Messages

1

Feature Requests / Re: Change H/P Class Requirements to Bonus Providers

« on: July 18, 2014, 04:51:02 PM »

The reason for the restrictions on courtiers and traders is primarily newbie protection, as I've said elsewhere, and I think it might be worthwhile, at least as an experiment, to allow instant access to those and see where it goes. If people start trying to make newbies into region-maintenance-bots, it'll get reverted.

It's not the same game as it was when the limits were put in place. Hell, these days realms get by with 1 courtier for every 5-10 regions they have and practically no one cares about traders. At the very least the limit should be changed to actual new accounts and removed from people like me who have been playing for years and know to tell anyone ordering me to a particular class to stuff it.

2

BM General Discussion / Re: Spying (was: Re: An Open Letter to the BM Community)

« on: July 09, 2014, 08:26:27 PM »

When I said spying is bad for the game I meant all spying, be it IC, OOC or what ever. Sure, it might create fun for one individual as he giggles every time he shares something important. But that individuals fun comes at the expense of everyone else in the realm. They will all get less information, they will be included in fewer discussion, they will have a less open realm. They will have less fun playing the game as a result.

It doesn't even have to mean spying is frequent. Just that it happened some time and caused problems. Peoples minds remember the bad things very well.

That's why I've turned down several potential spies when I've been ruler. And I hope that's what more people would do. Just turn them down.

3

BM General Discussion / Re: Spying (was: Re: An Open Letter to the BM Community)

« on: July 06, 2014, 10:12:47 AM »

Remember when realms didn't care and talked about there plan openly and did it and still steamrolled ^_^ confidence in the people/char of the realm will prevail!

I remember that. I also remember the big spy incidents that ruined it for everyone. It did considerable damage to the game and the team spirit of it. And it continues to affect the game in negative ways.

So don't spy. It hurts the game.

4

BM General Discussion / Re: Player of Atanamirs account lock.

« on: June 25, 2014, 11:44:22 PM »

I really think the culture and attitude of the players as a whole has changed dramatically. Seeing and hearing what has been going on on the War Island just makes me shake my head. The !@#$ that's going on there wouldn't have happened 10 years ago. There's so much OOC crap, whining, open hostility between players and just plain horrible atmosphere. It has just about brought out the worst in BM.

I don't think any of the three realms on the War Island has managed to go without having massive internal strife, both IC and OOC.

I still remember when Colonies opened and there was a rush to get there. I started out in Giblot I think. We elected our council and got to taking over regions. Not much strife there, just people selecting their leaders and then standing behind them. Compare it to the War Island opening now and it's like night and day. Heck, even the Dwilight opening was much smoother and friendlier. Sure, there were arguments, but they were mostly IC. But people came to the realms, elected their council and got to work. You fairly quickly had the sense you were playing as a team.

There seems to be this "screw everyone else, I want that and I'm going to get it." attitude that makes players go to great lengths to get what they want. There doesn't seem to be any of that old "I'm on this team. Let's kill those other guys."

I don't know how or when that change happened, but it has happened. Atanamir..well, for many years he played the game just fine. No problems. Then in the past year or two he somehow managed to change into someone who got permanently banned from the game. I doubt that would have happened had the community around him not also changed.

I don't know. Bit of rant. Take from it what you want..

5

BM General Discussion / Re: Player of Atanamirs account lock.

« on: June 25, 2014, 01:14:55 AM »

what I'm not okay with is the apparent lack of respect for the Titan process. If you don't believe they seriously consider issues, why would you even play the game?

The Titans have pretty much always had a respect/credibility problem from a part of the player base(partly why we had the magistrate experiment where things were hashed out in public, I think). They've made questionable decisions at times and people remember those. They don't remember the right decisions, but they remember the rejected cases where they felt slighted by another player. And when they do make a decision, for most players, all they get to see are the public warnings which often times leave you asking "what the heck happened to deserve that?". Then people will disagree with it because they don't know the full story and end up thinking the Titans don't know left from right.

That's about how it works from my experience. In all of that, the Titans aren't completely blameless.

Also, doesn't help that account locks etc. have only been announced to a single realm and not all the realms of the player. So people have ended up in situations where they find out their general has been locked out of the game and left wondering "WTF?"

6

South Island / Re: So what are you doing in War Islands?

« on: June 20, 2014, 10:39:08 AM »

Unfortunately I'm stuck fighting a banker who stole gold and other people who are giving trouble. Not enjoying it that much, but maybe once these issues are resolved it'll be fun again.

7

Atamara / Re: Future of Atamara

« on: May 01, 2014, 12:59:56 PM »

From, again, what little I hear about Atamara, however, Darka has utterly refused to try to take any new lands, and the realms losing land in the east of AT have either tried and failed, or just sort of run around like chickens with their heads cut off until it was too late to try anything. However, I'd be most pleased to be proven wrong in this.

Darka didn't refuse. There simply was no chance. It was already in a situation where CE would side with any realm we chose to attack, making any land gains improbable at best. We only managed the former Lyonesse lands because the lord of Hawthorne decided to join us and effectively kill his former realm. The ice simply moved too fast and crippled our recruiting ability while we were defending what little we gained against CE. The preceding Ice Trolls made it that much worse since we lost regions even before the ice took them over. The way the whole thing works really screwed us over and the little bonuses given to help were as good as an insult.

Did I propose a joint action plan with Rieleston and Minas Leon? I did. Rieleston largely didn't bother replying to anything. Maybe after a third letter they'd reply something that didn't address anything I'd asked or said. Minas Leon simply said it was too risky. So yeah..not much you can do in that situation.

That beats the Duchess of Azzal dragging half the realm into Talerium without bothering to mention it to anyone first

You still insist on calling him a her. Don't wonder why he doesn't like you.

Future of Atamara?

Every day I care less and less about it, but over all I don't see it being that bright.

8

BM General Discussion / Re: T Minus 28 Days

« on: March 07, 2014, 04:20:07 PM »

Without turning this into a political or IG conversation, does Darka really need to migrate? The oncoming ice will just displace some nobles, not leave them homeless, right?

You also assume the ice stops where the current plans show it to. Personally, I'm not that optimistic

9

BM General Discussion / Re: T Minus 28 Days

« on: March 01, 2014, 05:43:11 PM »

Being from Darka I can't say I'm entirely happy with this. To be taken down by a game event..bleh..

But so it goes.

Now just trying to decide whether to hope for all of Darka to be iced away or to have it go on with maybe Azzal left..

10

General Talk / Re: The Balaria Thread

« on: February 19, 2014, 04:34:47 PM »

I am willing to do it but it will be probably 2 weeks for me to read the whole thing.

Doesn't really matter even if it takes a month. Not like I have a deadline to keep or anything. Got plenty of shorter stories I want to work on too to keep me busy and posting stuff.

So send me a message with your email and I'll send it to you. Tell me also what file type you want it as(.odt, .doc, .pdf or what ever). Or if you don't want to give me your email I can give you a download link.

And thank you

11

General Talk / Re: The Balaria Thread

« on: February 17, 2014, 02:57:54 PM »

How goes the side project? Do you have the help that you were previously looking for?

It's done. I've edited it a few times, though I think I'll need to look it over at least one more time(fix some problems I've discovered to have in my writing). Sadly I haven't  found anyone willing to read it and give their opinion.

12

General Talk / Re: The Balaria Thread

« on: February 16, 2014, 03:57:01 PM »

And The Pale Rose is complete. I made an EPUB version of the complete thing for those who have eBook readers or tablets. Should make reading it a bit more flexible.

The Pale Rose - Part One (complete, PDF)

The Pale Rose - Part Two (complete, PDF)

The Pale Rose - Part Three (complete, PDF)

The Pale Rose - Part Four (complete, PDF)

The Pale Rose - Complete Novel (complete, PDF)

The Pale Rose - Complete Novel (complete, EPUB)

13

General Talk / Re: The Balaria Thread

« on: December 29, 2013, 05:48:54 PM »

Hum, long time since last update. Time I corrected that.

Chapter 22 of The Pale Rose is upon us so the story has gone quite a way since I last updated this thread. I'll just post the links to all the parts.

The Pale Rose – Part One (chapters 1-6)
The Pale Rose – Part Two (chapters 7-14)
The Pale Rose – Part Three (chapters 15 ->)

Now, as for the other topic of the day. I’ve been working on a novel completely unrelated to Balaria. It’s about 77k words long or 205 pages with my usual layout. It is the first part of a trilogy in the fantasy/sci-fi genre. Usually I would just start posting chapters from it, but I want to do things a bit differently with it so the story will be the best it can be. Usually, no one besides me reads my texts before I put them on-line. Now, I would like to have someone else read the text and give their opinion on it. It can be just general feedback or you can add as detailed notes to it as you’d like. If you’re interested in doing something like that, let me know. I’d really appreciate the help

14

Helpline / Re: What is going on with this maintenance/upkeep stuff.

« on: November 05, 2013, 04:04:26 PM »

Upkeep is charged every week.
Maintenance is a once a month thing.

I don't know the reason for two separate systems.

Are you absolutely sure about this? In my experience the "Guildhouse Maintenance Report" only comes up when your global treasury and local treasuries fail to pay for something. It's there to inform you a temple has been sized down a level etc.

Temples and Shrines Upkeep report comes once a week and covers everything. The cost of temple upkeep and guards and shrines.

15

Helpline / Re: What is going on with this maintenance/upkeep stuff.

« on: November 05, 2013, 03:58:46 PM »

I've made a bug report about it(link). It's clearly bugged in some way as somethings it said would happen did not in fact happen. Feel free to add to it if you have more information.