When will the Ice settle?

[Zakilevo]

The amount of ice you would have to create on land would be a staggeringly enormous.

Indeed. They would be very tall. Kilometers high for many places.

[Zakilevo]

It should also increase pressure on the crust, thus promoting greater vulcanism.

Do you want me to start erupting volcanoes everywhere, or can we just let the Ice be Ice for now? ;D

It would be awesome 8) After getting our asses frozen we will be burnt alive!

[Tom]

I think this is one of the biggest reasons why so many people are unhappy about this GM glacier event - because it's charged like the proverbial 'bull in a china shop' into existing opposed military and political environments and largely handed the advantage to one particular side.

We knew when we decided this course of action that it would have disadvantages.

We also realized that no matter what we did, that would be true. So basically, we could decide what people would complain about, but not avoid it.

[sharkattack]

To be honest i would be less mad if whole world was frozen instead of just freezing one side. And i think i am not the only one.

[Zakilevo]

To be honest i would be less mad if whole world was frozen instead of just freezing one side. And i think i am not the only one.

If you have two heavily invested characters on one island, I think you'd quit the game instead of complaining.

[Anaris]

If you have two heavily invested characters on one island, I think you'd quit the game instead of complaining.

And, indeed, when the discussions were first going around regarding sinking an island, there were a number of people saying, "If X gets sunk, I'm going to leave. There just won't be any reason for me to stay anymore."

This method ensures that every character and even every realm has a real chance of surviving, or at least continuing its story. There's a huge difference between, for instance, trying to move Darka a few hundred miles to the south, and trying to refound Darka on Dwilight.

[Kalkandelen]

Have the dev team made any analysis on the effects of sinking the Battle Islands vs players that left from that point?
I think that is one of the most effecting points that has happened in Battlemaster history and many players that were enjoying the war aspect of the game left after a while. Personally I think Dwilight would not have been such a bad idea if Battle islands were maintained, but the huge expanse in DWI just stopped all that close interaction that was being made in Battle Islands, there were hundreds of messages sometimes after battle in SWI. People enjoyed socializing and talking about battles that were frequent. Most of my BM friendships are from my time in Taselak, and from the people that had chars in Battle Islands. So all those chars with the sinking went to completely different play style, that is the time that I paused playing for a while after playing in Caerwyn was not challenging enough for me. 
This advancing ICE experiment I applaud just because of the fact that some continents become smaller to be close to a size of a battle island like East Continent where I will most probably soon move a char.
Although dev team took the decision for sinking the battle islands with very good intentions fact is that they just forced a certain type of players out of the game. I enjoyed so much being in the battle islands that I have most probably been the one most stubbornly repeatedly bringing up the idea of return of the battle islands in every forum possible, I don't see anything bad if someone wants to win an island it brings such a fun game for both those who try to archive it and those who face the challenge of defending against odds, reset was very refreshing for all when the island was won.

If you want to do something good for the game than its never late to try to return the battle islands, which can have effect of returning the old players at least to the game, the ice thing cant have this effect as it's still not offering something proven to be fun. There is nothing that game can loose from it only will gain.

[Zakilevo]

I believe we lost about 20 players over the past month or so. But that isn't a lot. We've been losing about that many per month since last October or so anyway.

Obviously I can't tell anyone the exact number but that is what I have observed over the past few months.

[Kalkandelen]

Tony you have not played in battle islands right? I checked the Lapallanch family history and if you have not lost an earlier account as me to pausing and info is correct then you have missed a lot.

[Anaris]

Have the dev team made any analysis on the effects of sinking the Battle Islands vs players that left from that point?

No, we haven't done any kind of direct analysis of it, but we do know that one of the negative effects of the overall moves in recent years has been to reduce the diversity of experience available in BattleMaster.

The dev team is currently working on ways to reverse that, and with any luck, we should have an announcement in that regard very soon.

[Zakilevo]

Tony you have not played in battle islands right? I checked the Lapallanch family history and if you have not lost an earlier account as me to pausing and info is correct then you have missed a lot.

Oh were you talking about war islands? No. I only played on EC and AT mostly when I was around for the first time.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Have the dev team made any analysis on the effects of sinking the Battle Islands vs players that left from that point?
I think that is one of the most effecting points that has happened in Battlemaster history and many players that were enjoying the war aspect of the game left after a while. Personally I think Dwilight would not have been such a bad idea if Battle islands were maintained, but the huge expanse in DWI just stopped all that close interaction that was being made in Battle Islands, there were hundreds of messages sometimes after battle in SWI. People enjoyed socializing and talking about battles that were frequent. Most of my BM friendships are from my time in Taselak, and from the people that had chars in Battle Islands. So all those chars with the sinking went to completely different play style, that is the time that I paused playing for a while after playing in Caerwyn was not challenging enough for me. 
This advancing ICE experiment I applaud just because of the fact that some continents become smaller to be close to a size of a battle island like East Continent where I will most probably soon move a char.
Although dev team took the decision for sinking the battle islands with very good intentions fact is that they just forced a certain type of players out of the game. I enjoyed so much being in the battle islands that I have most probably been the one most stubbornly repeatedly bringing up the idea of return of the battle islands in every forum possible, I don't see anything bad if someone wants to win an island it brings such a fun game for both those who try to archive it and those who face the challenge of defending against odds, reset was very refreshing for all when the island was won.

If you want to do something good for the game than its never late to try to return the battle islands, which can have effect of returning the old players at least to the game, the ice thing cant have this effect as it's still not offering something proven to be fun. There is nothing that game can loose from it only will gain.

I agree with most of this, but I feel that the actions being taken with Dwilight will have the opposite affect. Once all the movement from west to east has stopped, the politics will actually become very fossilized. The thing that allowed Dwilight to have very many isolated political interactions was the western island being separate from the eastern island.

[Wolfang]

I suppose we will have to see what happens.

[Glloyd]

I agree with most of this, but I feel that the actions being taken with Dwilight will have the opposite affect. Once all the movement from west to east has stopped, the politics will actually become very fossilized. The thing that allowed Dwilight to have very many isolated political interactions was the western island being separate from the eastern island.

I suppose we will have to see what happens.

And this is exactly what has happened. About 10 players from Niselur just went and joined Luria Nova without a fight, which kinda negates the whole idea of introducing conflict through migrations, wouldn't you say? Roughly another 6-10 have paused their characters or deleted them, which is just making the problem that these actions were attempting to address worse. Finally, another 6 or so have stayed behind on the west continent, presumably to die. I'd assume that they, like me, think this is a trashy mechanic that runs counter to the spirit of the game. After attempting to set up a new land in the east, I too have decided to stay and die on the west continent, because nobody in the realm who went east showed any motivation to form a new realm, and just joined the same realm the king did. So, if keeping a settlement in the west fails, that'll be the end of Battlemaster for me, and I will have ceased wasting my time on this game.

Wasting my time? Yes. Because when I started playing this a year ago, I started as Niselur. I kept one character on Dwilight, and that was it. Due to this mechanic, and players' aversion to conflict, all the time I have spent on this game in the last year is now a waste.

Forgive me if I sound trite or pissed off, but you know what? I am a little pissed, and if I sound trite, maybe that means that the fact that you've heard many similar complains could in fact mean that you've made a poor decision.

Whatever, writing this won't change anything. It won't stop the monster invasion. The devs won't have a change of heart, and realize that taking away the western sub-continent removes the last thing that made Dwilight special. I'll just keep counting the days until my character is finally offed by the hordes of monsters. Thanks for some fun times Battlemaster and Niselur, I won't miss what you've become.

[Wolfang]

Although I think the monster invasion of Western Dwilight wasn't a bad idea (we still have to see what happens) it is  extremely dissapointing and frustrating to see all these Niselurians join Luria Nova instead of any other realm not being invaded by a Western realm. This could have been a great invasion from West to East but these guys didn't want to do it and are making it harder for Barca to do so (and we DON'T want to go down in a lame way by simply joining another realm). They could have helped us and together we could have carved out new realms, but I guess that wasn't an option.

I also only have one character that I play and started in Barca.