Ask the Developers

[Lelanya]

All righty folks, it's been a long road to here, but here are a few bits about this thread. There were many posts, and some answers were quite long. I have redacted the names of those who posed a question, because some folks used their game name, some did not. I have tried to sort the issues into broad categories. I have most definitely edited the posts. We had several respondents, company representatives were: Timon (a developer), Ligario (who owns the Discord server), Alina, Glissal, and Anna Inno. However some posts were up for several days, and the CMs both added and/or responded.

Future of the Forums
Ligario's post has already been shared here

Future content
Silmaril: chapters up to 30 have been planned at this point.

Hobby Room
Several players mentioned the Hobby Room A/B test, gave an unfair advantage to those who do have it, especially during the FA.
Anna Inno: While it's not easy to discuss an item being tested, they wish to make sure they are making the correct decision, don't want to alienate their player base, and wish to proceed cautiously as Adverts are uncommon on browser games.

Ancient Wonders
A player wanted to type in the amount of KPs for an Ancient Wonder
Anna Inno: Interesting idea, what would happen if the player needed an odd amount 671 KPs for example, but had 68 x 10 KP instants, what would happen to the 9? The design team would have to say what is feasible.

Non Storeable Buildings
So a request was made to allow all buildings to be stored. The discussion was interesting, should be viewed for itself https://discord.com/channels/1136205917306753035/1170285808830382121 but ultimately, the answer is no
Timon: There were two parts to this answer, is functionality (regarding Main Hall, Trader) or exploits (AWs) Long story short, we will always count on you to have a minimal setup for both manufactories and military buildings. And I promise you will need it. And this includes not being able to erase some buildings. (In other words, no.)

Neighborly Help
Several things were suggested at various times: settings a player could deploy to indicate preference - one click help
Timon answered: Yes they are considering how best to implement a setting so players could indicate their preferred help and actually Name their city.
No, they will not implement a one click visit, as the game is social in nature. They may consider this feature for fellowships, but never for neighbors. They feel bad that the game allows us to click through hundreds on the map and apologized for a perceived design flaw.

Artifacts
A Player proposed that Fire Phoenix Artifacts be cheaper and easier to get.
Anna Inno: The Fire Phoenix is a very valuable building and we would like the price to reflect that. But there may be the occasional discount. What other older buildings should every player have?

Artifacts from the Spire
... Just pile up, is there anything we can do?
Anna Inno, every item should be gaining a secondary use, we are working on this.

Spire content, levels
Do you plan to add more content and levels to the Spire? and are you going to improve the rewards from the Spire bosses?
Glisal: yes, we are working on the Spire of Eternity and trying to improve multiple features, including rewards from Spire bosses.

Someone asked, why do the troops reverse themselves in Spire in multiple Encounters?
Timon: It's not supposed to do that, forwarded for fixing.
Lel's note: Already on Beta, they have altered initiative in new and unusual ways. I may be up for diamonds, first in with a bug report.

Set pieces
Could you give us Tomes with past set buildings in the Spire
Glisal: Sets (especially older ones) are powerful and were designed for cities to have one or maybe two, not many multiples. Since the Spire can be completed many times, this will not be where they are located - maybe we will do this for Crafting or Seasons.

Inventory Search
A player asked if there could be a specific tab for Expiring Buildings
Anna Inno: They will not be adding more tabs, but the search feature is being refined to include Expiring Buildings (which we have on Beta).

Improvement on Tile event tool purchases
As purchasing more light sources or digging tools is tedious.
Glisal Yes, forwarded

Event quest difficulty
It was pointed out that some event quests are too difficult for early level players, and would lead to a decline in player base - crafting, donation to Ancient Wonders in particular was mentioned.
Glisal noted that the sequential quests always have an alternative, while the daily episodic quests might be harder. They feel that they have accelerated the pace for early chapter development, but ageed that the AW quests could be changed.

Ideas & Suggestions
Is there any point to making these?
Alina: We greatly value the I&S shared by players; these are regularly reviewed by our Community Management Team; our Designers do regularly visit Discord and read what is written there.

Magical Manus
Timon: No, not likely, they would rather develop new events, new chapters, etc, than add another 9 designs for the factories, times every upgrade level (9 so far).

Extra security, deletion of buildings
Can something be added to make it more difficult to delete important buildings (for instance after FA)?
Timon: forwarded to the design team for consideration of implementation.

Reconstruction Mode as per Forge of Empires
Anna Inno: No, for all the same reasons that they usually give. plus, FoE spent a lot of money on development of RM, and now want our Hide Building feature.


FA the Bottomless Pit
Can these be improved> Suggestions:
Add summary data on the contributions of badges by each ally - who, how many and what kind of badges contributed.
Make automatic messages in the Fellowship chat (not notifications) about the appearance of a new Pit
Review the number and assortment of Badges in the Pit, while simultaneously changing the number of rating points. The goal is to reduce the number of reoccurring Pit.
Glisal: Maybe but not right now, however when we do we will look at your suggestions.

Mobile Combat
If the game could be developed from scratch, keeping in mind it would be mobile based, what would combat look like?
Timon: initially this was based on Forge of Empires, with a more glossy and 3D look, but many Elvarians are peaceful, so it would be a lot simpler than it is now, if we could start over, and the two platforms would be the same.

Tournament Improvement, mobile
Why does the overview close after each encounter, can it not stay open like the browser?
Timon: well it does move you to the next province, but the two should be the same - forwarded


Unit Display, browser
Can we have troops units display more than 999+
Timon: sounds easy, we'll see - forwarded

Someone wanted to know is the Witty Raccoon based on Rocket the Raccoon of GotG
Anna Inno: Maaaaybe

A player wanted to know are there hidden Easter Eggs
Glisal: Yes of course, there are many. This Season's building the door of Secrets, and Golden Wish .(there are some lovely pics on Discord).

Technical Questions

There were some technical points asked, that got coy answers
Database architecture and KPIs
Anna Inno: we really can't discuss this.

Performance Is it difficult to keep a high level of performance considering content is constantly added
Anna Inno: yes it difficult and is an ongoing challenge.

Free mode. This question was not well worded and full of acronyms and short codes but the OP wished to release productions without navigating all over the city (wanted to remove the Graphic User Interface) ; also had a request involving troop productions (that I think applies to mobile app).
Timon: We would like to make this easier, but think your proposal would take a lot of effort. If an easier solution were proposed, they would essay it. This has been discussed among the developers. Yes to the second proposal.

 

[Lelanya]

Actual question for free mode if anyone wants to try and decipher meaning for themself:

"Would it be possible to make a gui free screen mode (toggleable in the settings) so that the moment you start to drag harvest your buildings the gui goes intangible/invisibal or sth else so that you do not need 5 trys to get into every corner of your map?

Also why dont you instantly get into the gui to select your orge production in the training halls(same for military camps) (I mean like pretty much every other building with production options works that way)?

Thx for your future answer"

 

[BrinDarby]

TY, @Lelanya ,
Sad, these answers are depressing to say the least.

 

[BrinDarby]

Ancient Wonders
A player wanted to type in the amount of KPs for an Ancient Wonder
Anna Inno: Interesting idea, what would happen if the player needed an odd amount 671 KPs for example, but had 68 x 10 KP instants, what would happen to the 9? The design team would have to say what is feasible.

This shows a lack of paying attn..... lolol.
OP didn't say AWKP, they said KP ......
there are no Instants for reg KP

Event quest difficulty
It was pointed out that some event quests are too difficult for early level players, and would lead to a decline in player base - crafting, donation to Ancient Wonders in particular was mentioned.
Glissal noted that the sequential quests always have an alternative, while the daily episodic quests might be harder. They feel that they have accelerated the pace for early chapter development, but ageed that the AW quests could be changed.

"always have an alternative" .... thats 100% false, or they all would be :
do this -or- that , and do those -or- these .... not all have 2 choices,
and I would refer you to iDavis, Glissal as proof.
"accellerated pace for early CHs dev" , seems more than a few Vets
of Elvenar might disagree with that statement.... lolol....

Spire content, levels
Do you plan to add more content and levels to the Spire? and are you going to improve the rewards from the Spire bosses?
Glissal: yes, we are working on the Spire of Eternity and trying to improve multiple features, including rewards from Spire bosses.

the last "adjustemts" were a basic Nerf, so we should expect more
of the same or are you fixing that, and around here "fix" seems to
just be "break", lets hope not.

There were some technical points asked, that got coy answers

uhhhhh, Duhhhhh ....lolol.

Unit Display, browser
Can we have troops units display more than 999+
Timon: sounds easy, we'll see - forwarded

we'll get something like 1.2k, just like they screwed up coins/tools/
display when they chg'd it to rounding.... If adding 1 diget to anything
(like 999+ -> 1001) is too hard for the devs or breaks the bank....
then please put us outta our misery, close Elvenar now.

A player wanted to know are there hidden Easter Eggs
Glissal: Yes of course, there are many. This Season's building the door of Secrets, and Golden Wish .(there are some lovely pics on Discord).

does she even know what "easter eggs" are .... roflmao.

and Finally :

our Designers do regularly visit Discord and read what is written there.

Forum/Discord doesn't matter, only the best games actually
get interaction from Staff/Dev Team. Inno, you say you want
a new community vibe, well howabout allow a few ppl from
the Devs/Staff to interact regularly with US , , that is if
we really are a community.... otherwise the playerbase is
nothing more than Sheeple, to be exploited.

 

[Lelanya]

Not really. I think we got way more answers than ever before - nothing is much of a surprise other than the Spire battle one, I know I saw bug reports on all 3 English language Forums. (I was really hoping someone else would dig them up, I'm positive they were all marked not a bug or something). At least 9 things were forwarded to the Design team and about four items are being worked on already, that we've been asking about in the past. The things that were denied, are typically things that have always been denied, and for the same reasons as always (so consistent), while the odd other one, was plainly said, it would take too much resources (I'm not arguing, I'm not a coder).

What may have prompted your remark, is the staff, and Developers want us on Discord because that is the medium that they use, so I read that to mean, they want us closer to a format that they use because their old system of communication was not so terribly functional anymore. And we knew that, it was plain that the right information wasn't getting where it need to go, over a year ago.

 

[Lelanya]

Keep in mind, also, I had to trim down a lot of content, to summarize. In many cases the questions were asked days before, and a lively discussion ensued. Anyway, I wanted to clear those notes off, close some windows so I can start the Winter event notes, and do some work on FA.

 

[BrinDarby]

(I'm not arguing, I'm not a coder).

a bunch of us are, so we know what BS gets told to us.

What may have prompted your remark, is the staff, and Developers want us on Discord because that is the medium that they use, so I read that to mean, they want us closer to a format that they use because their old system of communication was not so terribly functional anymore. And we knew that, it was plain that the right information wasn't getting where it need to go, over a year ago.

I'd like to say, who got you to drink the kool-ade, but I do see value
in being glass 1/2 full from time to time. Sounds like something used
internally ( discord ), is being forced on us and in bad ways ... and even
is supposed to replace The Forum, which it cannot.

Event quest difficulty
It was pointed out that some event quests are too difficult for early level players, and would lead to a decline in player base - crafting, donation to Ancient Wonders in particular was mentioned.
Glissal noted that the sequential quests always have an alternative, while the daily episodic quests might be harder. They feel that they have accelerated the pace for early chapter development, but ageed that the AW quests could be changed.

This is an excellent opportunity to actually fix something that now, is
beyond broken. What are we told, lies. Lets take "do 8 encounters",
now the compared difficulty of this task between a CH2 player and
a CH20 player, is obvious..... isn't it ?

When a newb says... crappy, 8 encounters takes almost all I got, even
if I choose not to overscout. The CH20 player laughs, with 100's of
provinces possible and the cost negligable for them..... Maybe thier
task should be do 180 encounters, because for them, thats just as hard
as the 8 are for that CH2 player.

This is case for a "matrix" of tasks, or ALL tasks should be scaleable
per CH of the player involved. Adjusting tasks for just newbs is silly.
Every prize bldg has a matrix of what it gives, per CH. Why cant
event tasks be structured the same way, cause its not cost prohibitable.
You see Lelanya, this is what happens long term to code... it becomes
"spagetti code" making it harder as time goes by to change easily.
This is a case where ya gotta "fix" it once ( now ) or continually allow
it to be an issue/problem. Yes, sometimes those "fixes" aren't cheap
or easy, that doesn't mean for the health of the game they arent
necessary or aren't worth the trouble.

-------------------

Nothing in your post of thier answers, got me excited about Elvenar.
Infact it was downright depressing, that whatever the issues with the
old Elvenar team were.... the new team seems worse. I want global
chat, I know you like discord, so I should be right there with-ya, but
adding chat to what we have isn't a problem, torching what we have
for what seems like no reason, is counterproductive in my book.
Its disrespecting all those , like yourself, who have poured thier heart
and soul into this game, and disrespecting everyone else too. At the
end of the day, the playerbase is thier customer. Disrespect your
customers 1 too many times, and they're gone, never to return.

 

[Lelanya]

Yes, thanks for the negativity and criticism, it's always appreciated. This was a lot of work. Thanks for dumping all over it.

 

[BrinDarby]

I'd like to say, who got you to drink the kool-ade, but I do see value
in being glass 1/2 full from time to time. Sounds like something used
internally ( discord ), is being forced on us and in bad ways ... and even
is supposed to replace The Forum, which it cannot.

@Lelanya ,
I didn't say the "who got" thingy, then I agreed with ya
to try and be positive. I certainly did not post to "dump"
on you or your coverage of thier Q&A.

You did a fantastic job of a very well written post. You did
it for, well ppl like Me or Dari, who aren't on Discord. I'd much
rather have a conversation with you realtime, cause I wasnt
there for the Q&A, some always gets "lost in translation", but
thats what we do around here.... discuss stuff....

I even praised you for your devotion to Elvenar/Forum, and
you're 1 of the ppl, all of us should thank weekly..... so thanks.
I think you was a bit harsh on me, cause I reread my last post,
it didnt sound negative to me, constructive tho, heck yea.

My main post in this thread was actually light-hearted and
1/4 comic relief, yet that itself highlights what the forum is
missing..... potential actual context ( hearing my voice ).

Yes, we got "more" than we ever have.... I guess "more"
isn't good enuff, I want "better".... because more of
something just for the sake of more, isnt helping us.

 

[Yogi Dave]

@Lelanya, thanks for taking on the impossible job of summarizing a lot from the 'Ask the Developers' and doing it well. You've given a lot of info to those of us still here. As you said, there is a lot more info in that talk since most points had comments by players and responses from the devs. I've never seen such an active participation between the players, developers, moderators, community managers, and administrators (whatever that means there). They've never done anything near that here.

We'd been complaining for months about the lack of participation by the moderators before anything about Discord was mentioned. Their participation on Discord but not here, implies that could have been the intention (speculation, it just feels like that).

I hate to say that, but for the Q & A, discord seems to be set up for that better than the forum is. There were 28 questions answered. 'Answered' means one or more of the Inno team responded. There were many questions not answered. Each question had a separate thread where both the players and Inno team could converse. They could have done the same thing here by making a section like Ideas and Suggestions and had a thread for each question. It just doesn't feel to me that would have worked as well.

Regardless, the whole thing points to the forum being totally abandoned by Inno. I think we can unfortunately say

to the forum.

 

[Myne]

@Lelanya I don't know what others said, but I truly appreciate your hard work. Thank you.

 

[Deborah M]

Thank you very much @Lelanya! I will really miss all of your hard work when the Forum goes away

Timon: There were two parts to this answer, is functionality (regarding Main Hall, Trader) or exploits (AWs) Long story short, we will always count on you to have a minimal setup for both manufactories and military buildings. And I promise you will need it. And this includes not being able to erase some buildings. (In other words, no.)

I used to try to attend all of the question & answer sessions. I had to laugh when I read this response from Timon. Don't get me wrong, I have always respected Timon. The funny thing is that for literally years he said there would "never" be any storage of buildings. I'm not holding out much hope for storage of AW but you never know

 

[Lelanya]

Deborah I will PM you the whole answer then, it's a good read.

 

[crackie]

The funny thing is that for literally years he said there would "never" be any storage of buildings.

He also said music would never change because it's too expensive and then we got some house band playing in some elf pub. There was something else he said no to and then they later developed. So it's a no until it's a yes.

 

[BrinDarby]

but for the Q & A, discord seems to be set up for that better than the forum is. There were 28 questions answered. 'Answered' means one or more of the Inno team responded. There were many questions not answered. Each question had a separate thread where both the players and Inno team could converse. They could have done the same thing here by making a section like Ideas and Suggestions and had a thread for each question. It just doesn't feel to me that would have worked as well.

Due to a lack, for 8 years, of global chat... this Forum had to
facilitate conversations within topics, while the FS chat UI
ingame has always had potential to be sooo much more.

Im kinda sympathetic to a company, that already uses certain
tools and knows the ins/outs/what buttons do/ect/ect, to save
cash/time not using 2 systems that basically do the same thing.
By that I mean, Discord -and- an embedd'd chat client for here
or ingame.

In other threads where a Universal/Global chat was suggested,
in the past, ppl went thru the pros/cons and even compared it
to the Forum and its pros/cons. Live chat is complementary to
the messageboard style of the Forum, yet mostly both have
thier strengths and very little is shared between them. What
Discord does well the Forum cant..... what the Forum does well
Discord cant.

The ppl on Facebook platinum leaf or whatever they call
themselves, have had chat this whole time... they don't need
Discord.... Inno could've just ported this all to FB, either way
they farm'd it out forcing another login elsewhere. The question
really is Why ?? EU privacy laws ? Simple cost saving ? lazyness
to learn/develop thier own ? Elimination of baggage/bad press ?
This Forum serves a function that Discord never can. At the same
time, Discord offers what Elvenar/Forum could but doesn't..... a
globalized live chat.

eStats, eArchitect, iDavis and others all serve a need, all do Not
require a login. Because a company like Discord hosts chats for
100s of companies I suspect, ... all behind thier login, potentially
any person who has a current beef, anywhere on Discord may be
effected negatively with this move. Discord gains the userbase
and the data of every Elvarian who joins, rather than Inno having
a user lic. to embedd chat into the forum, retaining thier userbase
inhouse..... even if Inno didn't want to simply adapt the UI for
FS chat, by adding other layers of chat, like global/server chat.

28 chats for 28 questions, what a trainwreck. 28 threads would
only be slightly easier, yet still too redundant and inneficient.
Thats still beside the core problem, Discord cannot replace the
Forum on some things which is also what the Forum does best.

We already lost eGems, think what would happen if iDavis, eStats,
eArchitect all went away and at the same time players decided
free labor to debug the game was not cost effective and quit the
Beta server. They also aren't the chatty ones so bypass Discord,
as they close the Forum. Its not just the Forum that dies, its Elvenar.
Whomever it was @TimeMachine said now runs Inno/Elvenar,
needs to see they are killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Closing the Forum is throwing away a community that is 8 yrs old.
Discord cannot replace it, and due to the actions since the shake-up
by Inno that are not meeting the expectations of thier playerbase,
I fear that the great migration was not from CH1-4 -> CH5/6.... It is
the migration of players to other games.... Hense, Elvenar is basically
starting over, with a whole new playerbase and Chat system.