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- Excellion
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Dec 17 2014 7:35 am
I strongly recommend looking at ogame.org. This other game IS System Lords without the Stargate skin except that it has been around since 2002 and has the advantage 12 years of trial and error and over 50 US-based servers not to mention many other servers throughout the world and a player-base of hundreds of thousands.
Rather than submit the player base to so much trial and error perhaps we should look to the most successful and experienced game of this type, emulate the many good aspects of the game, and move forward. It will yield the most satisfied players and the most successful game AND combine the elements of Stargate we love.
That game is very balanced, very well thought out. Take the best elements of it and incorporate them here! You will have the best strategy and gaming balanced.
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- Shadowing
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Dec 17 2014 8:48 am
There is some stuff you don't understand Excellion
There is a lot of updates I didn't do cause of the way I was selling naqahdah in the market. The updates would of been just pointless when buying naq was so easy. The reason naqahdah was sold the way it was cause I was starving for game capital. Having just naqahdah boosts the game wouldn't of made no where near the amount it needed at the time when it was needed. Specially on a small player base. There is nothing special about Ogame it uses the same ideas as massive amount of games. Just like the resource system I'm adding into the game. The idea is used in lots of games.
I'm working on something large and we are not just talking about system lords here. I'm developing a large piece of software in which all games of 26horses will be connected with. There is a grand design in the works.
What ever you can do or dream you can always begin it because boldness has genius, power and magic in it
- Excellion
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Dec 17 2014 12:33 pm
I didn't mention the sale of naq once. I am glad naq is no longer sold on Abydos. I shared previously the sale of naq made the game "pay to win" which is something the play base strongly dislikes.
The marketplace can be used to provide subtle advantages such as 10-15% increase in naq production, 2 extra fleet slots and so forth. These advantages will be desired by most players and can generate a steady flow of game revenue.
My concern are the many changes and reversal of those changes. It causes players to loose all confidence in the game. Fortresses were added to the game which led to players changing their builds (destroying buildings and adding fortresses) then later removed from the game. That is one example of many. Tech was removed from the game and now you are bringing it back.
Your insistence in rolling out changes daily rather than once a week is causing massive bugs on a regular basis which completely disrupt game balance. Yesterday players were able to attack each other without any delay from space mines. Again, this is just one example.
Myself and others have done our best to support you in good faith for a very long time. We have not only spent money on the game but have encouraged others to come join the game and for existing players to increase their activity. The challenge we now face is if others approach and now and ask us whether they should start playing System Lords, we feel compelled to tell them no, not at this time. When our ally mates come to us and express frustration with the game, we just tell them to just do other things for now and let the game sit.
Again, we want to be as supportive as possible but we respectfully request changes be made once per week, not daily. This will give you more of an opportunity to
a. thoroughly think through the changes rather than implement them on "ideas" or "whims".
b. announce the changes to the community in advance
c. perform testing or allow some players access to the test server so they can perform QA and offer feedback
The above will greatly improve the quality of the game for all at no additional cost to you.
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- Shadowing
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Dec 17 2014 2:23 pm
Excellion my changes are not due to ideas or whims. They are thought over months based on player feed back. A handful of players speaking loud in chat is not the entire game community.
You didn't mention naq buying? You mention it several times in private emails Excellion and providing me with logical ways of doing the business model of system lords differently.
I can't really do updates once a week until most of the development is done. Which I'm hoping by the end of the month. Why? cause it would be a giant pain to do so. I would have to upload to another server with the new changes let them be tested by some players. Mean while I'm working on new updates and if a bug pops up on the test server I would have to edit the game on the test server and on the server I develop on. What I mean by this is I would have to manually edit both scripts on each server. Once a wide range of development is done where I'm not trying to finish a project as fast as possible then I could space updates out once a week.
Things that were removed from the game were massive failed concepts.
Fortresses were to powerful as a building. Removing made architect way stronger.
Slave camps as military max is just lame
I don't even think you was around during regular tech in the game?
either way these removals all happen over a massive period of months spaced out.
I have zero history of doing thing son whims..... Things are thought about for long period of times. Flag ship update took months of thinking about for example.
Probably about 90% of all updates I do is based on community feed back. The problem is when a update goes in a direction no one likes it only takes a small handful of people to yell the loudest about it. I usually always get more messages about people liking my updates then not liking them. The problem is some active players only see chat or messages from their alliance.
The space mine issue was caused when I was fixing a bug that enlil reported with tacticians bonuses when sieging wasn't working. had nothing to do with a daily update.
This is why a ton of game developers stay away from the game community. Most players do not understand what goes on behind the scenes in game developement.
The only real supporting argument here is with me not posting at least a 24 hour notice before a update. As for major updates like changing buildings up? So I should never make changes to buildings? Cause to your logic it wouldn't matter when I made changes to buildings. The player would still have to rebuild the building regardless.
Giving out refunds for buildings built. I saw you mention this in chat. I do this all the time. I only gave out 5000 building credits on chulak cause tons of people have tons of plants and others do not. There was no easy approach. I also didn't like the idea of giving out millions of naq to those who built one type of building.
I've always done massive game changes every 3 months or more. My history shows this.
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- Shadowing
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Dec 17 2014 2:37 pm
Also I want to mention that one thing that separates system lords from the other games is it feels like you are playing a indie game. Playing something that is personal that I have created and continue to create. Most games don't feel this way. They try to do everything as professional as possible and in the process lose a sense of feeling that me as a developer brings to System Lords.
Here is a good movie to watch to understand indie game development
Indie game: The Movie
What ever you can do or dream you can always begin it because boldness has genius, power and magic in it
- Excellion
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Dec 17 2014 3:00 pm
I'll be brief and just say we are all after the same thing...an awesome game. The current process of transitioning the game from what it is now to a better game has been extremely painful on the player base. All I ask is you consider making changes in a way that is less painful.
The players who clearly agree...Voldy/Kelac, Enlil, Pink, Kayleigh, Zuff and others are among your top players on both servers and the most active players. I am certain there are many other players who agree as well but I have not personally spoken with them.
A few examples:
1. The most fun, or at the very least the most exciting part of the game is combat. With the changes to Bombers and Gliders, along with adding Aggressive/Defensive stance a key part of the game is last minute changes where reinforcements arrive less than 60 seconds before an attack OR immediately after the attack landed causing the attacker to switch to defender.
The current "collect salvage" system has ruined the current system of battle causing players to lose battles they otherwise would have won due solely to a random player buying something from the marketplace in the seconds before or after an attack lands. Also, after an attack lands with zero loss the "collect salvage" appears forcing the attacker to collect 1 naq. To do such the player has to click "collect salvage", then click on the pop-up display, then click the icon to show their planet list, then scroll through and select a planet, then press "collect salvage" again. During the 10 seconds this is happening the defender can send an attack through the gate or any of their ally can reinforce, or an existing attack can land. Previously, the attacker could quickly recall their fleet in 1 second.
The same concept but much worse happened with the "forced" tech reset.
I agree with the concept of collecting salvage on planets and the 400/850 from the marketplace, but it should never have been implemented in a way that affects combat. I agree with the concept of the "forced" tech reset, but again it should not have changed the winner and loser of battles.
2. You seem to make changes in stages. I get the concept but perhaps at least the period of these stages can be combined so they roll out at once. Restricting player ability to make endless military units was a good change. It required players to manage their slaves. In a recent example, Demogorgon purchased millions of naq but couldn't spend a lot of it because he ran out of slaves. It positively effects gameplay. I recognize you are transitioning to a superior method but the transition period is again painful. If you could bundle that part of the code together and introduce it at once, it would be a lot easier of a transition.
3. We NEED an easier way to transition buildings. On Abydos, players have 20 planets and some have well over 100 space stations. Clicking to bring up the planet window, selecting Space station, scrolling down multiple times, selecting a space station, clicking build, deleting buildings, adding buildings is an incredibly time consuming process. As Enlil suggested a "select all" or the ability to select multiple planets / ss at the same time so the changes could be made collectively is critical.
For the past 6+ months, observatories were of no value to any player with Persuade. Now they are a critical building due to a game change. It would take hours on Abydos to go through all the planets and SS to make this change, not to mention the massive cost (more naq than is made in a month from top players). On Chulak, the process is even worse due to 300 planets. If changes are to be made at this dizzying rate, the players need a way to adjust for these changes which is not so painful.
Again, we just want to play a game in our spare time and have fun. Hours of mindless clicking changing buildings is not fun. To the contrary, it is quite miserable, especially when having to be repeated. Setting up tech / race / personality one way only to have the game change radically is not fun.
Yes, every game has changes but we are not talking about 10% adjustments but rather massive changes made overnight without warning that....meh...please help.
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- Cjamieson99
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Dec 17 2014 3:24 pm
I'm not sure that I agree with EVERYTHING Excellion has said here, but I do have one thing to add.
I am usually all for your changes, and I can see that nobody ever agrees at first, but they always do in the end. These particular changes I can not say I am liking very much.
People like me and Excellion play the entire game a lot and we know what works and what doesn't, sometimes better than you. You don't play the game, we do. Which means that sometimes you may not know exactly how things are going to effect gameplay or strategy or take away from the fun in the game the way we do. We always say when we think something is a bad idea, but you're all for it at first, and then a few weeks later you realize that we were right and you remove it.
I realize that it's your game and you have a vision for it and that we don't always see things from your perspective, and I agree, there are changes that you have made that none of us would have thought of and they made the game better, but it works both ways, too.
And again, in my opinion, if you really do want to make slaves more valuable, which they are now, just have military units cost slaves. The way it is now, once a player reaches max slaves, there should be no reason for them to lose them unless someone decided to steal them just for fun.
Units costing slaves = great idea, great for gameplay and balance!
New idea = could be good, but I doubt it will be as good as slaves.
***edit
About the persuade thing, Excellion.... That is due to you exploiting a bug, lol. It is completely different from everything else we're talking about. He knew about the bug apparently and didn't change it, so it's similar, but still completely different. All he did was patch persuade.
Kelac! #1 cheater in the game, but you'll never catch me!
- Kynell
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Dec 17 2014 4:29 pm
give shadowing a chance, he removes naq buying which you noobs was constantly doing naq rings and made the game like 90% better now so the rest will follow.
# i vote bring back siege forces!
# shel kree you kelac
# i am cakes so 1v1 me kelac
# i am also shadowing, anoobis is my account i play on so i do understand the game
# i hate hash tags but your both making me do this!
# shel kree you kelac
# shel kree you kelac
# shel kree you kelac
# shel kree you kelac
- Cjamieson99
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Dec 17 2014 4:54 pm
Clearly you did not read or understand this, Anoobis. Nobody is blaming Shadowing for anything and certainly nobody is angry with the changes, especially that one which made his game a lot better. Ryan is simply trying to tell him that some major game effecting changes need a 12 hours (at least) warning in advance. Also that some changes are not going to work and he should take into consideration what every single person has been saying about them yesterday.
I am simply saying that there are two sides that both need to be considered for the game to work: the development side, and the players side. The people who really understand the game and play it a lot are good people to get input from before making changes; and he does talk to people, but we feel like we are not heard -- which is fine, I'm not complaining, but I think it would be in his best interests for making a game that is both fun to play and balanced. There are many things that he, as someone who does not play the game himself, cannot understand or see for himself, and that's where we all come in.
And, Anoobis, get over it. You wanted a war with the alliance I'm in and I happened to be in the logical position to take your stations and kill your bombers. Could have let someone else do it, but it just wouldn't make sense.
Kelac! #1 cheater in the game, but you'll never catch me!
- Kynell
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Dec 17 2014 5:01 pm
i never wanted war as i thought we was friends, you guys declared war on me lol.
and this post is not about your alliances terrorism on chulak towards people for no reason, i dont hold grudges over a game so i couldnt care less.
i simply said shel kree you, i said this because.... well your a noob
as for the post you wrote about the other stuff, skel kree you
incase you didnt quite get that shel kree you choob!
- Cjamieson99
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Dec 17 2014 5:08 pm
Well you clearly do care... And it was not for no reason. You know the exact reason, there is no reason to explain it a fourth time. Locutus interfered with a war that we was let out of because he asked, and you said that taking the stations back from him would result in war with you. So we could have walked away, or gone to war like you were told we would.
Again, you're clearly taking a game too seriously. We might start calling you Zerotee 2.0 soon, lol.
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- Kynell
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Dec 17 2014 5:09 pm
i didnt want war i thought we was friends, it ws you guys who declared war on me.
this post isnt about your alliances terrorism on chulak towards people for no reason, i hold no grudges so i dont care about that.
i simply said shel kree you because.... well your a noob
as for your reply, shel kree you
and to finalize this shel kree you choobalec!
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