• Dear forum reader,
    To actively participate in our forum discussions or to start your own threads, in addition to your game account, you need a forum account. You can
    REGISTER HERE!
    Please ensure a translation into English is provided if your post is not in English and to respect your fellow players when posting.
  • We are looking for you!
    Always wanted to join our Support or Forum Team? We are looking for enthusiastic moderators!
    Take a look at our recruitment page for more information and how you can apply:
    Apply
  • Forum Contests

    Won't you join us for out latest contest?
    You can check out the newest one here.

The game

shareshark

Private
I have been playing this game for a few years now and have seen it move from a guild based game with many players working together to gain growth and rewards.....to a game of singular players in a group called a guild.
by that I mean not much in the game needs players to talk and work together as a guild, even GvG....
the game has become full up with time soaking side quest and GE which is again not really players working as a guild....just loads of individuals fighting on their own....
GvG has become the same, it allows big singular players within a guild to do everything.
The reason for this message now is that I have seen many long term players both from my guild and from my friends list leave the game.
Most reasons are the same....the game has become so time Hungary that there is little time left to enjoy the social side that was part of the game.
I think the games people have become so focused on keeping the new players entertained with short burst of fun and petty nonsensical rewards, I am thinking that they have lost touch with what the true meaning of the game was about for many and what kept people playing.....Guilds and the social connection of working together as guilds.
I truly hope the game changes.
Anyone else think the game is drifting into a time consuming circle of nothingness.....or is it just me
 

DeletedUser110195

That's just a natural evolution of MMOGs, when they're new, they can be slow because there's a brand new thing that people haven't seen, they haven't perfected their method for winning at it. As time marches on new features get tacked on, people get better at how the games devs add new things and the challenge gradually fades away until people quit playing, then it's just new people coming in at a declining rate until eventually they can't justify the games continued existence outside of just a memory.
 

DeletedUser110179

Sounds like real-life empires from history aswell (Roman, Spanish, British, etc). Most TV series also follow the bell curve (start off small and rough, get super popular, peak and then carry-on for sometime while losing ground ... until they stop, exhausted or having exhausted all innovation).

That said, FoE is hardly washed up ... although many dynamics have changed. Most people prefer the beginning or the mid-game since few people have the truly colossal appetite for total empire. Many veterans have long passed their own vision of empire. Many games re-start or reset every few weeks ... FoE just keeps on growing and going (like real-life) ... you have to adapt, modify or fade away.

The odds are against long-term survival. Very few guilds still want more. ▶
 
Last edited by a moderator:

DeletedUser108047

After 2 years on FOE (addictive as it is....) I agree that I am looking for more social contact and more complexity & challenge in game play. My guild is social and I've actually met members in RL but there could be much more to the game

Clicking aid 140 times is not being social and it is certainly not game play. Neither is global chat....(which is a dull litany of 'be my friend' posts).

And once you reach FE/AF GvG/PvP is much more like riding dodgem cars and bumping into as many other cars as possible than a strategy game.

As one of my guild members said - strategy in GvG is ultimately like grinding your molars together to see which one will crumble first ...

I'm not sure I know what the answer is...but I'm sure I'll know it when I see it
 

DeletedUser110131

@shareshark
I've only played for six months, but the problem you're describing was obvious from the start, and becoming more obvious every day. There's a real need for features that encourage cooperation within guilds, and a need for a reduction of time consuming, repetitive tasks.

A quick fix for the first might be some form of ad hoc mini-games, similar to events, with similarly instantly gratifying rewards, where rewards depend on actual cooperation. Long term benefits from advancing the guild are all well and good, but nothing beats instant gratification to get people interested. I can think of several possible guild quest tasks that could be used to accomplish cooperation, though I won't list them. The may require some new database operations, but nothing comprehensive. Options for supporting fellow guild members through enhancing existing features (e.g. donate 10,000 silver to give a 10% defence boost to a member with troublesome neighbors) would also be fairly simple to implement, and motivate people to engage within their guild. A longer term fix would require changes to GvG and GE, or the introduction of something entirely new and substantial.

I'm not accomplished enough in it to say anything definite about GvG, but I would suspect that satisfactory changes, that would affect the majority of players, would require expanding the Guild Continent, to allow more guilds to participate, more complex overall strategies, and the creation of limits to individually active players, reducing their impact without reducing their activity. Giving guild members some ability to aid each other in GE may make that more collaborative, as well. I can think of a couple of possible ways, that may or may not be realistic. To keep it short... shortish... well, shorter than it would otherwise be, I won't list them.

The second is both easier and nearly impossible to fix: Inno will have to ease off just slightly on the natural greed that dominates all commercial endeavors. The tedious, repetitive tasks are strong motivators for buying premium features. Even the tasks that can't be done with such features help motivate players to spend diamonds to save time where they can. It also keeps players logged on, without the need for Inno to come up with any actual content, each minute of which they just may decide to spend diamonds. Weirdly, some players actually enjoy these types of things, but they can be easily satisfied by giving them the slightest benefit from doing things the endlessly repetitive way.

@Dane thorson
The first negative I noticed about the game was the primitive battle engine, and the limited strategic map (essentially the Continent Map, which doesn't allow for a whole lot of strategy). In a regular strategy game franchise, these are the things that would be developed further in the next version of the game. If FoE is to keep players interested, they'll need a more sophisticated battle engine. A gradual introduction could be made by introducing it in a newly created era, and later expand it to previous eras. It should long ago have been their number one priority. New units simply don't introduce much new; the battle engine is too primitive to allow for much variation.

The AI is also to weak to pose real challenges, unless it's given absurd advantages in terms of boosts and second waves. It's unable to play for victory, rather than simply exhausting opposing troops, and turns everything into a war of attrition.

Of course, the common denominator for all things that can be done, is that they require real development, which is expensive, and change, which is risky. They have a platform that works, and can be tweaked at minimal expense. Why go to great expense, which may or may not pay off, when they can tweak at nearly no expense, which will almost certainly pay of, at least a little? Why change the fundamentals, or anything at all, when a tiny ad hoc event will make everyone believe that something new has been added? Why make costly changes, that may suddenly alienate a lot of players, when no change will only gradually alienate all players?

Sadly, this will only get worse: The more time that goes by without any fundamental changes, the harder and more expensive they will become. The learning curve before you can work on unfamiliar design/code is steep, and the "forgetting curve" is even steeper; even the original designers/coders will quickly loose the intimate insight necessary to simply pick up again. It's why so-called "legacy code" is a major problem in information systems. Making things worse, every time you make a tiny change, without revisiting the whole, simply to accommodate some ad hoc feature, you essentially create a potential trap to be triggered by any fundamental change. For traditional games, this has been solved either by immediately starting development of the next version, thus continuously working on the fundamentals, or, if there has been a break, simply starting from scratch when making the new version. Both solutions may be out of reach for FoE.

Disclaimer 1: Solid code and design, combined with careful documentation, can make things a lot easier. This requires high professional standards from the first moment, and an awareness that the project may keep growing for years. Needless to say, this is uncommon in online games. Hopefully, FoE is the exception.

Disclaimer 2: I obviously don't know what Inno is working on behind the scenes. Perhaps there is lively development of fundamentals. If so, none of it has been implemented recently, that I have seen after starting playing, or heard of from before I started. Everything I know of has been superficial; even GE is merely tweaking.
 

DeletedUser110179

@shareshark
The second is both easier and nearly impossible to fix: Inno will have to ease off just slightly on the natural greed that dominates all commercial endeavors. The tedious, repetitive tasks are strong motivators for buying premium features.
Do you really think so? Quite frankly, they're not greedy enough. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

It was fine in the beginning when only three people played the game and the costs were very low ... perhaps many people were even happy to volunteer their work. Now, it's a massive business with many people to pay, huge advertising costs and tons of hardware. If you want a Mercedes you can't run that kind of operation on a shoestring. If you want a quality product ... the investment must come from somewhere.

Ultimately, you get what you pay for (us and Inno). Facebook have a different model where user data patterns are used for financial development by other companies.


Anyone else think the game is drifting into a time consuming circle of nothingness.....or is it just me
Totally ... it's like going to the movies, but better ... an escape from reality.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

DeletedUser110131

Do you really think so? Quite frankly, they're not greedy enough. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
It's impossible to say if they need to increase their income, in order to provide a good product, without first seeing their financials. However, there's a difference between "greed" and "rational business". The first is driven by emotion and impulse, the second by careful consideration

The best way of getting people to pay, is giving them something they want to pay for. Making things so unpleasant that they desperately resort to paying, in order to get a functional product, can be effective for some, but not for Inno; not in the long term. Greed isn't always good, even in business. It can be, if you're big enough that no one can push back, but it can be very bad if you're not. Inno isn't Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, IBM, or any other kind of massive corporation. They don't have the market cornered. That means that they need an intelligent strategy.

Note that I wrote "ease off just slightly", not "turn into a charitable organization". Once the tedious, repetitive tasks reach a level where people have no time to enjoy the game, it's necessary to "ease off just slightly". As some will try to buy themselves free of the tedium, profits may go up, temporarily. However, others will quit. The more people who quit, the fewer reasons for others to stay. This isn't a quick game. It relies on continuity, social interaction, and long term players. There is no way it can turn a profit from random Bronze Age drop-outs.

The worry here, is that they're thinking short term tactics, rather than long term strategy; that they're being clever and slick, rather than intelligent and strategic.

To put it in your terms: If you want people to pay for lunch, the best strategy is to provide good service and edible food, that keeps your customers wanting to come back, and healthy enough to make the trip. Tricking them into the store, setting them to work doing the dishes, and expecting them to pay you for lunch breaks, only works if you lock the door behind them, and you happen to be a 600 pound gorilla. Even then, you can't expect repeat business from anyone who manages to get away.

Inno doesn't have a door, and isn't a gorilla. People will simply leave, if the pile of dishes is high enough, and the food bad enough.

Totally ... it's like going to the movies, but better ... an escape from reality
As I wrote, "weirdly, some players actually enjoy these types of things, but they can be easily satisfied by giving them the slightest benefit from doing things the endlessly repetitive way." You seem to be one of these, and you're welcome to your enjoyment of repetitive tasks. Your interests aren't at odds with other types of players. With the right strategy, Inno can keep all sorts happy.

- - -

P.S.: It's also not true that there's no such thing as a "free lunch". Check out Linux. Or Firefox. Or Wikipedia. Or any of a multitude of other free software and sites. Nutritious, delicious, and not only free of charge, but also of locked doors and 600 pound gorillas.
 

DeletedUser110195

P.S.: It's also not true that there's no such thing as a "free lunch". Check out Linux. Or Firefox. Or Wikipedia. Or any of a multitude of other free software and sites. Nutritious, delicious, and not only free of charge, but also of locked doors and 600 pound gorillas.
That line means someone, somewhere, pays. However the counter is free at the point of service, free for who's receiving whatever. Frankly, people who never buy diamonds are just as valuable as the ones who do, because without many other people, this game would be incredibly boring. It wouldn't matter if I had a billion diamonds, if there were only 10 people playing, I'd drop it like a hot rock.
 

DeletedUser108047

thankfully only about 10 people seem to have found this thread.... no more please or someone won't get their cherry set!
 

DeletedUser110131

That line means someone, somewhere, pays.
Actually, no.

GNU, Mozilla, and related projects, communities, and licenses, rely on cooperation for a common benefit.

Linux is a good example: One man, Linus Torvalds, wanted a better operating system, so he made the Linux core, along with some functionality and software that he needed or wanted himself. Then he shared it with others. They added functionality and software they needed or wanted, and shared it. That created the Linux community. Once it reached a certain level, it became interesting for commercial interests, so they did the same. As it was all based on the GNU license (actually, the beginning predates the GNU license, but, for the sake of brevity, we'll ignore that), everyone was free to alter and add to everything, provided that the result was also published under the GNU license (or not published at all).

After a while, there came a demand for specialized distributions. The publishers of these packages could charge for the medium of distribution, and for support. Companies came along, specializing in offering support and development of Linux solutions. Meanwhile, the original GNU community still thrives, and still produces software on an entirely idealistic and scientific basis.

Consequently, no one pays to get Linux, and no one pays for anyone else to get Linux.If someone wants to alter Linux, they carry the cost of the alteration, but that's all they pay for. If someone needs help, they pay for the help, but that's all they pay for. If you decide to download and use it, it's yours, for free, and no one payed for you to get it. It seems almost magical, but all it took was a license that allows changing the product, and forbids selling the result.

Of course, in the world such as it is, some things do have to be payed for. For instance, the bandwidth and servers needed by Wikipedia is payed for by donations.

Frankly, people who never buy diamonds are just as valuable as the ones who do
Absolutely agreed. Inno gets value from everyone. There are no leeches here.

no more please or someone won't get their cherry set!
That would be terrible. I love plundering those Cherry Gardens. Hush, everyone!
 

DeletedUser110195

Actually, no.

GNU, Mozilla, and related projects, communities, and licenses, rely on cooperation for a common benefit.
It can be, and often is, argued that time is money, so whether anyone is shelling out money or it's volunteer work, a valuable resource is being used to facilitate the end product.
 

DeletedUser110179

It can be, and often is, argued that time is money, so whether anyone is shelling out money or it's volunteer work, a valuable resource is being used to facilitate the end product.
Let's face it, many of these people, who are seriously talented resources, love what they do but aren't being financially remunerated for their work and effort.

History is littered with people who have invented great works and died poor. Van Gogh, Mozart and Tesla, to name but a few. In effect, we are stealing from these kinds of people. It's nice to get stuff for free and imagine that there was no cost involved and that we have no obligation to pay-up ... but that very attitude has forced many people to the wire of destitution.

I think most people would like to see a world where everyone is fairly compensated for their efforts ... hence capitalism. In essence, FoE is itself a game of collaboration in pursuit of the greater good.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

DeletedUser

Let's face it, many of these people, who are seriously talented resources, love what they do but aren't being financially remunerated for their work and effort.

History is littered with people who have invented great works and died poor. Van Gogh, Mozart and Tesla, to name but a few. In effect, we are stealing from these kind of people. It's nice to get stuff for free and imagine that there was no cost involved and that we have no obligation to pay-up ... but that very attitude has forced many people to the wire of destitution.

I think most people would like to see a world where everyone is fairly compensated for their efforts ... hence capitalism. In essence, FoE is itself a game of collaboration in pursuit of the greater good.
coudnt say it better my self : )
 

DeletedUser110131

whether anyone is shelling out money or it's volunteer work, a valuable resource is being used to facilitate the end product.
Money is valuable as a result of a legal and social contract, where we ascribe it value. Time is more than that; it's actually valuable in itself. So, undoubtedly, a valuable resource is being used to make, for instance, GNU software. However, people aren't spending this resource in order to make these products for you, me, or the general public; they're making them for their own reasons. In some cases, they're payed to adapt and add to a system for the needs of businesses. In some cases, they're making adaptations or additions for their own use. In some cases, they simply want to see if something is possible, and, if so, how. In some cases, it's part of a computer science project. In some cases, they do it because they value the open source community. The point is, the work gets done, the result is excellent, it's made freely available to everyone, and not a single person is robbed or deprived of anything. Nobody is paying for anyone else.

History is littered with people who have invented great works and died poor. Van Gogh, Mozart and Tesla, to name but a few. In effect, we are stealing from these kinds of people.
No one is starving to death due to free software, and nothing is stolen. As I say, they're using and developing the software for their own purposes. Making it publicly available is the fair price that they pay, for the right to alter existing code. Trust me, if you try to alter Windows or Apple OS, that'll cost you much more dearly. In fact, knowing those guys, you'll probably die in prison...

I think most people would like to see a world where everyone is fairly compensated for their efforts ... hence capitalism.
And yet, Van Gogh and Tesla both lived under capitalism. The least capitalistic of the three you mention was Mozart, who spent much of his life in patronage, but his main problem wasn't lack of income, but the level of spending; he made far more money than most in the upper class of his time. Van Gogh and Tesla even lived under modern copyright and patent law. In fact, the very same capitalism and laws that allowed Edison to rob other inventors of everything, leaving them to die destitute and forgotten. Meanwhile, da Vinci worked for patrons, at what amounted to a small salary, expenses covered, and a chance of a bonus reward on completion, and for his own curiosity, which payed nothing. There was no copyright, or patents, or royalties, or expensive licensing, or even mass production for an end user market. He lived fairly well, was free to dedicate his life to science and art, and the idea of charging people to look at his art would have horrified him. Modern capitalism has yet to produce a genius to equal his productivity.

The same capitalism that left van Gogh, Mozart, and Tesla to die in poverty, has turned Madonna, Oprah, and Justin Bieber into insanely wealthy people. Now, that is an indictment of capitalism, if ever there was one.

Getting back to software: In capitalist logic, value is ascribed by two standards. What you need to pay someone, in order to get them to do a job, and what people are willing to pay for the result. By the first standard, projects like Linux demonstrates clearly that other software is wildly overpriced. By the second standard, it's clear that end consumers are none too bright.

I'm not suggesting that copyright and patent law can or should be eliminated. They have their uses, and replacing them with something else might be impossible, and certainly would be difficult. I'm merely pointing out that their positive significance is grossly overrated, while their negative impact is often ignored, and their necessity is not beyond doubt. It's unfortunate that many are starting to think of them as laws of nature, or fundamental moral truths, rather than the cultural and legal constructs that they are.
 

DeletedUser110179

By the first standard, projects like Linux demonstrates clearly that other software is wildly overpriced. By the second standard, it's clear that end consumers are none too bright.
Perhaps gaming has a status problem !

Movie-making is a multi-billion dollar industry ... many people are willing to pay good money to see one movie at the cinema but won't pay 2 cents for their entire online gaming experience (possibly years). Sport is also big business where big names can earn 6 figure salaries and people are willing to pay big money to watch them.
Nobody watches online gaming. At best you can watch a few circular gif's around the city. FoE software engineers are no less talented than windows developers and would probably be making much more working for MS. They'ld probably earn much more working for Pixar than they do creating gaming works of art.
FoE is a labour of love ... nobody's getting rich here. People just don't realize the value of gaming as a tool for human growth and development.

Gaming has an image dilemma. ♫
 

DeletedUser110131

Gaming definitely has a social status problem, but the gaming industry is nevertheless laughing all the way to the bank.

Unless I'm much mistaken, the global video game industry first outperformed the Hollywood film industry around 2010, and, at present, has about twice the revenue of Hollywood, as well as greater revenue than the global film industry. Freemium games, such as FoE, are on the leading edge in profitability. While I don't know anything specifically about Inno, I'd say there's a pretty good chance they're doing very well. They're certainly finding the money to advertise extensively.

Of course, game developers will never get the salaries of movie stars. That's because movie stars aren't paid primarily for their skills, but for the space they occupy in peoples consciousness. People will see a movie because it has their favorite actor, and who that actor is tends to have nothing to do with how skilled he/she is at the craft. With game developers, it's the reverse. People usually have no idea who they are, and so won't play a game because they're behind it. Meanwhile, they get jobs based purely on their skill.

I wouldn't worry too much about them, though; it's fairly well payed work, and few software developers starve much, whether they're involved in games or operating systems. I'd say it's much more reasonable to consider Hollywood stars to be over-payed, than developers to be under-payed.

Essentially, the very famous extract money by exploiting a flaw in the human brain. We have a need to have alphas, and to select them by primitive instinct. Actual skill and performance, as reported by credible ("boring") sources, just won't do as a basis for alpha status among the masses. Instead, we're seduced by the appearance of wealth, fame, beauty, strength, courage, adventure, confidence, success, etc., as reported by the media concerned with gossip, fashion, life style, celebrity, etc.. Those are the media appealing to the primitives in us. As a result, we prefer to idolize someone who seems great at killing invading space-aliens, rather than someone who's actually great at an actual skill.

If we were to assume that the very famous are fairly payed for their effort, talent, and usefulness, and were to scale up the pay of the actually hard working, skilled, and useful, based on that standard, most budgets on the planet would become impossible to balance, by a massive margin. Just in the film industry, the increased pay of less famous actors and off-camera talent would multiply the employment expenses by a considerable factor. Then there are scientists, aid workers, soldiers, bureaucrats (not all bad, you know), journalists, peace makers, whistle blowers, nurses, technicians... Let's face it: If there was any justice to the financial system, Stephen Hawking's grade school teachers should have considerably better bank balances than Justin Bieber. Seriously. A lot better.

But, like I said, I doubt that there's any reason to cry for Inno's developers.
 

DeletedUser11930

Innogames have become obsessed with getting people to part with money thats why they've lost so many players only 30% of registered players now play

To many events at least 1 a week is to much of a time constraint
people cannot play the game how it used to be because some people have spent real money and become so high % att/def innos answer was to make the game hard all players not just the select few,ie now you have to fight 2 waves of troops with higher values than most players have if we have to fight 2 waves where is our option to replace damged troops with fresh ones like AI does ?

the developers are not paying attention to the gamers and the moderators claim they have no contact with them when you try to make suggestions

Games are supposed to be enjoyable profiteering by the developers has made them forget this and now they clutch at straws trying to entice people to buy diamonds constantly by offering to many events and special offers why dont you fix all the flaws within your server and software instead of writing new bits to add and make the game slower than a snail crawling in a black hole
 
Top