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BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Tom on July 18, 2013, 12:04:00 PM

Title: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 18, 2013, 12:04:00 PM
We've had this topic here and there, but I'd like to open up an honest and serious discussion about this.

This is not about WHICH island to close, but about whether or not to do it at all.


In case you have been living under a rock the past years: BM is falling apart because it was designed with a specific player density in mind. A higher density we always countered by creating new game worlds. But a lower density, as we have now, is not so easily fixed.

One solution would be the inverse - reducing the number of islands. That also means a loss of a lot of history, character achievements, realms with their culture and so on and so forth.

The questions in my mind are:
I have a couple ideas on 2. For example, we could bring two game worlds together and allow people from the one to be sunk to migrate to the other one slowly and as whole realms, allowing them to war the existing realms there and maybe (if they win) create a smaller version of their realm in their lands. That way, the realm would have moved, but it would retain its identity.
That is just an example to show that I and the rest of the dev team understand that just removing an island from the game would upset many people, so even if we need to do it, we would have to think about how to do it.


And this is where the community can help us figuring out if this is acceptable at all and if so, how to go about it.


What this should not be is a topic to defend your favorite island. Please do NOT discuss which island to sink in this topic, it would only result in a flamewar where everyone tries to save his island by arguing for some other one.


Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Stabbity on July 18, 2013, 12:34:14 PM
If an island does go out, it should go out with a bang. I know you've said the invasions are done with in their old form, but I think this would be an interesting way for an island to go (and would be happy to contribute, if needed) rather than just getting a message "hey, lol, your island sank." If we close an island, it should have a meaningful (but inevitable) end.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on July 18, 2013, 12:35:22 PM
Yes. Though, as you said, sinking is bad. Merging is better. This is fantasy world, so it could happen. Then clip off the edges, forcing inland migration and strife. And do it really slowly.

Even better would be an automated way of granting and removing access to regions based on player population variations.

You could combine two or three maps and just have sea regions connecting them.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: sharkattack on July 18, 2013, 12:40:07 PM
Why not if possible combine some of the worlds and make huge continent. That way no one will loose their realms and histories but have even more players playing with them from merged worlds and open up more possibilities.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 18, 2013, 12:46:44 PM
I think any continent removal is bound to drive off players that felt attached to that particular continent and no other, and would thus only accelerate the decline of the player base.

However, continental mergers may be part of the solution, or maybe a solution to other problems at least. Now that we have sea travel, if we merge continents in the sense of having multiple land masses remain intact but become reachable from each other (like Dwilight's two subcontinents), where nobles can freely sail from one part to the other, it'd become easier for realms to find something to do (nothing good to do close to home? All neighbors are superpowers? Let's raid farther away!) and for religions to gain a critical mass needed to become of some importance. In short, a complete overhaul of how continents work. Of course, tweaks would need to be made so that mercenary settings truly allows fighting really far from home, and colony takeovers would need to be brought back.

It may not help the ratio of characters per total land, but if blocs from one continent start trying to destroy blocs from others, they'll likely end up destroying realms and driving a lot of stuff rogue, thus increasing the noble per owned region ratio.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Jaden on July 18, 2013, 01:15:00 PM
I would think a pure continental merge would not solve the problem of player density, there is simply too many regions with the amount of players that we have.. i think that maybe the islands should be cut down to size before merging them together, so like blighting regions and/or merging regions together to reduce the number the regions so that the estate system actually works.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Velax on July 18, 2013, 01:24:20 PM
Before we talk about sinking islands, is there nothing that can be done to increase player density? Is BM doomed to shrink and shrink until it's dead?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 18, 2013, 01:29:16 PM
Before we talk about sinking islands, is there nothing that can be done to increase player density? Is BM doomed to shrink and shrink until it's dead?

No, but the density is a problem now that doubtless contributes to the shrinkage itself.

Like I was saying on IRC the other day, when the patient is bleeding out, you don't worry about his smoking habit.

I'm working hard on improving the game so that people will want to stick around more, but a) I'm only one person, and b) that sort of effort, even if it's perfectly directed, will take months for the game to even begin to feel the effects.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 18, 2013, 01:35:59 PM
blighting regions and/or merging regions together to reduce the number the regions so that the estate system actually works.

Is region merging doable? Could we imagine, for example, to redraw the maps to have 20% less rural regions while keeping the overall realm shapes/strength?

With the new food production algorithm, food production would automatically remain in equilibrium.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Scarlett on July 18, 2013, 02:54:51 PM
FEI is small enough that it could be merged. I always felt bad for the players at the North and South extremes anyway.

I just don't know that any other islands are of an appropriate size to merge with it. They're all much larger, right?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Ender on July 18, 2013, 02:59:08 PM
While the idea of forcing a continent wide move to another continent to spark colonization wars sounds interesting, it also sounds like it'd dump a lot of current players who would be fed up with the idea of having to fight to start something they currently have or would leave if they failed to restart their realm. I think it'd be fun, but that's just how it is and it still sinks a continent which is bound to scare some people off.

If the main problem is player density when compared to the number of regions, Jaron sounds like he has something there. If you simply cut down on the available regions by making them impossible to live in, then the current player base would be forced to readjust their borders. How you'd accomplish this, I can't say, but doing it with something temporary (Blight, sudden flooding of coastal regions that makes them uninhabitable, volcanic eruption that claims regions, but keeps them around) you can reopen them if player density increases (players suddenly have a way to clear the blight, the ocean starts receding, or the lava cools down leaving open territory once more).

This wouldn't necessarily work with every continent, perhaps, but it would work on enough I'd think to cut down the size a bit without sinking islands.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Atanamir on July 18, 2013, 03:24:39 PM
The easiest solution would to work with what you have, without making cuts on the continents' but increases on the players' side.
It will hurt players to see continents merged,drown etc, but it won't hurt them to be able to play more.
The solution would be to allow everyone to have on every continent at least 1 character, on 2 continents should even 2 be allowed.
For donations 2 chars on 3 continents, so one extra char.

That means for example 2 on EC, 2 on AT, and then one each of the other islands.
If you have made a donation, you can have 2 chars on one further continent as well.

Also, the current system with only 2 (Nobles) + 1 (Advy) till 5 fame is stopping a lot of new players in their gaming ability.
At least those new ones I know, will need forever till they get those 5 fame and get a third noble.
This fame rule should be deleted again.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: LilWolf on July 18, 2013, 03:47:35 PM
For example, we could bring two game worlds together and allow people from the one to be sunk to migrate to the other one slowly and as whole realms, allowing them to war the existing realms there and maybe (if they win) create a smaller version of their realm in their lands. That way, the realm would have moved, but it would retain its identity.

Disrupting the gameplay of two islands doesn't sound like it would go over too well either. If an island is to be sunken then the effects of that should be directed solely at that island.

With the last invasion of Beluaterra there was a perfect opportunity to shut down the island in a way that players could have accepted -- the Overlord winning and the entire island becoming Netherworld stomping grounds. If you want to close an island that's the way to do it. Leave players that "we may have been defeated now, but some day we'll return and take back what's ours."

Edit:
Or alternatively, the effect should be felt on all the islands. That way you can build a story that involves the entire playerbase while keeping some mystery around which island will be going away. You could have some mystery navies appearing on all islands, landing troops, starting take overs. Everyone would have to fight and take part because it just might be their island that gets completely taken over.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Jaden on July 18, 2013, 03:57:56 PM
"we may have been defeated now, but some day we'll return and take back what's ours."

this is a very important point, i think the chosen island could be closed without sinking it completely and with the possibility in the future of reopening the island
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Sacha on July 18, 2013, 03:58:30 PM
Instead of removing one island, would it be an option to 'reset' it, i.e. create 4 or 5 starter realms and leave the rest of the island as rogue lands to be conquered, as it was with the opening of Dwilight?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: trying on July 18, 2013, 03:59:21 PM
I would suggest merging continents first by attaching them through sea routes and then have the Blight come in and sink some land so the amount of land overall could stay almost the same. The only problem is that the map would get huge and take forever to cross so we could make the Earth round! Have the east side of continent A link to the west side of continent B and east side of continent B link to west side of continent A
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 18, 2013, 04:48:10 PM
If players are attached to their favorite islands, make them fight for them.

I say bring the BT-style Invasions everywhere (I would be happy to volunteer for GM duty). Make them difficult, but beatable, like the Fifth Invasion was. If a particular island can't cut it, it will lose all or most of its regions. Even the strong islands may suffer from region losses like BT did. Islands with low player densities will theoretically prove to be more vulnerable to this, as is only fitting.

If players at least have the opportunity to save their favorite islands, they will feel better about what ultimately ends up happening to them, and even if they fail the process will provide closure. The story will have an end.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 18, 2013, 04:52:10 PM
Close one island and, reset another island with rogue regions as Sacha described it. It would increase player density in other islands, and also create a very interesting island. Of course, this would mean two islands are closed.

I don't see much need to suddenly make an island interesting if you're going to shut it down anyway.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Ender on July 18, 2013, 05:13:05 PM
Quote
I don't see much need to suddenly make an island interesting if you're going to shut it down anyway.

I would assume the point would be to give the player's losing their continent a reason to stick around. I was around when they sank the last island, but since I didn't play there I have no idea how many players immigrated, simply deleted, or stayed around to sink.

It would be more work than a simple reset, but if it was going to retain players, then I'd think it'd be worth it if player retention and a dwindling player base are a part of the game's problem.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 18, 2013, 05:16:36 PM
Allow those players to be the first to create characters in the new rogue world or some such. Keeping players on an island that will be wiped anyway seems strange.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Dishman on July 18, 2013, 05:26:10 PM
Honestly, I like the idea of slowly immigrating people into other continents. I also like the idea of an invasion to drive characters off the continent. I think the two of them put together would make for a helluva fun event and achieve consolidation at the same time.

Have a GM invade x continent. The GM will be able to set the pace of the immigration by destroying realms (not a roflstomp, but a sense of impending doom will be evident). Once a realm is down to their capital, take the entire realm and throw characters/realm on another continent. The immigrant realm will probably have to steal land or have it created, but the whole process would be GM and players working hand and hand to freeze a continent (in case players come back) and reshape another.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Miriam Ics on July 18, 2013, 05:32:39 PM
If players are attached to their favorite islands, make them fight for them.

I say bring the BT-style Invasions everywhere (I would be happy to volunteer for GM duty). Make them difficult, but beatable, like the Fifth Invasion was. If a particular island can't cut it, it will lose all or most of its regions. Even the strong islands may suffer from region losses like BT did. Islands with low player densities will theoretically prove to be more vulnerable to this, as is only fitting.

If players at least have the opportunity to save their favorite islands, they will feel better about what ultimately ends up happening to them, and even if they fail the process will provide closure. The story will have an end.

I would suggest merging continents first by attaching them through sea routes and then have the Blight come in and sink some land so the amount of land overall could stay almost the same. The only problem is that the map would get huge and take forever to cross so we could make the Earth round! Have the east side of continent A link to the west side of continent B and east side of continent B link to west side of continent A

I like both suggestions. Both seems to be a good way to make one continent disappear although Sacha's idea for a reset sounds good too.

To make we fight for our continent would show wich continent have more active players I think.

Another suggestion, that I don't know if its possible, is to simply pause one continent. Make it sleep, get invaded by undeads and monsters due to a magic. Stop the bleeding and find new ways to increase players base and than, re-open it.
This can also be the result of the continent that cannot defend appropriately.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 18, 2013, 05:33:32 PM
Honestly, I like the idea of slowly immigrating people into other continents. I also like the idea of an invasion to drive characters off the continent. I think the two of them put together would make for a helluva fun event and achieve consolidation at the same time.

Have a GM invade x continent. The GM will be able to set the pace of the immigration by destroying realms (not a roflstomp, but a sense of impending doom will be evident). Once a realm is down to their capital, take the entire realm and throw characters/realm on another continent. The immigrant realm will probably have to steal land or have it created, but the whole process would be GM and players working hand and hand to freeze a continent (in case players come back) and reshape another.

I think I'd like this better if at some critical point the island were simply closed and all the characters on it shipped off to another island as a sort of migration/invasion, sort of like what happened to Rome; the Huns started pushing a lot of Germanic barbarian tribes off their land and they in turn migrated west, putting pressure on the Roman Empire until it eventually collapsed under the weight.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on July 18, 2013, 05:35:06 PM
I think that closing an island is necessary, or at least shrinking the existing ones. Invasion is a great way to do that.

If we had three simultaneous invasions, that would give all three islands a chance to fight and defeat the invaders.

(number 3 is an example; it could be 2, could be 4 islands, and I'm not discussing which islands).

The island that can't fend off the hordes, gets overrun; the other islands, which presumably have a higher character density, will survive, although possibly with loss of outlying regions.

The invasions should start on the 'ends' of the islands, so that region loss decreases travel times.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Sacha on July 18, 2013, 05:54:19 PM
Or, perhaps the craziest idea of them all: Re-open the South-East Island aka the War Island. Doing so would provide a boost just from returning old players. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 3 or 4 people who would return to BM if word got out that they could play on SEI again, and they would probably start additional characters on other islands as well. I know Tom has said that the war islands didn't fit his idea of BattleMaster, but I can only say that almost anyone I know in the game on a personal level thinks closing them was a bad idea. Myself included.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 18, 2013, 06:02:46 PM
Or, perhaps the craziest idea of them all: Re-open the South-East Island aka the War Island. Doing so would provide a boost just from returning old players. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 3 or 4 people who would return to BM if word got out that they could play on SEI again, and they would probably start additional characters on other islands as well. I know Tom has said that the war islands didn't fit his idea of BattleMaster, but I can only say that almost anyone I know in the game on a personal level thinks closing them was a bad idea. Myself included.

To be honest, I have been slowly coming to believe this as well.

I don't agree with all of the reasons people have given for it being a bad idea, but I do now think that they were a net benefit to the game.

If we were to do this, I think it might be worthwhile making it 1-char-per-player, but make that character free—it doesn't count against any character limits. That would mitigate, to some extent, the potential drain of characters from other continents.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Alpha on July 18, 2013, 06:27:20 PM
If we were to do this, I think it might be worthwhile making it 1-char-per-player, but make that character free—it doesn't count against any character limits. That would mitigate, to some extent, the potential drain of characters from other continents.

I really enjoyed the war islands. I don't think they should be brought back just as they were. I'd like it to be as separate from the rest of the game as possible. Every player get one character on the war island, independent of character limits. No migrations to or from the war island.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 18, 2013, 06:29:49 PM
If you simply cut down on the available regions by making them impossible to live in, then the current player base would be forced to readjust their borders. How you'd accomplish this, I can't say, but doing it with something temporary (Blight, sudden flooding of coastal regions that makes them uninhabitable, volcanic eruption that claims regions, but keeps them around) you can reopen them if player density increases (players suddenly have a way to clear the blight, the ocean starts receding, or the lava cools down leaving open territory once more.

This is the idea I prefer. Have a temporary, reversible, closure of some regions. It can be explained through storm-surge flooding or some magical hokus pocus. That way no-one is forced to play on an island they don't like, or for realms to lose their entire history.

I also think the idea of allowing people more playable characters on different islands is a possibility now. I know that it's been argued before that we need more characters played by different players rather than more characters played by the same players, but the higher playable character limit is already planned for Might & Fealty. Giving players more characters across different islands is bound to shuffle up the playing mix and have different people playing alongside each other. It might not be a perfect solution, but it keeps the game intact until some way is found to boost the playerbase (which may happen if M&F draws the attention of new players).

I remain convinced that the biggest reason BM has trouble attracting players is because it looks old and needs a graphical revamp (and I don't mean the maps here, but rather the front page and adding graphics to other pages in the game). The underlaying gameplay and mechanics are solid, but most other longlasting text-based games have been made to look prettier over the years. I'm sure there must be some digital art students out there who'd work on a graphical revamp in return for bulking up their CVs.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Atanamir on July 18, 2013, 06:30:12 PM
Or, perhaps the craziest idea of them all: Re-open the South-East Island aka the War Island. Doing so would provide a boost just from returning old players. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 3 or 4 people who would return to BM if word got out that they could play on SEI again, and they would probably start additional characters on other islands as well. I know Tom has said that the war islands didn't fit his idea of BattleMaster, but I can only say that almost anyone I know in the game on a personal level thinks closing them was a bad idea. Myself included.

+1

Fully agree on SEI/SWI. One of them would be enough, but there would be many returning for sure.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Lavigna on July 18, 2013, 06:34:12 PM
Or, perhaps the craziest idea of them all: Re-open the South-East Island aka the War Island. Doing so would provide a boost just from returning old players. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 3 or 4 people who would return to BM if word got out that they could play on SEI again, and they would probably start additional characters on other islands as well. I know Tom has said that the war islands didn't fit his idea of BattleMaster, but I can only say that almost anyone I know in the game on a personal level thinks closing them was a bad idea. Myself included.

+ OVER 9000

omg omg omg please please pleaaaaase bring back the war islands. It was one of the most fun things in the game, really...
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Vita` on July 18, 2013, 06:41:19 PM
Tom, my thoughts have been the following, since I've returned.

New players only get 2 nobles and 1 advy. As the game is primarily social, I think having one of your starting characters be an adventurer, which is a much slower game, is a poor decision. Nor do I think reducing the noble count from the historical 3 starting nobles is the best idea either. Especially with player density as it is, new players should have as many opportunities as possible to find a talkative realm (Delvin's changes will help with this) that will teach them the game. Thus, I think an immediate change to a default of 3 starting nobles and waiting 30 days until one can play an adventurer (as a 4th character) would do wonders.

I also think that the game has changed a lot from the early days in the department of war. I remember when there was very little downtime between wars. Now, it seems realms can go weeks and months between wars, in a game called battlemaster. I think this may have also affected the military capabilities of realms, which gives an advantage to numbers over tactics and strategy. Thus, I think a War Island should be reopened, with everyone having one character locked into the island, unable to immigrate or emmigrate and independent of any other character limits. This way, at least everyone always has an option of having a war to fight and builds experience and innovation in fighting those wars. Of course, characters would still be pausable because we can't force people to play where they don't want, but I do think many would be interested in this and new players would be likely to find someone from one of the four realms to mentor them, since so many players will be on the island. As it is, I suspect many new players join realms and never find someone to mentor them in the quirks of the game (like the hours system).

I absolutely echo Geronus' ideas (I've been mentioning them on IRC for some time) about every continent facing an invasion. Let the players, realms, and islands survive via merit and those who can't survive, have their regions blighted. This would remove regions from play in a fashion that gives everyone an opportunity to affect the outcome. The maps can be saved and if the playerbase grows, a storyline about reconquering lost regions can be created and the regions expanded. But until then, the geographic changes that occur from losing regions will be allow new continental shapes, which should be about as interesting as a new continent itself.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 18, 2013, 06:41:42 PM
I never played on the war islands. They closed before I could get a character on them. Bringing one of them back would be a possible way to bring back some former players, as well as help retain existing players. If this were done, I think the rule set would really have to be discussed thoroughly. It needs to be done in such a way as to minimize the code differences between it and the normal islands. One of the original reasons for closing the war islands was that they complexity of maintaining the multiple code bases with differing rule sets was making coding and bug hunting extremely difficult and time consuming.

As to the idea of closing an existing island, the idea is to reduce the available land to increase the density. Simply merging islands will not accomplish this. We need to actually remove regions from the game. Some possible ways to increase density, not all related to closing and island: (Note that I have not really considered code complexity or time required to implement these ideas. This is just brainstorming ideas.)

If closing an entire island is truly the way to go, then I don't like the idea of merging islands. This is a huge can of worms, and will cause massive problems across the board. And not just potential bugs and an absolute nightmare to code. What about people that have two characters on each of the islands merged? Now they'll have four characters on the same island? Once they are merged, how do you then trim down the total number of regions?

Instead, I, like many others it seems, like the idea of an invasion-style "test". Do some kind of invasion and see which island dies first. Whichever one is the first tog et wiped completeyl, closes. The others can be restored, partly or completely, perhaps through a tapering off of the invasion. You can do an automated invasion, perhaps with a GM-played "leader" that has some, but minor, influence over the invaders. Tim can whip up some basic "AI" to help guide the monsters through a short/simple decision tree. (Tim and I have discussed this in the past.) This time, rather that completely delete the regions from the DB like happened with BT, leave them there, but blighted, for possible future reclamation.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Lavigna on July 18, 2013, 06:53:24 PM
This is not about WHICH island to close, but about whether or not to do it at all.

In case you have been living under a rock the past years: BM is falling apart because it was designed with a specific player density in mind. A higher density we always countered by creating new game worlds. But a lower density, as we have now, is not so easily fixed.

One solution would be the inverse - reducing the number of islands. That also means a loss of a lot of history, character achievements, realms with their culture and so on and so forth.

The questions in my mind are:
  • Would the player community be open to a step like this AT ALL ?
  • Can we, together, find ways to make it bearable?


Personaly i m not open to this step. You pretty much answered it yourself. That would be a lot of history gone.

There are islands which i wouldn't mind see closed but i am sure they are important to others.There are islands that i don't like but respect their history. It is one tough decision to just put a name forth.

Even the islands i adore and believe that require some radical changes it would pretty much hurt me to see them go.
Since invasions are pretty much off the table, re-arranging some islands could be a way to wake them up.

I really liked Indirik's ideas and i m pretty much supporting changes on islands over deletion of an entire island.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Zakilevo on July 18, 2013, 07:00:08 PM
What will happen if you already have 2 nobles in the island you need to invade/transfer to?

Will you allow 3 nobles?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Draco Tanos on July 18, 2013, 07:04:52 PM
I'm sorry, but apparently the invasions of Beluaterra have taught you all nothing.  It DROVE PEOPLE AWAY.  We lost players, players we may never get back.  Why?  Because some people think losing years of work is "fun" while it seems many others do not.

You talk about destroying continents and realms in ways that cannot truly be prevented (much like the Third Invasion).  This will not encourage people to join other continents.  It will simply make them wonder what is the point when in the end anything they do won't matter.  They will quit.

We've seen it before, we'll see it again.  With Beluaterra.  With the War Islands.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 18, 2013, 07:09:16 PM
I can live with an island sinking if it makes it a better game for everyone elsewhere. I was never all that fussed about the War Islands myself, though I can see why there might be some attraction when war can be so hard to come by these days. Though if player density has fallen too low, reviving a war island or two doesn't seem an obvious resolution to me. It might make the game more sticky for those already playing but it doesn't refill the other continents.

I'm not sure about the continent invasion ideas. Although Beluaterra has its fans, that kind of gameplay isn't everyone's cup of tea. I don't think launching massive simultaneous invasions of all existing islands is going to be welcomed as an opportunity for players to determine which continent gets deleted either. Seems more like a long-winded way for devs to dodge taking responsibility for a potentially unpopular decision. Better for them to just come out with whatever they come up with and we all just get on with it. Save us the hassle of an invasion first.

Instead of removing one island, would it be an option to 'reset' it, i.e. create 4 or 5 starter realms and leave the rest of the island as rogue lands to be conquered, as it was with the opening of Dwilight?

Having been around for the early stages of Dwilight, I can't say that I found establishing new territories and building a whole realm from scratch very interesting. There was a lot of just sitting around doing nothing. Plus you had the problem of everyone being interested solely on setting up a new realm somewhere of their own. The gold rush quality of that situation really didn't show off BattleMaster at her best and it was an eternity before any proper wars broke out.

This is why I think there is some mileage in Tom's proposal that continents potentially be merged or what have you. People get to keep their old ties and realms that have been built up. It's not coming up with something from scratch and starting everything anew. No meeting new people, coming up with RP for new realms or founding new religions. Better to keep and use the stuff we have, especially if it will help retain players who have put a lot of time and effort into their realms. I think there is a lot to be said for an option like this which tries to respect the history of islands and realms.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 18, 2013, 07:31:45 PM
I wouldn't like to see Daimons or other Beluaterra-like invasions come to other islands. This creates a PvE game. It can be fun, but pure PvP is fun too. If you have invasions that "test" other islands, basically that means forcing player-led realms to band together against the invaders instead of having wars between themselves.

There are ways to reduce the land area of other islands without having an invasion. The auto-blight idea for rogue regions surrounded by other rogue regions may work, and doesn't need an invasion.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Atanamir on July 18, 2013, 07:32:42 PM
I think we should think outside of the box and increase the character amounts for current players and drop those fame barriers for new players.
Even if it means to set the character limit higher for a temporary period till we get more players, but this way we encourage to play more, not less.

The conservative approach of limiting things such as shrinking, sinking etc continents will also limit the player base in one way or another.
We saw this with SEI/SWI.

Investing is the best way to solve a crisis...
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Blue Star on July 18, 2013, 07:47:04 PM
The easiest solution would to work with what you have, without making cuts on the continents' but increases on the players' side.
It will hurt players to see continents merged,drown etc, but it won't hurt them to be able to play more.
The solution would be to allow everyone to have on every continent at least 1 character, on 2 continents should even 2 be allowed.
For donations 2 chars on 3 continents, so one extra char.

That means for example 2 on EC, 2 on AT, and then one each of the other islands.
If you have made a donation, you can have 2 chars on one further continent as well.

Also, the current system with only 2 (Nobles) + 1 (Advy) till 5 fame is stopping a lot of new players in their gaming ability.
At least those new ones I know, will need forever till they get those 5 fame and get a third noble.
This fame rule should be deleted again.

Tom,

Love BM, coming back was great I regret having to leave for a few years. I will miss the war islands forever, Toren Toren Toren. I must say though if we are going to sink a island or Merge it I see that as a even bigger drop in Players. I cannot fathom the drop, but I know we don't have to just yet.

Let's increase character noble for newer players, and at least try it for awhile, as the quote says above. Trial run for say 2 months, would help retention some and give players the chance to see more of the game. It can't hurt to try, though I know it will mess fame up and such.

Also, we got a boost in players from that other game maybe we should begin marketing BM more to other sites, forums, etc.. We can do more for this game and I don't mean the Dev team and you alone. I'm sure the PLAYERs can help as well. I mean were a community let work to get other to play as well. *coughs* i've brought a few people from other games and I will continue to do so because I want others to enjoy it.

I mean worst case scenario, sink a island and bring back the war Islands, two realms pitted against each other until the world ends or the damions take over! Yes, a few players would come back, but a few does not mean the majority of us so lets consider all alternative before we do such.

Note* If we sink something let that contient go out with a bang.. Fire demons, Gaints, Evil queens.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Astinus on July 18, 2013, 07:52:28 PM
As an old player coming back after years, I have to say that being limited to 2 nobles + 1 advy is a great stepback: for true newbies it might means ending up in slow paced realm and getting a wrong idea of the game, for older player it's a just an apparently pointless limit which may lead to poor roleplay choice in order to grind those fame points.

Having said that, I think Indirik suggestions sound good: it would only mean changing parts of continents instead of fully deleting them.

I am also strongly against the idea of choosing the continento to be closed by running an invasion lottery: Beluatarra's invasions were funny because you could actually side with the invaders and players were also fighting other players who taught that using the daimons for their purpose was good for their realms. When the existance of the continent itself is on the stakes who are going to side with invaders? It would only end in frustrating PvE and lots of drama for the power of daimons doomstack and such.

So I'm up with reducing the overall numbers of region, like Indirik suggested, rather than deleting a whole island. Especially if the one to be deleted had to be chosen by invasions
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on July 18, 2013, 07:56:09 PM
I'm sorry, but apparently the invasions of Beluaterra have taught you all nothing.  It DROVE PEOPLE AWAY.  We lost players, players we may never get back.  Why?  Because some people think losing years of work is "fun" while it seems many others do not.

You talk about destroying continents and realms in ways that cannot truly be prevented (much like the Third Invasion).  This will not encourage people to join other continents.  It will simply make them wonder what is the point when in the end anything they do won't matter.  They will quit.

We've seen it before, we'll see it again.  With Beluaterra.  With the War Islands.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Maybe the problem is that people take the game too seriously if they think of it as "work".

It is a game. When you lose, you start over.

Also, I like the War Island idea, as proposed by Indirik. Make it an extra free character, with no migration.

I think we should think outside of the box and increase the character amounts for current players and drop those fame barriers for new players.
Even if it means to set the character limit higher for a temporary period till we get more players, but this way we encourage to play more, not less.

The conservative approach of limiting things such as shrinking, sinking etc continents will also limit the player base in one way or another.
We saw this with SEI/SWI.

Investing is the best way to solve a crisis...


You're not the first to think of that solution. The problem is, that it leads to an increase in zombie characters--they move and follow orders, but don't really do any roleplaying. It's a "quantity" solution, when what we really want is a "quality" solution.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Atanamir on July 18, 2013, 08:01:48 PM
You're not the first to think of that solution. The problem is, that it leads to an increase in zombie characters--they move and follow orders, but don't really do any roleplaying. It's a "quantity" solution, when what we really want is a "quality" solution.

I believe in the current players to be quality players, mostly.
And if you check now realms, that what you say is already often the case, so it wouldn't really make a difference.
With an exception to the new players of course, who could become quality players much easier.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 18, 2013, 08:18:41 PM
I'd like it to be as separate from the rest of the game as possible. Every player get one character on the war island, independent of character limits. No migrations to or from the war island.

Yes, that's very much the idea I had in mind. Similarly, restrict use of family wealth on the war island, in both directions. (Though possibly not cut off all options...some of them create great possibilities in a war!)
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Kwanstein on July 18, 2013, 08:19:38 PM
As far as additional characters go, I think that the current system needs to be changed. Currently, medals coalesce under the magnetic eyes of powerful Kings, Dukes and other important players, while most other people are left out of the loop. This leads to situations where a small amount of players will have 20+ medals, where as most others will lack even five. This is not because those few elite players are twenty times more fun or trustworthy or that their roleplaying is twenty times better; it is merely because they enjoy positions that receive a lot of attention, so the decentralised, amateur-run reward system, which is by it's nature prone to a narrow-minded redundancy when issuing awards, single-mindedly caters to them and only to them. This does not lead to a fair spread of medals across players, so many players who would be capable of playing an additional character are under-utilised.

Also, I think that the idea that giving players an additional character would dilute the amount of effort put into each individual character is false, or, at least, it's effects exaggerated. The principal cause for lack of effort put into this game, I think, would most often be the total lack of wars in many areas. It's not that the game is too much of a time burden for most people, it's that there are so many realms where there's a total lack of anything to do, because they lack the most reliable and effective cause for activity, warfare. The lack of warfare has roots in the lack of characters, as in the vast majority of realms there are simply not enough landless characters to make imperialism worth it, nor do they posses enough characters to wage proper war anyway (for one thing, gold is often so abundant as to make the economy of war totally inconsequential, such is the case in Darka, where the dukes supposedly have 50,000 gold saved up -- a bottomless warchest if there ever war one). So, far from reducing the amount of effort put into individual characters, reducing the character restriction would result in a net increase of effort all around.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 18, 2013, 08:25:57 PM
You're not the first to think of that solution. The problem is, that it leads to an increase in zombie characters--they move and follow orders, but don't really do any roleplaying. It's a "quantity" solution, when what we really want is a "quality" solution.

Well...honestly, what we need is both :P

More drones aren't a bad thing. What's a bad thing is more characters whose sole purpose is to prop up other characters—the knight who says nothing for months until his brother, the General (for whom he voted), is wounded, and then he starts giving orders as if he's the Marshal.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 18, 2013, 08:32:41 PM
As far as additional characters go, I think that the current system needs to be changed. Currently, medals coalesce under the magnetic eyes of powerful Kings, Dukes and other important players, while most other people are left out of the loop.

Since I wrote the automatic medal replenishment code, and thus started paying more attention to medals and who seems to deserve them again, I have been noticing this myself. Nearly every time I see the medal icon below a message and think, "Hm, that kind of deserves a Fun medal," I glance back up at the person who sent it, and realize that it's someone who already has loads of medals. Part of this, I do recognize, is because as a long-time player, I have a tendency to run with a lot of other long-time players.

But part of it is a fundamental problem with using the medal system in the way that we do now. There is a significant fraction of players who will never do more than follow orders, send the occasional message, and maybe run for a Lordship here or there, but who still deserve to have additional characters. But the medals will always go, overwhelmingly, to the minority who send many messages, get up to all kinds of shenanigans, and write novellas of RP. That's just human nature, and I don't see any good way to change it, especially when we have a low player density.

The game needs both of these types of players, and everything in between, and medals don't—and won't—reflect that. While it wasn't a bad concept, I think we need to stop using medals to determine who gets extra characters.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Scarlett on July 18, 2013, 08:35:05 PM
I would second the suggestion of sinking the Dark Isle on FEI. Too remote. Maybe the Southern bit of Kindara as well.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 18, 2013, 08:38:38 PM
Thanks to all for your feedback.

Let me cut in with a few definite answers. There are a few things that we can leave out of this discussion, either because they are besides the point or they are very unlikely to happen.

First, invasions. Running an invasion is pretty much a second job and it won't happen. I know some people volunteer, but you have no idea what you're getting yourself into. Trust me on that, please.

Second, redrawing maps. This is just a crazy amount of work.

Third, changing character limits. That can be discussed in a different topic, it doesn't solve the problem of dropping player count.



As for the War Islands, I'm sorry but I strongly believe that this is a case of the vocal fans being on the forums and everyone else not. If you manage to get a list of 100 players who would return to the game if we re-opened them, I will see if I still have the data.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Lavigna on July 18, 2013, 08:52:14 PM

As for the War Islands, I'm sorry but I strongly believe that this is a case of the vocal fans being on the forums and everyone else not. If you manage to get a list of 100 players who would return to the game if we re-opened them, I will see if I still have the data.

Does that mean we are  allowed to make a list with player "signatures" for it? :D If yes then i volunteer to aid in something like this :) i am a war island fan, won't deny it.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Atanamir on July 18, 2013, 09:15:44 PM
Does that mean we are  allowed to make a list with player "signatures" for it? :D If yes then i volunteer to aid in something like this :) i am a war island fan, won't deny it.

A petition it is, yes a petition it is! :D
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Atanamir on July 18, 2013, 09:30:58 PM
Third, changing character limits. That can be discussed in a different topic, it doesn't solve the problem of dropping player count.

With respect, I still think though the fame limits for new player have some relation to this topic.
Because without them more new players will be likely to stay rather than leave because they can't progress in the game with building more characters.
I think everyone of the old farts can testify that even 3 chars back then available as new player were not enough. ;)
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 18, 2013, 09:48:51 PM
I'm sorry, but apparently the invasions of Beluaterra have taught you all nothing.  It DROVE PEOPLE AWAY.  We lost players, players we may never get back.  Why?  Because some people think losing years of work is "fun" while it seems many others do not.

You talk about destroying continents and realms in ways that cannot truly be prevented (much like the Third Invasion).  This will not encourage people to join other continents.  It will simply make them wonder what is the point when in the end anything they do won't matter.  They will quit.

We've seen it before, we'll see it again.  With Beluaterra.  With the War Islands.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So just sinking an island would be better? I can respect what you're saying if you're saying that the idea of closing any islands is a bad one, but I for one think that if we decide that we do need to eliminate some islands (or at least shrink them), the Invasion route would be 10x better than if we just pick an island and shut it down, though it sounds like this is off the table unfortunately.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Alpha on July 18, 2013, 10:02:48 PM
I'm certain that closing an island isn't the way to go. Merging could be fun, but only with two similarly sized islands. Providing advantages for having knights would go a long way to keep realm's from expanding until every character is a lord. Making regions harder to hold, or more dependent upon the Lord's presence, might be another solution. Blighting some regions with monsters, like I read above, sounds like one of the better options, if this is the route chosen. Though, I'd change the name to peasant rebels, or something rather than monster hordes.

I think everyone of the old farts can testify that even 3 chars back then available as new player were not enough. ;)

I don't think raising character limit will help much at all. All I can see it doing, is adding more drones. More drones isn't necessarily a problem, but I doubt many people think playing a drone is all that fun. I'd wager that there are some people that have the ability to play more characters, but don't for some reason. When I was donating, and had 5 slots, I didn't typically keep 5 characters.

Another problem that I think exists, is that certain positions have almost no turnover. On FEI, I held the duchy of Ortedail for pretty close to three years, and Lantzas, a richer non-city, for longer. There are players who've held positions for considerably longer than that. It would seem reasonable to think that newer players are discouraged by lack of turnover.

BM would really benefit from some reliable, and reasonable, way of creating a power struggle. I don't know how best to do this. Assassinations are unreliable, extremely expensive, require ridiculously long training, and largely ineffective in most cases. Other than for infiltrators, I can't remember the last time I saw someone lose titles due to imprisonment. Wounds from battle typically don't last long enough to remove titles, and I don't really think it's a good idea to make wounds last longer. Mortality has been requested, and rejected more times than I can count, so I won't even go there.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 18, 2013, 10:07:00 PM
I'm certain that closing an island isn't the way to go. Merging could be fun, but only with two similarly sized islands. Providing advantages for having knights would go a long way to keep realm's from expanding until every character is a lord. Making regions harder to hold, or more dependent upon the Lord's presence, might be another solution. Blighting some regions with monsters, like I read above, sounds like one of the better options, if this is the route chosen. Though, I'd change the name to peasant rebels, or something rather than monster hordes.

I don't think raising character limit will help much at all. All I can see it doing, is adding more drones. More drones isn't necessarily a problem, but I doubt many people think playing a drone is all that fun. I'd wager that there are some people that have the ability to play more characters, but don't for some reason. When I was donating, and had 5 slots, I didn't typically keep 5 characters.

Another problem that I think exists, is that certain positions have almost no turnover. On FEI, I held the duchy of Ortedail for pretty close to three years, and Lantzas, a richer non-city, for longer. There are players who've held positions for considerably longer than that. It would seem reasonable to think that newer players are discouraged by lack of turnover.

BM would really benefit from some reliable, and reasonable, way of creating a power struggle. I don't know how best to do this. Assassinations are unreliable, extremely expensive, require ridiculously long training, and largely ineffective in most cases. Other than for infiltrators, I can't remember the last time I saw someone lose titles due to imprisonment. Wounds from battle typically don't last long enough to remove titles, and I don't really think it's a good idea to make wounds last longer. Mortality has been requested, and rejected more times than I can count, so I won't even go there.

I think playing a drone is rather fun if we're at war. I for one would welcome having more characters to play as, and don't really see the argument for the really low limit of 2 nobles starting out for a new player.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Alpha on July 18, 2013, 10:11:41 PM
I think playing a drone is rather fun if we're at war. I for one would welcome having more characters to play as, and don't really see the argument for the really low limit of 2 nobles starting out for a new player.

Don't get me wrong, I've had fun playing a drone, especially if the realm has good, and active, leadership. Though, historically most my knight or minor lordly characters are really boring to play.

That said, I don't think the character limit improves the game, and newer players should be able to play more than two. I just don't see how that removing it helps the game. 
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Sacha on July 18, 2013, 10:17:53 PM
Does that mean we are  allowed to make a list with player "signatures" for it? :D If yes then i volunteer to aid in something like this :) i am a war island fan, won't deny it.

I added a poll to the BM group on Facebook, I doubt we'll get 100 yays, as there are only 105 members, but it will still give a general idea of how the player base thinks. The group includes many people who no longer play BM, I'd love to hear their opinions.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Frostwood on July 18, 2013, 10:40:50 PM
snip
As one of the newer players, I found being a knight limiting without RPing, in times of peace.  I had to scrounge for monsters for months to get the 3 prestige to become a lord, while my other character who started in Fane, gained that in one day. 

I am more patient, but some people don't want to wait months for payoff.  It would be interesting to at least construct flavour buildings or have more to do with the estate.  It might be interesting to merge the adventurer game into a noble class, as a commoner is even more limited in what he/she can do than a knight.

Despite being touted as inactivity friendly, I find the game unfriendly towards people who can't log in as much-miss a turn and you miss the big battle that has been building up for months, miss another turn, and you fall behind the more active nobles hunting for monsters.  For instance this message, from a person that is very good RP'er.

Quote
Hi all,

Im quite annoyed.. Because I could not log in at work I have now missed out on Kaigen, and probably on Miniath too. Ive also missed out on Ianith thanks to other ... complications.

I dont really see any point in continuing to play to be honest,
As such I might just big my farewells.


Thanks
He decided to stay, but its one of the frustrations us newer players face... since prestige and honour are needed to open up aspects of the game.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Lefanis on July 18, 2013, 10:47:38 PM
So far it looks like people want/ have suggested-

1) War Islands back
2) Chop of bits of islands
3) Merge islands
4) Old players to come back
5) Character limits
6) Kill an island

Honestly, i don't see how option three is realistic without redrawing maps, as it won't increase player density, rather, it would reduce it. Option 5 is also unrealistic- we added a fourth character not too long ago, and that really hasn't helped in the long term at all, although I'm all for opening up 3 noble slots for newbies.

Bringing the war islands back would be an interesting experiment, but Tom doesn't seem too thrilled about it. IMO, what was unique about the War Islands was the no diplomacy FFA, and from a tactical perspective, the (more or less) radial symmetry of the map, which balanced it towards this purpose. Now the former should be pretty easy to replicate on any other island, and the latter might be possible (though difficult) for some of the existing continents, with a little bit of redrawing, similar to what was done to BT after the Fifth Invasion. I'd volunteer to do a little Gimp work if it came to that.

So, rather than bring back the old war islands wholesale, why not convert one modified continent into a new war island? Keep the current realms, so the players don't feel totally uprooted/angry, and allow for a continental free for all. Should this get more players on board, great, if it doesn't more drastic approach like sinking islands can be considered.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Zakilevo on July 18, 2013, 10:48:19 PM
As one of the newer players, I found being a knight limiting without RPing, in times of peace.  I had to scrounge for monsters for months to get the 3 prestige to become a lord, while my other character who started in Fane, gained that in one day. 

I am more patient, but some people don't want to wait months for payoff.  It would be interesting to at least construct flavour buildings or have more to do with the estate.  It might be interesting to merge the adventurer game into a noble class, as a commoner is even more limited in what he/she can do than a knight.

Despite being touted as inactivity friendly, I find the game unfriendly towards people who can't log in as much-miss a turn and you miss the big battle that has been building up for months, miss another turn, and you fall behind the more active nobles hunting for monsters.  For instance this message, from a person that is very good RP'er.
He decided to stay, but its one of the frustrations us newer players face... since prestige and honour are needed to open up aspects of the game.

Well that is his fault for not being active. In any game, more active you are, better things will get for you. You are investing more time in the game so why shouldn't it? The whole prestige restriction is there for a purpose. This game is over 10 years old and many things happened during that time to make the developer add such restrictions.

If you want actions, you should not be joining a peaceful realm. That is why many people join underdogs because they tend to fight a lot more than most realms. Although BM says it is an inactive friendly game, no online game is inactive friendly. If you really want inactive friendly games, you should be playing single player games not online games.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Zakilevo on July 18, 2013, 10:50:05 PM
So far it looks like people want/ have suggested-

1) War Islands back
2) Chop of bits of islands
3) Merge islands
4) Old players to come back
5) Character limits
6) Kill an island

Honestly, i don't see how option three is realistic without redrawing maps, as it won't increase player density, rather, it would reduce it. Option 5 is also unrealistic- we added a fourth character not too long ago, and that really hasn't helped in the long term at all, although I'm all for opening up 3 noble slots for newbies.

Bringing the war islands back would be an interesting experiment, but Tom doesn't seem too thrilled about it. IMO, what was unique about the War Islands was the no diplomacy FFA, and from a tactical perspective, the (more or less) radial symmetry of the map, which balanced it towards this purpose. Now the former should be pretty easy to replicate on any other island, and the latter might be possible (though difficult) for some of the existing continents, with a little bit of redrawing, similar to what was done to BT after the Fifth Invasion. I'd volunteer to do a little Gimp work if it came to that.

So, rather than bring back the old war islands wholesale, why not convert one modified continent into a new war island? Keep the current realms, so the players don't feel totally uprooted/angry, and allow for a continental free for all. Should this get more players on board, great, if it doesn't more drastic approach like sinking islands can be considered.

How about turning one of the existing island into a War island by making it FFA?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 18, 2013, 10:57:07 PM
But the medals will always go, overwhelmingly, to the minority who send many messages, get up to all kinds of shenanigans, and write novellas of RP. That's just human nature, and I don't see any good way to change it, especially when we have a low player density.
Doesn't that make sense? Why would you want to change it? I mean, the whole point of medals is to award people who make notable IG contributions to the game. If you start awarding medals to people who don't make that contribution by interacting in a good way with their fellow players, you make medals meaningless.

Which leaves with the problem of medals being required to play characters...
Quote
The game needs both of these types of players, and everything in between, and medals don't—and won't—reflect that. While it wasn't a bad concept, I think we need to stop using medals to determine who gets extra characters.
I think this is 100% correct.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 18, 2013, 11:02:29 PM
First, invasions. Running an invasion is pretty much a second job and it won't happen. I know some people volunteer, but you have no idea what you're getting yourself into. Trust me on that, please.
I understand that. That's why my suggestion was for it to be a mostly-automated process, with perhaps a human GM having limited influence over things. This would reduce the workload by a huge factor.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Dante Silverfire on July 18, 2013, 11:05:46 PM
I understand that. That's why my suggestion was for it to be a mostly-automated process, with perhaps a human GM having limited influence over things. This would reduce the workload by a huge factor.

Ya, just have it based less on RP and more on just fighting them off.

Let a human GM, determine general invasion strategies (what areas to focus troops, when to retreat from certain areas, how aggressive to be, etc...) but don't both with them actually playing an individual set of characters of daimons or monsters or undead or some such.

Much less work involved for the GM then.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 18, 2013, 11:09:53 PM
That was kind of my thought. You could make it a mini-game for the GM. :) Find some automated way for him to generate "spawn points" that he can spend to increase the spawn rates in certain regions. Then the GM can log in every now and then, and spend his spawn points. Give him access to the ruler's channel like Overlord in the last invasion, and maybe one character to move around on his own or something. It could definitely be made into a much more lightweight position. You could have two, one for Monsters, and one for Undead.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 19, 2013, 12:19:41 AM
I understand that. That's why my suggestion was for it to be a mostly-automated process, with perhaps a human GM having limited influence over things. This would reduce the workload by a huge factor.

That would be even more work, only for different people. Creating an AI for a complex game like BM is no easy task, even if it is a limited AI that is guided by a player.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Poliorketes on July 19, 2013, 12:57:00 AM
I don't know how are the monster hordes generated, but if we want to 'cut' from the game some regions, it would be the easiest way to make them 'permanent-rogue'.

Make monster hordes much less prone to travelling, and make them much more numerous... at least in some regions:

MORE MONSTERS-> Badlands - Mountains - Woodlands - Rural - Townslands - Cities <-LESS MONSTERS

Realms will abandon the 'wilder' regions because they would be impossible (or impractical) to defend. I suppose it would be easy to code and it would cut as many regions as wanted.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Kwanstein on July 19, 2013, 01:08:05 AM
Monsters and undead aren't actually very detrimental to region stats. I recall one habitually rogue infested region that, despite months of almost unbroken occupation, wasn't doing too poorly. It was underpopulated, so it's economy was slow, but it's morale and loyalty were always high and it's control was always main. It also was never administered by it's lord, and it's taxes didn't appear exceptionally low.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Poliorketes on July 19, 2013, 01:13:58 AM
mmm... maybe this would change with 4-5 monster hordes in the region?  :P
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 19, 2013, 02:38:47 AM
Which part of "no invasion" was unclear? I've been running this game for over 12 years, and we've had invasions for 6 or 7 or something. Why can't you just believe the guy who wrote the damn game when he says that something is a ton of work? Don't you think I've had the idea of automating it in parts before? Don't you think I've considered simply increasing some spawn values?

Really, this is insulting. It's like telling a pro tennis player to hit the ball more often.

So please, if you want to be constructive, stop riding dead horses.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Daycryn on July 19, 2013, 03:59:35 AM
I wouldn't be for closing/sinking/destroying any continent. A lot of what makes BM special is the player effort gone into filling these things. While player density waxes and wanes, the player-created histories and etc. density just gets higher and higher as time goes on. Wouldn't want to lose that, personally.

It might be interesting to merge continents, in the sense of opening up sea travel routes between them. (Shipwrights are getting better at their craft, eh?) So you could travel by sea not just between regions on one map but on two. I can't imagine how much effort that would be to implement though.  While it might not increase player density it would increase the ability of player/characters to interact throughout the BM world. Presently, some folks prefer this island or that island, interacting rarely (if ever) with those on another island, but this winds up leading to a kind of systemic isolation that can contribute to boredom which might be affecting general interest in the game and thus size of player base. I don't know.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Frostwood on July 19, 2013, 04:17:45 AM
(http://s15.postimg.org/ezvo2srwr/Battlemap.jpg)

My rather hacked paint job.....
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: trying on July 19, 2013, 06:14:03 AM
I'm pretty sure the Colonies is always going to be in their little corner of the world.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Atanamir on July 19, 2013, 09:06:22 AM
Well that is his fault for not being active.

I STRONGLY disagree.
You can't expect people to be on EVERY half day.
This is a light weight game and activity is not something that we have to take for granted from anyone.
We want new players, not drones who can log in each turn.
In most realms though currently, that means that you will miss the main battle.
For example on AT: CE went to Darka, and hey, if you missed on all that way from Cagil (is that the capital?) till Darka 1-2 turns, you missed that battle that you would give you the h/p you desperately need. Even worse when you came from Strombran or Tara or Suville (!).
And then wait again 2-3 weeks till everyone refits and there is again a chance for battle.
I promise you, most new players quit before the second campaign.
Even in Armonia, travelling 5-6 turns till Perdan border got people bored.
So, we need to give them again more chances to have a battle.
That means that we need that 3rd char back, so they have more options to look for realms and gain their h/p.
Because I am also against "locusts" who join a realm and then abandon it after few days because they see no chance to find a battle.
With three chars, you can live with it if 1 or 2 are low on battle.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 19, 2013, 09:16:21 AM
I STRONGLY disagree.
You can't expect people to be on EVERY half day.
This is a light weight game and activity is not something that we have to take for granted from anyone.
We want new players, not drones who can log in each turn.
In most realms though currently, that means that you will miss the main battle.
For example on AT: CE went to Darka, and hey, if you missed on all that way from Cagil (is that the capital?) till Darka 1-2 turns, you missed that battle that you would give you the h/p you desperately need. Even worse when you came from Strombran or Tara or Suville (!).
And then wait again 2-3 weeks till everyone refits and there is again a chance for battle.
I promise you, most new players quit before the second campaign.
Even in Armonia, travelling 5-6 turns till Perdan border got people bored.
So, we need to give them again more chances to have a battle.
That means that we need that 3rd char back, so they have more options to look for realms and gain their h/p.
Because I am also against "locusts" who join a realm and then abandon it after few days because they see no chance to find a battle.
With three chars, you can live with it if 1 or 2 are low on battle.


The game would be more fun if there were battles every two days instead of every two weeks. But, this is more likely to occur if there are more players around: more players means more war, more wars mean battles closer to the front lines.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 19, 2013, 09:22:56 AM
I think the earlier suggestion of a new world where everyone is allowed a noble is a good one. This could of course be accompanied by the wiping of another continent.
From what has been said, this new continent would be best made in the same way as Dwilight started.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 19, 2013, 09:23:45 AM
Here's a thought. Instead of instantenously closing a continent, why not just prevent any further emigration or new character creation in one of the game worlds? Make it a case of 'Well, Kepler continent has had a good run. We don't want to bring it to a sudden artificial end though. So although the trade ships can no longer make it to Kepler continent due to choppier waters, you can fight it out to the bitter end and give Kepler continent the send-off she deserves!'

Doing it like that makes for a more staggered, natural reduction of nobles over time. You could even bring in these ideas of reducing regions from a decent roleplay perspective. 'Due to being cut off from the known world and the increasing anarchy, as the nobility die out, regions merge and become larger as you desperately try to hold your realm together.' You could do it in increments as the nobility reduced and realms fell. No doubt you would eventually be left with a hardcore of nobles and players who would never give up on the continent under any circumstances. But although the continent would have much bigger regions, perhaps fewer realms, they would still have their continent and that's the important thing.

Maybe if the player base does increase in the future, you can re-open the continent to emigration and new character creation. And if things really look up you could even reverse the changes to region sizes. But if things don't, at least it's still there in some way for the people who really care about it.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Zakilevo on July 19, 2013, 09:42:24 AM
Pretty sure Tom said no new island until he gets 500 players.

Also, closing an island down always makes people leave. There are people who have been playing for years because they became attached to history they made for their characters. Once that disappears, why should they stay?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Lavigna on July 19, 2013, 09:59:01 AM
Also, closing an island down always makes people leave. There are people who have been playing for years because they became attached to history they made for their characters. Once that disappears, why should they stay?

So true.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 19, 2013, 10:06:22 AM
My rather hacked paint job.....

And you completely ignored the entire history of the game. Let's see, the EAST island is called that because? Anyone got an idea?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 19, 2013, 10:08:39 AM
Pretty sure Tom said no new island until he gets 500 players.

I also learn from history. Even if there were a sudden run on the game, I would wait until I'm sure those additional players are there for the long run before adding a new island.

And 500 is a low number. The game right now could easily take 500 new players with no need for expanding the game world.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 19, 2013, 10:11:14 AM
If it's a run on the game you are looking for, then closing an island is not really going to increase activity, but rather promotion outside of this game & forums is necessary. Recruiting people outside of the game itself is done only by few people.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Poliorketes on July 19, 2013, 10:17:57 AM
Really, this is insulting. It's like telling a pro tennis player to hit the ball more often.

So please, if you want to be constructive, stop riding dead horses.

Ok!... It's like a pro tennis player asking the public how he must play, and then get insulted when they tell him nothing he didn't know.

OF COURSE all we said has been thought before... I was thinking this was to find a 'acceptable way' to close some island FOR THE PLAYERS, but obviously this is impossible without some coding... and obviously too, all ways had been thought before open this treat...

So what are we talking about?


The questions in my mind are:

    Would the player community be open to a step like this AT ALL ?
    Can we, together, find ways to make it bearable?


Ok.
The community is not an homogeneous being, some people will accept it, some will left the game... who many? impossible to know.
Ways to make it bearable? without heavy coding? (merge, invasions, spawn, inundations, new islands, etc) IMMO: impossible.


This is like when someone had high blood pressure, they cut him and let him blood... yes the pressure drop, but the patient was a lot more weak after the treatment.

Ok. We close two islands: some people will leave the game in anger; some, thinking this is the begin of the end of BM... the rest will take his one or two characters and send them to other islands.

So all we gain is some new characters (NOT players) in the surviving islands... and for this we destroy two islands? It's not more easy and less traumatic to give these two characters to the people?

Give four or five noble characters to ALL PLAYERS! This is only a temporal solution while BM changes to be more enjoyable!... so why not?

Of course this had been thought before now... so probably we are beating a dead horse again... Is hard not to beat dead horses!
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 19, 2013, 01:00:13 PM
Ok!... It's like a pro tennis player asking the public how he must play, and then get insulted when they tell him nothing he didn't know.

You are getting ridiculous. I listed three things that were out of the question and explained why. I got upset because people continued to push them, disbelieving the explanations.

Now stop derailing this discussion. I am still looking for comments on which approaches would be more acceptable and which ones less, and there are many valuable comments so far.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 19, 2013, 01:10:16 PM
Second, redrawing maps. This is just a crazy amount of work.

Tom,

Would you consider a blight-like mechanism (rationalized away as a sea level rise or as an asteroid crash) to be as difficult as redrawing a map, or is it sufficiently simpler to be considered?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 19, 2013, 02:00:22 PM
Would you consider a blight-like mechanism (rationalized away as a sea level rise or as an asteroid crash) to be as difficult as redrawing a map, or is it sufficiently simpler to be considered?

Drawing dark clouds over an island is fairly easy. Removing parts of an island and turning it into sea is a ton of work and I wouldn't want to do it again.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Jaden on July 19, 2013, 02:11:11 PM
Would something like blighting 50% of Island A and 50% of Island B then linking them together through sea routes (so that it is not ridiculously small) be considered?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Vellos on July 19, 2013, 02:24:21 PM
I like the idea of starving a continent of new characters: maybe say no new characters on some continent. Just drop it from the whole character creation process. The characters there would slowly dwindle until it was a Mad Max-esque wasteland of lost hopes and dead realms. And the RPs that could be done about the end of society, etc... monster/undead problems would grow and grow....

And eventually, when it got too small, we could close it. Alternatively, if we get a player bump, we could re-open it. This allows us time to consider what to do. ALSO, it makes that island unique for its last time in the game: and I could see that island being VERY popular if it was re-opened. i.e. like early Dwilight and Beluaterra after invasions, the colonization craze would kick in if we ever re-opened it.

Note: I have not read the whole thread, so if this was proposed and rejected, I apologize.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 19, 2013, 03:33:18 PM
That would be even more work, only for different people. Creating an AI for a complex game like BM is no easy task, even if it is a limited AI that is guided by a player.

I firmly disagree.

First of all, I would bet you that I could bash out a halfway decent AI for monsters & undead in a week or two working at the pace I generally do on BM code (not counting testing, maybe).

Second of all, I would enjoy it a LOT. I really like AI.

Third of all, it would be pretty much an upfront investment, that could then be used whenever and for however long we wanted.

If you don't want AI, then say you don't want AI, but don't try to make it out to be more work than it is. It really wouldn't be that hard to add some simple goal-seeking to the currently totally random rogue patterns.


Even just #1 there would make for a tremendous increase in the amount of AI the monsters & undead have, and it would be really quite simple to code, IMO.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 19, 2013, 03:55:17 PM
Here's a thought. Instead of instantenously closing a continent, why not just prevent any further emigration or new character creation in one of the game worlds? Make it a case of 'Well, Kepler continent has had a good run. We don't want to bring it to a sudden artificial end though. So although the trade ships can no longer make it to Kepler continent due to choppier waters, you can fight it out to the bitter end and give Kepler continent the send-off she deserves!'

Doing it like that makes for a more staggered, natural reduction of nobles over time. You could even bring in these ideas of reducing regions from a decent roleplay perspective. 'Due to being cut off from the known world and the increasing anarchy, as the nobility die out, regions merge and become larger as you desperately try to hold your realm together.' You could do it in increments as the nobility reduced and realms fell. No doubt you would eventually be left with a hardcore of nobles and players who would never give up on the continent under any circumstances. But although the continent would have much bigger regions, perhaps fewer realms, they would still have their continent and that's the important thing.

Maybe if the player base does increase in the future, you can re-open the continent to emigration and new character creation. And if things really look up you could even reverse the changes to region sizes. But if things don't, at least it's still there in some way for the people who really care about it.

The problem with any sort of cutting off regions or blighting them is exactly the same problem you run into when asking yourself which island to close. Those regions are going to belong to a realm, and that realm will be full of players, players who will be pissed off that their realm but not others is on the chopping block. Some of those players will probably leave. The benefit of the Invasion idea is that it takes a lot of the arbitrariness out of the decisions about what gets taken away (Sorry Tom, have to point it out...). It's still arbitrary to an extent, but there's at least an IC rationale for what's happening, and an opportunity for players to combat it.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 19, 2013, 04:25:07 PM
With regard to AI, if there are no longer going to be any GM-led invasions on Beluaterra and invasions are a no-no for this island closure thing, what would be the point of doing it? Even if invasions were on the table, it seems a shame to spend time on something meant to reduce and destroy an area of the game. It'd be nicer to see development time spent on more positive changes to the game.

The problem with any sort of cutting off regions or blighting them is exactly the same problem you run into when asking yourself which island to close. Those regions are going to belong to a realm, and that realm will be full of players, players who will be pissed off that their realm but not others is on the chopping block. Some of those players will probably leave. The benefit of the Invasion idea is that it takes a lot of the arbitrariness out of the decisions about what gets taken away (Sorry Tom, have to point it out...). It's still arbitrary to an extent, but there's at least an IC rationale for what's happening, and an opportunity for players to combat it.

I didn't mean blight, cut off or remove regions. Just start merging some of them if and when noble density gets too low on a closed off island. The island remains the same size even if the region divisions are larger. Sort of a bit like how the East Island and Far East are essentially identical except the Far East has bigger regions. Ideally though whichever island gets closed of remains intact as it is now for a good long while. I would guess that the noble count would decline only slowly but if any realm should collapse or fall, at least the players are doing it themselves. To my mind that is far better than having a GM or AI push you into the sea with massive hordes.

Edit: Just regarding arbitrariness of merging regions specifically, surely if it's something that took place on a continent wide basis no-one could have too much to complain about? As long as it's balanced it should be fine. And if past history is anything to go by, it's probably something the players would get consulted on. When Tom was adjusting the regions on the Colonies there was a forum thread about it and the proposals got refined with player input.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 19, 2013, 04:32:35 PM
I didn't mean blight, cut off or remove regions. Just start merging some of them if and when noble density gets too low on a closed off island. The island remains the same size even if the region divisions are larger. Sort of a bit like how the East Island and Far East are essentially identical except the Far East has bigger regions. Ideally though whichever island gets closed of remains intact as it is now for a good long while. I would guess that the noble count would decline only slowly but if any realm should collapse or fall, at least the players are doing it themselves. To my mind that is far better than having a GM or AI push you into the sea with massive hordes.

I see. This would probably have to involve both map changes and changes in the DB (for example, which regions border which would change). You're also probably going to end up picking winners and losers to an extent in the process. What stats does the merged region have? Which lord gets to keep his title? Which regions get merged? Seems messy, but maybe less heavy handed than many of the other suggested alternatives.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: trying on July 19, 2013, 05:11:27 PM
I just thought of an insane idea!
Have the daimons carve out a corner in the continent you want to sink then
Unban every multi cheater
and let them make as many accounts they want in that daimon realm.
That way Tom doesn't need to 'make the Blight' it'll just be masses of alts.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 19, 2013, 05:30:48 PM
I see. This would probably have to involve both map changes and changes in the DB (for example, which regions border which would change). You're also probably going to end up picking winners and losers to an extent in the process. What stats does the merged region have? Which lord gets to keep his title? Which regions get merged? Seems messy, but maybe less heavy handed than many of the other suggested alternatives.

Fair point about region changes being little labour intensive. Though it could take months or it could take years for the number of nobles to drop off to an unsustainable level on a closed off continent. There might not be any need for intervention or if there is, not for a long while. In fact that's probably the biggest weakness of this method even if it feels gentler than some others. Closing off a continent to new characters might be helpful to character density elsewhere in BattleMaster in the long term, but it doesn't solve the problem today.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 19, 2013, 06:08:15 PM
I just thought of an insane idea!
You get points for an off-the-wall idea. :p
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 19, 2013, 06:11:23 PM
You get points for an off-the-wall idea. :p

He has a good point. Anyone who chooses to play a dozen or more accounts probably has the time and ability to be a GM. Mendicant would probably make a fantastic GM; say what you will about him, he wrote a lot of pretty good RPs and he had a real knack for making everyone either love or hate him. Mostly hate, but hey that's what you want in a bad guy, right?  8)
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 19, 2013, 06:19:17 PM
I am still looking for comments on which approaches would be more acceptable and which ones less, and there are many valuable comments so far.
I am not sure that a decision to arbitrarily close any island would be received all that well. Even the players who recognize that it could eventually be a good thing for the game are unlikely to able to take it without a fight. I can't even imagine the resulting fight over which island gets closed.

I'm sorry, but the only way that I see it happening without an uproar from the affected players is by somehow allowing the players on the candidate islands to fight it out IC/IG for the survival of their island. Telling people "We're closing Kepler Island, you have 30 days to leave" will piss people off, and you'll probably lose a bunch. Giving them some way to fight to save their island is much more likely to be well-received, and less likely to cause players to ragequit.

Can anyone think of some way to do that *without* some kind of invasion?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: trying on July 19, 2013, 06:26:12 PM
I am not sure that a decision to arbitrarily close any island would be received all that well. Even the players who recognize that it could eventually be a good thing for the game are unlikely to able to take it without a fight. I can't even imagine the resulting fight over which island gets closed.

I'm sorry, but the only way that I see it happening without an uproar from the affected players is by somehow allowing the players on the candidate islands to fight it out IC/IG for the survival of their island. Telling people "We're closing Kepler Island, you have 30 days to leave" will piss people off, and you'll probably lose a bunch. Giving them some way to fight to save their island is much more likely to be well-received, and less likely to cause players to ragequit.

Can anyone think of some way to do that *without* some kind of invasion?
Well then you'd have to make some sort of "victory condition". Perhaps like in Age of Empires if your realm builds a wonder and holds it for a month you win.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Vita` on July 19, 2013, 06:27:31 PM
I echo Indirik's statements wholeheartedly. People are very attached to their islands and will not appreciate their arbitrary loss. The bickering between which island gets deleted will result in a large increase of OOC toxicity and player loss. While I wouldn't outright quit, I know that I myself would feel quite frustrated with the loss of certain islands; I can only imagine how others will feel.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 19, 2013, 06:30:56 PM
Well then you'd have to make some sort of "victory condition". Perhaps like in Age of Empires if your realm builds a wonder and holds it for a month you win.
Some kind of non-invasion contest would be interesting. What kind of competition could you have? Building something, if the cost is gold or soldiers, or soldiers killed, etc., is all highly subject to character density, island stats, etc.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Sacha on July 19, 2013, 06:30:59 PM
Crank up monster/undead spawn rates to ludicrous levels across the island and see who manages to survive? Basically an invasion without actual GMs/NPCs leading hordes.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Alpha on July 19, 2013, 06:33:58 PM
Crank up monster/undead spawn rates to ludicrous levels across the island and see who manages to survive? Basically an invasion without actual GMs/NPCs leading hordes.

From what I've read, this seems to be the most reasonable suggestion.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 19, 2013, 06:34:23 PM
Crank up monster/undead spawn rates to ludicrous levels across the island and see who manages to survive? Basically an invasion without actual GMs/NPCs leading hordes.

Combine this with the "blight any rogue region surrounded by rogue regions" idea, and you may be on to something.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Alpha on July 19, 2013, 06:55:13 PM
Combine this with the "blight any rogue region surrounded by rogue regions" idea, and you may be on to something.

Yep. I might be alone in thinking this, but having monsters actually pose a threat would improve the game, in addition to blighting some land. I remember the early days of dwilight had huge monster hordes roaming, and those were some of the most fun times I've had in BM.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Deytheur on July 19, 2013, 07:00:30 PM
Maybe I am in the minority and maybe it's because I am feeling a bit disenchanted with the game as a whole at the moment but I think it would be a very good idea to close a continent and I wouldn't really complain if the best way of doing that was just closing an island without any fancy tricks or merges. If it makes the game better it's worth it.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 19, 2013, 07:05:39 PM
Maybe I am in the minority and maybe it's because I am feeling a bit disenchanted with the game as a whole at the moment but I think it would be a very good idea to close a continent and I wouldn't really complain if the best way of doing that was just closing an island without any fancy tricks or merges. If it makes the game better it's worth it.

I agree with this in principle, but I strongly suspect that we would lose a lot of players if we did this. There are some players who've been around a while that only play on one island; close their island and they would just be gone, and then that only exacerbates the problem doesn't it?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on July 19, 2013, 07:57:58 PM
I agree with this in principle, but I strongly suspect that we would lose a lot of players if we did this. There are some players who've been around a while that only play on one island; close their island and they would just be gone, and then that only exacerbates the problem doesn't it?

If that's the only island they play on, then their loss would have no effect (positive or negative) on the player density of the other islands. Overall it would be a net increase in density.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 19, 2013, 08:08:54 PM
If that's the only island they play on, then their loss would have no effect (positive or negative) on the player density of the other islands. Overall it would be a net increase in density.

True. That said, I still worry that we'd also lose some people who play on multiple islands but consider one of them their favorite. This sort of hypothesis is pretty much impossible to prove though without surveying the player population, and I suspect that if we did a certain percentage of people would tell the survey that they would quit even if they ultimately didn't intend to in an effort to discourage the Devs from closing their particular favorite island.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Alpha on July 19, 2013, 08:12:57 PM
If my favorite island was just selected to be closed, I don't know if it would cause me to quit, but it would certainly make it more likely. I'd be far less likely to quit if it was closed after a long fight/invasion/blight, whatever is chosen.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Blue Star on July 19, 2013, 08:14:06 PM
Competition to not close a island?

I think that's a horrible idea. Character's will be highly motivated by OCC purposes aka saving the contient. Argue they won't but we all know it's very controversial either way.

If a Island closes, well better get on the wiki and record the history, though if it does, on a island my character is in I will gladly have one of them die on the island. A Captain always goes down with his ship, ya know.

Pick a island at random using a hat and pick out all except the one piece of paper containing the last contient and their we'll settle with that one. No matter what people are gonna leave, if they leave they leave we must move past it and keep going if they stay good for them lets create chaos in BM.

When a island closes 2 week notice is good enough. I will though be looting up until the very last day I can leave the island... can't leave without some goodies.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Eduardo Almighty on July 19, 2013, 09:09:57 PM
I will not quit BM if I lose an island. But I have at least one character I will miss a lot in all his content, including the environment of his island. I'm sure everyone or most of us have the same feeling about it when we are building histories.

While it can help, if it happens, I think it must be done as with the last war island, without invasions, just the feeling that their world is coming down. Let the people RP like crazy, move with their characters or simple let them die there to start a new one. But then, that would be good to have a second character in Dwilight.

I would like to see a war island once again. This is excellent to train good military minds and it can be good to spread more wars in another islands. It's much better than just attract old players. A war island will give a boost to the players we already have and increase the war spirit throughout the entire game.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Vellos on July 19, 2013, 10:41:43 PM
Competition ideas:

The continent with the single realm that controls the largest % of its regions will be closed.
The continent with the fewest battle casualties in the last 90 days will be closed.
The continent with the largest % of bilateral relations at alliance or federation will be closed.
The continent with the fewest auto da fes and persecution of nonbelievers in the last 90 days will be closed.
The continent with the smallest maximum single-region food stockpile will be closed.
The continent with the fewest active secret societies will be closed.
The continent with the fewest successful rebellions in the last year will be closed.

I could come up with these all day.

We could come up with maybe 20 or 30 things we'd like to see happening in BM, and make a scoreboard. Sure, you could game the hell out of it: but doing so would, in and of itself, create the kinds of events in game we like to see.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 19, 2013, 10:57:58 PM
I'm not in love with a lot of those ideas. Many of them will lead to rampant meta-gaming and in some cases could do serious damage to the game itself by artificially encouraging things like rebellions to be started constantly for OOC reasons, not IC ones. I mean, if you say something like "island with fewest rebellions gets sunk!" the next day you're going to have rebellions in half the realms in the game, all started for OOC meta-game reasons.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Frostwood on July 19, 2013, 11:24:42 PM
Crazy idea time:

I don't know how hard this is to program, but you could have the sunk island's realms arrive as an invasion force, with their armies still intact to the other non-sunk islands, and attempt to carve out a new realm on the island, using colony takeover mechanics, and the ability to setup a temporary capital  until they can conquer a city or townlands.  Thus realms can be preserved if they can destroy the original realms, or gain alliances.

There is already ghost realms without regions, so you could probably setup a ghost copy of the realms  on other islands.  This way you have a player invasion, which could change the dynamics of the islands.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Swiftblade on July 20, 2013, 12:22:23 AM
Why not a Battlemaster Apocalypse?

I have noticed that there is fighting on some islands, a lot of old rivalries and hatreds coming up, some splitting of the communitys.

Has anyone ever played the Heroes of Might and Magic Series? At the end of Heroes 3, the world implodes, and mages open up portals to another world where they have to move to.

My basic idea is an "Invasion" on all islands at once, kinda like the ones they have on belatuerra. Make them tough to stop. Realms will have to bad together to try and withstand. Some islands will be overrun and the remaining nobles will have to run to the other islands, that also have invasions going on. If the realms can't band together then the islands become over run with enemies, but the islands are still "there", and can be returned to. Whatever islands remain, standing will become the main islands that new characters can be created on. Lets say that all other islands but Atamara became overrun. All the nobles flocked there and drove the invasion from the face of the island. All other islands have been taken over. The density would be extremely high, there would be crowding, noble poverty, lack of armies. This would then cause others to band together to try and retake there lost lands. They may last a little while, be able to rebuild a few cities, but if those expeditions don't last then the density remains high. If the Expeditions last on another island then they earned the right, and other people will flock to them to help rebuild.

Also the intrigue, the maneuvering, everything would be insane.

If in fact, all islands become overrun, then create a new larger island that doesn't have an invasion, if people want to survive then they will escape to that land, try and remake their broken realms, and yet still have the ability to try and retake their lost lands.

I think a major overhaul needs to happen, and this seems like a good way to do it, increase density, and still leave the history intact, while creating new history, and an interesting one at that.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Frostwood on July 20, 2013, 12:56:08 AM
snip
Tom has repeatedly said no GM or random invasions, too much work.  Perhaps the OP should be updated in bold to avoid this.  It is a cool concept, but it is off the table.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Ender on July 20, 2013, 02:44:20 AM
If putting the blight in the game is so easy because it just requires a cloud over the map, that still more or less fits with the idea of shrinking continents by just making regions unavailable. To use my examples again, blight clouds = storm clouds over flooded regions, smoke clouds over lava regions, or just use blight and call it unknown black magic or the result of something nefarious that spread as a result of the invasions on BT.

If modifying continents is too much of a hassle for the coders, though, just pick one and sink it if changing the size of the game is the best possible solution to fixing player density problems.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 20, 2013, 03:46:16 AM
Honestly, I'm not liking any of these ideas. There is basically only one island I wouldn't miss, but that would be removed by moderator which has its own very fanatically devoted fanbase. I would probably leave if an island closed, or worse, there was some sort of "competition" regarding it. Talk about bringing out the worst in people, that's what competitions do.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Velax on July 20, 2013, 05:37:48 AM
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of closing down an island. If FEI were to be sunk, for example, I'd quit, as I've invested far too much time into that island to want to start all over again. That would, in turn, remove my three characters on other islands.

I have no doubt that other people feel just as strongly about other islands.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on July 20, 2013, 06:46:56 AM
Tom said no island name-dropping, please respect that rule in this thread. Start a poll elsewhere if you want.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 20, 2013, 09:55:48 AM
Competition to not close a island?

I think that's a horrible idea. Character's will be highly motivated by OCC purposes aka saving the contient. Argue they won't but we all know it's very controversial either way.

I entirely agree with this. The end result may be ok, but I wouldn't enjoy the process of the competition. It would not keep within the spirit of the game.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 20, 2013, 10:08:05 AM
If putting the blight in the game is so easy because it just requires a cloud over the map, that still more or less fits with the idea of shrinking continents by just making regions unavailable. To use my examples again, blight clouds = storm clouds over flooded regions, smoke clouds over lava regions, or just use blight and call it unknown black magic or the result of something nefarious that spread as a result of the invasions on BT.

This would have the advantage of keeping most realms viable.

I've checked the number for the EC (random example). If you just flooded all coastal regions, these number of regions would disappear:


             Towns   Townlands     Rurals
Perdan      2       0              4
Sirion        1       0              10
Caligus      2       0              6
Obsidian Islands    Wiped out      
Westmoor 0       0              2
Nivemus    1       0              4
Eponllyn    0       0              2
Armonía    1       0              4
Fallangard 1       0              1

The islands could be kept to avoid killing OI. Otherwise, the EC would be left with 82 regions instead of 123.

The map wouldn't really need to be redrawn. You could add a cloud over the coastal regions, and eventually have it recede in a few years if it is thought warranted.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 20, 2013, 10:21:13 AM
To be clear, I propose that this be done to more than one continent.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Stabbity on July 20, 2013, 11:07:11 AM
Not a bad plan though it has to be done with some care. Wiping out only coastal regions would unbalance a continent like Atamara. Wipe all the coastal regions of Atamara and you might as well rename the continent to "Caligamara".
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 20, 2013, 12:29:44 PM
Best idea so far von Genf imo. This would have the effect of concentrating players on less land.

Another way I believe this could be achieved is by increasing rogue spawning (and bigger rogue spawns) depending on the continents (I think different continents should have different values for rogue spawns). This would have the effect of increasing rogue regions, the loss of territories for nations that don't have enough nobles until they reach a higher density in nobles as they lose land.

It would be touch and feel to see how strong the rogue spawns should be, maybe gradually increasing them until the desired effect is achieved or making it seasonal.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: trying on July 20, 2013, 03:01:50 PM
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of closing down an island. If FEI were to be sunk, for example, I'd quit, as I've invested far too much time into that island to want to start all over again. That would, in turn, remove my three characters on other islands.

I have no doubt that other people feel just as strongly about other islands.
Well would you stay if you "won" the island?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Stabbity on July 20, 2013, 03:04:39 PM
Well would you stay if you "won" the island?

No one wins in the game of thrones!
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 20, 2013, 03:32:53 PM
Increasing rogue spawn prmanently wouldn't really work. BattleMaster works bestas a PvP game. Turning it into PvM would really change the nature of the game.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on July 20, 2013, 04:18:20 PM
Introduce... dragons!

As we know, they like to inhabit desolate areas. The more desolate the region is, the higher the risk of attracting a dragon. So if a region is rogue and surrounded by only rogue, it has a very high risk of attracting a dragon. Ie. the region is blighted, but just with a dragon symbol or some such. But the dragon might move too, to a region nearby with the same requirements. Regions with a dragon tend to spawn more monsters, so it would be slightly more dangerous to live next to a dragon.

But the dragon itself would never attack troops. Though it could snatch peasants and cattle now and then around its lair.

Low noble density attracts dragons and if the density rises, some of them will just fly away.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Blue Star on July 20, 2013, 04:53:35 PM
Increasing rogue spawn prmanently wouldn't really work. BattleMaster works bestas a PvP game. Turning it into PvM would really change the nature of the game.

You have to admit a little Pve is not bad. It gives newer players the chance to build up some h/p when realms aren't at war and even gives players a chance who are usually maintenance to be active in the cleansing of them. Increase the rate would not turn this into a pve game. No fun in fighting npcs.

It would just give players a chance to obtain "Extra" h/p, but in no way should that be the main focus for a realm if the realm is smart it will encourage new players to go get them at first... though stomping monster is fun.

mm also the idea of limiting New players to going to certain islands until they've stayed in game for a duration or such, would not be ideal simply because that limits them. Though if a rotation schedule was worked out I can see it being beneficial. Perhaps, everyone who joins on a certain day(s) has their first char go to X Continent and it changes accordingly, but does not limit them from choosing their second char placement afterward.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 20, 2013, 05:28:43 PM

Going back to directly answer this:

Now stop derailing this discussion. I am still looking for comments on which approaches would be more acceptable and which ones less, and there are many valuable comments so far.

I think most people (including me) see completely closing an island as the less acceptable, or completely unacceptable, approach. I think it would cause some players to leave the game, and driving existing players away is only going to do further harm to the game.

A more acceptable approach would be to reduce the existing regions on all islands by some magical explanation that's acceptable from a workload point-of-view for the Devs. I'm not in favour of the idea of flooding coastal regions, because it would virtually wipe out several realms on most islands (Caergoth, Kindara, Coralynth, Obsidian Islands, Barony of Maker, Suville, etc). If a region reduction approach was taken, the regions would have to be carefully chosen for balance, and it would have to happen slowly enough for the players to adjust to it, rather than as an overnight event.

I'd also consider the original island merger idea to be possibly acceptable, but not in the way it was originally presented. If it did happen, I'd prefer to see the closed island stay on the merged map and for it to be possible for people on the open island to make expeditionary attempts to recolonize the closed island. Anaris has said he's willing to work on improved undead/monster AI and goal-seeking, and he would enjoy the coding, so why not have the closed island overrun by more aggressive and intelligent undead/monsters once the humans have abandoned it? Then, if several realms band together it might be possible for them to sail to the closed island and beat back the monsters/undead to carve out some areas of the closed island for recolonization. Keeping the closed island in view of the players, and able to be partly recolonized through great efforts, would be great from a RP point-of-view (exiled realms seeking to regain their lost lands, or original realms on the open island launching monster hunting crusades into the closed island), and it also retains some of the large-scale PvE gameplay that appears to have been popular with players in the past. Heck, it might even increase the fun level. Plus, the closed island wouldn't just sink and its history totally disappear from the game, but be available to be fully reopened in the future when the player base grows. At the minimum, I see that as being more acceptable than just having an island vanish.

Anyhow, of the things discussed so far, I think those are the only options that I'd feel were acceptable.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Miriam Ics on July 20, 2013, 05:29:55 PM
One thing that I have been thinking is about a talk we had at IRC recently.
Someone (Delvin must remember who), suggested that, those who donate over x, could have the account locked for no deletion even if auto paused.
I really like this idea and believe that some old players would come back if they still could have the old account active.
Or maybe could be: if you donate for x month and / or if you played for 2 years non stop, you can guarantee your account will not be deleted for inactivity or any other reason.

Another suggestion would be to have the old players to be able to start differently than a new player.
New players need time to learn the game and get used to it. Old players want to do everything but they must act as a new one.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Poliorketes on July 20, 2013, 05:55:31 PM
You want less regions? Put 10-15 'resident' monster hordes on every wood or mountain region! You know, in a lot of tales the woods are haunted, and the mountains are troll infested!

For sure this would left the regions empty and rogue!  :P
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on July 20, 2013, 08:01:15 PM
We could also merge regions. Rather tricky, I know, but you wouldn't have to redraw the maps, and you could just undo it if/when player count increases.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: loren on July 20, 2013, 09:13:40 PM
And you completely ignored the entire history of the game. Let's see, the EAST island is called that because? Anyone got an idea?

Because in SpellMaster there were three islands, East South and West.  The east Island was eponymous the eastern island of the three. The south island was actually the War-Islands (hence south-west, and south-east) The colonies map is actually the West Island map.  It's also why there was a Lich King character there for a time as there was a Lich King character in SpellMaster.

Any other questions?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Stabbity on July 20, 2013, 11:05:04 PM
Because in SpellMaster there were three islands, East South and West.  The east Island was eponymous the eastern island of the three. The south island was actually the War-Islands (hence south-west, and south-east) The colonies map is actually the West Island map.  It's also why there was a Lich King character there for a time as there was a Lich King character in SpellMaster.

Any other questions?

What's the meaning of life?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 20, 2013, 11:26:42 PM
What's the meaning of life?

42. Now stop asking silly questions!
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Draco Tanos on July 21, 2013, 07:13:43 PM
Because in SpellMaster there were three islands, East South and West.  The east Island was eponymous the eastern island of the three. The south island was actually the War-Islands (hence south-west, and south-east) The colonies map is actually the West Island map.  It's also why there was a Lich King character there for a time as there was a Lich King character in SpellMaster.

Any other questions?
Though if there was a combination of the continents onto a single map, such locations should be taken into consideration. 
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Forbes Family on July 21, 2013, 10:27:08 PM
When I first started  the game I was playing another one where battles were very... infrequent. My first character was brought in in Etoge and the next turn was in a battle against a small horde. Almost all of his men were killed in the battle as he was the only one fighting, but he won. And I was hooked.

I think in order to get more player retention we need to give instant battles to them. How hard would it be to code something where a horde appears when a new player does? Give them an instant battle and let them get that rush of adrenalin?

Another thought, People talk about old players possibly coming back. This game has changed a lot over the years with Trade, Estates, Sea Travel etc. Tom, you must have emails for people that have deleted accounts. Is there any thought to write these old players and extend an invitation to come back? Perhaps an incentive where they can start with more characters than a true newb?

I don't think closing an island is a good idea as it will loose us more players. What we need is more players or something to recruit more players.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: loren on July 22, 2013, 12:07:25 AM
So I had a good think about this while I was out just now. It seems to me that the only way we can really 'sink' and island is to choose two that aren't going to survive and have them both collide in a fashion where they scramble for land.

In other words two islands are going to one single empty island and they have to duke it out for space through portals that are placed in various places throughout the sinking islands (portal exits I think should be random and have to be explored).

Why do I favor this approach? Nobody feels singled out, it will drive a ton of combat as old alliances shift and batter against one another. How could this actually be done without creating a new island? Two options as I see it.  We sink the Atamara based clones.  Or we sink the FEI and the East having them merged onto a new paired continent ala Dwilight with shrunken coasts from the original FEI and East islands.  This would be a lot more work, but I think will appeal to the player base as it allows cultures to stay in-tact, but to merge realms.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 22, 2013, 04:58:38 AM
The only "sink" that wouldn't go too badly for me was if BT got a huge beastie spawner in the middle of it, and all continents were merged into one game world with sea zones allowing travel between them, so that the rogue spawns would increase the character per owned region density by making regions go rogue, but coordinated efforts to reclaim targeted lands would always have a chance of success and no land or realm would be guaranteed to be wiped permanently. Perhaps, as an option, portal stones could be made to allow people to "move" the rogue spawner into other regions and other continents, or a series of scrolls (should be nobles that do it, imo) (ex: using more summon scrolls at once in the same region than was ever used before), so that the realms next to the arbitrary first spawn place aren't totally doomed, and that the burden of the rogues can be moved around a bit by player actions, thus keeping this mostly a PvP mechanic.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Kai on July 22, 2013, 10:42:07 AM
Sink the island with the lowest player density.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 22, 2013, 11:30:35 AM
Sink the island with the lowest player density.

Well technically that would be Dwilight, which has nothing to do with player retention and everything to do with how incredibly huge of a continent it is.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 22, 2013, 01:47:01 PM
and that it has a one char per person limit maybe?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Solari on July 22, 2013, 02:57:59 PM
I have always favored shuttering a continent, or accomplishing the same through mergers or some other means. Density drives everything. Folks need to decide if they'd rather be King Turd of Crap Mountain—by acquiring positions of power but nobody to play with—or a part of a vibrant and interesting experience. For me, it's the latter.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on July 22, 2013, 05:39:02 PM
Bring in the weapons of mass destruction. We dislike pve solutions, so let it be pvp. Give us ways to semi-permanently destroy regions, turning them into wastelands.

Introduce two new scrolls for that - one to destroy and another to heal. Success rate is influenced by noble density on the continent. When the density is low, healing often fails and destruction succeeds, and vice versa.

Or sages make scrolls based on density. Low density gets more plague scrolls than healing.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 22, 2013, 06:15:06 PM
Interesting idea, Tiridia. A Scroll of Blight that allows you to blight a region in some manner, either instantly, or by accumulating points over a period of time. But let's skip the healing part. ;)

What worries me about that kind of thing, though, is how many realms/players would organize a vigilante attitude toward the scrolls. i.e. organizing alliances/groups to punish anyone who uses them. You can see some version of this with the monster/undead scrolls.

Perhaps, to make it more interesting, you could make them "30 second bombs". Every turn they count down by one, and when they hit zero they activate, blighting the region they are in. Make it a "reverse capture the flag" kind of thing, maybe.  Have the bombs announce the remaining turn count to the entire region (or current/adjacent regions, like the "RP event" the GM characters can use). That way you can see if someone is sending one your way, and attack the carrier. If you wound the carrier, they drop it, and you can pick it up and carry it somewhere else. You'd know who was sending the bomb after you, and could take appropriate retaliatory action. I'm sure we could come up with a convincing RP basis/explanation for them.

Zap an island with enough of these, and you'd definitely knock down the inhabitable area. You could control exactly how much you reduced the land area by controlling how many of them you released onto the island.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on July 22, 2013, 06:59:44 PM
Interesting idea, Tiridia. A Scroll of Blight that allows you to blight a region in some manner, either instantly, or by accumulating points over a period of time. But let's skip the healing part. ;)

What worries me about that kind of thing, though, is how many realms/players would organize a vigilante attitude toward the scrolls. i.e. organizing alliances/groups to punish anyone who uses them. You can see some version of this with the monster/undead scrolls.

Perhaps, to make it more interesting, you could make them "30 second bombs". Every turn they count down by one, and when they hit zero they activate, blighting the region they are in. Make it a "reverse capture the flag" kind of thing, maybe.  Have the bombs announce the remaining turn count to the entire region (or current/adjacent regions, like the "RP event" the GM characters can use). That way you can see if someone is sending one your way, and attack the carrier. If you wound the carrier, they drop it, and you can pick it up and carry it somewhere else. You'd know who was sending the bomb after you, and could take appropriate retaliatory action. I'm sure we could come up with a convincing RP basis/explanation for them.

Zap an island with enough of these, and you'd definitely knock down the inhabitable area. You could control exactly how much you reduced the land area by controlling how many of them you released onto the island.

This could be a huge amount of fun. A 30-day timer that announces every turn, to its current region and all adjacent regions, that the bomb is in keplerville, carried by Evilstan. Infiltrators would swarm Evilstan, and if he gets wounded, the bomb drops and gets picked up by another player in the region (random, or make it appear on the action menu). The bomb stays quiet for 2 turns, to give him a chance to get away, and then starts announcing again.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Sarwell on July 22, 2013, 07:01:08 PM
Interesting idea, Tiridia. A Scroll of Blight that allows you to blight a region in some manner, either instantly, or by accumulating points over a period of time. But let's skip the healing part. ;)

What worries me about that kind of thing, though, is how many realms/players would organize a vigilante attitude toward the scrolls. i.e. organizing alliances/groups to punish anyone who uses them. You can see some version of this with the monster/undead scrolls.

Perhaps, to make it more interesting, you could make them "30 second bombs". Every turn they count down by one, and when they hit zero they activate, blighting the region they are in. Make it a "reverse capture the flag" kind of thing, maybe.  Have the bombs announce the remaining turn count to the entire region (or current/adjacent regions, like the "RP event" the GM characters can use). That way you can see if someone is sending one your way, and attack the carrier. If you wound the carrier, they drop it, and you can pick it up and carry it somewhere else. You'd know who was sending the bomb after you, and could take appropriate retaliatory action. I'm sure we could come up with a convincing RP basis/explanation for them.

Zap an island with enough of these, and you'd definitely knock down the inhabitable area. You could control exactly how much you reduced the land area by controlling how many of them you released onto the island.
That could be hilarious. Every realm would probably end up creating a whole small army for doom-artifact containment.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: trying on July 22, 2013, 07:13:21 PM
Yes and then some people will just build a moat around their entire realm.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Frostwood on July 22, 2013, 08:41:55 PM
Yes and then some people will just build a moat around their entire realm.

Make it so that you can still travel through the blight, but not gather food, or do anything with the blighted regions, and have them produce monsters and undead at an accelerated rate.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 22, 2013, 08:45:53 PM
Yes and then some people will just build a moat around their entire realm.

That would be counterproductive. They wouldn't be able to do anything. The best-case scenario there is permanent stagnation.

The worst-case is infighting that leads to the entire realm being blighted.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Telrunya on July 22, 2013, 09:14:47 PM
A very defensive chokepoint would still be problematic, like ensuring the only way you can get in or out of the Realm is through a City or a Townsland. Something like allowing travel through the Blight, but having those regions absolutely useless would counter that.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Miriam Ics on July 22, 2013, 09:16:15 PM
I did not read the last posts so If I am saying something that was said recently I apologize.
I just don't want to lose what is in my mind (again).
I spend some time yesterday thinking about this and my conclusion is that no matter what we do we will have one problem left, even in smaller or reduced number of continents and this is that knights cant pretty much do nothing.
They can train units or themselves and I can tell, this almost make me leave the game.
If I were not at IRC, if I haven't talk daily with other people, I would had left after 3 month playing.

So, what I think we need is more activities for knights.
Does Tom have any plan for this? Does he agree with improving something like growing food for example?


Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Kwanstein on July 22, 2013, 10:24:42 PM
There is a way to merge islands, retain their histories, fix the character/region ratio and at the same time attract new players to the game. It would take some work on the part of the devs, but it is totally viable.

Step 1:
Rather than merge islands by plopping two right next to each other, create an entirely new island, it's shape indicating natural  tectonic movement. The tectonic plates that the islands are on are moving towards each other, causing islands to be pushed up between them, as stepping stones for them to fight or travel over. This creates a more aesthetically pleasing look than the prior suggestion, and allows for meaningful and fun interaction between the two previously separate groups of islanders.

(http://s21.postimg.org/l9w2s1ic7/bm_islant.jpg)
http://s21.postimg.org/l9w2s1ic7/bm_islant.jpg (http://s21.postimg.org/l9w2s1ic7/bm_islant.jpg)

Step 2:
Since this is an entirely new map, rather than two old ones shoved together, the regions will have to be remade and the realms re-set up.

Redrawing the regions is straightforward and even provides an opportunity for improvement (which I will get to in step 3).

Remaking all of the old realms, in order to retain their histories and such, is more complicated. They could simply be made as blank templates, like the ones in Dwilight were, and the transferring players could attempt to remake them themselves. But that would ruin character continuation and would provide potential for failure.  The realms could be set up in a more detailed manner, with all of the transferring characters retaining their positions as rulers, dukes and such, but that would be a lot of work.

This is a tricky step, and there is no perfect way of doing it. Something is bound to be compromised here, whether it's continuity or simplicity.

Step 3:
When redrawing the regions, combine some of the minor ones in order to fix the character/region ratio.

Step 4:
Such a significant event, with such potential for novelty and fun, could attract new players or retain old ones. It could serve as a positive PR event if played right.

Anyway, it's a lot of work, but it would be beneficial in the long run, as it would alleviate many existing problems and reinvigorate a drowsy and shrinking fan base.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 22, 2013, 10:34:34 PM
Another option to consider is removing the 1 lordship per character rule. If some characters are allowed to stack titles, then that means less to share around, thus leaving more knights again, and allowing a somewhat greater viability for realm that are otherwise successful (diplomatically or militarily) and are stuck with low nobles/region ratio. It would also make regions with atrocious stats after the economy rebalance not force anyone into poverty (which is boring for everyone) by allowing the lords of the crappy wastelands (be them actual wastelands or rurals/woodlands) to get a few lordships to compensate.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 22, 2013, 10:47:20 PM
Another option to consider is removing the 1 lordship per character rule. If some characters are allowed to stack titles, then that means less to share around, thus leaving more knights again, and allowing a somewhat greater viability for realm that are otherwise successful (diplomatically or militarily) and are stuck with low nobles/region ratio. It would also make regions with atrocious stats after the economy rebalance not force anyone into poverty (which is boring for everyone) by allowing the lords of the crappy wastelands (be them actual wastelands or rurals/woodlands) to get a few lordships to compensate.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... there's already enough characters that have a near monopoly on power without any turnover without resorting to this...
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Vita` on July 22, 2013, 10:53:58 PM
I'm inclined to agree with Gustav, but to fancy Chenier's idea...

There would need to be a balancing effect, similar to estate efficiency, in that a lord of multiple regions has increasingly less effective production/control/morale/loyalty for each additional region, especially for highly populated or geographically larger regions.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 22, 2013, 11:24:32 PM
Short answer: No.

Long answer: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... there's already enough characters that have a near monopoly on power without any turnover without resorting to this...

Are there really too much power hogging? From my observations, there are more people with titles in general than without them, and I suspect they may even be more lords than non-lords. All I see, all the time, is a bunch of region elections going up with no one bothering to even utter a word to get elected, no candidate for75% of the referendum's duration, and then at the end only one candidate. Do these people really deserve a lordship? Not in my opinion.

I'm inclined to agree with Gustav, but to fancy Chenier's idea...

There would need to be a balancing effect, similar to estate efficiency, in that a lord of multiple regions has increasingly less effective production/control/morale/loyalty for each additional region, especially for highly populated or geographically larger regions.

Of course, there has to be something to discourage one guy being ruler, duke, and lord of all of the realm's regions and getting all of their taxes.

Isn't there a limit already to how many peasants an estate can represent, at least indirectly? One could go with a "a character may not have estates representing more than X population". I'd rather go with a near-limitless binomial system of diminishing returns, though, where one can get a bunch of regions but where estate efficiency lowers with population and area.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 23, 2013, 12:02:16 AM
If you don't want AI, then say you don't want AI,

I don't want AI.

Most of the fun and complexity and pleasure of BM comes from fighting human opponents. People who are not easily calculated (and humans are crazy good at spotting the patterns in even the best AI) and who can be talked to and reasoned with and threatened and all that.

We tried an AI invasion once, and it was probably the least memorable.

That is why I think the effort required isn't worth it, because BM is not and should not be a PvE game, so an AI should always have a minor role.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 23, 2013, 12:15:53 AM
I like the idea that Tiridia posted and others elaborated on. It needs some work, but the basic idea of introducing an entity that will destroy(*) a part of the game world, while giving players control over which (but not if) is good and I've had similar ideas myself.

Eliminating parts of islands instead of whole islands make shrink the game in a way that is acceptable to many more people.

A minimum distance between "explosion points" could ensure that a) no entire realm gets completely destroyed by them and b) a realm can not surround itself with destroyed regions as a protection measure.


And the "spawn a time-bomb" idea makes sure that the AMOUNT of destruction is controlled by GMs (basically, the amount of "bombs" we spawn) while the location is controlled by player actions.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 23, 2013, 01:08:04 AM
I don't really like the idea of bringing in more blight, personally, unless there's a limit to the vastness of the blight and that it can be undone/moved elsewhere. Rogue spawners remain PvP if players are the only ones capable of moving the spawners around and influencing their might.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 23, 2013, 02:15:01 AM
I don't really like the idea of bringing in more blight, personally, unless there's a limit to the vastness of the blight and that it can be undone/moved elsewhere.

The whole point of more blight—whatever the means of applying it—is to reduce the number of available regions.

So assuming we did something along these lines, yes, there will be a limit, but it will be carefully controlled and monitored by the devs, and increased as necessary. If it can be undone, it will not be easy, and it will only be possible if it is balanced by a corresponding additional blight somewhere else.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: trying on July 23, 2013, 02:26:51 AM
People would just blight the regions that have terrible stats. I expect Skezard on EC to be one of the first to go.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 23, 2013, 02:32:35 AM
People would just blight the regions that have terrible stats. I expect Skezard on EC to be one of the first to go.

And...I'm not at all sure that would be a bad thing. Solve me a rebalancing problem real quick, that's for sure! ;D

If the players are told, effectively, "You get to pick which 10 regions get blighted," and then they collectively do so, that may be more likely to produce results the players are willing to live with than if we just did it arbitrarily.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Forbes Family on July 23, 2013, 02:33:16 AM
I would prefer the idea of having Lords be able to hold more regions. For instance say you want to gain the region of another Lord you and your knights go to war with that Lord and their knights.

It would actually give a reason to have knights again.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 23, 2013, 02:34:15 AM
I would prefer the idea of having Lords be able to hold more regions. For instance say you want to gain the region of another Lord you and your knights go to war with that Lord and their knights.

It would actually give a reason to have knights again.

Um...you're not just proposing changing the code to allow holding multiple regions, which is far from a trivial code change. You're now also proposing being able to go to war with other Lords from your own realm.

Yeah, that's not going to happen.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 23, 2013, 02:35:23 AM
The whole point of more blight—whatever the means of applying it—is to reduce the number of available regions.

So assuming we did something along these lines, yes, there will be a limit, but it will be carefully controlled and monitored by the devs, and increased as necessary. If it can be undone, it will not be easy, and it will only be possible if it is balanced by a corresponding additional blight somewhere else.

Turning a bunch of regions rogue would have the same effect on player density as blighting them would, except that it would allow the players to then decide which regions to prioritize if they seek to expand instead of having it forced upon them.

People would just blight the regions that have terrible stats. I expect Skezard on EC to be one of the first to go.

I fear the most valuable regions would be targeted first, leaving the crappy regions behind. Scorched earth warfare. Which, in the end, leads to a bunch of realms incapable of properly fighting each other.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 23, 2013, 02:38:20 AM
Turning a bunch of regions rogue would have the same effect on player density as blighting them would, except that it would allow the players to then decide which regions to prioritize if they seek to expand instead of having it forced upon them.

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.

If regions are turned rogue, people will just take them back. Period. That is absolutely plain from the players' behaviour.

Quote
I fear the most valuable regions would be targeted first, leaving the crappy regions behind. Scorched earth warfare. Which, in the end, leads to a bunch of realms incapable of properly fighting each other.

If that were the result, then personally, I would try to make sure that things went one of two ways: either the whole worthless area got blighted, or the blight was able to be moved from the valuable regions in some manner.

I dunno about any of the rest of the devs, but I have embraced the maxim of We Do Not Hate The Players.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Sarwell on July 23, 2013, 03:50:43 AM
-snip-
I think this is considering things on the scale of maybe scrapping one island, not four of them...
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 23, 2013, 04:04:11 AM
Wolfsong, that would probably see players abandon the game en mass. You clearly enjoy Dwilight, but lots of other people don't. For them, the other islands offer them a playing experience they enjoy. Wiping out the entire history of the game across most islands wouldn't be a good idea.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 23, 2013, 04:38:08 AM
Trashing all the islands (except Dwilight) and replacing them with a single island? Guaranteed to piss off everyone. Might as well just close down the game and save yourself the trouble.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Vita` on July 23, 2013, 04:48:48 AM
Can we stay focused on what Tom has already said he likes? That is, Tiridia's suggestion on blighting/healing scrolls based upon player density and Indirik's timer-delay improvement.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Miriam Ics on July 23, 2013, 05:00:09 AM
^This.
We know now what Tom likes. We need to work on that direction.

(But I still think knights need more activities).
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Jaden on July 23, 2013, 05:35:50 AM
I am also interested in expanding the knight game, it's boring as hell if you have no wars to fight... maybe we should split it into another thread?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Velax on July 23, 2013, 05:37:11 AM
Removed posts advocating the destruction of one island or another. It was pretty clearly stated in the OP not to do that.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 23, 2013, 08:57:30 AM
And the "spawn a time-bomb" idea makes sure that the AMOUNT of destruction is controlled by GMs (basically, the amount of "bombs" we spawn) while the location is controlled by player actions.

How quickly would you want to do this? I think I would prefer it it were over quickly, i.e. a certain number of bombs are spawned at once, 30 days later land is blighted, and then we know for sure we won't have any more for at least a year.

I fear the strategic implications of regularly spawning nuclear bomb would have on the general gameplay. Uncertainty creates fear in realm leaders, and many realms will prefer never to go to war for fear that their enemies would destroy their precious lands.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on July 23, 2013, 09:05:54 AM
I think it is important that the affected regions are wastelands, not blighted. We do not want walls and bottlenecks. They should probably adversery effect joined regions as well, in order to discourage their use on own border regions.

They could start with ill omens that the priests discover. An adventurer could then investigate and find the cursed item. The item grows in power and yields significant bonuses. At later stage it begins to signal imminent doom and then wastes the region.

The holy items do the same, but at the end heal the region. They are seeded only when noble density requires more land.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Jaden on July 23, 2013, 09:21:28 AM
just make those regions unable to be TOed, cause if it's a wasteland and still TOable, people would just TO it for the sake of it  ::)
How many islands is this going to affect, cause i don't think blighting 1 island will be enough..
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 23, 2013, 10:07:39 AM
I also agree with Miriam's point that knight gameplay is boring unless you are communicating with other people in OOC means, such as irc. You don't hear anything, no one tells you anything, and most of the time you are ignored.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 23, 2013, 11:47:26 AM
We know now what Tom likes. We need to work on that direction.

I didn't say my mind is set on that. Often, once a good ideas has come up, other good ideas follow, so please allow for that to happen instead of closing the discussion prematurely.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 23, 2013, 11:48:27 AM
How quickly would you want to do this? I think I would prefer it it were over quickly, i.e. a certain number of bombs are spawned at once, 30 days later land is blighted, and then we know for sure we won't have any more for at least a year.

I fear the strategic implications of regularly spawning nuclear bomb would have on the general gameplay. Uncertainty creates fear in realm leaders, and many realms will prefer never to go to war for fear that their enemies would destroy their precious lands.

It would definitely have to be an event, i.e. something that happens once and then it's done.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 23, 2013, 11:57:04 AM
I think it is important that the affected regions are wastelands, not blighted. We do not want walls and bottlenecks. They should probably adversery effect joined regions as well, in order to discourage their use on own border regions.

It would be comparatively easy to add code that turns regions into permanent wasteland that can not be TOed, that is considered permanently in starvation (so travelling through requires food reserves) and so on. It would solve the bottleneck problem and we wouldn't have to redraw any maps.


I don't think we can use the unique item code. I'd rather go with something like magical monoliths. Rough cut concept:
Those contributions should be something simple and available to everyone. The most simple idea is that every pick simply adds 1 power, so number of characters equals power.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Poliorketes on July 23, 2013, 12:04:06 PM
The use of scrolls is interesting! But we already have the summon scrolls, etc... Why not to 'upgrade' the power (and the number) of them in Beluaterra and see what happens? If we want to reduce the number of regions, maybe we only have to give the players a good number of 'usual' scrolls.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 23, 2013, 01:05:28 PM
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.

If regions are turned rogue, people will just take them back. Period. That is absolutely plain from the players' behaviour.

A rogue spawner would make this possible, but difficult. For as long as the spawner (vortex) is in a given area, the number of rogues that come out of it would make holding near-by regions difficult, and the spawn location almost impossible. Thus, a potentially large number of regions would be kept rogue via warfare with undead and monsters, allowing players to prioritize which regions to defend and to attempt to mount coalitions to contain it at its source, as opposed to a blight no one can really do anything about and which is mostly static, not granting the players any choices.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 23, 2013, 01:11:39 PM
A rogue spawner would make this possible, but difficult. For as long as the spawner (vortex) is in a given area, the number of rogues that come out of it would make holding near-by regions difficult, and the spawn location almost impossible. Thus, a potentially large number of regions would be kept rogue via warfare with undead and monsters, allowing players to prioritize which regions to defend and to attempt to mount coalitions to contain it at its source, as opposed to a blight no one can really do anything about and which is mostly static, not granting the players any choices.

You mean something like the area around Jobo's Mouth between the 3rd and 4th invasion, or the Zuma coalition on Dwilight?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 23, 2013, 01:18:39 PM
You mean something like the area around Jobo's Mouth between the 3rd and 4th invasion, or the Zuma coalition on Dwilight?

Not GM-controlled, so no, not like the Zuma coalition. Just a vortex that spews out rogue troops, guided by standard rogue code, and which is movable via scrolls and which's spawn strength is dependant on the number of scrolls used to create/move it.

The monster spawns in wild Dwilight were enough to keep most of the western subcontinents from being colonized for quite a while. Indeed, it wasn't truly colonized until the spawns were brought down by tweaking the code.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 23, 2013, 01:45:48 PM
Why not both, the monoliths and the rogue hubs. I think they are both good ideas.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on July 23, 2013, 02:53:06 PM
Upon reflection, I agree it should be one time event. But if player density rises dramatically, introduce healing scrolls. They could be released gradually.

The monolith concept sounds sweet. Perhaps give hints to priests about where they will first appear. Also to be able to vote "stay".


Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Scarlett on July 23, 2013, 04:43:12 PM
FWIW, one strong vote against any kind of random blighting.

If you want higher density, blight the edges. If I still have to walk across regions where nobody lives, that's an increased MTTSH (Mean Time To !@#$ Happening) which is already high in some places.

Density doesn't do you any good if your habitable areas are pockmarked with inhabitable areas. Yeah you have more players per region but they also have to be closer in for that to be an advantage that will offset the folks who are losing regions.

I realize that this is a harder task in some respects, but a random blighting will seem heavy handed and arbitrary. Those are the top two things that caused most everyone I know who played BM to leave.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Ender on July 23, 2013, 05:24:53 PM
I'm going to have to agree with Scarlett on the idea of shrinking edges vs random blighting. Random blighting has that downside of just messing with everything on a map while shrinking the edges achieves the same effect without giving everyone a bunch of annoying obstacles to walk around all the time.

Shrinking the edges isnt fair to the edges, sure, but I have a hard time seeing how making random regions go rogue would be beneficial in the long run for everything, not just solving the density problem. And this is coming from someone who, I just realized, tends to play only in realms that are on the edges of the map so would stand to feel the effect the most.

Which is weird now that I think about it...
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 23, 2013, 06:07:51 PM
That's a good input and yes, I agree.

But going for the edges does not help much on most islands, it will mostly slim them down. Especially places like EI would have pretty much the same travel time afterwards, just a LOT less ways to travel, those more choke points.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Scarlett on July 23, 2013, 06:30:05 PM
I'd also throw in a vote for a game-wide reset with fewer islands. Blighting will leave a permanent admission of 'we are going downhill' right on the map and it won't make sense to people not on the forums. I get that you could do it in such a way that it could be un-done but it's transferring the stagnation of the game to the stagnation of the in-game world and I don't know if that's a good move either from a utility or a marketing standpoint.

I know lots of people have invested lots of time into their realms and I'm no different. But I'd give it up if it made the experience better afterwards.

The game just doesn't have the same feel it did years ago and the biggest reason for that is the player count because so much other stuff is better.

Keep Dwilight, FEI, and EC. Ditch the rest. Those three places have the most unique 'feel' - Atmarra to me feels like a more boring version of EC and BT seems to require too much work from the staff. Maybe time it with some new code if you guys are semi-close to anything new and exciting - sea travel everywhere, new intra-realm / duchy dynamics, anything like that would go real well with this so that it looked like a purposeful reboot rather than a desperate act.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on July 23, 2013, 07:15:39 PM
One thing to keep in mind is that there is probably no way to do this so that everyone is happy. We are contemplating a cure with side effects that we hope does not hurt more than help. The current density issue has to be remedied and some people will need to pay the price.

The treatment will hurt. Not treating the malady will keep on hurting.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 23, 2013, 08:21:23 PM
That's a good input and yes, I agree.

But going for the edges does not help much on most islands, it will mostly slim them down. Especially places like EI would have pretty much the same travel time afterwards, just a LOT less ways to travel, those more choke points.

And going for the edges will also have the negative side effect of some people being extremely butthurt, no, I think it is better to keep things as randomn as possible to keep the whining to a minimum.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 23, 2013, 08:24:46 PM
I ran some numbers on optimal noble-to-region ratios for the continents and how to achieve them. I went in with the assumption that "optimal" is about 3.5 nobles per region on average.

Based on this, if we followed the plan of blowing up regions in one way or another, the mean number of regions we would have to remove to push a continent to an optimal ratio is about 70.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 23, 2013, 08:31:23 PM
One something I must mention is that decreasing regions will increase number of knights (and decrease number of lords) whilst one of the points made here is that playing as a knight is not the most entertaining thing to do. This may have an adverse side effect of turning people away from the game faster.

Just sayin'
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 23, 2013, 08:46:33 PM
I've got to admit that I've been wondering whether the blighting/monolith wasteland approach will actually help matters (and I was one of those who thought it was a good idea at first). I think Scarlett might have a good point about it creating a general atmosphere of decay about the game.

Just a thought, but before doing anything too dramatic, what about issuing an in-game GM announcement appealing to players who aren't currently using all their playable character slots to use them to create a new character/s on a islands where they don't normally play? Some gentle encouragement might nudge players into boosting the character count as an alternative to losing an island. If the situation with low player density is explained ('cause not everyone reads the forum), some people might be willing to give an extra character a try.

Going back to the original idea of merging islands, what about creating a new, empty, island (based on an inverted, or otherwise messed around with, version of a current map to save on the workload). Then have portals appear in the capital cities of every realm on the two islands intended for merger so that nobles can pass through from the closing islands to the new island. Then have a free-for-all to establish or re-establish realms on the new island. The new island could also have its cities named after cities in the closing islands to transfer some of the history. I know it's not perfect, but I'm trying to think of ways to minimize the upset amongst players - i.e. keeping region names and most realms. I'm suggesting portal emmigration, rather than by sea, because sea emmigration gives too much of a land grab advantage to coastal realms with existing sea ports. The whole process would ideally happen over a few months - maybe close/blight one region on the closing islands every couple of weeks to give people a gentle nudge to emmigrate.

At least by creating a big event, it might stir up excitement amongst the players. I don't know. Giving people a new toy to play with (a new island) seems better than taking away about 70 regions (Anaris's estimate).
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Kwanstein on July 23, 2013, 08:56:29 PM
Going back to the original idea of merging islands, what about creating a new, empty, island (based on an inverted, or otherwise messed around with, version of a current map to save on the workload).

If there is a new map, it should be unique. Reusing an old map is boring and would kill enthusiasm. Making an entirely new map, like was done with Dwilight, would get people exited and would offset misgivings about being jerked around.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 23, 2013, 09:53:55 PM
I ran some numbers on optimal noble-to-region ratios for the continents and how to achieve them. I went in with the assumption that "optimal" is about 3.5 nobles per region on average.

Based on this, if we followed the plan of blowing up regions in one way or another, the mean number of regions we would have to remove to push a continent to an optimal ratio is about 70.

With that sort of volume there are some possible negative consequences. One is that we may end up with smaller realms that have large wastelands between them. This will have a big effect on warfare. What's the point of realm A fighting realm B if all the regions between them are wastelands? You can't really accomplish anything, and the starvation would be a disincentive to travel through it.

The optimal distribution would be more random; a region here, a region there, but nothing that interrupts the contiguity of the map. Unfortunately that's very unlikely to happen if the players have some control over which regions end up on the chopping block.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 23, 2013, 09:54:57 PM
With that sort of volume there are some possible negative consequences. One is that we may end up with smaller realms that have large wastelands between them. This will have a big effect on warfare. What's the point of realm A fighting realm B if all the regions between them are wastelands? You can't really accomplish anything, and the starvation would be a disincentive to travel through it.

The optimal distribution would be more random; a region here, a region there, but nothing that interrupts the contiguity of the map. Unfortunately that's very unlikely to happen if the players have some control over which regions end up on the chopping block.

I could see making travel through the wastelands faster, to prevent it from impeding war too much. Also, some care with targeting can mitigate that, too.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 23, 2013, 10:03:33 PM
I could see making travel through the wastelands faster, to prevent it from impeding war too much. Also, some care with targeting can mitigate that, too.

If players can control where the monoliths go, all the careful targeting the world isn't going to prevent them from doing things with them that aren't necessarily a good thing for the game (they might be good for a particular realm or character, but bad from a big picture perspective).

Faster travel would be good, to an extent.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 23, 2013, 10:06:54 PM
the mean number of regions we would have to remove to push a continent to an optimal ratio is about 70.

Do you mean 70 regions per continent? So removing 420 regions in total?

That's absolutely huge.... much bigger than I thought.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 23, 2013, 10:19:51 PM
Do you mean 70 regions per continent? So removing 420 regions in total?

That's absolutely huge.... much bigger than I thought.

It stems from the relatively high optimal character-region ratio that Anaris started with. 3.5 per region is a lot in today's game. Think about Dwilight in particular. The ratio there is more like 1.5 characters per region. To reach a ratio of 3.5 characters per region, greater than 50% of Dwilight's regions would have to be turned into wasteland, something over 100 regions. And I'm only including regions currently under a realm's control (not including the Zuma).

The exact percentage of regions lost on any given island will depend on its current character density. The further from 3.5 characters per region it is, the more regions would need to be removed to increase the density.

In the end this just goes to show how bad the problem is and how thin the character population is getting.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 23, 2013, 10:49:40 PM
How about distributing a few rare and very hard to assemble magic items which can sink a region?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Zakilevo on July 23, 2013, 10:53:28 PM
So are these scrolls or w/e supposed to sink a region or turn it into a wasteland?

Why not turn it into a wasteland which cannot be taken over or something? Something along the line of 'wilderness has taken over any sign of civilization in the region due to lack of maintenance' or something like that? And allow people to take those regions over again once we reach a certain player base?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 23, 2013, 11:02:30 PM
That's actually how it used to work. A region would slowly go rogue if you didn't have at least one estate set to authority.  It was possible to hold a region with only a lord however you'd have lousy production. If the region had no lord you'd eventually lose it.

The thing is losing your region simply because there aren't enough knights is frustrating and likely to drive more people away. Losing it because your enemy blew it to kingdom come is exciting and gives you motivation to seek revenge.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on July 23, 2013, 11:30:55 PM
Ok, this is a new take on this. Cities produce "documents". You need to buy them for your region or risk it turning into wilderness. The total amount of produced docs depends on noble density.

The result will be that not everyone can afford them, so the regions go rogue. Or wild. Or something.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Scarlett on July 23, 2013, 11:38:34 PM
Quote
One something I must mention is that decreasing regions will increase number of knights (and decrease number of lords) whilst one of the points made here is that playing as a knight is not the most entertaining thing to do.

But that's just the thing: being a knight used to be fun if you were in a fun realm because it had a much larger social aspect. Your region lord needed you, both for estate reasons and for politics, and the realm was larger, so there were more factions and more fights to be had. That's the stuff that any game like this needs which you can only facilitate rather than code outright: the human interactions.

Right now I have characters in super-busy realms that 'have a lot to do' from the game standpoint but it just ain't what it used to be: not that the players aren't as good because there are quite a number who are great - it's just that wars with realms that each have 20 people in them are kind of meh while wars with realms that have 50-60 (each) are much more exciting because you have a lot more avenues for intrigue and allegiances.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 23, 2013, 11:53:16 PM
Do you mean 70 regions per continent? So removing 420 regions in total?

That's absolutely huge.... much bigger than I thought.

I also took it to mean 70 regions per island. Even if the numbers were modified down a bit from 3.5 nobles per region, that sort massive region removal is going to have a huge negative impact on most realms, religions, and other stuff people care about.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Poliorketes on July 24, 2013, 12:14:35 AM
But that's just the thing: being a knight used to be fun if you were in a fun realm because it had a much larger social aspect. Your region lord needed you, both for estate reasons and for politics, and the realm was larger, so there were more factions and more fights to be had. That's the stuff that any game like this needs which you can only facilitate rather than code outright: the human interactions.

Right now I have characters in super-busy realms that 'have a lot to do' from the game standpoint but it just ain't what it used to be: not that the players aren't as good because there are quite a number who are great - it's just that wars with realms that each have 20 people in them are kind of meh while wars with realms that have 50-60 (each) are much more exciting because you have a lot more avenues for intrigue and allegiances.

I don't know... I was in Atamara, in a huge realm... and it was totally boring: Move, move, battle, move, refit, move, battle... I was a zombie knight! It has been in small realms where I could make some 'impression' and change things!... probably if I only had stayed in Atamara I would stop playing long time ago!...

Maybe the problem is not the density, but the players had changed. There are a lot more MMO games now, than 10 years ago. Maybe the 'active' players plays better more 'active' games... (the kind of game than eats your life)

Honestly! We are giving a big effort in this 'shrink BM'... but I can stop think we would better be making this big effort in making the game funnier and better, not smaller.

This is my honest opinion... maybe I wrong...

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 24, 2013, 12:18:51 AM
Just a thought, but before doing anything too dramatic, what about issuing an in-game GM announcement appealing to players who aren't currently using all their playable character slots to use them to create a new character/s on a islands where they don't normally play?

We don't need more characters, we need more players.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 24, 2013, 12:21:09 AM
If there is a new map,

There will not be a new map, period. There is no point in continuing a discussion looking for new maps. I won't even argue the point, please just accept it. No new map, period, end of discussion, over my dead body, if hell freezes over I'd still not to it, you can hand in a petition signed by the president and every god ever invented and I'd throw it away - clear enough?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Stabbity on July 24, 2013, 12:22:53 AM
There will not be a new map, period. There is no point in continuing a discussion looking for new maps. I won't even argue the point, please just accept it. No new map, period, end of discussion, over my dead body, if hell freezes over I'd still not to it, you can hand in a petition signed by the president and every god ever invented and I'd throw it away - clear enough?

(http://www.cincinnatireview.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/936full-cthulhu.jpg)

What if C'thulu hands you the petition Tom?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Kwanstein on July 24, 2013, 01:20:18 AM
We don't need more characters, we need more players.

We need both. Characters for game play reasons, players for matters of interaction.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 24, 2013, 01:38:41 AM
Which is the bigger problem, retention or influx of new players?

For retention it might help to bring in some of those estate features we've discussed in the past.

For influx, maybe we should organize a Battlemaster Promotion day, in which everyone posts a link to Battlemaster on their Facebook or other networking site in order to bring in more players.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 24, 2013, 02:56:57 AM
Which is the bigger problem, retention or influx of new players?

Pretty much both.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 24, 2013, 03:46:37 AM
Every player who has a facebook account should join the battlemaster account there,  and Like every post Azerax makes in the group. This kind of thing gets battlemaster more notice on facebook, and can he'll it google ranking.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 24, 2013, 04:36:43 AM
Something to keep in mind: let's say, theoretically, that we cut down regions per continent to about 70... How many realms can viably sit in that space? On AT, the top 3 realms total 81 regions (9 of the smallest to get 80). On Dwi, the top three total 77 regions, or bottom 7 for 72.

Do we really want continents where there are only a handful of realms, somewhat like the Colonies? Where everyone only has like one or two neighbors? Would that really be an improvement?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Kwanstein on July 24, 2013, 04:42:25 AM
Every player who has a facebook account should join the battlemaster account there,  and Like every post Azerax makes in the group. This kind of thing gets battlemaster more notice on facebook, and can he'll it google ranking.

Since player retention is a problem, it ought to be solved first. With a retention problem, you are bound to lose a large portion of whoever you succeed in advertising to, so that leaves little reason to advertise in the first place. What is at the root of the retention problem? Looking at whatever statistics you happen to have would tell you a lot. Determine points in time in which retention was high and then look at what in-game circumstances were like at that time.

The same method could be employed in figuring out the ideal way to gain players. Determine when player build up was at it's highest, then look at what was going on at that time.

This isn't a perfect method. It doesn't take external circumstances into account. But it's a good starting point for developing a strategy for dealing with those problems.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 24, 2013, 05:47:13 AM
One thing that might help is indicating which continent has the most lordless regions when players are selecting their continent. Getting a region early on can definitely be incentive to keep playing.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Frostwood on July 24, 2013, 06:06:33 AM
Something to keep in mind: let's say, theoretically, that we cut down regions per continent to about 70... How many realms can viably sit in that space? On AT, the top 3 realms total 81 regions (9 of the smallest to get 80). On Dwi, the top three total 77 regions, or bottom 7 for 72.

Do we really want continents where there are only a handful of realms, somewhat like the Colonies? Where everyone only has like one or two neighbors? Would that really be an improvement?
Nope, I choose Dwilight for its size and rp atmosphere, reducing permanently it will probably make me leave battlemaster.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on July 24, 2013, 07:00:15 AM
Seems to me we are debating whether to cure gangria by amputating or by using medicine. Amputation would fix things instantly, but the patient would never be the same. The pills on the other hand would would result in keeping the body intact, but rotten spots here and there.

In both cases there will be loss of life (players). We just need to know which kind we hate the least.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 24, 2013, 09:02:48 AM
It stems from the relatively high optimal character-region ratio that Anaris started with. 3.5 per region is a lot in today's game. Think about Dwilight in particular. The ratio there is more like 1.5 characters per region. To reach a ratio of 3.5 characters per region, greater than 50% of Dwilight's regions would have to be turned into wasteland, something over 100 regions. And I'm only including regions currently under a realm's control (not including the Zuma).

The exact percentage of regions lost on any given island will depend on its current character density. The further from 3.5 characters per region it is, the more regions would need to be removed to increase the density.

In the end this just goes to show how bad the problem is and how thin the character population is getting.

On Dwilight, there are 437 characters in the character list (I think that includes paused ones and adventurers) and ~340 on the statistics page; let's go with 340. There are 239 regions including the rogue ones but not the Zuma lands.

To reach a 3.5 characters per region we would need to shrink Dwilight down to 97 regions. This is removing more than half of the land. You'd need to remove the whole western island, all islands in the inner sea, and remain with nothing but Morek, Swordfell, Corsanctum and Luria (or conversely if you keep the western side instead). Dwilight would become similar in size to the Far East Island.

I agree that a player density a bit higher would be good, but this is butchery. If this is the scale we are looking at, then I would rather see islands removed then see them reduced to that extent.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 24, 2013, 12:52:49 PM
In any case, I think merging the game worlds into one, where continents are traversable by sea zones, would be a good first step towards whatever other measures are required, though I suspect it would require a massive overhaul to the code and DB.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 24, 2013, 01:15:46 PM
Something to keep in mind: let's say, theoretically, that we cut down regions per continent to about 70... How many realms can viably sit in that space? On AT, the top 3 realms total 81 regions (9 of the smallest to get 80). On Dwi, the top three total 77 regions, or bottom 7 for 72.

Do we really want continents where there are only a handful of realms, somewhat like the Colonies? Where everyone only has like one or two neighbors? Would that really be an improvement?

Reduced by 70 regions, not reduced to 70 regions.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Fleugs on July 24, 2013, 03:45:03 PM
More realms will equal more war. An alternative would be to allow dukes to fight their own wars (against other dukes), but for all the years I've tried I was told it was too much coding... and I believe that. I believe people leave BM because it grows boring. Distant wars and less wars combined is not what people look for in BM. Roleplay and storyline is a nice aspect, but I think most prefer the risk-like style of the game... conquering regions, spitting upon enemies and burning down warehouses. Since realms seem to have the tendency now to grow a little larger than they used to, it now takes longer to travel to the frontline. The problem here is that you cannot change player mentality. You would have to coerce rulers of large realms to let their realm sort-of explode to create many more realms and strife. They won't do that. Ultimately large realms can completely implode, because they have very little fun to offer to their players.

I know that an invasion is out of the question, but I just wanted to state that I have enjoyed every invasion on the New World/BT very much. It also seemed to draw more players to the island because invasion caused a struggle for survival, which was fun, because it meant the enemy was almost continuously knocking at your front door. Daily fights were no exception. Should it be reconsidered, I liked the idea suggested earlier of the multi's. While I wouldn't allow people found guilty of being a multi do it, I'm sure there's plenty of interested people who would not mind being part of an "invasionary" force. This would only allow a small change in the rules so that on every island there can be a multi-account, invasion-style faction. Which is crazy of course, because a multi is bad, mkay.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Kai on July 24, 2013, 04:01:51 PM
Closing an island is the simplest and most practical solution.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 24, 2013, 06:47:00 PM
Closing an island is the simplest and most practical solution.

After all this discussion, I think I've come to the same conclusion. These ideas for scrolls and blighting sounds like things that will be detrimental to the core BattleMaster experience. It wasn't the most well received thing even when it was done in the context of Beluaterran Invasions - and having seen what has happened to the geography of that island I'm not sure it has helped to make war any more certain or likely than before. In fact, it seems like on every occasion that territory has been re-jigged, removed or what have you on any continent on BattleMaster it has had very little effect on anything.

If it's really true that every single continent would need to be reduced by 70 regions (though I think that's skewed a bit by Dwilght being so big - Colonies doesn't even have 70 regions to start with!) to reach an ideal player density, it seems like efforts to blight regions and shrink continents here or there is dabbling on the sidelines. Although Beluaterra has already shrunk considerably on her former size (in part, presumably, to address this very problem), the situation of low density persists within the game.

Instead of all these contrived solutions perhaps it would be best to just close a continent and be done with it. Just make sure that characters do not go down with them. Whilst there are some fantastic realms out there, none have ever had a divine right to exist. They rise and fall all the time. Characters, on the other hand, are all but permanent. The beauty of BattleMaster is that no matter what happens to your realm, you can still play with the characters and players you always did. That should be the focus now. We need to find a way to ensure the players and characters of realms on a dead island aren't wrenched apart by the island's closure. Try and help keep them together in some way. But accept that we're probably going to lose an island.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on July 24, 2013, 07:15:39 PM
In any case, I think merging the game worlds into one, where continents are traversable by sea zones, would be a good first step towards whatever other measures are required, though I suspect it would require a massive overhaul to the code and DB.

Yes, it would. Each island has island-specific region numbers--meaning that there is a region #1 on every continent. So your brave new would would require renumbering every-single-region. And then redoing the mapping between every-single-region and their neighbors. And then adding the sea zones, ferry routes, and the routes between worlds. It would take forever.

Also, it's possible to have a "Bob" on Atamara, and a "Bob" on FEI, and a "Bob" on EC. You'd have character name collisions--which character gets to keep their name, and which has to change their name?

And then, how do you deal with the judge "deport" option? Are you going to make is to their only option is to execute banned nobles? Or are you going to keep the Colonies separate, due to the one-turn-a-day, so that everyone deports to the Colonies?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foundation on July 24, 2013, 08:48:08 PM
What about indefinitely freezing an island? Characters remaining on the island will go into a "frozen" state and not take up slots. No turns will run, no immigration/emigration.

Players can either choose to move their characters out before the freeze or create new ones afterwards.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foundation on July 24, 2013, 08:50:13 PM
I don't think it is productive to continue discussing about ways of merging islands, as the ability to massively overhaul the code and DB is something we do not have right now.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Azerax on July 24, 2013, 09:01:50 PM
I haven't read this entire thread, but I like the idea.

Talk to players and find out which island would lose the least amount of players (by quitting) if it was closed.  Offer 'goodies' to those players for boarding a ship to another island.

Thanks,
Scott
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 24, 2013, 09:08:33 PM
What about indefinitely freezing an island? Characters remaining on the island will go into a "frozen" state and not take up slots. No turns will run, no immigration/emigration.

Players can either choose to move their characters out before the freeze or create new ones afterwards.

I like this one.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 24, 2013, 09:46:51 PM
I've kind of come to the same conclusion.

I am thinking something along the lines of tying islands to player count. Say we close down two islands, stating very openly that once player count has increased to X again, we will open one of them back up, and if it increases to Y, we will open the second back up.

And second, I think that freezing them instead of deleting them is probably a really good idea. We would have to do a tiny bit of work, like making characters on frozen islands not count against the limits and stuff, but that is fairly easy to do.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Blue Star on July 24, 2013, 09:56:29 PM
So the discussion is about closing not simply one island, but two? Interesting, The plot thickens


Currently 538 + 490 = 1028 players, if pulling it from player list and simply adding them is correct.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on July 24, 2013, 10:55:53 PM
http://battlemaster.org/Statistics.Players.php (http://battlemaster.org/Statistics.Players.php)

1060 registered, 629 logged on in the past week.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 24, 2013, 10:56:51 PM
Can a mod put a link to the Shrink Method (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,4921.0.html) topic in the first post of this thread? Seems that it is going to be a quasi-official method of judging what the player base desires on this.

And second, I think that freezing them instead of deleting them is probably a really good idea. We would have to do a tiny bit of work, like making characters on frozen islands not count against the limits and stuff, but that is fairly easy to do.

Would it also be possible to ensure that no character ages or loses their skills? Or is that something determined by whether turns are running or not?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on July 24, 2013, 11:02:40 PM
Can a mod put a link to the Shrink Method (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,4921.0.html) topic in the first post of this thread? Seems that it is going to be a quasi-official method of judging what the player base wants now.

Would it also be possible to ensure that no character ages or loses their skills? Or is that something determined by whether turns are running or not?

You got it. they will be cave men, frozen in a glacier.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 24, 2013, 11:25:43 PM
Yes, it would. Each island has island-specific region numbers--meaning that there is a region #1 on every continent. So your brave new would would require renumbering every-single-region. And then redoing the mapping between every-single-region and their neighbors. And then adding the sea zones, ferry routes, and the routes between worlds. It would take forever.

Also, it's possible to have a "Bob" on Atamara, and a "Bob" on FEI, and a "Bob" on EC. You'd have character name collisions--which character gets to keep their name, and which has to change their name?

And then, how do you deal with the judge "deport" option? Are you going to make is to their only option is to execute banned nobles? Or are you going to keep the Colonies separate, due to the one-turn-a-day, so that everyone deports to the Colonies?

I don't think the numbering and pathing is such a serious issue. Add a digit as a continental identifier, and voilà. There wouldn't be any more ferry routes, and sea zones don't look overly complicated to code.

What I think would take more time would be to recode stuff that were continent-specific, like number of character or title restrictions. New code could simulate in a fairly straightforward way, I think, but coding it might take some effort.

Your suggestion for deportation actually sounds good. Keep the colonies apart, merging it with two-turn continents wouldn't seem ideal. An alternative would be to quite simply mimic the current system: your actually deport a character to another island, despite it now being all in the same game world. If he wants to come back, he'll have to sail back.

Overall, I think there's plenty of solutions possible. Most of the work would likely go into adapting those mechanics, though, but the net gain would be suddenly granting everyone a whole bunch of new neighbors to interact with.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Ender on July 24, 2013, 11:39:23 PM
Quote
And second, I think that freezing them instead of deleting them is probably a really good idea. We would have to do a tiny bit of work, like making characters on frozen islands not count against the limits and stuff, but that is fairly easy to do.

This is probably the easiest and the friendliest solution. I don't envy having to choose which continent, but it's nice knowing it isnt gone forever, it's just can't be reached for some period time.

And for roleplay purposes we can always just say it's surrounded by an awful, impenetrable fog or something really simple like that.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Azerax on July 25, 2013, 01:22:41 AM
I would prefer to lose a 2 character island over a 1 character island.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: ^ban^ on July 25, 2013, 01:42:34 AM
I don't think the numbering and pathing is such a serious issue. Add a digit as a continental identifier, and voilà. There wouldn't be any more ferry routes, and sea zones don't look overly complicated to code.

I will personally find and murder anyone that attempts to do this to the database.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 25, 2013, 02:09:57 AM
The merging of the continents, by increasing the number of neighbors everyone has, should increase potential interactions and thus fun for everyone, in turn, hopefully, improve retention.

I'm also not sold on the whole freeze idea... so many stories just left suspended? Will any of those stories ever truly come back, even if the continent is ever unfrozen? The players won't all be there anymore, and those that aren't won't remember properly what they were doing. It would probably be awkward.

Maybe I'm being too insistent (do tell me), but I think leaving things dynamic and in the hands of players, as much as possible, would be best. Rogue spawns (make them cover a whole continent if necessary, hopefully as a result of an abuse of scrolls of summons) would help achieve this: too few players in the game would make reclaiming and then defending these regions from the rogues impossible, and only with enough surplus nobles on the other continents could a colonization effort become viable. If there is ever a great surplus of nobles, then forging new realms would become quite feasible, while attempting it with a low noble density would be it quite risky and likely to fail. Essentially turning a continent (or two) into a new wild frontier, much like Dwilight's western half was for quite some time. Doing something the Zuma were supposed to do but would never be able to.

Personally, I think players would be less sore to see their whole continent roamed by rogues than having it permanently frozen or blighted or sunk. At least, overrun, they can still entertain the hope of mounting efforts to recolonize it. It might bring a lot of PvE, though... so I guess BT would be the ideal first target, since that's the #1 PvE continent. But still, plenty of ways to keep it as much PvP as possible.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Vellos on July 25, 2013, 03:25:29 AM
I'll just put an idea out there I've suggested before:

Rotating freeze. Don't freeze a continent forever. Here's a hypothetical schedule for freezing:
Every 6 months, the player count will be reviewed.
For every 150 players who logged in, one continent will be kept open for the next 6 months.
Continents will be frozen or unfrozen on a regular, rotating schedule.

So, say our schedule is:

Dwilight, EC, Atamara, Beluaterra, Colonies, FEI

If we discover that we need to freeze two continents this next period, we freeze Dwilight and EC.

Then in 6 months, we review again. If we find we still need to freeze two continents, we unfreeze Dwilight and EC, and freeze Atamara and Beluaterra. If the next time we find, hey, we only need to freeze one, we unfreeze Atamara and Beluaterra, and freeze the colonies. And so on around and around.

This would have several effects:
1. Feud would be regularly put on pause, giving players some "cooldown time."
2. Everybody would get frozen eventually, and have an incentive to make new characters on new continents they haven't played before.
3. "New" continents would constantly be opening, i.e. every year or two a continent would be gone for 6 months, and, when it came back, people would be excited to get involved in it again.
4. Many players would be super pissed off I'm sure that, despite possibly having an awesome plotline or a popular realm or continent, their spot got frozen.

Somebody will be upset no matter how we do this. But I think we should avoid just putting a continent into cold-storage, effectively ending all those plotlines for the forseeable future. Rather, we can reduce the number of active continents, and rotate which continent has to back up for a breather.

Imagine the tension if you knew your continent was next up for a freeze and you were in a war with one month to go. I think instances of the use of the phrase "Winter is coming" would increase fifty-fold, and many people would see it as kind of a "natural chapter marker." We could add to in-game calendars with "The Freeze of Irombro's Secession" or whatever. It would give players an endgame with a pause afterwards where they could escalate to a climactic moment of violence and backstabbing, then back off for thought and commentary and planning for six months.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Ketchum on July 25, 2013, 04:10:42 AM
I like the freeze option suggested. In this way, indirectly we help the players to hang on and stay tuned for the next plot unfold, the story to be continue... :)

By the way, do you all know why people prefer Colonies island 1 turn a day? Because it is slow moving and suit us who like to play slow paced game 8)
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Zakilevo on July 25, 2013, 05:24:55 AM
ICE AGE!
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Jaden on July 25, 2013, 07:04:08 AM
I also thought of something like a Sleeping Beauty analogy, where every person in the kingdom is stopped in time.
I had second thoughts about it because of the difficulties of keeping all the history in tact. Once the island reopens, it will be hard for people to remember how things were back then and all the realm history unless there is a crazy amount of documentation of everything..
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Eduardo Almighty on July 25, 2013, 08:25:44 AM
Another way to make people give up and seek another game.

There's no way to build up a history for your character if they will pause them against their will to make them join another island with fresh characters... again against their will. Characters that with this "freeze" will need more than the years we already have to spend to build up something.

We already have a turn-based game... now, impose turns with more than a month is absurd. I doubt most of us have patience, impetus or desire to plan something for 6 months. It's like to play Risk with a slug.

Quote
By the way, do you all know why people prefer Colonies island 1 turn a day? Because it is slow moving and suit us who like to play slow paced game 


Yes, but I played there and I had to wait for weeks for a battle, and not a battle we can compare with another battles in another continents. We have just one island with one turn, and I doubt there is more slow players than people engaged in two-turns wars.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 25, 2013, 02:13:24 PM
Another way to make people give up and seek another game.

There's no way to build up a history for your character if they will pause them against their will to make them join another island with fresh characters... again against their will. Characters that with this "freeze" will need more than the years we already have to spend to build up something.

We already have a turn-based game... now, impose turns with more than a month is absurd. I doubt most of us have patience, impetus or desire to plan something for 6 months. It's like to play Risk with a slug.

Do you prefer one of the other alternatives? Or is this the least bad option?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foundation on July 25, 2013, 02:33:42 PM
I don't think there will be any plans for periodic rotating freezing of islands. If freezing is done, it will be indefinitely to single islands. As Tom said, a criteria for reopening could be a minimum player count.

If you disagree with this original flavour of freezing in favour of some other solution, please voice your opinion. I will say that I doubt that any type of merging can be seriously considered due to the sheer dev effort required.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 25, 2013, 02:34:49 PM
freezing is good
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Jaden on July 25, 2013, 02:38:34 PM
I think there's 3 main choices now? (please add more yourself)
Blighting regions (through whatever means)
pros: will keep history of realms and island intact, minimal distruption to most players out of all option (disputable)
cons: makes islands smaller and possibly less dynamic, may effect balance of power in the island, difficulty of choosing which       regions to blight

Freezing islands
Pros: realms and history will not be destroyed, balance of map of all other islands preserved
cons: medium disruption, difficulty of keeping realm culture and history through passage of time, may end up as being the same as closing an island if player count does not increase

Closing islands
Pros: ease of implementation, balance of map in other island preserved
cons: huge disruption, destroying realms and histories

Freezing islands will be much more preferable to closing islands, i dont see any reason to close an island instead of freezing it..
But then freezing islands will still cause a substantial amount of distruption to players...

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 25, 2013, 04:27:21 PM
Freezing I don't like. As Jaron said, it may end up being the same as closing an island if player count does not increase. If freezing takes place, it's probably going to be years until any unfreezing is considered, and by that time the freeze would be pointless because a lot of players would have moved on and no-one will be able to remember what was happening anyway. If we go with the freezing option, you may as well combine it with a reset for the island involved.

I'm honestly not wild about any of the options so far discussed, but I am trying hard to think of an alternative. What we need is an idea that won't cause players to leave the game or feel disgruntled enough to lose interest in playing regularly. Closing or freezing an island might not even have the desired effect of boosting player density on other islands because people may still not choose to move characters or create new ones on an island that's still open.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Valast on July 25, 2013, 05:14:46 PM
Instead of dropping regions off the map... why not allow the culture of one island to occupy those same regions?

In other words if we are going to take regions from the realms on a island anyway...why not to it in a way that allows for another islands population to occupy those regions with their culture and history?  It could be done with a dropping of a veil in a cataclysmic event reducing both islands in size but forcing them together.

*shrug* I have no idea how much work that would be.  Could be it is almost the same as opening a new island completely.  That work load is something that needs to be considered... If it is going to take 1000 hours of coding to do it...then just sink and island and reward those families with something for the burden.

Um...one more thing on density... Let everyone have an infiltrator as a new non noble class... :-)  wishful thinking?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Forbes Family on July 25, 2013, 05:21:31 PM
Freezing I don't like. As Jaron said, it may end up being the same as closing an island if player count does not increase. If freezing takes place, it's probably going to be years until any unfreezing is considered, and by that time the freeze would be pointless because a lot of players would have moved on and no-one will be able to remember what was happening anyway. If we go with the freezing option, you may as well combine it with a reset for the island involved.

I'm honestly not wild about any of the options so far discussed, but I am trying hard to think of an alternative. What we need is an idea that won't cause players to leave the game or feel disgruntled enough to lose interest in playing regularly. Closing or freezing an island might not even have the desired effect of boosting player density on other islands because people may still not choose to move characters or create new ones on an island that's still open.

I agree with Foxglove. Although I would probably stay and create new characters many probably would not. Even a marginal loss is a loss and I don't think we can handle loosing players like this.

What we are looking at is cutting when we should be looking at increasing our recruitment/retention. Here is an idea:

When a new player joins the game they are given the option of islands to start off in. How about limiting this option and placing them all on one island until that island is populated then moving on to another island and populating that one.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 25, 2013, 05:25:35 PM
Um...one more thing on density... Let everyone have an infiltrator as a new non noble class... :-)  wishful thinking?

And spend every other day recovering from my latest stab wound? Please no.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 25, 2013, 06:14:47 PM
Rotating freeze.
That would be the most frustrating, maddening, anger-inducing system ever invented.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Blue Star on July 25, 2013, 06:16:12 PM
Instead of dropping regions off the map... why not allow the culture of one island to occupy those same regions?

In other words if we are going to take regions from the realms on a island anyway...why not to it in a way that allows for another islands population to occupy those regions with their culture and history?  It could be done with a dropping of a veil in a cataclysmic event reducing both islands in size but forcing them together.

*shrug* I have no idea how much work that would be.  Could be it is almost the same as opening a new island completely.  That work load is something that needs to be considered... If it is going to take 1000 hours of coding to do it...then just sink and island and reward those families with something for the burden.

Um...one more thing on density... Let everyone have an infiltrator as a new non noble class... :-)  wishful thinking?


Agreed cataclysmic land slide/ earth quake slams to continents together creating, and DW looking thing,  wait im not done, and it let 3 active noble limit on island!!

I prefer for one of the bigger island AT or BT to crash into EI or FEI. It would change things up a bit maybe change the region names that were once on both the islands that crashed into each other. Though another big island, mm would take some time to get used to some of the same realms exist but not all regions disappear and well just imagine. Doable? not sure.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 25, 2013, 06:18:00 PM
Freezing I don't like. As Jaron said, it may end up being the same as closing an island if player count does not increase. If freezing takes place, it's probably going to be years until any unfreezing is considered, and by that time the freeze would be pointless because a lot of players would have moved on and no-one will be able to remember what was happening anyway. If we go with the freezing option, you may as well combine it with a reset for the island involved.
You are in a sense correct. If an island is frozen, then if it is ever unfrozen there will be a hug disruption of the island. It could very well result in what would in effect be a reset. But that would be something for us to decide in the future, if the opportunity ever came around to "unfreeze" the island. Even so, freezing it is a much better option that just closing it and kicking off/deleting all the characters and realms. At least when it came back, there would be some people left who would remember what was there, and carry on with it.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 25, 2013, 07:34:24 PM
In other words if we are going to take regions from the realms on a island anyway...why not to it in a way that allows for another islands population to occupy those regions with their culture and history?

Because that does exactly zero for what the purpose of this whole thing is.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 25, 2013, 07:35:44 PM
At least when it came back, there would be some people left who would remember what was there, and carry on with it.

Also, there is the wiki where everything could be recorded for future reference.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 25, 2013, 07:47:53 PM
Also, there is the wiki where everything could be recorded for future reference.

Besides, we know that people play this game for years. There are bound to be people who remember what was going on. I agree that the disruption will be significant and not all the players involved will still be active, but I doubt it would be a total loss. More like the post-invasion periods on BT where everyone has to spend a month or two taking stock and getting reorganized.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 25, 2013, 08:51:01 PM
I think we all agree that no matter what we do, it will be disruptive. We are just trying to find a way that makes the disruption most acceptable.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Penchant on July 25, 2013, 08:53:50 PM
Rotating freezing seems bad because it will keep the game constantly being disrupted and basically instead of disrupting an island or two, you are screwing everyone, everywhere over.

Freezing indefinitely until a threshold is gotten to seems best.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 25, 2013, 08:56:53 PM
Why don't we start a collection to advertise BM on facebook. I've run these kind of campaigns before and you can get a lot of exposure for $100 or less. We'd basically each chip in one dollar. The last time I ran one of these the facebook page advertised got nearly 3,000 likes for that amount of money. Imagine if we got that many likes and out of all of them just ten percent started playing the game. That's 300 new players each capable of playing three new characters. That's nearly a thousand new characters for the game, more then enough to revitalize the continents without the need to delete, shrink or freeze any game worlds.

I would definitely chip in a dollar for this.

The influx alone should improve retention since player loss is largely the result of stagnation and stagnation the result of too few players. On top of that we could bring in a few new features tailored to give new players more to do. One simple thing to ad could be an indicator when selecting your realm which tells the new player "this realm is at war" and "this realm has lordless regions".

I think we all agree that no matter what we do, it will be disruptive. We are just trying to find a way that makes the disruption most acceptable.

The least disruptive would probably be to implement something on Beluterra which is story based and will either close the continent or shrink it further. The player base in BT should be accepting of something like this because it's part of the continent.

More realms will equal more war. An alternative would be to allow dukes to fight their own wars (against other dukes), but for all the years I've tried I was told it was too much coding... and I believe that.

It's true you can't have an actual war, but you can certainly have feuds. I think one problem here is people in BM are too nice. "Oh you need some gold, here you go don't worry about paying me back ever", "Oh you're changing your region from my duchy to a neighbor, well that's just fine and dandy you have a good time over there". In the real medieval world these could create major conflicts if not wars. Just because you can't start a war doesn't mean you can't have a conflict. You can organize duels for one thing. Imagine a situation in which a feud gets so bad the dukes demand all their knights and lords pair off and fight. Sort of like a Montague and Capulet situation only without the insipid love story. That'll make things interesting for the judge too. Does he ban dueling outright? Perhaps he'll make concessions of some kind, maybe the feuding powers will have the right to bar one another from travel through their lands with the judge issuing fines to known violators. Sometimes it's not a new feature that's needed but a new way of looking at existing features.


Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: de Aquitane on July 25, 2013, 09:04:57 PM
Much of the dissapointment of closing an island comes from the loss of status and power currently held by a charecter. Not only that, but to keep playing you now have to move to an other island where others already hold dominance. A more attractive option, at least to me, would be seeing a continent wiped out, but a fresh one start at the same time. It might not guarantee your previous influence, but at least nobody starts above you.

I did not read the whole thread, so I don't know if this was already suggested or disapproved of (in such a case, my apologies), but why not close two islands, for example Atamara and Beluterra, and then create a new world using the old map. You could even go so far as to make the starter realms correspond to some of the stuff from the both islands, so people can try keep their culture alive, though I think that might just be raping the histories of both continents.

I also like the idea of holding multiple titles, but I doubt it would ever happen in practice, especially if there is penalties to productivity. A monarch would probably not want dukes with several duchies, and a duke would not want his lords to be inefficient. And since they are the ones calling the shots, the power would stay distributed if possible.

Freezing an island, much like blightning regions, will serve as an eternal reminder of things lost, but I would not have anything against either. I'll keep playing anyway.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 25, 2013, 10:00:35 PM
Why don't we start a collection to advertise BM on facebook.

Because FB advertisement works best if you can target your ad very well, and BM is very hard to target. The options FB offers (and yes, I've checked it out) don't help much. About the only thing of any use is limiting it to people who speak english.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 25, 2013, 10:12:29 PM
Even so, the idea of some informal crowd funding among the players to pay for a bit of advertising somewhere (it doesn't have to be FB) seems like a solid idea. I remember seeing a website that offered discount advertising spots for indie developers and I wrote something about it on the M&F forum when we were exploring ways to get the word out about the new project.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 25, 2013, 10:13:36 PM
Tom did you check out the "precise interest" feature? Under precise interests they have "Video Games", "Role-Playing Games", "Strategy Games", "MMORPG", "History", "European History", "Game of Thrones", "Lord of the Rings", heck there's even 488,000 people that like feudalism on there. Basically anything a person can like on facebook can be the basis of an ad target. You just have to enter them into the search bar and if there's a significant following it will pop up along with the total number of likes that topic has.

You can do this for a facebook likes campaign and for battlemaster itself.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Meneldur on July 25, 2013, 11:08:32 PM
I know this is going against the general trend, but I actually think freezing an island would be worse than sinking it. Looking at the example of the War Islands, players migrated elsewhere in a bid to continue their realms and religions, resulting in things like Everguard and Torenism on Dwilight. Closing another island may have that same effect on the players there, not merely increasing player density but also adding another interesting element into game play as players from the closed island try and rebuild elsewhere. Furthermore this kind of migration may allow cultures and groups from the closed island to continue, albeit in a different form.

Now perhaps it is the pessimist in me, but I don't see a frozen continent ever being re-opened barring a sudden miracle. However by giving players the vague hope of re-opening we will ensure that nowhere near enough will be willing to migrate to allow the continuation and spread of cultures that would occur from a closed island. This essentially means that the end result will be the same as closing an island while banning immigration- not only are game cultures and histories destroyed (an inevitability regardless of which option we choose) but there is no chance of said cultures surviving elsewhere in the game.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Qyasogk on July 25, 2013, 11:46:15 PM
The whole time I was reading this thread two ideas came to me:

Númenor, also called Elenna-nórë or Westernesse, is a fictional place in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings. It was a huge island located in the Sundering Seas to the west of Middle-earth, the main setting of Tolkien's writings, and was known to be the greatest realm of Men. However, the inhabitants' cessation of the service to Eru Ilúvatar and rebellion against the Valar led to the downfall of the island and death of the majority of its population.

We could have our very own Numenor. The gods are angry at the crimes of men. Players have the option to emigrate to another island (thus no ones characters are forced to die if they leave). Your character has the role play equivalent of being from Atlantis.

Someone also suggested dragons.

My idea was for dragons to be a third spawn option for hordes (in addition to regular monsters & undead.) The number of dragon spawns can be set by the devs. But unlike normal hordes, dragons are not so easily slain (maybe Heroes can start earning their titles?), have a very large appetite for gold (I.e. YOUR gold) and are difficult for an ordinary army to kill.

You can also have an icon on your map that stands for "Here there be dragons!"

It makes perfect sense to have the world grow a little wilder as humans are fewer and less able to tame the land they live on.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 26, 2013, 12:01:48 AM
Tom did you check out the "precise interest" feature?

No, that didn't seem to be available when I checked.

Before running that campaign, we should add some more general interest posts to the FB page, though. Right now, most are island events that make no sense to an outsider.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 26, 2013, 12:59:29 AM
I know this is going against the general trend, but I actually think freezing an island would be worse than sinking it. Looking at the example of the War Islands, players migrated elsewhere in a bid to continue their realms and religions, resulting in things like Everguard and Torenism on Dwilight. Closing another island may have that same effect on the players there, not merely increasing player density but also adding another interesting element into game play as players from the closed island try and rebuild elsewhere. Furthermore this kind of migration may allow cultures and groups from the closed island to continue, albeit in a different form.

Now perhaps it is the pessimist in me, but I don't see a frozen continent ever being re-opened barring a sudden miracle. However by giving players the vague hope of re-opening we will ensure that nowhere near enough will be willing to migrate to allow the continuation and spread of cultures that would occur from a closed island. This essentially means that the end result will be the same as closing an island while banning immigration- not only are game cultures and histories destroyed (an inevitability regardless of which option we choose) but there is no chance of said cultures surviving elsewhere in the game.

I tend to agree.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 26, 2013, 05:01:40 AM
No, that didn't seem to be available when I checked.

Before running that campaign, we should add some more general interest posts to the FB page, though. Right now, most are island events that make no sense to an outsider.

If you email me about it some time I'd be happy to help optimize the facebook. I already admin two facebook accounts for a small film company.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 26, 2013, 05:44:02 AM
If you email me about it some time I'd be happy to help optimize the facebook. I already admin two facebook accounts for a small film company.

I for one would be more than happy to donate to a FB campaign. I've donated several times in the past. Given the reach of Social Media these days, I feel like we could really draw in a significant number of new players. Think about how many players this game managed to attract at its height without much in the way of advertising.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 26, 2013, 05:52:14 AM
No, that didn't seem to be available when I checked.

Before running that campaign, we should add some more general interest posts to the FB page, though. Right now, most are island events that make no sense to an outsider.

If we're going to run a FB campaign to attract players, we probably do need to rethink the current FB approach. The posts we put up now don't necessarily make sense unless you know the game and the politics of any given island. They tend to lack context. Maybe we just need to approach them from a bit more simplistic (even crass and materialistic) standpoint. "Latest news from Atamara: Rebellion in Silnaria! Many positions could be available, but who will you support? The Loyalists or the Rebels?"
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 26, 2013, 06:08:03 AM
I read them over and I don't think they'd be all that confusing to an outsider. When I read news from continents I don't play on the narrative makes sense for the most part. At times some additional context might help eg instead of "Rebellion in the Astrum" it could read "A rebellion has started in Astrum, the largest military super power on the continent".

I think oversimplifying the posts isn't the best idea because as they are they advertise the complexity and level of intrigue that's possible in Battlemaster.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 26, 2013, 08:38:54 AM
I liked the idea of freezing two continents and then starting a new one.

Why?

Because this would create entirely new dynamics, as a new player it's sometimes hard to break through on these continents with people that have been playing and scratching each other's backs for years. I also think this would re-create the atmosphere people want of 'recolonising' an island filled with monsters, like on dwilight.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 26, 2013, 10:14:24 AM
I liked the idea of freezing two continents and then starting a new one.

There will be no new continents, period. Why is this point continuing to creep up? It is not going to happen. No new islands. Do I need to write that in 100px bright red bold?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: trying on July 26, 2013, 12:05:51 PM
There will be no new continents, period. Why is this point continuing to creep up? It is not going to happen. No new islands. Do I need to write that in 100px bright red bold?
Yes put it in the thread title too.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 26, 2013, 01:15:14 PM
Ideas I'm a fan of:

Increased rogue spawns
Pro: Their effect depend on players' effectiveness, as organized realms will survive better than poorly-organized ones.
Pro: By turning regions rogue, they force theirs inhabitants to seek a home elsewhere, thus raising the noble density in said regions.
Pro: Players can choose their priorities and decide what to defend and what to abandon, it isn't decided arbitrarily by GMs.
Pro: It grants players some control over their own fates.
Con: Could bring back a higher PvE element on islands where it is brought as some characters will inevitably make it their sole purpose to fight the rogues (good for them if they like it, though, imo)
Con: Could distract and disrupt ongoing or pending conflicts (no worse than closing or freezing islands would)

Multiple lordships
Pro: Allows lordships to be given to those who actually care for them (I find pretty much all lordship elections to be very depressing, considering how the candidates never really seem all that interested in winning)
Pro: Would allow a higher title concentration, thus increasing the number of people without titles
Pro: Because of the higher title concentration, those wanting lordships would need to actually make an effort to get it (because all of the people who care and who are already lords wouldn't be excluded) and value is returned to the title
Pro: Successful low noble density realms would have more opportunities to continue expanding for as long as their success allows, increasing noble density in the realms they take regions from.
Con: Would require appropriate mechanisms to prevent some large realms from being turned into 1-ruler/1-duke/1-lord realms.
Con: Would reduce turnover (which is kind of the point, given how its too high and makes titles pointless right now)
Con: Being a simple knight gives people less to do overall, so it'd take away things to do from more people (but that's also the point, as a higher noble density, and thus more knights per lord, is what's being saught)

Continental merger
Pro: Realms on the edges have long been isolated from everyone, by putting the continents close to each other and reachable by sea zones, everyone would suddenly gain a number of new neighbors.
Pro: Continents lost, for example by increased rogue spawns, could still be reachable by the nobles that used to live there but that were forced to move away. Intercontinental coalitions would become possible to fight off any NPC invasion (be them scripted or otherwise).
Pro: On continents where there is a diplomatic gridlock, it would open up new possibilities
Pro: By reducing the number of realms that have almost no neighbors and almost no venues for war or other interesting activities, player retention should be improved
Con: would require a massive overhaul to the DB and to various mechanics
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Poliorketes on July 26, 2013, 11:54:20 PM
I don't know... I think the best way to close a island would be to progressively increasing the rogue spawns (x2 every week or something like that) and give some kind of reward to the 'survivors' every day (or week): Gold, Prestige, Honour, items, scrolls or any other thing.

In the end all the island would be destroyed by the monsters, but the nobles who resist more weeks before left the island would have some important advantages.

It would be a way to compensate the lost of their island, and make a kind of 'survival competition'.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Dishman on July 27, 2013, 04:16:59 AM
Here's what we do. Take whatever continent you want to sink, pop a 999k daimon army in the middle. Give the players a little while to freak out, RP the end days and all that. Then, after a week or two of silence, the daimon leader addresses the continent and proclaims that humanity is weak and the daimons are holding a 'proper tournament'.

Then, a series of tournaments are held. Tournaments are to the death. After half the continent jumps ship, you'll have what few die-hard characters left to have a blow-out RP session (fame points all around). Once the tournaments are finished (and the continent champion is declared), the winner fights the daimon leader. If he wins then through some black juju he is transformed into a daimon lord. Plop him on Dwilight with GM abilities and have a rival daimon faction.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on July 27, 2013, 04:40:20 AM
Here's what we do. Take whatever continent you want to sink, pop a 999k daimon army in the middle. Give the players a little while to freak out, RP the end days and all that. Then, after a week or two of silence, the daimon leader addresses the continent and proclaims that humanity is weak and the daimons are holding a 'proper tournament'.

Then, a series of tournaments are held. Tournaments are to the death. After half the continent jumps ship, you'll have what few die-hard characters left to have a blow-out RP session (fame points all around). Once the tournaments are finished (and the continent champion is declared), the winner fights the daimon leader. If he wins then through some black juju he is transformed into a daimon lord. Plop him on Dwilight with GM abilities and have a rival daimon faction.

I find your icon, combined with your post, highly suspicous.... 8) :o
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Eduardo Almighty on July 27, 2013, 07:17:35 AM
I think it becomes obvious that Tom already discarded many options, but they are still cited.

Freezing is terrible. The best idea I heard so far is to choose a continent and prevent new characters to start there, letting the continent lose its nobles and allowing the characters to continue fighting for hegemony or for mere survival in a world being devastated. With more players, you can allow them to return and help to save the day or use it like BT, just with some people trying to emmigrate... or just being banished there by the Judges of another continents, creating some chaos and improving the history without destroy everything built for a long long time. This way you don't need demons, dragons, nuclear bombs or whatever. You don't need GMs, you even need to blight regions, because they will become rogue without support and will stay there for eventual reconquest. Nor you need to change the maps. All you need is a plague like the death of the firstborn or any other craziness that fits well in the concept -- and this is just pure roleplay like it must be.

I believe this is the fairest course of action to leave an island to die without spit in the entire history and without throwing away the characters. Also, this is the best way to continue with a good island when we reach more people, because after all, if you change the maps or sink an entire islands, I doubt we will have the opportunity to play there again, like we don't have the chance to play in war islands anymore.

BM need more players, not less opportunities to play.
Just my opinion.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Poliorketes on July 27, 2013, 01:00:31 PM
I don't know... I think the best way to close a island would be to progressively increasing the rogue spawns (x2 every week or something like that) and give some kind of reward to the 'survivors' every day (or week): Gold, Prestige, Honour, items, scrolls or any other thing.

In the end all the island would be destroyed by the monsters, but the nobles who resist more weeks before left the island would have some important advantages.

It would be a way to compensate the lost of their island, and make a kind of 'survival competition'.

Another idea nobody has said... Use the weather: The chosen island weather go immediately to 'severe drought' or 'endless winter'... Medieval Mad Max!  8) The 'civilization' will die not destroyed by monsters (at least not only) but destroyed by starvation!

Of course, surviving will receive rewards too.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 27, 2013, 05:28:28 PM
Another idea nobody has said... Use the weather: The chosen island weather go immediately to 'severe drought' or 'endless winter'... Medieval Mad Max!  8) The 'civilization' will die not destroyed by monsters (at least not only) but destroyed by starvation!

Of course, surviving will receive rewards too.

Anyone who actually manages food in a region besides a rural region would disagree with you to a large degree. Drought would just cause any conflict to end and people would give up playing. The same goes for not allowing new characters on the island.

I think too many people are focusing solely on the roleplaying aspect when this is in fact a roleplaying strategy game, where fighting using game mechanics makes up a huge amount of the gameplay for many people (including me, as I hardly send out 'proper' roleplays). Denuding the ability of an island to gain additional characters while still leaving it open just leaves it in a drought of a different sort, that of players.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on July 27, 2013, 05:33:55 PM
The idea to block immigration and new characters has some merit. The island is then in many ways "doomed", but will also gain a sense of special status and privilege. A continent of weary old farts, with distant hope of a curse being lifted one day.

Though it might stagnate too. But then you could always move out. Those valuing rp and pve might be the most inclined to stay to the end. And they could.

Easy to do and with minimal disruption.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: GoldPanda on July 27, 2013, 08:17:05 PM
Closing an island (or islands) will just drive more players away.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 27, 2013, 08:24:07 PM
Anyone who actually manages food in a region besides a rural region would disagree with you to a large degree. Drought would just cause any conflict to end and people would give up playing. The same goes for not allowing new characters on the island.

I think too many people are focusing solely on the roleplaying aspect when this is in fact a roleplaying strategy game, where fighting using game mechanics makes up a huge amount of the gameplay for many people (including me, as I hardly send out 'proper' roleplays). Denuding the ability of an island to gain additional characters while still leaving it open just leaves it in a drought of a different sort, that of players.

If looting starving regions for food still allowed for the robbing of food (directly from the wealthy locals that aren't starving to death instead of the empty granaries), essentially allowing war to create food, it might serve as an incentive for realms to go to war to feed themselves. Though it's true that most of the time, when starving, one's reflex is to turn into a courtier and try to ease the stat drops rather than to march far away for a handful of bushels.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Poliorketes on July 28, 2013, 10:12:16 AM
If looting starving regions for food still allowed for the robbing of food (directly from the wealthy locals that aren't starving to death instead of the empty granaries), essentially allowing war to create food, it might serve as an incentive for realms to go to war to feed themselves. Though it's true that most of the time, when starving, one's reflex is to turn into a courtier and try to ease the stat drops rather than to march far away for a handful of bushels.

This would be an endless starving! In this case the 'try to ease the stats drops' will not work because you know all in the end is going to die!  :P The only way out would be to take the better 'grain' regions and try to defend them until the end... and loot grain from all your neighbours.

And if you give them a good reward, why would they giving up... Yes, in the end all nobles will left the island, but it's not the same leave it with nothing, than leave it with 50 scrolls, or 50.000 gold pieces... or any other reward!

PD. After said this, my personal opinion is to NOT close islands, but better the game and make it more fun, not smaller.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Qyasogk on July 28, 2013, 08:34:54 PM
If you close an island in game and let the characters immigrate to another island whether you want to call it the Cataclysm, Atlantis or whatever, you are giving people the chance to richly expand their characters. That's a good thing. Furthermore, if closing down the least active island consolidates the players into fewer islands that's a good thing (fewer empty realms). I'd rather have 4 bustling active islands to play on than 6 islands half empty.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 28, 2013, 08:45:46 PM
The problem with that is that closing or freezing an island will lose players from the game. Some players only choose to play on one island and don't use their full playable character quota. Furthermore, some other players have such an attachment to certain islands that losing the ability to play on that island with see their interest in the game diminish (several players have said that on the forum - and that's not even taking into account the bulk of players who never post on the forum).

There's absolutely no guarantee that closing/freezing an island will increase player density elsewhere. Basically, it comes down to either finding a better idea or rolling the dice on the closure/freeze and hoping it has more of a positive impact than a negative one.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Forbes Family on July 28, 2013, 10:43:16 PM
I'm against closure/freezing, however let me play the devils advocate here.

looking at this situation - A Player only plays on one island and decides not to move his character to another and deletes his account instead

A. Is this a bad thing for the game?

B. If the loss of a few players whom only play on one island is deemed not bad for the game, would closing an island allow developers more resources (ie. time) to focus on other projects that could make the game more exciting and perhaps entice more players to the game in the long run.

C. If this is the case perhaps one should look at the island that has the most players that only play on that one island as the one to close?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 28, 2013, 10:49:39 PM
Closing an island will not free up development resources. Once an island is running, it really doesn't take any attention from the devs to keep it going. Barring the occasional db hiccup that causes a single-island problem, but that's very rare, and usually doesn't take much time to fix.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 28, 2013, 10:53:00 PM


C. If this is the case perhaps one should look at the island that has the most players that only play on that one island as the one to close?

Umm why? If an island is full of the sole characters of a lot of players that suggests that world is the most important to those players, that they care most about the stories going on there and that they have no established characters to fall back on. Therefore if you close that island a lot of players will just up and quit. If a lot of players are only using one character slot then we should find a way to encourage them to make more characters.

The ideal island to close is one with the highest population of inactive secondary characters that seem to exist mainly to gather gold to be funneled to more important characters.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: dustole on July 28, 2013, 11:00:57 PM
This might be a bit extreme,  but choosing 1 island to close is rather unfair.  How do you decide?  What is the criteria for deciding? 


What if you simply closed down all islands and created 2 or 3 new islands?  The joys of exploration and creation will be available for everyone.  I am sure some back story could be thought up to make it believable.   That way no one island is singled out.  Maybe put 2 or 3 "exit points"  on each island.  Give everyone 1 month or two to fight over them.  When they open up, if you control an exit point then your realm gets to emigrate first to one of the new islands.  Eventually, everyone will be able to get off their islands and to the new islands.   Then after all the old islands are sunk you can open up new character creation on the new islands.    Or you could use it as a recruiting tool.   New accounts could create characters on the new islands much earlier than older accounts.  Older accounts would have to get to an "emigration"  point. 


As far as a back story goes, perhaps there is some sort of cataclysmic event on the battlemaster world and we discover old portals that lead to another plane of existence.   

By doing a complete wipe you could use that as an opportunity to enact any new map changes or ideas you would have for all the new islands.   Doughnut townslands like you have on Dwilight or perhaps there is a new, better, way to create maps that makes them easier to manipulate or edit.   I bet there would be more than a couple features that could be implemented on a whole new map set.   
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 28, 2013, 11:02:45 PM
Has been suggested already by myself and others, for example, closing two islands and opening one new one up (which is double the fun as new islands are more fun to explore/colonise/conquer).

But this has been shot down by tom already, so, yeah.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 28, 2013, 11:06:54 PM
No.
New.
Islands.

Please read this entire thread, or at the very least all of Tom's posts in it, before posting. Suggesting things that have been flat out refused is not helping.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 28, 2013, 11:16:46 PM

But this has been shot down by tom already, so, yeah.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 29, 2013, 12:02:16 AM
When they open up, if you control an exit point then your realm gets to emigrate first

Actually this is an interesting idea for making a continent closure more fun. Suppose you set a time limit and claim the island is being destroyed by a series of storms and earthquakes. The storms make the oceans near impossible to traverse except for a few key sea lanes. Each lane will only lead to one other game world. If you don't exit by one of these lanes in time you will end up adrift in the storm wracked sea and wash up on some random continent.

This encourages realms to leave the continent in an organized fashion and it can make things interesting in other game worlds as swarms of foreign refugees show up, potentially disrupting their status quo.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 29, 2013, 12:18:02 AM
What if you simply closed down all islands and created 2 or 3 new islands?

I will shoot the next one who proposes new islands.


NO NEW ISLANDS


What the !@#$ do I have to do to get this into peoples heads? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 29, 2013, 12:20:39 AM
Also, no total game wipe. Are you bat!@#$ crazy? I could just as well shut the whole stupid game down and call it a day.


Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Qyasogk on July 29, 2013, 12:22:06 AM
The problem with that is that closing or freezing an island will lose players from the game. Some players only choose to play on one island and don't use their full playable character quota. Furthermore, some other players have such an attachment to certain islands that losing the ability to play on that island with see their interest in the game diminish (several players have said that on the forum - and that's not even taking into account the bulk of players who never post on the forum).

There's absolutely no guarantee that closing/freezing an island will increase player density elsewhere. Basically, it comes down to either finding a better idea or rolling the dice on the closure/freeze and hoping it has more of a positive impact than a negative one.

People are attached to their CHARACTERS, only kings and dukes are attached to their fiefdoms. As long as they can take those characters and live on in a new location, no one has lost anything.

People taking their characters off sinking island A and moving them to island B & C will absolutely increase the player density there.

A new island for your character is still a new island to explore and conquer, without the devs having to make a new island which they've said a million times they're not doing.

Call it Noah's Ark, call it Atlantis, call it Numenor, there are lots of exciting ways to roleplay this with a little imagination.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Qyasogk on July 29, 2013, 12:25:51 AM
Also, no total game wipe. Are you bat!@#$ crazy? I could just as well shut the whole stupid game down and call it a day.

Tom you're sounding a little angry, and that's not constructive. Perhaps you could respond and dialog with those ideas you do like, rather than just pounding everyone's face in with the one thing you're not going to do? Pretty please?  :-[
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 29, 2013, 01:37:35 AM
Tom you're sounding a little angry, and that's not constructive. Perhaps you could respond and dialog with those ideas you do like, rather than just pounding everyone's face in with the one thing you're not going to do? Pretty please?  :-[

I am angry when people make the same proposal that was already declined clearly and strongly 20 times for the 21st.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 29, 2013, 02:37:14 AM
People are attached to their CHARACTERS, only kings and dukes are attached to their fiefdoms. As long as they can take those characters and live on in a new location, no one has lost anything.

I don't think that's accurate. Quite a few people have declared their particular attachment to an island/s here on the forum. I can think of quite a few players who only play on one island. Perhaps they like the atmosphere and dynamics between the realms on their chosen island. I know I certainly prefer playing on two particular islands more than others.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 29, 2013, 02:38:54 AM
I am angry when people make the same proposal that was already declined clearly and strongly 20 times for the 21st.

Perhaps that should be taken as a sign, since it has been different people supporting the idea each time? Honestly you are the most stubbornly obstinate person I've ever seen in some regards.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 29, 2013, 03:15:06 AM
People are attached to their CHARACTERS, only kings and dukes are attached to their fiefdoms. As long as they can take those characters and live on in a new location, no one has lost anything.

People taking their characters off sinking island A and moving them to island B & C will absolutely increase the player density there.

A new island for your character is still a new island to explore and conquer, without the devs having to make a new island which they've said a million times they're not doing.

Call it Noah's Ark, call it Atlantis, call it Numenor, there are lots of exciting ways to roleplay this with a little imagination.

A lot of players are really attached to realms they hold no significant titles in.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on July 29, 2013, 04:32:00 AM
Perhaps that should be taken as a sign, since it has been different people supporting the idea each time? Honestly you are the most stubbornly obstinate person I've ever seen in some regards.

Yeah, I mean, who does Tom think he is? It's not like he's the game's creator and primary source of funds or anything.

Oh wait...  ::)
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 29, 2013, 04:33:15 AM
There are a LOT of people attached to their realm. When Eston lost their war earlier this year, not even getting completely destroyed, at least three people quit the game completely. The same can be said for just about any realm that has been around for years. Look at all the people who's character dies, so they make another character in the same realm and keep going like nothing has happened.

Hell, I've even seen people delete a character, then immediately start Jr. in the same realm, just because their old character wasn't getting enough hours per turn any more.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Kwanstein on July 29, 2013, 07:01:55 AM
That mentality is the manifestation of stagnation.

It's also supremely weird. Most realms do not have much if any inter-realm interaction any more, so what does it matter if a realm dies if it's only a name. I'd guess that people who'd leave over the death of a realm aren't very involved in the game to begin with, and that a realm loss would merely serve as a wakeup call to that fact.

An adventurous attitude is what's required for a vibrant realm; a willingness to put everything on the line. It's not a sure bet, but it's better than nothing. Clinging to realms is not only pointless, it's counteractive. So do away with these realms of today and create new and better realms tomorrow. Sitting in the same realm for ten years and expecting it to last ten more is just about the lamest thing I can think of.

Perhaps the reason for the player loss is stagnation. While the East Island was waging that massive and drastic war five years ago it was very popular. Players started draining out of that place shortly after the war ended, when prospects for another such war began to look grim.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 29, 2013, 08:12:40 AM
That mentality is the manifestation of stagnation.

It's also supremely weird. Most realms do not have much if any inter-realm interaction any more, so what does it matter if a realm dies if it's only a name. I'd guess that people who'd leave over the death of a realm aren't very involved in the game to begin with, and that a realm loss would merely serve as a wakeup call to that fact.

An adventurous attitude is what's required for a vibrant realm; a willingness to put everything on the line. It's not a sure bet, but it's better than nothing. Clinging to realms is not only pointless, it's counteractive. So do away with these realms of today and create new and better realms tomorrow. Sitting in the same realm for ten years and expecting it to last ten more is just about the lamest thing I can think of.

Perhaps the reason for the player loss is stagnation. While the East Island was waging that massive and drastic war five years ago it was very popular. Players started draining out of that place shortly after the war ended, when prospects for another such war began to look grim.

You're really missing the point. The realms Indrik is talking about aren't stagnant places where people stick around out of habit. They're vibrant places filled with internal politics and nuances. These are places where people put things on the line. There's a big difference between being willing to put things on the line and being willing to have an outside force show up and take it away in one fell swoop. If people don't like the idea of carrying on with their character or a new one after their realm is taken away that isn't a sign that they weren't involved with the game that's a sign they were very involved with the game. That shows they thought enough about their characters to see them as a product of their environment with strong opinions about the institutions around them. That shows that they acknowledge that their characters will be understandably lost if their entire continent were destroyed and that some of them would be unable to carry on and choose to die themselves rather then abandon everything they ever held dear.

I would never carry on with Turin on another continent. Not because of habit, not because he brings in lots of gold or wields a lot of power, but because his existence is defined by a religion which exists only on Dwilight. I have a very strong sense of who Turin is and what he'd do in a given situation. He would never leave Dwilight in the face of some cataclysm. Based on his fanatical religious beliefs he would conclude that achieving enlightenment was impossible without a geographical proximity to the blood stars. Therefore he'd probably choose to die floating in a boat like Boreal Arrakis rather then leave.

Commitment to character integrity should be encouraged not punished and inevitably if people are putting real thought into their characters they'll get attached to them and to the story surrounding them.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Qyasogk on July 29, 2013, 11:45:42 AM
I would never carry on with Turin on another continent. Not because of habit, not because he brings in lots of gold or wields a lot of power, but because his existence is defined by a religion which exists only on Dwilight. I have a very strong sense of who Turin is and what he'd do in a given situation. He would never leave Dwilight in the face of some cataclysm. Based on his fanatical religious beliefs he would conclude that achieving enlightenment was impossible without a geographical proximity to the blood stars. Therefore he'd probably choose to die floating in a boat like Boreal Arrakis rather then leave.

Woah. We kind of have to go with plan B now: Restrict the influx of new characters to a particular island (to be decided by contest or the gods or activity levels).

When put this way, I envision "I Am Legend" the last surviving human in a continent of undead and monsters chasing me down... That almost makes me WANT my island to be the one that shall be sacrificed to the God of Death so that the other islands would become stronger. I only request that those who can dream of their characters having a future in a new place be given that chance.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 29, 2013, 11:51:56 AM
I recall when the Ash Sea Islands was crumbling, a few players there left the game for good. One in particular had been around in the Ash Sea Islands since near the beginning and without the Ash Sea Islands he just didn't care any more. I can sympathise, as I really fell out of love with BattleMaster for a while after that myself. Ash Sea Islands had had her ups and downs but she had been a wonderful vibrant realm. I remember a time when we had had 130+ nobles. By the end we were reduced to 50~ but we still had a lot of good and spectacular players still completely engaged in things.

It is hard to lose a realm you have put a lot of time and effort into and especially to be prised away from all those players you've had such good times with. Probably no matter what happens we will lose players by seeking to reduce the game in any way. Still, that was why I felt freezing was a better idea than anything else. Everything you worked for isn't all gone. There is hope of a return and restoration. Either way, it seems necessary that something is done.

It might seem strange to some of the player base today, but there was a time when a 15 region realm in Atamara could have in excess of 130+ nobles. In fact, nigh on every realm in Atamara had at least 70 characters, most had over 100. It might be hard to lose a continent, but if we start seeing every realm with scores of characters again, as in BattleMaster's heyday, it will have been worth it. The game is so much better up and down the whole hiearchy when you have so many comrade-in-arms and not just a handful as is the case in a lot of realms today.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 29, 2013, 12:58:40 PM
Perhaps that should be taken as a sign, since it has been different people supporting the idea each time? Honestly you are the most stubbornly obstinate person I've ever seen in some regards.

I am also the one who will have to do the bulk of the work, which is why I get to shoot down anything that is unreasonable in that regard.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 29, 2013, 01:11:37 PM
Gathering everything that has been said, I think here's something that most people could live with. Yes, I realize it will be unpopular still, but frankly, if we don't do anything, the game will run into the ground. Please read this in full before you comment:


On the island(s) picked for armageddon, we will implement some kind of "slow" destruction (meaning a few months at most from start to finish). There is a bonus for holding on and surviving. Something along the lines of honour and prestige gains for everyone in a realm that still has more than half their original regions (or something like that, just thinking out loud there).

Some fully-automated outside force will push realms down. A combination of starvation and monster/undead spawns would be fairly easy to do. Rogue regions can not be taken back - what is lost is lost.

However, we realize that people hate losing their realms and social connections. So every realm can retreat in an orderly fashion by declaring a target island. We will manually re-create the realm there and those who flee can join it. Details TBD (landing location? how to get a region or two to get started?). This way, people can move to a different island with their entire realm. Sure, you lose your land and all, but the people are sitll there and you can rebuild.

The longer you hold, the more you win, but if you miss the optimum point to leave, you will make your re-start on the target island more difficult.


This is just a thought, nothing has been set in stone. But do let me know your thoughts.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 29, 2013, 01:17:56 PM
Sounds good.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: trying on July 29, 2013, 01:20:59 PM
How do you recreate the realm on a different island without taking land from existing realms? Unsink BT?
Also how would the destruction be made "fair" so some realms don't get protected by others?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Meneldur on July 29, 2013, 03:00:23 PM
However, we realize that people hate losing their realms and social connections. So every realm can retreat in an orderly fashion by declaring a target island. We will manually re-create the realm there and those who flee can join it. Details TBD (landing location? how to get a region or two to get started?). This way, people can move to a different island with their entire realm. Sure, you lose your land and all, but the people are sitll there and you can rebuild.

This I think would be very good. At the very least it gives players who might initially been inclined to quit after the loss of their favorite island a motivation to carry on and try and rebuild elsewhere.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Lorgan on July 29, 2013, 03:12:40 PM
Three cheers for human invasions! \o/ \o/ \o/
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 29, 2013, 03:46:54 PM
I think I could live with it, if you're convinced we have to lose an island. After all the discussions, I'd been tending towards thinking that a variation on your idea at the start of the thread would be the best route anyway. This is effectively a war between islands, and that would at least put a lot of drama into the game.

The movement of religions is going to be a touchy subject and needs to be taken into account too, because players who've put a lot of playing time into building up regional followers for their faith are going to be incredibly disgruntled to see that wiped away unless priests have a way to gain a firm foothold on their new island. Even then, there's stuff like this to consider:

I would never carry on with Turin on another continent. Not because of habit, not because he brings in lots of gold or wields a lot of power, but because his existence is defined by a religion which exists only on Dwilight. I have a very strong sense of who Turin is and what he'd do in a given situation. He would never leave Dwilight in the face of some cataclysm. Based on his fanatical religious beliefs he would conclude that achieving enlightenment was impossible without a geographical proximity to the blood stars.

How you would manage the practicalities of realms from one island invading another and standing a chance of survival is going to be difficult to fathom, but I imagine you've already got thoughts on how to do it. This will be the tricky part:

So every realm can retreat in an orderly fashion by declaring a target island. We will manually re-create the realm there and those who flee can join it. Details TBD (landing location? how to get a region or two to get started?).

Because the invading/landing realms will need more than a beachhead landing to be able to even stand a chance against the established realms. They'll also need an immediate point of recruitment on their target island, because they can't reasonably sail back home to fetch more troops. It'll also probably be in the interests of the realms on the closing island to form a huge alliance to move en mass to a target island to give themselves a better chance of surviving an invasion attempt.

Still, it's an exciting option that could inject some drama into the game. If it's well received, I could imagine people requesting that an island-to-island invasion mechanic be added to regular gameplay.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 29, 2013, 03:52:37 PM
As I said, lots of things are not thought through.

Religions may have to be re-founded, or we find an option for them as well. Gaining a foothold will be hard, and I expect quite a few realms to perish. However, those with the right strategy, good diplomacy and a tiny bit of luck should be able to make it.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 29, 2013, 03:59:19 PM
How do you recreate the realm on a different island without taking land from existing realms? Unsink BT?
Also how would the destruction be made "fair" so some realms don't get protected by others?

I think this would be a good argument for bringing back some of the regions of Beluaterra, though not necessarily all of them. That would save the devs a lot of headaches with coding in my opinion, although that would be up to them.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 29, 2013, 04:33:09 PM
Another organizational headache for this is what to do about character limits on the islands. Some people are sure to have characters playing on the invading and target islands in such a way that will exceed the character limits.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 29, 2013, 06:27:31 PM
Hrm... Interesting idea. There will surely be quite a bit of maneuvering of realms trying to convince other realms to abandon their realm and join a new one. "Eston will surely be lost. Join us in Silnaria and we can forge a new realm together on Beluaterra!" Will any realms attack another realm, to force them to be destroyed early, thus ruining their chances of survival and orderly migration to the new land? Will any realms abandon their regions wholesale, and join forces with their neighbors?

This is an interesting idea. How many realms, though, will be willing to give up a city and a few rurals to a bunch of carpetbaggers from another island?

How about if we partially cross-connect the ruler's channels of all the islands for the duration? For example: if EC is going to be sunk, then allow the rulers of EC to message any ruler on any island individually, and allow the ruler of any island to individually message the rulers on EC. Make it just single-recipient letters, not game-wide all-ruler blasts. The rulers of realms can work out deals regarding the immigration of the refugees.

You could make it so that a realm on one of the non-affected islands can set aside regions for the carpetbaggers. We'd have to come up with some game mechanic method for the realm to pre-generate the realm, or something. Maybe designate a duchy or something? Say, for example, that Rio wants to set aside the duchy of Grehk for refugees. They contact, say, Perdan on the sinking EC. The two come to an agreement, and the two rulers create and accept the deal. When Perdan accepts, a Perdan is created on BT, and the nobles migrate en masse to the new island, populating the new realm.

Some way to set up a deal before the realm-wide immigration happens would allow realms that want to do it to move with some form of pre-arranged structure, maybe allowing them to survive.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 29, 2013, 07:00:59 PM
I think this would be a good argument for bringing back some of the regions of Beluaterra, though not necessarily all of them. That would save the devs a lot of headaches with coding in my opinion, although that would be up to them.

Unfortunately, I think the missing regions were actually deleted from the DB, though Tom would have to confirm. If so, they may not be recoverable.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 29, 2013, 07:07:33 PM
All the realms of the closing continent, could be made into one on the merge-continent, and they would have the RP of invaders. So this would include a sort of 'invasion' of the continenet where everyone is moving to, as well.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on July 29, 2013, 07:10:30 PM
All the realms of the closing continent, could be made into one on the merge-continent, and they would have the RP of invaders. So this would include a sort of 'invasion' of the continenet where everyone is moving to, as well.

Doubling the density of one continent would be a little too hard, I think. Better if the realms go to various islands, so that all the islands get a density increase.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 29, 2013, 07:21:25 PM
Well, the real question now is, how will the continent to be closed be selected?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: nanakisan on July 29, 2013, 07:36:29 PM
Perhaps the magistrates should convene and speak with the rulers of each islands realms. They all talk with each other discussing what will happen. After the discussion the rulers then go to their people and make a OOC Announcement and a referendum is issued. Because the collapse of the island is more of a OOC event with possible IC side effects. The referendums results are then passed onto the devs and the devs make the final call.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 29, 2013, 07:56:27 PM
Another organizational headache for this is what to do about character limits on the islands. Some people are sure to have characters playing on the invading and target islands in such a way that will exceed the character limits.

That is something to discuss with your realm when it comes to choosing a target island.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on July 29, 2013, 08:29:59 PM
Since this is an one time event, stuff like religions could be manually imported. Only for the winners, of course.

As to how to make room for the invading realms, you could do that by making a game wide event. You could increase rogue spawns gradually until they start freeing up regions. When there is a city available with some regions around it, make that available for colonizing.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 29, 2013, 08:48:55 PM
I don't like the idea of manually building new landing realms in the target islands. It's not that hard to convince a realm to make a deal with you to conquer new lands. Just find a realm that's at war and offer to fight for them if they'll give you a duchy or realm in return. Its been done many times before.

If we're going with a cataclysm of monsters spawns and plagues why does it have to inevitably mean the whole continent is going down? I think leaving some parts salvageable will add to suspense. If we make specific embarkation points that could create additional drama as losing those regions could mean losing your chance to go to a given island.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 29, 2013, 10:04:45 PM
Hey, these people just lost their continent, whatever happens to the host-continent can't possibly be worse. Not even the destruction of host-continent's realms.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 29, 2013, 10:15:20 PM
Everyone should show up together as a giant, sea-borne mongol-horde with max-recruited units. If they can't get a toehold with that kind of start, then it's their own fault.  8)

I don't mind Tom's original idea of making it a realm-by-realm thing, I just think it would be awesome if 150 characters all showed up at once as one army and just started crushing realms left and right until they ran out of steam and started fighting each other.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 29, 2013, 10:35:34 PM
Unfortunately, I think the missing regions were actually deleted from the DB, though Tom would have to confirm. If so, they may not be recoverable.

They may not be recoverable, but do you not have the regions from Atamara (its twin continent).
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 29, 2013, 11:08:34 PM
They may not be recoverable, but do you not have the regions from Atamara (its twin continent).

I'll let the Devs speak to that, but based on what Tom is saying about new islands I doubt restoring BT is in the cards.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 30, 2013, 06:05:45 AM
If it's making the map that's the problem, I'm pretty sure you can just cookie cutter the regions from Atamara back into their respective places (one at a time based on the realms forming in Beluaterra, not entirely) on Beluaterra.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Poliorketes on July 30, 2013, 10:14:11 AM
I like the idea!

The rewards could be something complex, or something as simple as 'you have a state? reward!'.

For the emigration, I don't think we will need more regions, nor something 'special' in the receiving islands. They will get a big bunch of nobles, probably in one big wave, with an objective: To re-create their realm in these alien lands! ... something a bit like the 'Visigoth problem' the Romans had... maybe we will see some kind of Adrianople battles!  8)

I suppose the best way would be for the rewards to make easiest their settlement in the new lands...

mmm... Maybe the rewards could be something as simple as multiply enormously the amount of taxes received(or this and the H/P wont in battles)?
In RP it could be as a Curse... The greedy humans provoked the Gods to punish them making a endless rain of gold. Good at the beginning, but in the end, the land need water not gold! And then monsters would awake greedy too for the gold!... It's only a idea, but I would like a IG reason in this 'End of and Island'.


Maybe it's a bit strange, but I hope to have a character in the sunk island!  ;D
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on July 30, 2013, 11:51:08 AM
Give the surviving characters a permanent bonus of one kind or another, such as slowed aging and some perk that forever makes it visible that they were there and made it.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 30, 2013, 12:38:36 PM
Gathering everything that has been said, I think here's something that most people could live with. Yes, I realize it will be unpopular still, but frankly, if we don't do anything, the game will run into the ground. Please read this in full before you comment:


On the island(s) picked for armageddon, we will implement some kind of "slow" destruction (meaning a few months at most from start to finish). There is a bonus for holding on and surviving. Something along the lines of honour and prestige gains for everyone in a realm that still has more than half their original regions (or something like that, just thinking out loud there).

Some fully-automated outside force will push realms down. A combination of starvation and monster/undead spawns would be fairly easy to do. Rogue regions can not be taken back - what is lost is lost.

However, we realize that people hate losing their realms and social connections. So every realm can retreat in an orderly fashion by declaring a target island. We will manually re-create the realm there and those who flee can join it. Details TBD (landing location? how to get a region or two to get started?). This way, people can move to a different island with their entire realm. Sure, you lose your land and all, but the people are sitll there and you can rebuild.

The longer you hold, the more you win, but if you miss the optimum point to leave, you will make your re-start on the target island more difficult.


This is just a thought, nothing has been set in stone. But do let me know your thoughts.

I know redrawing maps is a lot of work, but adding a few regions to a more linear continent (like EC or FEI) to make it a bit rounder might help give the lost realms a few (3?) regions without decapitating existing realms all while increasing the average number of neighbors that continent can support (linear geography limits the average number of neighbors).
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 30, 2013, 12:40:33 PM
As I said, lots of things are not thought through.

Religions may have to be re-founded, or we find an option for them as well. Gaining a foothold will be hard, and I expect quite a few realms to perish. However, those with the right strategy, good diplomacy and a tiny bit of luck should be able to make it.

More likely, those whose leadership also happen to be leaders in the new continent will be most likely to survive. Something to keep in mind, especially when certain people will suggest that a certain continent receive all of these people.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Frostwood on July 30, 2013, 01:06:05 PM
Having OT from the colonies invade anywhere is sure to cause conflict, and great RP to boot :)
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Kai on July 30, 2013, 01:22:12 PM
Pick an island, give 1 months notice, close it and delete anything that's still on it.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 30, 2013, 01:35:47 PM
I know redrawing maps is a lot of work, but adding a few regions to a more linear continent (like EC or FEI)

No. Period.

It's A LOT of work. It's not just some graphics, there is also the whole database, region connections and a ton of other things. Let me sum up this and other ideas:

Absolutely no changes to any maps are going to happen in the forseable future. No new maps, no regions added to maps, no regions removed from maps, absolutely nothing that requires changes to the maps has any chance whatsoever of being done.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 30, 2013, 01:41:43 PM
I won't be deleting EC. It has all the history of this game, in a certain sense, EC is BattleMaster.
I also don't think it would be fair to wipe out BT - they fought for their island and could've lost it, and won against the odds.

I personally would want to delete Dwilight, but I realize it has the most vocal and aggressive fans. However, here is the player density per island:

(http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4894.0;attach=436)

According to that, we should axe BT, Dwilight or Colonies. FEI is much better than everyone here makes it, it has the highest player densite in the game.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 30, 2013, 01:44:07 PM
The density is all very well, Tom, but as has been stated, we have pulled some statistics showing that Dwilight is the island that has the best retention rates in the game.

So closing Dwilight, while it would improve the density of other islands, would lose some of the uniqueness that helps keep more people in the game.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Jaden on July 30, 2013, 01:46:54 PM
Are we counting characters or nobles? cause advies dont really add much to the feudal hierarchy in the strict sense..
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 30, 2013, 01:55:57 PM
The density is all very well, Tom, but as has been stated, we have pulled some statistics showing that Dwilight is the island that has the best retention rates in the game.

I chased the last of Vellos' statistics on this:

Returning to my obsessive chart-making:

Numbers are in. In terms of registration, FEI and Dwilight showed slight growth. Beluaterra was flat. EC and Atamara showed 4%ish declines which, though not good, is much better than in the past: it may be that EC and Atamara are slowing their losses somehow. The Colonies continue to plummet into the depths.

In terms of active players, Atamara showed a controlled decline, but EC and the Colonies had double-digit losses of active players. Meanwhile, Dwilight and FEI actually increased the number of active players, while FEI was flat (discounting multi-locks FEI would be positive).

Numbers on highly active players are subject to skepticism, and vary widely. However, Beluaterra has been exhibiting what looks to be a medium-term real increase in active players. Notably, it posted an almost 30% gain in active players (and one of the first gains in "activity rates" I've seen yet). Dwilight and FEI also had strong increases in active players. EC and Atamara showed some declines, while the Colonies were flat.

This round showed one of the strongest divergences I've seen yet: FEI, Beluaterra, and Dwilight posted solid numbers in every category; actually some of the best numbers I've yet seen. EC, Atamara, and the Colonies showed bad numbers, in some cases better than in the past, but in at least some far worse. This would seem to support the idea that some continents are reliably better at getting and keeping players than others. We'll see how this holds up in the long run.

So it turns out that Dwilight, Beluaterra and FEI are the best for retention, while being at the extreme in terms of density. The middle-of-the-road islands did not fare as well
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Shizzle on July 30, 2013, 02:06:12 PM
[Also Dwilight was initiated as being a frontier realm, and less nobles (more wilderness) isn't all that bad.]
***

I have kind of missed the thread and it's too late to start reading 20 pages of comments, so apologies if I disregard previously reached consensus. I won't suggest changing the maps though :)

What I think is that a declining playerbase in itself is not the problem (I've played Wolfenstein and Soldier of Fortune well past their expiry dates), the problem is that in order to have fun in BM you need a certain amount of people to get the ball rolling. This is both for RP related fun and the strategy game kind of fun. We need to enable players to enjoy the game even if there is less people then there once was. Other solutions will only treat the symptoms, not the actual problem. For instance sinking an island will increase player density for a while, but with a player base in decline it won't be long before we have to sink another one to get the same effect. I'd hate to see three islands sink within three years and BM die out within half a dozen.

For me the discussion ought to focuse on how to improve the game in two ways: keep it fun (even with less players), maximize player retention.

This is no easy task, but from the top of my head a few ideas:
* Intra-realm wars. Duchy based, or even region based conflicts. Why can't a Lord simply ravage the lands of his rivals next door? This would spawn more conflicts of different scales, and it would be easy to have fun even with just a few people.
* BM Light. Players are in the regular game world but half of the content is cut, creating a truly lightweight game. You could still have all options in the bottom of the screen as today, "you can't do this because your account is set to Light". This could even work as a tutorial fase to make the learning curve a little less steep. In essence this Light version focuses on "making Droning fun". Maybe limit character progression so that Light players can obtain a Lordship up to Earl, but no government positions.
* Roleplay Groups. Right now roleplaying is restricted by your character's role or current location. Why not get rid of these restrictions? Continent wide players should be able to start 'roleplaying threads' (within the game world) where they can invite other players to join. In other words, make RP more meta. Why can't I, as a player, observe all the roleplays written by rulers throughout the whole continent? It would make playing BM, for those who like RP, more like reading a book. Of course OOC knowledge being abused ICly might be a problem, but not one that cannot be overcome.

These three changes would create more fun with less people, without imposing limits on future growth. More fun equals higher player retention, and thus might reverse the current declining player base.

It goes without saying that these suggestions all require a lot of work, vision and commitment - all things I wouldn't have to contribute myself. So maybe I'm just proposing vastly difficult things out of ignorance.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Meneldur on July 30, 2013, 02:08:57 PM
I won't be deleting EC. It has all the history of this game, in a certain sense, EC is BattleMaster.
I also don't think it would be fair to wipe out BT - they fought for their island and could've lost it, and won against the odds.

I personally would want to delete Dwilight, but I realize it has the most vocal and aggressive fans. However, here is the player density per island:

(http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4894.0;attach=436)

According to that, we should axe BT, Dwilight or Colonies. FEI is much better than everyone here makes it, it has the highest player densite in the game.

Is that graph player or character density? Because Dwilight has the 1 character rule which would negativly impact its character count even if it has more players.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Sypher on July 30, 2013, 02:16:21 PM
Short of closing Dwilight, you could use the Zuma to reduce the number of available regions held by players for a long while. The lands taken away wouldn't necessarily have to be connected to the current Zuma lands.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Shizzle on July 30, 2013, 02:18:47 PM
Short of closing Dwilight, you could use the Zuma to reduce the number of available regions held by players for a long while. The lands taken away wouldn't necessarily have to be connected to the current Zuma lands.

The problem with this is that it would drive realms even further apart making it even harder to start wars or other kinds of interaction. With the Zuma in play there would also be less PvP, I fear.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Stabbity on July 30, 2013, 02:20:01 PM
Is that graph player or character density? Because Dwilight has the 1 character rule which would negativly impact its character count even if it has more players.

This.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 30, 2013, 02:26:49 PM
Dwilight, is the continent I started playing on, not so long ago. I chose it because it seemed like people were a lot more active on the forum about it, and I absolutely did not like the idea of people having more than one character on the other continents. And in the end, i think I made the right choice.

If character density is the criteria for choosing the island, rather than player density, then a simple solution wwould be to increase the amount of characters per person everywhere. But I don't think that's what Tom is looking for.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 30, 2013, 02:31:40 PM
I'm guessing you're not to fond of Dwilight.

Also OP asked not to discuss specific islands. So don't.

Erm... Tom just started to discuss potential islands for closure, so I'm guessing the parameters of the discussion have changed a little or he wouldn't have posted the player density stats in this thread.

But, to make a general point, this shouldn't come down to those who make the biggest fuss on the forum get to keep their favourite island.

Just to be clear, are we talking about an island being completely deleted and the code disappearing, or will the island be put into cold storage so that the map and code can be reused at some point in the future?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 30, 2013, 02:45:54 PM
I chased the last of Vellos' statistics on this:

So it turns out that Dwilight, Beluaterra and FEI are the best for retention, while being at the extreme in terms of density. The middle-of-the-road islands did not fare as well

Those statistics are nearly two years old now. What was true then is not necessarily the case now.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Telrunya on July 30, 2013, 02:47:10 PM
I can see why closing BT would be less desirable as they just survived an Invasion that could have seen the Continent closed down already. To the other two options offered, closing down Colonies would only offer a potential 108 characters to the other islands, while Dwilight would offer a potential 449 characters to the other islands (Beluaterra offering 251). From those numbers, it seems closing down Dwilight would, assuming the rate of moving is equal for all islands, offer the biggest impact on density on the other Continents (About a potential of 90 per island or 0.72 per remaining regions).

This is not considering retention rates and all that which has already been mentioned, it's just looking at pure character numbers.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 30, 2013, 02:59:31 PM
I can see why closing BT would be less desirable as they just survived an Invasion that could have seen the Continent closed down already. To the other two options offered, closing down Colonies would only offer a potential 108 characters to the other islands, while Dwilight would offer a potential 449 characters to the other islands (Beluaterra offering 251). From those numbers, it seems closing down Dwilight would, assuming the rate of moving is equal for all islands, offer the biggest impact on density on the other Continents (About a potential of 90 per island).

This is not considering retention rates and all that which has already been mentioned, it's just looking at pure character numbers.

On the other side of the coin, Dwilight is the second largest island by some margin and that is with a 1 character per player rule. That means nearly half the player base is there, which could be awkward. Only thing is, what with the 1 character per family rule, it seems unlikely character density will rise too much on Dwilight. If closing an island is for the purpose of driving character density dramatically upwards, I expect you'd need to shutter more than one continent to have a noticeable impact on Dwilight's density.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 30, 2013, 03:05:34 PM
Those statistics are nearly two years old now. What was true then is not necessarily the case now.

True enough, that's when the study was made. The original posts only mentions percentages - I wonder if Vellos still has his spreadsheet around?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 30, 2013, 03:09:38 PM
Let's close the island with the largest number of retained unique players to save the islands that have less unique players and where 2 chars per person are allowed.
Obviously, an effect on Dwilight would be more or less limited if another island was closed, since almost everyone wants to play there.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on July 30, 2013, 03:44:28 PM
I firmly believe that we can improve the situation on Dwilight somewhat by increasing the rogue spawn rate again.

Yes, this will create areas where realms are separated by spans of rogue regions. However, I think that because of sea routes, and the much more global nature of Dwilight politics in more recent times, this will not cripple the ability to have interesting close-fought wars.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Jimgerdes on July 30, 2013, 05:09:38 PM
As far as losing history and culture etc. being a concern, and Dwilight being brought up.

Compared to the other islands, you would lose less from closing Dwilight than the other islands.  Dwi has only been around for a couple years, compared to some of the others which have been around upwards of 10 years.

Dwilight is unique in this case because it was released long after any of the other islands.

I would rather we not close an island, but it's another factor to consider.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 30, 2013, 05:42:48 PM
So closing Dwilight, while it would improve the density of other islands, would lose some of the uniqueness that helps keep more people in the game.

There is nothing unique about Dwilight the game-map. What culture, religions and other player-generated content it has brought forth can be transported to other islands.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 30, 2013, 05:47:38 PM
As far as losing history and culture etc. being a concern, and Dwilight being brought up.

Compared to the other islands, you would lose less from closing Dwilight than the other islands.  Dwi has only been around for a couple years, compared to some of the others which have been around upwards of 10 years.

Dwilight is unique in this case because it was released long after any of the other islands.

I would rather we not close an island, but it's another factor to consider.

Unfortunately, this doesn't take into account the fact that all of the newer players (such as myself) came after Dwilight was created, and know nothing but Dwilight-era Battlemaster. Shutting down Dwilight would basically be closing down my only fun character. The newer players are the people we are trying to retain, since the older players have stayed with Battlemaster through various huge changes (like the sinking of the War Islands), and so would be more likely to bear through it.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 30, 2013, 06:21:41 PM
There is nothing unique about Dwilight the game-map. What culture, religions and other player-generated content it has brought forth can be transported to other islands.

Possibly, but I do think that your idea will be difficult to implement, and that much will be lost in the transition. The residents of the target islands are unlikely to take kindly to a group of strange nobles showing up and wanting to re-found their realms which will make things more difficult for them, and it won't be possible to recreate some of the geographic considerations that led to cultures like Luria being sustainable. There's also character limits, which will almost certainly cause the Dwilight realms to lose nobles depending on their ultimate destination, and that's on top of the attrition I would expect to come from closing the island in the first place.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 30, 2013, 07:23:19 PM
All of those problems apply pretty much equally to any island. They're not unique to Dwilight.

The residents of the target islands are unlikely to take kindly to a group of strange nobles showing up and wanting to re-found their realms which will make things more difficult for them

Same for every island.

it won't be possible to recreate some of the geographic considerations that led to cultures like Luria being sustainable.

Same for Coralynth or Obisidian Islands, etc.

There's also character limits, which will almost certainly cause the Dwilight realms to lose nobles depending on their ultimate destination

That will pretty much happen with any islands that will close, and it will be a major headache to organize. But, judging by what Tom said yesterday, it'll be up to internal discussion in the migrating realms to decide on a target island that suits as many people as possible.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Penchant on July 30, 2013, 07:26:25 PM
I can come up with countless reasons both the cultures and religions of Dwilight will be unable to be successful transported to other islands. SA, the most notable religion in the game can not be refounded anywhere else because the reason it was able to be successful is due to being founded on the "final frontier" with no close rival religions and a large drive by the players to make it work. The religions of Dwlight that are still around have all been affected by SA. Triunism is considered a variant of SA, and they are pretty much all located in the Occiddens. Dwilight is AFAIK, the only continent where geographical things like Toprak and Marrociddens are commonly used by many players which won't be transported because Dwilight has a geographical nature unlike any other island.

 The giant hole in the map is a huge reason Dwilight is how it is even though it might not be obvious. D'hara without the inter-seas is not D'hara. The moot was formed due to geographical positioning making them common allies against the rogues. Luria has a special geography that isolates itself from its enemies so that it becomes difficult to attack them. (Although sea zones has changed it some.) Aurvandil was able to be continue to win wars due to its special geographical location. (The multi's made it so the moot couldn't win but it was its geographical location preventing the rest the island from attacking and a location unique to only Dwilight.) Asylon was able to be the way it was, once more, due to geographical reasons special only to Dwilight. The Zuma was on one end, basically an invincible wall since no armies dare march through the Zuma and the special width of the Occiddens making it difficult for any realm to stretch from the inner-seas to the outer seas, thus Asylon was able to grow upwards. Niselur is unique due to its mountain ranges creating a defensible, semi-isolated area with plenty of food to support it self in its isolation. These are a number of reasons that the cultures and religions of Dwilight will not be able to be transported over to other continents with any real success.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Penchant on July 30, 2013, 07:31:05 PM
All of those problems apply pretty much equally to any island. They're not unique to Dwilight.

Same for every island.

Same for Coralynth or Obisidian Islands, etc.

That will pretty much happen with any islands that will close, and it will be a major headache to organize. But, judging by what Tom said yesterday, it'll be up to internal discussion in the migrating realms to decide on a target island that suits as many people as possible.
While the geographical uniqueness applies to Coralynth or OI, I have listed reasons above showing it applies to most of the island and I can likely find even more reasons why Dwilight's unique geography is a huge part of what makes the continent unique. And the character restriction is a bigger problem with Dwilight because there are more players there than any island making it harder to work as there are a lot of players on Dwi.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 30, 2013, 07:32:59 PM
There is nothing unique about Dwilight the game-map. What culture, religions and other player-generated content it has brought forth can be transported to other islands.

Oh... nothing unique at all. Only the most successful religion ever formed, one of the best retention rates of any island, the east-west divide that creates a huge change in political considerations. A place where even a centrally placed realm cannot completely press its might upon the rest of the continent (looking at Atamara). Home to the Dwilight University, where much of the history of the island has been recorded.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 30, 2013, 07:55:30 PM
While the geographical uniqueness applies to Coralynth or OI, I have listed reasons above showing it applies to most of the island and I can likely find even more reasons why Dwilight's unique geography is a huge part of what makes the continent unique. And the character restriction is a bigger problem with Dwilight because there are more players there than any island making it harder to work as there are a lot of players on Dwi.

I see where you're coming from, but I still think the unique geographical argument applies to most islands. For example, would Sirion be Sirion if it hadn't have had the geography that it has? Your point about Dwilight's main religion is well taken, and the challenges with transplanting religions is something I've raised myself a couple of times.

The character limits are going to be tricky for any island. How is the reverse going to work out if realms from another island try to resettle in Dwilight with its one character limit? That seems like any realm that tried to relocate there would lose a good proportion of its characters, or people would have to pause their existing character on Dwilight to keep playing their character/s from the invading island.

Or are we saying Dwilight should just remain untouched by all these events and no realms from the closing island should try to settle there?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Vita` on July 30, 2013, 07:59:24 PM
Let's try to stay calm in the delicate waters of island loss. :)

I very much believe the retention study should be redone and that, in consideration of Dwilight's one noble per player rule, a player density of the islands included with the character density.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Meneldur on July 30, 2013, 08:13:51 PM
Let's try to stay calm in the delicate waters of island loss. :)

I very much believe the retention study should be redone and that, in consideration of Dwilight's one noble per player rule, a player density of the islands included with the character density.

^This. I imagine that if player density rather than character density were measured, Dwilight would rank considerably higher.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Kwanstein on July 30, 2013, 08:16:57 PM
Dwilight is unique precisely because it's new(er).

When a new map is started, everything is up in the air. There is a power vacuum that realms scramble to fill, which was what caused that epic war on East Island so long ago. The culture is a blank slate, allowing prolific players to leave their marks. New maps are more interesting to play on, so they have more player activity, better retention and more player recruitment.

When new maps get old and their number of realms shrivel up and the culture becomes set and unyielding, the interaction becomes redundant and they bleed players profusely. East Continent and Atamara both went through this phase of drying up and now it seems as though all of the active players there are gone. You can spend months in one of the big realms in those places and never see any message, unless it's at war in which case you will see the daily scout reports and orders.

Dwilight is probably (haven't played FEI yet) the last bastion of meaningful interaction, and it's because it's a young island. History, so what. What do I care about history beyond background dressing, when it's what's happening at present that makes playing enjoyable.

But at this point the game is on an inexorable death march. Action wasn't taken quickly enough and the bleed out already happened several years ago. Closing islands is too little too late to change anything, and it's especially ineffective when it's undertaken with such blindness that the best island is the first to go.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Daycryn on July 30, 2013, 08:38:01 PM
Actually, I think Dwilight's character base is probably most well equiped to cope with the loss of the island, that is to say, to adapt and incorporate the changes into existing lore. It's not the map that makes it fun. Stuff like SA and the lore of the DU can be transferred quite easily, after all most of it exists attached to the characters and written up in the wiki. And I say this with total love for Dwilight and what's been going on there. I think this whole thing could actually be really fun.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on July 30, 2013, 08:45:58 PM
I agree that the retention study should be redone.

There's something to the idea that the older islands eventually become more static and calcified. That's obviously subjective, but it's an impression I share. What does history matter if the present is dull and uninteresting for the new arrivals we need to attract and keep?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 30, 2013, 08:50:36 PM
Deleting Dwilight is a terrible idea. It's got the highest retention rate. Are we seriously considering sacking an extremely popular continent on the off chance that it will revive boring stagnant ones? What reason do we have to believe forcing Dwilight's characters into the various dull continents will even work. Think about it, the players on Dwilight only have one character there, ergo they're free to make characters on other continents. I for one am at my full limit. Why aren't these other characters infusing the same excitement of Dwilight into the other continents? Think about it, same player same ability to write a good character.

Chances are if we delete Dwilight the players immigrating will have the same experience as if they'd created a brand new character. They'll get bored and drop to a bare minimum of activity. I imagine they'd then leave the game entirely because there will be no interesting continent to hold them.

The idea that the continent is irrelevant and all the culture and fun of Dwilight can be transported is complete and utter bull!@#$. Culture is a product of its environment and this holds true in Battlemaster as well. It's been pointed out that the geography of Dwilight has created cultures that can't exist anywhere else. It's true that the geography of other game worlds also impacts the realms there, the difference is it evidently leaves them boring and stagnant.

Why don't we just turn up the monster spawns and drought rates on one or more continents and leave it at that. We're already talking about doing so as part of the deletion of the continent. Why don't we just stop short of destroying the whole thing? This way even EC is a candidate after all what better way to add to the history of the game's original continent. This is probably the only choice that has a good chance of reviving the continent because it will make that continent more like Dwilight, a realm with many empty regions and a frontier to be conquered.


Actually, I think Dwilight's character base is probably most well equiped to cope with the loss of the island, that is to say, to adapt and incorporate the changes into existing lore. It's not the map that makes it fun. Stuff like SA and the lore of the DU can be transferred quite easily, after all most of it exists attached to the characters and written up in the wiki. And I say this with total love for Dwilight and what's been going on there. I think this whole thing could actually be really fun.

According to roleplay the blood star constellation is only visible from Dwilight. So no you can't just pick it up and move it elsewhere.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on July 30, 2013, 09:01:36 PM
According to roleplay the blood star constellation is only visible from Dwilight. So no you can't just pick it up and move it elsewhere.

That would be the easiest thing to deal with, really. The continent drowned, the shaking was so great even the Stars moved!

Culture is a product of its environment and this holds true in Battlemaster as well. It's been pointed out that the geography of Dwilight has created cultures that can't exist anywhere else. It's true that the geography of other game worlds also impacts the realms there, the difference is it evidently leaves them boring and stagnant.

This is an argument I buy. Dwilight has created a continental culture that does not exist in any other island. Pretty much everywhere else I play the realm border is a cultural event horizon. This is also fine, of course, but you couldn't transplant individual Dwilight realms elsewhere and expect the cultures to remain, because the cultures are intertwined.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Ender on July 30, 2013, 09:10:31 PM
Quote
According to roleplay the blood star constellation is only visible from Dwilight. So no you can't just pick it up and move it elsewhere.

I'm not going to argue which continent needs to go, but if you can roleplay that a bunch of pretend stars in a pretend sky can have pretend effects on people then those same pretend stars can probably suddenly move without much effort in anyone's roleplays. The stars are divine, after all. Who are you to say they can't move?

I do buy the argument that the culture is a product of the geography, but any established culture can endure elsewhere too because it has been established already. I moved an entire religion between continents myself before. It wasnt the same size, influence, or anything at all like SA, but it adapted and worked for a long time. Other religions exist between continents just fine currently too.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 30, 2013, 09:17:28 PM
Has anyone considered switching existing Continents SMA?

That would be the easiest thing to deal with, really. The continent drowned, the shaking was so great even the Stars moved!


I find that to be a pretty cheap solution. Especially since we're talking about a series of famines and monster spawns.

This is an argument I buy. Dwilight has created a continental culture that does not exist in any other island. Pretty much everywhere else I play the realm border is a cultural event horizon. This is also fine, of course, but you couldn't transplant individual Dwilight realms elsewhere and expect the cultures to remain, because the cultures are intertwined.

When War Islands was deleted people tried to recreate the realms cultures and religions on Dwilight. Keep in mind this was a brand new continent with no established rival cultures, realms or religions to give them trouble. The end result is that almost every trace of those transplanted cultures disappeared. Torenism was wiped out by SA, and people basically stopped talking about their former countries. I think the only one left who mentions War Island is Karibash.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on July 30, 2013, 09:18:37 PM
On the retention study, how could we possibly determine whether any one island is more responsible for retaining players in the game than another island? The only way I can think of is measuring which players only play on a specifiic island, so you can be sure that the one and only island they play on is the reason they're in the game.

For most players, I'd imagine it's a combination of islands/realms that keep them interested.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 30, 2013, 09:22:44 PM
You can go by how long their character lasted on a given Island. If I made characters on continent A and B at the same time and I deleted the one on A after a few months but the one on B has been going strong for five years that tends to suggest continent B held my attention and continent A didn't.

At any rate character density is a much worse measure as several continents allow two characters per player.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Meneldur on July 30, 2013, 09:30:57 PM
SA theology can be easily shifted, in fact I've been thinking of a few explanations since this thread started, ranging from digging up the old wiki texts which mention Morek's founders having visions before they arrived on Dwilight, to coming up with a Rabbinical Judaism style reform in which the religion survives but without some of the vital rituals which were tied to a now lost geographical reality.

In any case thats all quite relevant to the matter at hand. As much as I love Dwilight and SA, it is a silly argument to say it should be exempt from consideration just because we rped some big red stars- I'm sure every continent has its own unique role playing points and its up to us as players to keep these alive if our island is scheduled for deletion.

IMO if a continent is deleted then it should be selected for a practical reason like low player count, low player retention, low attractiveness to newcomers etc etc. rather than a forum argument over whose culture is the "most unique"
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Ender on July 30, 2013, 09:33:02 PM
Quote
When War Islands was deleted people tried to recreate the realms cultures and religions on Dwilight. Keep in mind this was a brand new continent with no established rival cultures, realms or religions to give them trouble. The end result is that almost every trace of those transplanted cultures disappeared. Torenism was wiped out by SA, and people basically stopped talking about their former countries. I think the only one left who mentions War Island is Karibash.

Fair enough. Though that doesn't mean it's impossible though. It would just require enough players who cared enough to hold onto their culture to keep it going. It's the same in BM as it is in real life, as long as someone remembers than a culture will endure. If no one can be bothered then it dies out. If enough people can't be bothered to hold onto their cultures when whichever continent sinks, then you can't blame the game for killing it off.

Quote
In any case thats all quite relevant to the matter at hand. As much as I love Dwilight and SA, it is a silly argument to say it should be exempt from consideration just because we rped some big red stars- I'm sure every continent has its own unique role playing points and its up to us as players to keep these alive if our island is scheduled for deletion.

This! And that's why I should pay attention when it warns me that someone posted while I was replying.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Daycryn on July 30, 2013, 09:40:32 PM
The idea that the continent is irrelevant and all the culture and fun of Dwilight can be transported is complete and utter bull!@#$. Culture is a product of its environment and this holds true in Battlemaster as well. It's been pointed out that the geography of Dwilight has created cultures that can't exist anywhere else.

But, now existing, these cultures can go where the people that make them up can go. Cultures aren't like endangered species dependent on one dying ecosystem; people are adaptable and can transplant information and identity. Especially so with religious cultures, which are especially good at incorporating terrible things into existing mythology and carrying on traditions, even if...

Actually, what Meneldur just said. Stole the words from my mouth really.

Quote
Why don't we just turn up the monster spawns and drought rates on one or more continents and leave it at that. We're already talking about doing so as part of the deletion of the continent. Why don't we just stop short of destroying the whole thing? This way even EC is a candidate after all what better way to add to the history of the game's original continent. This is probably the only choice that has a good chance of reviving the continent because it will make that continent more like Dwilight, a realm with many empty regions and a frontier to be conquered.

This is a good idea too, however. Not nearly as dramatic, but alas.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 30, 2013, 09:46:14 PM
Fair enough. Though that doesn't mean it's impossible though. It would just require enough players who cared enough to hold onto their culture to keep it going. It's the same in BM as it is in real life, as long as someone remembers than a culture will endure. If no one can be bothered then it dies out. If enough people can't be bothered to hold onto their cultures when whichever continent sinks, then you can't blame the game for killing it off.

This! And that's why I should pay attention when it warns me that someone posted while I was replying.

Way to single out the one thing you agreed with, because right under that he says this:


IMO if a continent is deleted then it should be selected for a practical reason like low player count, low player retention, low attractiveness to newcomers etc etc. rather than a forum argument over whose culture is the "most unique"
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Ender on July 30, 2013, 09:51:02 PM
Quote
Way to single out the one thing you agreed with, because right under that he says this:

I never said I disagreed with it. The continent chosen should be deleted for practical reasons.

I'm simply pointing out that anyone who is worried that their culture is going to be destroyed by the loss of a continent has no reason to worry if enough people care enough about said culture. The only reason I'm using Dwilight as an example is because he's talking about why Dwilight should stay because of how unique it is. My example can easily be applied to any of the other continents/religions that could be on the chopping block.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 30, 2013, 09:57:02 PM


IMO if a continent is deleted then it should be selected for a practical reason like low player count, low player retention, low attractiveness to newcomers etc etc. rather than a forum argument over whose culture is the "most unique"

I agree, I was pointing out the difficulty of transplanting Dwilight's culture because it seems to me people are getting the idea that if we delete Dwilight it's unique qualities will seed the other continents and germinate into a revived game. I think there's no guarantee that this is the case and it's far more likely the remnants of Dwilight will die out after some initial excitement and then we'll be left with all the other continents equally boring and also no Dwilight.

But, now existing, these cultures can go where the people that make them up can go. Cultures aren't like endangered species dependent on one dying ecosystem; people are adaptable and can transplant information and identity. Especially so with religious cultures, which are especially good at incorporating terrible things into existing mythology and carrying on traditions, even if...


Cultures are known to die out due to environmental pressures in real life and I've seen the same thing happen in game. If there were a good chance of Dwilight's cultures taking root all over BM then shouldn't it stand to reason that players who play on Dwilight can simply come up with characters in other game worlds and form new interesting cultures there? That doesn't seem to be happening.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Blue Star on July 30, 2013, 09:59:06 PM
umm just for sake of it I think we should leave this up to Tom, games been actively going for a long time his leadership and that of the dev/titans has been well whats held us together as a community whether your new, been around since the beginning or jumped off in on with the game.

Forum can only represent those of us who choose to come on here. Can their be a IG message sent to everyone regarding the closing of a island or islands. It would be good to inform them of this conversation, I think all the players should be made aware of the gravity of that can affect them.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Telrunya on July 30, 2013, 10:00:52 PM
Keep in mind that with some way to emigrate away as a Realm to carve out a new home on another Continent will help preserving that culture. Of course the culture will evolve from there, and not everything will survive, but it does get a good aid to establish itself.

I'm pretty sure Tom will have the final say on this matter. He's just letting us debate so he can come to the right conclusion and to find the best method to do this.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Wolfang on July 30, 2013, 10:01:34 PM
Why all this talk about Dwilight?

Why not Atamara? It's not unique in the sense that there is a continent very similar and other continents are also 2 char per player. It's also reputed to be quite boring.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Ender on July 30, 2013, 10:05:41 PM
Quote
Forum can only represent those of us who choose to come on here. Can their be a IG message sent to everyone regarding the closing of a island or islands. It would be good to inform them of this conversation, I think all the players should be made aware of the gravity of that can affect them.

That's a good idea. Even if a decision has been reached, putting a message on the login screen or something would at least let people read up on what's happening.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 30, 2013, 10:09:49 PM
I think we're all maybe being a bit too quick to judge here. We don't know yet which continent will be closed and it still might be that more than one of them bites the dust. And as much as we might all want to defend our particular favourite islands, I don't think it's helpful to start bashing on the others. Different continents offer different experiences and there are things going on in places people love all across the worlds of BattleMaster. A 'who shouts the loudest' discussion isn't going to do us any favours.

Whatever island gets closed, it is being done for a practical purpose. I don't think anybody is chomping at the bit to see an island sunk, but player/character density isn't a patch on what it once was. It's not all doom and gloom though. The proposed 'invasion' mechanic from a dying continent could be something that radically alters the surviving game worlds and has the potential to change every island. Losing a continent will hurt, but it could also be fun.

When War Islands was deleted people tried to recreate the realms cultures and religions on Dwilight. Keep in mind this was a brand new continent with no established rival cultures, realms or religions to give them trouble. The end result is that almost every trace of those transplanted cultures disappeared. Torenism was wiped out by SA, and people basically stopped talking about their former countries. I think the only one left who mentions War Island is Karibash.

It will be different this time though, because if a continent (or continents) get sunk this time, mechanics are actually being put in place so realms can migrate en masse to another island to establish themselves through war. In your example, a handful of folk who had fun playing War Islands together joined in the Dwilight gold rush when the continent was founded. Sadly though, every man and his dog was trying to found new realms at the time. The Torenists ended up in a difficult spot and although we can bemoan that a realm with a decent culture and religion was lost, it came at the hands of one of the most successful and vibrant religions ever to grace BattleMaster.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 30, 2013, 10:14:00 PM
Why all this talk about Dwilight?

Why not Atamara? It's not unique in the sense that there is a continent very similar and other continents are also 2 char per player. It's also reputed to be quite boring.

I still think we're better off trying to fix what's wrong with the existing continents rather then deleting one and hoping it will have the desired effect. I'm not even sure it's been explained why the game is in such dire straits that we need such extreme measures. People have said things like "low player density" but that's not a full explanation. Is player density dropping exponentially?

First and foremost I think all of us might want to make an effort to recruit more players (which is being discussed on the facebook campaign section).

Second I think it will do a lot for the game if we just increased environmental hazards like monsters undead and droughts.

Third it might help to have a discussion with high ranking players in continents that tend to be considered dull and suggest ways they can make things more interesting.



It will be different this time though, because if a continent (or continents) get sunk this time, mechanics are actually being put in place so realms can migrate en masse to another island to establish themselves through war. In your example, a handful of folk who had fun playing War Islands together joined in the Dwilight gold rush when the continent was founded. Sadly though, every man and his dog was trying to found new realms at the time.

It wasn't just a few people. Different realms had specific colonies they were going to join in order to maintain dominance. I don't see any real difference between that and what's being proposed.

The Torenists ended up in a difficult spot and although we can bemoan that a realm with a decent culture and religion was lost, it came at the hands of one of the most successful and vibrant religions ever to grace BattleMaster.

I don't bemoan the fact that Torenism died out, however it died out so something new could form. Dwilights cultures will be dieing out to maintain the status quo.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Telrunya on July 30, 2013, 10:20:42 PM
In all honesty, recruiting campaigns have been set up multiple times already. And we're still finding ourselves in this situation. We can call out to increase recruiting each time the problem arises, but there comes a time when you have to conclude that we can't hold out for that forever.

To be honest, I believe the Mentor system really needs work (I understand time is a very valuable resource we have so very little off) and the previous proposed ideas need to be worked out and included before we worry about getting new players. I just feel the Mentor system is not working well right now, which I feel is just losing us an increased amount of new players.

Still, that won't solve the problem at hand and we can't hold out for those kind of things. It are things to do after we've done this, so that we can hopefully grow again one day to rediscover old worlds.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 30, 2013, 10:27:43 PM
Again what exactly makes now the point at which we need to sink and Island or lose the game? I'm not really seeing it.

When was the last time there was an organized recruiting effort? I've been playing for about six years now and I can't recall anything being sent out to the player base.

If we are going to sink a continent, why don't we make it a contest. Every game world is encouraged to recruit as many new players as possible. Whoever gets the least gets the axe.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on July 31, 2013, 12:26:39 AM
So... organize a recruiting drive. Come up with a few hundred new players, and avoid getting an island closed. If you've got the timex, just do it. Open a new thread, and get to work.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 31, 2013, 12:53:13 AM
I can but it will also help for a blast to go out to those players who aren't on the forums. Something simple that explains the importance of character density and asks everyone to bring just one new character into the game.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 31, 2013, 01:14:01 AM
Tom said in the OP that 'BM is falling apart because it was designed with a specific player density in mind'. If you want a visual example of just how much the player base of BattleMaster has declined since its heyday, you need only look at the 'Most characters in one realm' record on the Records of BattleMaster wikipage (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Records_of_BattleMaster#Realms). In October 2006, Abington on Atamara had 183 characters (and this was before adventurers.) Today, Suville occupies excactly the same 20 regions as Abington did then. But Suville has a paltry 36 nobles.

(http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4894.0;attach=436)

There was a time when East Continent, Atamara, Beluaterra, Colonies and Far East Island all had probably double the number of characters you see in the table above (in fact, Beluaterra once had nearly double the regions she had above!) In the days when Abington had over 180 characters, just three or four realms in Atamara had more nobles combined than what 14 realms in Atamara provide now. Relatively, the BattleMaster of today is like a ghost town compared to what it was.

I know a lot of people seem to find the older continents boring but I'd say it has a lot to do with how diminished some of the realms are. I cannot adequately describe how much better BattleMaster was when realms had scores of fellow comrades-in-arms for you to interact with. If you add together all the realms in Colonies, Atamara and Far East (Guess where I play? >.<) there are only five out of 26 realms that have more than 40 nobles. Time was you would struggle to find five realms amongst those continents with fewer than 40 nobles. Today some people speak of a 50-60 noble realm as being a big realm. Once realms of that size were practically minnows!

My guess is that in most realms nowadays lords and council members outnumber knights by a wide margin. These days it isn't difficult to become a lord or a ruler. It's difficult to remain a knight. You don't need to build relationships with anyone to advance and a lot of newer players easily find themselves thrown into the deep end of BattleMaster with barely any advice or experience whatsoever. And that is before looking at any other problems of low player density. For instance, these days on multiple character continents a realm of 30 nobles can easily be one of only 15 players.

I really wouldn't mind if even two continents were closed if it meant seeing big realms in BattleMaster again. As a rule, the more players in your realm, the more things that will happen and the better everything will be. There is nowhere in BattleMaster where the game experience would not immeasurably improve with the sudden influx of 100-200 more characters. No matter how painful it will be to close an island or two in the short-term, in the longer term we'll all be better off for it.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on July 31, 2013, 01:39:05 AM
Revan explained it well.


There seem to be still people around who think that the alternative to closing one island is not closing any islands. You are mistaken. The alternative to closing one island is closing all of them, because the game will be dead sooner or later if we don't do something.

Go recruit - we tried it before. I would be thrilled if it were that easy and you can find a few hundred new players. I just don't think it will work.

We need to close at least one island to save the rest of the game. It will hurt. Probably a lot. There will be damage and loss and frustration. There will be angry people. There will be players who quit the game. All of that is still better than losing the game entirely.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Valast on July 31, 2013, 01:50:47 AM
According to that, we should axe BT, Dwilight or Colonies. FEI is much better than everyone here makes it, it has the highest player densite in the game.

Hmmm the Colonies are undergoing a bit of player forced restructure...if we can ever force the last hold out nation into the Colonial Federation that is.  It is basically a reset back to single city realms with perks for infiltrators and a few other little tidbits all in the hope of creating more action.  If the Colonies were to go...its not bad timing.

Cons are that it is the single turn island... and also would be the end of Outer Tilog.  But tough times call for tough measures.

I am good with what ever... so long as the game keeps trucking.







Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 31, 2013, 02:13:53 AM
Revan explained it well.


There seem to be still people around who think that the alternative to closing one island is not closing any islands. You are mistaken. The alternative to closing one island is closing all of them, because the game will be dead sooner or later if we don't do something.


I still don't understand why it isn't just as good to turn up monster spawns and famines in order to drive a lot of regions rogue. It's a lot easier to accept both in character and out. In addition if player influx improves then the famines and spawns can just be turned back down and new lands can be conquered again.

Tom said in the OP that 'BM is falling apart because it was designed with a specific player density in mind'. If you want a visual example of just how much the player base of BattleMaster has declined since its heyday, you need only look at the 'Most characters in one realm' record on the Records of BattleMaster wikipage (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Records_of_BattleMaster#Realms). In October 2006, Abington on Atamara had 183 characters (and this was before adventurers.) Today, Suville occupies excactly the same 20 regions as Abington did then. But Suville has a paltry 36 nobles.

(http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4894.0;attach=436)

There was a time when East Continent, Atamara, Beluaterra, Colonies and Far East Island all had probably double the number of characters you see in the table above (in fact, Beluaterra once had nearly double the regions she had above!) In the days when Abington had over 180 characters, just three or four realms in Atamara had more nobles combined than what 14 realms in Atamara provide now. Relatively, the BattleMaster of today is like a ghost town compared to what it was.

I know a lot of people seem to find the older continents boring but I'd say it has a lot to do with how diminished some of the realms are. I cannot adequately describe how much better BattleMaster was when realms had scores of fellow comrades-in-arms for you to interact with. If you add together all the realms in Colonies, Atamara and Far East (Guess where I play? >.<) there are only five out of 26 realms that have more than 40 nobles. Time was you would struggle to find five realms amongst those continents with fewer than 40 nobles. Today some people speak of a 50-60 noble realm as being a big realm. Once realms of that size were practically minnows!



That actually sounds like too high a density to me. Back then it took two or three years before I was promoted to anything. It got really boring. I probably would have quit if Dwilight hadn't opened up. I agree that one noble per region is too few, but four or five is too much given the way the game is now. Unless serious work is put in to give Knights more to do increasing the knight population is just going to decrease the player population.


My guess is that in most realms nowadays lords and council members outnumber knights by a wide margin. These days it isn't difficult to become a lord or a ruler. It's difficult to remain a knight. You don't need to build relationships with anyone to advance and a lot of newer players easily find themselves thrown into the deep end of BattleMaster with barely any advice or experience whatsoever.


Speaking from experience, you're no less thrown into the deep end if you get a lordship after two years then if you get one after two weeks. As it stands now, being a Knight doesn't prepare you in any way for a lordship because there are virtually no shared mechanics. Being Steward might help a tiny bit.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on July 31, 2013, 03:05:56 AM
I won't be deleting EC. It has all the history of this game, in a certain sense, EC is BattleMaster.
I also don't think it would be fair to wipe out BT - they fought for their island and could've lost it, and won against the odds.

I personally would want to delete Dwilight, but I realize it has the most vocal and aggressive fans. However, here is the player density per island:

(http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4894.0;attach=436)

According to that, we should axe BT, Dwilight or Colonies. FEI is much better than everyone here makes it, it has the highest player densite in the game.

I've been on BT for quite a while, now... I've never felt that we "deserved" our victories against the invasions, at least not the last three. All of them felt like there were on a timer: last long enough, and the invasion will end itself, regardless of what you actually do. Surviving was a lot more about having the others attacked instead of yourself than actually defending yourself. The realms who fared the best were the realms that fought the least. The invasions ended in what really felt like deus ex machina all the time: random new dudes giving some unpredictable new means to fight the daimons appeared and the like.

BT was always a continent that you knew an invasion could mean the loss of it all. That doesn't mean anyone will love to lose all they have, there, but it's the fairest island to close.

And I disagree with the assertion that EC "is" BattleMaster. The game's been running for so long, that I'm sure a great portion of the playerbase has never spent any significant amount of time on it. It's also been the source of a whole lot of complaining and player-based issues over the years.

In any case, some reviewed statistics on player retention may be of use.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 31, 2013, 03:15:02 AM
The problem is Beluterra doesn't have many characters. We'd probably have to axe Beluterra and the Colonies to have the desired effect.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Qyasogk on July 31, 2013, 05:35:29 AM
We artificially restrict new players to only being able to play on two out of six islands (I've been playing for almost 8 months and still only get 2 nobles), if both of your nobles are on the same island, then you only get to experience ONE of the six.

I don't know how you can have a discussion about character density and not address that you have a lot of players that would love to play on more than one or two islands, but you are preventing them from doing so.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on July 31, 2013, 06:04:47 AM
Character limits start at 2 for new players? When I first started you could play three.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on July 31, 2013, 06:05:27 AM
We artificially restrict new players to only being able to play on two out of six islands (I've been playing for almost 8 months and still only get 2 nobles), if both of your nobles are on the same island, then you only get to experience ONE of the six.

I don't know how you can have a discussion about character density and not address that you have a lot of players that would love to play on more than one or two islands, but you are preventing them from doing so.

This is a huge part of the problem.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Penchant on July 31, 2013, 08:11:30 AM
We artificially restrict new players to only being able to play on two out of six islands (I've been playing for almost 8 months and still only get 2 nobles), if both of your nobles are on the same island, then you only get to experience ONE of the six.

I don't know how you can have a discussion about character density and not address that you have a lot of players that would love to play on more than one or two islands, but you are preventing them from doing so.
One island is just your own fault, but I can see some reason for two although it still seems to me like some players just aren't really doing much if they don't have 5 fame after awhile. I had I think 10 after playing for a year.

Some easy ones IMO:

1. 10 prestige for a character
2. 20 prestige for a character
3. 20 prestige for a family
4. 2000 family gold is easy with a little bit of effort over time
5. Family Investment can be done if you go for 2000 family gold

There isn't much reason that those can't be achieved within say 6-8 months although if you got a lordship you would get a fame point there and you could found a guild or Secret Society for 2 fame points.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Ketchum on July 31, 2013, 09:10:10 AM
Hmmm the Colonies are undergoing a bit of player forced restructure...if we can ever force the last hold out nation into the Colonial Federation that is.  It is basically a reset back to single city realms with perks for infiltrators and a few other little tidbits all in the hope of creating more action.  If the Colonies were to go...its not bad timing.

Cons are that it is the single turn island... and also would be the end of Outer Tilog.  But tough times call for tough measures.

I am good with what ever... so long as the game keeps trucking.
Well, that is why you and others do a player forced reset or something like that 8)

One unique thing I like about Colonies island is there is 1 turn a day. Other islands have 2 turns a day. Battles on Colonies will be slow, and you need to rethink strategy and adjust to it. Couple with older players who have almost to less time on playing Battlemaster, they mostly prefer Colonies island. Also many island(2 turns a day) Judges seems to like to deport infiltrators here as a kind of "punishment of 1 turn a day". How about if we do a Graph checking on Battlemaster players ages instead? Then we can cater according to the age groups and so on, just like in real life surveys ;)

EDIT: Also if I recall correctly, EC has a Peace time period until Tom decided to lightning bolt all the Rulers and thus the island started their wars again. Will this method work again to regain players interests? ;D
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 31, 2013, 10:52:03 AM
Third, changing character limits. That can be discussed in a different topic, it doesn't solve the problem of dropping player count.

Can we discuss character limits in another thread? We know that an island or two is going to be closed now and discussing character limits/which continents go is perhaps less important than refining the method:

Gathering everything that has been said, I think here's something that most people could live with. Yes, I realize it will be unpopular still, but frankly, if we don't do anything, the game will run into the ground. Please read this in full before you comment:


On the island(s) picked for armageddon, we will implement some kind of "slow" destruction (meaning a few months at most from start to finish). There is a bonus for holding on and surviving. Something along the lines of honour and prestige gains for everyone in a realm that still has more than half their original regions (or something like that, just thinking out loud there).

Some fully-automated outside force will push realms down. A combination of starvation and monster/undead spawns would be fairly easy to do. Rogue regions can not be taken back - what is lost is lost.

However, we realize that people hate losing their realms and social connections. So every realm can retreat in an orderly fashion by declaring a target island. We will manually re-create the realm there and those who flee can join it. Details TBD (landing location? how to get a region or two to get started?). This way, people can move to a different island with their entire realm. Sure, you lose your land and all, but the people are sitll there and you can rebuild.

The longer you hold, the more you win, but if you miss the optimum point to leave, you will make your re-start on the target island more difficult.


This is just a thought, nothing has been set in stone. But do let me know your thoughts.

As I said, lots of things are not thought through.

Religions may have to be re-founded, or we find an option for them as well. Gaining a foothold will be hard, and I expect quite a few realms to perish. However, those with the right strategy, good diplomacy and a tiny bit of luck should be able to make it.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 31, 2013, 11:08:04 AM
Speaking from experience, you're no less thrown into the deep end if you get a lordship after two years then if you get one after two weeks. As it stands now, being a Knight doesn't prepare you in any way for a lordship because there are virtually no shared mechanics. Being Steward might help a tiny bit.

My point was more that a lot of players now are being thrown into positions of power with only a shallow grasp of the game and the roles they're being asked to fill. The mechanics aren't that difficult but people are rising without any sense of what's expected of them or being able to interact well with their fellow players.

The hierarchy in each realm should look more like a pyramid. Lots of knights on the bottom, fewer lords in the middle, then the council and ruler above. Nowadays though hierarchy is top heavy in many realms. Lords and council members can outnumber knights. That can't be healthy from a standpoint of integrating players into the game and spreading around knowledge and experience. I've seen more than one person appointed General simply because no-one else was interested and when called upon to make a city assault, they haven't known about siege engines.

Players shouldn't join BattleMaster and immediately find themselves at the top of the hierarchy in a matter of weeks. Fair enough, we don't want a return to the times when you could wait years to finally find yourself a lordship but it has gone too far in the opposite direction now. That's one of the reasons why it will be a good thing to lose a continent or two and condense the existing player base. Hierarchy will function more like it should.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Jaden on July 31, 2013, 12:59:08 PM
I feel that there should be more positions like Stewards that will enable knights to do more stuff.. Perhaps a Chancellor? Chaplain? Champion?
they should be like Stewards and not show up in titles to prevent people from having a whole page of titles
Small things like those really makes knights feel appreciated
I would also commend Perdan on their system of army promotions, it really feels like you are progressing somewhere and you are not just stuck there as a knight and that your efforts are actually noticed.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Eduardo Almighty on July 31, 2013, 01:12:33 PM
While there's no problems in have more thing to give to the Knights, it's important to have more Knights, after all.

Quote
Players shouldn't join BattleMaster and immediately find themselves at the top of the hierarchy in a matter of weeks.

I had to play in a high level for years, fight against many and many enemies and fight even inside my own Council to become Duke of Avamar with Erik. After that, with the decline of players, I saw many people becoming Duke in a blink and disappearing without a trace in the same speed. Now, even with some solutions like direct appointments, we have people becoming Lord without a word... or worse... I faced some situations with no candidates at all.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on July 31, 2013, 03:59:29 PM
One thing that occurred to me is that now that we know an island is going to sink, it should begin as soon as is feasible. I only play one character, and right now I notice it is demotivating me to do anything much with him regarding the continent and its developments as I am wondering whether or not it will be the island to sink or not. Whatever happens and whichever island is chosen, I hope it shall be declared soon. There may be others who share this sentiment.

Whilst I love Dwilight, if it were to be sunk, my character would live on.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Stabbity on July 31, 2013, 05:40:33 PM
Not to mention Dwilight is the one island where sea travel is actually interesting. Its the only continent where you can do more than sail in a circle around the island... Sea travel on Belu? Yay, one big circle. When it gets implement on other islands? Just as bad.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Eduardo Almighty on July 31, 2013, 05:48:56 PM
I dont know if it helps with density, but that would be good to close an island and then send the people to Dwilight.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on July 31, 2013, 07:00:50 PM
Quote from: Tom
Nothing good can come of a negative poll and discussion. If you want to weigh in, I am a LOT more interested in which islands to definitely KEEP and why.

I know closing islands is about density and this may sound counter-factual, but I think there is an argument to be made for keeping one or even both of the largest continents, Dwilight and Atamara. Solely on the basis of their geography really. They are unique in BattleMaster in the sense of being large, wide and expansive continents. The result is more realms, which should lead to more wars and an absence of monolithic north vs south power blocs. Wars can and do start without an island wide conflagration and they tend to happen all around the continent as opposed to a singal central area on the map. I think it would be a shame if we lost this more open BattleMaster experience completely.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Valast on July 31, 2013, 07:19:47 PM
Hmm... I am not saying it is a good or bad idea but... the Colonies could go.  Let the players emigrate to where ever they want (or need due to character limits on islands) but transport Outer Tilog (and any others who wish to join them) to the Zuma's lands.  Then Outer Tilog continues to exist and can carry on the history of the Colonies.  (Hitch a ride with the Lich King to visit the Zuma)

Sure we loose the Zuma but Outer Tilog is the nearest player driven nation in comparison to them already. 

This would put about 100 characters onto other islands.  Do not get me wrong.  I love the Colonies but truth is we have a lower player count than other islands.  We are the least thought of and least used...but on the other hand also the least complained about.

What the game will loose from the Colonies is a one turn per day island... but all islands and nations are directed to not judge a player by activity level anyway.

Would doing something along this line be considered too much work due to restructuring the Zuma lands ownership from GM to character?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foundation on July 31, 2013, 07:47:03 PM
Consider:

Close BT, migrate to Dwilight (the only testing island left). Close Colonies, migrate to other stable islands.

If the Zuma can be replaced, not assumed, by players, a lot of Zuma specific code can be removed. (Outer Tilog)

Result:

3 stable islands and 1 testing island left (I recommend making Dwilight immigration-only like BT so new players can concentrate on stable islands).
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Blue Star on July 31, 2013, 07:54:57 PM
That sounds good, great idea Foundation.

What about the SMA and will dwilight retain 1 char for island?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foundation on July 31, 2013, 08:16:38 PM
Penchant and Ketchum mentioned that many play on Colonies because they don't have time to play on the other islands. So perhaps closing AT would result in a bigger influx to EC and FEI.

So AT=>EC+FEI, BT=>Dwilight. A very high influx of density to the core islands. If we are going to close islands, might as well do it fully and gain the most benefit possible. One big pain instead of still having to deal with this problem a few years down the road.

I feel that SMA and 1 char per island are issues tangential to the one at hand. I don't see a reason to change them, but those discussions don't influence which island to close as much.


P.S. For the record, Dwilight=>BT and EC=>FEI+AT is an equal proposition in my opinion as these are examples to think about what would happen and what the result might be like.

[EDIT: These scenarios are worth considering as possible results, the individual islands, which is closed and merged into which other one, matter less in this discussion. :) ]
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Jimgerdes on July 31, 2013, 08:51:56 PM
There's a lot of talk about moving realms and cultures over from one island to another.

The problem is that the islands that are being moved to are already saturated with culture.  Sure a realm could emigrate together, and all move to the same realm.  But whatever realm they move into already has lands, and a king, and lords, and history and culture of its own.  You cannot keep both.

It's impossible.  Just something to think about since we're jumping onto the island sinking so fast.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Blue Star on July 31, 2013, 09:23:13 PM
Penchant and Ketchum mentioned that many play on Colonies because they don't have time to play on the other islands. So perhaps closing AT would result in a bigger influx to EC and FEI.

So AT=>EC+FEI, BT=>Dwilight. A very high influx of density to the core islands. If we are going to close islands, might as well do it fully and gain the most benefit possible. One big pain instead of still having to deal with this problem a few years down the road.

I feel that SMA and 1 char per island are issues tangential to the one at hand. I don't see a reason to change them, but those discussions don't influence which island to close as much.


P.S. For the record, Dwilight=>BT and EC=>FEI+AT is an equal proposition in my opinion as these are examples to think about what would happen and what the result might be like.

[EDIT: These scenarios are worth considering as possible results, the individual islands, which is closed and merged into which other one, matter less in this discussion. :) ]

I was bring up the SMA and player allowance only because those on the island may previously have character. it would be more of a incentive for them to keep their old and bring in their new char. Easing the pain of having to pause a char in all.

I just think the SMA on Dwilight should be kept if anything is going to happen to the island or its going to have newcomers come over.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on August 01, 2013, 01:01:18 PM
Consider:

Close BT, migrate to Dwilight (the only testing island left). Close Colonies, migrate to other stable islands.

If the Zuma can be replaced, not assumed, by players, a lot of Zuma specific code can be removed. (Outer Tilog)

Result:

3 stable islands and 1 testing island left (I recommend making Dwilight immigration-only like BT so new players can concentrate on stable islands).

This could... actually follow up to one of my suggestions, about giving the old realms a few regions, without actually stealing any from anyone else and without having to redraw any maps. If the continent to be deleted is lost to rogue spawns, with a winner-takes-all kind of thing, then whatever last realm remains could be given an opportunity to land by the Zuma, with a ton of anti-daimon unique items the previous battles would have granted them, and conquer their way into Zuma land, allowing them to establish themselves there.

Sure, only one or two realms could make it there... but let's be honest here, if we transpose realms into another continent most of them will perish very quickly anyways. It's fairer to have the survivors determined by their success on BT instead of by the number of powerful doubles they already had on the target island.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on August 01, 2013, 05:05:59 PM
One thing that occurred to me is that now that we know an island is going to sink, it should begin as soon as is feasible.

Very little in BM is ever immediate, so I hope everyone will continue playing as usual. There will be ample warning before anything happens.

I do agree, though, that we shouldn't wait forever.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on August 01, 2013, 07:38:55 PM
Tom,

It's not about the time after ample warning, but the knowledge that it could be my island. I know one island is going to sink (and I hope it will be two) and whether I like it or not, it affects my mood, which affects the way I play and how much I dedicate to the continent.

Still, even if it took a year to announce it, sinking an island (or more) is the way to go.

Also, even though it takes time to complete all the related stuff and get it going, might some simple measure be done once the continent is announced? You could right away disable new character creations so that newbies don't accidentally get into something they do not quite understand.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Blue Star on August 01, 2013, 08:04:47 PM
Tom,

It's not about the time after ample warning, but the knowledge that it could be my island. I know one island is going to sink (and I hope it will be two) and whether I like it or not, it affects my mood, which affects the way I play and how much I dedicate to the continent.

Still, even if it took a year to announce it, sinking an island (or more) is the way to go.

Also, even though it takes time to complete all the related stuff and get it going, might some simple measure be done once the continent is announced? You could right away disable new character creations so that newbies don't accidentally get into something they do not quite understand.

Tom will give us fair enough warning about the island(s) when he has made his executive choice. I mean in reality 2 week or a month notice would be sufficient. Long as it's not around the major holiday seasons I believe everyone will have enough time to do what needs to be done.

Game play should not change, I mean invest what you already are into each character, when it comes I tend to RP it in a certain way, but for now I will enjoy making maps, drinking ale and plotting.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Geronus on August 01, 2013, 08:31:40 PM
Tom,

It's not about the time after ample warning, but the knowledge that it could be my island. I know one island is going to sink (and I hope it will be two) and whether I like it or not, it affects my mood, which affects the way I play and how much I dedicate to the continent.

Still, even if it took a year to announce it, sinking an island (or more) is the way to go.

Also, even though it takes time to complete all the related stuff and get it going, might some simple measure be done once the continent is announced? You could right away disable new character creations so that newbies don't accidentally get into something they do not quite understand.

I'm sure we'll all know once the decision has been made one way or the other. If Tom follows through with implementing some sort of migration mechanics, I expect that there could be a significant delay between when it is decided which island(s) are to go and when the process actually begins in the game.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Revan on August 01, 2013, 09:01:28 PM
Just had a thought. What happens if a continent sinks that had your family home on it?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on August 01, 2013, 09:26:12 PM
Just had a thought. What happens if a continent sinks that had your family home on it?

Same thing that happened when SEI/SWI sank. I forget what that was, but it wasn't a huge deal. Heroes can move their family homes.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on August 02, 2013, 01:09:50 AM
It's not about the time after ample warning, but the knowledge that it could be my island. I know one island is going to sink (and I hope it will be two) and whether I like it or not, it affects my mood, which affects the way I play and how much I dedicate to the continent.

Yes, I realize that. Still, it can't be helped. The only way to avoid this would've been to make a decision without involving anyone else.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on August 02, 2013, 05:14:10 AM
Yes, I realize that. Still, it can't be helped. The only way to avoid this would've been to make a decision without involving anyone else.

I suppose that is so. Thank you for involving us in this discussion.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: de Aquitane on August 02, 2013, 06:17:06 PM
I, too, promote the idea that the closing islands should be ones not "special" in OOC means. Colonies has its place as a slow island. FEI is the roleplay island. Dwilight is enforced to be an SMA continent. If EC=BM, then that leaves Atamara and Beluterra. The amount of players is a double edged sword; more players means both more people to distribute to other continents, but more people to possibly leave the game, and cultural supremacy is such an arbitary and bias encouraging thing to discuss that it seems near pointless to me. I don't know of Beluterra's importance as a testing island though.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Blue Star on August 02, 2013, 11:18:48 PM
mm coming to fei I personally haven't seen much role playing, is there a certain realm your referring to?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Foxglove on August 02, 2013, 11:40:33 PM
FEI roleplays happen in fits and starts. It all depends on whether the players have the time to write them. Kindara used to be a massive roleplaying realm where you'd see 10-20 full length RPs per day. I believe both Cathay and Sorraine have had large numbers of RPs in the past.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on August 03, 2013, 12:11:31 AM
Sorraine did for a little while, but then someone left, and someone else switched realms, and on or two paused... it's still a fairly active realm, but not an RP haven.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tiridia on August 03, 2013, 08:44:58 AM
...and then again, writing messages with a tag "roleplay" does not equal roleplaying. An ordinary letter written in character is just as much roleplaying. As long as the characters seem like medieval nobles, then you are playing in a roleplaying environment. Or, should I say, SMA environment.

I have long wished the message tag would be changed to something more appropriate such as "narrative". :)
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: de Aquitane on August 03, 2013, 11:32:23 AM
mm coming to fei I personally haven't seen much role playing, is there a certain realm your referring to?

To be honest my experiences from FEI are quite outdated. A few years back it used to be considered the more roleplay heavy enviroment, and from my recent half year stroll there a while back I still think it's the island where the charecters are furthest away from the players themselves.

But if the continent is no longer considered the RP haven of silly actions, it should play as a choice for the block too.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: SaDiablo on August 04, 2013, 05:35:33 AM
well if your going to have to sink islands, then the islands that sink will have players moving into islands with established realms which results them starting over.  I think something larger needs to be done that can satisfy many parties. It would still have its cons, you can't prevent it and it may take some work and be a challenge but I think the overall pros would outweigh the cons.

Dwilight as an island should stay but it should import realms from the colonies.  The Lich King could cast a spell to do this but its so big and risky it has adverse affects such as sinking parts of Dwilight, non capitals and has part of the colonies and BT rise in its place.  In the Middle of the map you can have the Lich Kings Island, unreachable to the nobility but it can send off random attacks similiar to the BT invasions.  Just a chaotic point some realms would have to deal with.  Combining those realms puts in a unique diversity and can keep a realm like Outer Tilog flowing.

BT should be sunk, its not an island for new players to reach easily and lets be honest and declare the undead/monsters victorious and the gods sink the island in response to it.

FEI was created to be a roleplay island, I don't believe it ever achieved that and it is also the smallest island via the number of regions. Its a good option to end but live at the same time.  The character base there is more chaotic than other realms which is good.

Combine it with EC would bring it up to size with Atamara.

Combining EC with FEI could prove impossible due to shapes but then you could just divide into four sections and combine into something completely insane.  Have majority of regions go rogue from this. 

Atamara by itself is large enough to stand alone imo.  But it should still feel the effects of the other islands.  A large invasion of undead/monsters to destroy as much as possible and to show the gods they didn't quite succeed in destroying all the undead/monsters from BT.

That creates 3 islands but allows you to feasibility keep old histories while new histories are written.

and if this was brought up I apologize but there is 30 pages of comments and that is a lot to read.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: trying on August 04, 2013, 06:40:40 AM
You clearly didn't read the part where Tom said
no new maps
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on August 04, 2013, 07:54:37 AM
You clearly didn't read the part where Tom said
no new maps

He didnt advocate a new map
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on August 04, 2013, 03:47:55 PM
FEI is the roleplay island.

For about the 480th time:

This has not been true for years. The FEI has no special features to it (except seasons, for some reason).
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Naidraug on August 04, 2013, 04:40:06 PM
Would  be good to post this on the game News Ticker. A link to this post, would help a lot of people to be part of the discussion.

Also, if we sunk 1 or 2 islands, and start a big migration, it would be interesting to reset all islands, make all equal. I think it would be fun think, everyone start realms from scratch an has the oportunity to create new cultures on the game.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: trying on August 04, 2013, 05:21:54 PM
He didnt advocate a new map
Yes he did. He wants maps to be merged creating a new map.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Indirik on August 04, 2013, 05:23:03 PM
No resets. Half the players would instantly quit. At least.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Kwanstein on August 04, 2013, 07:33:02 PM
You lost half the player base already, when you decided on using the same maps, no resets, for over a decade. Things don't stay fresh that long, you shouldn't expect them to, and it's evident that things, beginning around 2009-2011, got real tired out. There was suddenly a lack of enthusiasm amongst the player base, with less wars, less realms, less players. This is the most obvious reason for the decline, and it ought to be what you address if you intend on fixing things.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Naidraug on August 04, 2013, 08:01:06 PM
No resets. Half the players would instantly quit. At least.

So what is the plan to retain the players that will "lose"  their island?

BM need a fresh start, a little more support, a mobile version to help people to stay connected and avoid  pausing when travelling (risking the loss of interest when they return)

Right now most of the player retention responsability is on the player not the game.

Now there is the chance to change this, because there is no point on deleting one or more islands if nothing is done to keep the interest of old and new players.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on August 04, 2013, 08:09:40 PM
So what is the plan to retain the players that will "lose"  their island?

BM need a fresh start, a little more support, a mobile version to help people to stay connected and avoid  pausing when travelling (risking the loss of interest when they return)

Right now most of the player retention responsability is on the player not the game.

Now there is the chance to change this, because there is no point on deleting one or more islands if nothing is done to keep the interest of old and new players.

Everything you're talking about doing requires more people's time. Developers' time.

Right now, you know how many developers there are actively doing stuff?

Me.

And I have a real job, and a wife, and at least the rudiments of a social life.

Yes, I would love to be able to say, "Here! Here is the brand-new mobile BattleMaster site, guaranteed to be at least 5000% better than before! Here is a brand-new island to move the people from our X deleted islands to, to get everyone interested in exploring again! Here are the 30 most-needed new features and big changes to make the game in general more fun to play, so everyone playing is more likely to stay, new or not!"

But as much as I honestly enjoy working on BattleMaster development, and do devote a lot of spare time to it, for me to do all that stuff by myself, at the current rates, would take at least a year or two.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Naidraug on August 04, 2013, 08:21:19 PM
Yes also require a proper comunity manager and a monetization plan to elevate the game to a more professional level.

Make it a brand, with professionals dedicated to it full time.




Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Anaris on August 04, 2013, 08:41:08 PM
Yes also require a proper comunity manager and a monetization plan to elevate the game to a more professional level.

Make it a brand, with professionals dedicated to it full time.

If that was even close to the direction we had ever intended to go with BattleMaster, we would have started moving on it long ago.

Obviously it's in Tom's hands, but I feel pretty darn confident stating that BattleMaster is, and will remain, a free game, with no advertising, and no "freemium" features beyond the minor donator bonuses there have always been.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: vonGenf on August 04, 2013, 08:54:03 PM
Yes, I would love to be able to say, "Here! Here is the brand-new mobile BattleMaster site, guaranteed to be at least 5000% better than before!

You know, the mobile site as it currently stands is pretty good and does the job well. Half of my playing time is from a mobile. It has allowed me to stay connected.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Chenier on August 04, 2013, 09:01:55 PM
If that was even close to the direction we had ever intended to go with BattleMaster, we would have started moving on it long ago.

Obviously it's in Tom's hands, but I feel pretty darn confident stating that BattleMaster is, and will remain, a free game, with no advertising, and no "freemium" features beyond the minor donator bonuses there have always been.

And I doubt making it a paid game would help, it would likely just kill the game, and reduce it to a handful of hardcore players.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Naidraug on August 04, 2013, 09:56:18 PM
If that was even close to the direction we had ever intended to go with BattleMaster, we would have started moving on it long ago.

Obviously it's in Tom's hands, but I feel pretty darn confident stating that BattleMaster is, and will remain, a free game, with no advertising, and no "freemium" features beyond the minor donator bonuses there have always been.

Monetize a game does not mean make it paid or filling the game with ads. There are many other ways to m8netize a free game. That would allow it to achieve a more professional lvl with plans to retain players
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on August 05, 2013, 12:22:13 AM
it would be interesting to reset all islands,

Over my dead body. Since the game started, I have made a promise to the player base many times that BM will NEVER experience a complete reset.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on August 05, 2013, 12:24:24 AM
Yes also require a proper comunity manager and a monetization plan to elevate the game to a more professional level.

Make it a brand, with professionals dedicated to it full time.

It exists (well, coming into existence). It's called Might & Fealty (http://mightandfealty.com). Can't be done in BM because I would have to break many, many things to make it a reality, including the promise that BM will always be free.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: SaDiablo on August 05, 2013, 02:48:57 AM
I did apologize in advance I had not read through the 30 pages of comments in this topic.  You really did not need to throw out a big sign like that, a simple comment saying Tom said he did not want to make any more maps would of been fine and polite.

Since that is the case, your going to piss people off, oh freaking well, they will either adapt, quit, or conquer.  Games evolve and games decline, doing what is best for the game overall is the right choice.

Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on August 05, 2013, 02:55:18 AM
For about the 480th time:

This has not been true for years. The FEI has no special features to it (except seasons, for some reason).

Not even that is unique. Dwilight also has seasons.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Naidraug on August 05, 2013, 07:04:10 PM
It exists (well, coming into existence). It's called Might & Fealty (http://mightandfealty.com). Can't be done in BM because I would have to break many, many things to make it a reality, including the promise that BM will always be free.

So,Tom if you don't mind the question, what is the plan?

Keep BM alive for those who are here already, without much thought on how to attract and retain more and new players to it (that should go to Might & Fealty instead) until the game naturally "dies" and everyone moves to the new game

or

Keep BM alive for an indefinite amount of time, attracting new players and restoring the game to an level that you can have a lot of islands for players?

If it is 1 then yes, closing one or more islands is a good idea, and your idea 2 of how to do it is a good and interesting one, it will keep everyone interested and players won't have that "now I have to start all over again" feeling when they join a new realm

If it is 2 then, it will need a little more focus and a better retention plan for players.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Tom on August 05, 2013, 08:50:57 PM
Keep BM alive for an indefinite amount of time, attracting new players and restoring the game to an level that you can have a lot of islands for players?

This, of course.


Quote
If it is 2 then, it will need a little more focus and a better retention plan for players.

Everything in that direction takes a lot of time, but we need to do something to stop the bleed now. Nobody ever said that closing an island is the last thing we'll ever do. We will continue to make the game bigger again. This is just one step.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Valast on August 05, 2013, 10:47:01 PM
Change is and always will be something that causes people to leave.  I am reminded of my Grandparents church growing up...every decade or two it would split and a new church would spin off and grow on its own... what was the cause of those splits?  Change.  New younger more energetic preachers would come in and draw in a younger crowed... This would create friction between old and new understandings and teachings...until one group or the other would move on together.

When I found this game...it was the perfect balance between role play and mechanics for me.  It was exactly what I was looking for.  It still maintains that balance but has become much much more complicated as we all work to see it improved.

Yet throughout all the improvements we have seen, each one brings a bit more change and a bit more complexity.  For example...I have no idea how to be a banker and only limited ideas on being a marshal.  I have been both but before changes that make them how they are now.

While change and evolution of the game is important...and well done... it does create an environment that can cause players to become detached from the way they have learned to play the game.

Imagine the look on a returning player who logs in and expects to see battle groups and a General who can still stab a ruler in the back, but finds that the system of government is now much more complex.

It is a good thing...but it will and has cause players to leave.  Refreshing the player base is the job of the players...I know I have failed to bring more people into the game in a few years.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Gustav Kuriga on August 06, 2013, 12:21:59 AM
I would disagree. I do not think the main responsibility of the player is to bring in more players, although that would be a good thing to do. The main responsibility of a player is to have fun, and if he can't have fun, they shouldn't play.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Naidraug on August 06, 2013, 12:54:06 AM
A player can bring another player to the game, but yes, it is not his responsability.

Also it is not his responsability to make sure that the friend he brought in to play with him likes and stay in the game.

As Gustav said: if a player can't have fun, he shouldn't and he won't play.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Valast on August 06, 2013, 02:28:58 AM
Adding words when quoting someone is rude.

Never said it was the main responsibility... just that it is the job.  You want to play a free game and not invite people to play then the game will not get new people.

We are provided with a free game to play that we love... Tom puts his time in to keep the game going... seems the right thing to do both for the game (which is also for ourselves) and for our friends who we think would like the game (also for ourselves to play with them) to invite people.

I am also being very general with that statement.  Maybe I have no friends... point is it is a social game so invite the society around you to play.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Swiftblade on August 06, 2013, 02:48:44 AM
I agree with Valast wholeheartedly that the community needs to do more to bring more players in, and that the players need to try and bring more players in.

For me its like a shop. There are 2 reasons I would go into a shop. If I needed what it had, or if it had good advertising. Now for me, I barely even look at radio/tv/physical ads anymore, and only pay attention if they bring up something I had previously wanted. However, I am definitely likely to go into a shop, or try a restaurant/food joint if it was recommended to me, and I had even the slightest interest in the stores products. Word of mouth is an extremely powerful advertising tool.

The thing is, not a lot of people go looking for a roleplay heavy, medieval war simulator that is mostly text based. You would have to have quite a bit of previous interest in the subject, or see a review on it from a reviewer you liked to actually try it out. Currently we have Battlemaster on Facebook, but its extremely passive. Facebook is massive, but you still can't expect to just post things and have the masses arrive on your door step. Now if every player recommended the game to 10 people, even if they knew those people might not play, and you got a 1-10% conversion rate on those players, thats between 100-1500 new players. The games not big enough right now to pull, sustain and grow a player base by itself.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on August 06, 2013, 04:08:07 AM
In addition all mid range players should spend some time engaging with newer players. Maybe we should have a "Knights Appreciation Day".
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Bhranthan on August 06, 2013, 12:53:02 PM
In addition all mid range players should spend some time engaging with newer players. Maybe we should have a "Knights Appreciation Day".

Like a Carnaval or a Saturnalia, where the social norms are taken upside down and nobles actually call commoners Sirs and the Commoners elect there own King/Prince.
:)
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: egamma on August 06, 2013, 10:32:22 PM
Posts about contributing by coding have been moved:

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,4987.0.html (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,4987.0.html)
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Valast on August 07, 2013, 01:59:15 AM
In addition all mid range players should spend some time engaging with newer players. Maybe we should have a "Knights Appreciation Day".

I will say that after creating a character the social aspect is all you have left until you learn what you are doing.  I assume many people get board after a few min and never think to log back in.  What would be something that grabs attention and makes them want to come back tomorrow?
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Stabbity on August 07, 2013, 04:48:04 AM
Like a Carnaval or a Saturnalia, where the social norms are taken upside down and nobles actually call commoners Sirs and the Commoners elect there own King/Prince.
:)

BLASPHEMEY!
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: Eduardo Almighty on August 08, 2013, 03:21:42 AM
You can celebrate many events in game... you just need want to do it instead. Dukes can celebrate festivals and holidays, you can events inside guilds and religions.

I offered prizes of 1000, 500 and 100 gold in a RP event... no one replied. People don't want to interecat in some realms and you cannot force them to do it. If they want to be drones, they would be drones and just it.
Title: Re: Closing Islands ?
Post by: pcw27 on August 08, 2013, 05:26:00 AM
I will say that after creating a character the social aspect is all you have left until you learn what you are doing.  I assume many people get board after a few min and never think to log back in.  What would be something that grabs attention and makes them want to come back tomorrow?

Well while there was a stalemate in Strombran I invited my vassal for a sparring match. He said he was on his way. Then the war heated up again.