Utopia in decline, here's a possible solution

[stoffi]

Dear Omac.

I'm Stoffi, and have played this game since age 12. I've played in various kds, I've cheated in various ways, and I've had alot of fun. I also believe I am a reflected guy who has seen utopia from most views, or atleast understand utopia from most views.

Utopia is in decline and top player after top players quits this game, making the game less competitive. Without calling myself a top player, I also quit the game.


Why is this?


I believe I know the answer to this.

There is no damn challenge anymore! My strats from 5-6 ages ago still apply, there has not been ANY real changes for a loooong while because you and swirve are too worried about unbalancing the game.
Every age is the same, and when something gets repetitive, the ones who master it best quit playing and find a new game. Such is human nature.

I beg you to stop only listening to the forum spammers, and make some real changes that come from YOU, what YOU think would be good for utopia.
Changing elf magic efficiency from 40% to 35% and etc is not really a change.


Blademaster, another reflected utopian, wrote this in another forum:

i just dont get it, even mehul would make real changes and unbalance things, all this "this beats that, but loses to this, but is equal to them" while drafting ****ty sci, while players dont even have to think anymore, one size fits all...

its no wonder alot of the known and great strategy players are stepping down and leaving the game is it?
or that the cheaters are all starting to come out of the woodworks?

this game sucks, why should we keep wasting our time when admin isnt going to give us an evolving and ever changing game?

who cares about banks? what about the time when we didnt need to have them?
when we could rk and pk and have fun?
when we could have a single prov killed oow with kidnap?
when people didnt have to bash ghettos and fear losing some falsified reputation to someone who was simply better at that time?
where is the fun where kds from different alliances could all latch onto a funny theme and all tag up for it?
wheres the spirit that kept people coming back?

its time to start thinking about sweeping changes to gameplay, rather than all the worry over an alliance that will remain intrenched in the game until its miserable death.

Give us some highs and lows, don't make everything mediocre. We want extremes, extreme advantages and actions, let us Gangbang, kill provs, have fun!
And give us back 8 races for more variety and diversity.

When ppl think back at the "good old days", we all think of the big alliance wars, the time we got gangbanged to death, the time we exploited an unbalanced game, the time we peasantkilled provs each war, the time certain individuals released hundreds/thousands of multies on a certain alliance, we remember the extremes!


And one more time, don't base your changes on this forum. (except for this thread ofc ;) )

[cromwill]

you just wrote down what I've been trying to say all along.

I agree with everything, that both Blademaster and Stoffi is saying, and I know a ton of people that is saying the precise same thing.

so please omac, try ignoring the spam that will soon follow here.

[Ishandra]

Instead of unbalancing the races you could just as easily revamp the game 'expansion style' by adding new advanced features.

The game can be kept noob friendly by making these features KD wide or War orientated, such as new more extreme and useful stances, new types of dragons, more control over what the dragons do, E.G. targetting specific province(s), burning out over a set time but doing more damage, etc.

Changes to food system, changing buildings, etc. Lots of things make each age new even if you play the same Race, your KD set up and play style can be different and exciting.

[Ezzerland]

I don't think new advanced features is what the game needs. it needs change.

[Syele]

This is what I said in my short suggestions thread post for the new changes, but Stoffi said it better.

Pretend for a min that Utopia does NOT mean ideally perfect. We don't want it that way. We need to be able to pk in war. We need to be able to war people that weren't quite ready. We need it to be possible to do anything, and dishonorable to do some things. Not just impossible to do dishonorable or drastic things. My alliance is "defensive" give us something to defend against! Yes, I am complaining that my job got easier. If I have nothing to defend against, utopia becomes boring.

Be the creators of Utopia, not the police of it. I told Bigfoot that OMAC didn't seem to get that and he denied it, but "changes" that create no change and how support tickets are handled seem to still reflect you don't quite get it. Find changes that would allow good and evil then don't go in and help when people use it for evil. You should make the possibilities and we, the players, can police them. That is why we have unwritten rules like keeping wars 1 vs 1. We have always policed the game ourselves and should still have reason to.

Yes, we will then go back to griping at people who triple hostile us and others will cry when their prov has to be restarted mid age. This forum will get flooded with "OMG please nerf the (insert powerful race here)." That, OMAC, would be a GOOD thing. The aggressive people need to be ABLE to be aggressive and the defensive ones need to be able to fight them off.

Give us some things to whine and debate about and even brag about. in my other post I said "random nerfings" but you could also make one race unbalanced in a stronger way, point is do something drastic. IF the game worked best when "balanced" then there would be no need for changes every round anyhow.

Give us some strategies to calculate, make the strats from last age become obsolete now and then. Give us some drama. Give my diplomats something to do. Give us back the diversity.

[mrsyer]

well done stoffi.. couldnt agree more.. hopefully something can be done about this.. if not, id like to know why steps arent being taken to get more players back

[Catwalk]

Random changes without insight? Agree with big changes, but don't see why they should ignore community input. Mehul did big changes based on long years of experience with Utopia and did so with a plan and a vision behind it.

Most of Blademaster's sentiments concern the good old days where the mentality was different. That's the real difference between now and then, not game rules. The good old days were good because they were old.

[onlymad]

because Cat most of the community input are bad ideas you come up with and part of why the game has been dumbed down over the years .The mentality as you call it has only changed because changes like you and a few others begged for forced it to change which has proven those changes werent a good thing as the player base has dropped .
a few ideas have been good tho, not all you have came up with were bad. but trying to protect every new player who enters utopia making things to simple is the worst thing Mehul and Omac could do.

[Catwalk]

Thank you for a predictable response onlymad, good to know that some things never change.

[Blacky]

Well put Stoffi.
I had high hopes when OMAC bought the game so far it has been disapointing.

[stoffi]

Random changes without insight? Agree with big changes, but don't see why they should ignore community input. Mehul did big changes based on long years of experience with Utopia and did so with a plan and a vision behind it.

Most of Blademaster's sentiments concern the good old days where the mentality was different. That's the real difference between now and then, not game rules. The good old days were good because they were old.

No, Catwalk. The mentality is not different. I don't know whether or not you played when utopia peaked in age 20-24, I can't remember you playing atleast, but back then, you could peasant kill provs in heaps, you could gb kds, you could gb provs, you had the extremities we now lack.

I'm sorry to say, but you might very likely be one of the problems in utopia. I haven't paid attention to your suggestions, but I know you post ALOT of them and that you got a whole bunch of groupies who will post as if you posted for them.

As I said, if I played this age, I could still have used the EXCACT same strats as before to make some banks or killers.
The only big change, was when they ruined science and made it useless. WE WANT EXTREMITIES! And sci was such a thing.

Give us tripple hostiles, give us GBs, give us emotions, hate, joy, etc.


There's thousands of players sitting on the fence, maybe tens of thousands even. They won't come back until utopia gets interesting to them. Right now, everything is balanced and boring that you can predict the entire age before it starts. This age is EXCACTLY like the one before, and the one before that, and etc etc.

Please stop making suggestions. Let OMAC do their job and not rely on poor advice from a small group of utopians.

[Trysil]

As much as it goes against my nature to do this, I have to agree with stoffi on this subject.

[Gothmog]

Aye, what I said in my thread before the age started.

You're sensible and think well thought things Catwalk, but you're merely a shadow of the old sensible numbercrunching, balanced game lobbyist; The Logician. And he too was finally driven off, because even if his game change suggestion where sensible and well balanced, they made for an incredible boring game, which was predictable and reduced to math, barriers was raised to avoid province killings, GBs, multiple wars, OOW ops etc- IE the game was issued cushions.

The mentality on the net is now far more agressive and immidiate than anything, back in the day most of the players was university students ie geeks or unemplyed people, quite clever and calm people most.

I say one need to make more extreme changes, remove some of the safety barriers and make things more open.

As it is now every race can be thief7hybrid. You can only war one kd, you're more or less safe OOW and ABS will use the same cow strat(Dragons will fumble it) and win every age, since the contesters can only proxy a kd so many ages :)

So no offence catwalk, you're clever, but your way, way to boring and polite. Typisk danske ;)

[VT2]

The same setup has been the king for three ages now.
It's getting very boring.

[Archi]

@Stoffi

We all want the same, there are just different believes in how we do so.

But in the end can i only agree to more extreme cases of changes and unbalancing, what is the same i want, but i do believe we need more then just that, it would keep US playing this game but would it be to hard for new players to get on track ?

Or is it a question of guides, and genesis change to newbie playground? "and those ideas" to simplify the game for new players so they wont be frustrating over the game and leave.