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Topics - Vita`

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1
Announcements / Death of a Player
« on: August 22, 2020, 03:46:48 AM »
Awhile ago, along with some of you, we learned that the player of Coquard Family, Renee M. Row, passed suddenly, on July 22. We held off on announcing anything until a memorial website in her honour had been created.

Playing since 2010 across numerous realms, Renee helped build the BattleMaster world with many roleplays and relationships with fellow characters, as well as forming many friendships upon IRC, and then Discord. If anyone wishes to share their memories, there is a tribute wall at the memorial website, as well as a wiki memorial.

2
Announcements / Two Warnings
« on: April 10, 2020, 05:29:19 PM »
We have two matters which are important to give you advance warning upon.

On testing islands, reduced food distribution was not providing a strong enough debuff to the region. Thus, a change was made to strengthen the debuff over time. There should be no immediate danger, but it will build up more. Bankers and lords should keep an eye on any such regions with reduced food distribution.

A change upcoming in the next update will introduce full members of religions and guilds being able to protest an elder out of eldership. There will be prevention of immediately-protesting new full members to prevent abuse, same as one cannot protest for first five days after joining a realm. However, if any religions or guilds have full membership purchasable by aspirants, there will be a risk of essentially allowing a takeover of the institution, same as a large group of characters joining a realm and protesting a week later.

3
Announcements / TwitterMaster? BattleTwitter?
« on: April 02, 2020, 05:20:04 AM »
The last day or so has been such a resounding success for the new reduced character limits that we will now be transitioning BattleMaster to be played exclusively on Twitter. On a larger platform, we will be able to attract many more players and grow once more. In an unrelated note, happy April Fool's Day.  ;)

We hope you enjoyed this year's event and we look forward to next year and many years to come. For newer players, there was once a tradition of BattleMaster April Fool's Day events. Please remember for next year to not spoil the surprise for your realmmates, so everyone can enjoy the fun. And yes, its back to 5,000 character limit messages once more. And no, we aren't transitioning to be played exclusively on Twitter.

4
Announcements / Maximum Character Limit for Messages Reduced
« on: April 01, 2020, 12:08:34 AM »
After collecting much more data upon message activity throughout BattleMaster over the last few months, Anaris and I have both spent the weekend analyzing the various metrics and considering solutions to boost the interaction between players based on the lessons learned from the data.

A key insight we've observed is that messages of fewer characters tends to generate many more replies by a wider group of players, including those who don't often write letters or roleplays, while extremely long messages tend to only generate replies from a miniscule sliver of the playerbase. In some realms, long messages get no replies at all while short, concise messages do get a few replies. Another group in which a noticeable difference was observed was new players. Of grave concern, characters less than a month old replied to a long letter less than 5% of the time while replying to shorter letters an average minimum of 23% of the time, sometimes as high as 39% in certain realms, and as high as 68% in Perdan.

It is for this reason that the first change we are immediately implementing to messages to boost interaction is reducing the maximum character limit of all messages to only 280 characters. We understand that this is a huge change from a 5,000 character limit, but we believe it is important to establish firmly the new direction of the game being short, concise messages. We suspect this may also have the advantage of encouraging more mobile-friendly play in our on-the-go modern world, without having the burden of reading and replying to lengthy messages via a mobile interface. Please, give it a day to experience before giving us your much-appreciated feedback on the forum or in discord.

5
Announcements / February 2020 Update
« on: February 27, 2020, 06:12:45 PM »
Major Changes
  • Update Social Contract
  • Requirement to sign the Social Contract annually from when it was last signed
  • Important OOC Messages added as reminders to rules, other atmospheric guidelines, or contacting the Titans
  • Crown Tax Shares implemented, allowing a ruler to split their ruler share between each government council member, all knights/dames of the realm, and if a theocracy, all priests of the realm
  • Expand influences upon regional sympathies/loyalty to realms (testing islands only)
    • Trading Food
    • Religious spread across realm borders
    • Noble locations, rank, average unique item prestige, number of soldiers
    • Government System
    • Distance to foreign capital
    • Neighbouring regions, duchies, and realms
    • Declared diplomacy
    • Lord's faith or lack thereof
    • Guilds
    • Population movement
  • Player indicator icons for experience and playstyle preference
  • Character Portraits and Descriptions added to character creation process
  • New Player Surveys for players on their 30th day
  • Change Realm Theme to a tag-based system with pre-selected tags and one unique word tag

Minor Changes

  • Discord Widget and collapsible accordion added to userdata
  • Minimum Density increased to 2 nobles per region
  • New religions are announced on discord island channels
  • Text explaining when one can change allegiance as a region lord or duke improved for readability
  • Prevent revolting regions from joining realms that are already low density
  • Slightly increase Standing Orders character limit
  • Send a judge a message when Impeachment is available
  • Discord realm emoji updated
  • If hunting monsters and undead, find hidden local unique item before creating a new unique item
  • Link to Realm Details on new character realm selection

Bugfixes
  • Titans accidentally deporting characters to Atamara
  • Several exploits
  • Unique Items being discovered while looting, but not actually given to the character
  • Regions being bought and revolting for first 5 days after being TOed
  • Private messages not being visible in quickplay
  • OOC messages not being coloured gray
  • World News RSS not working
  • Setting User Options not working

Discord

The BattleMaster Community on Discord continues to grow. There is now a #bugtracker channel that updates when public bugtracker issues are updated. Cards Against Humanity games on the discord are now played with BattleMaster decks. Users can now create their own channels, allowing for alliance-wide channels of realm roles, or particular interest channels such as warhammer, parenting, tabletop roleplaying et cetera. On that note, there is now a roleplaying game going on right now in a user-created channel.

Folks have been livestreaming themselves playing BattleMaster in voicechats (and other games, as well). And today, we've had two music bots being listened to in separate channels, simultaneously.

Voice chat activity has become most consistent from 19 to 23 server time (about now!), just after the halfturn. Come on in and say hello, whether its your first visit or you just haven't been by in awhile.

6
Announcements / Death of a Player
« on: January 15, 2020, 06:23:02 PM »
This is one of those announcements you dread having to write, but eventually, in a community as widespread and old as ours, is inevitable.

Yesterday we learned that on January 10, 2020 the player of Angelo family, Dexter Charles Herring, passed away from heart failure and other complications. A long-time off-and-on again player, Dexter brought a lot of spirit to the game with creative roleplays and built many friendships upon IRC and Discord over the years. If anyone would like to leave their condolences, you can leave one at his obituary or our wiki memorial.

7
Announcements / December 2019 Update
« on: December 06, 2019, 10:44:39 PM »
Many changes added over the last 6 months are included in this announcement. Many more behind-scenes improvements were made.

Improvements:
New OOC admins-ruler communication channel publicly visible to all players on island
Automatically create statues when ruler moves capital or builds palace
Add average daily sent and realmwide messages over a 3-month period
Colour travel destinations by diplomatic relation
PHP7 Updates
Add Average Noble Combat Strength to Army Info
Base judge's h/p loss for torture on recipient's rank (royal, duke, lord)
Add last updated datetime to Standing Orders
Tweak ranged overkill
Various text improvements

Bugfixes:
Prevent healing dead characters with scrolls after 2 turns have passed
Fix position lockout from Titans lasting too long
Prevent dead characters automatically healing
Prevent recruitment while travelling to tournament
Fix ignoring other characters
Fix prison and banishment bugs

Discord Bot:
The discord bot has been updated over the last 6 months and now hosts many commands to request information from the game, ranging from a character to a realm, from family wiki pages to world maps dating as far back as 2012. Come check out BattleMaster's Discord and get to know the community as players, not characters! Every realm has its own private realm channel so you can get to know your realmmates better. Many enjoy playing games with the community, from trivia to cards against humanity. Come hear your fellow players' voices in voice chat and hear how all those region, realm, and character names are pronounced by everyone. Share and listen to music. Discuss politics and religion. Contribute as a volunteer. Just have fun with fellow players!

Forum and Wiki:
The forum has been updated to a more responsive default theme, with further improvements to come. Other responsive themes exist to choose from.
The Wiki was updated with the PHP7 Update, but the Semantic Media Wiki remains broken. Even so, the wiki has picked up in activity lately with new Wiki Editors. Filled out your family page? Need to update it? Preserve your BM history forevermore upon the wiki. A recent development is the creation of a new On This Day in BM history, which gets posted on Discord.

8
Development / Angry Peasants - Remove, Keep, or Change?
« on: May 10, 2019, 04:13:01 PM »
Anaris and I were considering an edgecase regarding angry peasants being misused, when we came to a more fundamental question: what do angry peasants popping up from just entering the region add to BattleMaster? My initial thought is that it does add roleplay value, but I can't think of any game reason for their existence. However, I wanted further feedback and thought on this before any changes are made.

They aren't (nor should be) a genuine threat, it depopulates the region, and is potentially exploitable. If their main value is roleplay, Anaris proposed changing the mechanic without changing the fluff - instead of angry peasants as a combat unit fighting them have angry peasants slow unit travel, reduce unit morale, maybe even steal supplies.

Thoughts?

9
Announcements / Spring 2019 Recent Changes
« on: April 30, 2019, 11:01:08 PM »
Major Changes:
  • Implement individualized tax rates
    • Each hierarchy level can set individualized tax rates for their vassals
    • For example, a ruler can set different tax rates for different dukes, same with a duke for lords and a lord for vassals
  • Discourage Adventurers as Scouts
    • No longer display all local nobles to advies, only nobles of greater position and prestige
    • When adventurer uses 2-hour scout mechanic, there is a chance of their capture, similar to scout paraphernalia capture
    • Potential capture consequences include fatigue increase, light wound and fatigue increase, imprisonment, seriously wound, or death
  • Implement a Lemuria Bot on Discord
    • Manages user's realm roles which provides private realm channels and a rulers channel
    • Identifying a user's family
    • And other functionality (come visit Discord to find out!)
  • Implement sending announcement to discord's island channels of major island events
    • New Ruler Elected, Rebellions, New Wars, New Alliances, Executions, Secessions, Ruler Abdications, Ducal Allegiance Changes, Tournaments, Huge Battles (and Deaths in Combat), Buried Legendary Heroes, Season Changes, War Island Victory
  • Statistics Updates
    • Update Highcharts library
    • Add new realm statistics: Wealth, Recruits, Recruits/Region, Average Prestige, Average Honour, Average Age
    • Combine previous total and active nobles into singular Nobles statistics
    • Add buttons to view other continents' realm statistics
  • Balance noble distribution on war island
    • Not display realms with many more nobles than the last realm in character creation
  • Change Sages and Wizards to (have a chance to) travel hourly instead of by turn

Minor changes:
  • Updated Abandon unit page to require less clicking
  • Adjusted wizard balance to favor hanging in region longer
  • Add family's home region and world to xml datafeed
  • Add family's home world to family page
  • Display Announcements at each login location
  • Smooth out large unit cost modifier with marginal cost increases
  • Display other realm colours when selecting a realm colour
  • Update Caligula font (which fixes display of special characters)
  • Don't display paused characters in account's New Messages filter
  • Open battle reports in a new tab
  • Add strikethrough to editor options
  • Improve routefinder search
  • Show all duels, not only received challenges (9430)
  • Remove or update IRC references to Discord references
  • Notify a lord if his militia is assigned to a noble by the general
  • Add a Duke section to commands page
  • Add more links to Character Details page
  • Text improvements (9424)

Bugfixes:
  • Turn script crashes
  • Memorial description and Bulletin length limits (9439)
  • Fortification razing (9431)
  • Fix first-time government check
  • Fix differences in unit payment
  • Block NPCs from being displayed on Wealth Lists
  • Remove Gold Transfer and Unique Item Offer messages from sent message statistics
  • Sort contacts alphabetically when writing a contact
  • Display message signature of the message you're responding to when writing a message
  • Prevent announcing a new tournament when a tournament was recently held
  • Gray out paused characters when viewing a family page on mobile
  • Fix royalty removal bug

10
Announcements / Discord Bot and Private Realm Channels
« on: April 07, 2019, 08:36:51 PM »
There is now a bot for the BattleMaster Discord named Lemuria. Drop by and have an admin assign you your family so you can chat to your realmmates in real time. Once an admin assigns your family to your discord account, the bot will update your roles and give you access to the realms of your active nobles. If you're a ruler, you get access to a private ruler channel. There is also a command to identify a discord user's family info, once its been assigned. Type !help to see the list of available commands.

11
Feature Requests / Alms for the Poor
« on: February 07, 2019, 08:12:52 PM »
Posting this on behalf of Fitz Roberts family.

Title: Alms for the Poor

Summary: another way to boost morale in regions and boost your own prestige

Details: In a similar way to holding court, festivals or heroes telling tales, it would increase morale in a region, but in this case through a direct monetary donation. Depending on how much money is spent, morale goes up. The higher morale already is, the less of an effect it has as there isn't enough unhappy paupers to make much of a difference. Additionally, if you do it enough over time you gain prestige, in a similar way to doing courtier work

Benefits: would add a new dimension to improving morale in regions and give a use for excess gold. Also, is just an interesting concept that adds flavour.
Possible downsides: might take away from courtiers, so would need to be less effective than them unless it was huge amounts of gold. Possible exploit is people whose city is starving and no one will sell them food could use it to increase morale and prevent revolts

it's not a big change, but given how important the giving of alms was in medieval society, it would be interesting
might be important to have limits as well: only 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1000 donations possible or something

12
Announcements / South Island Rewards and Reset!
« on: December 23, 2018, 02:09:18 AM »
UPDATE: Character creation is now open and startup mode concluded. Also, the War Island mechanic ruleset listed at bottom of the announcement was updated with some forgotten differences from other islands.
Turns are now running, with the island in startup mode (no traveling beyond 1 region outside the realm). Elections are being held for all government positions amongst the victor characters. New character creation will be enabled in 7 days, on Saturday the 29th. More information is below regarding Rewards, South Island Reset and Realm Themes Roleplay, and War Island mechanic differences. This is a long multi-part announcement.

Congratulations to Taselak for achieving total domination of the War Island (South Island) over Ikalak and Sandalak! Taselak Victory Rewards are as follows:
  • All Taselak characters active upon completion of Sandalak takeover are considered victors
  • Victors are exempt from the character reset on South Island, and will be randomly-distributed to the new South Island's 3 realms, responsible for setting up their governments
  • Taselak's ruler, Alparslan, has had his name added to the Famous Character Names in unique item naming
  • Customized unique items have been created for the government members:
    • Alparslan Kalkandelen - Shield of Taselak
    • Wulfric Rhicling ka Habb - Great Hammer of Ack
    • Zlatan Mersault - Glowing Tongs of Torture
    • Ardisio Sarracenia - War Harp
  • Victors have received a family gold bonus, non-cumulative:
    • Alparslan Kalkandelen, Wulfric Rhicling ka Habb, Zlatan Mersault, Ardisio Sarracenia, and Hunter Maximoff have received 2k gold to their family as government members or dukes
    • Lords who were not government members or dukes received 1.5k gold to their family
    • Remaining victors received 1k gold to their family
  • Statues will be create in each War Island capital with a full list of Taselak victor names
  • Statues have been created in 3 random cities of each island commemorating Taselak's victory in general and in particular the ruler, general, and an army of Taselak.
  • A mention of victory has been added to family history, with special text for government members

Beppo!
Quote
Unlike previous War Islands that quickly suffered cataclysm upon one realm's victory, Taselak ruled over the island for nearly a generation. Sandalakian and Ikalakian defeated nobility are forced into years of slavery. All is peaceful save for the bothersome claims of a wild Beppo. No one believes these myths, of course, ignoring such ludicrous claims. Until it came.

Rumours of the Beppo attacking from the seas and rivers were dismissed, as usual, for the mad rantings of raha smokers, but then survivors began entering Taselak. Of course, they must be bandits, after all, who ever heard of a Beppo? Out Taselak sent its slave-army of Sandals and Ikkies to put down these criminals. And so they came face to face with it. Its sheer size. Gosh did it burp and bellow and belch. Monstrosity beyond comprehension. Their feeble hearts gave out before they could comprehend the full meaning of its identity. Only a lone Taselakian scout escaped to report their fate, and she herself could only give the most rudimentary of descriptions for the...Beppo!

In the fight against the Beppo, civil society and government are not only devastated, but mens' minds also grow more deluded and paranoid. Patrols are sent out to scout for the Beppo that never return. Paranoid about anyone they haven't seen in longer than one day, the once unified Taselak fractures. Even worse, some forget *how* to communicate, yet remember partial communication concepts, resulting in bizarre attempts at communication ranging from painting peoples hands with paintbrushes held in their mouths to trying to force other people to whistle at them by forcibly manipulating their jaws. All this failure to communicate leaves three competing factions of Taselakians and no one certain where the Beppo is now, or if it was defeated. But with no sign of the Beppo for some time, they begin to explore the island once more to re-establish their dominance.

A New Beginning
Quote
Nobles of Taselak City survived through hunting for the Beppo, led by one strong Chieftain with a mighty will. A will so strong that what is good for the Chieftain is good for the Tribe. One day, Chieftain started insisting everyone dress up like cows to go hunting. Another day, their hunting parties began observing the Beppo's distaste for fruit, causing their Chieftain to order the scholars to research further. And indeed, fruit repelled the Beppo! Thus they began seeking out all kinds of fruit with which to fight the Beppo, settling upon bananas as particularly fruitful weapons. Before long, their hunting parties were trained upon offensive fruit maneuvers. Now trained and convinced of the value of battlefruit, Taselak's tribal hunter parties are now beginning to follow human tracks as they seek to butcher their foes - all while dressed as cows.

Nobles of Ikalak City survived by worshipping the Beppo, offering sacrifices meant to appease the Beppo, and living in fear that the Beppo is always watching them. In a never-ending stream of sacrifices to keep the Beppo away, Ikalak's nobility brought their most treasured friends to a gulch on the edge of the city, slaying them. And then for two minutes shouted praises to the Beppo while dancing upon their friend's corpse, each noble trying to outdo the one before them displaying their devotion. Family was only spared because there is no family assistance on the War Island. But when friends were extinguished, Beppo praised, and their corpses danced upon, acquaintances fell next. Another Two Minute Beppo Praise-Dance Ritual followed. With acquaintances gone, Ikalak's nobility were left eyeing each other warily. Eventually, someone suggests they sacrifice prisoners of war and Ikalak's Ministry of Life is soon marching to capture sacrifices for keeping Beppo away.

Nobles of Sandalak City survived by singing to the Beppo, discovered through providential happenstance. A young boy stumbled upon the Beppo inadvertently one day, while singing a folk song. The Beppo started to move away at first, but when the boy stopped singing to flee in terror, it began to chase him. Realizing that the song had been protecting him, he started singing again, and the Beppo left him alone. Upon telling this story to his family when he returned home, most of them thought it a fanciful tale, and wanted him beaten for lying to his elders. Only his merchant uncle believed him, and when he told the boy he wanted to make use of this, the boy was only too happy to get away from those who wanted to beat him. Within weeks, the boy had taught the song to a dozen people (at exorbitant fees for his uncle). Within months, the boy and his uncle were both entirely forgotten as the Corporate Choir was organized and became a major political force in the city. Before long, they established themselves as the new ruling body in Sandalak, with the Singing Soldiers as their strong right arm. Under the Corporate Choir's directive to liquidate their rivals, the Singing Soldiers are soon marching to serenade their enemies into submission.

Toren Stronghold is devastated and abandoned, save for a few creepy folk no one talks to - mainly because they run away when you try.

Differences from normal islands:
  • Diplomacy is locked at war
  • Can only write to one's realmmates unless one is in a region with foreigners
  • Cannot change allegiance unless you've been banished
  • Bans are permanent, except Judges, for the first two weeks they hold office, can revoke all banishments placed in the prior 2 weeks
  • Takeovers require 33% less men to initiate
  • Takeovers are 33% faster
  • Recruitment centers replenish new recruits 33% faster
  • No distance from capital penalty for units
  • No density takeover limits
  • Fewer angry peasants
  • No monsters
  • No minimum 3 prestige requirement for lordship appointment
  • No minimum 5 prestige requirement for government appointment
  • No minimum 10 prestige, 20 honour requirement for announcing candidacy for government
  • No region buying
  • Higher acceptable tax baseline
  • Lower regional revolt chances
  • Much lower distance from capital penalty for regions
  • No religious or diplomacy region buff effects
  • Faster regional population recovery
  • No abandoning region mechanic
  • No adventurers
  • No sea travel
  • No family gold
  • No religion
Update, a few more, missed earlier: All characters are mortal, increased chances of wounding when surrounded and outnumbered, combat casualties shifted from dead to wounded, scattered troops lose most of their wounded troops, increased healer effectiveness, increased hunting effectiveness against scattered troops, decreased hunting effectiveness against retreated troops.

13
Announcements / December 2018 Recent Changes
« on: December 22, 2018, 11:34:19 PM »
  • Fix unit highlighting in battle
  • Disabled access to food distribution on stable islands (was never intended to be on stable)
  • Include duke in recipients when writing 'all nobles of duchy'
  • Update dynamic map
  • Mark old hunts as inactive every turn
  • Send message to realm when property/wealth taxes are updated
  • Only allow building harbours and shipyards in 'coast' regions; update Beluaterra's 'lake' regions surrounding Lake Salaman to 'coast' regions
  • Limit alliances/federation chains to one-third of human-held regions on an island
  • Fix minimap
  • Temporarily disable Citizen Militia

14
Announcements / Rules Update and Return of Nomad Realms
« on: November 28, 2018, 01:19:13 AM »
Henceforth, realms with less than 20 nobles are excepted from the prohibition on realm mergers. The emphasized sentence in the following rule has been added to the following on Rules and Policies:
Quote
Realm mergers are illegal. Realms may surrender to another, including annihilation of their lands, but they may not merge as equal entities on friendly terms. Realms that are too small to exist (under 20 nobles) are excepted from this rule, and may merge into another realm.

Rulers may request realm mergers by contacting an administrator (Anaris or Vita). As well, rulers on Beluaterra and Dwilight may now contact an administrator to request their realm be granted Nomad status. A realm going nomadic involves the realm giving up on all its existing regions and migrating to another location entirely. You may contact us via the community@battlemaster.org email address, on the forums, or on Discord.

As some may recall, nomad status was given to realms during the Freeze and Close of Western Dwilight events to migrate to new homes. As a reminder, nomad status grants the following bonuses:
Quote
  • No distance from realm penalty for troops
  • Troop payment costs 10% of normal and no troop payment after the capital is lost
  • Can take over regions without bordering them
  • Can be given regions by other rulers without bordering their realms
  • A special drafting option for more soldiers being drafted in exchange for higher morale cost to the region
  • Takeovers complete twice as fast as other realms
  • Takeovers require a third of what other realms require to start a takeover

15
Announcements / Donations Manually Credited
« on: October 09, 2018, 03:24:54 AM »
It has recently come to our attention in the last week that donations made in the last month have not been processed properly and donation time not properly credited to accounts. I have manually fixed this for anyone who this has affected and will continue to do so until the error can be fixed. Please contact us if you are not credited your donation in a timely manner.

In the future, please report serious bugs like this promptly.

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