Race Representation in a Node's Architecture

And again, the real problem isn't 'unpopular races.' The real problem is 'my race determines my architecture vote and there is no current way to change that.' There will always be less popular character choices for body type/self expression. That is normal and not problematic. Architecture is less directly about personal representation and more about 'what I find pleasing to have around me.' There could be entire swathes of kaelar who would rather their costal city be Nikua architecture but 'moving to the coast' would just spawn a less desirable city for them.

I am glad they make the architecture lore based and I am glad the current default will lead to some initial diversity in locale and design. However, it's far easier and more free market to have a vote and 'persuade people to vote empyrean or dunir architecture.' Than it is to 'persuade people to play that race.'

Let certain populations be naturally lower or skewed in different servers. That's part of what will make ashes unique. Let's just also hope they come up with a way to 'have a way to vote for ones truely desired architecture.'

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Just have a setting where the vote system reads me as x race instead of my 'actual.' This adds various potential bugs, but thats the main challenge for it.

I would figure the democratic vote would be easier to implement and contain bug wise, hence me suggesting it first.

You keep saying 'mayor deciding it.' But I am not suggesting that. I am suggesting 'the mayor issues an election on a specific node issue. Citizens of the node vote on the 8 choices. After the vote is concluded the city changes to that architecture style instead on next server maintenance or whatever is most convenient. To issue this vote costs node resources to initiate the rebuild.' Given their intentions for nodes many of the systems for implementing this will already be needed for other intended features.

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1. An election system will need to be implemented.
2. The mayor will have tasks they can issue that cost node resources
3.This is a self contained feature that can be implemented in a variety of ways depending on their database structure. I am simply providing a framework for the idea. The vote could be a resource donation race exclusive to citizens of the node for example.

Please provide links to your interview with him or others on this exact proposed solution being rejected if you could? If you have not discussed with Steven this exact solution to the issue at hand before do not speak authoritatively.

We are trying to discuss potential solutions. If you don't want to join the discussion then I will just start ignoring you in this thread.

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Hmm. That is an interesting point. But what is the problem of said completionism? At some point they will go through them all and have to actually pick one right? In this model your race still casts a default vote, so different servers would go through them in different orders depending on racial distribution/geography. So I can't think of a reason that necessarily diminishes server uniqueness given each server 'seed' is still unique.

Additionally if it would cost resources to do, there are better things for most nodes to spend resources on like defense and crafting right? It's a priorities thing. Culture is a low priority unless the population actually deeply cares enough to make it a true part of the community identity. I strongly think this type of implementation would deserve a resource cost, possibly a large one.

I don't disagree with racial districts in themselves, but I think it would end up indirectly exposing the cookie cutter feeling that will already be present and need designing around. Still I do find it an interesting solution, just not my first choice due to that problem and the fact that depending on their code structures, might be difficult to accomplish relative to my proposed alternative.

Retracted.

Some people don't like their racial architecture given they are different aspects of self representation and taste. And therefore no matter what they do they are always a vote against their own desire. This is a flaw. Is this Ashes design philosophy?

I was trying to request for something within the base design of the current game. If enough people think making representation increased through districts is against Ashes design principles, and voting for it as a node community with a cost is against Ashes design principles, then here is a way 'simpler' request. Make culture seperate from race at character creation. No reason a kaelar can't be raised by a dunir dominant society

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Agreed. And, not everyone has friends that play the same race as them. They keep bringing up 'same race will band together.' But that simply is a simplistic view of how life works. What if I am an empyrean who can't stand must of the other empyrean in my area. I can only be a citizen of one node at a time.....

It may be selfish, but I don't really see the issue with Metropolis or even City level nodes being predominantly, say, Kaelar or Vaelune.

Obviously I wouldn't want to see every single Metro on every single server being Kaelar, though, and that's a very real possibility (though I won't make any assumptions).

I feel like we should 'aim for a system' where Village and Town level nodes do see some more diversity, but the numbers don't support it easily.

15% Kaelar vs 3% Nikua, for example. Server population... say 6000, though the number matters only in a relative sense (bigger populations do help, though, assuming the players of the unpopular race band together more)

900 Kaelar, 180 Nikua. Let's assume that a coastal node gets even 30% of the server's Nikua to go there, that puts us at 54 players, not bad.

Except that it 'loses to' just 7% of the server's Kaelar drifting in as the Node progresses a bit...

Even if the Nikua then convince another 15% of their population to come help 'preserve their culture' or whatever, that's going to take longer to gather up than the additional 3% of the Kaelar population it takes to offset that.

This would mean that with only 20% of the Kaelar, you could realistically prevent all Nikua themed nodes (10% of the Kaelar living in a node with 45% of the Nikua, do that twice, and assume that the other 10% of the Nikua just stay wherever they are).

My proposition doesn't even come close to solving this. Technically, depending on human nature and the feeling Ashes races give to new players, this could approach 'completely unsolvable'.

Maybe people will solve this by 'joining as a Dunir on the server with the most Dunir already' and the racial stuff will be segregate by server itself, over time, but it would be nice if Intrepid gave us a little something, because of one factor.

It's likely that for a while, definitely at first, the Vassal system will cause a lot of nodes to be locked at Village tier, so it would be good if we got something that allowed us to influence it at least at Village tier for diversity sake if nothing else.

Anyways my point is, saying it can be changed by 'people just getting together and putting in effort' is... an interesting take, as it's one of the few aspects of the game that can't really be changed by coordinated PvP or similar.

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Let's assume this is valid, (and seriously, I agree with you). Do you also object to the idea that a player might not want the architecture of their node to be influenced by their race?

Getting caught up in 'which races can get what cities', I can agree is against the spirit of the game, but is 'me wanting to live amongst the Dwarves and wanting a way to support them instead of the race I chose' worth any effort?