| RIP VU? |
It seems the game is losing its old personality and it attracts mostly only youngsters these days who probably don't stick around too much.
Will VU become only a pretty memory in the future?
I might be mistaken though, have been out of VU for about an year...
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Used to be more fun, all improvements that were made ruined the game pretty much.
RIP
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Nah, I doubt VU is going away any time soon. Its sitting pretty around what 200-400 players, and is not evolving or changing. Its a shame tho, because this game has the potential to attract thousands of players.. if only some effort was put into it.
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Its in no way dead. Its got a solid base of players.
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zeta needs to listen to the people! so he knows what the best improvements to the game are. if you put what everyone asks for then how can they be wrong?
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ZeTa does listen to people. Thats what the problem is alot of the time. Example this whole GT idea.
Although yes, alot of large petitions have never been done. ZeTa obviously thought they were bad/unnessecary to implement.
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he listens to the wrong people tho :D when you have 50+ people who want walls back to some degree and one random person suggests something about GTs. well you dont generally pick the one random dude especially when its only a minor change
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Hmm...when I saw RIP I thought it was about Retard Insertion Point...the kewlest KD ever!
People who has started so far...
Fantasia: 219
Mantrax: 91
Zetamania: 195
That was like 1-2 days after the era started...how many people do you think started since then?
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I dont like VU
I only playing it because of a huge addiction
I dont even enjoy it
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don't you bring RIP into this thread...the Retard Insertion Point is the bestest (I luv spelling) Kingdom ever created...well at least our banner pwns the living *beep* outta anything seen before ;)
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Weird i know how you feel. but its time that we the older people of VU rekindle the flame that was once our passion in the hearts of these new people. and Convince our god ZeTa to do more with this game. for then we will truelly rule the world!!!!
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hmm weirdgrivi posts so i have to have a look,
I'd agree that its not as fun as it was, but there is still something to VU, not dead yet, just a little ill.
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its been ill for a long time random, its on its last legs now.
There arent enough new players coming in to replace the players leaving, unless you count multies of course.
As Osiris pointed out there are suggestions that receive large amounts of backing, then they are ignored for lesser, unimportant improvements.
I remember I sifted through the piles of rubbish in suggestions to make a clean list of suggestions that were well thought out and received lots of backing, my list then received backing, but alas, like always the majority were ignored, only the smallest improvements such as mass messages were implemented.
Infact only the top 2 were implemented. Skip to next post if you cant be bothered looking.
It was created when I wanted all but Fantasia players to have access to post on suggestions.
http://visual-utopia.com/forum.asp?forum=107&topicID=62362&page=1
| 7/1/2008 5:18:21 PM |
OK...ill finish the list
Kingdomless merging *good suggestion*
Mass messaging *good* X 2
HOH for battles with over 100 troops won *good*
HOH with a Troops killed counter *good*
Outbox in your messages section *good* X 2
Clean the ingame politics section at era end *good*
Binhs solution to walls *everyone thought it was a good idea...yet not implemented*
Sloths observations *not a suggestion but all good points about where the game has started moving*
Tax on production to do with KD size *promotes more small KDs on Fant, controversial*
Spell: Heal *gives a certain medicine level, good idea, nobody agreed a level, ignore first post =p* X 2
Removal of Armageddon/Tweaking *its useless now, 480 ticks to complete*
Auto Landing at era start, no strategic landings, everyone OOP same time if they plant during the 12hrs long tick. *good*
Roleplay points for history *dont care tbh, but the roleplayers liked it*
Fix slaves X 2
Improve Trolls - 50/50 zerks for 5000 gold *same GP/OP as currently*. Their crap econs need reduced upkeep to make their armies strong again. It wont be a huge change but it will make them a lil bit more effective mid-late era where they struggle when not on the winning side of a war.
Personal Stats
Profiles
Burn and Destroy - If walls are brought back only.
Remove Bought BTs
Increase prices of Bought BTs
Disable Friedly STG - Doesnt affect me so i dont mind =p
*****Serious Suggestions Forum****** =D |
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Imho i agree with Osi.
Zeta doesnt paly this game (as far as I am aware), yet he makes suggestions and when all the vets dont support it but the newer palyers do he implements it.
When 3 man kingdoms were put in it took a few eras of 90% of the VU community to get rid of it.
Zeta doesnt listen to the older players if anyone at all. We had a good nubmer of people supporting walls and a few otehr good dieas this apst era, and what did he put in? GT increase... thats not gonig t ohelp the game that much.
Zeta needs to start listening to the older players to make this game better. When i started playing this was a war game with multiple people fighting on multiple fronts with multiple factions of players. Now it is 2 or 3 groups of kingdoms fighting each other, and ocne they kil lthe otehr its jsut a farm fest the rest of the era.
If I wasnt so addicted to the game I'd seriously consider quiting.
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Zeta atually usually does play the game. And he does implement important stuff, albeit it often takes too long.
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LOL just looking at the amount of players from the 28th we're fine..
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Mr. Sucker of Sheepschlong
Report
11/4/2008 8:36:14 AM |
Zeta atually usually does play the game. And he does implement important stuff, albeit it often takes too long. |
last important thing i can remember him doing is taking away 3 man kingdoms that was actually benificial (is that spelled right?) to the game.
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Just so that you understand my dilemma when making updates...
If you like a game, you will not like when it's changed, that's why it's hard to make new updates as whatever it is, it will most likely be disliked by the vets.
When you have played a game for a while you get used to it's flaws and everything seems obvious. That's why new players opinion is important too, as they look with new fresh eyes.
What I think needs to be done to attract more players to the game - is to make it more casual. So that you can play it for 15 mins during lunch time and still do good. You should also be able to spend hours every day on it, but it should not give such an advantage.
Also it needs to be more friendly, you shouldn't be able to loose something (that took 20 days to build up) in only one or two days.
That's hard to do though, without taking out the fun... Many players seems to like the 50% rule in Zetamania and lesser worlds though.
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walls made it easier to play casual :D not being able to attack someone becasue they are too small would cause chaos on fant tho
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if my KD was able to build walls, me being highly inactive since the era started would have meant me NOT losing tons of cities which took me...the "20 days" to build up in a mere few amounts of ticks...and guess what...this IS happening on Zetamania...and yes...that 50% protection thing works like "a charm" if you get banged up OOP by everyone the same size of you...and we're all stacked up on 1 big heap of OOP-mayhem due to starting locations...GOOD JOB!
so don't go "I prefer to listen to the new players because they have a fresh view on things..." GO AND FIX THE DAMN GAME SO THAT IT IS ACTUALLY PLAYABLE BY THOSE WHO ARE UNABLE TO BE UBER ACTIVE FOR ONCE!!! as you apparently intended the updates to have as an effect...
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Then why aren't the Walls back in? The older players actually understand the game well enough to give suggestions. Every new Era the updates are so small that little improves. I'm hanging around in the hope that the game will finally get some actual improvements, but that hope decreases every Era.
This is a nice game and I like it, but I will like it much more when its changed. In a good way. And the vets tend to know what needs to be improved in order to make things actually better.
You have some ideas on how you want evolve this game into a better one. Then put those ideas into actions and do it. This standing still in VU's development is truly annoying me, because there is so much potential in the game Visual Utopia.
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Demonic Shezmu
Report
11/4/2008 7:10:38 PM |
if my KD was able to build walls, me being highly inactive since the era started would have meant me NOT losing tons of cities which took me...the "20 days" to build up in a mere few amounts of ticks...and guess what...this IS happening on Zetamania...and yes...that 50% protection thing works like "a charm" if you get banged up OOP by everyone the same size of you...and we're all stacked up on 1 big heap of OOP-mayhem due to starting locations...GOOD JOB!
so don't go "I prefer to listen to the new players because they have a fresh view on things..." GO AND FIX THE DAMN GAME SO THAT IT IS ACTUALLY PLAYABLE BY THOSE WHO ARE UNABLE TO BE UBER ACTIVE FOR ONCE!!! as you apparently intended the updates to have as an effect...
| I am pretty much in the same boat, being the same KD...There is horrible spacing...HORRIBLE....I cannot spend every minute on here...and it IS giving an advantage to the other KDs who are. I would be better off sticking to RPing...it probably has a better chance of being fixed
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such as download ability could make it easier to update, and add things too...
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i agree with zeta and zero lol
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If this game is meant for the casual player, walls are a must. Walls of some sort. Right now the best way to go to w*beep*ems to be with large merges and hyperactivity. Why not make destructible walls? Or walls with segments, so that forces must be distributed? New players and veterans alike have asked for these kinds of improvements, offering several very good methods, and yet no change in how many eras now?
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See, this is what happens
We say something about the game
Or, make a good suggestion
Admin makes a post!
Then.. it gets bumped..
Bumped again..
And nothing happens
Its just crap, ask Hanky I've been wanting to quit for like 5 eras
But this game has got an addiction
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How many times have I banged on about Walls ?
Every time it gets ignored
Then when Trog uggestion GT's should increase with Mil sci
Admin sucks his *beep* and adds it?
Please, you should not be trying to get loads of new players
But you should be trying to keep the ones you have first
~Rev
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indeed...keep the ones you have...and I can assure you...there will be less era after era if things don't improve gamewise...
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ZeTa, imho. 3 man KDs was the best idea you've ever come up with. I'll praise you for that any day of the week. The 50% rule, another good idea for ZeTa and lesser worlds. Removing arma, very well done. Removing walls - thats not completely bad, i think its got some good points to it.
However, there are a few well needed things to implement.
More difficult things to try and think up, such as new spells. Like heal.
And taxing KDs.
Alot of easier things are needed too though, like an outbox or putting all ingame politics at the end of the era into a new "History" forum - where you can't post. Only look at the threads.
Some things I disaprove of though. GT thing this era.
And some others, anyone want to help me out. Lost some steam when looking at Essen's idea for stats.
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Thought i'd put this in another post just to make sure people see it.
Give ZeTa a break though for christs sake, he's doing his best to keep the game alive the way he see's fit. We may think its wrong and should tweak things here and there but theres no need to start insulting the guy.
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VU Admin
Report
11/4/2008 6:00:17 PM |
Just so that you understand my dilemma when making updates...
If you like a game, you will not like when it's changed, that's why it's hard to make new updates as whatever it is, it will most likely be disliked by the vets.
When you have played a game for a while you get used to it's flaws and everything seems obvious. That's why new players opinion is important too, as they look with new fresh eyes.
What I think needs to be done to attract more players to the game - is to make it more casual. So that you can play it for 15 mins during lunch time and still do good. You should also be able to spend hours every day on it, but it should not give such an advantage.
Also it needs to be more friendly, you shouldn't be able to loose something (that took 20 days to build up) in only one or two days.
That's hard to do though, without taking out the fun... Many players seems to like the 50% rule in Zetamania and lesser worlds though. |
Ive seen many great games destroyed by massive updates, and if this happened to VU, it would completely ruin it for everyone. Like Osi said, walls would make it more casual, but also more slow and potentially monontnous. There are always ways to counter this though, it would take awhile to figure out everything, but thats the way to do it, slow. Rushing into things can only cause problems.
Three man Kingdoms was an interesting concept, and fun for a bit, but it was one of those "huge" updates without much notice. Thankfully it must have been very easy to reverse and everything continued on as normal afterwards. And the 50% rule, seems pretty dumb when you have someone who joined VU, started a city, and quit. Right in your core. All you can do is plunder him until there is nothing left, and it becomes annoying. But making it so that when they attack you it defeats the rule, helped it alot.
So really, VU needs to shift its course just a little bit, and progress slowly in the right direction if it wants to be oh so very fun (even more so ofc). Some little things are always nice though, maybe some new graphics? To compliment the new map? : )
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"Like Osi said, walls would make it more casual, but also more slow and potentially monontnous."
Not to mention the ridiculous bugs.
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"What I think needs to be done to attract more players to the game - is
to make it more casual. So that you can play it for 15 mins during
lunch time and still do good."
VU just isn't that sort of game. You would have to pretty much throw out the game and start over. We set an armies path and they move each tick, so obviously someone who spends 15 minutes online once a day just won't win against someone who can be online for 5-15 tick improvements (stupid word filter) a day. That's just the way it is.
Unless you want to remove the "Visual" (moving armies across a map) part of VU, there's not much you can do to change it.
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Agree With Elsin :)
Though
Wall should return!
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i actually had the solution to the "15 mins during lunch time" suggestion and i didnt hav any critiscm tho i filed under a bad title an it died off.
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As most above, I&nb*beep* also addicted to this game. It used to be a quite a pleasant addiction. Unfortunately now its getting to be a chore and an effort of will to make myself login as often as is needed now.
1) BRING BACK WALLS!! With walls you can actually take a few ticks off and maybe have a job, or a life, or watch a movie, take a shower, whatever...the way the game is now you have to be uber active to have any hopes of doing well, and its slowly evolving(devolving) to the point that being super active is no guarantee to any success.
Walls had 2 major flaws, they could be dropped across rivers or mountains into other Kd's area's, which was crazy(and yes, I myself used that to great effect so no flaming), and the tic tac toe grid of several huge walls crossing each other was a problem.
We should of just addressed the wall problems rather than just getting rid of them. That changed the whole game dynamics and the bleeding loss of players started.
I have 2 suggestions to fix that:
>>>Make it so that walls can ONLY be built with a army in place just like the cities are now spawned. The wall can be a max length of say, 2 to 3, maybe 4 ticks travel distance for a scout to move. Wherever the army is is where the city portion of the wall is. Simple enuf fix there. This fixes the wall dropping across blocking terrain(rivers/mt's).
As far as limiting the wall size, their are several things to consider. I'll address one possible fix... Make it if you want a long wall you must first build the first small wall/city, then you must move an army to the end of the first wall and build another wall city that extends the wall another few ticks. This way it takes time to build a long wall, no superlong walls just instantly appearing. And more importantly, this makes a long wall harder to defend as you have several entry points at the cities. Much like a long wall in rl, the defense would have to be spread along the length, not all in 1 city with half the map blocked off. This would get rid of the long stalemates as people probe your wall looking for the weakest entry point.<<
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"Give ZeTa a break though for christs sake, he's doing his best to keep
the game alive the way he see's fit. We may think its wrong and should
tweak things here and there but theres no need to start insulting the
guy."
I do thank Zeta for giving us this great game, for not charging subscriptions costs, for not making it so people have a huge advantage or free resources if they donate money.
But every update he's made in, as I'd say, a "lazy" update. Throwing in an extra defense point for a guardtower for a new player's thread and saying "I do listen to the community" isn't really an update, it's just a tweak. I'm not asking for Zeta to do anything like change the game so we can have navies too, that would be a lot of work. But just a little bit of work, implementing one of the many good ideas on how walls should be, shouldn't really be all that hard.
I think walls would be a lot more useful if they just had several improvements to them. One, make them preppable anywhere, so no one *beep*s out a maze to slow down enemy merges. Two, only allow armies to build them. Three, make walls provide a smaller defense based on how long they are, or cut walls into segments that can be attacked separately.
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Alright Zeta im going to break down your post piece by piece and try and be polite as possible.
"When you have played a game for a while you get used to it's flaws and everything seems obvious. That's why new players opinion is important too, as they look with new fresh eyes."
I have palyed teh game for a while (since era 10) not as long as otehrs but stil lfor a while. I liked the game back a while ago. But, I don't like teh game NEARLY as much as I used to and i keep hoping for that update that will make teh game better again, but every year I am dissapointed.
"What I think needs to be done to attract more players to the game - is to make it more casual. So that you can play it for 15 mins during lunch time and still do good. You should also be able to spend hours every day on it, but it should not give such an advantage."
This is just improbable the way the game mechanics are. Logically wit hthe style of the game someone who is more active will do better. (someone said this already earlier) but if you put back walls it will make it more casual so you dont need to log on about every tick.
"Also it needs to be more friendly, you shouldn't be able to loose something (that took 20 days to build up) in only one or two days."
It would make the game more realistic but a lot slower. Maybe people would like an idea where the minimum amount of prep time to attack is 5 ticks? (dont make that an update unless people agree haha)
"That's hard to do though, without taking out the fun... Many players seems to like the 50% rule in Zetamania and lesser worlds though."
the game was really fun back i nthe days of walls and none mass naps i think the community of VU and the game mechanics have fallen and thats what makes the game less fun.
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I don't think VU is really dying, it has the same 500 or so players it
always has. As Elsin said, to make it more casual friendly you'd need a
large re-work of army mechanics. And on a deeper level, the entire
economic mechanic of VU.
The problem is that controlling an army every tick is too powerful.
Someone logging in every hour can avoid (and in even worse cases,
bypass) a less active enemy. Also you can never kill a slightly
smaller army that jumps from town to town (abusing prep time through
higher activity). There have been countless other abuses similar, such
as merge chaining using BTs. Another is putting MUs in a close by ally
town to save maintenance. Someone more active can shuttle MUs over in
3 ticks. Mass mergers also favor the more active as less active
players find it hard to be online when a merger is at a certain
location (and this is very risky).
It would require a lot of code, but making it so that armys can
autochase, autoattack (other armies), and ridding prep times would go a
long way. Waypointing to take areas of land/towns would help as well.
Armies themselves blocking make more sense than massive forts or impassable, indestructable walls blocking huge
areas of terrain.
Regarding economic re-work, the strategy in VU should have been in
army/magic unit choice, making strategic attacks, and less in massing
the biggest merger. Also choice in buildings etc. Battles should have
been over land rather than concrete numbers of buildings (cities). As
land increases, it should be harder to hold (not just geographically).
Sqrt(x) on unit costs was ok but what if all land/buildings just
outright produces sqrt(x), with no unit costs per se? The market is
also abusable, and feeding requires high activity as well.
I wouldn't fear drastic improvements re:
"If you like a game, you will not like when it's changed, that's why
it's hard to make new updates as whatever it is, it will most likely be
disliked by the vets."
- as someone who took in many new players to my KDs, I found turnover
to be high due to players getting bored. There was usually one single
strategy that dominated (say dwarf in its heyday). Once you master
balancing macro (buildings) vs micro (armies) that theres not much else
to really learn. At a glance VU seems complex but the strategic
options are quite limited.
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Auspice - What you've been smoking must be strong huh
Auto-Attack? I mean seriously
Auto-Town Attack ? Why play this game ?
One of the things that makes this game unique is the fact you can change your movement when ever you want
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Auto
Problems ;
- Alright till your NaP buddy's Naz Slaughter your army to *beep* just because of Auto
- Alright till your army passing through your NaP's kingdom goes crazzy and takes all the cities because you got held up and couldn't get online to change it
- Why play this game? Its unique the way it is, Why not Auto-Build too huh? Why not just set it to do what you want, come on next week ?
Seriously, -50% of players via Auto
- I don't like the idea, imho Auto = Fail
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auto is NOT the solution. but i agree with that last part
"I wouldn't fear drastic improvements re:
"If you like a game, you will not like when it's changed, that's why it's hard to make new updates as whatever it is, it will most likely be disliked by the vets."
- as someone who took in many new players to my KDs, I found turnover to be high due to players getting bored. There was usually one single strategy that dominated (say dwarf in its heyday). Once you master balancing macro (buildings) vs micro (armies) that theres not much else to really learn. At a glance VU seems complex but the strategic options are quite limited."
the strategic value of this game is very limited. once someone finds how they paly the best they stick with that. for me eprsonally, i do best with a lwoer income and continues troops pumping and get my icnome from wars. so ive done that for a lnog time (since before walls were taken out) so we need more strategy to the game
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Yea unfortunately Killstone playing that way won't win you eras, or land you in the top 10 very often. It's better to farm up to 200k land fast and outproduce everyone around you. But that's the game - one of economic pressure.
As for Auto, there could be options to turn it off so that you don't accidentally attack NAPed allies. With a better relations system you could set your armies to only auto-attack those you are at "war" with. To clarify, I meant things you encounter should auto-battle, having to be online at the tick to click first is silly. You would still have to set waypoints and divide armies up to make strategic attacks. I'm not talking about your troops just going off blindly on their own. There should also be options to auto-merge approaching allied armies
(and this shouldn't stop all movement...another detriment to the less
active).
The strategic aspect could be improved with more unit types, more terrain advantages, and more choice in buildings. Right now the economic side is simply about maxing income per building. It's not intuitive but gaining land that is less than 40% productive than your current average production actually diminishes your troop production capacity. I would move to a system where buildings produce troops directly on a square root function, and the choice is in what type of troops a town is making at a given time.
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I think one thing that would help VU is a test server something like Genesis for Utopia, and allowing people to have 1 account on both. I would say there haven't been many major improvements in VU in a long time, this might provide a place to test new ideas and get feedback without it affecting the core playerbase.
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