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    Your Elvenar Team

A Few Ideas, comments requested

DeletedUser2753

Guest
I have a few ideas on dealing with some of the issues confronting both The game developers and their customers, You and me.
The first issue is player retention and lost players on the map.
  1. Change the Help screen to add The Wiki to Support and Forum, why should I have to google Elvenar wiki , isn't documentation a form of help. I know this will mean more resources for this stepchild, but it would save support and all of us, a lot of time answering questions.
  2. Get rid of the buy diamonds that covers the upgrade buttons when you first start the game. This causes confusion and a loss of players that think right of the bat this is Pay to Play.
  3. Change the Advanced Settings (Gear at bottom right) to add to the email settings an option to allow in-game messages to flow through to the players email. This can be just Yes/No or 5 checkboxes. The default should be Yes or at least the top 3 on.
  • Allow from Innogames
  • Allow from Members of your fellowship
  • Allow from Neighbors who you have discovered or have discovered you
  • Allow from All
  • DO NOT pass any ingame messages to my email ( note this is currently the way it works)
The benefits are multiple , First Innogame could contact missing players before deleting them, if they don't already. Since players are not online usually and you have no idea really when they plan to be online sending people in your neighborhood messages, like greetings to new players, offers for help and encouragement to come in do help or join a tournament. This could be a way to increase player retention using the labor of the customers. Lastly Mages could contact missing players in a fellowship with the same type of encouragement or a warning of pending ejection from a fellowship.
Hopefully more people would become active if they got an email from another player saying, come back and play with us.

I realize there could be issues and this must be tested first, and spam must be prevented, but I have not seen any real abuse of messaging ingame so far and obviously the code is there already for these setting to be passed to the backed servers along with the email address now collected. Yes a mail server would need to be added and supported but that is a common back-end appliance. I daily get Facebook emails of posts.
The next suggestion has to do with the Trader, map, missing players/goldmines and rune/goods trading. The trader build now is not upgrade-able and in Human looks like a sailing ship. My impression of a trader is not just a town merchant as it is now but someone that goes to the frontier of an area and sets up trading posts and may sail further to undiscovered lands to trade things with other civilizations or tribes. Here are three levels of upgrade for our traders.
  1. Allow all players to replace a blank space or goldmine in their discovered area one Trading Post. This should be inexpensive but is a benefit since you could place it at your edge within someone eases discovered zone. Once placed all those that discover a trading post get fair trades. One trading post allowed only, it could last a period of time, 47 hours and cost to renew if you will pay because of a net gain. You can move your trading post around as long as you have missing players in your zone.
  2. Second level is that you can create one Outpost anyplace outside your discovered zone if you can find a blank space/deleted player to set it. This should cost more since you can search out places within a discovered zone of someone that has boosted goods you need. Same time limits.
  3. The top level will be called an Expedition where like level two you need to find a open spot someplace. You must pack lite and can only trade valuable rune shards. If you land in someones discovered zone your runes are listed to them and whoever discovers you can make an offer. Shorter time limit like 23 hours since Expeditions are costly and you will need to keep moving.
This adds a whole new type of play to the game and map, It will add to exploring the map away from home and encourage interaction and discourse, plus I am sure InnoGames can find a way to add Diamond incentives.

I have more ideas but that is enough for today, Please give me your comments and reaction, pro or con.​
 

DeletedUser61

Guest
add The Wiki to Support and Foru
The wiki is listed in the rightmost column and at the bottom of the Main Forum page. It's likewise listed at the bottom of the Login page.
First Innogame could contact missing players before deleting them, if they don't already.
They already send special incentive offers. There are some major privacy issue with allowing folks to associate in-game characters with email addresses, as the email addresses are much easier to trace. On the other hand, it's already possible to watch forum posts, which are forwarded to your email, so something like an email feed from selected Fellows might be feasible.
add to exploring the map away from home and encourage interaction and discourse,
The trader has LOTS of potential, but until the developers solve the basic density issues, which will provide up to 200 potential trading partners once you discover them, we won't know what else needs to be fixed.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

DeletedUser43

Guest
I really like the idea of the email, but I would want it to be defaulted to none and you can opt in if you want. Otherwise, I think it is very "spammy".

I also really like the idea of adding the wiki to the help screen. Most players have never been to the forums!!

In fact, I like all your ideas!!
 

DeletedUser627

Guest
I have a few ideas on dealing with some of the issues confronting both The game developers and their customers, You and me.
  1. Allow all players to replace a blank space or goldmine in their discovered area one Trading Post. ...
  2. Second level is that you can create one Outpost anyplace outside your discovered zone ...
  3. The top level will be called an Expedition ...

I applaud these ideas! It would be good start to converting the World Map into something interesting, rather than continuing like gerbils running the wheel.
 

DeletedUser1349

Guest
i also like these ideas. the wiki link on the forum, players never find. trader definitely needs some work and trading shards is great any way it happens!
 

DeletedUser2753

Guest
Thanks all for the comments and encouragement even from Katwijk. I must comment on the responses though.
  • Not placing the wiki in help is stupid and lazy, and appears to show what a stepchild ( overhead expense) the wiki is. To find it only by first looking outside the game is just bad form.
  • There is no way a game player exposes his or her Email address by a server passing in-game messages to someones email. The email server is the sender of the message and it only would give the message sender's game name with the message. The email could as do many emails offer an opt-out at the bottom of the message, or the message could explain how to return to the game and turn off messages. Both are currently accepted design patterns. I do believe based on this the default should be to have messages passed, since a no default would defeat the purpose of this new "feature" and essentially leave the game as is.
  • It has been widely suggested that players should be able to delete their own city build completely, This would stop the messages as well and is a third option.
  • Receiving an email promotion from a game is like getting spam or ad from a vendor you gave your email address to. This gets deleted quickly or considered like spam by a user. Getting a message from a neighbor or fellowship member in a game is 100% different, your reaction would be much more favorable about the game. Again if you don't want messages you can opt-out, return and change settings or delete your dead city.
  • I don't believe spam would be an issue, based on the above, but the server could be set with a limit of 5 messages a day if testing shows there is abuse.
  • " until the developers solve the basic density issues, which will provide up to 200 potential trading partners once you discover them, we won't know what else needs to be fixed" To must wait for the developer's to fix the missing player problem first before any fix can be implemented. This is crazy, We have a problem now. The retention rate is below 10%. In my own neighborhood less then 6% appear to have shown up in the last 30 days. If they deleted all inactive players we would have 93 % gold mines. If I started the game and i could find a neighbor every 13 provinces, I would think this game as a serious design issue or at least i would not have different expectations then we now have. Oh if i discover 13 more provinces now i may find another active player.
  • Lets be frank here the retention rate sucks and I wonder if new players exceeds players lost every 30 days. I doubt the want to kill the player count faster then new players join so we are ever increasingly behind the 8 ball on that score. This may explain why the wont allow players to delete their cities. It would destroy the illusion of growth and success.
  • To sum up the email idea was to help this retention issue at it's core, plus increase active player participation at little cost to Inno.
 

DeletedUser627

Guest
Thanks all for the comments and encouragement even from Katwijk. I must comment on the responses though.
  • Not placing the wiki in help is stupid and lazy, and appears to show what a stepchild ( overhead expense) the wiki is. To find it only by first looking outside the game is just bad form.
  • There is no way a game player exposes his or her Email address by a server passing in-game messages to someones email. The email server is the sender of the message and it only would give the message sender's game name with the message. The email could as do many emails offer an opt-out at the bottom of the message, or the message could explain how to return to the game and turn off messages. Both are currently accepted design patterns. I do believe based on this the default should be to have messages passed, since a no default would defeat the purpose of this new "feature" and essentially leave the game as is.
  • It has been widely suggested that players should be able to delete their own city build completely, This would stop the messages as well and is a third option.
  • Receiving an email promotion from a game is like getting spam or ad from a vendor you gave your email address to. This gets deleted quickly or considered like spam by a user. Getting a message from a neighbor or fellowship member in a game is 100% different, your reaction would be much more favorable about the game. Again if you don't want messages you can opt-out, return and change settings or delete your dead city.
  • I don't believe spam would be an issue, based on the above, but the server could be set with a limit of 5 messages a day if testing shows there is abuse.
  • " until the developers solve the basic density issues, which will provide up to 200 potential trading partners once you discover them, we won't know what else needs to be fixed" To must wait for the developer's to fix the missing player problem first before any fix can be implemented. This is crazy, We have a problem now. The retention rate is below 10%. In my own neighborhood less then 6% appear to have shown up in the last 30 days. If they deleted all inactive players we would have 93 % gold mines. If I started the game and i could find a neighbor every 13 provinces, I would think this game as a serious design issue or at least i would not have different expectations then we now have. Oh if i discover 13 more provinces now i may find another active player.
  • Lets be frank here the retention rate sucks and I wonder if new players exceeds players lost every 30 days. I doubt the want to kill the player count faster then new players join so we are ever increasingly behind the 8 ball on that score. This may explain why the wont allow players to delete their cities. It would destroy the illusion of growth and success.
  • To sum up the email idea was to help this retention issue at it's core, plus increase active player participation at little cost to Inno.

I'm in favor of your comments, with a word of caution. Unless you want to find your posts or sections of your posts deleted by a Moderator, you'll need to be diplomatic. It's stated in the rules that we have to be polite - and this seems to be increasingly enforced with regard to statements regarding Inno employees, practices or policies. Another option would be to continue on this path - pick up the torch which I have dropped (for reasons I cannot state since the rules are clear that we cannot quote Moderators) - and lead the charge to make much-needed suggestions.
 

DeletedUser3162

Guest
We get to some points in the game where we need to reshuffle buildings when space become tight. It would come handy if the devs could set up/create a space call "PARKING LOT". The "Parking Lot" would be use to store buildings while we rethink how to better use the space we have available until we reach the next expansion. Keeping in mind to allow moving buildings in and out of the city without loosing them and keeping the same level once we put them back in the city. I am convince all players would appreciate if we had the possibility to reshuffle our city.
Thank you for taking this into consideration.
Mar5
 
How about reducing the time required when Advanced Scouts quest in the tree is completed. I just completed the one in Orcs and Goblins and it reduced the cost! I don't care about the cost of scouting, but I get really tired of having to wait for 2 days to complete one. I am constantly waiting for the time limit to finish so I can scout another province, wait 2 freakin' days, the conquer that one.
 

DeletedUser61

Guest
I am constantly waiting for the time limit to finish so I can scout another province, wait 2 freakin' days, the conquer that one.
It's not what you want to hear, but over in Forge of Empires, I'm currently scouting a new province,
one that I NEED for a time limited special event quest, and the timer says 2d 12hr.
 

DeletedUser3470

Guest
I like being able to update the trader- allowing it to produce trades from players further and further out.
 
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