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For the right price I would be willing to sell my extensive in game observations of the Zuma.

LET THE BIDDING WAR COMMENCE.


Also the poll is not looking that great for the haters.

I don't think that'd be a valid comparison, and that it therefore works the other way around, as we can't affect the in-game rules by our rp. RP cannot affect game rules, therefore the only metagaming possible is game rulers influencing RP. Perhaps elsewhere it'd be possible, but not when the code is regulated by a machine. You could perhaps argue that DMs could metagame by knowledge of their players, I guess, but it wouldn't apply to a game like BM.

I do. This whole thing can be seen two ways depending on your starting assumption.

If you assume that in the world of BM, it is known that the results of torture are 100% accurate, and for whatever reason the guild of tortures is regarded as beyond reproach in these matters, then bringing OOC information about how torture works in RL, and using that for RP's to discredit the in game mechanics could be viewed as meta gaming.

RP can't change the code, but it certain CAN change the ways players react to what the code produces. This for me is what this all hinges on, and no, I don't consider the knowledge that torture report are 100% accurate is OOC for my character, since in the game world as defined by the code, that would likely be the only experience he has.

Just as I don't treat the fact that we can work out the harvest cycles percentage for each season, as well as the % numbers for climates factors, and pair this with the dynamic maps food stat to work out our food production estimates for regions we have never held dominion over, and which in a rogue state don't even have the productive capacity to make extrapolations from. Or the fact that we know each peasant will demand exactly the same amount of food to help work out consumption requirements. Yet we all make TO decision on Dwilight based on these things.

How about the people that don't bother with treaties on Dwilight, cause they know they don't do anything, even though treaties would add large amounts of flavor to the world by simply existing? Or those that use wiki treaties instead, so they can avoid the game mechanic of upkeep, again knowing that the upkeep is wasted as the treaty currently has no in game effect.

How many realms on Dwilight have adopted a "no knights in rural regions" policy now that the code no longer requires knights for region control, simply to expand their domains. Is it SMA that rural lords are all happy to see so much of their region simply wild? Is it SMA that we have all figured out that the gold returns from Knights in rural regions is not as good as knights in the cities, and since food production is no longer tied to estates the opportunity cost of the regions we could take for food production outweighs maximizing the gold production of existing regions?

There was a time where, on Dwilight, forgeting a "sire", writing too many OOC messages, failing to RP your oath, or having instant exchanges with relatives of other continents would likely have grave consequences, be it through policing by players themselves or by Tom and the titans. I really feels like there's nothing left of SMA on Dwilight nowadays, and that we may as well just remove the SMA rules if all this meta-gaming is to be considered fine. SMA has no place on a continent where so many decisions are made that lack any IC sense, simply because of how the game works.

Those examples all seem a case of pure RP flavor, where is their true relation to underlying code? Do we have any previous example of SMA being enforced about an issue similar to this?

I find controlled starvation of cites to be meta gaming, as it is based upon knowledge of our the food consumption code works. Should we raise some SMA violations against every realm that has used that technique on Dwilight?

How about the fact that some religions choose not to have temples in some regions, because they can avoid follower limits imposed by the temples that way. Even though to most people it would seem obvious that is a non-intended aspect of the code?

Or my favorite, entire realms deciding to treat advies nicely, perhaps even respectfully, because they are "useful". How do we know this? We have only their word that they actually hunt and kill rogue forces. Again players know what advies do, and realms act to encourage them based on this.

I have found the tone of both these thread to be aggressive enough that I have decided to post rather just lurk as I usually do. So here is my take. For me it is meta gaming to deliberately cast doubt on a game mechanic that provides reliable information, and to try and RP it away. I'm not a Dev, I can't know what the Devs intended by a feature, so I take it as face value. I don't try and deconstruct it to so that I can excuse it, anymore then I would try to deconstruct the fact we have instant messaging, or the fact I can see where everyone within my realm is on the Dynamic map.

When I started this game I was taught that Game Mechanics trump RP, so yeah I would think that people that RP around and invalidate game mechanics are meta gamng to try and avoid the realities of the code. Does that mean I am right? Does that mean I should throw my personal opinion in people face and accuse others of !@#$ty play or being "dickish". This could have been a rational, calm discussion. It could have been, hey guys I have always had this opinion, what does everyone else think, can we get a consensus that might help guide peoples actions in the future? Pity that emotion has pretty much destroyed any merit the argument may have had in my mind.

So you are saying in RL it would take much effort to get into a position to gain info, exactly what he said, but you are also saying it is unrealistic? How does that make sense?

I'm saying this comment

I do not approve of making a new character in a realm for the purpose of spying.  This does cause trust problems for other people's new characters, and leads to a decrease of information flow and transparency, also interfering with the fun of the game for many players who aren't in the leadership cliques.  Despite being realistic and practically unpreventable, it hurts the game. 

Is incorrect, since the whole point of creating a character in a realm for spying is that it takes very little effort in BM to be able to access useful information to whoever. Its not realistic for new characters in a realm to be such effective spies. It is also much harder in game to work out who a spy might be.

My reading of Mercer comment make no reference to the difficulty of spying. He simply proposed that one case is more RP acceptable then another.

Well no matter what you do there'll be people complaining. Some people might not like how things are now, but change it to satisfy them, and others complain about other things, or those same people might find out that the changes turned out actually worse than the originals. End all is you can't make everyone happy, but at least you can find out what makes people very unhappy and make less people very unhappy.

The point of the thread was to provide feedback to be used to enhance the game. In most cases attempting to regulate community behavior via game mechanics is destined to fail, unless we massive restrict the scope of activities available to players.

I tend to only rep people if they have negative, offensive posts or they have good ideas and interesting points or facts that they bring to the discussion. But many people's rep are just messed up due to spammed rep.

Exactly, you use rep for the purpose it was designed for. Others seem to just hit neg rep every hour cause somebody dared to disagree with them or said something mildly offensive at one time. Gloria's idea to restrict rep to post would fix this. That way at least you would have to go to the effort of finding new posts by the player if you wanted to continue your feud.

As I pointed at many times before, depriving formal titles from real power deprives game of exciting actions. When all title holders can be removed by more than one means, they should have power (and, absurdly, the only title which holds realm power -non-council title -  is untouchable), so the balance would exist between their power and power of those who dislike them. Quarrels about power would create much of internal political frictions and indirectly create foreign frictions too in many ways I will describe later.

Currently the necessity that council needs to be liked by most of realm create some sort of liberal democracy that has almost nothing to do with medieval atmosphere - fine people doing fine thing, all respect each other, ideal for real life, terrible for the game.

Even the only example of "noble democracy" that of medieval England - balance was fragile all the time, power abuses attempts frequent. Once harmony was reached, middle age was already over... Without power there are no abuses, strong characters, strong stories, nothing.

With mechanics which forces ruler to be some sort "prime minister of minority government" the most frequently we have two scenarios:

1- everybody does his own business, no any real cohesion within realm exist. Besides putting gold in pockets almost nothing happens as no-one can move something to happen
2- over time council, or ruler, created reign of very submissive followers. This mostly works in some very old realms who had luck to never be exposed to some more serious test of strength. Apathy is dominant feeling. Leaders will take care to never disturb customary submissiveness by any new initiative, being fully aware that they cannot gain absolutely nothing, but they will likely lose everything but introducing change in fragile balance of their informal power.

All described i caused by game mechanics. It is like mechanics wants so impose consensus as the only way of realm society's functioning. Together with the mention fact that success in achieving such consensus means boring idyll, it also derogates many  founding stones of medieval values - as it was nicely described in some Wiki articles, nobles lived and died for formal title, that meant everything for them, that way their main objective in life and motive which moved things forward. How can that work if titles are apparently empty...

You really must have played in some terrible realms. I've never seen anything close to what you describe. Perhaps the problems were not with the game, but with the players that had the power in those realms.

I suspect one of the big problems (among many) is the fact that there is no townsland around the city. This means less gold -and more importantly- it cannot support palisades.

Walls are useful when getting the realm up and running, but at some stage your army has to be able to face the rogues on open ground, or you will spend all your time waiting for rogues to leave your rurals so you can try to repair them again.

A noble who become disaffected with the direction his realm takes due to the actions of an unassailable leadership or majority may feel justification in giving secrets to the realm's enemies.  To me, this is an example of legitimate spying that has a place in the game, and is along similar lines as rebellion.  A large part of this game is the role-playing, and this action as a result of a character's experiences may fit well with the emotional drama of the game.

I do not approve of making a new character in a realm for the purpose of spying.  This does cause trust problems for other people's new characters, and leads to a decrease of information flow and transparency, also interfering with the fun of the game for many players who aren't in the leadership cliques.  Despite being realistic and practically unpreventable, it hurts the game.

Its not that realistic really. In RL someone joining a faction for the purposes of spying would need to spend large amounts of time and great risk to establish themselves to the point where not only do they have access to useful information, but also have a method to get that information out to their employers.

The current battle system is pretty simple (but also strangely complex with its unpredictable unit behaviors). Two forces take opposite sides, and go at each other head on.

What records exist out there about Medieval battles, both accounts of the battles, and preferably, reliable sources about the formations and tactics used? I am told that the Medieval Europeans really did fight like BM portrays, but I'd like for something from the time, like a treatise on battle by some competent vassal or someone related to the military scene.

The problem with statements like this is the time period covers such a large period of time. The way battles where fought did change significantly over this time.

I start with their key characteristics. From there I just interact with the realm a bit, to let the character grow and the concept really take form. Once I am happy that I've discovered the character completely that is when I write the back story.

I am pretty sure the game is designed so your army cannot travel too far. If it was possible, we wouldn't need colonies and a super power can conquer entire continent :)

Yes, it is designed so that wars over great distances are not easy. It is a bit odd to see so many flops be listed that aren't really game design problems, but are rather problems with the community itself.

It is interesting to watch certain peoples negative rep increase when ever certain other people log in. Since our forums don't generally have that many people online at anyone time, it is pretty easy to work out which players are being childish with their little feuds.

True, even if they don't hurt in terms of game mechanics, our characters should take their honor and prestige seriously.