User:Merewyn/My Sandbox

Sandbox in the sandbox
Space for my private opinions

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=BattleMaster

List of multiplayer browser games compare with it:Browser_game

es:MMORPG

How should I state it more clearly? Your "independent" sources write about the commercial games because this is what the PR is paid for - to get as much attention on your product as possible, while nobody is interested in selling the Freeware. Therefore, judging by the amount of advertisements is a measure of NOTHING but the financial resources of the producers.

Why is BattleMaster so special? This game started 1 January 2000, exists continuously for SEVEN years now, which makes BattleMaster one of the oldest and developing of the BBMMORPG games. The major difference between BattleMaster and many other games is that one cannot win BattleMaster. Game mechanics and playing worlds are deliberately designed to make total domination impossible. As a result, some player realms have existed since the beginning of the game (7 real years) while other realms have been formed and destroyed. Since all realms are controlled by players, the game has its own developing history as lived and written by all the players, the players that make friends not only in the game but in real life too, visiting each other even across the world. Please unlock this page and allow to write the article about it all. Merewyn 21:12, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Battlemaster game page
BattleMaster is a free browser based massive multiplayer online role-playing game (BBMMORPG) which also features heavy elements of a turn-based strategy wargame.

The major difference between BattleMaster and many other games is that one cannot win BattleMaster. Game mechanics and playing worlds in BattleMaster are deliberately designed to make total domination impossible (except for some "war" islands designed for short term wars only). As a result, some player realms have existed for more than 5 real years while other realms have been formed and destroyed. Since all realms are controlled by players, the game has its own developing history as lived and written by all the players.

Mechanics
The quasi-medieval fictional world of BattleMaster consists of several playable continents of different sizes. Every continent is further divided into numerous regions, with different climates, production levels, resources and populations. Typically, a city and several rural regions form a duchy, and one or more duchies form a realm.

The main theme of the game is the warfare between realms for the control of regions. Realms have various government types, including Democracy, Republic, Monarchy, Theocracy, and Tyranny.

Each player is in control of an aristocratic family which contains up to three or four playable characters, called "Troop Leaders". Each Troop Leader chooses a career ("Class") from a range of possibilities including Knight, Cavalier, Hero, Bureaucrat, Mentor, Trader, Infiltrator, and Priest, each of which brings different traits and abilities to the character. Troop Leaders inside a realm also attain rank according to the hierarchy. There are Freemen; Nobles; Knights, who have sworn fealty to a liege; Lords, who command a region; Dukes, who command a city and its duchy; and Council Members, those who hold supreme power in the realm: the Ruler, General, Judge, and Banker.

Aside from Class and Rank, other important attributes Troop Leaders possess are "Prestige" points and "Honour" points, which are accumulated mainly through fighting in battle, but may also be gathered through administrative work and other activities. There are certain game options only available for Troop Leaders with high Prestige or Honour.

Every region generates some tax income for the realm, and this is distributed to Troop Leaders in the form of realm bonds. The richer the regions a realm controls, the more income a realm receives. Troop Leaders can transfer bonds to others, but need to cash their bonds in a city to obtain gold, which is the only form of payment troops will accept.

The family as a whole also has certain attributes, for instance family fame, family wealth, and family origin, and each can trigger special game options as well when certain conditions are fulfilled.

Each turn in the game lasts 12 real hours. At the beginning of every turn, each character gains new in-game "Hours" (much like action points), which can be spent on a variety of activities, each requiring various numbers of Hours to complete. A maximum of 12 Hours can be accumulated - more unused Hours will be wasted and cannot be carried over into the next turn. A young, healthy Troop Leader will accumulate 8 Hours per turn; as characters age, they accumulate fewer Hours.

Communication with other Troop Leaders is an important part of the game. While sending a message to another Troop Leader in the same realm is fairly easy, trying to contact Troop Leaders in other realms is much more difficult. Joining a guild or a religion will help establish connections in other realms.

Gameplay
The game has been designed to be low-impact. A player can usually read messages and complete all their characters' actions for a turn within a few minutes. In fact, the game formally forbids realm leaders making any form of order or request to players on the frequency and time that one should login to the game.

There are many options for each class, and a certain number of Troop Leaders of particular classes are required to manage a realm. A high degree of co-operation is required among the Troop Leaders in order to maintain, defend or enlarge a realm. Since the game was created as a role-playing platform, this co-operation is the key to a successful realm. There are also many in-game mechanisms that prevent a realm from growing too large and monopolising a continent, ensuring constant flux in the number and size of realms.

The players actions are "resolved" at the end of each turn, which take place at 05:00 and 17:00 GMT. After the turn, each character receives messages regarding the results of battles, regions lost or gained, local events and status reports. The player can then use the turn's allocation of Hours to direct their Troop Leader's actions, such as training troops, repairing equipment, moving into (or away from) battle, and conducting region maintenance.

The game is officially in "permanent beta test" as new features are added constantly and it will likely evolve as long as it exists. This is a feature that many players find enjoyable, as there is an active mailing list and wiki, allowing the players to contribute ideas and feature suggestions to the game.

The game uses a community approach to fend off cheaters and other abusers of the system. The system works on two levels:
 * At the automated level, the game server tries to identify cheaters, and assigns rating indicating the amount of cheater-typical behaviour seen in each player.
 * At the community level, players record how much they trust or how well they know other players, and can vote abusive players out of the game to protect themselves.

History
The project was created in 2000, originally as an add-on to the game SpellMaster by Tom Vogt.

BattleMaster is active and growing in 2007 and has more than 1800 players. 

It turns me furious
Why BattleMaster become deleted and blocked? Because it is a freeware game and nobody paid for the advertisements. Read here:


 * Reliable Sources for a game? Or advertisement catalogue instead of encyclopedia

As discussed above (# "Reliable Sources?"), there is a problem to prove the reliability for a MMOG game. Currently, the administrators check the reliability of a game by Google hits like in case of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/BattleMaster (second nomination). In fact it is VERY UNFAIR, because a game that is for FREE has naturally less hits than a game that you must buy - all the Amazons, eBays, Online shops ect. pomp the Google hits up (like for Anarchy Online). It is obvious that the games you must buy will have more reviews in the "independent sources" than the games you get for free. In this situation, a freeware game will always lose any Google hit check by administrators and all the freeware game articles are doomed just because nobody paid for the advertisement for them. The rules of checking the "Reliability" of the game MUST be changed, otherwise you will turn Wikipedia to the online shop catalogue! Merewyn 18:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Protest!

Some time ago, on this very page (look above for # 11 Battlemaster game page) I asked for the clear rules for articles about the games. Everybody agreed that such CLEAR rules are needed and the other articles like Anarchy Online are the crap currently and should be deleted as well like BattleMaster. BUT only this one article of BattleMaster is deleted while others live.

I asked for the clear rules but nobody replied, so I tried to rebuild this article from the scratch to keep all WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:N required (BattleMaster had the links to independent Reviewers articles - it's quite rare for the article about a game) and what? Someone keeps deleting my work without even checking it! I protest against the vandals among the administrators! Merewyn 17:45, 28 March 2007 (UTC)