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Affirmative.

Shadowdale has picked fights with Nivemus, Caligus, Eppy, and Sirion but Eppy needs to 1v1 them....?

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Please do not amateur psychoanalyze me it is incredibly condescending and goes beyond "sharing your experience". I have always played my characters as they are and focused on the resolution of their own stories, whether or not I'm writing 7k character RPs. That I don't play nicely with everyone or refuse to follow whatever the gang has cooked up today is because of my devotion to the story of my characters. I am committed to the organic storytelling that makes BM unique, not contrived stories cooked up in a fever of cigarettes and clacking away on a keyboard.

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While I acknowledge I was often spicy on discord, I noted many players attacked me outside of game topics and I responded in kind. A memorable debate on Politics and Religion really opened my eyes to the quality of people on the discord and the echo bubble that occurs (the one where they called my family members murderous psychopaths, until "one of their own" offered his own views on gun use). That I would butt heads in the EC chat was nearly a given at that point. Not that I think my last conversation was bad at all but even when confronted with real time examples of their behaviour I was gaslighted and ignored.

The discord has existed as a wild west under the guise of semi-official. You are correct about moderating OOC influence only going so far but the prominence of discord makes the influence that much more. Here's a suggestion: if it is a ooc community of friends, who care who plays which families? Conceal that information from search. I remember the vibes changing the moment they discovered the family I play. Let players reveal it if they wish.

I will put this as simply as possible - you are saying the discord and the zeitgeist it presents has zero effects on the game? That it has never influenced writing a character motivation? That the concepts presented exist entirely separate in each individual's mind and that no contamination occurs? That months of vitriol against Nivemus never formented any lasting opinion or concept that was acted upon? In the case of Sigrid, that I didn't read on discord "someone talk to Sigrid so she can flip Bruck"? That would be a contamination not of Sigrid, but of others.

I am curious what the official directive is on the limits of this. As long as the note is written in BM proper, anything is justifiable?

The second point also concerns the devs so I will present it - I have never claimed you are at the beck and call of a tier of players. That is an absolute and easily disprovable. I will say when the devs can put a "give feedback" button on the account pages to get a broad perspective, why wouldn't they? The question is not an attack. I have never said you are opinion less and totally manipulated. I've asked are you infallible and immune to persuasion? Am I wrong for wondering from outside why you don't ask us on the other side?

My final point was elaborated on by Gildre. I urge everyone to take a moment and think about it. What has been written on discord already about this?

I will speak broadly - I have observed that the devs think very much like programmers and are trying to change the pieces of BM to work together for a certain outcome.

That doesn't work with games. The environment must be altered to incentivize playstyles, not discourage playstyles. Too often restrictions are placed which, while well-intentioned, are restrictions and make BM feel less like a game and more like a process that is performed.

For example, hinterlands is not a restriction, density caps are. I think there can be more done to incentivize realm shapes and sizes and how realms interact on their edges, but I think the dev team really needs to ask someone with experience in behaviour change techniques or similar experience how to go about making these changes.

Now, as I said, I have heard the cries of "Discord is ruining the game" for some time, but very rarely in reference to specific instances (and on the occasions when it was in reference to specific instances, they have almost invariably been provably false). Could you articulate for me some specific incidents that you believe were caused or exacerbated by Discord, and why?

All too often it does become a requirement to play on the "highly-active" tier.

Current vitriol against the player of the Ketchum family is absurd and if he is truly game-breaking like they say, should be reported to the titans. Instead Nivemus is blacklisted and at least a dozen characters suddenly believe their life goal is to depose Brock - hence the founding of a colony in Nivemus lands. So many ways to go about it such as "these people are suffering and neglected" etc, but they go with the the meta-game "you are not dense enough give me your lands" because that is a discord opinion.

The flip of bruck was by a player/character who was bored, which is fine, but growing discontent was never known outside of discord. The player actively asked for someone to give their character IC motivation so they could flip a region. That level of planning occuring outside of BM, if I recall, was always forbidden or at least highly discouraged but occurs.

The entire Alexandria colony attempt has been planned OOC on discord to fit meta-game concepts, that Nivemus isn't dense enough so we should put a colony there and enliven it. This is also an example of the close-minded echo bubble I encountered. I asked why did they demand two cities from a realm when they could have subverted Nivemus, they could found their realm and actually fight for their lands, so many options but I was decried as "the problem" and "protecting bad players".

Those are three, specific, current examples. There are less tenuous ones and older ones - ooc spreading of IC information being used IC, highly active players have always had the ears of admins etc when Indirik no less asked for West dwilight rogue spawn to be dialled down after astrum moved into the north west coast. I won't go down a rabbit hole of what has always been apparent, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but you can put a survey link or more obvious contact options on our account pages.

As I said in discord, if somebody presents as "bitter" or as concerned as I am from outside the bubble of discord, how many other players feel as embattled? What context and environment has led to this? Is this ever an acceptable outcome?

I'd like to open a discussion about the effect of discord on the BM community - gaming events that occur because of discord actions, the role of hyperactive players in pressuring development of the game, and the alienation of those who do not wish to participate in the very heavy activity that discord demands.

I have spent a month on the discord to see for myself what occurs. It seems to be the same group of self-congratulatory players who creat an echo chamber of opinions which alienate those who do not play the same way. I rarely could voice an opinion without being diminished, dismissed, or mocked. I'm not a delicate guy but it is frustrating to see these players not consider that if anyone is feeling the way I am means others can feel that way and that they need to consider why these environments occur.

Discord is not mandatory to play BM. We can form friendships with BM as the medium and too often it feels like those of us with less activity are discarded as playing wrong.

Godric had been haunted for some time now. Even more so since he had returned to Oligarch. His rest felt like a battle and the day's labours felt a fardel unfair. The duties of the Chief of Justice, Arbiter, Duke, Councilman, and his own practices. Perhaps he spread himself too thin? Perhaps it was something else.

He cannot remember the dreams, only whispers, but they left him weak and listless. Darkness cast over him like some revenant from terrible parts unknown, bringing with memories old and unpleasant. His fingers wrap around the hilt of the Nightblade, its scorched surface gleams wickedly in the moonlight. He cannot explain the urge to practice so late at night - he had little desire to practice swordsmanship for so long but now he felt as if he was being coached from beyond the veil. Effortlessly the blade whistles through the crisp night air. In his fatigue Godric believes he can see the blade glowing and he feels his hands glow too. The whispers of warriors past begin to rise from the whispers of the wind and grass. He gains more and more fluency and soon he is battling imagined foes with immaculate ease. A battle rages in his mind as his practice grows more and more intense. How did he make it outside to this field? In Oligarch of all places? He feels the dread growing, gnawing at his stomach as he realizes he is being watched.

Godric awakens with a start. He has been dreaming again but cannot recall anything but the whispers of the wind and the faintest scent of dew covered grass. But he still feels the pit in his stomach.

Large alliances should have control penalties associated with level of cohesion. Highly cohesive (ie federation) should have the peripheries of the alliance experience penalties in their regions. Lower cohesion has lower penalties.

Region control should follow the current paradigm but hinterlands are fixed at "occupied". They don't contribute to realm size (maybe tax size/population should be explored as the realm size parameter?) But taxes and food collected are .25x (excess production is stored in the region). RCs in hinterlands should be unaffected I think.

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Amen!! My idea of control limits provides reasoning for realm sizes and shapes beyond "yeah, that's far enough" but adding the combat differences would also change this. The idea of cavalry being more effective on plains adds RP incentive and tactical considerations.

How about we use the fancy new coordinate system for the maps to create changes to realm control and introduce tangentially controlled (occupied/hinterland) regions. Let's reward contiguous realms, smart location of capitals, and use terrain features. Realm is long and thin? Control penalties in the distant regions. Mountain range or Badlands divide the realm in half? Other side of realm away from capital has control penalties. Have a geographic centre and a control centre for realms. Control propagates according to distance from geographic centre and according to region types.

I've said it before - too often we are trying to restrict the actions of players rather than changing the environment to create opportunity for more exciting gameplay. The changes we've made over this long decline are reactive and frequently serve only the most vocal minority of players. We are saying "play this way" instead of modifying the game's parameters. Obviously this has not worked well.

Yes, but back in the days if you couldn't march halfway across the continent to support an ally, there was no point in having distant allies. You can support an ally with an enemy close to them by taking a triangle of the theoretical centre points of realms and creating a penalty equivalent to the square of the direct distance less the sum of squares of the other sides. Thus any triangle formed where your direct distance is longest and you aren't immediately adjacent to your ally (forming a right angle triangle) you will be penalized far less for having an ally close to the enemy. Other sets of circumstances can use more standard formulas to derive a penalty.

We can return to an old penalty but use new game features to make it more intuitive and scalable. I recall us moving to a coordinate system for the regions - this enables us to use realm geometry to logically apply penalties in ways the players can control. Very long thin realm? Extreme ends have extreme penalties. Capital isn't near the geographic centre? Far end has amplified control penalties. Instead of applying top down measures we should look to structure the environment, imo.

The way this can be applied to alliance blocks is in the region control penalties. Central region of the alliance? Great! You will have great realm control because bandits can't escape to unfriendly regions. Very large alliance and it's a peripheral region? Well now you have the undesirables of 5 realms congregating in the rim - it becomes much harder to control such a region.

Instead of adding tons of rules around alliance blocks and who is at peace with who and why I can declare war, why don't we increase the penalties for units being distant from their realm/allies? Also add control penalties for being at war with very distant realms - calculate a theoretical centre of the realm based on capital and geometry and then region penalties are proportional to distance to the other realm's centre. Perhaps in case of allies, the penalty is modified such as based on proximity of the allied realms, ally distance to enemy and your distance to the enemy. The formulas would require some refining but I think the end result would be realms are forced to engage in wars on their own borders or are unable to project force across the continent.

Think of the psychology of it: instead of modifying rules and enforcing change in how people play, modify the constraints of the system so people adapt. Being told you're doing things wrong is an overall negative experience while being given new constraints is not offers the opportunity to explore new possibilities. I can extrapolate on any of my ideas if there is interest in this.

I love how this is described - might incorporate this actually.

"Tol Goldora has the smallest noble houses in all of Dwilight" - what does this mean?

Number of peasants per estate. While in Luria you'll see a massive city line Giask (100k pop) fall within 5 estates, you can see small rurals in Tol Goldora (6k pop) split between two estates. It's an average. I use it to estimate part of the social stratification - an estate size of 3k might have the noble lord actually know village chiefs and shire reeves personally while 20k they may never interact directly with anyone below the upper level of their scribes, magistrates, and retainers. 20k estates will support a much larger number of minor nobility rather than 3k.

Wow. Should do one for EC as well!

Let me fix the huge error I made on this one first. I used to do these assessments for EI but I ran out of time.