Are you proposing we bring bartus back? I would second this motion... or am I about to get banned for mentioning him now..Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopsie
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Are you proposing we bring bartus back? I would second this motion... or am I about to get banned for mentioning him now..Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopsie
I think these things have been brought up by others already, but I'll throw my 2 cents in. I think the biggest things that need to happen with Utopia to make it more appealing to a new audience are it needs to cleaned up, simplified and it needs to be mobile friendly. I think all of these things kind of go hand in hand.
Mobile friendly is, I believe the biggest first step that needs to be taken. Mobile Devices, phones and tablets are how people access the internet now. I know a lot people that either don't own laptops/desktops or very rarely use them. Everyone uses their phone, all the time. Which would be great for a game like Utopia where you need to log in at least a few times per day. Logging in and getting done what you need to may only take a minute or so, like building up the acres you just captured when they come in, but often they can be at very inconvenient times, such as the middle of the work day or whatever. A lot of people work in offices and maybe are sitting in front of a computer for much of the day and can be that active, but I venture to guess that more people are not in that situation than are (such as myself). That's where having the game as a mobile app comes in real handy. Everybody has access, all day. Everyone can find a minute or two, even at work to log on and build those acres, cast that spell etc etc.
Other benefits of a mobile app I see are that the icon is there on your phone screen all the time. Seeing that icon is a constant reminder that you have a province to take care of, I think this would help in keeping new players around. On top of that, apps can send you notifications. It would be great to be able to get a pop up notification on your phone telling you that you just got attacked, or your kingdom just went to war. Its a strategy that all the social media apps use to keep you interested and keep you coming back. I think utopia needs to take advantage of it as well. The final advantage of the game being in app form is that you have a built in way to distribute it, advertise it, a way for people who have never heard of the game to find it. That's the app stores.
Tied in with a Utopia game app, is my thought that the game needs to be "cleaned up" or simplified. I'm not necessarily saying that the mechanics or learning curve of the game need to be simplified. The fact of the matter is that the game right now is clunky. The interface is clunky and inefficient. Its much easier to play this game on a laptop/desktop computer than it is a phone or tablet. There is a lot of clicking back and forth between pages to get things done, especially attacks. I basically need to use my laptop when attacking because I need to open multiple tabs as well as have notepad open so that I can gather intel on multiple targets, save the data in notepad, compare the data, go back and look at the KD's again, compare which ones I think are more likely to retal etc etc. It can become quite a process. Things like upoopu help tremendously in collecting and organizing the data, but why isn't that built into the game by default? Why do I have to click back and forth between thievery and war room to relook at intel ops because I can't remember all those numbers off the top of my head. I don't know that this can entirely be resolved on a mobile platform but I do think the whole interface can be streamlined a lot to make it much easier for computer as well as mobile users.
My final thought on things is that the look of the game needs to be updated. The "graphics" need to improve. The game is ugly, it looks like it was designed in 1995. The black background is not aesthetically pleasing. Its kind of depressing. Brighten things up a bit, add some imagery to the background. Add some artistic flourishes to the interface. The Utopia logo serpents are reminiscent of celtic art, add some of that as borders to the side bars and separations on pages. To actually log in and get to my throne page I have to click through at least three different webpages for some reason. If I absolutely have to do that, add some illustrations and pictures of the world I'm about to enter. Ya know, knights, orcs, dragons etc. The art on the front of the Warcraft 2 box comes to mind here, for those old enough to remember it.
Those are my recommendations as an off again, on again player. I've played Dominion, Planetarion and Utopia over the years, since I was in middle school. I really like this type of game. That's what keeps me coming back. The things I talk about above are the main reasons I keep dropping out. I'm an adult now and I don't have the time like I did in middle school. I need to be able to play this game quickly and efficiently and on the go during my day to day life. If I cant stay active as a person that really likes this style of game, good luck getting new players in any real numbers.
What is being done to increase the player base?
Making top feed gains insane, making war bonuses imba. Making the game essentially nothing close to rational or balanced.
I think that is about what sums it up.
i do not know route the devs have in mind for expanding the player base (bring back oldies or get new players - or both) but imo genesis does very little for both. at best it may bring some oldies back (in genesis mostly and fewer into wol) and retain some of them, but same, mostly in genesis and not in wol. it would ofc please the current player base but this is another story.
imo if a new server would be made with attracting new players into the game in mind, it should be an (initially) prov based sever with unlocking features (achievements or whatever). as in you start with a very "basic" uto prov: builds: farms, stables, banks, homes or something; only specs no mages not thieves etc etc and you progressively unlock every other aspect (you can insert tutorials there). you prolly get where i'm aiming here, system is used in other games.
fast forward: at a point you insert "alliances" between single provs and allow cooperative action (aid, intra-casting etc). then at a later point the kd/monarch/relation options and migrating to wol.
the above is a very sketchy picture, but imo that would be better and more useful for new players than genesis.
<Removed>
Please see my signature if you'd like to discuss a deletion.Quote:
Originally Posted by freaka
Mobil friendly would do wonders . The game doesn’t need graphics .
Need more nudes.
Admins and mods nude calendar. ooo great merch idea! will sell like hotcakes. bishop full frontal!
Sending multiple emails resets your spot in the queue. That's always been the policy. Obviously urgent stuff will get priority, but there's no reason to suggest that the devs are cherry picking emailsQuote:
Originally Posted by Verminator
No one likes the guy at the party that constantly criticizes everyone's behavior either. Let's stop criticizing people's lives. This is a game forum, not a therapists office.Quote:
Originally Posted by Korp
Lets leave unprovoked comments about people's real lives out of this. This is Utopia Talk.
What’s up Don Proteus, I’ve missed youQuote:
Originally Posted by Proteus
We all know what will increase the player base, it starts with O and ends in Cto
Hey sexy legs - im ok for a cheeky ban for off topic hellosQuote:
Originally Posted by DavidC
Everyone please stay on topic
In regards to Support, we work to get through Support mails in a timely manner.
Mechanics are too opaque in this game and overly reward veterans who have learned and memorized the mechanics. Veterans will mostly either be impatient, busy, or not care enough to teach these mechanics to newcomers. When you have a game that relies on veterans to teach new players how to play the game properly you do not have a game that is attractive to newcomers.
The more you make the mechanics transparent and easy to view at a glance and understand from an interface perspective the more friendly the game is for newcomers. A new player should be able to eventually understand and master the mechanics of the game through self-examination via the in-game interface, rather than having to 1) ask vets; 2) dig through forums, or 3) hope wiki is current re: the particular mechanic in question.
Just a list of suggestions off the top of my head:
1. Update growth page so that you can see at a glance what effects building % acres will have
2. Spells when moused over should have a pop up that explains what it does. There should be a difficulty estimate when you select a spell.
3. Hostile meter should be viewable by all, no exceptions, with pop-up's / explanation of relation mechanics within the page.
4. If an attack will change relations there should be a pop up confirmation warning you of that action.
5. EOWCF and war stance needs a popup explanation or tutorial.
This 10000x holy crap. The hoops you have to jump through just to get a correct answer about this or that in the mechanics. This isnt even getting into the undocumented changes admin keeps throwing out like undead conversions being reduced hitting into prosp last age. Or learning ritual strength effect has been decreasing the whole time with the introduction of expedient, this despite Jeff, one of the game admins explicitly saying before that wasnt the case. There still isnt a proper admin response about that in the bug forums... how many weeks has that thread been up for?Quote:
Originally Posted by JokesOnMe
Expanding the player base will not happen at the very least until you fix the most basic thing you guys are doing a poor job with... the dissemination of information in this game is ridiculously poor. Why would someone invest so much time into learning a game when the devs put up so many hurdles on top of the already intense learning curve? Currently there is a guide, a wiki, and a game forum with a broken search function. They also don't agree with each other. The wiki isnt updated and the guide is well... lacking on information. Trying to find information on the forum is like searching for one specific needle in a needle factory with your eyes closed...search function broken as it is. Have to resort to using google to search for answers on the uto forms, and even then the answers are dubious at best as they themselves are based upon user info which attempts to glean behind the opaque veil that the devs put up with their lack of interest in creating transparency in this game. Formulas dont need to be revealed per se, interactions absolutely do! No game interaction should be a mystery, it should all be readily available in the game information either the wiki or guide. The strategy forum to me represents the failure to communicate. I lose count on the number of questions asked on there that should have been in age changes or the wiki or the guide but aren't, and they get asked over and over again because the forum search function is broken! LOL
Whilst I would put it more politely, I agree with the points above about lack of info about how the game works. I'm hoping there is a plan, or at least an intention, to at some point develop a "guide" that the Devs can be confident is correct and then from there ensure it is maintained. That could be using the wiki we already have (but actually fixing it rather than relying on users to do it) or something new.
Currently, every time I refer someone to the wiki or they talk to me about something they've found in the wiki, I feel the need to caveat what I say with 'but the wiki isn't necessarily correct'. The users who update the wiki do a great job at trying to keep it updated to reflect changes, but some changes don't make it into the wiki at all (partly because the mechanics of some changes are not actually announced, either at all or in detail), and other parts of the wiki have been out of date for so long that no-one seems to know why the wiki even says what it says. Ultimately the Devs should know the mechanics and therefore should ultimately be responsible for ensuring the wiki is correct and updated (either directly or by helping others to do it).
If there are parts of mechanics you want to keep secret, that's fine, but IMHO that should be openly stated for those parts and users can then try to figure it out if desired.
The new "guide" is great and is a good step. Obviously that doesn't have the detail, and I think that's fine so as not to scare off new people entirely. But currently KDs without very experienced and knowledgeable players have no real hope of understanding the game fully because the information is not in the wiki and/or is just wrong.
I think for me, mostly the loser/winner mechanism.
There is not enough win-win in the game.
It's a competitive online game. By nature, it can't be designed so everyone wins. But if you don't suck, you can often lose less badly or even 'win' with a loss, ie: strategic withdrawals, or smashing someone into war after they paid you too much attention.Quote:
Originally Posted by CharToe
But who am I kidding, of course the masses who can't play want to win when they lose. Just like they want to ignore changes and refuse to learn how to play.
Win-win is in the game if players are perceptive to symbiosis vs pride.
For instance, when a whoring kingdom strikes down to take acres and you retaliate with abduction. Both sides should be sporting a Mona Lisa grin. Explore, rinse, repeat. Same goes for elite converters.
Emeriti withdrawing from Frost Giants war was an example in a competive environment.
Excellent idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mansoor
What i think the game needs is a mix of old timers AND new blood, for the game to grow in the future new blood is what is needed most, but not new blood for the sake of being cannon fodder for the vets
Problem with this game is that you sooner or later Wanna move on to better kds and when doing so you realize you have to give up so much of Your other lifeactivities to stay active for Your Kd all day and night. So even IF tjis game could attract new players, many of them Will Quit after a Few ages Cuz the kd demand to much of you and you dont wanna step down to a lesser kd and get eaten by the top..its just not fun. I hope this game Will grow but i doubt it ever will, cuz a textbased game is not what ppl in general is looking for in 2017.
I can easily get some friends to play, mostly people I work with. The problem is that I know they'd prefer to play in the same Kingdom. I however am reluctant to do that because I've been roasted by IP restrictions in the past during war. I'm in a pretty competitive kingdom and that is something I can't afford in war. Because they'd be work buddies, we play on the same public IP, unless we are exclusively playing on our phones... which the game isn't really targeted for. I assume others are in the same boat.
The game needs to introduce automatic penalties for kingdoms that have a sub (97%) average (war) opponent relative size and stack significant penalties on attacks into kingdoms below 95% of their own kingdom networth. If both of these are achieved then we may stem the flow of people leaving the game. Basically the mods need to stem the flow of farming and bottom feeding.
hits oor are already penalized as is hitting smaller kingdoms.
Total Attacks Made 49
Total Wins 39
Wins Against Larger Opponents 17
Average Relative Opponent Networth 98%
Total Land Gained in Combat 3035
Attacks Suffered 60
Times Defeated 56
Total Land Lost in Combat 2330
Even with getting abducted more than I abduct this is a significant diffrence in land lost vs land gained, and not all can be explained from -30% gans due to gs. If you do not run gs and get hit a lot from bigger kingdoms you are doing things wrong, you can't count on not getting harassed, so you should chose your strategy according to what works in those situations and not what works if everyone leave you alone. I expect to be outnumbered and/or outmatched and plan accordingly.
- In war numbers alone confer no advantage. Do not advance relying on sheer military power. Sun Tsu
It has been mentioned a fair bit - the main issue for utopia is that unfortunately, there are a lot of people that like to play online game but hate the fact that when you are offline you province and kingdom can get smashed. People like the plug and play of being able to log on and off and know that when you do and log back in that your character/province or whatever is in a similar state. Utopia is a very time consuming game if you want to do well and that is what a lot of people I don't think can cope with.
A lot of the multi players are all hack and slack but you get a sense that you are constantly progressing. With utopia you can login, do an attack, think ok good, but then get 3 or 4 times as a retal and be miles back from where you were trying to get to.
I love that, always have, I have played this game for bloody ever but that is going to be the biggest struggle for a lot of new users/players.
There isn't really a solution because this is the game and it is going to take people that like playing this style and dealing with it. However, this is also a little bit of putting the cart before the horse because we need players to begin with.
My above points could be absolute crap if we ended up with more players and they all turned around and said actually no, I love this, it feels more alive and more real and the to and fro makes it more interesting.
Right now in terms of the game, I know if you type utopia it doesn't come up in a search. Is there a way to feed/advertise where if you are googling *games online to play* that utopia would pull up in the search? Right now is there any way for anyone to actually "stumble" on the game?
I'm not sure why my completely on-topic and insightful posts are being removed while all of these posts that will do nothing for the game are allowed to remain intact. We have been changing mechanics for over a decade and it has never served to increase the player base. Perhaps one of the mods was too cognitively feeble to differentiate a legitimately useful idea from trolling but without knowing which one, I can't very well educate him or her via PM.
Targeting the developing world is the only path. That's where old things are still pretty nice.
https://i.imgur.com/mtIF8mZ.gif
You have to type "Utopia Game" and it comes up. I never bookmarked Utopia so I use active search when I'm using a couple screens in war.
If you all really want to increase the player count, then post the link with a witty description on University engineering/science/etc department bulletin boards. Do this at several dozen campuses globally and I guarantee you'd see decent numbers. Small stuff like this is what will keep Utopia alive.
Cheers.
PS: The players need to write up a much more cohesive guide. As it stands, new players still have little to no idea what they are doing.
This is the screenshot that can give you the idea of how hard it is to teach new players to play. He is a player from a game that is similar than utopia so he is somewhat familiar about the game. But since utopia menu is complicated, i had to take the som from my prov and told him to the very details in what he had to do to attack the target. Because teaching him about how to take som would take even longer time and I didn't have time for that at that moment.
And also Idu why browser that has munkbot on, will take my stealths while I am taking som but show no result whether or not it is successful. So I HV to check kd page to see if I was successful or not, n if I am successful I could check the target def in his kd page. If I am not successful, I have to go back to thievery page n repeat everything until I can see enemy defense on his kd page. Then if I attack my target, I can't see the result either. So I HV to check kd news n go back to war room page again if I want to do more taps on my enemy. It is so frustrating to play utopia especially on the phone :(
http://oi68.tinypic.com/2l9v08.jpg
And I have to teach him these steps every time he must attack is very excruciating. But I understand why he ask me over n over again. Because there are so many option in the game. The only solution I see right now is to replace him with a utopia player who I don't need to teach like this. Yes, that means one less new utopia player
Youre saying munkbot is eating the output of your Ingame operations?Quote:
Originally Posted by newatthis
Inb4 '.donate'
Inb4 'not a bug'
Are you saying that I have to pay for Intel storage? That's the thing. That other game has in game full Intel storage and calculator for buildings, spells, army, everything. So casual players (which is majority of players in many games) who won't pay to play can still play just fine. But any games still need these casual players tho. Because needs big player base to make a game challenging for the payers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pillz
Anyway I have stated my opinion on the matter and it is up to you admins to take my inputs or not. Ppl can always debate about which mechanism is best to attract player. But there is no doubt in how important convenience of game playing is. Utopia is just too hard to play at phone n game menus are just too complicated for any new players.
Munkbot is 'free', yes. I'm asking you Wtf your problem with it is exactly, and making fun of munk who demands donations for his Utopia related work while under the employ of MUGA, the owner of Utopia.Quote:
Originally Posted by newatthis
But I digress, you make a very good point.
Why are players donating to the game dev for functionality they've been asking for for years..
Better integration via third party API is what is needed.
No, and to your other points native intel storage inside Utopia will be coming soon. Currently there are 3rd party tools that do this very well and up until now it's been a poor decision for us to spend the limited hours we have on development on developing something that's already working very well from 3rd party tools (Munk, Stinger, LucidBOT, upoopu).Quote:
Originally Posted by newatthis
Utopia has been running for nearly 20 years now. MUGA has owned the game for less than 1 year. Development takes place when time permits and has been focused on items of highest priority first. Your original 'go to' complaint was 'fix oops before anything'. I can't recall the last complaint on oops now, yet "functionality they've been asking for for years" seems to be paramount now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pillz
We've got a long list of development objectives in front of us and they are being handled in a timely fashion.
If you want to complain about something, go through the tutorial and provide some constructive feedback on how to make it better.
Spend your time on something that will help the game grow instead of asking foolish questions like 'why are players donating to the game dev for functionality they've been asking for for years".
By enlarge 95% (and I'm being generous with the 5%) of attacks into our kingdom is by kingdoms 20% larger than us knowing that we won't press the button.
Why would players our kingdom, such as myself, continue to play? I imagine at the end of this age (if we make it that far) another 5 players or so will call it a day if this aspect of the game isn't addressed in the changes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Madchess
Are you aware of the Kingdom Relative Networth modifier that already exists in the gains formula?Quote:
Originally Posted by thejudge
There are already significant disadvantages for Kingdoms attacking Kingdoms of lower strength while at the same time the smaller Kingdoms have no penalties for retaliating (i.e. no negative modifier on gains).
I don't want you to think I'm just blowing off your statement, but what would your suggestion be to resolve the issue you're stating? Keeping in mind, large kingdoms hitting a small kingdom can receive as much as a -34% penalty in gains just from Kingdom nw difference.
@ thejudge: The prevailing mentality in Utopia follows your assessment.
If we want the game to be exciting then I'd listen to what Madchess is saying. Madchess isn't alone, as I'm quite happy playing in shell kingdoms.
What I Preach: If you aren't the type of kingdom that's challenging for war crown then build your kingdom for top feeding. There's no deterrent in accepting the inability to war big kingdoms, so you build to be tough in relations with deep penetrating ops/sabotage and durable high offense attackers. The majority will be abductions, right?
You get in the practice of isolating pumped aggressors, taking their acres and pouring on the ops to curtail recovery. While this might not be the path to CF I'd be more concerned about kingdom morale. Some of us are built for Ragnarok, some of us aren't.
You can earn a reputation for being an ugly target. In your arsenal you want the ability to Assassinate Wizards. You can use this against enemy attackers so that your attackers can bomb them with instant ops. You want Fools Gold, Amnesia, Magical Ward, Blizzards, Nightmares. The reason you want Nightmares and Amnesia is because these can't be MVd off; they linger and you can stack their effects. Most kingdoms think in terms of waving which is a rediculous notion when retaliating. You go guerilla and slow cook your giant adversaries.
In my time running sages I'd fire off Amnesia on a constant basis. I'd steal runes, cast a few, just keeping the pressure on where the accumulation slowly increases. What your doing by depleting their science is effecting them in all spheres while you take advantage of those debilitations. And I'm not one dimensional. I'd cast tornados, explosions..stuff to make the enemy well aware that we can turn them into food just as they intended to do to us.
There's always a vocal group of crybabies in every kingdom who deny the reality that their resources are earned every tick, not just in a war they were safely unbreakable. This game is full of lions and they will attack. If your not a lion you can be a herd animal and run and run. Me, I like being the porcupine and the honey badger.
I understand you must feel pressure, having accomplished so little and having squandered most of the good faith the community extended a little less than a year ago now, or whenever it was.Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidC
But let's not pretend that people haven't been begging for Ingame, full featured Intel services for nearly a decade now. It's been asked for since OMAC bought the game...while b&s had it.. And you had calls for it yourself, after you took ownership.
Congrats on fixing Oops. You made the game playable. Would you like a medal? Should we thank you and grovel because you made your investment/property work?
You've got to be more intelligent than that, acting as though we owe you for the most fundamental 'change' you had to make to even dream of expanding the game.
Oh wait, I'm sure if the calls for intel had been louder, we'd still have to suffer through Oops, is that it?
I have not previously called for Ingame Intel tools developed in house. I'm actually relatively opposed to the idea. But when your paid dev is asking for donations for something you have just admitted you intend to implement... I think there is an ethical consideration there.
But hey, it's okay. Game has no multies, ads are A-OK and not virus laden land mines, and you are making Utopia great again! The greatest, greater than ever, fewer people leaving now than ever before!
I think the integrated Intel system if it totally pushes the 3rd party ones out of the way, is going to be very bad for utopia. That is why I keep insisting that there needs to be a third party api to better integrate 3rd party tools. If you do it this way so that the new system is optional or and third party tools are optional, it will be a win, otherwise it will be a fail. You have to think about your potential target audiences.