What do you think will happen in this world?

[world8vet]

I was pretty shocked when I came back to try the game again and saw all the flatout in-game advantages you get for PP these days. Back in my day, premium was a nice feature that you bought like a subscription that made account management easier, less tedious, just nice and neat and etc. There was a point of emphasis on premium only giving you quality of life advantages. It was a positive thing to buy premium - you supported the game, you felt like part of the community, it made life easier but didn't feel like a cop-out in any way, was just... a nice thing. I bought premium in bulk, even bought it for other people. I didn't have the negative associations, it was like buying pure cosmetics for a game in the modern era.

Funnily enough, seeing that you get in-game advantages now for 10pp here, 100pp there, 30pp for this, 30pp for that, makes me want to buy it LESS than back when all it did was make your account management easier and give you a bigger mini map. It does just make it feel like a mobile game that wants your money and it's a bit... eh... not really any surprise the playerbase dropped off.

Kind of a self-fulfilling cycle. The tighter you squeeze, the more players slip tend to through your fingers.

You can spend 100k pp in a world without buying any.

 

[Amycakes]

You can spend 100k pp in a world without buying any.

I'm assuming this is some kind of defense for the 'PP buying in-game advantages' aspect, which I will never understand why people support. You can have a successful business model that isn't based upon those kind of practices. You will never convince me that just because you CAN earn some amount of PP for free, that therefore it makes it okay that you can purchase skill-earned things. It's like "oh, well if you grind for 2000 hours you can theoretically earn a sword that gives you 10+ damage for your character if you get a lucky drop, so therefore being able to buy a +20 for $20 when you sign up is okay".

Another example: I don't care if a person can buy a shiny set of armour, and a title that says 'ubur player' under their name, and they get to go on a list of VIP players and get shoutouts in announcements, and have a great profile with animated images and etc etc.

As soon as you start touching what that armour *does*, all credibility is out the window for me, no matter how it's tried to be justified behind supposedly 'free' pathways.

Also in this game you can straight up buy resources with money now. I mean, come on. Really? I think that's what bothers me the most. It's not even "premium account versus non-premium account" like it used to be. If the advantage was literally just the premium account, I wouldn't be upset because it's just like "well if everyone gets a premium account, then it's even." But now it's like... HOW premium are you? Are you a pleb premium who just buys premium? Or do you spend $5 extra? $10? Buy a start up village with a furnishing package and a butler for $50? HOW premiumly do you want to be rank 1? It's not even a paid advantage versus non-paying advantage, it's an open auction for who wants to be the highest rank.

I don't know how you can ever defend that.

 

[world8vet]

I'm assuming this is some kind of defense for the 'PP buying in-game advantages' aspect, which I will never understand why people support. You can have a successful business model that isn't based upon those kind of practices. You will never convince me that just because you CAN earn some amount of PP for free, that therefore it makes it okay that you can purchase skill-earned things. It's like "oh, well if you grind for 2000 hours you can theoretically earn a sword that gives you 10+ damage for your character if you get a lucky drop, so therefore being able to buy a +20 for $20 when you sign up is okay".

Another example: I don't care if a person can buy a shiny set of armour, and a title that says 'ubur player' under their name, and they get to go on a list of VIP players and get shoutouts in announcements, and have a great profile with animated images and etc etc.

As soon as you start touching what that armour *does*, all credibility is out the window for me, no matter how it's tried to be justified behind supposedly 'free' pathways.

Also in this game you can straight up buy resources with money now. I mean, come on. Really? I think that's what bothers me the most. It's not even "premium account versus non-premium account" like it used to be. If the advantage was literally just the premium account, I wouldn't be upset because it's just like "well if everyone gets a premium account, then it's even." But now it's like... HOW premium are you? Are you a pleb premium who just buys premium? Or do you spend $5 extra? $10? Buy a start up village with a furnishing package and a butler for $50? HOW premiumly do you want to be rank 1? It's not even a paid advantage versus non-paying advantage, it's an open auction for who wants to be the highest rank.

I don't know how you can ever defend that.

You understand that the market is set by gamers? The microtransaction push because enough people pay to make it succesful, instead of being mad at a company for doing what's best revenue wise go scream at the gamers.

Either way you can be a top account without ever buying any PP, and at the same time the pp aspect of it adds an additional skill layer.

And on the plus side account pushing and farming bots isn't really impactful because of PP.

 

[Amycakes]

You understand that the market is set by gamers? The microtransaction push because enough people pay to make it succesful, instead of being mad at a company for doing what's best revenue wise go scream at the gamers.

Either way you can be a top account without ever buying any PP, and at the same time the pp aspect of it adds an additional skill layer.

And on the plus side account pushing and farming bots isn't really impactful because of PP.

I mean, I don't know if I would say that it's been *successful*. We both remember what Tribal Wars used to be like. I also don't think it's the best revenue wise either, I think you could revive this game but the problem is the low player numbers. A game like this NEEDS a large, vibrant world, not worlds that are over within a few weeks. I don't see the numbers, sure, but I feel like every player owning a premium account is probably worth more than 1 player buying a heap of stuff while 40 others spend nothing. That's why battlepass systems are so effective, it's about the number/percentage of people buying in, not having 1 or 2 whales keeping you afloat.

Look at battle royales, which this basically is. Everyone owning a battlepass is worth more than 1 player paying a lot and winning all the games. It just works out more sustainable.

I feel as though you will defend the PP system to the death though, so, probably not much more point arguing about it. I think it's an outdated system that could be overhauled to be more engaging to purchase, than just "buy resources and buy items that give you bonuses". If you enjoy the system and think it's effective, then I guess we'll let the obvious results of the system speak for themselves. The game is clearly thriving.

 

[Mintyfresh]

I mean, I don't know if I would say that it's been *successful*. We both remember what Tribal Wars used to be like. I also don't think it's the best revenue wise either, I think you could revive this game but the problem is the low player numbers. A game like this NEEDS a large, vibrant world, not worlds that are over within a few weeks. I don't see the numbers, sure, but I feel like every player owning a premium account is probably worth more than 1 player buying a heap of stuff while 40 others spend nothing. That's why battlepass systems are so effective, it's about the number/percentage of people buying in, not having 1 or 2 whales keeping you afloat.

Look at battle royales, which this basically is. Everyone owning a battlepass is worth more than 1 player paying a lot and winning all the games. It just works out more sustainable.

I feel as though you will defend the PP system to the death though, so, probably not much more point arguing about it. I think it's an outdated system that could be overhauled to be more engaging to purchase, than just "buy resources and buy items that give you bonuses". If you enjoy the system and think it's effective, then I guess we'll let the obvious results of the system speak for themselves. The game is clearly thriving.

You're mixing up correlation with causation. The reason the playerbase is/has declined is because belive it or not the average demographic that most games are marketed towards the last decade or so does not really want to play year long games.

Here's an very simplistic analogy for you

You like race cars.
There is a local race track. It's pretty popular with local communities and does well. It's flawed in places but that's okay because flaws give character.
Some fat cat builds a shiny new race track down the road that pulls a lot of people to see all the shiny new things. (This is fortnite in the analogy)
Your local race track starts to suffer a drop in attendance. But you like the local race track design so you stick with it.
They start to increase the prices for entry and food etc to remain in business. Some of their marketing gimmicks are cringe but whatever
You put up with it because even though it's more expensive you still love the local race track and you and your friends/community still enjoy it.

Its not the playerbases fault the mtx model is successful. Its not the communities fault that short quick games are more popular and tw is not. Its not really innogames fault either to be fair. They are maximising their revenue stream with the pp structure. This is a business model to them. Nobody here desperately loves the pp system but bitching on the forum isn't going to suddenly make the execs change the way the game works. (They made record profits last year as a company so I guess it is working?)

Everytime I see some nerd try to give business advice to innogames about how to get big worlds again LiKe tHe gOoD oLd DaYs it's reading the retarded boomers not realising the world isn't the same now as it was 40 years ago

 

[the nemesis123]

Skill expression has evolved significantly since the game was released.

Back then the name of the game was all about macro management. Managing 10/100/1000/10000 villages over many year time frames manually is no small potatoes. I applaud anyone back then who has the mental capacity to do that. I'd be quite happy to hold my hand up and say there is a 0% chance I would ever be fucked to do that.

However 15 years on the game has transitioned to be more micro orientated and most of what separates top tier from mid tier players is min-maxing to eke out an advantage. The game is significantly more streamlined and improvements to scripts/AM/community knowledge etc takes away 90% of the burden of macro management. Its not an exaggeration to say I can manage a 2000 village account pretty effectively with half hour per day only. Which obviously frees up a lot of potential time to actually improve frontline fighting skills (not that I personally need to do that as I'm the best player in the game obviously)

To compare old school players skill to newer is a fallacy. Its like saying OG Olympic sprinters would beat todays generation in a race when there's like 0% chance of that. Any mid-tier player (I.e a couple of world wins) right now would utterly shit on any elite top tier player from a decade ago in a straight 1v1 fight. It wouldn't be close. Those old nerds probably still be manually queuing their spears to snipe 1 by 1 using a clock calculator while the frontline evaporates cos ops don't travel for 2 weeks anymore.

And PP has nothing to do with any of that. The games just changed. If you can't remain competitive in the game with a different meta then either you aren't actually as good as you think you are or it just doesn't cater to your skillset anymore.

I was just looking over some old forums as I was trying to remember something from a long time ago. Thought I would comment on this since it is an interesting discussion,

I quit around World 100 for a variety of reasons, but I definitely know a lot about the time period of a decade ago from playing W60 which was exactly a decade ago. I cannot say that you are correct about scripts/AM as these existed in 2013 largely in a similar form as they did in the early W100s when I quit. AM had existed since 2011 and gone through quite a few iterations. It definitely became significantly easier with the advancements of AM and Automatic building, but a lot of the other AM features existed at that time and maintaining these big accounts did not take every hour of the day like it used to if you were going back to W1-W20. I had a look through the Public Scripts Library and there is definitely a lot of QOL stuff that would have been very handy in increasing efficiency, but the fundamentals existed and were widely used at the time at the top level.

When I finished playing W60, I started playing W87 and played a few of the worlds in the 90s relatively seriously though I was falling off in terms of motivation. I think challenge and difficulty in TW was always a function of the number of players and size of the world. A decade ago was already past the peak of TW, but I don't think the decline was really noticeable until the 80s. I remember W87 in particular being many magnitudes easier than the worlds I played in W1-W65 and this trend continued as the worlds got smaller and more players quit. The main thing that made it far easier as time passed was the lack of players with dedication and obsession.

I think one can blame what Innogames did, but that was just a function of a declining playerbase as the players who grew older, got jobs, families, found other games and could no longer commit such time especially to a game that was a relic of the past. This in turn created a downward spiral since less players meant less competition which meant the hardcore playerbase didn't get that thrill that made TW so addictive. I think P2W was just a combination of it being optimal business and worlds no longer having 100k players on and entirely expected and whilst it increased the rate of decline, the decline was going to happen regardless.

I messed around in the W100s for a short while before quitting, I think that a top player from 10 years ago with the same drive, obsession and mental resilience they had in that period would probably be a top player in the current environment even if they had to use the scripts/tools of 10 years ago. I've always thought after a certain point, TW comes down to how much you want the win, mental fortitude and that environment of old bred that I think a lot more than the newer worlds mainly due to the size of the worlds and number of hardcore players. Similarly in a pure 1v1 situation, unless TW has drastically changed in the last 30 worlds, the Defender is mostly favoured with near perfect play. Unless you are talking pure wizardry, I've seen players take on 10-50k incomings with thousands of nukes and countless catapults pre watchtower/autotagger constantly for months and not fold. I cannot see a mid level player of W100 who lacked the obsession to be the top of the top in worlds that only have 5k players in the early-midgame even being bothered to deal with someone that dogged.

Top players in my mind are top players irrespective of where you put them, they'll pick up TW changes quickly and get back to where they belong if they wanted to. I suspect that some of the current players who are pushing what you can do in the current meta could adapt to the old times too and relish that challenge so it works both ways.

 

[world8vet]

I mean, I don't know if I would say that it's been *successful*. We both remember what Tribal Wars used to be like. I also don't think it's the best revenue wise either, I think you could revive this game but the problem is the low player numbers. A game like this NEEDS a large, vibrant world, not worlds that are over within a few weeks. I don't see the numbers, sure, but I feel like every player owning a premium account is probably worth more than 1 player buying a heap of stuff while 40 others spend nothing. That's why battlepass systems are so effective, it's about the number/percentage of people buying in, not having 1 or 2 whales keeping you afloat.

Look at battle royales, which this basically is. Everyone owning a battlepass is worth more than 1 player paying a lot and winning all the games. It just works out more sustainable.

I feel as though you will defend the PP system to the death though, so, probably not much more point arguing about it. I think it's an outdated system that could be overhauled to be more engaging to purchase, than just "buy resources and buy items that give you bonuses". If you enjoy the system and think it's effective, then I guess we'll let the obvious results of the system speak for themselves. The game is clearly thriving.

The old worlds that dragged out too long were awful, that's one of the reasons many people quit. Five years to win a world? The current system is way better, not perfect but better.

I dislike p2w aspects of the game, i'm not defending it, just explaining things to you because you don't really understand. You might think that the if you spend the most you'll win but that isn't really the case.

Plus you need to understand that TW boomed when you didn't have mobile games, mobas, easy access to multiplayer games, and so on. When it was easier for someone to play on a browser game than to go through a game of call of duty without connection issues.

Even if it wasn't p2w and so on, the audience wouldn't have stayed.

 

[Dare to be Great]

The ongoing fight that will never end...
The old school vs The new school.

 

[Amycakes]

I mean, if people enjoy the p2w system and it works, then so be it. I am clearly the odd one out here, but I just don't think you should be able to buy resources/villages/etc in-game with money. It's not just about "well you can work hard and get there another way", it's that it kills any motivation to try.

But genuinely, if everyone is enjoying the system, then as I said I am clearly the odd one out.

 

[Dare to be Great]

I mean, if people enjoy the p2w system and it works, then so be it. I am clearly the odd one out here, but I just don't think you should be able to buy resources/villages/etc in-game with money. It's not just about "well you can work hard and get there another way", it's that it kills any motivation to try.

But genuinely, if everyone is enjoying the system, then as I said I am clearly the odd one out.

Everyone pretends to enjoy it. Thats all.

 

[Dare to be Great]

Everytime I see some nerd try to give business advice to innogames about how to get big worlds again LiKe tHe gOoD oLd DaYs it's reading the retarded boomers not realising the world isn't the same now as it was 40 years ago

You suck boi!! Me and you 1v1!

 

[Gnarlax]

I'm super conflicted about PP usage. On one hand, its genuinely not too hard to farm PP for free, it just takes time and you have to wait for new worlds to do it properly. On the other hand, its flat out pay to win in a lot of cases. If you have a 24 hour account and all co's know what they are doing its going to be very hard for anyone who doesnt use PP to stand a chance. I guess as long as its possible to grind out PP for free it's something you can work around.

I really do miss the old huge worlds though. It really gave time to rim players to grow and put up a fight. Thats just my opinion though. I'm sure those who have won those old worlds and still play today have opinions about playing one world for literally years straight.

 

[world8vet]

I mean, if people enjoy the p2w system and it works, then so be it. I am clearly the odd one out here, but I just don't think you should be able to buy resources/villages/etc in-game with money. It's not just about "well you can work hard and get there another way", it's that it kills any motivation to try.

But genuinely, if everyone is enjoying the system, then as I said I am clearly the odd one out.

TW isn't the only game that is p2w, free games need a way to bring in income and that's why they mostly do.

You can play the game without spending and you'll be competitive and have a good experience. You'll probably end up complaining about diplo or people backstabbing or what not. PP abuse isn't even on the minds of people when a world is concluded as it doesn't end up mattering much.

 

[yellowSnowMan]

I was just looking over some old forums as I was trying to remember something from a long time ago. Thought I would comment on this since it is an interesting discussion,

I quit around World 100 for a variety of reasons, but I definitely know a lot about the time period of a decade ago from playing W60 which was exactly a decade ago. I cannot say that you are correct about scripts/AM as these existed in 2013 largely in a similar form as they did in the early W100s when I quit. AM had existed since 2011 and gone through quite a few iterations. It definitely became significantly easier with the advancements of AM and Automatic building, but a lot of the other AM features existed at that time and maintaining these big accounts did not take every hour of the day like it used to if you were going back to W1-W20. I had a look through the Public Scripts Library and there is definitely a lot of QOL stuff that would have been very handy in increasing efficiency, but the fundamentals existed and were widely used at the time at the top level.

When I finished playing W60, I started playing W87 and played a few of the worlds in the 90s relatively seriously though I was falling off in terms of motivation. I think challenge and difficulty in TW was always a function of the number of players and size of the world. A decade ago was already past the peak of TW, but I don't think the decline was really noticeable until the 80s. I remember W87 in particular being many magnitudes easier than the worlds I played in W1-W65 and this trend continued as the worlds got smaller and more players quit. The main thing that made it far easier as time passed was the lack of players with dedication and obsession.

I think one can blame what Innogames did, but that was just a function of a declining playerbase as the players who grew older, got jobs, families, found other games and could no longer commit such time especially to a game that was a relic of the past. This in turn created a downward spiral since less players meant less competition which meant the hardcore playerbase didn't get that thrill that made TW so addictive. I think P2W was just a combination of it being optimal business and worlds no longer having 100k players on and entirely expected and whilst it increased the rate of decline, the decline was going to happen regardless.

I messed around in the W100s for a short while before quitting, I think that a top player from 10 years ago with the same drive, obsession and mental resilience they had in that period would probably be a top player in the current environment even if they had to use the scripts/tools of 10 years ago. I've always thought after a certain point, TW comes down to how much you want the win, mental fortitude and that environment of old bred that I think a lot more than the newer worlds mainly due to the size of the worlds and number of hardcore players. Similarly in a pure 1v1 situation, unless TW has drastically changed in the last 30 worlds, the Defender is mostly favoured with near perfect play. Unless you are talking pure wizardry, I've seen players take on 10-50k incomings with thousands of nukes and countless catapults pre watchtower/autotagger constantly for months and not fold. I cannot see a mid level player of W100 who lacked the obsession to be the top of the top in worlds that only have 5k players in the early-midgame even being bothered to deal with someone that dogged.

Top players in my mind are top players irrespective of where you put them, they'll pick up TW changes quickly and get back to where they belong if they wanted to. I suspect that some of the current players who are pushing what you can do in the current meta could adapt to the old times too and relish that challenge so it works both ways.

Is that you DA? :O

 

[DeletedUser130119]

The great Kraken will come and destroy the world

 

[Your High-ness]

I am the great kraken