Rumours

[Constantine]

It seems the players often find themselves in a vacuum especially when playing in small realms or realm with inconsequential/not too active leaders. Even in bustling realms you often have no idea what's happening in remote realms.

I suggest a mechanic of spreading rumours across the continent. They can be anything, from playful RP matters to more serious internal or global news. Like "There is a rumour coming from [insert realm] that the recent rebellion though being stillborn caused much fuss at the court and led to several unexpected political decisions."

To prevent this from getting out of hand, make this an expensive feature, like 100 coins per message. Not the best solution, maybe there's a better one.
I think the feature is interesting in spirit but I am not sure how to implement it properly. Thoughts?

[Vita`]

It wouldn't make a difference. There is already the ability to communicate widely, but players choose not to use them. And many choose not to share the messages they receive either. Most rulers do not keep their realms informed of continental events. Many realms hold most of their discussion in councils away from the rest of the realm, and rarely provide any update to their realm on these discussions.

There are realms that actively isolate and avoid contact with other realms with forming their own, small realm-only versions of international guilds. Many actively avoid religions, which could be used to share information widely.

More features will not fix what players will not do in the first place.

[Constantine]

Fair enough. But I am sure many players want to communicate outside their realms but it is quite difficult currently if you're just a knight.

Another idea would be a default continent-wide tavern-style guild which anyone can join for a small monthly fee.

[Vita`]

I might like that, to help even out the experience in realms that aren't as connected to existing guilds and religions. At least while BM has such a low playercount. Perhaps only the roleplay message type available? Maybe letter too?

I still think one should be required to join a religion when creating a character or immigrating, no different than choosing a realm.

EDIT: And on the developer side, I've thought that we could probably expand the reach of some of the notifications for different actions to give more people 'awareness'. For instance, items sent to all rulers going to all government members, or those going to all government membrs going to all on island etc. But again, we come back around to limited volunteer effort.

[Constantine]

Perhaps only the roleplay message type available?

Sounds good.

I still think one should be required to join a religion when creating a character or immigrating, no different than choosing a realm.

I'm yet to play in a realm with active and meaningful religious life. Obligatory faith might be worth it only if said faith has something to offer the player.

[Vita`]

Obligatory faith might be worth it only if said faith has something to offer the player.

That's like saying we should only require realm membership if it has something to offer the player. If being pagan/non-religious is treated more similarly to being rogue, the default norm will shift the same as if the game had allowed characters to do awesome stuff like being a rogue infil and not encouraged to work as a realm-team with other characters. This thread is about expanding communication options for characters so if everyone is required to join a religion (and we deter religions from being as numerous as realm, but limited to say 2-4 per continent), then everyone has a whole different group of characters to write to outside their realm, from many other realms. And likewise, can receive messages from these other characters in diverse realms. That is the immediate benefit to players, communication-wise.

The reason faith is meaningless is because it wields no influence. If everyone is part of a Church, those elders have more influence. This is why Dwilight has had more influential religion than other continents; because religion was not an add-on like other continents, but could grow more naturally from the beginning. Also, if you can choose any Church from the beginning of character creation, there is much less tendency for the characters in a realm to be tied to their Realm's Loyal and Patriotic Faith, turning religion into an Alliance of Teams.

Priest and religious elders should be more akin to mediators between divinity and humanity, finding religious roleplay reasons to promote an enjoyable playing atmosphere. Religious leaders should be what rulers used to be in BM with keeping an eye out for player enjoyment within their realm, except on a larger continent-wide basis.

[Zakilevo]

maybe tying religion and soldiers is not a bad idea. Soldiers losing morale if their nobleman is believing something else or even worse a non-believer. Or they can simply demand a higher pay.

[JDodger]

i dont think this is a good idea overall although i totally get it from the angle youre looking at it from.

players getting to know events in other realms so easily takes a lot of the suspense, mystery, intrigue and surprise out of the game.

i mean think of any time where you were in a war where the enemy's ally might interfere, you're looking over your shoulder waiting to see if and when the axe will fall ...

or the first time you got to visit that realm (for a tournament, rp event, trading, whatever) that seems to have such a cool rp culture, youve been curious about it for months or years and now you get to discover it for yourself like an explorer finding an uncharted land...

or any time you/your realm were in the midst of highly important diplomatic negotiations and you didnt know who was on what side and what to expect, so you had to pull every trick in the book to get the information you needed...

or that time your allied/enemy realm suddenly elected that one guy who changed sides and completely reversed the fortunes of every other realm involved...

all of these things would be gone, replaced by the free trial version of a global message channel.

it would also neutralize a lot of conflicts before they happened because suddenly, there are no more misunderstandings.

so while i definitely get the desire to increase inter-realm communication and broaden the player experience, i dont believe this is the best way to do it. there are ways for realms to build communication platforms with other realms already.

[Wimpie]

Instead of the guild continent wide thingy, insert a newspaper like functionality?

We've seen newspapers before, on different continents, but it was always through forum or mostly  Wiki I guess.

Not sure we could insert something likely but in the game/messaging system.

[Andrew]

If you want to do newspapers, Might & Fealty basically already has them. The only thing that needs finishing is the subscriptions (on my TODO list for when I figure out PHP some more), so that new editions of the papers get sent out. They're not perfect, and I am aware that the two games run differently, but not reinventing the wheel and all.

They layout is basically what most of the old wiki papers used, as someone who used to run a few of them over the years. The two files you'd want to start looking at from the M&F source code are:

https://github.com/tvogt/mightandfealty/blob/master/src/BM2/SiteBundle/Controller/NewsController.php
https://github.com/tvogt/mightandfealty/blob/master/src/BM2/SiteBundle/Service/NewsManager.php

[Vita`]

Instead of the guild continent wide thingy, insert a newspaper like functionality?

We've seen newspapers before, on different continents, but it was always through forum or mostly  Wiki I guess.

Not sure we could insert something likely but in the game/messaging system.

Excellent suggestion. I am also reminded of the already-existing WorldNews page, highly outdated.

[Wimpie]

Excellent suggestion. I am also reminded of the already-existing WorldNews page, highly outdated.

Yeah maybe we can work with that and the thingy of M&F (not sure how that would look like though).

Problem is then, how and who manages it.

1. Do we ask a gold fee for every article you want to send to the news paper? A minium fee + extra fee if you want it to be bigger, brighter, on top,..? Or will we exclude smaller and less rich realms like that (while they could have interesting news to share). Or no player-issued articles at all?
2. Do we have a monitor who monitors whether what gets added is actually relevant (no spam?)
3. Weekly/monthly/.. editions?
4. Does everyone get the newspaper by default, or do they pay a subscription weekly/montly (but that income might not serve a purpose..)

I like the idea, but it needs to be worked out before we can actually do something with it code-wise, I guess.

Either way, suggestions and additions are more than welcome.

[Andrew]

You could do a system/GM one that reports a bit of everything from across the continent/game but also open it up for guilds to run their own (which may, in turn, increase the spread and usefulness of guilds).

You could set a price to it, and then have people pay for each edition. Do like 25 gold to print and 1 gold to buy or something. If players control it, letting them set the prices would be best (as even the wiki papers had a "price" and they were free to read for all).

[Vita`]

You could do a system/GM one that reports a bit of everything from across the continent/game but also open it up for guilds to run their own (which may, in turn, increase the spread and usefulness of guilds).

I like that.

I do not like the idea of fee-based messaging. I would be much more inclined to a simpler capped # of messages per month. Either flat or variable based on # and size of guildhouses, members, elders etc.

Also, lets not over-complicate anything too far because uh, limited volunteer effort. ;)

[Wimpie]

I like that.

I do not like the idea of fee-based messaging. I would be much more inclined to a simpler capped # of messages per month. Either flat or variable based on # and size of guildhouses, members, elders etc.

Also, lets not over-complicate anything too far because uh, limited volunteer effort. ;)

You did pause all your characters, right?  ;D But you are right, a simplistic and basic version first. Adding features along the way.