Utopia's current failings...

[Steel]

...and how they can be addressed.

I haven't played for more then 2-3 days at a time since age 45, and I left early that age. Since I've returned to IRC, Utopia and these forums I have noticed a lot of things have changed.

There are fewer players over all.
There are fewer players on IRC.
There are fewer top kingdoms.
There is a painful lack of community interaction.

Previously sites like Alliance Rankings, Temple and uTimes served as a means for multiple kingdoms and players to interact and discuss current ingame events and politics. Top kingdoms strove to be the very best they could be and the lower tier kingdoms (KLA/TF/Lotus and some independants) strove to be as good as those above them. The game lost even more players from age 40 to 45, and the distinction between the top and amateur kingdoms blurred a lot, but there was still a fine line in place and the community was still, for the most part, healthy.

Alliance Rankings was dead, but uTimes was, at least in age 43/44 still alive. These forums were filled with activity, primarily from the most vocal community members like myself and Catwalk.

Age 50. There are approximately 7,000 players left. Utonet has literally half as many users as it did 2 years ago. uTimes has gone inactive and even these forums no longer hold the same level of debate and energy that they did.

People need to become vocal again. The community has to find its interest and get back to squabbling at uTimes (which will be making a come back) and top kingdoms need to stop being to apathetic. You don't like that Simians is in the top? Kick them out of the top 50. Don't like that the top 10 is now what the top 20 was then? Stop outgrowing the ghettos in the top 20-30 and destroy them instead. They'll never learn if all they are exposed to is kingdoms that play at their own level of mediocrity. In the past there was a lot of transfer because skill was spread over a larger area. Over the course of the age good kingdoms would grow into the top 50, beating crappy ones as they went. Now the good ones just naturally end up in the top 10 or 15, and the crappy ones end up infighting for the entire age, learning nothing but how to out ghetto each other.

If you want the game to survive - socialize more and beat ghettos severely, even if it means being bored for a few weeks.

[Korp]

There are fewer players over all.

Its only natural that the playerbase shrinking, people do lose interest, move on with their lives etc. Thou Utopia is slowly regaining players again so its slightly positive but to think that there will be same amount of players as before is a bit naive. Utopia have had its time of glory just accept the fact and enjoy it as long as it last. '

There are fewer top kingdoms.

Nah, there is just new top kingdoms, given that we judge them by frequently being in the top.

There is a painful lack of community interaction.

Cause there is no problems to whine about, there is no evil overlords a la OMAC to complain about etc. The only time community gets "active" is when there is something to complain about and eoa when new changes are proposed.

There is no interest anymore, the old people that i know of at least dont play the game cause its fun they play it for the social interaction they have with friends. Having to step down a notch and beat ghettos would just accelerate the speed of "Good" kds disbanding cause its so bloody boring.

and the crappy ones end up infighting for the entire age, learning nothing but how to out ghetto each other.

It was like that before as well, it was just as painfully obvious.

beat ghettos severely, even if it means being bored for a few weeks.

That is rather contra productive, it will only destroy the ghetto, we had few such wars this age where the opponents in the end just deleted/defected and voila a kingdom less.

Utopia is dying just accept the fact, it will never regain its former state of glory, enjoy the ride.

[Palem]

I think the forum news has made some progress in recharging community interaction...

[Korp]

Pfft, you only say that cause it was your idea!! :P

[gojete]

The only fail is that its pretty slow sometimes, is this only happening to me?

2 ages ago i scanned the world several times from 1:1 to 1:1 and again and again , all in my quest for plunder, and most kds as i remember didnt have wars.
Last age was the same, i even complained in the forums that most kds dont war at all and that it was crap, because everyone was afraid to lose their precious acres, even if it was only 1,100 acres to lose.

This age, as i keep scanning the world, i find that tons of kingdoms all of the sudden have 7 wars, 6 wars, 5 wars.
Damnit, whats up with all the warrying, why are people so vicious? What the hell happened to all of you warmongers.
Are there stats about this, can one know how many wars have been fought per age?

Knowing how many wars per age is a more clear indicator of utopias activity that having ppl talking crap in the forums.

Most ppl that play the game, that is around 90% to maybe 95% of players in utopia do not give a damn about posting, they want to log in , and check their province, talk with their kd mates and log out.
And now with the news in the throne page, everyone can check out how wars are fought and learn how to war properly, crap even a war winner like me , ghetto warrior of doom undefeated aprox 16 or 17 wars in a row, never lost a war ever , not withdrawn either , learns so many more things. How the hell did i win 17 wars in a row , when i didnt even hear or knew what an unbreakable is , never checked the forums for war strats.
It might be that i have played a lot of real strategy games, and turn based games, and just like any other game in the world, age of empires, warcraft, command and conquer, even in shoot em up games like battlefield series , its all the same, CHAIN THE ENEMY, win by confusing the enemy, high morale in your kingdom leads to victory, in some games there is such thing as morale.
Higher morale gives more hitpoints, or attack points.

How important morale is , has been reflected in strategy games from axies and allies all the way to the newest RTS.


The fact is that to have incredible fun in utopia you dont have to spam the forums, nor be the best player around, i understand the nostalgy over the big alliances and the 100,000 players, but true to be told, if the top 100 of 6 years ago, was still only dominated by some 10 to 20 kds, and now its only dominated by 4 or 5 kds, what does that tell you?

Even with 100,000 players, most ppl didnt gave a damn about getting in the top 100 charts, and nor do they do now either.

Mr. Steel i can understand your feeling of nostalgy.

I felt the same way when napster went down due to the music industry lawyers, i felt bad when icq lost its users, i felt bad when game after game that i played disappeared . Did anyone ever play age of empires 1?

Games disappear just like that, i wouldnt say that utopia has lost players, thats a very negative way of viewing things, id say instead that it stabilized.
ITs pretty much the same game when i played it the first time in 2004. It looks the same, yes there has been some changes, i fail to understand why so many ppl think the tick is a major issue , this is not a real strategy game but more like a turn based game so a tick every hour really is meaningless.

I would instead say that for a game that has been around so long to keep existing and not only that, that its gaining players, , i rather say that it stabilized .

7,000 is an enormous ammount of players . I never find any trouble finding targets to hit, and since everyone became bloodthirsty all of the sudden it hasnt been a problem to find wars this age.

Striving to be the best at this game, today just as it was many years ago, is still only something an incredible minority of ppl who play the game do.

Lets say that at 100,000 players, still only 5 to 10 kds were good enough to win crowns?
how many players is that , 250? players? in 100,000 players? LOL, whats the percentage
now with 7,000 players, still only 3 or 4 kds strive to win the land and nw crowns? what percentage is that?

Theres nothing wrong with playing in a ghetto, its a lot of fun. To win a crown you need way too much work and spend way too much time , what is this about mirc , i understand the addiction to things, like utopia, some ppl have the time to be on mirc and spend time with ppl they like, its pretty much like facebook.
Apparently most ppl, again 95% ppl in utopia, now just like before, dont care about mirc, nor forums, nor nothing, they are here just to play the game.

Im not trying nor making any point here, just giving some random thoughts.

The only fact i can give you is that today just like ages ago, most ppl in the game have never ever cared about being a top kd, a super kd nor anything else other than just playing the game and having a fun age.

IMO the game is doing great , and from what ive seen with so many wars being fought , im talking kds of 1 million gc with 5 wars WHAT THE HELL, so from what ive seen a lot of ppl are having great fun with the game . Utopia seems going up .

The only thing that could help gather more players is advertising . And who is better to advertise the game other than players themselves. I myself have not been able to succed into bringing 1 single person i know into the game. They wont even try it. Fact is most ppl dont like trying new things. As any sales person will tell you, the best advertising is a happy costumer spreading the word to his friends, and in the restaurant business its very well known that its way way cheaper to keep a costumer and making a 1st try costumer happy, than try to make a whole new person come to the restaurant.

Everyone is caught in their boring lifes and routines. And the younger ppl are playing world of warcraft or spanking their monkey to porn.

Where can one get new players from i dont know?

Theres millions and millions of new internet users nowdays ,than there were many years ago.
But true to be told, again , most new internet users come from non english speaking countries.

If you ask me, if you want more players, youre going to have to translate utopia to spanish, chinese, whatever they speak in india, and other asian countries. What do they speak in malasya malasyan? Excuse my ignorance. I mean no disrespect to any countries. What about arab and persian languages?

There i nailed it,a revelation was brought to me, and i give you the advice for free.
if you want more players, give the option to ppl to play the game in their own language. You know in south america most ppl dont speak english. But the slow internet connections make it so that ppl cant play more advanced games, a spanish version of utopia must begin for starters.

No separate servers , same server, just the option to play it in spanish too.

If you pay me per word i can start today.
This is not a joke send me a message.

We live in a globalized world, most movies if you remember correctly blend a lot of races and languages, who remembers blade runner!? great movie, big part of its success was the blend of cultures and languages. In my kd we are ppl from asia , europe and usa and mexico,, let us make utopia in spanish ASAP and bring the mexicans aboard .

And the less ppl discuss politics the better, dont be trying to gain mexican players by making threads about illegal imigration and such crap, racist and such comments , will make ppl post more in the forums than play the game, you can see it right here, theres ppl who still post in the forums and they dont even play the game anymore, whats up with that?

You dont need to be in a top kd to have fun, forget about the past alltogether burn history, its all a lie anyway.

Oh dont forget about portuguese , tons of ppl in brazil have slow ass internet too. Bring them all together!

UTOPIA FOREVER LONG LIVE THE GHETTO

[fuzzy|]

I like the idea of having translations for certain languages.

[Mad_Scottish]

Well it has :p

I agree with what korp said in his other post above as well.

[Korp]

The only fail is that its pretty slow sometimes, is this only happening to me?

Yes.

Knowing how many wars per age is a more clear indicator of utopias activity that having ppl talking crap in the forums.

Ive had 5 wars this age and we are a inactive nub ghetto, so how many wars isnt really an indiciation.

Even with 100,000 players, most ppl didnt gave a damn about getting in the top 100 charts, and nor do they do now either.

Ofc they did, everyone wanted to be in the top 50.

Striving to be the best at this game, today just as it was many years ago, is still only something an incredible minority of ppl who play the game do.

Not really, its just a minority had the skills to manage to do it.

This is how far my attention span lasted, todelo.

[gojete]

oh and about beating ghettos severely , a kd that usually ends up top 50 beat us up pretty bad last age and it made half kd go away, defected and some ppl say they was quitting the game for good.

Who know if they left, but after that beating, we have strived to be the best we can with the means we have, it surely put a stop to our mediocrity, but im not sure if every ghetto in the world is as we are, but it would be worth a try.

We learned a lot from getting beaten up like that

[fuzzy|]

Korp stop following me around!

[Korp]

Its you who follow me around Fuzzy, i was the first one to read the ZZ thread and i was the first one to post in here after Steel!

[Hallo]

I agree, we should focus more on destroying those annoying ghettos. Anyone who isn't pro needs to be evicted from the game.

Then we can have a player base of 1000 pro players and have some REALLY fun wars :D

[Palem]

There's nothing stopping "pros" from having those real fun wars now...

[Korp]

There's nothing stopping "pros" from having those real fun wars now...

Ofc there is, its not profitable enough, if you dont happend to find a real farmtarget.

[Palem]

eh, true