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When I joined in March 2016, I believe player count was about 4400. So we've lost 1/3 in just over 2 years. I had big hopes with the new ownership, bigger hopes when they talked about their goals for player count. But That was dispelled pretty quickly unfortunately. Maybe there's still a chance, but it feels unlikely
I believe the devs are doing a good job.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pillz
However, its just like Warren Buffet when he first started out in the textile industry. It is always going to be an impossible task in a dying industry.
Game could still grow, players exist somewhere. But not sure it's even possible now. I feel like we're well past the point of no return, just due to the games evolution mechanically and the remaining players left after the years of attrition the player base has taken.
Pretty sure that when I returned in spring 2012 there were over 7000 remaining.
I just don't understand why there's no app. I see ****ty derivative phone apps with factors more player base than Utopia. If utopia is to survive, it'll have 100* the chance to spread as an app than as a website... Pretty sure most people play on their phone as is.
No reason we can't have both. Which is necessary, really. Otherwise play CoC
All them pinoy multis that get deleted for cheating!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bananamancer2000
I don't think you are making a point, sure would like to see some more actions from owners, but if it is still fun to play what does I care if there are 500 or 5000 others in the game, as long as there is a new age I'll happily play on, if not I do have other games that I enjoy that I could spend more time on quite easily.
People has been crying about the dying game for a decade if not longer, but really you should be asking yorself if you find it worth playing or not, if so play on and if not you could try to adapt to make it fun again, or you could simply decide it no longer mattered.
The game is far more fun when there is a larger population. It doesnt get so stale, there isnt just the 2-3 kingdoms that aim for the charts each ages, there is more competition. Everything becomes more fun, more kingdoms to war, more diversity etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Madchess
Game has gotten too easy, so alot of vets are retiring and no one is replacing them.
Killing this forum and moving it to reddit would be a good start to getting more players I wager.
What a stupid idea. Same rational as make it a Facebook game.
some 34 multi provinces have been created since the start of this thread
And 68 have been deleted!Quote:
Originally Posted by ahtoad
Must hurt losing your multis so fast.Quote:
Originally Posted by umajon911
Move the community to a high traffic site where randoms can be charmed by your wonderful SJW mentality, or keep it here in a deep dark corner where only those that know it exists can find it....hmmmQuote:
Originally Posted by Pillz
Did you just call Pillz a SJW? Lol
Yea cause the Utopia reddit that existed was such huge success you really saw how people flocked to join Utopia thanks to that. Reddit is is truly the answer to all Utopias problemQuote:
Originally Posted by Swagger
We've got to up our meme game if we want to be successful on Reddit
No no, just move everrything over to Reddit and everything will just workout fine you heard Swagger.Quote:
Originally Posted by Palem
My meme game is strong, don't worry.
AgreedQuote:
Originally Posted by Korp
2899. 10 new provs!!!!
Just do it!Quote:
Originally Posted by Pillz
To facilitate the existence of provinces, stable kingdoms have to exist. IMHO the fewer number of provinces in Utopia reflects the dwindling number of people whom are willing or able to facilitate leading a full roster of 25 players. As the monarch becomes a dying breed; so too will the individual province. New player engagement drops as the culture that once existed to inspire and cultivate new talent decreases. This is further exacerbated by the behavior of hoarding all experienced and competent players into kingdoms at the top.
If you want old monarchs to bring new organizations into Utopia, their old cores and maybe new friends, the 25 province kingdom has to become an entity of the past. What's a reasonable number? It's of course subjective, however, for myself, speaking as a former monarch, that number has to be closer to 15. Not 20. Not 22. Definitely not 25.
How the above is still a debate in Utopia only serves to underlay the point and fact, that it's the super kingdom minority in this game that likely reflects 90% of the owner companies monetization through in-game purchases. As such, naturally, it's this community that also holds the most influence over major design choices in Utopia.
Ironically, unless ideology changes at the top of Utopia, among her brightest and best players - all holding onto tradition will do, is create a day where they've strangled their game out of existence, just like every kingdom they squeezed out of the charts in the ages past.
Standard objection to this line of thought is exactly what you mention though, solid leaders are the problem. Smaller kingdoms won't magically fix that. The best players will still flock to the kingdoms with competent leaders. The amount of good kingdoms will remain the same, since competent monarchs will remain the same. And the player bleed might even accelerate since fewer players will fit into those kingdoms.Quote:
Originally Posted by KingTyrant
I dunno if this holds true. This debate has been ongoing for decades (measured in ages). Personally, I would find it less stressful with a few less players. My suggestion from "way back when" was to decrease the amount of players per kingdom by 1 per age for 5 ages, as not to break up any kingdoms. But utopia was three times as big back then...
You were just being lazy and didnt wanna micro as many people as 24!
@Tadpole; Solid leaders aren't a problem, my friend. Inspiring new ones, is.
A new province in the past had the probability of landing in a middle kingdom, for example, whose leadership would often be involved in integrating said player into the kingdom. Teaching them the fundamentals of Utopia. Players individually at that point either stay and become core, or move onto a more organized kingdom for additional training and grooming. That initial experience doesn't exist anymore for a new player creating a province. Simply looking around kingdom pages with 10-16 players is the common. A new player landing in a ghetto with no leadership offers the poorest possible new player experience and likely the lowest possible chance of new player retention.
Additionally, a player who may want to lead a kingdom, lands a new province in a kingdom in the above condition. That player knows the 6 months-1 year of work it will take to build a core and finally become organized. Smaller kingdoms are indeed a magical fix to this, because you introduce something a prospective monarch really doesn't have now - motivation and a realistic goal to achieve that doesn't take one year of heavy investment.
Quality of leadership is a moot argument; all utopia needs is to incentivize a revitalization of ANY leadership in kingdoms not considered super. As it stands, the innate system that drove new player engagement in utopia is literally broken.
While I understand the investment and friendship that's involved in a core of 25 players; not players, a group of 25 friends, coming apart to facilitate new life in Utopia may be an emotional prospect, those at the top should see that it's necessary to get back into the field, to mentor new players. We must recognize the value, as well, that the lesser middle monarchs possess in regards to the sustainability of the game and player base itself, before sustainability is lost.
Kurtz:*And then I realized--like I was shot...like I was shot with a diamond...a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, "My God, the genius of that, the genius, the will to do that." Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Palem
I take pride in my laziness. Only 8 sitting days left this age! I do think that laziness is newfound though, relatively speaking...Quote:
Originally Posted by Korp
@KingTyrant Again. While I might possibly agree, seeing as I've argued for a decrease in kingdom size before, let me play devils advocate here...
If the current common is as you say, 10-16 player kingdoms, how would decreasing the size of all down to the same limit in any way create "inspiring new leaders"? Those 10-16 player kingdoms will remain as they are, leaderless and disorganised and unfit to create enthusiasm for new players. The only real difference would be that these kingdoms will now be actively competing with former 20-25 player kingdoms of much greater quality, potentially demoralising them (as has happened to war tier kingdoms every time a whoring kd decides to war in the past). And the players being cut from their former 20-25 player kingdoms have a strong incentive to retire, being sacked from their kds.
Leadership really is the problem. The difference between a good active leader and a bad one is day and night. Problem i see is that the good ones don't *want* to lead any-more, and can't blame them, it's a 24/7 job and extremely unrewarding.
All the more baffling that nothing is done to address the leadership issue, the extra steward is a band-aid at best. But what leaders need is access to their kingdoms provinces build/army setup, and an easier way to get into war (just automate war start once kingdoms agree, make it possible to agree war to start 24h/48h in advance, make this binding, so that once two kingdoms agree to war neither can bail out and war starts after 24h/48h, whatever both agreed to). And *please* drop that reverbim chat thing and replace it by something that can actually send push messages to alert the bloody kingdom.
Some automation during of war would be peachy (a way to easily set targets, a simple if-this-then-that to automate orders to individual provs (eg is prov x attacks you, ambush pls, etc) but not be biggest problem at all.
If game dies i would be happy. I could be free!
17-20 player KD sizes would be a great start since to be honest...since the pandering to the best 15 KDs is really whats killing the other 120 KDs in the server for the last 5 years has not worked.
Leveling the playing field and making ALL KINGDOMS start on EQUAL FOOTING will give incentive to some players to start fresh and compete with others that...which is more than can be said than doing nothing and watching playerbase #s sink.
Why would it work?
1) It would remove any "headstart" or "handicap" that most organized KDs already have at 25 players vs those who can only get 22 before the game is even played. At least in any competitive e-sport game...all contestants start on the even playing fields with their competitors regardless of talent or skill.
I cant understand why Utopia community hasn't come around to that realization yet...as if there isn't any examples of simple free games (like Fortnite) that can prove popularity and time investment can take off if the free game premise stays fair for all yet calls for teamwork and skill to be developed in real time.
2) The spread of players that will produce can also procure new leaders if the right combination can be found....only way you can find that out is to lower KD sizes and spread the player base farther apart and see for yourself.
3) Technological assistance has yet to help the game as planned...mainly because the only real attempt made by the new Game Development Team to make tools to help play this game more efficiently was just adopting and integrating an existing 3rd party irc intel tool (Munkbot)
Unfortunately its still riddled with bugs and errors...as well as a coding format and presentation so basic that it is worse than that of a high school Senior working on a project for his Computer Science class. In fact even after becoming an official Dev Team Member for over a year...there has been no effort or attempt by Munk to clean up his tool and bring up the quality of his work to at least that equal to Utopia grammer standard.
I think the guy who made the Utopia App (private independent developer) has done a better job trying to visually bring Utopia into the Modern era ... a stark contrast on whatever you guys thought Munkbot was going to do for Utopia in the long run. At this point...who knows is the Community-requested "Facebook App" will ever become a reality yet I can bet we will have Munkbot and the same top 15 kingdoms using it until the game officially dies.
This not to say I am displeased with the recent gameplay changes...the race balancing as well as new lil features over the last few ages has been refreshing and enjoyable. However that is not what is being discussed here.
I'm not surprised that province count is going down. What i'm surprised is that none of the elite players who supposedly know the game from every aspect...has yet to come up with any good suggestion on how to save the game....just the same ol' excuses that has been killing the game year upon year
Yea guys, there's absolutely no reason Utopia can't get a million players if Fortnite can!
There is anything "unfair" or "uneven" about kingdom sizes. 99% of kingdoms at less than 25 provinces are there because they actively choose to have less than 25 provinces.
The game doesn't have enough leaders. The game will never improve unless we either make leading easier or somehow convince more people that are good at leading kingdoms that they should play. Anything less than fixing this problem is a stopgap, although I so agree that Utopia is about a decade behind trying to be a modern game
Quote:
Originally Posted by Palem
This is incorrect. Try getting 25 provinces.
Your perception of reality is as real as Taylor Swift's.
Its not about getting 17 or so provinces, its about adjusting the script to have less kingdoms. It tops out at 22 from what I have seen.
I haven't played in a few years but I had no problems getting to 25 players. I might be out of touch with a lot of things since utopias been changing, but ghetto monarch mentality isn't one of them.
Finished a nice 19 vs 19 a few days ago for first win, could have gotten either way but t/m's and unbreakables made the opponents surrender while still up acres. Both kingdoms had fun and we are ranked arround 115 now. Might be lucky with a few random players or we might put up the wall and seek war again.
Doesn't really matter much how many other kingdoms there is or how many players they have, as long as a handfull looks similair enough to war.
So when there was literally double the players? I've seen top KDs and known names fail to recruit. Every time I've managed 25 players since I started in March 2016 it's been 1-3 flakes, abandoners, inactives, etc. Never even come close to a solid 25. Have had a sold 22 many times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Palem
So much crying in this thread and for all the wrong reasons.
No. I think there was about 4k when I left. Stop recruiting everyone and anyone that says please and maybe you won't have quite as many flakes, abandons, and inactivesQuote:
Originally Posted by Bananamancer2000