Messages

1996

Feature Requests / Re: Dwilight Character Limit

« on: March 08, 2011, 08:58:00 AM »

I play on Atamara and I am honestly saying it needs a character drain. The difference is that your point of view is from top down. Your point of view is the same point of view as all the other rulers on Atamara and it's why the place has so little change. The view that "wow I'd like things to change a little but I want my realm to stay the same and grow bigger."

If you ask me: the Atamaran prole (so to speak), I would like to see character numbers drop because I want to see realms struggle to feed their regions and I want to see realms fall and squabble. It will make good fun (except for the rulers being toppled )

I don't know; you may have a point, but I'm not totally convinced. Yes, I am a ruler, but have only been so for a couple months now and getting to this point took me three years of play in the realm at which I never achieved anything higher than Marshal of Count. Nevertheless, the biggest hindrance to player rotation in Eston at least, isn't that there has ever been too many nobles, it's been that with only one or two knights per region, no one ends of getting promoted because there is no one to take that knight's place.

That isn't to say that if things get severe enough with a lack of nobles things won't all crash down and things will get mixed up, obviously that happens too. But I don't think a general lack of nobles does anything good for a realm, only produces stagnation, in my experience.

1997

Atamara / Re: The Current War

« on: March 08, 2011, 08:36:20 AM »

Yeah, what Bedwyr said.

I heard someone remark the other day that, from jus reading the treaty and not knowing the situation, you'd think Coria won the war, and wasn't really forced to surrender. And indeed, if I was CE, I would be congratulating Coria on securing the northern border for the Empire. Because that's what the treaty does.

Uh, yeah, that's partly the point. Kerwin did not want to force Coria into anything, certainly not an awful, punishing treaty. Like Munro and I have said, our characters are trying to forge a friendship between Eston and Coria. Kerwin did not want to force a painful treaty upon Coria and only grow resentment and sure up any Corian hate or resolve against Eston or the north.

Also, I'm not sure how you could say the treaty looks like Coria won. It certainly looks like the war was a lot more even sided, but I mean Coria surrenders a region to Eston... does that happen often in treaties for the winner? They give up a region? Even if a relatively unimportant one?

Nevertheless, we shall see what happens, I suppose. Maybe it'll go haywire and fall apart into war again or maybe not. I'm quite optimistic at this point, though.

[I]

1998

Atamara / Re: The Current War

« on: March 07, 2011, 11:33:38 PM »

Meh, you got suckered into signing a really bad treaty by Coria. And in the process alienated the entire northern alliance. This is not going to end well...

I didn't get suckered, I knew it would be controversial. Kerwin, however, believes he can secure a friendship with Coria and keep the northern alliance alive. It's proving difficult, but it may work. Again, if Darka would realize how much of a snake in the grass Talerium and Aldarion are like the rest of the continent does, things would be fine.

1999

Atamara / Re: The Current War

« on: March 07, 2011, 07:04:42 PM »

Well, you're right about it being controversial. That's about all its been good for 

Only controversial because Aldarion has Darka under his thumb and Hammarsett is greedy for land. 

2000

Feature Requests / Re: Dwilight Character Limit

« on: March 07, 2011, 07:00:53 PM »

Indeed, I do not think anyone playing on Atamara can honestly say it needs a player drain.

Eston, at least, is terribly hurting for Nobles. We can hardly keep our regions maintained, that is half the reason the war with Coria was pointless. We were in the position to take the Duchy of Barad Falas, but it would have been impossible to do so without a large influx of nobles, either new or from other realms.

Colonies would be a nice idea also, especially with this large war against the Cagilan Empire, but seems like a dream scenario with our current Noble count. There has even been some OOC conversation in the realm about how to attract more new players. We have I think about 50 characters, when I can remember us having 70-80 not all that long ago.

2001

BM General Discussion / Re: Exotic realm cultures

« on: March 07, 2011, 06:48:49 PM »

I think a Roman Empire-esque type realm is fairly common in many realms, complete with Emperor/Prime Minister and Senate, etc. Mostly these are Republican or Democratic realms who have carved out large empires for themselves. The Cagilan Empire comes immediately to mind, though I know little of their actual internal atmosphere/culture.

The various Pirate realms are interesting as well, and probably not exactly "medieval" so much as 17th and 18th century-based. Madina comes to mind, and I think there used to be one on the Far East out of Batesoar.

I don't know of any Asian or African themed realms, though that could be pretty cool if done and thought out well.

2002

Development / Re: New Player Retention

« on: March 06, 2011, 06:35:22 AM »

Would it help new players if they were immediately placed into an army? That way from the beginning they would be able to figure out where they should be and what the realm is up to.  You could just have the starting army set by the general or something.

Great idea. I know many realms already have "training armies" dedicated for new nobles to learn the ropes anyways, usually dealing with home defense/monster spawnings, etc.

I'd be in favor of removing the mentor class entirely, and replacing with the ability for anyone, after a certain account age, to become a mentor without losing a class choice. I tried the mentor class for sometime, but found it to be dreadfully boring. Not at all worth giving up another class. If any character could do it without penalty then one would likely see more active mentors.

I also support this. I think there is generally a lack of (good) mentors because no one wants to have to change their subclass to do it. Sure, we all want new player retention, but above all else we want to have fun ourselves, why give up your desirable subclass and a hit your own fun just to teach new nobles how to play every few weeks (or months) if you're lucky?

A tid bit I would like to add to the discussion: I recently recruited a friend to BattleMaster. He joined, sent a simple intro message, and then was auto-paused and then deleted. The next time I saw him I mentioned it, and he said "oh, yeah, I just forgot about the game and logging in."

Perhaps this is silly of me, but I was shocked because I had forgotten that not everybody loves this game and thinks every day when they sit down at the computer, "need to check BM." I think the first few turns/days are incredibly crucial for retention and there needs to be a good way to grab their interest. Even "lets buy a unit" or "move to this region" simply aren't enough. Those aren't the reasons any of us play, there are deeper reasons, not just simple pure mechanics or button pushes. I think this deserves some significant consideration.

2003

BM General Discussion / Re: Religions

« on: March 06, 2011, 06:09:14 AM »

Yet those that satisfy these criteria are usually marginal while those who are successful typically satisfy none of these.

Interesting to say that, examples of each?

And if these aren't keys to success, what would you say are?

2004

BM General Discussion / Re: Tops and Flops

« on: March 06, 2011, 12:18:59 AM »

Tops:
1. The persistent world. Brilliant. The history, the cultures, the grudges and friendships. Wonderful.
2. Completely unique, it does not fall into any true category of game. Never known anything like it. I almost have a difficult time explaining it to people sometimes. "So it's an MMORPG?" "Well, sorta" "So it's a strategy game? "Well, yes, but more" "So, it's text based?" "Well, yes and no."
3. The pace. Not time demanding if you don't want it to be, but can be delved into for hours if you want. I believe this is why so many people have played it for years on end. Your devotion to the game can freely fluctuate with how your free time naturally fluctuates in your life.

Flops:
1. Oaths and Estates. No one takes them seriously. Discussion even devolves to how we should just switch people around the realm at a whim to help region maintenance, etc. It's just not a good system at this point.
2. Religion. Does not have the weight and sophistication and it could have. Religion could be one of the biggest aspects and drivers of the game, yet it falls short of this and becomes merely a background or demographic detail most of the time.
3. Economic system. The economic system is good, but could be so much more. The New Economy project sounded amazing but I haven't heard of it much lately. We have had the non-effectual in-game messages about for a long time now, though it seems other projects have taken its place on the to-do list.


All of this said, Battlemaster is fantastic!

2005

BM General Discussion / Religions

« on: March 05, 2011, 05:36:28 AM »

It seems I have read a lot of discussion lately about some of the weaker points of the game, and areas where things tend to fall stagnant and produce stale game play. One of the larger contributors to this seems to be complaints about stale, boring and lame religions. Particularly those that are "successful" in a mechanics sense, but possess no real atmosphere or drive.

I would like to open some discussion about what makes a good religion, as opposed to these boring ones that many of us would claim only hurt game play. There are several notable ones in game, what defines them and what has set them apart from other religions? Is creating solely state-supporting religions the big problem? Is the recruiting of uncaring nobles it? Does it merely depend upon possessing confrontational and active leaders? No? Then what?

Very curious to see some analysis on this, as religion has the potential to be perhaps one of the largest drivers of game events, conflict, roleplay, etc. in the game and it is a shame to see it fall so short of this at times.

2006

Atamara / Re: The Current War

« on: March 03, 2011, 11:12:31 PM »

Well, Eston has four duchies. If three of them secede, we'd suddenly have three new realms on AT.

Nothing personal, but I see comments like "Too many big realms, we need more/smaller realms" all the time. What people really mean when they say that is that *everyone else* needs to give up some of their duchies to make more, smaller realms while we stay the same.

Indeed, and you'll notice Eston just signed a controversial peace treaty with Coria when it almost *could* have tried to absorb the Duchy of Barad Falas. It did this with the intent of trying to turn the current war in the north from "Eston and Hammarsett trying to expand into Coria" to "Lets take the fight to the Cagilan Empire."

2007

Atamara / Re: The Current War

« on: March 03, 2011, 10:22:42 AM »

I don't know what the result will be, but Atamara needs some major mix ups across the board. Too many big realms and consolidated territory, we need lots more smaller sized realms.

2008

Far East Island / Re: Phoenix Talk, with Jenred Kindon-Bedwyr or Matthew, as you choose

« on: March 02, 2011, 12:12:51 AM »

This sounds really cool if it works out well.

2009

This Forum / Re: Opt-In Advertisement

« on: March 01, 2011, 10:04:31 PM »

Here is the big question, and perhaps this is due to my ignorance of how internet advertising works:

I am fairly positive I will never click an ad, I just don't ever do that. So, if I opt-in, and never click on an ad, am I still helping Battlemaster out? Or do I need to click them in order for it to actually help at all?

2010

This Forum / Re: First Impression Sticky

« on: February 28, 2011, 11:44:52 PM »

Just registered... enjoying this much more than the community site forum, ugh that thing was awful.

Excited about this and the core seems nice as well. Although, a forum only means one more Battlemaster related thing to suck away my time!