I was pondering this, having seen very very little in the way of centaurs over the weeks since they came out. I got to thinking, what is the purpose of limiting the character count in the beginning?

Assuming that the goal is to limit the number of centaurs actively playing at any given moment so that there isn't 30 newbie centaurs all on at once, would a better solution to allow unlimited # of characters, but limit the number playable at once?

Instead of making the character a rare resource such that even if you don't want to play a centaur right now, you still hold on to the slot (if you get one) because you might want to play one, or whatever, instead anyone can attempt to roll a centaur, but those willing to devote actual time to the character get to play it.

I think this would work well with minotaurs as well, but perhaps it is something better tried out with the next seasonal race.

Perhaps something like:

DATE NUMBER AVAILABLE
03/22 = 2 race-X slots can be played simultaneously.
03/29 = 4 race-X slots can be played simultaneously.
04/05 = unlimited race-X slots
05/22 = no more rolling race-X
07/22 = no more playing race-X

and then adjust as needed. I think this would still accomplish the goal of making the race scarce, but open it up more to those who really want to play race X, but didn't win the rolling lottery. Especially since those who are winning that lottery aren't necessarily going to be willing/able to put in the time to a character that someone else might.

tl;dr Instead of limiting race numbers by character, limit them be simultaneous login. Want to roll a centaur, fine (so long as there is a play spot available), but if you try to log in and there is already 4 centaurs's online, you get a max character message.

Tac

P.S.: This is a great idea, I will implement it today is the only response necessary, but I suppose you can also tell me how smart, great, and/or awesome I am for thinking of it and then give my characters all legacies at level 1 as thanks.

>I was pondering this, having seen very very little in the way
>of centaurs over the weeks since they came out. I got to
>thinking, what is the purpose of limiting the character count
>in the beginning?

Because you don't go from no centaurs to 1000 centaurs overnight. This keeps them special and limited for a short amount of time, and we're okay that you don't see a lot of them. After a few weeks they all come out of the woods.

>Assuming that the goal is to limit the number of centaurs
>actively playing at any given moment so that there isn't 30
>newbie centaurs all on at once, would a better solution to
>allow unlimited # of characters, but limit the number playable
>at once?

No...just no.

>P.S.: This is a great idea, I will implement it today is the
>only response necessary, but I suppose you can also tell me
>how smart, great, and/or awesome I am for thinking of it and
>then give my characters all legacies at level 1 as thanks.

No, it's a stupid idea. As others have pointed out not being able to play something you've already rolled is not something I'd ever support.

but not so great for those of us who play each character a minimum of 200 hours.

I just accept that when I delete my current project, the odds of me getting a minotaur or similar slot are nil. Then it isn't so big a deal.

Chance of getting a limited character slot is proportional to the characters rolled, therefore favouring those who roll a lot of throwaways.

I looked at PBF statistics of all chars. These are PBF chars, so most throwaways get filtered out.

-Median PBF character has played 200 hours (103,93,78 days for the three players at the median or below).
-Top quartile has played 314 hours (145 days for the border player) or more.

Based on this, one could expect a decently active centaur non-throwaway to live around 200 hours in terms of game time before the autodeletion hits them (105 days since the opening of centaurs to all), providing that they start around the time. I think the active centaurs will autodelete between 100-300 hours of play, disallowing truly long-lived characters.

-You have time to play your only character.
-You don't get to play your only character because playing slots are full.
-You don't get to play CF now.

I don't see how this is particularly different from now, in that, you always have the option of playing a non-limited race. Then you don't have to worry about it.

Also, I'm not sure the statistics would bear this out. I'd be interested in seeing how often there has been more than 2 centaurs logged on at once. Even taking into account the time of the initial roll-up when there could have been 6, I doubt this has happened more than a few minutes per day on average. With unlimited slots, it might happen more often, but I still doubt this would be a major issue, but you can't really know unless you try it I suppose.

Whenever you want. So lets assume that you get a centaur since there aren't too many centaurs online when you create. Next day, you don't get to play since other centaurs are already playing. What should you do? Roll another character? This would decrease the quality of both, to some extent.

I think it's better than if you get a character, you get to play the character freely as well. If you have the centaur, you're already likely have invested in some thought on the centaur and want to play it whenever you feel like. This would also be good for immersion. Making another character and playing that could kill off the centaur, making the limited race one that players don't necessarily put too much effort into. I think it's better that if you get one, you get to play it whenever you like. There's no point in putting an active character in enforced hold in order to enforce the limits. It is good to remember that there being twelve centaur slots doesn't mean that they all would be online at the same time. Conversely, how many percents of the week do you spend playing CF (100% being 168 weekly hours)?

But fine. It would be different in that regard.

"If you have the centaur, you're already likely have invested in some thought on the centaur and want to play it whenever you feel like."

Or you rolled a character for whatever reasons and snagged a centaur slot because it was available. Maybe you actually want to play a centaur, but more likely you just want to have the option to play a centaur. This seems the more likely scenario to me, especially given how few frost giants we saw (1 or 2 real frost characters at any given point) and how few centaurs we were seeing when the slots were limited.

With 12 centaur slots, I have literally seen 1 centaur character in my playing times which are pretty varied. I may not be on 168 hours a week, but I would expect to see more than one given the varied times I play.

In the end, it doesn't matter to me, but I do think my idea is a better way to accomplish the limited race thing.

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=3&topic_id=2591&mesg_id=2596&page=

I mean there is no limit on the number of characters that can be rolled for a limited race. Instead, there is a limit on the number of characters of a limited race that can be logged on simultaneously.