W3C - The Simcountry War Game (White Giant)

Dubhthaigh and Jojo too, thanks.
I busy now but I will react within 24 hours.
there is a lot here to try and find a fair solution that will not introduce any more limitations.
we would like to remove limitations.

24 very log hours.
Here is some response and additional suggestions

"Three countries in Secured Mode."

Implications:

* It will be possible for more players to become involved in the war game, as large warslaves do not have to be supported with billions of population or propped up by the cash market. +

* Big federations will play a much larger and more effective role in the game - military power is no longer reliant on the individual's ability to pay (GC) for upkeep costs - you will have 100 secured economic slaves powering a virtually untouchable strike force. This will be taken to the extreme with the planned implementation of federation contolled armies. + / -

* You nullify the point of honest war in SC - to punish or remove undesirables from the game. Wars only use will be to gain wealth through raiding unsecured countries. -

Conclusion: I feel this change would be a bad one. You will be leaving the door open for a breakdown in the SC community. The game is online and thus has no laws other than those in the license agreement - it takes players to enforce some kind of moral and behavioural standard. If you take away the ability to do so, the dirt stays on the clothes, and noone wants to wear them.

Solution: Give new players 60 days of free war protection per country, and remove the 30 day limit. WP should be placed on automatically, until they turn it off. Make war protection cheaper.


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I tend to agree with your arguments. I also think that increasing the number of secured countries will have more negative effects on the participation of smaller players in the war game, structurally reduce the number of countries that will participate in the war game and at the end, diminish the war game in Simcountry. I also think that automatic assignment of the secured mode to different countries will be confusing.
I also agree that new players should have a longer war free period. I am not sure about reducing the price of WP. This too can result in more permanently protected countries and a diminished war game.
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"A War Ending booster."

Implications:

* You nullify the point of war, and make it very hard for players to weed out those who are making the game unpleasant for everyone else. -

* You open up the option for raiding players to 'farm' GC, by declaring on rich weak players who will use the booster. Who needs to strip or take a country when the GC is paid directly to you for it? + / -

Conclusion: I feel this change has both positive and negative implications - new players get an option to keep their countries for a price, and old players get an additional source of income. I can't see W3C liking the ensuing raiding though, and it will again deteriorate into a bitching fest.

Solution: Make war protection cheaper.

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This is not an ideal solution of course. It will invite attacks aimed at winning the coins. It will however offer some protection and while the war is stopped, other countries might boost their own defense or use WP to prevent a next war. There could be some improved variations of the same.
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"Limit the number of countries that can be attacked simultaneously."

Implications:

* The player will still lose that/those country/ies - they will be outnumbered and stand even less of a chance, and you have solved nothing. Once the country/ies have fallen, the attacker will move onto the next lot, until the empire is gone. -

* You cannot declare on a whole empire unawares, and leave all the countries open for attack. This is good for new players as they cannot lose all their countries at once. +
* The element of surprise will no longer be a factor. War becomes more boring. -

Conclusion All you are doing is adding more limits and restrictions. People play SC to do things online
that they cannot do in real life, they want to be unrestricted. You are making the game less appealing, as with all these baby-coddling changes.

Solution: Make war protection cheaper. (notice a theme going here?)

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This solution will reduce the risk of total destruction and will give the attacked empire time to either boost it s defenses or place countries in WP to prevent short term creeping destruction.
It is indeed a new limitation and as such, undesireable.

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Overall: I believe you (W3C) are suffering from a lack of trust in the player base. You are adding changes that try to take the power away from some, and give it to all. Unfortunately, all that will do is open the way for anarchy and lead the game towards an unattractive community and subsequent death.

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No lack of trust. Just looking at the facts, now and before, we know that very destructive wars will continue. There are always some who don’t care. I do not see how this will lead to anarchy or death. Death was predicted many times before. Simcountry keeps growing.
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Solution: Trust us more - sometimes things do happen unfairly, yes, innocent players do lose their countries, but
on the whole Very rarely. If you look at the history of all worlds, if someone begins to act unfairly or disfunctionally towards others (especially towards small ones), they are removed, not by the admins, but by other big players.

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It always happened. In the past it happened a lot. Secured mode solved a huge problem we had before with many very destructive players, no secured mode and no WP.
They were not removed by the community. Not in the past and not now.
We had to intervene, both then and now and explain to the players that they can’t just destroy players and make clear that we are watching.
As a result, they stop for some time and some of them leave.
If the community would tell them to stop and take action, this discussion would be obsolete.
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If you are that worried about new players being attacked, give them free WP for a period of time, and make WP cheaper overall. By adding restrictions, all you are doing is crossing off reasons people have to play.

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Giving new players more WP is a good idea. Making it cheaper as will reduce or diminish the war game as I argued before.
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Yankee's "weakest 3 countries secured": sounds like the most well-thought out game change proposal I've seen in my two years here. Could benefit players on the full range of levels of play.

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I explained why I think it is not a solution. An automatic choice is even worse. It will be manipulated by players who want to make their own choice and it is complex for users to figure out where protection is moving all the time.
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Making war protection cheaper: I hate seeing huge militaristic empires on the "war" world constantly in WP for months on end. Basic principle of the war game seems to me that the stuff you use to wage or potentially wage war should be accessible for others to attack. Big countries in wp supporting little c3s in action violates that. Big empires in wp that come out only at opportune times, to take other countries then go back into wp, also violates that. Cheaper wp by itself will just encourage more of this.

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I agree. This is exactly what will happen if we make WP cheaper. It should not be used as a long term solution.
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More WP credit for noobs: sure

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Yes.
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Greater distinction between worlds: Sure, though I think a basic appeal of this game is the interplay between war and economy. Personally I see FB as just about right in its balance. It is very possible to have a strong empire running in the black financially there, and still be involved in wars. I'd like to see a war playground world where economies are irrelevant. More to the point, I don't want FB to become such a world.

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I agree. We could make war even a little cheaper on FB
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Blackouts: working fine, and could well be increased to 6 or 8 hours.

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I agree on this too. We made it short as an experiment and to see if people like it. We are for prolonging the number of hours a little.
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Overall tenor: As Dub said, W3C has to trust the players. A bunch of jerks won't make a good game, no matter what rules and policies are put in place.

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True. But we all know that there are some who will go for trouble whatever the rest of us may think of it. We hope that the community will regulate itself with some more power and sometime even fight for it.


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Other suggestions:
1. When a country is attacked, the closer it is to full destruction, the harder its defense may become. The idea is to make it harder to conquer, assuming that the defensive forces become harder to destroy when their country is closer to losing the war.
Wars may then end earlier, without any country being conquered.

2. Allow both sides in the war to request a cease fire. Each cease fire request cost 1 gold coin. The gold coins are given to the winner if he wins the war and does not take the country. The coins and divided by both if the war ends differently.

3. Variations on point 2.

4. Reduce the number of simultaneous wars or at least, take the war indexes of both parties into account when war is declared to prevent disproportionate wars.

5. Make de defense cheaper or make the attacker loose more weapons in attacks.

6. Make sure that beginners get clear and precise message explaining them the risks of war and giving them clearer advise on how to best and quickly protect your country.


We would also like to remove some limitations
1. Scaling down any automatic deactivation of the army.
2. Making it possible to build a large army even if the economy is not functioning.
3. Allow a faster army buildup on FB and a review of max spending on the other worlds.
4. Allow LLW and MLM of all ages to be part of the army and allow conversions of some other groups of managers into MLM to make more people available for the army. This will make it easier to understand and make it possible to build a larger army with the same number of population.
5. More will be added.

It is terrible that somehow, three secured countries had only one negative point from some players, that it will perpetuate wars,

particularly c3 wars.

How did you come up with the conclusion that it will diminish the war game?

I am not sure. Let us not forget that there is only one secured country atm, yet the root of this pickle being debated was wars, specifically experienced players vs weaker or new players.

I am unsure how this conclusion is logical at all given the players input from onset of the thread. A few disagreed at the end, but lets face reality, agreements/disagreements on this fact diminishing/perpetuating wars, is only a matter of opinion.

Indeed both assumptions are ONLY opinions, facts can be checked or proven. Nothing can be checked or proven concerning either assumption.

If players were to choose what to do with the benefit of an extra secured nation or two, that choice is completely theirs and totally unpredictable. No one can see into the future and predict what choices people would make.

I think that the assumption up or down on secured nations is made out of fears or bias.

I also feel strongly that the players that suggested three nation secured, addressed the concerns of w3c, new/innocent players, CEO players, eco and war players, together as a whole. It appeared to be the most balanced rational solution that took all classes of player into consideration provided a remedy to each class, from a practical and balanced standpoint. Not to mention the ease of implementation.

The concern I have now, not that it matters, is that this idea has been overlooked and stamped as stinky by those who would have you think every one is out to destroy.

The idea should be revisited, with the utmost sincerity in my opinion. The solutions offered here are more confusing than I ever thought, and inevitably will lead to negativity when confusion or glitches/bugs hamper implementation of these complex suggestions.

I would also like to address a comment made by Dub as well.

Wars should not be used as "punishments". This a very "bold" statement. And poses a risk to the danger as much as you say it would help.

If it is of your opinion that a player should be "removed", this should not lie in the hands of any player or group of players. This should rest solely upon the shoulders of w3c, that is their job. The community has been given reasonable menas to correct what it deems bad behavior in game. Boycotts. And the boycotts work so that there is not a single player or group of players, that can abuse a boycott. If You are of the opinion that someone should be removed, the means available to you should suffice.

If a player breaks any real rules that deserve removal, w3c can and should ban such a player.

* You nullify the point of honest war in SC - to punish or remove undesirables from the game. Wars only use will be to gain wealth through raiding unsecured countries.

Honest war should be fun. Too many wars start over personal anemosity or BS. If they were fun, more people would love to play the war game. In fact, they are not all fun. Because of someone elses actions, someone decides to judge someone, and decides to be the jury and executioner too. This has lead, to me starting c3 wars, players asking for changes, plyers getting those changes, and starting this type of behavior again. The deterrence was taken away, and it was business as usual. Now the complaints come from n00bs who have been rubbed the wrong way. So in essence we are back to square one.

No player should be judging another, or making a war personal. The fact is that

SERIOUSLY there is only ONE game here.

IT IS CALLED SIMCOUNTRY.

NOT SIMCOUNTRY ECO V1

NOT SIMCOUNTRY WAR GAME V1

SIMCOUNTRY.

War is a part of the game.
So is economics.
Players are players.
Mods are Mods.

Players play the game.
Mods and Gods "Remove and/or punish them" (if needed of course )

This line should no be crossed. Know your role and shut your mouth.

Three nation secured in no way poses a risk to either side of the game, it benefits both, and helps out another class altogether; CEOs.

Please reconsider, I personally would like to retire to three nations where I don't have to fight anymore.

I can get three slaves to fight with, why wouldn't I want three economic slaves.

The debate should be about how they are chosen. I seriously agree, that the three weakest should not be in secured. The automation can and will be confusing. It should stay as secured is now. But the idea in general is golden.

Give me some of what you guys are smokin.

Thx for listening Tom . . . and Dub no offense. Glad to see you back.

I know that anything you do will upset some group of customers. But, you said that the worlds will be overcrowded soon. Wouldn't it be a good time to start a new planet and maybe implement some of these features there? That way nobody's current empires (investments) would be affected and everybody would know what they are getting into. There have been several suggestions and maybe that would be a way to experiment without causing more people to leave.

BC

A test planet is a very good ideal. Try out your ideals before they are implemented? That is logical, humm.

I thought one already existed, not sure if it still does

[edited for content-off subject, sorry]

(ok, I'm going to read the whole thread now that I got that out lol)

This wasn't about FB. This thread was supposed to be about everything BUT FB.

The GM has said that FB will not change.

ahh well, I am an unbalanced player, strong economics and weak on the military knowledge and I prosper. Why do we need changes? Simcountry isn't hostile enough to have taught me war skills in 3 years of on and off play! lol

I think there really is no monster under the bed! lol

I really think this is out of control.

Where are all these 'victims'? All these newbies getting terrorized to where we need changes?

Why aren't we hearing testimony to the effect: "when I was new I wish we had more protection because yada yada yada" or "what made the game not fun for me as a new player was yada yada yada"

I don't see any of it, no victims, nobody has voiced concern over negative experiences they don't want to see others experience, I'm really not getting what the GM's issue is.

Did Obama bail out or take over Simcountry when I wasn't looking?


I want to hear from some victims before I see radical changes that make the simulation less realistic.

We need a realistic simulation with controls to stop exploitations,(cheating) isn't that all?

When I was new there was no form of secured mode. You had to play the game, and you felt driven to do so. Survival was difficult, and you had to learn how to play and use the features of the game to your advantage.

The game was engaging, challenging and - most importantly - fun.

Now the game is entirely different.

Tom, you and the rest of W3 are idiots if you think adding further handicap to your skilled playerbase will improve the game. You want to seperate econ players from warlords? Fine. Return us to the time when you had two choices - war mode or peace mode. No more middle ground where I can't attack player X for being rude, obnoxious and insulting simply because W3 thinks being good at the game is a crime.

Why is being a good player a punishable offence anyway? Why do you cater to the ever-fleeting noobs rather than the players who draw pleasure from the game and invest in the long-run?

There are two types of player who start playing this game, Tom; the noobs and the newbs.

Noobs are the players who come into the game cocky, arrogant, ignorant. They mouth off, get their arses handed to them in their first war, then cry to the GMs about how unfair the game is.

Newbs, on the other hand, are polite, thoughtful and generally quite inquisitive and innovative. They learn how to play the game - economy and war - and never have need to complain to the GMs. They add to the community and they eventually become veterans.

I know this cycle to be true. I've been here long enough to see many waves of veterans come and go. And I remember when many of them were newbs to the game, entering the chatroom and asking questions, posing answers - getting involved.

The only reason you see a problem, Tom, is because it is the noobs who complain to you because they do not know how to play the game. The newbs go on to become experienced players without need to complain to you. Playing the fool as always, you take the noobs' complaints as fact and handicap the rest of us.

You want to help the noobs at the expense of the newbs and experienced players? Well, its your game to ruin as you see fit. Personally, I think you'd solve the problem by incorporating some form of useful tutorial to help educate the new players. Something that takes them through the A to Z of game features, joining all the dots along the way so that they understand how the game works.

Because, let's face it, if they do not have time to conduct war in this game then they also don't have the time to run a strong economy. Both are equally time-consuming and in-depth.

So either teach the noobs how to play, or let them stay in peace mode. If they want to war they should learn how. All you're doing is catering to the type of player who wants to fight, but only if the game guarentees them the win.

Online games always seem to result in a ton of whiners that the game manufacture has to deal with. I'm convinced you'll never see another Sims Online because of that. It seems the younger the group that you attract the more intense the whining is.

I had this next part typed out last night but it wouldn't let me post again, I guess I posted too many in a certain period of time, maybe it will let me post it now, so here it is:

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If this were Electronic Arts it would go a little like this:

[EA Boss]:
Tom, you have a minute to step into my office?

We need to discuss the Simcountry project,

There's been a complaint, apparently a moderator or someone posing as one engaged in a war or conflict with paying players and as you know EA forbids employees from establishing relationships with the customer in our online gaming communities. The complaint cites LG and a member or multiple members of management removing war protection and denying declarations of war on Little Upsilon, do you know anything about this? Fix it, please. Make sure it doesn't happen again and if you have anything to do with it I don't even want to know.

Also I need you to get on the documentation, that's way over due. Most new comers go there first to learn, presentation is important. It looks like the beta version for Pete's sake. If your guy can't handle making the site look professional and attractive with 'bang up' icons and a killer front page to present to new comers then spend a little of the money coming in off of the game and hire from outside the company.

Pick it up Tom. I want to be able to consider you for Simcountry 2, you've done a lot of fine work for us, upper management loves the simulation but they'll bust my bubble if membership dives and things are starting to slip a little and it's showing in the online community so crack the whip, bang some heads and find out what's going on out there.

WEll?! What are you waiting for? get to it.

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Get my point? This game should not operate like it's hosted out of someone's living room.

I dont think it is an issue either, however, i suggest putting a failsafe to avoid have a noob being wiped out of his country(if he has more than his main).

Obviously the game is complex and takes a while to absorb and demands time. For the usual player, you wont have time to master either sides for a while (country,ceos or war part).

I dont think it is fair however to not allow a noob to try out his war arsenal. If he wants to try it, whatever, he can sure try.

However, for a veteran or for anybody who clearly can destroy him, whatever the reason why you want to do it, i think a failsafe that prevents you from completely taking ownership of his country IF you are stronger than him. It should stop the whining.

By stronger, you can define it by ranks,score, countries owned, military assets, etc, your choice. I suggest score, since it reflects your strength on both econ and war stats.

So if a noob annoys you, you can still raid his country for example, take cash in it, even pop etc, but after say a period of defined time, the country goes back to him. Some kind of limits could be put to avoid completely raping the country, or not. The said country can be put in secured mode for a period of time to rebuild, and thats it.

The noob will think about it and he probably will settle down, knowing he could get raided again and again and again.

See? that's already covered in having a secure mode country. The only thing that happens to a rude noob is they get blasted back to their main and sometimes get held there for a while until they stop frothing at the mouth. lol Meanwhile they can play until their hearts content with their one untouchable country (on every planet) with some issue with replacing a few CEO corps that will move out because they chose to mess with the bull and get the horns.

I suggest they do what the average noob does, change your name and become a respectful new player.

Tom, you fix the problem by replying to the new player complaint with some facts on how to avoid the situation in the future. If freedom from the situation they are complaining about isn't good enough for them then they are simply complaining for your attention or game leverage over another player(s).

I'm going to stop posting so much, I'm sorry I'm just blown away by what you want to do Tom.

Haven't you seen the Wendy conflict? Wendy seems to have done well for herself and I have never seen an onslaught like that on a "former noob". (you go girl! lol)

There is no real problem, why are you 'crying wolf'?

Tom what's really going on here? It's almost like you have an entire line of thinking here based on emotion instead of logic.

Darke Katt, I feel the same way you do. That is why I wrote on another post that the GM is trying to create a Socialist Reality in SC. Basically punishing success and promoting and supporting mediocrity. Nothing will so kill the human spirit as forced mediocrity.

One Secured County should be enough. If a noob wants to try out the war engine and be safe, then they should conquer a C3 and practice with the slave.

It seems the GM wants to have a safe, happy economic game. Imho, the economic part of the game is the most boring part, especially when a player leaves and their countries are not allowed to be attacked or bid on until the pop has reduced to 6M.

Making the game too safe only leads to boredom. Real life is inherently unpredictable, which is what makes it so interesting. SC should be even more unpredictable and uncertain.

W3C:

So you've now reduced the max number of weapons in a unit. Are you done now or is this another gradual change where in 6 months we'll be able to use half as many weapons as before??

Also, what happened to your plans to leave FB alone? The same reductions are there as well.

BC

Who was that talking about a test world? That's what we need so the Gamemaster has somewhere to flip out! lol

No, really, how about that test world? (like any responsible game company would have)

We don't mind changes, we understand that our game experience will change as time progresses, however, I doubt even one of us likes the idea of being used as a lab rat.

This brings to mind a question.

Were the units already in existence in the game reduced to the new maximum limit or is it just newly created ones?