The main focus of making this game more playable is to get more players into the game. Getting sufficient numbers allow for more games to be played and will likely lead to sufficient income for the game creators to allow them to focus on continuing to grow the game. Before one can focus on trying to get the game into players hands though, issues with the game as it stands need to be addressed.

Issue number 1. Proper policy - It would be nice if every issue could be fixed with coding hard limits to prevent abuse, but this often weakens a game and takes away enjoyable facets. It is better to have a solid policy in place to prevent abuse and then to make sure that there are methods in place to make sure the policy can be enforced.

Issue number 2. Allow players to focus only on the aspect of the game they enjoy playing - To understand this all one has to do is look at the current rewards. Constructed and limited are the two main aspects and both need to have rewards that support their own aspect. Currently, constructed has two ways of getting rewards. First is the ladder, which only rewards phantoms which provide a fairly short term benefit of more cards with which to make better decks. More lasting benefit comes form the other route, which is ECs. But the reward for ECs is power, which can only be used in limited environments, or sold at a loss for what most constructed players want to use their reward for, to get specific cards to advance their decks. Power should likely be replaced with a gold reward.

Issue number 3. Automated EC start times – One advantage of the ladder is that as long as people are on with a similar rating, you are likely to be able to get a game to have a chance of improving your rating. In the case of ECs you instead are required to be on at specific times in order to play. For some people that have lots of free time on their hands, they might not have issues making sure that they log on in time to play an EC. But for others, there is limited ability for this. A possible solution would be to run additional ECs triggered to occur when there are a specific number of people on so that people can be rewarded without having to be on at possibly crazy times.

Issue number 4. Unannounced game changes – This has already been stated in a previous thread. Major gaming companies make sure that they announce patches and include patch notes when the patch is implemented. This is because when a player comes to play competitively, they expect the game to behave a certain way. If the game fails to act that way, the player is often left frustrated and this will result in the loss of players. Better to use policy to warn and stop abusers then to rush fixes without informing. Information is a key component to keeping the player base happy.

If anyone has any questions or other issues that they would like to see added to this list, feel free to post them.

Although I agree with all those issues, I don't really think any of them are crucial for expanding the player base. Not that I have any good answers

One idea though, based on my trip from newbie to junkie: some time after finding the game, I stopped playing, and only came back on a whim. I think I quit somewhere on the point where I was good enough to laugh at the AI, but still losing something like every single game against real opponents.

What won me over when I came back was probably that the three decks I was given were good enough to mix into two domain decks that could actually beat the absolute newbies consistently. My rating started rising, and by the time I was getting beaten more often than not again, I was ready to buy some gold.

Perhaps that harsh period in between could be made more enjoyable? Phantoms is a nice step forward IMHO. Better AI or a campaign might help. Better matchup will be tricky as long as the player base is so small.

Maybe an optional handicap of some kind could be worth a try - as a somewhat experienced player I could probably enjoy matches against newbies where they have a good chance of winning. It could also gve a sense of progress for a new player to beat each handicap level, getting a title or something in the end.

"Im not saying the game should not agressively seek out a larger player base, but I think the game has a good player base for how old it is."

Im going to go ahead and quote myself because I think its %100 true. There is nothing wrong with the current player base.



I agree with this. Though, I think it would be crucial to agressively fix those issues before they seek to expand the player base.

I don't completely agree with the direction you are taking #3. Anyone could multiple their way to an ec. However, I think the free-er the game is the more the current player base will become active. This is an issue often neglected when people speak of expanding the player base.

Kudos - a lot of active people may be desensitized to those issues.

Just saw this post and I think there are many important things to discuss here. I agree with the fact that there are many different issues that needs to be addressed. Next to nothing has been said about marketing the game. Hopefully there will be some kind of update on that very soon. Many things have been said about changes that needs to be addressed in the game itself, but we never hear anything from the devs about what is and is not going to change (until, that is, it has already been changed).

The way I see it is that this is just another good post about possible changes that will just go unnoticed... Maybe it is time for some serious modding here now?


About this:



Is this meant to be ironic or sarcastic (or both)?

Voices: I try to read all the posts in the forum so nothing goes unnoticed. You have to keep in mind that it is just me right now so things take awhile to get done.

Well, I have noticed it is just you jed. I won't be competiting in the grand clash, so from that perspective, I say spend the $1000 dollars from the grand clash and pay someone respectable for game improvements. Im sure $1000 could go a long way towards improving the game, which is metephorically a $1000 reward for everyone instead of some lucky/talented player.

No one is going to tell people there is a $1000 reward. (Many)People on this game are greedy low life peasants that will seemingly go through any level of difficulty to make 25 cents an hour on this game. With this sort of player base you can not expect people to promote the grand clash by word of mouth, if promote at all.

I dont think the game is a bad investment but I think the grand clash is not the best investment for the game.

@Voices

Card games are often not as busy as you would think. Especially ones that actually require some thought such as TFW. I think for the game being as dynamic as it is it has achieved a fairly good player base.

The online card games that seem to be the most popular often require little thought, have fast paced matches, and you can earn higher tier cards. You could very easily say these games are not strategy games at all. I think its very incorrect to put TFW in the same category as many of these games.

It is mid day and I logged on to a popular "strategy" based card game. I saw somewhere it was rated as the #2 online card game. 79 players online. Thats not terribly much more than TFW.

This is the reason I suggested a quick play mode ( viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1759 ). So the game could compete in the part of the online card game market that gets the most players. Otherwise it's player base is completely where it should predictably be.

I must agree, that GC doesn't seem as a best investment, I'd rather see some profis hired instead also, or whatever to quicken the improvement.
(I'd participate, should it be held though, at least for the chance to play people like Hithlum who I believe would return for and only for it )
edit; and for that price, of course.

UBER:

As an unejumiKated, slovenly, backwoulds, Rdneck, hick I take exception to ur mention of pezEnts in such a royally hubriTik style!*! Hopefully I have hurt your feelings and caused your brain to ache a tad with that sentence of brilliant brilliance. I say, good day!

From the pasture,

DarkJello

_________________
Ad astra per alia porci!$!

Dark, I know your not unedjumakated.

Serious as heck. Some people are just greedy as hell. They're total bottom feeders and you can not rely on them to promote the game, especially with a lot of money on the line. Total TFW peasants. They're TFW working class heros, they really work to earn gold on here, jokes.