Neighborhoods now more active than ever before?

[DeletedUser]

Every day there are sent out some/thousands new beta-keys, and so every day there are entering new players.

More players means more active players, better neighborhoods?

I would say YES.

Now there are nearly no more inactive players, so it's hard to understand, why people say that 'neighborhoods' don't work:

16172 of currently 17729 playeres (~91%) have less than 2000 ranking points (= are just starting, have abandoned the game after few early tries ... or whatever).

That means that nearly 9% of the players have more than 2000 ranking points - so at least every 10, 11 neighbors that you discover' you'll find an active one ...

Some details:

• 1041 players with 0 ranking points
• 2 players with 1 ranking point
• 956 players with ranking points between 2 and 20
• 2241 players with ranking points between 21 and 100
• 8518 players with ranking points between 101 and 1000
• 3414 players with ranking points between 1001 and 2000.

And if I take a look at my 'personal' neighborhood, I can see that number don't lie:

One of my about 40 neighbors visits my city weekly and has sometimes 2 offers in the trader, 2 neighbors have as their 'activity' about 3 or 4 offers in the trader, more expensive than whole-saler, and 1 neighbor has already bought 2 more builders, but having 4 builders he doesn't build anything.

 

[DeletedUser285]

Every day there are sent out some/thousands new beta-keys, and so every day there are entering new players.

More players means more active players, better neighborhoods?

I would say YES.

More players means more active players and also more inactive players. Overall...no improvements.
I logged the number of players and their points over almost a month, here are some numbers:


Total 0 1-50 51-100 101-200 201-500 501-1000
=================================================================
2/09/2015 6067 402 828 295 645 883 1126
2/11/2015 6888 455 969 380 825 1021 1070
2/13/2015 7545 496 1075 381 1054 964 1232
2/15/2015 8321 547 1153 396 867 1286 1409
2/17/2015 8626 559 1185 389 882 1149 1381
2/19/2015 10857 709 1598 651 1583 1711 1309
2/21/2015 12507 724 1696 659 1418 2567 1929
2/23/2015 13324 775 1759 633 1355 2544 2244
2/26/2015 15520 880 2114 795 2059 2069 2525
3/02/2015 17056 1023 2346 829 1576 2307 2651

Translated in %

Total 0 1-50 51-100 101-200 201-500 501-1000
=================================================================
2/09/2015 6067 6.6% 13.6% 4.8% 10.6% 14.5% 18.5%
2/11/2015 6888 6.6% 14.0% 5.5% 11.9% 14.8% 15.5%
2/13/2015 7545 6.5% 14.2% 5.0% 13.9% 12.7% 16.3%
2/15/2015 8321 6.5% 13.8% 4.7% 10.4% 15.4% 16.9%
2/17/2015 8626 6.4% 13.7% 4.5% 10.2% 13.3% 16.0%
2/19/2015 10857 6.5% 14.7% 6.0% 14.5% 15.7% 12.0%
2/21/2015 12507 5.7% 13.5% 5.2% 11.3% 20.5% 15.4%
2/23/2015 13324 5.8% 13.2% 4.7% 10.1% 19.0% 16.8%
2/26/2015 15520 5.6% 13.6% 5.1% 13.2% 13.3% 16.2%
3/02/2015 17056 6.0% 13.7% 4.8% 9.2% 13.5% 15.5%

Conclusion: the % of players with < 50 points (more than likely they stopped playing) is pretty much constant. In other words, your average neighborhood would have the same number of inactive players.

 

[DeletedUser]

Conclusion: the % of players with < 50 points (more than likely they stopped playing) is pretty much constant. In other words, your average neighborhood would have the same number of inactive players.

Fact is, your 'neighborhood' grows very slowly ... about 3 or four neighbors per day, when you start the game, and when you reach 40 neighbors you get a new neighbor every 5 days or every week.

If you were 'born' in an 'active neighborhood', lucky you, if not, as you pointed out, the number of inactive players is pretty much constant. In other words, your average neighborhood would have the same number of inactive players all the time over - so if you had inactive 99% neighbors first week, you will end up with 99% neighbors in the 10th week ..

When I sit at home at the table with my family to play Monopoly, then I can assume that all sitting at the table will play 'active'.

But I think it's a fundamental error to assume that in an online game the same percentage of players would get involved in the game actively.

So depending on in which neighborhood a player is 'born' when he starts the game, he will have more or less success in the game - some players can trade, others not, some get polished, others not ... and nobody can do nothing (even developers cannot help) to improve the situation of a 'bad born' player ...

And here we arrive at the point, where the cat is biting its own tail:

A player 'born in an inactive neighborhood' will find the game boring already in a very early period of the game, will leave it and never come back - so 1 'inactive neighbor cadaver' more ...and this might happen 100 times per day.

 

[DeletedUser]

A player 'born in an inactive neighborhood' will find the game boring already in a very early period of the game, will leave it and never come back - so 1 'inactive neighbor cadaver' more ...and this might happen 100 times per day.

I think that should be one of the greatest concerns for the developers. It not only makes it so hard to progress, but also pretty much kills the 'social' part of the game. I can cope having a bunch of active neighbors, but I assume A LOT of people gives up after realising all cities he discovers are actually ghost cities, and there's no other players to be found.

 

[DeletedUser]

I totally agree with that, but what seems to happen at the moment:

Some new players are moved into the neighborhood of experienced players, with two possible results:
- As stated elsewhere, with a chance >60% they become totally inactive, movement didn't make any sense
- There may remain some activity, but this would be much more needed at the regions, they should have started at...

 

[DeletedUser]

I think that the way the trader works is also a contributing factor to people giving up the game (not referring present problem). When you start the game in an inactive neighborhood and you put up trades that stays there for 3 days, you start assuming that you are playing the game wrong. Not everybody likes to complain or know how to contact support. Fortunately I did know. If it wasn't for the quick and encouraging messages from support on this topic, I would have given up in my second week.
Joining Forum is new to me, although I have played online games for a year now. ( in Foe the guild did the educating and that keeps people interested. The power of human contact can never be under estimated.)
My suggestion is that when a player starts to play there should be a welcoming letter to explain a few crucial subjects and this should be available for reference for at least two weeks. ( A button saying 'hi' could then disappear )
New players will know that their experience is not unique. I started of in the graveyard and still have only limited trade partners after a month.

 

[DeletedUser]

...you put up trades that stays there for 3 days, you start assuming that you are playing the game wrong...

I set up 20 'fair' offers 50:50, I didn't 'sell' nothing, I set up eighty 'unfair' offers 40:80 (= a lot more cheaper than the 'Whole-Saler'), I never sold nothing, I set up 1:1, 2:2, 5:5 20:20 ... there is no way to 'sell' anything to my neighbors, they don't need nothing - looking at their cities, it becomes pretty clear: my neighbors are more dead than the game developers (what may result difficult, but working hard, one gets there, even being a 'neighbor' ...).

If you ask me, I insist: this game has died before reaching an open beta ... but we will see ...

 

[DeletedUser]

If it wasn't for our top trader/player (Khebeln), I would not be able to progress. I have nothing against 'unfair' trades. In the long run it is your choice to accept or reject. But if 20 people saw your trades, not only 5, your chances would increase of doing a deal...

 

[DeletedUser136]

I guess I'm lucky then... my hood wasn't great for the first few weeks... ok, it was really bad and I did my share of complaining about it on here, but now its turning around. As my inactives slowly get replaced, trade is picking up to about 9 pages a day and I've got at least a half dozen neighbors who have now reached level three. Every night after work, I have alerts that 6 or more have polished something while I was away and another 10-15 polish while I'm either online or asleep.

As far as I'm concerned, the neighborhood part of the game IS moving forward and is definitely a lot better than the first month was.

 

[DeletedUser]

Thanks for sharing that Tinker. Gives me hope. Lol! I must say that the motivating is better. I get about 5 a day now. Going away from the game?! Sleeping?! Hahahaha

 

[DeletedUser136]

Yeah, it would be nice if it happened when I was actually here and it helped me, but its still progress and I'm not complaining

 

[DeletedUser]

As my inactives slowly get replaced...

As far as I'm concerned, the neighborhood part of the game IS moving forward

A classic example of caring about own neighborhood and ignoring, that the other neighborhood is suffering from this...

 

[DeletedUser136]

A classic example of caring about own neighborhood and ignoring, that the other neighborhood is suffering from this...

My neighborhood was terrible, now it's improving... what would you like me to say?

If you prefer I will ask my neighbors to stop polishing me and trading with me until you say they can... but that's not going to do much.

 

[DeletedUser205]

the number of neighbors who polish me is about the same since 2 weeks.
however in my trader things are going worse. It seems, that nowbody in my world has planks to sell anymore. I guess, that some players with boosted planks have quit the game, because weeks ago it was no problem to buy planks.
Well, I can buy my planks at the wholesaler, but it feels like a dead trader although we have 8-9 pages most of the time. Most of the offers are to be seen since days.
In tier 2 it looks a bit the same, everybody is looking for silk and scrolls (but there I can sell my diamonds 2-3 times a day, = a little better than in tier 1 area).
In tier 3 it seems I'm the only one with interests to trade (but I think, the reason is, that most of my neighbors are not as far in progress).

Will be full of suspense to watch, if things are going better again, when inactive neighbors are changed with new ones.
Till now, I can't see new nicknames in my world, guess the new players are not distributed over all worlds steadily?

 

[DeletedUser252]

Maybe I have to wait a little longer now.
My neightborhood is still sleeping. Have 2 neightbors that help me ( mostly) daily, but trading is hopeless.
Have an offer for 100 marble vs 100 steel and it's on for 3 days now.
Further only 1 or 2 star offers for things I don't need or don't have
i'm trying to get on the next lvl but it's hard when you have to produce all the goods by yourself, and upgrade your buildings at the same time.
I don't have money for the wholesaler, and what good it has when you need 400 steel and he offers 20 for 8000 gold!
I get there in the end, but I'll have a long way to go and it's taking me forever

 

[DeletedUser205]

I can fancy that the restricted boost is the bottleneck.
If everybody could decide, which goods she wants to boost, we could adapt our production better to the market-needs

 

[DeletedUser]

Sounds like we have all the same problems.
I think my idea to change the trader bears repeating. If all of us could see, say, maybe 40 or 50 neighbors in radius around our cities it could later be adjusted to less, as more people start playing actively. Until then we could trade happily with each other. (What a wonderful world it would be...giggle)
Seriously, like one of the moderators said so nicely : We are the brave souls who are playing a game in Beta!
I salute us.

 

[DeletedUser205]

I just visited my next neighbors-to-discover (the next circle on my worldmap) and it seems, that they are all inactive (some probably just started?).
Barely hope to get new interesting traders or neighborly-helpers.
On the other hand, scouting for my level is around 240k coins per province.
I'm not really motivated now, to extend my worldmap.

If I would be interested in scoring, it would be the better way to do so via upgrading several tier-3-factorys (and do the knowledgebook-thing with hours of waiting).
But I'm not (the scores are in my opinion a way to get more money out of some players), and think, things will stuck in the mud, if I quit discovering.
In elvenar the most funny thing for me is to learn the battle-mechanic (means fighting with success and low losses), but no provinces = no encounterfights.

For me the quality of an onlinegame is directly related with the hours of fun which I get per day.
And those hours are sinking permanently since some days.

 

[DeletedUser]

I also looove the battles! Maybe because every battle is fairly unique to me at this stage. I keep on trying do defeat the 'big' armies...then I loose my men. My battle skills have improved a lot. He he.
This morning I sent friendly messages to all my neighbors who don't motivate me, and I got back 3 replies. Shame man! These guys each had a sweet explanation. Makes warm and fuzzy, wishing them luck, and waiting for them to catch up.
I am glad I did it, as each one indicated that they are still playing.

 

[DeletedUser]

I just visited my next neighbors-to-discover (the next circle on my worldmap) and it seems, that they are all inactive (some probably just started?).
Barely hope to get new interesting traders or neighborly-helpers.
On the other hand, scouting for my level is around 240 coins per province.
I'm not really motivated now, to extend my worldmap.

If I would be interested in scoring, it would be the better way to do so via upgrading several tier-3-factorys (and do the knowledgebook-thing with hours of waiting).
But I'm not (the scores are in my opinion a way to get more money out of some players), and think, things will stuck in the mud, if I quit discovering.
In elvenar the most funny thing for me is to learn the battle-mechanic (means fighting with success and low losses), but no provinces = no encounterfights.

For me the quality of an onlinegame is directly related with the hours of fun which I get per day.
And those hours are sinking permanently since some days.

I'm actually finding scouting costs somewhat 'cheap'. Conquering provinces is harder for me than paying my scouts. I get around 300k per day for aiding all of my neighbors (50-55 x 4.800 coins). When I have 60 neughbits and 1 more Main Hall level, it will be 60 x 6.000 coins = 360k daily!!

For scoring, I find spending popupation and culture is the most effective. I just keep upgrading stuff as much as I can. Although lately I have been kind of stuck, because I still need to re-organize my city so I can fit my new, big, 4x3 human houses.