Why Multi's are bad

[Gustav Kuriga]

Every time you create a character, don't you get to select which realm to play in, with the realms having a description? Large realm, lots of allies, small realm, etc. That should give you an idea which realms are fun to play in, and which are active.

I'm sorry, I don't think you've been listening. I am telling you what the people who I introduced to the game have told me. Take that as you will. To answer your question, no, it does not. At all.

[Indirik]

@Gustav: do you have to be so rude? I answered two out of three of Penchant's questions. The two I felt comfortable answering. I have some vague ideas about the third, but nothing I can put together coherently enough to bother sharing. Is two characters to low to start with? Probably. Is 5 or 6 too high to start with? Probably. That's the best answer I can give right now.

[Gustav Kuriga]

That was all I asked. Thank you.

[Indirik]

Perhaps someone can think of some guidelines that can be added to the new character creation screens to help new players choose good realms. It would have to be non-realm/island- specific.

[Revan]

Perhaps someone can think of some guidelines that can be added to the new character creation screens to help new players choose good realms. It would have to be non-realm/island- specific.

Rather than do all that, why not just make the realm names on the character creation screens clickable hyperlinks that let you see the realm page and realm descriptions again? That's one of the things perhaps most sorely missing from the old, realm-based character creation screens. At present though, you're essentially choosing a duchy/realm completely blindly based on arcane glory values and estate vacancies.

[Penchant]

Perhaps someone can think of some guidelines that can be added to the new character creation screens to help new players choose good realms. It would have to be non-realm/island- specific.

Good realms is somewhat subjective and terrible for the game to be labeled during character creation. These are the bad realms, stay away from them, these are the good realms, go to these, results in every realm coined as bad receiving very few characters while the good realms get more making good realms gain power while the bad realms don't and thus the bad realms get destroyed simply for being named bad.  Melhed seemed like a 'bad' realm to me at first, but now they are seemingly very fun to be at. Realms shouldn't be gave good or bad, simply viewable descriptions.

[Indirik]

You misunderstood me. I don't want the game to provide labels of goob/bad. I want to help people choose realms that are suitable for their play style/atmosphere. What should people look for when picking a realm? We need to give them guidance on how to pick a realm.

[Penchant]

You misunderstood me. I don't want the game to provide labels of goob/bad. I want to help people choose realms that are suitable for their play style/atmosphere. What should people look for when picking a realm? We need to give them guidance on how to pick a realm.

Yes, I completely misunderstood you and agree with your suggestion.

[Miriam Ics]

A multi is, plain and simple, a liar through-and-through. It is someone metagaming in order to gain unfair advantage.

Best definition so far.

I think we are going somewhere with the last posts.

Maybe have another screen to write a description of the realm like we have to regions.
Maybe we could have trophies (given by number of posts, %of RP's, battles) so peaceful realms would need to compensate peace with rps.
I am just writing and thinking at same time.

[Penchant]

Character creation stuff, while I too was talking about, is off topic.

I have some vague ideas about the third, but nothing I can put together coherently enough to bother sharing.

The third question is well, the most important one out of the three to me, so could you perhaps think about it more? Also, would you say it is certainly bad without the limits on things like council positions, per realm, etc?

[Tom]

A multi-cheater is, by definition, cheating. He is breaking a rule of the game. The consequences are best stated by Carse in "Finite and Infinite Games":

If these [rules] are not observed, the outcome of the game is directly threatened. The rules of a [...] game are the contractual terms by which the players can agree who has won.

(emphasis in the original)

That seems obvious until you realize that BattleMaster can not be won. And this is the one point where I differ from Carse in philosophical evaluation of games per se, specifically his finale chapter 101. By the definitions of Carse, I believe BattleMaster to be an infinite game, and the word I left out in the second [...] is "finite" - this rule only applies to finite games.

On infinite games, Carse writes:

If the rules of a finite game are the contractual terms by which the players can agree who has won, the rules of an infinite game are the contractual terms by which the players agree to continue playing.

And if that rings true to you, then you understand BattleMaster.

[Anaris]

And if that rings true to you, then you understand BattleMaster.

Whee! I understand BattleMaster! ;D

[Vellos]

You misunderstood me. I don't want the game to provide labels of goob/bad. I want to help people choose realms that are suitable for their play style/atmosphere. What should people look for when picking a realm? We need to give them guidance on how to pick a realm.

Okay, there's a way to do this. I proposed it a while ago as a feature request. It was accepted. It was supposed to be implemented. It wasn't.

Do regular, in-game, game-wide surveys, or at least a survey to players maybe 100 days after they join a new realm, especially new players.

Have both quantitative and qualitative responses. Post, at minimum, the quantitative scores by realms.

Sure, you could game this system by spamming new characters in a realm: but that would just be multi-cheating, and we'd hopefully catch it easily enough.

Want to give players guidance on realms to go to? Then have other players give them guidance in an organized fashion.

Hell, I'll write the darn survey myself if you want. I'll do it tonight. I can't program it, which might be tough, but surely it's possible.

This idea has been debated at length at least 2 times previously. It has been deemed a Good Idea by many different people, including Tom, IIRC. It's high time we implement it. I've been doing internal organizational review as my job for two years now: this is pretty standard, simple stuff.

[Indirik]

I agree it's a good idea. I would do it if I could, but I can't. The only one who can do it right now is Anaris. He is our only active coder. And while he does a LOT, he can't do everything.

[Anaris]

Okay, there's a way to do this. I proposed it a while ago as a feature request. It was accepted. It was supposed to be implemented. It wasn't.

Do regular, in-game, game-wide surveys, or at least a survey to players maybe 100 days after they join a new realm, especially new players.

Have both quantitative and qualitative responses. Post, at minimum, the quantitative scores by realms.

Sure, you could game this system by spamming new characters in a realm: but that would just be multi-cheating, and we'd hopefully catch it easily enough.

Want to give players guidance on realms to go to? Then have other players give them guidance in an organized fashion.

Hell, I'll write the darn survey myself if you want. I'll do it tonight. I can't program it, which might be tough, but surely it's possible.

This idea has been debated at length at least 2 times previously. It has been deemed a Good Idea by many different people, including Tom, IIRC. It's high time we implement it. I've been doing internal organizational review as my job for two years now: this is pretty standard, simple stuff.

I've got your original post on this still flagged in my email (I get all forum posts sent to my email ;D ).

I have May more or less designated as a primarily bugfix month, because we've been racking up bugs pretty heavily these past few months, and not fixing many. However, if I can get a good number fixed in May, or certainly by June, I plan to start seriously tackling the Newbie Experience, and this is an important part of that.

So if you can have a good polished survey to me within the next few weeks, I can nearly guarantee that it will be able to go live by mid-June.