[How to Save Our Beloved CN]

It's not my fault that my blogs end up getting so popular This probably gets more attention than the thread though since the link is always visible on the side (because apparently very few people write blogs anymore :\)

Instr, you have some valid points. I'd still say that both player retention and obtaining them are important, though, and that's what matters. We could debate the semantics of which matters more but ultimately you're going to need both things for the game to thrive as it once did.

I whole heartedly agree that the tech issue is more important than the wonder issue. I brought up both points though because I wanted to show two things- that seniority affects more than just 1 part of the game, and that the problems are fundamentally different in nature. The wonders affect the "grinding" period of the game. As it stands, to have them all collected takes a minimum of 2.5 years, which means it will take that amount of time for a new player to be "equal" to an older player (at least in that specific regard). I mentioned that because out of all the game's I've played, 2.5 years just for the grinding period of the game seems ridiculously long to me. For example, if I were to play a game like Diablo 2 and grind a character up to level 99, it would take no more than a few months, not years. Of course just getting to 99 isn't the entirety of the game (as then you still need to find loot for your character), nor is is 100% necessary, but to have a truly equal duel between two players they'd both need to be the same level. With that in mind, that's why I proposed removing the wonder clock because it would turn that nasty 2.5 year grinding phase into something closer to 1 year. Of course, an alternative (that I don't necessarily agree with but for the sake of argument) if we want to adjust this grinding phase would be to keep the clock but make it like 15 or 20 days instead of 30.

However, the grinding period isn't the REAL problem. The most brutal part of CN is the tech system because it creates shifting goalposts. Meaning, that no matter how long a nation grinds for (even an infinitely long period of time), a new nation will NEVER be able to get higher NS than me as long as I keep importing tech every 10 days. In fact, because being able to buy nukes relies on being in the top x percentage of nations, there will eventually be a point where it's FASTER to buy all the wonders in the game (thus having a manhattan project) than to hit that 10% (or whatever it currently is; I don't know off the top of my head). This makes grinding NS a progressively longer task every day that goes by as the average NS of nations will continue to rise and it will make a new nation take that much longer just to reach a mildly decent NS.

That's why I keep coming back to this idea of design. While there's only so much we can do outside of the game as far as players are concerned, we CAN control the way the game is built, and the best thing we can do is to make it as attractive as possible by analyzing the design flaws and figuring out how to redesign each system in the game so that CN becomes more fun and fair for everyone.

[How to Save Our Beloved CN]

This is great input guys. I'm really enjoying reading all these different viewpoints, and my hope is that by the time this post dies, we have a good idea of what we should be doing.

So maybe seniority isn't the biggest issue after all. I still think that it has some negative side effects that deserve to be looked at, but that's not the real point of this entry. Let's then try to look at it as two tasks.

1, We need to bring in new players. Word has to reach new untapped areas (like UE did with Ponychan). This means more active recruitment on everybody's part and more advertisement. It also means that alliances have to WANT more new players, which I have no idea if that works into everyone's overall plans.

2, We need to keep the players here once they get here. It's in this category that all the gameplay balance and whatnot goes, and where I think the seniority effects might start coming into play. Note that the gameplay stuff is only a section of this goal, as some people will leave once here because of reasons outside the game (not being an influential alliance leader, real life obligations, etc). I will be focusing on the gamplay aspect though since it's something we definitely CAN do something about. I'm going to cite Diablo 2 (or World of Warcraft if you prefer, it applies all the same) as my example games. While a lot of games do reward seniority, it's usually through a combination of grinding and luck. The grinding often has some kind of cap associated with it- you level up to max level (which can take a few weeks to a few months depending on the game), but after that initial grinding period it then becomes a game of luck- usually in the form of items. Some items are outright better than others, but usually not so much that it makes everything else completely unusable and not competitive. Still, if you put in the time, you'll eventually come across that one item that gives you the extra edge which might make the difference in a duel between two players of the exact same skill.

I think that's a decent design strategy- the game is then roughly equal for everyone, but there's still an element of strategy and luck. How could we do this? First, remove the 30 day cap for wonders. That reduces the grinding period from a 2.5 years down to something closer to 1 year (though reaching the infra and tech caps might still take longer depending on optimizations and how much aid you end up getting). 1 year minimum is way long for the grinding period as it is. Find some way to effectively "cap" technology in the same manner as infra or land so that its not worth it for nations with tons of tech to continue buying it.

Then, add in the luck element of developing. This could be as simple as a set of [positive only] events where you gain like 100 land / 100 tech /100 infra (found the remains of an old civilization under your capital! ) or something of that sort. Get them on average once every month or two (every nation has a chance at these) so that nations can continue to make gains even when the cost to buy stuff wouldn't pay itself off for years. This then naturally lends itself to a new idea, call it "Investments", which you could buy for some amount of in game money to raise your chances of finding something.

Part 1 may very likely be more of a factor than Part 2. I don't have the statistics to prove or disprove that. Still, they are both valid reasons and I'd love to hear your suggestions for how to address this kind of thing.

[How to Save Our Beloved CN]

Ashoka - It's not about not being able to start buying wonders in 4 months, it's that the time limit is an artificial implementation that prevents people from getting to the same level as everyone else for a minimum of 2.5 years (plus that initial 0-4 months and however many days they were not able to buy on schedule due to things like, missing trades, etc). I don't know that I'm necessarily ok with that, but because it is actually achievable as opposed to the tech issue, it's not quite as important.

MrMuz - You have a very legitimate point and I also think that is a part of the reason as well, but that's something that's not directly game related and really there's not too much that can be done about it, which is why I've chosen to focus on things that CAN be addressed. There's no denying that you need time to learn and get your name out there before you can rise to a position of importance within an alliance. It also tends to work better in democratic groups as you have the chance on a regular basis to campaign and get to know the people that will be voting for you, as opposed to the dictatorship type alliances where moving up takes a really long time.

And yea, we do want to find a way to keep the senior players interested, but at the same time, doing it by keeping an eternal seemingly or completely impassible barrier between them and the new nations doesn't seem like the right way to me. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm pretty sure that's not it. My hope is that someone will come up with a suggestion that addresses both issues.

New Frontier - We've already passed the point where that would have a significant effect. We're down from ~40,000 members to ~17,000 (someone can correct me if this is slightly off but it's close enough) and sticking our heads in the sand isn't going to make it any better. In fact, we have plenty of evidence that this doesn't work (see previous sentence). If we want to get back up to 40,000+ we need to start looking at the reasons why those people left and find out which of them can be fixed. Obviously not every reason can be because not every reason has to do with in-game factors, but the ones that do really need to be looked at closely else we will continue to see people leave for those reasons.

[Some insight into my resource fanaticism]

If you had better control of your resources, ideally, how would you look? I mean hell, you looking purdy good. now.Just looked at your profile, I assume you would want the GG1 Improvement, -1 day in trade slot age.

At my peak I was running a modified 5BR set with over 14,000 infra, proven by the fact that I own a Scientific Development Center. To be honest, I've never even considered what resources I would select for myself. Likely Uranium (since I'm one of the few people in my alliance that can have nukes, it'd be necessary to have a constant supply to make up for it) and one of the 3BR/5BR crossover resources. I'd set myself up for infra buying till I hit like 8k+ or so, then switch over to an income set and start banking all kinds of mad cash.