Room Spotlight: Battle Dome

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Author's Notes

Welcome to the first volume of Room Spotlight!

In these series I'll be taking a look at a chosen room and genuinely spending time and getting involved with its community. I'll be writing about the room from the perspective of an outsider, starting from the point of getting familiarized with its rules and purposes and sharing my first impressions, to the point where I'd talk about events and important happenings in the room.

A certainly interesting topic for the very first volume of the series, the room that'll be shining under our spotlight is Battle Dome. Formerly known as TextQuest, Battle Dome recently made its comeback as a public room, and I hope these lights which are thrown at it now will encourage more people to check the room out.

Introduction

Not to be confused with roleplaying, RPGs (role-playing games) make the players use the roles of certain characters in a fictional setting. With the various formats such as Tabletop, Live Action, and Electronic Media (which are further divided into Single-player and Multi-player), the liking of a wider user base is ensured, and the overall popularity of RPGs is to be expected. Chances are that you've already experienced playing a RPG yourself! Considering the impressive diversity of rooms on PS, it's only natural that there's one dedicated to replicating the whole role-playing game experience. After the shutdown of a room known as "TextQuest," which was a somewhat similar RPG to the one you can currently play, the game and the room itself were reworked, resulting in the birth of the Battle Dome room.

Finally, let's begin this journey as I welcome you to Battle Dome, a text-based RPG filled with weapons, classes, robots, and magic! A whole new world for you to explore.

First Impressions and the Community

As I first joined Battle Dome in its beginning days, filled with curiosity about this newly opened room, I was pleasantly surprised by the attitude the staff had towards new users. As you could expect, when a new room publicly opens, you're going to get quite a few questions about it. The staff would constantly try their best to carefully think through and patiently answer any questions someone might have, and the effort is certainly worth it, because you never know if some of those newcomers might one day join you on the staff list. The room had that casual atmosphere around it as well, which is absolutely a positive thing on my list. As time passed by, the room gained more attention, and the original, small group of regulars that would spend their time in the room had grown into a truly fantastic, huge community! Needless to say, with more people the overall busyness of the room increased, but Battle Dome still managed to keep the casual factor that it had in its beginnings. A welcoming, easily approachable staff and a friendly atmosphere certainly make for a winning combination, and I commend the room for being able to achieve these things.

Of course, all of my first impressions wouldn't be as they are without the hard work of the staff and the amazing personality of Battle Dome's community. Both the veterans, previous visitors of TextQuest, and new, freshly baked regulars in the room enjoy the time they spend together, forming a big family. This is coming up again, and I assure you that I won't bug you anymore with the fact, but the casual factor that the community atmosphere gives off is something I've personally enjoyed the most. Stumbling upon a joke or a few giggles between the lines of dice rolls of a player's attack and the Health situation of people fighting a Necromancer is definitely not a rare sight! Seeing people's reactions to getting devastatingly low rolls on a monster as well as an occasional lucky maximum roll is certainly a great way to get a better feel of what the people of Battle Dome are like as well. The staff can truly be proud of the fact that the community always treats new users with respect, constantly helping them out with getting started and understanding the game, which is one of the most important things for a room that excels at something as complicating as creating a text-based RPG experience. While doing this, people from the Battle Dome room make for one of the most welcoming communities out there!

The Game

And now, let us get started with the most exciting part of Battle Dome! When I first began to get in the hang of the basics of the game, the process was fairly easy once I read through all the links, guides, and spreadsheets that the room intro provides. I'll have to mention here that while it's natural for a RPG simulator to be complicated, the effort put in the whole system of spreadsheets and guides is really commendable! Anyhow, take into consideration that while I was learning all the mechanics of the game, the room had just been created, and by now the amount of additions and updates to the game provides a much bigger pile of information for the reader to remember. It was considerably easier to learn the basics of the game from the creation of the room while steadily keeping track of new updates and making sure you're up-to-date with any new rules. But hey, the game isn't rocket science! Otherwise it wouldn't be getting all the popularity it currently has. Now that we've covered the first step of making sure to read through the guides that are provided in the room intro and getting familiar with the rules of the game, it's time for our second step!

"Register your account"

So as you might have expected already, you're going to have to "register your account" much like in any other RPG out there. Just shoot a PM to any of the staff members with the class you've picked to use. This way you'll be placed in the so-called usersheet where everyone's accounts, equipment, level, and skills are being kept track of!

While I'm at it, I'll explain the previously mentioned spreadsheet system. The spreadsheet system is probably one of my favorite things in the room; it covers everything you need for a fantastic RPG simulator and the effort put into making it is just amazing. It includes the usersheet with all the registered players' information, the synthesizing sheet for creating various rings and weapons, and the sheets that contain all the weapons and abilities. People tend to wonder where all this can be found, and taking a look at the first thing that greets you when entering any room on the server, the room intro, should take care of that problem. You surely can't miss the bolded, purple, underlined letters of "Battle Dome Home Page" that link you to all of the spreadsheets. Everything is updated and relevant to any new adjustments or updates to the game, and there's no reason not to try the game out!

Getting Started

If you're interested in getting to know the Battle Dome room from what you've read up until now, feel free to jump in the room and interact with the community, which will be more than glad to help you out!

I cannot stress this enough, but the one thing you'll absolutely want to do first, before anything else, is to take a look at the room intro. The colorful intro itself is eye-catching enough to steal a moment of your attention, with various links leading you to all the information you need to get started with the game. So, once you've got all the basics of the game covered, you'll want to add the word "Battlesignup" to your highlight list, since that's the phrase used by every host, and having it highlighted enables you to be notified of an upcoming game.

A great way to get started with the Battle Dome room is to be active and frequently join games to get a sense of how everything works. Be patient, try to watch a few games before joining one or trying to host. Don't hesitate to ask a few questions if you find anything confusing, either! Battle Dome is one of those things that you need to play and experience yourself to get a better understanding of the game. As you gain experience points, you could gain some additional knowledge, such as learning different combinations of abilities that work well.

Sooner or later you might find yourself wishing to host a game on your own or to get further involved with the room. You won't improve unless you practice, so make sure to host when you can and eventually your hosting will naturally become more efficient! Meanwhile, be sure to follow the rules and make the staff's time easier by being as cooperative with them as possible during games. Other than that, just get out there, be a positive chat presence, and contribute to the discussion that goes on between and during games!

Raids

A brilliant way to get more established within the community, Raids are an amazing feature that accurately reflect what the community of the room is like in general. Huge groups of people surviving a battle against a powerful common enemy through teamwork and organization is a sight that I personally enjoyed seeing, and this event definitely deserves a special mention.

A Fast-Growing Room

For a room that has a main purpose of providing a fun text-based RPG simulator, it's quite important that the game is balanced and grows as the players do (increasing the level cap, modifying the stats of a monster). As the title of this section says, Battle Dome is a fast-growing room where you can expect new and exciting changes to the game at any time! Nerfs and buffs being implemented and new rules and announcements being made are sights not rarely seen in the room. With new classes (with new abilities) for everyone to choose from and stories of a room-specific bot being made, Battle Dome will never fail to keep you entertained!

Of course, because the community is what makes the room everything it is now, the regulars of the room are the ones who initiate these changes in the room by sending suggestions and criticisms they might have in here. This feedback gives the staff a solid picture of the current state of the game and changes that need to be made. The room is overall very welcoming of these suggestions about everything and anything, and you shouldn't be afraid to cast your opinion as well. Knowing that something you've said had an impact on the game is a great feeling, and achieving this level of connection between the userbase and the staff is a job well done as far as I'm concerned.

Conclusion

Battle Dome certainly has quite a bit of history behind itself, but after the rework of TextQuest and the birth of the room we have now, I believe that it's going to create many great memories for everyone in the future. The staff constantly works hard to make the game as enjoyable as possible and their efforts have paid off. Leaving you with nothing else but good impressions and opinions of the room, I encourage you to take a moment and stop by the Battle Dome room for a fantastic text-based RPG experience!

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