Responses to things people would change

[Tom]

Enable interducal wars and have duchies function as tiny kingdoms within the larger realm.

Everyone on the dev team loves that idea, and has done so for years. Sadly, it would mean massive amounts of code changes to many different parts of the game. It won't happen, sorry. But Might & Fealty is designed from the ground up to allow for warfare on every level, exactly because we all would've loved to have it in BM.

[Tom]

Island renewal of some kind.

Never, ever going to happen. Wrong game. The whole purpose of this game is to create one persistent history.

[Geronus]

Never, ever going to happen. Wrong game. The whole purpose of this game is to create one persistent history.

I encourage you to rethink this position, and to not consider it at all for Might and Fealty (disclaimer: I do not know much of what is being planned for Might and Fealty). It has worked for a long time, but I think we're approaching a point where some sort of renewal is necessary to inject some life back into the game.

Edit: Worth noting, "renewal" does not mean "reset," or it doesn't have to anyway. The Invasions kept Beluaterra fresh for a long time. Anything that kicks over the anthill periodically would be a good thing for the game, IMO.

[Vellos]

Never, ever going to happen. Wrong game. The whole purpose of this game is to create one persistent history.

*Facepalm*

You are so adamant on your position your ignoring positions that have vague similarities to the one you reject.

No need for a reset. There are other ways. Invasions, for example. Or just systematic changes in rogue coding. Dwilight, for example: a cycle could be made so that one of the mini-continents was always peaking with rogues, the other declining, to drive some constant ebb and flow between them.

Or my idea of rotating continent freezes pushing people into new playing experiences, forced down-time, and long-term scheduled play.

Don't knock ideas because they have the same first letter as "reset." If you really think our ONLY problem is player density then I want what you're smoking. The political structures created by players on many continents ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

[Tom]

Edit: Worth noting, "renewal" does not mean "reset," or it doesn't have to anyway. The Invasions kept Beluaterra fresh for a long time. Anything that kicks over the anthill periodically would be a good thing for the game, IMO.

The map of real-life Europe has been redrawn many, many times over the centuries. Borders have changed constantly, nations came into being and ceased to exist. None of that happened because a god reached down from the heavens with a big pen. It happened because the "player" actions made it happen.

BM is very much like that. You CAN completely redraw the map of every island. Wait, there's a mistake there. The stress is on the wrong word. It should be YOU can completely redraw the map. You, the players can do this. If things are stagnant then they are so because people who enjoy stagnation have ascended to the dominant positions. Why do you keep electing and supporting them?

There's a massive disconnect between what people complain about and what happens in-game, does anyone notice?

[Tom]

The political structures created by players on many continents ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Exactly.

If the GMs rip them apart, the players will re-create them. The issue is with how and why these structures exist and are maintained. Figure that out, and you've solved the problem. No amount of coding will do it.

[Geronus]

Exactly.

If the GMs rip them apart, the players will re-create them. The issue is with how and why these structures exist and are maintained. Figure that out, and you've solved the problem. No amount of coding will do it.

...Which is exactly why something needs to periodically upset them and throw things into chaos again. Just because these things inevitably happen does not mean that they're good for the game. As I said before, the Invasions did this perfectly well. There are less demanding alternatives that could suffice to do the same without completely resetting an island, like cranking up the rogue spawns to ridiculous levels for a time until the island is in chaos and realms start falling apart.

There's a massive disconnect between what people complain about and what happens in-game, does anyone notice?

That's because of what Anaris observed in the other thread: A lot of players are sheeple who will simply follow their leaders without question. There is an, observable, well-documented phenomenon in humans wherein a group of humans will generally obey an authority figure even if he is asking them to do things that they would normally never do on their own, even terrible, immoral things. How do you think the Holocaust came to happen?

Look, people have built stable power structures on many islands that are extremely resistant to change. If you think it's so easy to upset the status quo and make things happen, I invite you to make a character on Atamara and try splitting up the Tara-Cagilan Empire federation. In fact, I dare you to. You'll most likely fail miserably, just like everyone else who's been trying for the last few years.

[Tom]

If you think it's so easy to upset the status quo and make things happen, I invite you to make a character on Atamara and try splitting up the Tara-Cagilan Empire federation. In fact, I dare you to. You'll most likely fail miserably, just like everyone else who's been trying for the last few years.

If you go individually against a power block, it's not a surprise. But if there truly are so many people who dislike the status quo, it should be easy to oppose the alliance with an alliance. I'm not saying everyone is stupid to not have thought of that. I'm saying that you might be underestimating the amount of people who are actually in favour of the current status. That you demean them as sheeple is a good indicator that you don't take that opinion seriously.

[Geronus]

If you go individually against a power block, it's not a surprise. But if there truly are so many people who dislike the status quo, it should be easy to oppose the alliance with an alliance.

We did that, very recently in fact: We assembled an alliance of every non-League of the Eagle realm on the entire island to fight them. And guess what? We still lost. If that doesn't illustrate the futility of trying to change things on Atamara, I don't know what can.

I'm not saying everyone is stupid to not have thought of that. I'm saying that you might be underestimating the amount of people who are actually in favour of the current status. That you demean them as sheeple is a good indicator that you don't take that opinion seriously.

You may be right. That doesn't change the fact that it's not good for the game to let power dynamics on an island stabilize and start to calcify the way they have. What works for a plurality of established players large enough to maintain the status quo is not necessarily good for others, including and especially new players. You end up with a system that favors a few and excludes many, and that is a recipe for long-term decline. And that's exactly why we're in the situation we're in now.

[Fleugs]

Please--ONE reply per person. No arguing; just post your own idea.

Edit: so I just finished reporting pretty much all of Tom's posts along with Geronus', Anaris' underneath me and I'm pretty sure I picked one up from Vellos. Jaune has one too and I'm sure I'm missing a name in the list of shame. Oh, to be sure, I'll report my own post too - don't worry.

I just want to say that egamma clearly said no arguing and only one reply per person yet it seems like the jetset of this forum chose to entirely ignore this rule. This makes me angry. Yes, the previous two lines were first typed in caps to simulate my angriness over the internet. Enter a line of all swear words I know in English right.... about.... here.

[Anaris]

Everyone on the dev team loves that idea, and has done so for years.

Please speak for yourself.

At the very least, Rob and I have disliked this idea for some time now. If realms with 100+ nobles were the norm, it might be something to consider. Without that, though, all it does is destroy the realm structure without adding anything that most people in the game really want. Duchies are just too small to be a viable "us" unit, in the "us vs them" of the world.

[Anaris]

The map of real-life Europe has been redrawn many, many times over the centuries. Borders have changed constantly, nations came into being and ceased to exist. None of that happened because a god reached down from the heavens with a big pen. It happened because the "player" actions made it happen.

Not a God, no, but what about raging barbarian hordes? How many times have invaders from outside redrawn the map of Europe?

Furthermore, one of the other major drivers of shifts in the balance of power in the real world is technological advancement. BattleMaster is never going to develop firearms.

Another is succession squabbles. Not only can characters never die in BattleMaster unless they make specific choices that lead to dying, "succession" is handled by a single election, and the worst that happens is that someone who thought they were a better choice (not "knew they were a/the rightful heir") doesn't get picked.

(Actually, I think this last is one of the biggest reasons Atamara is the way it is. With universal mortality and a family structure divorced from the players—so that the son of a character is played by a completely different player, and not one that was hand-picked by the player of the father—succession would ensure regular change in the leadership of every realm in the game.)

[Geronus]

Edit: so I just finished reporting pretty much all of Tom's posts along with Geronus', Anaris' underneath me and I'm pretty sure I picked one up from Vellos. Jaune has one too and I'm sure I'm missing a name in the list of shame. Oh, to be sure, I'll report my own post too - don't worry.

I just want to say that egamma clearly said no arguing and only one reply per person yet it seems like the jetset of this forum chose to entirely ignore this rule. This makes me angry. Yes, the previous two lines were first typed in caps to simulate my angriness over the internet. Enter a line of all swear words I know in English right.... about.... here.

It's an important topic, and not one you get to discuss directly with Tom every day. Important enough in my mind to justify breaking the rule on the thread. Anaris did the right thing by splitting this discussion off.

[Fleugs]

It's an important topic, and not one you get to discuss directly with Tom every day. Important enough in my mind to justify breaking the rule on the thread. Anaris did the right thing by splitting this discussion off.

But nobody previously decided it was worth doing so and you wonder why some people think this forum is a festering pool of nothing good? Each of you should have known better. Each of you come here everyday. Don't toss excuses now, Geronus. Just admit guilt. Have some respect for the rules of a topic.

It was a clear example of how a handful of people get to monopolize a thread and then derail it so no regular can follow it. Worst part is, it's all people who you would assume would have known better. Starting with Tom himself, even if this is his own damn forum.

[Revan]

We did that, very recently in fact: We assembled an alliance of every non-League of the Eagle realm on the entire island to fight them. And guess what? We still lost. If that doesn't illustrate the futility of trying to change things on Atamara, I don't know what can.

Meta concerns over the strength of the Cagilan Empire have been around as long as I can remember. But what you might want to see achieved as a player is not equivalent to what realms work towards in character. Whilst a bloc was gathered to fight a war against the Cagilan Empire and her allies, that isn't what everyone was fighting for. For example, Carelia just wanted a couple of cities. Caergoth and Suville only involved themselves to try and push Carelia out of the southern peninsula. What did they care about far off Cagil? After a while Suville quite understandably decided that an easier path to her ambition would be just to fight Carelia directly rather.

There has never been a homogenous anti-CE block in Atamara and there has never needed to be. There have always been localised wars going on and the strength of the Cagilan bloc has always ebbed and flowed. When I started playing in late 2004, Cagil had just created Carelia after destroying the realm of Lasanar based around Strombran. Tara had forged herself into a massive empire. The Cagilan bloc looked intimidating. Yet over the next couple of years Tara collapsed, Carelia started flip-flopping, Abington became a serious rival. This idea that Cagil has always had it her own way is false. They haven't. Fair enough, they are now the strongest they have been in some years, but there's nothing to say it will stay that way.

I really think everyone is being far, far too harsh on Atamara. Atamara has always been capable of drastic changes and it is not as calcified as everyone is making it out to be. After probably a good five or six years of Darka being a nailed on part of Cagil's every coalition, Darka changed sides. We talk about all the puppet states that Cagil sets up, but Coria turned against her master and was recently replaced by another realm that seems unlikely to toe the Cagilan line. Carelia is a former puppet state of Cagil who also did not toe the line. Suville has the potential to become as strong as her forebear of Abington once was.

I really think that actually, Atamara has the potential to be exciting in the near future. You have a whole host of small realms battling it out in the north. The realms around the southern peninsula will start flexing their muscles again eventually. Everything Silnaria was doing is still up in the air. Meanwhile, Tara and Cagil are probably at the limits of their natural expansion and it seems unlikely that they will fritter away nobles on founding more new realms. There simply isn't the need. We might be in a bit of an ebb after the last great conflict but a conflagration will break out again soon enough. I don't doubt it.