time vs progression

i love this game. brilliant graphics, good interactions with stuff, good buildings, nice chat and, now that i have found the hideaway, fantastic storyline with great promise of things to come. 2 problems: lack of ability in game for players to be just solo players and - the main issue for me - the extraordinary time it takes to do research/upgrade buildings/train braves etc. Honestly, it feels as though I'm playing on ancient equipment with no broadband connection!! Why does everything have to take so long? If this continues into finished game I can see that many people will be put off and just leave. A few minutes - perhaps as long as 15 minutes for big buildings - might be ok, but in this techno age waiting several hours and even days (days!!!! -what is this about???) for a building to be upgraded or for research to be learned is just too much.

hi berserker,

 so far it seems as though the main purpose of the game is to build an empire and attack other players, rather than to complete puzzles, search for objects and beat the game, which is what TT and TTG were about. Certainly it looks, at the moment (and I appreciate that this is early days but understood that playing the game as is and giving you feedback was the purpose of testing) as though those who are prepared to spend a lot of money on buying upgrades etc will be the ones with the advantage, regardless of how much time a player has to spend playing the game. With this in mind I spoke to several friends yesterday who all play a variety of games and they all said the same thing: they would be prepared to spend money up front for a good game but, regardless of initial costs, are unwilling to spend money within a game just in order to gain progress, in fact, several said that they had quit games they were playing when it became obvious that they would have to spend money in order to achieve their aims/progress to other levels/beat other players. Most of my friends play games either entirely as solo players or against other players where the object is to beat others by acheiving better scores/being faster etc. None of them said they would play a game such as TT2.

hi berserker,

a game from 'bethsada' called 'skyrim' is on its 'stress' beta test this weekend and my daughter is testing it. the test was 'by invitation only'  and it is a multi-player game. it will be released at the end of march and cost from Ј70 -Ј100 depending on which version you buy (all versions are complete but hard copy is more expensive). It is predicted to be a 'best seller' in computer game terms. I mention this because a) this is its first 'public' testing and is time-limited (it started 5pm friday and will close sunday evening); b) purchase cost is higher than TT or TTG; c) this studio obviously think this 'business model' will net them good profits. I know 'Jotun' is designed to be 'unending' in format, hence not easy to sell as 'complete game' and can see that, if it is 'free to play' you will initially attract, perhaps, a lot of people, but I suspect that most of them will not spend much money 'in game' so your income predictions are likely to be very uncertain, which, when you have spent so much time and money developing the game seems a shame. I hope it does work out the way you want it to, but have my doubts.

I understand we can progress without buying, but it seems like very large gaps in time before we get blueprints on the coin machine, etc.  I very rarely get one, and I play with 8 different heroes.  I have to improve the food, lumber and stone to level 10 to get enough to improve gathering point, etc., so it does significanlty slow down the game if you don't buy blueprints.

Many developer choose the way of a free to play game with ingame content for some income because there are many many advantages for both sides. For player and for developer too.

Let take a look at the player: You can play for free, you can test everything, if you like the game you can purchase as much as you want.

For developer: Because of the free the play-style many player will test the game, maybe some payer who never would buy it at the beginning but later the love the game. If you play for a longer time, you will have a stronger relationship to the game and less inhibitions to pay something (in best case several times). There are many ways to play a Full-price-game for free because of the software-piracy so a developer would see no cent.

Its a Win-Win-Situation for both side but just as long as the player like the game and don't feel sad about pay to win-situations or things like this. Thats most time the turning point.

I have been playing for a long time, I do love the game. But I don't have the money to donate like some of the players. I have donated, but I can't keep donating. The people that can afford it are ruling the game, and there is no way to compete with them. I guess you can say I am close to an all day player, and they just keep expanding leaving no room . It seem to me if you have donated up 30.00 maybe not all at once but over time, we should be able to open the egg. 

That fact that everyone is all crammed into a single region for testing purposes can have that effect.

I'm pretty sure later on when we can pick more then 1 area to start in the big donating players might be a bit more spread out so they won't be as dominating as they are right now.

Bleh my [post something without really thinking it though] habit came up again >_<

Yeah I kind of forgot about that fact bers. (How do I forget about myself -_-)

So yeah I should have thought out/worded my post better :|