Game growth ... That time again - Earth Empires Forum

Marshal1

Member
401

Jun 24th 2013, 20:03:49

Originally posted by Son Goku:

Originally posted by Marshal1:

or don't do anything else than explore ~70 turns per day and then get farmed.

That sounds GREAT to me.

of course it does.

galleri: fluff off marshal

archaic: FFS when Marshal has stood out as maybe the brightest person on the whole thread . . . fluff me, I'm going to go smoke a joint and reevaluate some fluff

sinistril: Oh snap, Marshal destroyed galleri. Thought I'd

KriSatZ

Member
270

Jun 24th 2013, 20:08:38

Qzjul I think a good way would to be pushing new players into a tag, so then that tag will take responsibility to help them.

Of course, this would need to have something in place to stop it being open to abuse.

Success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.

LaFamiglia - zKriSatZwpn - LaFamiglia

PaleMoon

Member
294

Jun 24th 2013, 20:12:03

Originally posted by qzjul:

Originally posted by PaleMoon:

Originally posted by qzjul:

I'll see if i can get on top of those in the beginning of July (after my karate grading!)/

What grade are you going for, and what style?

Style is Goju-kai; going for Shodan-ho

You do karate or other martial arts?

Yeah I do Shotokan, and should be going for Nidan some time in October; got my Shodan almost two years ago.

"imo the true issue over there is and always has been palemoon." - Vic (Mr. Clear)

La Famiglia

qzjul

Administrator
Game Development
10,263

Jun 24th 2013, 20:45:47

nice :)

Finally did the signature thing.

UltraMarines

Member
343

Jun 24th 2013, 20:56:19

good post

Shinigami

Member
685

Jun 24th 2013, 22:41:56

Well, this IS an alliance server, yes? Make joining an alliance mandatory for leaving protection.

Helps n00bs get trained, reduces farming untaggeds, leads to more real wars over resources instead of over fluffy fluffy BS.

Catchy

Member
248

Jun 24th 2013, 23:24:11

get random nice guys to lead training alliances for noobs. the newbies get a chance to join one of the training alliances where they get taught some basics. Eventually they will then choose a real alliance or meet people in the training tag who they decide to go out on their own with.

gl finding those random nice guys, and not sure that would really reduce farming of the newbs. But at least it would give them a rundown of how the game works and give them a chance to be somewhat organized before they get a real tag.

forcing them to join the established tags doesn't really help the game much. everyone has established retal policies and such which just makes bigger wars over the same crap. besides, we don't need us old bitter people brainwashing the newbs to hate everyone we hate.

anoniem

Member
2881

Jun 25th 2013, 0:06:12

let's face it: this game is fluffing fluff and no amount of changes will alter that simple fact.

re(ally)tired

Catchy

Member
248

Jun 25th 2013, 0:42:46

and we are still here... so something must be alright

Peanut

Member
154

Jun 25th 2013, 4:29:10

Expending on Shin's point why not just give those who leave protection a grace period before they are placed into a game generated alliance? Try to code in a news feed that would display attacks/defends of their fellow untagged alliances members. Maybe that would open up a different play style to the untagged player where they had information available to them to help others in the same position?

Heston

Member
4766

Jun 25th 2013, 5:06:18

/me looks down the barrel of the game shut off date.

❤️️Nothing but❤️️💯❤️️❤️️🌺🌸🌹❤️❤️💯

humtake

New Member
13

Jun 25th 2013, 13:49:55

Back when it was Mehul, there were only three people playing that ran 15k countries. Looks to me like you three players have just gotten terrible at running multies...

Nitro

Member
105

Jun 25th 2013, 14:07:16

Pang, let me know if you guys want to have the discussion again of using programmers to help out :p

Trife

Member
5817

Jun 25th 2013, 14:46:34

Originally posted by Xinhuan:

Hi Fazer. I would like to debunk your myth that the game is shrinking.

Based on numbers from http://www.eestats.com, I went to look at the last 10 resets on Alliance, and noted the number of countries that are alive at the end of the reset (final scores).

2013: Set ending Jun 5: 748 countries
2013: Set ending Apr 5: 841 countries
2013: Set ending Feb 3: 881 countries
2012: Set ending Dec 4: 855 countries
2012: Set ending Oct 4: 860 countries
2012: Set ending Aug 4: 817
2012: Set ending Jun 4: 865
2012: Set ending Apr 4: 861
2012: Set ending Feb 3: 793
2011: Set ending Dec 4: 737

Moving forward, the numbers aren't going down on Alliance.

Now, I'm going to pull out the same statistic for the Primary server, where there are no tags, and hence you cannot blame "any one tag" for causing the game to be not fun:

2013: Set ending May 3: 982
2013: Set ending Mar 3: 1083
2012: Set ending Jan 1: 1089
2012: Set ending Nov 1: 1108
2012: Set ending Sep 1: 1067
2012: Set ending Jul 2: 1107
2012: Set ending May 2: 1153
2012: Set ending Mar 2: 937
2011: Set ending Jan 1: 772
2011: Set ending Nov 1: 889

Again, the numbers show that the number of players is trending up, even if a large number of them never leave protection. Player numbers slightly dropped in May-June last month in both servers - this could be related to the recent formula changes to building costs and other game changes.

To say that the game is shrinking due to one reset without looking at the overall trend over 2+ years is ludicrous. In fact, quite the opposite, many people have recently started to complain about login and cookie issues, and the top100 arena bonus. These are the real problems that are driving people away - the technical problems.

So we're up 11 players from two years ago? I wish we could tell how many of those countries had been played in the last five days. Also curious to know the number of alliances that were around then as compared to now.

Methinks that would paint a slightly different picture.

Xinhuan

Member
3728

Jun 25th 2013, 17:15:37

That's easy Trife:

Current reset (set ending Aug 5 2013):
http://www.earthempires.com/alliance/clans
(13 clans have 5+ members, 537 tagged)

Set ending Dec 4 2011:
http://www.earthempires.com/...nce/12/clans?ranktype=tnw
(18 clans have 5+ members, 521 tagged)

So we have same (or more) players, but less clans due to clan mergers over the last 2 years.

Requiem

Member

EE Patron
9092

Jun 25th 2013, 17:18:18

Don't argue numbers with xin. He is a robot!

BigRick

Member
118

Jun 25th 2013, 18:05:25

I just have 2 comments.

Alliance is geared towards alliances so why not set it where you HAVE to join a tag after a certain amount of turns? I know every 1 man tag I have seen I've tried to recruit to Death Knights and have managed to get a couple to join DK. This may just lead to a bunch of 1 man tags however

Originally posted by qzjul:

Originally posted by KriSatZ:

As someone who recently was a new player, I'll give my advice with whats wrong with the game.

When n0f first asked me to come here, I spent ~15 days messing around before joining LaF the next set. I got farmed to oblivion.
Give me one good reason why a new player would stick around to get farmed? None. Exactly.

People see new players as free land.

The best suggestion I can make for the game is that all new players either play in a protected server OR if they do play alliance server, they get placed in a tag and can go from there.

Yes, this is part of the plan; we need to shelter n00bs, or they don't stay

A newb server would be a good idea. Since the game keeps stats of past countries you could base it on that. If the person has never achieved higher than X NW, they can create in the noob server. If you have never reach X amount of land, if they have made less than X amount of attacks in the past X resets.

Just a thought.

***Leader of DeathKnights***
Pink Elephant Tamer

NukEvil

Member
4327

Jun 25th 2013, 18:37:16

We already have a "newb" server. It's called express.

I am a troll. Everything I say must be assumed to be said solely to provoke an exaggerated reaction to the current topic. I fully intend to bring absolutely no substance to any discussion, ongoing or otherwise. Conversing with me is pointless.

Link

Member
4676

Jun 25th 2013, 23:06:13

great thread this

Link.

I Am a meat popsicle.

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Angel1

Member
837

Jun 25th 2013, 23:57:16

Originally posted by KriSatZ:

Perhaps having established alliances take responsibility for some training tags, either on the alliance server or on a separate server. If the training tag does well, then the next set their responsible tag gets a slight bonus (extended startup protection to 150 turns or something). If the training tag doesn't do well at all, perhaps a small penalty (reduce the startup protection to 75 turns). This would incentivize the community to train new players.

-Angel1

RD Watcher III

New Member
4

Jun 26th 2013, 17:45:19

qz, I think you're the only thing holding this game back from oblivion.

I don't say that lightly.

I think your view on game mechanics is one of the reasons we are stuck in an interminable rut.

Please look outside the realm of netgaining. Your cabal has served netgaining and netgaining only for the last 3 years.

Wake the fluff up.

War has been held back, downgraded, ignored and it has come at a massive cost to the game.

You say 1000 turns of no special attacks is inelegant. Bull fluffing fluff. Is 100 turns of protection inelegant? Im calling you out on this because although you are the least militant admin, you are far too ready to cower to the whims of mental midgets like pang and martian.

Delay war. Make war a strategic decision and not a race to see who can make the best 400 turn Commie. fluff the way this game is run is enough to make people go crazy....

Drunken Dibs

Member
467

Jun 26th 2013, 23:02:06

Originally posted by qzjul:

Originally posted by KriSatZ:

Yes, this is part of the plan; we need to shelter n00bs, or they don't stay

try handicap stickers, or see if you can pay them SS disability... might get them to stick around when they have no interest in doing the math. maybe teach them how to use a spreadsheet, so they don't actually have to do the math in their head. suppose we could upgrade the Western education system such that people can't get a job simply brecause they know somebody. oh, we're sorry, you actually need some skillz to get this job. it's nice that you understand the education system, but it doesn't really work like that here.

Conformity Requires Sacrifice.
Send Me More 18-20 year old female virgins if you want me to conform properly.

KriSatZ

Member
270

Jun 27th 2013, 5:46:45

Originally posted by Drunken Dibs:

Originally posted by qzjul:

Originally posted by KriSatZ:

Yes, this is part of the plan; we need to shelter n00bs, or they don't stay

I can pretty much guarantee if people like you left the game then more people would stick around. Noobs are seen as farm land, and very few alliances take a risk on them. I have experienced this first hand. Why should a noob poke around, run a few turns, be farmed and continue playing?

On the other hand, if they got put into an alliance, say for example my own. We would get them onto the site, integrate them with a ~80 member community and help them with their country and offer tag protection.

It's not a hard thing to impliment (I don't think). And if you where a new player, what way would most likely keep you playing?

Success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.

LaFamiglia - zKriSatZwpn - LaFamiglia

Unsympathetic

Member
364

Jun 27th 2013, 16:50:19

Unfortunately the attempt to "decrease the learning curve" leads to a less interesting game -- and quite frankly the challenge of ee as compared to literally every other game out there is why I'm still around.

Yes, a small% of total visitors will log in every day for the first week, and an even smaller % of those people will become decently productive members of the community.. because that reflects the small% of people in the real world who are looking for a game that is actually challenging to learn. I don't think that's able to be changed at all, because it's a cultural issue and not something within the scope of control of this game.

Most people in the US will not stick with something where you cannot do it on your own. To me, any assumptions that putting a lot of effort into making ee compliant with "facebook" [the ultimate in immediate gratification] will somehow increase the longrun playerbase for ee seems wildly off base.
step 1: Facebook
step 2: ???
step 3: Untold riches

What would bring people? Using some tagline about a game that's simple to learn, but difficult to master could bring in more of the types who enjoy strategy games like go, pente, chess and the like.

Edited By: Unsympathetic on Jun 27th 2013, 16:58:29
See Original Post

now im nothing

Member
802

Jun 29th 2013, 12:30:30

Originally posted by qzjul:

Or just pay for massive marketing! :)

I'm sure a 30 second spot during the superbowl would get us a *few* players =D

haha :)

less defined as days go by. Fading away well you might say I am losing the focus. Kinda drifting into the abstract in terms of how I see myself