Tops and Flops

[Perth]

Tops:
1. The persistent world. Brilliant. The history, the cultures, the grudges and friendships. Wonderful.
2. Completely unique, it does not fall into any true category of game. Never known anything like it. I almost have a difficult time explaining it to people sometimes. "So it's an MMORPG?" "Well, sorta" "So it's a strategy game? "Well, yes, but more" "So, it's text based?" "Well, yes and no."
3. The pace. Not time demanding if you don't want it to be, but can be delved into for hours if you want. I believe this is why so many people have played it for years on end. Your devotion to the game can freely fluctuate with how your free time naturally fluctuates in your life.

Flops:
1. Oaths and Estates. No one takes them seriously. Discussion even devolves to how we should just switch people around the realm at a whim to help region maintenance, etc. It's just not a good system at this point.
2. Religion. Does not have the weight and sophistication and it could have. Religion could be one of the biggest aspects and drivers of the game, yet it falls short of this and becomes merely a background or demographic detail most of the time.
3. Economic system. The economic system is good, but could be so much more. The New Economy project sounded amazing but I haven't heard of it much lately. We have had the non-effectual in-game messages about for a long time now, though it seems other projects have taken its place on the to-do list.


All of this said, Battlemaster is fantastic!

[Shenron]

Tops:
- It's just so unique. I have never seen such a perfect combination of game mechanics and roleplay. This includes religion. Some of my best BM roleplay experiences have been through very fun religions.

- Great player base. This game seems to attract good people.

- If you don't like someone, you can scheme against them in a realistic political setting! I love the political tension and the different power allotments to different positions. It creates loads of fun.

Flops:
- OOC groups of friends who control realms. I wasn't sure this existed until I came across a certain realm. I really couldn't believe it. Multicheating is a terrible crime but this isn't? That's actually quite funny once you get over how ridiculous it is.

- New players are not joining. We need to find some way to remedy this, new players just find this game too complicated. Though I wouldn't compromise the game's fun to allow this.

- Estates do need some reworking. Perhaps making them full size upon being made would be a start?

[Stabbity]

Tops:

- Excellent and diverse history. The grudges, the politics.... You won't find it anywhere else.
- The relatively free-form nature of how you go about playing your character.
- The excellent support from Tom and the devs with all their constant updates

Flops:
- Estates. They don't contribute anything, they just put a choke-hold on realms with small noble populations.
- Paypal locking my account temporarily so I can't donate.
- Nothing else really.

[Jhaelen Irsei]

Tops:

- never seen a game creator/dev team so passionate and open toward the community. No greed, no disrespect for user, lot lot of passion. The continous improvements and new features are great.
- unique player base. Such an elite game attracted very good people
- Dwilight....I really love this island, it has an unique atmosphere

Flops:

- a realistic game but some mechanics are there just because in the orgin was like this and to change them is feared because of unbalancing effects. I refer to mechanincs like the gold/cash handling, no gold exchange between players etc. They're weird and I don't see the reason to not try to change them in an experimental way.
- the world of adventurers is too far from the world of nobles: more interaction would bring much more fun
- more trade, not just food (..and sea trade and sea wars..but ok, it's just a dream of mine)

[Chenier]

Tops:
-I've never seen another game of its genre, where pretty much everything is established by players.
-Different continents with different settings to allow a diversity of experiences and possibilities of experimentation.
-Possibility to play at unregular paces.
-Multiple avenues of gameplay (political, economical, military).

Flops:
-Announced features that end up materializing only years later, if ever.
-Estate system which had an apparent seriously negative impact on player retention.
-Underdeveloped economy system.
-Religions failing to grab the role history gave them.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Tops: It has a lot of depth that at first glance would not be obvious. The fact that not being part of any realm (rogue) is harder to maintain, and not desired, than joining some realm also makes this pretty easy to get with some other people and start fighting. It's not like those games where guilds/clans/whatevers only go for people who have played 24/7 for 10 years straight and have stuff like damage calculation tables memorized and experience rates optimized.

Flops: Well, being in perpetual beta...there are bugs. Have I mentioned the times when on one character (Ramuh) I somehow ended up in limbo twice? Seriously, one time I was even in no region and couldn't do anything but message people and check on information. That was interesting.

[Silverfire]

Tops:

1. Unique Gameplay - The political intrigue, all of the different options available, the way that the hierarchy works and how players fully run the game world is absolutely the best thing ever.
2. Persistent Game World (No resets, long histories which shape the game forever is just awesome.)
3. Players, Devs, Support - All Superb, can't find any better in any other game.

Flops:

1. Estate System - It is a great idea if we had double the current playerbase. However with the current player base this limits the ability for realms to do a lot of things. There is no way for realm's to expand without many more nobles. Without more nobles you won't get war, and without war, there won't be more nobles. Causes cyclic problems which need to be dealt with.
2. Player base dwindling - I'm not sure what can be done here, but there is a need for more players if the game is to continue being as fun as it currently is. Many of my characters are limited without more players joining to fill in characters. It is sad and unfortunate, but we need a way to attract new players that are going to stay around and help the game grow.
3. Lack of a method by which new players can distinguish between good realms and bad. I know this will be hard to develop a good system for, but I think it would go a long way towards helping retain new players and build a larger playerbase.

[Madmonk77]

Tops:
- The game is unique in all aspects, being a mmorpg text based so deep and full of history and intrigue, politics, etc. Its AWESOME!
- Diversity in almost every aspect.
- The players, all of them are great no exception. Oh and I love what Allison Kabrinski is doing on Dwilight, that is hell of a player!

Flops:
- The one with the bigger stick always wins. In battles all it resembles to who has the biggest number of men and/or CS.
- New player retention is difficult as the game has a hard learning curve at the beginning.
- Realm inactivity, some realms are dead, no one speaks and no one gives any opinion on anything. Also all the said about the OOC "clans" and difficulty to rise on power or positions is something I agree.

[Chenier]

Flops:
- The one with the bigger stick always wins. In battles all it resembles to who has the biggest number of men and/or CS.

I've seen my share of bad line settings causing disastrous results, and major defeats where one would otherwise have had major victory. Activity also means that a realm with less gold and overall CS can still defeat a realm with more of both, if the latter can't get their act together.

Lastly, battles are hardly everything. When Enweil brought Riombara down to Grehk, it wasn't really after a long series of successive major victories in battles. Battles had rather little to do with it. Most of the war doesn't happen on the battlefield.

[MickTheSlasher]

Tops - Line settings
Tops - Generally the game

Flops - lack of nobles
Flops - Game master influence and manipulation over the game
Flops - OOC gaming being prevelant over the game
Flops - The community itself

[Ender]

Tops:

-A fantastic, unique world with a persistent history
-Enough different classes and realm roles to allow gameplay to be different for everyone if they choose it to be
-Roleplaying adds huge depth to the game and can be a lot of fun
-Devs working hard on fixing problems or implementing new features (I know it comes with its fair share of bugs but its to be expected and I dont mind)

Flops:
-OOC often plays way more of a role in things then it ever should in some places. I witnessed my own personal worst of it not that long ago in the Far East (some of it only suspected, some of it reported) and I know it happens elsewhere even if I havent experienced it directly.
-Someone mentioned earlier that claims often make no sense or arent taken seriously. I wouldnt mind seeing it reworked a bit

I know there are a few other issues I have, but I cant think of them at the moment! So maybe they arent so important after all.

[Bedwyr]

Split the topic so that the "GM interference" stuff has it's own thread.

[johnny Hammarberg]

Tops

1. The diversity, jump between realms for a while and you will find a home tailor made for you 
2. The interactions between characters both forced and casual as they meet in game
3. More faithful then my ex-wife...

Flops

1. The item wear is way to high, real Vikings traveled from Sweden/Norway down to Constantinople and were still able not only to fight but to return without falling on their own swords. Some of us miss the old raids down south

2. The new treaty system ( not in effect yet but tested gave the ambassadors time to grow long white beards during their travels just to get a multi realm treaty going)

3. Estates can be a pain and even if the idea was good on paper it have proven to be a huge ankle-ball for some poor players preventing them from joining the fun as they are forced to do region work every single day.

[Ender]

1. The item wear is way to high, real Vikings traveled from Sweden/Norway down to Constantinople and were still able not only to fight but to return without falling on their own swords. Some of us miss the old raids down south

I hereby add this to my flops list.

[Aldwoni]

Top:
- developer(s) listen to players
- real teamwork game
- each class is different

Flop:
- not enough dutch players for an own map / total amount of players
- religion misses something