BM culture

[Dante Silverfire]

OOC clans are allowed, as long as they follow the rules

Yes, the rules of not working together as an OOC clan. Which essentially means they aren't allowed. Yes, they can play in the same realm together, but they have to play IC, instead OOC focused. There is a big difference. These rules essentially mean that an "OOC clan" in the terms of ppl working together for out of game derived goals is currently not allowed which is what most ooc clans that come from other games consist of. Playing with friends and having your characters work for or against each other is completely different.

[egamma]

Yes, the rules of not working together as an OOC clan. Which essentially means they aren't allowed. Yes, they can play in the same realm together, but they have to play IC, instead OOC focused. There is a big difference. These rules essentially mean that an "OOC clan" in the terms of ppl working together for out of game derived goals is currently not allowed which is what most ooc clans that come from other games consist of. Playing with friends and having your characters work for or against each other is completely different.

"Don't use your clan to ruin other peoples' fun. "

that is the only rule.

[Dante Silverfire]

Perhaps I'm confused then, so the proposal is to allow OOC clans to be able to ruin people's fun if they want to?

[Solari]

Playing with friends and having your characters work for or against each other is completely different.

In principle, yes.  In practice, it usually ends up working out the same way: a few characters follow pre-determined paths of cooperation and end up excluding others because they either don't desire full assimilation or because they don't trust people outside the "group".  The proposal is to turn an island into a test bed for whether or not serious clan behavior can provide any real advantage over competent and naturally-formed power blocs.

I've seen a lot of realms run by "clans".  A disproportionately high number of them were run right into the ground.  A clan doesn't necessarily provide the advantage that those people seem to think it does.  An unintentional side effect of this continent might be very team-based play, which would be a return to days of BM yore.

[Indirik]

Clans have three major advantages over any ad hoc group of players:

• Available player numbers - Real clans often have a few dozen people willing to join a game to help out one of their members, or to find a game to conquer.
• Explicit trust in members - They don't have to worry whether or not Duke Kepler is loyal to the cause. He is 100% loyal. Because he's part of "Clan WeKickzYerAzZ!!1!"
• Player activity -  the real clanners are usually dedicated to the task. They will log in twice a day, every day to do what they're told. This gives you high, reliable movement rates. See: Averoth.

Having said that, they will have two big disadvantages:

• Possible inability to work cooperatively with others. They tend to be insular. After all they are "Clan WeKickzYerAzZ!!1!". They don't need to steenking help!
• Attention span - How many of them are going to be willing to put in the time it take to truly build a realm, and stick with it long enough to achieve their global domination? This can take *years* of real-life time. How many of them are going to be willing to dedicate that time span to BattleMaster?

[Zakilevo]

Due to their disadvantages, pure clan realms seem to last for only a short duration..
Sometimes they piss off other realms too..

[Vellos]

Clans have three major advantages over any ad hoc group of players:

• Available player numbers - Real clans often have a few dozen people willing to join a game to help out one of their members, or to find a game to conquer.
• Explicit trust in members - They don't have to worry whether or not Duke Kepler is loyal to the cause. He is 100% loyal. Because he's part of "Clan WeKickzYerAzZ!!1!"
• Player activity -  the real clanners are usually dedicated to the task. They will log in twice a day, every day to do what they're told. This gives you high, reliable movement rates. See: Averoth.

Having said that, they will have two big disadvantages:

• Possible inability to work cooperatively with others. They tend to be insular. After all they are "Clan WeKickzYerAzZ!!1!". They don't need to steenking help!
• Attention span - How many of them are going to be willing to put in the time it take to truly build a realm, and stick with it long enough to achieve their global domination? This can take *years* of real-life time. How many of them are going to be willing to dedicate that time span to BattleMaster?

I reiterate the danger of spillover effects.

So a clan comes and plays like an OOC clan on the clan-continent. Cool. Fine. Have fun.

But what happens when they all start characters in the same realm (or the same allied realms) on Atamara? What happens when they start funneling gold to characters in Dwilight? What happens when they manage to do those two things in coordination: all have second (and/or third) characters in the same alliance bloc on another continent, and export their clanning there?

These are issues we already have (see discussions of social inbreeding on this thread and others; certain players always playing with the same people) and do not very effectively deal with. Inviting clans to exploit issues we already address in a sub-par fashion does not seem wise.

[Anaris]

I reiterate the danger of spillover effects.

So a clan comes and plays like an OOC clan on the clan-continent. Cool. Fine. Have fun.

But what happens when they all start characters in the same realm (or the same allied realms) on Atamara? What happens when they start funneling gold to characters in Dwilight? What happens when they manage to do those two things in coordination: all have second (and/or third) characters in the same alliance bloc on another continent, and export their clanning there?

These are issues we already have (see discussions of social inbreeding on this thread and others; certain players always playing with the same people) and do not very effectively deal with. Inviting clans to exploit issues we already address in a sub-par fashion does not seem wise.

Such behavior would be quite obvious, and easy to punish.

The multi-ing you described earlier is a much bigger problem, and I think we can handle it, too.

[Chenier]

Due to their disadvantages, pure clan realms seem to last for only a short duration..
Sometimes they piss off other realms too..

Is this because they are less risk-averse than the "old guard tradional BM player"? And, you know, isn't more conflict precisely what people keep saying they want?

Makes me wonder of clanners contribute more to the game than we'd like to admit.

[De-Legro]

Is this because they are less risk-averse than the "old guard tradional BM player"? And, you know, isn't more conflict precisely what people keep saying they want?

Makes me wonder of clanners contribute more to the game than we'd like to admit.

Mostly it seems to stem from arrogance about just how powerful they are, with their OOC knowledge that their activity levels and support as a group are rather extreme.

[Chenier]

Mostly it seems to stem from arrogance about just how powerful they are, with their OOC knowledge that their activity levels and support as a group are rather extreme.

Still. How many wars would we have if we didn't have pockets of players that lack any form of risk aversion whatsoever? We'd still have wars, of course, but how many?

Clans tend to either declare wars  as soon as possible, or alienate their neighbors quickly and have those declare war on them instead.

[GoldPanda]

Is that still a problem anymore?

Chénier, how quickly would you make sure your realm gets involved in a war, if Tom threatened to bring TMP back? :)

[Chenier]

Is that still a problem anymore?

Chénier, how quickly would you make sure your realm gets involved in a war, if Tom threatened to bring TMP back? :)

TMP had zero impact on what I did IG. It made things easier or harder, but did not influence my decisions. I have always been pro-war, since way before TMP appeared.

Furthermore, TMP was !@#$ing over my militaristic realm just as bad as my peaceful realm, because while the game considered Fheuv'n tiny for some things, it didn't consider it tiny at all as far as TMP was concerned, and it therefore forced us to make a big costly suicide attack just so we could stave it off. Whenever we took the time to TO a rogue region, we'd get hit by it again.

TMP or no TMP, I rule Fheuv'n as a militaristic realm, and play D'Hara as an commercial one.

But I'm not really the average player either, so I'm not sure what you are trying to get at. :P

[Glaumring the Fox]

I have never played a game quite like BM before, I have played tonnes of games but none like BM to pull me right in and allow so much in such a limited interface and environment. It's odd because I roleplayed for decades, played all sorts of video games and there is nothing out of any of them that pulls me back here like Glaumring Apasurain. I am the one man wolf pack of Dwilight.

I really don't understand what people cannot find interesting in this game, the amount of drama in a  jumble of words and a few actions to create a little trouble and you have epic webs of lore and history and culture that is refreshed and spins out every day... Its quite fascinating.

I have played in BM since the Antozan Commonwealth on another account, so I consider myself to be a kinda of old guy who isn't actually an old guy, who is not really affiliated with any cliques, who plays each of his 4 characters vastly different from eachother and is generally looked upon in Dwilight as a guy who pissed in a few cornflakes and showed up for the tea party uninvited... And I am cool with that.

Dwilight is the best server all round
FEI is good
BEL is fun and was my favorite server before Dwilight.... BM is hands down the best thing to happen to computer gaming in a long time, its a shame that very few will recognize it because of the lack of shiny graphics and all sorts of other nonsense. There are very few games with the amount of culture and lore all player made out there.

[Chaotrance13]

There are very few games with the amount of culture and lore all player made out there.

I'll be honest, when Tanos first recommended the game to me and the description said it was very social based, I was leery of it. But that's more a personal thing anyway. Even a few months on, I still don't fully partake in everything there is for players of the game. IRC as an example, and the forums too. I mean I've started posting a bit more but after someone's responses in that current Magistrate's case I'm starting to think that posting on here is a massive mistake, and I'm considering just leaving the forums alone and just logging in twice a day to play the game itself.

It's a bit like a tightrope - if you say one wrong thing, you get slammed for it for the sake of petty point scoring. There's no need for it, and that is why I made a call earlier on in this thread for stricter moderation. Or at least for some guidelines or rules to be followed, both for users of the forums and the moderators themselves so they know when to act.