Fontan's Surprising Strength

[DamnTaffer]

I don't mind fighting a war and losing even if it's something like two realms versus one. But what I do mind is when clans get involved and I have players who I consider my friends tell me "I'm leaving after this, this isn't why I play this game" when they find out that the Saxons are involved. But I suppose as long as you win, you'll take your sick, twisted and perverse pleasure in it OOC.

I hope your conscience sits well with this, because it is you and your friends who allowed the Saxons to take hold and put Fontan into overdrive. And it is because of you and your friends that means my friends will leave this game.

That is why I asked Tom via email to take a look. And while it's not classified as cheating, it leaves a foul taste in my mouth that isn't easily washed away. I left other games to get away from this hive-mind mentality. And now I find it's cropped up again, I'm also not sure whether I want to continue playing either.

I hope your conscience sits will with this because its you and your freinds whom allowed OOC abuse like this to take hold of battlemaster and turn the player base hostile. And it is because of you and people like you that my freinds have left the game.

My freinds didn't ask tom to look via email, because this happened in public in areas where moderators and possibly tom was present. And while THIS IS bullying it leaves a foul taste in my mouth that isn't easily washed away. I left other games to get away from abusive playerbases and this hive mind mentality. And now I find it cropping up again and i'm not sure if i want to continue playing either

[T Strike]

Your general has a character in Aurvandil, which is supposedly a saxon controlled realm.... Very suspicious...

[DamnTaffer]

Take it to the Magistrates/Titans. Accusing someone of a violation of the contract in public is also breaking it. Whether you have evidence or not.

I've no interest in taking it there, more in getting a full account of his accusations so we can continue are arguement on level ground.

[Revan]

I don't like this recurring witch hunt. It's a shame, a lot of people seem to have made their minds up a long time ago that 'Saxons' and/or clans generally are entirely a detrimental influence, probably cheaters, and we hear people crying wolf wherever they go. Well, it seems there is no cheating going on in the case of the Saxons. So if they're not cheating what's the point of this discussion. To just moan that OOC clans exist? Well sorry, but they do and will probably always exist. Clans inside the game have always been that bit better at communication/organisation. However, unless you decide to completely roll over, they're not going to steam roll all before them. They can be defeated.

Don't get me wrong, like many of the rest of you I can get uneasy around clan-gaming in BM. But my experience has been that generally, they can be defeated, their hegemony inside realms can be toppled - especially if they hold all power and influence to themselves. That's when good folk get resentful and start stabbing people in the back! What's more, clans have very often brought a lot of decent folk to the game in the first place. So y'know, for me, it isn't all one way. Clans can drive interest and engagement inside realms and make things more exciting.

But it annoys me that every time any of the players deemed 'Saxons' so much as look at someone funny in game, the issue immediately goes OOC and big threads start on the forum. Maybe it's a sign we're playing in a smaller pool these days. But it seems like the same players forever rubbing each other up the wrong way. Long ago you guys ceased looking at the actions of certain families in anything other than an OOC way and that's the worst thing of all for me. There doesn't seem to be a lot of respect from either side. Just bitterness and bad blood in every interaction.

I don't know what it would take to resolve things, but I would desperately like for you all to be reconciled to the point where you can fight your battles IC. Where the involvement of certain families didn't automatically invite hostility, scorn and a meta-flame war.

[Velax]

Perhaps you should clarify, Whom is the leader of this clan? Whom are the clanners? Which realms were they in that did this? What positions of power do they hold in fontan currently to be able to influence a realm this way?

You've completely dropped your veil of non accusations of cheating now, which is definately a breach of the social contract.

A Vanimedle got punished for doing this IN PRIVATE, your doing it in public and constantly, but since you've already shown blatent disregard for the rules of this game you should definately state exactly what you say in detail, with evidence, naming names, dates and events

Ah, I see you've taken "Misdirection 101: Don't address the points made by the other person, attack the person directly instead". I think the next class is "Sophistry 102: Ad hominem attacks", right?

I hope your conscience sits will with this because its you and your freinds whom allowed OOC abuse like this to take hold of battlemaster and turn the player base hostile. And it is because of you and people like you that my freinds have left the game.

My freinds didn't ask tom to look via email, because this happened in public in areas where moderators and possibly tom was present. And while THIS IS bullying it leaves a foul taste in my mouth that isn't easily washed away. I left other games to get away from abusive playerbases and this hive mind mentality. And now I find it cropping up again and i'm not sure if i want to continue playing either

If that was meant to be an intelligent reflection of Ravier's post it failed, pretty dismally.

Everyone knows who I'm talking about. He's had characters in Thulsoma, Caerwyn, Aurvandil, Arcachon and Fontan. Co-incidentally every realm where this !@#$'s gone on. I'm sick of it, I really am. I'm just glad this crap got kicked off the island of my main characters. If I'd realised Melehan and the Arcachonians were actually doing FEI a gigantic favour getting rid of the clanners, I'd have seriously considered letting their realm live.

[Anaris]

I don't like this recurring witch hunt. It's a shame, a lot of people seem to have made their minds up a long time ago that 'Saxons' and/or clans generally are entirely a detrimental influence, probably cheaters, and we hear people crying wolf wherever they go. Well, it seems there is no cheating going on in the case of the Saxons. So if they're not cheating what's the point of this discussion. To just moan that OOC clans exist? Well sorry, but they do and will probably always exist. Clans inside the game have always been that bit better at communication/organisation. However, unless you decide to completely roll over, they're not going to steam roll all before them. They can be defeated.

They can, but it's very, very hard. If you took two identical realms, and filled one with your normal selection of BattleMaster players, and the other with a clan, the clan would win every single time. In fact, I would say that they would have something akin to a 1.5x to 2x advantage.

[Ketchum]

Look like Revan intervention does not work successfully either :( Personally I feel what Revan stated is where we can find the middle ground, a common work frame.

Borrowing Zakilevo Thread Starter Gun in other post.

On one side, we have people who wish to see Saxon disappear for good, whatever Saxon is.

On the other side, we have people who do not see anything wrong as the 15 nobles mentioned, arrived after that 13K CS vs 19K CS battle.

In the middle ground, stand Tom, Developers and the rest. Hmm ::)

[Kellaine]

Fontan is attempting to retake their realm from those that have taken it over. But it is hard.  The Chancellor of Fontan is their leader and they have the position of General as well. we just took back the position of judge in our latest election.

They seem to be running Fontan like a dictatorship under the guise of a democracy. they do not use the assembly and no one votes for anything now.  the chancellor made it so regions are  not voted upon but appointed by him. 

It has gotten to the point that I am seriously considering leaving Fontan, Though I am not sure where to go. They are destroying the fun and democratic atmosphere of the realm. 

[Kellaine]

Fontan is attempting to retake their realm from those that have taken it over. But it is hard.  The Chancellor of Fontan is their leader and they have the position of General as well. we just took back the position of judge in our latest election.

They seem to be running Fontan like a dictatorship under the guise of a democracy. they do not use the assembly and no one votes for anything now.  the chancellor made it so regions are  not voted upon but appointed by him. 

It has gotten to the point that I am seriously considering leaving Fontan, Though I am not sure where to go. They are destroying the fun and democratic atmosphere of the realm. 

[Tom]

I don't mind fighting a war and losing even if it's something like two realms versus one. But what I do mind is when clans get involved and I have players who I consider my friends tell me "I'm leaving after this, this isn't why I play this game" when they find out that the Saxons are involved. But I suppose as long as you win, you'll take your sick, twisted and perverse pleasure in it OOC.

No, this is absolutely not ok.

Cheating or not, we do not want people driving other people from the game and we WILL act on that. If we get actual, substantiated information. Instead of whining and leaving, those friends should talk to the dev team.

[Tom]

My freinds didn't ask tom to look via email, because this happened in public in areas where moderators and possibly tom was present.

They should have. This is a huge game and I don't see a fraction of it, and even when I see things I might not react because I have 100 other things on my mind as well.

[feyeleanor]

Regarding the view of the dev team - we are fairly certain there is no actual cheating going on.

However, we have noticed certain groups of players repeatedly showing the same approach to whatever realm they happen to be in at that time, and that has us worried because they are powergaming. Not speaking specifically about Fontan, we don't like it when an entire realm works like clockwork with almost no internal messages, no conflict, no nothing. Playing a piece in a machine is not what BattleMaster is about and more importantly, organizing the whole thing OOC whether amongst friends on the school yard or on IRC is borderline abusive because it excludes the other players who aren't members of your gang, clan or whatever you want to call it.

This is why we keep our eyes on certain realms.

I had to explain this to a couple of well-intentioned players in Minas Thalion who wanted to use IRC for planning as a way of team-building. It just isn't necessary for a realm to work that way and I think players who believe otherwise are missing much of the fun to be had from interacting via the lens of their characters.

[DamnTaffer]

They should have. This is a huge game and I don't see a fraction of it, and even when I see things I might not react because I have 100 other things on my mind as well.

It doesn't matter now, they've left and are not coming back ever, though this is still happening to players...

[feyeleanor]

Ok, so before the Sirion interception, who do you think would have won the war? Westmoor was in control of both Commonyr and Oberndorf. Until Sirion stepped in and wanted peace for a future Nivemus to be created... So I'm sure King Jor had a reason on why to not except Fontan's rediculous "peace offers", when so clearly Fontan would be down to Krimml by now.

War is not just about armies and battles, it's about the diplomatic space within which those battles occur.

Sirion was obliged by treaty to defend Fontan's territorial integrity. Westmoor knew this as they had seen the full terms of the surrender and their efforts to keep Krimml put them on a collision course. They also knew that Sirion's key demand for peace was the right to refound a Rancaguan realm in Ashforth, so raiding that city during the conquest of Oberndorf and Commonyr further aggravated their position.

The government of Fontan used this to outmanoeuvre that of Westmoor, buying time to build up military strength, and once we'd cleared Westmoor's forces from the north we won all but one battle we engaged in on their home territory - despite still having a much smaller army at that time.

Not a single Sirion soldier was actually required to raise arms in defence of Fontanese soil so we will never know if Fontan's position was well-founded or not, but Westmoor blinked and that cost them a victory which realms have sought in the past. Since then Westmoor's government has wasted time that the nobles of Fontan have used productively to improve infrastructure, train troops, build gold reserves and generally prepare for war.

[The Arch Saxon]

-snip-

Well, as you've discarded the illusion entirely I'll make the effort to speak up, instead of lurking and reading the forum threads.

I've never known anyone to be so caustic on an Out of Character level, never, and it's because of ridiculous things like this that I barely even play Battlemaster any more, Tom can quite easily confirm that I rarely log in, and that when I do, I rarely do anything at all, from messaging to basic actions. Since I've joined Fontan, the most I've done is send a long roleplay after my arrival, and other than that I've talked in the realm maybe twice, discounting asking for gold to recruit. I hold no power in Fontan, I don't even have any friends, let alone political allies, I certainly don't have a clan, flattering as it is to be accused of being behind every war, rebellion, secession and happening on just about every continent (I'm just waiting to be blamed for the Paisly blight as well) I never knew my Saxon thing would gain me such infamy, and fame, and likewise earn it for all the players who played with me or even interacted with me, but then I owe that to people like you who make it their business to assail others on an Out of Character level whenever you feel like it, to ruin the gaming experience for everyone involved whilst claiming it is other people ruining the experience.

So what do you accuse me of doing in Fontan?

Running a Clan? That has already been satisfactorily disproved, and I can tell you, if I had a Clan I wouldn't be using it in Fontan, and if I had a Clan, and had been outed for having one for the past two years, I wouldn't "Clan it up" in every realm I go to, as you accuse, the success of a Clan relies upon its subterfuge and covert operations after all.

As for ruining the game experience do elaborate, I am after all, fairly inactive and you know this well enough since it took you ages to get a reply from me on the Far East every time you sent me a letter. How am I ruining the gaming experience? I log on maybe once or twice a turn, do what needs to be done, make a rare comment.

Use Out of Character friends? Well no, all of my  Out of Character friends quit because of people like you, discounting the ruler of Fontan of course, but then we rarely interact I.C. and I didn't join Fontan because he ruled in Fontan, I joined Fontan because I served in Fontan during 2007 and again in 2008, Fontan is a realm I like, and I came to Fontan to bolster it during a realm, Fontan has always been a good realm for players to join, friendly players, good atmosphere, easy to get to grips, and rewarding to play in, which coincidently is why it has such player loyalty and why people always return during war time, realms like Fontan are the ones people want to preserve, and have the In Character reasoning to do so.

I also find it hilarious you accuse me of running  a clan in  Arcachon, when it was the Lefanis Clan of about five nobles, who fought five rebellions, banned all the nobles, some even for just going to a tournament, who took control of Arcachon in the most blatant display of cliquing I have ever seen (I speak IC'ly, not accusing them of an OOC Clan or clique)  By comparison, what did I do in Arcachon? I banned Melehan, and that set the most obvious example of a Clan in motion to remove me, and in the process, they isolated, offended and pissed off most of the realm. I even remarked in Arcachon, the biggest cause of my support was the fact they flew in the face of everyone, and clearly would do anything to get power, and to keep it at all costs, which has been quite succinctly proved. I also like how most of your grievance with Arcachon seems to be that you couldn't beat us, and that we had a strong army, when we could have made one much stronger. Really, you're just pissed off that you couldn't beat Arcachon, when you thought you should have been able to. Arcachon only ever raised an army out of its own gold, its own recruits, and even then our army was smaller than our actual capability due to the fact we didn't get enough drafts. Arcachon never had a ridiculously powerful army, and I was never responsible for it either, though I suppose it is a compliment that apparently I am the best military commander around apparently, I can turn backwater realms into superpowers, though maybe I should have done that to save Thulsoma or Averoth? Arcachon also never had 100% movement rates, which is a fallacy you keep touting as proof, if we had such great movement rates, would we have lost such massive battles in places like Unotosa, Tuhpos and Nbasah which were caused due to such poor movement rates?

Arcachon never had an overly powerful army, we just had a good one, we never had 100% movement rates, we were just sensible and used a lot of forethought when moving the army. I never had a Clan, though my opponents clearly did, I never used Out of Character friends, as just about all of them bar maybe one, left the game months prior to this. Did I ever abuse the game mechanics in Arcachon? No. Did I ever abuse the Out of Character in Arcachon? No, everything was done in character.

Velax, you can't tell the difference between a Saxon and an Elf, and you can't even separate the In Character from the Out of Character, and you can't tell what is acceptable to say, from what isn't, the forum isn't hear for you to insult players and accuse them of cheating, and you make that clear when you lambaste, insult and openly attack other players, some for being Saxons when they aren't even Saxons, and have never had any substantial connection to Saxons. At best, this is a clear Out of character prejudice by one particularly spiteful and  embittered player. Do you want to know who a Saxon is? Maybe half a dozen players at best, the rest in Thulsoma were converts from other realms who were never Saxons, never knew about the Saxons, and didn't join because of it, and never assumed the identity of Saxons. The Knights of Holy Iron Chains was a clear collective of nobles from all over the continent joined together by mutual ideology, goals and religion, the Saxons, ironically, were only ever a group of players joined together by In character roleplay and friendship or In  Character Reason never anything Out of Character, and this is proven quite strongly by the fact we had nobles try to assassinate each other, or kill each other in duels, and that we had to execute our own nobles and ban others to just keep the peace, Feylonis can attest to this, a player you rather unfairly attacked when she was at best, inactive in Thulsoma, and was an Astroist priest turned Hredmonath priest. She was never a Saxon, and she was never responsible for anything that happened, and she quite obviously isn't involved in a Clan and she doesn't deserve to be treated like she was, and especially not like this. Don't accuse me of ruining the game experience, people in glass houses shouldn't throw the first stone, you've successfully managed to turn me away from a game I've played for nearly a decade, you've become the school yard bully, every time I go to do anything, or go to any new realm, or try to start new things, I know you'll be there, ready to fling the Out of Character accusations, ruining the entire in game experience, letting your Out of Character prejudice and bias turn you against anything I do In Character before I even have the chance, and this goes for other players as well on both sides. Battlemaster has become the equivalent of school - a daily chore I wish I didn't have to do, where any enjoyment I take out of it is ruined by other people just out to spoil it for the rest of us. If you don't want the gaming experience to be ruined, by all means delete your account and spare everyone this constant Out of Character war that you have even admitted you wage against certain players for In character actions.  Hell, if I ran a Clan, or Powergamed, I would have given up a long time ago, it just isn't worth the trouble and it removes all the parts of the game I love, and replaces it with the bits I despise, not that whether or not I am actually guilty will reflect on how much grief I get simply for having existed in the game.

For the sake of clarity, the Saxons don't run Fontan, the Saxons aren't even in Fontan, not a single Saxon character, the Saxons also don't run Aurvandil, Aurvandil has one master and he makes that damn clear and he's a good ruler at that, he rules with the "Orveandeaux" the original Aurvandilan's, no In Character ethnic group is even allowed representation, or religious temples, Aurvandil enforces complete monoculture on every letter and it does not tolerate any noble who would like it otherwise. The Saxons also do not run Barca, or Aslyon, or D'Hara for that matter. Likewise, the Saxons never ran Caerwyn, or Averoth, or Arcachon, or Thalmarkin, and hell, why not throw Nothoi into that bunch? I was Polemarchos there after a while, and by what you say, I clearly Clan and powergame in ever realm I go into. The Saxons are a dead people, deal with it, I did for a time play an epic resurgence in Dwilight, I even had a lot of roleplay and religious back story prepared (which the wiki indicates and hints to) but it just isn't worth it, I've spent the past year trying to distance myself from the Saxons, and even then, I'm still dealing with the backlash of a few nescient and prejudiced players who don't have the slightest clue of what they are on about, or who they accuse. The Saxons are gone, the In character legacy has been tarnished beyond repair by Out of Character aspersions, and because of it many genuinely innocent players who had the misfortune to join Thulsoma, or even Averoth, or Aurvandil now carry a stigma forced on them unfairly, and this is now reaching into the hundreds of players you are branding with the same brush.

Get your !@#$ together Velax, learn to separate the In Character from the Out of Character, learn what a Saxon is, and next time you find yourself losing a war due to sheer incompetence, don't cast accusations of OOC abuses.