It's really not surprising and not a big deal. In pretty much every world premades merge and one rises to a top around this stage of the game. I've been in a number of them. The problem is that often they don't make it very far past this stage. But even with the merge, more world-hopping players who form the base of most premades are going to quit. The speed is slow, the settings force you to adapt, and there are always exciting brand new worlds where you can get a fresh start if something goes wrong. What I'm more interested in is the next stage. No premade or premade-based tribe survives very long without recruiting. Indeed, the downfall of most premades is the failure or lack of desire to recruit aggressively. The challenge will be for Famlee to find good players and replace their inactives as quickly as they fall. Many tribes struggle with that, because most good players are already in a good tribe and are unwilling to leave, especially in the core. I expect to see another merge or partial merge to offset that or Famlee may go down.
Personally, I like my area (the rim) better. Sure, there are no active players in my church range and the best I can do as far as nobling goes is a 1k point barb, but it's a lot more fun than the core. And I've met a surprising number of good players, none of whom are the premade crowd
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