Duel Game Beta Feedback

[unclemike]

How did this thread turn into a freedom of speech converse?

Developer says, "There's other commitments that have to be considered so may not be able to accommodate everyone's wishes for the game."

Player(s) say, "We want our voice heard and our demands met or we'll leave (or at least not play as many games)."

Huh?

All of this makes me feel that I shouldn't have done the extra effort in making this new variant available. Certainly wasn't worth the response that we've received so far...if you think all of this was decent feedback on the subject...

[HeadHoncho]

You either aren't hearing us or aren't understanding us, in my opinion.

I obviously think we are offering helpful feedback, or else we wouldn't have offered it.

As to the projects you choose, if your answer is here's a project, take it or leave it, then I submit to you that you have indeed decided to embark on a high-risk (in terms of possible wasted time) endeavor.

[Atuan]

QUick Feedback on myself the NO vs LT the UN.

I am enjoying the M W F turn schedule. The ability to quickly run through the turns is a huge boost. Thankfully as the Nomad my winter was slowed due to having an oasis. I was able to find most of his PCs quickly due to my movement and having groups in his region. This really should be changed "When you have time" as it will enable a more drawn out game and lessen a fast start military kingdom advantage. Overall the game is enjoyable, less time to procure artifacts and no real time to build up and have a later war impact. I don't see much point in raising wizards more than the need for sleeps and wards but someone will point out some other fun item. I just see these contests ending by turn 12 at the latest. Though the contest between JF and I will likely prove different as we will end up swapping regions it seems.

The fast pace no surprise attacks do make for an interesting approach. I would say that some of the turn 4 limits should be turned off for this style of contest. (IE conceal emissary, companion recruiting, etc.)

I took the approach to win by diplomats and dealing with the constant pressure of sleeps and early kidnaps has been a test for the kingdom mostly using my groups to find PCs, while using my wizards and priestess to ward my emissaries. I do happen to have a group at his hidden capital and this could net me a couple of prisoners. I will say this format does not give the benefits a hidden capital really should. I would go so far as to say that the programming for hidden capitals should be such that they can touch another PC. As it stands now you guess to about 1 of 3 places where it would be after all the other PC locations are determined. Which makes the hidden capital not the benefit expected.

Hope this helps.

[Ry Vor]

Starting with Tark, I don't disagree.  But players have to hear our constraints.  We are not doing all asked not because we are evil, it is a reality.  Uncle Mike needs to make almost all of his income elsewhere.  I, having chosen to do Alamaze instead of working for a company again, have accepted very low income.  I know, players are paying more for Alamaze than they would for other games, but there aren't that many players. 

Gray Mouser is in a Duel of Elves vs. Dwarves.  Could go either way here on Turn 9.  I think it an interesting matchup of kingdoms.

Going forward, I believe we wil offer Duel.  One concept is you may only play a kingdom once, until you have played twelve.  So you have your one shot at the, say Red Dragons, and then a time to wait.  So should add excitement to each contest.

We will probably start Duel games next week.  At this point still thinking $11.95 for a game, no service slot, but it has to be set up manually.  We might have $99.95 for ten games prepaid, but not sure about that. 

[unclemike]

As to the projects you choose, if your answer is here's a project, take it or leave it, then I submit to you that you have indeed decided to embark on a high-risk (in terms of possible wasted time) endeavor.

Love that sentence! For some reason, you think that you can control things that are actually beyond your control. Consider the following and perhaps you won't be so arrogant if we don't do what you say.

After a business releases a new version of their product, an important goal is to attract more customers especially if the current base is a bit anemic to sustain the business. One way to accomplish this is to promote an aggressive advertising campaign (such as advertisements in Dragon magazine among others) to get the word out that Alamaze is back and better than ever. Couldn't really do that before but 3rd Cycle is brand new with a user-friendly website so the time is now!

Success in the past has shown that this may result in an additional 1000 players but can our system currently handle that number? Just the game signup process alone will take about 10 minutes per game when considering that the GM has to collect the user/password, billing, and other information from 12 new players. So that's 6 games per hour or 60 per 10 hour work day. Creating 60 games won't even come close to creating 1000 so we need to automate our game creation/billing process before the business may expand and advertise for more customers.

Furthermore, new players who are interested in fantasy/strategy games may want to try Alamaze but don't really know what to do when they start a game so we need a solo/tutorial version before they may dive into a real game. That's another delay in starting the advertisement campaign.

So the owner of a business has to assign priorities on what will advance the company at a greater level: (1) placate the current/few players who want more for a few extra dollars, or (2) do what is necessary to promote the business and become more successful with a healthy player base that will last longer than a month's duration.

That doesn't seem very complicated to me, how about you? So don't feel sad if you don't always get what you want all the time. There are other goals and commitments that have to be considered in order to expand the business to be successful as well as possibly launch other gaming products during the year.

[HeadHoncho]

Love that sentence! For some reason, you think that you can control things that are actually beyond your control. Consider the following and perhaps you won't be so arrogant if we don't do what you say.

Tsk tsk, UM, calling me arrogant is definitely a personal attack. Will you receive a warning now?

I related a general truism: if you present a take it or leave it offering, there is a very real chance the answer will be to leave it, and thus you have wasted your time. That is a reality, that is a fact.

And pointing that fact out is not arrogance, it is a humble attempt to present the truth.

The rest of your post is arguing against a straw man and bears no resemblance to anything I said, and so I will decline to respond to it.

[Ry Vor]

Tsk tsk, UM, calling me arrogant is a personal attack. Will you receive a warning now?

I related a general truism: if you present a take it or leave it offering, there is a very real chance the answer will be to leave it, and thus you have wasted your time. That is a reality, that is a fact.

And pointing that fact out is not arrogance, it is a humble attempt to present the truth.

I don't know.  I think there is sort of a waiting in the weeds mentality that I don't get.  Duel should  be a fun "throw it out there" variant.  I'm surprised about the criticism, to be honest.  Yes, when we ask for feedback, it is on the game proposed, not a game with six player suggested alternatives - we weren't asking for that.   So we are wrong to have offered this 2 player game? 

As said, we have a small community, and so there is not a lot of money coming in.  I guess we feel it on both sides: our players pay, but we don't really see it on our side.  And what generally motivates your humble staff is just a post that says something like, hey, that 3rd Cycle change was fantastic!  I guess that's a bridge too far. 

As always, point me to the example I should be following.

[Lord Diamond]

3rd Cycle is fantastic. I am able to do my turns much quicker now and I get excited about every single turn. I am very pleased with the game.

3rd Cyle Duel is great. Some minor changes (compared to the effort already spent) could make it fantastic. It holds great potential to bring in new players and to teach thm the game while giving the rest of us a really cool option. I like that I can use it to get a few more games in eavh week, but at a low cost and low pressure to perform. Maybe I can use the format to try some stuff out that I wouldn't do in a normal game. I have a strong feeling that, despite all the push back, some of our suggestions will end up getting implemented when the game proves to be popular.

I agree that game seriously needs an automated payment system and game creation system. Fall of Rome had a great system and I think it can be done better. As a game admin I could create a custom game in five minutes with FoR and the system could do basic games automatically. That would be excellent.

I regret that any of this got heated. It could easily have been avoided by a few "Thank you for your suggestions. We will take them under consideration. Your feedback is important to us." replies. The funny thing is that you don't really even disagree with what we have said. You just resent that we had the nerve to say anything at all. I keep telling myself that I will stop trying to convince you and then I find myself doing it again.... Maybe we are two sides if the same coin...

[Atuan]

Its basically the initial approach.

Had you said to the original feedback something to the effect of "loving the feedback, keep it coming as we want to make the best game possible. However some of the changes you are asking for will take awhile to code out. Would people be willing to play the game as is currently stands or should we put it in storage and pull it out when we have had a chance to update with the requested changes." The reaction would have been vastly different.

Your player base wouldn't bother to give you feedback if they didn't enjoy the game, the 3rd cycle is a success and the proof of that is how quickly people's slots were filled and how many people moved up a level in subscription. If you want a textual kudos on the 3rd cycle, well here goes. "Rick and Mike the 3rd cycle rocks, thanks for the time and effort put into it."

However, as it stands now You/UM take feedback as an offense to your skills as a developer, game designer, or all around nice guy. The reality is no one knows everything and the more input gathered the better the game will be. We the player base are your game testers and you should value the input from your testers. Yes not all of the input will be realistic to implement or sometimes even valuable but having read through some of the old threads a decent amount of the suggestions ended up implemented at a later date.

[Ry Vor]

Its basically the initial approach.  

Had you said to the original feedback something to the effect of  "loving the feedback, keep it coming as we want to make the best game possible.  However some of the changes you are asking for will take awhile to code out.  Would people be willing to play the game as is currently stands or should we put it in storage and pull it out when we have had a chance to update with the requested changes."  The reaction would have been vastly different.  

Your player base wouldn't bother to give you feedback if they didn't enjoy the game, the 3rd cycle is a success and the proof of that is how quickly people's slots were filled and how many people moved up a level in subscription.  If you want a textual kudos on the 3rd cycle, well here goes.  "Rick and Mike the 3rd cycle rocks, thanks for the time and effort put into it."

However, as it stands now You/UM take feedback as an offense to your skills as a developer, game designer, or all around nice guy.  The reality is no one knows everything and the more input gathered the better the game will be.  We the player base are your game testers and you should value the input from your testers.  Yes not all of the input will be realistic to implement or sometimes even valuable but having read through some of the old threads a decent amount of the suggestions ended up implemented at a later date.

To summarize: I don't get why people try to tell me what I should do.  Did I ask for that?  Do I tell others what they should do?  Do people telling me what I should do tell their wives, or service companies, etc, what they should do?  This is just weird space.  I was asking for feedback on the current Duel games, not for design ideas. I think both of us are getting frustrated on what a beta is and how to move forward.