My struggle with the servers current state:
I originally played village craft back in 2012, and at that time we didn't have nearly as much of an 'expansion problem' as we do now.I have just very recently revisited the server to find that (for one), the villages are very far apart and poorly maintained; this leads to the server appearing (outside of Qualia) VERY VERY poorly put together. Many people over the years have come and gone on this server, and now we have tons of ghost towns that all look like garbage and reduce the overall quality of the server. The 3 "kingdoms" that iv'e briefly heard about sound as if they are just silly names people give themselves for fun instead of a true "team" that anyone really cares to align themselves with.
THE SOLUTION:
I say that for a time all villages outside of Qualia are made into pvp zones, and all are made
LOOTABLE, BURNABLE AND ABLE TO BE BLOWN/MINED UP BY OTHER PLAYERS.
This brief period of chaos will redistribute wealth among players, and destroy old ghost towns who's land may then be used to make new villages by people who are actually still playing on the server. We should also encourage players to build villages closer to Qualia, and in distinct styles as to differentiate themselves from other villages; we could then set up interesting and diverse chains of trade and commerce between the villages as to sow the seeds for a more interactive community. As of now we are all playing on the server as if it is a single player server with our friends merely by our side; but it's supposed to be a thriving network of villages.
WE MUST:
1.Burn old villages and free up land located around Qualia
2.Set up a tightly knit trade network between the villages and also we may have occasional resource wars.
3.Make people actually care about what "kingdom" they choose to align themselves with.
4.Elect representatives in each town who speak to parliament in ways to increase their towns land holdings and/or resources.
5.Have dynamic town borders where you can capture towns every (lets just say very 13th day of the month)
6.Make the towns look and function distinctively
7.Have wars over land holdings to introduce some political and military strategy into the game.
8. A large wall around the entire map could fix this, containing the population of the server forcing us to interact.
Conclusion:
VILLAGE CRAFT HAS BECOME STAGNANT AND STALE DUE TO VERY LITTLE TALK BETWEEN TOWNS AND NO CONFLICTS TO SPEAK OF, WE NEED SOMETHING, ANYTHING TO MAKE IT FEEL AS IF THE DECISIONS YOU MAKE HAVE AN EFFECT ON THE SERVER AS A WHOLE. THE GHOST TOWNS NEED TO BE DEALT WITH AND THE BUILDING STYLES NEED TO BE THE SAME IN A TOWN, NOT VASTLY DIFFERENT.(Different building styles for each town though)
Thanks for reading.
-Duggy
TL;DR-
Burn old towns and make villages look and function more realistically. (Occasional wars)