It stil has 3,5K players.....


Like wtf.

What did we do wrong?

Well, they had a bigger player base from pretty close to their beginning. Also on the surface it was a more complicated game, more thought out, far more regularly updated and supported. Most of all the social aspect of it was supported ingame. So once people were in it was easier to get them in deep.

Earth's only real trump card was the public market.

The frequent updates and changes were a huge plus in my opinion.

hmmm

da fuq

Just made an account pretty active not to mention solid social setup. Ingame chats for kingdoms(clans) the whole shebang

And new owners investing time..... maybe we Should bring ee to their attention?

"We took over stewardship of Utopia from OMAC/Jolt in early 2009. After they acquired both Earth:2025 and Utopia from their original creator, Mehul Patel, OMAC found both pieces of software difficult to operate, and shut down Earth:2025. Although it was too late for Earth, we were drawn to the deep complexity and unique social fabric of Utopia. We did a deal to take control of Utopia and relaunch it with new code that would serve as a foundation for future development. Rewriting everything from scratch, while attempting to perfectly emulate the original game logic"

bonus, Garry Owen ........

I left that cesspool after I tried it for 1 week back in 99. fluffin roleplaying faires

The are soooo lame.

Nerds. How can they spend time there....bah!

lol @ Makinso being the one to say "what happened to the game??" :p

you were here presiding over one of the major clans during the steepest decline! what happened to your memory??

all our engagement and revenue metrics are actually up for 2016, so I don't know what to tell you :)

The biggest problem in this game was, and continues to be, the ability for a long period of work to be erased in seconds/minutes. That's how we lost casuals and the community kept devouring itself with that mindset. It was a race to the bottom and it's why servers like Alliance have shrunk. The time-based vs turn-based nature of Utopia is more akin to how modern games went but we kept EE classic because the community wanted Earth to be Earth and not something different.

Anyway, comparing Utopia to Earth is basically apples to oranges; enjoy Earth for what it is if that's the kind of game you like. This game was an important part of my life many years ago so I'll help to keep it going as long as there is demand for it. Everyone who has been involved with running EE feels the same way!

As long as it keeps paying Pang a 12 pack of beer a week!

and qz's gf gets her loubotins.

And also to Mak - Utopia was always more populated than Earth (to the best of my knowledge). It was also more complicated and supported by the original creator Mehul. Jolt even put way more into Utopia than Earth.

This game we now play is a copy of the original game (with improvements) so it lost some of its credibility from a originality standpoint. I think most former Earth players came here but it would be hard to tell how many people we missed out on due to it not being the original?

Anyway there is also the toxic player base coupled with, as pang said, the ability to erase a lot of work in just a few seconds. Keep in mind we are all responsible for this environment (clan leaders) as well as all the admins (pang and co). No one is above responsibility, to some degree.

One problem, which I was reminded of this set, was the fact that kill runs are too fast if there is enough people on because even with txt notification and smart phones I was still too slow to wall! Back in the day on dial up internet that gave you a buffer of time to get on lol! Anyway I'm not trying to brainstorm solutions just something that is lame currently.

So basically:
1. A not so fun game
2. Not an original game
3. Too easy to grief people/ waste time of players
4. Toxic clans (leaderships) that lead to toxic environments
5. We grew up, a lot of us were 10+ years old when we first played!

Most of us are still 10+ years old

mentally.

I was reading a bio on Mehul the other day. All about the games he invented and his coffee shop and whatnot. Earth was basically a footnote. Actually listed something like "Mehul also had a few less successful games such as Earth 2025" haha.

I think Earth 🌏 had so much more potential, too bad he didnt see it that way.

outside creating usermanaged/council and fluffing up labs last major change to earth was troops usage of oil?

But yes, in this game, the killing aspect has been and will always be sort of frustrating and hilarious.

If someone came up to me and said, "hey! Wanna play this game? The goal is to build the largest country possible over a period of months and that part isnt super fun or interactive, just math and a lot of work. Then if someone decides they don't like you they can completely destroy you in a matter of seconds." I donno. I probably wouldnt start playing.

That said, that's completely the entire reason people like me still come back to it and play. I disagree that it isn't unique. It's very unique for a clan like LaF to basically get wiped from the leaderboards last set by a single member. Ive never played another game with such a fragile standing where even the individual relationships you personally build with even individual members can make a huge impact on your entire clan's quarter of a year or more.

Maki and i have never been in a clan together and never did FA at the same time. Yet I would consider him at least an acquaintance of mine. We've talked for years. The way this game is almost pushed that on me. And I sit in chat now talking to dp and holocaust as they so rudely put me to rest.

I'm here because the social aspects of earth have, and will always, surpassed the social aspects of other gaming. And all that makes earth fun is the people you play it with, not the country itself.

and that's main reason to why no facepalm port.

Its just the relationships you've made here. I played clash of clans for a while and had just as much social aspect as this game or more. In game chat and out if game chat etc. Thats a reason to play but earth doesn't do anything special that anynother game doesn't. Even in console games you have voice communication so it can be argued.

Yeah, but you can limit your fluff to your clan. Earth has always forced you to interact with the entire server.

@Pang - Don't feel attacked - It was never intended as pun for you or any other admin for that matter. If it sounded or looked like that, i'm sorry.


My post was not meant as criticism but more as what can we learn from a text based game like utopia. Because the game lay-out looks ugly as fluff (far more ugly then it used to be -> we look pretty neat compared to them), it's far more complicated then earth is (i'm very sure), it also went on a hard decline last year but increased players this year after a new group took over the game....

As to countries being destroyed to zero hero in seconds.... I just watched it happen in utopia. There's no difference. The only difference is it takes a little more concentrated effort. Hell even the biggest clans / kingdoms abuse their power and meddle in wars of others etc just like here. There are some differences when it comes to warring and outside meddling etc (it's penalized).



They run in the same boat but are about 20 times our player base i'm just trying to figure out what makes the difference that's all.

I was really just confused why you don't remember being here for the decline in players and remember the structural problems with this style of game and specifically the Alliance server. I remember you being here for the duration :p

Utopia is so bad and always has been

pretty sure Earth was always an afterthought. Jolt didn't even want it.

I actually talked to one of the developers from their team and she said the code was absolute crap for Earth. Not worth salvaging and completely unmaintainable. They considered it not worth supporting/maintaining but kept it going for a while until the business case didn't make sense I guess so we should at least thank them for not pulling the plug immediately.

But that's probably the reason there was so little work done on it by Mehul or Jolt. Don't forget the game was written before the existence of what we take for granted with web/mobile development today.

The toxic netters ruined the game maybe.

I dunno, if you have old lists of emails of players try sending an email before each reset reminding people to play.

I agree Buch but not the netters. This game is actually the best representation of real life. We humans on global scale have a natural gift for self destruction ;).

Just send it

So hi (Hi Marshal =p)
I'm still playing utopia, still with the same group of people I've played with for years. Sometimes I quit for a few months or a few years, but I always get back there, mostly cuz the friends there are easy friends. There's no crazy shifting diplomacy where you're best buddies are your worst enemies all of a sudden, you're never worried if your new player is actually a cheater trying to screw your group over, etc. Once your friends, you're friends and you will hardly ever find a disagreement big enough to break ties over. The dynamics between people are just completely different, and really, it's tame (and lame) over there, nothing like earth ever was. It used to bore the hell out of me, now it means I can play my game without any of the drama and moaning I'd have if I played here. Most utopians are complete idiots by now too, the old guys are all bitter and sticking together in their secluded groups, and the plebz around them are 99% fluffy nublets who never learned how to play properly cuz the game sucks too much to punish them for their stupidity. Wars are mostly won by activity, not so much by strategy. Is that a good thing for the game? I doubt it.

Most of us utopians are actually quite certain the game is as good as dead. Utopia was just sold to two guys who seem to be somewhat famous ex-players, and immediately the word went all about how they are linked to 'the wrong people' which will lead the game to death even faster. Some others think it will pick up popularity. Basically the same things are said now than we used to say back when Pang and Qz took over here in earth. The ingame chat feels nice, but overall it means that it's really easy to be mediocre and semi-active. With the ingame chat, you don't have to be around at a certain time to interact with your buddies, you just read or rant when you feel like it and log out again. I feel it has not helped activity and heck, out of the 22 players we currently have, I can only connect 4 players' nicks with their provinces (countries), and whenever we get fresh blood, you never get the opportunity to really talk with them, because everything is much more disengaged through that chat feature.

As for the code, I have no background or knowledge in coding, but I can tell you that the amount of times that my attacks, or ops, fail because the code shows an 'oops something went wrong'-message is more than enough to piss any sane person off. One of the mods posted in the forums that the "Oopses" are just 'normal', whatever the hell that means. There is also the fact that now there is such a thing as downtime during a tick (the like the moment where you gain a turn). Whatever you were just doing, whether it's writing a message or training troops, if you hit enter the moment that tick happens, everything is lost and you cannot get back into the game for another minute or so. It's kind of minor, but it's annoying and with Mehul's code it was never necessary to have this. I'm sure Mehul's code was outdated, but the new(er) code had and has so many problems and idiotic bugs that I can't really call the guys who made it serious programmers. The new owners own the game for a couple weeks now and already fixed bugs that were obvious but never acknowledged (for years) by the old team.

Basically what I'm trying to say, utopia sucks too. And utopians are whining and crying about how the rest of the players are destroying the game, too. For a game that is set up the way utopia is, our 3,3k provinces are not really a whole lot. You constantly end up fighting the same nublets, and worst is, half of the time you can't even win cuz the rest of your team is mostly laid back veterans who have no interest in being super active. So as soon as you get outhit by some idiots with a terrible strategy, you already lost, cuz activity wins wars. There is no fix to our games and you all should just try to have fun instead of moan and cry about who did what.

I did forget to mention that Mehul loves utopians more than earthers. He still gives them regular email interviews, which makes us all feel very loved and fuzzy inside.

Mehul still is involved in Utopia?
Incredible

lol, no. Mehul gave up and spends his days serving lattes in texas.

Mehul would feel honored that his name is still mentioned here.

LEONI!!!!!!!!!!!! MORWIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DUTCHIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MEINE DIENSTMÄDCHEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually you can't compare Utopia with EE..

I have stopped playing both for a long time.
(i still have friends in Utopia asking me to play again...)

Total 3.5k players in utopia, i will said most of them are nubs or players playing in ghettos. like what morwen said, in laid-back kds... but if you are in those active warring kd.... your playing life is very interesting...however, it will disrupt your real life time.

The interesting part of utopia is the kd consist of a fix 25 players (max)... and you need to come with a good race/per setup if you are looking to get the War win (WW) crown. in 1 set, we can hit until about 9 WW out of 9 wars... basically, your kd war alot, you get to participate in a war every week...While in EE, we can't exactly do that, warring week after week with different alliances.

Some kds/players will go for networth (and land) crown - similar to netting in EE. some will go for WW crown.. some will go for honor crown.

Morwen @ try playing in a warring KD... it will makes your experience in utopia much more interesting, but it takes super duper lot of time. yes, some of the top warring kds used to war age after age. The good thing about utopia now (what i heard from my friends)...some of the old top alliances have disband, which means, no longer you see 1-2 same alliance owning the server age after age.
Good activity, will give ur kd higher chance of winning wars.. else, it will depends on strategy.

*waves*
Pang: at least it wasn't programmed in APL :)
I remember long ago we took bets about if this game would still be around in 2025.. it's getting scarily close to that lol:)
ps I can't believe that I've been involved with this game (or at least had an account in this game) for half my life now.

pps. SUBMIT TO fluff

another 8 years to go till 2025.

i think another difference between utopia and EE, are the modes in the games.

Utopia has only 1 server each round. they used to have 2, Battlefield, and World.

While EE have 6 different type of game modes.

Actually i think EE still have players playing, but since it have 6 different game servers with different style...
While Utopia has 1 server only...with 25 max players in each kd. thus, is kinda challenging at times when you are warring every week, just to get WW crown.

just my personal opinion.

I think there are multiple good points on here


1. The game is very aggressive, even a true pacifist group like Monsters occasionally has to fight. The politics in this game were brutal,

Survival of the Fittest is the most appropriately named alliance in the game. That's what this game is.

2. THere's nothing wrong with number 1, as long as you have a feeder base into it.


My point being, I first played in the midsized individual servers with 1500 players, where being active moved you to top 100 or 50. I played there 2-3 resets and learned basics before moving to alliance server.


There is not reason, that through facebook and other apps we couldn't create "noobie servers" to give new people a chance to learn the game, and there their account is required to play X number of sets before moving to "alliance server"

This creates a safe space for people to learn the game,
add in the proper tools to create interaction, and I think this game could flourish again.

I believe Pang and company have done a great job catering to the current community. #1.
I don't believe Pang and company have done a great job on #2.

Growth is intentional, and strategic. And I advocated for this same idea years ago, to create a safe space for noobs, to learn and foster a place for them to grow and build relationships, before being thrown to the wolves.
I hope it isn't too late to listen now.

We still have to player base to push this game out if we ever created the avenues to do so. and there are enough teenage nerds out there that would find and love this game it we got it out through the correct platforms.

lolz morwen I think I played with you few years ago before I came back to EE

drkprinc @ u play uto before? which kd?

Are we all forgetting that it was basically cheaters aka multie runners and their desire to keep doing it that killed the population of this game when it was far more popular? Even the strongest alliances tried to fight them and all got whittled down by neckbeards like Ronnie and Peanut that had no problem fluffing with people continually for months and years on end. This coupled with the permissive attitude of the administrator and the community at large to this behavior (largely because many influential people in the community were either in on it themselves or were best buddies with those who were) caused massive amounts of players to say fluff it, quit and never come back.

I tried that gameplay and they war most of the time.

Tiring

I enjoy this from morwens post;
"Wars are mostly won by activity, not so much by strategy. Is that a good thing for the game? I doubt it. "

I feel exactly the same way about EE. In netting, strategy trumps activity 99 times out of 100. Game knowledge, market knowledge and pure calculations to make your strategy.

I war there are great tactics at play for sure, but strategically it is usually 95% GS and playing a limited amount of strategies with a limited number of govts.

troops are cheaper to buy and also steal stuffs from defender, etc.