After reading the suggestion (viewtopic.php?f=15&p=318882#p318882) which I agree with and support fully, even as the player of a currently shelved vampire (one I shelved specifically so other people could get to play their vampires!!) I have some ideas of my own.
I see a problem with Arelith's hard cap on population of certain things. Vampires in this case, but it applies to anything.
Let's say the cap for vampire is 10. There's more than 10 vampires.
There's always going to be more than 10 vampires.
People aren't really going to delete their reward chars after waiting years, sometimes over a decade to luck out and get a major. Some people might who really just don't care about those things, but evidently most people won't and so eventually that cap will be occupied by the amount that won't and it will stay at that population indefinitely. That's a fact. I mean, just look. I'm not going to. Doesn't look like most others are either.
With a hard cap on population, we're essentially waiting for people to -delete_character and it's just probably never going to happen. There is no incentive for someone to delete a reward char, especially greater or majors. They're far too difficult to get, whether through normal organic rolls or even just intentionally leveling and rolling chars.
So my suggestion is:
Give people some incentive. A reason to delete their characters. Got a major? If you delete, you'll get a greater at least. It's less but it's something, and with clever and active rotation between major and greater races (depending on population) you'll see more character turn over and less hoarding of reward race slots.
Keep rotating greater and major races. Everything in major, when its population is low enough should be a candidate for being moved to greater. Everything in greater when its population is high enough should be a candidate for being moved to major.
Treat major and greater tiers as population (and reward) control. When something becomes a major, it can now be turned in for a greater.
Normal and minor are fine, given their names. Normals are .... well, normal. Everyone gets them all the time. You just need a 30.
Minor is just a nice little something instead of nothing. These tiers are fine.
Being able to delete and make something new a tier lower would help a lot imo. It would have a net result of fewer special-snowflake characters, more free slots, and actually give a realistic and reasonable reason for people to want to give up these characters that isn't just gambling. A major can be traded in for a greater.
Consider these changes longterm. Imagine they're already in place and have been for years.
Instead of people just sitting on any majors that they're lucky enough to get, majors will be rolled when something someone wants to play moves from major to greater, or if greater already offers something to them.
Hypothetical scenario. Let's say we have too many tieflings again in the future. Uh oh!
Now there is a solution. You move tieflings to major. Now that they are major, people can roll them to get a greater instead (races we do not have too much of). Too many vampires? That's fine, some will be rolled because people want to play something that is in greater. A low amount of Firbolgs or something? Move them from Major to Greater, encourages rolling of other majors.
As long as Greater and Major races are rotated based on how many of them we want in the world, I think this trade-in sort of incentive will be a lot more effective than just hoping people delete the luckiest thing that's ever happened to them on Arelith.
