Forums / In game politics / Is VU dying

Is VU dying
05:53:55 Oct 10th 14 - Grag (Mr. Froats):

40 peeps online?


You can't get Ebola from VU.  Not fact but i'm pretty solid about that.


06:30:52 Oct 10th 14 - Djinn Bartimaeus (Mr. Finally Onn Time):

Been dying bro. Its saddening :(


11:31:48 Oct 10th 14 - Bran (Mr. John Zoidberg):

is dying but trying to give it mouth to mouth.  my kd has had auto join on all last era and ppl definately are coming to the game they just dont stick around. we need to make fant more fun


11:56:19 Oct 10th 14 - shyers (Grandmaster Disaster Faster Laster Shyers):

Its only dying if you let it. This game requires audience participation


13:09:05 Oct 11th 14 - Alrisaia (Ms. Alrisaia):

I have friends who might play if the game had some more immediate gratification... it's very difficult to show someone how the game works in say a few hours... since a new player starts and what do they do?


OK dude drop a city there. good now build 151 homes and rainbow lumber farms and mines 50,50,50. OK cool... now we wait.

wait for what?

next tick.

when's that?

in an hour.

ugh, really? this game is boring.

no really really it's not just give it a chance.

OK so in an hour what do i do?

well keep building that city drop off your peasants and move over here and drop another city.

when do i fight?

in like three days or so but don't worry it's fun.

protection ends new player gets oop owned and they quit.

i was almost one of them.


13:10:22 Oct 11th 14 - Alrisaia (Ms. Alrisaia):

In fact how do i become a guide for lower worlds?


13:25:36 Oct 11th 14 - Princess Aisha:

We all go through that, when I started I set a city and trained like a thousand level 1s, I attacked someone thinking I would kill them all. Then I got killed and the rest of the troops I had I just ran the other way, I spent 1 rl day running away from the guy, for some reason I thought I needed to escape. And then I reached some kingdom that had a nice person in there to help me learn the game.

I am pretty sure at least 90% of peple end up getting killed right when they start, there are so many things wrong with the game, that would need to be fixed. Like donors can freely play on lower worlds and just molest all the new people, and even if not donor they just create new character without exp and just attack new people again. There should be some kind of reward for having exp in the game, so people would stick to their characters and not always make new ones...

You can write to VU Admin about becoming a guide.


14:05:26 Oct 11th 14 - Fire Lord Crazy (Fire Lord The Immolation Death Bear):

Good old days were i thought having one Nazgul was top shit, and i would Destroy the city i was attacking and then so a 10k army and Almost quit cause i thought he was hacking, My army was like 100 gaia and 1 naz and couple ogre, this was 10 years ago though .Then i met Fire Lord Nova and hanky They guided me! Thats why the name, in honor of him. but the point is i think we need to communicate better with players ever since communication started dying the game did 2. People dont even talk anymore or messages dont get responded 2 because people think its a power play or just cbf.  I send a shitload of messages to people.

people know that; when i fight them or have them as ally ill communicate, non of this skype shit that doesnt help new players or people who dont want to go through the process


14:51:18 Oct 11th 14 - Alrisaia (Ms. Alrisaia):


Princess Aisha:

We all go through that, when I started I set a city and trained like a thousand level 1s, I attacked someone thinking I would kill them all. Then I got killed and the rest of the troops I had I just ran the other way, I spent 1 rl day running away from the guy, for some reason I thought I needed to escape. And then I reached some kingdom that had a nice person in there to help me learn the game.

I am pretty sure at least 90% of peple end up getting killed right when they start, there are so many things wrong with the game, that would need to be fixed. Like donors can freely play on lower worlds and just molest all the new people, and even if not donor they just create new character without exp and just attack new people again. There should be some kind of reward for having exp in the game, so people would stick to their characters and not always make new ones...

You can write to VU Admin about becoming a guide.


you're just hammering my point home further Aisha, if 90% of people have to experience a game that doesn't seem fun right away that leaves only 10% of players who start that actually begin playing as active players...

also you said write to vu admin. how does one write to the vu amin?


15:09:05 Oct 11th 14 - Princess Aisha:

In basically any strategic game you play, it will be the same as here... There is no game that would get you in battles right from the beginning, in every game you need to build up economy to later be able to train. So even if beginning of the game might look boring, that is what every game is like, and I don't see how that could be changed.

No I did not say 90% of people will find the game not fun, I said that most people will end up attacked by stronger players right away without any help. But that is also hard to change, and its good to learn from the defeat, thought we lose many people over that...

Well go over to "news" section of the forums, and see Zeta's posts. Even on the first page you will see newest posts and under it posts by the admin:



Game news

HTTPS enabled
-ZeTa (VU Admin)

Game moved to new server
-ZeTa (VU Admin)



16:53:39 Oct 11th 14 - Rora (Empress Aurora):

so when I joined this game not terribly long ago, I was extremely confused in what to do. Fortunately I had someone to guide me along the whole way so all of the confusion was temporary. I'm pretty sure the first thing I told the person showing me this game was "This looks really stupid". However, he insisted I give it a try and he helped me know almost everything I needed to know. Here I am still.

I think what's needed is something that has been brought up in these forums numerous times, because I've seen it a couple times in my time playing. The game needed some sort of start guide, something to explain all of the basics to newcomers.

I wouldn't be playing if I didn't have help, its a slow game to begin with so why would I want to put the extra effort into learning how to play it by myself?

That's just my opinion though. I'd say I hope this was helpful, but as I stated, this suggestion has been brought up many times before me. I guess I'll just suggest it again in hopes something happens.

 


18:14:03 Oct 11th 14 - Ms. The Real Brannigans:

You all say the game is dying yet I do not see most of you playing on the main world, Fant? Perhaps you are contributors to this.


20:30:17 Oct 11th 14 - Lady Leila:

You sound like VU is only Fanta, but the game consists of 8 worlds, right? Would deleting some worlds help the game?


20:45:36 Oct 11th 14 - Elite (Mr. Elite):

Deleting worlds has been suggested countless times over the years, but for some reason never applied, probably because unlimited characters is one of the biggest incentives to donate. VU is not dying, it's just not growing, there's a considerable devoted player base who still plays, the occasional new player which sticks around and old players that go on a break. We just need to find a way to keep more of these new players and more people willing to teach these players instead of seal clubbing them.


21:25:36 Oct 11th 14 - Ms. The Real Brannigans:

VU is not dying, it's just not growing

This is completely wrong. The peak online player count these days is less than 1/10th of the average online player count in the past.

Deleting worlds would help. Or, you know, you could all collectively start playing fant on your own accord.. I'm sure a world with more active players would help with player retention.


21:30:39 Oct 11th 14 - Prince Erythnul:

I choose not to play on Fant , reasons being are ..well read any past Fant topic in the last year and all you see is moaning . So if your idea of deleting worlds go ahead .. i don't play , know if there are more like me who choose not to play there what happens to them ? 



21:37:11 Oct 11th 14 - Princess Aisha:

Agreed, I do the same, I chose not to play Fanta, and will rather play one of the lower worlds, that are usually much more intense than Fanta. You have the same group of people doing flame wars and constant moaning about the same thing, I rather avoid all that. If you delete other worlds, more people will just quit.


23:13:03 Oct 11th 14 - shyers (Grandmaster Disaster Faster Laster Shyers):

But it seems the same people arnt there any more....unless you mean me :-(.....maybe you should give it the old vu retry.....as for being a guide, go be one, ive been doing it for years without an offical title. 


23:15:38 Oct 11th 14 - Mr. Samual:

Like Aisha and Erythnul, I'm not on Fantasia either! For more or less the same reasons they've said, been playing for a good number of years now and well, I've only ventured onto Fantasia once or twice in that time due to the complaints you hear coming from that direction. Perhaps there does need to be some form of reducing worlds to say four or five worlds, making a more concentrated group of players but I certainly wouldn't want to be going to Fantasia anytime soon. Perhaps it's just superstitions and the main world deserves another shot, after all most of the world threads tend to be more or less dead nowadays anyway, but I'm reluctant.


23:23:39 Oct 11th 14 - Mr. Samual:

Shouldn't really be double posting, not something I usually like to do but it came to mind and I knew I wouldn't have enough time on the edit. However, I think visually this game just isn't very appealing to new players. As a new player when you click on the site for the very first time the game looks outdated, boring, bland, uninspiring. All characteristics you don't really want a game to have, it needs a title page back I think, somewhere to really start as at the moment there isn't really much to get someone motivated about playing this.

As well as that, there's no tutorial, I've gone and bought games and played free ones where I've found there's no tutorial and not played them again just for the fact it's frustrating and tedious being thrown in the deep end and not knowing what you're doing. I remember when I started playing there was that tutorial to capture the native city, I'm sure many of you remember that, it was enjoyable too! Picked up the ropes of the game on that quite easily, however now we've nothing like that. Something like that needs to come back for new players to figure out how to play I think.



02:18:47 Oct 12th 14 - Globey (Sir Orsund Farthendorth):

On note of reintroducing a tutorial; I personally hated it. I found that it was far too artificial an environment for me to learn anything beyond the intuitive in, and it was long winded enough to make me mostly lose my interest by the time I had completed it.
I seem to recall Zeta or somebody saying that player retention rates increased following the removal of the tutorial, or something along those lines.
If we were to reintroduce the tutorial, I would suggest that it gets implemented overtop an actual PVP world with real players. It would probably provide the bare minimum of guidance relative to the context, but really that's all you would need to get a start.

If I remember correctly, the tutorial wasn't even enough use to me to become even remotely competitive in the actual game.  I didn't understand city size mechanics, and had only the vaguest idea on resource bonuses. I barely knew what magic was, or how to build a science tree. Even though I had joined a KD (Destiny) all I was able to do was spend a week getting to a whopping 100k income, celebrate about it, and then build a bunch of walls and such pointlessly. And then I sent off an almighty attack force consisting of several hundred swordsman and a bunch of peasants, thinking it would be enough to smite a petulant member of a neighboring KD... unwittingly causing a major diplomatic incident that gave my KD of experienced (but rather unhelpful) players an excuse to break their NAP and go ape shit on the map.
And then I sat around cluelessly lamenting on how everbody else had so much more power than I did, and eventually quit the game a couple weeks later.

Point is: It was all a lot of awful newb mistakes that the tutorial did nothing for. Most people only find a game fun enough to continue if they have a fighting chance.
I rejoined the game a few times after that to similar effects, and only started to become vaguely competent through a combination of trial and error, and by starting to chat with an experienced player.


12:26:52 Oct 12th 14 - Bran (Mr. John Zoidberg):

even a tutorial with other players on it wouldnt work, in fact thatd take even longer to complete. at least the old tut had BTs so you could finish it right away. How could that possibly work with other players on the map?

the best way for new players to be coaxed into the game is for them to  immediately join an active kingdom full of discussoin. You learn from vets and you stick around cos you can see the potential of the game.

You cant see the potential though when theres 2 kds on a map


16:20:29 Oct 12th 14 - Globey (Sir Orsund Farthendorth):

I was referring to a full tutorial set in an active map and with standard BTs; eg Talents. Simply enable a bunch of prompts with valid advice, FAQs, and the option to message guides that appear as relevant each time the player opens a window.



I would agree with you there though. As you say, that is unfortunately unlikely to occur.


17:45:26 Oct 12th 14 - Bran (Mr. Brannigans Law):

thats essentially what the lower maps are for, hence why only accounts below a certain XP are allowed to join. The problem is that this is very easy to get passed and the lower maps have also become dominated by vets.

Adding some prompts on those worlds could be useful, but it wont stop new players getting stomped as soon as they come oop. Only way i can think of is to have newb friendly kds to show them the way while also protecting them. such kds are rare though


20:50:19 Oct 12th 14 - shyers (Grandmaster Leeshy Jenkins):

Maybe a tutorial that gave you goals to complete,  like get mine bonus and achieve income level, etc.


21:53:58 Oct 16th 14 - Orin (Mr. Orrises):

I love to teach new players :D


17:55:06 Oct 23rd 14 - Urgog (Mr. Urgog The Iron Fist):

We just need some aggressive advertisement. Facebook ads, Google ads, make a YouTube trailer for the game. Ad for YouTube.  Ad for yahoo. Make a news article about the game. Apply to mmorpg sites. Apply to sites that list games. Hire a professional web designer for Google web searches. Stuff like that. This game has been losing momentum. And the only thing that will bring it back is a new influx of players. Make a better tutorial.


18:07:49 Oct 23rd 14 - Bran (Mr. Bran):

what makes an advert 'aggressive'?


18:18:02 Oct 23rd 14 - Urgog (Mr. Urgog The Iron Fist):

I don't know. I'm not an expert. 


18:48:20 Oct 23rd 14 - Jesus Left Toe (Lord Jesus Left Toe):

More naked women with Battleaxes??


19:25:35 Oct 23rd 14 - Urgog (Mr. Urgog The Iron Fist):

I would encourage everyone to look at the HELP VU!!! Page for things YOU can do to help.


19:47:49 Oct 23rd 14 - Globey (Mr. Sigma):


Jesus Left Toe:

More naked women with Battleaxes??


 We have our expert.


18:47:58 Oct 25th 14 - Mr. Bambix:

Maybe a bit of a radical idea, but why not have a world for new players where you automatically join a kd/group? The most fun I've had here in the past was the round where I played "Good vs Evil". Maybe see if something like that can be done in short rounds, so new players are in a group that has to help them out for a few weeks.


11:23:11 Oct 26th 14 - Sir Vytautas Didysis:

Bombix - GREAT IDEA :) 


09:55:49 Oct 28th 14 - Fire Lord Crazy (Fire Lord The Immolation Death Bear):

Add to bombix idea, 

And maybe That Experienced players can Create a kingdom on lower worlds , but can only be the leader of the kingdom ( Cant join the world as a member)
So they can Teach/Train the new players. I think it would be interesting, Its like who can Turn these new players into a worthy Kingdom to Move onto other worlds.
Plus i think with lower worlds new people training new people can sometimes be a mess, and create allot of negativity within the kingdom when they lose.


-plus it gives us motivation to help them into the game. 


10:41:20 Oct 28th 14 - Mr. Bambix:

First of all, get my name right ;-)


Seriously, the idea from Fire Lord Crazy also sounds good. It gives an incentive to experienced players if they can coach a team so to say. That could really help to get them involved without playing on a world, and it could be done while playing their own account.


Also glad people seem to like the basic idea I posted. The coaches/vets should have sufficient viewing rights on this training world, and the rounds should be two things:


1. Long enough to experience the game

2. Short enough to get a new chance when you are badly loosing


So maybe a month will do, from the first day of a month to the last day, and then start again?


Just hope Zeta will pick up on this, as imho it's worth a shot.


02:15:34 Nov 24th 14 - Mr. Masterdebater:

It is crazy how the game has continued to flatline. I remember when I was in high school my freshman year, I was just another Dwarf with a 100k income thinking I was awesome. Then after a few losses, I figured out there is more to this game than just simply making mines and farms and what not. It was Uther Pendragon who helped me with understanding more about that games mechanics but I owe most of the credit to Forgotten Warriors. Jade and the crew really helped evolve my VU skills and so now whenever I join back in, I still have the funk that I used to have. I loved playing VU but my time has been cut away to where I have very little time to do anything fun related but during my high school time, VU was the best thing. 


Really, new players need some guidance. They cannot be thrown into the dark just like that in the beginning. A possible advice: Since Zeta has Player Guides playing in all worlds, there might as well be a feature where you can contact these players specifically through messages or something. That way, instead of just going solo, you can contact the many VU guides who can answer your questions asap. Or new players can be assigned a guide upon joining a world. That way, it directly helps those players get one-on-one help.


03:13:05 Nov 24th 14 - Mr. Falco:

Oops, ran out of edit time.

I think the 2 big issues that contribute to the lack of player population are the combination of older newer players not coming in and sticking around and older players leaving.

The tutorial teaches you a bit about how the economy of the game works but gives you no sense of what you need to do to contribute to a kingdom, not die immediately, and gives you no idea what to really expect in the game. Like most games if you want to learn the game then you need to actually play the game and in VU that usually involves the painful process of completing a tutorial that only teaches you the most basic things and then spawning onto a world late with an immediate disadvantage due to a late start and probably dying. The new player experience in VU is pretty bad because eras span over a long period of time and you are almost guaranteed to die on your first character before you even get to explore a fraction of the game's mechanics.

All of the issues with getting new players to stick around are compounded by the following:

*It's a team/kingdom based game and new players don't know anyone
*It takes you time to learn how to play the game and your tutorial and first character are probably not going to last long
*Killing players and taking their land is a major thing in VU and inexpierienced players, weaker players, and inactive players get killed
*It's fucking 2014 and there is no wiki or otherwise easy to access information database for the game, A part of this is older players being secretive and less experienced players offering up a lot of inaccurate information


Old players tend to either stick around forever and leave/come back now and then or just eventually leave altogether due to getting fed up with something like the plethora of bugs that have never and will never be fixed, stagnant game mechanics and lack of development, or their friends leaving the game.


14:04:56 Nov 25th 14 - Mr. Corptax:

Falco . . . no doubt, stagnant game mechanics and lack of development are key.  Just about every era plays the same way with little variation.  Everyone gets bored eventually.  


15:15:12 Nov 25th 14 - LukeTheDuke (Legatus Ambrosias Arilyonis):


Mr. Corptax:

Falco . . . no doubt, stagnant game mechanics and lack of development are key.  Just about every era plays the same way with little variation.  Everyone gets bored eventually.  


I disagree. The game mechanics are just fine. And there are always different ways to play the game. There is so much variation...

There just needs to be updates to the map to fix bugs and cities need to have their gates cover more area to make blocker cities actually work. Lack of advertisement And tutorials are what is bringing this game down to it's knees.


14:19:12 Nov 26th 14 - Penguin (Clown Thebornloser):

dafuq is going on in here


17:32:51 Dec 7th 14 - Stormy (Lord Inactive Stormcrow):

yes.....yes it is.....

times were I would wake up to over a hundred new posts in the kingdom politics thread alone, now we're lucky to see maybe 5.

bring back <insert dead kingdom name you hate more than anything>! (flame on!)



19:49:35 Dec 7th 14 - Penguin (Clown Nuclear Penguin):

carnage


20:08:54 Dec 7th 14 - Bran (Mr. Barn):

carnage, agents, abydos!

on a serious note, maybe if everyone left their kd and joined one kd, the game will recover? like, take gim one step further sort of thing


20:26:03 Dec 7th 14 - Stormy (Lord Stormcrowe):

penguinbabe! i thought you quit?:(


We may as well, bran, i mean, whats the player base total in fant now? lol or we could do the opposite and go back to that one era where kingdom limit was only 3 members:)


20:52:57 Dec 7th 14 - Bran (Mr. Branningans The Evul):

not sure if a joke, but perhaps something like a temporary 10 man limit or something similar until the game picks up again wouldnt be a bad idea. imo 3 man is too small since thatd eliminate too much of the strategy involved in the game. i like when kds have to create the right blend of races so they can compete throughout the era


21:02:29 Dec 7th 14 - Stormy (Lord Inactive Stormcrow):

i was mainly joking since i didnt like the 3 man era. was a headache of keeping track of too many naps.

but i think there is something to a kingdom limit. Maybe 10-15 as it would force creation of more kingdoms. And yes, we know that kingdoms would only split up and continue to nap and coordinate with one another but the past has shown this doesnt always last for long.


21:12:16 Dec 7th 14 - Bran (Mr. Barn):

i agree with your reaosning but would like to point out that only one kd on the map has over 15 members at the moment, and thats only by a single member! so i cant imagine that changing the game much, would have to be a smaller cap


21:18:01 Dec 7th 14 - Stormy (Lord Stormcrowe):

well i just dropped on fant after inactivity so was unaware of such low numbers,,,geez has this game dwindled.

10 would be a good number, maybe 8 but that might be too low, dunno.


21:22:08 Dec 7th 14 - Bran (Mr. Barn):

you wanna speak with barny? i was talking to him and i think he agreed we need mroe kds. maybe you should try make a new kd with him or start your own one up?


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