Cowards of Utopia

[Loons]

Hey Godly can I get in? And to prove I'm not a wimp I'll just raze you again.

LOL dowla! <3

[MyNameIsMatija]

A matter that's been done to death over and over again doesn't need to be repeated. You know and I know what I'm referring to and so do most other people.

That you played in FS isn't a good sources at all cause then its not from a neutral part. So should be ignored :) its funny though how you claim I have bias while you disregard your own totally. But I don't have any special bias towards FS they have never done anything towards me. What i base my opinions on is what you and your former kingdom mates and "allies" have posted.

I guess when you tell a lie enough times you start believing it yourself.


Let me show you how you would respond if someone would write the way you do:

First of all you say I'm overly protective of FS when it's you that mentions FS in threads throughout this forum when the topic is not FS at all, so who is overly what?
Then you apply cynicism when I tell you I am not your son implying it's obvious to anyone smart enough when it's you who referred to me as your son in your post so what can you infer from your own logic about your own smarts?
Then I can understand typos and spelling mistakes, everyone makes them, but the way you write is an insult to the english language and communication in general, at least make it seem like you try please.
etc. I could go on and on, but what's the point, nothing ever changes with you, not even your who knows how many years old grudge.

[Korp]

I guess when you tell a lie enough times you start believing it yourself.


Let me show you how you would respond if someone would write the way you do:

First of all you say I'm overly protective of FS when it's you that mention FS in threads throughout this forum when the topic is not FS at all, so who is overly what?
Then you apply cynicism when I tell you I am not your son implying it's obvious to anyone smart enough when it's you who referred to me as your son in your post so what can you infer from your own logic about your own smarts?
Then I can understand typos and spelling mistakes, everyone makes them, but the way you write is an insult to the english language and communication in general, at least make it seem like you try please.
etc. I could go on and on, but what's the point, nothing ever changes with you, not even your who knows how many years old grudge.

A subject you are very familiar with I guess. :)

[FS Best KD in the World]

I don't even play in FS anymore, but keep telling yourself that.

I am not your son btw.

Just lmao, what's the matter son? Can't take the heat? What happened to:

Thank you all for putting things into perspective for me.
I finally realize how lucky I am to be playing in FS and not in some other KD.
The day I leave or get kicked out of FS is the day I quit Utopia.

[StratOcastle]

Just lmao, what's the matter son? Can't take the heat? What happened to:

Sometimes when you see kingdoms with less than the usual roster it means they've sent out snipers. The next chess move is flypaper.

[tetley]

Yeah weird thread

[StratOcastle]

Yeah weird thread

Never read the whole thing. I confess I sympathize with the op, but as soon as I saw your kingdom name getting wore out.....water is wet.

You guys did some challenging stuff last age which I was happy to take part in. I'm with another "age off" kingdom with all the bells and whistles. How can I explain; you don't drive your Ferrari to Walmart unless you illegally take a handicap spot.

That just sounded good. I don't know what it means.

[Palem]

That just sounded good. I don't know what it means.

A perfect description for your entire post history ;)

[citadela01]

Just ignore him Matija, he is not worth your time.

[smercjd]

I'd go as far to call you a liar good sir. Why? Well...

How many top players have you actually reached out to? Most top monarchs and many players in the top are very approachable. If you take a look in the strategy forum, you have plenty of players (even monarchs like Zauper - currently monarch in the #1 kd) in the top kingdoms answering questions and helping out. If you reach out on IRC I think you will be hard pressed finding top kingdoms who refuse to help you out. In fact, I know several current and recent top kd's to have taken other, less skilled kingdoms, under their wing to help out - even to the extent that they'd have permanent presence in their private chat rooms.

There's plenty of logical reasons for that. Cynically you could claim that the better players get, the more acres they will have that can be taken. But you also have to appreciate that top kingdom players spend more time than anyone of this game, and consequently wants it to thrive. Best way of doing that is to encourage competition.

The biggest problem in utopia is NOT that the top doesn't share, it's the exact opposite. Bad players and bad kingdoms think they know how to play and doesn't bother consulting those who know better and instead blame bullying to cover up the fact that they are sub-optimal players.

Sorry for being harsh.

lol if top cared, they wouldn't be so harsh. There are copious examples of harsh responses to nearly every (if NOT every) single thread related to this issue.

Top doesn't "care." Sure, they may claim to care. Sure, they may impose their holier than thou views oh how Utopia "should" be played. But not everyone plays Utopia for the same reason.
Palem - not caring about the charts and caring about top taking your land with little you can do about it are two totally different things and you know this. Anyone pretending they don't know this is intentionally ignoring the truth. I don't know the situation this guy is in because it sounds like it wasn't a top kd that attacked them, but the point he's making is valid. When a top kd comes in and takes land and makes those ridiculous deals of CF for land or blah blah blah, that is seriously depressing to players who want NOTHING to do with those kingdoms. Those kingdoms aren't competing for topping charts. They are competing for their own smaller wars against other kds of 22 or less provinces. Against others nearer to their level.

How often do you see in the first week a 25prov kd waving another 25prov kd they don't know who they are already? Never unless it's a FREE V Spartans situation - and neither of those are technically "top KDs" Why does this never happen? Because there are always CFs.

Now - I'm not saying that those top kds are "wrong" for playing how they play. Utopia is a free game and it's open to be played however they want to play it. But there is validity in the OP's point that it does hurt retention.

EDIT: IMO, if top is so wonderful/smart/great/logically sound - how come they haven't figured out how to make the game bring in more players and are apparently 100% ok with the game dying?

[Korp]

Man stop being so bitter Smercjd, the top community has probably given more back to this community than you can imagine. From teaching players to creating tools etc, you act out of ignorance cause you dont know better and think that what you see is what there is to it. Ie all the drama that floats around in these forums.

Tadpole wrote up a good post and you went all emotional and ranted instead.

[Palem]

There are lots and lots and lots of productive things you can do about a bigger kingdom hitting you and none of them are coming onto the forums and complaining about it.

He doesn't care about losing the land. He cares that he's getting hit and he feels like there's nothing he can do about it, but he's wrong.

[Plattermann]

Summary of responses to this thread:

The established kingdoms really got people over a barrel, with rampant collusion and double-standards in diplomacy. It has been this way for a long time but it is more pronounced now, due to the smaller base of players and the game's mechanics making it harder to play in relative peace.

Most of this comes from the war kingdoms rather than the strong growth kingdoms actually. Growth kingdoms can't spend forever ****ting on a single kingdom and expect to win, but a war kingdom gets their jollies from griefing anyone with the temerity to actually try to play the game. It's not fun to put up with that bull****. I'd wager it's those people more than the BBs and AMAs that make the game unplayable.

Using hostile as a diplomatic shield is a bunch of bull****. Unfortunately if the game community properly knifed people in the back who need to be knifed, the server would erupt into an orgy of violence. Such is the nature of endemic corruption.

I disagree with this. I think most of the top (stable) kingdoms don't really bully that much. If a top KD decides to wave a smaller kd, the kd is normally within range and it is a strategic bait to try and get an easy war win.

Propose CF and get out. Don't op like crazy and then request a CF. (your actions are opposite your proposal)

Also, a lot of the larger KD's specifically tell members to avoid relationships. War KD's are constantly looking for new wars against similar sized kingdoms so they can increase their war win value. They do not want to risk hostile with 3 different kingdoms at the same time while doing this so a lot of the time provinces hit out on random kingdoms to prevent causing relations.

[tetley]

Torrent of complaints

Real talk though, Legendary Aries Warrior was on size with us when we waved.

Did anyone even post the news?
Here's a brief consolidation:
- We wave, they ambush 8 times over 7 ticks
- They send CF offer, then ambush 4 times directly after sending it (Lmao)
- We reject CF, more hits and ambushes
- Cheesy pickup lines hits us 5 times (lol)
- LAW sends CF, couple more ambushes for good measure
- We accept CF

If you understand the game, you'll realize it's nearly impossible for an 18k kingdom to take 10k acres from another 18k kingdom... lol. I'm fairly certain Pendel said that to infuriate you guys and get you to push the button.

Probably if you hadn't 4x ambushed and opped right after sending a CF request I would have accepted it. I'm not a fan of continuing to push it in when the enemy kd has cried uncle (pun intended). Perhaps get your KD under control.

I don't understand the thread title by the way, unless it applies to your own kd. Even "bullies of utopia" wouldn't apply, because we were even when we waved. If you want to cry that you're being bullied, you should save it for when it's actually happening.

[Zauper]

lol if top cared, they wouldn't be so harsh. There are copious examples of harsh responses to nearly every (if NOT every) single thread related to this issue.

Top doesn't "care." Sure, they may claim to care. Sure, they may impose their holier than thou views oh how Utopia "should" be played. But not everyone plays Utopia for the same reason.
Palem - not caring about the charts and caring about top taking your land with little you can do about it are two totally different things and you know this. Anyone pretending they don't know this is intentionally ignoring the truth. I don't know the situation this guy is in because it sounds like it wasn't a top kd that attacked them, but the point he's making is valid. When a top kd comes in and takes land and makes those ridiculous deals of CF for land or blah blah blah, that is seriously depressing to players who want NOTHING to do with those kingdoms. Those kingdoms aren't competing for topping charts. They are competing for their own smaller wars against other kds of 22 or less provinces. Against others nearer to their level.

If you're small enough that you're not competing and are only looking at warring other kingdoms of 22 or fewer provinces, then you're not worth waving for land.

If you, or your kingdom, does dumb stuff -- whether that's exploring a province into the top 5 without retal power, or dumping 10k pool oop without offense -- you should expect to get waved or hit.

At the end of the day, the top is reasonable because the top cares.

Your reaction, your claims -- they're 100% irrational. And that's the difference between the ghetto players who complain about the top and the top. Irrationality. Avoiding the top is easy enough if you want to. When we first came back, over two ages, we were not full. And yet, somehow we managed to have no issues with top kingdoms. The flipside to that is when people act irrational, and against their own best interests, it creates problems for everyone. And the top wins those conflicts.

Act rationally instead.

How often do you see in the first week a 25prov kd waving another 25prov kd they don't know who they are already? Never unless it's a FREE V Spartans situation - and neither of those are technically "top KDs" Why does this never happen? Because there are always CFs.

We either waved or traded hits (bidirectional) with 8 of the 18 other full kingdoms (as of first tick of the age) in the first week of the age. Of those, I currently know who 0 are, and only really have suspicions about 1.

At this point, we have waved or traded hits with the bulk of the t20 as well.

Now - I'm not saying that those top kds are "wrong" for playing how they play. Utopia is a free game and it's open to be played however they want to play it. But there is validity in the OP's point that it does hurt retention.

If your focus is on retention, you should focus on war kingdoms, not top kingdoms. War kingdoms are the ones that drive other players and kingdoms out of the game in large parts.

How many players quit because they join the game and get forced into a war they don't want, or declared on and farmed because the other kingdom was ghetto baiting?

vs how many quit because boo hoo a bigger kingdom hit them once and then CFed?

EDIT: IMO, if top is so wonderful/smart/great/logically sound - how come they haven't figured out how to make the game bring in more players and are apparently 100% ok with the game dying?

We don't own the IP, there's a limit to what we can do.

Did you know that 20% of the server uses the munkbot system, created by Munk for CR? Over 30 kingdoms. Many of whom don't even use IRC, and struggle to have bot users. We're not talking about seriously established kingdoms -- though obviously a number of them use it as well.

More than that uses the TF he developed for the game as well. But yeah, we don't give back to the community.

The top recognizes, broadly, that the most effective way to crown would be to force a much weaker kingdom with a fair amount of land to war you over and over -- or even one after another, and avoid conflict with any real competition. But no one has actually done this.

Because the top generally behaves in a rational manner, it's easy to predict how they will respond to certain situations. It also means that the top -- really, unlike to bottom or the war tier -- favors additional competition.