Talk:BattleMaster Basics

New Basics Page

What do you all think? The old page is at Introduction. --Dolohov 30 July 2005 23:42 (CEST)

Shorter

I like this very much, but I would love it if it were a little less elaborate. Remember that for the AOL generation anything that doesn't fit on one page is already half a book.

The examples could be slightly reduced, and the wording be tightened. I'm sure we can save about 25% of the text without losing any meaning. --Tom 1 August 2005 11:17 (CEST)

I hate the create a character section.

It is very subjective and I would almost disagree entirely with it. EI and Atamara are horrid places to learn the game IMO. Realm Summaries are not a good indicator of the realm at all. Size is an individual preferance. Some thrive in large realms others get lost in in even medium size realms.

I think we should link it out to island descriptions and than realm type descriptions.--Eric S P 3 August 2005 07:46 (CEST)

I appreciate that the original advice was, for an experienced user, absolutely terrible... but the point of this page is as a very quick guide for getting started in the game. Any rules of thumb, however arbitrary, are useful to a brand new player who doesn't know what's going on. Sure, this means that their first character will probably miss a lot of real gems: small realms or realms without summaries that are really good -- but that's not the point.

I agree that EI and Atamara might not be the best places to learn the game (personally, I think that SEI is the best place to learn), but I oppose linking it to island descriptions and all that -- it's just too much research and thinking for this particular page. It would be entirely appropriate, however, for a page on creating your second character. --Dolohov 3 August 2005 15:31 (CEST)

Then drop it all together. Or say there are many different island types and leave it lie. You start pointing people to EI or Atamara and give them the impression that the only good realms are those that write a glowing summary they will think that is all that is too the game. Too many of those people we lose in a couple of months... because you *have* to be part of an alliance, you have to stick with your own kind, and you have to be a good little *soldier*. That for the most part is what is taught on EI and Atamara.--Eric S P 3 August 2005 18:03 (CEST)

I agree with the realm summary section. If the ruler of the realm cannot be bothered to take the five minutes that it takes to give a glowing overview of her wonderful realm, it might not be the best place for a new player. I mean really, why does no one update their realm summary pages? Plus I had a rather bad experiance with one namelss realm in particular that had no realm summary, so I tend to agree with that. As for the best place to start off, maybe we should just give a brief discription of all the islands and let the user pick one. -- Nicholas August 3, 2005 18:27 (CEST)

Why is easy. The summaries are short and generally uninformative. Even in my own realms I never thought they were all that good of an indicator. I am a horrid summary person when it comes to capturing character and essense. There is also the either or thing. "I either *ACTUALLY* play and have fun... or I dick with this summary that I can never seem to get right." Tough choice huh?

Who says that only the ruler can write a realm summary? The other memebers of the realm have some pride in their home, too! When this issue came up in Talerium (not having a good realm summary, and the ruler not having time to do it), the solution was to put it up for a competition to the realm. It doesn't have to be perfect or long. Heck, the best realm summary I've ever seen is Ikalak's on SEI, just a one-line quote from the Conan books:

What is good in life? "to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women." -Conan

It captures the spirit of the realm perfectly. --Dolohov 3 August 2005 18:42 (CEST)

It can't be dropped completely: this particular page is meant to get someone up and running fast. There are lots of generalizations and omissions on the whole page, and this is not the place to hash out whatever grudges you may have against EI or Atamara. Tthe chief reason to suggest Atamara is that the island page in the actual game recommends Atamara for new players. The wiki should never contradict in-game text.

There need to be some guidelines for picking a realm, for those people who are just bewildered. No, the realms with realm summaries aren't the only good realms -- but it's negligent to have nothing, and if we lay stress on the summaries here, then those people in-game who want to attract new TLs will know exactly how to do it: by writing a good realm summary. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Think of this page like the first day of an intro programming class. It's the time and place to jump in and use broad generalizations, with the expectation that once the students know more, we can explain everything in-depth. While lots of people might get ticked off if you point to a Macintosh and say, "This is a computer" ("Not all computers are like that! There are better operating systems and even better Macs on the market!") it's still useful for introductory purposes. --Dolohov 3 August 2005 18:23 (CEST)

Rollbacks

I am a complete idiot. For some reason, I thought that the appearance of a "rollback" button, combined with an article which had been rolled back, would show me what had been rolled back. This is, again, because I'm an idiot. I double-checked against the the copy of the original I had open in another tab, and it appears to be the correct one. Sorry about that. --Dolohov 3 August 2005 05:34 (CEST)