Author Topic: stopping ForumMaster from destroying BattleMaster  (Read 132144 times)

Vita`

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On the matter of Magistrate publicity, I think the process of the decision should be private, but the initial complaint and the verdict public.

Revan

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Perhaps conduct magistrate cases behind closed doors and only make the threads public once a case is closed? I share the sentiments of others above. The present public free-for-all in magistrates cases doesn't feel healthy.

Lanyon

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I feel  like I'm the only one who thinks closing the local boards is a bad idea. They're the only place that I feel gives a sense of the continent evolving around your realm. Without that, realms might as well be singular islands to me that merge when there's a war and then quickly separate again afterward. It also give's a very, for lack of a better metaphor, "bar-top" feel where people discuss the events going on in a (sometimes) objective way.

At the same time, the local forums have definitely influenced me IC. I hate D'Harans because of the forums and like Niselur. My feelings have definetly changed towards individual players too (though this is more from IRC than anyrthing else)

Ironsides

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I feel  like I'm the only one who thinks closing the local boards is a bad idea. They're the only place that I feel gives a sense of the continent evolving around your realm. Without that, realms might as well be singular islands to me that merge when there's a war and then quickly separate again afterward. It also give's a very, for lack of a better metaphor, "bar-top" feel where people discuss the events going on in a (sometimes) objective way...

This here is why guilds are so cool, they cross realm boundaries (even during war times) :)
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Gustav Kuriga

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I feel  like I'm the only one who thinks closing the local boards is a bad idea. They're the only place that I feel gives a sense of the continent evolving around your realm. Without that, realms might as well be singular islands to me that merge when there's a war and then quickly separate again afterward. It also give's a very, for lack of a better metaphor, "bar-top" feel where people discuss the events going on in a (sometimes) objective way.

At the same time, the local forums have definitely influenced me IC. I hate D'Harans because of the forums and like Niselur. My feelings have definetly changed towards individual players too (though this is more from IRC than anyrthing else)

I agree with you.

Revan

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A thought about unintended consequences (though I've no complaints about the action taken). It wasn't all that long ago that an IRC webclient was integrated into BattleMaster via a link on the sidebar. When you use Chat for the first time whilst logged in to BattleMaster, it will automatically have you join channels for your realms and islands and throw you into the main BattleMaster channel to boot. As such, players are encouraged to engage with IRC in a way that we have just deemed harmful to the community atmosphere here on the forum.

I know that IRC is slightly different. Likewise, that people have been having conversations about events in BattleMaster on IRC since long before the forum came into being (and that's fine!). But it didn't used to be pushed from the login screen. The difference between the forum and IRC is that the forum is administered by BattleMaster. IRC is not. I wonder if it would not be better to remove IRC's semi-official status and inclusion via the webclient. Instead return to having an arms-length relationship with it. It seems both futile and contradictory to try and improve the community atmosphere here while also promoting an avenue for players to continue their heated discussions and rivalries away from the oversight of battlemaster.org

Gustav Kuriga

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I dont find the discussions to be that bad. if you want to see a bad forum, go to the astroempire forums sometime.

LilWolf

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And yes, I agree that if we close down the Locals forum, we should also close down the equivalent IRC channels, or rather: Ask people to not use them anymore and put their IC stuff into the game itself, exclusively.

The main #battlemaster channel has been around since 2003 and there have been realm channels for probably just as long. As far as I know there haven't been that many problems coming from it over the years. The active user base is very small(we're talking like 20 players, maybe, with some occasionals thrown in) so I don't see it having much of an effect on anything.

The Chat function hasn't really brought that many new users on IRC so removing it wouldn't really make a difference. Those that want to IRC would still come there.
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Gustav Kuriga

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Great discussion, thank you all.

I'm surprised by how quickly everyone converges on the Locals boards being the major problem, because I didn't think in that direction at all when I started this thread, but now that it has been pointed out, it seems to obvious that I don't understand how I didn't see it right from the start.

And yes, I agree that if we close down the Locals forum, we should also close down the equivalent IRC channels, or rather: Ask people to not use them anymore and put their IC stuff into the game itself, exclusively.

I've temporarily locked the locals and the roleplaying board. If we all agree so much, let's see what the effect is and if we can reverse the drain of character interaction. Maybe this is really all it takes.

I personally believe there will be no difference whatsoever. I'm honestly sick of this idea that just because we're not writing narrative RP (and I do plenty of that outside of BM), this somehow means that all our other letters are not RP. I'm just going to be honest here and say that Battlemaster just isnt built for narrative RP. At least not anything collaborative, and solo RP is rather boring to be honest, if I wanted to do that I'd just create my own fictional world.

All this is doing is isolating realms into small islands, making it hard to understand anything outside your realm if you have no access to the Rulers channel. That makes for a very dull, narrow viewpoint story, which is very unattractive for the game.

Eduardo Almighty

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We lost another good way to talk about the game outside the game... while I agree some changes needs to be made to save BM, in the end you must realize that the problem is not the Forum, the IRC or whatever, but people's behavior. If you cannot change their behavior, problems will arise one way or another.

This is just the easiest way to (not)solve the problem. Also, what's the problem with the Roleplay board? I believe many people just post there after post it in realm, giving the chance for more people to read and enjoy a good aspect of BM. Sirion, for example, is silent like a desert... even offering more than 1000 gold and medals, no one cares to do a single RP.

The next discussion will be "stopping Facebook from destroying BM"...
« Last Edit: August 04, 2013, 11:27:13 AM by Eduardo Almighty »
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jaune

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I think reducing IG happenins talks at OOG will help, ofcourse there will be some chatting and speculating at IRC/skype/name any ohter instant message system, but those are not that public and arguing at example IRC doesnt last like 2 months... those are over in few minutse to hour.

Wiki had that diffrence back the days when there was those news papers, that those were kind of in game. Those were public knowledge. You wrote page at news paper was similar as you would send message to whole continent, or even whole world.

Ofcourse those  discussions over the topics heated to flamewars too...
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Tom

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On the matter of Magistrate publicity, I think the process of the decision should be private, but the initial complaint and the verdict public.

You mean, exactly the way it is set up right now? The Magistrates do have a private forum where they discuss cases.

Tom

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I feel  like I'm the only one who thinks closing the local boards is a bad idea. They're the only place that I feel gives a sense of the continent evolving around your realm.

That is why we originally opened them. But I am convinced now that the downsides weigh more heavily.

Tom

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We lost another good way to talk about the game outside the game... while I agree some changes needs to be made to save BM, in the end you must realize that the problem is not the Forum, the IRC or whatever, but people's behavior. If you cannot change their behavior, problems will arise one way or another.

You can channel behavior and that is what we are doing. If you checked the locals forums, you will notice I posted a sticky note to all of them encouraging people to post in-game instead. The game is played in the game, not on the forum, that is the core of the vast majority of complaints about the forums that I have received.

There should be ways to talk about the game outside the game, which is why most of the forum remains open. But I agree violently with the consensus that talk about specific events in-game has a very, very high tendency to get out the worst behavior in people. Because they have personal stakes in the issues. That is the common element in all high-vitriol issues, be it Magistrate cases or the locals forums.


Tom

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Wiki had that diffrence back the days when there was those news papers, that those were kind of in game. Those were public knowledge. You wrote page at news paper was similar as you would send message to whole continent, or even whole world.

And I think they were much, much better. Mostly because you couldn't shout down an opponent, the best thing you could do was publish your own propaganda in return.