All Categories

Updates Communication and Interactions

Updates Communication and Interactions

Search
Moderators for Stormfall: Age of War wanted
Dec 28, 2015, 09:2912/28/15
954

Updates Communication and Interactions

Recently I have seen a lot of threads which have been incredibly negative and have caused a lot of controversy. This isn't directed purely at 1 thing, but I'm sure most players can guess what I am hinting at.

I will defend the Community manager I work with... Both he and I want the absolute best for the game and community and he has proven it countless times. When a suggestion is put forward on the forums and has massive feedback again, hinting at one... It is something that I make sure gets passed along to Plarium. 

But regardless of that, players still see a disconnect between - the community, the moderators, the community managers and the plarium development team. I am putting this thread forward as a (no beating around the bush) thread to address the system of updates and the communication between the groups listed above.

I'm asking all players to be completely honest (stay within the guidelines please) about how they think the current disconnect can be amended or at least helped, from all members of the community. 

  • Should we have polls on possible updates and let the community choose which direction the game could/should go in (this typically opposes developers artistic views)
  • Should we announce updates or hint at possible updates, along with reasons why X update has been chosen and when X update will occur
  • (this is outside the box) Should the Community managers/moderators make a monthly thread and it be voted on which ideas should be pushed towards the developers (example - this month the majority of the community wanted beacon defense looked into)
  • Should Plarium have a rotation, example is 1 update community voted and 1 regular update.
  • (Insert your own opinions here)

The last point I want to cover is the communication between us (moderators) the community managers (plarium) and the community (players/you) 

Personally I believe the communication is pretty good however nothing is perfect and I can understand that players feel very much "unwanted" or mistreated, not just by Plarium but by moderators alike. When it comes to forum communication is there a better method? I realize after the last update, that suddenly dropping updates or any game changes can have a huge backfire without warning. As far as im aware plarium updates are completely public knowledge HOWEVER no one wants to put their "head in the noose" if it gets announced and the developers change their minds at the last minute.

  • Would things such as updates like to be announced EVEN IF THEY ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE
  • Should scheduled things such as maintenance be announced with ample time, and this can include discounts (50-75%) and maybe even tournaments?
  • Should we organize some form of group discussion as to how the community would like the game to change for the better and to push in a direction for all players, this would be heavily moderated and watched by Lord Oberon and myself 

I am out of suggestions, but long story short... I personally want to make this game better and I believe as a community we can push it in the direction we all want to see it go. Some players have suggested stop spending but I think that will just kill the company and in the long run we are playing because we enjoy the game, because of this I still think it is worth investing in, however I believe the game and community could be more user friendly.

To effectively altar the game state first a very healthy communication must be set up between all parties, so please be honest as to how we or I can help produce this type of situation, even if not perfect. I am more than happy to attempt anything :)

Views
8k
Comments
49
Comments
Dec 28, 2015, 09:4712/28/15
Dec 29, 2018, 17:10(edited)
11/05/14
19383
This thread is very much needed and because of that I ask all players to be truthful about their opinions and to make points/suggestions clear and precise. This thread will be a very effective tool for moderators and Plarium as a whole. I will personally take all criticism (professionally?) and make sure to do anything I can to improve the communication / forums / community, I am certain Lord Oberon is completely open to criticism and a fresh look on this topic as well... Change is always good :)
Dec 28, 2015, 11:1812/28/15
07/25/15
2634


Personaly I feel Plarium is out of touch with the community and the players. We get changes and updates, that feel little more than a push to spend more sapphires. You know something isn't right when the best thing that happend in long time is the resource slider for resource packs.


Running a game such as this is not a democracy, that doesn't work, but you need to be more on the ball with what the players want and would like to see, if you want your company to do better too. Post threads on the forums and ask for feedback doesn't work because its so few that respond to them, and it doesn't really give a view on what the players like or want. You can't let the players run the business, but you can listen to them to try make the business do better.


If you really want to listen to the community for feedback, invite them for a meeting. Like make a invite to the top 15-20 league marshals in the game. Have it on teamspeak, ventrilo, mumble or something. Have them bring questions to start with, give those to a moderator. You sort through the questions to avoid the same topics get brought up over and over. Then discuss.... and bring the results to Plarium afterwards. Post the meeting on soundcloud for everyone to listen to afterwards.


If they could spawned a test server where all changes was available first with a feedback system of how did you like them inside the game could helped too. But I guess that can be hard as the changes basicaly happen on all the different Plarium games just different versions of them. So things we might reflect badly towards in Stormfall not necessary get same attention in some other.

Plarium really need to ask themselfs a few questions.


- Why do people play games?

- Is our games fun to play?

- Does these changes make it more fun to play?


Really need to expand on the things that make the game more fun to play and you see more players staying and get invested over time. And TIME is the most valuable assets you can find with a player, because there is just so much time to go around to spend playing. If you get knocked down while playing you don't want to spend weeks and months to get back to where you was, but that is for another discussion.



Dec 28, 2015, 22:4512/28/15
Dec 29, 2018, 16:50(edited)
11/05/14
19383

First I would like to make it clear, moderators have next to no additional benefits when it comes to game updates, if you can message Lord Oberon you have just as much say as I do. 

But regardless of that. I feel from both Gadheras and DJ that you would rather have a select few that would have a high priority, those people (could be moderators) or experienced players and would take the best suggestions or the communities concerns/issues/problems directly to Plarium for a priority. 

Here is another suggestion, another forum/chat room is set up (Don't know how important this would be to Plarium) and said "elite" players would have access directly to the community managers along with other people that have access, it should all be logged so that all players there can disagree/agree with each other and come out with a mutual agreement on the direction of an update the community wants. 

I agree with DJ that this change is for the most part on Plarium's shoulders, however I can try to liaison as best as I can to make it hopefully smoother.

So far the suggestions are really good and much appreciated, I would like more input though and I will make sure you tell Lord Oberon to check this thread personally today 

Dec 28, 2015, 23:3512/28/15
07/25/15
2634

Mehnslayer said:



But regardless of that. I feel from both Gadheras and DJ that you would rather have a select few that would have a high priority, those people (could be moderators) or experienced players and would take the best suggestions or the communities concerns/issues/problems directly to Plarium for a priority. 

Here is another suggestion, another forum/chat room is set up (Don't know how important this would be to Plarium) and said "elite" players would have access directly to the community managers along with other people that have access, it should all be logged so that all players there can disagree/agree with each other and come out with a mutual agreement on the direction of an update the community wants. 


As I said above, have a sit down with the top league Marshals for feedback and input. Not because I have such a great love for any of them, but if you running a top league, you deal with a lot of players, and issues the game bring, and you well into the meta of the game too. These are the players Plarium should do a sit down with and listen to feedback from. I don't want to label them elite players, they just players that know the game the most. And you can't really have a meeting etc with to many people either, it get to much noise.

Isn't there anything such us a guy with some pull in Plarium that could attend such a meeting, Im afraid of use the term dev, because Plarium seems to be more run like a hardcore business rather than devs passionate about their work and product. As a long term eve-online player I guess I spoilt in the way the devs interact with the players. You don't really want a process of go to a guy that go to another guy that go to another guy. You want it directly from the horses mouth so to speak. There must be sombody out ther that actually talk for Plarium right? That doesn't necessary have someone over him that keep say no, no, no, no, no, no........


I don't necessary refer to someone that goes "Oh you want a pink unicorn in the game? Sure I fix that"... but not someone that basicaly have to ask their dad's permission to take the car for a spin either.


And for the love of all good, keep things transparent.




Dec 29, 2015, 00:4512/29/15
Dec 29, 2018, 16:51(edited)
11/05/14
19383

The issue is with the development sector and the community itself. There's no poll system, there's no real communication between the developers and the players and there's no realistic way to influence that. All we can do is, A) Private message Lord Oberon and hope they'll read it. B) Cry on the forum, which at best you'll see Oberon say, "Interesting opinion, thanks." or C) Rage quit the forum and just play the game.


It'd be nice if the developers who work on Stormfall all had their own accounts on the forum. I get that Lord Oberon is great from a role play point-of-view, but it can be hard to differentiate who is who and it would be nice to get to hear their separate opinions. This game won't grow competitively or intellectually until a lot of changes are made. The division between the community and developers would be a good start on mending the rift.
Dec 29, 2015, 01:0112/29/15
Dec 29, 2018, 16:51(edited)
11/05/14
19383

If we are too look at a company such as Blizzard entertainment, especially for the WoW section (which typically is looked at being a good company in terms of customer support) the forums are moderated by community managers also, as far as I'm aware they take most of the feedback through beta testing and sometimes GM's, 

I doubt Plarium could afford to have GM's running around policing everything in-game, however a server specifically for the purposes of testing and (Yes I know servers are expensive to up keep) receiving feedback from the customers would be a good idea, there is 1 main issue I see with that, the game content is the players and having a locked server might provide very skewed feedback. 

I have said this before, but I will defend the community manager I work along side, however I completely agree that their does seem to be a disconnect and I honestly believe it to be more or less due to the split community, most updates get added across multiple games or taken from one another. Which leads me to believe, even if Oberon says "great idea" and passes it along, it may be tossed aside by the managers/business/development teams because it doesn't have a lot of pull behind it. 

However recently it seems like a lot of the updates have been different per game (at least on paper) and this leads me to believe that maybe splitting up the games in terms of updates will actually be better, because the feedback will be more concentrated.

If 20 players ask for a beacon defense indicator on stormfall and 20 ask for fireballs on TD, 20 ask for hamlets over settlements on pirates for example.... I could easily see how the feedback from the community could just become a blurred line of sorts to work out what the community wants, however dividing the games in terms of updates and letting them run their own paths might be better? 

Ultimately the theme of the games have a much bigger impact (I believe) then we may realize, even something as simple as the theme can distinguish your personality, 

for example - Stormfall is more medieval and fantasy, so players might prefer classical music and walks on the beach

                   - Soldiers is based on military, so maybe they prefer metal and going to the gym

It seems like nothing but you now have a different demographic, players want different things and the genres can be the deciding factor.

Would it be helpful to the community and the game if Plarium had 6 different games instead of 6 of the same games? is this realistic for the developers and more importantly would this help push each individual game into a direction said players + developers want the games to go in.

Dec 29, 2015, 01:2712/29/15
01/31/15
457

Nice topic Lord Mehnslayer!


Lady Shewuvsyou,


In my opinion I think that developers should be reachable as well. The game's made for the players after all, and not the developers I assume. I would love to discuss that with Lord Oberon and I surely will. Reckon that!  Speaking of our wise Lord Oberon, please do not underestimate him. I can imagine that he's busy with a lot of things, and thus not always able to reply to everything. I do trust him well, and I'm assured that when he says he'll pass an idea through he surely does so.


On the other side, I completely understand the frustrations of waiting for a response or not getting one at all. I've had to deal with that lots of times but due to that, I have learned that patience is an important virtue. And if patience doesn't affect anything, then acting might aid you.


Good luck,


>> SlopranoDark

Dec 29, 2015, 11:1912/29/15
Dec 29, 2018, 17:10(edited)
11/05/14
19383

SlopranoDark said:


Nice topic Lord Mehnslayer!


Lady Shewuvsyou,


In my opinion I think that developers should be reachable as well. The game's made for the players after all, and not the developers I assume. I would love to discuss that with Lord Oberon and I surely will. Reckon that!  Speaking of our wise Lord Oberon, please do not underestimate him. I can imagine that he's busy with a lot of things, and thus not always able to reply to everything. I do trust him well, and I'm assured that when he says he'll pass an idea through he surely does so.

Implying Lord Oberon is a single individual, however he or she is most likely not a single entity operating a single account. The variation in text formatting, spelling and grammatical accuracy, overall disposition on issues and the singular reference to posts I alone have made have led me to believe that all of the staff use the single administrator account to conduct their business. So you don't get confused however, was that my suggestion is for the entire staff to have their separate accounts and actually make use of them.


To your earlier point, this game is not made for the players. People often confuse these relationships and presume (like you did) there to be some sort of personal bond. While there can be good relations between the players and the game's overlords, you need to understand that this is a business. They're here to make money. As a developer you might genuinely enjoy making the game and seeing it thrive, but ultimately you don't want to do it for free and do expect some measure of income or profit margin in return. This distinction is often confused by people who forget that this is just good business in a capitalist economy.



On the other side, I completely understand the frustrations of waiting for a response or not getting one at all. I've had to deal with that lots of times but due to that, I have learned that patience is an important virtue. And if patience doesn't affect anything, then acting might aid you.

Not sure where this is coming from. I'm going to chalk this up as a language barrier, but you seem to have a good grasp on English so again, little confusing.




@Mehnslayer, I'm not saying we should throw up a global poll and have the entire community vote on it arbitrarily. Half the community are totally unfit to make decisions on game balance and out of that half, one side doesn't know the ingredients to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches let alone the proper way to balance a game and the other half are too biased/sordid or inexperienced to really offer any real constructive criticism for the developers to reliably make use of.


My suggestion? Do what EVE does and elect a council, people who are A) Knowledgeable and can provide measured suggestions and B) Are dedicated players who log in basically everyday and genuinely want the game to succeed. Give incentives for people to spend their time helping the game work on its issues. Doesn't have to be real world monetary gain, I'm sure a lot of people would want to help and feel a need to devote their time and energy to this cause.


This is just my opinion and I'll try to maintain a certain level of activity in this thread as best as I can; with that being said, I appreciate your patience and thank you for your replies.

Dec 29, 2015, 11:3812/29/15
Dec 29, 2018, 16:44(edited)
11/05/14
19383

Plarium has a V.I.P feature, however it is pretty exclusive and for typically reserved. Would it be a good idea to have a look at incorporating those people, or at least some of them to focus on feedback and to pass it directly on to someone such as a CM. 

I think there is a confusion between quite a few things which can cause a massive barrier in this sort of thread

  • PLARIUM IS FIRST AND FOREMOST A BUSINESS, but that does not mean that a company can not sell a high quality product everyone can enjoy, and more importantly does not mean that they can build their business model around what the community wants : Edit (I AM NOT SAYING PLARIUMS GAMES ARE NOT GOOD QUALITY, please no flame :(
  • Plarium does in fact care about its community and that is why this post is being made, they are committed to change and open to criticism, no company/person is perfect.
Now that, that is out of the way... I threw another suggestion at Plarium yesterday/today (depending on timezones) and this was to follow in the way of Valve or blizzard with games like CS:GO, Dota2, Hearthstone. 

Having a system wherein the updates are based around the customer feedback but twisted towards the developers specific artistic style. Example is Tavern Brawl in Hearthstone (Don't want to fully explain it here) but the community has been complaining about the gap between new players and experienced players, and this allows new players to earn free cards as well as play with them without having to purchase them prior. It also allows the developers to play around with mechanics and ideas they want to test. It is a win-win, I doubt plarium could do that exactly but finding middle ground through this method/technique would be beneficial to both parties. (working off the customer feedback and allowing the developers to play with those ideas) 
So maybe in the case of the beacon ranks, you can manually adjust it after reaching X amount of players, or league achievements...Or whatever else they want to do, im even sure most big leagues would put sapphires towards that in a heartbeat. 

Dec 29, 2015, 11:4712/29/15
Dec 29, 2015, 11:52(edited)
01/31/15
457

Greetings, m'lady Shewuvsyou,


"Implying Lord Oberon is a single individual, however he or she is most likely not a single entity operating a single account. The variation in text formatting, spelling and grammatical accuracy, overall disposition on issues and the singular reference to posts I alone have made have led me to believe that all of the staff use the single administrator account to conduct their business. So you don't get confused however, was that my suggestion is for the entire staff to have their separate accounts and actually make use of them."

That is correct. I think you've got a point there. I will inform Oberon about this!



"To your earlier point, this game is not made for the players. People often confuse these relationships and presume (like you did) there to be some sort of personal bond. While there can be good relations between the players and the game's overlords, you need to understand that this is a business. They're here to make money. As a developer you might genuinely enjoy making the game and seeing it thrive, but ultimately you don't want to do it for free and do expect some measure of income or profit margin in return. This distinction is often confused by people who forget that this is just good business in a capitalist economy."


This is true, and not so true at the same time. Unfortunately money has blinded actually about all the companies. Not just the companies are the ones that seek for coin, trust me, even individuals made their money gone to their heads. That is one thing I dislike about the world's economy system. Another thing that bothers me about money, is the difference between the exaggerated rich people, and the poor. Ever heard of the sentence 'Love makes blind?' Trust me, so does money.


But that being said, if it came to me, I would be one trying to keep balance between the amount of money I had and the joy people gain from my invests. What I tried to say with my statement: 'The game is made for players after all' is that the game is meant for the players. If the developers made a game like that, only interesting for their selves, then not much people would consider playing it, right?


But this does not mean that the companies are always heartless. To me, Plarium's one of the few companies actually caring for their customers. As example, I used to send suggestions through the support team. They were so kind! I still have tickets open, so proof is there! They all read my ideas and told me they were great and being passed on. It was really good to see such a great support team. 


My apologies for any failures at English, I am still a Dutchman. 

Glad to have read your opinion,


>> SlopranoDark

Dec 29, 2015, 13:2012/29/15
Aug 17, 2019, 12:05(edited)
21

I can relate all this ongoing discussion to development cycle of a product where customer feedback is required.


When a product (i.e. stormfall) is developed, it is the customers (players in this case) who decide the direction of the product. The future requirements/updates are based on the feedback of the customer. Instead what we see here that players have constantly expressed their desire for certain features and the moderators of this forum (kind of HR here) keep stating that the ideas have been put forward to the project manager (i.e. Lord Oberon). What happens in the end is the ideas/requirements that have been put forward here in forum stay in the forum and instead a new functionality comes along which is akin to saying "Hey you asked for A but we added B as it is beneficial for us".


It is indisputable that "Change the Rank at which Beacon Defence becomes visible" functionality is one of the most emphasized upon update here on forum and I am sure Marshal/Captains of every beacon holding leagues would want this feature but it has been months and still it has not been added (this is just one of many examples). This update is not huge by any means but it raises a big question and the root cause of the problem/discussion going on here "Do even plarium care about the players feedback?". 


If they want to adhere to their own requirements then there is no need for this discussion at all. This forum should just be for the game discussion between players and for learning purposes. The developers would then be bringing updates to the game which they see fit for their business model and players will have to accept that. This has been the case from what I have been seeing.


Integration of experienced players and community to bring about  important/new updates is extremely beneficial in the long run for both plarium and the players. I am by no means suggesting that full control should be handed over to the players regarding which updates should be coming in but maybe a middle ground could be reached where the requirements of players are taken into fair consideration. On the other hand how things have been run till now I am certain that plarium would settle for lesser ground (i.e. keep doing what they have been doing till now) but I would be happy if I am proven wrong.

Lord OberonCharacter
Dec 29, 2015, 14:4312/29/15
01/06/15
357

Thank you all for taking the time to reply in this thread. I'm grateful for your feedback and eager to discuss all of these critically important issues. I'd like to apologize for allowing a situation in which you feel a lack of communication between yourselves and our game developers.

As for the recent updates, we realize that some of them weren't exactly popular, but they needed to be done. With Hamlets, for instance, we needed them because we wanted to have players actually fight for resources. We didn't like the idea of having 1 pikeman guarding a settlement and collecting a lot of resources. So we came up with Hamlets. The other much disliked updates were various Items. What we'd like to stress is that they weren't meant to change the game and they don't actually widen the gap between the coiners and non coiners. They were supposed to be fun and fill the void between "big" updates, like the one we're going to release in the early 2016 and that will be announced later.

Regarding the suggestion to change the Rank at which Beacon Defence becomes visible, our dev team has a big task to change the league control settings and this suggestion is included there and will be implemented as part of the bigger task, hence the delay in implementation. Our dev team is not very numerous and we simply are unable to implement the requested changes momentarily. Also, when I say that I've forwarded your ideas to Development, it means that we'll investigate those game elements which you feel need improvement. Sometimes, we may change those elements in other ways which still resolve your concerns.

Lord OberonCharacter
Dec 29, 2015, 14:5512/29/15
01/06/15
357

shewuvsyou said:

Implying Lord Oberon is a single individual, however he or she is most likely not a single entity operating a single account. The variation in text formatting, spelling and grammatical accuracy, overall disposition on issues and the singular reference to posts I alone have made have led me to believe that all of the staff use the single administrator account to conduct their business. So you don't get confused however, was that my suggestion is for the entire staff to have their separate accounts and actually make use of them.


To your earlier point, this game is not made for the players. People often confuse these relationships and presume (like you did) there to be some sort of personal bond. While there can be good relations between the players and the game's overlords, you need to understand that this is a business. They're here to make money. As a developer you might genuinely enjoy making the game and seeing it thrive, but ultimately you don't want to do it for free and do expect some measure of income or profit margin in return. This distinction is often confused by people who forget that this is just good business in a capitalist economy.

I am a Plarium collective persona, expressing Plarium’s official positions and listening to you, our players, for feedback regarding new features, suggestions, questions and concerns. All of this feedback is relayed to our development team through various channels.

The game is made for the players. Players the backbone of the game, and we share ownership. This being said, in order to provide this game to all players, certain parameters or features within the game must have a cost value. This is not an excuse; but a statement of fact. Without making profit, we would not be able to employ the incredibly devoted employees that we do and keep the game running and growing.



Dec 29, 2015, 16:2412/29/15
07/25/15
2634

Lord Oberon said:


shewuvsyou said:

Implying Lord Oberon is a single individual, however he or she is most likely not a single entity operating a single account. The variation in text formatting, spelling and grammatical accuracy, overall disposition on issues and the singular reference to posts I alone have made have led me to believe that all of the staff use the single administrator account to conduct their business. So you don't get confused however, was that my suggestion is for the entire staff to have their separate accounts and actually make use of them.


To your earlier point, this game is not made for the players. People often confuse these relationships and presume (like you did) there to be some sort of personal bond. While there can be good relations between the players and the game's overlords, you need to understand that this is a business. They're here to make money. As a developer you might genuinely enjoy making the game and seeing it thrive, but ultimately you don't want to do it for free and do expect some measure of income or profit margin in return. This distinction is often confused by people who forget that this is just good business in a capitalist economy.

I am a Plarium collective persona, expressing Plarium’s official positions and listening to you, our players, for feedback regarding new features, suggestions, questions and concerns. All of this feedback is relayed to our development team through various channels.

The game is made for the players. Players the backbone of the game, and we share ownership. This being said, in order to provide this game to all players, certain parameters or features within the game must have a cost value. This is not an excuse; but a statement of fact. Without making profit, we would not be able to employ the incredibly devoted employees that we do and keep the game running and growing.




It can be very hard to relate to someone with many persona though. You can have a thread of discussion and different posts of Oberon in that thread is by different people? Im pritty sure the community would be more greatfull and appriciate it more if Oberon's splitt personalities got splitt up in differnet people that you could actually address? No one asking about full names and such, but just someone unique to address. Would also bring some form of acountability to the person.


No one is really disagreeing with the fact that the game need a revenue model. Its a business, people need to get paid wages, bills to paid and so on, what many (or at least players I talked with ingame) does question is the model though. Lately it feelt like Plarium just interested in fleece the players as much as possible. I got bills to pay too, I can't afford spend 99 USD worth on best deasl I get flashed in my face all the time. If I drop 20 USD a month or so on this game, that is what I can justify afford on this game.


Wouldn't it be better to sit down with the players ask they what they want, what they interested in spend on, what they don't like to spend on at all and so on ? I don't know but from my point of view, it would be much better to have a lot of players spend some each than a few spend a lot. The biggest marketing force you can have to bring in new players into this game, is word of mouth and social media. And the same work the other way too. Happy players bring more player, uppset players on the other hand.. bad for business.


Dec 29, 2015, 23:4812/29/15
Dec 29, 2018, 17:08(edited)
11/05/14
19383

I personally am very happy that this topic is getting the attention it is and could possibly be a stepping stone for all parties involved.

It seems to me that player's don't care if something has a sapphire tag on it or is exclusive to coiners, as long as it is something that the community wants or has a middle ground. What if something like the changing the rank at which beacon defense can be seen had a 3k sapphire price tag, I don't think anyone would care that much, they would be more happy they are being listened to and have that feature included in the game. I am pretty sure most big league marshals and or captains can give away 3k sapphires. This is only an example of a possible middle ground.

Dec 30, 2015, 07:0112/30/15
07/25/15
2634

Mehnslayer said:


I personally am very happy that this topic is getting the attention it is and could possibly be a stepping stone for all parties involved.

It seems to me that player's don't care if something has a sapphire tag on it or is exclusive to coiners, as long as it is something that the community wants or has a middle ground. What if something like the changing the rank at which beacon defense can be seen had a 3k sapphire price tag, I don't think anyone would care that much, they would be more happy they are being listened to and have that feature included in the game. I am pretty sure most big league marshals and or captains can give away 3k sapphires. This is only an example of a possible middle ground.

How about give each league a own bank that members of could donate sapphires into for league use. Just becaus you create a league and is a league marshall doesn't really make you rich. Or how about trade/donate sapphires to other players as well.


Also I would believe players more happy about pay for value. I tend to compare what can I get for the cost of things. Its like, hmm, buy a fireball,or buy a burger and a coke? The cost of the boosts and enhancers, is way to high for their value. Although I found myself spend on a resource booster once in a while. Also I remember all the posts about players want the units return to catacombs by default, trained units and so on. And the responses of no we cant do that, you should be active play the game and so on. Then we got that scroll you can pay for that will do it for a limited time. Such things just feel like getting peed on tbh. Make it a part of the core mechanics of the game and you would seen more fights too.


If they had like a subscription package that included like active paragon, maybe some xp boost, and you wouldn't miss daily loyality roll if you missed a day. I would throw my money at them. (if it came at a competive price to other mmos out there).


I would really love to see statistics from Plarium what the players spend money on in the shop, because that should be easy data for them to pull.

Dec 30, 2015, 07:1212/30/15
Dec 29, 2018, 17:09(edited)
11/05/14
19383

"How about give each league a own bank that members of could donate sapphires into for league use. Just becaus you create a league and is a league marshall doesn't really make you rich. Or how about trade/donate sapphires to other players as well." 

That has alternative issues, most notably "alts" but that is another issue entirely, the concept however is good. My point was more or less not the update itself but ways Plarium could look into means/methods of making it better for all parties involved.

I do agree some things seem very much high/terrible value... example is crystals, I don't think I would ever straight up buy them... but again I think that is another topic.

I really think this has side tracked the O.P and talking about how Plarium or the Community and communicate with each other to altar the current situation which a lot of people feel is very much self destructive for Plarium and the game.  

Wasn't the idea for subscription models brought up previously (I also moderate Kabam and I know it was brought up there).

Plarium's current method is going 50:50 updates, 1 for Plarium 1 for the community however the updates for the community may not be what the community wants, example I can give is the resource slider got a LOT of good feedback. Would it be better if for the 1 community update Plarium does if it came directly from their community feedback EG forums, tickets etc...

Or would be it better just to blend the community and Plarium's updates into 1, like i suggested previously

Dec 30, 2015, 12:0412/30/15
Dec 29, 2018, 16:51(edited)
11/05/14
19383

Gadheras said:


Lord Oberon said:


shewuvsyou said:

Implying Lord Oberon is a single individual, however he or she is most likely not a single entity operating a single account. The variation in text formatting, spelling and grammatical accuracy, overall disposition on issues and the singular reference to posts I alone have made have led me to believe that all of the staff use the single administrator account to conduct their business. So you don't get confused however, was that my suggestion is for the entire staff to have their separate accounts and actually make use of them.


To your earlier point, this game is not made for the players. People often confuse these relationships and presume (like you did) there to be some sort of personal bond. While there can be good relations between the players and the game's overlords, you need to understand that this is a business. They're here to make money. As a developer you might genuinely enjoy making the game and seeing it thrive, but ultimately you don't want to do it for free and do expect some measure of income or profit margin in return. This distinction is often confused by people who forget that this is just good business in a capitalist economy.

I am a Plarium collective persona, expressing Plarium’s official positions and listening to you, our players, for feedback regarding new features, suggestions, questions and concerns. All of this feedback is relayed to our development team through various channels.

The game is made for the players. Players the backbone of the game, and we share ownership. This being said, in order to provide this game to all players, certain parameters or features within the game must have a cost value. This is not an excuse; but a statement of fact. Without making profit, we would not be able to employ the incredibly devoted employees that we do and keep the game running and growing.




It can be very hard to relate to someone with many persona though. You can have a thread of discussion and different posts of Oberon in that thread is by different people? Im pritty sure the community would be more greatfull and appriciate it more if Oberon's splitt personalities got splitt up in differnet people that you could actually address? No one asking about full names and such, but just someone unique to address. Would also bring some form of acountability to the person.


No one is really disagreeing with the fact that the game need a revenue model. Its a business, people need to get paid wages, bills to paid and so on, what many (or at least players I talked with ingame) does question is the model though. Lately it feelt like Plarium just interested in fleece the players as much as possible. I got bills to pay too, I can't afford spend 99 USD worth on best deasl I get flashed in my face all the time. If I drop 20 USD a month or so on this game, that is what I can justify afford on this game.

I really enjoyed this post, Gadheras. Saved me the time of having to reiterate what I said to Oberon as I think s/he/they missed my point completely, thank you. :P



Mehnslayer said:

I personally am very happy that this topic is getting the attention it is and could possibly be a stepping stone for all parties involved.It seems to me that player's don't care if something has a sapphire tag on it or is exclusive to coiners, as long as it is something that the community wants or has a middle ground. What if something like the changing the rank at which beacon defense can be seen had a 3k sapphire price tag, I don't think anyone would care that much, they would be more happy they are being listened to and have that feature included in the game. I am pretty sure most big league marshals and or captains can give away 3k sapphires. This is only an example of a possible middle ground.

I'm actually repulsed at the idea of this being implemented. The fact that you think this would be okay signifies one of two things: either you're profiting from your position in this community via in-game (or out[?]) or you have enough real world cash flow to mitigate your feelings on content that should be included for free. At this point, I'm leaning towards my option A theory; which trying to exploit your community level position to make basic game mechanic changes to try and bring profit to yourself via the company that employs you is morally bankrupt.


The idea that the community puts forward an idea that would (quite honestly) make the game a lot better being turned around and sold back to us is actually so overly offensive that it hurt my soul. That suggestion was a great one and if they tried to make a profit off of it I'd quit immediately. Especially for a change like that, one where it's so simple and should be included in the game already.



@Lord Oberon, I'm going to have to double post to reply to you, because HTML editing is probably the most ludicrous thing ever.

Dec 30, 2015, 12:2012/30/15
Dec 29, 2018, 17:00(edited)
11/05/14
19383

The suggestion was just an idea, I am not advocating it, I have made like 1 trillion suggestions, some contradict each other... So no, as an ideal situation I would rather not have that added. 

I'm not really "profiting" from anything, and honestly my moderator tag should (at least in my opinion) not influence how my opinions are portrayed, in the end I want the best for the community however mutual benefit will always need to be a factor to be realistic, at least from the current position. 

I have said several times that I would like to see the updates just added to the game, no strings attached. 

I don't get a portion of the revenue raised or any of the rest, I am a player first and foremost... I would just like to see the communities updates be considered and using that as an example as it has a lot of backing. 

In my ideal world, the updates would be purely community based or developer's own artistic style, and plarium's revenue would come from incentivising players to spend money when they feel it is deserved (not to say it isn't). Instead of having to put up constant deals and adding a sapphire tag to most updates. 

I think most popular MMO games survive purely on the fact that they do focus so much on the community, the word "ethical" microtransactions gets thrown around a lot with F2P mmo's

Lord OberonCharacter
Dec 30, 2015, 12:3312/30/15
01/06/15
357

@Shewuvsyou, the point you were making was "this game is not made for the players.", which I find strange. To put it simply the game is 50% for the players and 50% for the developers. We benefit from each other. Players are being entertained playing the game, and they support the game via money and with their help we are able to maintain the game and people who are making the game.