Utopia in the future

[TheRock]

The Utopia that you love and cherish is a wholly unsustainable business that has steadily bled players over the past five years. You can't even call it a cash cow, since there's no reasonable revenue stream that you could point to as the reason for its continued existence. It's a dog, and without significant and meaningful changes to improve the key metrics that drive any web-based service (average daily and monthly users being the primary one), it will be put down.

Don't assume that being dulled down would make it boring for the dedicated ones. If you surveyed the players in the top 50 kingdoms on what attracted to their game, I'm honestly not sure what would be listed as their top reasons, but I'd guarantee that "Needing to be on call 24/7", "Waking up at 3AM" and "Spending days at a time glued to my computer" would not be on there. Consider how many players in top kingdoms, even kingdoms you're close with, have left the game and what their reasons for it were. Some said it wasn't fun anymore, sure, but most don't have time for it and can't put in the effort to play at the level top kingdoms need - it's not sustainable.

Fundamentally, there needs to be a shift in the way the game is played, and that needs to be a top-down shift, since the chances of every kingdom agreeing to only wave at certain times and limit the number and time of logins is ridiculous (although that would make a great new stipulation for CF deals - "If you notice us, either side can only hit between the 20th-22nd and 8th-10th"). Sure, the hardcore players would be upset, but they get upset about literally everything, so that's hardly an impediment.

Korp, if you're telling me that the biggest problem you've seen with what I've written is that the minority of the already-small player base won't like playing an easier game that more people will play, I think I'm ok with that ;)

[Korp]

I said its a solid suggestion, its a good suggestion to make it popular in todays world. I dont disagree with that I just dont I and alot of other people would enjoy it the same way we do it now.

[TheRock]

I disagree, but it's certainly a possibility. That said, people like you and me are worth just as much as anyone else in the world when viewing metrics - there's no Korp Bonus in the list where we're worth 100 players. Given the opportunity, I'd encourage Sean and Brian to completely **** with the game and change it into something more people will like.

I think you'd be surprised at how much the people we've played with in recent ages would like the game if it was made more casual. Look at Utopia over the ages - as Time Required To Play Competitively has increased (peaking a few years back with near-24/7 access needed), player volume has decreased. That relationship doesn't mean that people who DO play at that level would mind or wouldn't welcome the change though.

[Bishop]

Maybe we could have like some sort of casual server and a pro server. We could call them World of Leg-Ends and Bafflefields, or something.

[DHaran]

lol

[Bishop]

sorry, i didnt think this out - it is new territory!

[Palem]

The Utopia that you love and cherish is a wholly unsustainable business that has steadily bled players over the past five years.

...no it hasn't. We've had a pretty stable, if not small, player base for quite a few ages now...

[peteyb22]

They should make some other server with shorter ages, where at age change you can't stay with your current kingdom and it should be called.... Exodus.

[skraz]

They should make some other server with shorter ages, where at age change you can't stay with your current kingdom and it should be called.... Exodus.

wow what an idea, maybe we could call it genesis

[UnBan Hurlin]

What rock said but also write an iPhone and android app for the game, (there is already a utopia style game for iphones and its massive primative and **** but has a huge player base) so it can be done.

[TheRock]

...no it hasn't. We've had a pretty stable, if not small, player base for quite a few ages now...

Do I need to bold "the past five years" or will the quotations suffice? :) A short term plateau at ~7,000 players over the past year or so doesn't change the 5/10-fold drop in players over the past five years.

Not to attack the developers, who I think have done a reasonable job, but here's how I'd rate Utopia's performance over the past 5 years as business - http://www.amitchatwani.com/pictures/bcg_matrix.jpg

[Palem]

With my short attention span you should bold anything you think I should read ;p

[Scott250]

Rock, what can I say.
you
give
me
wood...lol
basically your right on the money.

a 5 year plateu, isn't a success. thats a struggling business thats lucky to be still going. There is risk in business, but I don't do business on luck.

for marketing stragety for the game there could be in the sign up a questionare on how they found out about the game and there could be check boxes for a person, or province they can click and fill in, or check mark for serch engine, link or specific marketing firm. That way word of mouth is pushed and more volunteerd promotion of the game is done. The people who getts a referal, getts a certain amount of credit. Marketing firms get paid per person recruited.

utopia already lost it's chance to be on a facebook program. I significant change would need to be done to be considered again. But, looking at other gameing coops would be something to look at. Gotta tie into a program like that or create a gaming coop.

and there needs to be a marketing board. Marketing a business can take a long time, but there needs to be a consistant amount of time set to marketing. And you market a program through ads, site submitters, craigslist, PPC (some give out free credits to get ya started),blogs and interlink links to increase site ranking.

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now for gettting away from the business talks and more on the world of utopia, what I see in the future, is more interests in alliances, exspecially if marketing and numbers go up. Usage of irc will go back up with different focus groups and there is going to be a change of power

[KaosAngel]

The android, iphone/ipad, and blackberry aps would probably function better than a facebook application. There are limitations on how the game would be able to function on Facebook which I think would just bring the game down. The reputation wouldn't be enhanced. It would just be more widely available. The same type of strategy, cooperation, and planning that makes the game fun now, couldn't be used in the same way. However, accessing a server via a mobile option doesn't necessarily have to be. While the entire server could obviously not be sent to the device, a program such as angel could be and then have angel link to the server. People enjoy strategy games. Once they're introduced they'll probably keep playing (look how many of us just couldn't stay away and came back). Frees aps for mobiles are downloaded regardless of advertising. As long as they don't freeze the device, I don't know why that wouldn't be the best route to go. I realize angel and the game have different developers/owners but it would work to both their advantage in the long run. The only thing is can I log in a vote for different servers? I realize some people do not want to play at the same level as others. So I'd like to request an introductory easier server along with the server at the level it is now (or more complicated). You know "Leg-Ends and Bafflefields"

[Sadliar]

Aren't you just waiting for someone to make that app though, or do you think it has to be supported by the game administrators? I doubt you can find people with the motivation and resources to develop one who also believe in the future of Utopia as a smartphone game, but maybe that's just me being a pessimist...