BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Tom on May 15, 2015, 10:43:17 AM
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Here's a crazy thought I had and I would like to discuss it. This really is a 100% open-ended discussion.
How about merging BattleMaster and Might & Fealty ?
BattleMaster has been dwindling lately, and many of the reasons are in the age of the game. Technology has advanced and player expectations have advanced, and frankly speaking a lot of the code is so ancient you could put it into a museum. Tim has done a great job updating it, but the project is simply huge.
I've taken a different route and instead of trying to update BattleMaster, I re-made it the way I would have made it if I started now. Most of you know about my other game Might & Fealty, of course, so I won't even set a link.
The games are dissimilar in some aspects, but very similar in the core concepts. I believe M&F avoids many of the original mistakes in the BM game design that are only still around because everyone is used to them now. At the same time, it is nowhere near as mature.
So I have this idea in my mind of merging the games. Not forcing people into another game, but really transporting the BM world into the M&F codebase. The continents I can copy pretty well, and you would get travel between them for free. You could play the same or more characters. Realms can be copied. Wiki data can be updated. Character data can be copied over to some extent. As much of the history as possible needs to be preserved.
Some things would get lost. There are no guilds in M&F and no classes, so the adventurer and priest and infiltrator gameplay would disappear. All of this wants to be considered.
Let me know your thoughts. Whether your are totally against it, or like it, or think "maybe, but firstly this, this and that feature which I love so much need to be available in M&F".
At the same time I might consider opening the codebase of M&F to attract more developers. The game relies much less than BM on hidden features and details being unknown. I even has a simple API and I've started work on a 3D client. It is built on a very modern architecture (Symfony/Doctrine, PostGIS, etc.)
So let me know your thoughts, no matter what they are. Even if you're indifferent, I would like to know that, too. No matter what you think, please post it below.
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I have nothing against the idea itself.
But, if it meant that players could play more nobles on the same continent, (which I assume it means) then I would quit without second thoughts.
I think having two nobles on the same continent is to much as it is.
Just my two cents.
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Mixed feelings. I played M&F earlier on (so much might have changed). M&F seemed to move too fast for my playstyle though.
The codebase in BM *is* quite legacy. I do like the ability to adjust maps in M&F. BM development isn't in the best shape, and documentation even worse. I've been trying to informally share how different BM components influence each other without giving up algorithms. So the sound of M&F's APIs and improved structure sounds nice.
Advies, priests, and infils aren't really the core of BM, so while I absolutely love the priest/ambassador combo, I'd understand. Features I'd be concerned for missing in M&F are the government systems. Not just republic/monarchy/theocracy, but all the individual settings, the existence of council positions and their respective buttons, the various secession, rebellion, change allegiance etc. buttons. In essence, the political side. Another aspect i don't recall in M&F (which very well could exist now) are the battle nuances of unit settings, marshal settings, and such.
I realize many of the things, largely unmentioned here, I prefer in BM are aesthetic so I feel those are less important in the big picture, but it does incline me to a preference for BM.
My general, overall thought is that there *is* a dedicated group of BM players (probably ranging between 50-100 players) that wishes to continue BM and not M&F (or they'd have joined already). I strongly believe we have too many islands and realms for the current playerbase and this results in whatever new players *do* join predominately finding boring, inactive realms. And, until a recent movement by various players across EI, BT, DWI, wars were primarily between large behemoths with large marching times. These are only worsened by having reduced noble character limits to two characters from three, meaning less opportunity to get a good realm. And then again, by allowing advies to be played from the beginning, confusing the poor new player away from the main core of the social game and into a quiet, deserted corner. Thus, I think reducing the playable landmass and adjusting character limits is important. However, while I think this paragraph is relevant for consideration in Tom's suggestion, I strongly encourage further replies to not focus upon island-sinking in this thread, as it would detract from the core of his suggestion. To continue, even if a merger is done, I think that dedicated group of BM players will strongly desire/pine/yearn for a level of 'oldschool' BM, even if its only 1-2 smaller-sized continents.
EDIT/ADDENDUM: Also, in copying continents I would worry if there is enough playerbase in both M&F and BM (and there's likely significant player overlap) to cover all the regions. Would continental regions be reshaped or continents shrunk in square mileage?
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I am actually not that fan of M&F. Sure, BM is old but for now, I feel it is somewhat more stable than M&F or maybe I am used to BM more. I absolutely despite M&F's message system as it was way too confusing for me and it felt like I was writing a forum post rather than messaging others.
It would be nice to have a fluid map, however, where cities and strongholds appear and disappear over time unlike BM's static map where strongholds are located in the middle of nowhere.
To me, M&F is too complicated - or maybe I am unwilling to go in depth or discouraged for some reason. Micomanaging every soldier tired me out pretty quickly.
I am not sure how much of BM's system will be transported over to M&F but if it is more M&F than BM, I am very against it.
*Additional thoughts
I think what I do not like about MF's system is how it has too many turns and how buildings take time to be built. I like the simpler concept of BM over MF.
For me, the best solution is to change the current static map to MF's fluid map with quicker and easier ways to construct buildings and so on. Of course, you don't want cities and strongholds everywhere.
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It simply would not work. As someone that plays and enjoys both, the style of play of M&F just doesn't gel well for most BM players. Out of the 20 something BM players I convined to give M&F a go, none have remained in the game. Now if you were to take the M&F code and tailor it to make something closer to BM pacing perhaps, but then you are just adding more work.
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I prefer Battlemaster's dark color scheme and its Age of Wonders map layout over what I've seen in M&F. Sometimes people try to discount aesthetics, saying that what matters is gameplay, but I think that's a mistake, like saying music is unimportant to film.
The subscription fee to M&F is also off putting.
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I actually tried M&F and played for a few months.
Among the things that made me quit:
- M&F is more realtime. Which is not a bad thing, just does not sit well with my personal playstyle. BM pretty much lets you log in twice a day for 5 minutes at set times to be 100% effective, while M&F requires much more attention and maintenance which I can not always afford.
- Messaging system in M&F is honestly a disaster. BM is much more convenient and allows for easier interaction.
- As a free player you are pretty much irrelevant, while paid account just forces you to play a host of characters 90% of which are drones that add to your mechanical power but not to roleplay. The realm I played in had dozens of nobles but really had like four people behind them and needless to say roleplay was non-existant. Then we got steamrolled by a single veteran player leading hordes of high level soldiers. No fun.
I really appreciated personalization of soldiers and economy model was kind of fun, but aforementioned issues just ruined it for me (especially the out of proportion multicharacter thing).
All in all, M&F is not a bad game, but it is not my cup of tea and BM definitely is. So I just can't see myself switching over to M&F as it is now.
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I'm personally not interested in a more real-time game. I do all i can to keep up now. I played the alpha/beta for m&f. It was fun, but seemed to take a lot more time. I just can't see myself switching.
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I played during the earlier testing periods, and there were a lot of parts that I liked, but they're actually really different games. I might play both, but I wouldn't give up BM's structure and premise for M&F's.
Foremost, communication was a hassle and a half compared to BM. No other mechanic matters to me more than that one. While there might not be anything inherently wrong with M&F's system, in terms of a merger there's a huge gap.
The more real-time focus of the game made it hard for me to play when I didn't have a lot of time to obsess. It was enjoyable enough, during the testing, but could I do it every day for ten years like BM? Probably not.
I'm not a super fan of the number of characters you can play if you're highly invested. It's the opposite of BM's premise, where moderately active, moderately invested players can be just as successful as crazy active, highly invested players. Ten players can get bowled over by one player, and it's kind of...eh. I prefer a social game with actual teams.
I guess I'm alone on this one, but the adventurer game is kind of my favorite hobby. Unique items and scrolls may not be important in the overall scheme of things, but making/trading/using/wanting them fleshes out the game. They grow stories like fertilizer, and stories are the reason I play. It's fun to walk up to someone and hand them a fancy item. It's fun to hand someone a scroll that allows them to affect current events in some way. It's fun to use a scroll to affect current events in some way. It's fun to go through unique items until you get just the right name for whoever requested it and whatever story they want to tell. It can make your day. And every day you log back in is a win for the game. Items and the advies who deal with them are RP and good times in a goddamn can that you can crack open regardless of what is or isn't happening in the main game (I'm just really in love with this class, okay?!) If there must be a merger, please please please add the adventurer mini-game ; A ;
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I will try and post more tomorrow, but I do not think the games are truly compatible. They both are part role playing, part military game but they just vary way too much and I am rather sure I would end up quitting BM if it happened because Might and Fealty is way too real time for me as well as several other issues already raised.
What I would like to do is steal MaF's design. It is very modern looking in stark contrast to BM and is something I would be interested in volunteering on BM to do.
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I tried M&F, wasn't for me. Too high-pace, and a bulky message system that makes it hard to catch up on things if you're gone for a week or so.
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When Tom first suggested this idea to me—several months ago—I created an account in M&F and tried it out briefly.
I wasn't in it long enough to get a complete picture of how the game runs (RL stuff intervened), but I saw enough to feel a resounding "meh".
Based on that, and the comments I've seen on this thread, I can say with some confidence that if BattleMaster in early 2004, when I joined, had been what M&F is now, I wouldn't have been as avid a player of it. I certainly wouldn't have stayed long enough, and cared enough about it, to become a developer.
Its aesthetics are definitely better (though I think trying to lift them wholesale for BattleMaster would be a bad mistake; a modern design is good, but I think BM should keep its overall darker feel), and it has some features that are well worth emulating.
But overall, I think that we'd retain more of the playerbase—and a more active, dedicated segment of the playerbase—if we reset BattleMaster on a single, completely new map, than if we tried to bring it all over to Might and Fealty.
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As a player of both games, I don't think a merger would work too well. The speed of the gameplay is too different, and so is the complexity. At it's core, BM's gameplay is relatively simple and easy to pick up, but with hidden depths that people who choose to look into them can enjoy. In contrast, M&F is complex and requires a lot of understanding to really enjoy.
I'm also not keen to see the existing BM world transplanted into the M&F world, which already has it's own cultures, mythologies, and developing history. I wouldn't like to see that, almost inevitably, overwritten by the more mature BM history and cultures.
Additionally, a merger would likely also transplant some of BM's playing habits into M&F (i.e. pile on wars, for example), which parts of the M&F player base have, and are, trying hard to keep out of that game.
Having said that, it might be possible to use the M&F code to update BM's presentation while leaving them as two distinct games with their own worlds.
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The speed issue of M&F is only a factor if we are talking a it migrating BM into the current M&F world. In the early testing M&F was slower, with only four updates at RL day. Technically there is little reason that couldn't be reduced to a 2 turn day for a BM world. Likewise character limits and settlement control limits are already in M&F so if we talk a seperate server, they can also be set to be more BM like.
However battles in M&F have none of the charm of BM with line positions and watching troops advance. It has extra levels of abstraction which to me makes the time leading up to a battle more fun then the result in M&F (that is watching to see what reinforcements arrive in time)
Also M&F has nothing to replicate the power of the council in BM. Rulers are mechanically weak in M&F relying in emgerent power, judges, bankers and generals simply do not have any eqvalient. The council is to me a core part of the atmosphere for BM, I simply don't see how the game can succeed in a new form without it.
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The paid subscription for M&F would probably cause me to stop playing (even though I donated to BM and enjoy goodies). I'd much prefer a donation system rather than making it pay-to-play. It is, after all, a browser game.
In addition I'm in the "if this and that changes, perhaps I might be interested". I'm very attached to the way BM works, looks, etc. though. I have tried M&F twice, but neither times did it appeal to me. It either felt too empty or there was too much lack of social contact, which is all BM revolves around really. That being said, I don't know enough about M&F to know which features are compatible or lacking between BM and M&F, so I'm in no real position to judge. Some aspects are things I like (e.g. rulers have limited, relative power compared to their vassals) and have wanted to see in BM for a long time. I understand BM is no longer in development and Tom has moved on to M&F, which is kinda sad, but it's his full right to do as he pleases - and we might consider ourselves happy he hasn't simply pulled the plug on BM (I will scour all of Germany to find you!).
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The paid subscription for M&F would probably cause me to stop playing (even though I donated to BM and enjoy goodies). I'd much prefer a donation system rather than making it pay-to-play. It is, after all, a browser game.
In addition I'm in the "if this and that changes, perhaps I might be interested". I'm very attached to the way BM works, looks, etc. though. I have tried M&F twice, but neither times did it appeal to me. It either felt too empty or there was too much lack of social contact, which is all BM revolves around really. That being said, I don't know enough about M&F to know which features are compatible or lacking between BM and M&F, so I'm in no real position to judge. Some aspects are things I like (e.g. rulers have limited, relative power compared to their vassals) and have wanted to see in BM for a long time. I understand BM is no longer in development and Tom has moved on to M&F, which is kinda sad, but it's his full right to do as he pleases - and we might consider ourselves happy he hasn't simply pulled the plug on BM (I will scour all of Germany to find you!).
M&F has had a free account level for months now.
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In all honesty, I have not even tried M&F yet. I simply didn't have the time lately to play another game and real-time aspect would be discouraging for me as well. I actually do put in a lot of time in BM, when I can. But I also love the option of logging in quickly on my phone for like 5 mins for a few days in a row, if I hardly have time. So I would share that concern definately as well.
Other than that, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you for the next few weeks, but maybe after that I'll give it a try just to see.
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In all honesty, I have not even tried M&F yet. I simply didn't have the time lately to play another game and real-time aspect would be discouraging for me as well. I actually do put in a lot of time in BM, when I can. But I also love the option of logging in quickly on my phone for like 5 mins for a few days in a row, if I hardly have time. So I would share that concern definately as well.
Other than that, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you for the next few weeks, but maybe after that I'll give it a try just to see.
It's hardly "real-time". Starcraft is real-time. The current version is merely a faster turn-based game. The battlemaster version would obviously be much slower in pace, something that is very easily done.
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It's hardly "real-time". Starcraft is real-time. The current version is merely a faster turn-based game.
And that's exactly what everyone meant. Don't nitpick the terms, mate.
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And that's exactly what everyone meant. Don't nitpick the terms, mate.
It doesn't change the fact that if BM were moved over to the M&F game, the BM server would be using slower turns than the existing M&F server.
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The problem is, M&F doesn't have turns in the same sense BM does.
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The problem is, M&F doesn't have turns in the same sense BM does.
It does actually, they happen every hour.
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tom, you've built a great game here.
I know its frustrating to see less players and less activity over time, but this is part of every game's life cycle.
considering the extremely niche nature of what you've built, the fact that there's no advertisement, and that the game is about ten years old now, the fact that its still going and still engaging to so many people is a testament to the quality and originality of the product, as well as your dedication and that of your volunteers.
take a lesson from other online games of the past, games which were way more mainstream with way more money behind them. almost all of them face a shrinking player base over time. what they do about it is what determines if they survive or not.
radical changes never work out. it doesn't bring in new players, it doesn't bring back old players (long term anyway) and it alienates the players you already have.
sticking with the program, as boring as that sounds, is usually the best way to go when you have a product that actually works. which bm absolutely does. you might add in a few features here and there to keep things fresh, take wow for example, but the overall product remains the same. and bm even has the advantage of being almost 100% player made content anyway, so your efforts in that regard can be relatively minimal.
I discovered bm 7 years ago, thought it was brilliant. played it for a while, then my lifestyle changed and I had no time for games period. about a year ago I found myself in a much slower pace of life and picked it back up. yes a lot has changed, there are much fewer active players, etc. (I came back right after the glacier/dwilight monster thing) but the game is still brilliant and engaging and I have a lot of fun with it.
mnf, though I'm sure its brilliant as well, has never appealed to me even from a cursory examination of the features and reading player experiences on forums. its not bm, and bm is the only text based game that has ever appealed to me, so its not surprising. and I was really interested to see what you had cooked up, I did a lot of reading about it.
ill close with this. one of the great curses of genius and talent is that so often the rest of the world just isn't on the same wavelength. think about how many geniuses and talented people went crazy because their efforts went unrecognized. think about how many of them self sabotaged and self destructed in the quest to get recognition for their work. now consider the pretty unlikely success of this game, to whatever degree. its something to be thankful for.
when davinci painted the mona lisa he probably didn't think much of it. some chick with a rich husband got a portrait done, some florins or whatever in his pocket, on to the next. yet hundreds of years later its his best known work and has captured the imagination of millions.I highly doubt he ever believed that painting would be the cornerstone of his legacy or even wanted it to be. but that's how it went.
its always the same for any creative endeavor. you put your idea out into the world with no guarantees, and people either like it or they don't. but when you go back and try to force people to like it by changing it to an extent that the original vision is gone, it loses its soul and its audience entirely.
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Thanks for all the warm words and for explaining to me what I can't see for myself - that BM and M&F are very much different, much more than I thought they would be.
To me, they are very similar because they are incorporations of the same idea. Like brothers. But brothers can be completely different persons.
I would very much love to update the BM codebase from 1999 style to 2015 style. But it basically means a complete rework and that is nothing that any sane person can do. Over the past years, Tim, me and others have already updated a lot of the code to use Doctrine at least, but we are still extremely far away from any modern coding paradigm.
The main problem, however, is that the BM world is static. It is ideal for a certain number of players, and fairly good in a nice range around it, but when there are too many or too few players, many of the systems just fall apart. And for that problem, we've never found a solution. The much more dynamic and editable map of M&F is such a solution.
And yes, decline is part of the lifecycle. As is a waning of interest both from players and developers. You all know I've long left BM more or less behind. My current interests in game development are in a completely different direction: I'm working on a game right now where I provide only the backend and an API and other people can implement the client, be it a web-based client or an iPad client or a Desktop game. Nothing like that is possible in BM without a huge amount of effort.
But there is 15 years of history in this game, and I just don't want to see it end. I can barely remember a time in my life without Perdan and Sirion.
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The main problem, however, is that the BM world is static. It is ideal for a certain number of players, and fairly good in a nice range around it, but when there are too many or too few players, many of the systems just fall apart. And for that problem, we've never found a solution. The much more dynamic and editable map of M&F is such a solution.
I believe we can find other solutions for BattleMaster. I've got some ideas in mind, though they aren't yet at a stage where I can clearly articulate them, beyond a general sense of a flexible frontier area that can be pushed back by aggressive expansion, but only with enough actual noble population to sustain it.
And yes, decline is part of the lifecycle. As is a waning of interest both from players and developers. You all know I've long left BM more or less behind. My current interests in game development are in a completely different direction: I'm working on a game right now where I provide only the backend and an API and other people can implement the client, be it a web-based client or an iPad client or a Desktop game. Nothing like that is possible in BM without a huge amount of effort.
That sounds pretty cool :)
But there is 15 years of history in this game, and I just don't want to see it end. I can barely remember a time in my life without Perdan and Sirion.
Then perhaps what we really need is to take the East Continent back to the drawing board: don't throw away the history, or the continent itself, but remake it so that it can survive in a new age.
Retain the existing realms and general concept of the island, but give it a new shape, and maybe make it not so much of an island anymore, so as to gain that flexible frontier. Redesign it in a purposeful way, so that the placement of important features makes them actually feel important, not just narratively, but strategically. Make sure that, at least to a first approximation, no realm has a clear advantage over any of its neighbours, no matter how you draw the borders.
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Anaris,
I am all for improvements to the maps and some of the other novel ideas you have had for BM. But I also know the extent of our volunteer ability and the state of the game. I firmly believe we need to significantly reduce player landmass (sink AT and FEI, at minimum) and adjust character limits before attempting anything else, especially something with as much effort as redoing maps.
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The main issue I had with M&F was indeed the time. Twice a day with BM works well, and there are times when I could totally see myself plonking down in front of the computer for a few hours to play, but turns running every hour? That's a little rough.
That said, I thought M&F looked very cool, and if there were an alternate with slower turns (no idea how difficult that would be) I would be happy to join.
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The main issue I had with M&F was indeed the time. Twice a day with BM works well, and there are times when I could totally see myself plonking down in front of the computer for a few hours to play, but turns running every hour? That's a little rough.
That said, I thought M&F looked very cool, and if there were an alternate with slower turns (no idea how difficult that would be) I would be happy to join.
I think there is a massive misunderstanding regarding the speed of M&F.
It doesn't have the same rigid turn structure as BM. What runs once an hour is an update to travel and other actions, so that movement and general activity is more smooth and not so focussed on specific times. This is a lesson learned from the BM problem of generals ordering everyone to log in 10 minutes after the turn change.
M&F does have a day cycle of 4 in-game days every real-world day, which is the closest equivalent to BM turns. This is when construction, recruitment and other major data gets updated.
But getting from A to B in M&F takes about the same time as in BM.
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I think there is a massive misunderstanding regarding the speed of M&F.
It doesn't have the same rigid turn structure as BM. What runs once an hour is an update to travel and other actions, so that movement and general activity is more smooth and not so focussed on specific times. This is a lesson learned from the BM problem of generals ordering everyone to log in 10 minutes after the turn change.
M&F does have a day cycle of 4 in-game days every real-world day, which is the closest equivalent to BM turns. This is when construction, recruitment and other major data gets updated.
But getting from A to B in M&F takes about the same time as in BM.
No, the problem is people are thinking of different aspect to you. In BM if you check the status of your enemy at the beginning of the turn, little changes until the next. Sure you have things like misdirection and late turn moves, but you know the WORLD won't update till the next turn. In M&F enemy troops can appear within your visible range on any hourly tick, they can arrive and change a battle situation while you are away for 3 hours. For many people that introduces a compulsion to check the game frequently in order to stay on top of what is happening and start a response to enemy movement or other player actions as soon as possible.
This is especially true when coordinating armies. As you say movement is still slow, thus as a "general" or "marshal" you need to know enemy movements as soon as is possible in order to get orders out, have people read the orders and start to follow them in time. I have so far found that just doesn't work and the only way coordinating armies works for me is to ensure that we have the initiative and are forcing the enemy to react to us, not the other way round. Single players running 25-50 characters whom are online 13+ hours a day have a massive advantage here as they can not only spot changing situations quickly, but react to them in force at the same time.
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Anaris,
I am all for improvements to the maps and some of the other novel ideas you have had for BM. But I also know the extent of our volunteer ability and the state of the game. I firmly believe we need to significantly reduce player landmass (sink AT and FEI, at minimum) and adjust character limits before attempting anything else, especially something with as much effort as redoing maps.
yeah I wholeheartedly disagree here. sinking islands is the exact type of heavy handed dev reactionism that kills games, the exact thing I cautioned against in my previous post. from what I heard regarding the reaction to western dwilight/far east glacier, I would figure the devs would have learned a lesson from that.
what are the problems you're trying to solve by this? I'm sure there are proactive solutions rather than reactive, solutions that can be fun for players instead of taking away years of history and time building realms and relationships.
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yeah I wholeheartedly disagree here. sinking islands is the exact type of heavy handed dev reactionism that kills games, the exact thing I cautioned against in my previous post. from what I heard regarding the reaction to western dwilight/far east glacier, I would figure the devs would have learned a lesson from that.
what are the problems you're trying to solve by this? I'm sure there are proactive solutions rather than reactive, solutions that can be fun for players instead of taking away years of history and time building realms and relationships.
Sure there are, and so far all suggestions require significant dev time that simply is NOT available. So we are left with the options of do nothing and have the game fail from failing density, promise changes that are at best years away, or attempt being heavy handed in an effort to at least do something.
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Fwiw: overwhelming feedback from players after the shrink was that they would have preferred a quick sinking rather than a slight shrinking.
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yeah I wholeheartedly disagree here. sinking islands is the exact type of heavy handed dev reactionism that kills games, the exact thing I cautioned against in my previous post. from what I heard regarding the reaction to western dwilight/far east glacier, I would figure the devs would have learned a lesson from that.
The devs have learned from that experience, though the lessons learned may be more individual. I speak for myself and as a dev team, we don't always agree and so not all my points are remotely close to any official consensus.
I think we erred in touching Dwilight at all. The Freeze was done in hopes of avoiding what you are concerned about now - closing islands and losing player history. At the time, in light of concerns of dev favouritism, we tried to be very impartial to where was frozen. Dwilight was basically a 'the monsters came from west, so it makes most sense they return there'. So the lessons I learned from that experience was much more lack of caring about being accused of favouritism, actually looking closer at realm densities, message activity, and battle frequency, and the fact that we probably didn't go far enough in the Freeze and we should have bucked up and closed islands then.
Frankly, the islands were opened when we had many more player to staff them. Therefore, if we don't have the players, we don't need the additional landmass. I advocate focusing upon those islands with the least wars/battles, are the most quiet, and have the lowest player densities - Atamara and Far East.
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I was really against the idea of partially freezing islands as well. I was on the side of actually closing islands down instead of freezing them. I still think it is best to reduce the number of worlds. Those who still are around will stick around at this point even if you close down some islands. We no longer have players to support so many islands. People's investment (their time and effort) are spread thin now because we just have too many islands.
Like Tim suggested, it would be better to close down most islands and rework EC - Tom's favourite island that he refuses to close - into a more workable shape - maybe we can adapt a more flexible map as well while at it instead of the current static one?
It is good that we have this long history but we just no longer have people to add more to it. Instead of dwelling on the past events, why not move forward?
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Aside from all the island closing discussion which I don't feel like getting into, I don't think my interest in BM would survive a merge. I've grown quite attached to the way BM works with it's mystery code, laid back pacing and lay-out brought to us straight from medieval times, not to mention the niche community.
I don't at all mind slow code changes and think it's pretty amazing that the code is still being developed and the game is still changing, and as a matter of fact, I kind of like that it doesn't change too abruptly.
Even after all this time, there's plenty of people I still come across who bring something entirely different to the game I haven't seen in a decade of playing. This game doesn't run on code, it runs on people. (Not being depreciative of all the work our amazing coders have put into the game of course! ;) )
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Fwiw: overwhelming feedback from players after the shrink was that they would have preferred a quick sinking rather than a slight shrinking.
Makes sense.
Full wipe is something every gamer has endured in the past and will grudgingly accept. Sinking only parts of landmass, while not touching other is plainly unfair and arbitrary, hence the butthurt.
To get back on topic, I would appreciate some cool M&F features incorporated in MB (unique armies, extended list of buildings, dungeons) but those hideous things mentioned should just stay in M&F (frantic pace, number of characters per player, messaging system, etc.).
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Makes sense.
Full wipe is something every gamer has endured in the past and will grudgingly accept. Sinking only parts of landmass, while not touching other is plainly unfair and arbitrary, hence the butthurt.
To get back on topic, I would appreciate some cool M&F features incorporated in MB (unique armies, extended list of buildings, dungeons) but those hideous things mentioned should just stay in M&F (frantic pace, number of characters per player, messaging system, etc.).
That's not really on topic, it is not really feasible to drop features from M&F into BM. As I mentioned before the pace and character limits for M&F are completely arbitrary, there would be no need to keep them for a BM world unless Tom means to create the BM land masses on the existing M&F server.
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yeah I wholeheartedly disagree here. sinking islands is the exact type of heavy handed dev reactionism that kills games, the exact thing I cautioned against in my previous post. from what I heard regarding the reaction to western dwilight/far east glacier, I would figure the devs would have learned a lesson from that.
what are the problems you're trying to solve by this? I'm sure there are proactive solutions rather than reactive, solutions that can be fun for players instead of taking away years of history and time building realms and relationships.
You realize that as one of those people who were critical of the devs, I was not upset that they had decided to reduce the playing area. I was upset that they had not taken into account activity, player population growth, player population density, etc.
I was all for sinking islands. Most people here agreed that something needed to be done. That specific something was what was disagreed upon, with half wanting to decrease the playing area of a continent, while the other half wanted to sink specific islands that were stuck in a gridlock of alliances and federations.
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It would be possible to have a dynamic map like M&F, yet AoW esthetics as BM has.
I re-did BT that way, and shared the results a couple of times on these forums, I believe. It looked a LOT like the current map, except that I could switch a region type in the blink of an eye.
Except for mountains. And hills. But a mountain is a mountain, and no human intervention will take that away, so that's kind of moot, it just means that the mountains need to be drawn placed beforehand. Cities could be on an overlay, a .png file that shows on top of the map as the flags currently do.
This would allow to overcome a lot of the limitations imposed by the poor geography of most game worlds. Maps could look the same, while being able to cut down a forest, replant one, or settle a city just about anywhere.
It's possible. But I also know it's a lot of work. And I'm skeptical it would allow to save the game and halt the decay. Might not be worth it, but it is possible, and I'm sure it would at least help, because I do attribute a lot of BM's ills to its poor and fixed geography. I believe some blame is also to be held in some the tendency to proclaim what might just be the worst continents as being sacred. AT et EC has the most history. They also have the worst.
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It would be possible to have a dynamic map like M&F, yet AoW esthetics as BM has.
I re-did BT that way, and shared the results a couple of times on these forums, I believe. It looked a LOT like the current map, except that I could switch a region type in the blink of an eye.
Except for mountains. And hills. But a mountain is a mountain, and no human intervention will take that away, so that's kind of moot, it just means that the mountains need to be drawn placed beforehand. Cities could be on an overlay, a .png file that shows on top of the map as the flags currently do.
This would allow to overcome a lot of the limitations imposed by the poor geography of most game worlds. Maps could look the same, while being able to cut down a forest, replant one, or settle a city just about anywhere.
It's possible. But I also know it's a lot of work. And I'm skeptical it would allow to save the game and halt the decay. Might not be worth it, but it is possible, and I'm sure it would at least help, because I do attribute a lot of BM's ills to its poor and fixed geography. I believe some blame is also to be held in some the tendency to proclaim what might just be the worst continents as being sacred. AT et EC has the most history. They also have the worst.
Changing the graphic is the least of the problems. Cities produce little food as it stands now, setting up a rural to be a city requires logic to replicate, removing food, adding gold. How do we decide by how much for each region for each possible state (base, town, stronghold city). Will we end up with realms founding and destroying cities to try and find those the the best stats in the best position (min/max issues)
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Changing the graphic is the least of the problems. Cities produce little food as it stands now, setting up a rural to be a city requires logic to replicate, removing food, adding gold. How do we decide by how much for each region for each possible state (base, town, stronghold city). Will we end up with realms founding and destroying cities to try and find those the the best stats in the best position (min/max issues)
The idea would be to start off with a few base region types, for example: Hills, Mountains, Plains, Badlands, and Wastelands. To which you can tack on a subtype, like forested or urban (could even add farmed). Then, the base stats would be determined by base region type, plus a subtype modifier. It could either be proportional to the region size, or, since they are mostly rather similar in size, all regions could simply be made equal. "Improvements", like strongholds or cities, can tack onto urban regions. To keep things simple, no need to make them produce less food, just make them consume more. After all, the city doesn't encompass the whole region.
Cities are destroyed and rebuilt regularly the time as it is, the only difference is that they don't change locations. As long as "moving" a city is costly and timely, I don't think we should obsess over min-maxing. Heck, along the same line, I'd also scrap the "no strategic capital move" rule, since it's poor intent-based rule and the only ones who get punished for it are those stupid enough to publicly admit they are acting out of strategic interest, plenty of other people having moved a capital along the border with no ill consequence. Just replace it with a scaled mechanic that gives greater unrest to a region when distance from the realm's capital is at least 25% greater than its distance to the centroid. Or if there's no code available to calculate the centroid, when the distance to the capital is greater than 2 standard deviations. Let people move around their cities and capitals as they like, just make it harmful to go full gamey.
Those who would benefit the most from this, I believe, would be the smallest realms with eccentric capitals. If allowing them to put their capital on the border helps them get involved and start wars, instead of being hidden far behind out of fear, then good for them.
I do think it'd be simpler to implement on a fresh continent, though.
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The idea would be to start off with a few base region types, for example: Hills, Mountains, Plains, Badlands, and Wastelands. To which you can tack on a subtype, like forested or urban (could even add farmed). Then, the base stats would be determined by base region type, plus a subtype modifier. It could either be proportional to the region size, or, since they are mostly rather similar in size, all regions could simply be made equal. "Improvements", like strongholds or cities, can tack onto urban regions. To keep things simple, no need to make them produce less food, just make them consume more. After all, the city doesn't encompass the whole region.
Cities are destroyed and rebuilt regularly the time as it is, the only difference is that they don't change locations. As long as "moving" a city is costly and timely, I don't think we should obsess over min-maxing. Heck, along the same line, I'd also scrap the "no strategic capital move" rule, since it's poor intent-based rule and the only ones who get punished for it are those stupid enough to publicly admit they are acting out of strategic interest, plenty of other people having moved a capital along the border with no ill consequence. Just replace it with a scaled mechanic that gives greater unrest to a region when distance from the realm's capital is at least 25% greater than its distance to the centroid. Or if there's no code available to calculate the centroid, when the distance to the capital is greater than 2 standard deviations. Let people move around their cities and capitals as they like, just make it harmful to go full gamey.
Those who would benefit the most from this, I believe, would be the smallest realms with eccentric capitals. If allowing them to put their capital on the border helps them get involved and start wars, instead of being hidden far behind out of fear, then good for them.
I do think it'd be simpler to implement on a fresh continent, though.
Well if we are talking about rewriting THAT much of the code base, well of course Dynamic Maps are possible. Almost everything is possible given time and resources, the issue being if we have those to dedicate.
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If I were going to dedicate the amount of effort that sort of dynamic map would require, I doubt that's what I would do.
If I were to implement a dynamic map, it certainly wouldn't have a "Build City Here" button or anything like that. It would rely on quasi-realistic population dynamics to determine where a city would generate naturally, with some noble (i.e., player) actions influencing that.
But anyone who wants to just declare a spot a city? They can have a flag and a nice big town hall in the middle of the woods if they really want.
Cities aren't created by having a bunch of buildings. They're created by having a lot of people.
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I actually tried M&F and played for a few months.
Among the things that made me quit:
- M&F is more realtime. Which is not a bad thing, just does not sit well with my personal playstyle. BM pretty much lets you log in twice a day for 5 minutes at set times to be 100% effective, while M&F requires much more attention and maintenance which I can not always afford.
- Messaging system in M&F is honestly a disaster. BM is much more convenient and allows for easier interaction.
- As a free player you are pretty much irrelevant, while paid account just forces you to play a host of characters 90% of which are drones that add to your mechanical power but not to roleplay. The realm I played in had dozens of nobles but really had like four people behind them and needless to say roleplay was non-existant. Then we got steamrolled by a single veteran player leading hordes of high level soldiers. No fun.
I really appreciated personalization of soldiers and economy model was kind of fun, but aforementioned issues just ruined it for me (especially the out of proportion multicharacter thing).
All in all, M&F is not a bad game, but it is not my cup of tea and BM definitely is. So I just can't see myself switching over to M&F as it is now.
This. 100% this.
I've tried to play M&F several times but it eats up too much time due to it's realtime aspect, the messaging system is a massive pain and most realms have lots of characters but only a tiny number of active players.
If M&F became much more turn based, the messaging system was improved and if you had very strict and low character limits (or at least only two per continent or something) then that would probably make a copy over work. Otherwise I'd just stop playing.
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I'd also say that personally speaking, I don't have any attachment to East Continent. I've hardly ever played there and for me BM is bound up with other continents. Plus the geography of East Continent sucks. So a complete reset to one new continent designed properly (with a goal of moving to a dynamic map over time) would work best for me - but since that's probably not practical I'd rather see all continents closed (except EC and the Colonies and maybe War Island) and a strict two characters per continent cap enforced. The increased population density would make things more interesting for the time being - especially with the influx of refugees - and that could buy the game time while a new map for East Continent, which included some sort of frontier and ideally the ability to be made dynamic, was worked on.
I certainly think that the best mechanic of M&F is the dynamic map and if that alone could be incorporated into BM somehow (with AOW graphics) then that would be awesome but I doubt it'd be technically feasible.
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I'd also say that personally speaking, I don't have any attachment to East Continent. I've hardly ever played there and for me BM is bound up with other continents. Plus the geography of East Continent sucks. So a complete reset to one new continent designed properly (with a goal of moving to a dynamic map over time) would work best for me - but since that's probably not practical I'd rather see all continents closed (except EC and the Colonies and maybe War Island) and a strict two characters per continent cap enforced. The increased population density would make things more interesting for the time being - especially with the influx of refugees - and that could buy the game time while a new map for East Continent, which included some sort of frontier and ideally the ability to be made dynamic, was worked on.
I certainly think that the best mechanic of M&F is the dynamic map and if that alone could be incorporated into BM somehow (with AOW graphics) then that would be awesome but I doubt it'd be technically feasible.
You are right, it is not technically feasible in any time frame available to us. M&F's mapping system is based on OpenLayers, the game itself uses the Symfony framework. While these utilise PHP same as BM, they are so far removed from the BM implementation that you would basically need to rewrite all of BM to integrate them.
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Guess I'd better get used to seeing a lot more of Perdan and Sirion then :p
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If I were going to dedicate the amount of effort that sort of dynamic map would require, I doubt that's what I would do.
If I were to implement a dynamic map, it certainly wouldn't have a "Build City Here" button or anything like that. It would rely on quasi-realistic population dynamics to determine where a city would generate naturally, with some noble (i.e., player) actions influencing that.
But anyone who wants to just declare a spot a city? They can have a flag and a nice big town hall in the middle of the woods if they really want.
Cities aren't created by having a bunch of buildings. They're created by having a lot of people.
People don't amass in places randomly. Sure, as much as the modern world is filled with ghost grandiose pre-made cities that came out of some urbanists' phantasms, doesn't mean that growth cannot be influenced. Places without infrastructure don't grow, places with infrastructure, resources, trading potential, and defensible positions grow.
I didn't mean "click here to add +500 000 people to this region and thus form a city", but rather, infrastructure that increased the max pop limit, to allow the city to grow organically.
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Places without infrastructure don't grow, places with infrastructure, resources, trading potential, and defensible positions grow.
But it's the resources, trading potential, and defensible positions that really lead people to congregate in certain places.
If I were to design a system to allow dynamically changing cities, I'd start with the land. Give various swathes of land an "arability" value, from 0%-100%. Add some forests, which can be harvested for resources slowly, or clear-cut for farming. Put mineral resources in—both gold/gems (effectively identical from a gameplay perspective) and metal and stone.
Then start filtering population into the area with some basic intelligence. River deltas would be a first natural place to build cities. Farms would go up, and they'd need somewhere to sell their food. Mines would go up, and they'd need somewhere to buy food from. Trade routes would begin to establish themselves, and where multiple trade routes meet, other cities or towns would crop up.
So if you wanted to establish a new city, you'd need to provide a damn good reason for peasants to start congregating in a certain place.
Now, if you wanted to manually place strongholds, I'd be all for that, but you'd need to establish the population mostly by yourself—which is as it should be; a significant percentage of the population of a stronghold should be its garrison and their families. So you'd have to spend some time bringing in soldiers from other parts of the realm and setting them up as part of the garrison of the stronghold.
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But it's the resources, trading potential, and defensible positions that really lead people to congregate in certain places.
If I were to design a system to allow dynamically changing cities, I'd start with the land. Give various swathes of land an "arability" value, from 0%-100%. Add some forests, which can be harvested for resources slowly, or clear-cut for farming. Put mineral resources in—both gold/gems (effectively identical from a gameplay perspective) and metal and stone.
Then start filtering population into the area with some basic intelligence. River deltas would be a first natural place to build cities. Farms would go up, and they'd need somewhere to sell their food. Mines would go up, and they'd need somewhere to buy food from. Trade routes would begin to establish themselves, and where multiple trade routes meet, other cities or towns would crop up.
So if you wanted to establish a new city, you'd need to provide a damn good reason for peasants to start congregating in a certain place.
Now, if you wanted to manually place strongholds, I'd be all for that, but you'd need to establish the population mostly by yourself—which is as it should be; a significant percentage of the population of a stronghold should be its garrison and their families. So you'd have to spend some time bringing in soldiers from other parts of the realm and setting them up as part of the garrison of the stronghold.
That is quite an interesting idea that could be discussed separately
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I'm turned off by subscriptions in general, especially since many time periods where i have played BM in were when I was broke and/or unemployed. I also haven't gotten around to trying M&F yet, it seemed a bit too much in beta and looked kind of ugly a while ago. I should probably check it out again though.
I kind of like the AoW maps and simplicity of BM, but there certainly does need to be more to do outside of war and maybe a refresh of the continents. The years of player made history are great and it would be sad to lose them, but it's clear that the design of the continents is no longer working that well.
It's certainly a great idea to throw out and think about ideas of a merger anyway even if it doesn't happen.
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M&F is dominated by multi-account realms. Or rather single VIP accounts that allow one to play unlimited number of characters and own unlimited quantity of stuff.
Something that gets you banned in BM is totally legit in M&F if you pay a modest sum every month.
M&F has it merits but frustration of having realms with dozens of players being steamrolled by two VIP guys was really a wake up call for me.
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M&F is dominated by multi-account realms. Or rather single VIP accounts that allow one to play unlimited number of characters and own unlimited quantity of stuff.
Something that gets you banned in BM is totally legit in M&F if you pay a modest sum every month.
M&F has it merits but frustration of having realms with dozens of players being steamrolled by two VIP guys was really a wake up call for me.
You realise that VIP accounts simply mean they supported the Crowd Funding at a certain level. It has no bearing on how many characters they can control, they can control the same amount as any other player, determined by their subscription level. There is NO level that allows for unlimited characters, though the limits are high, and multi-accounts are not against the rules, so long as the accounts are paid accounts.
That said the players whom played in the style you speak of are almost all gone. I know of only one that remains. Turns out being in a realm of limited players loses its attraction eventually, no matter how many wars you win.
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As someone who plays both, I'd best describe both games with the following: Might and Featly has more clicking than writing, while Battlemaster has more writing than clicking, The silver linings are somewhere in the middle, so an ambitious merger that would merge only the best traits of both would be tremendous. But probably too ambitious.
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The tricky part is identifying what the best parts are, as opinions differ on that.
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One of Might and Fealty's weaknesses is that there really isn't a whole lot for a landless noble to do and there's not a lot for someone to accomplish in the game if they're not thinking about building armies and going on the warpath.
One of Battlemaster's strongest qualities is how much stuff someone can do without being a lord. You can take part in Tourney's, you can Duel, you can use your subclass's benefits, etc. If there's anything you should import from Battlemaster, it's that. Now in Battlemaster, a lot of that other stuff loses its appeal after a bit and I'd say a weakness of Battlemaster is how super slow, structured, and... in my opinion, boring, it is if you haven't been at it for a while to where you can recruit larger armies, explore sub-classes, or hold important positions in power. Otherwise, you're very limited in what you can do, are not that useful for a while, and are often just kinda another body in someone else's army that can hold a small unit of men, get a stipend every month, and do little else.
Might and Fealty has the strength of allowing even a new person unrestrained possibility. Within a month's time, you can go from a landless knight to a Duke, if you're active and good at what you do. You can go from nothing to founding a faction if the cards are in your favor. Can go from holding no army to leading as a Marshall on a battlefield with thousand of men at your command, if you so choose. And this allows you to get right into the dirty politics and play a useful role. I really love that aspect of the game and hope you don't change it. The progression in Battlemaster feels like just such a grind, and if there's anything I hate in MMOs, it's grinding and trudging through mediocrity in the hope of getting to the 'good' part. Not to mention that in Battlemaster, I've never felt truly useful. And yes, I'm willing to acknowledge that's not ALL the game's fault, but it's structure is more limiting by comparison.
What else I'd like to see.... Well, I'd like to see tourney's, duels, and such in Might and Fealty. I'd love to see infiltrators act as assassins, saboteurs, and spies. I'd like to see less stress in the turn setup of Might and Fealty (the whole turn every hour thing is stressful; Battlemaster really did this better). I don't want to see Battlemaster's rigid social or governmental structure. The ability to play commoners is cool. I'd like to see whatever hybrid game you create allow cities and big towns to build up organically like they do in M&F rather than be predetermined. Account control and discouraging multi-accounting would be necessary, should the game ever get a bigger player-base, though in the beginning, it's not a must. Basically take Might and Fealty, add some more depth to the mechanics, reduce the turns, advertise the bloody thing so people actually show up, and I'd say you're golden with me.
Course that's for my wishlist. This is a hell of a task you're thinking of undertaking Tom, especially considering the differences in framework. You're practically going to have to rebuild this from the ground up.... You okay with that?
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Crap doublepost...
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I tried MF for about 3 months. Couldn't get into it at all. Probably because I was expecting a better version of BM not a brand new game which only shares the same developer.