Dwilight losing its saltiness?

[Glaumring the Fox]

So basically for the sake of making Dwilight a better place so that we can start playing we must unite and wipe out the Daimons. Just to make the game better.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Or, if Glaumring really were interested in promoting PVP conflict instead of immediately feeling indignant, he'd take issue with the guy who presented the treaty to the daimons and Garret in the first place: Moritz.

Who do you think even came up with t idea? It wasn't a daimon. It wasn't Garret. It was a human who was ruler of their very realm. Moritz von Igelfeld, King of Asylon, predecessor of Glaumring. Obviously there was not enough communication there, or Moritz conveniently didn't fill Glaumring in about the whole "The treaties are signed because humans think it's important. To the daimons they are meaningless." It's been a long time, but I did mention it to Moritz in a subtle way.

But no, that apparently never came into consideration. Never did you think "Oh hey, did the previous ruler(s) who knew about the details fail to fill me in on just how important the treaties actually are before I spouted a bunch of nonsense that made me look like an ignorant fool?" No...In this specific case, Glaumring just out and spouted off about treaties that, to me, clearly indicated he never cared to ask just how significant they were.

Sure, you probably hate the whole "You never asked" response. But really...you never asked. And let this then teach you to ask. And ask your fellow humans, not Garret or the daimons, because anything that's there for you to ask should first be asked of the humans who decided to approach and do stuff.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Oh god you have a response for everything. Its a game guys, some of us dont spend real life days in BM getting to the root of evey nuance of BM life.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Ah yes, sure, real life. How long do you think it took me to think of that? A few seconds. Took me longer to type that out in fact.

Besides, it IS a game, so why are you so upset? Pick one or the other dude.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Yeah, so basically dont have an opinion or try to make the game better is what your saying.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

You've long past stated your opinion. It was duly noted and appreciated. After that just came complaining.

[Anaris]

Oh god you have a response for everything.

You know, sometimes, when people you're arguing with have a counter for every argument you make...

...it's because they actually know what they're talking about and have logic and reason on their side.

But that couldn't possibly be the case here. No, it must just be that we all have no life, and therefore all our arguments are meaningless because we can take all day to think them up, while you only have the 5 minutes that is stated as the amount of time you need each day to play BattleMaster.

[Glaumring the Fox]

I wasnt talking to you.

[Vellos]

There's a difference here, and it's not insignificant. The difference is that when a human realm, led by PLAYERS, decides not to honor a treaty it generates player versus players conflict, which as we all know is good for BM. When an NPC realm, led by a faceless GM, decides not to honor a treaty, it leads to the human realm feeling screwed, witness Glaumring's reaction to it all. After all, it's not like Asylon can turn to military conflict to redress the grievance they now have, because the Zuma are overwhelmingly powerful in that department. Instead, it's like the GM is saying 'HA! Gotcha! You should have been more careful, and because you weren't it's your own fault that now we're screwing you! Nyah nyah!'

Can anyone here seriously NOT see why that wouldn't piss someone off? All you people who are defending the Zuma don't generally have to deal with them IC (except for Artemesia who doesn't count because he works for them), and as far as I know none of you choose to do so. On the other hand the people that do complain are generally the ones that do. That is pretty notable, don't you think?

This.

Actually, that part is something the Zuma have let known in the past (At least my character Marche figured that out eventually). You can't 100% rely on the Ambassador's words being the Zuma's. If you really want to interact with the Zuma, you have to talk to them directly.

Indeed, I had some suspicions for a while, but the recent chain of events has revealed this to be very, very true.

Here's one thing I don't understand:

Everyone that is currently living near the Zuma did so by choice.

Everyone in West Africa in the early 1800's who got kidnapped and sold into slavery, lived in West Africa by choice. Guess they should have moved; getting enslaved was their own damn fault. They knew slavery was a part of human culture.

No, in all seriousness, that's a BS argument. The Zuma of the last 2 months are totally unrecognizable in their behavior from the Zuma of the last several years. They have become meddling, active players. They were a kind of ominous rumbling to the east that was ultimately fairly benign earlier; now, they're looking more like Overlord every day. I've actually wondered if maybe Koli's IC suspicions about an Invasion might be right in an OOC way: maybe the Zuma GM plays on Beluaterra, so what was happening there, and went, "Ooo, me too!"

Yes, we chose to be where we were. But the Zuma are way more powerful now than in the past. When we first arrived, they sometimes struggled to put 10k CS into the field. After they became the "Zuma Coalition" (they were not always the Zuma Coalition), they got way more powerful. And now I wish Vesna Valentine would come back... never thought I'd wish that...

The old Zuma would occasionally do a fairly isolated rampage. The new Zuma are apparently in the business of claiming new regions, interfering in others realms' internal politics, etc.

it has been known by everyone where their main base of operations is.

Only generally. Given that the Zuma have different limiting factors (not responding to that discussion; I understand Glaumring's frustration, but I am well aware that the Zuma have limitations of their own--- and I know generally how they move, probably even what line settings would be best against them, etc), it's unclear what regions might be their most important base. Dragon Song? Ruins? Nightscree? Nightmarch?

The simple idea is that each of these realms that are now "having" to interact with the Zuma chose to do so. I could have easily had my character join in the expedition that created some of those realms that are now so easily able to be destroyed by the Zuma, but instead had them stay in Luria even though I could have had one of the ruling characters.

Well, isn't hindsight just amazing?

What I'm trying to say is that the players all understood clearly what they could be getting themselves into when they made their decisions. Perhaps new players joining the realms later first starting the game did not, but the leaders knew and were aware.

That's not true at all. We did not. None of us anticipated this kind of activity from the Zuma. If we had, we wouldn't be here. We'd be up in, like, Gaston or something. How do I know this? Because I remember when Terran had just a few regions and the Zuma appeared on the horizon, and we were all like "Ummm... uh oh." And we fought them; in absolute terms a small battle, but still the biggest non-rogue vs. non-rogue battle to have occurred in the area outside of Paisly and Candiels to this day. It was big compared to the forces available in the Maroccidens; especially considering the Zuma weren't fielding 50,000 CS at that time. We fought'em; I forget if we actually won or lost, but it ended with the Zuma being all like "We respect your warrior spirit; you can colonize these lands, yada yada yada."

The realm leaders at the time, if the Zuma didn't let us stay, were considering calling Terran off.

So no, we did not choose the Zuma. And besides, of those original players, a total of about 3 remain anywhere in the Zuma periphery. The new players, especially the ones that had a character in Asylon, Terran, or Barca as their first character in BM, did not know much of this. Zuma were ancient lore from Terran's early days, or an occasional random rampage.

Finally, there ARE ways to deal with the Zuma and there ARE goals that they have.

Neat. We were told there were ways to win the last few invasions. How did those invasions end? They fizzled out without anyone understanding what was happening or figuring them out (or, if they did, they kept it secret from most players, which doesn't make for great gameplay either). The current invasion looks to be much better done, IMHO; I'm very optimistic about it.

But the real question is: why should I want to know what the Zuma's goals are? Because they'll destroy me otherwise? That's a poor argument. They didn't start threatening Terran until people started talking about them and trying to figure out what they wanted. The Zuma will go to war, or at least something close enough to it, over one or two idle comments from torture reports. Why on earth would I risk trying to figure out what their purpose is? Because it would give me the key to defeating them? Oh cool; I can kill the Zuma, take their crappy land, and deal with 2x as many monster spawns! Because those regions are less valuable to me than to the Zuma, I'll be less able to manage them. Because it would give me lots of gold (that's what Vesna Valentine did)? Uh... great. I already have about 10-15k gold stashed away in various places; not really worried about gold. Because there's a fame point? That would be a neat enticement.... but you can't very well advertise that can you? Because there's honor and prestige? Um, yeah, not worth it.

The only reason to want to figure out the Zuma's goals is if doing so represents a compelling storyline worth investing the very significant time and energy. It's not worth it to me; I haven't seen evidence that their storyline is that spectacular. Not even actually sure they have a clear one.

But there's a bigger concern....

Yes, as any experienced game master or dungeon master can attest, it is damn hard to lead players around and drop enough hints for them to work stuff out, without making it too easy and just handing everything over. Even in the current invasion I'm sure players are missing stuff that Tom has thought was obvious, that is just the nature of the beast.

Absolutely. I regularly DM a several different games. It is hard. Well, not really; it's not that hard actually, but it takes a little bit of planning.

But the point is that your comparison betrayed you. "Even in the current invasion..." nobody ever advertised Dwilight as "An only partially invaded version of Beluaterra." No one. Not ever. Most players have been playing it as a more rugged, survivalist, SMA version of the gameplay on other continents: less PvP because resources are strapped, but still, in principle, an open-ended player-driven game with a player-generated plot. This is a huge part of my complaint with the Zuma: they don't fit with that. They might be great on Beluaterra; but Dwilight was never advertised as like Beluaterra. There's no reason Dwilight should have anything for players to be lead through, or to need working out.

Unless, of course, it adds significantly to the fun of the game. Which presumably is what the poll in the other thread is about. But I will return you to Geronus' comment: the people who like the Zuma are those who don't actually have to deal with them.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Vellos says it the way I wish I could . Straight up.

[Bedwyr]

No, in all seriousness, that's a BS argument. The Zuma of the last 2 months are totally unrecognizable in their behavior from the Zuma of the last several years. They have become meddling, active players. They were a kind of ominous rumbling to the east that was ultimately fairly benign earlier; now, they're looking more like Overlord every day. I've actually wondered if maybe Koli's IC suspicions about an Invasion might be right in an OOC way: maybe the Zuma GM plays on Beluaterra, so what was happening there, and went, "Ooo, me too!"

I will point out, because it may be considered important, that while I believe both IC and OOC that an Invasion of Dwilight is possible, and perhaps even likely, this is solely as a player, not as a Dev.  I've had no word from Tom or anyone else about it beyond public stuff on the forum.  However, I am led me to that conclusion because:

IC: Zuma start being active right as the Fifth Invasion, which Koli believes will finish Beluaterra, begins, and start trying to gather up or prevent others from gathering items which have made a difference on Beluaterra;

OOC: Tom has stated that he thinks Dwilight was a mistake, and reducing game land area is one way to solve the underpopulation problem, with the increased virulence of the Invasions and possibility of losing BT a direct effect of the underpopulation problem.  Thus I think OOC that it's entirely possible that the NPC factions may end up acting as a safety valve, and gobbling up territory to help reduce the underpopulation issue...And then if/when it becomes less of an issue we can take the fight to them to recover territory.

Again, I stress this is all speculation as a player, and I have no knowledge (and am now actively avoiding acquiring new knowledge on Invasion-y subjects) as a Dev.

Only generally. Given that the Zuma have different limiting factors (not responding to that discussion; I understand Glaumring's frustration, but I am well aware that the Zuma have limitations of their own--- and I know generally how they move, probably even what line settings would be best against them, etc), it's unclear what regions might be their most important base. Dragon Song? Ruins? Nightscree? Nightmarch?

The fact that there is no effective way to actually figure out certain things about the game is something Rob and I have argued in the dev team repeatedly.  Tom has, at least on a few points, agreed that this is a real problem, and steps are being taken to amend them by generating new messages that will point you in the right direction.  The various faction spawn rates are one I hadn't considered before, but will make sure to bring up when the Doctrine conversion is finished, and I will see if Tom will let at least a general idea of Daimon spawn mechanics out the way very general ideas of undead and monster spawn mechanics have.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Dwilight the best server in BM a mistake... Great...

[Vellos]

I will point out, because it may be considered important, that while I believe both IC and OOC that an Invasion of Dwilight is possible, and perhaps even likely, this is solely as a player, not as a Dev.  I've had no word from Tom or anyone else about it beyond public stuff on the forum.  However, I am led me to that conclusion because:

Oh, I hadn't assumed you had any special knowledge at all. Just cited you as you're the first one I heard that idea from.

But I don't think they're being used as population control. The Zuma GM earlier, in one of these threads, at least seemed to indicate that destroying realms and causing disorder wasn't their purpose. Not the same thing, maybe, but still.

The fact that there is no effective way to actually figure out certain things about the game is something Rob and I have argued in the dev team repeatedly.  Tom has, at least on a few points, agreed that this is a real problem, and steps are being taken to amend them by generating new messages that will point you in the right direction.  The various faction spawn rates are one I hadn't considered before, but will make sure to bring up when the Doctrine conversion is finished, and I will see if Tom will let at least a general idea of Daimon spawn mechanics out the way very general ideas of undead and monster spawn mechanics have.

That would be extremely helpful. And plausible to have: it would make sense that, living alongside the Zuma for decades now, have sent many people into Zuma lands, we could at least have some general idea where and how they get at least some of their reinforcements.

Dwilight the best server in BM a mistake... Great...

No kidding.

[egamma]

Dwilight the best server in BM a mistake... Great...

I think the reason it's a 'mistake' is because a lot of people have put a lot of time and energy into their Dwilight characters, to the detriment of their other characters. My other 3 characters combined take up as much time as my Dwilight character, at least some of the time. I certainly get more...inspired, I guess, thinking about interacting with the Zuma and gathering food for D'Hara, than I do about fighting CE or Archaron or Oriolton. Isn't it strange that I find the food game on Dwilight more interesting than battles on Atamara?

[songqu88@gmail.com]

I reckon we know about as much about daimon mechanics as the other NPCs. There's also the peasant mechanics, the often forgotten NPC units because they're so weak. I mean, those are even human units that can be (ab)used by players to act as cannon fodder in a damaging retreat tactic. Well, I suppose some people know how those work, generally. But yeah, right now, with what we have, some of us can put enough pieces together to have something to work with. Most of us have a general idea. The rest is up to the internet factory to produce the end result, which really doesn't require the input of people who know the actual code. I mean, you can look at the examples of Gamefaqs where often people uninvolved in the production of the game, and often not even testers, would collaborate on just about every single game and have a 100% walkthrough posted within days of release.

I am in the same boat as everyone else who's not a Dev or an NPC player, and never has been when I say the following. These deductions have nothing to do with where I play. I think that after reading through you will also realize that you would have come to similar conclusions as well if you paid attention to how your adventurer reacted.

I can see that daimons are NPC units, just like monsters and undead and peasants. Based on what I have seen from the latter three, I believe two things.

1. The units have a certain resource that converts to units. For monsters and undead, these are separate variables that can be seen indirectly and vaguely by adventurers. These separate variables, called "Monsters" and "Undead" for convenience, might have a certain threshold above which the raw resource variable "Monsters" and "Undead" are converted to actual units. The ratio of conversion might differ (Generally I believe that the ratio of raw resource:actual units is lower for Undead than for Monsters, which means for each raw resource of undead, you get more undead). I believe that another factor determines the conversion ratio: Quality of unit. With a recent addition, adventurers can investigate monster/undead units, and can confirm that they do in fact have equipment stats. I believe that higher equipment stats shift the conversion ratio down (meaning fewer units for a given resource value) For peasants, I believe that the resource comes directly from the region's population in a 1:1 ratio. The equipment is determined randomly from low values, and I think the morale is that of the region, with a random low cohesion value, possibly. Basically, peasants have about the same mechanics as militia raised directly in a region, except their resource pool comes from population directly.

2. This resource is finite, but not incapable of regenerating. Obviously regions can still spawn monsters and undead even after you defeat the hordes, and if adventurers fail to hunt in them for too long. For peasants as well, population can increase...obviously. Based on these observations, I believe that the daimon resource probably also regenerates over time, or some other factor (like how population increase is assisted if you actually keep them fed). I do not know whether there exists a hard cap on the raw daimon resources. However, based on observation of how the other three NPCs work, I believe that daimon resources are individualized for each region, much like how every region has its own monster/undead spawning, as well as its own population. The difficulty, however, is that at certain threshold levels monsters and undead spawn, which consequently lower the "Monster" and "Undead" resources (By the way, these two resource values are separate, despite how I have thusfar referred to them together. The two are independent values as far as I know.) As well, Population has a hard cap, and it is an overt stat. Peasants also directly decrease population, their "resource" (I think. It seems as though those peasant militia take from population since the population decreases coincidentally by the same number as militia form.) But here's the problem: There are no spontaneous daimon spawns. That means I do not know whether there is a cap where no matter how much time passes, the daimon resource stays at that maximum, or whether it can keep going until there is a really high amount of potential daimons lying in wait.

Furthermore, I do not know if daimon resources are limited to any certain regions. Based on the other three, it appears that every region on the continent has the resources for monsters, undead, and peasants. There is no evidence to suggest that daimon resources do not also exist on every region in the continent. There is also no evidence to suggest that NPCs must recruit in their own regions. If anything, the 4th Inv suggested that they do not. But again, I do not know if that's true for Dwilight.

So there you go: My observations as a normal player who has figured the above out without any external help. Yes, I later on learned a few more things accidentally, but I was careful not to mention any of that and to ensure that what I wrote here is really something any other player can figure out as well. Go ahead and review. You'd probably have gotten as far as me on your own, if not further.