The Big Announcement

[feyeleanor]

I started playing BM on December 22nd 2007 when Brigdha, a bookish noblewoman in command of a small company of Archers, took service with CE. Within days I was hooked and by the start of January 2008 I had this nightmare persona Moira demanding her place in the sun, whilst their younger brother Cathal was running away to the Colonies in search of wild adventure and strange religions.

In late 2009 I stopped playing. I had a young son who'd just reached the crawling stage and a work project which left me no time to play. I didn't expect that to change so I deleted my account. A year later I was back. Normally when people return they start a new family with little connection to the old and at first I considered doing that, but the more I thought about it the more I realised there were still stories I wanted to tell with the Dubhaines, not just on one island but as part of a wider story arc.

As Cathal the prophet returned from his sojourn with the Gods, the shadows lifted from the Dubhaine family in exile.

In the five years since then I've missed perhaps a dozen turns due to foreign trips, and worked hard in all of the realms I play in to help keep them successful with mixed success (Fontan:dead; Alowca: dead; Sirion: dying; Minas Thalion: expanding; Taselak: wtf? ;). I've not had the time to RP that often, but when I have it's been a pleasure to share story themes with other players and see how generous most can be. The recent Wedding of Garas and Catherine was a reminder of BM at its best and I'm glad I was able to record most of that in the Wiki.

This game's been a big part of my life and I've loved every minute of it. But the character changes mean I'm no longer going to be able to tell the stories I want to tell, or play the game the way which makes most sense to me.

This is not about power, wealth, influence or point scoring. I've had as much of all of those as I've wanted during my time in BM and I doubt the changes will make any difference on that front. In general players with high activity prosper because they can be relied upon to act in a timely fashion and that's never going to change. Just look at SI, a place where despite the overall number of players power seems to concentrate into perhaps a dozen hands - and all players who are prominent on other islands.

The character changes aren't going to alter that.

To be honest right now I don't know whether or not I'll stay when they come into force. I've invested a lot of creativity in BM and I feel an obligation to other players I've helped create shared IC assets with, but I'm not sure playing a game because I feel I should is the right reason to actually do so. Sounds a bit too much like the sunk cost fallacy at play!

Anyway, if I've learned anything from nearly 8 years of BM it's that individual players are rarely missed when they leave unless a large number leave at the same time. And I don't think this change will cause such a huge exodus, just another little uptick in the decline which it's supposedly trying to address.

[Ossan]

Dear devs:

If you haven't planned on it already, could you perhaps do some continent wide messages about natural events happening so our characters know that something bad is going to happen?

[Anaris]

I did plan to, actually; just waiting till I'm awake enough compose a coherent one. ;D

[Faulcon_deLacy]

Not so fast, and of course a realm is never the same as the former, but...
Rest assured that once the realm council is elected, each of the new realms will be allowed to establish their realms as they wish, whether thats as entirely new creations or a continuation of older realms and islands.

As you say, it isn't the same and I'm not going to be the one who tries to force it back to life like a bad zombie movie.  Unlike some of the comments on here though I fully intend to keep playing with the full set of characters (though it may take till after Christmas to get going again).

[Eduardo Almighty]

All that changes most because people continue to ignore the possibility to add Mortality to the chars. "We will sink islands, bring glaciers, force immigration and character limits, but you will never, EVER, see your character of 500000 years and 450000 years in power, die. Do you want to be Gengis Khan? All right, you can be Gengis Khan for 100000 years... until we decide to kill what we allowed you to do by any OOC means we can find to make it... despite kill you or see you die as would be 'natural'".

Do you think that will change something in great realms? Despite suffer with less people, the same old people will continue to lead their realms at the best they can until you force them to find another game because what we knew as BM is no more. I'm still here more because of my good memories than to continue playing what become an alien game for me.

Also, after every change, you continue to 'incentive' some old players to leave and we know that you're unable to attract new players. Now we have new generation consoles and stupid colorful games on our smartphones... BM entered a vicious circle: to deal with the loss of players, you take some postures that even beneficial in your view, still push away the players you already have.

At least you can please some enthusiasts with  the new realms, something that should happen naturally by the action of players and not the developers. Well done.

[Anaris]

All that changes most because people continue to ignore the possibility to add Mortality to the chars. "We will sink islands, bring glaciers, force immigration and character limits, but you will never, EVER, see your character of 500000 years and 450000 years in power, die. Do you want to be Gengis Khan? All right, you can be Gengis Khan for 100000 years... until we decide to kill what we allowed you to do by any OOC means we can find to make it... despite kill you or see you die as would be 'natural'".

Introducing forced mortality would also make a lot of people quit. We know this very clearly from the experiment on Beluaterra.

There have been various plans for introducing voluntary universal mortality, which has gotten a pretty positive reception from most people on the forum, but there's not yet been enough focused dev time to make it happen.

Also, after every change, you continue to 'incentive' some old players to leave and we know that you're unable to attract new players.

That's not actually true. We're still getting a slow but steady stream of new players. The problem is, too many of them don't stick around, and we are fairly sure a big part of the reason for that is that low density means significantly less interaction with other players, and thus less interesting stuff to read and do in the game.

BattleMaster cannot hope to survive by its old players alone. Its only hope is to try to be a game that new players will actually enjoy playing, so they'll stick around.

[JeVondair]

When will the new cities on the East Island be ready? Or are they already?

[Anaris]

When will the new cities on the East Island be ready? Or are they already?

There's a little more coding (and testing) work to be done before they can be put into place. Our target is no later than tomorrow.

[Eduardo Almighty]

You need less interaction now with the new estate system than ever before. When I began to play, I had to talk with Lords to take an estate and so on. Now you can start in a region and your Lord and Duke even need to know you. You can even assign yourself to any army you want while you're just a noble, before to join any estate.

[Anaris]

You need less interaction now with the new estate system than ever before. When I began to play, I had to talk with Lords to take an estate and so on. Now you can start in a region and your Lord and Duke even need to know you.

You can't force people to interact meaningfully by requiring them to ask you for an estate. All that does is encourage Lords to be stingy with estates, and make new players, who may be shy and afraid of making a blunder, less likely to be able to actually do stuff in their first few days in the game.

For new players, it's much more important for their Lord or Duke to welcome them than it is to require them to introduce themselves.

Scout reports, military orders, asking for estates, directing people here or there for region maintenanceâ€"none of that is the kind of interaction that is going to hold people's interest. The best kind of interaction for that is roleplayingâ€"not necessarily writing long narrative messages, but chatting amongst each other about things going on in the realm and the world.

[Eduardo Almighty]

not necessarily writing long narrative messages, but chatting amongst each other about things going on in the realm and the world.

Well, you cannot force people to it even sinking islands and adjusting density - I'm not against it, really, but you need to face it... people will leave. I like East Continent, I don't want to play in another continet, so, East Continent will have just one of my chars instead of two - Realms are used to discuss subjects in closed channels like Councils, Military Councils, etc. That will never change, even in more populated realms. I fought with Erik to reach the Council because that's where the game was... and we had 150 nobles at that time.

[Anaris]

Well, you cannot force people to it even sinking islands and adjusting density - I'm not against it, really, but you need to face it... people will leave.

I know people will leave. It's why we tried the Freeze two years ago instead of sinking continents then. It wasn't enough, and this might not be enough either. But just sitting back and praying that things will get better isn't a solution, and neither is fixing all the game's structural problems, because I just don't bloody well have time.

I like East Continent, I don't want to play in another realm, so, East Continent will have just one of my chars instead of two - Realms are used to discuss subjects in closed channels like Councils, Military Councils, etc. That will never change, even in more populated realms. I fought with Erik to reach the Council because that's where the game was... and we had 150 nobles at that time.

So you'd never consider making a new character anywhere, ever? You're not interested in finding out what the game is like in Luria, or the Assassins, or Thalmarkin?

I feel that that sort of attitude is everyone's loss.

[Eduardo Almighty]

Yes, I had a character in Luria, I another character in Atamara, another in Far East, Colonies, and so on. My characters led rebellions, kingdoms, etc. Find my wiki and you'll see the huge amount of RP's I wrote despite the daily letters I never cared to keep. Still, I like East Continent more and anywhere you will find people who, after play a long time, will prefer to keep just one island and less characters while life give us more to do than play games.

Don't think I do not consider and appreciate all the work you have done and the time you spent on a game I love. Anyway, I had the desire to express my concerns and visions about what was being done. My personal problem with BM is the lack of objectives after conquer everything I wanted with my characters. I considered delete my acc and create a new family, but now the game is not the same and I would have no difficulty in repeating my prowess.

Sometime we just want to vent and swear  ;)

[Anaris]

Yes, I had a character in Luria, I another character in Atamara, another in Far East, Colonies, and so on. My characters led rebellions, kingdoms, etc. Find my wiki and you'll see the huge amount of RP's I wrote despite the daily letters I never cared to keep. Still, I like East Continent more and anywhere you will find people who, after play a long time, will prefer to keep just one island and less characters while life give us more to do than play games.

Well, yeah; I'm one of them. I'm actually down to 0 active characters at this point :-\

Don't think I do not consider and appreciate all the work you have done and the time you spent on a game I love. Anyway, I had the desire to express my concerns and visions about what was being done. My personal problem with BM is the lack of objectives after conquer everything I wanted with my characters. I considered delete my acc and create a new family, but now the game is not the same and I would have no difficulty in repeating my prowess.

Sometime we just want to vent and swear  ;)

Completely understandable.

[Faldron]

I just started playing this game one month ago. I've been having a lot of fun playing my character on Atamara. Now I feel I am going to drown in the new areas, trampled by the tidal wave of new players jockeying for power in these new realms. I'm just not sure what I'm even doing as I've never emigrated before. I wish it wasn't sinking. I dread the thought of starting this process over... There's not even an option for my adventurer to emigrate.

I understand the reasoning behind it, I'm just sad and unsure of how I will move and how I will make it in a new land. I don't even know if any of my realm-mates will be moving, as most of them already have characters on those islands.

*shrug*

I guess I don't really have a choice...