Why is Belariath only focused on one country?

[CallieO]

I think some intriguing RP could take place if we had a section of the world that's untouched by the empire, under the jurisdiction of another leader, with separate shops and separate characters. A whole new country. As it is, we just have the empire moving into new provinces every couple of years, usually whenever we get new ops who need new provinces under their leadership, and it's getting a little repetitious.

With the Native Maradians, I fear that their technological level, hundreds of years behind the empire, will cause the empire to wipe them out in a few short years. Wipe them out, or completely assimilate them.

I mean, the world can't be all one country, right?

[Eucep]

The rest of the world is more a blank slate for adventures. The Belariath part we normally are in at the current area's is 'under control' so no random adventure things really happen there to easily, in short making it 'safe'.

Now do see some positive results from having some preset opposing factions for storytelling, but I am unsure that is what is desired of the setting.

[Elise`whitepaw]

i believe its because we are just now building ships large enough to do long... { these would be 6 to 9 month ocean journeys to another continent even with the best biggest ships} so you got to beready to have your character playing aship jounrey for an amount of time... that is till there is a quest to have a portal build there... so on and so forth... but yea ships are likely just geting to hey we cane do more the cuirse up and down the coasts of Deth To virelith

[Infernis]

The desire for 'other' places outside the Empire is something a lot of people have asked for over the years.

A number of people have submitted ideas for other places, both connected to the continent where the Empire resides, and also 'across the sea' type of things. New continents with existing empires and other cultures.

The truth is, these have always been rejected as not being true to the vision that Stormbringer has for the game.

In the end, that's all it comes down to.

[Menhir]

Didn't Valencia, Sha'shir, and Dethsiris all start off as 'not part of the Empire' ... And as soon as the Empire found them, turned them into parts of the Empire through some kind of war and then connected them through big phoenix stone portals? But yea, I don't really see a point. Trying to 'populate' those 'non Empire' areas with dedicated players would probably not work unless it was full of one-off alts. I mean how often do you see anyone rping going to places in Valencia for example, even though they technically have just about everything that Nanthalion has. Or Sha'shir, I only rarely even interact with that part of the game map, and I've only ever been to Dethsiris when it was time to take it over before it was given to whichever noble's running it.

[Sanjin Koukyu]

My thoughts:

Looking at it as a developer (of sorts) and having been in the Chat-based RP game for a while (though new here), I can see why there's a massive focus on the lands surrounding Nanthalion while there's been small expansions (that are limited to the Borderlands channel).

You don't want to spread your player base out too thin, especially when numbers have (supposedly) been waning since TLI's hayday (from what i've been told). The admin/developers want to foster as much interpersonal roleplay as possible and like Menhir said, you might have characters in those places, but will they be developed?

Will they have their own personality and quirks and social bonds that bring them to life and create truly interesting roleplay beyond 'UNf, unF'? It's not likely, unfortunately. People are busy creatures, especially these days (I remember back when I was younger, I spent days roleplaying on Java-client chat rooms, prior to having responsibilities), and it's already a task to find like-minded people to roleplay with, but finding justification to go into, say, Valencia or Thallis.

These places are fantastic for quests and one-shots, to help develop the world that we're all participating in and that the administration and developers are developing, I'm just not 100% on board with spreading out the playerbase further (or creating even more new channels... TLI-Borderlands will feel incredibly squished with all the borderlands being played in at any given point in time).

Perhaps if TLI were a MUD styled roleplay format, there'd be more options.

[Naomh]

The most direct answer is 'because that's the setting.' We're set in the Ilfirian empire upon the world of Belariath. Certainly there are plenty of regions beyond that people can come from, go to, the like, but the setting involves our characters, citizens of the empire (willingly or otherwise), living their lives within the empire.

A broader response and counterargument is... an empire, not a country but an -empire-, can vary a lot from point to point, especially once it goes beyond a certain size. I have very strong doubts that Britain was the same country in culture and technology as Egypt, the middle east, northwest Africa and central Europe, even in 117 when these regions were all under the flag of the Roman Empire. You'd see some similarities, certainly, especially in the pockets around the Roman outposts, but beyond that it would be people mostly living their lives, in whatever form that may be, as long as it didn't violate Roman Law -and- the local Roman legionnaires were willing to enforce said laws.

While we don't see much difference in play between the regions of the empire, for one reason or another, each region is supposed to have their own culture. Sha'shir is still Sha'shir with black desert sands and death god hiding deep within. Valencia is a region overseen by the Grand Malus of a volcanic god. High and sylvan elf regions are still full of knife-eared people with sticks up their bums and goblin lands tend to have constant strife within them as tribes vie for leadership by being the biggest and meanest greenskin around. Some regions give a basic nod to the empire and keep to themselves, with only the odd IG patrol coming by once a week if not more sparingly, while others kneel down before the god, emperor, in the shadow of his palace.

I suppose I'll end my rambling here to simply say: I don't see us changing, and I oppose the idea of changing, our focus so we have areas outside of the empire outside of adventures and explorations. Instead it's perhaps time to look inward and try to bring a little more focus on the different cultures and peoples within the empire itself. Can include the odd expansion to add a little more to explore and see, but there's already so much potential within the empire itself, or so how I feel at least.

[miyuka]

ICly every area that's not nanthalion was once not part of the empire. we conquered and took over those areas. Major storylines have involved other empires/nations/whatever coming to deal with/attack us in some shape for or fashion. Some are still outside the empire's influence. The Magi and their floating continent are -not- part of the empire. You can even make characters that come from areas that aren't part of the empire(before the Sha'shir/Har`amrun area was created, the Ktechlahan tribe simply came from the south).

OOCly, this is a game. The central focus of the game is characters in the empire. While you can RP outside of that via use of the borderlands channel, there is no official list of places that exist because much like with other games, we only reveal new places when we create them properly. Having an entire seperate place with it's own shops and jurisdiction and rules would pretty much just be making a second game to do the same thing we are already doing...which is RPing our characters in the world of belariath. Furthermore that would be a bit of a strain on our player base trying to run all those provinces and shops, we can barely keep up with what we currently have. Not to mention the cost of having to have even more rooms if such were possible.