Team Up!

Captain Hurricane wrote:

which is why half of them quite their first few games? why do games have such high numbers of inactive new players?

lol. seriously dude, I give up you win. you know more than anyone in any subject.

Hm....a problem exists where people join the game but don't stick it out. Ah! it must be that they don't have enough army. Let's analyze this train of thought before it rolls off the tracks.

Captain Hurricane wrote:

I wonder why someone creates a game called STAY ACTIVE!

Oh and what a surprise, more 3/5ths of the players have gone inactive because they got bored of building a bigger army

I could dig up more examples like this, even worse cases but hey we know what your response will be.

The quitters aren't angry that others quit.

Captain Hurricane wrote:

I think if there was a chat tab for team play, or a discussion area in diplomacy for the team (like we have for coalitions), it would just about solve the issue of inactivity

Captain Hurricane wrote:

The above is from the Senior Mod, evidently he hasn't got the memo that they should feel an urge to build armies and remain in the game. What's the matter with these new players? Don't they want to build bigger armies? What's wrong with them? Well let's wait for the next game, oh look, more new players!! Oh wait, they are also immune to the urge? What is going wrong?

Diabolical, the evidence is stacked up against you. It is a problem, they get bored, they get inactive, it irritates those who get left behind, even you.

I await with bated breath your next explanation.

I'll have more on that, further down.

Stormbringer50 wrote:

yes, i believe having a chat tab for teams would encourage players to build stuff, and play the game, as the chat would help alleviate the initial slow start of the game. Instead of everyone on the map feeling alone, even though they are part of a huge team, there would be planning and coordination of forces happening (sounds great for a strategy game, dont ya think?)

And you know what? The devs know this. They know that people are going to use outside chat sources. So why would they bother trying to over-develop this part of the game? It's nice enough that they put in the chats that we do have. But, in case you haven't noticed, even the "Global" chat is sorely underused. If even only a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of players on any given day would chime in on the global chat, it would fly by with dozens, if not hundreds, of messages every minute. Instead, oftentimes, there is little to no activity for long blocks of time. And when there is any activity, it's usually between only a handful of people having one or two overlapping conversations.

Stormbringer50 wrote:

And, as the developers pointed out on this thread, this was the first time they tried a team game of this size. They wanted our input to better the game, which is something that they are continually doing. We need to be patient, because Bytro is good at listening to their users and making improvements to the game.

Like the chats, the forums are underused by the average CoW player. But, for those of us who do participate, the devs are paying attention. The volunteer staff help to glean some of it, but the devs have a vested interest in how this game improves and they are open to our input. The fact that they -- and their representatives -- have to point that fact out to the rest of us just shows how easily ignorance can creep into this. But they are listening. And if everyone shouts from the rooftops that they don't like people abandoning matches, that's not going to fix the problem. And the problem isn't with small starting armies. As much as you -- and the few other people agreeing with you -- want to believe that this is the sole reason for the quitters, I must tell you there are many reasons. As I mentioned further above, I will get into this below.

VorlonFCW wrote:

Personally I have gone inactive in any 25 player historical nap that I have ever joined. Yes I said NAP instead of map, and that is what I meant. I can' t stand the slow speed of that one.

VorlonFCW wrote:

I think a lot of players join and create an account when they get enticed by an ad to try it out. Most of them are expecting something more like a shoot-em-up game where they drive a tank around like Need for Speed and win a game in 15 minutes and then can go play a different game. Such is the attention span of this Instant Gratification Generation. This is strategy and planning more than anything else. So people who don't have the desire to plan ahead don't even last through the tutorial.

The second primary reason why so many people drop out at the beginning is because they are either using the random nations or forced to use random nations (or make "bad" choices on a nation-choosing match) when joining a match. They are unhappy about their starting position and aren't willing to try to make the best of it. In a way, I don't really blame them because having an ideal start sounds like a key to winning. But it's really more about how you play than the initial starting conditions.

...continued in next post...

...continued from last post...

OK, so let's suppose you join a new match, but you want the best starting conditions for an extra boost. Even I can realize that an early boost will help, despite my espousement of the idea of a long term master plan of action. So, if a person were to join a match with nation-choosing, and they see that the nation(s) they want are already taken, they might grab another "less-ideal" choice, but then regret it because they see they are surrounded by other players are either already making a play at their lands, or perhaps they've already joined together in a coalition and you know you're going to get squeezed out.

Maybe instead, you join a new match, and you even get a nation you want to play, or maybe you don't even care which nation you start with. But after a couple days, you are already overwhelmed by a gold-spamming neighbor, or even just a neighbor who -- like me -- is highly aggressive and you are already facing certain doom. Of course, some players are just going to quit rather than playing out that nightmarish scenario. Some few will spend a bunch of their own gold to try to counter this. And some will stick it out, maybe trying to gather allies and/or use diplomacy to save themselves.

My point is that the size of your starting armies is not going to be a main reason to quit. The size of someone else's starting army (after they've buffed themselves up with copious amounts of gold) might make them quit, though, but that's the inverse of the problem that is being discussed here. "It's not you, it's me."

So, to sum up, there are many reasons why people quit and the reason being discussed, though it is a reason, it's not the reason. Some new players want action, not strategy. Some players want only the nations they want. Some players don't have much of an army (the point at hand). Some players are surrounded by pre-existent allies. Some players are surrounded by aggressive uber players like me. Some players have gold-spamming neighbors.

And, finally, some players have another factor that hasn't been discussed yet. Life. Often times -- and this affects even me -- life gets in the way. Perhaps you started a match. It's not particularly fantastic for you, but it's not bad either. Maybe you started in a reasonably-good situation. Maybe you have a couple allies. Maybe even there's no spamming golders next to you. Maybe even you used a little gold to give yourself a starting boost to tech or a couple extra factories.

Yet, despite all that, something happens, or you get busy, things change, or maybe even just another match "heats up". Life gets in the way and you wind up ignoring or even abandoning a match....or many matches.

On the list of reasons why people abandon matches....prematurely....I'd have to say that a lack of starting forces is far down that list.

Diabolical wrote:

On the list of reasons why people abandon matches....prematurely....I'd have to say that a lack of starting forces is far down that list.

Kebija wrote:

for me it is more fun to fight back from obscurity than to totally dominate from the beginning.

In this team event, which is really what we are discussing here, we had a member of my alliance get overrun by day 10, and was eliminated. On day 22 the Blue team broke the back of the Red forces in Asia, and we got my alliance member back in the game with a province and a couple armies. Let him take back his own core with our air support, and he finished in 6th place. We enjoyed in this team up event being able to play cooperatively with more than just 5 players in a coalition.

We are eagerly awaiting the next time this event comes up, and we are going to plan ahead better about getting as many people as we know all together on one team, which I think is really what this is all about. We even had three people on our blue team go on a one week vacation and hardly play in the middle of one of these games. It was nice that points gathered by our allies still counted towards victory even if they were inactive, and we didn't have to re-capture land that our allies already captured, only to defend it.

Kebija wrote:

for me it is more fun to fight back from obscurity than to totally dominate from the beginning.

Diabolical wrote:

Well, here we have two pieces of anecdotal "evidence"...well, the first piece is anecdotal. The second piece is merely "conjecture". While I have no problem with anecdotal evidence, the fact that someone named a single match as "STAY ACTIVE!" shows that it is a complaint in this game by those who DO play it. But this doesn't offer an explanation of why people quit...it merely points out the aggravation of those of US who don't quit.

The quitters aren't angry that others quit

The important bit is that 3/5th of the players went inactive. There not being a shortage of new players does not make these players become active again. The game is therefore spoilt.

Diabolical wrote:

Thank you for this input. THIS is one of two primary reasons why people quit playing new matches. It isn't that there aren't enough armies, it's that it's live time real-world-style playing with an emphasis on strategy, not action.

Diabolical wrote:

Here's some facts about this point. The team chat feature was implemented but it was later removed by the devs due to a total lack of use by most players. Nice idea....epic fail. And that "discussion area in diplomacy"....sure sounds an awful lot like the coalition thread of the private messaging system. And, to use anecdotal evidence, many of my matches (which do allow coalitions) see heavy usage of the coalition thread by my coalition...and not just by me.

Diabolical wrote:

I would postulate that only a tiny fraction of players quit because of the size of their starting armies.

It's not the lack of starting armies, it's not the lack of chat, it's not the lack of a cross hair, it's not the lack of vehicle controls /

it's the lack of ANYTHING to do for a good part of the first week of a game

Diabolical wrote:

K, so let's suppose you join a new match, but you want the best starting conditions for an extra boost. Even I can realize that an early boost will help, despite my espousement of the idea of a long term master plan of action. So, if a person were to join a match with nation-choosing, and they see that the nation(s) they want are already taken, they might grab another "less-ideal" choice, but then regret it because they see they are surrounded by other players are either already making a play at their lands, or perhaps they've already joined together in a coalition and you know you're going to get squeezed out.

Maybe instead, you join a new match, and you even get a nation you want to play, or maybe you don't even care which nation you start with. But after a couple days, you are already overwhelmed by a gold-spamming neighbor, or even just a neighbor who -- like me -- is highly aggressive and you are already facing certain doom. Of course, some players are just going to quit rather than playing out that nightmarish scenario. Some few will spend a bunch of their own gold to try to counter this. And some will stick it out, maybe trying to gather allies and/or use diplomacy to save themselves.

Captain Hurricane wrote:

You miss the point (yet again) this is a RED versus BLUE game. 50 players have a shared need to communicate WHEREAS in a normal game or even in ALLL PRECEDING GAMES there was no mass need for communications. Then you quote Stormbringer, the Senior Mod. Obviously he doesn't get it either in your opinion. I can see a pattern developing here.

A team chat would be helpful

Diabolical wrote:

. Because I care about this game, the company that puts it out, and the community that plays it,

Diabolical wrote:

However, until they do, I will boycott this map type...as well as ALL team games...and I will encourage all other players with whom I'm associated -- and anyone else who'll listen -- to boycott it, as well.

Diabolical wrote:

If the staff even only fixes one of those two critical faults (unable to eliminate inactive team mates, all opponents start at war), then I'd consider participating in future events of this type.

Looks like Bytro agrees with me following the adjustments to the tutorial map.

Great move Devs!!

Captain Hurricane wrote:

Diabolical wrote:

. Because I care about this game, the company that puts it out, and the community that plays it,

Diabolical wrote:

However, until they do, I will boycott this map type...as well as ALL team games...and I will encourage all other players with whom I'm associated -- and anyone else who'll listen -- to boycott it, as well.

This contradiction speaks volumes about your attitude, it would appear petulant to put it politely.

Diabolical wrote:

If the staff even only fixes one of those two critical faults (unable to eliminate inactive team mates, all opponents start at war), then I'd consider participating in future events of this type.

You have a very aggrandised view of your importance in the COW community methinks.

Captain Hurricane wrote:

Looks like Bytro agrees with me following the adjustments to the tutorial map.

Diabolical wrote:

Yes, I do. And not without good cause. Many of my ideas and suggestions have been adopted into this game, over the years. I am a software engineer, a gamer, and a genius strategist. My ideas have merit and the staff realizes this. I have a natural insight to this game on many levels and, though not all my ideas are popular to the community, the developers can weed out the less-popular ones but view my ideas in a fairly-unbiased way and are able to pick apart which of my ideas can be good to implement.

Diabolical wrote:

...continued from last post...

OK, so let's suppose you join a new match, but you want the best starting conditions for an extra boost. Even I can realize that an early boost will help, despite my espousement of the idea of a long term master plan of action. So, if a person were to join a match with nation-choosing, and they see that the nation(s) they want are already taken, they might grab another "less-ideal" choice, but then regret it because they see they are surrounded by other players are either already making a play at their lands, or perhaps they've already joined together in a coalition and you know you're going to get squeezed out.

Maybe instead, you join a new match, and you even get a nation you want to play, or maybe you don't even care which nation you start with. But after a couple days, you are already overwhelmed by a gold-spamming neighbor, or even just a neighbor who -- like me -- is highly aggressive and you are already facing certain doom. Of course, some players are just going to quit rather than playing out that nightmarish scenario. Some few will spend a bunch of their own gold to try to counter this. And some will stick it out, maybe trying to gather allies and/or use diplomacy to save themselves.

My point is that the size of your starting armies is not going to be a main reason to quit. The size of someone else's starting army (after they've buffed themselves up with copious amounts of gold) might make them quit, though, but that's the inverse of the problem that is being discussed here. "It's not you, it's me."

So, to sum up, there are many reasons why people quit and the reason being discussed, though it is a reason, it's not the reason. Some new players want action, not strategy. Some players want only the nations they want. Some players don't have much of an army (the point at hand). Some players are surrounded by pre-existent allies. Some players are surrounded by aggressive uber players like me. Some players have gold-spamming neighbors.

And, finally, some players have another factor that hasn't been discussed yet. Life. Often times -- and this affects even me -- life gets in the way. Perhaps you started a match. It's not particularly fantastic for you, but it's not bad either. Maybe you started in a reasonably-good situation. Maybe you have a couple allies. Maybe even there's no spamming golders next to you. Maybe even you used a little gold to give yourself a starting boost to tech or a couple extra factories.

Yet, despite all that, something happens, or you get busy, things change, or maybe even just another match "heats up". Life gets in the way and you wind up ignoring or even abandoning a match....or many matches.

On the list of reasons why people abandon matches....prematurely....I'd have to say that a lack of starting forces is far down that list.