A new continent?

[Perth]

a game that's been in beta for almost 10 years

I would prefer not to start a PR push until we have finished with at least the most important of the current slate of major improvements that the dev team has in mind. There are so many things that are currently half-broken or "yeah, we plan to replace that soon" that I'd really rather not introduce the game to large numbers of new players in this state.

Don't get me wrong, I want more players too. We need to keep getting more players all the time, or we will be bleeding slowly to death. I just don't think that right now is the right time for a major PR push, especially since it would necessarily take a certain amount of dev time (or at least Tom's time) to get Community Managers or other PR types vetted, set up and briefed.

Then again, I've kind of told myself that same line for years now.

Exactly. I've been playing Battlemaster since 2008, and honestly I can't think of any time since I've been playing that could be plugged as a "perfect time" for a big PR push. Granted, I understand that currently there are quite a few big changes both underway and upcoming, and good changes at that, but these changes are always very fluid and usually drawn out because its Tom's personal time and Dev volunteer time. I mean, is there any realistic ETA for when this big push of changes will be done? I doubt it. It could be the end of this year, or it could be the end of next year. That's Battlemaster. It's both a positive thing about it (constantly changing and improving) and a negative (constantly changing, sometimes buggy, some unfinished features).

That being said, Battlemaster truly isn't for everyone and I don't see it ever being just some huge million player game or anything. However, adding a thousand or a couple thousand players would be pretty great and shouldn't be too hard with some time spent on it.

Just curious, are any records kept of the player base leves/numbers? If so, when was the high point? Low point? And how many players were those? Would be interesting to see/evaluate.

[Tom]

Just curious, are any records kept of the player base leves/numbers? If so, when was the high point? Low point? And how many players were those? Would be interesting to see/evaluate.

Not really, no. From memory, I think the high point was about twice as many players as we have now.

I would absolutely love to have about 1000-2000 more players, as that would fill the game up to the capacity it is designed for.

[Zakilevo]

Indeed. I think this game can be spread to android or apple apps and I am sure some people are already playing over them. People just need to spread the words around in my opinion.

[Anaris]

Then again, I've kind of told myself that same line for years now.

Yeah, I can definitely see that. However, this time there's a difference: we're still in the middle of the Doctrine transition.

Once we can finish that, we will no longer be creating bizarre new bugs nearly every day, and it will free up a lot of dev resources for fixing existing bugs and implementing the new features we want.

So I'd really prefer to at least wait till that's done.

[Indirik]

Indeed. I think this game can be spread to android or apple apps and I am sure some people are already playing over them.

I don't think that a mobile app would be all that useful. A proper mobile site would be much more appropriate.

[Azerax]

I don't think that a mobile app would be all that useful. A proper mobile site would be much more appropriate.

You could do both with jquery (the IOS app would just be a webview pointing to the jquery mobile site)

[Anaris]

You could do both with jquery (the IOS app would just be a webview pointing to the jquery mobile site)

....What the crap would be the point of that?

You do know bookmarks can be added to the home screen, don't you?

[Azerax]

It should be mentioned that Featured Stories / Reviews can be bought.  I sent an inquiry to RPS (did not mention BM) to get their rate card.  When the time comes, it may be worth exploring, and if we could get enough people to chip in to pay for it I'd happily send in $20.

[Azerax]

....What the crap would be the point of that?

You do know bookmarks can be added to the home screen, don't you?

because Apple has turned an entire generation into retards who look for games in the App Store instead of opening Safari.

You go where the people are, not where you think they should be.

[Anaris]

because Apple has turned an entire generation into retards who look for games in the App Store instead of opening Safari.

You go where the people are, not where you think they should be.

Yeah...there's so much wrong with this I'm not even going to bother.

[Indirik]

Well, there is a small amount of truth in it. (Not the "retards" bit.)

However, apps that are just front-ends to web sites often get some very bad reviews from the users. Not to mention that spending time and effort on maintaining an app, and making sure it works on all the different platforms, would take precious time and effort away from the development of the game itself.

Also, people browsing the app store/marketplace for casual games aren't really the kind of people that are going to get into a persistent state MMORPG like BattleMaster. When you're on the app store/marketplace, that's not the kind of gaming experience your looking for.

[Tom]

BM isn't a game you can really play on the phone, at least not constantly. You really want a real keyboard for those longer messages.

But something like a companion app, or website - something that allows you to check in on your character while you're on the road - that would be cool.

[Anaris]

BM isn't a game you can really play on the phone, at least not constantly. You really want a real keyboard for those longer messages.

But something like a companion app, or website - something that allows you to check in on your character while you're on the road - that would be cool.

Reading messages on the phone wouldn't be bad. If you could read them, and then star them (or mark them or whatever we ended up calling that) for later response, through a simple interface, that wouldn't be too bad.

And I would bet you serious money there are people here who would pay at least a small amount for an app that could give them push notifications when their characters got messages

[Indirik]

BM isn't a game you can really play on the phone, at least not constantly. You really want a real keyboard for those longer messages.

I play on my phone *constantly*. Probably more than on a desktop, at this point. Luckily, my phone has a hardware keyboard. I wouldn't want to do it on one of those on-screen virtual keyboards.

[Foundation]

Rob so lucky.  Me stuck virtual keyboard.