I grew up on Utopia

[Topwolf]

You know how you got those ppl always saying "I grew up on that show" "I watched that show all my life" etc etc...

Well basically, I myself, grew up on Utopia

I'm 23 yrs old now, and started playing the game when I was errr 13-14 yrs old or so.


Basically, when I first started, I played in ghetto's for the first couple ages, and was learning the game, and for the first couple years, had a blast. There were SOOO many ppl to interact with, if you posted a msg here on the forums, you'd have 10 responses within a few minutes.

Seriously. What happened? The player base use to be up near, and sometimes over 100,000 ppl. Now, we're sitting below 15k, and it seems everything is even more serious than it use to be.

Ppl flame and aruge 10 times more than they did before. People are constantly complaining and just being children, and for what? Has it come to this because the player base is just so small? Or really, what am I missing here?


The game is still great dynamically IMO, but I'm just saying, the whole negative/positive attitude from it's player base has fallen dramatically, as has it's player base in its own.

Anyways, that's my little rant :)

[kira]

I agree with you Topwolf, I too grew up playing utopia but the good old days are just a distant memory now.

The quality and the quantity of players have dropped significantly, the people that are left on the boards are mostly disgruntled players and are doing everything in their power to discourage people from posting by trolling and killing threads.

We always blame mehul/OMAC for this and that, but in reality its the people who make the game what it is and not vice-versa.

/Edit corrected typo :P

[DeRn]

I share that with you, Topwolf. I also played the game since I was the same age as you were, and now I am close to 22. Had some fun times with lots of responsability early in my life - even though it was online - it was still something I learned from.

There used to be many big alliances and great fights between them. After ages passed, only a few alliances were left and those were the hardcore ones. We can say that one alliance in particular 'won' the game, but in the process they 'forced' many people to quit.

I've seen many old faces returning since trading was allowed - and I hope for more kingdoms and alliances to form in the top, making top50 a good achievement in itself.

As for people's attitudes on the forum, well I like it to some extent. Civil discussions can fire up people and make us more competitive, which is good. Mindless flaming is something you can't escape anywhere, and if you do it will end up like UtopiaTemple.

[Topwolf]

That's just the thing tho...Everyone is so competitive anymore, and it's all in good show, but sometimes, it's even a little too much


I almost miss just playing in a ghetto, and having over literally 40k available targets that I'm able to hit. (That's when there was 100-150k players)

Now, it's like if you're even a mediocre player, you're most likely already in a semi good kd or even sk, and you have NAP/CF with 90% of your available targets, and the other 10% have already been moderately hit by other NAP/CF players.

The game is just dying down, and the biggest reason has never been OMAC or Mehul indirectly that is. It's the flaming and such by players, and players leaving.

More advertising needs to be done, that's for sure. So in that point yea, OMAC needs to step up and get this game known. I seen ppl saying something about making it into a facebook application... That has some benefits, but I don't wanna see 50,000 facebook players making an account cause "someone invited them to make an account" and do dick all with it and go inactive and such.

[Zauper]

The forums have always been hot. Targets have always been restricted at the top.

The reality is, you have two competing pressures.
1) Utopia was mainly driven by school-age kids. Those have since graduated, and have joined the workforce. They don't necessarily have the time to deal with the game anymore.
2) The new generation of gamers is more high-tech, and less drawn to this kind of game.

The best solution would be to make it possible for a strategy that isn't 24/7 responsive to be competitive.

Introducing new blood to the game without solving the need for incredible activity doesn't solve the issue because of the pressures -- kids are more likely to want to spend all their time playing WoW or the like, not logging into uto.

[mero mero]

imo cheating is the biggest reason ppl quit. i mean, who wants to play a rigged game?
after that its players attitude, other games, and so on, in any order.

and as topwolf says, its still a great dynamically game so it really should not be impossible to get new players if somehow those problems are solved

[VT2]

The game quickly earned a reputation for letting cheaters win, and punishing those who play by the rules.
Then more modern games came out - games that didn't require as much work on your part to get anywhere.

The fact that it's still around should tell everyone who's involved that it has a very large appeal, but new players tend to disappear once they figure out that what the game promises isn't really what it delivers.

[Sir Nasty]

When I quit 7 years ago I would state my top reasons as...

1) tired of cheaters
2) tired of having to have more friends than the other guy I piss off in order not to lose weeks of work on my province

The cheating pisses everyone off (unless you are one of the top cheaters)
Once you get good enough to play at or near the top you find it is a lot less skill and lot more 'who you know'


I left to play a web boxing game (vivi.com) because I loved the fact that game was a 1 on 1. You smack talk but in the end, its you who have to back it up, not 'who you know'
Edit: /braggingmode
btw, a tourament started there roughly 4 weeks ago, 250+ entrants, double elimination till they get to the knockout round and I am one of only 15 undefeated guys left (71 1 loss guys left).. yeah, match my epenis!) /braggingmode off

Those same 2 reasons are weighing heavy on me again. I am just waiting for the STO mmo to come out, they are starting beta testing soon (already signed up) and once that is here.. I am pretty sure I will be nothing but a bad memory again :)

[VT2]

"1) tired of cheaters
2) tired of having to have more friends than the other guy I piss off in order not to lose weeks of work on my province"

That's really it.
The game has immense appeal, but the mob-like atomsphere turns people away fast.
When OMAC was announced as the new owners, it was assumed that they'd clean up the game, starting from the top, but this never came to be, and, instead, they legalized cheating.

[DHaran]

Trading was never considered "cheating" by most decent kingdoms VT2, stop acting like an idiot. The real issues are, and always have been, multis, xloggers, and munked kds.

[VT2]

'Most' doesn't mean 'all,' and now all are forced to trade, or get out, simply because idiots like you and Catwalk couldn't play by the rules.

Munk, x-logging, and multis are something the top used, and still use to this day.
Stop pretending the top's all that's in the game, or your wish for it to be so may come true sooner than you'd like.

[VT2]

I have a question for all of you who think cheating was 'okay,' despite it being completely opposite to the vision of the game, against the rules of the game, and despised by everyone who hadn't played the game for years on end, because they couldn't engage in it, even if they wanted to, and can't engage in the legal kind now, either, because they still don't have the means to do so.

Why must people who play by the rules, such as myself, be punished for your stupidity? Why couldn't you play by the rules, instead of bending them to better fit your 'styles,' and blaming it on how 'everyone does it, so it's okay?'

[Ratty]

VT2, I can't say it was ok because I don't think that cheating is generally, but here it was necessary! In short that's why you are punnished.. And it was not stupid - if we believe someone else did it we must do it too in order to compete on same level (or ever possibly win). After all it is a ranked game...

[VT2]

Nothing was necessary, except keeping things the way they were, and punishing those who'd broken the rules.
Yeah, I can clearly see how good legalized cheating's so far been for the game, and how many new people it's brought in.

Truly.

"In short that's why you are punnished.. And it was not stupid - if we believe someone else did it we must do it too in order to compete on same level (or ever possibly win). After all it is a ranked game..." No - the game has ranks, but no one's forcing you to follow them, or even respect them - which no one does, because everyone knows that it's the mob and the cheaters that 'rank in.' There are also no rewards at all for 'ranking in.' So because the top 10% of the game was 100% cheated, the remaining 90% of the game deserved to be forced to pick between kicking up their activity by several orders of magnitude, while engaging in the same illegal activities as the top 10%, or get out, because the game's no longer for them?

I think we can all clearly see how popular both options are, and that legalized cheating doesn't magically bring in old people who quit, because the things they quit over are the exact same things that are now legal.

[DHaran]

It boils down to a few simple concepts; advertising and nub-friendly features. Advertising the game is most important, but getting players here in groups is drastically needed if you want to keep playing Utopia. Learning in groups is easier than learning alone when you keep getting razed for being nub. The game has a CHANCE to survive by letting players choose who they play with and who they learn with. New players won't get in top kingdoms, who gives a ****, THEY NEVER DID. New players belong in the ghettos where they can learn from players who are semi-active and know the game. And yes they are there, don't continue your ignorant rant about how all the people who know how to play are in the top, which is a lie.

If you spent as much time recruiting and teaching new players as you did bull****ting on these goddamn forums, maybe the game would be that little bit better.

Try helping instead of being a useless troll.