maybe code in for new IP's that they can only be attacked a few times a day, keep a database of all IP's, the # of sets can be determined by the # of players staying on and through trial and error :P

(yeah I know people here will complain once again about privacy,) but I feel that if they only get attacked say 2 or 3 times a day at most instead of 10-15 times, they still have a chance at learning the game, other players still get land, and they won't get angry, and either suiside, or just up and quit. Think of it as leveling up. the longer you play the game, the better and more skilled at it you get. Yea, it might seem "unfair" that they are specially protected, but many video games give the player protection in some forum until they get further in the game.

they can then form alliances, most likely with their friends without the fear of being farmed to the ground. I don't know how hard it would be, but can't be much harder than intigrating graphics with Java into this game :P

Maybe if we do get an influx of players, have a forum just for them where they can ask for help and talk with each other, instead of gettng bogged down in the politics of the game from the get go

I think facebook should have express or an EE that's similar to that...

Alliance should stay as it is. Express should be ported to facebook :P

forgottenublets:p

wrt to alliance teams in team servers
If the fb thing works out then those 'alliance-teams' will be vastly outnumbered and will just be 2 or 3 teams in a sea of hopefully hundreds. Teams allying together will always happen, they just have to be loosened up. I mean imagine a Team a from one school dec's war on their friends from another school...eventually turning it into a school vs school thing?

wrt to alliances loosening up.
thats one of the reasons why i suggested they move to the team server for group play over alliance. Even if there are a few alliance-teams using rules complicated rules like pacts and all...if there are enough new teams it wont make a big difference in the long run.

Coming up with a system where some countries with new IPs can only be attacked x times a day is never going to work. Its easily exploited, overly complicated, non transparent (imagine oping someone, getting the jets to attack, only to find they are a 'new' player and you cant hit them) and insulting/demeaning to new players.

I think there are already too many servers. I mean is there really that much difference between primary (which really should be renamed classic) and tournament? Similar length, turn structures and so on.

If FB-EE ends up having massive students from schools participating, they'll have a leadership, and guess what, all we have to do is then convinced them all to play the REAL version of EE, right here. Tell them that they could just make ONE tag of 300 students!!



also, Tournament is designed to have different levels, so that only the best stays at the top. we're just in beta now

Putting them all into alliance will expose them to too many aspects of the game all at once including the ones that are most likely to turn them off.

My schools vs schools analogy was just an example of how rl relationships could be reflected in the game. Putting them all in one alliance would remove alot of the dynamicism. Sure there will be times when they gang up against another school, there will be some who fight among themselves....and others who want no part of it and just want to net.

I know what tournament is, i used to play it 10 years ago. Look at it from the big picture, levels or not there isnt much separating it from primary in the eyes of a newcommer.

It was a good one though, I remember waaaay back when I started playing. I was at Marshall U and played in the COS computer lab with about 10-15 other MU players. We all played primary and got into a war with a bunch of guys from Virginia Tech. We all had 'herd' or 'hokie' or some derivation in our country names because there were no tags. We did not know how to kill (not sure you even could in 97), we all ran rainbows, and it was the most fun I ever had playing this game.

Even today, I think kids would jump that fluff in a heartbeat.

Remember, farmville and mafia wars have no graphics either. We are not competing against HALO here, all we really need to do is get the product in front of enough eyes. My concern is that the game may be too complex for casual users.

farmville compared to earth empires

is like comparing WoW to farmville

in terms of graphics.

pffft we have WAY better fonts then they do . . .

font ftw... :) i don't remember what we use tbh probably verdana/arial

Anyone seen the movie Helvetica? Good stuff!

"Team Server was such a great concept, except it's ruined.

What if EE introduced back a 1A server?
Just satisfy these sub Council Alliances, Ragnarok, BEER, MKR, whatever, give them back a server.
Different rule sets there, maybe use it also as a long term changes testing grounds."

Good thought. The old 1a server was already an ideal setup for newer players to play in an alliance without as much farming or pressure. Add in a change to limit being grabbed 5 or so times a day and it would of been a great learning server.

Most players currently in the game stuck with it because of alliances. Splitting players across two similar servers seems to be an issue for admins, but have they considered players that have quit rather than playing in a new EC/Alliance server alliance?

I don't think the team server is ruined, it is just a pretty limited scope application. '5' implies friends - but not too many friends. Right now it is too easy to ruin a tags set on the team server with a pretty minimal effort.

I don't want to see 1A come back, once RD left all the land went with them - during the last few sets, 1A was getting pretty scrawny. If anything, I think they should consider scaling the game back to 2-3 servers. The extra servers = extra confusion and not much increase in user base.

I'd encourage smaller random games, rather than one large primary game at first.

no more than 1k players per game

That way instead of a person finishing 120th out of 10K
they finished 12th out of 1k

they will feel more successful.


When this comes out on facebook
I will play in such a game,
and I will work with newer players.

That is something each of us vets need to do.
And we need to be mindful NOT to farm prospective players out of the game.
but instead spy on them
grab them once
tell them how long we've played and offer our help.

Good god, I think Dibs nailed it right on the head! And I like Servant's attitude - we could all do with a bit more respect for those "easy land" countries.

The nicer you are to them, the more land there is for me.

SG kills babies.

I'm willing to limit my "hard-farming" on any designated "learning servers"--Servant has a good point. Recruiting rather than smashing is a much better long-run strategy.


Regarding Pang's talk of recruiting the high schoolers and twenty-somethings.... I would think that the Express Server would be good for marketing to them. Cell phone apps and browser games for kids with too much time mean they'll be wanting new turns, fast. If they get hooked after that, they'll spread to new (and probably multiple) servers, and get more involved in the politics of the game.

Older and more casual players would probably be most ideally introduced via Facebook to a Team or Primary-style server.

I'm all for a learning server, but this is the "alliance" server. You either play untagged and get farmed, or join an alliance.

All of us started playing at one point and got farmed until we realized we needed to play with other people. It's how the game works.

i read a couple post but got lazy.. i say stop the arguing.. think of somthing that will atract people. now!! stop saying "EE is a text based game and people wont be attracted to it"

well , we got attracted to this text based game, some have even played over a decade.

all we need to do is find people that think like you and me .. and everything else will follow :)

Like the positive attitude, Cris, but like I said before, when the people who've played this game for a long time started, text-based games were bigger because internet speeds were slower. There might still be a market for them, but it's probably a lot smaller. People nowadays don't like having to think or read stuff.

There could be a market in countries where internet speeds are still slow as hell.

I agree on text based games being outdated, but I think folks are underestimating the draw of online communities vs the game they support. If we make the community attractive to new players, I believe they'll play and stick around.

Granted the game will probably never be what it used to be when text-based games were all the rage, but I don't think that the passing of that era is necessarily an indication that EE can't gain enough popularity to be sustainable.

http://twitter.com/Earth_Empires

Anyway, this is the compitition phone app
http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.storm8.worldwar
It's the year 2012. A nuclear war has broken out. 5 countries have emerged as the major superpowers in the devastating war. Which one will you be?

- Massively Multiplayer ONLINE War Game!
- Join over 2.8 million players!
- Battle other players LIVE!


GAH!

is there a FB "fan" page for earth empires?

why do you have earth_empires as your twitter account?

There is now, W. >:D

nice :)

My 2 cents...feel free to return change if ya like

I've played the GD farmville, and cafe world and guess what folks, I spent aLOT of time playing those games. As in ok not quite as much time, but similar to how much time I put in here now days. There are people on there who are looking for a community. EE can give them that, the thing their missing in their quick hits with Castle age etc.

I haven't posted here in a while, so I will now...

I've got the facebook functionality working properly -- I've been playing through facebook for about the last week :p

We're working on moving forward with the redesign of the in-game template to help cater better to new players.

Once this is done, we'll tighten it up and start the big push.

I'm very happy with how easily I was able to make facebook talk to the game and the game talk to Facebook. We're going to have a winner there, I am confident of that. We just need to get all our ducks in a row and be ready to expand the community :)

I made an Earth Empires twitter account to look for nerdy peeps. I'll give it up if an admin wants to start one. Just trying to help. I'm really not a twitterer. :-/

the important question is:

wtfluff is evony? :P

xintros: there is already http://twitter.com/EarthEmpires

Opps, sorry, I will follow it then. I could of sworn I searched for it and didn't find it. ...... ergo.
I should just be put out to pasture.