Author Topic: Atamara's Fate  (Read 61694 times)

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #90: May 13, 2016, 10:40:56 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.

I disagree with you on this one actually. I agree with much that you've said, but not this part. We as players are not small children that require constant supervision are we? The mechanics are clear enough guidelines and it's up to us to make and keep the game fun, not the devs. The ' big reboot'  you speak off, should have happened by the players at full force. But too many were afraid to ' lose'  their power which is rather rediculous but alright. The big reboot as happened in the end of Atamara should have happened 1 or 2 years before (there were ample opportunities for it) and then I think Atamara would still be around. Now it's not.

The lesson learned here is that we should not repeat the same on other islands. It's why I have high hopes for Perdan to be honest, as they seem to be keeping their allies minimalized at this point and will no doubt also consider warring Vix in the future. Our experiment in the north failed, but the amount of war on the other islands has been huge, which is a good thing.
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jaune

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #91: May 13, 2016, 12:00:00 PM »
There was attempt to break/weaken CE & Tara, but it failed, due awesome diplomacy of CE and greedness of south.

Almost everybody non federated realms joined to war with CE, only closest allies of CE stay out of it. Tara & Talerium(Talerium stayed neutral at the war) & Strombran. But on the south, Carelia was pretty much alone and eventually Suville betrayed the coalition and attacked Carelia which meant end of southern part of war... Also north was not as united as we were planning.

I guess Darka should have forced Talerium to take a side, it would propably mean that Talerium would have taken CE side and Darka would have forced to focus take Talerium out... could have made war more brutal incase Talerium would have been defeated and CE & Darka would have common border.

I'm still dreaming to see Atamara rise again :) Awesome map, awesome history, awesome cultures.

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Gabanus family

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #92: May 13, 2016, 12:19:18 PM »
There was attempt to break/weaken CE & Tara, but it failed, due awesome diplomacy of CE and greedness of south.

Almost everybody non federated realms joined to war with CE, only closest allies of CE stay out of it. Tara & Talerium(Talerium stayed neutral at the war) & Strombran. But on the south, Carelia was pretty much alone and eventually Suville betrayed the coalition and attacked Carelia which meant end of southern part of war... Also north was not as united as we were planning.

I guess Darka should have forced Talerium to take a side, it would propably mean that Talerium would have taken CE side and Darka would have forced to focus take Talerium out... could have made war more brutal incase Talerium would have been defeated and CE & Darka would have common border.

I'm still dreaming to see Atamara rise again :) Awesome map, awesome history, awesome cultures.

Yeah I know, happened before I started playing again and joined Caergoth.

I still miss the time of Abington, my first realm ever along with RedSpann which I did not enjoy so much back then. Actually had a dream of one day founding Abington in Suville city again (as ruler of Caergoth, yeah I know) but we never even came close to that.
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Medron Pryde

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #93: May 13, 2016, 06:52:16 PM »
Vita.  Good post.

I have this to say in answer to it.  If setting up a condition where one alliance WINS an island is considered a violation of the social contract...then I would say that is how the devs should step in.  Make an official ruling on the problem and say it needs to be fixed or said group of players will be punished.  One issue with Atamara is that nothing like that ever happened.  There was a lot of sniping about Atamara, but never anybody in position of authority saying "do this, or this will happen."  With an explanation of why of course.

I don't think there's any question in anybody's minds that Atamara should have been fixed years ago.

And I'm sorry that I wasn't involved in the effort to do that years ago.  But I never recognized the problem until I became a ruler.  I never looked at the continent in that way.  And honestly, for a lot of years there I was burned out and only going through the motions of playing.  The only reason I really kept playing was because one of my character was the only elder priest of what has become one of the largest religions in the game.  I didn't want to abandon it or the other players who were part of it.  If I'd had any other position I would have logged out and never returned honestly.  Years ago.

Then I realized that Tara was falling apart.  Only a handful of our oldest nobles remained, and we just weren't doing anything.  I didn't know why.  I just knew it was wrong.  We couldn't have fought off a determined Girl Scout troop.  Rielstone could have beaten us in battle.  I'm not joking either.  I didn't know what was wrong, but I knew something was.  So I did the one thing that I didn't want to do at the time.  Because I was still burned out.  I volunteered to run for the Tyrancy of Tara.  And when I figured out what was wrong, I realized one very important thing.

I could never tell Tara what was wrong.  I couldn't tell ANYBODY what was wrong.  Because if I ever said it publicly, the Cagilan-Strombran faction of the federation would either destroy me or they would destroy Tara.  One thing that everybody here says is very right.  They did not accept people not towing the line.  Miskel proved that.  A succession of rulers in Cagil showed that again and again.  Just as the succession of Tyrants before me had shown that.  Ottar the Great he is known as in Tara.  One of our greatest rulers.  To the League he was a traitor because he didn't tow the line.  His player left the game because of that.  And then one Tyrant after another retired within a week and never came back.  Never spoke again in the realm.  Just stopped.

So when I became Tyrant and was told what to do, I did it.  I gave up Carelia in a heartbeat.  My sole rebellion was in granting every Carelian a place in Tara.  The League wanted them banished from the island so they could never threaten Cagil again.  So I gave them a new home, and I searched out everybody else I could find who I thought had a chance of doing something about the federation.  They were out there.  There were a lot of them.  Both inside and outside the League.  And sometime in all of that I realized that I liked the game again.  That I enjoyed it again.

We pushed to pressure the alliances and break them.  And we pushed.  And we pushed.  And one by one, alliances crumbled and people started to realize the truth.  And in the end we made the entire League realize that the continent had to change because it couldn't stay the same.

We did it.  We won the battle that was really worth fighting.  We broke the federation and put Atamara back on a path to total war without the League being in charge of it all.  AND WE GOT THE BLOODY LEAGUE TO AGREE TO DO IT!  That's the most amazing thing of all.

And then the devs just sunk it all.  But they should have acted long ago.  When players were being pushed out of the game entirely for standing up to the power bloc, the devs should have stepped in.  It should NEVER have been up to a literal conspiracy of players to try to talk them into making the change.  In the full knowledge that they could be driven from the game.  Knowing that some already HAD been.  The devs should have stepped in long ago.  Because the rest of us players were at a severe disadvantage there...

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #94: May 14, 2016, 05:14:09 AM »
While the discussion goes on, please allow me ask something.

The League's main opposition was Darka and their allies. They were strong. Why did the Devs decide to eliminate Darka and allies artificially? Why didn't the Devs do the same to CE and Strombran coast and left Darka and BoM untouched? Making CE alliance weak by freezing their regions would have made the game play interesting and would have kept the two sides in competition.

(Conspiracy theory: I feel that Devs did that with a purpose to test the wisdom of leaders of League nations. They wanted to see what the League will do when left alone on an island (a genius plan). Of course, the League failed the test. Why the Devs wanted to do this experiment is a mystery.)

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #95: May 14, 2016, 05:39:24 AM »
While the discussion goes on, please allow me ask something.

The League's main opposition was Darka and their allies. They were strong. Why did the Devs decide to eliminate Darka and allies artificially? Why didn't the Devs do the same to CE and Strombran coast and left Darka and BoM untouched? Making CE alliance weak by freezing their regions would have made the game play interesting and would have kept the two sides in competition.

(Conspiracy theory: I feel that Devs did that with a purpose to test the wisdom of leaders of League nations. They wanted to see what the League will do when left alone on an island (a genius plan). Of course, the League failed the test. Why the Devs wanted to do this experiment is a mystery.)

That's actually a simply answer AT being sunk was a thought long ago because of it's problems the only reason it remained because so many old char's/players were on the island still, then the # started to drop off so Ice then it came to sinking. If you look back at older threads about the island clear talk of sinking it is there. I think really it was inevitable. If you can recall it used to be talk of EI and AT for sinking, FEI no clue really never was a fan, but hey EI is still around.

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #96: May 14, 2016, 06:34:51 AM »
Quote
I have this to say in answer to it.  If setting up a condition where one alliance WINS an island is considered a violation of the social contract...then I would say that is how the devs should step in.  Make an official ruling on the problem and say it needs to be fixed or said group of players will be punished.  One issue with Atamara is that nothing like that ever happened.  There was a lot of sniping about Atamara, but never anybody in position of authority saying "do this, or this will happen."  With an explanation of why of course.
Fair enough. But yet again, until quite recently, the idea of intervention has occurred less and less over time so to expect a sudden change was probably unlikely; that is probably why we were so intent on trying to choose glacier locations impartially during the Freeze. We had also seen how the Colonies had self-organized their own solution and perhaps expected others to be inspired, if not replicate identically. But in retrospect, the similarity to EC may have warranted an admin declaration to the island.

Quote
It should NEVER have been up to a literal conspiracy of players.
Not a conspiracy. A community of players.

Quote
The League's main opposition was Darka and their allies. They were strong. Why did the Devs decide to eliminate Darka and allies artificially? Why didn't the Devs do the same to CE and Strombran coast and left Darka and BoM untouched? Making CE alliance weak by freezing their regions would have made the game play interesting and would have kept the two sides in competition.

(Conspiracy theory: I feel that Devs did that with a purpose to test the wisdom of leaders of League nations. They wanted to see what the League will do when left alone on an island (a genius plan). Of course, the League failed the test. Why the Devs wanted to do this experiment is a mystery.)

First, Allow me to quote from my last message:
Quote
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.
Second, we didn't really 'choose' where. There were polls on the forum that had vague questions. The locations were determined based on these poll results. Not quite random, but close enough for our purposes.

No conspiracy or test other than that expected of every player in maintaining a fun game for each other.

Constantine

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #97: May 14, 2016, 07:04:08 AM »
All these talks how people controlling the Behemoths were about to set things in motion are lies.
Simple as that. We've actually heard them for around a RL year. And nothing ever happened.

I would just exile the leaders of certain realms to the Colonies and see what happens. But I guess the devs didn't want to experience the whinings of these players (as if you can ever avoid that) and nuked the continent. Well done, let's now all keep an eye on the people who ruined Atamara and don't let them anywhere near power.

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #98: May 14, 2016, 10:13:55 AM »
Quote
Make an official ruling on the problem and say it needs to be fixed or said group of players will be punished.  One issue with Atamara is that nothing like that ever happened.  There was a lot of sniping about Atamara, but never anybody in position of authority saying "do this, or this will happen."

This was the single most frustrating part of the whole thing.

This problem went on for years and years and years, and there was no one to appeal to to fix it.

Considering the signup (still) recommends new players start on AT, I personally think this surrender of responsibility on the part of the people in charge of the game was far more damaging than anyone has thought about.

Look at how bitter and hateful the experienced players on this thread are about it all. How many new players faced that experience and simply quit, week after week, month after month, year after year?

I don't say this now to start a blame game. I don't have any interest in reading a long-winded defenses.

MAKE SURE THIS NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN. Whatever you have to do, make sure you understand that ultimately this game is your responsibility to manage, and don't let it happen again.

Medron Pryde

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #99: May 14, 2016, 03:29:50 PM »
I agree.

Victor C

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #100: May 14, 2016, 06:19:51 PM »
Snip

You understand that these are volunteers, right? They work with whatever spare time they have and you have the audacity to demand them to work harder? They are already working harder... They don't even get to enjoy the game anymore BECAUSE they're trying to help YOU enjoy the game.

I don't want to start a blame game either... But please don't point the finger at good people...
« Last Edit: May 14, 2016, 06:21:31 PM by victor c »
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Gabanus family

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #101: May 14, 2016, 10:20:14 PM »
You understand that these are volunteers, right? They work with whatever spare time they have and you have the audacity to demand them to work harder? They are already working harder... They don't even get to enjoy the game anymore BECAUSE they're trying to help YOU enjoy the game.

I don't want to start a blame game either... But please don't point the finger at good people...

+1, this is not some paid game and I'd repeat my statement that the players aren't children. For crying out loud, but if we together as players can't keep this game fun to play, then we deserve the sinking of any island.
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Vita`

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #102: May 14, 2016, 10:21:31 PM »
How about we settle with the whole community, players and devs, should have acted sooner? Now, where should we, players and devs, be concerned about now, not in yesteryear?
« Last Edit: May 14, 2016, 10:23:54 PM by Vita »

Noone you know

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #103: May 15, 2016, 12:07:44 AM »
You understand that these are volunteers, right? They work with whatever spare time they have and you have the audacity to demand them to work harder? They are already working harder... They don't even get to enjoy the game anymore BECAUSE they're trying to help YOU enjoy the game.

I don't want to start a blame game either... But please don't point the finger at good people...

Oh, please - give it a rest.

They had several years to write a 5 minute in game message saying rulers would be removed if things didn't change, or whatever course they chose to follow.

Leave out the "making them work harder" silliness.

Constantine

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Re: Atamara's Fate
« Reply #104: May 16, 2016, 10:00:33 AM »
Please do not derail the thread.

I am personally still worried about BT's landmass shape. After this invasion is over there will be another boring and toxic Riombara not because it is run by bad players but because it is doomed to stagnation by its very geography.

Other continents seem fine.