Forums / In game politics / Is VU dying

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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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I don't know. I'm not an expert. 

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

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.

Add to bombix idea, 

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. 

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.  

dafuq is going on in here

carnage

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:)

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.

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.