Balance of features and functionality

[Foundation]

I tend to agree with that sentiment but then again we understand Battlemaster; it is a slowly paced, long-term, social, character-driven game.

New players not used to this concept might not quite get it however much they might appreciate it if they gave it a chance.

I think we need to be a little more precise and targeted in how we promote BM on the JOIN page (and elsewhere on the WWW) to increase the chance of getting (and keeping) the sort of player we want by being clear what their expectations should be.. something like..

BattleMaster Is..

Lightweight: You can spend as little as 15 minutes a day and still play well.
Relaxed: The game's pace is measured in half-days, rather than seconds, minutes or hours.
Persistent: The results of the actions you take, the relationships you forge and the decisions you make can last for years.
Long-term: The game is most fulfilling when played over months or years. Some of our players have been with us for over a decade.
Immersive: The game is as much about developing interesting characters and worlds as achieving goals.
Depthful: There is always something new to learn in a richly imagined world backed by a sophisticated game system.
Social: Interaction between players is fundamental to the game and brings it's own rewards; it is the players who create the world.
Fair: We do not tolerate cheating, abuse, bullying or other anti-social actions in the game.
Evolving: We are constantly adding improvements, depth and subtlety to the game.

I don't think the learning curve and feature creep is a bad thing. Even after six years it keeps me interested as there is always something new to learn. The most compelling games take a minute to learn and a lifetime to master and BM fits that bill (and that's just the game system, you could spend two lifetimes gaining complete knowledge of every character, every realm, every religion). That is what keeps many people playing.

The key is to do what we can to make the curve as shallow as possible in the first week or so to fire the desire to learn and provide the reward of being able to learn.

In terms of encouraging interaction with new players.. how about every message to a player less than a week old has a "this message was useful" button. Clicking it counts towards a "Your support of new nobles has been recognised by your peers.. you gain x honour and y prestige" bonus for the sending noble. (With hints to this in the new player arrival messages to a realm). Alternately a limited supply of 'helpful' medals that new players can give other players who help them.

Incidentally.. I just realised that BM is only a lightweight game at certain timescales..
15 minutes a day is not much compared to most games. However.. 15 minutes x 365 days x 6 years = 497.75 hours*
How many games do people spend 500 hours playing in a 6 year period?
* the extra .25 hours assumes one leap-year in the six year period because someone would surely mention if I missed that ;-)

Haha, there could be 2 leap years in that interval.  8)

Other than that, pretty much everything you wrote was great!

[Bedwyr]

I tend to agree with that sentiment but then again we understand Battlemaster; it is a slowly paced, long-term, social, character-driven game.

New players not used to this concept might not quite get it however much they might appreciate it if they gave it a chance.

I think we need to be a little more precise and targeted in how we promote BM on the JOIN page (and elsewhere on the WWW) to increase the chance of getting (and keeping) the sort of player we want by being clear what their expectations should be.. something like..

BattleMaster Is..

Lightweight: You can spend as little as 15 minutes a day and still play well.
Relaxed: The game's pace is measured in half-days, rather than seconds, minutes or hours.
Persistent: The results of the actions you take, the relationships you forge and the decisions you make can last for years.
Long-term: The game is most fulfilling when played over months or years. Some of our players have been with us for over a decade.
Immersive: The game is as much about developing interesting characters and worlds as achieving goals.
Depthful: There is always something new to learn in a richly imagined world backed by a sophisticated game system.
Social: Interaction between players is fundamental to the game and brings it's own rewards; it is the players who create the world.
Fair: We do not tolerate cheating, abuse, bullying or other anti-social actions in the game.
Evolving: We are constantly adding improvements, depth and subtlety to the game.

I don't think the learning curve and feature creep is a bad thing. Even after six years it keeps me interested as there is always something new to learn. The most compelling games take a minute to learn and a lifetime to master and BM fits that bill (and that's just the game system, you could spend two lifetimes gaining complete knowledge of every character, every realm, every religion). That is what keeps many people playing.

The key is to do what we can to make the curve as shallow as possible in the first week or so to fire the desire to learn and provide the reward of being able to learn.

In terms of encouraging interaction with new players.. how about every message to a player less than a week old has a "this message was useful" button. Clicking it counts towards a "Your support of new nobles has been recognised by your peers.. you gain x honour and y prestige" bonus for the sending noble. (With hints to this in the new player arrival messages to a realm). Alternately a limited supply of 'helpful' medals that new players can give other players who help them.

Incidentally.. I just realised that BM is only a lightweight game at certain timescales..
15 minutes a day is not much compared to most games. However.. 15 minutes x 365 days x 6 years = 497.75 hours*
How many games do people spend 500 hours playing in a 6 year period?
* the extra .25 hours assumes one leap-year in the six year period because someone would surely mention if I missed that ;-)

That is a very, very good idea, and I'm going to be bringing it to Tom's attention.

[Revan]

I don't think the learning curve and feature creep is a bad thing. Even after six years it keeps me interested as there is always something new to learn. The most compelling games take a minute to learn and a lifetime to master and BM fits that bill (and that's just the game system, you could spend two lifetimes gaining complete knowledge of every character, every realm, every religion). That is what keeps many people playing.

You see, I think that perhaps feature creep and increasing complexity has made the game more inaccessible and does a lot to turn off players of all stripes, old and new. I mean, it's natural that any game will lose players over time, but there are a lot of veterans who've disappeared even as new people have joined. Granted, I remember from my time on the discussion list the cloud of melodrama that some players were determined to leave under. I know we veterans don't have all the answers and a lot of the time we should simply be ignored outright, but it would surely be better to know in more detail why others amongst us, those who had been around three, four, five years have disappeared. Not just whether veterans make good feature requests.

I came to BattleMaster from a game that was like and unlike BM. It was dying after a successful couple of years because the economy system was overhauled and massively overcomplicated, it added an extra layer of buildings, an extra layer of resources before you could get to buildings and resources you had before. It sucked the pace, fun and life out of the game, began the haemorrhaging of players and the final nail in the coffin was the owner resorting to a pay to play main game in desperation. I'm not saying BattleMaster is going anything like the same way, but it's a truth there has been a long term decline in the membership that wasn't arrested even by the SlashDot spike.

The BattleMaster of today is incredibly complex compared to the game I started playing. Everything was so much simpler. When I started, you were automatically a Knight of a Duchy. That was the start and end of the hierarchy system. No oaths to worry about. Taxes were distributed centrally. Only the Banker had control of taxes assigned according to arbitrary values like Prestige. Likewise, only the Banker had to fiddle with the flow or management of food. There were but five available government systems where everyone's role was clearly defined. Back then, if you had 10 regions and 14 nobles, you could make a gambit for four more regions without worrying about maintenance. War flowed much more easily. Likewise policing of atmosphere and RP is more stringent and that hasn't helped the atmosphere.

Now, I adore many of the changes that have come. Guilds, Religions, Armies. I especially love that we have a much better defined and respected hierarchy system. But the current tax system, where lords hold the strings, you either see lords hoarding or lords and Knights both being dirt poor. Nobles aren't any better off now than when dozens of realms struggled with 100-150+ nobles each. The necessity of Lords having a couple of Knights has probably had the most profound negative effect on the game of anything that's been introduced to BattleMaster. Realms can't do things. Maybe too much power has been thrown down the hierarchy as well. Maybe there's too much politics, too much freedom for Joe Anybody to get a lordship or whatever. Once it was obscenely difficult to advance, now you just have to enter your name in a lordship referendum and without saying anything, you can win. The magic of advancement, of power, is gone.

Of course, these are just the tangible game mechanics we're talking about. Alongside that, we've had a sort of creeping culture change. The dynamics of personal interaction are different now. Most discussion is couched explicitly in either political interaction or martial interaction. Beyond that, you have either silence or small pockets of RP here and there. The opening of more and more avenues for political advancement, the stagnation of realms that can't expand or with nobilities that likewise, can hardly change due to pressures all across BattleMaster. It's conspired to make the game much quieter and formal than it once was.

I'm not sure BattleMaster is as compelling a game as it used to be and I think it's going to take more to change that than changing descriptions of the game or trying to engage new players more aggressively. A handful of players doing that isn't going to change the wider culture. It took a long time for me to start roleplaying and joining in realm-wide discussions and it only happened after months of watching other players do the same. I think either some things should maybe reverted or looked at again, or some things in the pipeline should be brought forward. Like an Estates overhaul or the mooted population and wealth rebalancing.

I've enjoyed this game for so long. But I think if I'd started playing now, I would struggle to enjoy it as much. Sure, I'd probably have made a beeline for fame, for power same as the first time, but the hooks from player-to-player interaction aren't nearly so strong any more - everything is much more individualist now - and the mechanics make it that much harder to just get on and get stuck in now. Of course, it's easy to sit back and judge from where I'm sitting and it's just one opinion. But certainly, to me, BattleMaster felt much livelier, much different in my first three years to these last three.

[Kain]

Awesome description

I agree with everything you said.

When I first joined in january 2005, things were indeed much simpler.

The strategy element to the game was more widespread than the roleplaying element. While that wasn't always very medieval, the good side about it was that lots of joking around was possible.

Avamar was the first realm I joined, and there we joked so much about the great Doctator, playing on the fact that Doc had been Prime Minister of Sirion for forever, thus being more of a dictator than a prime minister.
Then we later joked about Chance-llor Alexi of Fontan. Chance-llor as if he had only been elected by chance.

The realm had a culture in a way that was rare back then, and even more rare now.
Pretty goofy and unrealistic from a RP perspective perhaps but incredibly fun from a player one.
I got picked up in a fun culture to begin with.

So culture is something I've been thinking a lot about. Now everything is so RP and serious, which is great in some ways, but awful in others.

Just yesterday one of my characters heard the General of the realm say that no idle chitchat, or thoughts on diplomacy or singing were to be done on the way to battle; effectively telling a realm that have maybe 3-4 public messages a turn to shut up in the name of correct RP. Like the realm wasn't quiet enough as it was...

Ironicly that lead to some protests, increasing the number of public messages to maybe 7 for that turn :p

[Revan]

Heh, glad you liked it. And yeah, that's one of the things that most concerns me. 2005 seems to have been something of a golden age. I was in Giblot then and we came up with all sorts of outrageous RP's and storylines. In the end we had a sort of Good vs. Evil thing going on in the realm. Headball as a sport >.< It was fun. It wouldn't happen now. Sure, it probably did harm the atmosphere to have nobles hanging around in taverns and stuff, but at least it was engaging and exciting for new players. Orders, scout reports and silence aren't quite as riveting. Now the only RP's are, as you say, long and serious and I would be surprised if most players even read them. It's a real shame :-(

[fodder]

Just yesterday one of my characters heard the General of the realm say that no idle chitchat, or thoughts on diplomacy or singing were to be done on the way to battle; effectively telling a realm that have maybe 3-4 public messages a turn to shut up in the name of correct RP. Like the realm wasn't quiet enough as it was...

Ironicly that lead to some protests, increasing the number of public messages to maybe 7 for that turn :p

so you spam narratives and not letters. big deal.

[Indirik]

Just yesterday one of my characters heard the General of the realm say that no idle chitchat, or thoughts on diplomacy or singing were to be done on the way to battle; effectively telling a realm that have maybe 3-4 public messages a turn to shut up in the name of correct RP. Like the realm wasn't quiet enough as it was...

Mind sharing where that happened?

[Chenier]

Mind sharing where that happened?

Yea, really? Sounds pretty retarded an idea to me.

And I'm pretty sure that would be awful RP. I doubt nobles stayed silent for days while marching.

[Huntsmaster]

Just yesterday one of my characters heard the General of the realm say that no idle chitchat, or thoughts on diplomacy or singing were to be done on the way to battle

Because anyone who's ever been in or even read about battle knows that soldiers and their leaders keep their traps shut beforehand.

/sarcasm

[egamma]

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,484.0.html

They might have read that thread and decided that it would be 'fun' or 'realistic' to give the same orders as a military order.