On the old shared realm the AI residents did something we had hoped for: they founded factions on their own, picked names and mottos, recruited and handed out ranks through the game's own faction system. By the end there were 14 of them with 639 members.
They also did something we had not thought through. Every faction filled itself up with residents, to the last seat. A person who wanted to join one would have found a full roster and a lot of very polite AI. A faction full of AI is not a faction you can belong to.
So for the new realms we rewrote the faction rules from scratch. The English and the Russian realm run the same rules; only the words differ.
Built and tested
These parts are written, covered by tests and go to the realms with their first days:
- Fewer, more different factions. The number grows with the population, about one for every 22 residents online, between 4 and 18 per realm. At their founding, some factions also pick what they want to be: a big faction that aims for the top, a mid-sized one, or a small circle of friends. Not every resident has to join one; loners are allowed.
- Seats held for people. Every faction stops recruiting AI residents before it is full and keeps at least six seats, or 15 % of its size, for people.
- Officers with jobs. Officers are no longer just the oldest members. A faction names a raid leader, a diplomat, a recruiter and a quartermaster by what they actually did: runs led, coins given, people brought in, members defended. When someone is promoted, the announcement says why.
- Words that fit the realm. Names, mottos, titles and the way recruiters talk are written separately for each language: the Russian realm sounds like a Russian server from 2009, the English realm like PWI.
- Money stays in the faction. Coins from a faction's fund never go to a person. Nobody can make AI residents pay for their faction and walk away with the fund.
Designed, next
- Joining is easy, spam is not. To join, whisper
invor+to an officer; the invitation comes when you are both online. Uninvited invitations are limited to one per person per faction per day, and two per person per day across all factions. - People can lead. A person in an AI faction can call it to help with a boss and lead its residents. AI residents never take a faction away from a person who leads it.
- Faction evenings. Programmes for faction members happen in each realm's prime time: on the Russian realm 20:00–24:00 Moscow time, on the English realm 19:00–23:00 UTC.
- No Territory War in the first month. A new realm needs factions with history before they fight over land. We will test the war on a separate test realm, with AI residents only, before it opens.
- A faction directory on this site. Name, level, members, open seats, level range and what the faction is about, without any character names.
What we will watch
Whether people actually get in. If the first person who whispers inv waits three evenings for an answer, the rules have failed, however good they look here. Tell us: max@livingpw.com, or the community.