Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?

[Zakilevo]

You realize that Jaune is one of the early, early players, and would probably know what the early game was like...

If Lapallanch is right that it started as a side project of SM, with that he proves jaune's point. SM was to be where most if not all the roleplay took place, with BM providing a background of the world using a more strategic setting.

Do you even know what SM is

[Gustav Kuriga]

Spellmaster, yes, I do know.

[Blue Star]

There was not much roleplaying atleast early Atamara. Things were a lot in character, but it was a lot player talk too. We discussed a lot game mechanics and strategies and number crunching in game too. Mostly that discussion were at IRC, but also important parts were discussed in game too. But gotta admit, i dont know much outside Darka/CE/Tara/Eston early Atamara.

Those realms were lead by ex Utopia players, more or less hard core strategists and net addicts, which prolly explains that they dominated Atamara. And game evolved all the time to limit advantages of being online all the time. Many HC players worked hard to find advantages from battlereports, behaviour of battle code...

Slowly RP thins started to become more, silly nicks were forbidden and later even enforced to those old farts to change their names to more proper. I bet majority of Atamara players at early stage were strategy players, atleast leaders. They were lightly roleplaying their characters. Later when realms started to have some cultures, news papers, religions it turne more and more to roleplaying game... and all kind of restrictions appeared. Capital change, you needed to border regions to take them over, you were not able to ban people for lagging (Early Darka Elders bansihed 1 player every week by shout voting, just to keep people following orders, remember those times there was influx of players).

Mayby this started as RP, but quite early it was brutal strategy game atleast for a while And some point it had good balance, these days... strategy things have been made a bit too hard. Game has too much restrictions as mechanic wise.

Agreed it was mainly strategy game when it was first under way rarely I can't remember rping often, save unless we were rping we were drinking. SM was RP happy wizards/mages running around with Fireballs (Fizban)!

I think RPing happened more as we saw it more often or when the wiki started getting used more I think around 04-05 wiki got made and that's when I recall actually seeing more RPs. Before that we all mainly had description of our chars in our profile pages.

[Chenier]

The roleplaying evolved over the years, but that doesn't mean there was no roleplaying back in the early years. It was just more lightweight, less serious, more humoristic or ridicule. It was stuff like giant wooden badgers and vikings in tutus riding humans instead of horses. It was light years away from the "Serious Medieval Atmosphere" kind of RP, especially as it was when Dwilight first opened. But that doesn't mean there wasn't RP. Nor does the additional hardcore strategy philosophy that was present undermine this.

To be fair, there was a lot more players, too. Maybe not when the game first opened, but it increased in membership relatively quickly. When realms easily had over a hundred nobles, it was easy to have some people be pure strategists while a bunch of lower-ranking nobles could easily write up a lot of roleplays. I certainly saw a lot more narrative roleplays back when I joined up than I do now. It was somewhat more distinct back then, people would act as per strategy and write as per roleplay, whereas now it is somewhat more combined, but it was there nonetheless.

[Blue Star]

People Rped yes, but it was not the same as now, plus we had some good rps but I just remember a few the extent back then was similar to now I assume if we went by percentages. mmm old Darka and Ibladesh I can remember Rps... Fontan eh arguing Greeks and black hand spys, back then I can even remember Tara nobles speaking often.

[Wolfsong]

Orcs and elves and back-flipping over trees in platemail with chainswords.

[Kai]

The roleplaying evolved over the years, but that doesn't mean there was no roleplaying back in the early years. It was just more lightweight, less serious, more humoristic or ridicule. It was stuff like giant wooden badgers and vikings in tutus riding humans instead of horses. It was light years away from the "Serious Medieval Atmosphere" kind of RP, especially as it was when Dwilight first opened. But that doesn't mean there wasn't RP. Nor does the additional hardcore strategy philosophy that was present undermine this.

To be fair, there was a lot more players, too. Maybe not when the game first opened, but it increased in membership relatively quickly. When realms easily had over a hundred nobles, it was easy to have some people be pure strategists while a bunch of lower-ranking nobles could easily write up a lot of roleplays. I certainly saw a lot more narrative roleplays back when I joined up than I do now. It was somewhat more distinct back then, people would act as per strategy and write as per roleplay, whereas now it is somewhat more combined, but it was there nonetheless.

Was a lot easier to RP before characters became nobility and the SMA straightjacket leaking out.

[Anaris]

Was a lot easier to RP before characters became nobility and the SMA straightjacket leaking out.

Characters "became" nobility?

Sorry to burst your bubble, Kai, but our characters were nobility since the game first launched. And I've seen plenty of RP on Dwilight (and thus under explicit SMA) and on every other continent I've been on since Dwilight opened (where I presume you mean it's "leaking out").

[Kai]

I hope you're just pretending that you didn't know I was talking about TLs.

You can't see what RP would have happened without the formalism of the power structure. You've just selected for the die hard nerds who like to be called Sir.

This RP couldn't happen today because there would be incessant complaints about how nobles shouldn't be at a bar drunk etc. http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Ikalak_Ball

[Anaris]

I hope you're just pretending that you didn't know I was talking about TLs.

Despite the fact that characters were frequently referred to as "troopleaders" in years past, they were always nobles.

We get it, Kai. You think BattleMaster should have stopped in 2004 and never changed an iota.

But it did, and it will continue to, and you just need to accept that.

I don't think I've ever seen a positive comment out of you. Even with the War Island coming back, all I've seen out of you regarding it are complaints that it's not 100% exactly the way you remember it from before.

[Kai]

It balances out the mass of yes-men.

The d-list was way better also.

[Anaris]

It balances out the mass of yes-men.

No, it just makes you come across as a toxic jerk.

The d-list was way better also.

Tom probably agrees with you, but I don't. The forum is much more accessible, and much easier for most people to understand and deal with.

Plus, it's easy to just ignore certain subforums, threads, or posters.

[Kai]

If there are changes causing some portion of the playerbase to leave, the stragglers in leaving will seem toxic.

Being able to ignore things is the problem of the forum.

[Anaris]

If there are changes causing some portion of the playerbase to leave, the stragglers in leaving will seem toxic.

You're not a straggler in leaving. You haven't left.

If you're saying the people who don't leave will seem toxic, that is obviously not borne out by the evidence, either, as there are plenty of long-time players who are not toxic.

If you're saying the people who want to leave will seem toxic...well, then, if you want to leave, why don't you? The game is not going back to the way it was, and you obviously don't find it fun. So if you're not having fun, and you're making it so we don't have fun by your presence, why do you stay??

Being able to ignore things is the problem of the forum.

I'm afraid that doesn't make a great deal of sense to me.

[vonGenf]

Back to topic:

Date	Registered Players	Weekly Activity	Daily Activity
2014 Jan. 26th (peak count)	880	577	304
2014 March 1st (Beginning of freezing)	825	539	288
April 10th	797	541	293
2014 May 1st	799	533	305
2014 June 16th (WI created)	784	491	277