BattleMaster
Excellent game overall.
After a few months playing, I have barely scratched the surface ; as a fan of RPG games, it's a relief to know that I can continue playing despite the pandemic.
The gameplay is good, the development is still going on after 20 years (by a team of dedicated volunteers), but what really shines as Battlemaster's greatest quality is its community. There are people who have been playing for the better part of a decade, and others like me who are still newbies, but everyone is treated equally. The Discord server is very friendly, its users welcoming. Every realm is different, so if you don't like the atmosphere of a specific realm, you can always try your luck elsewhere.
If there's any flaw, I'd say that BM's graphics are a bit lacking... :P
So far I have been playing this game for 4 months and I have to say how wide the game is, although it has an empty exterior, it's interior is as endless as your imagination.
And it still doesn't require much time to handle, you can play from 10 minutes up to an hour per day, and that depends on how ambitious you are.
You can chose which you want to take, you can become a Marshal and control an entire army of nobles or you can be a priest and influence the war without fighting.
Also the active and great community of the game makes interacting with other people more fun. When I first joined, I was overrun by nice people giving me tips about every part of the game, and because of the age of the game, you can find a lot of veterans that'll mentor you.
And the active devs that make the game enjoyable for everyone, either by adding big features for players to explore or small updates that make the game easier for everyone.
I've been playing this game on-and-off now for 15 years. It's incredible!
Gameplay - This is where BM shines. All interactions are with PCs, as there are a very limited amount of NPCs throughout the game. This means that you are always work with or against someone as equally intelligent and intriguing as you are. The mechanics are intentionally open-ended to allow for maximum creativity and political maneuvering among players. The combat system benefits from this aspect as well, since you need to work together with your realm-mates to defeat opposing realms in open battle. There are a million ways to achieve your ultimate goal, and like any good sandbox game, you get to determine what your characters' goals are. Do you want to be a famous general? Go for it. Want to skulk in the back alleys and collect bounties set on political rivals? Have at it! Want to attend tournaments and build a story that would rival LOTR? Do it.
Best of all, it's completely free with no ads, forever.
Community - The community is great. It has shrunk considerably over the last 10 years or so after the original developer left to focus on other projects. There is currently a rebirth as more players begin trickling back in. The community is generally very welcoming of newcomers though sometimes it can be overwhelming to join a game with a 20 year history.
Development - The game is being actively developed by volunteers. BM itself is incredibly stable and new features are added regularly. That being said, the dev-team has a lot on their plate and it can be difficult to address community feature requests in a timely manner. This doesn't really detract from the game so much as it requires patience for new options or mechanical re-works.
Overall - Definitely a 5/5 for me. I've felt like I've found a sort of online family in BM, and that I've been able to build a story around my characters time and time again. There's been glory and failure but I always keep coming back for more. I highly recommend it to anyone that is interested in the genre.
i have to give this a 1 star for the following reasons 1 a huge red flag is req ppl to give there real name reguardless of how they intend to use it its dangerous even fb is in a firestorm for req even if its shown privatly games like these especially old games can be hacked and this game doesn't appear to have a lot of security theres alot ppl can get or find out about you wiith your real name and its not typicully stuff you want to reveal on a game 2 adding strict req to a chars name outside of the obvious is a little to extreme its ok to say no titles and no vulgar language is ok but to say it needs to be an actual medevil themed name and cant be a generalized handle thats way to far 4 its not clear at all on the family name and char name until after you do the family name at which point its to late or at least i couldn't find a way to change it 5 if you exit the beginning set up before you complete it i couldnt find any way back to it 6 no tutorial not straight forward and is clearly a dying game
Definitely one of my more favourite browser games available, but just short of perfect.
Gameplay - 4/5 As far as gameplay goes, this game is nothing spectacular. However, I don't think that works to it's detriment, given that it's a text based roleplaying/battle browser game. Despite being extremely rudimentary (and perhaps a little bit ugly), the fact it is such an old game doesn't quite do it's justice with how much stuff is available to do. I don't quite give it five stars, because some of the mechanics at play make no sense or are not enjoyable, but I don't mark it lower because those choices are clearly done to better balance the game, which I think is admirable.
Community - 4/5 The community behind Battlemaster is in general really good - there is a really great community spirit of 'fair play' and allowing everyone a chance to shine. Most if not all of the players are friendly, helpful, and more than willing to contribute to enjoyment within the game. The only reason it doesn't get full marks is because there is a small presence of 'old guard' who seem unwilling to share the sandpit or take the game far too seriously (in direct conflict with the community spirit), and that none of the development team want to actually tackle, though admittedly at the time of writing this the vast majority of them have been removed or left. Other than this, I don't think I've come across a more welcoming and open community, falling just short of the full five stars for the player base.
Development - 3/5 Although the development team side of the game only gets 3 stars imo, but I cannot stress this isn't because they are bad at what they do. Battlemaster has a very dedicated and very hard working group of volunteer developers who, although slow, operate as professionally and as conscientiously as they can when it comes to mechanical choices, further development and even dishing out punishments on players. The only reason I personally give them 3/5 is because there seems to be a small obsession with removing agency from players and roleplayers, and almost railroading them into certain decisions they feel is best. For example, quite often small realms are "guilt tripped" into considering merging with other, larger realms (using the excuse of 'think of the new players', which IS valid) but often comes at the expense of dismissing the roleplay and culture of certain roleplay circles. There also seems to be a worrying habit of the dev team supporting the destruction of smaller realms by bigger realms, though they only ever seem to get involved in a superficial manner rather than directly, which is good.
Conclusion - 4/5 All in all, Battlemaster is a really fun game for those that don't mind an ancient looking UI in exchange for quite engaging gameplay features, and as a roleplayer I genuinely have enjoyed what the platforms offers. It falls short of full marks due to my own biases as to the age of the game, but I have genuinely enjoyed my interactions with the community and the dev team, and made some excellent friends along the way.
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