Topics

226

Magistrates Case Archive / Call for Volunteers

« on: July 15, 2011, 07:34:43 PM »

If you are interested in becoming a Magistrate, you can apply here. Yes, in public.


You must...

• be an active player of BattleMaster.
• have a working knowledge of most of the game mechanics.
• been playing for long enough to be familiar with the game. Half a year at least, more is better.
• write a short application detailing in no more than 3-4 sentences why you want to be a Magistrate and why I should pick you.

Bonus points if you...

• have a basic understanding of justice, legal systems and trials. Having been in a court-room in real life and watching or participating in trials is a definite plus that you should mention. TV courts don't count.
• know the Inaliable Rights and the summary/abstract of the Social Contract by heart.
• have trust-medals in-game (include a link to your user details page).
• can think of something important that I forgot.

227

Magistrates Case Archive / About the Courthouse

« on: July 15, 2011, 06:40:04 PM »

The Courthouse is a new, at this time still experimental way of resolving in-game disputes. If it works well, it may replace the current Titan system.

What Cases to Bring Forward
The Courthouse is strictly for disputes between players. Any and all in-characters disputes (i.e. between characters) are to be resolved in-game.

You should bring a case forward for actions by other players that violate the Inalienable Rights or break the Social Contract.

You can, and in fact are encouraged to, bring cases even if you are not affected. If you see someone violating the right of another player, do speak up on behalf of that other player. He may not dare to or know how.



Boards
The main Courthouse board itself is purely for announcements and meta-information. The actual disputes are restricted to the sub-boards - one for complaints and one for questions people want to ask without bringing a complaint (aka "hey, is this ok?").

Cases can only be initiated through the "Contact Magistrate" page within the game. This makes sure they start with an identical format and with all required information present. Also, this makes sure the accused party is notified and thus can defend himself.

After a topic was started, replies are open for all. They are, however, moderated by the Magistrates. All replies need to follow these rules, or they will be moderated:

• remain strictly on topic. Information relevant to the actual case only. This goes especially for speculations, hypotheticals, variations - discussing of the this could be... if... kind are unwanted. We have a specific case before us and will decide that case, nothing else.
• be positive and friendly. Don't insult or troll.
• add new information. Repeating a point does not increase its truth value.

Magistrates
The Magistrates are judges and executioners of the Courthouse. They will arbitrate all cases, listen to arguments brought forth, and then make a decision and - through an in-game interface - execute it.
The identity of the Magistrates is public knowledge - you can look them up in the Members list.

Magistrates enjoy special, personal protection from me. These people are volunteers doing a job that is guaranteed to make them enemies. Anyone who makes their life difficult outside the Courthouse and its sub-boards will feel my unrestrained wrath. That includes shunning them in-game, badmouthing them on IRC, bullying them in any way, or absolutely anything else negative.

Any complaints about Magistrates or their behavior have to go through e-mail to tom@battlemaster.org and absolutely nowhere else.


How Cases are Resolved
All cases go through roughly the same basic flow:

• Case initiation through the in-game page.
• Open discussion on the board. Anyone who wants to comment on a case can do so. The Magistrates can moderate the board, to clean out off-topic comments.
• Decision by the Magistrates.
• Short post-decision discussion, for questions and clarifications.
• There is no appeal. If you think the decision was totally wrong, you can try to mail tom@battlemaster.org - but your chances aren't very good. Unless the decision is obviously faulty, I will stand behind my Magistrates.

228

Development / Testers Recruitment

« on: July 12, 2011, 07:31:25 PM »

This is where you can sign up if you're interested in becoming a tester, as described in this thread. Please write 1-2 sentences about yourself, such as how long you've been playing BM and why you want to be a tester.

229

General Talk / Greasemonkey

« on: July 12, 2011, 01:06:18 PM »

Anyone familiar with Greasemonkey?

I have an idea for a script, but don't know if that's possible.

I would like it to add a user-editable field to a profile page, and store whatever I put there and retrieve it when I visit the site again. Something like the Internote extension, except that I want it embedded in the page.

Possible?

230

BM General Discussion / Looking for a Map Editor

« on: June 08, 2011, 05:11:28 PM »

The BM maps are showing their age, and I would really love to have a new, better map editor to create beautiful pseudo-3D/-isometric maps not only for BM, but also for BM:WI which needs a few additional maps.

I've been looking for years, every now and then, checking out current games and the like. I never found anything that works for me. Either it looks like crap, or it only offers too-specific and too few different tiles, or the editor sucks, or it isn't the right scale, etc. etc.

So I'm now making an open call. If you think you know of a game, a map editor or some other tool that could create maps more beautiful than the current ones, that would totally rock.
Please post below, with screenshots.

231

Other Games / Die2Nite

« on: May 18, 2011, 02:44:03 AM »

Anyone else playing and feeling like throwing up a BattleMaster coalition? :-)

I'm playing as Balanuir, currently in The Dejected Districts.

232

Beluaterra / What is the blight?

« on: April 26, 2011, 07:58:58 PM »

There's been some discussion around what the areas mean, if they can be recovered, but little has been said about what the blight is. How does it look like, feel like?

Well, I'm not going to reveal all that, since it's a major theme for Beyond. But, here's my vision of what it looks like from outside, near the edge:



For a larger image, go to http://lemuriaskies.deviantart.com/art/Beyond-Teaser-206499585

233

Other Games / Game Center

« on: April 20, 2011, 10:19:51 AM »

Who else owns an iPad or iPhone and has some GameCenter games?

Send me an invite to tom@lemuria.org if you want to be friends and maybe play a game or two with/against each other.

234

BM General Discussion / Titan System Revalation

« on: April 15, 2011, 01:04:08 PM »

While on the train a few days ago, I had a revelation that I think is important to share. Please discuss this and let me know your toughts.

How does a community solve its problems and conflicts?
That came up in my mind. One of the basic tenets of BM is "play like you'd play a board game with friends". So how do friends solve issues coming up during play? Questions like "is this move legal?" come up all the time in friendly games.

The general answer is:

Through discussion and by consensus.
At least that's my experience. If you play with friends, and you aren't sure that your move is legal, or someone else made a move that you don't think is legal, you'll bring it up, everyone will contribute their opinion, and a consensus is reached rather quickly. Often not the one that is closest to the rules, but the one that allows the game to proceed best for everyone.

And I think that's what our Titan system is lacking and is why we're having so much trouble having it accepted by the playerbase. We're trying to tell them to behave like friends, but we're lording over them unlike friends.


Now - Reality Check - we have way too many players for the system that works with five friends to work. Which is where simple solutions come in. One game - Munchkin - has this rather nice solution to rules-discussion problems: The player who owns the game decides.


Now mix this all and here is what you get - as a rough sketch - and what I think might work a lot better than what we currently have:

• Complaints should be open and public, with explicit notification to the one being accused of anything (though we may allow for complaints to be made anonymous, the complaint itself should be public)
• A forum topic is automatically created and players pointed towards it. The accused can post his view, anyone else who wants to add something to the discussion, can.
• The goal of the discussion should be to come to a consensus solution. As such, it should be strictly moderated. Such a discussion has a very narrow and specific topic and should remain strictly on topic.
• A Titan will make the final decision, basing it on the consensus and the discussion, so that a clear verdict exists in the end.

This would, I believe, make the job easier for the Titans, it would allow the accused his opportunity to present his points, and make everything seem a lot less arbitrary - by which I mean that I am certain we never were arbitrary, but that it sometimes looks like it because the players never see what's going on behind the scenes.

And it would cut down on abuse dramatically.

235

Development / MOVED: New Unit stat: Courage

« on: April 14, 2011, 10:07:05 PM »

This topic has been moved to Feature Requests.

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php?topic=425.0

236

General Talk / BattleMaster Thong Challenge

« on: April 08, 2011, 01:50:33 PM »

If they wore it at a strip club, BM would get a lot of activity 

Hehe... what an idea.

Ok, here's the challenge: A year of free goodies to whoever manages to get a stripper to wear a BM thong during a public performance. With pictures as proof.

237

BM General Discussion / How did you learn about BattleMaster ?

« on: March 17, 2011, 08:13:03 AM »

Interested in this because I'd like to know which channels to use when we want to expand the playerbase again.

238

Beyond / Status

« on: March 08, 2011, 10:59:39 PM »

Beyond is currently on hold due to other projects, and I don't know when it will be resumed.

It would go faster if I had some help. The problem is that Beyond is a lot larger than The Dream was. It may be too large for one person, at least for one person with other things to do as well.

If you want to help, there is one thing that is a non-negotiable prerequisite: I can not teach you programming or the engine I use. If you can use Unity 3D and either of its two scripting languages (Javascript or C#) well enough that you can actually help, I want to hear from you. If you know JS or C# and are interested, there is a free version of Unity 3D available for download on their site, and it's more than worth it.

I have the environments mostly set up, and I've bought a ton of models to use, so the artwork and content is also mostly done. What I need is help in creating quests, which is mostly scripting work, and in populating the scenery with more objects, making it more interesting. I could envision this being a kind of community effort, though with a fairly small community.

239

Other Games / Magicka

« on: March 05, 2011, 09:53:11 AM »

http://www.magickagame.com/

Bought this yesterday. I'm a fan of strange games and satire, and the "combine your own spell" approach is... interesting. I've already managed to kill myself in interesting ways, which apparently is kind of the unofficial goal of the game. :-)

Anyone else got it? Maybe we can make a BM players online game.

240

BM General Discussion / Tops and Flops

« on: March 04, 2011, 10:38:58 AM »

This is a feedback request. I'd like to know what you like most and least about BattleMaster. List your top three features and your three most disliked things below: