I guess my point with pointing out Tom as volunteer is that BattleMaster was always a hobby of his spare time away from real life work. Just like the rest of us. While Tom has absolutely done the most lines of code and laid the foundation of what BM is today, it cannot be forgotten that there were quite a few other volunteer devs in the early days also making BM what it is today.
Decisions can and have been reassessed (recently, moving capital restrictions were recently adjusted for new situations that have arisen, drop functionality being removed for advies), so it doesn't hurt to bring it up. But yes, there is beating the horse to death too.
It's more of a struggle to get people active and do things than it has been in the past. I've noticed players that are going through the motions more now.
I think people are too spread out and unengaged compared to what BM used to be. This is why I have been advocating more, smaller realms with closer neighbours for closer wars with quicker refits and trying to rebalance the realm sizes from the empires that grew up. More battles and less marching is better than fewer battles and more marching. Also, more positions for people because more realms and becaues more realms, more peers across the continent. More people to affect continent diplomacy than with fewer realms/governments.
But that affects how many people you can talk to in your realm. So the other half is fewer and larger religions and guilds spread through multiple realms that can be used to share roleplays, news from around the continent, politics etc. I think, per continent 2-4 religions is probably about right. I see religion less as a group of 'allied', but more cultural and independent of realm politics. Guilds, Colonial Senate is one example for a smaller island that is nice. Royal Rangers works well on Dwilight as an intercontinental, realm-impartial advy guild, there's probably more elsewhere.
Another impression that some have is that their concerns are falling in the cracks. I can't say that I've had this issue, but it has been said in the forum that there was a Titan review with no response in 2 weeks.
Yes it happens. Busy volunteers, whether the Titans themselves, or the Admins. Bringing it to our attention when it happens is the best way to deter it. New Titans are being added to improve responsiveness.
I think that may also be where the divide is stemming from. Players (especially newer ones) are used to a Customer Service model for games (even those ran by individuals). Not having a clean "chain" of command frustrates them and may give a false impression of a lack of customer service. It's like if you go to a grocery store and have a price come up differently than advertised and the cashier refuses to give you it, you can "appeal" that decision to a supervisor/manager. A chain of command per se. Whether that is considered something that the admin team would consider, that I leave to you all.
Well, we were discussing forum moderation. In terms of Titan cases, there is an email provided to appeal decisions. But generally speaking, it would have to be rather exceptional to not support those we selected as Titans. Even locked multis are encouraged to email us to provide an explanation of their innocence.
I am glad for the willing volunteers. I'm sure Tom will set Andrew up since forums are beign merged anyway. Jdodger, was there anywhere in particular you had an interest more specific than not-coding?
