Fleeing The Game

[ChairmanHal]

OP, you want change...

1. No more of these threads. Self-fulling prophecies are a *&(^*^.

2. Recruit new players...if we all just brought in one more, we'd have things back to early 2007 levels.

3. I'd like to see more changes to the game, but Admin is reluctant to make them for fear of driving off more players. Constructive criticism, fewer threats to quit if change "x" is made, more suggestions for improvements, and celebrating when they are made instead of grumbling would go a long way.

[Manis B]

[quote name='maxfiles' timestamp='1289250513' post='2506508']

Manis, I have had many good ideas regarding this game... please take your snark and put it back where it came from, as it was not asked for no invited into this conversation.
[/quote]

/me places snark back into snark pouch.

[quigon jinn]

[quote name='ChairmanHal' timestamp='1289413623' post='2509476']3. I'd like to see more changes to the game, but Admin is reluctant to make them for fear of driving off more players. Constructive criticism, fewer threats to quit if change "x" is made, more suggestions for improvements, and celebrating when they are made instead of grumbling would go a long way.
[/quote]

This is all bs.

The game is already complicated (and boring) for most new players, so more changes will not really change anything from their perspective.

Second, I do not believe for a second the number of people who'd quit because of changes will ever rival the number of people who get bored and just stop playing. Not to mention resistance to change will always happen, in almost all circumstance, because it's human nature - expecting people to get gung-ho about changes is not realistic. But just because something is temporarily unpopular does not mean it is a bad change for the long term stability and growth of the game.

I highly doubt many people would be too upset if admin allowed us to buy 100 infra in one purchase or adding tank/aircraft casualties or something changed with the obnoxiousness of resources, etc. Yeah, if some trivial change not addressing issues lasting for multiple years (some 2, 3, or 4+) you'll probably get flak. But that also makes sense, because seeing something which matters ignored for things which do not is annoying.

[Darth Andrew]

If simple changes were made to make in-game politics more interesting (such as making team colors, location of nations, etc actually relevant), that would spur more activity, without making the game more complicated.

[OsRavan]

Not that I expect this to actually change. But IMO the change needed is simply this: 1) It takes too long for a new player to become relevant. 2) Nations have gotten so insanely large that they take years to rebuild after a war.

A new player who joins CN can expect roughly two years of solid work in order to become an "average" nation. How many games require that sort of time commitment to become middle of the pack?

And on the flip side some nations have gotten so insanely large that, not only will they never be caught up to, but they have a vested interest in avoiding a war since they would never recover from said war.

Solution? 1) Make it easier for new nations to build to relevancy. Instead of 2 years to hit 50 or 60,000 make it 3-4 months.

Doing this would allow new players to the game to become relevant in a somewhat speedy fashion and the more realistic rebuild time would also encourage established players to take risks.

2)Make it much much much harder to gain NS beyond say 150,000. If not impossible then VERY slow going. Solution 1 without solution 2 is only a temporary fix. Since without solution 2 nation inflation will occur and we will have this same problem in a few years. Let there still be things nations can collect... say tech for damage... but have the NS equation tweaked so growth of NS is nearly halted.

This not only keeps some nations from becoming intimidatingly large, but will increase the heart of the game... political activity and wars. How? Because, especially coupled with the easier (though still months long) rebuilding it will promote nations to take risks. If you essentially hit an end game level strength there's no reason *not* to use it. Politics and global wars are the heart of the game but the current system discourages them.


Don't expect these changes to actually implemented, but imo they (not tech raiding or whatever) are the root causes of the lack of player retention.

[Egwaterboy61]

Its down to respect.

We were always "bored". We always had an "evil hegemony ruining the game". We always had tech raiders and lulz alliances. We were always waiting for the "next great war". These things are not new.

What *has* changed is the *respect* factor. Back in the day, respect was always given, even to your enemy. Those who didn't give respect were quickly thrown out of power, or at the very least, scorned on the OWF. Despite your feelings or actions towards an alliance in game, you always treated them well out of game. None of this crying and whining and PR stunts. We played for fun, not to destroy. We played to create, not to plunder.

We lost the ability to respect each other. Do that, and people will change their attitude about the manner in which CN is played. The *way* it is played hasn't changed, just the *manner* in which it is carried out has.

That, and a few mechanic updates would be nice. The game becomes a bit complacent when you have all the wonders and can buy all your infra back...twice...with your warchest.

Edited November 12, 2010 by Egwaterboy61

[Darth Andrew]

[quote name='Egwaterboy61' timestamp='1289575624' post='2511159']
What *has* changed is the *respect* factor. Back in the day, respect was always given, even to your enemy. Those who didn't give respect were quickly thrown out of power, or at the very least, scorned on the OWF. Despite your feelings or actions towards an alliance in game, you always treated them well out of game. None of this crying and whining and PR stunts. We played for fun, not to destroy. We played to create, not to plunder.[/quote]
Um, were you around during 2006-2007? Things were much more vicious back then, and OWF trolling was much more rampant.

I agree that the game needs to be updated, though. And not more useless Wonder additions.

[Timeline]

nvm

Edited November 12, 2010 by Timeline

[Ardus]

[quote name='Cortath' timestamp='1285982261' post='2471743']
Far and away, it's due to the incredibly bad economic system.

The economic system doesn't scale at all. this means that the largest nations get so big simply by living for a really long time. There's no skill involved, only perseverance.

This has profound military effects: alliances are loathe to go to war where the damage incurred in a brief time takes years to rebuild. Thus, wars, when they come are much much larger and involve huge reparations, because that's the only way to keep an alliance down. Three years ago, an alliance could be utterly crushed and be rebuilt within a month because even the victors' nations were not much larger. There's no way to rebuild a large nation other than to hunker down for a year or two and not get crushed. Again, three years ago, the aid system was such that nations could be rebuilt to be equal to their victor-peers within a couple aid cycles.
[/quote]
I concur with this here Pacifican Emperor.

[Lennox]

I blame admin.

[Dochartaigh]

[quote name='Cataduanes' timestamp='1289226753' post='2506068']
Hiring extra programmers would surely cost money, who do you think would end up footing the bill for the wages? Us that's who. As for Kevin selling up I would say we would be asking for trouble, in all likelihood a new owner would smell the greenbacks and start charging us for the pleasure of playing CN which would kill the game off far quicker than political stagnation or lack of ingame developments.

Kevin has done a bang up job so far (as has his staff of hard workings moderators and so forth), we should all be little more understanding of the constraints he too has to work with (RL has got us all by the balls). Appreciate what we have, because it could be gone in the click of a mouse and then where would we be? playing something inferior thats for sure.

Seeing as the game heavily relies on player/alliance interaction I would say the onus is on us the players to ensure this is a more welcoming enviroment for newer players, you can still have fun at 20K NS, and not all of us are all that interested in being in the top 5% (I gave up on that dream in the GATO-1V war ).
[/quote]

finally getting to the top 5% is one of the few things keeping me playing. i am a stubborn fool and have come close on a couple of occasions to being in the top 5% so, now i have to make it there. though for the most part, it would probably take me a long while to make it there.

[Cataduanes]

[quote name='Dochartaigh' timestamp='1289598244' post='2511367']
finally getting to the top 5% is one of the few things keeping me playing. i am a stubborn fool and have come close on a couple of occasions to being in the top 5% so, now i have to make it there. though for the most part, it would probably take me a long while to make it there.
[/quote]
Haha More power to you Doch, you show more determination than I in this case!. I have got close to 50K only twice in this game only to have all that hard work wiped out during wars....I no longer have the patience to try reach the top 5%, if I have a decent warchest and a respectable level of tech (The former is in hand...still working on the latter ) then I am happy.

Edited November 13, 2010 by Cataduanes

[Alterego]

The reps doled out from the last two wars and the grouping of the three big blocs together on the same corner of the world has led to total stagnation.

Edited November 13, 2010 by Alterego

[Dochartaigh]

[quote name='Cataduanes' timestamp='1289638858' post='2511746']
Haha More power to you Doch, you show more determination than I in this case!. I have got close to 50K only twice in this game only to have all that hard work wiped out during wars....I no longer have the patience to try reach the top 5%, if I have a decent warchest and a respectable level of tech (The former is in hand...still working on the latter ) then I am happy.
[/quote]

oh i know the feeling. Prior to the Cluster$%&@ war i was finally around 65k NS. i got beat down to 5k NS.

[nippy]

When are you people going to stop whining about losing the current player base and actually do something about it? GOONS has had at least four massive recruitment drives over the past year. You can point a finger and guffaw about our ANS, but that's the damn reason. If you're worried about the number of players, GO RECRUIT SOME MORE. Also, this constant whining about losing players will only make new players view this game as a dying entity. Imagine you recently joined a game where everyone was talking about how it was 'dying'...would [i]you[/i] want to stick around and make an effort to go up the ranks?

[Rooman33]

I think the OWF is generally inhospitable to new players - as if the tech raiding atmosphere in-game wasn't uninviting enough - and folks feel intimidated. But that's probably more of a retention problem than a recruiting problem. I think the current game interface isn't flashy enough to bring in new, young players.

[C Mos]

Not sure if anyone pointed this out but I'm going to go ahead and post this link, [url="http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=91309&st=140&p=2433408&#entry2433408"]here.[/url] A quote from admin.

[quigon jinn]

[quote name='C Mos' timestamp='1289683686' post='2512138']
Not sure if anyone pointed this out but I'm going to go ahead and post this link, [url="http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=91309&st=140&p=2433408&#entry2433408"]here.[/url] A quote from admin.
[/quote]

There are a lot of reasons this game has slowly been declining.

Unfortunately, it's likely any of them will ever change.

[Prime minister Johns]

Something occurred to me last night.

Every time an alliance had some kind of event that got everyone involved, the game was a lot more fun.

Even events like shark week from way back when got people talking and making numerous posts on the forums.

What we really need is more player organized events, and this would make the game a lot more fun.

[Chalaskan]

I must say getting back in the top 5% once again is definitely something that keeps me playing. I see it as an achievable goal, and damn near did it before the last war.

Regardless, boredom is the biggest problem with the game at this point. A major shakedown would increase activity and increase members.

Don't ask me how to achieve that other than a possible reset.

[C Mos]

[quote name='Chalaskan' timestamp='1289699463' post='2512394']
I must say getting back in the top 5% once again is definitely something that keeps me playing. I see it as an achievable goal, and damn near did it before the last war.

Regardless, boredom is the biggest problem with the game at this point. A major shakedown would increase activity and increase members.

Don't ask me how to achieve that other than a possible reset.
[/quote]
A reset in my eyes, will cause a lot of people to leave.. My guess, majority of large nations who spent years building up to where they are.

[lakerzz8]

[quote name='Chalaskan' timestamp='1289699463' post='2512394']
I must say getting back in the top 5% once again is definitely something that keeps me playing. I see it as an achievable goal, and damn near did it before the last war.

Regardless, boredom is the biggest problem with the game at this point. A major shakedown would increase activity and increase members.

Don't ask me how to achieve that other than a possible reset.
[/quote]

There is nothing worse that can be done to this game than a reset. The last thing people who have spent months/years + real money want to do is start all over again. I would say that the most optimistic estimate would see at least 50% of current players decide not to return. The only players that would want to stick around are new players that don't want to play catch up to the old players. Most new players don't seem to stick around anyway. It is a lose lose.

[quigon jinn]

[quote name='C Mos' timestamp='1289705640' post='2512488']
A reset in my eyes, will cause a lot of people to leave.. My guess, majority of large nations who spent years building up to where they are.
[/quote]


Those nations are also a large part of the problem with the game at the moment, so I guess it's a lose-lose situation.

[C Mos]

[quote name='quigon jinn' timestamp='1289749595' post='2512767']
Those nations are also a large part of the problem with the game at the moment, so I guess it's a lose-lose situation.
[/quote]
It's just up to the players to advertise the game and to make this game interesting themselves.

[quigon jinn]

[quote name='C Mos' timestamp='1289749694' post='2512769']
It's just up to the players to advertise the game and to make this game interesting themselves.
[/quote]

See, here's the deal: the game, from a gameplay standpoint, is bad. There is absolutely no end game, literally no incentive for people to desire war, because that war causes people to quite easily lose [b]years[/b] of worth.

A new nation such as my own has no chance to ever catch up to the larger nations regardless of ability.

Players have a responsibility in all games but the player responsibility is not to make up for gameplay flaws.


It's simply not human nature to squander things which take years to make. It just is not - and because the game caters towards this sort of result from anything interesting (like aggressive actions, or war) it becomes boring. Players have responsibility sure but it is a responsibility within reason. Expecting people to act in ways generally considered irresponsible to make up for game flaws is going to result in this game dying permanently.