Sitting at 80 votes now on this poll, I think we can see where this is headed. I have been monitoring the results all along and the percentages have been pretty consistent along the way:
The way I designed this poll and the choice of answers is that the higher you are in the choice of answers, the more change you want to see; the further down the list you go, the more true to current form you want Calypso to remain.
I made this really gradual and tried my best to avoid any significant jump in the progession; in other words, this is a 'gradient scale' of how much Calypso you think should be changed, with "Everything should be changed" at the top, and "Nothing should be changed" at the bottom, and every gradient step in between.
We can see a clear divide here with close to zero in between: Roughly 30% of those who voted in the poll want "Everything" or close to everything changed, while the other 70% are mostly in the range of "Only keep the top 10-12 spots alike, change the rest" to "Keep the world map and all the TPs the same"
So the conscencus opinion lives somewhere around "
#6: Most of the main locations on the map should remain true to current form, other changes welcomed", which is basically how MindArk handled the transition to CE2 back in, oh I forget now, was it 2010?
So?? "To change" or "Not to change", what's the answer??
So it seems to me that the safe bet here is to keep the Calypso map recognizable and actually, pretty similar to the current one, with most of the TPs having the same name and in relatively the same location they are on the map today. After all, that is what roughly 70% of the people who voted in the poll are asking for and expect. But what about the almost 1/3 who are open, or who actually would prefer a brand new world map to explore?
The demands of those who are asking for a "Brand new world map to explore" can be assuaged by simply introducing some new land (continents) to explore on Calypso, and/or simply creating a lot of new areas to explore around some of the most popular areas that will be recreated. For example, there are large areas around that seem to be largely abandoned, for example around Eos. Zephyrus, Fort Ares and Limnadian District TPs, and many other such examples. MA could keep the Calypso map exactly the same but use such real-estate as an opportunity to create brand new areas for players to explore.
Notice that there aren't really that many who are saying "Don't change anything! Re-create Calypso exactly the same!" If we include both #7 and #8 in that category, that gives us only 20%, which is not nothing, but also not a very significant segment.
Some other conclusions to draw from the results:
- If MA was to create a totally new Calypso where everything was completely new and different, they wouldn't alienate everyone, but they would at the very least disappoint approximately two-thirds of their current playerbase,
so, really not a good idea.
- By accident or shear luck, MA did exactly the right amount of recreation of the original Calypso versus new map/areas to explore when they moved Entropia to CE2.
- The community actually can tolerate a lot of change. The word "most" in #6 is abstract and not specific, for some people it could mean 60%, for others it could mean 80%, but even if it were to be considered to mean 75%, that means that 25% of existing TPs could be moved, name changed, completely new areas, and the majority of the playerbase would actually be happy about that. The fact that #5 (more change than #6), has more votes than #7 (less change than #6), backs up this conclusion as well.
Cheers,
Legends
TLDR: the results of this poll show that MA should keep most of the more popular, better known areas of Calypso (think Fort Fury, Ithaca, and many others) mostly the same when re-creating Calypso in Unreal. But the poll also shows that they can go ahead and redesign other less popular areas fresh so players have something new to explore and discover.