Population of Allanak?

[oggotale]

The question has obvious implications for sneakey sneaks and anyone interested in committing crimes in public, to factor in the density in open spaces and help decide how many virtual NPCs might be looking at them at any moment.

What's the virtual population? Number of citizens?

Or is it left intentionally vague by the staff to give the player's more flexibility in virtual considerations.

[Dar]

Tuluk (350,000)
219,000 humans (50% are slaves) (62.6% of total)
108,500 elves (10% are slaves) (31% of Total)
3,500 dwarves (65% are slaves) (1% of Total)
3,500 half-giants (80% are slaves) (1% of Total)
7,000 half-elves (40% are slaves) (2% of total)
1,500 muls (98% are slaves) (0.4% of total)
7,000 unknown/other/mutant (25% are slaves) (2% of Total)


Allanak (481,880)
310,000 humans (50% are slaves) (150,000 free) (64.3% of total)
150,000 elves (10% are slaves) (135,500 free) (31.1% of total)
7,500 dwarves (65% are slaves) (2,600 free) (1.8% of total)
3,800 half-giants (20% are slaves) (3,150 free) (0.8% of total)
5,800 half-elves (40% are slaves) (3,400 free) (1.3% of total)
1980 muls (99% are slaves) (18 free) (0.4% of total)
2,800 unknown/other/mutant (40% are slaves) (1,400 free) (~0.6% of total)

These are numbers as of 10 rl years ago. From that time, Allanak numbers had significant reasons to drop. While Tuluk enjoyed an upswing to certain events and then a downswing in other events.  But regardless, still good figures to orient yourself by.

Source:Posted by staff. Figures roughly of 2008 year.

[boog]

I would think Allanak would have reason to have increased with the closing of Tuluk. Refugees and the like might've eventually trickled down, despite some other... issues.

[oggotale]

Tuluk (350,000)
219,000 humans (50% are slaves) (62.6% of total)
108,500 elves (10% are slaves) (31% of Total)
3,500 dwarves (65% are slaves) (1% of Total)
3,500 half-giants (80% are slaves) (1% of Total)
7,000 half-elves (40% are slaves) (2% of total)
1,500 muls (98% are slaves) (0.4% of total)
7,000 unknown/other/mutant (25% are slaves) (2% of Total)


Allanak (481,880)
310,000 humans (50% are slaves) (150,000 free) (64.3% of total)
150,000 elves (10% are slaves) (135,500 free) (31.1% of total)
7,500 dwarves (65% are slaves) (2,600 free) (1.8% of total)
3,800 half-giants (20% are slaves) (3,150 free) (0.8% of total)
5,800 half-elves (40% are slaves) (3,400 free) (1.3% of total)
1980 muls (99% are slaves) (18 free) (0.4% of total)
2,800 unknown/other/mutant (40% are slaves) (1,400 free) (~0.6% of total)

These are numbers as of 10 rl years ago. From that time, Allanak numbers had significant reasons to drop. While Tuluk enjoyed an upswing to certain events and then a downswing in other events.  But regardless, still good figures to orient yourself by.

Source:Posted by staff. Figures roughly of 2008 year.

Numbers are hard to visualize in themselves so,

Assuming, as per the documentation, that one league is three miles (so about 4.8 km). And taking the map-size of Allanak as 5 by 3 leagues (given the normal consideration of one outdoor room=one league). That puts Allanak's area at 5x4.8 x 3x4.8 km, or approx 345 km2.

480,000/345 gives us 1391 people per km2.

You can compare this to the density in your local district. Seems I've been WAY overestimating the virtual NPC population density in my head (hyper-crowded city here).

[boog]

Huh. I have about half of that where I live and it's still too fucking crowded here. I'll have to find cities with similar population density to get the right feel.

Thanks for the math, oggo.

Some of us aren't good at math.

*slowly backs away and into the bushes*

[Brokkr]

That would assume that all quarters are evenly populated, or evenly sized relative to one another.  Where it would seem from rdescs that Noble, Templar, Merchant and Elementalist quarters are probably more thinly populated than the commoner quarter and Labyrinth.

Take the Labyrinth.  How many elves live in the Commoner Quarter vs Rinth (since we know they would be low populations everywhere else).  If even half of them are in the Rinth, that is 75k in one half of the Rinth.

[oggotale]

That would assume that all quarters are evenly populated, or evenly sized relative to one another.  Where it would seem from rdescs that Noble, Templar, Merchant and Elementalist quarters are probably more thinly populated than the commoner quarter and Labyrinth.

Take the Labyrinth.  How many elves live in the Commoner Quarter vs Rinth (since we know they would be low populations everywhere else).  If even half of them are in the Rinth, that is 75k in one half of the Rinth.

Good point, if one is interested in the population of "common" Allanak itself though, the estimate would still not vary that much, atleast in comparison to what I had in my head (I was visualizing 20,000 per km2 unwittingly due to my IRL background).

[Marauder Moe]

Remember that Allanak can't build upwards the way modern cities can.  You really don't see anything more than 2-3 stories.

[Armaddict]

The fact that you targeted this question towards 'before you do sneaky acts' infers additional considerations beyond just the population need to be made.

Until such a time that the vnpc population is picking your pockets and attempting murders on you, we can likewise infer that those virtual activities are conducted on the virtual plane of the game.

We interact with the non-virtual part of the game.  We impact decisions based off of the virtual world, but never...ever...turn the argument to one of subjectivity about the role of the vnpc population on the actions of a PC.  That is an endless mire of interpretation, and only inviting subjective arguments from both parties.

So.  Keep the virtual world in mind as the backdrop we act in, but never assume for a moment that the virtual population is supposed to act as an impediment to one class of character until it is also acting as impediments to all classes of character.

[Dar]

I would also suggest to imagine a 'lot' more tenements then there are codedly. Codedly the commoners quarters is 2 taverns, 1 tea shop, 10-12 shops and 3 tenements. While virtually there are probably dozens upon dozens of tenements.

[Miradus]

Can't we just virtually assume they're there?

I have a bit of a world-building problem with Allanak being that big anyway.

London didn't hit 500,000 people until around 1670. And then they started REALLY struggling with health problems due to overcrowding. (Not like the Black Death in the 14th century was a cakewalk, but it wasn't specifically self-induced by overcrowding like the Great Stink and so forth later on.)

But in Allanak you have extremely limited water supplies, small scale farming, some hunting, no fishing port, and dead bodies laying in the streets.

The city is way too big for the setting to realistically allow ... so ... magic.

[Bushranger]

(given the normal consideration of one outdoor room=one league)

This is wrong. Very very wrong. Many people will often refer to an outdoor room as a league such as "That scrab is three leagues to the north" or "To get to my camp head two leagues south and four leagues east" but these are just terms of convenience so you're not saying rooms ICly. It's worse when it's things like a bow shooting two or three leagues which is impossible but we have bows shooting two or three 'rooms'

A mud room, outdoors and indoors, can be all manner of sizes wherever it is from just a few cords to several leagues. It gets even more vague when you have a room that is a chasm several cords in diameter but on all four sides the rooms are wide open areas of desert. It's jumbled up and doesn't map well on a grid but the rooms do map out that way for convenience and for using only N, S, E and W.

This is why I must strongly protest any sort of convention where 1 room = 1 league even in general terms.

[oggotale]

This is wrong. Very very wrong. Many people will often refer to an outdoor room as a league such as "That scrab is three leagues to the north" or "To get to my camp head two leagues south and four leagues east" but these are just terms of convenience so you're not saying rooms ICly. It's worse when it's things like a bow shooting two or three leagues which is impossible but we have bows shooting two or three 'rooms'

A mud room, outdoors and indoors, can be all manner of sizes wherever it is from just a few cords to several leagues. It gets even more vague when you have a room that is a chasm several cords in diameter but on all four sides the rooms are wide open areas of desert. It's jumbled up and doesn't map well on a grid but the rooms do map out that way for convenience and for using only N, S, E and W.

This is why I must strongly protest any sort of convention where 1 room = 1 league even in general terms.

I was hoping for a reply along these lines correcting me when I made that assumption. I wanted to slip that untouched to see if anyone would really take so much protest to the idea to call me out on it.

Thanks.

The fact that you targeted this question towards 'before you do sneaky acts' infers additional considerations beyond just the population need to be made.

Until such a time that the vnpc population is picking your pockets and attempting murders on you, we can likewise infer that those virtual activities are conducted on the virtual plane of the game.

We interact with the non-virtual part of the game.  We impact decisions based off of the virtual world, but never...ever...turn the argument to one of subjectivity about the role of the vnpc population on the actions of a PC.  That is an endless mire of interpretation, and only inviting subjective arguments from both parties.

So.  Keep the virtual world in mind as the backdrop we act in, but never assume for a moment that the virtual population is supposed to act as an impediment to one class of character until it is also acting as impediments to all classes of character.

Don't quite get what you're protesting hold on. I meant for considerations in terms of "just how many people might be looking at me right now".

[Armaddict]

Don't quite get what you're protesting hold on. I meant for considerations in terms of "just how many people might be looking at me right now".

Not really protesting, just saying don't stand in your own way too much out of fear that you're excluding things that you should be including.  Let the code handle it.  As far as the vnpc population, it's accounted for with code, i.e. If you fail, the vnpc population will either report you or move along.  You don't need to cancel out your desire to thief by saying you're in too crowded of a spot.

Game terms, the vnpc population is less a barrier towards actions, more a backdrop to live in.

[Cind]

I'd really like it if staff gave us an idea of whose numbers would start dropping faster during a period of starvation; humans, or elves.

If we had another famine, would there be more human criminals, or more elven ones? Elves are, culturally, criminals, although humans sanction the use of severe haggling tactics. I suppose my question is, would more humans turn to crime, or would elves start becoming careless enough to be caught?

We had a fairly brief period of witch lynching in Allanak at one point, during the days of full mages. What if we had an extended period where life was even more unsafe for gemmed inside the city? I suppose how players would react to these situations is more important than how the vnpc population would react.


But, you know, a lynching period would be easier to instigate. Write a rumor and place a couple of currently non-aggro mob npcs in the main thoroughfares of the city. Starting a famine would require for every single 'naki food price to be doubled, which I assume would take forever to do.

[oggotale]

I'd really like it if staff gave us an idea of whose numbers would start dropping faster during a period of starvation; humans, or elves.

If we had another famine, would there be more human criminals, or more elven ones? Elves are, culturally, criminals, although humans sanction the use of severe haggling tactics. I suppose my question is, would more humans turn to crime, or would elves start becoming careless enough to be caught?

We had a fairly brief period of witch lynching in Allanak at one point, during the days of full mages. What if we had an extended period where life was even more unsafe for gemmed inside the city? I suppose how players would react to these situations is more important than how the vnpc population would react.


But, you know, a lynching period would be easier to instigate. Write a rumor and place a couple of currently non-aggro mob npcs in the main thoroughfares of the city. Starting a famine would require for every single 'naki food price to be doubled, which I assume would take forever to do.

I think its always to be doc-lite, more player liberty.

Im totally okay with the population question being left unanswered too.