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BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Indirik on March 30, 2015, 11:14:57 PM
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Discuss.
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On the one hand, I agree that being able to play several character on one continent leads to all kinds of power hoarding/metagame.
On the other hand, it helps populate the servers.
But yeah, that is one of the reasons I like Dwilight the most.
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I for one have to agree with this. It distracts you from other characters and eventually you only pay attention to one or two while making other characters into zombies...
More reason to close down islands and just go with one big 'round looking' island with maybe max of 2 chars per each player but Tim is busy and can't spend time one something that will take a year of dev time :(
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On the one hand, I agree that being able to play several character on one continent leads to all kinds of power hoarding/metagame.
Yeah, that sucks. I'm a big fan of one-character-per-continent.
On the other hand, it helps populate the servers.
But what's the point if all those islands are, essentially, carbon copies of each other? When the same people get together to play in common realms on four different islands, how unique do you think each of those is going to be? Instead, what we get is Sartanism and the Church of Humanity on four different islands. *yawn*
Don't get me wrong, both of these points you bring up are valid. And the game needs both leaders to point people which direction to march *and* sheeple to march in that direction.
I do have a few more ideas on why I think that opening the game up to 5 and 6 characters per account is the wrong move, though. Some of my characters have certain things to achieve, and when they do, or when they die, I doubt I will be replacing them.
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We're basically on the same page, Indirik, but I'm playing devil's advocate for the sake of keeping the discourse objective.
For once, playing on several isles, even if they are pretty much identical, allows for different experiences. You play a tourney knight on one continent, on another you play a priest of a new religion or an infiltrator. Makes sense.
Again, I can come up with no redeeming arguements for having two characters on the same isle.
Playing a lot of characters is likewise kind of cheesy. There is no way you can invest enough time in, say, 5 nobles. Obviously at least half of them are there for power hoarding.
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I absolutely agree. Too many characters across more realms and islands means more opportunities to gain positions, there being more of them and less folks to hold them. Thus, the positions aren't as challenging to acquire and thus less exciting to gain. Too many characters means player focus is diluted between more characters meaning less emphasis on each character, which then affects the other characters playing with them. Especially when considering how many of our players lead busy lives and must delay responses, thus delaying IC events.
More indirectly, with all the continents and realms we have for these additional characters, it just means more places for new players to join, find uninteresting, and leave.
I firmly believe that all continents should be capped at one unpaused noble and one unpaused advy per family. Even with that, I think we have too many continents. I think War Islands and Colonies have purpose with their unique reasons. Other than those, I don't think we need any more than a stable and testing island of small to moderate size. Somewhat related, I also think new players should start with three nobles, not two, and no advies until after the first couple months.
PS: I do my best to actively play all my characters, but it absolutely affects the focus I'm able to give each one. My War Island character is meant to take my least attention, but I still do more than just check orders too.
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Lets also cover the fact, that you can look at a few notable families and see that all or most of their characters hold high positions. It is not like having more positions is necessarily opening up those positions for more players.
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My family at one point held multiple ducal positions which brought multiple cities as well. And this was when I was most active too. But even then I only paid attention to 2 at most.
I actually think 2 characters per new family is fine IF we reduce the number of playable islands down to 4 (colonies, stable, testing, war island).
Also, the testing island should be used for testing as well to get feedback for the game and let people know that bugs can occur often. I've heard some people complaining about changing game mechanics on testing islands that affect their realms.
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A sound plan, but I still want a SMM isle too.
That said, is there even a chance of such an overhaul happening?
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A sound plan, but I still want a SMM isle too.
That said, is there even a chance of such an overhaul happening?
Nope. Tom doesn't want it.
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Lets also cover the fact, that you can look at a few notable families and see that all or most of their characters hold high positions. It is not like having more positions is necessarily opening up those positions for more players.
There are certainly some players with most or all characters holding significant position. And just returns us to my other point, and the one Zakky emphasized, of not enough focus into all those characters and how they then affect their realms without that focus. And your counterpoint is hardly universal - it is leaving more positions to more players. Just as there are politically savvy/power hungry families with many positions, there are plenty of instances of realms with a character holding most council positions and plenty of realms that can hardly find folks to fill positions. If anyone wants a position, it is not difficult to do so, so you will find families who suck up all they can as well as plenty of families who will take what is left lying around.
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I don't actually mind playing a drone character or two. That's how I started out in both Luria and Thalmarkin, but I somehow got involved into those realms (or their predecessor, in Luria's case) and now I hold all sorts of titles there. The issue comes when you get yourself overinvested in more characters than you can comfortably handle; at this point, you are at risk of becoming an "idle" council member/lord/marhsal that may bog things down. Something we should all try to avoid, perhaps, but it's not always to let go of
the one ring moderate power.
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Hmm... I had not intended to start this thread and abandon it, but sometimes life intrudes, and forces us to do what we have to do, instead of what we want to do.
Anyway, there are quite a few reasons I think that adding more characters has actually moved us in the wrong direction. Most of them have already been hit on by others. Here's a rundown of my own reasons, some of which are duplicated from above.
1) Having a large number of characters creates more opportunities for power hording. Players who really enjoy this game tend to quickly learn how to gain positions, Once gained, positions are easy to hold. A quick rundown on my own characters:
* EC: Ruler
* AT: General, Lord (stepped down from general ~2 days ago)
* BT: Banker, Lord (lost banker re-election yesterday)
* FEI: Ruler, Duke
* SI: Duke, Margrave
* DW: Margrave, Vice Marshal
Do I really need to hold four council-level positions with four different characters on four different islands, in addition to the various duchies and lordships? As a result of holding all of these positions, I really don't care when a new position opens up in one of these realms. I have all the positions I want, and have access to more, if I really wanted them. Lots of other people apparently feel the same way, judging by the now-common occurrence of elections for council-level offices failing because no one runs, or the offices staying vacant because no one wants to be appointed. I've even seen circumstances where the only person that wants the office refuses to run, deliberately allowing the election to fail so he could make a point. He knows no one else will run, and can afford to allow the election to fail, then run and get the office in the next round. In some realms, region lordships are essentially meaningless, because anyone who wants one already has one, and there are more to spare for the next dozen nobles who show up.
The combination of lots of characters per player, and ready availability of positions and lordships pretty much everywhere has devalued their significance and desirability. If I only had three characters, that general's position would have meant more to me, and I probably could have found some way to contribute with it, instead of becoming a zombie.
2) The greater number of positions being help by the same person creates more demands on players' time. There is only so much time in a person's day. I used to spend multiple hours a day running just three characters. Now I've got six characters, but less time overall to play. So my characters end up being what I've always despised: Idle placeholders. Characters who hold positions of power, but let that power go unused, not contributing to my own fun, or the fun of the other players in the game. So I've started shedding positions. It's one thing to run your landless knight as a zombie drone, but running your combination general/duke/margrave/marshal/ambassador as a zombie is criminal.
3) Having lots of characters available is an enabler of one of my pet peeves: Propping up tiny realms with lots of doubled-up characters. (Or reinforcing large realms with an even larger contingent of ultra-reliable, ultra-loyal drones.) This is one of the reasons I liked Dwilight so much. One character per account, with no way for two or three people run a realm all by themselves with doubled-up characters. You either had to openly horde power by carrying all those titles around on one character (and thus people could easily tell what was happening) or you had to allow other people to join in the fun. (Interestingly enough, the most insular, friendless, and despised realms on Dwilight (Averoth and Aurvandil) both turned out to be giant multi-accounting scams.)
Doubled characters in a realm also lead to a proliferation of zombie characters in that realm. Yes, there are exceptions, but doubled characters tend to be zombies or practically NPCs. They rarely add anything useful to the realm beyond holding a spot. At worst, they are used by the player as nothing more than a second voice to parrot their main character's agenda.
Running multiple characters per island is a slightly different beast. It is in some ways both better and worse than doubling up in one realm. It doesn't allow some of the same concentration of power in a single realm. What it does allow is for more secret, non-obvious, and/or unbreakable ties between realms. You may not be able to run a ruler in two realms, but two or three people with doubled character on an island can easily have an unbreakable hold on two realms.
4) With everyone running so many characters, it can be difficult to get away from players you just don't like. We all know that there's always that one (or two, or ten...) player that you just can't get along with. But with everyone running so many characters, it can be almost impossible to get away from them. You leave the realm they're in on FEI, and two weeks later they join the realm you're in on AT. You pause that character and start another on EC, but they're already there, too! It may seem like a minor thing, but playing in a realm with a player you just can't stand can be damn painful, and just suck the fun right out of the game. A shrinking player base, and profusion of characters, can really cut down on the places you can enjoy playing.
5) A profusion of zombie characters leads to more quiet realms, where only a few players ever truly interact. Alice and Bob may both have characters in the same 5 realms. But if Alice likes Keplerstan and Bob likes Evilstani, then they are going to focus their attention in different realms. Alice and Bob may play in the same realms, but they never interact, because they don't care about each others' favorite realms. If both of them played in Keplerstan and Evilstani, and no other realms, then they would be much likely to devote time to those realms, and thus interact more.
The more I think about it, the more I think that our reaction to the shrinking playerbase (giving people more character slots and slightly decreasing the available land) was not the right way to go. The extra slots just diluted the meaningfulness of the characters we had. The slight shrinkage wasn't enough to compensate for that dilution.
I think that the drastic action of closing islands (yes, multiple islands) is our only remaining option. Shrinking down to four islands is probably a good first step: Stable, Testing, War, Colonies. What this means is that we would close FEI, AT, and then either BT or Dwilight. (Executive direction from Tom: Shut down EC and we shut down everything.) Change character limits to as follows:
War Island:
* Every account gets one noble character on the War Island. This is a special character, and is separate from all of the below limits/conditions.
Other Islands: (EC/Dw/Col -or- EC/BT/Col)
* All accounts can have get three active characters.
* Normal accounts can have a maximum of two active nobles.
* Donor accounts can have three active nobles.
* No more than one active noble character per island.
Or is this all an overreaction, and I'm just barking up the wrong tree with all of this?
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Hmm... I had not intended to start this thread and abandon it, but sometimes life intrudes, and forces us to do what we have to do, instead of what we want to do.
Anyway, there are quite a few reasons I think that adding more characters has actually moved us in the wrong direction. Most of them have already been hit on by others. Here's a rundown of my own reasons, some of which are duplicated from above.
1) Having a large number of characters creates more opportunities for power hording. Players who really enjoy this game tend to quickly learn how to gain positions, Once gained, positions are easy to hold. A quick rundown on my own characters:
* EC: Ruler
* AT: General, Lord (stepped down from general ~2 days ago)
* BT: Banker, Lord (lost banker re-election yesterday)
* FEI: Ruler, Duke
* SI: Duke, Margrave
* DW: Margrave, Vice Marshal
Do I really need to hold four council-level positions with four different characters on four different islands, in addition to the various duchies and lordships? As a result of holding all of these positions, I really don't care when a new position opens up in one of these realms. I have all the positions I want, and have access to more, if I really wanted them. Lots of other people apparently feel the same way, judging by the now-common occurrence of elections for council-level offices failing because no one runs, or the offices staying vacant because no one wants to be appointed. I've even seen circumstances where the only person that wants the office refuses to run, deliberately allowing the election to fail so he could make a point. He knows no one else will run, and can afford to allow the election to fail, then run and get the office in the next round. In some realms, region lordships are essentially meaningless, because anyone who wants one already has one, and there are more to spare for the next dozen nobles who show up.
The combination of lots of characters per player, and ready availability of positions and lordships pretty much everywhere has devalued their significance and desirability. If I only had three characters, that general's position would have meant more to me, and I probably could have found some way to contribute with it, instead of becoming a zombie.
2) The greater number of positions being help by the same person creates more demands on players' time. There is only so much time in a person's day. I used to spend multiple hours a day running just three characters. Now I've got six characters, but less time overall to play. So my characters end up being what I've always despised: Idle placeholders. Characters who hold positions of power, but let that power go unused, not contributing to my own fun, or the fun of the other players in the game. So I've started shedding positions. It's one thing to run your landless knight as a zombie drone, but running your combination general/duke/margrave/marshal/ambassador as a zombie is criminal.
3) Having lots of characters available is an enabler of one of my pet peeves: Propping up tiny realms with lots of doubled-up characters. (Or reinforcing large realms with an even larger contingent of ultra-reliable, ultra-loyal drones.) This is one of the reasons I liked Dwilight so much. One character per account, with no way for two or three people run a realm all by themselves with doubled-up characters. You either had to openly horde power by carrying all those titles around on one character (and thus people could easily tell what was happening) or you had to allow other people to join in the fun. (Interestingly enough, the most insular, friendless, and despised realms on Dwilight (Averoth and Aurvandil) both turned out to be giant multi-accounting scams.)
Doubled characters in a realm also lead to a proliferation of zombie characters in that realm. Yes, there are exceptions, but doubled characters tend to be zombies or practically NPCs. They rarely add anything useful to the realm beyond holding a spot. At worst, they are used by the player as nothing more than a second voice to parrot their main character's agenda.
Running multiple characters per island is a slightly different beast. It is in some ways both better and worse than doubling up in one realm. It doesn't allow some of the same concentration of power in a single realm. What it does allow is for more secret, non-obvious, and/or unbreakable ties between realms. You may not be able to run a ruler in two realms, but two or three people with doubled character on an island can easily have an unbreakable hold on two realms.
4) With everyone running so many characters, it can be difficult to get away from players you just don't like. We all know that there's always that one (or two, or ten...) player that you just can't get along with. But with everyone running so many characters, it can be almost impossible to get away from them. You leave the realm they're in on FEI, and two weeks later they join the realm you're in on AT. You pause that character and start another on EC, but they're already there, too! It may seem like a minor thing, but playing in a realm with a player you just can't stand can be damn painful, and just suck the fun right out of the game. A shrinking player base, and profusion of characters, can really cut down on the places you can enjoy playing.
5) A profusion of zombie characters leads to more quiet realms, where only a few players ever truly interact. Alice and Bob may both have characters in the same 5 realms. But if Alice likes Keplerstan and Bob likes Evilstani, then they are going to focus their attention in different realms. Alice and Bob may play in the same realms, but they never interact, because they don't care about each others' favorite realms. If both of them played in Keplerstan and Evilstani, and no other realms, then they would be much likely to devote time to those realms, and thus interact more.
The more I think about it, the more I think that our reaction to the shrinking playerbase (giving people more character slots and slightly decreasing the available land) was not the right way to go. The extra slots just diluted the meaningfulness of the characters we had. The slight shrinkage wasn't enough to compensate for that dilution.
I think that the drastic action of closing islands (yes, multiple islands) is our only remaining option. Shrinking down to four islands is probably a good first step: Stable, Testing, War, Colonies. What this means is that we would close FEI, AT, and then either BT or Dwilight. (Executive direction from Tom: Shut down EC and we shut down everything.) Change character limits to as follows:
War Island:
* Every account gets one noble character on the War Island. This is a special character, and is separate from all of the below limits/conditions.
Other Islands: (EC/Dw/Col -or- EC/BT/Col)
* All accounts can have get three active characters.
* Normal accounts can have a maximum of two active nobles.
* Donor accounts can have three active nobles.
* No more than one active noble character per island.
Or is this all an overreaction, and I'm just barking up the wrong tree with all of this?
Well I certainly agree there are families that have every character with Duke or better positions, and then they contribute almost nothing to many of the realms they are in.
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So shutting down EC is not an option. That sucks.
I think the best option we have is EC/Dwi/SI/Col. And open up Dwi probably and allow people on other continents to move to Dwi without losing any gold or H/P since it is more of a forced migration but of course they will have to choose among their characters which one they wish to play on Dwi.
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So shutting down EC is not an option. That sucks.
I think the best option we have is EC/Dwi/SI/Col. And open up Dwi probably and allow people on other continents to move to Dwi without losing any gold or H/P since it is more of a forced migration but of course they will have to choose among their characters which one they wish to play on Dwi.
Logically Dwilight is the largest map, thus the effect of lowered numbers will be more pronounced on it rather then BT.
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Logically Dwilight is the largest map, thus the effect of lowered numbers will be more pronounced on it rather then BT.
Probably. But the available land area on Dwilight can be controlled via the monster spawns.
Also: BT map is broken.
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Probably. But the available land area on Dwilight can be controlled via the monster spawns.
Also: BT map is broken.
Well yes, as a member of Rio I can well agree with this.
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Good post, Indirik. I agree on everything except your 4-th point.
Also: BT map is broken.
Dwilight map is not ideal either.
BT could be pretty much fixed if you moved southern peninsula up and connected it to the mainland.
Dwilight, on the other hand, being two sausages divided by seas, won't work too well unless it has a really huge number of players.
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Good post, Indirik. I agree on everything except your 4-th point.
Dwilight map is not ideal either.
BT could be pretty much fixed if you moved southern peninsula up and connected it to the mainland.
Dwilight, on the other hand, being two sausages divided by seas, won't work too well unless it has a really huge number of players.
Rio is just part of why the BT map is broken. The blight taking such a high ratio of cities is another. Many realms have poor capital choices, and the opportunities to make new viable realms is limited.
Turning down the character limit would probably just break the game completely.
Over simplistic scenario to illustrate:
Player A, B, and C all have characters in realms X, Y, Z. Player A's favorite realm in X, B's favorite realm is Y, and C's favorite realm is Z. All realms currently have 1 character who is the player's "main", and 2 characters which are mostly dummies that just follow orders. New restriction comes in place and imposes a 1 character per player rule. Player A deletes his characters in X and Y, B in X and Z, and C in Y and Z. Realms X, Y, and Z find themselves with no more dummies to manage the regions and launch military campaigns, players A, B, and C no longer enjoy their favorite realm.
Players like Indirik don't get to hog so many high titles with dummy characters because of shennenigans they do, but because there simply isn't much competition for these titles. Anyone and everyone gets a title nowadays.
As for the solution of removing islands... that strategy has been done again and again. Glaciers moved in to many continents, monsters into Dwi, blight into BT. In which case did removing land correct the problem it was meant to fix? It always seems to just create very short-term gain, quickly compensated by the loss of many targeted players. You know what they say about repeating the same action and expecting different results...
I think that anything decided unilaterally from the top-down is bound to fail. Players who get their realm picked off by dev action are often resentful of them, and often quit. I also think that any half-measure, such as closing some continents but not others, is bound to fail as well. There'll be accusations of favoritism and a lot of jealousy, unless you quite simply get rid of *all* continents to reboot a new one, either with a pre-existing map or a new one. I can't really think of a good candidate map, though, ideally it'd be something like SI, but with more cities. Colonies, maybe? Peninsula on BT/AT is bad, and EC/FEI/Dwi are too linear. Perhaps taking pre-glacier AC and just scrapping the peninsula.
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I think that anything decided unilaterally from the top-down is bound to fail. Players who get their realm picked off by dev action are often resentful of them, and often quit. I also think that any half-measure, such as closing some continents but not others, is bound to fail as well. There'll be accusations of favoritism and a lot of jealousy, unless you quite simply get rid of *all* continents to reboot a new one, either with a pre-existing map or a new one. I can't really think of a good candidate map, though, ideally it'd be something like SI, but with more cities. Colonies, maybe? Peninsula on BT/AT is bad, and EC/FEI/Dwi are too linear. Perhaps taking pre-glacier AC and just scrapping the peninsula.
Like was said, Tom will not allow EC as the first continent to be scrapped. In the end, the game is at the point where hard decisions need to be made. No one has a "palatable" solution to the density problem, and all proposed solutions are quite frankly going to end up with lost players. Thus the discussion revolves around which will lose less players and pave the way for some real improvements.
Being accused of favouritism is frankly not a consideration. The Dev team wears that accusation even when they are idle.
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Chenier vs. Strawman - 1:0. :D
Of course decreasing character limit can only happen in conjunction with shutting continents down. And of course it has to be a complete reboot with improved, better thought out map(s). And that's pretty clear from previous posts.
I think that anything decided unilaterally from the top-down is bound to fail.
That is in fact a highly fallacious statement.
Furthermore, if previous efforts to rectify the situation were ineffective, it doesn't mean no further attempts should be made because playerbase keeps steadily shrinking down and status quo is clearly not a solution.
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Why not just find a way to increase players? Instead of all the heartache over reduced player, reducing characters, shrinking continents, etc. shouldn't we focus on growing the player-base?
Obviously that's easier said than done, but if the community applied the same amount of effort to recruiting players or marketing as it does to arguing over how to accommodate a reduced headcount we might grow the game.
I do need to admit that I've been back for 2 days after an 8 year hiatus and know nothing about what's going on...
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Chenier vs. Strawman - 1:0. :D
Of course decreasing character limit can only happen in conjunction with shutting continents down. And of course it has to be a complete reboot with improved, better thought out map(s). And that's pretty clear from previous posts.
That is in fact a highly fallacious statement.
Furthermore, if previous efforts to rectify the situation were ineffective, it doesn't mean no further attempts should be made because playerbase keeps steadily shrinking down and status quo is clearly not a solution.
We are incredibly unlikely to be creating new maps.
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Why not just find a way to increase players?
As a member of several niche old online communities that are struggling to stabilize my experience shows that growth is only possible when something new and big is happening.
To offer an anecdotal example, there was this one pretty good NWN server that just kept losing players to reasons which mostly were beyond administration's control. Several recruiting campaigns were launched and they were not very successful.
What actually did it was server reboot along with character wipe, brand new maps, quests and items because with old niche games its more effective to bring back old players/players from other similar existing communities than recruit brand new ones.
We are incredibly unlikely to be creating new maps.
Why?
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Because we don't have the man power to do it...
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A more likely approach would be some way to reboot an existing map, using some kind of catastrophe as the mechanism. Something that temporarily shut down several islands, then reopened one as a blank slate.
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Wouldn't a slight modification be doable? Like adding some regions to make EC more round?
Or at least balance resources over the map?
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The existing maps, poorly balanced to begin with, are now played out. EC hasn't been interesting since 2006.
The only option I think is to shut down everything and begin anew with a single, good map. The excitement of colonizing a new island would mitigate player loss and boost activity.
Half measures won't work and no one not already on EC will want to migrate there.
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The existing maps, poorly balanced to begin with, are now played out. EC hasn't been interesting since 2006.
The only option I think is to shut down everything and begin anew with a single, good map. The excitement of colonizing a new island would mitigate player loss and boost activity.
Half measures won't work and no one not already on EC will want to migrate there.
+1
Full reboot. I'm confident there's a hardcore base of players that will stick in BM no matter what (me includes) that would keep going. With even as little as fifty players there could be a thriving island. A thriving island which would entice new or returning players to stay, because now they won't have a 80% chance of joining a realm that turns out to be dead on the inside. Perhaps BM is meant for a cyclical life. When it dies, it rises from its ashes anew! Ardet nec consumitur!
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Wouldn't a slight modification be doable? Like adding some regions to make EC more round?
Or at least balance resources over the map?
Rebalance is possible, but we have experience in just how long that takes, even if we are talking a single map. I can't speak as to how much work is involved in adding regions to a map, but then we still run into the problem that it would be a modification to BM's first continent.
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More war islands! RHAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!!!
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but then we still run into the problem that it would be a modification to BM's first continent.
Is it some sort of a sacred cow?
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Is it some sort of a sacred cow?
Yeah... Tom's sacred cow... He'd rather see the game die than lose EC.
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I don't post on the forums much, but I just want to say that I'm fully behind the idea of a complete re-boot. Sink all the continents, and create one to accomodate the current player base. Maybe we can keep EC, although radical changes would have to be made to keep it interesting.
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Maybe we can keep EC, although radical changes would have to be made to keep it interesting.
Why? Frankly while I accept that no map was purposely designed with conflicts in mind, the fact remains that the continents have all had periods of interesting wars, often rather large periods. They may not be "optimal" but then optimal is going to constantly change as realm composition changes anyway. Map redesign might help with interest, but I can guarantee it will fix nothing by itself.
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Maybe we can keep EC, although radical changes would have to be made to keep it interesting.
If you don't like EC, then don't play on it. Believe me, there are penty of people that love EC. In the few surveys we have done, it has ranked near the top of the pack in both character density and player rating. The people that play there, love it. Any radical changes to it, especially anything that radically restructured the geography, would probably be a big mistake.
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It wouldn't be too bad to add a small island to its right to connect southern portion to the northern portion of the map to balance things out. And maybe make Obsidian islands bigger and more useful than have some meaningless regions on the side.
I think most regions should be somewhat viable instead of having one side completely worthless. Why even put that in the map if they serve no purpose?
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It wouldn't be too bad to add a small island to its right to connect southern portion to the northern portion of the map to balance things out. And maybe make Obsidian islands bigger and more useful than have some meaningless regions on the side.
I think most regions should be somewhat viable instead of having one side completely worthless. Why even put that in the map if they serve no purpose?
There is at least precedent for expanding the Obsidian Islands.
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It wouldbe nice if they weren't totally useless.
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When I started playing I was thinking that it's cool and interesting to have several characters on several different continents. I have to admit I was wrong. Most interesting moments were when I would concentrate on only one character. Then it's lots of interactions, decisions to make etc. Meanwhile other characters are just zombies. Even when I have a lot of free time I cannot play few characters to full extent. Maybe it is just me... However, I see a lot of zombie-characters around, who wouldn't even respond of you write them. Maybe their players also are too distracted playing 6 chars in one time?
Sadly, for two my unpaused characters (I have some paused too) it's like nothing happens for months. I suppose, if everyone would concentrate on only one character, we would have more struggle, more interactions and more fun.
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I currently have two active characters, Vladamire (my very first character in BM) in his home realm of Outer Tilog, and Aramon, lately of Lukon. Aramon I had created to try out the War Islands, on what happened to be their last hurrah in that format, and moved him to the Colonies afterward (where is misadventures saw him kill the judge of Alebad in a duel during that realms dying days, become Shadow Tyrant of the Assassins, court another noble, die/reappear in Lukon, and eventually become General of Lukon). I've tried the various islands with various characters over my time in BM back in 07, but it always comes back to these two: 1)Because I don't have the time anymore to handle two turns a day, and 2)Because the history of the characters, 8 years or so RT leads to a lot of character building. That doesn't mean I'll never play Mastraacht over in Fissoa again, or my advy in Arcaea, but if I'm forced to pick one of my characters on the Colonies to move or become inactive or something happens to make the years worth of character building I've been trying to do with them vanish, well, I might just stop playing all together. Which would be a shame, because I'd miss playing with the guys over in the Colonies (even Jeremy Stephens, whose character Innocent Noble has been a thorn in my characters sides for years *shakes fist!*)
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I mostly agree with everything Indirik and/or De-Legro has said thus far, minor quibbles aside. But here, have some recent statistics!
Continent - Players - Controlled Regions
Atamara - 181 - 164
Beluaterra - 128 - 156
Colonies - 56 - 55
Dwilight - 164 - 127
East Continent - 146 - 103
Far East - 83 - 67
South Island - 153 - 42
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It wouldn't be too bad to add a small island to its right to connect southern portion to the northern portion of the map to balance things out. And maybe make Obsidian islands bigger and more useful than have some meaningless regions on the side.
I think most regions should be somewhat viable instead of having one side completely worthless. Why even put that in the map if they serve no purpose?
The lands around that volcano look very bad condition. With so few gold and food around volcano lands, I think its Economy probably need redress first before change to the lands.
There is at least precedent for expanding the Obsidian Islands.
There is indeed a precedent. I have looked back at EC history, there is a Great Eruption, which changed EC island and added some regions back then.
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/East_Continent/Kalmar_Bay (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/East_Continent/Kalmar_Bay)
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Bad_Tidings (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Bad_Tidings)
It wouldbe nice if they weren't totally useless.
Exactly my thought. Excuse my long thought.
My 1st character Ash and 2nd character May
I have 5 active characters including one at War Island. Started my first character noble Ash at Oritolon realm on Colonies island, I liked what I saw back then, thus started my second character noble May at Sirion realm on EC island. Back then I had less interest to play adventurer, but finally after seeing some nobles holding Unique Items in battle, I created my third character as adventurer(Brock at Fontan realm) who got promoted to become noble later on. In fact, my EC playing at that time was centered around my second and third character in 2 different realms fighting against each other, with both their realms at war. It was not easy to start an adventurer at a realm at war(Fontan), knowing your second character is at the opposite side(Sirion). Holding hope that both my 2 characters can fight against each other one day, my hope was dashed when my second character May got deported to Colonies before Brock rose up through adventurer ranks :) I learnt a great deal about "characters separation" back then, with my third character first introduction letter when he first arrived, with Fontan players being nice to my character. That was the beginning of my long EC playing life till today. I have been thinking that perhaps we the older players should have some "places" to share our experience with the younger players nowadays; that would help with players retention problem a bit.
After my second character May got deported from EC to Colonies, my Colonies island experience had grow, somehow with lot of rebellions happening at Oritolon realm on Colonies at that time. My first rebellion participation, counter rebellion, fishing rebels underground and much more. As my first character grows and knowing more characters from other realms, interacting with them along the way, down the road I learnt a great deal about Steward, Judge, General. I have been feeling that Steward role, however small the role is, has been under promoted, most Region Lords tend to their regions on their own. Steward was the first place I learnt about region management, food management in particular when your city was starving and region lord was not around.
My 3rd character Brock
My third character Brock as adventurer, had its fair share of fun too. I learnt how to break Fontan nobles Unique Items by not able to repair their items in time, causing Brock to get beaten up and imprisoned many times in his own realm prison. Yes, it was fun interacting with Fontan nobles, they blamed my adventurer, aye, it was my fault not having items to repair, I still blamed the old Sages, they being devious and demanding :P
My third character Brock has exceeded my expectation, becoming a very own story in itself, growing away from my earlier planned "my second character May fighting battles against my third character Brock". He was the first Banker in my characters family line, the first Vice Marshal as well as Marshal and General later on. That long lines of responsibilities proved he has come a long way.
My 4th character Oak
Learning a great deal about adventurer during my third character Brock time, I started my fourth character as adventurer albeit with much failure on Atamara island. I did repair some items but that was it, I felt the fun I had during my third character Brock time, may have caused me to have higher expectation on what I to expect during my playing experience. Finally after growing tired of changing realms many times for my fourth character, I paused him.
My 5th character Misty
Last but not least, learning about South Island being reopen as War Island for one more time, for which I have never experienced War Island in my whole BM playing time, I created my fifth character Misty on this island. To date, the playing experience is unlike any experience previously experienced before, I have grown to analyze things, even small details.
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Keep South Island and the Colonies because of their unique nature. Keep EC because of its importance to Tom but maybe consider rebalancing it in some way, possibly with new islands, if the opportunity arises.
If a testing island is needed maybe just sink southern BT to make it a much smaller continent with players and realms competing for space - I know that's unfair on Rio but that's just the way the geography works.
Import SMA to one of the above continents, preferably BT.
Otherwise, freeze everything else. Keep the realm boundaries as they are in case the player base picks up at some point in the future but put them in lockdown and introduce the one character per island cap while giving people a period in which to emigrate their characters to one of the remaining islands with their gold and h/p or have that character deleted.
It'd be electric shock therapy but that's what BM needs right now and at least an influx of refugees to the remaining continents would liven up politics a lot. If nothing else imagine the fun of SA and CoS waging a war of mutual destruction on EC until both are dead :p
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Instead of deny two characters per continent, why not just deny the option to have two chars in the same realm!?
Also, about EC and any other continent... taking the example of Sirion: If "everyone" know such great realms are the problem, instead of look at the devs, why not just try to "gangbang" Sirion or Caligus!? Or make a diplomatic effort to divide the realms in question in new realms!?
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Instead of deny two characters per continent, why not just deny the option to have two chars in the same realm!?
Also, about EC and any other continent... taking the example of Sirion: If "everyone" know such great realms are the problem, instead of look at the devs, why not just try to "gangbang" Sirion or Caligus!? Or make a diplomatic effort to divide the realms in question in new realms!?
Because "everyone" doesn't know. If everyone did, the realms would implode themselves without outside interference wouldn't they.
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I have reduced myself to playing only three characters. I must say I am focusing a bit better.
To be honest, I can probably reduce myself to playing only two and it would probably improve the quality even more.
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I currently have two active characters, Vladamire (my very first character in BM) in his home realm of Outer Tilog, and Aramon, lately of Lukon. Aramon I had created to try out the War Islands, on what happened to be their last hurrah in that format, and moved him to the Colonies afterward (where is misadventures saw him kill the judge of Alebad in a duel during that realms dying days, become Shadow Tyrant of the Assassins, court another noble, die/reappear in Lukon, and eventually become General of Lukon). I've tried the various islands with various characters over my time in BM back in 07, but it always comes back to these two: 1)Because I don't have the time anymore to handle two turns a day, and 2)Because the history of the characters, 8 years or so RT leads to a lot of character building. That doesn't mean I'll never play Mastraacht over in Fissoa again, or my advy in Arcaea, but if I'm forced to pick one of my characters on the Colonies to move or become inactive or something happens to make the years worth of character building I've been trying to do with them vanish, well, I might just stop playing all together. Which would be a shame, because I'd miss playing with the guys over in the Colonies (even Jeremy Stephens, whose character Innocent Noble has been a thorn in my characters sides for years *shakes fist!*)
Well, I'm sad to announce that Innocent finally met his maker in a Tilog dungeon. Just wait to see how much mischief I can create with Innocent's niece that has a bad case of vengeance on her mind! ;)
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I personally enjoy player more characters, it so sad about AT (that's another story), sometimes islands get stale as we have all experienced in the past 12 years you have to be flexible and while maintaining a few really active character just divide your efforts a bit and focus on 2-3 and have the others as more passive.
Quality of game is in itself at the player's own disposal reducing the character that can be had on an island will not really reduce anything, but rather discourage some. Though even if we had the option to go to different realms I think then we'd have the issue as we did before about spying (Fontan 06) so i'd prefer not to go back to that, but it was a very interesting and closed minded time.
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Depends on player activity, really. As someone whose online for most of the day, or at least a few hours, I wish I had *more* characters. I log in every 10-15 minutes some days, just to see if I've received a message and can do *something.* I dread running out of hours on all my advies and nobles...
I had two throw-away characters in the Cagilan Empire. Khets'aein Abheroth and Magnus Aurea. Magnus went on to become King of the Xavax in the East, and is now my most incredibly fun character, and the only reason I didn't go through with getting bored and quitting.
Fissoa is an utter bore, but it growing more fun now that we have some new nobles. Also, thanks to some Lurian priest complaining about a closed temple and trying to assassinate its looter, a fissoan Duke.
Inflamed by Magnus' zealous passion, I've decided to once again attempt to found a religion: the Spirit of the Phoenix Kin, or some such, in Xavax, and I just asked the Fissoan council to allow me to found Vox Stellarum, which some of you may remember Maximilian Aurea trying to launch on my old account a few years back, before illness forced me to quit gaming.
Khets'aein, I've decided will become an assassin, or judge, or some sort of badass bitch, once she gets to Belluaterra.
If it weren't for the islands sinking, I wouldn't have had the impulse to turn these two bland, boring "Im out of hours and have nothing better to do" characters into something far more striking and empowering, and thus fun!
I'd hate to be able to play fewer characters. I, for one, am able to keep my characters separate and don't powergame. But that's just me. Even with my two in Cagilan, they were secretly at odds, let totally different lives, and did not see eye to eye. Never even gave Khets'aein a Lordship, she was just a wandering warrior. :) Magnus, on the other hand, is all honesty and virtue and justice and all that, like I am in real life, and had a small Lordship at one point, but didn't even vaguely try to go further. I was content with Magnus, because I had no opportunities.
I've played every position except a banker. Never been a proper priest, though. Sucked as an infiltrator. Too honest. Courtier is too boring for me, but its useful for a boring character. Sometimes you just want that one boring character to serve as a steward-courtier and do their thing without big responsibility. :)
Beside the meta/powergamers, many of us have multiple nobles because we like being exposed to various cultures, differing RPs, faiths, and political structures. I say we keep that spirit.
I would be sorely disappointed if BM cut down further on noble counts, and it would make me consider taking my gaming elsewhere, leaving just a token noble, someone very very fun, namely Magnus of Xavax, and forgetting everything else. It just wouldn't be worth all the effort at that point.
But that's just my perspective. :)
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I have played mainly 1 character for the last few years on Dwilight and only recently reactivated my others. I am enjoying building the 3 personalities.
Akrogath is honourable.
Sundar is a pyschopath.
Glaumring is a bit crazy.
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Depends on player activity, really. As someone whose online for most of the day, or at least a few hours, I wish I had *more* characters. I log in every 10-15 minutes some days, just to see if I've received a message and can do *something.* I dread running out of hours on all my advies and nobles...
I had two throw-away characters in the Cagilan Empire. Khets'aein Abheroth and Magnus Aurea. Magnus went on to become King of the Xavax in the East, and is now my most incredibly fun character, and the only reason I didn't go through with getting bored and quitting.
Fissoa is an utter bore, but it growing more fun now that we have some new nobles. Also, thanks to some Lurian priest complaining about a closed temple and trying to assassinate its looter, a fissoan Duke.
Inflamed by Magnus' zealous passion, I've decided to once again attempt to found a religion: the Spirit of the Phoenix Kin, or some such, in Xavax, and I just asked the Fissoan council to allow me to found Vox Stellarum, which some of you may remember Maximilian Aurea trying to launch on my old account a few years back, before illness forced me to quit gaming.
Khets'aein, I've decided will become an assassin, or judge, or some sort of badass bitch, once she gets to Belluaterra.
If it weren't for the islands sinking, I wouldn't have had the impulse to turn these two bland, boring "Im out of hours and have nothing better to do" characters into something far more striking and empowering, and thus fun!
I'd hate to be able to play fewer characters. I, for one, am able to keep my characters separate and don't powergame. But that's just me. Even with my two in Cagilan, they were secretly at odds, let totally different lives, and did not see eye to eye. Never even gave Khets'aein a Lordship, she was just a wandering warrior. :) Magnus, on the other hand, is all honesty and virtue and justice and all that, like I am in real life, and had a small Lordship at one point, but didn't even vaguely try to go further. I was content with Magnus, because I had no opportunities.
I've played every position except a banker. Never been a proper priest, though. Sucked as an infiltrator. Too honest. Courtier is too boring for me, but its useful for a boring character. Sometimes you just want that one boring character to serve as a steward-courtier and do their thing without big responsibility. :)
Beside the meta/powergamers, many of us have multiple nobles because we like being exposed to various cultures, differing RPs, faiths, and political structures. I say we keep that spirit.
I would be sorely disappointed if BM cut down further on noble counts, and it would make me consider taking my gaming elsewhere, leaving just a token noble, someone very very fun, namely Magnus of Xavax, and forgetting everything else. It just wouldn't be worth all the effort at that point.
But that's just my perspective. :)
Agree 100%, that's pretty much how I approach the game as well. Also you're welcome for the failed stabbing ;)
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Glaumring!? It lives!
I extremely enjoyed your antics back when I played Alura Aurea, pre and post-ruler of Terran.
And my deepest thanks, Gabanus ;) You priest is such a bull!@#$ter. :P I'd say its ironic but its kind of obviously to be expected.
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Glaumring!? It lives!
I extremely enjoyed your antics back when I played Alura Aurea, pre and post-ruler of Terran.
And my deepest thanks, Gabanus ;) You priest is such a bull!@#$ter. :P I'd say its ironic but its kind of obviously to be expected.
Well technically he's not a priest but an infiltrator of course :) And well it's his word against Eldrond's and in LN Goriad's word should be worth more. Ooc everyone knows what he did of course, but IC he can continue to deny it, hopefully providing us with some fun.