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Coltaine Blackwing View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Coltaine Blackwing Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2014 at 08:43
Are there even enough active players left in the game for alliance size to be an issue?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Marquesta Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2014 at 08:39
I personally cannot imagine running ITG with 600 newbies. The thought actually makes me a bit ill! For my part 60 or 70 new players at once (not counting our more permanent members) is plenty. We sometimes have a hard time keeping up with resource requests as it is. I know this isn't something a lot of the alliances deal with, but even then, I agree with Rill, I think you'd get a lot of leardership burnouts. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nokigon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2014 at 08:29
On the alliance front, 100 players is a good limit. If we have alliances with 600 people, it will lead to even big numbers of permasats.

As for bugs or content....

BUGS. For a start, we need counterclaiming sov back. For another, the flaws in the sov system needs to be ironed out. The Devs know what's wrong better than I do, but I am in complete favour of fixing the bugs before the new content is released.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ander Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2014 at 06:44
Originally posted by GM Stormcrow GM Stormcrow wrote:

 
On the alliance front; I'd love to get feedback on this from you guys.  Is there a big difference between having 6 alliances of 100 players, or 1 alliance of 600 players?  I understand that it might make communications a bit more difficult etc, but that seems like a kinda artificial constraint.  Is there a good reason why we shouldn't raise the cap on alliances (in AoA, or indeed in Illy).  I'd love to hear thoughts on this.

Hi SC,
It makes a big difference in tournaments. If the biggest alliance consists of 600 players and the second biggest consists of less than 150 players, there will be no challenge at all.

Even if the second biggest alliance consists of 500 players, it leaves little for others to compete. 
With the alliance cap removed, players will move en masse into larger alliances for tournaments. 

Alliances with that kind of numbers will also make the small alliances such as ours (with just 31 players) completely insignificant in terms of strength.

Having several alliances makes a more colourful political environment than one or two with just hundreds of players.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (2) Thanks(2)   Quote abstractdream Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2014 at 03:46
First I want to say I am interested in a space based game with the same sort of play style as Illy, absolutely. I'm in.

Next, I want to address the complaints about new Illy content vs. bug fixes. Bugs are, at best annoying and when they crop up have often hindered enjoyable game play. There have been many instances in which a bug has made the difference in a battle and I believe have turned a war more than once. New content will inevitably bring new bugs. This game (Illy) is great right now and will sustain itself for a long time to come without the benefit of new content.

As for tournaments, they are all fine and dandy but seriously, only large alliances (in alliance tournies) or large players (in player tournies) have any shot at showing, much less placing or winning. I believe most players don't partisipate at all. Many of those that do only do so because their alliance leaders urge them too. Tournaments are only missed by a vocal minority of long term players who dislike war. I get that but I don't think it should be a major concern nor a priority.

The promise of TBL was a mistake, and given the continuous Dev stance of "Soon", it seems like it should have been a no-brainer... "sometime in 2013" probably looked like it was doable but... well, as they say about 20/20 and so forth.

Personally, I am happy with Illy as it stands but I am glad to hear that AoA development will speed up development in Illy. I have been anticipating Pathfinding and Battle Magik among other promised content. I do hope AoA will help with that.

Finally, alliance limits should not be messed with. In my opinion, Rill pointed out the major issue, that being a communication system. Robust chat and mail are a must right now. It is just nearly impossible, time wise to juggle an alliance's membership with the system as it stands. My alliance peaked at around 50. I can't imagine the difficulty I would have keeping communication going with 100 members. 600? Just, no. If an alliance cares to grow beyond the limits, there are external tools that can be (and are) used to do that. In game, I just don't see the point. Confederations do that already.

Edited by abstractdream - 09 Mar 2014 at 03:50
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Malek Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2014 at 03:11
Originally posted by GM Stormcrow GM Stormcrow wrote:

Originally posted by asasama asasama wrote:

After listening to this livechat, I think that you guys have a lot of really good ideas for AoA.  I understand that systems developed for AoA can be co-opted to enhance illy, but my concern is about the timeline of these releases.  You are about to go into an alpha for AoA and launch a kickstarter in order to finance the majority of the game.  If the funding comes through, you'll have at least a year (and probably more) of development before AoA can be completed.  After that these systems need to be adapted into illy which will also take time.  In illy we've already gone near a year without a tournament and longer without a major content update.  I know you won't comment on exactly when new content is coming to illy, but from today's interview I can only conclude that we will have more of the same for years to come.  We play this game because we love it, but if we aren't thrown a bone once in a while I really fear for the future of illy.  

I get this, asasama, I truly do.

atm we're fixing things in illy, and working on AoA at the same time.  

If the funding comes through we can hire more people to work on AoA things (which are largely also illy things).  I don't think you should look at things linearly, however.  Whilst I'm extremely conscious of not wanting illy to become a "testing ground", if there's (eg) a proven, robust, scalable, cloud-based crafting system built for AoA that's ready to go, we can port the data across and it can go in illy before the rest of AoA is completed.

SC

Illy is what made AoA possible, am I correct in saying this? Illy is already established and has a nice steady cashflow for you, why jeopardise that, you may be passionate about AoA, though if you let illy fall into a state of disrepair your cashflow will dry up. People will only buy a product if they get a perceived benefit out of it. 

Why dont you do a kickstarter for illy, you have the stakeholders that play illy that want to see it flourish and develop. Get the income increased for illy where you can hire more people for illy and you can concentrate on AoA with oversight on the work undertaken/completed on illy.

Set goals for target funding, we reach the dollar goal, you hire someone or work on a specified update illustrated in the kickstarter goals. The rewards for assisting can be newly created special units or something else that could be better than that. If all you have to do is tell someone what is needed and then review their work and test it where ever you test things it should speed up the process significantly.  Get the community to work for you and to assist you, Illy is a great game it's slow pace is what has kept me playing and interested. 

Another solution to the PR issue that is happening is to further use the current players by stating that some of them can get early access to BL and to write about it in a forum where they can tell us their perspective their experiences, when it comes live everything is reset. In other words, exploit the player base to do some of the work for you not only will they love it and the other players will, it will also free up some time for you guys as well. 

The lack of communication has been increasingly frustrating, though from the comments made by SC it appears that the dev's are hopefully listening and steering the ship back on course.  

And that's my 2cents,
Malek
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Daefis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2014 at 02:21
Sorry GMStormcrow but  war or no war the last tourney was nearly a year ago. And the fact that there's a war going on should be irrelevant in a sandbox. Current events shouldn't be an excuse to not deliver anything? a year is far too long..... As for anything new believe me we're expectant.....
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote GM Stormcrow Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2014 at 02:02
Originally posted by Daefis Daefis wrote:

Says a lot sadly....Is anything new happening in Illy?

Sure, there's been a massive war that may or may not be winding up (I don't follow the actual ins and outs very closely, but I've read a huge amount in the forum about the war), with alliances and players doing all sorts of great things that make me proud of the sandbox game we've developed that allows these awesome player interactions to happen.

Illy continues on.  

If you specifically mean "are we releasing any new code right now?" then I think you should prepare (as we do every day) to receive very conflicting (and passionately delivered) advice on whether we should:

a) fix some of the bugs that are currently out there ingame and affect people who are playing the game, versus
b) releasing new stuff that, whilst cool, will probably introduce more bugs that we weren't expecting and aren't prepared to handle atm

It's just that there are competing goals and different priorities (on everything, even within illy, let alone AoA) and we have to assign resource where it's most effective.  The development of some systems, independently funded by AoA backing, that will massively benefit illy is, in my opinion, a good use of resource to benefit both games.  Others may disagree, and that's absolutely your prerogative to do so.

Best,

SC

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Daefis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2014 at 01:51
Originally posted by GM Stormcrow GM Stormcrow wrote:

Originally posted by Daefis Daefis wrote:

Thanks for the response but I think you're alienating a huge number of current and by default future AoA players by not addressing the current problems in Illy. Simple question... When is broken lands happening? or many of the previously just around the corner upgrades.

Hi Daefis,

Think it would be helpful (possibly to you more than me) if you could mentally separate and practically catalog the "....current problems in Illy" from new things as-yet-unreleased such as the Broken Lands and upgrades.

These are very different things with very different priorities.

Best,

SC

Says a lot sadly....Is anything new happening in Illy?

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Rill Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2014 at 01:42
Personally I'm not in favor of larger alliances, unless you give us some more tools to manage them better -- such as the ability to cc mails to select people; now we have the choice between sending to a whole alliance or manually forwarding it to 20 people.  Even then I would be at most ambivalent.

Leading an alliance of 100 people already takes hard work and dedication, and can often lead to burnout.  Leading an alliance of 600 people would be a more than full-time job.  I think you'd see a much higher churn rate of the people who are usually your most dedicated players -- the folks who choose to lead alliances.

I would MUCH rather see multiple user-controlled chat rooms.  This would obviously require more programming work than just lifting the limit on alliance members, but would be a more useful and interesting change -- and could accomplish something similar for the mega-confederations if there were multiple people allowed in chats.

Out of the many recurring suggestions I've seen on the forum "let us make bigger alliances" has rarely or possibly never been among them.
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