Difference between revisions of "Talk:The Journal"

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As for lack of nobles to fill estates killing expansionary war, look at Ibladesh.  They just send the lands rogue and expand as nobles come in.   
 
As for lack of nobles to fill estates killing expansionary war, look at Ibladesh.  They just send the lands rogue and expand as nobles come in.   
  
Sorry for the wall of text, and the scatterbrained nature, just my thoughts after reading everything.  --[[User:Athins|Athins]] 03:04, 21 August 2010 (UTC)}}
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Sorry for the wall of text, and the scatterbrained nature, just my thoughts after reading everything.  --[[User:Athins|Athins]] 03:04, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
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|date = July 22, 2010
 
|date = July 22, 2010

Revision as of 04:05, 21 August 2010

http://wiki.battlemaster.org/skins/common/images/bm-logo.png The Journal
Discussion Board
Another aspect of this project is that I would like to generate some discussion and maybe even an exchange of tales and views. These days, it isn't really appropriate to have OOC exchanges in-game. Likewise, whilst the discussion list serves its purpose, it's a little too heated for my tastes. Perhaps this little Oasis of Tranquility can become the place for mature and nuanced debate about BattleMaster? I can dream...

Immortality

Reviving Old Characters, and Many Other ThoughtsAugust 20, 2010
Dear Editor,

First let me say I love the idea and the well thought out and written articles.

It's an odd coincidence that I would find this page literally a turn after I set my character Alise to emigrate. She had been in Fontan over 1000 days, and was becoming one of those deaf mute characters (a vast changed from her origins as a hotheaded loudmouth who found controversy in everything). Moreover the whole realm was. Fontan had been waging the same war for close to three years and had been in an stalemate for a year, fighting the same battles in the same regions over and over. Most days I would log to orders, some scout reports, the game generated reports, and if I was lucky another battle report where once side had won a marginal victory and both had to retreat. Fontan, the realm that boasted it could drowned its enemies in a sea of old messages, had become a ghost town.

I miss the heated debates of Fontan's heyday, the political factions, all the infighting, the newspaper battle with Westmoor at its founding, and Alise's political enemies (all long since gone). When the political intrigue was dead, we still had the constant arguments and discussion of strategy in the military forums. Now gone as well. It's weird, I enjoyed Alise most as a simple Marshal of one of Fontan's many armies rather than when she held the power as Chancellor, or as General, or as Duchess.

As a player those old days kept me so emotionally attached to the realm that no matter how bored I was by the current lack of activity I couldn't leave. For the better part of a year the only time I was excited to play Alise was when we got into OOC discussions about how Fontan used to be, or writing my histories of the realm. Trying to renew some excitement in her I had her step down as Duchess and form a religion. That didn't work, I just couldn't bring myself to write the RPs or the wiki page for it.

For six months or so I had been contemplating leaving, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Fontan at its height had been the most fun I had in Battlemaster. (With SEI Ikalak very close on its heels. To any Dev reading this, BRING BACK THE WAR ISLANDS!) Fontan finally began coming back out of its shell a few weeks ago, but it wasn't the same. All the arguments seemed more random bashing then heated debate and political intrigue. Something finally snapped in me, I was in a city, and I hit the button. Hopefully a new place with new faces can help me revive Alise, though if Atamara is still as bad as it was she will be emigrating again soon.

Sometimes though you have characters so entrenched that you can't move them no matter how bored you get with them. Such is the case I have with my other "Old" character Rev. To give the context, Rev was involved with the attempts to colonize Darfix (That rich city sitting empty in the Northwest of Dwilight). When Niselur finally succeeded in the attempt it was great. We had alot of fun building the realm. Then our banker went inactive right at the worst time possible. Darfix, our only source of income and recruits starved to nothingness. Niselur basically became a walking corpse unable to defended itself from the rogue forces surrounding us. All the other leaders move on and only Rev was left. Of course it died, and Astrum promised us aid in rebuilding in the Gaston duchy, which we gladly took.

Don't get me wrong I love Sanguis Astroism, and I love dreaming about "New Niselur" and all the things I will do with it and Darfix, but I will be lucky if the Gaston duchy is ready to secede within a year from now. The amount of rogues baring down on us is constantly sending the duchy's population back to nothing. Without the population and production it brings we can't fix the absurd travel times that keep us from being able to defend it well. Furthermore Rev is stuck with no income, and as a "King" he can't be asking for handouts. So now I am stuck with him preaching in regions already at 99% believers simply because I have nothing else to do with him while I wait. I can't ICly move him elsewhere, and OOCly I feel getting rid of him would be a disgrace to all the other players who work for a "New Niselur," as the project really has no one else to lead it. So I'm stuck with being bored of him, and getting the random SA debates to keep it somewhat interesting.

(For those who say they do not get Dwilight, try Sanguis Astroism. It really is an unique element that I haven't seen elsewhere in BM. Think Medieval Catholic Church with open debate, and that's SA.)

It is funny how our view of our characters can change drastically in short periods of time. From his inception I was bored to death by Borin. I quickly made him a hero hoping to get rid of him. I tired of Minas Ithil quickly and move him to Hetland. When he failed to die there, and their war turned stagnate, I moved him back to Atamara. I couldn't find a realm I could stand there, and sent him back to Beluaterra, this time trying Riombara. I don't know if it was the realm or the beginning of the invasion, but what a difference. Borin went from being a nuance to my favorite character. When I logged in to see him critically wounded from a duel during the apex of the debate in Riombara about allying with the Monsters I actually screamed at my laptop. Not a month before I had wanted him dead, and now I couldn't fathom it. Since then he has become the only character I really am having any fun with.

On the matter of mortality and the forth invasion I have to say I rather like it. It didn't effect me much since Borin was already mortal (as a hero) but I think it just adds another element of excitement to the invasion and Beluaterra as a whole. I don' think I would ever want to see it through out the whole game, but I don't think I would mind if Beluaterra kept it even after the invasion. As someone mentioned, it does create the risk of "clone characters," I think it is outweighed by the extra element it add to the "wildness" that is Beluaterra. It's simple really, if you have a character that you don't want to die, don't bring them to Beluaterra. People also need to realize that alot of fun in BM comes from trying new places. My characters (with the exception of Alise) move around alot. Often my characters leave positions and realms for no other reason then I feel like trying a new place. I have always been peeved when someone dies and their brother or son or whatever automatically takes their place. Variety is the spice of life, try something new.

Tying into what I was just talking about building up a new character and "climbing the chain" doesn't have to be hard. Elys was a Baroness within a couple weeks of being created (much to even my surprise). About two months after Borin came back to Beluaterra he is a Lord and Banker. Alise became ruler of a realm as old as the game (Fontan), six months after I created this account. Not to mention there was 140 nobles there at that point most in the realm longer than her. Play your characters well and you will advance, but more importantly you will have fun. Most of the fun (atleast to me) is the rise to power, rather than having it.

Going back to the invasion, and more importantly the Dream, I have to say to the Devs and Tom "Bravo." Just when we all began complaining that it was impossible to beat the invasion forces they give us quite a few new elements ans the means to stand and fight (scrolls). This invasion is a new beast entirely and all its possibilities are exciting me.

As for lack of nobles to fill estates killing expansionary war, look at Ibladesh. They just send the lands rogue and expand as nobles come in.

Sorry for the wall of text, and the scatterbrained nature, just my thoughts after reading everything. --Athins 03:04, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Athins
Just so you know...July 22, 2010
Dear User 6707,

I have been playing BM for about 3 years now (though I quite and came back after about a year or so, but have been back now for a good two years). I have recently discovered "The Journal" and quite enjoy it and encourage you to continue with it.

I am writing simply to answer I question you asked in your article on mortality. You asked (I hope not rhetorically) about what ever happened to Basil Ariston. Well, when I first joined this game Basil Ariston was a mentor (not literally, but in all respects) to my character Kerwin, in Eston on Atamara. Well, you see, Basil was the long time Duke of Massillion, which was Eston controlled for a very long time if I am not mistaken. One day, Eston's ally, Darka, decided to turn on Eston (or rather, was hired out by Minas Ithil with whom Eston was fighting at the time) and Darka marched right in and took over Massillion in two days. Eston was much weaker and left powerless to do anything about it. In fact, our leaders groveled for mercy and made peace on the promise we would in return attack our Federated allies Norland... which we did. However, the point about Basil Ariston is that the player was so upset that Darka could walk in and TO Massillion in two days, one which had been part of Eston for so long, so easily, that he was infuriated to the point of deleting his account. He deleted his account before peace had even been made, I believe. And he was gone. I don't know if he has returned since, but that is the story. Thought you might enjoy it.

Thanks for the "The Journal," keep it up!

Hehe, it's a bit of both actually. Rhetorical and I wanted to know :-) Way back when, Malice and Basil were both Generals about the same time, which is when Malice first came to think of Basil as somewhat of an arrogant blow hard. Then we got to the Falasan-Eston War, by which time Malice was King of Ash Sea Islands and he stood firmly alongside Falasan. In addition to King Andrew's diplomatic proclamations to his fellow rulers, Duke Basil would often make his own announcements to the rulers of Atamara and that's when Malice and Basil really began to bicker. Which, in turn I think, saw Eston begin pulling down temples of Magna Serpaensism and then Malice contrived to get the Venerable Order of the Citadel declared evil. It was a good bit of fun, I can tell you. A shame to hear he quit, though after the skulduggery that did for the Ash Sea Islands, I can well understand the sentiment. My thanks for the update in any case! --Revan 20:11, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
---Player of the Perth Family


Death and Glory.
Dear writer of the Journal,

I've played since 2007 and have experienced the highs and lows of extreme character roleplay; that is, seeing a character develop over a long period of time and assume their own little space in the heads of myself and others. First of all, I can understand why everyone fears the idea of their characters dying -- but that is no reason not to put their character in the way of death. My original character, Aerywyn Haerthorne, had come far and became a major player in both the politics, warfare and general life of Arcaea and the main reason I played Battlemaster. He had advanced so far as a character that he and the King were considered to be inseperable juggernaughts (ok, the juggernaught is a bit much, but you get the idea). He died in a duel defending his people's honour about a week after gaining a city for himself at the prime of his life. Whilst a very good character that I sorely miss was removed so suddenly, the character did not disappear. Whilst I fell into a slump in regards to Battlemaster for a little while, if I had thrown him into dangerous struggle I would not built him up as a character, and if I had not done that then he would have lived a safe life instead of dying in a duel he could not refuse. If you played your character well then people will remember them.

Now, I am against the idea of mortality for every island on Battlemaster because obviously some people would not like that and it would go further to persuading some to leave a game that is enhanced by their participation. But in regards to Beluaterra I think it captures the mad urgency of everything on a greater level. For a roleplaying reason you could argue that in normal war there are people holding back, the polity of common nobility stopping fellow knights from striking to kill. In Beluaterra you have numerous non-human factions with a completely different view of war which is in turn affecting the humans to make them more... highly strung, in a way. It comes in the greater context of Beluaterra that you are fighting for your life, not just fighting for your honour.

But back on the idea of mortality and what it means for characters. Currently I have on character on Beluaterra; King Celyn of the Dominion of Alluran. One of his motivations is to save the lives of his own people, whom he views have been forsaken by the greater morasse of humanity (he did not have a fun time on Dwilight either) and left to the jaws of an invading force to which his kingdom was the first to fall. Twice during the invasion he came close to death, once even falling to critically wounded from wounded because apparently the surgeons botched the job. So he has a healthy fear of death and scorns those who believe honour is everything. As a result he accepts the offer of the monsters and finds solace in the fact that "at least they don't insult us" and figured that they aren't so bad after all. All of this has fleshed him out immensely, down to the fact that if he survies he will have a claim to being one of the hardest nails in the game. That the chances of death are rather high makes that all the more enjoyable. Here is a poem that came to mind as soon as the invasion began.

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

-Robert Herrick (1591-1673),

"Momenti mori", my friends.

I think what I love most about it is how it is such a simple way to change the behaviour of players. Clearly for this invasion, a more realistic response was hoped for from the folk on Beluaterra and with this one small change, it has drastically altered the way every single person on that continent approaches the current invasion. In that sense, it probably ranks as one of the most effective gameplay changes ever to be implemented in BattleMaster. Not to mention that it quite neatly deals with that other old chestnut - the fact that so many people felt the invasions did not affect them or their gameplay in an engaging, fun way.
Of course you highlight one of the major drawbacks that you can experience as a player with mortality. You can pour your everything into a single character and when they go, it can leave a void. I mean, I can't ever claim to pay equal attention to all of my characters. A lot of the time I'm putting effort into two at most, whilst the other tends to be somewhat of an automaton. (I wasn't always like that, just can't really be bothered to have three plates up in the air all at once any more.) But naturally, the ones you care about and pay more attention to are the most likely to come into harms way. If and when they die, it's easy to disengage from BattleMaster.
I'm not sure whether it's the same for others, but I especially find after so long playing BM, that the idea of starting new characters and climbing the ladder again is anathema to me. It isn't a thrilling prospect when you have other characters that have been around so long and have such rich histories. Though obviously, it's attitudes like that which lead to stagnation and simply sustaining characters when they've become nothing more than husks. In that sense I am most grateful for mortality for going some way to redressing the imbalance between those conflicting needs. --Revan 14:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
On starting new characters and climbing up the chain again, I've found that it is really hard to force yourself to do that -- but in a way it is very realistic. Caim, who is the eldest son of Aerywyn, didn't stay in Arcaea. After a while of finding his way he eventually settled in Greater Aenilia, rekindled the connection with his father's friends and rose through the ranks. By then I felt comfortable with where he was. Celyn has gone the way Aerywyn went in rising hard through the ranks and being a very dominant personality all in all, although I tried to force that a little with Rickhart (another son of Aerywyn) by sending him to Arcaea and putting him forward as General. Instead of succeeding, he was overshadowed by his father's reputation and his own inexperience, and eventually fled (paused) only to come back as a penitent priest with a great deal of shame on his back.
Well... what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't force a new character to rise through the ranks. A lot of the fun of battlemaster is in being a knight and trying to find your way in the world. Let chance take you rather than design. --Aerywyn 03:51, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
Same here... I just lost one of my characters, Nicolas Chénier, who was pretty much as high as he could get in the realm. But he was far from being some skeleton. Aside from often not running just to give others a chance, he was hell-bent on continental domination, and that gave him a lot to do to occupy his time. I've got a well-placed character on Dwilight, but that place is so precarious that any political unrest threatens to outright kill the realm, so why would I even think of doing anything there? Besides, he'd just risk losing his more than comfy spot, and he's better off as he is than he would be as ruler. I've got a third character, rather new, who I am building up. I don't mind having newbie characters, I'm sure I'll be able to get him in a reasonable spot within reasonable time, but he can't fill the enormous void the death of my other character created. And fleeing would have had the same result as death. While I understand that they are trying to create an atmosphere with this, I would disagree with ever expanding it everywhere, or during non-invasion times. After all, it just tends to prop up more clone characters, and with the ridiculous high death rates in certain realms, it's easily understandable if they are simply all handed back what their dead sibling once had: after all, there's nobody else left to fill the role. This doesn't stimulate RP, it just discourages people from investing in their characters or to take risks. Hell, you can die from simply preaching now. Think I'll go cross the borders to preach in hostile lands when I'm likely to die by peasants, considering the number of serious wounds I would get? Would generals want to order their men into wars as much, to attack strong fortified cities in tough situations as much, knowing a number of them may die? War weariness would explode. And since most people don't find much fun in the trader or bureaucrat games, nor have the time for the political games, that's a very bad thing. The invasion forces battle onto us, but without this mortality would be a very, very bad thing, IMO. -Chénier 13:31, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
Now there's a perspective I had not considered. Mortality could go too far and leave us with a lot of recycled characters and players fatigued with making them over and over. The very thought makes me shudder. Could there be a middle ground though? Instead of universal mortality, perhaps older characters could have a chance of dying? Though that isn't particularly fair either. Regardless, I am inclined to think that I might have to enjoy the perils of mortality on Beluaterra whilst it lasts. Indeed, perhaps we should all be thankful we have such a benevolent GM, heh.
As for those new characters, my main struggle there is the with the way BattleMaster has evolved. It takes a lot more effort than it once did to engage fellow players. If you can't engage, it's hard to connect with or enjoy the new character you're establishing. Which is one of the reasons I would find it so very easy to play Malice until the BattleMaster servers went down if I could. Simply for familiarities sake. Though perhaps the real problem here is that I'm playing in all the wrong places. It might be time to start exploring BattleMaster again for more exciting realms. --Revan 20:11, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
--Aerywyn 04:37, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


Estates

Villains finish last..
Dear "The Journal"

I have a subject you may like to include in your next article. I have been playing a villain character on Dwilight for some time, you may have heard of him he is the Demon of Dwilight, and I think that we players who choose the dark side have hard luck. The question you will address is "what to do with an old character?", what I am wondering is "what to do with a villain character?" Since BM is a social game, playing a villain character bounds the player to failure. Not to say that my villain character is not my favourite, I have had the best times with him, but there is an inevitable doom. What do you think?

P.S. I am a big fan of the show!

Heh, since this letter I've actually had the pleasure of playing with Bowie. You're right, it is difficult to play a villain character alone. In perfect circumstances before, I've managed to get a few other players in on the act because it's so much easier to do something fun and exciting with a scoundrel than a paragon. Giblot used to amazing for it back in the day, but I'd argue BM isn't as social as it used to be.
That's not to say you can't succeed, there are enough people in the world who will do anything for influence or position no matter how unpalatable they find the person they're working with. But finding people with the confidence and desire to play around with villainous characters these days? It's hard. Perhaps it's not the experience everywhere, but it feels like too often people RP and chatter into complete silence nowadays. People don't appreciate the flavour. --Revan 21:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Define "villain". My character Jenred is considered to be a villain by many on the Far East. Or, I should say, /was/ considered a villain by many, before he destroyed their realms, and either had them killed or forced them to flee before the executioners. Most of Arcachon no doubt believes he is dastardly. But, he has a strongly devoted following and is undoubtedly the most powerful character on the island right now, with a huge amount of roleplay and many friends. Malcolm Bedwyr was once described by a political ally as a "man who could hide genocide behind his smile" and she is quite correct. Alistaire Bedwyr was a traitorous "mercenary" who sold his services to the highest bidder while raking in gold from the realms he spied on to feed his monstrous appetites. The secret, like with all accomplished villains, is good public relations. I would be happy to share a few tips and such, but not in public...Don't want to give away /too/ many of my secrets. Shwartzring 02:17, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
"The secret, like with all accomplished villains, is good public relations." - You have it exact! --Revan 14:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
You can't solo a bad person any more than you can solo a good person, if power is what you're after. You need a good team, you have to make people want to help you out, despite (or thanks to) how devious your plans are. I've founded the Blood Cult on Beluaterra, and while it isn't in its golden age right now due to me having kinda put it on hold for a bit while I pursued other projects, let me tell you that it was quite a force to be reckoned with, and still keeps on going despite clearly "evil" acts such as human sacrifices which attracted the ire, and wrath, of many on the continent. But I had a killer team, and with a lot of work from everyone we had eyes almost everywhere, seeds planted, as we called them. As these seeds blossomed many of those who opposed us started having life a little harder... ;) -Chénier 03:29, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
D.west.ton


Expansionary Wars....
...are not the only kind of war there is. In Dwilight, for example, the Averoth/Astrum war, the Raivan/Morek war, the current Xinhai/Aquilegia wars are not expansionary in any way. That is less so on other continents, but I think it's part of what makes Dwilight different.
To be honest, I find Dwilight to be very challenging to enjoy and I don't think normal wars would change that. Either way, at the time I wrote that article there was certainly a lot of avoidance of wars of conquest simply because realms couldn't afford the new regions. Even a couple of months ago in Mesh, folk were looking covetously at the rogue regions on the Enweil border but the truth of the matter is that neither realm was or had been in any position to touch them in a long, long time simply because of estates and Beluaterra's small number of nobles. --Revan 21:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I am in full agreement with the estates issues. On the Far East I am in the incredibly frustrating position of having a political situation where I could conquer most of the island, the military power to support it, the friends in the right places to make my foes crumble...And not enough nobles to hold what I can take. Half of the problem I have on Atamara convincing one of my realms to get up and do something is that we can barely hold what we have. Estates were good when we were overpopulated...Not so much with the rampant underpopulation. Shwartzring 02:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. In fact, I find it very interesting how even Atamara appears underpopulated these days. There was a time when several realms there had well in excess of 100 nobles. You would expect with fewer, but bigger realms that we'd see that phenomenon again, but even in Atamara we can see the effects of under population. I definitely wouldn't mind if I woke up tomorrow to find estates gone for good. Until the playership expands, we need to think about adapting the rules to the times. --Revan 14:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
vonGenf 09:38, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


General Comments.
I look forward to your other articles. Your current one has already sparked some ideas in the bm dev channel on IRC. I've always thought we needed to recruit more players. However, my attempts at this brought in the typical Nighthawk624 player, so I ditched it. If you have ideas(in addition to feature requests to solve this problem/I take it a simple remove estates is what you're proposing?) to aid recruitment, I would be happy to read them. Oh, and good luck bringing the battlemaster discussion from the mailing list to wiki. :P

VonGenf, let us think this through carefully. While I'm not saying you are wrong, it could likely be that the reason those wars weren't expansionary is because there weren't estates to hold the lands so they had to go for an alternative style. This is not necessary bad or good. I do think less expansionary wars would be a good thing, but they should still exist.

Of course. What I want to say is that it is a good thing that different islands have different estate coverage, since that leads to different dynamics. Part of what I understood from the article is that the reporter thinks the amount of warring is directly proportional to estate coverage, and I disagree with that. It is true for expansionary wars, but lack of possible expansion leads to creativity. I think variations among the islands is a good thing, and a simple removal of estates would remove a lot of that variation. vonGenf 16:01, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Remove estates, amalgamate estate functions, allow Knights to set up estates remotely, even allow region lords to set up estates they don't have for increasingly ludicrous and expensive prices. Either way, I think anything that removes/softens structural, OOC obstacles from the BattleMaster equation would be beautiful. Who knows, perhaps something has even changed already that I haven't even noticed >.< --Revan 21:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Ethan Lee Vita (Talk), Editor and Community Manager 15:41, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


Well Done!.
I'd just like to say "Well Done" to you on your new paper. I hope that we can see more analyses on other game aspects in the future.

Once suggestion: Your articles will probably generate quite a bit of discussion. (At least I hope so!) I would suggest adding a new discussion link to your article that points to a sub-page specifically for discussion of that article. That would separate discussion for issues, and allow your main page discussion to be specifically for general comments on the paper itself.
Thanks :-) We'll have to see if I haven't left it too long though or indeed, if I can bring myself to keep going before I get on that though. I think your suggestion will be the way forward however. --Revan 21:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
--Indirik (talk), Editor (talk) 15:43, 28 September 2009 (UTC)