In case OMAC forgot...

[Luc]

My mistake. I ment to add that in but I forgot about it. But even the Trading change was a questionable change.

I disagree. I don't think it was questionable, but instead inevitable. It will be an important building block if they mean to make the game grow again.

That's exactly my point. Why would anyone who really likes UK like Utopia? It's two completely different games.
That or, why would anyone who hated UK want to try out the game 'lesser' Utopia. I mean after all, UK is the game that "Utopia Players have been waiting for since last century!"

That is indeed a problem OMAC will have to solve. How to market one without ruining the other. How they will handle it is yet to be seen

I have two problems with this. OMAC told us that Utopia would have it's own development team and would get all of this personal attention. Then all the sudden Utopia gets pawned off to Sean and Brian and everyone just seems ok with it? Well I'm not. OMAC broke their promise plain and simple.
Secondly, There is one giant difference between Mehul and Sean and Brian. While I do like Sean and Brian and think that they are really doing their best for Utopia, they'll never understand Utopia like Mehul did and that was the key behind the changes. I thought, hopefully with a full development team that OMAC might be able to do a decent job, but not with 2 people.

2 people is a team, and putting more people on working with the coding does not mean it would be any better. They would get in each others way, have a harder time coordinating and making decisions. Also, keep in mind that the game ran fine with just a single programmer before. The "team" should also include support personel. While they probably don't work full time with UC, they're on occasions important parts of the team.

OMAC did not break any promises. The word "team" is ambiguous. Also, more coders != bigger understanding for the game. They just need time to learn, and it's not looking like you want to give it to them.

Thanks for not reading what I said. I said I was perfectly fine with accepting this excuse. I understand that Mehul's code is unbelievably difficult to work with for anyone that isn't Mehul.

You don't seem to be fine with it. If you were, you wouldn't be whining about it.

I also don't that they wanted to create a new game. What I don't like is that they are trying to leech off Utopia.
It's not the fact that they aren't putting less resources into it than Mehul. It's the fact that we were promised that they would do so much more with Utopia than Mehul could. Guess what, they lied.

Using an existing brand to leverage a new one is a perfectly valid business strategy. And they are doing more than Mehul could. They're updating the whole code. Mehul would never be able to. And once again, it takes time.

That's true. This is all speculation but my assumptions are NOT unfounded. UK is just like every other game that tries to impersonate another game. Most of those games aren't too successful and that's what I'm predicting for UK.

I am predicting that too, but I don't believe the effect it will have on UC is that big. We'll just have to wait and see

You just criticized me for assuming that UK would be a bust and then assume that Utopia isn't going to change.

Yeah, and it's not an unfounded assumption, based on how the user base hasn't been diving any faster than it was before OMAC took over.

I'm not mad at Mehul because Swirve was his side-project. OMAC went out of their way and BOUGHT Swirve. That means it's now their priority to make their investment worthwhile to them. Earth doesn't require anything so that just leaves Utopia.
Don't give me wrong, I give credit where credit is due and I think OMAC HAS gotten better lately. I really like bringing back undead if only because it's something to get excited about which is something Utopia has been lacking for awhile.

Mehul abandoned us. It's the simple truth. People don't dare saying bad things about him just because he started the game. He didn't do what was necessary to keep the game alive. It would likely be dead today if it was all left to him.

Regardless, you hit the nail on the head when you talk about the investment. It should be worth it to THEM. The players are important, but they're not here to please us, they're here to make money. If we don't have anything good to say, and use all our time to whine in the forum, they have no reason to listen to us. It's better for them if useless people leave the game.

Couldn't agree more but I have voiced my opinion quite frequently that I think UK will be the death of Utopia, have provided plenty of support for my argument and all of that has still been overlooked by OMAC.
I even agree that nothing progressive can happen until the code is done. But if the Utopia still had all of it's developers (meaning the ones from UK still worked on Utopia) the code would have probably been done by now. But since Utopia has just two guys to rely on, it's taken a lot longer than it should.

Obviously they think they know better than you do. And they're the ones with the money, so obviously there is a reason why.

Once again, more coders != faster process. And the whole "team" you're talking about is mostly made up by people from the company behind Khanwars. Why would they care anything about utopia? They just get paid to deliver another game. And they likely don't know anything about how utopia works either. Sean & Brian probably has a pretty good idea now though. Can't go through all that code without learning something

Yes, I could make my arguments with a little less emotion and more tact, but I made the original post in a fit of rage after seeing some screen shots for UK. I don't think my being upset is unreasonable and I wanted OMAC to know that at least SOMEONE was not happy with their decisions thus far.

Trust me, they got a lot of feedback from us beta testers. And most of it wasn't very positive (but still very constructive, unlike much on this part of the forum)

[Palem]

Luc-
Trading causes just as problems as it solves. But again, it was a big change so I will give OMAC the credit of doing something to shake up the game a little.

2 people is a team, and putting more people on working with the coding does not mean it would be any better.

So by that logic Mehul was doing a better job then Sean&Brian?
Also, 2 people is hardly a team.

If you had bothered to actually read what I was saying instead of just looking for things to criticize, you would understand that I'm complaining about the half-assed job they've done with UK and the attention that they've taken away from Utopia. The point of bringing up the code is that OMAC has provided nothing but a long list of excuses thus far.

The players are important, but they're not here to please us, they're here to make money.

Without us they don't make money. Plain and simple.

[Luc]

Luc-
Trading causes just as problems as it solves. But again, it was a big change so I will give OMAC the credit of doing something to shake up the game a little.

I haven't seen any problems amounting to enough to balance the scales.

So by that logic Mehul was doing a better job then Sean&Brian?
Also, 2 people is hardly a team.

No, that logic leads to no such conclusion. I'm only saying that more people don't always do a better job.

Show me a respectable source that defines team as something always including more than 2 people. 2 people is what OMAC deem enough for this game, and I don't have any information to question their evaluations of time needed compared to costs that are economically justifiable for utopia.

If you had bothered to actually read what I was saying instead of just looking for things to criticize, you would understand that I'm complaining about the half-assed job they've done with UK and the attention that they've taken away from Utopia. The point of bringing up the code is that OMAC has provided nothing but a long list of excuses thus far.

You don't know anything about how much attention it has taken away from utopia. As far as I know personally, Roisin is the only OMAC employee working as a developer for UK. The people at XS Software are completely irrelevant to Utopia. I'm not "looking for things to criticize". I don't need to look, they're right there in front of me. Your complaints are based on anger and speculations, which warrants all the criticism you're getting.

Without us they don't make money. Plain and simple.

"Us"? Without players they don't make money. Don't make the mistake of thinking you represent everybody else. There are plenty of people who are quite happy with the changes brought to the game, and look forward to seeing less bugs and a more solid game in the future (believing that Sean & Brian will be competent enough to bring that).

[Palem]

Ghettos are now 10x as bad as they were and the new players are forced to seek means outside of their own kd to learn how to play the game in some sort of effective manner.

More people leads a bigger source for more ideas and more people to bounce ideas off of and catch potential problems. Limiting that only narrows this down.

One mind away from Utopia is still one mind that could be used towards further bettering Utopia.

Again, you're looking for something to criticize.
'Us'=The Utopia Community. I'm saying without players they don't make money. At NO POINT in anything I have said have I said I speak for the rest of the community so stop reading into it. I speak for myself. If anyone wants to agree with me, great.

[Luc]

Ghettos are now 10x as bad as they were and the new players are forced to seek means outside of their own kd to learn how to play the game in some sort of effective manner.

Could be right. Could be wrong. I haven't done any research about it, but it doesn't look to me like a lot of people suddenly left because of it, which implies that they still think the game is fun enough to play. And as long as people think the game is fun, I couldn't care less about if there are different levels of knowledge.

More people leads a bigger source for more ideas and more people to bounce ideas off of and catch potential problems. Limiting that only narrows this down.

It leads to more ideas, yes. But that is a double edged sword, because not all those ideas are good. Far from it. Again, more people does not mean a better job done. Quality is also an important factor. Of course the more players the game has, the more fun it potentially becomes. I never said anything else. But there are people in the game we would be better left without. I'd rather have 9997 good players than 10k including 3 counter productive whiners.

One mind away from Utopia is still one mind that could be used towards further bettering Utopia.

Or one mind that could be used toward making Utopia worse by pissing developers and other players off.

Again, you're looking for something to criticize.
'Us'=The Utopia Community. I'm saying without players they don't make money. At NO POINT in anything I have said have I said I speak for the rest of the community so stop reading into it. I speak for myself. If anyone wants to agree with me, great.

Again, criticism toward your posts in this thread are completely warranted.

I never said that less players mean more money.

You referred to "us" to further your point. It only does further your point if you believe that others agree with you. Using such an expression as you did does not make you more credible when you say you don't claim to speak for everyone. You attempted to add force by creating a "we" feeling around yourself

[Palem]

Ghettos:
Speculative as each of us don't have any actual proof so not worth further argument.

More developers:
Again, could be good or bad. Not worth further argument.

Roisin:
Again, could be good or bad. Not worth further argument.

Criticism:
I'm completely fine if you want to criticize something that I say. I understand that my views are objectionable to some. But at the very least, criticize what I SAY not what you think I say.

The 'us' isn't dependent on whether or not people agree with me. The statement was a very vague one simply stating that without the utopian community, they don't make money off Utopia. That is one group I do consider myself to be a part of.

[rosedragoness]

Using an existing brand to leverage a new one is a perfectly valid business strategy. And they are doing more than Mehul could. They're updating the whole code. Mehul would never be able to. And once again, it takes time.

Sure, but FU is not a new game. It just grab and retranslate khanwars. It still a valid strategy but bad decision. Then they also lies to us and this is what most disturbing.

If they can lie to us about FU, why don't they lie about recoding Utopia? For some of us, we see FU aggressive advertising as a sign that they only buy the player base of utopia and hope we will move to a game that built to give them maximum profit (FU).

Not everyone can give all 100% constructive posts, whatever because they don't bother too much, they don't know what to say, or they just angry. Whatever the approaches, constructive or not, game developers and publishers should note theirs presence. If there are more than just one two angry players, that mean there is something wrong.

As I see from my own game, 99,9% of the players say nothing about it, 0.09% say they don't like it and other non-constructive negative posts, 0.01% actually says constructive posts, and 1-5 people says they like the game. I got a total of 37.000 impressions, a wow for my first flash game, but I consider it as failure based on the 0.1% players. And it is right, my sponsor repeat it and review sites refuse the game.

[Nobody]

ok so.. someone point me in the direction of the delete self in UK. I've played better games on doors BBS systems. and that is all i'm going to say about another carbon copy clone of a failed game design.

next.. could I interest the people at OMAC in my college books ? (Marketing 101, Marketing 102.. Management 101, management 102, management 108... programming C++, java, qbasic, turbo pascal <admittedly not a book from college.. but....> and 3 books on developing a business foundation that *should* make sound decisions)

I've been playing utopia for a long time.. I'm happy with the game.. not just because of the game itself.. but because of the other players that I get to interact on a VERY regular basis. At this time I happen to have 0 amount of constructive criticism (being lazy i guess) but a lot of rants and complaints.. however i'll keep this short...

I'm on page with Palem.. VT2, Catwalk and MANY MANY MANY others. I was going to quote something.. but since i've been up for about 31 hours now i'll skip it

[rosedragoness]

Someone says you need to input credit card numbers in order to delete account.

[mjgrona]

guess my little 'castle' will sit....and sit......and sit til it finally gets deleted next year, cuz i won't look at it again, was a waste of my time to make an account there.

[Palem]

You have to fill out a support ticket lol