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Actually its the other way around. It started when they changed networth based gains into land based gains which caused an incredible amount of stagnation. afaik, people let others wave the crap out of them for 2-3 weeks after every war so that they could even stand a chance fighting.Quote:
Originally Posted by pint
Well, in my opinion there are more things that should be changed if you want to get an actual increase of players. For example, efforts should be made to actually encourage the alliance-type gameplay that was a big part of the game early on in Utopia, instead of the kingdom-vs-kingdom gameplay which in my opinion was one of the causes of massive amounts of players leaving the game.
This includes opening up all thievery and magic attacks when there are no relations. Things like that ENCOURAGE people to bring their friends into playing the game.
The choice is between that, or continue on the course where you have a game where only a constant top ~25% of the people will actually enjoy playing.
networth based gains + less networth for offense then for defense = supporting high offense/low defense strats.
" For example, efforts should be made to actually encourage the alliance-type gameplay that was a big part of the game early on in Utopia,"
This didn't come into play until much later.
Alliances early on were just tags you put on your flags, that made people think twice before they hit you.
It rarely worked, and not many of the 'alliances' from back then exist today.
There has also NEVER been any encouragment for alliances.
They've always only been tolerated. A necessary, unavoidable evil.
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Originally Posted by Ezzerland
I don't really understand what you are saying here... Of what I remember, gains were landbased at first. If a 1000-acre province would hit a 3000-acre province, the gains would be absolutely massive, hence discouraging suiciding strategies. Also, the gangbang-protection was much lower, which meant that people would get alot more out of the grab, even if three or four grabs had already been made. It wasn't referred to as "suiciding" for no reason...
You remember wrong.
Gains were based on networth first, then it was changed to acres a bit later.
This lasted until Mehul realized that it only stagnated gameplay.
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Originally Posted by VT2
You've got to be kidding? Of what I remember, like 200 provinces would log in at the same time to just completely crush a few provinces in an enemy alliance (even though whole kingdoms were rarely a part of a single alliance back then).
When I am saying the game has turned into a kingdom-vs-kingdom gamestyle, I mean this whole "ingame-war" system that is going on now. It's extremely hard, or even impossible, to accomplish the same type of damage now.
And umm.. how long have you been playing?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Erko
However, as you can probably imagine, it's hard to remember accurately right now... I can safely say I haven't played Utopia for the last four-five years or so anyway!
Why?
Well, because from the posts I've read of yours you are only making assessments based on the ages that you played, and those assessments started around the time of land based gains, which clearly shows you did not play ages 1-10, imho.
Uhm.. Since there is no way of actually proving I did play back then, I don't really know why I'm continuing about this, but... I remember things like that when I was in seventh or eight grade, my friend showed me this game. That SHOULD be around 1998. I remember creating an account, and being in 1:1 in the end of the first round. I remember when there were boats. I remember that Avian, Halfling and Undead were introduced. I remember there were no personalities. I remember an age when people would try playing dwarf with an insane amount of mines and miners mystique. And I remember small provinces taking huge chunks of land from large provinces.
I fully understand that it is possible that gains WERE nw-based back then, without me understanding it. But don't worry, I am quite sure I started playing in age 1, make no mistake about it.
I wish to make two things clear:
-I never said alliances were actively encouraged by the game. However, the WAY the game was back then, an alliance had far greater power than by today. You could attack people by thieves and magic anywhere in the world. Any province could at any time just die if an alliance made up their mind about it. That is what I mean by that alliances should be encouraged yet again.
-I never said I was sure of that gains were land-based. I said that a 1000-acre province got extreme gains when attacking a 3000-acre province, which of course could have been due to the massive difference in NW. Now, the gains are nowhere near as big. You have to understand that my memory is a bit foggy about events that happened roughly ten years ago.
The problem the game has now is that casual gamers can't have a good time playing. The changes needed for a change will probably make the game a bit more boring for the people in the top (or so I can imagine). However, I can tell you for sure, being in a ghetto-kingdom now is impossible. You get hit no matter what you do, and you can't do a single thing about it.
You think strenghtening alliances will encourage new players to play? It will only drive more players away from the game as you will be making the strong stronger.Quote:
Erko
Well, in my opinion there are more things that should be changed if you want to get an actual increase of players. For example, efforts should be made to actually encourage the alliance-type gameplay that was a big part of the game early on in Utopia, instead of the kingdom-vs-kingdom gameplay which in my opinion was one of the causes of massive amounts of players leaving the game.
This includes opening up all thievery and magic attacks when there are no relations. Things like that ENCOURAGE people to bring their friends into playing the game.
Besides it doesn't matter what changes are made to the game, if the games isn't advertised then new players won't come regardless.
What I am saying is, that at this game's peak, people would tell their friends to join. I would never tell my friends to start playing this game. They wouldn't stand it for a week, let alone through an entire age.
The way alliances was back then didn't make the strong stronger. It made even the strongest kingdom in the world be at constant risk of getting annihilated by a mediocre alliance. That doesn't make the strong stronger.
No, that encourages me to tell my friends to start playing again, for fun! It encourages me to get a large group of Utopia-contacts on my instant messenger.
I used to be at least kind of good at creating strategies back when there were around 100k people playing. I was pretty serious about it, calculating income, ppa, dpa, food consumption and so on before the age started (and before there were calculators to do all of that for you). I was the kind of player that dropped in and out of the top 100. (edit: I do not consider this an extreme feat to brag about, I simply mention it so that you'll get a grip of what kind of player I was)
Right now, me and my friend are having problems getting above 900 acres in size, simply because we are in a crappy kingdom. New players, or even old players returning to the game, will not enjoy this gameplay, and I'm amazed that you guys in here seem to disagree.
To me, it's absolutely no surprize that the fanbase of this game is rapidly decreasing, the way things are now.
"The way alliances was back then didn't make the strong stronger. It made even the strongest kingdom in the world be at constant risk of getting annihilated by a mediocre alliance. "
I think you're a bit senile, guy.
There are only maybe 3-4 alliances (and I'm being liberal) that are worth anything other than being a social club. So making alliance stronger is a really poorly thought out idea. You make kingdoms stronger, you get stronger alliances or you get kingdoms that don't need alliances to babysit and hold their hand. (shrug)