Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?

[Buffalkill]

I'll write down some info here to be able to refer to it in 6 to 12 months:

Date	Registered Players	Weekly Activity	Daily Activity
2014 Jan. 26th (peak count)	880	577	304
2014 March 1st (Beginning of freezing)	825	539	288
April 10th	797	541	293

While some inactive accounts have been lost, the level of activity has stayed level over the past 6 weeks.

Update:

Date	Registered Players	Weekly Activity	Daily Activity
2014 Jan. 26th (peak count)	880	577	304
2014 March 1st (Beginning of freezing)	825	539	288
2014 April 1st	814	549	281
April 10th	797	541	293
2014 May 1st	799	533	305

[Tandaros]

This thread is now literally 20 pages long... wow.

If we took all the effort to write this an instead lent it to writing in-game letters and roleplays, maybe losing players wouldn't be that much of a problem. Granted I only have a character on one continent impacted by the catastrophes (Dwilight), but he nonetheless lost his city and duchy. But as a player, I loved watching the chaos of the Occidental D'Harans migrating, the Asylonian and Barcan exoduses, and the whimper of Niselur's demise. God it can be fun to watch something fall apart, right?

When there is a fall, there is a great potential for new things. Don't get hung up on what was lost OOCly - though I can totally understand it from an IC perspective! I just hate to see a lot of good players wasting their writing skills on Forummaster and not pressing for their characters' interests in Battlemaster itself.

[Jens Namtrah]

This thread is now literally 20 pages long... wow.

If we took all the effort to write this an instead lent it to writing in-game letters and roleplays, maybe losing players wouldn't be that much of a problem. Granted I only have a character on one continent impacted by the catastrophes (Dwilight), but he nonetheless lost his city and duchy. But as a player, I loved watching the chaos of the Occidental D'Harans migrating, the Asylonian and Barcan exoduses, and the whimper of Niselur's demise. God it can be fun to watch something fall apart, right?

When there is a fall, there is a great potential for new things. Don't get hung up on what was lost OOCly - though I can totally understand it from an IC perspective! I just hate to see a lot of good players wasting their writing skills on Forummaster and not pressing for their characters' interests in Battlemaster itself.

This.

I think the Ice is - or at least is potentially - the best thing to happen to the game.

Too many people settled into long-term roles. Too many people settled into long-term plans, with the need to then control everything and everyone around them to make sure their investment pays out. Too many ruts in the game.

You are not here to plan out the rest of your characters' lives and then try to maximize your plan. You are here to role play. Learn how to deal with things that come to you.

I think the devs ought to start making random catastrophes, famines, monster invasions, floods, volcano eruptions, etc & so on, a regular part of the game until players take that to heart.

I think the players are all leaving because the game is too static, and the players all sink into lethargy and stop caring enough to keep logging in.

[jaune]

Many old "skool" players are those who think this sucks most. They are players who played mostly strategic part of the game. Battlemaster used to Strategic game with RP flavours, slowly it has turned other way around. Roleplaying game with strategic flavours. I dont say its bad thing, but unexpected "outside the rules" coming event doesnt fit well for those who are focusing strategic parts of game.

Everybody doesnt enjoy roleplaying, they enjoy fighting other realms, planning assaults, planning to fend of those assaults etc.

People enjoy diffrent things, some would love that on chess game there is random effect which swipes part of your(or your opponent) soldiers and officers away, some would like to play the game with the rules which were set when the game starts.

[Jens Namtrah]

Many old "skool" players are those who think this sucks most. They are players who played mostly strategic part of the game. Battlemaster used to Strategic game with RP flavours, slowly it has turned other way around. Roleplaying game with strategic flavours. I dont say its bad thing, but unexpected "outside the rules" coming event doesnt fit well for those who are focusing strategic parts of game.

Everybody doesnt enjoy roleplaying, they enjoy fighting other realms, planning assaults, planning to fend of those assaults etc.

People enjoy diffrent things, some would love that on chess game there is random effect which swipes part of your(or your opponent) soldiers and officers away, some would like to play the game with the rules which were set when the game starts.

And yet, some of your greatest successes have been in the last few days. What did you lose exactly?

The biggest affect on your realm is when your largest duchy split and joined Talerium. They didn't have to do that - imagine if they had stayed.

Imagine if any of the affected nobles cared enough about Darka to go back? Have you asked yourself why only Sebastian has returned?

[jaune]

:D

Greatest successes were many years ago :) Greatest success during this war were that we were able to stay pretty much untouched for 2 years against several realms. These few battles we won were just few battle victories.

As for why Darkans have not returned to Darka after Azzal moved to Talerium, i think they know their future is there, while Darka future is pretty much written already, date just have not yet printed up.

[Poliorketes]

Honestly, this game have many good things, but it have many bad things too!

The game is a war-game, but for most noblemen this only mean to wait days for an order to follow as a zombie... in a few weeks it can become boring... And it have a role-play part too, but the characters are too limited to exploit it, and the conflict between players is very rare, and when arise, is usually too easy to solve.

All this problems and many others, will not be solved with a bit of ice.

[Jens Namtrah]

As for why Darkans have not returned to Darka after Azzal moved to Talerium, i think they know their future is there, while Darka future is pretty much written already, date just have not yet printed up.

no mate, sorry - that's wishful thinking. They could come join Talerium any time; they could fight for you for months and then come.

When Azzal joined Talerium, 3 things happened:

1) The Marshal  of your main army gushed about how happy he was to be in Talerium now

2) The "Duchess" of Azzal then explained it was part of a secret plan to appease Cagilan

3) A giant yawn

When Miskel rode north to fight the monsters so you could concentrate on Cagilan, who came with him? Remember? The Prime Minister of Talerium and the Judge of Talerium. Not a single former Darkan. Even though Miskel told the realm they were marching to free Darka from the monsters so they could fight. Not a single former Darkan cared.

Miskel is planning another similar trip now. No one wants to be bothered. You hammered all the independent thought out of them.

Sorry for this to be your "Ceausescu Moment", but your Darkans didn't stick around out of love or loyalty. They just didn't give a !@#$ enough to leave.

[jaune]

Sorry for this to be your "Ceausescu Moment", but your Darkans didn't stick around out of love or loyalty. They just didn't give a !@#$ enough to leave.

:D Mayby so.

[Jens Namtrah]

:D Mayby so.

That's why I've always like you ;-)

And why Miskel does what he can to stand by Darka, even though he couldn't stay

[Qyasogk]

Many old "skool" players are those who think this sucks most. They are players who played mostly strategic part of the game. Battlemaster used to Strategic game with RP flavours, slowly it has turned other way around. Roleplaying game with strategic flavours. I dont say its bad thing, but unexpected "outside the rules" coming event doesnt fit well for those who are focusing strategic parts of game.

There is no perfect strategy that survives unmolested by the unexpected unplanned gremlins in the gears. It is a true test of your ability to still achieve your objectives in a highly unstable hostile environment. Which is what a truly strategic game must attempt to simulate.

[Penchant]

Many old "skool" players are those who think this sucks most. They are players who played mostly strategic part of the game. Battlemaster used to Strategic game with RP flavours, slowly it has turned other way around. Roleplaying game with strategic flavours. I dont say its bad thing, but unexpected "outside the rules" coming event doesnt fit well for those who are focusing strategic parts of game.

Everybody doesnt enjoy roleplaying, they enjoy fighting other realms, planning assaults, planning to fend of those assaults etc.

People enjoy diffrent things, some would love that on chess game there is random effect which swipes part of your(or your opponent) soldiers and officers away, some would like to play the game with the rules which were set when the game starts.

Jaune, BM started as a role playing game and evolved from there, not the other way around. Just because some people haven't been role playing for however many years they have been here, doesn't mean it all of a sudden was a strategy game first.

[Zakilevo]

Jaune, BM started as a role playing game and evolved from there, not the other way around. Just because some people haven't been role playing for however many years they have been here, doesn't mean it all of a sudden was a strategy game first.

This. I believe BM originally started as a side project of SM which was purely RP based.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Jaune, BM started as a role playing game and evolved from there, not the other way around. Just because some people haven't been role playing for however many years they have been here, doesn't mean it all of a sudden was a strategy game first.

You realize that Jaune is one of the early, early players, and would probably know what the early game was like...

If Lapallanch is right that it started as a side project of SM, with that he proves jaune's point. SM was to be where most if not all the roleplay took place, with BM providing a background of the world using a more strategic setting.

[jaune]

There was not much roleplaying atleast early Atamara. Things were a lot in character, but it was a lot player talk too. We discussed a lot game mechanics and strategies and number crunching in game too. Mostly that discussion were at IRC, but also important parts were discussed in game too. But gotta admit, i dont know much outside Darka/CE/Tara/Eston early Atamara.

Those realms were lead by ex Utopia players, more or less hard core strategists and net addicts, which prolly explains that they dominated Atamara. And game evolved all the time to limit advantages of being online all the time. Many HC players worked hard to find advantages from battlereports, behaviour of battle code...

Slowly RP thins started to become more, silly nicks were forbidden and later even enforced to those old farts to change their names to more proper. I bet majority of Atamara players at early stage were strategy players, atleast leaders. They were lightly roleplaying their characters. Later when realms started to have some cultures, news papers, religions it turne more and more to roleplaying game... and all kind of restrictions appeared. Capital change, you needed to border regions to take them over, you were not able to ban people for lagging (Early Darka Elders bansihed 1 player every week by shout voting, just to keep people following orders, remember those times there was influx of players).

Mayby this started as RP, but quite early it was brutal strategy game atleast for a while :) And some point it had good balance, these days... strategy things have been made a bit too hard. Game has too much restrictions as mechanic wise.