Author Topic: Atamara's Fate  (Read 61690 times)

Elegant

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #75: May 11, 2016, 08:14:08 PM »
This game has great lessons hidden in it. Unlike other online games where we try to wipe out the enemies, win the server and sometimes get dragged in forum wars, the game Battlemaster teaches us how to "play". This game makes us realize that behind every character, there is a human sitting on a computer and he has same feelings as us. We all are complete strangers, who would have never met under normal circumstance, but are bound together by this game. There are no "enemies", there are "opponents".

In this game, we are not only expected to rise to power, we are also expected to relinquish everything we have won for betterment of the society. To make the game "fun" is a collective responsibility. There are several other good things to be learned from this game. Playing this game in the way recommended by Tom would impart good qualities in our real life too.

CE Alliance was the best team (I was fortunate to be a part of it. I love the teamwork). We rose to ultimate power, but we failed to relinquish it in a timely manner for betterment of society. Lesson has been learnt. Atamara is dead. Lets move on.

GundamMerc

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #76: May 12, 2016, 01:20:10 AM »
I don't think so, if you wish to complain so hard, you should actively try to change things. At the same time, you should consider whether or not your actions can be done reasonable in the first place. You think my move of founding Oligarch for instance was smart? Hell no, I didn't think we'd last this long in the first place tbh, but I did everything to get that power and then split off. Actually, I tried to split up Sirion before that but failed. I am convinced there were options in CE etc for similar things as well.

Uhm, you're talking to someone who tried to actively campaign for the Prime Minister position in CE and got a good portion of the vote. I actually went through the trouble to make a train of logic where it would make sense for a realm of "honor" like CE to consider splitting from the Federation, noting the "dishonorable" acts of Tara against the Federation (before they split off themselves) and positing the notion that if Cagilan Empire could not act on its own behalf without allies, then they were little better than weak enforcers for Tara rather than the guardians of honor they saw themselves as. This, of course, was laughed at by most of the Dukes who proceeded to do their best to block my position, save for their southernmost Duke, who agreed with me but OOC wasn't willing to risk doing something that could lose them their position, nor go "against their character".  I made that part of my platform as Prime Minister, but instead they chose Jean Luc, who proceeded to appease the Tarans and refused to attack even after they had broken the Federation and thus declared war.

I'm sorry, but you seem to think that the players in leadership of CE wanted was even willing to listen on an IC/OOC basis. That is not true.

Victor C

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #77: May 12, 2016, 02:26:19 AM »
Snip

This post brings up such an interesting point... And it is ignored.  How lovely.

"The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things." - Ronald Reagan

Medron Pryde

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #78: May 12, 2016, 03:35:09 AM »
Not ignored.

He is accurate.

But it is not always a point of view that people see without being guided towards it.  Sometimes with a gentle hand.  Sometimes it takes a clue by four.  Sometimes it takes mods or devs or whatever you call the people assigned to watch over the game to enforce that view.

As for the other post...I do find it amusing that he would suggest that Tara was acting dishonorably towards the Federation.  Tara was the only member of the Federation actively fighting the enemies of the Federation.  Cagil was doing its best imitation of an ostrich while Strombran joined into an alliance with our enemies and helped them grow in power and territory.

Strombran was the serpent that poisoned the Federation.  Tara was the last defender of the Federation's ideals, and when it became clear that the Federation would fail to reign in Strombran's foul machinations, it became Tara's job to protect all of Atamara from her villainy.

 8)

Blue Star

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #79: May 12, 2016, 05:08:01 AM »
This game has great lessons hidden in it. Unlike other online games where we try to wipe out the enemies, win the server and sometimes get dragged in forum wars, the game Battlemaster teaches us how to "play". This game makes us realize that behind every character, there is a human sitting on a computer and he has same feelings as us. We all are complete strangers, who would have never met under normal circumstance, but are bound together by this game. There are no "enemies", there are "opponents".

In this game, we are not only expected to rise to power, we are also expected to relinquish everything we have won for betterment of the society. To make the game "fun" is a collective responsibility. There are several other good things to be learned from this game. Playing this game in the way recommended by Tom would impart good qualities in our real life too.

CE Alliance was the best team (I was fortunate to be a part of it. I love the teamwork). We rose to ultimate power, but we failed to relinquish it in a timely manner for betterment of society. Lesson has been learnt. Atamara is dead. Lets move on.

This made me smile, really and truly, I remember when we actually played like this and that time was the best and most fun i've ever had throughout my time playing any online game.

Thank you Elegant for reminding me.


As for Atamara, i've played on both sides of the coin and had to experience Coria or should I say Narnia. Those who said CE won, well I could say that might of been possible after Fasland was defeated and the south got beat during that Redspan incident with Darka. Yet, toward the end CE was unraveling and Tara was just being stubborn. The brotherhood that existed was at its breaking point.

The thing I miss most about that island is the friendships I made in Darka and CE. They crossed over the years and many of those people are the reason I continued to login because they made the game that much more interesting Umbar, Indirik, Lavigna (Lavagina), Conquard, Munnegan, Valgin, Gorath, Paxwax, Salvador, Fury, Merlin, Juane, Randall, and Ghostdragon, just to name a few. Few of these people reached even outside of the game and summoned me back to play.

I think like a sinner. Curse like a sailor. Smile like a saint. :)

GundamMerc

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #80: May 12, 2016, 05:59:23 AM »
Note how shocked I am that it is ruling clique versus everyone else in this thread?

Medron Pryde

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #81: May 12, 2016, 07:49:49 AM »
The thing I miss most about that island is the friendships I made in Darka and CE. They crossed over the years and many of those people are the reason I continued to login because they made the game that much more interesting Umbar, Indirik, Lavigna (Lavagina), Conquard, Munnegan, Valgin, Gorath, Paxwax, Salvador, Fury, Merlin, Juane, Randall, and Ghostdragon, just to name a few. Few of these people reached even outside of the game and summoned me back to play.

That is Tara for me.  I always kept a character or two in Tara just to keep up with friends there.  I never had a single role in the government or really did anything of much regard there other than marching when the general sent out orders.  But I just enjoyed the nation and the people there.  It was my home in BattleMaster more than any other place.

Then I saw several Tyrants disappear one after another, saw Tara in disrepair and ready to fail, and I had the audacity to think I could do something about it.  So I ran for the Tyrancy and won.

At first I just did whatever it took to stabilize Tara and make her stronger.  I had never looked at Atamara from the slightly-OOC perspective you need as a ruler.  It took a few days or maybe a bit more than that.  I made some mistakes.  Shanandoah for one.  I dealt with other leaders.  I studied the diplomatic situation on the island.  I started to realize that it was locked.  Hard.  That it stifled good gameplay.  And that is when I began to realize why we had lost so many Tyrants recently.  They felt helpless.  Trapped by the situation as much as anybody else on the island.

So on the one hand, I pushed to make Tara more active.  I got an awesome general from Carelia who knew how to do things, and we made Tara fun to play in again.  Revitalized it and got things shaking up both inside and outside Tara.

And on the other hand I began working with those who wanted to bring down the federation.  Because once I looked at the federation with the slightly OOC-eyes that a ruler should use, I realized that bringing it down was the only way to breath life into ALL of Atamara.


As for this being a ruling clique versus everyone else thread...I see some rulers who didn't get things their way complaining that they didn't get their way and being glad that the devs sunk the island.  And I see other rulers who worked with the other rulers to fix things being happy that they did and wishing that we all could have seen the aftermath of that.

Sacha

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #82: May 12, 2016, 03:57:01 PM »
Note how shocked I am that it is ruling clique versus everyone else in this thread?

Oh that takes me back.

"Leaders, this realm is getting stale and boring!"
"No it isn't. We are enjoying ourselves, ergo you must be enjoying yourselves too."
"But we're not!"
"You just don't understand what we're doing here."
"We might if you included us in realm affairs!"
"Go away, pleb."

Victor C

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #83: May 12, 2016, 04:37:32 PM »
Oh that takes me back.

"Leaders, this realm is getting stale and boring!"
"No it isn't. We are enjoying ourselves, ergo you must be enjoying yourselves too."
"But we're not!"
"You just don't understand what we're doing here."
"We might if you included us in realm affairs!"
"Go away, pleb."

^--- so true...

I cannot understand. Everyone is telling you why they didn't like Atamara and you simply call us "Rulers that didn't get their way."

I have never been a ruler in the 4-5 years of my time playing this game.  In fact I was an infiltrator (the only class that actually had something to do during your "fun time in Tara"). I stabbed Ottar in an attempt to cause uproar and nothing came of it...  He was re-elected shortly after.

 We are all responsible for Atamara's sinking. We had opportunities before and nothing came from it.

Pryde is not innocent, I am not innocent, we are all not innocent. This was a shared experience that had become dominated by the few who did not want share their experience. These words are being echoed over and over.

We as a community should have stopped it, why can we not follow Elegant's example and learn to appreciate our game as much as the next person's? 
"The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things." - Ronald Reagan

Sacha

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #84: May 12, 2016, 10:45:30 PM »
I miss the days of Abington, Eston, Norland, Ash Sea Islands and Falasan. I started playing during the big war between Eston and the Vikings. I think Drachenwald was alive still, even. Back then things were interesting. Alliances were made and broken, wars started and ended. And even way back then, CE was already known as the party pooper on the block, constantly trying to meddle in wars they had no real interest in the war. But they came in like "Oh this war now involves an ally of us so prepare to experience the full power of the Cagilan Empire... and all of our allies. Oh, you object? Now we have to humiliate and/or destroy you." I remember very clearly the moment in the Viking War where we were looking at Cagilan involvement. Neither side asked for it or wanted it. It was like all of the fun was sucked out of the fight all of a sudden. Then one by one the old realms fell to the Cagilan block. Abington, ASI, RedSpan, Falasan, everyone was ever a vague threat or even a nuisance was taken out or neutered and subjected, usually by the entire CE block fighting together.

Medron Pryde

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #85: May 13, 2016, 03:01:33 AM »
Yes.  That absolutely happened.  I don't hear anybody saying anything else.  The Cagilan-Taran alliance beat everybody else.

And once that happened something should have been done to reboot the island.  It was not done in a timely manner.  I think we all agree on that too.

What I have said since the beginning, and what some people say did not happen, is that the players of Atamara did cooperate to END that situation.

Ending it was the primary goal of myself and numerous other players who worked together to get it done.

We succeeded in that effort.  We broke the alliance and started the largest war on Atamara since the end of the last great war.

I saw the possibility of a reborn Abington forming in the south.  The entire peninsula was united in alliance for the first time since the end of the last great war.  And they were marching to war against the League who had subjugated them for years.  After a months' long conflict in which half of the League had been requested to NOT get involved.

Minas Leon and Rielestone had been at war with a League member (Talerium) for months with specific "do not get involved" statements to the rest of the League.

Talerium had formed a new infiltrator realm that would take stabbity stabbity contracts from ANYBODY.

The creators of a new Darka have said in this thread they were a day away from seceding from Talerium and creating their new realm.

And of course Tara broke out of the Cagilan-Strombran-Taran Federation and kicked off the first new MAJOR war in years.

All of this was happening because we had finally succeeded in making the League of the Eagle leadership realize that the old power blocs had to die for the good of Atamara.  The League of the Eagle's primary mission (OOC) had become to divest control of Atamara from the four realms of the League through whatever means necessary.  Gone were the days of Cagil bellying up to a conflict and saying "we're bringing all of our friends to this one."

Every nation outside the League of the Eagle had been fighting for months before the final split occurred.  And the final split brought that war inside the League with major fighting between the Taran and the combined Cagilan-Strombanian armies.  After months of small and medium sized armies marching and fighting across northern and southern Atamara, the three largest armies on Atamara were at war with each other in MAINLAND Atamara.

These are the undeniable events and wars that were taking place throughout Atamara and involving every realm on the island.

GundamMerc

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #86: May 13, 2016, 03:23:57 AM »
And what we're saying is that it's THEIR !@#$ING FAULT for the situation getting to the point where they needed to do that in the first place. It NEVER should have gotten to that point.

Anaris

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #87: May 13, 2016, 05:36:09 AM »
Tom has always been quite clear: Islands do not get reboots, except the South Island when it's actually, literally, completely won, and Beluaterra kinda-sorta with the periodic invasions. (And those are never complete reboots.)

Anyone who was expecting there to be one in response to the Cagilan bloc conquering the island was deluding themselves.
Timothy Collett

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Medron Pryde

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #88: May 13, 2016, 07:06:20 AM »
They were playing to win.  That is how we play games so I don't fault them for that.  They beat the Kobiyashi Maru.  They beat the other players and even the code of the game that is meant to discourage that.  Awesome.  Congratulations.

What should have happened next is that someone should have done something to break the power block.  Like I said before I favor the idea of having all cities secede, but that is just one of many options.  The devs are here to deal with odd things like this and should have done something effective.  They did not.

The players did it in the end, but they shouldn't have had to.

Vita`

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #89: May 13, 2016, 10:36:10 AM »
I've put this reply off since the very beginning of this thread...I apologize for length and repeated points.
My thoughts are more general towards the history of the continent and not about whether or not the last few months were or were not improving. It is not about blaming anyone, but trying to look at what happened. I apologize if my words may become more pointed, but I do mean them neutrally. I think some of the participants may have been discussing separate time periods and venting their own frustrations with others upon each other who were not there for the time period they are venting about.

I started playing in the Cagilan Empire in fall of 2005 where my 'main' character was for at least two years, almost becoming Prime Minister by the hair of a vote, and have interacted OOCly and played ICly with people on various sides of the conflicts over the years. I have played a character recently that was screwed by both Cagilans and Darkans in their own POV.

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Seriously, the way the game pushes things to degrade in time and everything about it is designed to break up large realms and alliances.  But through ingenuity and determination and a lot of smarts the alliance BEAT EVERYBODY ELSE.  They literally beat the system.  That is what some people didn't like about the continent.  There were clear winners and losers in a game that is supposed to stop that from happening.
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Or if it had, somebody should have done something to break that alliance.  With 20-20 hindsight I can say that it would have been best to have a "Word of Tom" after the last great war when it became clear that nobody could stand against them.
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What the Cagil-Tara alliance did was win against EVERYBODY.  They beat all the other players on the continent.  They beat a game engine designed to weaken large nations and to make it hard for larger alliances to march to support each other.  Through diplomacy and military force, the players behind the Cagil-Tara alliance smashed everything and everybody.

I think that is awesome.  And admirable.
The problem is that the game was not effectively degrading realms. The solution is not to celebrate these players, but to stop and look around and say 'hey, something is wrong, we should look into what changed'. That happened eventually, but took way too long. When continents were begin 'won' by realms vastly larger than used to even be possible, we should've stopped and figured out why. Not celebrating players who thought of nothing but their own characters. I am reminded of My Guy Syndrome.

The game has a long cultural history of players self-policing. Atamara refused. Since you mention it, there was a time when there was a Word of Tom given to realms after East Continent's Great War. It was exceptional and players would probably not like it. If I remember correctly (and I confess to a degree of fuzziness), the realms of EC adamantly refused to war another post-war until Tom threatened to lightning bolt every ruler who was not at war by a certain date. Perhaps we should have done this much much sooner for Atamara, but again, long history of self-policing players and decreasing admin game intervention from the earliest years. And Atamaran history of gangbanging wars. Admittedly we have increased intervention since last December with the Invasion, density-based spawn rates, and Portal events, but this is exceptional for the last decade of game history.

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In the case of Atamara it took the players to self-police and break the alliance up.
The idea that it should 'take the players' is wrong. That has been and should be the natural way the game has and should operate. As players, we are all responsible for the condition of our realms, religions, islands, the game atmosphere as a whole. This is important. We are a community. All of us, players and devs, together. The devs are only devs because they are players who volunteered their time, just like any player can do. Same as wiki editors, forum mods, those contributing to the Age of Wonders maps effort, and probably other aspects I forget. And the input, criticism, suggestions, contributions of players in community discussion. So, this thread is good, minus the occasional hostility. But I really want to emphasize that the players were supposed to self-police Atamara and the fact we did not, is a failure we need to avoid. You and I have discussed before the idea that religion/priesthood as a means of conveying OOC atmosphere player interests via IC roleplay.

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Atamara was crashing and burning into a continent-wide civil war when the Devs nuked everything.  Years of gaming and scheming on the best map the game has just deleted and taken away from the players.
The timing was unfortunate for those players that put an effort into fixing Atamara. But frankly, it came too little too late. The Freeze event that occurred was done instead of sinking Atamara. Atamara had more than a year and three-quarters where its players could have taken action to improve the continent, because we wanted to avoid taking it 'away from players'. I would have preferred to sink Atamara sooner in the year than we did, and then you would not have wasted your effort, but we were not going to delay yet again because it looked like something might be different now. Looking back, I wish we had gone ahead with sinking Atamara instead of doing The Freeze, but history cannot be changed. The same effort done on AT still needs done in a lot of places, even if not as critical. We do not want to get as critical as Atamara had gotten.

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I personally think the Ice Age was a fine idea, but it was lacking in how it was carried out. You clipped Atamara's fingernails when you needed to amputate at the elbows.
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As for the Ice age, I was.excited to see this event carry out, until it stopped just barely over the land to the point that it only effected the realms that were already dying. This only made that Federation stronger and the game less fun. 
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The whole Ice Age shenanigans must have been the worst thing I have ever witnessed in this game to the point that I started to think that the devs just wanted to end the whole war and destroy all realms opposing the "Alliance".
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I agree that the Ice really did nothing more than break what was the last major nation that stood against Cagil.  I remember thinking that when it happened but I didn't have the power to do anything about it.
I agree we should have kept the ice pushing and not stopped. I hope we do not make the same mistake with monsters. This is another example, as mentioned above, where it is important for players to speak up. You did have the power to do something. Perhaps some did, but I do not recall any particular suggestions that the ice should've kept moving, just arguing about whether it should have happened or not. Much like this thread is arguing about whether AT should have been sunk or not, or who was or was not responsible for Atamara etc., instead of the original Monster thread and contemporary concern.

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Final decision to sink atamara i understand, but i think dev's didnt understand how it had just gotten lively again.
We understood, but it came after the decision had been made, after many months of discussing it and failing to come to a decision. And in consideration of the entire game atmosphere, with each of the islands compared. Atamara and the Far East had a long history of performing the most poorly. Sometime later came the OOC discussion in the League of the Eagle, which I clearly remember thinking 'now they get it...after we finally decided to sink AT, couldn't they have done this any sooner?'.

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and we no longer have two character in continents
While they may appear initially contradictory, there were a lot of aspects going into the set of December changes. In terms of the character per continent change, Atamara is yet another example. Atamara had a particular habit of solidifying their alliance via silent doubled characters either both in one realm or one each in two realms. Not good for a dynamic continent, for one reason one char per continent was implemented. But also, it meant highly similar experiences between those two characters and one character quite often being played more as a glorified NPC than an actual full-fledged character. As opposed to exploring a different continent with its own style and feeling more engaged to interact because its a separate situation than your other characters. And thus helps ensure realms and islands are more engaging to new characters and players than a realm who is 1/5th silent double characters.

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I took one look at the diplomatic situation on the island from the eyes of a ruler who is supposed to give his players a fun time and realized that it wasn't setup that way.
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At first I just did whatever it took to stabilize Tara and make her stronger.  I had never looked at Atamara from the slightly-OOC perspective you need as a ruler.  It took a few days or maybe a bit more than that.
I commend thee. And this should be more encouraged in more government members, religious elders, and the playerbase as a whole.

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As a player, I wanted it dead.  Gone.  Buried.  But at the same time I (and especially my character Regstav) were loyal to CE.  Regstav fought when Tara had three regions and it was CE that saved our butts time and again.  So there was no way that Regstav would just drop them.  He owed them way too much for that.
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I had a lot of people agree that Atamara sucked, but weren't willing to "change their characters" to make it better.
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This issue with that, and probably one of the reasons it never happened, was the way the Cagilan-Taran alliance was formed.  It was an alliance of brothers forged in battle.  Or at least that is how the Tarans saw it.  There is nothing that could cause the Tarans to turn on their brothers.
Again I think of My Guy Syndrome above. But also the previous quote. This particular situation/objection/concern between staying true to a character's nature and not letting that fictional creation of ours ruin the game is why I often suggest religion as a means to remain both IC and to incorporate OOC concerns into our characters. That is, using religion, a character could have a religious epiphany that allows a character to shift their viewpoint. Not even drastic change, but enough to justifiably explain character development (as no one stays the same all their life anyway). And with religion there's so many roleplay explanations for inspiration with meditation, visions (dreams, drugs, otherwise), prayers, priest conversations etc. And I think its the responsibility of religious elders and/or priesthood to think about the continent's atmosphere, in terms of 'spiritual health', with their membership and using their position to improve it. Pursuing those without virtue (silent gov members, rulers locking island in alliance/federation blocks that stagnant island, vulgar folk etc.), giving characters goals that may not be aligned with their interests but (and this part is difficult and crucial) follow because they respect the Divine.

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that we deserved to be sunk.
Not deserved. Simply there used to be more players in the game to fill the land, now there is not. Atamara persistently performed poorly compared to other islands.

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I think I do need to be clear on something though.
BattleMaster is a competition.  Everybody is trying to win.
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What messed up Atamara after that is that there was no gameplay for "after win" in BattleMaster.
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That's not something I put on the players.  The devs should have come up with something.
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The point in the end is that winning Atamara was not bad.  Not having a plan to reset Atamara in case of a win wasn't even really bad. What was bad was not doing something to reset things.  It should have been done.  And it should have been the devs that did it In the end, we players took the bit into our mouths and did something about the problem.  But it should have been handled years earlier.  It shouldn't have been up to us players to fix it.
BattleMaster is not pure competition between players. The Social Contract discusses playing around a boardgame as with friends. Most times I play Risk or Monopoly I play to defeat the armies of their 'character ruler-general' or buy the properties of their 'character businessman' not smash my friend over the head with a hammer. As players, we need to recognize not just our character's interests, but how that affects others' enjoyment of the game. I fall short at times, we all do; we improve. Again, I think religion is a good medium for having IC versions of these conversations.

There was no gameplay for after-win, because there is no winning BattleMaster. It is up to the players and not solely upon the devs to provide answer for players who will not do for themselves. It is my view that devs coming up with something/intervening/'Word of Tom' happening is a last resort and indicative of a deeper issue amongst playerbase. Devs should be focused upon providing tools to tell stories not the story itself.

'Winning' Atamara was bad. Only the War Island is reset. That's part of BattleMaster, is the continuation of history. The devs are not around to reset continents that are won. BattleMaster is not a game about winning continents to be reset by devs. That is why the War Island was specifically created to do just that. It should not have been up to the players to create the situation in the first place; it should have been up to the players to resolve it, years sooner. This idea that we are all playing against each other to win and require the devs to step in and fix it afterward is absolutely foreign to what BattleMaster is. This is why I commend those who pushed for the Colonial Senate after Lukon dominated the Colonies.

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And once again, winning in Atamara was not bad.  It was amazing that anybody managed to do it.
I would say disappointing.

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Winning your opponent is not bad, winning the game, is bad.
Agreed. In-character rivalries can be awesome. But we must remember that the rivalry won't exist if the player behind the character is not enjoying the experience. I think it helps to seek out and play alongside the characters of players your characters oppose on other islands instead of always the same crowd.

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With that i mean those ice things. It would have definately be handled diffrently, not punish those who had attracted most players and were having wars.
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If landmass needed to be tuned down, it should have been done there where it was problem(southern and eastern part of Atamara).
I agree about this. At the time of Ice, we were quite focused on trying to be impartial and so chose the locations as neutrally as possible, with vague forum polls affecting the locations. While we may have meant well, I think it was a mistake to not choose areas based upon factors like wars and attracting players. I have tried to keep that in mind in more recent events now, particularly the Invasion on BT.

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On another note, I think developers realize big realms are starting to become a common occurrence and thus they release the game codes to prevent it.
There was old code limiting realms, but it was not done effectively as it was only relative. So if all the realms on an island grew bigger at roughly the same time as various smaller realms were eliminated, no one was penalized or the penalties were light. Last December we implemented more absolute limits in addition to the relative limits.

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They were playing to win.  That is how we play games so I don't fault them for that.
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They beat the other players and even the code of the game that is meant to discourage that.  Awesome.  Congratulations.
Except the Social Contract we all read and agree to play the game says quite clearly "You can not win BattleMaster. Therefore, playing together is more important to us than playing against each other." Quite clearly, trying to win Atamara is breaking the rules of the game, the very Social Contract of our Community as players together. Congratulating players for violating the Social Contract is not awesome.

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The devs are here to deal with odd things like this and should have done something effective.  They did not. The players did it in the end, but they shouldn't have had to.
This is not an odd thing. This is against the very social fabric of the game that you can 'win an island'. The players should not have created the situation that required the devly intervention you now desire. The players absolutely should resolve it by going to war, not having war delivered to them. That does not mean there is no place to reach out and have a discussion of your concern too. Both have their role. Concerned about an island? Figure out how to fix it yourself in-character AND create a thread that says 'This Bothers Me, What Can We Do As A Community?'. Every situation is different in terms of degree of player and dev involvement (bugs for instance).

To whatever degree we were involved or not in the Stagnation that was Atamara, I think we can all take a lesson from it for future gameplay. Many have made great points at various times I could not exhaustively endorse or this post would be twice as long. I suppose I would highlight Elegant's post previous to this one and Ketchum's explanation upon the Colonial Senate. I hope this has been helpful in furthering understanding. Sorry for the length and repetition. Tried to be somewhat thorough as I had not yet thoughtfully contributed to this thread.