Messenger delay

[Constantine]

Stop treating IG messages as instant messaging.
Simulate messages actually being carried from the sender to the recipients.
As dedicated messengers move much faster than nobles and their retinues, let's give messenger a virtual 24 hr pool. Meaning that messages within a few regions will still be delivered on the same turn. Messages travelling three and more regions away will arrive with a delay of at least one turn. Messages across the continent will take weeks to arrive.

What does this accomplish apart from irritating the haters?
Huge realms become a real pain to defend which levels the field somewhat for small agressive kingdoms.
Marshals become actually important as the general will not always be able to coordinate separate armies efficiently.
Super-active realms no longer get a massive upper hand due to coordinated moves across the front 10 minutes before the turn end.
The game becomes more about strategic planning and mind games for generals and more about difficult on the fly tactical decisions for marshals.

[Anaris]

Nope. Breaking in-game messages will have two main effects:

• Aggravating absolutely everyone (thus driving more people away from the game)
• Causing many people to switch to using out-of-game forms of communication

[Gabanus family]

On top of that this game is centered around character interaction. While an idea like this wouldn't make it impossible it would slow it down a lot which may have a negative result on the amount of interaction. Everyone would end up eventually getting fwwer messages and that wouldn't be desirable either.

I think the idea behind the request makes a lot of sense, but the consequences would be undesirable

[Constantine]

What? No! The game does not slow down. Decisions just will have to be made on the spot, locally, by commanders marching with the army. And no one would be getting fewer messages. Everyone would get the exactly same amount of messages, just with a delay.
But Anaris' second point alone makes the idea unfeasible. :(

[Anaris]

What? No! The game does not slow down. Decisions just will have to be made on the spot, locally, by commanders marching with the army. And no one would be getting fewer messages. Everyone would get the exactly same amount of messages, just with a delay.

You are assuming that a) people on the spot are both willing and able to make those decisions, and b) that people will keep sending as many messages, when they know they won't hear back for days.

Neither of those are safe assumptions. Even in BattleMaster's heyday, with over 2000 active players, they would not have been safe assumptions.

[Constantine]

a) Well, what if no one wants to be a banker? Maybe we should automate the process then? That's a weird argument. I don't even believe that you can't find a knight in any army who is willing to make at least some sort of decisions on the front. Do you think most players are just bots or something? No, most players actually keep track of what's going on around their characters, obviously.
b) I actually can testify that intense back and forth in multi-realm chats is never something great. It's always about something petty and it quickly spirals into bickering. And it always culminates in OOC messages where people rationalize why their characters are acting like imbeciles, blame each other for historical inconsistencies, ask others to stop the drama, etc. I'd prefer all this stuff abridged to 2-3 messages per person over the span of several days.

[Anaris]

a) Well, what if no one wants to be a banker? Maybe we should automate the process then? That's a weird argument. I don't even believe that you can't find a knight in any army who is willing to make at least some sort of decisions on the front. Do you think most players are just bots or something? No, most players actually keep track of what's going on around their characters, obviously.

There's a significant difference between "we need to have at least one person in the realm willing to be the banker," and "we need at least one person in every region that has nobles in it to make decisions and give orders about what should happen there and then."

b) I actually can testify that intense back and forth in multi-realm chats is never something great. It's always about something petty and it quickly spirals into bickering. And it always culminates in OOC messages where people rationalize why their characters are acting like imbeciles, blame each other for historical inconsistencies, ask others to stop the drama, etc. I'd prefer all this stuff abridged to 2-3 messages per person over the span of several days.

Always? Hardly. Sometimes, sure, when the topic is a contentious one, but there's plenty of cheerful back-and-forth banter, and even (*gasp*) productive discussion, in good realms.

If you're in a realm that always spirals into OOC bickering, then report to the Titans and/or find a better realm.

[Constantine]

There's a significant difference between "we need to have at least one person in the realm willing to be the banker," and "we need at least one person in every region that has nobles in it to make decisions and give orders about what should happen there and then."

Just one capable commander per army, not per region. That's what we were supposed to have marshals for anyway.

Always? Hardly. Sometimes, sure, when the topic is a contentious one, but there's plenty of cheerful back-and-forth banter, and even (*gasp*) productive discussion, in good realms.

I mostly mean long distance chats involving many realms.
Within the same realm communication would still be instant, given the realm does not span over two continents or something.

But yeah, as you've pointed out ooc channels make the whole idea obsolete so I should just drop this.

[Rizky]

Nope. Breaking in-game messages will have two main effects:

• Aggravating absolutely everyone (thus driving more people away from the game)
• Causing many people to switch to using out-of-game forms of communication

No, if they enjoy the mechanic and/or respect the rules.
Just like how we like to wage war and mess around for the sake of fun, I think this system will have its own niche. Maybe implement it in Colony server (only).
I personaly like this system alot, and instead of making assumption wether people will like it or not maybe you should make a survey, send a message to every character or something.

[Wimpie]

Personally, do not like this feature.

[Gabanus family]

These are much less aasumptions and more based on experience though. In the past when the message system had fewer options I remember quite a bit by some people were done ooc. In fact most active realms had their military council discussing orders on IRC (chat) rather than IC I'm ashamed to say.