GameForge relation with the player base

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    • GameForge relation with the player base

      so..with the recent update..i wont comment much..anyways
      im 110 % sure this wont work but its officially my last try to reason the GF

      what im suggesting is..make some sort of an [un]official player team
      collect 10-20 players per domain..that have been here for x years
      may it be since 2005 or since redesign..but those that actually play the game

      and for every stupid update you think of..1st consult them
      then go with the 51 % of the votes

      and do this for every other domain there is
      im sure players that once enjoyed playing this game
      but are still somehow addicted even tho GF tried to make em quit
      would spare an hour every once in a while
      to express their opinion on an update


      but why am i saying this..theres noone listening



      i posted this on .org since thats where i play
      heres the link to it
      click!
    • If you posted it on .org, why repost it here?

      You are probably referring to the pillory's removal.

      AboutYourIdea
      Do you know how many opinions you would yield when every community would get 20 Players that could actually say yes or no to updates? Exactly, way too many, because everybody has a subjective view on the topic. Basically nothing would be changed anymore and even though most changes were critized lately it was never as easy as it is now to farm inactives for example.


      Can you think of one objective reason why you really really need the pillory ingame? I am not talking about something like: "I need to see who is getting banned for what" because you like to have it, yes, but there is no real need for it.
    • i am posting here because my suggestion for this to work
      should be on global level and not just on .org

      i think ive explained why in the 1st post


      yes i am refering to the pillory removal
      why do i need it?

      i need it so I, as a player, can distinguish the scum of the earth thats playing ogame
      from few that make honest mistakes.

      and that right here..whether you like it or not..IS the real need to have a [visible] pillory



      so..you say too many players [opinions]?
      why? because someone is lazy to make a poll and ask them
      "do you guys this is good or bad and why?"
      that way of thinking right there got us to where we are now

      from what i know there is 28 domains
      which means 280-560 players
      if you think that is much..i disagree
      in order for this game to survive you/GF need their customers to vote
      to actually include them in what matters here

      noone cares what ads we have on the board
      but everyone who plays the game cares if the pillory is removed or deut production increased


      farming inactives? what about it? where have i mentioned farming inactives?

      edit:
      one of the stupid things was also giving free relocations ONLY to those that moved
      but there are many many more which im not gonna write about
    • Is that only me who's having difficulties reading that text even on a 23-inch display? :| Anyway, to get closer to the topic: there's no product which can be perfect at the exact 100 out of 100% rate, unfortunately, and OGame isn't an exception. Also, there's absolutely no need to have more than 4-5 people involved behind key design decisions, if these are professional enough and comprehend what they're doing, assumed they're staying in touch with what the players are discussing on boards and maintain certain in-game presence sufficient enough to understand what features are demanded and which possible routes for future updates could be taken. It could actually be less than 4 designers in relation to OGame (since it's not too spacious & complicated world), all they have to do is maintain an account of their own, listen to what the others are proposing for improvement, and everything will be allright. At least when that person finds his/her way to the game's credits, like it used to be in the past. :)
    • ummm..is that cuz of the white color? on .org im using the old ogame desing for the board so its quite visible
      but i`ll type like this np


      aside from that..i think you understand what im saying
      maybe the number is high..could be 1-2 players and not 10-20
      but my point is that there has to be some communication between the decision makers and players
      and so far..for the past yearS there is none

      this is my solution to it..and i think it could work and save..maybe even bring more players to the ogame
      which almost guarantees that this idea will fail


      edit..or maybe cuz i put in 8 size text :D
    • Lord_ if u have read the post about the new version in .org u have seen plenty of reasons why removing the pillory it's a bad ideia!
      U say that a decision made by 10 or 20 players it will not be 100% accepted, that's normal, but it is a improvement on how the things are right now, that gameforge made decisions based on the majority of players that doesn't say nothing "silent majority" i'm almost sure that this "silent majority" or are inactives or in vmode :P
    • Asto Vidatu wrote:


      i need it so I, as a player, can distinguish the scum of the earth thats playing ogame
      from few that make honest mistakes.

      How can >you<, who has not seen what was acutally going on in their accounts, judge, whether they are a player, who respects ingame morality or not? Exactly, you cannot. You can make assumptions based on what bans they have accumulated, but you never really know what happened and the worst part: They can tell you whatever they like to, but the responsible GameOperator is bound by his DPA.
      Maybe someone got banned for pushing with his only fault being not knowing the rules to the right extent. He is actually regretting his violation but it cannot be undone. If I read what you just posted you would heavily misjudge this player.

      Kub1n4sh1 wrote:

      Lord_ if u have read the post about the new version in .org u have seen plenty of reasons why removing the pillory it's a bad ideia!
      U say that a decision made by 10 or 20 players it will not be 100% accepted, that's normal, but it is a improvement on how the things are right now, that gameforge made decisions based on the majority of players that doesn't say nothing "silent majority" i'm almost sure that this "silent majority" or are inactives or in vmode :P

      I am neither playing nor working in .org, that is why I cannot comment on any references made to .org. I simply have no information about it :-).

      I actually enjoy some changes made lately. I personally deactivated the chat bar, so it does not get in the way, when I check my account on my mobile phone, apart from that everything is running fine. You no longer need addons like antigame to properly farm inactives, as I have already stated as an example.
      The new spy reports are fine, as soon as you get used to reading them. I really enjoy the new API and the combat reports, that actually tell me who lost what in an ACS right away.
      They are working on new stuff and fixing old.
      On top of that, there are a lot of ( unsalaried!!! )teamlers giving their best to improve your ingame experience, by working several hours per day to find rule violations or answering to "Do that, or everything is bad"-threads ;-).

      Your idea might be a nice theoretical concept, but it won't work or on the other hand is already operational in every GameTeam.


      I - personally - am against removing the pillory, but it happened and as a SuperGameOperator in .De I can say it doesn't really affect my GameOperator's work. They will do what they are used to: Giving their best.
    • Lord_ u have said that Asto already put it in .org board so i make assumption that u haver read that thread
      board.en.ogame.gameforge.com/b…e/index2.html#post9674647
      U are talking about changes that are mostly in the aspect of the game, i dont like or dislike it, i accept it. However that have been to many changes in the wrong way that the most of the players are against, so why not include the players before making that changes, why not acept that some changes are wrong and fix it? Why treat the players like we are retarde? When we just want to help improve the game and stop ridiculous changes as it have been done lately.
    • Hi. Just to mention that the whole Origin project is already a way of communicating with the players and collecting their feedback. Public test server and that forum already improved that a lot in is used for a lot of discussions over the course of time.

      However, we can not discuss every single change within the game; and some changes might have "deeper" reasons like data protection laws and not just "we thought it might be nice to annoy players with removing the pillory". :)

      In the end player feedback is always welcome, and contributors are always welcome especially on Origin. But after all the final decisions needs to be on our end and regarding what we think is necessary for all players, not just a small group.

      Greetings
      - - - WTH was here - - -

      PD

      ogame has no bugs...only unbalanced features^^
      yeah my girlfriend too :P
      loool
    • WeTeHa i know that u cant discuss every single change in the game, however u should discuss any major changes.

      Explain me how do u know what its necessary for the players, i am a member of 3 ogame comunitys and there where a few changes that the most of the players where against in all comunitys, so i can say with 90% sure that those changes where bad not only in my opinion, but in the opinion of majority of players, what did gf did?? implement those ghanges anyway.

      how can the pillory be in data protection??? if u see the player in galaxy view u know that that player took a ban, now we have a problem if we want to trade with that player, if we are in a aly or even if he is in your neighboor, pillory helps u to know if the player it's a honest player, if u can be rested because he is banned, now it only will make banned players more suspicious cause we don't know why are they banned and it could mean our fleet loss cause we don't know the ban duration.

      And besides that it just will lead to more suspection about the work of gos.
    • I think we often do quite a nice job in discussing new features and implementing changes / additions based on players feedback. However, we also have sort of long-term plans and often need to implement stuff for later changes as well. Additionally we have to have a feeling about the best for the majority of our current and upcoming player base, and at that point the forum never shows the real majority. Sure, it can show a possible tendency, but not the overall mood on a special change. That's not easy to track ... even with ingame polls (where we know participation rates).

      Nevertheless, it was necessary to remove the public pillory. There might be some issues why players want to have it available, but just as my private thought on it ... all those reasons are pretty squishy. Maybe you have the time to "control" the team, but that's not your taks, the team and community management have to handle that (including discussions about lifted bans where they are not allowed to explain it to everyone due to data protection issues). You maybe want to check the historical behaviour of a player, but the player of an account can change without changing the name, or even the character of that player might evolve. If you don't trust somebody in trading ... start with lower amounts, create trust, or try it out and raid it back if he robs it.

      For me removing the pillory is not a "major change" in game development. But we had to do it and even knowing that some players are not happy about, we won't change it back. I really believe there are more important things to discuss in our future development ... e.g. with wreck fields already knocking the doors ...
      - - - WTH was here - - -

      PD

      ogame has no bugs...only unbalanced features^^
      yeah my girlfriend too :P
      loool
    • Heh,, hello everybody ;)
      Sorry, but GameForge isn´t cooperating with players base. That is pure fact.
      When i start playin about 6-7 years ago, my country servers was up to 2500+ players.
      Now it is 550 ;) after servers merge. Hahah :) and you keep sayin "we are doing many many .. blah blah..."
      Again, sorry.. but you guys (GameForge - Ogame ) are doing nothing, just inventing how to make more profit in this dying game.
      I know this, cause i was part of this origin team and many good ideas was throw away. Ideas which are working in most online games.
      I have seen how are you communicate with these players.

      For me, you are just waiting to close this game and put something else for quick cash flow.
      So WeTeHa, people from you back, people you are representing are killing this game with every stupid unlogicall and against-player update.

      ;) Have nice day
      -Ogame Recension-
      Ogame need a change!
      -Check my account for my ideas-
    • @WeTeHa

      i wont go into details as to why i, and 90 % of the .org,
      think that having a pillory is necessary
      or maybe i will


      for one..i do not want to be called a cheater [now that the pillory is imaginable]
      for doing a bashing

      and you see..right there..in the visible pillory lies a difference between cheaters and those who make mistakes
      i even know game stuff that ended up on pillory

      how would you feel if your ticked was handled by a GO who has been on a pillory?
      i wouldnt want to deal with that GO for sure

      on the other hand..if i can actually see the pillory and see that GO has been banned for PAYMENT
      then i`d have no troubles communicating with him and sorting the issue

      also..how come data protection has changed? why? who changed it?
      you can explain this however you want..but for me as a player..its quite easy to grasp the reason behind this
      to protect those that pay more.
      money.
      bottom line. gf cares about money.



      on the other hand..i know you are/have been a CoMa for more than one community right?
      and what i extremely appreciate is YOU as a CoMa communicating with the players
      a lot..like..really a lot
      even if you disagree
      thats a good thing..communication with higher stuff

      .org..we`ll lets just say we see more new ppl post than the CoMa
      and we know .org doesnt get much new players




      but all this aside..for anything this drastically..and yeah i think its a drastic change
      GF should talk to the players who are playing the game..and figure out a way for a mutual benefit

      thats with the premiss that its not all about money..i know..i live in utopia


      @Lord_

      how can i NOT KNOW what has happened?
      its simple..if a player is banned for scripting
      it means that he used ILLEGAL SCRIPTS
      if a player is banned for pushing
      he pushed himself
      if a player is banned for insults
      he was insulting other players
      if he was banned for bugusing
      he was exploiting a bug


      as easy as it sounds
      and those above i WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH

      on the other hand..ppl get banned for payment
      bashing..unreported sitting..nonenglish message
      those are small mistakes
      and if they happen..oh well..you live 1-3 days without ogame
      and even tho they have been banned..they are not considered cheaters


      so..how is it balanced that now..everyone who ends up on [imaginable] pillory
      gets to be called a cheater and maybe even gets harassed ingame
      thats fair? right

      also..do note that its not the same thing when a player with 100-200k points gets banned for pushing
      or when a player with 40-50m points get banned for pushing
      right there is the difference in knowing the rules


      ofcourse..there have been some good changes
      and most of them are praised across the domains
      for start im one of the most vocal players when those happen

      but no matter how good one change is
      for example increased deut production!
      it wont cover up how bad the other one is
      for example removing the public pillory!




      @sirEdward
      couldnt agree more!
    • im pretty sure the pillory wouldnt be removed if the ogame team did their job in the past* and the gf didnt decide to go from one extreme(permaban for forgetting a trade) to the other extrem we have now(1 week ban for big time deliberate push)

      *there are way too few bans to account for all the cheating that is going on. the gf should provide better tools for GOs and rework the ticket-system.

      i find it funny tho that so many officials are willing to discuss this rather unimportant topic when they said almost nothing about v6. how often did the users (especially in this board) try to start discussions about the many flaws of v6 and how often did we get answers?

      v6 is a prime example that this is just a thought but sadly not remotely related to reality

      WeTeHa wrote:

      I think we often do quite a nice job in discussing new features and implementing changes / additions based on players feedback
    • Quoting post on origin board is not working, its really annoying.

      @Lord_ :

      Don't ask to the author why posting this here, and say later that you cannot know the reactions of the .org board... Its like answering yourself to your own question.

      Why having the pillory is necessary ingame ?
      - Because when I want to prepare a big operation, if the target or myself has a big fleeter banned in the system, I want to know if this can be a danger or not regarding the end of the ban.
      - Because, as a teamleader, I want to know if an account is clean or not. Yeah, probably, the account changed of hands, but by the experience I have on this game and other games, the dogs are rarely making cats. And just for notice, some years ago the pillory was not dynamic, each line was fixed, so making a search was really hard. GF decides to make a change for dynamise that ( all lines of an account show the current password ).
      - Because, as a player involved in the life of my universe, when we build a big file to denounce a complex cheat, we want to be sure that we are not making this for bullshit.
      - Because, as a player trying to help the staff when I can, on the past 10 years playing, I've sent 4 different times a ticket to operators who made mistakes by banning... the wrong account (on multi bans), only seen by the pillory.

      Now I ask you the question : why having the pillory is a problem ?

      Questions like this from you shows at which point the author is right : game dev needs experience of players having played the game HARDLY.

      @Weteha :

      Yes, there are some more important things to discuss than this. But as for Lord_, I can return the question : you don't think there are not more important things to do than removing existing things ? Like avoiding to code some features with feets ( like a messaging, heart of a major release, with which its impossible to close a chan, to delete a message, or who creates ingame activity when you send a message ) ? Like creating more game experience for teams, for which the remaining players are waiting for years ? Like creating a real war module, for which players are waiting for more years than the previous point ?

      Operators are flamed continuously on boards, and now you remove the ability for players to check their work. Operators are players too, and as far as the community is decreasing, the danger of collusions is bigger and bigger. It means that they will be flamed harder than before, with suspicion instead of misunderstandings.

      At least keep a pillory with the account and the duration, if you don't want to show publicly the reasons anymore.


      You know, a lot of players respects the game, because have been addicted to, and are not against each change (like me).

      But as I can read, no discussion is possible because you will not make a step backward, I suppose that you are absolutely sure that this way to do changes is the best one, regarding the curve of number of active players on this game we have loved, yesterday, so feel free to continue.

      You can have the support of fans to waste time on test servers, fans to operate your universes, fans to help on local wikis or translations, I don't think it's fair to ignore them when you plan changes like this.

      The author speaks about .org, I can speak about France : our lazy Game Team ( 8 people for 23.000 active players, BTW ) have informed the community one day before the release, and the reaction of the players is just : " OK, one step forward to the end of perma bans ". Community is tired to wait some features ( team, wars, bugfixs ) and instead having to accept such... lets say ideas.

      Regards.
    • thanks iguypouf!

      yep..like .fr, .org is also tired of the constant fight against bad "improvements" that we get
      with the explanation its for the benefit of new ppl/its the best option/it has to be like that etc



      theres only few of us left that are trying to slap the nonsense out of GF
      but all the time we get blocked by the stuff
      and it begs the question if you guys are just doing your job or youre blindly defending something that you actually beleieve in
    • iguypouf wrote:

      Like creating a real war module, for which players are waiting for more years than the previous point?

      You've made a very good point! 8) In the Russian OGame, we've been waiting for the addition of such feature for almost 8 years, especially when my alliance used to be engaged in 6 years long war which started in 2006 and concluded only in 2012, by the first Universes merge. :) The archived thread is still out there, with bunches of collected data such as total damage the alliances dealt to each other commencing from Page 42 out of 51 pages long struggle which resulted in 48.72% to 51.27% draw on Page 50. :D