BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => Locals => East Island => Topic started by: Lancaster on May 24, 2018, 08:31:48 PM
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Recently, we had some magical events take place on the north-center portion of EC:
With night falling, peculiar sounds filled the air, of groaning, creaking timbers. No, not the usual perpetual production of siege engines within Bescanon. Something different.
Some claimed to see large shadows moving through the sky above, but others denied these reports on account of it being a night filled with dark stormclouds. Elsewhere, peasants claimed to have been injured by shattered wood falling from the sky. They were promptly investigated for witchcraft rather than provided medical care. Within Perdan, a considerable amount of sod fell upon Eros Harte's head.
As troopleaders attempted to continue about their duties they began to notice that the infrastructure once known to be in the region was no longer present. Or in other cases, infrastructure once known to be in one region was suddenly within another region, causing people to doubt which region they were really present within.
The beam of light began to dim, ever so gradually, throughout the night. After many hours, the portal light was extinguished, leaving the charred remains of the eight portal stones encircling a unique item, Othello's Gloves of Imagination.
Some RC's got switched around, but it also looks like Bescanon and Perdan lost their walls entirely? Or they were moved and given to the Northern-allied realms across the river? Doesn't seem exactly fair, usually these things have a trade-off where there are positives and negatives to either side, but this looks like the North just basically won the war with one move?
My character is all the wall on a different portion of the island, but still this seems a bit uneven to me.
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Earthquake! Thunderstorm! (3 hours ago)
message to everyone in the vicinity of Bescanon
As Othello ran, the ground began to rumble and the clouds began to darken throughout Bescanon and all bordering regions of Troyes, Perdan, Brive, Meuse, and Nascot. Animals sought shelter as the elderly declared that a storm was a-brewin'. Fissures began to break open, swallowing livestock, peasants, and their hovels. Elsewhere, buildings gained damage from the quaking ground.
As the sun began to set, lightning began to flash throughout the sky. Within Bescanon, a tree above Benjamin Pryde was struck, splitting its trunk. A Troyes field was lit aflame bordering Ehrendill Eyolf Serpentis's camp. In Perdan, portal stones carried by Spazzle and Rudrik attracted the lightning, incinerating the stones and wounding the adventurers with second-degree burns upon their bums.
Hurray!!! My char was a little involved 8)
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I will restate my absolute disdain towards such heavy consequence magic on any island beyond BT.
For me this is the final drop though, as it stands I'll just delete my char on EC and not come back for a while. I'll sleep on it for a night though.
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Well, considering that I'm just doing nothing in Troyes for days, yes, EC seems pretty empty. However, I'm facing the same with my Priest in Madina and while there's more actvity in Angmar (BT), I believe I'm doing more in, believe me, the Colonies... for the Khan!!!
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Retaliate with 8 portal stones of your own 8)
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I was only struck by the immediacy and magnitude of the event; the adventurer got almost precisely what they wanted, practically straight away, with little consequence.
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I have to say that I am more than a little frustrated by this decision as well.
EC is the only normal server that remains PvP... Or so I thought until portals popped up. It is the only island where Old BM of interstate wars with is still happening. Heavy magic does not belong on EC. There is enough PvP interaction on EC without adding in these sorts of manual interventions.
That is to say nothing of the ramifications these actions - from what I have gathered, not only were walls switched between Bescanon and Troyes (as requested by the spellcasting advie), but additionally, recruitment centers have been also switched around in multiple regions, and Perdan City's level 5 walls also removed.
Why are the GM's making such heavyhanded manual moves on the sole PvP server? Can we please refrain from alienating the dwindling playerbase that remains and just wants to play a game with strategy and roleplaying, set in a low-fantasy middle-ages world? Portals belong on Beluaterra, where people signed up for them, and possibly Dwilight, with the Zuma. Not EC. Players are legitimately frustrated with such actions, and some are deleting/pausing already. I am sure this was not the intent of the GMs, but ultimately this is the result... I hope that the GMs consider taking back some of the additional effects beyond what the advie requested, which was already a big change, and remove portal stones from EC in the future.
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When I recommended that what be done be done regarding the portal stones, I really wasn't imagining that something of this magnitude would happen. A bit of magic here and there, someone getting hit by a spark might make sense, but this goes beyond what is feasible IC to something that has dramatically affected the course of war and politics on the EC.
The walls in Perdan were moved to Meuse, a location that can't sustain much in the way of militia and doesn't need the walls. It is kind of funny that they are there, but the implications are massive in terms of what can happen now because not just Perdan but Bescanon no longer have their walls, and that Troyes now does have walls. All of this happening while two massive armies of approx. 20kCS each are facing off against each other between Bescanon and Troyes. As for the RCs moving, some of them were destroyed including the best RC that Perdan had.
There is also a great deal of political maneuvering going on regarding the region at this point.
EC is the only normal server that remains PvP... Or so I thought until portals popped up. It is the only island where Old BM of interstate wars with is still happening. Heavy magic does not belong on EC. There is enough PvP interaction on EC without adding in these sorts of manual interventions.
I'll echo this point by Lefanis and add that after the FEI and Atamara were sunk it threw the balance of islands heavily in the favour of monster/magic dominated ones.
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It's funny how nobody said anything when most of the Xavax leadership was getting taken out by magickal attacks on the regular, or when almost the entire population of Isadril just up and left, or when the militias in Krimml and Akesh Temple switched places...
Very funny indeed.
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It's funny how nobody said anything when most of the Xavax leadership was getting taken out by magickal attacks on the regular, or when almost the entire population of Isadril just up and left.
Very funny indeed.
Not to break your balls, but I did say something about it. In fact I nearly quit BM entirely around that time as my char + realm was hit even harder. Garas back then was continously targeted by scrolls of accident wounding him half of the time. Problem back then was that magic was only used against Oligarch and later Xavax, so nobody else was bothered by it.
But I have been arguing against magic pretty much from the start. BM never used to have any magic at all, let alone this impactful.
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The adventurer should suffer some consequence for such big event, as side effect. You taking too much medicine, you will have the side effect. Same here, you used magic something that an adventurer could never understand, never mind unable read books at all, there should be a penalty to balance the event.
Overall I am for magic on Dwilight and Belu only. My adventurer opens Portal in Colonies and the Light still there, never resolve even before this EC event happens.
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Firstly, since when is portal magic giving what player requests? Without drawback and to that level of magnitude? Do you win wars through portal magic now?
Secondly, I think it was a very very big mistake to have the dev who really hates Perdan and its players and was quite vocal about it on these very forums, handle the portal effects. Especially when these results are obviously unfair and out of any reasonable proportion.
Let me be very clear here. I can not claim that Vita blatantly and purposefully screwed Perdan up but I will repeat that it was a mistake to not distance himself from this situation, knowing his own biases and knowing we all know them as well.
I'm left with a seriously bad taste in my mouth and I think other Titans should look into this very carefully. If that was actually condoned by everyone, I think it's time to involve Tom because this is a very serious and out of proportion dev intervention.
Retaliate with 8 portal stones of your own 8)
No.
We should not be pushed to play adventurers and farm portal stones to then petition devs for enormous unconditional advantage in wars.
This is not how this game is supposed to be played.
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I'm left with a seriously bad taste in my mouth and I think other Titans should look into this very carefully. If that was actually condoned by everyone, I think it's time to involve Tom because this is a very serious and out of proportion dev intervention.
I don't think anyone is involved in these portal events, except Vita. (to my best knowledge)
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I absolutely agree that portal events should never directly give an adventurer what they ask for if it is something that could have a serious effect on the balance of the island.
I've begun discussing this with Vita, and we will work out a plan for how to proceed with this particular incident, and portal events in general.
I do hear those of you saying that magic should have less of an impact on the EC. I think you're probably right; we just need to figure out the best balance of expectations and code.
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If it's random, which I didn't realise, make the outcomes public and validated.
Something like a % table where it's likely to go conditionally good or bad and a small chance for catastrophic events.
Then, make agreement among the Devs what limits a portal event would have. Reduction of a walls strength instead of removal altogether, or moving characters or a single living from the dead. Make that fairly absolute, with some flex to reward exceptional RP or circumstances.
Those level five walls must have cost a fortune on their own let alone the other actions.
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Ok, just to make sure everyone's agreeing on several basic points:
- Most of people are unhappy with how magic works on EC
- Most of people are happy with how it works on BT and DWI
The rationale here is - some people enjoy magic in general, some people don't enjoy magic in general and some want to have experience of both magic-influenced and magic-free gameplay (like me for example). I believe it would be wise to meet the expectation of all those groups. Having two islands left as is (able to be heavily influenced by portal events etc.) and two whith magic/portal gameplay greatly reduced would provide some space for players of all tastes. Thus I believe Gabanus' idea from the OP is a good one.
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While I liked to see my char's name in a game event, the way it works is a little too much and arbitrary.
When I returned to the game and saw Sirion/Nivemus using scrolls like crazy against Garas, I was shocked. I'm getting old, but of all the things that changed in BM, this use of scrolls is the one of the reasons I want my beloved old BM back (PvP). EC was used to see big battles, north against south, etc... even with people being silly about Sirionite elves (I'm among them), this magic stuff is out of hand.
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I find it incredibly hypocritical that those who whine the most about this event seem to also be those that take the most pleasure in RPing about their use of magic whenever it's to their own advantage. Also people who have benefited from portal stones in the past, and who have never shied away from using magic under any form whatsoever. These effects weren't even unprecedented.
I agree with reducing magic on EC, but I wholeheartedly disagree with catering to the whining and undoing what was done. I will be very mad if another set of portal stones are used to simply undo what was just done, regardless of how much more RP or scrolls are poured into it. Portal stones aren't a wishing well, whining on the forum shouldn't be either. Using more stones to undo SOME of the effects that occurred can be justified, but not to surgically undo all that was done. Actions which were not surgical to begin with, but random.
So maybe tone down what occurs in the future, and reduce the stone spawn rate. Maybe add IG reports "there are rumors of an adventurer running around with portal stones nearby" to facilitate witch hunts against them. But do not just return things to how they were. No matter how much whining, RPing, or scrolls are given.
I will also add, however, that I'm also greatly annoyed that the Bescanon portal was resolved pretty much immediately, before I even noticed it on the map. The Darfix portal, on the other hand, has been there for as long as I remember. We've had characters parked there for months to see if anything happens. We've had to adjust Westgard's military expeditions out of fear of what it might do. We've asked countless times for a resolution to that portal event. Why were we unworthy there? Just shut it down in a fizzle if you don't care to do anything about it.
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I've used/had use magic on me thrice for mostly RP purposes, that's it. The first was a healing scroll or smth on Catherine who wasn't even wounded (thus wasting it game mechanics wise) for a RP after Sirion used several scrolls on us. The second was the same but then on Garas to 'counter the black magic inside him' when he was mechanically fine.
The second was the healing scroll on Glory which became a rp event with 5+ characters with very minimal impact on the actual game. She would've healed soon enough anyway.
The key here is minimal impact. Mind you, when Garas was hit with 4 or 5 scrolls of accident in the span of several months, we roleplayed it more than the ones who cast it. Garas was blind for more than a IRL year due to one of those scrolls. I roleplayed the event and tried to turn it into something fun, not because I approve or like excessive use of magic with impact.
I can live with a little bit of super low impact and so far even with big impacts I've both complained about it (read back some other forum topics and irc logs if you don't believe me) and subsequently tried to RP it so there's atleast something good out of it. Don't mean I like it, simply means that's how I play the game. When stuff happens I use it for RP and to create actual stories.
You may find the attitude of complaining yet building rp around stuff like this hypocritical, but what do you want me to do otherwise? Complain and try to ruin the game for others instead?
Now that you have your answer I sincerely hope we can return to a proper cordial tone.
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I will also add, however, that I'm also greatly annoyed that the Bescanon portal was resolved pretty much immediately, before I even noticed it on the map. The Darfix portal, on the other hand, has been there for as long as I remember. We've had characters parked there for months to see if anything happens. We've had to adjust Westgard's military expeditions out of fear of what it might do. We've asked countless times for a resolution to that portal event. Why were we unworthy there? Just shut it down in a fizzle if you don't care to do anything about it.
Maybe the different islands are handled by different devs? Portals in East Island usually resolve very quickly. Portals in Dwilight take weeks to resolve, if they ever do resolve.
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No, Anaris and I handle all portals. It's pure coincidence as to how quickly they've been responded to.
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It doesn't seem that way. The first portal was resolved immediately after it was opened. You seemed really excited at the time.
This time there's no reaction for days despite there being an obvious urgency. Almost as if you wanted to delay controlling the damage you've done.
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Seem doesn't equal reality. Surprisingly, I do have a life outside BattleMaster. I resolved the first one quickly as I knew both admins would be less available this week and next week, and I wanted to avoid another unanswered portal. You're reading far too much into things.
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What you mean to do in your own mind and what it appears you are doing from the outside are not always the same.
Appearances do matter.
And while you certainly may not have meant to give preferential treatment to instantly respond to a portal event that gave the Northern Alliance a massive advantage by removing walls and recruitment centers from the Southern Alliance, that is what ended up happening.
And while you certainly may not have meant to give preferential treatment to the Northern Alliance by delaying response to a portal event meant to reverse some of that damage, some people could make the case that is what has ended up happening.
I know the devs are busy, and I know there are not as many devs as there used to be. I'm honestly not trying to bust your balls or anything, but it is honestly annoying as a player to have it feel as if the weight of the devs is pressing the scales against you as a player. Whether or not that is actually what is happening.
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Speaking of appearing to be unfair, how about letting Perdan move its capital right up to the front lines? That doesn't seem very fair. Perhaps it's completely justified by precedence, but "Appearances do matter", apparently.
What's next? Is Vix Tiramora going to move its capital to Partora? Is Highmarch going to move its capital to Akesh Temple?
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Being able to observe the Titan's decisions (and we *had* decided to have public case summaries post-Magistrates, even if we haven't done so recently), the perdanite capital decision was judged not to have been moved to recruit closer to front lines.
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What you mean to do in your own mind and what it appears you are doing from the outside are not always the same.
Appearances do matter.
And while you certainly may not have meant to give preferential treatment to instantly respond to a portal event that gave the Northern Alliance a massive advantage by removing walls and recruitment centers from the Southern Alliance, that is what ended up happening.
And while you certainly may not have meant to give preferential treatment to the Northern Alliance by delaying response to a portal event meant to reverse some of that damage, some people could make the case that is what has ended up happening.
I know the devs are busy, and I know there are not as many devs as there used to be. I'm honestly not trying to bust your balls or anything, but it is honestly annoying as a player to have it feel as if the weight of the devs is pressing the scales against you as a player. Whether or not that is actually what is happening.
I do not disagree.
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Being able to observe the Titan's decisions (and we *had* decided to have public case summaries post-Magistrates, even if we haven't done so recently), the perdanite capital decision was judged not to have been moved to recruit closer to front lines.
Howevere, they will indeed recruit closer to the front lines... maybe it will be unfair for those who cannot enjoy the same fate? It seems more a rule to punish intentions, not sudenly advantages.
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It is precisely a rule to punish intentions, which is why we haven’t simply changed the code to prohibit moving the capital while in wartime.
And if other realms were to be moving their capital to the region which gave the realm their name, and which was the realm’s capital for more RL years than most realms in this game have existed, I can assure you that the Titans would look more favorably on them, as well.
However, that said, even that would not be enough to prevent my and/or the Titans’ wrath from falling upon a realm that made such a move with any real indication that it was done with the intention of improving refit times.
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Plus, Perdan hasn't had a capital at all this whole time. It might as well be the one named "Perdan". We haven't been able to refit since the shenanigans.
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Plus, Perdan hasn't had a capital at all this whole time. It might as well be the one named "Perdan". We haven't been able to refit since the shenanigans.
You don't get preferential treatment from the Titans after shooting yourself in the foot. :)
All I'm saying is, I hope this put to rest any complaints about how the Devs/Titans appear to be biased against Perdan.
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Goldpanda,
Perdan the realm moved the capital to Perdan City some time ago and it was ruled as legitimate. It was condoned by the Devs as far as I can tell. Additionally, the recent return of Perdan City to Perdan the Realm makes it so that perdan City is still, the capital. It was never moved away from Perdan City.
If you have complaints now, they have no basis as nothing was changed. No preferential treatment, no action pertaining the moving of capitals. If you perceive this as a problem, know that it was dealt with in the past.
If you want confirmation that no capital change occurred in Perdan the realm I suggest you check the message feed ingame, you'll find that there has been no capital change in the last week. I presume that is the timeframe that is relevant to your comments in this thread.
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You don't get preferential treatment from the Titans after shooting yourself in the foot. :)
All I'm saying is, I hope this put to rest any complaints about how the Devs/Titans appear to be biased against Perdan.
...I'm not even sure what this is meant to mean, as if I had anything to do with where the past or present capital of my realm is, or was!
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It's one of those very ironic things.
Perdan City was the capital of Perdan.
When the former Perdan king took Perdan Duchy out of Perdan, Perdan City remained the capital of Perdan even though it was in Vix.
And when the Vix leader took Perdan City to Highmarch, Perdan City was still the capital of Perdan. Even though it was in Highmarch.
Seriously. No joke. If you looked at the realm summary, the capital was still Perdan City.
So for a month or two, Perdan was unable to recruit any soldiers since the only place you can do that is in the capital. But since the capital was not in the realm, we couldn't recruit there.
So after Chenier lost the vote to keep Perdan City in Highmarch and the new lord of Perdan City brought it back to Perdan, we did not need to change the capital back to Perdan City. Because we had never changed it AWAY from Perdan City.
I honestly don't know how the game's code kept all of that straight, and I'm figuring there was probably a bug in there somewhere, but that's how it worked out. It was a rather mind altering experience to see from the inside, let me tell you.
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Why would you assume there was a bug somewhere?
It did everything that is was supposed to do, no?
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It actually made sense. Perdan had never moved their capital institutions away from Perdan thus they remained there. For Perdan not to switch during the entire debacle was a choice.
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My assumption of a "bug" would more properly stated as "not anticipated."
It is impossible for a capital city to leave a realm. And in the past, the duchy and city were the same.
It used to be that putting a fractious duke in charge of the capital duchy was the safest choice you could make because they literally could not defect. It anchored them to the realm with their only way to leave being to resign first.
We now have duchies separate from cities, and in this case the duchy left, taking the capital with it.
This was simply not anticipated in the original code so the game never thought to strip "capital" status from the city. And it never thought to stop the secession of the capital city because it was the DUCHY leaving...that happened to have the capital in it.
We would have had to purposefully change it because the game did not do it. It is an interesting shift in what is possible and how things go when certain small changes result in shifts that nobody expected.
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While that's a logical chain of deduction, it ignores some very important facts.
First of all, it has always been possible (though very rare) for a capital to go rogue or defect to another realm all on its own.
Second, it has always been possible (though difficult) for another realm to run a successful takeover of your capital.
In both of these situations, the region remains the realm's capital, even though it is not in their control, and they must manually move the capital to another region.
While I don't recall specifically whether we considered this situation when we were making the changes that decoupled cities from duchies, that was many years ago now, and we have seen situations like this come up multiple times since then. We are very comfortable with having the realm's capital outside the realm when this occurs. We have even added code to ensure that when that happens, people returning to the capital (such as when released from prison) are not sent to enemy lands, but rather are told that their realm no longer controls its capital, and they must choose a new realm to "return" to, as if they were rogues.
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I don't remember how it was before duchies, but capitals have been able to change allegiance, under certain conditions, since a very long time.
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Capitals cannot secede. They can change allegiance.
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Interesting. So not quite the bug I thought it was.
I myself have never seen it, and it was still amazing to play through it.
The look of consternation on some of the players' faces as they realized that yes we did actually still have a capital was a wonder to behold. It just wasn't in our realm. It's one of those leaps of logic that make brains crack. And was honestly one of the more funny things to see as we went through that.
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Well, just think of it as all of your capital buildings, and documents, and public servants and whatnot just being out of reach, hunkered down in an occupied location.
It's all still there... you just can't access any of it.
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Oh yeah.
That was very much the case.