Zampfeo wrote:The perception of realms could probably be improved overall. As is, most new players and even some more experienced hermits only perceive realms as some arbitrary geographic buff, not taking into account that there's actual players running it behind the scenes. Once realms get going, new players just happen to sometimes spawn in a realm and all they see is "Now entering ..." pop up every now and then. To them, realm chat seems like a game-sanctioned global chat.
This isn't C&L, so I don't want to derail, but perhaps some sort of UI that gives visitors details about the realm that makes it obvious that it's player-run like a guild and a "privilege". Or even give a new player the choice to spawn in a realm or not. Bash it into their skulls somehow that there's pros and cons to being in a realm.
I think it was World 4: my village started a "realm" before they were a thing ( we called it a kingdom ). Basically, we gave hermits and small villages "permission" to settle nearby in return for mutual protection and a local trading partners. There was a lot more interaction between our "realm" and its subjects with our little experiment. I think that's what the current iteration is missing.
To springboard off this, I do think requisite interaction between realms and their subjects is what's missing. IK we're getting currently-unknown realm changes in a few days but I hope something that encourages, say, villages to be actively part of their realms is included or added.