Talk:BattleMaster Basics

Rewrite

Looks like someone started on a rewrite of this page: BattleMaster Basics/draft. Linking it here so it doesn't get lost. --Indirik (talk), Editor (talk) 16:46, 14 December 2010 (CET)

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?--Eric S P

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)

I tend to agree with Dolohov here. The basics page does not have to be 100% perfect, but it must be short and easy to understand. --Tom 4 August 2005 11:17 (CEST)

OMFG! It is not a grudge it is that I have looked into these things. I went around for close to 8 months rating realms as to how friendly they were to n00bs. How helpful. How inclusive. Their RP and fairplay. What I found is most EI and Atamara realms ignore new people. WI and SE was about the best for inclusion followed closely by SW, Belua, and FE (and when you concider that you have to immragrate to Belua that is really bad for EI and Ata).

So it is not a freakin personal grudge! Unfortunately it is experence as a new person time after time. I wish it wasn't so. In fact I trashed Coimbra as a n00b friendly realm when I was ruler of it because it sucked. Realms with great and well worded summeries blow just as bad as those without or out dated ones. OT is likely the friendliest of realms to n00bs and the summary was written at the opening of WI, and is not all that accurate. Yes there are some good ones on Atamara... but it is not the best place to start because more often than not you will be completely ignored.

Last you are right. The Wiki shouldn't contradict the game text. The game text also shouldn't be out of date. --Eric S P 4 August 2005 21:30 (CEST)

I am not all that attached to Atamara; if you change the page so that it outright recommends SEI or Colonies, I won't bat an eye -- just so long as it actually makes a simple recommendation instead of telling people to go look at all the islands. (Though some mention ought to be made referring to the in-game recommendation of Atamara)

However, we still need to have a few clear guidelines for selecting a realm:

• Mid-sized
• Has a ruler
• Realm summary that you find interesting
• Government type that appeals to you

are good, simple, and unambiguous guidelines. Yeah, that means that we'll be steering people away from some good realms. So what? We'll be steering them away from some lousy realms, too, and at least we're giving them some basis for making a decision. And it's not like they can't create a second character using more mature and in-depth guidelines. (Which you ought to write as a separate page -- we can link to it from here)

Looking at what the page has now, I can easily see a new player looking at the recommendations and puzzling over it: "Stability? How the heck do I know if they're stable? Size? What's a good size, small or large? Income? Oh, I guess mean that I should pick a rich realm." We can do better than that. --Dolohov 4 August 2005 21:50 (CEST)

P.S. The versions are about the same leangth and without the don't and and EI and Atamara are the best place to start bits. You use negative wording and suggestion it becomes like a rule for no other reason than that's the way it has always been. That in my book is stagnation.--Eric S P 4 August 2005 21:47 (CEST)

If they came to the wiki, they want more information

Ok, do we think people are stupid? Do we need to hand hold them through every decision? Is saying "You have a choice and here is how to come to it" all that bad?

Do we have to date ourselves by saying this is a good n00b/starter island or do we update it all the damn time?

FYI I have spoken to a few people and a lot of people took the Atamara is a good place to start to heart and those that said they had a good experence on Atamara were lucky enough to pick the right realm, and others said they were unlucky and hated it. Fact is people tend to stay put where they start... at least for a while.

And medium realms suck for a lot of people. Ever heard that small class rooms are a better learning enviroment? But then there are a lot of people that thrive in large classrooms as well. Attendance for small colleges, medium sized colleges and universities, and large universities are about the same. As is their graduation rate. Some people need more and others need less. Or a better saying... Different strokes for different folks. I don't want cookie cutter players. None of you should want them either. Suggestions that have no rhyme or reason are counter productive.

And people will come to the wiki for information.. if they didn't want it they would just start up and do it instead of stopping by and checking things out.--Eric S P 5 August 2005 01:25 (CEST)

I don't think you understand the purpose of this particular page. Here's the explanation on the main page:

   For the impatient, what you really should know to play the game.

For whatever reason, the people reading this particular page just want to jump in to the game. I'm betting that these are the people who we ordinarily lose pretty fast, because they're impatient and otherwise unwilling to do a whole lot of reading or investigation. These are the people who are just a few minutes away from picking at random -- the goal is to get them into the game, get them playing, and win them over from there. If you'd rather suggest SEI or Colonies, and direct them to small realms (though that's a real injustice on SEI, where a small realm is probably losing) then that's fine. Just put it simply, and include a "for more information" link.

Now, you've identified a real need: This manual really needs a thoughtful, in-depth guide to selecting a realm that goes into the merits of realm size, the merits of the various islands, and so on -- but this is not the place for it. This is the place for quick-and-dirty. --Dolohov 5 August 2005 01:48 (CEST)

No I would rather suggest nothing. Fact is you will get a bad n00b realm anywhere, and someone, at sometime, will have a bad n00b experence in every realm.

My point is that suggesting just for sake of suggesting is *HARMFUL*! It makes us, that are suggesting look like incompetant idiots. That in turn reflects badly on the game. Let me paraphrase something I recently read as an example of what people think of a game that strongly suggest a bad time: Don't choose a game without constructive suggestion -- they don't have their act together.

I do not want to suggest WI and SE, because in 2 weeks it will be outdated. I don't want to suggest realms... because that will be outdated in 2 months. You want to make a sugestion about choosing islands? How about this? Choose an Island to start. Warn that the first region they drop into is their home region and it is very hard to move a families home region. Give a stat table on incomes of islands, and realms, and some basic facts like you can't send money home from FE or BT and let them roll. That way they will say Man I wish I would have done more research instead of Those idiots told me that Island X was cool, they have no clue wtf they are doing, I quit!

Last no one that impatient is going to goto the Wiki. Sorry it isn't going to happen. They are going to sign up, authenicate and start playing and not read anything. They are likely the ones that will delete in an hour when nothing is happening as well. And we really don't want the types that want to log in every hour to effect some massive change and I will tell you why in one word. Elric.--Eric S P 5 August 2005 17:09 (CEST)

At the very least, we should warn new players away from the Far East for their first character -- they won't be able to support their families, and the mailing list is going to be too much. (Good idea about warning them about their home region, BTW)

I still maintain that we need to tell them to watch for realm summaries. Otherwise, what's the point of the summaries? Those realms who want new players can go to the summaries and say, "We welcome new players, and we think we're pretty good teachers." And those realms that do not want new players can say so, too. It's not too difficult, the text doesn't have to be written by the ruler, and it is the only opportunity a realm has to advertise itself to new players: it behooves us to encourge people to use it.

I have no idea who Elric is, so I'm afraid I'll need more than one word on the subject ;) --Dolohov 5 August 2005 17:28 (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)