Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1577342-20150830231543/@comment-1577342-20150907012102

I agree. There should be some serious changes in the way the tribal system works. Tribe members should be friends automatically. They should have their own tab in the friends lists, and there should be some way of communicating, if only between tribe members. I would be more than happy with a system as simple as this. I don't need real time chat for this. It isn't a FPS with multiplayer teeming on live ops. A simple message system with a drop list of tribe members for the Send To, a reply button, and maybe a button or checkbox for Send To All and Send To Chief would be more than sufficient. They could even set a character count cap. I think that the graphics team at BBB could come up with a nice mailbox structure for Tribal Island.

In any event, the "no deadwood" principal is definitely in effect for Calvaria. It's one of the reasons I require members to friend me, so I can assess whether they are able to contribute, or are just freeloading off of others hard work. Again, there is a functional problem with the tribal system. Players can join a tribe at any level, but they really won't be able to contribute more than one or two levels a week until they break into the upper 30's. Some who have a greater focus on the musical or aesthetic aspects of their islands, rather than the aggressively industrial approach, may not reach the point of sustainable significant contribution until the mid-40's.

I think that we are doing fairly well for a tribe of total strangers with no way to communicate. We have low turnover, though we just lost JoeyI without a word, and a three player wait list. I'm ok with that considering we are on what, week four or five.

At any rate, thanks for hanging in there with me and the tribe, and thanks for caring and sharing. I'm appointing you Little Chief! Congrats!