I would have thought this would be one of the data points that the dev team would be right on top of.As has been stated elsewhere, the dev team expected there to be people who quit because of this. When something major happens, people quit. It was never intended to be something great for the game in the short term, but in the long term.
As has been stated elsewhere, the dev team expected there to be people who quit because of this. When something major happens, people quit. It was never intended to be something great for the game in the short term, but in the long term.Yes, but they can't test that hypothesis without keeping relevant data.
Consider the close result for many elections. If the development team were also voting on the south or north poll without prior knowledge, they probably will vote for their side, and the result would be different. Given the result of the decision is so devastating for many affected realms, such lack of transparency raises mistrust and may make some disappointed players leave.
The monsters or the iceberg is almost moving as fast as the fastest character?
Long term problems should be addressed with a more considerate plan.
And this is why there's no possible way we can win: Because no matter how public we make the decisions, no matter how obviously open and random we make it, there will still be people who make bull!@#$ passive-aggressive non-accusations like this:
If you do not believe that the decisions on which regions to glaciate were made entirely without reference to political affiliation or where our characters were located, despite dozens of assurances of this from the dev team, you may as well leave the game now, because you'll never, ever be able to trust anything we do.
And this is why there's no possible way we can win: Because no matter how public we make the decisions, no matter how obviously open and random we make it, there will still be people who make bull!@#$ passive-aggressive non-accusations like this:
If you do not believe that the decisions on which regions to glaciate were made entirely without reference to political affiliation or where our characters were located, despite dozens of assurances of this from the dev team, you may as well leave the game now, because you'll never, ever be able to trust anything we do.
Furthermore, this isn't even paranoia, it's just plain wrong:
The Ice has been moving, on average, something like 1-2 regions per week. I know, because I've been the one moving it. Every character in the game can move faster than that.
Finally, to address this:
This was the more considerate plan. Or have you forgotten already that we were talking about simply closing down an island—boom, done, no chance of any survival or reprieve? And anything that runs slower than what we're doing now would still have all the negative effects of losing the regions, but just drag it out over so much longer that it would piss off more people in the end.
All that said, once I can get a couple of current things out of the way (one being the Titan overhaul, the other being a project I'm keeping secret so it can be a pleasant surprise for everyone), I do plan to publicize more of the stuff I'll be working on. That doesn't mean that I'll be sharing everything, or that I'll take everyone's suggestions. As always, while it's good to hear the players' desires, doing everything they want is one of the easiest ways to destroy any game.
One of the most important—and most difficult—jobs the dev team has is deciding which possible courses of action to take in terms of improving the game. That includes everything from minor feature requests to events like the Ice Age. Just because it seems obvious to you that one way of doing things is Teh Bestest doesn't mean that it actually is. (And this part isn't just aimed at bofeng, but rather at pretty much everyone who's ever made or thought of a feature request.)
I repeat, it is your current lacking failure management that does not let this discussion shut down.
I see players coming up with statistical data which make very valid points for what they say and the admins lock or delete threads.
I mean seriously, did I just read from the dev team the indirect soltuion to just leave the game?!
Is that what you want? Is that how you treat people who don't agree with you?
I feel that the more considerate plan would have been just closing an island. We all were expecting that, as it had been talked over before. This glacier/monster event was never talked about beforehand. We didn't have time to prepare for it, and it affects one set of people on a continent more than another, creating OOC tensions that need not be there.
And I'm dead serious, and I know that Tom will agree with me completely: If you do not trust the dev team to be impartial, regardless of what we say, then you cannot hope to play this game without constantly looking over your shoulder. So you may as well leave.
That's why I'd ask you to be more transparent and less oppressive and aggressive in here and leave room for possible mistakes on your side. Just as you did in your reply to me now. But this could be done in more points in this discussion.
That doesn't mean everything can't be improved.
Anaris. Let's say this very straight.(Emphasis added.)
The polls were not IC, they were on the forum.
On the forum are only active players.
So only active players voted.
Which again means that it hits active realms where these players play.
Which again makes it not really random.
If you can accept that this is why now so many players are against what happened, then you could also find a way for a solution to ease them.
(Emphasis added.)
While I'm not really interested in this discussion as a whole, I feel I need to point out a few things here:
- You make a good point about the polls being on the forums. It was definitely mostly active players. New players and others do occasionally check the forums, though. If I recall, there may also have been a yellow box announcement about it, too... but I can't remember for sure.
- The players still had no idea what impact the poll would have. Nothing was promised with the poll, only suggested with a clear disclaimer that it may not happen. You're right, this isn't truly random, but it also isn't driven by intent.
- Even so, the assertion that this process is the reason players are against it is a loaded, logical leap.
You see, there's no actual link between your observations and final player complaints. They may be your complaints, yes, but that's one data point. You may even be right... but the observations presented here never make it to that step. We'd have to go out three things, in this order:
- Do players like it or not?
- If not, why not?
- What are the actual statistical results of the event?
The first question does not make the assumption (as you seem to) that players inherently dislike the event.
The second question clarifies the first, proving or disproving your hypothesis. It's entirely possible people dislike the event because of what it represents (diminishing numbers of BM) or because it means they have to move... they may have no problem with the method at all.
The final question provides a control, either aligning real data with public opinion or shattering misconceptions about the effects. Either way, it ends the debate with facts. (Though we know that doesn't mean people won't stop trying to spin it some other way.) This can't be fulfilled until the ice has stopped moving and the event is over*.
I also guarantee that those answers will change depending upon when the questions are asked.
*- Yes, the event being over is technically "too late"... but it's Tom's game. He makes the rules and this is what he chose. He and the devs will stop it when they stop it, and from that point, they can choose to collect the data or not. It's you who have to decide if it's still enjoyable for you to play the game. Hell, he doesn't even have to do any of this. It's his right to just say things will be whatever they will be.
Sorry, I'm just not very tolerant of faulty logic and poorly-based assertions.
I would have to say that some of your own logic is faulty.
Then please point it out with a clear explanation as to why. Don't just post random insulting one-liners.
Then please point it out with a clear explanation as to why. Don't just post random insulting one-liners.
The polls were not IC, they were on the forum.Of course they were not IC. We wanted players to vote, not characters. ;)
Which again means that it hits active realms where these players play.No matter what we would have picked, we'd have hit realms that had active players.
the admins lock or delete threads.The only threads that have been locked were the threads that devolved into circular discussions and insults.
I mean seriously, did I just read from the dev team the indirect soltuion to just leave the game?!If you don't trust the dev team to do what is best for the game, then what's the point of playing the game? If you think that the dev team is on some personal mission to destroy you and your realms, or that the dev team uses their mysterious powers of influence over Tom to do manual interventions over IC events and actions, or even directly introduces code bugs and loopholes for their personal benefit (and yes, all these are accusations that have been fired at the dev team in the past), then why are you still playing the game?
Is that what you want? Is that how you treat people who don't agree with you?
Maybe you should start accepting some input here and try to come up with some hard facts like has been asked for.Hard facts about the results of the glaciating event won't be available for, I would guess, at least a year after the event has concluded. So come back in 14-15 months, and we will re-evaluate it then.
Can't agree more. Eirikr was just pointing things out in a logical fashion. If you are only here to express only your own opinion, you are not here for a discussion. You are simply here to complain and expecting people to agree with you not thinking of people you might have a different opinion. People will ignore you if you ignore their opinions.
Of course they were not IC. We wanted players to vote, not characters. ;)
The fact that we did the polls as forums polls as opposed to IG polls (and yes, I know this is what you really meant) is because how many players voted is irrelevant. As we've already explained, the players had no idea what they were voting for. Which was by design. All we wanted, was some public random coin flip. If we had posted a message IG about "Vote North or South!", all we would have gotten was massive confusion, and still no more statistically valid random result.
Hard facts about the results of the glaciating event won't be available for, I would guess, at least a year after the event has concluded. So come back in 14-15 months, and we will re-evaluate it then.
I've provided proof backing up my own opinions time and again, to have it ignored time and again for the same old excuses. If they're not going to extend that respect to me, I'm not going to for them.
See, the problem is, Gustav, from my perspective, I've given solid logical arguments and, where it exists, evidence to back up my opinions, and you've ignored them time and again, giving the same old excuses.
Funny how that works, isn't it?
No, I've refuted your arguments with evidence that supports my own. There's a slight difference that you apparently are being too thick to realize.
Yeah. And I've refuted your arguments with evidence that supports my own.
And you apparently still don't grasp that I have a point of view where I'm being logical and systematic, rather than just ranting incoherently at you because you disagree with me.
You know Anaris, you're right. And when you're right you're right. And you? You're always right.
So come back in 14-15 months, and we will re-evaluate it then.
I would have to say that some of your own logic is faulty.
Then please point it out with a clear explanation as to why. Don't just post random insulting one-liners.I wasn't really insulted; I don't pretend my logic foolproof. For example, I'm quite aware that those three questions can be answered in any number of ways, skewing the results. I'm also aware that there's even some confirmation bias by asking the "Why not?" only rather than "Why?" as well.
I've provided proof backing up my own opinions time and again, to have it ignored time and again for the same old excuses. If they're not going to extend that respect to me, I'm not going to for them.I've yet to participate in this discussion and you claim I am not willing to extend that respect to you? Tell me why I should bother looking for your other posts or respecting you now?
I don't believe this solution was designed to increase the player count. It was designed to alleviate the problems that a declining player count causes, such as very few nobles per region/realm. And, as long as the number of players leaving doesn't exceed some ratio to the number of regions removed, it will do that.
I was lucky enough to escape any of my characters being significantly affected by the glacier. I did have my main realm badly affected by starvation caused by another GM event, though - the food/gold production rebalance. We lost eight regions and had the population of many of our cities reduced to the point where it will take months to fully recover. So I do feel at least partially qualified to say this:
You are more than welcome to express your dissatisfaction at events. Do not, however, take your anger out at Devs who are only trying to make this a better game for everyone. Most definitely do not accuse them of bias or of targeting realms their characters are in conflict with. Not only is it insulting, it simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. One Dev lost a number of regions that formerly belonged to the realm he is ruler of, and that were fully intended to be reclaimed by that realm. Another lost the entire realm he is ruler of - that hardly seems like something he would do if he was trying to deliberately target certain realms.
No, I've refuted your arguments with evidence that supports my own. There's a slight difference that you apparently are being too thick to realize.
Again, you're assuming that this is a failure, and that the data showing people leaving "proves" this, when all it proves is that what is happening is exactly what we predicted so far.
If, in six months, the data shows that we're still bleeding players at a rate higher than before the Ice Age began, then you can come to me and say that it failed, and I'll agree with you. For now, it's just way, way too soon to tell. So be patient.
Related question:
What happens if a character is paused in the glacier's path, and is then later unpaused?
All characters should be automatically moved to a safe region each time the glacier advances.
Once the glacier settles, I will run a check on all the frozen regions and make sure there's no one trapped back there.
Which is sad, one of my characters I rp'd as having gone insane due to the ice wanted to offer himself up to the glaciers and be frozen under them. He was just pushed back. So I Rp'd the glacier bonking him on the head and curing his madness.
The end result of this whole ordeal is that it was a very very bad show. Instead of allowing us to fight and show that we can hold our place, you had to force an artificial destruction of land that was invetable and could not be avoided. In my opinion, a fair challenge is the thing to go and allow players to determine their fate (bad outcome is good as long as it is your own fault).
You seem to have missed the point.I think "it was either this or nothing" is a false dichotomy. A simpler way to increase player density might have been to set minimum number of nobles to keep a region, let's say 3. Any region with fewer than 3 nobles goes rogue. As a result, you achieve smaller, more compact realms, but instead of corralling everyone like farm animals who are pissed off because they have no choice in the matter, you would empower them to collaborate and strategise to decide which regions they want to keep and which ones will go rogue. Things like fealty, honour & teamwork become more important, and peer recruitment would go up because it directly supports expansion. Best of all, it would be player-driven and not sky-hook-driven.
The entire purpose of this exercise was to reduce the number of regions available, so as to increase the player density in the remaining regions.
If we gave the players a fight they had any realistic hope of winning, that simply wouldn't have happened.
Remember, the alternative to this was never "do nothing." It was closing an entire continent, without any hope of fighting or changing it.
Where is Foundation?
A simpler way to increase player density might have been to set minimum number of nobles to keep a region, let's say 3. Any region with fewer than 3 nobles goes rogue. As a result, you achieve smaller, more compact realms,
We had something similar with the old estate system. Players hated it. Also, this would have caused isolated realms surrounded by swathes of rogue land. That's not desirable. We want dense population. We want pressure for land. We want the struggles for elbow room. Vast swathes of low density or empty regions just makes everything feel empty and abandoned.
You seem to have missed the point.
The entire purpose of this exercise was to reduce the number of regions available, so as to increase the player density in the remaining regions.
If we gave the players a fight they had any realistic hope of winning, that simply wouldn't have happened.
Remember, the alternative to this was never "do nothing." It was closing an entire continent, without any hope of fighting or changing it.
I haven't been keeping any kind of close track, but I've definitely noticed what appears to be an increase in new account creation in at least one of my realms over the past week or so.
Really? No mean to be rude, but the devs decided to !@#$ over a significant part of the playerbase without even bothering to monitor if it even did any good?
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 |
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.
If you'd been paying attention, you would know that the timeframe for "doing any good" is expected to be in the range of 6-12 months. Not during the event itself.
Anaris, you're telling a new player that they're wrong.Mrh? Yasha is a new player? That's funny...
You mean like Morek?The situation that developed around Morek, and the Lurias, too, is definitely undesirable. It was the result of a lot of bad factors, including the old estate system and the low player density. We didn't have enough people to conquer the rogue expanses of land. People struck out on their own to start new colonies far away. We ended up with isolated pockets of civilization that had essentially no hope of interacting with each other. And literally no reason to do so, even if they could. Everyone had all the land they could possibly want or use, and more. It wasn't until the old estate system was torn out, and realms could expand farther, that things started to pick up. But by then too many realms had just given up. And the major realms were so far away from each other that they still really had no hope of interacting in any major way. There weren't enough players to drive the pressure to expand. If you tried to institute a rule where you had to have X nobles assigned to a region to control it, you'd be returning to those horrible days of the old estate system, and the excruciatingly painful isolation that killed the island for so long.
The original Dwilight map would take a LOT of characters to fill. I'd estimate anywhere from 800 to 1000 noble characters, at an absolute minimum, to make it a really fun island.
I'm glad to see active userbase is still steady.[/tab
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
The situation that developed around Morek, and the Lurias, too, is definitely undesirable. It was the result of a lot of bad factors...This. This so much. Traveling between Morek, Swordfell, Niselur, and Asylon was a joke. Most realm capitals are almost a season away from each other. So, unless you were willing to drop everything and go backpacking through Dwilight, most realms/cultures would never even meet let alone have opportunity to clash.
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.
This is very useful. Would it be possible to drill down and see more details about the players, e.g. how long they've been playing, how often they play, what positions their chars' hold?
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.
This is very useful. Would it be possible to drill down and see more details about the players, e.g. how long they've been playing, how often they play, what positions their chars' hold?
I simply got that info from the in-game statistics page. I don't know how I could access any of that additional information.
Does the "Registered players" column include paused accounts?
Do the "Activity" columns count the number of logins?
Yes.
The "Activity" columns simply record the number of players who logged in within the relevant period.
But all these critical decisions are made within a small circle,
Correct. As a famous man once said: Important decisions are best made in a comittee, made up of three people, two of them absent.
We've tried making decisions in public forums and there were endless discussions going nowhere. Almost everything good in this world is driven by a small group or even one individual with a strong vision.
And I'm dead serious, and I know that Tom will agree with me completely: If you do not trust the dev team to be impartial, regardless of what we say, then you cannot hope to play this game without constantly looking over your shoulder. So you may as well leave.
Many players don't leave, because the game is unique.
Anaris, you're telling a new player that they're wrong. You know, the people we're trying to attract. They're telling you this is driving people away, including them. You're getting feedback and ignoring it.
Anaris. Let's say this very straight.
The polls were not IC, they were on the forum.
On the forum are only active players.
So only active players voted.
I would be more precise and say "on forums are only those who like forums". There has been long time since players who dislike forums are announced to be "second-grade" players, and they even cannot act against such devaluing - as all discussions go through forums.
I would be more precise and say "on forums are only those who like forums". There has been long time since players who dislike forums are announced to be "second-grade" players, and they even cannot act against such devaluing - as all discussions go through forums.
it's significant to see that no any new player asks about glacier, how that's possible, one would expect that at least some of them would be surprised.
Oh believe me, there are plenty of new players on Dwilight who are asking many, many questions about the event. You just choose to ignore that as it doesn't fit your personal opinions.Or perhaps he simply isn't seeing them.
Or perhaps he simply isn't seeing them.
in my current post there is no word that points dev team, i'm just mentioning what i can see on casual visits to forum, it has been long-spread thesis on forum players like "the most valuable" players, i don't know who initiated it and who supports it, but it certainly affects those who hang on forums, one way or another, more or less.
The negative attitude is not shared IG by anyone but those who decide to leave. Those determined to keep playing and carving a new realm don't leave either their realm or the game.
Honestly, wasn't enough to screw the whole western island in Dwilight up? I understand the idea of popping some monsters in the eastern island to keep the realms there busy. But sending tons of monsters eastwards from the devastated west is about to just erase any possibility for many of us to have a chance to get new lands. Or at least in Barca. Which is the purpose for that?
the same way, i don't know why in-game mentors are disbanded
No, we thought that the monsters wouldn't be swarming back east all over the island, preventing anyone who might want to help us from doing anything. For goodness sake, Fissoa isn't even on that !@#$ing island.
Of course Barcan command could have done things better, but it's normal to make mistakes when some of them maybe faced the first invasion operation. As you say we could have stabbed in the back our allies, but yes, we're supposed to be lawful. And with no ally support in the east, would have Luria and their Asylonian pals received our new realm with wide open arms?
What really bothers me is that we haven't seen any ally on this until our troops have been butchered. And if that has nothing to do with the monster uprisings, then I'd say that is incompetent leadership.
Asylonians went for Corsanctum. Why would they care about you guys attacking Fissona? Lurians were too busy getting owned by monsters and starvation. Barca's incompetent leadership brought this whole failure on themselves. They obviously lacked goals and plans for their little campaign. You don't attack a realm that large without any insurance which Barca thought they had. Why would Barca's allies even help Barca when they could just wait for Barca's armies to get wiped out and absorb their nobles as their own?
And Barcans thought their allies could help. See? More signs of incompetent leadership. They didn't even know their allies were in no shape to help them.
And Barcans thought their allies could help. See? More signs of incompetent leadership. They didn't even know their allies were in no shape to help them.
Same kind of incompetence that led Luria to implode on itself, I guess.
Asylonians went for Corsanctum. Why would they care about you guys attacking Fissona? Lurians were too busy getting owned by monsters and starvation. Barca's incompetent leadership brought this whole failure on themselves. They obviously lacked goals and plans for their little campaign. You don't attack a realm that large without any insurance which Barca thought they had. Why would Barca's allies even help Barca when they could just wait for Barca's armies to get wiped out and absorb their nobles as their own?'S what my char's been preaching since the very beginning (when we were still in the motherland) yet few listened. To be honest I just blame our allies, our leadership made errors, such as not knowing that doing a takeover stopped the enemies from using fortifications, but these are the things that newer players don't know and is simply gamey, and the other mistake of relying on our allies. We waited for ages in Barca and then in Fissoa and then pillaged half of Luria and still no help came. Seems like our leadership just thought 'well !@#$ that let's have a big last battle then', by which time only 1 allied noble had reached us, one. Let's be honest, even 'Barcan incompetent leadership' at least managed to march 70% of the nobles from one region to another in cohesion, not in tiny trickles of twos and threes.
Ironically, the Southern League had assembled (Fissoa, at least) a large force with the express purpose of invading Luria Nova before the whole monsters thing happened... And then, conveniently for Luria Nova, so many rogue forces popped up on the Madinan Isle, and all across Fissoa, that our army was whittled back down to nothing and overextended trying to defend against 10-20k of CS of monsters in single regions, each turn, every turn. On top of that, Barca was decimated. After that, every time Fissoa pledged to defend Barca, another 25k CS of monsters would crop up somewhere, making it absolutely impossible to even think about moving offensively into Luria Nova... and then when we finally do pledge a force to go help them no matter what, over 40k CS of monsters rolls into Candiels.
Yep. Bull!@#$ like this really ruins it for me. I'm pausing my character and putting my account on hiatus.
'S what my char's been preaching since the very beginning (when we were still in the motherland) yet few listened. To be honest I just blame our allies, our leadership made errors, such as not knowing that doing a takeover stopped the enemies from using fortifications, but these are the things that newer players don't know and is simply gamey, and the other mistake of relying on our allies. We waited for ages in Barca and then in Fissoa and then pillaged half of Luria and still no help came. Seems like our leadership just thought 'well !@#$ that let's have a big last battle then', by which time only 1 allied noble had reached us, one. Let's be honest, even 'Barcan incompetent leadership' at least managed to march 70% of the nobles from one region to another in cohesion, not in tiny trickles of twos and threes.
We could've completely crushed Luria if we had received even the slightest of help. edit: before we were destroyed
Well obviously Barca sucks. Their nobles have no loyalty, no trust in their allies, and don't like to communicate but then complain that their allies didn't magically arrive right when Barca did.
Yeah, sorry. After crossing the sea, going through Fissoan regions towards Luria and not seeing monsters, then receiving a letter from Fissoan generals threatening to withdraw their support because of an isolate case of killing of peasants in a Lurian region, kind of made us hesitate. That along with the absolute absence of a single ally until we got screwed up.
I'd like to see what D'Harans would have done in a similar situation.
Did Barca really try and march the whole way there? Why not sail over, and then land all together in an isolated rural somewhere? At least then you could avoid the monsters en route. (Note: I have no idea what Barca actually did, just combing the forum thread for my info.)
Yeah, sorry. After crossing the sea, going through Fissoan regions towards Luria and not seeing monsters, then receiving a letter from Fissoan generals threatening to withdraw their support because of an isolate case of killing of peasants in a Lurian region, kind of made us hesitate. That along with the absolute absence of a single ally until we got screwed up.
I'd like to see what D'Harans would have done in a similar situation.
We sailed what we could, but the food provision mechanics are debilitating, to say the least. We had to march over land occasionally just to recover more food for our troops.
Starting from the bottom and working up got me involved in the game. I made friends, allegiances, enemies, etc. all in the process of ascending the ranks. That's where the fun is - not sitting on your ass as the lord of a knight-less region collecting taxes you'll never spend.
EDIT: I think that personally my biggest issue with the 'events' in BM lately is that it's bruising egos of players. Rulers and other long-serving council positions, as well as lords and dukes, are going to be a fair bit butthurt having to start over in a new area of a continent, or simply relocate to another. My sentiment on this is simply "Too Bad". These are the complaints of people who quit your average MMO over a class nerf because suddenly they cant 1-button the game anymore. People are pissed they have to give up positions they 'earned' in a game that has a declining population of players - Many lords since even I started playing are Lords for no other reason than they were active players and there was an opening. There was no 'earning' involved, right place at the right time.
Starting from the bottom and working up got me involved in the game. I made friends, allegiances, enemies, etc. all in the process of ascending the ranks. That's where the fun is - not sitting on your ass as the lord of a knight-less region collecting taxes you'll never spend.
Thats prolly true on many cases, on my case(Not having any position in Darka, and i guess many other old Darkans) is that 10 years of "habit" to be Darkan is about to disappear. Culture which had grown along with us. I guess thats what has kept me playing past few years, along with this pesky war with CE. Overall, i'm not that worried about the results of this... but we prolly will lose many old farts who are playing just for the habit of playing.
Isolated case? 4 reports from a minimum of 2, if not 3 nobles. This was despite apparent orders from Julius to stop - a claim of no honor is sort of a side effect to an epic failure to follow the simplest of orders for 3 days in a row. Means either people simply don't care, or aren't bothering to read the orders given.
I was less concerned with the killing sprees than the Rape spree, but it was after the open letter from Julius to the rulers that it would stop that it continued into Grodno for 2 days.Rape is not reported to the realm doing so, only killing, so they actually didn't know rape was happening until you said something.
Edit: Good to know the 2nd noble was Banished - nothing was ever said to Luria about it. I've seen more information from random Barcan/Fissoan/D'Haran nobles than i have from those I've asked directly.
Does a TO force the loss of the walls to the defender?When a TO is running, the realm running the TO is always the defender.
Something to note:
If there is ANY militia or troop presence left in the city/townsland, then the region owner is the defender and will always get the walls in defense, even if the attacking realm has won the last few battles and should, by rights, be cozily set up in the castle.
If you start a TO, and there is zero presence of enemy troops, militia or otherwise, you should be set up as the defender and get full use of the walls.
When you have one shot, you don't waste it on looting some regions. You go straight for your goal.
You gave too much time to Luria. At least enough to let them mobilize their armies.
Our armies were always mobilized, we were busy purging hordes - same as everyone else. We just happened to be in the same area doing so when Barca arrived. To be fair, we also knew about it some time beforehand. D'Hara is rife with silent nobility providing that information.
Just another symptom of the realm-as-a-team spirit being gone and replaced with an utterly destructive self-serving mentality. I don't recall spies ever being a significant concern when I joined the game, but now it's safe to assume that every realm and religion probably has at least 10% of its nobles that are just there to see it fail.
When a TO is running, the realm running the TO is always the defender.
Only a region owner fighting as the Defender, can use the walls. Therefore, when an active TO is running, no one gets the walls.
I really hate this kind of behavior. This is the kind of thing that gets people to mistrust their peers, and limit trust, cooperation, and sharing. Many things that used to be discussed openly and had everyone invited to contribute shift towards secrecy, with smaller discussion groups and many actions taken without consulting anyone at all. And who pays for it? In the end, it's the newbies in particular, but everyone in general. It promotes silence and stagnation.Settle down, he was probably just referencing Lucius which shouldn't have been that hard to guess would give Luria Nova what ever information he had when joined.
Just another symptom of the realm-as-a-team spirit being gone and replaced with an utterly destructive self-serving mentality. I don't recall spies ever being a significant concern when I joined the game, but now it's safe to assume that every realm and religion probably has at least 10% of its nobles that are just there to see it fail.
One question regarding this matter of TO's and walls: is there any possible way to enter a region guarded by a garrison and start a TO (avoiding to engage in combat with the defenders), in order to refrain them from using the walls?Sending a large enough unit with evasive settings and getting lucky that they are actually able to evade. Otherwise I don't think so.
One question regarding this matter of TO's and walls: is there any possible way to enter a region guarded by a garrison and start a TO (avoiding to engage in combat with the defenders), in order to refrain them from using the walls?
No. If you do not control the battlefield, you cannot start a takeover.
I agree that it's a serious problem, but it's a long way from being a new problem.Yeah, spying sucks. Horribly destructive for the game as a whole. There may be logically RP'd reasons for some characters to spy. But it still sucks, from an OOC perspective. When you know that every message you send to your realm is going to be handed over to your enemies, or perspective enemies, you hesitate to involve more than a trusted few in your discussions. This drives conversations into small, closed councils. You don't involve other players in your decision making process. This makes the realms quieter, and the players bored/dissatisfied. I've seen it happen quite often.
Silence and stagnation was part of the issue to begin with. Anyone who was in D'Hara just before the monsters/glaciers struck would have known the situation that spawned the dissent in the ranks - and none of them should have been surprised given the way things escalated.I don't currently play on Dwilight, so I can't really talk about the situation in D'Hara. But yeah, there are a lot of silent, stagnant realms in the game.
The game doesn't provide a lot of opportunity to remove a leader or council member, let alone get support from the realm.Rebellion, protests, region/duchy allegiance change, civil disobedience, etc. You just have to find the right people. And if you can't get that support, then perhaps it's not the game that's at fault, but that your realm really doesn't want the kind of change you're trying to force.
It's simply part of the game, and for that matter - a part of life.Sure, it is indeed part of life. But people in life who do these kinds of things run a very real risk of imprisonment and death. There are risks involved, and opportunities to catch them. You have none of that IG. (Unless they're complete idiots. But that's another story.)
Our armies were always mobilized, we were busy purging hordes - same as everyone else. We just happened to be in the same area doing so when Barca arrived. To be fair, we also knew about it some time beforehand. D'Hara is rife with silent nobility providing that information.That's a shame.
I'd be skeptical of the non-rogue counts if i hadn't seen how many regions we lost to monsters and starvation in just our corner of the east. But a goodchunk of the west is now hijacked by monsters. So that count is sort of misleading for anything relevant.I'd respectfully have to disagree with you. Since the purpose of the monster invasion/glacier is to increase the number of nobles in non-rogue regions, you need to look at how many non-rogue regions there are in relation to the number of nobles to know whether the plan is working or not. The number of characters is only half of that equation.
RIght but without a full count of rogue regions ONLY in the west and Occupied regions in the west AND east in addition to the total count on the island - This information is much less usefulWestern rogues: 91 out of 105
We're still only looking at a 2:1 density, still a bit light but it's better than 1.1:1
Then the big realms would just stomp the small realms into the ground.I don't see how is different now. Big realms stomp small realms right now!
Density does help a lot. If you're an active player in a realm with a total of ten nobles in total where the majority of players are passive then the odds are you'll be bored stiff because there's no one else active to play with and very little activity within the realm.
If you have the same situation with three times the nobles then at least there's likely to be enough active players to keep a decent level of activity going on within the realm.
I feel like if Barca/Asylon/Niselur plans dont work out in the East because of lack of income/resources and their armies get wiped out that many of their nobles will quit the game.
Me personally will try and stick to the game as long as i have will to play on. But this whole situation frustrated me a lot.
I don't see how is different now. Big realms stomp small realms right now!
Small realms without active nobles don't survive and in small realms one noble can make the difference... Big realms where only the council decide and 50 noblemen follow orders, are no much fun either.
If this was the matter, all big realms would have a steady growing in noblemen, while small realms would had disappeared... is this the case?... and honestly, if this was the matter, why begun the number of players begin to fall??? If the number of players is the reason, and some years ago, we have the "good proportion" of them... then why begun the fall in players?
...The number of players hasn't begun to fall either - it's been in a slow and steady decline for years and years...
This was my question. Why the slow and steady decline??? This is the matter I don't think the shrinking is going to solve.
This "steady decline" have a cause... or we solve it, or not matter how many regions we ice, the game will not survive.
On top of that, we then had the opening of an entirely new continent at a time when the player base was already shrinking
I don't believe that's quite the case—I believe that it was still growing at the time Dwilight opened, though the growth rate may have slowed.
Additionally, I believe that we could make a big difference in registration and retention if we could get a serious graphical overhaul for the game. Unfortunately, that's not something I'm qualified to do.
What kind of a graphical overhaul are we talking, here?
"Region Maintenance Master"
There really is no point in every person being a lord, other than some shiny buttons to press. This means people end up spreading out resources to every badland and two turn mountain region, cause everyone wants those buttons. I know it is a game and you want to take all the pieces, but it doesn't seem sound strategy. Often a city estate will offer more than any two of the realms backwater gold/food sinks.
How often are awesome recruitment centers outside a cities walls? How often are paraphernalia spread all over the place? I think Region Maintenance Master is taking away from Battlemaster in a big way.
We could have policed this as players. WE failed to do so. We all got greedy, wanted every title and medal and trinket. The freeze will help reign in the seduction of Regionmaster, and War Islands will help cure people of the terrible affliction.
There really is no point in every person being a lord, other than some shiny buttons to press. This means people end up spreading out resources to every badland and two turn mountain region, cause everyone wants those buttons. I know it is a game and you want to take all the pieces, but it doesn't seem sound strategy. Often a city estate will offer more than any two of the realms backwater gold/food sinks.I agree with you a little bit. The reason it doesn't play out this way IMO is a problem with the cost-benefit analysis. The current mechanics favour low density. For example, 'Realm A' with 12 nobles and 12 regions can have more gold, more food, more recruitment centres, and control more of the map than 'Realm B' with 12 nobles and 4 or 5 regions, and at no additional cost to Realm A. Also, the players behind Realm A will be more engaged because, as you pointed out, players do want to be more than knights.
How often are awesome recruitment centers outside a cities walls? How often are paraphernalia spread all over the place? I think Region Maintenance Master is taking away from Battlemaster in a big way.
We could have policed this as players. WE failed to do so. We all got greedy, wanted every title and medal and trinket. The freeze will help reign in the seduction of Regionmaster, and War Islands will help cure people of the terrible affliction.
I agree with you a little bit. The reason it doesn't play out this way IMO is a problem with the cost-benefit analysis. The current mechanics favour low density. For example, 'Realm A' with 12 nobles and 12 regions can have more gold, more food, more recruitment centres, and control more of the map than 'Realm B' with 12 nobles and 4 or 5 regions, and at no additional cost to Realm A. Also, the players behind Realm A will be more engaged because, as you pointed out, players do want to be more than knights.
Right now, a lord with no knights can collect more gold on tax day than a lord with knights. In other words, increased density is penalized, and decreased density is rewarded.
a lord with knights who has 50% lord's share tax settings will receive the same gold in income as a lord without knights, and likely more because he can reduce the size of his own estate to increase its efficiency (and also harbor more knights).Is this realistic though? I've never seen a region with 50% lord's share and knights who are willing to stay there. It's usually closer to 10-15%.
That also ignores the other benefits of having knights, which is an increase in your own personal power; there's nothing quite like being the lord of a city and having five other people answer directly to you. It gives you a lot of sway; if in a realm of thirty people you alone control 1/5th of it, the government is going to respect the heck out of your opinion (and that of your knights if you stick up for them, which will in turn make them like you more).That's not realistic either. A region with 6 nobles is extremely rare, a region with 1-2 nobles is the norm.
Is this realistic though? I've never seen a region with 50% lord's share and knights who are willing to stay there. It's usually closer to 10-15%.
That's not realistic either. A region with 6 nobles is extremely rare, a region with 1-2 nobles is the norm.
I always put 50% lord's share on my knights. If they don't like it, they can get the f out! I usually award those who dedicate more to the region. Sending them more gold or increase their estate size.
A region with 6 nobles is indeed rare. That is why we are shrinking regions to have more knights per regions.
This is why regions with 4 or 5 knights is rare. Why the hell would you tax at 50%? Use the estate system to distribute gold. If you have to hand all that gold back, skip the bank and look at how your estates are setup. You can change the estate sizes however you'd like.
You not fond of the paper trail? ;)
I would disagree. There may be a slight return on gold, but if you spread too thin you cannot project power. If realm B is heavily invested in a profitable city and surrounding rurals, it has a defensive edge and can focus effort. Not to say there isn't an edge on gaining as many gold/food producing regions, but if you have to fight tooth and nail to keep an extra 30 gold per week...it isn't worth it. I'll avoid going into more detail, don't want to derail this into a BM military theory thread, but there is power in focused effort.You're describing how the game should work, but I don't think it does work that way in reality, at least based on what I've seen. I think most regions have 1 noble, and only a handful have more than 2.
I always put 50% lord's share on my knights. If they don't like it, they can get the f out! I usually award those who dedicate more to the region. Sending them more gold or increase their estate size.But the reason you can afford to have that attitude ("If they don't like it, they can get the f out!") is that you can maintain the same level of income with or without them. My argument is that there should be meaningful consequences when knights vacate the region.
A region with 6 nobles is indeed rare. That is why we are shrinking regions to have more knights per regions.
But the reason you can afford to have that attitude ("If they don't like it, they can get the f out!") is that you can maintain the same level of income with or without them. My argument is that there should be meaningful consequences when knights vacate the region.There is. The region makes less gold when its just the lord in command. That means the realm is hurting because its region's aren't making as much gold as they can. And if you look at cities, there are plenty with 5 or 6 nobles. Townslands will tend to have at least 1 or 2 knights. The rest previously I will admit it wasn't overly common to have more than 1 knight, and it wasn't exactly rare for it to be just a lord. The Ice Age and Monster Invasion are changing it from it being normal to have just the lord.
There is. The region makes less gold when its just the lord in command. That means the realm is hurting because its region's aren't making as much gold as they can. And if you look at cities, there are plenty with 5 or 6 nobles. Townslands will tend to have at least 1 or 2 knights. The rest previously I will admit it wasn't overly common to have more than 1 knight, and it wasn't exactly rare for it to be just a lord. The Ice Age and Monster Invasion are changing it from it being normal to have just the lord.
I will state this, realms with higher density though are almost always better, funner, stronger realms than those with low density. Realm size does take effect, but higher density certainly helps a realm. (Its also generally caused by the realm being fun so things to tend to be a cycle in growth/shrinkage)
Is this realistic though? I've never seen a region with 50% lord's share and knights who are willing to stay there. It's usually closer to 10-15%.A knight in a big city can make 150-200 gold per week, which is more than most rural lords, let alone rural knights. Lords of large cities can (and, IMO, should) amass 4-5 knights without too much trouble if noble density allows it; this gets very hard when noble density is low because people frequently want titles more than they want more gold. I'd rather be "Count of Badlandia" than "Knight of Richcity" and just request gold from the realm council constantly whenever they want me to march to war.
That's not realistic either. A region with 6 nobles is extremely rare, a region with 1-2 nobles is the norm.
I will state this, realms with higher density though are almost always better, funner, stronger realms than those with low density. Realm size does take effect, but higher density certainly helps a realm. (Its also generally caused by the realm being fun so things to tend to be a cycle in growth/shrinkage)Yes, I think most people would agree. The problem that I see is the disconnect between what's good for the community, and what's good for the individual. The incentives overwhelmingly favour expansion over density. Consider this hypothetical. You're a regional lord and I'm a knight. My estate yields 100 gold, of which you get 50 and I get 50. Then our realm conquers a new region and I'm appointed as its lord. Now I'm getting 175 gold per week, and you're still getting 50 gold from my vacant estate. So I'm happy because the game is more fun now that my char has a title, plus my income goes up, my duke's income goes up, my ruler's income goes up, and your income stays about the same (maybe 5 gold less than before). As a realm, we gain access to whatever amenities come with the new region, e.g. food, paraphernalia, recruitment centres, strategic advantages. The effect of the reduced density is too negligible to even think about, and in any case we think that more nobles will join our realm as we continue to expand.
Buffalkill:
Which is good; it should always be better to be bigger or else there would be very little incentive for realms to expand and try to get bigger (obviously being big will come with its own challenges like distance to capital, etc.). The problem is that when you get so big that everyone is a lord, you miss out on a lot of what's dynamic about having knights and, unfortunately, that's where a lot of realms were at.
That is why all the realms are so huge these days. People keep crying about single duchy realms but why? When you can be bigger and better?I have been thinking of something I experienced previously. Is it not the bigger the realm size, the more disadvantage you have such as lack of control issues in the regions? Or have this situation changes with the implementation of the new estate?
It's a roleplaying game, yes, but there's also a competitive element. It's natural for realms to strive to expand and conquer new lands, but the fact that most stable realms are able to hold nearly 1 region for every noble means that it's too easy to hold a region. Yes, we want realms to strive for world domination, and it's up to the game to make it hard enough that it's not boring, and easy enough that players are not discouraged. It's a delicate balance.I feel like you don't understand the problem. It's not bad that realms can have 1 noble hold a region by himself, it's that their aren't enough nobles for all these lands, hence the freezing and rogue invasion.
I feel like you don't understand the problem. It's not bad that realms can have 1 noble hold a region by himself, it's that their aren't enough nobles for all these lands, hence the freezing and rogue invasion.I do understand. But one problem is density, another is recruitment and retention. Eliminating regions will certainly increase the density in the short term (it already has) but it's far from certain that this will stick in the long term, and we could potentially be right back where we started in a few months but on a smaller scale. Requiring more nobles to hold a region doesn't address the retention problem, but it would address the density problem in a more sustainable and player-driven way.
When realms have more nobles than regions, they aren't telling knights to screw off nor are knights going I need a lordship, I am out. We just don't have as many players so we don't have as many nobles. The increased density should end boosting fun in a variety of ways that can't always be seen by some immediately but some I talk with are understanding. It's not the end all, perfect fix, but helps a lot and more is constantly being developed to aid the game, but it takes time.
On a side note, despite being the largest realm on Atamara, there is hardly any interaction between players and it is dull as mud. Any recommendations for a realm with lots of fighting and role-playing about it?
I think you have a bit misunderstood Darka a bit. REalm south of Darka is Talerium, ally of Darka and Ally of our enemy. Darka prolly would take Talerium's lands in few weeks if there would not be over half of the continent helping them. We are at war with 3 biggest realms on island, we would only speed up our death by going war against TAlerium for now, our enemy cant take our land, cause they dont border with us.
-Jaune
When they leave, the density will drop again. Will the dev team advance the glacier again? That would be ridiculous.
This is all hot air.
Players quitting can't be summarized to protests or the like.
SOMETHING had to be done. Wrongly or rightly this is what was chosen. We should all work to make the game better rather than bicker over actions we cannot change.
So, i guess leadership is now pondering what to do? Fight back? Give up? Start new war? Darka doenst have much of good options left.
Buffalkill: And how do propose to increase retention?There many possible strategies worth debating to improve retention. Here a few possibility off the top of my head:
The most straight forward thing to me is make war happen more often. What's the two things that most often stand in people's way for starting a war? The huge potential damage and that currently if you are smaller it's much harder to fill the military gap with tactics and strategy. For the huge potential damage, look into changing how looting affects a region would go a long ways. Then for overcoming the gap because you are smaller, would be introducing more things to differentiate armies. Both of those issues are being addressed already.
As well you want to know what helps retention, making sure that new players can always be involved in war at the beginning. How? War Islands, an island in constant warfare. The War Islands is great for the game in many other ways as well, but that is the one relevant to the topic at hand.
I wonder how many players would have been pissed at the devs for the freeze if they had known the War Islands might be coming back. It solves most qualms in this thread.
Also, one has to wonder how creating more land is supposed to increase either activity or density.War Islands character slots are planned to be completely separate. The plan is for each account to play one noble on the war island, and this character will not affect any other character slots you may have. IOW - playing a character to the War Island will not reduce the number of active nobles you have to play on other islands.
Finally, I'd also add that while noble:region and nobles:realm ratios were mentioned, realms:continent ratios also need to be considered, because ultimately, other realms of the continent are the only ones a realm can declare war on.Hopefully, increasing the nobles:region ration, and thus the nobles:realm ratio, will help to increase the pressures to form new realms. If by no other means than allowing realms to spawn new colonies.
War Islands character slots are planned to be completely separate. The plan is for each account to play one noble on the war island, and this character will not affect any other character slots you may have. IOW - playing a character to the War Island will not reduce the number of active nobles you have to play on other islands.
Hopefully, increasing the nobles:region ration, and thus the nobles:realm ratio, will help to increase the pressures to form new realms. If by no other means than allowing realms to spawn new colonies.
I'm one of those players that plays less characters than I'm entitled to, but I think I will try a character in WI to see what that island is all about. :)
If the war island turns into a RP SMA permadeath island... I might actually play a character on it.
I've never played on the old war Islands, but my impression was it was meant as the least SMA of all islands where BM was more of a game of strategy than a RP game. Am I wrong?
If I knew that more specifically, I'd be able to do at least some of it myself ;D
Update the site's look, give it a more modern feel, while still keeping the BattleMaster aesthetic. As far as I'm concerned, nothing's off the table in terms of making the game more interesting, more fun, and more attractive to players new and old. (I won't necessarily approve any given change—but I'll certainly listen to it.)
In the end, though, it all just seems like band-aids. All "fixes" are to extend the life of the game a little, but there is no solution in sight for stopping playerbase decay.
We've lost 51 registered players since January. Something worth debating is the effect of seasons on player retention. Player losses occurred 69% in Autumn; 18% in Spring; 13% in Winter. Summer is the only time we gained players. Among the continents, Dwilight has lost the most chars.
The #1 thing every single player can do to help the game be more fun is to play it actively, treat it as a game, and do your best to include others in your fun.
Asylon might fall apart in next couple of days/weeks. It will be interesting to see how many players will quit the game.
Morek can always choose to wipe out Astrum and suddenly Astrum helping out Asylon.The hatred between Asylon and Astrum runs deep.
The hatred between Asylon and Astrum runs deep.
Swordfell was attacked by Asylon's ally, Niselur. Why would they help Asylon? And how could they? They were also overrun by monsters, just like everyone else.
Actually i do not understand what's in the mind of the players especially the rulers. Swordfell could had made it very fun by helping out Asylon, but they chose to go about their own business. Astrum and Morek probably have their own IC agenda and not suitable to help Asylon out. That's understandable. But even that can be turned around. Morek can always choose to wipe out Astrum and suddenly Astrum helping out Asylon.The things you choose to do still need to make sense for your character, and the situation in which they find themselves. How would it make sense for Morek to attack Astrum? How would it make sense for Astrum to ally with Asylon against Morek?
Swordfell was attacked by Asylon's ally, Niselur. Why would they help Asylon? And how could they? They were also overrun by monsters, just like everyone else.
The things you choose to do still need to make sense for your character, and the situation in which they find themselves. How would it make sense for Morek to attack Astrum? How would it make sense for Astrum to ally with Asylon against Morek?
And don't just blame the rulers. Yes, rulers may be the one to actually click the "Declare war!" button, but they have to answer to the nobles in their realms. If the nobles don't go along with it, then the realm will crumble and fail. Then the net result of the swapped alliance will be that the ruler loses his position, and the realm goes right on doing what it did before. Or the realm completely fails, and disintegrates, getting gobble up by everything around it. Take, for example, the recent situation on EC with Eponllyn being surrounded by the Southern Alliance realms. When the ice hit, Eponllyn was offered an opportunity to join the SA and carve a new realm out of Sirion. As ruler of Eponllyn I could have said "Sure, let's go for it!". But if I had, then probably at least 80% of my realm would have either rebelled or walked away. Assuming I kept my throne, I would have an ineffectual realm of about 5 or 6 nobles left, and three of those would have been newbies who had just joined.
You have to take actions which make sense for your character, and which the other characters in your realm will go along with. Face-Heel turns with no warning/justification are no fun for anyone.
Pretty sure this never happened - in fact, when it was brought up in Ruler it was mysteriously swept under the rug and the war declaration was still never recinded
I thought a bunch of Niselurians just joined Swordfell? The only attacks on Swordfell lately have been from Wildcard Wassiley.Only one Niselurian joined Swordfell recently. The rest took their swords and left.
So because you fear a war, you start one?
Swordfell feared war, and thus did not, to my knowledge, start any itself.
Atamara is about to lose serious amount of characters. Not sure if that effects game char account, but Atamara is messed up.
Asylon is just trying to solve its own problems for a while. Of course we'll lose characters. Maybe players too. And here we have a clear difference between a player and those who stop at the first adversity -- or thousandth.
Well both Asylon and Barca at least managed to grab a toehold in the east, which is an achievement I feel :P I hope both realms survive, I'm sure more realms in the Morek or Lurian region would spice things up and make the east more interesting.
The hatred between Asylon and Astrum runs deep.
No worries. Once I become a ruler again, it will definitely happen 8) since I don't give a crap about losing.
Which is why no one in their right mind should ever let you become a ruler.
That every time we find a traitor or madman within our ranks, they turn around and find a comfy home in Asylon doesn't help matters either.
Well both Asylon and Barca at least managed to grab a toehold in the east, which is an achievement I feel :P I hope both realms survive, I'm sure more realms in the Morek or Lurian region would spice things up and make the east more interesting.
This is what I'm most afraid of. If things go back to Morek and Luria sitting on 90% of the east island with a peace-lock on each other, we'll see more players drop. Duke's might secede if everything gets boring, I suppose, but long-standing dukes are more patient with peace and week long marches than most characters.
How are they on a peace-lock...? They've been at war, and have not been on friendly terms in a while.
I haven't been around for too long, but the entire time I have, Morek and Luria have been pacifying to each other. I joined late 2012, and the only thing I've seen was a quick loot of Dongwei and a quick peace.
The main problem is, they can't march on each other. You can't war with capitals on either end of the island. How long would it take to even march from one capital to the first region of the other realm?
Ok, I don't know if this is the right place for my complaint. Specifically in Dwilight and only in Dwilight. My character was Duke of Itau. His family is fairly rich (8k gold). He had the option to buy a region. Great! I can understand why I cannot buy an enemy region with a Lord. But why I can't buy a Rogue Region? Not a city... By the gods, nor a townsland. But why not a rural region to call mine!? Henrich feel the most miserable of his kind... :PLikely because there is no government in place. Happens with a priest too. (Can't claim rogue regions)
Likely because there is no government in place. Happens with a priest too. (Can't claim rogue regions)
Was that changed? I remember my priest claiming Echiur from rogue after preaching there for several weeks.
Yup. Devs seriously nerfed the priest class a few RL years ago.
Mrh? Nerfing one of their useful powers? Priests were never intended to be traders. They couldn't be traders until trader was implemented as a subclass. Even then, they were never intended to be traders. In fact, I think it was only available as a bug, for a very short period of time, and only a very few priests were ever able to take advantage of it.
Having said that, priests can still trade. Appoint one as a region lord or steward. The only thing they won't be able to do is broker deals. But given the fact that as a lord/steward they can buy and then sell, they actually come out ahead of a trader who is not a lord/steward.
This assertion that priests not being able to be traders is some kind of major nerf is complete crap.
This has nothing to do with priest/traders - the word trader is not mentioned in this thread, are you confused with a different one?
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.
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 |
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The roleplaying evolved over the years, but that doesn't mean there was no roleplaying back in the early years. It was just more lightweight, less serious, more humoristic or ridicule. It was stuff like giant wooden badgers and vikings in tutus riding humans instead of horses. It was light years away from the "Serious Medieval Atmosphere" kind of RP, especially as it was when Dwilight first opened. But that doesn't mean there wasn't RP. Nor does the additional hardcore strategy philosophy that was present undermine this.
To be fair, there was a lot more players, too. Maybe not when the game first opened, but it increased in membership relatively quickly. When realms easily had over a hundred nobles, it was easy to have some people be pure strategists while a bunch of lower-ranking nobles could easily write up a lot of roleplays. I certainly saw a lot more narrative roleplays back when I joined up than I do now. It was somewhat more distinct back then, people would act as per strategy and write as per roleplay, whereas now it is somewhat more combined, but it was there nonetheless.
Was a lot easier to RP before characters became nobility and the SMA straightjacket leaking out.
I hope you're just pretending that you didn't know I was talking about TLs.
It balances out the mass of yes-men.
The d-list was way better also.
If there are changes causing some portion of the playerbase to leave, the stragglers in leaving will seem toxic.
Being able to ignore things is the problem of the forum.
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 |
2014 May 1st | 799 | 533 | 305 |
2014 June 16th (WI created) | 784 | 491 | 277 |
This RP couldn't happen today because there would be incessant complaints about how nobles shouldn't be at a bar drunk etc. http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Ikalak_BallThere was a long RP series on AT at the recent tournament in Riverholm. Happened in a tavern/inn/whatever. I don't remember anyone complaining. In fact, I can't remember ever hearing anyone complain about that kind of stuff IG. There was some debate about it on the forum (or maybe even on the old DList...), but nothing ever really came of it. People just use the terminology they are familiar with.
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 |
2014 May 1st | 799 | 533 | 305 |
2014 June 16th (WI created) | 784 | 491 | 277 |
2014 July 3rd | 757 | 460 | 248 |
And the whole Atanamir affair.I am sure thats the biggest part of the recent drop but they were talking about from January to March.
Well I wouldn't say the Atanamir affair impacted only the numbers of the past month.I am referencing people quitting the game in protest of the Titan decision. From April to May there was in fact a slight increase and I doubt he had any major effect from March to April, that was likely mostly due to protests over the Freeze.
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 |
2014 May 1st | 799 | 533 | 305 |
2014 June 16th (WI created) | 784 | 491 | 277 |
2014 July 3rd | 757 | 460 | 248 |
2014 August 13th | 736 | 445 | 250 |
We also typically have a noticeable dropoff in the summer. I think the really important figures will be September and October.
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 |
2014 May 1st | 799 | 533 | 305 |
2014 June 16th (WI created) | 784 | 491 | 277 |
2014 July 3rd | 757 | 460 | 248 |
2014 August 13th | 736 | 445 | 250 |
2014 October 21st | 683 | 402 | 224 |
(http://wiki.battlemaster.org/images/thumb/Weekly_Activity_per_registered_player_2014.png/800px-Weekly_Activity_per_registered_player_2014.png)
This seems more like a sinuous function than an exponential one to me. Having more data would likely show a seasonal trend. Interestingly, it starts and finishes with the same value.Yes this one is the most interesting to me. It's per capita, so it's not effected by changes in the number of registered players. I think you're right that it shows seasonal trends, such as increased activity in cold months (if you live in the northern hemisphere) and vice versa. It also shows that the diehards haven't been discouraged by the year long exodus.
What I think would be pretty interesting would be comparing the results of the continents that got glaciers and monsters to the continents that did not, to see what impact it had on retention.
I would agree with this, but unfortunately that would be skewed by the fact that the continents that did not have special rules to them that would possibly affect the results. Beluaterra is an immigration only continent. You have to move a character from somewhere else to there. The other continent that wasn't affected, the Colonies, has only one turn per day, so the activity would significantly be affected by that.
Density doesn't matter with the current estate system. Lords who have an empty estate just lose money so that number of free estate slots in a realm is always tiny and many players per region just lead to people getting shafted in tiny estates.
Density doesn't matter with the current estate system. Lords who have an empty estate just lose money so that number of free estate slots in a realm is always tiny and many players per region just lead to people getting shafted in tiny estates.
I don't see why density would give more realms instead of larger ones.
I don't see why density would give more realms instead of larger ones.
That might be true when you increase the number of players while holding number of regions constant, but what has been done in practice is decreasing number of regions while holding player numbers constant. I don't think the latter case can logically lead to more realms.
That might be true when you increase the number of players while holding number of regions constant, but what has been done in practice is decreasing number of regions while holding player numbers constant. I don't think the latter case can logically lead to more realms.
It COULD, since again forcing density has the propensity to force internal conflict which leads to splits. But as with all things it makes assumptions, like characters being different enough to create the conflict, characters with the opportunity and power to do something actually being involved etc. However Chénier was making general statements about density, not necessarily stating that actions like the glacier to force higher density would result in more realms.
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 |
2014 May 1st | 799 | 533 | 305 |
2014 June 16th (WI created) | 784 | 491 | 277 |
2014 July 3rd | 757 | 460 | 248 |
2014 August 13th | 736 | 445 | 250 |
2014 October 21st | 683 | 402 | 224 |
2015 March 30th | 566 | 370 | 184 |