Newsletter #3 - 2009-12-10

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DeletedUser656

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Dear Players,

Welcome to the third official Tribal Wars newsletter! Today’s newsletter covers the updated rules, updates to our support system, a variety of player asked questions and information on the attack break and staff changes.

Rule change

We hope that everyone noticed our rule change on Sunday morning and have had a chance to get up to the date with the changed rules. If not, we really do urge you to take a look.

Since Tribal Wars started in 2006 our rules page has been steadily growing and expanding, growing to a massive 3800 words in total. If we assume that people can read roughly 400 words per minute, then that’s a huge 9.5 minutes players need to spend reading through the rules before they can even get into the game. We decided it was time to try and untangle the mess and provide a new shorter, clarified set of rules.

In total the initial rewrite took over 5 hours, followed by many more after we shared the rules with the entire team. From planning to the final result the rewrite took nearly a month, but we’re happy with the end result. We feel that the rules are clearer now, and definitely shorter. The final word count now comes to around 2800 words.

Updates to the support system

In an attempt to improve our customer support experience we’ve made two changes to our support system today.

Firstly, when reporting players for breaching our rules you can now enter up to 5 player names instead of just one. These must be valid players so make sure you enter the names just as they appear in-game! If you’re reporting a tribe please don’t try and put the tribe’s name in the player box. We’d rather you enter the name of the tribe’s duke.

Secondly, you are now able to rate the quality and speed of response to a support ticket. You should now see an option to do so below the latest reply to the support ticket. However, this option will only appear if we’ve replied to the ticket recently. You are also not able to rate ban appeal tickets.

Player questions

I saw that under the help section you have a night bonus option, but this is not enabled on any worlds. What is the night bonus and why don’t you use it?

The night bonus is a setting that increases the defense bonus of a village while the "night" period is active. This is a commonly-used setting in national Tribalwars servers, where the majority of the players live in a single time zone, to offer added protection while players are likely to be asleep. As Tribalwars.net is a multinational server, there is no one time period where most players will be slumbering, and so this setting would be very difficult to implement to everyone's satisfaction on Tribalwars.net.

Is there a way for me to transfer premium points to another account on another world?

Yes, this is extremely easy. Simply click on ‘Premium’ at the top, then ‘Transfer’. Fill in the details and click Continue to start the transfer.

Is it possible for two players to start a new world reasonably close to each other?

There’s no for sure way of achieving this. The best you can do is to join at the same time and select the same starting direction.

Why can’t you attack someone if you have sat an account for more than 60 days in the last 120?

The rule was implemented to stop long term sitting (Permanent Sitting), as account sitting is meant to be a temporary solution rather than a long term one. After 60 days of sitting the account receives limit sitting. After 120 days, the sitting may be ended by game staff.

Game moderators are recruited from the player base. What measures are taken to ensure impartiality? If I suspect foul play can I request another moderator investigates? Would a corrupt moderator be able to prevent me from reaching another staff member?

Mods are chosen for integrity and recruited from the player-base because they know the game and want to help the community they have been part of for so long. New staff are interviewed before placement so as to prohibit being placed on any world they play, or on any world with too many former companions. Mods have no access to info on any world they play. For worlds they oversee, they are forbidden from revealing any specific ticket or account information to the public, to friends, or even to another moderator playing on the world involved. They could get fired for doing so; any such verbal request for inside information must be reported. Additionally, all actions done on the moderation tools are logged and reviewed regularly. So, to put your mind at ease, there are many measures in place to ensure impartiality.

You could (as a player still suspecting foul play) create a support ticket addressing it. Do so within reason and not to the point of submitting superfluous complaints. If any corrupt moderator existed, he would be incapable of preventing you from reaching another moderator; a Mod who finds a ticket against himself must immediately kick it up to a supervisor. Support tickets cannot be hidden or deleted; other mods and supervisors who don't play the game at all review support ticket files regularly.

Attack break

We’ve been receiving lots of requests for information about whether there will be an attack break this year over Christmas and New Year. We’ll post an announcement about this on Monday the 14th.

Staff changes

We’d like to extend a warm welcome to Chaos667 and eLeMeNOhPi who join our forum moderation team.

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It’s Christmas day in 15 days, so the next newsletter may be slightly early or slightly late.

We’d love to hear any feedback or suggestions you have so please do reply here to let us know how we’re doing!

Kind regards,
Jon “Morthy” Dawson
Community Manager
 

matthewturner49

Guest
I am against the attack break on christmas and new year. I feel that because every holiday isnt listed in this category why should only 2?
 

jokerspokerleague

Guest
Attack break sounds nice, It might be a welcome break. I vote YES !!!!!
 

matthewturner49

Guest
And I do have another question, It may be posted somewhere and I may have overlooked it but Ive not taken much time to find it out honestly.

For example: if I have level 3 spearmen and I send my spearmen to Joe who has level 1 spearmen, for support. When he gets attacked do they fight as Joe's level 1 spearmen, or my level 3 spearmen?
 

DeletedUser

Guest
No Attack Break...

I don't want the attack break... its unfair to us players who farm for our resources instead of building up our mines.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I dont want an attack break, MTS are currently destroying SITH on W28 and this will ruin alot of our hard work to get them down. They will just rebuild and be at the same stage they were a month ago when this war started.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I appreciate these newsletters being sent to us via IGM Jon. I believe TW is really stepping it up to the next level communicatively with the players. Keep up the great work!

A special shout out to Chaos667 on becoming a Forum Mod!

As for the attack break comments I believe there is always a vote so you can decide when that comes out on the 14th.
 

DeletedUser66921

Guest
a tip for the support frame i just noticed (before maybe to but not spended much time on it) i'm curently under attack i wanted to move my forces but i first have to see where it needs to go can't the support your own villages thingy being linked to the incoming system?? saves crucial time
 

DeletedUser62440

Guest
I dont want an attack break, MTS are currently destroying SITH on W28 and this will ruin alot of our hard work to get them down. They will just rebuild and be at the same stage they were a month ago when this war started.

Lol, I agree kinda. Anyway, I want an attack break as it's good to have a break :)
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I am against the attack break on christmas and new year. I feel that because every holiday isnt listed in this category why should only 2?


I totally agree! and i think there should be sleep mode too in normal worlds
 

DeletedUser62440

Guest
I would say a better optionis attack break over Christmas but not new years. So really short :)
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I think that there should be an attack break. At least, there should be an attack break on christmas day.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
My opinion on the attack break is that Yes, it is a good idea, as it would save a lot of people trouble if they can't get on due to family commitments, but it's not so good to have it for a VERY long time...

Maybe run it from the 24th-26th of December, for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing day. Then one more time for New Years Eve, and New Years Day. This will mean for those that CAN get on, they can continue to do what they were doing, as I know I have full access to TribalWars completely over these up-coming holidays. Having them on these days can lighten the load for others, and it will be a GOOD help.

A Suggestion I'd like to make is increasing the inactive timer to 3 weeks, starting from the 18th, lasting 3 weeks, for those that are going away. So the increasing of 1 more week will allow those who are going away, and can't find a sitter, will be able to come back to their account. And then it can go back to 2 weeks when the 3 week period is up.

Another Suggestion is the night thing, let people set their GMT times, and work it out starting at 6/7pm till 5/6/7am for the night time bonus. There MAY be some liars to get the boost, but why risk it if your going offline to get some sleep, and your defensive risk is the highest during this time... Having it run by the users GMT time is a great idea, as it will result in less hassle, that is if there is any right now. But there is certainly going to be a problem when users attack others, as they might be asleep with this night time bonus, due to this being the international version...


User Question:
Will there be an addition of an Australian server of Tribal Wars? I know many Aussie players, and I know many in real life, and they would be glad to play on a server based around Australia.

~FatEmoLLaMa, W31/43.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Sorry if this is a foolish thing to ask, but how do we open a support ticket?
There used to be a link in the old rules (although the link was broken and I had to manually remove a space from before the .php at the end)
In the new rules however, the link is not there (unless I missed it)

Im sure you dont want to make raising a ticket too easy, as you dont want to be flooded with them, but I think there should be a link somewhere in the ingame menu structure.

I have just been and had another hunt, and i really cant find a link! Am i missing something obvious here?
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Just read the newsletter and usually i read the new rules to be aware of what i can do or not.
But there are some rules that i think could be changed.

For example:

I can't attack my accounts sittings.

I understand the 60 days and 120 days rules, but I think it's quite unfair that I as the account sitter don't have permission to attack and conquer its villages. Why does i have to pass the account sit mode to another player just to noble the villages? Wasn't easier if passed 60 days i could get the permission to conquer?
Maybe this is an idea that the support team could discuss and implement it and would be appreciated by most of the TW players.

-x-


Attack break for Christmas and New Year
I regard this from two points of view:
1)As a cristian i wouldn't mind at all with this because it is a time that let us for quite a few hours or even days away from the computer.
But this is an international server wich means that we have cristians, islamics, hindus, etc. Why should some players get benefits of this kind just because of their religion and others don't? I we follow this way of thinking then islamic should have an attack break everyday at 17:00 hours because they should be praying, etc... If we wan't fairness and equal rights then should be for anyone and not just for a few.​

2) In new worlds an attack break wouldn't affect much the game strategy of a single player or a tribe, but in most of the TW worlds there's in forge huge wars and a simple day break may be responsible breaking down the course of war or strategy that everyone knos takes lots of time to prepare and implement.​

So for the reasons i say NO to attack break. Besides if you don't have time in these days just have to ask for someone to account sit you.

-x-

Support system
About the support system i just have two things that i don't agree with:
1) If i made a ticket about player(s) for breaching the rules why can't i receive any info about your decision? Why i must simulate an attack to the player(s) to get knowledge that he or them has ir have been banned temporarly? In this kind of situation the support should send a response ticket informing that from the ban or not.​

2) If, I as a tribe duke, have a tribe member banned for transgression of the rules why don't i have the right to receive any info about the reasons why he has been banned? Bans affect the tribes performance and wealthy and not knowing these reasons can affect even more and are the main reason of why there are so many support suspections. You should try to work closely with tribe tribe leaders.​
 

DeletedUser

Guest
And I do have another question, It may be posted somewhere and I may have overlooked it but Ive not taken much time to find it out honestly.

For example: if I have level 3 spearmen and I send my spearmen to Joe who has level 1 spearmen, for support. When he gets attacked do they fight as Joe's level 1 spearmen, or my level 3 spearmen?

I think I asked the same question about a year ago. The troops fight to the smith level of the village they are in.

I would like to know now though, if an offencive smith levels get changed, while the attacking troops are in transit, do they fight at levels when they arrive or smith levels when they were launched. I'm pretty sure its the smith level when they arrive, but too busy to test this. So many barbs have completly messed up smithy settings, that often an offencive gets built before I can change them.

One nice addition would be to not have to remove your own trade accepts from reports. Unless I have missed something there seems no way to filter these out and its a pain if your on a 10 hour session.

I see no purpose in an attack break over Christmas. I tend to be quiet active at this time of year and it does feel unfair, that I can not get an attack break when I go on holiday in the summer. Atleast fix the attack break, so that its possible to attack barbs, unless their owners are eating a Christmas Turkey lol.
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
My opinion on the attack break is that Yes, it is a good idea, as it would save a lot of people trouble if they can't get on due to family commitments, but it's not so good to have it for a VERY long time..


What about those with no family or friends? I think it would be fair to set up an attack break during August or July because thats when I am on holiday.
 
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