Exposing Top 25 Players

[Leofwine]

I indeed am still co playing an account (not this one). I will be more than excited to meet you. Still doesnt change the fact that you were boosted early game

What do you call this guy then?

Spoiler

 

[Deleted User - 10618707]

By this reasoning having multiple accounts should not be against the rules either, since it's not too difficult to use a different IP address for each one making intent impossible to prove.

- Make an account to transport free resources to a friend
- Make an account, defend the village against anyone else but let a friend free farm 100k resources off you
- Make an account, build up an optimal village and use it to clear one or two other players so a friend can noble their villages and yours, gaining millions resources' worth of advantage compared to folk spending their own troops to conquer less optimal villages

Only the first one can be easily policed and controlled, but they are all clearly and obviously push accounts. Can we be honest enough to acknowledge that fact? Heck, the third one is probably the most egregious one of them all.

So the question is simply does difficulty in policing something mean that it shouldn't be a rule at all? If you reckon that the answer should be yes then Innogames may as well allow folk to have multiple accounts. At least that way they'd get more money, we'd get slightly bigger worlds and folk who are solo players or new to the game would not suffer the further disadvantage of legal push accounts.

I think you graphically missed my point, I said this issue can be policed on two fronts. Either the more obvious, based on established intent, which I would assume is the current way its done , however its hard to established whether an account has the intention of being a 'merge; account. Or one can take one of the haphazard approaches suggested by various people throughout the thread, which will incidentally negatively impact those simply wishing to merge.

Then I mentioned the ethics of certain tactics, where TW as it is today has evolved to a point where things once 'illegal' and rather commonplace today. I haven't played as long as others so I'm sure someone will correct me but I'm almost certain that at some point scripts were not allowed whatsoever (as it still isnt on uk servers), then tw evolved to how it is today where scripts are allowed but hardly encouraged.

Thus imo scripts would have been looked at the same way x years ago, as a 'cheap way to gain advantages over others' by expediting and circumventing certain processes.

But if we are to stick with the air of ethics then we slide on an even slipperier slope as we try to define what is 'good' ethics as it relates to TW's multicultural dynamic.


In summary, do I think the strategy may be unfair? Perhaps yeah. Do i think there is something particularly wrong with it and not should explicitly not indulge? Nope.

The reasoning would be folly, its as if hoping to be en effective farmer with as little effort as possible while everyone else is using crimsoni's etc, this is extremely unfair to new players unaware of such tools albeit it may be there fault for not researching it.

In the end tw has evolved into a game with a culture as such where the most optimum and efficient strategies have always been pursuing while staying within the realms of legality, stretching as far back as those guys who we all know who jerk off over start up( start up king himself tom), this is hardly a new phenomenon of unethical behaviour.

 

[Mithrae]

In the end tw has evolved into a game with a culture as such where the most optimum and efficient strategies have always been pursuing while staying within the realms of legality, stretching as far back as those guys who we all know who jerk off over start up( start up king himself tom), this is hardly a new phenomenon of unethical behaviour.

Yes, there's that attitude that if it's not explicitly against the game rules then it's okay or even the 'best' way to play; which gets us more lying, spying, tribe-hopping, gang-banging, backstabbing, recruit to kick and noble, merge-to-win players than we'd probably like Funnily enough, some of people who use that reasoning in the case of legal push accounts would simultaneously condemn many of these other legal gameplay tactics.

So I figure early game account merges should be explicitly against the game rules, even if it's possible that convoluted workarounds might be devised (just as they can for having multiple accounts). I mean they pretty obviously are push accounts... but they're not illegal so of course plenty of folk are going to do it. It's the "smart" way to play. But I'd wager that most of those people would not do it if it was clearly and explicitly against the rules, even if a convoluted workaround were possible.

And you're right that things like scripts can also help out with gameplay; but A) they are at least theoretically available to hard-googling new players even from day one, unlike legal push accounts; B) since the introduction of loot assistant the advantage is minimal if not non-existent in the early game, which is when new players either decide they like the game or get discouraged and quit; and most importantly C) scripts probably increase the number of active accounts by reducing player fatigue and hence departure rates whereas push villages explicitly reduce account numbers both by making coplaying more beneficial/common and by discouraging new players with a bigger performance gap sooner.

 

[Ultra Instinct]

Correct me if im wrong .

You are always wrong runt.

 

[Deleted User - 10618707]

Yes, there's that attitude that if it's not explicitly against the game rules then it's okay or even the 'best' way to play; which gets us more lying, spying, tribe-hopping, gang-banging, backstabbing, recruit to kick and noble, merge-to-win players than we'd probably like Funnily enough, some of people who use that reasoning in the case of legal push accounts would simultaneously condemn many of these other legal gameplay tactics.

So I figure early game account merges should be explicitly against the game rules, even if it's possible that convoluted workarounds might be devised (just as they can for having multiple accounts). I mean they pretty obviously are push accounts... but they're not illegal so of course plenty of folk are going to do it. It's the "smart" way to play. But I'd wager that most of those people would not do it if it was clearly and explicitly against the rules, even if a convoluted workaround were possible.

And you're right that things like scripts can also help out with gameplay; but A) they are at least theoretically available to hard-googling new players even from day one, unlike legal push accounts; B) since the introduction of loot assistant the advantage is minimal if not non-existent in the early game, which is when new players either decide they like the game or get discouraged and quit; and most importantly C) scripts probably increase the number of active accounts by reducing player fatigue and hence departure rates whereas push villages explicitly reduce account numbers both by making coplaying more beneficial/common and by discouraging new players with a bigger performance gap sooner.

See that's the thing, I employ all strategies as 'acceptable' on the basis that legality being the only characteristics which differentiates right or wrong on tw. Therefore such cases of spying, while I would obviously feel hurt being spied against i suppose (as would anyone) its not as if I wouldn't employ such tactics (obtaining a spy in an enemy tribe) if the opportunity arose. Thus me having that type of moral code i think it would be rather hypocritical of me to whine about other things that aren't against the rules but are deemed unethical by some. If we remove the 'rules' from the situation, any argument can be made to exploit a player. Lets consider a very basic example, a logical player can look at another's village file to potentially grasp one's 'online times'. I can do this to a new player to basically gain an advantage. Surely some would consider such cowardly implying that I'm 'afraid' to fight fairly.

While this example may indeed be ludicrous, this is something I've actually seen many times by people I've nobled, this is the flaw i think of making judgement calls on what is right/wrong based on personal ethics.

You also stated how some accounts are 'obviously' push accounts, I don't particularly think that train of thought is foolproof. Any rational player understands that the most optimum way of playing tw is to gain as many 'points/villages' with as little loss as possible. I've done this before where I taunted x player into attacking y thus when i nobled him I gained No ODA. This type of scenario along with luck happens alot more than people give it credit for and surely this would look like push accounts to the ignorant eye.

Even the scenario I gave above, if I did that to a new player...is that unethical...should that be against the rules? Getting duped like that could surely make a new player quit easily.

In relation to the scripts comment...I'm sure everyone is well aware there is a clear difference between scripts that are easily available on these forums...and well....other scripts so even hard googling new players are still placed at a disadv. And even if we ignore that likelihood, we are in the age of app software rather that outright pc players. You claim scripts actually help new players but in reality most new players in my own anecdotal experiences are by nature casual mobile players thus by default they cant experience the true value of scripts due to the clunky nature of the mobile app and the interrelationship with scripts.

So scripts actually widen that gap imo between us 'hard core older players' and new casual players ergo causing tw to simply not be a game fitted for newer players.

I saw someone up above suggest that some sort of bonus could be given to newer players to 'protect' them against us, but thinking practically...what's there to stop older players from simply creating new accounts? People should just accept tw for what it is, a dying game.


Edit...Can't believe i jsut wasted my time writing this.

 

[Mithrae]

While this example may indeed be ludicrous, this is something I've actually seen many times by people I've nobled, this is the flaw i think of making judgement calls on what is right/wrong based on personal ethics.

You also stated how some accounts are 'obviously' push accounts...

I mean that when someone creates an account specifically to burn a nuke and merge with their coplayer a couple of weeks in (or simply gift and quit), that is obviously a push account. It's not always obvious when that was the case.

There's nothing particularly unethical about doing that mind you, as long as it remains legal. Certainly compared to deceiving someone for weeks or months on end and gaining their trust only to betray or backstab them, it's nothing. Push accounts are just unfair-but-legal; they aren't directly harming anyone. But they contribute to the game's decline more directly and obviously than pretty much any of the nasty-but-legal stuff. In terms of new players, they can easily (and probably often do) get rimmed or get half a dozen villages long before they ever feel personally victimized by backstabbing or betrayal; whereas the daunting performance gap of push accounts is evident pretty immediately after nobles are out. And in terms of more experienced players, we can reasonably anticipate that some folk will be bastards and take steps to mitigate the effect of any nasty play we encounter; but there's nothing we can do about the fact that the tremendous advantages of coplaying (including push villages) means there's fewer accounts and smaller worlds.

So that's a bit of a funny perspective, I suppose: I dislike spies and backstabbers far more than anyone taking advantage of currently-legal push accounts, but it's only the latter which I think should be formally banned But you're probably right that TW is long past its heyday no matter what they might try to do at this point.


Great to have an intelligent conversation anyway, whether we agree or not!

 

[DeletedUser57259]

I'm informed there is a photo of an exposed nipple which belongs to one of the top 25. Does that help?

 

[mch123]

Apologies for this long rant. It's becoming a habit but I just can't make my points without addressing all the connecting issues. Tbh, I wish more people in this thread dug a little deeper before posting.

If you can look past all the "holier than thou"/"look how good I am"/ego justification BS, this thread has many good thought provoking points.

The first thing I'd like to point out is that a lot of issues are not binary. It's not about whether you can "fix" the issue entirely. You should view it more on a moving scale.

Personally, I feel nearly all the issues are in a state of gradual deterioration and we should be doing things that minimise the negative impact of these issues. That kills off any "can't be done", "no point in trying", "Innogames won't change", "I might as well join the cheaters/unethical players" type arguments.

P2W
My first point I want to make is one that is my own personal key issue. I don't feel like playing ethically or contributing to improve issues because my efforts are undermined by P2W and the ability to buy power. Nothing else matters to me until that is addressed. Why would I promote a game, help new players to learn, play by the rules, and generally help to make the game better when the game is not built to be fair to me. I won't spend a single dollar on this game until it is and I'm sure many others feel the same. That may sound like I have money and could buy my own power but I don't have that much. $5-$10 a month doesn't get you very far - but I'd happily donate that if the game was truly fair. Probably more.

Once you take that unfair power option away other issues can be discussed with better logic and rationality.

Co-Playing
For example, I like this post by xillah addressing concerns that you can't compete unless you are co-playing:

Nobody is getting rimmed while they're asleep before trains. You can't get cleared if your troops are out farming overnight. If you're playing smart your immediate neighbours won't get the chance to research cats, let alone demo your village.

While I understand being rimmed is disappointing, it is part of the learning curve for many. Frankly if nobody got the disappoint we wouldn't have much of a game.

This used to be the effective strategy. A few members tried to counter the argument stating it doesn't defend against trains or 2 enemy players working together with 2 nobles. I want to address this because it is too much of a surface level reaction.

If you take away the ability to buy power/growth, making everyone relatively closer in size (like on w100), they can't just have a train (+ a nuke) that early AND you are not in a position where you are unable to defend yourself using any number of the available methods. P2W has created the issue that you are counter arguing with because of the greater gap between the top, average and bottom tiered players. PP abusers can have trains right out of beginner protection so naturally the majority of players can't defend against it.

The second counter argument is "fine" but a little naive. Obviously we want to allow teamwork to prevail. The issue in that scenario is that, if you are playing offensively and using the strategy of dodging while you sleep, you deserve to lose for not accurately assessing your environment. If you notice that you are in a 2 vs 1 scenario, you should call for support or change to a defensive strategy before any attacks are even launched. It's a poor choice of strategy by the player which is part of the learning curve and not a (direct) side effect of being offline.

The game shouldn't change just to make your prefered style work everytime. I know what you are saying and why you play that style. It has the best risk/reward ratio and allows you to snowball out of the early game. You just have to accept it comes with high risk. You've also probably benefited from the reverse scenario which is why it is fair. Ultimately, I believe this issue is rooted in P2W though.

To counter this further, in a non-P2W world, it is generally counterproductive and a huge risk to take on other active players of similar size and activity. People will moan about the bad luck of being put in that position but, as xillah mentioned, even though it feels disappointing, it's part of the learning curve and creates that variance from world to world that keeps it interesting. If you have friends and a good team around you, you can recover and still have a good, FAIR game.

Finally, people quit TW not because they lost all their hard work but because they feel like they can't compete... and they honestly can't compete under the current conditions. It's no wonder they lose hope and give up on the game. No amount of knowledge matters vs P2W or cheating.

Cheating
When it comes to cheating, we should be minimising the effects instead of trying to solve the problem entirely. This can be done by putting up barriers for cheating, greater identification methods and a fitting punishment. We can create worlds where 99% of players remain unaffected by cheaters. Right now it feels more like 50%. Maybe less.

We should be focussing our efforts to close the gap.

My favourite idea at the moment is something that has been done in a few other games - tying accounts to mobile numbers. It makes operating multiple push accounts more difficult to set up. You can have verification methods via text/app to check accounts regularly (most players use mobile in some form anyway).

The technical stuff on this topic is not my area of expertise but there are examples of anti-cheating methods being executed elsewhere.

Scripts
Scripts are fine so long as there is documentation and good access to guides. It becomes part of the learning curve which makes it fair. What makes it somewhat unfair is the level of access to these materials. I'd say the external forums, mentoring system and wiki and even the tutorial/quest system are currently inadequate methods for this - especially in regards to scripts. There needs to be at least an up-voting method to separate the bad guides from the good in the forum. The community could (and probably would) do more if they felt like the game was worth doing it for.

I'm also not convinced that new players become aware of the external forums, or have any real incentive to get involved early in the TW experience. I've been playing over a decade and have under 50 posts. I'm only now getting active because I want to see change for my friends and I'm not sure they are as capable as I of articulating their issues or knowing how to go about it (hence essays like this one). Anyway, back to scripts...

The issues come with auto-scripts/bots. I'm kind of ok with someone holding down a button on LA assist/FA keypress (or whatever it is called). I'm not ok with something that does all the work for you.

I've been experimenting with auto-scripts and almost full "bot-like" scripts on w98/w99 - purely to learn about what's out there, how it works, what's possible and just generally have a better understanding so I can address it. I had w100 ruined by an account that was cheating with 5 push accounts. (Yes, I've played long enough to know what he was doing was not possible. No, I'm not going to detail it here. Yes, I reported the player and nothing happened.)

It took me less than a month to figure out how to essentially get something akin to Account Manager with auto-farming for free - and I had/have a really poor understanding of JavaScript. I also looked into Virtual Machines and Changing IP addresses for running push accounts. It's completely doable and the punishment is "I lose my account but can create a new one"..? Not much of a deterrent if you ask me.

For the record, I'm on the rim on both those worlds and not playing - so judge me purely on my intent to learn and not to cheat. Comes back to the debate about what's ethical and taking responsibility as players for what we allow as a community. I have plenty of friends who will back my character on this. I'd also like to restate the following just to emphasise how you can't take any issue in a vacuum and break it down without considerations for the bigger picture:

I don't feel like playing ethically or contributing to improve issues because my efforts are undermined by P2W and the ability to buy power.

What's to stop me from cheating and contributing to the problem now if Innogames doesn't address the P2W issue? I'm not going to purely for reasons that I don't want to lose the respect and trust that I have from many players. I'd bet there are plenty here who would though.

The Rules
After reading the posts about rules and what is/is not cheating in this thread, I only have 1 thing to say; if you are in the group that are complaining that "Innogames is ruining the game and doesn't care enough to maintain it", you can't start quoting the game rules on these issues as they too have probably been neglected for far too long. They can't be caring enough to make proper rules AND not care about anything else.

This undermines any argument you make about the rules. All it says about you is "I'm only out for my own advantage - I don't care for the state of the game or the community". I have no real problem with that. The game is competitive and taking advantages that are in those gray areas is to be expected.

However, ethics and values are important because without them we will continue down a path of deterioration and negativity as a community. So I'd ask everyone to consider whether protecting your short term gains are worth the risks and negatives to the game and the community?

In regards to the co-playing rules, I think co-playing is an unfair advantage to new players and that's a bad thing for the game as a whole.
- Can they find a co-player themselves and we band it under "the learning process"? Probably but it's not clean.
- Can you police it if you ban co-playing? Probably not but I'm open to ideas.

As I mentioned earlier, the only reasons you can be for co-playing is for those unfair advantages - whether that's to get ahead or to keep up with the competition. It also feel like you don't believe we can put everyone on an even playing field so you have to take those advantages. The problem with that belief is that it's a self fulfilling prophecy because you won't try or go the full distance to see that those changes are made.

World Sizes

Beside I am not sure about killing game with pay to win mechanic, after all pay to win worlds were usually quite bigger then worlds like w100

Another statement I have been seeing a lot lately that bothers me.

P2W has been around for a while now - Enough time to drive the people who can't afford to compete away from the game. Paying to get power is also addictive.

We also see a lot of people who have given up on the idea of change and just play every world recreationally and keep up with friends. Their participation isn't therefore a vote for P2W worlds.

In my eyes, it seems logical to assume that the player base is becoming ever more proportionally dominated with players who are looking to exercise their power (so they opt out of worlds like 100). Add the fact w101 opened immediately after (with the start up process being quite addictive too) and you see why w100 is small.

I think a blank statement like "People like P2W more", which is what this quote is suggesting, is a pretty twisted interpretation. It's similar to why more players like faster worlds - you get gratification faster.

There are many studies on this type of thing and it doesn't always correlate with games being good for the player, game and company. It's even worse in context to the topics discussed in this thread.

Another consideration for some of the issues mentioned is that by making worlds slower you give people more time to make adjustments and generally play the game at a rate where they can keep up.

If you keep giving players the options to feed that faster gratification, it's only natural that they are going to avoid the slower and non-P2W worlds. I think it's one of those cases where the players don't know what's good for them and due to social or addictive tendencies, they'll never break this issue themselves or create the conditions for the developers to change it. I feel it's necessary though.

Keeping in theme, I mentioned earlier that $5 - $10 doesn't buy you any advantage at all now. The number you would need (as well as the tempo) is increasing world after world. There will come a point where even the people paying a lot of their hard earned cash are going to feel like the current "free players" who can't compete now.

Someone is going to throw the argument that you can PP farm for a few worlds in order to compete. My counter to this is that, as I just mentioned, the player base is looking for faster and faster gratification. They don't want to wait 6 months to compete and will end up going elsewhere if we continue down this path.

/rant.

Maybe this should have been a post all of it own.

 

[Mr. Cringer Pants]

@mch123: great points. Most of the decline is a natural trend in all types of media. Gaming is no different and browser games, in general, are on a massive decline. Mobile is what people desire now and it's hard for a developer to make a browser game that's over 10 years old, easily compatible with mobile. They've done pretty decently with FA and Auto Trains in hopes of balancing. Another thing to consider is server costs and why P2W is implemented. As worlds decline, naturally, any company needs to mitigate its losses to compete with server costs, operational costs, ect..

What you are referring to with respect to instant gratification and the desire to get more points faster has to do with a dopamine response. Pretty much all games are based on a reward system. Today with flashy games and pay to win features(mircotransactions/freemium gaming) across all platforms, it's organically difficult for an 'old' game to become highly popular. Nobody is spending 100's of dollars or rushing to play the original Zelda, Mario or Mike Tyson's punch out.

 

[mch123]

What you are referring to with respect to instant gratification and the desire to get more points faster has to do with a dopamine response. Pretty much all games are based on a reward system. Today with flashy games and pay to win features(mircotransactions/freemium gaming) across all platforms, it's organically difficult for an 'old' game to become highly popular. Nobody is spending 100's of dollars or rushing to play the original Zelda, Mario or Mike Tyson's punch out.

I mean, a lot of that is true and I understand that server costs need to be paid. That's only part why P2W was introduced. Companies are run for profit and fear instability. If presented the 2 options, any company will pick P2W every time.

it's organically difficult for an 'old' game to become highly popular.

I'm picking this line specifically because while it's common, I wonder HOW true it is for TW?

Think about it, so many of us have been here for 10 or more years when there are far more flashy, new games coming out each year. Something kept us here but new players don't get the same feeling? In my opinion this is mostly due to unfair mechanics and a lack of emphasis on team play and community. I've posted essays about this already and ideas that could be utilised to build these again.

I'd really love to know what Innogames revenue and operating costs are. Then maybe we could have a better conversation about that and know to what extent we have to try combat it. I doubt the servers are the real cost. I bet its the office and staff. I don't have any problem with a company employing people and making a profit for itself by the way. I'd happily donate as much as I can if I knew all the pieces and trusted the company was building the game as best they could for the community.

I just see so much that, if fixed/adjusted, would retain players, make the game more competitive/fun and build a thriving community. The crazy thing is if you did that, it would snowball due to the community creating content and talking about the game and you'd get back to a place where you'd make as much from other income methods as Innogames currently is from this shrinking player base. It just takes effort, care and imagination which I doubt they have.

I doubt it will ever return to it's peak due to that "next popular game/format" type thing though. I'd love to see them try just to see what happens. Worst case scenario, they revert back to how it is now with nothing lost and community respect for trying. I know I'd promote the game soooo hard if they did.

Also, name a good alternative that isn't P2W? That's why the browser MMO RTS genre is in massive decline - there isn't an option that satisfies all the criteria. Other browser genres are doing fine as far as I can tell. There's a few I like that have scaled past just browser. Mobile is obviously important and should really be fixed for TW.

 

[Mr. Cringer Pants]

Think about it, so many of us have been here for 10 or more years when there are far more flashy, new games coming out each year. Something kept us here but new players don't get the same feeling?

From a motivation and neurochemical level, people like us that have been here for 10 years or more can be explained in the dopamine response from our adrenal medulla when adrenaline is pumping due to trains being sent and if we will be rimmed or not. The older gamer is conditioned to this response and not all people require visual or auditory stimulation. The other could be due to oxytocin bonds and dopamine response we receive from the network. We've all developed friends with respect to fighting/supporting/sitting each other and it actually creates a chemical bond in our brains. Unless we are whalecoming people into 'our tight little circle' on skype, it will be difficult to create loyalty. This is problematic over the internet since the oxytocin response is much larger when the physical contact in peer social networking (IRL) is present. The strongest type of reinforcement we can get online is via skype voice/video chat, sending images of who we are and when coupled with something such as alcohol consumption, the response is stronger.

This is kind of a deep topic with respect to psychology and neurochemistry but it's highly fundamental. Without the dopamine response, it's difficult for any animal to 'stick around'. Think of the stray cat that moves in because you feed it. The moment you stop putting food out, it finds a new home. Same applies to birds (and those pesky NutZ loving squirrels) with a bird feeder.

Not to be a jerk, but from a scientific perspective, it's very difficult to target market people and get them hooked on a game whose platform is way out of date. Compare to a classic game like WOW in the MMORPG genre vs TW a browser game that reflects RTS.

In short, nothing you said is wrong, but if you apply human behavior to TW it can help you understand the why of a declining population, as well as the obstacles faced with trying to 'revive' a classic. TW's is by far a classic browser game from the 2003. 15 year later, people simply seek a different type of 'fix'. My mother whom is in her 70's, love flashy poker games and candy crushes of the world. Considering she grew up in the 1940's and 1950's, it speaks volumnes with respect to how our brains process info and become 'addicted' to modern 'bells and whistles'.

Don't stop bringing up points, but do some research on the dopamine response and social peer bonding with respect to oxytocin and dopamine reinforcement. It's a fascinating and perhaps inno can implement strategies in the future.

My main suggestion would be to reskin TW classic with modern lights and flashes but keep all gameplay the same. Maybe sell it as TW3 but without the proper marketing, sales and dopamine freemium award system, competing in today's landscape is cut throat. Look at the implementation of TW2? Why did TW2 not hit it big like TW despite mobile gaming being highly popular on social media.

P.S. I'm not disagreeing with you but rather challenge you to view the decline from a different perspective with respect to human behavior and what motivates us. Inno also doesn't tantalize young men with sexy images of famous actresses and scantily dressed animations and imagery. It's noble of Inno to not tap into our hormonal desires but it's something to consider when other games have great success doing just that.

"Sorry but your princess is in another castle."

 

[DeletedUser122237]

I'm informed there is a photo of an exposed nipple which belongs to one of the top 25. Does that help?

Ara made it into top 25 already?

 

[DeletedUser122173]

Just like everything in this world, Tribal Wars has a life cycle and expiry date. It is surprising that it has lasted as long as it has, in large part due to a small but rabid fanbase. Nothing, not pay to win, not new gimmicks, not a re-skin is going to change that. These sorts of games are simply not popular anymore and have pitiful lifecycles.

The reason that I've been here for so long has little to do with getting internet friends. I've always had very few friends in this game and never wanted them. For me, Tribal Wars has always been business, about pushing the game engine as far as I possibly can, being part of the best tribes, about proving to myself that I am one of the best. Having played since world 1, doing well on W100 is meaningless to me. That's what makes me sad about the game. I could quit, but what else would I do?

I was obsessed with Populous The Beginning and StarCraft before that, I'd just find something else to fill the void. I'd advise others to do the same after W100.

 

[Mintyfresh]

Just like everything in this world, Tribal Wars has a life cycle and expiry date. It is surprising that it has lasted as long as it has, in large part due to a small but rabid fanbase. Nothing, not pay to win, not new gimmicks, not a re-skin is going to change that. These sorts of games are simply not popular anymore and have pitiful lifecycles.

The reason that I've been here for so long has little to do with getting internet friends. I've always had very few friends in this game and never wanted them. For me, Tribal Wars has always been business, about pushing the game engine as far as I possibly can, being part of the best tribes, about proving to myself that I am one of the best. Having played since world 1, doing well on W100 is meaningless to me. That's what makes me sad about the game. I could quit, but what else would I do?

I was obsessed with Populous The Beginning and StarCraft before that, I'd just find something else to fill the void. I'd advise others to do the same after W100.

Did you get banned or something?

 

[mch123]

P.S. I'm not disagreeing with you but rather challenge you to view the decline from a different perspective with respect to human behavior and what motivates us.

I appreciate the deeper post. I definitely understand the dopamine response system on a basic level and have looked at it from gambling addiction and depression perspectives. Not so familiar with "social peer bonding" but it's something I'm going to look into.

Not sure why an older gamer would be conditioned to this and a younger gamer wouldn't be (what I assume you are implying)? That seems more like an argument for the types of games that the younger players are exposed to first which sets their "choice of drug" so to speak. Something which you can compete on, maybe, via marketing and content creation. I know players like to play games that their friends are playing and in order to do that you need to retain them first - which is something I've mentioned that TW does poorly.

The other could be due to oxytocin bonds and dopamine response we receive from the network. We've all developed friends with respect to fighting/supporting/sitting each other and it actually creates a chemical bond in our brains. Unless we are whalecoming people into 'our tight little circle' on skype, it will be difficult to create loyalty. This is problematic over the internet since the oxytocin response is much larger when the physical contact in peer social networking (IRL) is present. The strongest type of reinforcement we can get online is via skype voice/video chat, sending images of who we are and when coupled with something such as alcohol consumption, the response is stronger.

This is kind of a deep topic with respect to psychology and neurochemistry but it's highly fundamental.

That is the more scientific version of what I've been trying to promote recently. You state that it will be difficult to create loyalty however I find it really easy to build trust, loyalty and friendships in-game (wish I was better IRL lol). I will concede that my personality/temperament is probably a big factor in that but it's certainly a learnable skill.

I have been trying to articulate that in other posts as some of the groundwork for building positivity in the community, changing tribe leadership philosophies and generating a more fun and social experience for new players. I'd post more details on these topics if I thought it would actually make any difference but, I'll say it again, it all feels undermined by the unfair game mechanics so I'll keep beating that drum first.

For me, Tribal Wars has always been business, about pushing the game engine as far as I possibly can, being part of the best tribes, about proving to myself that I am one of the best. Having played since world 1, doing well on W100 is meaningless to me. That's what makes me sad about the game. I could quit, but what else would I do?

Do you not feel like P2W has diminished the value in "proving you are the best" because players can get a boost to their start up and give them an unfair advantage that *should* snowball them into the later stages? Sure skill still wins out and all that but winning just doesn't carry the same credit as it used to. It undermines a whole portion of the player base who play for this achievement type reason.

I won't waste my time trying to convince someone with religious belief that the game is dead. I don't think it will return to it's peak but I sure as hell think it can sustain a high level again. It would just take time and persistent effort to build it back up. There is value in the game model that I don't think you can get anywhere else. While that might not be the case for you, I've looked around for a long while trying to find that value in an alternative and I'm still here.

 

[twenty-five]

who we all know who jerk off over start up( start up king himself tom)

finally people are paying homage

 

[DeletedUser122173]

Do you not feel like P2W has diminished the value in "proving you are the best" because players can get a boost to their start up and give them an unfair advantage that *should* snowball them into the later stages? Sure skill still wins out and all that but winning just doesn't carry the same credit as it used to. It undermines a whole portion of the player base who play for this achievement type reason.

I won't waste my time trying to convince someone with religious belief that the game is dead. I don't think it will return to it's peak but I sure as hell think it can sustain a high level again. It would just take time and persistent effort to build it back up. There is value in the game model that I don't think you can get anywhere else. While that might not be the case for you, I've looked around for a long while trying to find that value in an alternative and I'm still here.

Of course P2W has decreased the general value of victory in this game significantly, but the major problem is a lack of player base that simply cannot be recovered. Older worlds had nearly 100 continents full of players as opposed to the current situation. There was a different depth of challenge.

For me, there is a different game that makes me feel the same way I do whilst playing TW, it's Chess. It may not be appreciated, but there is a certain simplicity and beauty in classic TW that reminds me of Chess. Games come and go, even some of the best computer games I've ever played are not really played and talked about any more. It is a minor miracle that TW has lasted this long given what has happened to a lot of games in the genre. Perhaps this is just me, but I'd prefer a game I've enjoyed for a very long time to go out with some dignity. W100 seems like a perfect time to do that. Chastise me for thinking this way I guess.

 

[Mr. Cringer Pants]

@Nemesis. Great points, although I disagree entirely about the reskin. Many companies have successfully implemented a new game based on old 'assets' to create success. Virtually all big titles use there original artwork and just change the playstyle slightly and upgrade to newer graphics.

Hypothetically speaking, if inno were to spend 2million on marketing, sales and PR. Let us say for shits and giggles, they contract to have Miley Cyrus on a catapult wrecking ball flying through the air wrecking your smithy, the younger generation would eat this up. Mobile Strike with Arnold and Game of War with Lopez(maybe some other famous person) boosted there sales and user base making them the most popular games of there time. It would take great risk, but in the enterprise, this would be the risk vs reward. This all ties into the dopamine response I was referring to above. Some brief examples from current projects would be what Final Fantasy is doing. They rehashed FF12 with basically updated graphics and are completely remaking FFVII which was there biggest hit on the original PS. Even FFVII hype was all around the graphics.

I do agree with you that these types of games are shortlived, but if done strategically with the proper marketing, TW3, for example, could easily spike sales while using the same playstyle. Mario is still mario, zelda is still zelda and starcraft (which is one of my favorite franchises ever, is still an RTS starcraft game.) Using Blizzard as an example, they tried to make Diablo 3 more like a RPG and WOW and they game was a bust. Mainly due to the auction house and removing the hack and slash farming aspect that made Diablo I and II unique. Classics never die, and I suppose we should consider if TW is globally considered a classic MMRTS browser game (or w/e genre it's technically classified as). This all boils down to consumer perception and image.

You are definitely correct with your assessment, I just feel you are not giving enough credit to the power of marketing. As Coke would say in the 1990's: "Thirst is nothing, Image is everything" or Nike's "Just Do It."- Backed by Michael Jordon, of course. A good question to ask is:

"Is TW's legacy as well percieved by the general population as it is within this niche community?"

 

[DeletedUser122173]

I just feel that the economics of such moves is ignored. It is simply not business viable and too risky to make such large investments into Tribal Wars with it being likely a minimum reward. High risk, low and at best medium reward. I guess that hits the dopamine response in the same way that gambling does, but it just does not cut it if you want to be competitive in a cutthroat market.

Furthermore, where innogames overall are heading in terms of expanding into mobile apps, Tribal Wars is simply not compatible with phones. TW is not like any of those games you mention, it is far more complex, click heavy and unsuitable for phones. Now, you can remove the depth from the game and make it a mobile compatible game, then you can reskin it and do a big promotion and perhaps you would get new players for the first few months or so until it would rapidly decrease in popularity. Perhaps you could make a completely different game on the same theme, call it Tribal Wars 2.

With regards to the other examples you gave, Final Fantasy is on a different level of popularity and notoriety than Tribal Wars, being one of the best RPG franchises ever made and is of a genre that has not fallen out of favour. So yes, you can release an updated FF game and it will sell, the same for Mario and Zelda games. TW is nowhere near as well known, the same ideas do not apply.

I'm not underestimating marketing, I've worked in marketing, it is a great tool but it is not the be all and end all. You cannot throw money into promoting something and therefore it becomes successful. This is a rather naive mindset that innogames would be foolish to follow. A few select companies can do that, we are talking the Apples of this world. For everyone else, it is a combination of factors, particularly looking at the product (TW) as well as how it fits into the current marketplace.

Either ways, this idea that you can keep things exactly the same, do a visual update, throw a load of money out and TW will be back to what it was like 7 years ago, is essentially a pipe dream and Innogames will never do that as it is akin to throwing money down a drain. I really respect the enthusiasm, I want Tribal Wars to succeed and go back to its former glory myself. However realistically, I don't think it will happen. Everything should have a beginning and an end, dragging stuff on for too long generally doesn't end well.

 

[Mr. Cringer Pants]

To clarify, I'm not expecting nor suggesting TW to just toss money at the franchise. People are expecting worlds to grow simply based on settings and it's simply not going to happen. Even if the game was modernized. Thanks for the retort, game is dead/dying and the above comments are hypothetical. I wouldn't dare take the risk. My main overall point of the above examples is that TW simply doesn't have a huge name behind it and it's highly improbable that any subsequent world will ever reach populations from say 10 worlds back.

I agree with your evaluation, it's just fun to speculate. I still disagree that if a famous person were promoting TW-X, that it wouldn't be a temp boost in sales and population growth. A funny side comment to not be taken literally, TRUMP tossed money at the election and look what happened. Currently, the Republican party is in control of D.C. (no reason to debate this example, (giggle))