Version 0.8 at last

[TheVic]

Agree with AtomicDustman.

Since I mostly play team games, I wish to add problems that I think is important for team games. If / when I buy a gold membership and new heroes to keep a level playing field, it will not be sufficient if not all of my team members are now buying gold memebership and new heroes, as the chance to win for my team then has fallen significatly. (The only top team that is unbeaten in both seasons, the great Scandinavia, I am proud to say!)

So, the problem that bugs me, is that buying gold membership and heroes feels "not enough" unless ALL my team members purchase gold membership and heroes, and that is at the moment the biggest reason why I am considering to NOT buy Gold membership. If all team members that join me in a game that I am playing also has the same in game advantages as I got, that on the other hand would significantly increase my willingness to be a Gold member.

This is not even taking into account that it takes a while before they can join a new game with the "limit of 3" which is now in play...

If the new heroes were only available on maps where all players have access to them, it would certainly be a solution for "Equal opportunity". But since this lowers the incentive for becoming Gold members with Heroes, I can see why this solution is not preferable.

Also, for me it's an annoying problem that month / year is too big a difference as I am far from certain that all members of my great team today are willing to pay that much "up front", and one year comitment is quite a lot. And if you pay, you really have to pay that irritaing extra to get the Heroes as they (looks to be) really good.

If there only was one altarnative, "Buy one month of membership" or Nothing, that would have been much better in my opinion. Really dislike the feeling that I feel forced to buy Gold membership for a year (and heroes) or nothing at all.

[SnotlinG]

We are aware that emotions are running high now with the new premium features. And while we would like nothing more than spending all our time on developing cool webgames, real life has its constraints since neither one of us are made of money unfortunately

We do not want to create a game where you buy in-game advantages (we have played games like that and dont really like that model) - we belive there should be some middle way, buying "nice to have"-features which makes gameplay easier/more enjoyable for the premium user. However we can agree that its a fine line to walk as we still need some incentive for a user to want to upgrade the account. Speaking of the new Heroes for example, we are paying money for the new graphics and a small one-time-purchase (to help us pay the graphics) to unlock the hero doesnt seem to greedy to me. We do not intend to make the new Heroes better than the previous ones, but rather adding more variety to choose between (as well as some really cool looking units )

It might be a good idea to put "X's" for moves in upcoming turns. Using "0's" (zero's) can be confusing, does the first zero mean that you get to that hex with the final moves of your current turn? or is that the first hex of your next turn?

This is a good idea, I will try to implement it shortly.
Edit: Implemented - press F5 to refresh the files and you should see X instead of 0 incase your move is not enough.

Regarding gamelimit for free users:
Every game is stored on our server, every gameaction is processed by the server etc, so in short every game takes diskspace and processing power - which costs money unfortunately. We believe that if you like and enjoy the game so much that you want to have a bunch of games going (i.e. taking up more server resources), is it too much to ask for that that player helps support the maintenance costs? Maybe 3 games are not the optimum number for free users though, but still there needs to be an incentive to upgrade otherwise noone will get premium accounts and in the long run we will then be forced to shutdown the server.

TheVic;
Im not sure I follow? There are options to buy membership per month basis?
Also everyone is starting with 400 credits, so you can always buy a 1 month silver membership "for free" to test it out and see how you like it. (then you can start unlimited number of games)

[LPhillips]

?
Also everyone is starting with 400 credits, so you can always buy a 1 month silver membership "for free" to test it out and see how you like it. (then you can start unlimited number of games)

I hope you have some method in place to prevent abuse? Most people won't create a new account every month, but some might.

[flash]

Well Im not that happy with that payment thingie, cutting me from playing. I guess we were all some kind of beta testers till there - and now boom: you have to pay for playing that way... without any warning I noticed. Thats kind of rude. Dont misunderstand me - Im willing to pay, and I did spend money before. But 50 EUR / year ust definitely too much for that gold membership imho. Thats \"professional pay level\" you are asking for, and for me it seems that the game isnt finished yet, so we still are some kind of beta testers (no 1.0 Version f.e.). So im feeling like dropped out after used right now.

[KGB]

Flash,

There were several posts here over the last few months about the game going to a subscription based service and that free players would be restricted in the number of games they could play. Not sure how you missed those discussions. So there definitely was a warning.

I do see one obvious problem with the 3 games limit. It will for sure mean free players will only be playing 1v1 games because if you only get 3 games you don't want to waste one of them in an 8 player FFA where you might only take 1 turn a week. So I can see changing things slightly to allow 3 1v1 games and 1 or 2 games with more than 2 players (team or FFA). Then set a max limit of games per month to prevent free players from playing a ton of games of 5-6 turns on small maps.

KGB

[Moonknight]

I agree that 3 games for free members seems very stiff. I would have envisioned a number between 5-7 games.

But, I don't know on average, how many people have more than 5-7 games active, maybe it is a very small amount.

[KGB]

But, I don't know on average, how many people have more than 5-7 games active, maybe it is a very small amount.

I think SnotlinG already mentioned the vast majority of players are playing 3 or less games.

I would wager a *lot* of money that a majority of those who play more than 3 are ladder players who are rank mongering. This is a failure of the ladder system to address the problem that playing lots of games on small maps generates lots of points on the ladder. If for example the points were changed so that a 150x map game gave 10X as many points as a 50x map then you'd only need to play 1/10th the games to get an equivalent rank.

KGB

[AtomicDustmen]

Hello All,

TheVIc,
I agree with you regarding the issues with team games. If the heroes do end up being unbalanced, a person with the new heroes might have an advantage over those without them. The same could be said for FFA games.

Might this be a solution? Let\'s say that 4 players enter a FFA game. Only the heroes that all players have are able to be used in the game. If only the original 3 heroes are had by all, then no other hero can be offered. If 3 players have all 6, but the 4th player only has the original 3 plus the Barbarian, then only the original 3 and the Barbarian will be offered. Is this something that could be implemented? What do you think of this SnotlinG? Was this thought of at any point but maybe rejected?

One last thing about non-Silver and Gold users not being able to see the number of moves/turns that a unit/stack has remaining. The issue I have with this is that all of us have been playing with this in place for so long, and for it now to be taken away I feel is a bit unfair.

Frankly, if this was put back into place, the limit of the number of games a non-Silver or Gold player can play slightly increased, the amount being asked for to purchase a Gold membership slightly decreased, and the hero issue evened out, whether it be by my suggestion of otherwise, I would then see no reason for any complaints. In my opinion anyway...

I do understand the need for incentive to purchase a membership.

SnotlinG,
I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to respond to these issues so quickly. By no means am I, or most likely everyone else here, trying to tell you how this game should be run or anything. Regardless of what changes if any happen, I know this game will be continued to be played by many...

Thanks,
Atomic Dustmen

[LPhillips]

I am sure that the payment system will receive some adjustment in time.

Vic, I'm not sure how that would work. You mean those who have the heroes can almost never use them, unless they make a point to only join games where others have the heroes? That seems a bit unfair.

LP

[flash]

I must admit that I didnt follow the forum posts very conscientiously. So my post is to read as my personal feeling of the whole thing, not as global critique.

KGB: that is the point of my problem. I like to play FFA Games as well as fun scenario and ladder games. So reducing the standard account to 3 games is completely blocking me for testing the new version right now, as I have 7 Games open, that are surely running on for a while, forcing me to pay (or change the gifted credits to upgrade my account / many thanks for converting my donation in credits). Maybe that is intentional, but still my position is that the actual 40 EUR / year for gold membership is a bit overpriced (not 50 EUR as said before, sorry), and will rather let me stop playing. Be very careful with those who pay, if you want to still work on the system, that been said.