Gold (Premium) Status Account

Greetings Fellow Utopians!

The time is upon us where we would like to officially share with you our current ideas for features we are considering offering to Gold (Premium) accounts.

Gold account status would be an item purchasable in the shop, and would provide 30 days of Gold account status. The exact price on this is still undetermined and we welcome suggestions from you all as to what you feel this Gold status is worth to you if you would be interested in paying for it. We would like feedback on all the features being presented and if you have additional ideas or features you would like to see that fit into the concept of a premium account status this is the place for that suggestion!
Our goal with offering a Gold status account is to continue our efforts in providing convenience based features that allow players to perform well without requiring the intense activity that would normally be necessary. We understand as long time players that the time and dedication to perform well deserves recognition and should not (and will not) be replicated by a pay to play method. We maintain that Utopia will never be a pay to play, or pay to win, game and our goals with some of the features offered within the Gold account status we hope do not cross that line. If you feel there are issues that need attention we will be creating forum threads for discussion on each topic. We welcome your feedback and look forward to discussing the pros and cons of each feature as it is presented with the hopes of following these standards.

A little background for everyone to understand a bit more behind the reasoning for this implementation. Because Utopia is free to play there are ads displayed throughout the game. Advertisements are cumbersome and diminish the gameplay experience but are necessary to keep Utopia running. We would like to offer a method through which players have an opportunity to promote the continued development and existence of the game, and in return offer to those players various features that will accomplish several things: (a) make the game more enjoyable and easier to navigate (ad-free environment), (b) provide additional convenience features that allow higher level play without the necessary activity (activity will always be more beneficial than the features implemented), (c) offering certain cosmetic features only available to Gold accounts.

Now to look at the features I'd like to remind you these are still ideas and in the developmental stages so we want your feedback on how to make them most effective at accomplishing our goals and standards set out above, please see the specific threads created to discuss and provide feedback on each topic:

1) Ad - Block
- Self-explanatory, a Gold account will have ads removed for the duration.

2) Personal Hostile Meter
- A Gold account will have the personal hostile meter active for the duration.
- Spoiler: We plan to include a relations column on the in-game target finder. Gold accounts will see your Kingdom hostile meter points toward that kingdom, otherwise you will just see Normal/Unfriendly/Hostile/War

3) Attack Message/Image
- On your War Room you will have an option to upload an image and create a custom message that will be displayed in the news of the defender
- We do have plans to offer the ability to save messages/images for future use. At first it is likely this feature will require you to type
your message & upload the image you'd like to send with each attack you want to use it on. More functionality for this is planned, but as an initial implementation this is likely how it would work.
- There WILL be a report this message link on any text/image sent with an attack that would be punishable by suspension/deletion. All game rules are expected to be followed

Direct link to discussion thread for this topic #3 click here

4) Scientist Name
- Spoiler: The scientists are currently named by choosing a random name from a file (~20k options). If implemented, that file would have all options removed and replaced with 4 (DavidC, JeffT, Bishop, Munk). This part of Gold account status would give the consumer of the Gold status item the ability to add a scientist name to that file which would then have scientists begin to spawn on the server with the newly suggested name.
- Scientist name suggestions will require an approval before the addition is complete to ensure all entries are appropriate.

Direct link to discussion thread for this topic #4 click here

5) Multi-Operation
- This functionality applies to both Thievery and Magic (Self Spell / Sorcery)
- The way we envision it working at the moment is as follows:
- There would be a new text box on the thievery/sorcery page that would default to 1. You have the option to increase this number to any number of available operations you have at the time (if you have 40 stealth/mana you could perform 16 operations so 16 would be the maximum allowed)
- Once submit, the operations would be performed automatically for you with a 2-4 second delay between each operation
- There are several options we have on the table for how to display the results, which includes the sending of a message in the user's news with a summary of the operations results, or upon completion of the entire queue of operations a new page would be rendered with all results. The specifics on how this would work is still unclear, at the moment these are the possibilities we've discussed.
- This feature allows a user to spend little time logging into their account and minimal navigation to perform a large amount of operations. The drawback to using this feature instead of performing the operations manually are:
- You don't get to alter the course of action once it is underway (i.e. you fail 5x in a row for a thief operation and may decide to adjust the amount of thieves are sending, this is possible only if you perform the operations manually and monitor the results in real time)
- It is quite easy to perform operations much faster by doing it manually, so using this feature would allow the defender (if online) to do something to counter your operations like cast Clear Sight if it's not on already, or Mystic Aura/Magic Shield/Divine Shield or any other buff to enhance their defenses for that particular operation, or just simply have an opportunity to make changes to their province during the time period the operations are taking place.

Direct link to discussion thread for this topic #5 click here

6) Auto-Self Spell
- This feature would allow the user to schedule when to have a self spell cast on your own province (Paladin Self Spells will not be allowed to be cast on others, you may still cast Paladin self spells on yourself)
- On the self spell page, our thought is, there will be two new drop down menu boxes. One menu will be when to cast the spell, with options like Instantly (default), +1 tick, +2 ticks, +3 ticks from now or so on. The other box will be how many attempts you would like to have performed, i.e. 1 attempt, 2 attempts, 3 attempts, or until successful.
- This request would be handled during the 60 second tick that occurs on the scheduled operation.
- Any scheduled spell will cost up to 3 additional mana to cast, i.e. a normal self spell requires 3 mana to cast, if you schedule to cast Minor Protection while you are away from your account, the scheduled Minor Protection cast would consume 6 mana per attempt.
- There may also be an additional rune cost to perform the request
- This feature allows a player to guarantee (or attempt) a spell to remain active during periods of time when you may be unable to log on yourself to re-activate a spell. The drawback is obvious that you consume extra mana or runes to perform the operation that could otherwise be used for something else if you had logged in yourself to perform the action.
- It should be noted that you can only schedule to cast a spell once. For example, you would not be capable of scheduling Paradise on every upcoming tick. You would have the option to cast it on any single tick in the future.

Direct link to discussion thread for this topic #6 click here

7) Operation History
- This feature would provide a more detailed history of operations performed by your province
- History details would include things such as, specific thievery operations performed over the last 24 hours (or some other time period), the amount of damage done, what targets you had done this damage to, gc spent, buildings razed/constructed, troops trained, etc. Any action your province has taken would add to the details available to see in your detailed history
- Monarchs may have an additional section to view the details of their kingdom, the operations they've performed, their targets, the damage done, what gc is being spent on, how many runes are being consumed, the specific time frames actions are being performed, etc.
- There may be an additional implementation of some kind of reward or medals offered to players that lead their kingdom in any certain category, for example, a medal for the most indecisive player would be awarded to the player who razes (and re-builds) the most acres in the kd.

Direct link to discussion thread for this topic #7 click here


If you would like to discuss other suggestions that are Gold Account worthy, please use the following thread to make and discuss these suggestions!
Direct link to discussion thread for this topic click here