Announcement 16th September: Discussion

[Thundergore]

If you have any feedback on today's announcement, please leave it here.

Thanks for taking the time. As always - keep it clean!

Thunder.

[raiman]

First , I love seeing progressive thoughts comin' from the otherside of the fence. It is definately a hopeful sign for the future of the game.
Secondly , I believe the best way to progress is to build upon the parts of this community that have sustained it throught the tough times.
This would be imo the community/social aspect of the game and not a total revamp.
It is the social dynamic that holds it all together. And seeing as how social networking sites are strong and proving to be sustainable(profitable) in the world online community, It might work well to integrate a lil more of this into the game. IE: Chat , "homepages" for KDs and Players , IRC links , KD third party links ( pimp , calcs ). Just as examples. There all kinds of opt in type of options in which a KD and players can customize game play without sacrificing another players choice of game platform. This will also allow for a diversity of ways in which to interact with other players and friendly chatter between KDs and rivals. Utilizing/integrating Third party applications means that the developers won't have to customize the coding too much in order.

I love the game... But I love the ppl in it even more.

[Yadda9To5]

Firstly, about a week ago a support team member posted that there were plans for Utopia in the near feature:

Hi confusionlord and welcome to the boards,

I'm confused (no pun intended) as to whether you are referring to UK or Utopia? Either ways there are plans for both in the near future, so no need to bury them just yet ;)

While I appreciate you asking for user input, maybe us users could give better comments if we actually knew what the current plans are.

Secondly, what i see as the most needed fix/revamp whatever you call it is an improved user experience, both gameplay wise an interface wise.

1. Last age, new players were all placed in (near) empty (thus unorganized) kingdoms. That's not exactly the first impression you want to give new players
2. There is no decent guide/introduction. New players should be taken by the hand the first days of the game. Literally tell them why and to what effect they need to build their land, train army etc. If possible by ingame messages
3. The game looks like crap. Sorry but in this day and age the current design just doesn't cut it. Utopia needs a graphics and ui designer. (ui examples: whomever thought splitting spells in self and offensive was a good move? Why is there no way to see the total offense you send in the war room (utotools adds it). etc etc.)

I know that especially the last point will be hard to do, as apparently there are no resources

Once the game's first impression is equal or better than that of current day games, you can tackle things like getting users (reward system for those who bring new players, rewards for voting on collection sites, fb integration, mobile integration)

[Thundergore]

We think the community/social side of things is hugely important Raiman

While I appreciate you asking for user input, maybe us users could give better comments if we actually knew what the current plans are.

We've a host of long term and short term ideas for game content. Ideas that we're not yet happy enough with to share - We want to polish these up. Ideas that may never come to pass - We don't want to get folks excited about a change only to never bring it into the light of day.

The game looks like crap. Sorry but in this day and age the current design just doesn't cut it. Utopia needs a graphics and ui designer. (ui examples: whomever thought splitting spells in self and offensive was a good move? Why is there no way to see the total offense you send in the war room (utotools adds it). etc etc.)

A graphical overhaul would be very delicate. I wouldn't be wrong in saying it could go very badly. Some love the game as it is. No flashy colours, no comical knights or puffing mages. Having said that some (dare I say 'tasteful'?) changes are, I think necessary.

As you say, resources for these changes are not flowing readily. We do hope to correct this though and this is another trail that our 'ideas wagon' must follow: the means to correct the current lack of resources available.

[papanoel]

There is one solution to expand you user base and increase revenues with ads - Create an iPhone/iPad/Android App.

Do it as soon as possible. I know its not cheap. But it shouldn't be terribly difficult either. Utopia is the perfect game for these mobile platforms. Look no futher than mafia wars and other such apps like farmville and WeRule. This is the direction you must go in!

I think this should be your priority. Make a good looking app for the iphone and then that will allow you to get more eyeballs. More ad revnue will allow you to improve the browser interface as well.

[Cager]

I think the iPhone/Android/Blackberry app is a great idea -- I mean I'd even pay money for that. That is something that would be really useful to me. So useful I finally went and made a forum login to reply to this.

[Palem]

As far as I am concerned, there are four things that would go a long way to revamping Utopia.

Two things Sean and Brian said were on the plans:
Different interfaces. When the initial change occurred for the beta, we were told that they would be working on being able to change the interface to match the classic Utopia one. This never happened. This would also allow you to incorporate graphics into the game without pissing off the ones who love the simplistic style of the game.

In-Game Chat. We were also told that this was going to be put into the game and it should be. It would go a long way towards furthering Utopia's social aspect without requiring outside messengers.

The other two things that I think need to be thought about:
In-game Pimp/Angel. Eliminating the need for outside tools to compete in the game is a must. Things like Pimp and Angel, while technically not required for playing, are essential for any kd that actually bothers talking to each other. The problem is, a lot of new players are put off when they find out they have to go and download these things. I'm not saying make the game simpler, I'm saying make it more user-friendly. Perhaps make it optional if you want your military adviser to help you calculate your attacks, or something such as that.

Facebook/Smart Phone integration. Not jumping on these opportunities would be insane and the turnout would be enormous, especially by (recent)Utopian standards. Enough has been said on this through various threads so I won't say much more.

I think these are the four things that need to be addressed immediately.

[testsubj]

just dont "collaborate" with catwalk and this game should be fine
:)

*snap* !

[testsubj]

tools thats a luxury should not be incorporated into the game

pimp = luxury item
pimp is just a organizational tool

chat = luxury item
you guys post in jolt and UT the same way for 10+ years.
people read and post some more.
if chat progs is so great, why not turn jolt + UT into 1 big chat ?
lets make strat talk, b/s forum, u-talk, etc... all go chat !

prior to pimp, we all used in-game forums just fine and learned to read all posts/threads before we perform ops/attacks
theres plenty of kds who've reached double digit WWs without pimp.
cooperation and organization is more dependent on people themselves, not a tool
before pen and paper, tribes used words to organize themselves
before pimp, in-game forums were used - - and when used correctly, you can achieve the same or near-same success
not saying you'll be top 25 or top 10, but i've done it up to 37th for NW and honor all with only in-game forum

adding more external progs, or web/phone integration, etc... will only further slow down the beta process and doesnt help the current situation.
its like adding hydraulic effects to your car when you havent even changed out your rotted muffler, broken head light
same prob with Obama, he keeps throwing more $$ into system thinking its gonna make it better

Angel is a different story. calc-ing out %s and formulas takes time and accuracy that most people dont bother with
when playing a game. thats what captures audiences =--> ease of play/feasibilty, ease of game knowledge, etc.
people want results immediately, attacking and op-ing is the core of this game, no one wants to take more than 5min to do it
but the current process for angel is well as can be and is just fine. no integration needed until the game itself is self-sufficient
i dont even feel any integration is necessary for angel.

ticking is another issue. mehul had 1 tick. that occured at 5am EST every day. and that lasted <2min.
if mehul can do it with his code. then it can be done with the current code. coding shouldnt affect system processing.

game layout / ease of navigation. need to reduce redundancy. mehuls layout was as efficienct and page-free as you can get
the less pagination in navigation, the quicker and less demanding on IT solutions.
framing can be sized to run ads, banners, java ads, act-x ads, etc...

(this can be done later) add in target and kd search parameter in-game

the better as this game gets going, the more people will pay to play. many people paid mehul to play. no reason omac cant get it done.

then, player retention comes

just my 0.02

[Yuri]

A few good ideas have been posted on how to make this game expand. That's all fine and dandy, but we are aware that this is a business and thus needs to make money.

Maybe introduce such a thing as hitting credits where you can earn one a day by clicking an ad or paying for them. Hitting credits would allow you to put a timer for your attack in advance when you're in a position when you literally can't make it. Let's say you work in a coffee shop at 6 am when there's a huge rush until 9 am. But your army comes home at 7 am and you need to send it out asap. There should be a system in place that allows you to send out your army in advance at a cost of 1 credit per hour (rounded up to prevent abuse). You can hold up to 10 hitting credits at a time (again to prevent abuse) and you can purchase them for some kind of a fee (nothing much, but I'll leave that to you guys). To prevent this from being a rampant pay to win system, there would be some kind of combat gains or attack time penalty associated with the number of credits used (again nothing much, but I'll leave that to someone better with numbers to figure out). This would not take the place of sitting credits but allow for you to not be away from your province for 3 days just because some time is bad.

Also, this is the kind of game that needs to be extremely phone friendly. This game can make a resurgence now that people have browser phones with wifi access all over the world. People like playing in good kingdoms, but often find that they don't have the time to be around a computer whenever they need to hit. Browser phones are a must for most of today's users. Maybe you could add some different interface options that are more phone friendly.

I would also like to see the game easier to start a province up. Maybe increased income in protection, drastically increased wizard production in protection, cheaper exploring in prot, more science to allocate when you start your province, etc. The issue with the current system is that if someone starts the age a few days after protection they are just food for everyone who started the age on time. No matter what they try as soon as they are OOP they are vultured. No new player wants to see that.

Also, we need more balance between races and personalities. Though like everyone else I feel this is one of the more balanced ages in a while, weaker races/personalities need to be strengthened. Don't nerf the strong races/personalities but buff the weak ones. The more options we have the more interesting our choice of what to pick becomes. Artisan has been useless since the BE bonus was taken away entirely. Put it back at 15% and arti will see some use again. Avian is useless now, I'd suggest giving them immune to enemy forts and immune to enemy GS to make them competetive with humans and orcs. I think sage should be removed from the game entirely. A science personality certainly can be balanced, but what it does is promote a stagnant playstyle. You can't maximize your personality bonus without sitting around and getting science. BORING. Just remove them and replace them with a combat loss oriented personality like cleric. Give cleric less combat losses, more bonuses from honor, and less massacre losses and then all of a sudden it can be attractive to a warring kingdom of hybrids.

Another thing I'd like to see are some of the unwritten rules incorporated into the game. Like when you send a ceasefire proposal there would be a drag down menu between a binding CF, 48 hours notice, and an amount of time the CF must be respected before notice is given. And then in game there would be a notify system of your intentions to break a CF just to avoid confusion. Also add a system where your kingdom can tag "hostile" only when they are actually hostile. This would again avoid confusion as to someone posting a fake tag so they won't get hit.

One more thing, I understand that SoT and company are here to stay instead of our old CBs. Since they are here I suggest ALL Espionage ops consume 1 stealth. Kingdoms like having full intel, but no one likes having to get infiltrates when they take 3 stealth and a SoT takes 1.

[Thunder TA]

1.The game does not need automation of any form more than it has now.That leads to even less log in and in no way helps the game
2.Phones would be good but could also lead to even more multies .hard to see how they could keep that from happening
3. players starting late can recieve help from their kingdom mates,ive had people leave protection that started 2 days late better prepared than people who started on time.
4. every race has weaknesses and strengths. weakness some see are not weakness to others who play different. Everyone says Orcs are bad to play but seldom in a kd strat are they weak.
5.CFs shouldnt be allowed to be done then broke within minutes to start hitting again .breaking of CFs should have no warning,Tagging hostile gets most kingdoms waved. Its not smart to do in the first place.
6. Thats why it takes a kd working together.

[3510733]

IMHO the biggest issue with holding on to new players is vague game mechanics. Huge lack of numbers/descriptions/effects.

I used to play Utopia ALOT but took a few years break. Now that I'm back, I don't even know what storms does, or how many buildings raze clears, or how many troops nightstrike kills, or what ops give honour, etc.

More numbers and descriptions wouldn't hurt and it's a super easy thing to add in.

[Igor444]

Apologies for not reading the above posts.

Something that has been brought up before, you have a unique community of followers among you in the sense that there are a lot of people who play the game who have a programming or otherwise technical background. I'm willing to bet there are people within the community who would be willing to help out with tasks (programming or design or otherwise). Likely they would have to be minor tasks and would be subject to code review before being integrated into utopia but if B&S did some design work on some ideas it would not be hard for someone to write the initial code for a feature.
Obviously there is room for abuse but afaik this is just an idea thread so I'll throw it out there.

An easy example: You could do a shout-out for any technical writers to write a guide... or for a few people who has managed a Wiki to go out and either manage the wiki properly or write articles.

[flutterby]

Do it as soon as possible. I know its not cheap. But it shouldn't be terribly difficult either. Utopia is the perfect game for these mobile platforms. Look no futher than mafia wars and other such apps like farmville and WeRule. This is the direction you must go in!

While using an app might make it easier to log in from school/work, without such dire consequences, I feel rather insulted when you say you want us to go into the direction of games like farmville and mafia wars.

[Magn]

I think you guys should take a look at what you have.

You don't have a huge player base, but you have a dedicated one.

A dedicated player base usually doesn't mind spending a few $$ to increase his playing experience.

Supporting evidence:

- We sat at least 6 players last age at various points (legally using the sitting feature which we paid for)

- I had to do our own implementation of Utopiapimp which implies hosting fees that I had to pay for so far (once I integrate a payment system in it, KD mates will help pay for the cost as well) and its not implemented in common php/perl so its not one of the cheapo 3$/month generic hosting services either. This is money currently getting funneled into a hosting service that could instead have been funneled directly into the game if a service like Utopiapimp was available in-game for a fee.

Imho, there is a lot of money to be made from convenience services (in-game chat, Intel sharing, etc) without even having to resort to player-base damaging "pay to win" services (ie, pay 5$ and increase income by 50% for a week).

Once you guys start making money from the existing player base (hey, we have programmers, system admins, shop owners, building engineers and doctors in our KD... these are people with at least a modicum amount of disposable income), maybe you can use some of those funds to work on improving the game in other ways and increase the player base.