Originally Posted by
JammedHam
Alright, I've gone and taken something to get my edge down so I'm not about to start ripping apart throats.
If you want a suggestion instead of a snarky reply from me then fine. Give a Password Server system a chance. Yes, the community is small right now. We're all in Alpha. Did Mount & Musket back when it was a MOD have as large of a community? Probably similar. They used a password system included in Warband and they did just fine. So fine in fact that Taleworlds made Napoleonic Wars and built the whole thing up as DLC. Did it start small? Yes it did. It had both private and public servers with event times that didn't hamper anything. NW is still popular today and I can promise you until things like Holdfast fix certain issues it will be king. Mods for that DLC came in the form of many things, predominantly North and South, which is where I was introduced to War of Rights. Did it have a massive following like WOR does? No, it didn't. It grew. It used the same password system the last three items I've listed have and they all turned out just fine.
I've listed these games, (Mount & Musket, Napoleonic Wars, and North & South) because I'm going to take a limb and say that the vast majority of players that backed this game came from those games before. This game is niche, not everyone is gonna want to battle in line formation and march under the thunder of artillery. But I do, and so does everyone else in this game that I know of. We're a passionate bunch. This is why this issue has caused a lot of flak from us Veteran players.
Trusty, I respect you as a person because that is how I was raised by my Momma and I intend to be that way until I pass away on some godforsaken day far in the future. This comes from my heart as a historical gamer that if passwords worked for the last three games that have been staples of this platfrom and continue to work to this day. I do not see where it would hurt our community. I understand you are absolutely terrified of you and your colleagues game, you baby basically, to die because the community severed itself. It's already severing itself because of the lack of connection between the devs and us. I don't want this game to die any more than you all do but it is going to unless something is done.
Either find a middle ground like previously suggested through locking officers and NCOs or just turn on the ability to lock servers and watch as your community does what it does. I doubt the average "game for a few hours because I'm bored" will care that there is one or two full locked servers and a couple unlocked ones with less people. What it will do is click in their mind and say "Let's go stock up an open server" and they will join the next highest one. Multiply this every couple of people every couple of minutes and you will get what you desire from this. A successful game. If it worked for Mount & MUsket, NW, and N&S it will work for us.
Give the community a chance, trust us even a little. We entrusted you to carry this game out and funded you. We should at least be able to be trusted to run the game we damn well paid for.