Messages

91

Feature Requests / Re: Distance Penalties

« on: May 18, 2020, 04:05:56 PM »

Frankly, I don't want to be penalizing distant wars as much. We used to penalize them much more—and I'm pretty sure you were around for that.

The problem with large alliances has very little to do with fighting enemies very far away.

More importantly, I'm happy to have 2 allies fight a realm that's only close to one of them. I'm not happy to have the entire continent gang up on one realm, even if that realm is centrally located so they all have short marches to it.

In any case, what you suggest, as I said, not a new restriction, but a return to an old one—and people have both complained bitterly about it, and done their level best to find ways around it, for many years now.

I don't yet have a better answer as to how to prevent entire continents from locking themselves up in alliances, polarizing to two warring factions, and/or ganging up on one or a small number of realms.

92

BM General Discussion / Re: BattleMaster Front page.

« on: May 15, 2020, 10:09:02 PM »

I...yes? This appears to be a copy & paste of the front page text...

Is there some purpose to this post...?

93

Announcements / Message Editor Inline Preview + Message Saving

« on: May 15, 2020, 09:48:16 PM »

An update has just gone live with two significant improvements to the message editor, one fairly obvious, the other less so until you need it:

First, by actually using some of the fancy features of the rich-text editor package we just updated, we have implemented a live inline preview of your message as you type it. At present, it should correctly handle everything but Wiki, Region/Realm, and forum post links. (We will be working on support for those in the future.) If you have feedback on this feature, please bring it to the forum. If you find that you prefer the old version, you can click the "Toggle RTE Mode" button at the bottom of the page, and for that device only, it will switch to the traditional white-text-box RTE, and remember your setting. (You can use this to have one on mobile and a different one on desktop, for instance.)

Second, by very popular demand, we have implemented a feature that should make it much, much harder for you to accidentally lose that RP you spent half an hour writing. A little bit of extra Javascript watches what you type in the message editor, and automatically saves it to local storage on your computer or phone (so your drafts are never sent to us, but you also can't just start writing on one device then pick it up on another). If you leave the page without sending the message, the next time you open a new message to anyone on the same character, it will automatically preload the editor with your saved message. Upon successfully sending, it will clear the saved message for that character.

94

BM General Discussion / Re: Lemon Fame 3

« on: May 15, 2020, 05:35:11 PM »

Does having negative honour or prestige net you a Fame Point?

Nope, just a Bug Point.

95

BM General Discussion / Re: OOC power-gaming???

« on: May 14, 2020, 09:19:46 PM »

Seems like a good time for a daimon invasion

Sadly, those are the single biggest sink for admin/dev time and energy. (If you're curious about why, start another thread or ask about it on Discord, so we don't hijack this thread )

96

BM General Discussion / Re: OOC power-gaming???

« on: May 13, 2020, 10:34:51 PM »

Our characters didn't assume anything.  They planned for multiple possibilities, one of which included allies joining Thalmarkin. 

[...]

Do we do that every time we think there's even a chance of a war becoming one-sided?  Because, again, initial projections on this didn't anticipate it being that one-sided. 

Please go back and consider this, because this is exactly why I said you made assumptions.

Do we do that the moment we see it turning toward that path?  Even if that isn't obvious to everyone involved?

Do we do that with every war?

No, no, and no.

Again, since I apparently wasn't clear before: I would expect this to happen in the event you find yourself in a situation where you are among a large number of realms that is or will be declaring war on one or a very small number of realms, such that if they do not have realms join in to help them, they will be massively, hopelessly, demoralizingly outnumbered.

Yes, you may have had many contingency plans, but you made an assumption that led to your "initial projections" that had the war not being one-sided.

Those assumptions, not to put too fine a point on it, were wrong.

That was one of the factors that led to where we are now. (Another of them was Zatirri rolling into rulership swinging, and yes, he deserved to get sucker-punched for his arrogance in this matter. That doesn't mean every player in his realm deserved to be put in a position where they were forced into a war they could not win, and had no way of knowing how they could end without destruction, for an indeterminate amount of time.)

So, let's see how this plays out.  But let's also be clear about what we're trying collectively to do here, and talk about it before we jump into major new changes, if at all possible.

What I'm trying to do here—and I recognize that I'm flailing a bit at it, but please try to bear with me—is not to change everything to being pre-planned and risk-free, but to change the culture so that rulers, at the very least, start trying to take some responsibility for the fun of the whole continent rather than the every-realm-for-itself model we have operated under up to now. To stop and take stock every once in a while, question your assumptions, and check in with your fellow players, "Hey, how are things going? Are you having fun? If not, what can we as a continent do to make that better?" Never expecting to be turning relations and RPs around on a dime, but just starting to take into account the other people sitting at the table.

If John Read-Jones had had a relationship with Matthew Runyon, and the other players of BT rulers, such that they all not only already saw each other as players, but had corresponded OOC—not about what their realms were planning, but about the general mood and what they felt like they needed—then I think it extremely unlikely that the setup for this situation would ever have happened. And this is emphatically not me saying I think you're to blame for that lack—I think this is a lack in BattleMaster's culture that I myself have only started to really see within the last few months to a year.

It's the same kind of disregard for other players' feelings as human beings that led Alexandros Stavrou to conduct his campaign of harassment and bullying. The same, frankly, that has led to every single major incident of OOC hostility and every single major controversial Titan case. I'm trying to attack that problem at its source and I do not claim to have a good idea of what I'm doing, but I'll be damned if I stop trying.

I hope you can see me in that light as you continue to bring critiques of my performance as I move through this effort.

97

BM General Discussion / Re: OOC power-gaming???

« on: May 13, 2020, 10:10:14 PM »

I find it very hard to believe that:
A)  There would have been no discussion about this (being the Grehkia conflict) on discord.
B)  There are no Titans on Discord to see the above mention.

If there was, I certainly didn't see it or notice it.

Lots of stuff gets talked about on Discord—well more than any one person can realistically keep track of—and if you're not specifically looking for stuff, it can very easily scroll away by the time you come back to that channel.

We don't police Discord any more than we police the game.

If you want something acted on, you need to report it. Period.

LIFE IS NOT ALWAYS FAIR
PLAYING A BOARD-GAME WITH FRIENDS IS NOT ALWAYS FAIR.
Why should BattleMaster be any different?

There's a big difference between the game leading to unfair situations, and players engaging in unfair play. We're not trying to ensure equal outcomes for everyone—that would, obviously, be absurd. We're trying to ensure that everyone feels that the overall game environment, the rules, and the atmosphere are fair, and not stacked against them such that no matter how they played, they would have no chance to succeed.

And again, since it seems like I need to repeat this: We have no problem with Thalmarkin ending up in a war it's clearly going to lose. What we have a problem with is Thalmarkin ending up in a war it's clearly going to lose, and then other realms piling on, particularly if their primary reason is simply to drive activity within their realm.

The Devs have, for quite a while now, been pushing towards larger realms for all the islands. (known fact)

Possibly known, but incorrect—or, at the very least, incomplete.

What we're pushing for is fewer very small realms.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

And now you are being insulting to me and to the Titans, and I will not tolerate that. And don't try to bull!@#$ me by trying to say you never said anything insulting: there is no possible meaning to what you said there other than to insinuate that we are favouring Thalmarkin over other realms because of a hidden agenda.

We are open about our intentions. We do not have an ulterior motive. I take accusations that we do—however weasel-worded they may be—very seriously, and very, very negatively.

And my response to them is the same as usual: If you really believe that I'm the kind of person who would do that, hiding behind false intentions, why the hell are you still playing the game I'm in charge of?

98

Development / Re: More hostile diplomatic options

« on: May 13, 2020, 07:58:49 PM »

Maybe, but I also don't think every unresolved grievance has to either be dropped or result in a war.

I think that what I'm trying to get at here is that I believe you and I have different ideas of what "a war" really means.

I see War, in BattleMaster, as being any armed conflict beyond entirely incidental looting, particularly anything that has a specific reason ("They insulted our chickens!") and goal in mind ("Defeat their armies four times on the battlefield, and loot 400 gold from their regions").

It might be helpful if you would explain just what you do see War as meaning—and, if relevant and possible, why.

I'm not sure that always works.
To offer an example, if Nivemus merges with Sirion or Eppy, that will be a bloody behemoth of a realm spanning 25-30 regions and still remaining way below minimum density.

To me, that's less an indictment of the principle I articulated, and more an indictment of how badly Nivemus has been mismanaged and permitted to fall into decay. Frankly, unless something can happen extremely soon to turn it around, I think it would be healthier to see Nivemus collapse entirely and its regions go rogue than any other easily-described fix I can think of.

I'm actually more worried about realms who want to declare a war but are clearly unable to pull it off on their own, like Eppy vs. Perdan. And even with support, they're unable to take over regions. So what's the point?
Maybe they wouldn't declare a useless war if they had other options of hostile interaction.

I understand where you're coming from here, but...they do have other options. War does not require regions to be taken. It is an extremely open-ended diplomatic stance in that way. I'm not entirely sanguine about such things, but I've seen a number of wars declared in BattleMaster with no actual intention of ever setting foot in the enemy's territory—the declaration was simply to show solidarity for an ally, particularly in cases where the realms in question were very far apart. (This, I think, is another case where a purely cultural relations table would be helpful.)

Given the situation, and granting that we are both simply speculating wildly on this point, I think it much more likely that, if Hostile had been a valid diplomatic stance since before the start of the referenced conflict, Eponllyn and Perdan would still have wanted to be at war, and would still very much intend to take each other's regions.

It may be that there are situations where having a "Hostile" option would have changed the diplomatic landscape; however, given what I know about the situation on the EC, I frankly think it's quite unlikely that any of the major recent conflicts there fall into that category.

99

BM General Discussion / Re: OOC power-gaming???

« on: May 13, 2020, 06:20:37 PM »

If we don't know about something, we can't do anything about it.

Just wanted to emphasize this, because it's something a lot of people seem to miss.

100

Development / Re: More hostile diplomatic options

« on: May 13, 2020, 04:19:34 PM »

The way the game woks, it just has to go from "we're fine" to immediately "we're gonna murder you".

I think this exemplifies much of the cultural problem we've been trying to change for years.

"War" does not mean "we're gonna murder you" as in "wipe out your realm". It means "we have a grievance of some sort with you, and it can only be settled with armed conflict."

My actual goal is to give realms that can not sustain a real war due to low player count or do not feel like they are ready to escalate just that far an option to still engage enemies in a fun manner.

Frankly, I think that any realm that legitimately cannot sustain a real war due to low player count is a very strong candidate for merging into another realm. That seems to me to be one of the points at which a realm is no longer viable on its own, and needs to start admitting that fact.

However, I would also question how many realms actually meet that criterion. I've seen far, far too many realms in my time—and this goes back well before the decline in the playerbase—that refused to go to war, citing various reasons that meant they "could not sustain a real war", when really they were just afraid there was a nontrivial chance they could lose. I'm not saying that's the case for anything specific you're referring to, just questioning that subjective criterion based on its historic application by players.

101

Development / Re: More hostile diplomatic options

« on: May 13, 2020, 02:24:45 PM »

Based on conversations on another recent thread, I've actually been considering something similar to this, but not quite the same:

Separate from the military diplomatic relations, have a set of cultural diplomatic relations. Something like

Brothers - Friends - Indifferent - Hostile - Enemies

They would have no mechanical military consequences (though they might have other mechanical consequences, at least in time), but would be a way to clearly indicate how your realm and another realm feel about each other.

To be honest, I'm not thrilled about the idea of allowing any kind of attacks on a realm without being at war with them. It complicates things, particularly when I've just introduced a mechanic requiring reasons for being able to attack a realm—which depends on having to declare war to attack a realm. Furthermore, I think it highly likely that 99% of the time, "hostile" would be used and seen as nearly synonymous with "war"—certainly, a realm having its regions attacked and looted isn't going to hesitate to treat that as an act of war.

And to be clear, you can already attack a realm you're neutral with by setting your men to Aggressive or Murderous. You can even loot them.

102

BM General Discussion / Re: OOC power-gaming???

« on: May 13, 2020, 02:15:52 PM »

So why do it? Because it happened to you? Grow up.

Yes, everyone who asks for fair treatment is a baby. Well done, Gildre.

Having talked to Gildre separately, I know that this was not what he meant by this.

The line you quote is expressing a frustration with the attitude, "Well, we had a terrible thing happen to us, so if the same (or a similar) terrible thing happens to you, that's just fine! Maybe you even deserve it!"

That kind of attitude perpetuates cycles of abuse. The attitude we want to cultivate is, "We had a terrible thing happen to us. How do we make sure it never happens to anyone else?"

103

BM General Discussion / Re: OOC power-gaming???

« on: May 13, 2020, 02:12:58 PM »

I'm willing to see how this plays out, and maybe I will be able to see the lines on these things soon, but I'm concerned.

I think the key in a complex situation like this is communication. OOC communication.

Yes, you assumed that other realms would join in on Thalmarkin's side, which would have made it a more even conflict. Zatirri assumed that when he declared war on Irondale, he'd get Irondale and maybe one or two other realms involved in a war, and probably VS on his side.

What I would like to ask of "you" (in quotes because it's not "you, Matt" or even "you, the realms arrayed against Thalmarkin now", but "any rulers who are in the situation in the future of preparing to be one of several realms declaring war on one realm") in the future is that you first talk to the realm about to get its butt kicked, preferably on the Ruler/Admin OOC channel so that we can be present to help mediate, and make sure there's a good enough understanding on both sides of what you're all getting into that the players involved aren't faced with nasty surprises.

And to be clear, if you're concerned about such OOC communications being taken IC and ruining the situation, I still expect there to be some communication, even if it's private with the ruler in question, or even just with the Titans or Admins so that we can try to work on it from our end. (Which, I would have to say, would usually involve communicating with the ruler anyway, but at least that way it comes a bit more anonymously, and can potentially be done in such a way as to obscure the details of who might declare war when.)

In general, the cultural change I'm trying to advocate for (well, one of them) is for players, especially the players of ruler characters, to stop treating the continent as being full of "nobles who are my friend" and "nobles who are my enemy", and start treating it as being full of "players who are my friend, who might be playing alongside me or against me, but whose fun matters to me either way."

104

BM General Discussion / Re: OOC power-gaming???

« on: May 12, 2020, 09:52:31 PM »

Any way, that is all too subjective to go anywhere but at least I have voiced an aspect of the counter points that have been raging amongst realm members and other rulers,  And I haven't even touched on the fact everything we thought we knew led us to think Vordul would join Thal making an even contest all in all.  But again the supposed consequence of Thal's lack of any diplomatic consideration meant Vordul had to have the agency to reject the assumption they would just do as bid. 

And I want to be clear in this that I do not hold the rulers of the realms of Beluaterra responsible for what happened—if I had thought that anyone had engaged in conduct that was worthy of punishment, I would have either put forward a case to the Titans, or leveled that punishment myself.

The standards I have articulated are things that I had hoped people would adhere to previously, but which were not in any way explicitly articulated, and the only ones to blame for that are me and Vita. Now they are stated openly, and I will be doing my best to help guide and teach people—and, if necessary, update the wording and clarify or even adjust the expectations if I find that what I have said thus far is too ambiguous, doesn't edge cases, or is even unrealistic in places.

3) Finally to my questions:

Where on the forum were the interpretations and implications of the Alliance Bloc outlined?  Is there anything on the wiki?  If so, please would you point them out.  If not would this not be a desirable feature before starting to describe supposed players you believe the best of, of being abusive?

What practically happens if you are in an alliance bloc within size limits, but which then outgrows it?

I believe Gildre answered these two well.

Are treaties and embassies and diplomatic pledges not captured by an alliance all illegal now?

No, they are not illegal. However, if Realm A has a treaty with Realm B saying "We will ally if either of us is attacked," and Realm B gets themselves into an alliance bloc that reaches the limit and is then attacked, they will not be able to ally with Realm A. (And I realize that that was a bit confusingly stated, so if it doesn't make sense, let me know.)

How exactly are we supposed to make any sense of favourable relations/histories we cannot fit in an alliance bloc based on this new harsh interpretation?  For my realm we owe existence to Nothoi granting us a city, and built strong Daishi ties.  To ignore their plight a second time would piss on that friendship/history but at various stages we were too big to ally.  Similarly  my realm owe a debt to Ar Agyr, if there are no circumstances that is allowed to be repayed through even defensive action how is that anything other than cutting diplomacy out of the game?

Can you clarify this for me? It sounds like you're saying that SV was unable to make an alliance with just Nothoi—with neither realm having any other alliances active—due to the restrictions.

If that's the case—that there are multiple realms on BT that can't (or can barely) form any alliances—then we may indeed need to re-examine the specific limits involved with the alliance bloc limits.

However, if I'm misunderstanding, and what you're saying is that one or more of these realms had other alliances, and adding an alliance with another realm would have pushed you over the limit...then what I would strongly advocate for is a shift in how Alliance is seen (which might be what you're saying in your next paragraph? I'm afraid I'm a bit unclear on your intent there, too). And I recognize that this is asking a lot, but it is something that we've been quietly pushing for for years, due to exactly the kinds of shenanigans that led to the alliance bloc restrictions in the first place (and, earlier, led to the sinking of Atamara):

"Friends" and "allies" don't have to mean the same thing. "Friends" is more of a cultural tie, something that might imply you would ally with them, but more importantly speaks to a deeper bond with another realm. "Allies" means something very specific and 100% military: "If my realm and my ally's realm have troops in a region, and one of us takes the battlefield as the defender, the other will join in."

And I would be more than happy to start a discussion as to whether there should be a completely-non-military set of "cultural relations" between realms that the game keeps track of, so that you could retain that information and make it easily available for new players and people across the continent—or even across the game—without having it be bound up in specific military terminology and mechanical benefits and detriments.

I hope that this answers your questions, and shows you something of my position on the issues raised.

105

BM General Discussion / Re: OOC power-gaming???

« on: May 12, 2020, 09:32:39 PM »

To be clear, I am not a member of Thalmarkin and do not even have a noble on the continent at this time.
I was a former ruler of Caelint but left the continent due to the actions of Thalmarkin and their (then) allies.

PolarRaven,
My apologies; I did only skim your earlier message, and thus ended up with the wrong impression. The point I made was still important, but apparently you were not the right one to address it to! 

The real answer to that question is this:
Thalmarkin has "bullied" most of the continent for quite some time now and it is not hard to believe that many people/most realms have an understandable dislike for the realm. 
This is the first time, in quite a while, that Thalmarkin has been vulnerable so why wouldn't realms with a past grudge not take advantage of that?   

And I fully support realms in banding together to give a bully a good hard knocking. I will repeat to you (paraphrased) what was said in an earlier conversation I had with Vita on this subject, as we were working on hashing out what our positions and official policy should be:

We need to be very careful in our approach to shutting down unfair play, making sure that by doing so we're not also shutting down legitimate IC consequences for realms' actions.

That said, there is a very real ceiling to "IC consequences"—that is, a level of consequences above which anything more is meaningless. A realm that is at war with enough other realms that it is guaranteed to lose has found that ceiling.

I would never even try to suggest that a realm that pisses off other realms should be immune to getting beat down for that—but that beatdown should never be so utterly hopeless that it destroys the interest of the people in the realm getting beat such that they stop having fun, and stop caring about the game.

There was no sympathy or concern for the fun of players in Caelint when Thalmarkin decided to "support their ally Gotland".
Although they were only one realm, they far outmatched Caelint in all aspects, but decided to join and skew what would have been a fairly evenly matched one on one war. 
Even after Caelint's allies joined the fray, Thalmarkin (being only one realm) still outmatched our side in resources and nobles.

Now, I'm going to have to step out onto a limb, because I'm not 100% sure of your intent in saying this, so first let me qualify my words by saying how I'm interpreting yours:
It seems like you're upset that Thalmarkin, as a huge and dangerous realm, is able to throw that weight around and, simply by joining a conflict that's otherwise pretty ordinary, turn it into one that's hopeless and demoralizing.

If that is what you mean here, then I completely agree, and that's why I have, for over a decade now, advocated for restrictions on realms being able to get so much larger than other realms that they distort continental politics.

And now they cry fowl and threaten to leave the game because everyone else has decided to pick on them for "no reason".

Yep. And that kind of behaviour, frankly, pisses me off. It means that they're not even interested in considering the possibility that being in a situation where you lose something IC could still be fun OOC—or, to turn that around, that they've gotten so used to being the "big dog" IC that they think they can only have fun when they're able to dictate the terms of everything that happens around them.

The unsportsmanlike conduct here was (in MY opinion) when the former ruler of Thalmarkin publicly accused basically every player on the continent of POWER GAMING and then quit the game. 

Apart from one word ("The unsportsmanlike conduct"—because I saw people on both sides being unsportsmanlike in the Ruler/Admin channel), I agree.

I think Zatirri overreacted seriously to this, and I hope that he'll come back after he cools down and be open to being shown another side of what happened. I would much rather have someone who's frustrated with IC situations and wants to see them change come to the players with an open mind, looking for solutions, rather than angrily, just looking for people to blame. I don't want to sound like a self-help book, but the concept of being "above the line"—open, curious, willing to put one's own ego aside for the sake of finding a solution—versus "below the line"—closed, stubborn, seeking to prove that one is right—has been one that I've really come to see as having a lot of use in cases like this. If you're at all interested, I would urge you to listen to this podcast: https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/jim-dethmer/

That single event has ruined this particular war and discouraged many players from wanting to be involved. 
It has also ensured that Thalmarkin will survive, likely with little damage done to it, to avoid further accusations of "power-gaming".

From what everyone was saying, I'm pretty sure Thalmarkin was going to survive either way—that was, in fact, one of the ways in which Zatirri seriously overreacted, assuming that Thalmarkin was going to be destroyed. I understand why he felt that way, but assuming that that's the case and ignoring people telling him OOC that it was not is counterproductive.

I hope that this has clarified where I stand on this subject, and shows that I bear you no ill will.