News

Code Update June 2021 - posted on Sat Jun 26 at 15:21:12 by Timothy Collett

The commit log for this update includes a large number of minor fixes; however, most of those have already been live for some time now, so I won't go into them here.

There are four major changes in this update.

First, the requirement for Real Names has been removed. Instead, we ask that all players provide a name to call them by that sounds realistically like a name. To go along with this, we are offering all current players a one-time opportunity to change the "Player Name" associated with your account to remove your real name. If you wish to do so, please send an email to admin@battlemaster.org, and include in it either your login email address, your account ID, or your family name, as well as what you want your Player Name to be from now on.

As far as what constitutes "sounding realistically like a name," for now, assume that having a first and last name (or at least a first name and last initial), that are each names that might reasonably be found in the real world, and aren't specifically the name of some prominent real or fictional figure, is sufficient.

Second, the realm banner selector and uploader has been completely overhauled and modernized to use the new Symfony framework that BattleMaster is being migrated to little by little. 

Third, (and I know some players are going to groan at this), a new experimental message reader is included with this update. It will not be replacing the current message reader just yet, but we need feedback on it from real players using it in real situations, so on your Messages page, you will see an option in the top right section to switch your message reader to the new one. This option is per-character, per-device. So if you have characters Kepler and Rasputin, and a laptop and a phone, you can set it to use the new interface only on Kepler, only on your laptop, if that's what you want. 

The new message reader interface has two major innovations, and also leads into the fourth major change. It uses a tabbed interface to display your messages, and allows you to define your own filters for the tabs (with more options planned for filters in future updates). By default, it will create filters for everyone that display Letters (messages sent by players), Notifications (messages sent by the game), Global OOC (the Ruler/Admin OOC channel), and—the last major change—the new Global Roleplay channel.

This channel is intended for the posting of narrative roleplays that players would like to share with the entire continent. We also have plans to make each continent's Global RP channel available publicly, so you can follow roleplays even on continents you don't play on. Please be aware when writing global roleplays that, as with any roleplay, any information that could reasonably be expected to be overheard or otherwise learned by people not participating in the roleplay is fair game for anyone who reads it to learn in-character.