Changes to give Utopia a New Direction
The goals of the developers (for the last ~2 years) are for cosmetic changes and premium features only. This is clear from the development blog:
-September 2010Originally Posted by Official Utopia Blog
-August 2011
Utopia has made little progress in the last couple of years and this is why:
1) Goals of changing the game's visual design attract little attention and should slowly develop over time. That should be happening in the background, while mechanics-changes are being fixed.
2) Adding more Premium features =/= maintaining or increasing player population. Sean's short/mid/long term goals do not facilitate one-another.
3) There is a large communication gap between the developers and the players. The success of an MMO game is determined by how many people play. This is why newer MMO companies regularly use extensive amounts of player feedback to guide their changes.
-September 2010
It's been over a year and I still haven't seen a single action warranting my feedback. What gives?
I am going to offer you my thoughts since you were too shy to ever ask.
Proposal: Changes to give Utopia a New Direction
Short Term - Find and fix small problems. The small problems are what really break the game experience. Since they are minor, they are getting put to the bottom of the to-do list. This is backwards, they should be finished first. One little annoyance is okay, but they add up really quickly. Most of these problems are discussed in the Suggestion forum:
Nature's Blessing
Problem: Too low of a percentage to remove Plague; potential to drain all mana/runes without curing AND still suffer the negative effects is overpowered.
Solution: Effect: Protects your land against Storms, Drought and Plague. Duration: max 6 hours
Solution2: Increase the chance you can cure the plague each chance. Cast 1 = 20% chance, Cast 2 = 25%, Cast 3 = 33%, Cast 4 = 50%, Cast 5 = 75% chance, Cast 6 = 100%.
Bouncing Undeads
Problem: Offense doesn't die on attacks; creates unique 'tactic' for undead bounce waves
Solution: Offense doesn't die on successful attacks made
Utopia Time
Problem: Utopia Day/Year is only displayed on the Throne Page
Solution: Add a column to the maroon bar to the left of 'Money' for the 'Date'
Buildings
Problem: Building cost per building increases as land size increases
Solution: Flat-rate or linear building costs
Land in War
Problem: A lot of undeveloped land in war; makes province less efficient (and fun) in war
Solution: Traditional March takes a high percentage of undeveloped land first & Raze targets developed land only.
Automatic War-Diplomacy
Problem: Potential for war to last several weeks; stubborn KDs can grief/troll; long wars with large disparity in KD size offer a non-fakewar possibility to still grow in war protection.
Solution: Formulate conditions for automatic war end that scales with KD Size/NW (1 mil NW vs 500k NW war at age start is okay, but 16 mil NW vs 8 mil NW isn't); parameters for auto-diplomacy should include KD Land, KD NW, # Provs, Max Offense Prov vs Min Defense Prov (aka unbreakables).
Remove Unfriendly
Problem: Unfriendly offers too little of a tactical window for relations and is more-or-less useless.
Solution: Remove Unfriendly; this adds more importance to 'Hostile'
Trade Balance
Problem: Positive Trade Balance decays too quickly and has no advantage
Solution: Remove taxing in war; positive trade balance should slightly improve the effects of 'Banks'
Tiny Kingdoms
Problem: Abundance of small/empty KDs when cycling through the list
Solution: Remove the empty KDs altogether; monarchy check box to auto-merge KDs with <10 provinces (should happen every utopian year)
In-Game Communication
Problem: Constantly reviewing in-game forum threads for new posts; no indication for new posts
Solution: Bold threads with unread posts
Problem: Adding a post to the forum during a tick doesn't work; annoying as heck to repost
Solution: Forums should be hosted independent of ticking; don't allow user to click 'Post' if the game is ticking
Problem: Unclean forums; desire to change monarch msg when monarch is unavailable
Solution: Monarch should be able to choose anyone as 'Page'; choose who can change monarchy msg
Problem: War Forums are annoyingly deleted
Solution: Other KD cannot delete your KD's posts
Problem: KD Chat is another useless feature
Solution: Add the date-stamp; add indication of new chat posts; add indication of current # of chatters
Problem: Mail needs to be more convenient
Solution: Button to 'Send Mail' to a province when viewing their province profile page
Vacation Mode
Problem: Currently allows for indefinite, full province protection; abusable feature that is manually monitored
Solution: Maximum of 2 week VM protection followed by a 24 hour cooldown; maximum of 30 days of VM time per age per province
KD Tagging
Problem: Constantly having to type in KD ##:## to War, Mystic, Thievery, & Mail pages
Solution: In War, all offensive operations default to the enemy KD ##:## rather than your own KD ##:##
Changing Monarchs
Problem: Too easy to change monarchy for the sake of gaining monarchy bonus
Solution: Can change monarchs once every 24 hours; 6 hour sliding monarchy bonus
Dragon Page
Problem: There are times it is beneficial to restrict province access to the Fund/Attack Dragon page
Solution: Monarchy checkbox to grant/restrict their KD to Fund/Attack Dragon; easy way to prevent unwanted dragon funding or attacking
Fortified Stance
Problem: Fortified stance is still viable for active hostilities
Solution: Remove specialist/building credits and undead elite conversion hitting in/out of fortified
There are definitely other small tweaks that could be made that are unlisted here. Above is definitely my opinion but regardless, the point is that the small changes happen first! And they definitely need to happen. Refining the gameplay is vital; fixing the small problems goes a long way towards the health of the game and a better user experience (fun-factor).
Once these wrinkles are ironed out, the medium-term goals need to be set. This is the most vital step towards shaping the future of Utopia. This is where we must address the ultimate goal and lay the building blocks to achieve it. From the development blog it would seem that increasing the player population would be most beneficial for generating revenue and maintaining an enjoyable gaming experience.
Medium Term - Focus on the individual's play experience. What would a new player face upon their first entry into Utopia? How can we make that experience fun and fulfilling and desirable to continue playing in future ages? These questions all must be answered if you want to even consider reaching 10k players.
Here is my answer: Goals. There should be clear and easy goals for a new player to accomplish. Then there needs to be slightly more challenging goals for the average player. And finally the difficult goals, to be accomplished by the most skilled players.
New Player - the new player must be presented with the game mechanics in a fun way, use small incentives and random events as a way to guide the experience. These could be in-game mail from an NPC representing your people to say "Our people want to explore the lands, grow to 500 acres by xx date and they rejoice! Reward: +5% BR & BE." When a random thief intel op shows up in your news, "The thieves from ##:## escaped with vital information about our province, you have 1 day to find where they are (perform: infiltrate thieves guild on the prov they came from). Reward: +5% TPA for 4 hours." Keep the 'quests' simple and the rewards simple. Nothing near 'overpowered,' the rewards should be greater than or equal to a self-spell. Like 50 free building credits or something.
Also, acknowledge simple accomplishments. While this may seem nub at first, gaining feedback from the game itself is vital for a better experience, especially at the lowest level. Reward a prov 1 days income for slaying a dragon idk.
The second most important aspect of a goals/quest system is to provide the 'ghettos' additional entertainment. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link; Utopia's ghettos could use some help. Perhaps there are also daily mail quests that you can complete to provide your province with small bonuses. Giving the ghetto/new player incentive to log in to Utopia more often will incite player activity in the lowest tiers.
Average Player - After a province reaches a certain point (1 EoA or ~1200 acres) the option to view all player statistics becomes available. This is so essential to keeping players self-motivated. The 'History' page is in the background right now. Bring that page forward and display more information such as 'Largest attack'. Place more importance on these statistics too so all players have a chance to compete at something (the avg player isn't going to be near #1 on the current charts).
The statistics should be presented in two columns: All-time and Current-Age. When the game is tracking/storing your statistics, you feel like part of the system. All-time statistics is the best way to facilitate the average gamer. It will always give the user something to improve and/or brag about.
I imagine that this new History page should be linked to your province profile more intuitively.
Advanced Player - The easiest thing to do here is increase the difficulty/complexity of the quests/accomplishments while phasing out the easy ones. Scale it with KD NW? Achieving these goals/accomplishments should somewhat require the participation of your kingdom. "Dragon's Head: Your kingdom has slain the invading dragon in 2 days; its head is posted outside the kingdom's throne for all to see. Effect all provinces +5% ME and BE for 4 hours."
"You have destroyed all that was of Province ##:## from the World of Legends! Reward: Your KD +10% OME for 24 hours"
Long Term - As per design sequence, this is where the most lengthy changes lie. Adding the 'mail-quest' system is simply additional content. Long Term is where the original code/mechanics need adjusting.
Honor System
I'm going to omit Honor Rewards because they are trivial. Keeping the current titles and ranges.
Everyone starts at zero Honor points. Order of more points gained/lost to less:
+Gain+
War Wins
KD at war*
Very Positive TB*
Someone bounces on you
Successful TM/Raze in war
T/M Ops in War
Attack Dragon/Dragon Kill
Successful TM/Raze in hostile
T/M Ops in Hostile
'Quests'
Attacking into Aggressive
-Lose-
You PK someone oow; KD-Wide
Attacks/Ops into KD within ## hours of breaking NAP; KD-Wide
Someone PKs you in War; KD-Wide
Attack into War
User-suspension/reported
Lose a war
Dragon ravaging lands*; KD-Wide
Attack Fail
Very negative TB*
Thieves caught
Spell backfires
Successful Plunder/Learn
Anonymous attacks
*=per tick
I have roughly worked out a system to score honor points. Currently the numbers I have are based upon winning (meaning you are guaranteed to finish the age as a Duke if your KD has 8 WWs). When implementing a new honor system, realize that is should probably be one of the most important statistics in this game.
I'm going to take some time to highlight a few purposes of a new honor system:
Gaining honor should be awarded for two reasons (1) You're a team player (2) you're a good player. Honor should be a litmus test of your activity and success in Utopia. There are many ways to lose honor but they shouldn't be too taxing for positive honor growth. Since Honor is a representation of your reputation, getting suspended for content/flaming etc. in-game should result in significant honor loss. This will reduce manual moderation!
The losses for hitting in/out of war & within ##hrs of breaking NAP should also be upwards to a whole honor ranking. This is designed to discourage foul play but not stop it entirely. Dishonorable diplomacy tactics should always remain in Utopia. But lately the main forums have been cluttered with flames/trolls/hostilities, which makes the community look terrible; therefore utilize this in-game solution.
New War Win charts should facilitate a new honor system.
Premium Feature:
Acting General: Allows one of your kingdom members to use one of their generals to lead your army into battle. -5% Gains, +5% Loses. Usable once every 48 hours.
I thought this would be a good way for revenue and player activity. Often times Utopia requires a time-commitment that many players cannot maintain. Being more active certainly puts you at an advantage in this game therefore there's no reason to bring a disadvantage to casual players. The required general and 48 hour cooldown ensure that this is not a pay-to-win feature.
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Conclusion
I've played this game for many years now and I have trudged through the muddy times. This is my final offering to Utopia. I'm not saying what I wrote is the only solution; they're just ideas on the table. IMO Sean and Brian need to seriously start focusing on why the game isn't thriving in a generation of popcorn-web-users (always popping up google, facebook, emails, espn.. etc). Right now, the gameplay just isn't there for the masses. Mobile devices aren't supported, new content doesn't exist. It's a very static gaming environment that definitely needs some more up-to-date mechanics.
Changing the image of the game was a huge step backwards, in my opinion. It shows that actual development isn't happening. S&B always sought to preserve the unique-ness of Utopia but this "face-lift" was totally botched. Now, the game that I was barely having fun playing is unbearable to look at. Good luck, Sean & Brian, may the force be with you.
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