Earth Empires is struggling with players, hard.

I am of the opinion there are a few reasons for this.


1. The game lacks development, and QUALITY development. I recently started playing AstroEmpires. Here is a thread from their forum from one of their developers talking about changes for 4.0.

https://forum.astroempires.com/...opic.php?f=3&t=127541

Look around their forum a bit, you'll see they have CONSTANT development. This is important.

2. AstroEmpires aims to be new player friendly. EE does not. Look at that development thread, and some others on there. They specifically cite making changes to make the game new player friendly. That makes a huge difference.

3. Monetization (to support development) - seems better in AstroEmpires than here. I don't see a compelling reason to monetarily support this game aside from good will. In AE, it makes a HUGE difference in alliance wars. You can also 'upgrade' other people's accounts for them. And the price is reasonable for most adults. I'm sure the devs don't spend time on this game cause it doesn't make any money. Monetize it a little bit, more effectively, and put some effort into it. It has a long, storied, history. No reason it shouldn't be able to recruit players back, or new players.

4. On the topic of being newbie friendly, one thing that I think is a huge barrier to entry for this community as compared to AE is outside the game tools. I'm personally of the opinion that the IRC chat bots, the GHQ sites, etc, all create HUGE barriers for new players to come in and be competitive. Especially for new alliances. Hell, if people don't get on the forums/make connections with seasoned players, they will probably never even know that these tools exist, and how far behind they are.

And even if they do learn about the tools, getting them setup, and getting other new players to use them is another big hurdle.

I've personally run warchats without bots. It's harder. But I personally wish that's how the game was. Unpopular opinion I would imagine.

5. Time commitments. EE is not a game that requires a lot of time, which is a selling point.... Except it does. Because of the bots, walling is a requirement to play at top of the game. I've done it. It SUCKS. I hated having alerts on my phone. I don't know a solution to this, but I think it's something that drives players away. In a perfect world, I'd love to see a war that takes place over a longer period of time and the winner/losers of the war aren't mostly dependent upon who can get alerts on their phone the fastest and login to wall. Again, probably an unpopular opinion.

6. The ability to completely ruin someone's set/round/whatever. In AE you can get 100% fleet destroyed, and lose all your planets. And they are gone for 10 days max, and the longer they are occupied by the enemy, the more costly it can become for them. You can still win wars, and destroy your enemy. But it can't be done overnight, and the game afford the ability for others to 'get back in the game' even after taking a huge blow. EE is unforgiving in this regard, and again, makes it difficult for new players to continue playing after they get wrecked initially.

7. The one I've been harping on for eternity - this community is BRUTAL. Everyone is mean to everyone else. I think it'd be better for the community if the forums didn't even exist. If we don't go that route, than all posts that are even remotely insulting/aggressive toward others should be deleted. We do not look like a welcoming community, in the slightest (my posts included).



None of this may matter, nobody may care. But that's my opinion as to the issues with this game, and why it's not as popular as other text based games.


Oh, and for the record, I agree Clan GDI was a bad change. I get why it was done, but I think it does nothing to address the real issues the game has. If you addressed, or tried to address, some of the things I outlined above, Clan GDI may not be necessary.

Alright guys, it looks like we have to declare war and invade their forums. Make sure to tell them that Blackhole Sent us

BH how are the mods and developers at your new game? Do they show favoritism to a player or a group or players?

I am just asking as with the constant theme and amount of accusations that are on these boards the last few months is that there is blatant favoritism going on to cater to one select minority.

Also my other question is how do the forum moderators in your new game behave? Do they hide behind Aliases to grief players and then attack and silence those players when they do the same actions?

I ask these questions as I am just wondering if it’s worth playing something different.

I have no idea. The forums don't appear to be active in any meaningful way. I don't even know who the mods or developers are. I've never interacted with them, or seen them interact with anyone else. I've never heard anyone talk about them, positive or negative. I suppose I could look at the user name in the link I posted to the dev blog to see who the mods/developers are. But that doesn't really tell me much other than a screen name.



To answer your question more directly - obviously favoritism isn't good for a game. I think one of the reasons favoritism appears to exist here (not acknowledging it definitely does, it might simply be that the mods have the same vision as the players they seem to favor), is because of the small player base.

Also - SF, you should come check out the game. A new server starts in a week, maybe 2? Pretty soon, perfect time to jump in. The game is different, but quite fun IMO.

Where are they getting the proclaimed 2 million players from?

It is interesting to ponder what happened to Earth. First one may ask, what happened to the original Earth 2025 - and why? ( I will bet in part as swirve was a for profit model and revenue from advertising was dwindling) This was the start (well the further point there of) of the decline of Earth. Qzul and company did very well and at a point we did get into having 1k+ players.

I think a large part of the issues aside from the many things we can declare or suggest as the downfall of current player numbers, is time. 25 years later, here we are. It is a like a car they used to make but no longer do. Not so much there was a problem with that car, it just ran its course.

Who knows. I would certainly love to be playing with 1k's of players like back when E2025 first got going many moons ago though. :)

Needless to say I am always thankful for the memories and good times I have had each set both in E2025 and EE.

Oh my aching ass.

Oh I don't think AE has 2 million players. That seems like a BS number. But they certainly have thousands, plenty to make the game fun. I'm in an alliance/team of probably 100+ combined alone.

yes but when you visit the game section it is declared "2+Million Players"

They are liars!!

At least someone feels like me.

Could be closer to accounts ever created. Using that logic, Earth Empires has over 75,000 players!

Also, please don't recruit for other games on the forum. I'm leaving it because I understand that wasn't your intent here.

Sorry Prime - was just attempting to indicate why they might be having more success. I do want this game to grow again.

On #3 - it sounds like pay-to-win. I think monetization is best for superficial cosmetic things. Maybe add country banners or logos or something and charge for them, etc. I would not want any more pay-for-advantage in this game. The current system already affords you more bonus points, which is impactful to get the 100% building cost faster. Or more turns on solo servers.

It's equivalent to a few bucks a month, maybe 3? But it's important to be competitive. Its the ONLY feature though. It's not like you can just keep paying more and more to win. It's pay just a little bit to be on a level field with everyone else.

Pro's and cons for sure, but I like the way they do it.

Utopia gets most of its cash from players paying to the game dev to let one of their KD-mates take over their province for a number of hours. So you end up running 2 provinces most of the time that you are awake (assuming the activity is required).
This is a significant revenue stream and it is an alternative to cheating.
It was years since I played but back then if this feature didn't exist you wouldnt be able to win without cheating.

In Utopia, this feature was good for development(because it provided incentive to work on the game), it was good for the playerbase because of better QoL(being allowed to sleep without getting up for some wave or to do some theif ops or BS like that) and it was good for the integrity of the game because far fewer people cheated and those that did didn't gain a noticeable advantage anyway.

Not sure the same thing or a similar thing could work in EE. But for Utopia it was absolutely crucial and an excellent feature.

Thanks for taking the time to post this BlackHole. Food for thought.

Isn't the obvious reason for low player numbers is that people just aren't interested in playing a text based game where you can use spreadsheets to succeed?

fluff sounds like data processing work.

Also, the game is sort of ugly. And there's no app.

Really, is the market actually there for a game like EE?

What the fluff.. a constructive post by BH, and good judgment call by the mod, now we're moving the chains!

I do wish there was some nerd with just the right idea to get this game's player base boomed, until that happens though the gameplay mechanics within the game should be tweaked adjusted nerfed whatever you want to call iit so we can keep those new players, if ever we get them

Has the idea of a killed country resting with more of a % according to hits made been thrown out there? Maybe could help with a blind sided country getting a higher % back once restarted?

Anyways good post BH
( Hell Freezes over .. )

I don't think so, because there are other games similar to this that are doing decently well.

I like that idea Shweezy. One of the things in the.... other... game, they have started doing is adjusting how battles work so that the losing side of the battle can get back into the fight faster. And they are already leagues ahead of EE in terms of not having a set completely ruined.

They also have a newbie protection system similar to GDI protection in EE, but you can't game the system. I'd say the GDI protection in EE actually favors veteran players more than it helps newbies, as they know how to hit than jump to avoid retaliation.

Maybe make it so that if you are the aggressor against another country, they can hit up/above the GDI limits for a period of time to give them the ability to retaliate?

What do you reckon are like the top examples of web-based text games that are thriving? And other games that are similar to EE?

I just checked torn.com and they supposedly have about 6,500 users online right now, with around 11,000 in the past hour. A quick look at NationStates claims to have about 9,000 users online currently.

Astro Empires looks like it could be smaller than both of those?

https://www.astroempires.com/servers.aspx

Not quite sure, but those numbers for AE seem about right based on what I can tell.

And it's interesting how big of a difference 1000 players makes to 100. I mean, I guess it's obvious? But I definitely don't feel like I know everyone in the game. It doesn't have that small town 'everyone knows everyone' feel, but instead that bigger city 'I could meet anyone here today' kind of feel.

That makes a HUGE difference.

EE doesn't need to get to 10k+ players. But 1k would do a world of good for this game.

Here's another idea -

I talked earlier about monetization as well as tools from outside the game being problematic.


What if the tools from outside the game were instead built into the game. GHQ sites to store alliance spy reports/data etc. Bots that text you if you're getting hit. Things like that. And then charge for THAT feature. A small amount, but enough to support continued development.

That would make it so that new players new these features even existed, and removed the technical barrier for people to be able to use them.

Primevil, does this mean I can’t promote my onlyfans? 😈

I take issue with #7, you POS.

And with Doug not being able to promote his OF. Let the Queen Bee sting.

Great post, CNB. Way to contribute.

#7 feels that way because for some reason everyone wants to take a post the wrong way.

I could go on wot forums and have no issue understanding the tone. Here though.....🤔

See! Someone supports me promoting my onlyfans here! 😈

I’d give Galleri a free membership lol

Well and Derrick 🥰

̶g̶a̶l̶l̶e̶r̶i̶,̶ ̶🤫 ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶🥧🍩!̶ ̶;̶)̶ ̶*̶/̶r̶u̶n̶s̶*̶

1. The developers don't appear to have enough time to work on the game as much as we want them to. It doesn't look like anyone is willing to step up to work on the game for free ̶w̶h̶i̶l̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶b̶a̶r̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶i̶n̶g̶.

2. The game in its current form is rather deceptive:
To become a superpower, you need a crazy amount of military units or a great economy superior to others.

The procedure to do that involves circumventing the game mechanics such as expenses, and corruption; and then deterring everyone from attacking you. The procedure isn't obvious to new players who will likely start with a nice economy, invest in a reasonable amount of defenses, and then go almost bankrupt because it's expensive to simultaneously play turns while maintaining enough military units to defend against good attempts made by enemies.

In an oversimplified summary: Avoid having defensive military units, avoid unnecessary buildings, store all assets inside the public market; avoid attacking players; ask everyone to not attack you; and then recall all assets from the public market and spend it on military units.

6. Looks like nobody was interested in discussing my proposal on what can change so that every attack in this game isn't devastating enough to make one quit (because all it takes is a few good hits to ensure they'll not finish well).

7. I do not know exactly what the moderating tools look like here. I have an impression that it's missing some essential features to make the task easier, seeing that this is a forum software apparently built from the ground up.

Yeah, I sadly read the word that was used as something else and another mod had deleted the post. Thus my quote needs editing. 🤣

I had 0 interest in that Astro game \o/

Definitely would be nice for some people to help pick things up a bit again here.

I have posted my idea for country flags before but it seems to fall on deaf ears it seems there isn't enough motivation to work on the game because they dont get paid but if they worked on the game with my idea they could get paid but since they need to be paid to work on it... see where im going here? My problem is that they dont seem open to ideas like mine but have no problem programming in clan gdi which although hasnt really dwindled player base just moved them to team server to bully my lil group, It has definitely got people talking more but until there is some real effort to bring in revenue we will all just slowly watch this lil piece of our lives die out and that is just sad there is no reason to let that happen

As far as the out of game tools go that would be huge if they were incorporated into the game but charging for said tools i think is the wrong move, the move to an app would be great if all the tools were a part of it eestats warbots even clan hosting sites as an app alerts would be built in as well so no need to have irc at all anymore

Oh that app is a GREAT idea, with the alerts built into that. That would be a game changer for leveling the playing field AND making the game more appealing.

i had a post actually saying I agree with you b-hole, but SOMEONE deleted it and banned me.

I tried to explain things to you in the beginning (I am also ZEN, if you didnt know), but you take me too seriously. I have zero ego involved in any of this because I don't actually care about any of it. I came back to play because a handful of people I actually enjoy asked me to. Other than that, it is pretty much a zero ROI for me.

The only way I can have fun anymore is to collect salt. I actually don't dislike you and appreciate that you are trying to get into the game as a new player. I think if you caught me 5 years ago, we could have hit it off great. But today you get this version of me. Whatever points you have made in the past about me, absolutely true. I play to make life hard for a few individuals in the game. I post to do the same. I could care less if anyone loves or hates me. I don't care about anyone's opinion. I will twist whatever words I can to make things funny for me.

So, this is the only honestly you are going to get out of me. The rest is going to be a fluff fest.

So suck it, lap dog and enjoy my presence. You are lucky to even have me here.

People who used to be such good allies became so incredibly toxic over the last ten years. Like the people holding them to higher standards all quit.

I had thought the war had more significantly degraded the game, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought comparing numbers to this time last year:

A year ago to now:
LaF 26 -> 23
The Omega 4 -> 6
Evolution 6 -> 4
Paradigm 11 -> 13
The Monsters 6 -> 7
HERO 4 -> 2
Stones 9 -> 12
Mercs 15 -> 10
SOL 16 -> 0
Survival of the Fittest 6 ->6
RAGE 4 -> 2
The Bomb 0 -> 8
Apoc 0 -> 2
TIE 0 -> 2
Hero 0 -> 2
Obey 0 -> 2

Total 107 -> 101

TC - when there is no one left to respect, what choice do we have.

Zen is an OG earther. Everyone should aspire to be more like Zen, IMO.

I love you too

Respect yourself

hahaha

this guy. I am trying to fall in line with the TC method of game play. Cheat, lie and kill the game. Right?

Or is that the "old" TC? Is this the successful, handsome, and smart TC I am dealing with? I forget.

You've told me nothing I didn't already know, and haven't already said.


Thanks for confirming what I've been saying for months though. At some point everyone will admit that I've actually been right all along, and all this nonsense that has been going on the boards has just been people like you circle jerking with each other, thinking they were 'collecting salt', when in reality they've just been wasting everyone's time.

so now that my previous post that got deleted is validated.....was the ban really called for?

I don't know what you posted or what you got banned for, but I imagine it was some combination of using derogatory language, offensive slurs, and broadly just being a jerk.

So I'm going to go with a resounding... YES! Now stop crying about it. You're the one that said you're only here for other's tears, yet you're the one whining about your posts being deleted. Are you collecting your own tears as well?

Hey, don't put cheating, lying and killing the game on me. Put that fluff on the guy who actually did it, whom I begged to stop, who refused all my council. Dude broke my heart, I operate solo now.

Oh and yes the TC of today is a much better role model than the ten years ago one.

This has always been and will always be the biggest deterrent. There's no point in logging in every day for a month just to have someone fly off the handle and ruin your entire set in a single hour. A new player will never tolerate that and they shouldn't. The new GDI helps a bit but it's still an enormous problem.

As someone who plays both. I can tell you that there are not thousands of players playing AE. Maybe closer to 800 or so. Any accounts beyond that are alt accounts, multies, if you will. They don't have resets. They just create new servers about every six months. For the record, this CONSTANT game development only really started a couple years ago with the 3.0 servers and the game is around 17 years old. I took a hiatus ftom that game a couple yeaes after the 2.0 servers were released 2014. They have had a couple servers at AE 3.5 and are now releasing AE 4.0. The changes that have recently been breathed into the game are refreshing, however the politics and war aspects have remained pretty much the same since the beginning. AE is far more time consuming in what it takes to build fleet and to protect it then what EE requires to play. AE is ruled by time where everything requires it. EE turns are based on time where market interaction generates cash to buy fleet or turns to produce it.

Changes to gameplay in AE are actual improvements without changing the core game.

Changes recently here at EE have just changed the core game.