Messages

136

Feature Requests / Re: Council members' share in Realm tax

« on: March 05, 2012, 05:35:03 AM »

Psyche,

This is excellent. This could definitely make the banker game more lively, and applied to the other council positions as well would be wonderful. I think the rewards for having a strong position should be small, but the risks for the ruler be generally disproportionally very much more dangerous. This way you could have the strongest and most efficient cabinet if you also really could trust all of them. Always.

137

Feature Requests / Re: Idea: Plate Mail

« on: March 04, 2012, 06:59:12 AM »

The idea of having a few legendary items is interesting. But neither a fixed limit nor total item immortality will work. As has been said: That is exactly what the system is designed to prevent: Hoarding.

However, I have updated the code so that some items (big random factor) will over time become more resilient. Give it time, several months at least, and you will start to see a low number of legendary items that last for longer before they need repairs, but won't last forever.

As I see it, the game consists of two layers. The foundation and somewhat fixed layer includes the maps and the game mechanics. This layer creates the boundaries for the stories that we the players create for ourselves and the other players. On top of this foundation is the somewhat fluid layer of meaning that consists of player characters, realms, guilds, religions and unique items. The stories we create center around those aspects of the layer that are the most durable. The most important stories are about the most durable element, which is the characters we play, but there are beautiful stories created about the realms and religions as well, and to some degree the guilds too.

A good deal of these stories center around the struggle of growing influence and sometimes it becomes a struggle for the very existence of something that is dear to the player. Some characters grow stronger in power while others lose reputation and diminish. Diminish enough and end up executed. Realms battle for influence and territory. Old realms diminish and get destroyed, and new ones founded. Guilds, religions and associations expand and battle for influence. The weak ones diminish and vanish. The story keeps evolving and never stagnates. When enough players decide that something in the game is worth keeping around, it will be kept around if they display sufficient skill and determination. When an object in the game is not supported by enough determined and skillfull players, it will inevitably eventually vanish. And that happens when an element in the game is no longer interesting enough and ceases to be something about which meaningful stories are created.

That is the beauty of it all, and i absolutely LOVE the design behind it and appreciate it very much. This is what sets Battlemaster apart from everything else I have ever encountered in the web. The only thing we lack here is lifting the unique items to the same layer with the rest of the elements. Right now they are interesting and fun trinkets, but what I would ask for them is this:

When enough players with sufficient determination and skill find an item interesting and worthwhile enough, they could, if they so chose, keep the said object alive indefinitely so that they could keep building more stories around it and the item would grow in its significance in the minds of the players. The item would be truly legendary, not due to some random stat it happens to have, but by its true reputation as an emblem and symbol of what it has come to represent.

Sure, make it hard, make it cost time and gold, make it cost a war to regain it, make it cost the life of my character, but make it possible to keep it in, and you see amazing stories centered around something that was meant to be a minor curiosity in the game. And you will see conflicts between characters, realms and religions never seen before.

138

Feature Requests / Re: Idea: Plate Mail

« on: March 02, 2012, 06:36:44 AM »

So there is a concern that if unique items were not destroyed, new items would not be introduced and the repertoire of items would at the end become stale, and adventurers would not be able to bring in new items.

All of the above can be solved while still holding on to somewhat permanent items.

You could remove item decay entirely but instead increase chances of them being lost in battles, especially if you are wounded (and you could introduce other ways you could lose them). As the item is lost, a "quest" of sorts is created. The quests would be mostly done by the adventurers. They could have elements such as searching areas, finding certain components, gathering rumors about the artifact, traveling to distant places etc.

Let's assume an island would have around 100 items in use on the average. If there were 0 items in use, the quests would be very easy, and the items would generally be also randomly found very easily.  But with 100 items the quests would get progressively more difficult. New items could be introduced still by the adventurers, but once lost, they would also be very difficult (or at least time consuming) to find again. This would mean that very important items with plentiful of lore would be sought sparing not coin nor effort, but the less important ones would not be worth the trouble, and would eventually be forgotten entirely and then after some time deleted. But as long as the game would detect signs of someone still tracking the item, it would be "alive".

So then the items that people generally did not care about very much would be lost and eventually deleted, but those that truly are very important would not vanish, but would instead have more history about them.

In addition to this you could add another tier of items where you would need two or three unique items as components. Losing one of these could always generate a very labour intensive quest. This way the items would increase the need of cooperation between players, and there would be more reasons to go to war, as pretty much anyone could go after the lost item.

"You hear some rumors about the Precious Sword of Frogslaying that was lost by Sir Kepler in a battle fought in Keplerstan. The rumor has it that the sailors at the Port Evilstan might know something more about the item."

"Yes, the Precious Sword of Frogslaying! I have heard of it. Bring me a piece of quartz and a small ruby and we will talk more."

"I am afraid the item was last seen and lost in the region of Impassable Mountains. You should search there."

"Upon searching the region you come across a large group of very vicious looking monsters. You see that their leader carries the Precious Sword of Frogslaying. It would be very difficult to engage the group on your own. Do you want to try or look for assistance?"

And so on...

139

Feature Requests / Fixing unique items

« on: February 23, 2012, 06:05:05 PM »

Fixing unique items is simple. Change decay so that once an item reaches 0% it will disappear or "get lost", and be added to a pool of items that can be discovered. The items retain their prestige bonuses and other bonuses. The simple change of circulating the same items instead of generating new ones would instantly encourage me to seek them and try to keep them alive as well as write stories about them and creating RP:s around them. I would likely go to great lengths trying to gain back the important items that are lost in one way or another, and would seek to build a reputation of some of the items as relics of a certain faith or emblems of this or that guild, or as traditional garments of a king or an emperor.

But right now, knowing that they will at some point vanish completely, I will not do any of the above.

I don't mind if  I have built a lot of lore about the Holy Crown of Awesomeness and it is then suddenly lost - if I know that it will likely appear again at a later point - even a year from now, as it could become something like a holy grail for my character, perhaps even the defining aspect of him, adding more stories, more interaction, more intrigue and more reasons for going to war and create conflict. All with a very simple change for the better.

Actually, I would not even mind if the item lost its prestige and stats, as long as the name just stuck around.

140

Development / What estates could do to the others

« on: February 23, 2012, 07:05:51 AM »

The idea about naming the estates is quite charming. I believe it would give so much more personality to the places, like naming the duchies does currently. You cannot really talk about something unless it has a name. If estates actually were meaningful and you could somehow accomplish something important with them and interact with the other players through the estate interface AND they had a name that the other characters needed to know (since they too interacted with your estate) THEN it would be quite grand.

I am imagining a button that says "Visit Kepler's Grove (Sir Keplerian)" that would potentially give something to your character and/or Sir Keplerian. It could be anything from some bits of possibly relevant information, leaving a message (like you now can message foreign region lords whilst in their region) and for adventurers it would be a way for contacting you. And it would give the adventurers more sense of place and broadened interaction options, while still being more difficult than instant access to all the nobles of the realm.

A noble visiting an estate would receive hospitality of the FAMILY of the character, so there would be a way to drain the family gold of another character, although it would not be much at a time. Popular estates would be a burden to the family, so the hosts would need to become a little more selective about who to let visit. This could create nice tension and a need to subtly hint that someone is not a welcome visitor. Still it would be an offend to reject a visitor, since hospitality is expected of every noble. There would need to be a way for not letting a noble visit.

Earlier I suggested a way for arranging a "party" that is similar to tournaments.  Scrap that. You enter that estate by clicking "Visit Kepler's Grove", and you are in that state until you leave or are kicked out. While at that state you continue enjoying some of the benefits of that particular estate, and every turn you spend there drains the family gold. While visiting, you can message with the other visitors. And there's your message group for banquet roleplays and secret meetings with foreign nobles and what have you - all with a cost in entertainment, and if you have an infiltrator amongst you, it could get dangerous as well (improved chances for infiltrators if they are permitted to enter the estate as a guest).

All in all, I would like the estates shift focus from what they will do to you and perhaps the region of your lord to what they could do for the OTHER characters. You could choose to be lavish and let the others drain your family gold with frequent visiting and usage of your excellent services, or you could have a hollow secluded manor that nobody really visits. On the plus side, since estates are tied to a location, this would be a great way for those new nobles destined to be placed to distant border regions to offer something good to the established prestigious characters far away from their homes.

And for the odd visiting noble from distant lands, you could do a great service by letting him stay at your place for awhile. Perhaps you could even HIDE a character in an estate of yours, but you could never hide in your own. The possibilities are many.

141

Development / Re: More Estate Features

« on: February 22, 2012, 01:37:31 PM »

1) Sounds good. The size could matter in other ways as well, but they could be added later on. One thing that comes to mind is that size could act as a simple bonus modifier for various tasks that the estate performs. Another thought is that a larger estate should have a cost in upkeep as well. Maybe not much, but the extra prestige should come with a cost.

2) In order to an estate to have a feeling of "home", it should have reasons for the character to visit it, and those reasons should mainly be fun things that you can do with it. Banking with a vault sounds good, and you could add a possibility of storing some unique items as well, thus halting or slowing the speed of their decay. Though the vault should probably have some sort of a risk built into it - if losing the region would not be enough of a risk (which I think it would).

I like the possibility of recruiting at your own estate, though it might be wise to limit it only to those recruitment centers that are present in the region. If you want to be able to have your knights defend the contested border better, you (or they) need to invest in their estates more, and to the RC:s at the border, which in turn creates a larger cost in losing them. It's all good.

Additionally, when you stay at your own estate, you should perhaps have better options for housing your men. Perhaps they would gain morale boosts and reduced or negated equipment damage. Perhaps that would be tied to the size of the estate as well. Not that the grunts would actually stay at your mansion, but a larger estate would have larger spaces for housing a greater number of men.

3) More meaningful options for family gold is always good in my book.

All in all, more features with estates could actually generate more incentive to compete over good estate locations. There could be special features tied to region types (and capital).

But what I would most like to see are features that would increase interaction between players. It would be very nice if you could somehow show off your nice estate to the other players. Maybe you could host parties and hunts and secret meetings at your place? They could help in bringing something fun to do during the inevitable times of peace. The parties could be something as simple as a temporary message group that is open for as long as the party lasts. It could be handled a little like tournaments, ie. leaving your unit behind. You could be listed as "socializing" when attending a party. This way you could conveniently bring together people who you want to meet one another. And if you invite an infiltrator, there is a possibility for mischief, and you have a detective story right there... And the parties and such would of course be financed with family gold. Perhaps large (and somehow succesful?) parties would possibly yield prestige and perhaps fame too.

But that's really off the tangent. I guess I am just excited about all the possibilities that the estates could have.

142

Feature Requests / Re: Idea: Plate Mail

« on: February 22, 2012, 12:55:55 PM »

The ability to purchase armor is a good idea. I agree that maintenance should not play a part of it. Instead, you could have the armor degrade every time it has prevented a wound or reduced the impact of a wound. A noble would then need to choose whether to fight in a little scratched armor or buy a new one (and pay full price). The armor would have several stages of damage, all of which would reduce its effectiveness (and shininess) a little, but never below a lower tier armor. It would be assumed that the armors would be repaired between battles, but that they would never return to their original splendor.

There would be two ways to look at it. Some cultures would prefer to wear armors with marks of many battles - proudly like scars. Some would seek maximum security or shiny impressive looks and spend gold towards that end.

To sum it up, people would not be able to just purchase the top tier armor and keep it in splendid condition indefinitely (unless they avoid battle). The truly rich could maintain best protection and style, but with a rather high cost attached. Optionally people could just purchase whatever armor they can afford and forget it for quite a long time. How often you do get wounded anyway? If it took around ten wounds or prevented wounds to really hurt the armor, for most people I imagine it would be quite awhile until they felt a need to replace it.