Author Topic: Crazy Merger Idea  (Read 19751 times)

De-Legro

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #45: May 26, 2015, 01:46:20 PM »
I'd also say that personally speaking, I don't have any attachment to East Continent. I've hardly ever played there and for me BM is bound up with other continents. Plus the geography of East Continent sucks. So a complete reset to one new continent designed properly (with a goal of moving to a dynamic map over time) would work best for me - but since that's probably not practical I'd rather see all continents closed (except EC and the Colonies and maybe War Island) and a strict two characters per continent cap enforced. The increased population density would make things more interesting for the time being - especially with the influx of refugees - and that could buy the game time while a new map for East Continent, which included some sort of frontier and ideally the ability to be made dynamic, was worked on.

I certainly think that the best mechanic of M&F is the dynamic map and if that alone could be incorporated into BM somehow (with AOW graphics) then that would be awesome but I doubt it'd be technically feasible.

You are right, it is not technically feasible in any time frame available to us. M&F's mapping system is based on OpenLayers, the game itself uses the Symfony framework. While these utilise PHP same as BM, they are so far removed from the BM implementation that you would basically need to rewrite all of BM to integrate them.

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Antonine

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #46: May 26, 2015, 02:01:33 PM »
Guess I'd better get used to seeing a lot more of Perdan and Sirion then :p

Chenier

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #47: June 05, 2015, 05:02:55 PM »
If I were going to dedicate the amount of effort that sort of dynamic map would require, I doubt that's what I would do.

If I were to implement a dynamic map, it certainly wouldn't have a "Build City Here" button or anything like that. It would rely on quasi-realistic population dynamics to determine where a city would generate naturally, with some noble (i.e., player) actions influencing that.

But anyone who wants to just declare a spot a city? They can have a flag and a nice big town hall in the middle of the woods if they really want.

Cities aren't created by having a bunch of buildings. They're created by having a lot of people.

People don't amass in places randomly. Sure, as much as the modern world is filled with ghost grandiose pre-made cities that came out of some urbanists' phantasms, doesn't mean that growth cannot be influenced. Places without infrastructure don't grow, places with infrastructure, resources, trading potential, and defensible positions grow.

I didn't mean "click here to add +500 000 people to this region and thus form a city", but rather, infrastructure that increased the max pop limit, to allow the city to grow organically.
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Anaris

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #48: June 05, 2015, 05:11:54 PM »
Places without infrastructure don't grow, places with infrastructure, resources, trading potential, and defensible positions grow.

But it's the resources, trading potential, and defensible positions that really lead people to congregate in certain places.

If I were to design a system to allow dynamically changing cities, I'd start with the land. Give various swathes of land an "arability" value, from 0%-100%. Add some forests, which can be harvested for resources slowly, or clear-cut for farming. Put mineral resources in—both gold/gems (effectively identical from a gameplay perspective) and metal and stone.

Then start filtering population into the area with some basic intelligence. River deltas would be a first natural place to build cities. Farms would go up, and they'd need somewhere to sell their food. Mines would go up, and they'd need somewhere to buy food from. Trade routes would begin to establish themselves, and where multiple trade routes meet, other cities or towns would crop up.

So if you wanted to establish a new city, you'd need to provide a damn good reason for peasants to start congregating in a certain place.

Now, if you wanted to manually place strongholds, I'd be all for that, but you'd need to establish the population mostly by yourself—which is as it should be; a significant percentage of the population of a stronghold should be its garrison and their families. So you'd have to spend some time bringing in soldiers from other parts of the realm and setting them up as part of the garrison of the stronghold.
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De-Legro

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #49: June 06, 2015, 02:01:42 AM »
But it's the resources, trading potential, and defensible positions that really lead people to congregate in certain places.

If I were to design a system to allow dynamically changing cities, I'd start with the land. Give various swathes of land an "arability" value, from 0%-100%. Add some forests, which can be harvested for resources slowly, or clear-cut for farming. Put mineral resources in—both gold/gems (effectively identical from a gameplay perspective) and metal and stone.

Then start filtering population into the area with some basic intelligence. River deltas would be a first natural place to build cities. Farms would go up, and they'd need somewhere to sell their food. Mines would go up, and they'd need somewhere to buy food from. Trade routes would begin to establish themselves, and where multiple trade routes meet, other cities or towns would crop up.

So if you wanted to establish a new city, you'd need to provide a damn good reason for peasants to start congregating in a certain place.

Now, if you wanted to manually place strongholds, I'd be all for that, but you'd need to establish the population mostly by yourself—which is as it should be; a significant percentage of the population of a stronghold should be its garrison and their families. So you'd have to spend some time bringing in soldiers from other parts of the realm and setting them up as part of the garrison of the stronghold.
That is quite an interesting idea that could be discussed separately
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Ossan

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #50: August 03, 2015, 07:25:01 PM »
I'm turned off by subscriptions in general, especially since many time periods where i have played BM in were when I was broke and/or unemployed. I also haven't gotten around to trying M&F yet, it seemed a bit too much in beta and looked kind of ugly a while ago. I should probably check it out again though.

I kind of like the AoW maps and simplicity of BM, but there certainly does need to be more to do outside of war and maybe a refresh of the continents. The years of player made history are great and it would be sad to lose them, but it's clear that the design of the continents is no longer working that well.

It's certainly a great idea to throw out and think about ideas of a merger anyway even if it doesn't happen.
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Constantine

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #51: August 03, 2015, 11:34:26 PM »
M&F is dominated by multi-account realms. Or rather single VIP accounts that allow one to play unlimited number of characters and own unlimited quantity of stuff.
Something that gets you banned in BM is totally legit in M&F if you pay a modest sum every month.

M&F has it merits but frustration of having realms with dozens of players being steamrolled by two VIP guys was really a wake up call for me.

De-Legro

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #52: August 04, 2015, 02:04:12 AM »
M&F is dominated by multi-account realms. Or rather single VIP accounts that allow one to play unlimited number of characters and own unlimited quantity of stuff.
Something that gets you banned in BM is totally legit in M&F if you pay a modest sum every month.

M&F has it merits but frustration of having realms with dozens of players being steamrolled by two VIP guys was really a wake up call for me.

You realise that VIP accounts simply mean they supported the Crowd Funding at a certain level. It has no bearing on how many characters they can control, they can control the same amount as any other player, determined by their subscription level. There is NO level that allows for unlimited characters, though the limits are high, and multi-accounts are not against the rules, so long as the accounts are paid accounts.

That said the players whom played in the style you speak of are almost all gone. I know of only one that remains. Turns out being in a realm of limited players loses its attraction eventually, no matter how many wars you win.
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Vel_Aryon

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #53: August 27, 2015, 09:53:48 PM »
As someone who plays both, I'd best describe both games with the following: Might and Featly has more clicking than writing, while Battlemaster has more writing than clicking, The silver linings are somewhere in the middle, so an ambitious merger that would merge only the best traits of both would be tremendous. But probably too ambitious.

Tom

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #54: September 24, 2015, 02:34:47 PM »
The tricky part is identifying what the best parts are, as opinions differ on that.

Roche

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #55: September 25, 2015, 09:22:07 PM »
One of Might and Fealty's weaknesses is that there really isn't a whole lot for a landless noble to do and there's not a lot for someone to accomplish in the game if they're not thinking about building armies and going on the warpath. 

One of Battlemaster's strongest qualities is how much stuff someone can do without being a lord.  You can take part in Tourney's, you can Duel, you can use your subclass's benefits, etc. If there's anything you should import from Battlemaster, it's that.  Now in Battlemaster, a lot of that other stuff loses its appeal after a bit and I'd say a weakness of Battlemaster is how super slow, structured, and... in my opinion, boring, it is if you haven't been at it for a while to where you can recruit larger armies, explore sub-classes, or hold important positions in power.  Otherwise, you're very limited in what you can do, are not that useful for a while, and are often just kinda another body in someone else's army that can hold a small unit of men, get a stipend every month, and do little else. 

Might and Fealty has the strength of allowing even a new person unrestrained possibility.  Within a month's time, you can go from a landless knight to a Duke, if you're active and good at what you do.  You can go from nothing to founding a faction if the cards are in your favor.  Can go from holding no army to leading as a Marshall on a battlefield with thousand of men at your command, if you so choose.  And this allows you to get right into the dirty politics and play a useful role.  I really love that aspect of the game and hope you don't change it.  The progression in Battlemaster feels like just such a grind, and if there's anything I hate in MMOs, it's grinding and trudging through mediocrity in the hope of getting to the 'good' part.  Not to mention that in Battlemaster, I've never felt truly useful.  And yes, I'm willing to acknowledge that's not ALL the game's fault, but it's structure is more limiting by comparison.

What else I'd like to see.... Well, I'd like to see tourney's, duels, and such in Might and Fealty.  I'd love to see infiltrators act as assassins, saboteurs, and spies.  I'd like to see less stress in the turn setup of Might and Fealty (the whole turn every hour thing is stressful; Battlemaster really did this better).  I don't want to see Battlemaster's rigid social or governmental structure.  The ability to play commoners is cool.  I'd like to see whatever hybrid game you create allow cities and big towns to build up organically like they do in M&F rather than be predetermined.  Account control and discouraging multi-accounting would be necessary, should the game ever get a bigger player-base, though in the beginning, it's not a must.  Basically take Might and Fealty, add some more depth to the mechanics, reduce the turns, advertise the bloody thing so people actually show up, and I'd say you're golden with me.

Course that's for my wishlist.   This is a hell of a task you're thinking of undertaking Tom, especially considering the differences in framework.   You're practically going to have to rebuild this from the ground up.... You okay with that?
« Last Edit: September 25, 2015, 09:30:08 PM by Roche »

Roche

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #56: September 25, 2015, 09:24:42 PM »
Crap doublepost...

Zakilevo

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Re: Crazy Merger Idea
« Reply #57: September 25, 2015, 10:37:55 PM »
I tried MF for about 3 months. Couldn't get into it at all. Probably because I was expecting a better version of BM not a brand new game which only shares the same developer.