BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: egamma on July 31, 2013, 03:14:16 PM
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The continents are in alphabetical order, by the way.
Please provide a reason for the islands you want to keep.
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Honestly I think in the end it will be decided by data and generally available information rather than on personal preference of the forum's vocal crowd.
This is one of the things for which a poll will not aid the decision making process.
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I am locking this topic and the vote.
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.
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Okay, I've redone the thread and poll and reset votes.
I want to keep Dwilight because it's very popular; I like the 1-character limit; and it seems to be the most active continent.
I want to keep the Colonies because it's the only 1-turn-per-day island, and there are several people who simply can't play two turns a day.
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I wish to keep Dwilight because of the unique nature of contient, and the rp atmosphere. I also like the size of Dwilight and the amount of different realms. I found a lot of the other continents to be too small for my liking.
Beluterra, because the invasion and magic concept seems cool, despite the massive damage caused to the lands.
Atamara, I'm kinda meh about, as well as Far East Island. I believe bringing sea travel would spice things up on these islands.
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Atamara! Old, great history... even with all of its problematic diplomacy and powerbalance, its great place to play... very harsh, very violent and aggressive island.
Beluaterra! Also great history, always something happening and full of surprises.
Mayby EC...
Now, these are the only continents i have chars :P Well, not EC anymore, so thats why there is that mayby :)
I really think, most people will vote the islands they have chars, they have chars on those islands for reason... mayby if you could choose only one.
-Jaune
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My choices to keep:
The East Continent because of its depth of history that still has an impact on current events, interesting politics, and lively and diverse religious aspect.
The Far East Island because, taken as a whole, it has the friendliest playing atmosphere I've found in the game. Lots of well defined, and well played, characters and realms. Good roleplay. The smaller number of regions mean that realms compete for limited space much more than on the bigger islands, leading to island-wide wars in recent times.
My last choice is Atamara. I've mainly chosen this one because I think the map has good potential as a target island for invading realms from the closing island/islands. It's a big territory with very few choke points and good travel times between regions, meaning that the migrating realms would stand a good chance of gaining footholds and their arrival would trigger all sorts of wars that would shake up the status quo in a fun way.
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Dwilight: Because I like 1 char policy, the dynamic and the activity.
FEI: Because I hear good things about it
EC: Seems like there are some alright wars going on (?)
I have chars in Dwi & Atamara (not enough fame), didn't pick AT, because I feel like nothing will ever change there.
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I would keep Dwilight. It's quite a bit different that the other islands. The odd geography and long travel times have given rise to some truly unique cultures like Luria and Sanguis Astroism.
I also feel that it is one of the better islands for retention, based on personal experience. Many of the older islands feature realms with static political cultures and entrenched characters with virtual monopolies on power and influence. Some of these realms (and even entire islands) have effectively become the personal sandboxes of a small handful of players. When I first joined the game in 2008 with a small group of friends, I joined a realm and island such as I am describing. The culture I first encountered there was a huge turnoff, to put it lightly. Within two months I had left the island with my friends and emigrated to the then-new Dwilight. Had that experience not proven to be significantly better, I likely would have quickly given up on the game.
The long and continuous history of BM islands, while in some ways a boon, is detrimental to the health of the game in other ways; on many stable islands meaningful turnover at the highest levels is virtually non-existent in some realms (if not most realms), and all the plum positions simply rotate between a set cast of characters that changes only rarely. One of the best things about Dwilight (and also Beluaterra before the Invasions were officially ended) is that this dynamic has yet to set in (or in BT's case was completely upset every time an Invasion happened). In both cases, opportunities were and are there for newer players to join realms that truly need them, not as cogs in a machine, but as leaders and story-makers in their own right. That's the opportunity that I had with Astrum, and it is definitely what hooked me to the game. I eventually had similar experiences on Beluaterra. I have notably failed to find such opportunities anywhere else, despite (in some cases years-long) sojourns on the stable islands, excluding the Colonies. I even had a ruler on one of the stable islands once, but it wasn't much fun, it was mostly a chore. Thanks to preexisting power structures and entrenched relationships on the island, I had virtually no ability to make a difference. There was nothing I could do as a ruler that mattered at all in the long run, so I found it to be totally uninteresting and gave it up within a few months.
My point is, Dwilight (and maybe BT still, though BT has started to stagnate now) bring something to the game that is different than the other islands: A more welcoming, dynamic and open-ended experience. Change is still possible (and frequent), turnover in the leadership positions in still relatively high, and alliances and relationships between realms are still shifting to an extent not seen in most other places.
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I would randomly select 1 of the 2 testing islands to keep, and randomly select 3 of the 4 stable islands to keep.
That is all.
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I would keep Dwilight. It's SMA, have the one-noble rule... It's different. 8)
The other islands? I wouldn't mind too much if they sunk! ;D
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Dwilight: super unique and I like it, see others' comments.
Beluaterra: I've always had fun on Beluaterra with now like 5 different characters, which makes it the only continent I can say that about besides Dwilight, where I've only actually had one character.
Colonies: I've never played there, but, again, it's so unique and different than the others, and I recall from my retention stats a while back it actually had some of the strongest retention info. I think it appeals to a unique player set we shouldn't lose.
I'd suggest closing one of the two continents with the most overlapping characters; i.e. find the two continents with the most accounts that overlap between them (and maybe don't overlap elsewhere), and delete one of those continents, so you minimize the chance of deleting one of the only continents people like. I'd wager that means deleting either FEI, EI, or Atamara.
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Dwilight for many many reasons. In addition to my love of its unique culture, history, geography and politics it somehow feels especially wrong to kill off the youngest continent.
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I would like to keep Dwilight and East Continent.
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I'm starting to regret the "three islands"...I think we would have more meaningful results if players only picked 2 islands.
I would like to note that you can choose only one island to keep, or two.
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I think the reasons people have for which island should be kept are more important than the sheer number choosing a particular option.
The pool of players contributing to the poll is likely not a sufficient representation of the player base as a whole, but their sentiments may certainly be widely shared among their peers.
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I chose just Atamara. It's honestly the only island(well, Darka's the only realm) that has kept my interest in the game. I've played there for close to 10 years so there's a lot of attachment to it. Closing it would make me seriously think about quitting the entire game. I've been to pretty much all the other islands and none of them have managed to draw me in as much.
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I honestly never thought I'd hear someone say that about Atamara...
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Well i would say that Atamara is the island of constants and it appeals to some people. When there's a betrayal, it's a big deal.
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I definitely think Dwilight should stay, for all the reasons stated above.
I picked FEI, EC and Dwilight because I think they form a good geographical mix: a small island, a medium island and a huge island. I hope that kind of diversity can remain in the game. The worst result would be to close FEI, Colonies and Dwilight and stay with all the other islands at roughly the same size.
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Should this thread or the thread on closing island be posted on the front page in the News ticker? More people should be made aware of the decisions that will be made.
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I honestly never thought I'd hear someone say that about Atamara...
There are a lot of people that love Atamara. They just don't participate in the forums. That's why the forums are a very poor choice for gauging the opinions of the players, especially in a matter such as this.
Atamara has its good points. It has large realms, active wars, constant warfare, mostly straightforward politics. And lots of characters. That fact alone should tell you how much people love to play on Atamara. They just don't come here. Probably because when they do, they get barraged by "Atamara sucks!"
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Should this thread or the thread on closing island be posted on the front page in the News ticker? More people should be made aware of the decisions that will be made.
Good idea, but not necessary at this time, as this poll will not be used as a numerical indicator, just to grasp a general idea of the sentiment out there. e.g. if just one person expresses a vocal opinion of AT is good, it won't mean AT will not be kept.
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I choose FEI, Atamara, and Dwilight.
FEI because I think there is a fantastic diversity of cultures and realms paired with players that genuinely make the game interesting.
Atamara because, while I don't care to play there anymore, I think there is potential for something interesting there.
Dwilight because, while it hasnt always worked for me, the sheer diversity and opportunities that could be had there seem to be worth holding onto. Plus it works nicely for a testing island.
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I thought the proposal was to eliminate one island, not to only leave three. Just saying.
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Good idea, but not necessary at this time, as this poll will not be used as a numerical indicator, just to grasp a general idea of the sentiment out there. e.g. if just one person expresses a vocal opinion of AT is good, it won't mean AT will not be kept.
Quite frankly, the results of the poll will be entirely ignored, at least by me.
I'm interested in the reasons mostly to check if there's anything I didn't think about myself already. But again, neither quality nor quantity makes a difference, because the majority of players do not participate in the forum discussions anyways.
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Tom,
You could make a game-wide GM post that links to some survey if you want representation. I would make it a simple one, such as simply asking for one island to keep and why, with one open question that has a limit to how much text you can type in. That is, if you are at all interested in the results of such a survey.
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I thought the proposal was to eliminate one island, not to only leave three. Just saying.
Like Tom says, this is entirely unofficial.
If I asked for only one island, I think we would get a lot of "Dwilight" responses, which wouldn't be as useful as knowing which two, or which three, islands are the most loved. 64% of players voted for Dwilight as one of their three islands. Now, I don't know if Dwilight was #1, #2, or #3 on their list, but knowing that 2/3rds of the players (who voted) want to keep it is a pretty strong indicator. 55% voted for FEI, and only 12% voted for the Colonies. AT, BE, and EC are basically tied, which I find interesting.
In a couple of weeks I can start another poll where keeping Dwilight and FEI as taken for granted as being safe, and people have to choose to keep 1 of the four remaining islands, assuming we don't have any major changes in the numbers.
And Tom wants to keep EC, so maybe I can drop that from the running, leaving AT,BE, and the Colonies. Then the numbers may get especially interesting.
But, I wanted to have an open poll for now.
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only 12% voted for the Colonies
And Tom wants to keep EC, so maybe I can drop that from the running, leaving AT,BE, and the Colonies. Then the numbers may get especially interesting.
By its very nature as a small continent, Colonies has very few players in comparison to any of the other islands. I expect all these polls will reveal is where people are playing in the largest numbers already rather than any new insights.
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By its very nature as a small continent, Colonies has very few players in comparison to any of the other islands.
I know, I play there--and I think you do too. The Colonies are special, due to the one turn a day, so I doubt they are going away.
I expect all these polls will reveal is where people are playing in the largest numbers already rather than any new insights.
Quite possibly. I probably should have made the poll a "choose two" poll, or possibly a "choose 1" with Dwilight excluded.
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I personally want to keep EC. EC has a lot of immense history and its the first Island i joined. I have just now started entering into the role of lordship between two realms. I enjoy the people and characters i play with. Plus i want to shove a siege engine into Ibladesh just once!
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I chose Dwilight, Beluaterra, and EI.
Dwilight because I <3 it way too much for my own good. Its vast, has unique geographical situations compared to other continents, vibrant history thats still affecting the present, more frequent turnover, religion that matters to characters, and has the one-noble-per-family rule. Its played by about half the playerbase, from my rough estimations, so that gives me an initial understanding that it has good player density. It also has a good record of player retention, in the past (though I still think a retention study should be done before choosing an island). I do think Dwilight should have increased rogue spawn rates though, to make up for its increased size.
Beluaterra is still dealing with the ramifications of its changed geography, has good character density, more frequent turnover, and a vibrant history thats still affecting the present. It also has a good record of player retention, in the past.
EI and Atamara I was split on. I've enjoyed both continents immensely throughout my playing experience and would miss either (hopefully they'd be frozen to be recolonized when player density increased). If our goal is to reduce density, I think something is to be said for keeping the continent with fewer regions, especially if Dwilight is kept already. With a higher density, the realms will divide into smaller blocks with faster wars and more internal competition between involved players. FEI has fewer regions too, but that also makes it harder for smaller realms to arise since they are so close to neighboring cities from the beginning. EI would offer secessions at least buffer regions between the border and their capital.
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There are a lot of people that love Atamara. They just don't participate in the forums. That's why the forums are a very poor choice for gauging the opinions of the players, especially in a matter such as this.
Atamara has its good points. It has large realms, active wars, constant warfare, mostly straightforward politics. And lots of characters. That fact alone should tell you how much people love to play on Atamara. They just don't come here. Probably because when they do, they get barraged by "Atamara sucks!"
I remember it being in total peace several times.
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I remember it being in total peace several times.
It must have been several years ago since you have been on AT. I am less than a month away from my second year of playing (it feels like its been longer than that) and AT has been in constant warfare long before I got there.
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It must have been several years ago since you have been on AT. I am less than a month away from my second year of playing (it feels like its been longer than that) and AT has been in constant warfare long before I got there.
That was because of what I'll call the Great War that is technically still going on even though it's basically over. Prior to that things were quite dull - periods of peace interspersed with one-sided wars featuring the League of the Eagle vs. <insert latest over-matched victim here>.
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FEI and Dwi deserve to stay because of their retention statistics. Colonies is different, worth keeping, and removing it wouldn't change enough anyways.
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You could make a game-wide GM post that links to some survey if you want representation.
I don't. BM is not a democratic game, and some things are not about opinions. You don't vote on the speed of light. Comments I appreciate, votes mean nothing.
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I don't. BM is not a democratic game, and some things are not about opinions. You don't vote on the speed of light. Comments I appreciate, votes mean nothing.
Then scratch the quantitative data and get the players to comment. Not all do the forum thing. It could be some GM ran game-wide referendum with a link in the announcements that leads into a page with a simple box where to click a continent you want to keep and reasons for why. Though perhaps the forum is enough of a sample when it comes to the particular features of any given island.
I would keep Dwilight, because of the unique map, interesting sea travel, doughnuts around the cities, SMA and Sanguis Astroism, even if I will likely never play in that religion.
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That was because of what I'll call the Great War that is technically still going on even though it's basically over. Prior to that things were quite dull - periods of peace interspersed with one-sided wars featuring the League of the Eagle vs. <insert latest over-matched victim here>.
I remember Atamara being all about trench sitting. If one side attacks they would lose so we just sat there killing each other's scouts.
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Like Tom says, this is entirely unofficial.
If I asked for only one island, I think we would get a lot of "Dwilight" responses, which wouldn't be as useful as knowing which two, or which three, islands are the most loved. 64% of players voted for Dwilight as one of their three islands. Now, I don't know if Dwilight was #1, #2, or #3 on their list, but knowing that 2/3rds of the players (who voted) want to keep it is a pretty strong indicator. 55% voted for FEI, and only 12% voted for the Colonies. AT, BE, and EC are basically tied, which I find interesting.
In a couple of weeks I can start another poll where keeping Dwilight and FEI as taken for granted as being safe, and people have to choose to keep 1 of the four remaining islands, assuming we don't have any major changes in the numbers.
And Tom wants to keep EC, so maybe I can drop that from the running, leaving AT,BE, and the Colonies. Then the numbers may get especially interesting.
But, I wanted to have an open poll for now.
Did Tom say he wanted to drop three islands? Maybe you misunderstood the post you quoted. I believe the discussion was about dropping one island and saving the other five, not dropping three and only keeping three.
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You misunderstood his post, he simply wants to make a poll with the three least popular islands.
Imo Colonies should be dropped from the poll as it has a unique crowd.
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I suggest to keep East Continent and Atamara, simply because they are the oldest and almost everyone plays there. Without them, BM is not BM.
Then I also suggest to keep Colonies, because it is unique in terms of game speed and some wish to play only there due to this unique point.
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Stay Calm (About Poll) And Keep Commenting. ;)
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I suggest to keep East Continent and Atamara, simply because they are the oldest and almost everyone plays there. Without them, BM is not BM.
Then I also suggest to keep Colonies, because it is unique in terms of game speed and some wish to play only there due to this unique point.
About half the player-base plays on Dwilight alone. Considering that Atamara only has a similar number of characters because you're allowed to have two nobles there, that's saying something. You'd probably have to combine East Continent and Atamara to get the same number of players.
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To recap the advantages of Dwilight, sticking mainly with the ones which are objective.
1. It has the highest retention rates.
2. It is a unique map (as opposed to copy pasted maps such as Far East or Beluterra)
3. Its geography makes sea zones a more significant feature.
4. It's "doughnut region" feature allows more realistic siege warfare. Again this feature is not found on any other map.
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About half the player-base plays on Dwilight alone.
Careful with wording here.
Only 8 people play solely on Dwilight. The continent with the most players only on that continent is Atamara, at 32.
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Isn't Atamara still the recommended starter continent? How many of those players are on their first character?
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Careful with wording here.
Only 8 people play solely on Dwilight. The continent with the most players only on that continent is Atamara, at 32.
You know that doesn't help your case... That just means people who play on Dwilight are more likely to contribute characters on other continents, and therefore not a part of the issue with character density. Whereas players on Atamara tend towards only contributing to one continent, and are not playing on other continents.
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Yeah. If they used up their other slots that's like 60 characters for the other game worlds.
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You know that doesn't help your case...
He's not making a case. He's pointing out the error in your wording. Your statement implied that half of the playerbase *only* plays on Dwilight and no other island at all.
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He's not making a case. He's pointing out the error in your wording. Your statement implied that half of the playerbase *only* plays on Dwilight and no other island at all.
I actually never got that implication from the initial post. To me it read as half the player base having a character there.
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He's not making a case. He's pointing out the error in your wording. Your statement implied that half of the playerbase *only* plays on Dwilight and no other island at all.
No, my statement implied that Dwilight *alone* has half the player base playing on it.
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Sentences can imply many things. It's up to the writer and the reader to work together to find out their meanings. For instance, in that last sentence which meanings were I talking about, the meanings of sentences or the meanings of the writer and reader?
And when the knight stabs a guy with a sword, is it a knight using a sword to stab a guy or is it a guy with a sword getting stabbed by a knight.
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Also, I voted for Dwilight because it's the only place that I know of that has a significant (or even noticeable) level of interaction and also because the diplomacy isn't yet predictable and repetitive the way it is elsewhere.
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Yeah. If they used up their other slots that's like 60 characters for the other game worlds.
Since these 32 people probably choose not to play on the other islands, it's entirely possible that they would just quit, and wouldn't help the density of the other islands.
It's also possible that some of them would launch a character on each of the remaining islands and after finding one they like, double up there like they did an Atamara and then pause their other characters.
Which continent is most like Atamara, in terms of feel? FEI?
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Since these 32 people probably choose not to play on the other islands, it's entirely possible that they would just quit, and wouldn't help the density of the other islands.
It's also possible that some of them would launch a character on each of the remaining islands and after finding one they like, double up there like they did an Atamara and then pause their other characters.
Which continent is most like Atamara, in terms of feel? FEI?
Probably East Island, since it has new realms but the same deadlocked feeling to it.
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Since these 32 people probably choose not to play on the other islands, it's entirely possible that they would just quit, and wouldn't help the density of the other islands.
No I meant right now they could be providing 60 characters and then we might not have to close anything.
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Maybe we should start expanding the 1 character per continent to other continents. I've never been a fan of changing the rules after the fact, but if we are going to close a whole continent, it doesn't seem as bad anymore, in comparison.
The solution may not be more characters per players (though I do understand the point some raise that lowering the max noble count of newbies is likely to be rather bad measure despite how I originally held it as being a good way to reward long-time players), but spreading players around a bit. I've always thought that forcing this upon newbies would likely be good for player retention... but perhaps it wouldn't limit itself to that. That rule really has dramatic impacts on inter-character interactions. When one has two nobles in the same realm, in the vast majority of cases the second character is just a bland drone that serves as an extension of the former and nothing else. The 1 character rule makes things more dynamic, which can only help making realms more fun, and thus improve retention everywhere. It might also force players to diversify the realms they play in a bit, and they might just realize they like those new realms too and want to invest themselves there.
I'd propose, for max noble/ active character count:
New account, private info: 2/3
New account, public info: 4/4
Old account, private info: 3/4+
Old account, public info: 4/5+
Overall, though, I'd reiterate my previous points: We will not fix BM's problem by shutting down continents. This is a band-aid solution. It will make things better for a while, but there's no reason to believe it would, in any way, reverse the decline. The only solution to that problem is to make the game more fun. So the main objects of discussion should not be how many islands we shut down and which, but how do we reverse the trend of player decline? Because if that is not addressed, it doesn't matter which continent we shut down first, in the end we'll be shutting them all down.
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Shutting down a continent, and raising density, will make people feel like they are playing a game with others, rather than playing by themselves in a digital wasteland.
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Shutting down a continent, and raising density, will make people feel like they are playing a game with others, rather than playing by themselves in a digital wasteland.
Yes it will, but alone it will not solve the problem of player retention.
Edit after vote:
Dwilight: good atmosphere and is a test island, if we should keep one of them, Dwilight is an interesting one.
Colonies: never played there, but it gives you a diferent pace on the game with only one turn, this might be good for those who really don't have much time to play
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Moderator: deleted insult against every forum user (excluding, presumably, Kai)
I picked colonies because 1 turn/day, then EC and Atamara because the rest seem more snobby.
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Dwilight, Atamara, and the FEI.
Coincidentally, my characters are on Dwilight, Atamara, and the FEI. Whine about it if you want - we all know that's how everyone voted. Giving them three choices (for three characters?) was practically asking for the "save my character's home" thing.
But seriously, Dwilight and FEI should be kept for sure. Dwilight has a huge number of distinctive features: SMA, donut-cities, being a testing island (that is more interesting than BT), having big ol' sea zones, and so forth. FEI is amusing because it's probably the closest we'll get to a "war island" without specifically adding one at this point. Atamara is forgettable, admittedly. I only chose it because there were republics there, and I prefer them for personal reasons.
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I voted for Atamara, EC and Far East Island. The latter because of its smaller scope, roleplay environment; the first because it's a kind of "standard" island, and great for getting into the game. EC because I hear much the same, though I've only played a character in it once many years ago.
My own characters are on Dwilight and FEI, by the way.
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Dwilight, Atamara, and the FEI.
Coincidentally, my characters are on Dwilight, Atamara, and the FEI. Whine about it if you want - we all know that's how everyone voted. Giving them three choices (for three characters?) was practically asking for the "save my character's home" thing.
But seriously, Dwilight and FEI should be kept for sure. Dwilight has a huge number of distinctive features: SMA, donut-cities, being a testing island (that is more interesting than BT), having big ol' sea zones, and so forth. FEI is amusing because it's probably the closest we'll get to a "war island" without specifically adding one at this point. Atamara is forgettable, admittedly. I only chose it because there were republics there, and I prefer them for personal reasons.
Actually I've got characters on Atamara and Colonies and they can both sink for all I care. I do however want Dwilight to stay.
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I voted for Atamara, EC and Far East Island. The latter because of its smaller scope, roleplay environment; the first because it's a kind of "standard" island, and great for getting into the game. EC because I hear much the same, though I've only played a character in it once many years ago.
My own characters are on Dwilight and FEI, by the way.
Atamara is a horrible island for getting into the game. There is little talking, all power is basically calcified and won't move an inch. Its only good for making a drone character anymore.
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I would be fine sinking every continent except for Dwilight and just making everyone play one noble on Dwilight, honestly.
I'm not saying this is what we should do, I'm just saying I wouldn't really be that upset about it....
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Dwilight, Atamara, and the FEI.
Coincidentally, my characters are on Dwilight, Atamara, and the FEI. Whine about it if you want - we all know that's how everyone voted. Giving them three choices (for three characters?) was practically asking for the "save my character's home" thing.
2/3 of my votes went to continents I have not played in for many, many years. So I guess you speak for yourself.
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I think half of the people that voted for the Colonies, said that they didn't play there, but were supportive of those who did. I like the fact that we had a lot of players want to support those who can only play one turn a day, and used one of their votes to say so.
And, I play on three islands, but voted only for 2 (and yes, I play on both).
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I would be fine sinking every continent except for Dwilight and just making everyone play one noble on Dwilight, honestly.
I'm not saying this is what we should do, I'm just saying I wouldn't really be that upset about it....
I would be fine sinking every continent and making a new one with 1 city region where we run 1000 player tournaments for eternity.
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Hmmm... it would be kind of awesome to connect all islands to one big continent. Max 2 nobles + 1 advy.
and remove silly distance penalties.... and make it round, so you could travel around to world.... Ok old topic, and reply is off topic... good job Jaune!
-Jaune
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Hmmm... it would be kind of awesome to connect all islands to one big continent. Max 2 nobles + 1 advy.
and remove silly distance penalties.... and make it round, so you could travel around to world.... Ok old topic, and reply is off topic... good job Jaune!
-Jaune
Hmmm... it would be kind of awesome to connect all islands to one big continent. Max 2 nobles + 1 advy.
Max 2 nobles + 1 advy.
2 nobles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0QbXfvbjFk