I agree with you; I think we need to do something that encourages people to invest in the game or something like that. Now, as you mentioned—and as I saw in the post summary—1,600 players seems really unrealistic to me.

I don’t think we even have that many active users; this smells like multi-accounting, but the tricky part is how to curb it a bit. The current protocols are HP and reputation, both of which are very easy to bypass if someone has very old accounts.

I’ve even thought about implementing a “Rising Star”-style block by IP—that is, only one player per network. I think it would be pretty drastic, but it would also solve the problem.

Another idea I had was to add more elements to the trees—maybe a sort of HP (hit points) system—so that making direct claims or triggering other negative effects would deplete those HP. For example, if you keep making claims, your HP would eventually run out, so you’d need to buy a potion or something to restore it. That’s the kind of thing I had in mind.