Voice in the desert

[isolde]

Riiiight, how to say it better, its something we all talk about but never actually changes. The game. The admins. The apathy. The fact that all our opinions or problems or suggestion matter not ONE BIT.

I always said I really love this game. Not because it is the first and only online game I am and probably will ever play, but because it is Bulgarian and I am very proud that my countrymen could put together such a great game. I have had great times in this game and met great people and it means a lot to me, honestly. That is why I would like to see it become truly an international game, not a BG game. But I guess it will never be  .

I just read a post in bugs by some poor guy who posted months ago that he had 2 provinces 8. He of course couldnt use one of them but kept on playing for 2 months until he got -5million in gold and couldnt build anymore. The problem was brought to the admin's attention, in mod area no doubt but did anyone DO anything about it. Write at least a post on the forum to say - we are working on it. I am sure this was easily correctable by a single click of a button but I guess this guy was not important enough.

Why are so many of the moderators quitting? Is it just because of lack of time or because they realize that they cant actually do ANYTHING about the game? Yes, Hiske, be optimistic. Post problems, do lists, believe that they hired more people. Sooner or later your patience will be exhausted too and you will realize that this game is simply played the bulgarian way. And in Bulgaria unfortunately the term 'customer service' is not yet known, let alone practiced.

Tell me, when was the last time that the admins listen to what players on forum said? How many suggestion about alliance ranking and what not have some of you written? How many bugs have you pointed out that actually got fixed? How many times did you actually even receive a response or solution to a problem you had ? WHY, I ask you ? Why the attitude - 'this is my game, I will do whatever I like' Why the total ignorance of players opinion about anything to do with the game - arent WE the once who actually play it ?

Another thing that severely bothers me - changes. From time to time you get these posts like 'online status removed', 'no fixed era length', '6hrs offline removed'. Whoahoa, there. Why ? What for ? What do you intend to accomplish with this? Will you care to explain or just declare it like - I dont give a f..., if you wanna play these are the rules. I mean did you do the change with any idea to influence the game in some direction or is it a change just to change something? I wonder how to play every era, because something will surely get changed like halfway into the era and screw up any tactic I might have chosen. Is there no way to actually ask players what they think about BEFORE implementing such changes.

I know this post will have NO EFFECT whatsoever. I dont know why I even write it. I just get angry sometimes because I have seen a lot of my friends quit the game because of the admins indifference. Like last era when Alcuzza (Jack)'s entire army disappeared thanks to a bug and he never got it back. That would discourage ANYONE from playing, but does one player make a difference? Probably not to the admins, but I think it SHOULD. Not just because players deserve respect as customers but also because this game is FOR the players. I am sure it is just as dear to the creators and they wouldnt want it to go down just because people become disappointed from their lack of caring.

And lastly - this is not a call for revolution. We have nothing to revolt against or rather nothing to achieve by revolt. We CAN do nothing. The mods CAN do nothing. We can just hope that players will receive more say in where this game goes. And that totally depends on the admin's good will. Or they can just choose to keep their line and ignore this post. You know well, how it goes, every miracle lasts only 3 days, this post will be long gone and forgotten. I just wish the game lasts longer.

[k_mihai]

i agree somehow. usually gamers repair bugs in months, here, there are bugs in years (the bank loan, for example). alliance rankings doesn`t stimulates many interesting wars. now, there are too many realms also, which can affect the quality, since probably good players are spread around. 

i like the no online stat, in some degree, because it makes attacks more interesting

[Naylrod]

i like the no online stat, in some degree, because it makes attacks more interesting

Best thing that ever happend!

[Hiske]

Thank you for this great post, Isolde 

I know a lot of players share these feelings... I share them too in a way... I'm being optimistic all the time because I believe that it's the only way to not only achieve something, but also to stay as a mod... don't think I never have this feeling... don't think I'm never getting pissed off... I just prefer not to show that openly on the forum... because I think no one gains anything from that... The one thing for me that should be changed is the communication... it has to improve... this is what I wrote in mod-area a couple of weeks ago:

I've been a mod for quite some time now and I have contact with a lot of people in IO. I've seen in the past year that IO is expanding and that is of course good cause we all want to make IO the most popular game in the world! (because it's the best game! hehe!) Communication is very important for players and for mods and it has to improve. A lot of players and mods are not happy with the lack of communication and I think it's quite easy to improve this. In the last months I was quite happy that I was able to communicate with the IO-team via msn/icq because on the forum the communication was never like it should be.

What I really don't understand is why I keep telling everyone in the last week that the whole team is on vacation and therefore we can't communicate with them and when I login on saturday-morning I see some drastic changes in the inlog-screen... I open the forum and see a lot of messages in my inbox about these changes... and no explanation from the team at all... it's kinda annoying to not be able to explain anything... it's so easy to just write 1 post in mod-area about the changes and why they have been made so the mods can explain this to the players... I seriously don't understand why that's not happening! I didn't even know if it was a bug or not! If someone would've written about the experimenting at least we would've been warned that there will be some changes and at least we would know it's on purpose...

I don't want to complain and I don't like to whine (seriously ) but I'd really really like to ask you guys to improve the communication especially when there are changes... I can't be a mod if I don't know what's going on; I don't want to be just a 'complain-department' for the players... Of course I don't need to know exactly what's happening; but just tell us that you guys are experimenting with the login-screen... it's so easy to write a post about that...

There are a lot of things that need to be changed; and I sincerely hope the creators of this wonderful game will understand that while the game is expanding; things need to change... and yes, I'm confident that things will change... I mean; if I don't believe in that anymore; there's absolutely no use for me to stay as a mod... and seriously; some things have improved in the last weeks... admins are discussing some important changes with mods in mod-area (for example alliance-system, alliance-ranking, 6-hr rule, attack rules...)

So I'm confident, and I will do my very best to be a 'pest' because I love this game...

[nasio]

jsut as curiosity ,why adm don t reply some serious bugs and keep this mission to mods which make them little bit  untrustable ,if things cannot be solved it is easy to say we can t solve it but kep promising is not a good way  to make players calm,,we are not in a political campaign,or in an election to promise always ,even if we are the adm should be with all players to show them that they care 

[k_mihai]

yes, for example, about those hacking accounts complaints, mods can`t do anything, since security is always an admin concern

[Nebthe]

jsut as curiosity ,why adm don t reply some serious bugs and keep this mission to mods which make them little bit  untrustable ,if things cannot be solved it is easy to say we can t solve it but kep promising is not a good way  to make players calm,,we are not in a political campaign,or in an election to promise always ,even if we are the adm should be with all players to show them that they care 

That's because it's quite hard to keep up with the entire forum while you have something else to do throw the day. Just don't open the forum 2 days in a row and then try to update yourself with everything that happened and you will see.

Above that, many questions and bugs can answered by moderators so it's kinda waste of time for admins to watch the forum and answer questions like "help, my 864 trebs aren't attacking with 1000 spears!!".....

[nasio]

That's because it's quite hard to keep up with the entire forum while you have something else to do throw the day. Just don't open the forum 2 days in a row and then try to update yourself with everything that happened and you will see.

Above that, many questions and bugs can answered by moderators so it's kinda waste of time for admins to watch the forum and answer questions like "help, my 864 trebs aren't attacking with 1000 spears!!".....

my dear nebthe,,from my post i asked to reply for serious unsolvable bugs and not for every sgl questions

[Nebthe]

In order for admins to answer themselves the serious bugs, they need to scroll and read all topics and posts. We make their work easier by resuming the important stuff and reporting it to them. Just try to count the posts about the recent stop of resources! I'm still finding those and locking them up and that happened when? 2-3 weeks ago?? This is why moderators exist, to report to admins problems that occur and to reply to those who asked the minute we find out admins' opinion/solution....

[k_mihai]

hmm, nasio, neb is right here

but anyway, there were a lot of bugs in the last 2-3 months (armies stopped several times, armies doubled, server stopped, resources bugs) or worse (some hacked accounts). those posts about trebs are in smth different though

btw, i wasn`t in the forum for 3 days and i just marked 90% of posts as unread (but i`m not a mod, so i can do that)

[nasio]

i repeat my words again,,the unsolvable bugs which means whem u reply to all questions and one or two bugs cannot be fixed ,,let them reply only for those two bugs after that u inform them about it and sure not them reading all the topics

and i know it is hard to read all posts especially with our spamming ,,but we inform about bugs ,,mods discuss it and inform adm,,they fix it ,

but as u all know in the field of business ,customers always like to sign finally with the managers and not the representatives cz it will make them feel better,(one of the rules of customer satisfaction) and in this case we will have 95 % who will support u all  in this game and in the forum and not much complaining 

[k_mihai]

well, i still think mods are necessary, since, for example, if admins are working on new games, is difficult to interact too much with forum users (decentralization is also good).

but coming back to changes. imagine what will happen if they remove the 6h rule. i don`t think that now they catch more than 10-20% of cheaters (and those are mostly players who attack each other and share the same IP...). probably, many people will just babisit unpunished during wars (a disaster more in no online realms...).

or, like in R25, allowing attacks in 5x point range. here, imagine a farmer with 500 k points, huge army, high tactics, huge honor (solved in 3-4 battles), attacking a 110 k player. it doesn`t matter if they put a bigger penalty on morale, the game will still be unbalanced   

or, alliance system, if they will do it like in GIO, with no rewards for military points scored in wars, we will regret even the current one...

[Rake]

@ Isolde - well my dear, you are not the first and wont be the last stating this same opinion. I have made serious threads about this I have seen much more and you are totally right. Administration doesnt gives a f*** for what we think. but I must congractulate you... its the first time that a bulgarian talks like this. many of you think I am dick head cause of what I say, but mostly what I say is what I think but as when I tryed to be serious no one cared about, now, I like to make fun and to be rude...  at least that way ppl will read it and soon spam the whole thread. 

about the game... I am sorry to say, but it isnt that good. I know other game like IO and its alot better and far more complex. you can take a look at travian and no, I dont play it, I dont have the pacience to play 10 games as some of you probably do.  but this is not the point.

as you sure know, I have many times criticized administration for several times.

- when I was hacked, nothing happened.
- when I was banned due to insulting a player and I was insulted back and he wasnt banned. (caue yes, I sayed he was a turk piece of shit, and he only sayed I should fuck mynaroon's ass and he would fuck my mom or something like that)
-ah... very important, when I draw a fortress lvl 7 for IO. I actually pmed Xaoc and Krum about it, and they never even bothered to say: we are interested or we are not interested. I spent many hours working on that. lordrogue knew it, but he is no longer here, repr knew it too, hiske. NOT EVEN A REPLY!!!

I have seen many ppl giving opinions trying to help, no one cares... and they will never care. soon all good players will leave the game, then only Bgs will play it. the forum is no longer funny as it was, soon all of us will go away and the game will die. new games are apearing, always better and better. this game has no changes for looooong time, many bugs, and an administration that dont cares about it. cause if they cared about the game, they would treat players differently.

one little question to end:
how many elite players (that pay to play) have left the game in the past 3 months??? think about it!

[nasio]

you are right mihai,,,but adm are not necessarly the programmers who make the software changes for this game ,so they can give us some of their times at least per week,,for example,xaoc answered some bugs lately which is good,it means they can have a few minutes per week

[Rake]

That's because it's quite hard to keep up with the entire forum while you have something else to do throw the day. Just don't open the forum 2 days in a row and then try to update yourself with everything that happened and you will see.

Above that, many questions and bugs can answered by moderators so it's kinda waste of time for admins to watch the forum and answer questions like "help, my 864 trebs aren't attacking with 1000 spears!!".....

thats something you have to quickly change. it should be better if a message explaining why that wont happen. remember my post about the IO formula? why no one from adminstration changed the the ingame information? is it so hard? cmmon... I think the game diservers more respect then that... and obviouslly us too!