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I didn't get that message when starting a new character there, but I did get it when emigrating to it.

This is a roleplaying island. Constant roleplaying is required, and you can be OOC-banned for refusing to. In addition, we enforce the social contract very strongly here, and any and all OOC insults or attacks on other players will get you banned. Of course, in-character feuds with other characters are perfectly acceptable, if they are properly roleplayed..

This message would have been off-putting even when there was more RP on the island ('constant'?) but it seems it should be removed entirely.

Why not just auto-ban anybody who switches allegiance? We auto-ban secessionists, even when they're on good terms - the Judge can then go in and lift them. How is changing allegiance different?

With the economy of the realm bent toward the war in every measure, there was little circumstance or fanfare to mark the small retinue that arrived at the docks in Anacan. A handful of the Royal Guard that had been on the verge of retirement when the new Queen took the throne carried torches that lit the road as the Sun was still only on the verge of rising.

In port was a single vessel: lean, well-made, expensive, just as the old King had once been. It bore the Scarlett banner of the King's family.

Galiard insisted upon walking, though the cane was a compromise with Ser Dodd; even with hardly anyone in attendance, it would not do to mark the occasion by falling out of the realm.

The road from the front had been long and uncomfortable, given the relative value of even an ex-King to the Imperial propaganda machine. Goodbyes had already been said - some emotional, but mostly not; Galiard's friends had with only a few exceptions died decades ago. The Royal party had rested only for a few hours in the palace before setting out.

The guardsmen loaded the caravel with many trunks: belongings, heirlooms, relics, and gold to cover necessities for the voyage. There was not the usual shipborne compliment of swarth. This was a journey of and for Old Men.

"Well," said Galiard.

"M'lud," said Ulwitt Dodd.

"This is where we part ways," said the King.

Dodd's brow furrowed, but he made no reply, nor gave indication as to whether he had expected to go along.

"See to the Princess, when she arrives," Galiard admonished, rather as one would dictate a shopping list.

Dodd nodded curtly; he had not needed to be told. He could not remember a time when he had not rose in the morning to look after a Scarlett.

"But not for too long," Galiard added. "You have spent your life in service; now you are released."

Doodd arched an eyebrow; something about that statement had piqued his interest. "M'lud?"

Galiard grunted. "Bondage is not the natural state of man, or else we should not be at war at all."

"But the debt--" Dodd objected.

"I know the debt," Galiard cut him off. "And I know your sons and nephews would pay it with as much distinction as you have. But they are released. You and your House are pardoned and restored to your ancestry."

Several of the Royal Guard exchanged brief, questioning glances: what debt? What crime to be pardoned? But there was no explanation; Galiard had already turned and crossed the gangplank.

Ulwitt Dodd had been raised to the rank of Duke in the most meaningless way imaginable, for the Duchy in question lay in ashes and was halfway around the world besides; but his expression was not meaningless but content.

Galiard glanced over his shoulder one last time. "I shall be laid to rest with my shield, and you with yours. Percy has it."

Dodd briefly looked irritated. "You entrusted it to Percy--"

"A locked iron chest that not even Percy could destroy," replied Galiard with a short smile. "Ser TNaismith has the key. He was the only person I could think of who has never had an agenda. Possibly it's a disease." He shrugged.

The Royal Guard stood at attention as the ship's lines were cast off. The tide and wind cooperated with the oarsmen in pushing her out to sea rapidly. Duke Ulwitt's voice rang out in the morning light.

"King Galiard!"

And then the old man was gone.

The sun rose anyway.

Us texans know better.

One something I must mention is that decreasing regions will increase number of knights (and decrease number of lords) whilst one of the points made here is that playing as a knight is not the most entertaining thing to do.

But that's just the thing: being a knight used to be fun if you were in a fun realm because it had a much larger social aspect. Your region lord needed you, both for estate reasons and for politics, and the realm was larger, so there were more factions and more fights to be had. That's the stuff that any game like this needs which you can only facilitate rather than code outright: the human interactions.

Right now I have characters in super-busy realms that 'have a lot to do' from the game standpoint but it just ain't what it used to be: not that the players aren't as good because there are quite a number who are great - it's just that wars with realms that each have 20 people in them are kind of meh while wars with realms that have 50-60 (each) are much more exciting because you have a lot more avenues for intrigue and allegiances.

I'd also throw in a vote for a game-wide reset with fewer islands. Blighting will leave a permanent admission of 'we are going downhill' right on the map and it won't make sense to people not on the forums. I get that you could do it in such a way that it could be un-done but it's transferring the stagnation of the game to the stagnation of the in-game world and I don't know if that's a good move either from a utility or a marketing standpoint.

I know lots of people have invested lots of time into their realms and I'm no different. But I'd give it up if it made the experience better afterwards.

The game just doesn't have the same feel it did years ago and the biggest reason for that is the player count because so much other stuff is better.

Keep Dwilight, FEI, and EC. Ditch the rest. Those three places have the most unique 'feel' - Atmarra to me feels like a more boring version of EC and BT seems to require too much work from the staff. Maybe time it with some new code if you guys are semi-close to anything new and exciting - sea travel everywhere, new intra-realm / duchy dynamics, anything like that would go real well with this so that it looked like a purposeful reboot rather than a desperate act.

FWIW, one strong vote against any kind of random blighting.

If you want higher density, blight the edges. If I still have to walk across regions where nobody lives, that's an increased MTTSH (Mean Time To !@#$ Happening) which is already high in some places.

Density doesn't do you any good if your habitable areas are pockmarked with inhabitable areas. Yeah you have more players per region but they also have to be closer in for that to be an advantage that will offset the folks who are losing regions.

I realize that this is a harder task in some respects, but a random blighting will seem heavy handed and arbitrary. Those are the top two things that caused most everyone I know who played BM to leave.

I don't recall the Titans' conduct ever being quite that acrimonious, though I was only a Titan for a year or so (maybe less, I forget). It seemed like a pretty good system back then but I wasn't around for whatever caused the Magistrates to be born.

I will say that one thing I appreciated about the Titans that seems less the case with the Magistrates is that the Titans' characters had a lower profile.  The magistrates sometimes seem like an OOC version of some of the big IC personas in the game. Several of the Titans definitely had characters with high profiles, but maybe it was just that we always emailed each other and so it wasn't our IG names or forum names that were pasted to everything...it just had a feel of 'hey guys, what should we do about this' and not 'wasn't that the same guy who was just celebrating his realm kicking ass.'

Maybe the distinction was mostly cosmetic or maybe this stuff matters to me more than it should. I've also never been a magistrate. I just know that it was easier to compartmentalize a lot of game issues when emailing another human being and addressing them by their name.

I would second the suggestion of sinking the Dark Isle on FEI. Too remote. Maybe the Southern bit of Kindara as well.

FEI is small enough that it could be merged. I always felt bad for the players at the North and South extremes anyway.

I just don't know that any other islands are of an appropriate size to merge with it. They're all much larger, right?

To be fair, it isn't the 'one character per player' rule necessarily that is hurting the feudal hierarchy, it's just the shortage of characters of which this rule is one but hardly the only cause. Yes you do get zombie alts on other continents but my experience is that most people legitimately want to have two separate experiences, as we've all see how two realms on the same continent can be like playing two different games - just as a single realm with only 15 people in it is pretty dull even if those 15 people are good players. You can't have really interesting politics when a voting bloc is three people.

There are two reasons why this is hurting Dwilight.

The first is that everybody is a lord and so the feudal ladder has had rungs removed. Nobody has knights. This reduces the value of higher titles because there are so many to go around. When everybody is a Duke, Dukes ain't special.

The second is that everybody has only one or two neighbors rather than the four or five neighbors you might have on other continents. Combine this with the difficulty of moving long distances (however justified it may be) and you have incentivized everyone to park themselves in the richest region they can find and send money home to their family rather than doing anything, because doing anything takes much longer and it is pretty difficult to have an impact. Not impossible as there are some dedicated players there who will work around these things.

The rule was a worthy experiment and would be a good idea were the player population twice what it is. I don't have a pony in the race and you could make a case that the damage this rule does is worth the benefit it brings .. rather than plugging your ears and insisting that it doesn't cause any harm.

We've had a few nobles in Cathay who haven't replied to letters or moved for weeks who have not autopaused. I don't know for sure that they aren't doing anything but it does seem that way.

Really the great majority of cases can and should be public. The 'harassment' cases are pretty rare and don't usually amount to answering big questions. It's you guys going through people's mail until you find out who the bigger jerk is.

If there's any doubt, err on the side of making it public. Or if part of it has public relevance, make a public thread for 'this stuff happened and here's what you should know.' But this being the Internet you don't need to be giving folks reasons to post on a thread entitled 'why Scarlett is a dickhead' pages [1] 2 3 4 5 6