Triggered: Ask Dave and Jeff questions

[bounceOS]

Ok ..so i've listened to the podcast and from what i could tell not alot of changes will be made. Now..the truth is this game in it's current form will never be appealing to new players. I've presented the game to couple of r/l friendds who play tons of online games and none of them dound it even remotely attractive. They all asked me "so..whre are the buildings? And the troops? "..and when i told em those are just numbers and letters, they said pass. The game itself is unique and the math behind it its so complex that a new player has litterally no chance of grasping it. If you makr a quick comparison between utopia and any other online game you will see some big diffrences that give utopia a disadvantage. For instance in any crappy game like empires or w/e in 16-24 h u can build a fairly decent province, whereas in utopia it takes 12-16h for builds to get in while in the other games u have the 1st builds on in minutes. Also armies..it takes between 8 to 16h to have em back which is soooo much more than the new graphics games. We all love utopia..but all is 99% old players who are still around cuz of old time friends. The genesis server will also be used especially by veterans to try crazy new strats and not the newbies who have no clue wtf those are. Unless utopia receives a complete overhauling..its doomed.

[Pillz]

Ok ..so i've listened to the podcast and from what i could tell not alot of changes will be made. Now..the truth is this game in it's current form will never be appealing to new players. I've presented the game to couple of r/l friendds who play tons of online games and none of them dound it even remotely attractive. They all asked me "so..whre are the buildings? And the troops? "..and when i told em those are just numbers and letters, they said pass. The game itself is unique and the math behind it its so complex that a new player has litterally no chance of grasping it. If you makr a quick comparison between utopia and any other online game you will see some big diffrences that give utopia a disadvantage. For instance in any crappy game like empires or w/e in 16-24 h u can build a fairly decent province, whereas in utopia it takes 12-16h for builds to get in while in the other games u have the 1st builds on in minutes. Also armies..it takes between 8 to 16h to have em back which is soooo much more than the new graphics games. We all love utopia..but all is 99% old players who are still around cuz of old time friends. The genesis server will also be used especially by veterans to try crazy new strats and not the newbies who have no clue wtf those are. Unless utopia receives a complete overhauling..its doomed.

You disappoint me bounce.
Utopia can absolutely attract and keep fresh players. Without altering its underlying game play and function, too. It's just going to be a long and difficult journey to get to the finish line.

And I'll be entirely honest I don't think that the finish line will be reached. But it's still something that could be done, maybe, with the right motivation.

[bounceOS]

Fact is new players like graphics. Utopia has no graphics which will make it very very unattractive to a new player who will see just numbers and words.

[jmiedema]

There should be utopia merchandise!! :P Posters! Figurines! Bring back the utopian soundtrack!

Also, I wouldn't even mind if this game was pay to play. Pay $5-$10 every age to create a province. By paying, you are gifted X number of credits (can be used for sitting or to gift an invite etc.) or maybe just given 10 free sitting credits. So the player is still "getting" something, but also kind of forced to give it. (comeon people can dish out that kind of money to support a game that gives them hundreds of hours of enjoyment every age...). Would also help reduce the number of farm provs (if you had to pay for it every age) Which would give us a much better idea of exactly how many unique players this game has each age. Need stats like that to help with the games future.

Also I would like to see more foresight as to the length of an age. I know Bishop has mentioned it being impossible before due to developer time.. maybe with the new owners, they can make for a more structured age. at least be able at the start of the age to give us the end date with +/- 1 week... that seems reasonable, and lets monarch's plan out their age. Ideally I would like to see every age be 13 weeks. 4 ages per year... seems good.

[Pillz]

Fact is new players like graphics. Utopia has no graphics which will make it very very unattractive to a new player who will see just numbers and words.

Not at all true. I mean true. But you seem to be implying that it would be unattractive to all new players, as though none will like this format of game. Obviously that's not entirely accurate or else Utopia would certainly never have succeeded.

The issue is the poor design and implementation of the UI and the lack of a tutorial of some sort. The game needs to be better explained and navigable.

[Pillz]

There should be utopia merchandise!! :P Posters! Figurines! Bring back the utopian soundtrack!

Also, I wouldn't even mind if this game was pay to play. Pay $5-$10 every age to create a province. By paying, you are gifted X number of credits (can be used for sitting or to gift an invite etc.) or maybe just given 10 free sitting credits. So the player is still "getting" something, but also kind of forced to give it. (comeon people can dish out that kind of money to support a game that gives them hundreds of hours of enjoyment every age...). Would also help reduce the number of farm provs (if you had to pay for it every age) Which would give us a much better idea of exactly how many unique players this game has each age. Need stats like that to help with the games future.

Also I would like to see more foresight as to the length of an age. I know Bishop has mentioned it being impossible before due to developer time.. maybe with the new owners, they can make for a more structured age. at least be able at the start of the age to give us the end date with +/- 1 week... that seems reasonable, and lets monarch's plan out their age. Ideally I would like to see every age be 13 weeks. 4 ages per year... seems good.

So turn a game that's lasted for 19 years into p2p at a time when it's player base is the lowest ever and you're attempting to attract new blood to this 19 year old game?


Yeah you're a ****ing idiot.

[chalsdk]

Every time this "size of kingdom" suggestion comes around, I'm on the side of "leave it at 25, because it won't make more competitive kingdoms, it will make long time "bad" core players in good kingdoms just leave the game".

Mostly I just haven't actually heard a good argument yet that made me think "hey maybe less would be better".

I am currently leading things in FS, and though things are going OK, i must admit to lead a 25 province kingdom takes a lot of work, and pretty much requires a good GROUP of leaders to do it well, and to manage individuals effectively. 1 leader can do it, but it will burn them out after an age or 2.

Yes I do think if it ever went down to 20 or 15 provinces that all that would do is make the 5-10 worst players in the kingdom be asked to leave. If you think those 10 players will go and make a new kingdom, and have the leadership to do so, you are sadly mistaken. It would actually just further the gap between good kingdoms and bad kingdoms, because there would be 15 prov kingdoms of THE BEST a kd has to offer, and other kingdoms will have "the leftovers" and probably be bad, and probably have people leave half way through the age.

HOWEVER: Some leaders (like me) would actually be a lot more able to lead a 15 province kingdom over a 25 province one. You could get by with 1-2 good leaders able to lead a 15 province kingdom where it takes 3-5 to do a good job of that in a 25 province kd.

I have suggested before, IF we were to go down in kingdom size it should be 1-2 provinces less each age for several ages. That way naturally when a couple people leave every age you can just not recruit more in, without having to kick anyone out, causing them to quit the game.

My other concern about smaller kingdoms is it reduces the overall strategic options of a kingdom. Right now there is room for "interesting" picks in a kingdom. like you could run nightmares easily as a strat, while also having some mystics and rogues. If you wanted to run a nightmare based strategy in a 15 province kingdom you would have to be MUCH more dedicated to only having (with current changes) heretics. For rogues, right now you can have a large rogue core without losing your ability to have mystics, and other things. With 15 provs you would have less rogues, leaving less opportunities to run GA's on WT's while still doing good damage after with several rogues.

The less provinces you have, the less opportunities you have to creatively implement some of the more interesting aspects of this game. I do see the other side as well though, where ideally people who would generally be uncomfortable leading 24 people, may step up and lead 14 people instead. So some leaders will come out of the woodwork. Most top kingdoms will just keep all their best players/leaders in their super kd though. So there is that..

No - Just dont auto fill to 25 - stop at 15. Over time it will go down.

[realm of ding dong]

soo...Dave = Hawk?

[chalsdk]

So turn a game that's lasted for 19 years into p2p at a time when it's player base is the lowest ever and you're attempting to attract new blood to this 19 year old game?


Yeah you're a ****ing idiot.

Not a argument.

[Pillz]

Not a argument.

You don't get an argument when you're that ****ing stupid.

1) game is dying
2) no one wants to join and play
3) charge the people who don't want to join and play
4) ???
5) profit

I assume you're from the same kd and fs breeds retardation.

[an|on]

How much time do you plan to commit to the game and how dedicated are you to making large scale changes designed to bring in new players or make the game fit into the lives of current players?

For example would you be willing to accept outside coders helping you implement things like munkbot or intel like stinger/lucid or are you just going to "develop" the game in the time you have available?

How do you envision updating the code base to newer forms that allow for more efficient transactions? Is there a specific framework you prefer?

- Will you commit that the game remains free of hard-balance altering paid features?

- Do you intend to cooperate with the existing Utopia app (by joshmg)?
- Will you continue with existing code or go for a real-time updating service (and thus rewrite the code)?
- Are you intending to keep it a purely English game or do you have any interest in making it a multilingual interface to support the newer kids on the block?
- Any intentions of cooperating with 3rd party websites such as Utopia Temple, Slack, UpoOpu, munk, etc?

Do you have any plans on releasing an API to allow people to build better third party tools for the game? There are a lot of potential in the community for mobile apps, browser extensions and other tools, that are currently limited by having to parse HTML pages in a very inefficient way.

Perhaps odd but to me brutally obvious question... As a community, how can we help?

Utopia Enhancer's (browser extension by chadde) implementation of the sidebar and data overlays, which make relevant as well as contextual information glanceable is exactly the kind of functionality Utopia needs. Though some may hold fast to what is familiar, the learning curve for new players is made that much more difficult simply because of poor design. The current system of navigating pages within the game for bits of information is a much more cumbersome process than actually playing the game. The more elements that can be logically arranged, the better.

Utopia is in dire need of current standards based development with its UI as well as an API developers can interface with. Development of an API is of particular importance as it is key to the overall longevity and scaleability of the Utopia platform. Android/iOS apps, browser extensions, as well as sites like Munk's and UpoOpu are a step in the right direction with the additional accessibility, tactical information, and functionality they add to the game but the current system of parsing whole HTML pages for bits of data is inefficient and unnecessarily increases server loads.

Whatever the path forward Dave and Jeff decide to take, hopefully it'll be community focused and driven. May they develop Utopia into a platform that utilizes the talents of its loyal core base of users and encourages the development of value added content for all.

[Nim]

Fact is new players like graphics. Utopia has no graphics which will make it very very unattractive to a new player who will see just numbers and words.

[DM_Benjamin]

I was on a timeline before we started to record. Please feel free to continue to post questions here and I'll endeavor to ask them on the show in the future

[Mike^]

Lets call the new owners with name we all know insted plz !!! Zauper and Hawk !

[bounceOS]

Not at all true. I mean true. But you seem to be implying that it would be unattractive to all new players, as though none will like this format of game. Obviously that's not entirely accurate or else Utopia would certainly never have succeeded.

The issue is the poor design and implementation of the UI and the lack of a tutorial of some sort. The game needs to be better explained and navigable.

Bro utopia succeded 19 years ago when peeps had landline /modem inet and since then its been on a steady fall. Nowadays only the old players play this game and the new players are old players returning to the game. I mean..how many 18-19-20 year old guys you see in this game who play it for the 1st time and actually stay in ? Not alot. Its unattractive according to current game standards. I agree with you on pay to play. If i have to pay i wont play ( which is main reason i dont play other crappy online games where u cannot compete with others who pay and get their stuff built /trained 10x faster)