I like.

What about crews that got boosts for admin competitions? Like WildTurkey? Do they still keep that boost?

Me thinks you should go back to 100 man HQs.... :(

Cool beans!

Starting April 1st, huh?

Yeah, nothing fishy there.

On the majority of occassions, I tend to post in these threads when I disagree or wish to raise issue with a specific change. So thought I'd take the time to post on one when I'm in strong agreement too. 

Personally, I really like this. Smaller families create closer bonds, greater friendships, better training of new players, greater retention of players, more opportunity for 'new' players to gain experience further up the food chain (where the game really becomes fun), more reason for existing players to encourage friends to play (whether they're new to the game or ex players), greater choice between families (finding the right fit is vital to the enjoyment of the game), more strategic options when it comes to the politics of the game (which families you form allies with, within and outside a city and/or existing bonds), more opportunity to test the leadership of the higher up players (as new CLs step up, a poorer leader will struggle for control and to retain loyalty).... and various other positives that make this a fantastic change in my mind. 

The only negative I've seen mentioned is diminising the honour of leadership and that bold suit, which in my mind is a neglible impact and doesn't even begin to balance against the positives. People should be striving to be great leaders (or great family members), nothing else. Nobody gets remembered for wearing a bold or a slanty suit. It's what they do with it that counts.

Lets make it so no more than 10 members per crew.  I want half of the user base to be bold or italics for sure... 

Oh and let's add customizable titles as well!  Everyone knows Roberto_Carlos is a God and I want to make sure he can put that notation in parentheses next to his name.

ok I'm going to return into my cave to think of more ways increase inflation.... Of egos :/

I feel sorry for the 1 dude who gets kicked out of the GF family...

Blatently gonna be me :(

Would we be better off with 1000 man crews? A single leader popping anyone who opposed so it doesn't ruin our screens with too many changes in format?

If you've a genuine issue with formats, then discuss how it might be changed to better apply to our current environment (I've a few ideas off the top of my head, but as I haven't seen any reason for it to change yet I've no real need to voice them). If that's not the issue, then discuss what is the issue.

What inflation of egos are you speaking of? If your whole point is that half the server will be bold or italic, how would that be an ego boost in any way? The only point raised against the idea in public (to date) is that it would remove the prestige associated with the role, therefore deflating egos.

If you'd like to discuss the idea intelligently, I'm all for it. If you'd like to continue posting sarcastic comments in a passive aggressive manner, fair enough.

I prefer passive aggressive to be honest Santana. 

I don't think it's terrible at this point either... As good ideas have seemed to fall on deaf ears altogether 

But if you do prefer a more intelligent approach, I will leave with this thought...

How in any way is the mere reduction of crews down by 10 people going to "greater" enhance the player experience.  Don't get me wrong, I believe that smaller groups always have better relationships than larger ones.  It's basically a fact of life at this point..

However, I can think of ten people or at least visually spot at least ten characters in each crew to date that is barely or never active.  All this seems like it will do is reduce crews by 10 and force a handful more leaders to take up the reigns.  I think it's a positive thing to see more people have positions of leadership, but watering down what could be an intriguing change to gameplay seems like the normal precedent as of late.  My point?  Ten less people in my crew is not going to change a damn thing except give us 10 less people to work with, train, mentor, and inspire.  

Why should we be punished because others have failed to do so with 50 members in the past?  Hell, I'm with Sephiroth...What happened to 100?... 200?

When I think of activity in my current crew, I realize that the more active people we have, the more others are willing to be active and participating.  All we are doing is making great features like crew chat less appealing and crew organization less necessary.  

Now, if you want to take some of the ideas others have put forth in the past and incorporate it so that each crew is under one family head, with more people in "family chat" then nobody would care what the crew limitations are.  I just feel as if none of this matters and the system being put forth much like others we have seen is simply to pander and cater to having more people in bold suits who have worked for months getting to the rank of Don.  But you're right Santana, these men will probably find that their new positions of leadership are not as glorious or game-changing as they would have first hope.  Egos will be inflated not in terms of growth, but rather like a monetary inflation rate - where it is devalued by the increased production and overcompensation.

Call me narcissistic, but I want to feel as if my place in my crew is valued not because of my rank or suit, but because of how many people I inspire to be better.  

Are you going to reduce the price of fortifications as well, since they will now be protecting less people and more money will have to be spent on HQs and Fortifications to give the same level of protection to people?

I've no knowledge of what specific ideas you're speaking of Ballistic (or if that's a general comment), as I haven't been around for a long time, but I will say that if your method of 'discussion' here is anything to go by there may be a reason why some of those ideas have been overlooked. I'm a big fan of this change, for the reasons I've already stated, but am also a big fan of discussing ideas and seeing if they/I can benefit from the wisdom of others. I'm not naive or foolish enough to think that my ideas are always better than others, and from experience I can say that the admin team here on MR are the exact same.

That doesn't mean that every idea/suggestion/change/tweak that is put forward by a user will be adopted (opinions on matters can and will differ, that's what makes life interesting), but when suggestions are put forward with valid logic and reasoning they are always willing to listen. I say this as someone who has incredibly strong opinions, is an engineer by training (so have personal beliefs on how systems like the one behind MR should run) and am the type who can't help but voice those opinions. This has lead to me butting heads in extremely heated discussions with Squishy and the team on numerous occasions (I'm sure they'll vouch for that :P) in relation to changes, some of which have lead to further tweaks and some of which have lead to nothing. I will say though, without a hint of hesitation, not one of them has ever been 'ignored'. They might not agree with me and my thoughts may lead to no change, but every intelligent comment posted in this forum is read and considered.

Trying to engage in that type of discussion has far in this topic has been like pulling teeth and I've yet to see a single comment that would even begin to sway my opinion away from being in favour of this change. I can't say for sure if this is/was the case with the other discussions, but even if it wasn't I don't see how being bitter about the past to the point that you're not willing to discuss the future is anything other than an exercise in futility. So again, if you can put the passive aggressive stuff to the side (this is OOC after all, so a little civility is always appreciated) and continue with the actual discussion, maybe we can help to improve the idea even further.

I'm a little confused by some of the points you've made. Perhaps I've misunderstood your point of view, so if that's the case perhaps you can clarify what you meant. Taking it point by point...

How will lower numbers improve the experience? You've answered that as well as I ever could. It's a fact of life.

There are already IAs in families? Well, then the change won't actually impact the family... and it's not an issue to reduce the size. The hope is that by reducing the size we end up in a situation where we don't have the number of IA accounts just sitting there, feeling left out.

Why should you be punished? It's not a punishment. Depending on how you and your family/district/city decide to RP it, you could end up with a much larger family where some of the members just happen to be under the control of a captain or multiple captains.

Activity in a crew? That's a little narrow minded. Go beyond the confines of a single headquarter building and consider the bigger picture. Why can't the same be said for an entire district, or city or even multiple cities? (Hint: It can and it has been done that way. Heck, I've had CLs under me go offline for over 2 months and the entire family did just great through a combination of input from the GF and some excellent family members within)

Family chat? That's a non issue really, as that whole system is being rewritten at the moment. This would be a minor issue, still not enough to outweigh the benefits imho, but for the fact that it's a very temporary stop gap solution that was used as a proof of concept (at least, to my understanding). To do it properly would have crippled the existing servers, but as I'm typing this I just happen to have #dl open and Squishy made a comment about the new servers to support this sitting behind him as he typed.

Positions of leadership? If they really expected it to be a thing of glory or for them to be remembered for it, I feel sorry for them. Even great leaders get forgotten. It takes something exceptional for anyone to stand out and actually achieve glory. Only a handful have ever done it, which won't change (though may slowly increase). It certainly won't be done through achieving a rank or gaining a bold suit. That's the case whether this change is made or not.

How many people? Personally, I'd suggest that guiding one person to greatness is better than 100 to mediocrity, but either way this is a noble goal and one I commend you for. That said, this change doesn't need to completely stop that. Work with leaders you know are out for the greater good. Put a plan in place where you're working with the number of people you wish to and that you're capable of helping. That might be just your family (potentially including captains), your district, your entire city or even beyond. Your aim is a roleplay one, it doesn't have to be (completely) dictated by the mechanics of the game.


Again, I'm not trying to belittle your point of view. It's yours and your fully entitled to it. It's ever bit as valid and true as my point of view, I'm not debating that. I just don't share it. If you can change my mind or the minds of others I'd/we'd be delighted to take on board the points and see how we (as a community, not just me and you) could adjust the current proposal to a better end (if we do nothing, it'll end as it's currently proposed with no changes), but so far I can't see anything that would make me feel a change is needed to the proposal.

In light of War of the World (thankfully a more entertaining version than the Tom Cruise disaster...) can you temporarily increase HQ size?

I think if I'm remembering rightly the HQ size was temporarily increased at the advent of the last major war back in November.

Not sure how accurate the stats are at the moment (Do Durdens count towards it?) but there's really not many people with the rank to set up, nevermind the implications of not having the requisite BGs or money for fortifications etc.