Help new players and the game by disregarding inactive/idle accounts

[Knight of ICE]

So how come a new player has 0 to trade with in the Market?

You do not get free goods just cause you start the game. You need to acquire sectors on the continent map. Get your bonus good and start producing those goods. Then after some time you can trade. That's how the game was developed. It is a strategy game that is meant to be played over time. You do not get everything handed to you at the start.

Having said that, these days you have an alternative. You wait for an event and go for the special buildings that produce goods. They will make you self sufficient and you can bring them up when you age up.

When the latest world opened The Fall Event came right behind it. All I had to do was to get me some Stage of Ages and Menageries. With those I never even looked at the market. I don't need to trade and I have no intention to being a trader so I never even open the market. That is another reason why trading has lost it's benefits.

 

[klods hans]

Plunder the hood to get goods

 

[Lars1444]

I am not asking for free goods. I am just stating the facts that it is impossible for new/small players to use the Market as it is intended. I know that it is possible to trade with friends and with guild members when those technologies are researched. But that doesn't change the fact that the most part of new players quit the game in the first couple of days because of the impossible way of acquiring goods.
And Klods Hans... I would love to loot some neighbours for some goods, but of ALL the 60 neighbours I have, only 3 of them have researched PvP technology and one of them has a good producing building... So not much to get there either :-(

 

[Knight of ICE]

I am not asking for free goods. I am just stating the facts that it is impossible for new/small players to use the Market as it is intended. I know that it is possible to trade with friends and with guild members when those technologies are researched.

And that gives you a possible 220 people to trade with. People that are not new and are a solid factor. Those are the one that can help you. Not the new players.

But that doesn't change the fact that the most part of new players quit the game in the first couple of days because of the impossible way of acquiring goods.

All those people that quit told you that, or are you now just assuming something that suits you?

 

[Forwandert]

Honestly I think you're coming at this from a biased opinion.

It's clear you have experience playing and no doubt had/have an account that when built up didn't have these issues as you progressed through the various parts of the game that make goods production easier, Event buildings, GBs etc.

Now you're at the point of starting one suddenly everything seems a chore and a battle to start. Was it not like that last time, did you forget? because its always been like that. Rapid progress at the start can only be created certain ways and they're ways that helps the company.

In later eras are all your trades taken immediately because of the lack of inactives? No, the market gets flooded as players can just leave huge amounts for weeks or until they're removed. Maybe if you really need a trade for something Gb/Tech you will notice market speed but 90% of the time you won't even look at the market.

Can new players afford to leave endless pages of trades on the market? Probably not because they're limited on goods, Are you posting trades or just complaining no one else did? When I started new servers I found it more likely that players will take your trade even if the markets empty as it's there to trade.

That's just how the game is at start, and as mentioned several times now there are already things in place, guilds/friends list to help with goods when required. It's just for some reason you don't want to accept they are there because it doesn't aid your idea.

 

[Emberguard]

Can new players afford to leave endless pages of trades on the market? Probably not because they're limited on goods, Are you posting trades or just complaining no one else did? When I started new servers I found it more likely that players will take your trade even if the markets empty as it's there to trade.

That's just how the game is at start, and as mentioned several times now there are already things in place, guilds/friends list to help with goods when required. It's just for some reason you don't want to accept they are there because it doesn't aid your idea.

I think the simplest solution would be to change the default NPC Merchant Rate to 1:3 and scrap the corresponding Friends Tavern boost(s).

Obviously it wouldn't make player-made trades more available like the OP wants, but it would at least make the NPC trades more user-friendly.


The problem the OP is bringing up is definitely a problem, but it's also something that needs to be clearly defined in order for a effective solution to be made that doesn't just upset everyone once implemented. This is not a black and white issue of "just separate all inactives". You take out the inactive accounts. Great, now what? A lot of players like to have control of keeping the inactives on their Friend / Guild lists for sentimental reasons. The idea needs to be investigated in length with a UX designer type role to explore all options. I think while the OP is pointing to a issue that needs addressing, they're most likely approaching it from the wrong direction when it comes to a viable solution.

Realistically I think any real solution that involves looking for active players to trade with would require overhauling the Market interface and changing it from Social-Connections to World-Wide. Then anything else that needs addressing in regards to inactivity needs looking at with its own separate solutions as each area of inactivity has its own underlying root cause behind it.

The way the market is set up makes sense for the environment it was originally designed for. But it makes a lot less sense now due to the flood of Event buildings and subsequently less need to trade. A over-hauled market place would need to stack duplicate trades by User, have a greater array of filters available, and if possible take up more or less the whole screen (vertically) so you can fit as many trades on the screen as your monitor has room for.

 

[Lars1444]

at's just how the game is at start, and as mentioned several times now there are already things in place, guilds/friends list to help with goods when required. It's just for some reason you don't want to accept they are there because it doesn't aid your idea.

I do indeed recognise and accept fully that it is possible to trade with friends and guild members and that you get all the different buildings from events and so on that makes acquiring goods more easy... But that doesn't change the fact that goods situation sucks for new players.
A quick fix that would be a start could be to expand the tutorial to include the building of the Oracle of Delphi and perhaps some more of the technologies... Because just that little change would mean the removal of 20.000 dead/inactive accounts making chances of active neighbours a lot higher

 

[L84Dnr]

I do indeed recognise and accept fully that it is possible to trade with friends and guild members and that you get all the different buildings from events and so on that makes acquiring goods more easy... But that doesn't change the fact that goods situation sucks for new players.
A quick fix that would be a start could be to expand the tutorial to include the building of the Oracle of Delphi and perhaps some more of the technologies... Because just that little change would mean the removal of 20.000 dead/inactive accounts making chances of active neighbours a lot higher

I understand your frustration, but I've built several cities and never had much difficulty this way. I suspect that you need a better approach to the problem. A few suggestions:

1. FoE already identifies Inactives in your Friends bar. Simply scroll over them and look for "Last Active:" Purge the Red Dots.
2. Ditto for guilds, though you'll have to ask the management to do the kicking.
3. Hoods are a toss-up and largely useless. This is true in every age.
4. Except that they're good recruiting grounds for active players. Befriend any hoodie who actively aids you.
5. Find an active guild where you aren't polishing tumbleweed in a ghost town. Ideally something with several players of a similar age.

And if all else fails, offer slightly generous trades. Remember, the player who takes your trades is spending FP, so you might want to compensate them by offering 12 and asking 10.

 

[Lars1444]

I understand your frustration, but I've built several cities and never had much difficulty this way. I suspect that you need a better approach to the problem. A few suggestions:

1. FoE already identifies Inactives in your Friends bar. Simply scroll over them and look for "Last Active:" Purge the Red Dots.
2. Ditto for guilds, though you'll have to ask the management to do the kicking.
3. Hoods are a toss-up and largely useless. This is true in every age.
4. Except that they're good recruiting grounds for active players. Befriend any hoodie who actively aids you.
5. Find an active guild where you aren't polishing tumbleweed in a ghost town. Ideally something with several players of a similar age.

And if all else fails, offer slightly generous trades. Remember, the player who takes your trades is spending FP, so you might want to compensate them by offering 12 and asking 10.

And of all you mention here... Just think how easy and better them game would be, if ALL inactive players was put aside and labelled "inactive" by the system and then let the rest of us (read: the active ones) play among other active players and never had to bother with all the problems

 

[Knight of ICE]

This idea does not have enough Community support. Closed and archived.