How big of a Friend's List is too big?

[Samhayne]

Recently we came across an issue with some un-capped lists: Friend's List, Ignore List, Guild Size, stuff like that. Right now, we don't cap the upper limit of how many friends you can have, or guild members you can have. In general, this works out pretty well, but, like a lot of things in life, there are those few edge cases. You know, the guy that sends friend requests to anyone he sees and has like 6,000 friends. Or, the silly developer (me in this case) who accepts any friend requests (cause I you all!) and winds up with even more friends.

This becomes a problem when the list size is soooo huge that when trying to access it (like open your Friend's List) it basically lags your game out. Even worse is the huge Guild List - trying to open it becomes a problem and using it is even worse.

We have our ideas of what needs to be done - we're always looking out for the best interest of the game and our players. However, we wanted to put this issue out there to our fans and get your feedback.

• How big of Friend's List do you expect?
• What do you think about an upper limit to Guild sizes?

Please let us know what you think. As always, we appreciate your support!

[wvhills]

I was trying to see how many friend requests I could accumulate but I heard that lots of them could cause lag so I cut mine down to people I know through forums or know in game. I also heard that being in a big guild increases lag. I suggest setting it up so that friend requests automatically delete after a week. If you set it up to where you could only have 1000 friend requests and then can't recieve any more after that then you may not be able to recieve one from someone you actually want to be friends with (although you could just decline a few to free some slots up). I would think a friends list of 500 would be big enough for anyone but some people may want more. I'm not sure what you can do about guild size though...

[Growwle]

I only add real life friends, guild mates or people I frequently group with and of course devs (so it is easier to find them when they have goodies ;-). This makes my list much more manageable.

[Elyseon]

I try to keep my friend list low, its mainly just ppl I would actually chat with, Personally I find all those spammed game invites annoying, so I have quite a few friend requests stacked up.

Maybe an ignore requests option, also still hoping for an ignore guild invite option.

[Roc]

My friend list is pretty small as my criteria for friends in-game is like the one in real life: if I won't talk to you every now and then, how can we be friends? However, then there is the group of people whose games I join and they "friends" in the sense that we level up together, which leads me to thinking that if you have categories of friends, and the game only displays one category at a time, then you'll never have to see all 1, 000 or something friends at a time. I guess this is like Google Plus's "circles." (then there's the issues if you just want to see everyone at once...which brings it all to square 1!)

[adidaman]

You still never accepted my friend request Sam o.o I feel bad now

[Elyseon]

You still never accepted my friend request Sam o.o I feel bad now

Clearly he hates you, maybe you should buy more plat xD




Btw that was sarcasm if it sounds rude

[StompArtist]

Roughly 20.

[Walkhardd]

Not sure if this can be done. It would be cool if when you wanted to cut down your friends list, for it to show your entire list in alphabetical order. (whether their online or off) my friends list is bigger than I want it, but deleting ppl is such a beating for me because of the screen jumping.

Did that make sense? O.o

[Mageprodigy]

2000 friends list, and maybe when upgrade tier from guild hall cap also raise? Tier 1: 50 members, tier 2: 200 members tier 3: 500 members?
Anyone like this?

[Elyseon]

2000 friends list, and maybe when upgrade tier from guild hall cap also raise? Tier 1: 50 members, tier 2: 200 members tier 3: 500 members?
Anyone like this?

Guild sounds good, but i would keep friends at like 500 as well, if you have more than that you are wierd cuz theres no way u actually talk to that many ppl. And you really dont need all those friends just so you can annoy them and spam invites.

[MasterNaora]

i know exactly what you mean walk. I end up not deleting becase of the jumpy list thing. Something I would personally love to see would be sub-categories in the friends list. i.e. pvp friends list, pve friends, top 10 friends.

i see no problem putting a cap on guild size and friend list size. I mean, is there really an advantage to having 1000 friends or guild members?

[StompArtist]

I cannot understand how anyone would need 500 friends. Might as well not add anyone and just join PUGs.

[Gluttony]

200 friends list, and maybe when upgrade tier from guild hall cap also raise? Tier 1: 50 members, tier 2: 200 members tier 3: 500 members?
Anyone like this?

I liked that suggestion, but edited the friend list number to and now I love it. 200 friends is more than enough to me as I have less that 20 at any given time (and whenever I get over that I trim the fat).

One thing about the friends list is it's pretty unreliable as it is; the list shifts when someone creates a map, continues on to a new map, logs in/out, all of which means if you choose the wrong opportunity to try to join a friend you could end up elsewhere. I voiced all my concerns sometime last year, and though the ignore all function was added I'd still like to see some of the other suggestions implemented. Read my "old" thread HERE.

[zeusabe]

Strictly speaking, it's impossible to have 500 friends unless you're a Hollywood Star. KozMedia News actually conducted a poll on Real Friends vs Social Networking Site friends. They concluded that users aged 18-24 had an average of 17 real friends but 301 on Social Networking Sites. That means your "actual" friends, based on statistics, is only 6% of the total number of friends you have in a social networking site. Let me quote on how they qualified "actual friends": "The term “real friend” here refers to someone who is not just an acquaintance, colleague, or “friend of a friend,” but a real friend in the real sense of that phrase". If I would make a parallel analysis, even if PL is a game, it also has a pseudo social networking effect. What I'm saying is, STS can make use of existing studies similar to what I quoted and apply it in the game, maybe not strictly 6% but near that figure. Given that PL has been running for almost 2 years now, I'm positive that STS can collate substantial data to know the average friends of each player. Apply the Rate (6%) and I think you will get a reasonable figure. Even 500 friends is a little too much, again, I doubt anyone has that much real friends unless you're a Hollywood Star. I think Friends list in PL should be used for its purpose, listing your "friends". I will quote another line from that study once more: "The more “friends” you have on Facebook, the more glamorous your life becomes", that trend is actually happening in PL (in my opinion), which is taking its toll on the system and must be controlled. This is a logical way of controlling it since it will have actual basis. So if I had to apply 6% on the guy who has 6,000 friends, he probably only has 360 real friends. Of course, I know 6,000 is an exaggerated figure, I'm positive that the average friends of each player in the game is way lower than that. If I had to project, I'd say 100 is the magic number (more or less). For the guild cap, there must be a reason why it's capped to a certain number, and players should be able to expand that number either by buying platinum or leveing up the guild (I made a whole thread on this on suggestions and feedbacks), there must be a mechanic on this and not just cap it because it causes lag, I think that will become a controversial issues. There should be another reason for capping the guild aside from the system lagging, such as introducing a new guild mechanic (in order to cover up the actual reason and turn it into something innovative...) where each guild only starts out at 10 members and will increase as you buy platinum or level up the guild (something to that effect)...even then the max number should be limited...this is where guild alliances come in to compensate for limited members in each guild. For guild members, my magic number is 50 more or less. Anything more than 50, in my opinion, is chaotic anyway. I'm a GM of about 300 members so I know what it's like to handle that much...it ain't pretty. That's my humble opinion. Thank you.

[Chickenrunnn]

I liked that suggestion, but edited the friend list number to and now I love it. 200 friends is more than enough to me as I have less that 20 at any given time (and whenever I get over that I trim the fat)..

I don't agree about 200 friends... i would say Max friends to 600...

About the guild members, I disagree about 2 things
1st The fact to make more slots of members for Tiers... It's awful! they already paid the guild making, have to nuy hall and they have restriction about members? This would be awful
2nd the fact to make a low limit.. It would ruin the fun and increase hate.. Imagine u boot someone from the guild saying "sry... someone else wanna be in".. try to put max 600.. There are only a very very few guilds which reached 600 members..

Here is my opinion! Cya!

[Chickenrunnn]

Strictly speaking, it's impossible to have 500 friends unless you're a Hollywood Star.

I've 3k friends and I'm not hollywood star yet xD..

[StompArtist]

Could it be that friend lists are artificially inflated by people's ALTs?

For example if I friend Drewcapu and his 57 alts, that is 58 friends right there. Perhaps the game should friend accounts instead of ALTS?

[Urqui]

I'm like Elyseon & only accept people i talk to on my main
But since I started playing I never denied a request & I only have 1,100 pending requests
So I'm guessing only Samhayne can max out his friend's list lol
But the limiting the guild members to tiers is a great idea

[Martin Tander]

Maybe if u make friendslist flip pages...like 50 per page))) less lag then)))

I got also nearly 500 friends...well u join a game/host a game,and either u add the host...which makes +1 in fl or if u host ppl add you which is usually +3 ppl in fl....

Guild members cap...well guildhall can fit ONLY 25 ppl at once...

I think 250-300 ppl per guild is ok...timezones and etc...its too rare that all members r online simultaneously