd guess they'd be more likely to come to their defense until they've begun to thrive. As for every leader will follow don't rock the boat politics... again put enough people in a room and there will be conflict becuse it's human nature.

"Is conflict, any conflict, better than nothing? Possibly, but not much. Conflict between families where there is genuine bloodshed on both sides is what makes it exciting; takedowns offer little entertainment. To achieve that, you're supposing that these weaker families are going to fight other weaker families without anyone intervening. This means they must be independent of the current leadership, free of allies and be strong enough that they will not be taken down in their sleep, whilst not being so strong as to be too difficult a target. Essentially, these people are going to have to be authed in a city of their own, with other people of a similar standing. Isn't that what happened in Detroit when only 5 people setup in 3 months? Hardly sounds like a ringing endorsement for that plan."

Takedowns become a wee bit harder when there isn't a cluster of hitters all in one city being run by one mind. What makes you believe the ony confrontations will be between weaker cities? Assuming conflicts will be one on one wars is naive seeing how rarely that happens. Also, when did I say they'd be independent from the current leaders? When you auth someone into a city... they usually become like brother/sister cities. They may fight later but the younger city can act without fearing everyone and everything knowing they have support of the bigger city. Comparing a legitimate authing to an experiment situation shows you don't understand the difference. Going to an experiment city risks being shot for ANY reason and having no backup from other cities, new auths traditionally have (as before mentioned) the bigger city backing them (within reason) until they're big enough to stand on their own.

"There is no pressure for anyone to hone a reputation in the Street and purely by authing someone this will not be achieved, unless they are going to authorised with this remit. See how many takers you get for that as I can count the people committed and active enough to do that on one hand with one being Kuklinski. As to the new crew feeling and the feeling of building a family, these are both derived from the leader you put in place. You currently need to auth people prepared to risk everything, talk all the time, fight everyone and make their members embrace what they are trying to achieve. The list of potential candidates is getting thinner all the time."

Who said the streets were the only way of developing a reputation? Just because that was my means doesn't mean it's everyone's, and street stagnancy doesn't necessarily mean stagnancy in the whole game. Clearly you're not actually suggesting that no one is looking to put in the time and effort to lead are you? Because the game never would've gotten any real leaders if there wasn't a pool of people willng to risk everything, talk with other cities (anyone who "leads" without communicating isn't a good leader), and gather members who believe in their cause. You say the list is growing thinner, I say you're turning a blind eye to people who have led before and eager young players who have a good bit of experience as a hand.

"My question wasn't "what would you do if you had a HQ" it was "what would you do if we gave you a HQ to alleviate stagnancy and encourage growth", so it is pretty obvious that is the question I wanted answered. If I wanted a list of things you did before dying, I would have asked for that. I'm sure your complaints to your city head alleviated the shit out of the stagnancy and had people falling over themselves to sign up. You say you wouldn't sit around watching cities go unused but nothing you listed suggests you'll do anything to prevent that from happening. Other than complain to your city head before hypothetically killing him for no real reason whatsoever."

My apologies for not writing out the whole question, I assumed when I showed that I actively attacked problems head on and put in lots of work in the past that you'd be smart enough to figure out I'm capable of doing it again, as are many others who have. Stagnancy wasn't as much of an issue in my time, you mong. People weren't openly complaining and saying "well I'll come back when this reign is over because I have no hope here." If it was all of those listed points were (blatantly obviously) proof I gave consistent attempts to fix the problem rather than ignore it so I would've actively tried to fix it. I complained to my city head when I personally coudn't fix something on my own for the whole damned community. Turns out not being a GF means you don't get to attend GF meetings where many nation wide rules and trends are set when there are multiple powers ruling the game.

You made so many (mostly incorrect) assumptions with your counterpoints to my assumptions in my logic that I'm going to have to ask you to pull your head out of your ass and pay attention to what's happening around you while you play and speak, though you probably won't. More leaders = More types of leadersip which leads to conflict, variety, and stagnancy is most commonly caused by no conflict and/or variety. If you have trouble making that kind of assumption, you're not capable of higher level thinking because most great theories throughout history are built upon assumptions. I'm assuming you're not a monkey mashing buttons right now, and hoping you assume door knobs aren't all 500 degrees farenheit.

I understand they have a lot on their plate that's why I'm responding to those who reply and patiently waiting for someone who doesn't have their head up their ass to respond. The one thing I'm yet to hear anyone say is how little stagnancy there really is because it's an issue whether you choose to do something about it or not.

To you, the way to encourage growth, alleviate the stagnancy and to encourage entertaining conflict is for the stronger cities to authorise their trusted lieutenants into the empty cities? Confrontations between strong cities occur infrequently, being many months apart. If they aren't independent from the current leaders, then the length of time between conflict is going to be even longer than it currently is, right? Then, whoever wins from that countrywide conflict is going to be in the position of having to sit around and wait for everyone else to get strong again, right? Wow, that'll be exciting.

What you've failed to understand from my previous post in your haste to tamely and pathetically insult me, is that the only way for regular conflict to occur will be under the circumstances I described. What you also failed to understand is that those circumstances will virtually never arise spontaneously of their own volition in the current climate with defence being what it is and the only way they will transpire is if they are regulated. Otherwise you will end up with more stagnancy, extremely slow growth and no conflict whilst people strengthen their own position until they reach a point many months down the line.

My point, regarding the streets and more, regarding growth, stagnancy, yada yada is that authing anyone doesn't make things better. That won't solve the problem. It depends who you auth and what they intend to do with the opportunity which, in the majority of cases, is nothing. The list of people who have led before and done things to alleviate stagnancy, encourage growth and provide entertainment is short. That isn't turning a blind eye, that is the truth.

I can definitely see why people deem you childish, you're attempting to attack me without cause simply because I highlighted your flawed argument and you're not even doing it well. If you did something noteworthy, you wouldn't have to list things that the majority of leaders do anyway and try to pass them off as achievements. You attacked problems head on? You didn't do anything besides make a fool of yourself. Why do you have this hugely inflated opinion of yourself and what are you basing it on? You're a nobody. A never been. You're remembered, when you're remembered at all, for being an idiot; someone who can't see the wood for the trees and a confused individual who repeatedly made mistakes that embarrassed themselves and their city. Congratulations, quite the legacy.

"To you, the way to encourage growth, alleviate the stagnancy and to encourage entertaining conflict is for the stronger cities to authorise their trusted lieutenants into the empty cities? Confrontations between strong cities occur infrequently, being many months apart. If they aren't independent from the current leaders, then the length of time between conflict is going to be even longer than it currently is, right? Then, whoever wins from that countrywide conflict is going to be in the position of having to sit around and wait for everyone else to get strong again, right? Wow, that'll be exciting."

First off, spreading out through authing trusted lieutenants has been around for a long time... That's how every city currently alive except for PH got its foundation. Confrontations do happen scarcely between big cities... but the less cities to possibly be involved in conflict the less likely they are to actually have a conflict. Oh and the winners don't sit around waiting for other people to get strong... again this is extremely common and happened in recent history. After the East Coast vs West Coast War they put people in various cities and spread the winning lieutenants out. It didn't all happen immediately but everyone knew it was in the process of happening.

"What you've failed to understand from my previous post in your haste to tamely and pathetically insult me, is that the only way for regular conflict to occur will be under the circumstances I described. What you also failed to understand is that those circumstances will virtually never arise spontaneously of their own volition in the current climate with defence being what it is and the only way they will transpire is if they are regulated. Otherwise you will end up with more stagnancy, extremely slow growth and no conflict whilst people strengthen their own position until they reach a point many months down the line."

There is no one set of circumstances for conflict. There are variables that increase probability, but no one set of circumstances. I also love that you believe defenses being what they are stop people from ever scheming. They make it harder, not impossible. I guess you don't know what's happened in the recent past so I'll enlighten you... Squidmaster wanted to shoot at Phil, so he was removed as GF of CH and LA with some families inside of PH planned to go after DS. The point of the game is to keep trying to increase influence and leave a name. Most people try to expand the game and their influence. Which brings me back to the my original points... those currently at the top saw LV get taken from us and then left Boston unfilled. They haven't shown any efforts to fill Boston because it's apparent they don't feel like expanding. Their lack of desire to expand the game to keep their position is bad for the game. There are people complaining about stagnancy (from the most likely rumor I've heard... DT was killed because Izzy thinks the game and DS and Phil thought that would reduce stagnancy) and it needs to be addressed. This is my way of reducing stagnancy, if you have any better ideas put em out here.

As for the rest of the nonsense you asked me what I'd do so I did more. I've shown you a trend of what I have done which given my backgrond with statistics means that I assume people understand the simple concept a trend means a lot more than one particular hypothetical or data point. I'm also going to have to say I've no clue who you are so you have me at a disadvantage. You can say that I didn't affect the problems put in front of us at the time but that's your opinion and I'd love to hear what you've done to fix a problem before we continue. Any problem in the history of MR. I'd love to hear how you that you don't just criticize people with ideas without having some original thoughts of your own.

http://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/285810/page1

So... This was shot down by certain members of the PC before LV was taken out. There is no guarantee this problem will stay dead with the districts being introduced so please give this another look unless something like this has already been included in the districts.

Maybe you misread my question. No where did I say those at the top don't WANT growth or expansion. I asked why would they want to auth people into a city that was only opened with the possibility of being shut down regardless if it was filled or not. It doesn't seem logical to me to spend the money to set someone up that will only have to step down because the gods decide to close the city as they originally stated they would.

From what I've read each district is going to be the same size and general structure as a city. They would be forced to use the same city another city is using during and after the transition but I really can't see how with these coming cities capable of housing the whole site at its current population any realistic problem preventing you from just choosing one of the future known successors that is going to get a district to run this city.

I'm not sure what made you think anyone would lose money in this... but I'm yet to see any mentions of just outright closing it and forcing someone to step down rather than the admins moving them into one of the other cities for a transition.

Let me go over my real point again. The game is growing stagnant and NO ONE has even disputed that. It hurts the game when everyone's clumped up into a tiny number of cities and CLs nowadays are basically baby sitters with little ambition from fear of the very small number of Leaders making decisions deciding to shoot them if they break rank at all. It's hard for me to believe that not a single CL is capable and willing to take control of one of these empty cities. The real reason, in my opinion, is that the current leaders for some reason believe it hurts their individual positions to auth their trusted CLs into other cities. This is a peculiar behavior and the community should be looking to grow, not shrink the number of used cities. They lost LV from letting it go unused for so long, they didn't even blink an eye at that so much so that Boston IS YET TO BE FILLED. This kind of attitude hints at spaces being unused helps those at the top, even though it's not what's best for the community. It takes MONTHS to get a gun even slightly relevant in a war any more and members can't "rank up and do something about it" in this kind of climate where a small number of people are just sitting at the top with absurdly high defenses and guns and few positions of power are available. Right now we're in a situation where people have to spend way too much time building a character to risk getting shot by voicing their opinions and letting LV get taken and then doing nothing with Boston has pissed off a lot of people. So much so that some left the game, hopefully they'll return but ther are no guarantees. Letting cities be removed because leaders at the top didn't communicate with the gods, or because it helps the leaders individual positions shouldn't be encouraged. Players can't do anything about it because they'll just be ignored or shot if they speak up, and this is a problem that hurts the whole community so yes I believe the admins should give the leaders now, and of the future, some kind of feature to entice them or threaten them into using every available city.

When it was first opened, this was the opening post...

GAME CHANGE: Boston Started by: Squishy at Dec 30, '12 15:57

We have opened up Boston as an east coast city, thus balancing out Central with 3 cities and East with 3 cities.

This will help our transition from the old style to the new style, however, be forewarned that Boston may be closed when we switch over to Districts. Before you setup as a crewleader in Boston make sure you plan out integrating in with one of the other cities in the event of Boston closure.

PS: All of your previous tip info and achievement stuff from LA is now Boston.

How would you not lose money? If you pay to IWP your forts, that's like 58 million. If Boston was closed... You would have to sell your HQ and lose your forts. How is that not losing money? I have never read the comment you posted, only the one I shared when Boston first opened. So what about that comment would have encouraged people to even set up there?

I'm not getting into the argument about any of the other things, I asked one question and one question alone, that you still haven't answered as of yet.

Boston will not be closed down, but it will be absorbed into another city with enough open districts so that each crew would have their own district.

Reply by: Squishy at Jan 23, '13 14:59

Can be found by reading the comment above or the comments from that thread...

As for not arguing with the rest of it... I couldn't care less about your opinion because honestly I think you disagreed with Izzy's initial thread because it wasn't good for you personally and you misused your position on the PC to represent your personal city's agenda over the game's best interests.

this top is important i believe