A lot of waiting

thought the whole point of testing the game was to look at where the game is causing players to have problems/concerns or issues with the game that might make players leave the game completely, and for testers to make suggestions as to how those things might be improved (suggest ways to 'fix' things!)

Some other players on this thread have implied that the waiting times are giving them concerns and reducing their enjoyment with the game and may even give rise to players leaving the game.

On other threads players have demonstrated their distress at being constantly defeated in battle by other players who have spent more enkord money (only available if you donate hard cash) and thus obtained more resources. Those were the issues that I was trying to raise with you and I was offering my suggestions as to how some of the issues could be addressed.

Please do go ahead and delete all my messages.

I am only here because you invited me for a second time to test this alpha stage.

I just spent an hour writing down some thoughts on this subject only to find that the debate has moved on!  :)  I think I'll keep to a principle of one topic per post and break it into several parts.

For the record, this is the first multiplayer game I've ever tried.  I love games but have never believed that I could have fun in a multiplayer one (based on talking to people I know that do play them.)  I play roguelikes (like nethack) and casual games (like Tradewinds, Tales of Illyria, Bookworm Adventures).  I'm on here because I thought TT1/TTG was a great game, in a class by itself, and so wanted to give the sequel a try.  I've been playing now for a couple of weeks.  So my opinions are in that context.

I've put some money into the game (not much, but greater than zero, maybe enough to pay for a couple of developers' dinners :) and I do believe that there's been an effort to maintain balance so that spending real money gives a slight advantage but not an overwhelming one.  The thing that you can do with money is speed things up slightly.  For everything that you can speed up using purchased items, there is some balance that keeps you from just racing through.  For instance, you can buy all the books you want to speed up construction, but you still have to have the resources to fund it, which take time to build up.  You can't buy resources for cash.... the closest you can get is buying coins for the roulette wheel which has a chance of giving resources (or also a chance of giving something that isn't implemented yet).  Other things, like hero experience and tech points, you can only cut the time in half with purchased items.  So by spending money, you can make things take maybe two days instead of four, but they are not instantaneous.  By watching players progressing around me, I can see that some are spending to go faster and some aren't.  At least at this stage that doesn't seem to tip the balance much one way or the other.

Regarding the advanced players - I've read back on some of the forums and have seen that many of them have been playing for a year or so... and I think they were able to keep some of their progress when new alpha versions were released.  I've been playing for all of two weeks, so the fact that I'm well behind those folks is more to do with time than money, as far as I can tell.

I've tried games that have the model "keep paying to keep playing" and I absolutely loathe them; as soon as I detect that model they are expunged from my system.  This game isn't like that, there is genuinely a choice whether or not to pay.   And game developers have to eat too....

Frankly, I would far prefer to purchase a game up front and have unlimited play.  However, I understand that it's a tough market out there.  I'm giving this a chance.  From what I've seen so far, when it's complete this is going to be a seriously awesome game.

There's one situation I can think of that may actually mean that you require a purchased object to keep playing - that's if you're being targeted by stronger players and need a ward to progress your game.  A suggestion - if a player suffers a string of attacks from stronger players within a period of time, perhaps Lada herself could appear and give them a ward.  Then they'd have (if they choose to use it) some quiet time to rebuild and a fair chance without having to spend. 

I'm also feeling I've hit a wall at the stage when you're upgrading resource areas from 2 to 3, where I'm not occupied all the time but have to visit every 10 minutes to keep things progressing.  What usually happens is that i start a building going, go off and do something else, and by the time I remember to come back it's half an hour or an hour later.

[...]

If nothing changes a lot of players will be lost to the game at this stage, before they've met any other players.

I'm glad someone else mentioned this early grindy bit.  I've now got four characters going so I've been through it four times.  The first time I almost quit playing; only thinking that because it's alpha I should give it a fair test and feedback on the issue rather than quitting I kept going.  I think MadLogician has made an excellent point - this situation occurs early in the game and you could well lose people before they have a chance to experience the fun parts of the game. 

The problem is not that these builds take a long time (and there are certainly longer ones later on.)  It's that there is nothing to do in the game while you are waiting.  With my first character I got through it by playing other games while waiting (after I made a conscious decision to give it a chance and not quit).  Later characters I played other characters while waiting (but when they all had grindy bits simultaneously, it was pretty difficult to stay engaged.)

Thinking about this problem - maybe this is a daft suggestion but why not give some mini-games so that there is something to have fun with while the grindy builds are happening?  It's easy to make work for the dev team :) but could you not reuse some code from your other successful games to make side games?  I'm thinking of maybe a randomly generated TTG-style island, with some building, some fighting, and some things to find for a goal.  It could be tied into the game through an entertainment structure (or even the existing structures, the pumpkin hut and tree hut in the starting town) and a player would get some sort of in game reward for completing a mini-game successfully.  

The important thing is that they stay engaged with the game, "don't touch that dial kids!" Rather than wandering off to do something else, and maybe never coming back.

 I cannot see any technical reason for the length of time it takes to upgrade buildings/transport items/carryout research

[...]

If the point of your message is constructive, you better look at the situation at broader scale before jumping to the conclusions. If all you want is to express your frustration just for the same of letting steam off, I am afraid this isn't the right place. I don't want to have the forums turn into toxic place and will be deleting such messages, even although I am appriciating any kinds of feedback.

Berserker, with all respect, please don't delete messages that contain honest criticism.  Freelance's post was not abusive; he was giving you feedback from his point of view which is quite frankly all any of us can do!   I know it's difficult to hear criticism of something that you've put your heart and soul into.  But if one person says it, you can bet your last dollar that others are thinking it.  Some of them would be the owners of 1-cell towns that never grow...

Sorry for the flood of messages, I do hope some of it is helpful.

Actually, I think the problem is not the slow pace but rather that the pace changes too abruptly. The tutorial and the first tasks are played in real time really, but then suddenly you have to wait. Maybe a solution to save people some frustration is to make small increments of waiting time even in the tutorial? With some simple sentence of explanation that that's how it's gonna be? It's just that after the tutorial people expect the game to follow at a similar pace and then their expectations are not met. (Also, TT and TTG were real time strategies - which I personally loved among all the casual time management crap - so people that come here surely bring their expectations from the previous experience...)

Another idea - maybe some silly locations with mini games - like searching through the fog for gems - that would randomly initiate each time you enter. This way those people that have an hour or two of free time and wish to play could be kept busy.

reply to berserker:

"What kind of balance are you guys looking for? We all started on the same day. If you must know im number 14 in the donation list which means that there are at least 13 people that have more resources on their hands than i do"

The above quote was posted 1 month ago in a thread with a different topic.

The person who posted this comment is the leader of one of the largest and most aggressive alliances.

You are fully aware (because you responded in the thread) that in this thread a post is made by more than 1 person who is clearly distressed by the frequency and severity of attacks being made against them.

As building progresses in the game upgrades take longer and longer to accomplish, eventually it is necessary to complete research in order to progress the levels of buildings and access other things such as primitive rams. Each research takes longer and longer to complete. Ergo, if a player (and all players started on the same day in the above quoted thread) has made considerably more progress than another player they can only have achieved that by the use of speed-ups to reduce building and research time. There is currently no way to reduce that time other than by buying speed-ups etc using enkord cash. The above quote makes it clear that there is a ranking based on donations - that is the 'evidence' i based my comments on. The quote also points out that the greater the level of donation the more resources a player has access to.

All i was suggesting is that there should be a way of 'earning' enkord cash within the game play itself so that those players who cannot make more donations have a way of accessing the enkord cash and the time-saving resources that such cash provides. Otherwise the game is a 'pay to win' game since speed-ups do allow players to level up buildings and armory faster (i.e 'faster' by several days - not just a few minutes) than players who cannot buy the same resources and who therefore fall behind and are 'easy prey' for the better armed and better resourced players.

If the only way to obtain speed-ups and similar time-saving resources is via enkord cash and the only way to get enkord cash is to donate money that is not 'balance' - that is giving advantage to those who can donate money over those players who cannot donate.

I accept that this issue has been debated before - several times - but the fact that it continues to be an issue to players (not just to me 'cos my resource level is ok thus far) surely indicates that it does need to be looked at as, clearly, players are still affected by it and players will leave the game because of it. 

Just trying to help.

reply to berserker:

"What kind of balance are you guys looking for? We all started on the same day. If you must know im number 14 in the donation list which means that there are at least 13 people that have more resources on their hands than i do"

The above quote was posted 1 month ago in a thread with a different topic.

The person who posted this comment is the leader of one of the largest and most aggressive alliances.

Thanks for calling my alliance of 5 kingdoms one of the largest! And you are right, the topic was different, so your conclusions are way off. 

Anyhow, the place statement in that conversation was made to point out that i got to medieval age ~2 weeks before anyone else did. If donation size would matter that much would i get that far ahead?

P.S.: If you want "free" speedups you can go fishing, spin the wheel, kill monsters. If 10 minutes waiting makes you upset then what are you going to do when construction will be for 20 hours? Everyone equals out in the end :D 

For the record, this is the first multiplayer game I've ever tried.  I love games but have never believed that I could have fun in a multiplayer one (based on talking to people I know that do play them.)

That's because most MMO games been aimed at younger audience. We've been struggling to make MMO game suitable more to the older crown, maybe that's why you liked it, as I have heard this point multiple times before.

A good point - one of the things that turned me off to MMO games generally is the reports of having to deal with stroppy teenagers online.  A bit too much like real life!  :) :) ;)  My friends that play them generally enjoy engaging with such other players and taking out their aggressions by giving back abuse that they get.  That's not my style.

I think that you are successfully recruiting new MMO players from the pool of casual game players, based on their liking of TT1/TTG.  Everyone I've talked to in the game, if the subject came up, said they were here because of TTG.  So far the environment in game has been friendly and civil - I'm pretty sure that isn't only because of age; pretty sure that some of the people I've talked to are considerably younger than me (based on what they talk about.)

I'm enjoying the debate on this thread.  Thanks for listening and replying.

It will be interesting to see what happens.  There's a sociology PhD in it for someone, ripe for picking!

I see a lot of people always complaining about the long waiting times. They seem to forget this is an alpha stage.They are playing an incomplete game and are complaining that's it incomplete.There is a lot of reading to do.Hover over units and buildings,etc and you will learn a lot more about them.Try things out instead of asking everything in gen.There are different victory types,so work out a plan what to do first,etc.This is NOT a walkthrough,it is Alpha.

well, I guess that sorts me out. I might be 'a devoted player' who has actually followed you since the release of TT (i bought it from Big Fish) and i might have 'donated' more to this site than i have ever paid for any game ever, i might have stuck with you through all the ups and downs, through your problems with people stealing your games (i would never do that to any game developer!), through the uncertainties of your (real) country's traumas and put up with other player's bullying tactics, i might have thought (wrongly - obviously!) that i was invited as a tester to give an opinion and make suggestions which i thought (wrong again) would be helpful but i have never been spoken to like this on a public forum by anyone ever before. A very revealing discussion which is now - as far as i am concerned - very definitely over.

Thank you for so clearly demonstrating your opinions.