Atamara's Fate

[Medron Pryde]

Yeah, some people said Atamara was a !@#$hole.

You know what?

Some people were wrong.

I first started playing on Atamara.  And Atamara is one the place I always kept one or two characters because for me it was the funnest of the islands.

Did it slow down a bit?  Yes.  One alliance did the one thing that BattleMaster is designed to not allow.  They won.  Seriously, the way the game pushes things to degrade in time and everything about it is designed to break up large realms and alliances.  But through ingenuity and determination and a lot of smarts the alliance BEAT EVERYBODY ELSE.  They literally beat the system.  That is what some people didn't like about the continent.  There were clear winners and losers in a game that is supposed to stop that from happening.

In the case of Atamara it took the players to self-police and break the alliance up.  Which we did.  Atamara was crashing and burning into a continent-wide civil war when the Devs nuked everything.  Years of gaming and scheming on the best map the game has just deleted and taken away from the players.

My hope is that sometime we can get that map back, either through restoring Beluaterra back to the Pre-Blight status, or by resurrecting Atamara entirely.

[GundamMerc]

Yeah, some people said Atamara was a !@#$hole.

You know what?

Some people were wrong.

I first started playing on Atamara.  And Atamara is one the place I always kept one or two characters because for me it was the funnest of the islands.

Did it slow down a bit?  Yes.  One alliance did the one thing that BattleMaster is designed to not allow.  They won.  Seriously, the way the game pushes things to degrade in time and everything about it is designed to break up large realms and alliances.  But through ingenuity and determination and a lot of smarts the alliance BEAT EVERYBODY ELSE.  They literally beat the system.  That is what some people didn't like about the continent.  There were clear winners and losers in a game that is supposed to stop that from happening.

In the case of Atamara it took the players to self-police and break the alliance up.  Which we did.  Atamara was crashing and burning into a continent-wide civil war when the Devs nuked everything.  Years of gaming and scheming on the best map the game has just deleted and taken away from the players.

My hope is that sometime we can get that map back, either through restoring Beluaterra back to the Pre-Blight status, or by resurrecting Atamara entirely.

Yeah, "winning", aka turning the continent into the biggest snooze fest I've ever seen in gaming.

[Anaris]

Medron, I think part of the issue is that while being one of the people at or near the top of certain Atamaran realms was probably pretty fun throughout (even if frustrating from time to time), being someone lower down, especially in one of the realms with less power, was absolutely maddening.

Feeling utterly helpless is really, really bad in a game.

So when you say that you "won" Atamara, what you actually mean is that you made everyone else lose Atamara. Except that where in a game with normal win/loss conditions, once you lose, you get to end that game and start a new one (if you still want), in BattleMaster, if you've "lost", that means you are continuing to lose, every day.

Honestly, I am not entirely happy about the fact that when we sank Atamara, it was, indeed, just starting to rev up for something. But...it started to rev up for things a few times in the past, and each time, however promising it looked at the start, it still ended with CE crushing everything else, one or more of the rebellious realms crawling to them and begging to be allowed to be a vassal realm, and the status quo either unchanged or one step closer to total Cagilan domination.

And given the results, there is no doubt in my mind that what we did was the right course of action. Since we sank Atamara and the FEI, the player numbers have stopped falling, and I've seen (anecdotally) more interest in the game than I've seen since well before the (ill-advised) Ice Age.

[Noone you know]

Atamara was ruled by a relatively small group of people who made it their mission to prevent anyone else from ever doing anything independently.

It wasn't simply that they ruled in silence - they actively ruined the game for people not in their in-group. They took pride in not sharing, information or anything else. Some of them even hung out on the old IRC channels and made jokes about how stupid all the other players were and that that was why they needed to give them detailed commands every day.

That's not every single character who ever had any power, of course, but it far more than most people are willing to admit.

[Noone you know]

"the (ill-advised) Ice Age"

I personally think the Ice Age was a fine idea, but it was lacking in how it was carried out.

It never put enough pressure on anything to substantially change the island politics. It seems like the density was calculated on nobles/region, but left out the fact that most nobles had no interest in being lords and instead were stacking themselves in cities. Without forcing realms tightly against one another to the point where there weren't enough estates for all the knights, nothing much was going to dramatically change.

You clipped Atamara's fingernails when you needed to amputate at the elbows.

[Victor C]

I must agree with the previous comments.

Having played there for a very long time, I felt no joy in sitting around doing nothing for very long periods of time. Whatever fun you were having, it did not come to me. I got so bored that I managed to raise an infiltrator from scratch and build it all the way up (only using the Academy) until it was a pure force to be reckoned with.

As for the Ice age, I was.excited to see this event carry out, until it stopped just barely over the land to the point that it only effected the realms that were already dying. This only made that Federation stronger and the game less fun. 

I believe sinking Atamara was the right decision, I only wish its downfall could have been prevented.

I would also like to point out... It didn't "Slow down a bit", it literally came to a standstill.

[Elegant]

What the Game Devs did to Atamara was good for the game. This game is not meant to be "Won". It is supposed to be eternally in conflict. The game designers have designed it in this way.

We, the Cagilan Alliance actually "WON" this game, which is actually a wonder achieved due to team spirit, dedication and mastery in political planning. We dominated the whole server. Our team should have been given some sort of honor/acknowledgement before closing the server by the game admins (like many online games).

--Proud member of the great Cagilan Alliance.

[GundamMerc]

What the Game Devs did to Atamara was good for the game. This game is not meant to be "Won". It is supposed to be eternally in conflict. The game designers have designed it in this way.

We, the Cagilan Alliance actually "WON" this game, which is actually a wonder achieved due to team spirit, dedication and mastery in political planning. We dominated the whole server. Our team should have been given some sort of honor/acknowledgement before closing the server by the game admins (like many online games).

--Proud member of the great Cagilan Alliance.

If you won, as you say, why is CE under a watery grave, hmm? All you did was ruin the atmosphere of an entire island with your self-centered attitudes. Oh, by the way, you don't mean Cagilan Alliance, that would include everyone who played in CE, including me. You mean your little clique who shaped the island as you wanted and never ever did anything against one another's interest.

Nothing gave me so much satisfaction in this game than seeing that continent sink, and it was a shame because it had great potential that was locked in a closet with a deadbolt and chains by people like you.

[Noone you know]

Nothing gave me so much satisfaction in this game than seeing that continent sink, and it was a shame because it had great potential that was locked in a closet with a deadbolt and chains by people like you.

This.

I think little needs to be said after that - that sums it up beautifully.

[Sacha]

What the Game Devs did to Atamara was good for the game. This game is not meant to be "Won". It is supposed to be eternally in conflict. The game designers have designed it in this way.

We, the Cagilan Alliance actually "WON" this game, which is actually a wonder achieved due to team spirit, dedication and mastery in political planning. We dominated the whole server. Our team should have been given some sort of honor/acknowledgement before closing the server by the game admins (like many online games).

--Proud member of the great Cagilan Alliance.

Mastery in political planning? Pft. Mastery in schoolyard bully tactics is more like it.

Think about what you're saying here. You're basically expecting a medal for playing the game the way it wasn't meant to be played.

[Anaris]

What the Game Devs did to Atamara was good for the game. This game is not meant to be "Won". It is supposed to be eternally in conflict. The game designers have designed it in this way.

We, the Cagilan Alliance actually "WON" this game, which is actually a wonder achieved due to team spirit, dedication and mastery in political planning. We dominated the whole server. Our team should have been given some sort of honor/acknowledgement before closing the server by the game admins (like many online games).

--Proud member of the great Cagilan Alliance.

This appears to be a study in doublethink.

Elegant, you really need to take a minute and think about what you've just said here. First you say that sinking Atamara was good, because winning the island was bad.

Then you say that you should be given a medal for doing exactly that bad thing?

"Winning" any island is actually something that the game cannot prevent in any way, shape, or form, because it doesn't require circumventing any game mechanics. All it requires is getting enough realms to climb on board your alliance, and let you be in charge of it. It's entirely a social engineering problem.

If it weren't for the invasions, Enweil probably would have won Beluaterra back around the time of the Third or Fourth Invasion. Arcaea unquestionably won the FEIâ€"it's just that they then had a plan for how to make sure that did not lead to total, permanent stagnation.

Winning an island is pretty easy, really. All you have to do is have absolutely no regard for what makes the game fun to play for anyone but yourself and your closest friends.

[Elegant]

I realized the mistake after we decimated the Northern Alliance. We killed everyone who was an enemy, that left us with friends only. then began the eternal peace. In real life situation, it would be called complete victory. However, in game life, it was boring. Winning the server was an achievement for the team, but bad for the server.

I had never imagined that due to lack of enemies to kill, we may have to kill each other by creating ridiculous wars. It was good that Atamara was sunk before allies kill each other.

Now I play this game without the will to win everything and without extreme killer instinct. This game a taught a good lesson to me. The lesson stands true for the real life too.

Nevertheless, I consider myself fortunate that I was a member of such a great team. The team should have been rewarded/acknowledged for their great efforts by game admins. They could introduce the concept of an "Era" of dominance in game.

[Noone you know]

The rest of the island should have come up for some excuses to shake off the yoke, as well.

It wasn't CEs fault for winning the war. They never wanted to go to war any more after that - the rest of the island rolled over and played dead.

[GundamMerc]

I realized the mistake after we decimated the Northern Alliance. We killed everyone who was an enemy, that left us with friends only. then began the eternal peace. In real life situation, it would be called complete victory. However, in game life, it was boring. Winning the server was an achievement for the team, but bad for the server.

I had never imagined that due to lack of enemies to kill, we may have to kill each other by creating ridiculous wars. It was good that Atamara was sunk before allies kill each other.

Now I play this game without the will to win everything and without extreme killer instinct. This game a taught a good lesson to me. The lesson stands true for the real life too.

Nevertheless, I consider myself fortunate that I was a member of such a great team. The team should have been rewarded/acknowledged for their great efforts by game admins. They could introduce the concept of an "Era" of dominance in game.

You completely missed the point. CE and Tara might as well have been one country for all the difference their foreign policy had, and allies should NEVER be a permanent status between two realms.

[Umbrarex]

The whole Ice Age shenanigans must have been the worst thing I have ever witnessed in this game to the point that I started to think that the devs just wanted to end the whole war and destroy all realms opposing the "Alliance".