Closing Islands ?

[trying]

I would suggest merging continents first by attaching them through sea routes and then have the Blight come in and sink some land so the amount of land overall could stay almost the same. The only problem is that the map would get huge and take forever to cross so we could make the Earth round! Have the east side of continent A link to the west side of continent B and east side of continent B link to west side of continent A

[Geronus]

If players are attached to their favorite islands, make them fight for them.

I say bring the BT-style Invasions everywhere (I would be happy to volunteer for GM duty). Make them difficult, but beatable, like the Fifth Invasion was. If a particular island can't cut it, it will lose all or most of its regions. Even the strong islands may suffer from region losses like BT did. Islands with low player densities will theoretically prove to be more vulnerable to this, as is only fitting.

If players at least have the opportunity to save their favorite islands, they will feel better about what ultimately ends up happening to them, and even if they fail the process will provide closure. The story will have an end.

[Wolfang]

Close one island and, reset another island with rogue regions as Sacha described it. It would increase player density in other islands, and also create a very interesting island. Of course, this would mean two islands are closed.

I don't see much need to suddenly make an island interesting if you're going to shut it down anyway.

[Ender]

I don't see much need to suddenly make an island interesting if you're going to shut it down anyway.

I would assume the point would be to give the player's losing their continent a reason to stick around. I was around when they sank the last island, but since I didn't play there I have no idea how many players immigrated, simply deleted, or stayed around to sink.

It would be more work than a simple reset, but if it was going to retain players, then I'd think it'd be worth it if player retention and a dwindling player base are a part of the game's problem.

[Wolfang]

Allow those players to be the first to create characters in the new rogue world or some such. Keeping players on an island that will be wiped anyway seems strange.

[Dishman]

Honestly, I like the idea of slowly immigrating people into other continents. I also like the idea of an invasion to drive characters off the continent. I think the two of them put together would make for a helluva fun event and achieve consolidation at the same time.

Have a GM invade x continent. The GM will be able to set the pace of the immigration by destroying realms (not a roflstomp, but a sense of impending doom will be evident). Once a realm is down to their capital, take the entire realm and throw characters/realm on another continent. The immigrant realm will probably have to steal land or have it created, but the whole process would be GM and players working hand and hand to freeze a continent (in case players come back) and reshape another.

[Miriam Ics]

If players are attached to their favorite islands, make them fight for them.

I say bring the BT-style Invasions everywhere (I would be happy to volunteer for GM duty). Make them difficult, but beatable, like the Fifth Invasion was. If a particular island can't cut it, it will lose all or most of its regions. Even the strong islands may suffer from region losses like BT did. Islands with low player densities will theoretically prove to be more vulnerable to this, as is only fitting.

If players at least have the opportunity to save their favorite islands, they will feel better about what ultimately ends up happening to them, and even if they fail the process will provide closure. The story will have an end.

I would suggest merging continents first by attaching them through sea routes and then have the Blight come in and sink some land so the amount of land overall could stay almost the same. The only problem is that the map would get huge and take forever to cross so we could make the Earth round! Have the east side of continent A link to the west side of continent B and east side of continent B link to west side of continent A

I like both suggestions. Both seems to be a good way to make one continent disappear although Sacha's idea for a reset sounds good too.

To make we fight for our continent would show wich continent have more active players I think.

Another suggestion, that I don't know if its possible, is to simply pause one continent. Make it sleep, get invaded by undeads and monsters due to a magic. Stop the bleeding and find new ways to increase players base and than, re-open it.
This can also be the result of the continent that cannot defend appropriately.

[Geronus]

Honestly, I like the idea of slowly immigrating people into other continents. I also like the idea of an invasion to drive characters off the continent. I think the two of them put together would make for a helluva fun event and achieve consolidation at the same time.

Have a GM invade x continent. The GM will be able to set the pace of the immigration by destroying realms (not a roflstomp, but a sense of impending doom will be evident). Once a realm is down to their capital, take the entire realm and throw characters/realm on another continent. The immigrant realm will probably have to steal land or have it created, but the whole process would be GM and players working hand and hand to freeze a continent (in case players come back) and reshape another.

I think I'd like this better if at some critical point the island were simply closed and all the characters on it shipped off to another island as a sort of migration/invasion, sort of like what happened to Rome; the Huns started pushing a lot of Germanic barbarian tribes off their land and they in turn migrated west, putting pressure on the Roman Empire until it eventually collapsed under the weight.

[egamma]

I think that closing an island is necessary, or at least shrinking the existing ones. Invasion is a great way to do that.

If we had three simultaneous invasions, that would give all three islands a chance to fight and defeat the invaders.

(number 3 is an example; it could be 2, could be 4 islands, and I'm not discussing which islands).

The island that can't fend off the hordes, gets overrun; the other islands, which presumably have a higher character density, will survive, although possibly with loss of outlying regions.

The invasions should start on the 'ends' of the islands, so that region loss decreases travel times.

[Sacha]

Or, perhaps the craziest idea of them all: Re-open the South-East Island aka the War Island. Doing so would provide a boost just from returning old players. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 3 or 4 people who would return to BM if word got out that they could play on SEI again, and they would probably start additional characters on other islands as well. I know Tom has said that the war islands didn't fit his idea of BattleMaster, but I can only say that almost anyone I know in the game on a personal level thinks closing them was a bad idea. Myself included.

[Anaris]

Or, perhaps the craziest idea of them all: Re-open the South-East Island aka the War Island. Doing so would provide a boost just from returning old players. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 3 or 4 people who would return to BM if word got out that they could play on SEI again, and they would probably start additional characters on other islands as well. I know Tom has said that the war islands didn't fit his idea of BattleMaster, but I can only say that almost anyone I know in the game on a personal level thinks closing them was a bad idea. Myself included.

To be honest, I have been slowly coming to believe this as well.

I don't agree with all of the reasons people have given for it being a bad idea, but I do now think that they were a net benefit to the game.

If we were to do this, I think it might be worthwhile making it 1-char-per-player, but make that character free—it doesn't count against any character limits. That would mitigate, to some extent, the potential drain of characters from other continents.

[Alpha]

If we were to do this, I think it might be worthwhile making it 1-char-per-player, but make that character free—it doesn't count against any character limits. That would mitigate, to some extent, the potential drain of characters from other continents.

I really enjoyed the war islands. I don't think they should be brought back just as they were. I'd like it to be as separate from the rest of the game as possible. Every player get one character on the war island, independent of character limits. No migrations to or from the war island.

[Foxglove]

If you simply cut down on the available regions by making them impossible to live in, then the current player base would be forced to readjust their borders. How you'd accomplish this, I can't say, but doing it with something temporary (Blight, sudden flooding of coastal regions that makes them uninhabitable, volcanic eruption that claims regions, but keeps them around) you can reopen them if player density increases (players suddenly have a way to clear the blight, the ocean starts receding, or the lava cools down leaving open territory once more.

This is the idea I prefer. Have a temporary, reversible, closure of some regions. It can be explained through storm-surge flooding or some magical hokus pocus. That way no-one is forced to play on an island they don't like, or for realms to lose their entire history.

I also think the idea of allowing people more playable characters on different islands is a possibility now. I know that it's been argued before that we need more characters played by different players rather than more characters played by the same players, but the higher playable character limit is already planned for Might & Fealty. Giving players more characters across different islands is bound to shuffle up the playing mix and have different people playing alongside each other. It might not be a perfect solution, but it keeps the game intact until some way is found to boost the playerbase (which may happen if M&F draws the attention of new players).

I remain convinced that the biggest reason BM has trouble attracting players is because it looks old and needs a graphical revamp (and I don't mean the maps here, but rather the front page and adding graphics to other pages in the game). The underlaying gameplay and mechanics are solid, but most other longlasting text-based games have been made to look prettier over the years. I'm sure there must be some digital art students out there who'd work on a graphical revamp in return for bulking up their CVs.

[Atanamir]

Or, perhaps the craziest idea of them all: Re-open the South-East Island aka the War Island. Doing so would provide a boost just from returning old players. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 3 or 4 people who would return to BM if word got out that they could play on SEI again, and they would probably start additional characters on other islands as well. I know Tom has said that the war islands didn't fit his idea of BattleMaster, but I can only say that almost anyone I know in the game on a personal level thinks closing them was a bad idea. Myself included.

+1

Fully agree on SEI/SWI. One of them would be enough, but there would be many returning for sure.

[Lavigna]

Or, perhaps the craziest idea of them all: Re-open the South-East Island aka the War Island. Doing so would provide a boost just from returning old players. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 3 or 4 people who would return to BM if word got out that they could play on SEI again, and they would probably start additional characters on other islands as well. I know Tom has said that the war islands didn't fit his idea of BattleMaster, but I can only say that almost anyone I know in the game on a personal level thinks closing them was a bad idea. Myself included.

+ OVER 9000

omg omg omg please please pleaaaaase bring back the war islands. It was one of the most fun things in the game, really...