Release Notes version 1.37

[DeletedUser3507]

I belive it was, but its been so long ago I can't be sure.

 

[Risen Malchiah]

Indeed, my continuing gripe for several months has been how much they are emulating other games.

I'm confused by this. I still don't see what it is about new optional content that is a turn-off. If anything, it gives idle players more things to do than simply wait around. If you still want to set your queues and nothing else, that option is still available at no cost to you. For myself (and I suspect many players), I get bored when there's nothing to do.

I will admit though to occasionally feeling bad about the few unguilded but active players I see. Now there's more of the game they're missing out on. Even the occasional events would be difficult for those players since they can't rely on the tournaments for the relics quests and so forth. But other than that, I welcome new features like this and want more of it. (Still want the battle portion of Adventures for instance.)

 

[DeletedUser8847]

Indeed, my continuing gripe for several months has been how much they are emulating other games. I for one really enjoyed the differences ( read independence). I quit another game after running a top guild for yrs (and spending many dollars, happily for a long time) when they figured out that people spent more to help their friends than help themselves and slowly updated everything towards encouraging that.

It seems just seems wrong to me to essentially try to frustrate people into buying their way out of other peoples shortcomings, I was content to buy my way out of my own. I keep thinking I will quit this game soon also, but so much time into it... and the foundation is still intriguing. I just really wish they had chosen a better direction to evolve than into the same plastic mass produced game of a thousand faces giving you ever more ways to get drug down by others that are such centric parts you can't ignore them and remain functional.

Note: I realize that may make me sound like an a$$, but it's quite the opposite, I love helping people, just not at great cost to my own game and/or Credit Card. Given the choices offered in what this game is becoming I would rather not help anyone nor bother trying to buy my way out of it, which makes the game not worth playing.

It is just the same old story to every game.
First you create it, then it starts getting players, when there are many players then they start thinking that they can do whatever they want.
In that context every popular game will in their due time start to act on their own.
When that happends, they stop asking from players, what are their opinion on every event.
Hopefully this don't go that same line though

 

[qaccy]

I love helping people, just not at great cost to my own game and/or Credit Card.

Are you sure you 'love' helping people if this is true? It sounds more like you're only willing to do so if it doesn't impact you in any negative way. Do you just 'help' people for the feel-goods you get from it?

For example, I'll openly admit that I don't like helping people. I only put up and accept trades that I personally need and I only put KP into my own AWs. Tournaments provide enough personal rewards that I feel no pressure to provide cheap goods to other people for the sake of the fellowship rewards, and I don't even like answering questions if it's something that's easy to look up or just 'figure out' naturally. About the nicest thing I do, since I level my AWs by myself, is make the reward slots pretty cheap for anyone who happens to notice them. But that ultimately helps me out just as much if not moreso than the people donating, and at no cost to me, so that's not really 'helping' either.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you feel 'frustrated' by helping people, you probably don't actually like helping them. You just perceive that certain people are depriving you of personal gain and you personally feel obligated to make up for it by taking their gameplay into your hands.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

Are you sure you 'love' helping people if this is true? It sounds more like you're only willing to do so if it doesn't impact you in any negative way. Do you just 'help' people for the feel-goods you get from it?

For example, I'll openly admit that I don't like helping people. I only put up and accept trades that I personally need and I only put KP into my own AWs. Tournaments provide enough personal rewards that I feel no pressure to provide cheap goods to other people for the sake of the fellowship rewards, and I don't even like answering questions if it's something that's easy to look up or just 'figure out' naturally. About the nicest thing I do, since I level my AWs by myself, is make the reward slots pretty cheap for anyone who happens to notice them. But that ultimately helps me out just as much if not moreso than the people donating, and at no cost to me, so that's not really 'helping' either.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you feel 'frustrated' by helping people, you probably don't actually like helping them. You just perceive that certain people are depriving you of personal gain and you personally feel obligated to make up for it by taking their gameplay into your hands.

Well maybe 'love' was a strong word. But I don't mind helping people, explaining things, posting trades to help drive them, I respect the symbiotic nature of the FS and enjoy the way various builds can 'use' each other towards better individual play. Key word individual. I take issue with the push towards only symbiotic play with a heavy lean towards encouragement to buy the group forward (i.e. Frustrate big players into pulling small, small players into trying to keep up, and crowd the biggest together so they can cause a diamond bloom at the expense of the rest of the game population for reasons I've ranted about before)

I'm confused by this. I still don't see what it is about new optional content that is a turn-off.

The direction of the content. Had they left FS's alone, made tournaments completely individualized and followed with independent adventures to be opted in anytime and repeated indefinitely there would still be new content and nearly identical as FS centric but to each player without the blatant psychological conspiracy to play FS members against each other, as well as the cutting out of an entire player base (solo). FS could still add and improve performance and game play, even be a critical part if one wished, maintain the fun with far less confusion, drama and just generally bad feelings.

...and yes it's all optional but also critical to advancement in rank, and that is also psychology worth considering, most people can't watch the number fall to far before they just quit... or as the Dev's surely hope, buy back up.

Conclusion: I just wish one time a group of Dev's would skirt the whispers of what I assume is a CEO type urging them to break their own vision in the name of $$$ using the same psychologically proven methods proven time and time again.
A year ago there were heavy indications this could be that game... I was wrong.
Will I wait around to see if they wrestle it back on some sort of track with some future content? Sure
Do I have any faith in that prospect? Hell no.

 

[Ashrem]

Had they left FS's alone, made tournaments completely individualized and followed with independent adventures to be opted in anytime

Both are designed to be co-operative, and I think having them neighbor based instead of fellowship based made it obvious how many abandoned cities are lying around. The switch from neighbor-tournaments to fellowship-tournaments was inconvenient for some players, but it made them substantially more entertaining for most of us. When a game is moribund and suffering from low retention, sometimes kicking over the apple-cart is the easiest way to effect change.

I still don't like adding more benefits for group play, but I don't feel like I have an alternative answer for improving retention. (Other than the oft-repeated line about having the world-map more dynamic, with inactive cities flowing in the opposite direction from active cities (outward vs inward) which would add the equivalent of another rank-competition via the centre of the map being a much-sought-after spot.

 

[Risen Malchiah]

Yeah, when tournaments were location-based, I was only ever able to open 1-2 chests because I was doing it alone.

I agree there should be more content that caters to the individual, but I doubt that will happen. The devs have clearly emphasized fellowships and group activity for quite a while now (including Rika's insistence that they be called "fellowships" when Timon once accidentally said "guilds"). But seeing that it is far more efficient to be in a fellowship, I dont really understand those who prefer to go solo since for them there's really nothing to do while waiting for things to build.

 

[DeletedUser5800]

I think having them neighbor based instead of fellowship based made it obvious how many abandoned cities are lying around.

Indeed.

the oft-repeated line about having the world-map more dynamic

Why in the world they have never figured this one out I will never understand.

seeing that it is far more efficient to be in a fellowship, I dont really understand those who prefer to go solo since for them there's really nothing to do while waiting for things to build

Agreed, but it could have easily not been this way, had they regeared the tournament to have nothing to do with anyone else and just let that be an entirely solo endeavor and mimicked that for adventures FS's could be as much part of your game as you want or none...

Anyway, I realize I'm just pissing into the wind here, but how else would I know if the wind is blowing.
I hate how much I like this game even with it's very many flaws... and I'm beginning to like how much I hate it too, so I yield the floor.