Here's a summary of the issues with GEWar in my mind. I'm sure these have been expressed elsewhere...


No goal, no way to "win"
No way to "die" and be eliminated from the game.
Hundreds of player-created alliances have a dizzying structure of non-agression pacts and "discipline" rules unofficially enforced.
New players are lost and alone, not knowing the immense history and depth of the alliances.


Don't get me wrong, it's fun, but the fun is kind of in the playing the numbers (trying to build up money) and the social aspect. The moments of actual strategy seem pretty rare.

Some ways to deal with this would be winning and losing conditions, strong political/alliance systems built-in, and perhaps a version of the game with "forced" alliances -- perhaps just five or so, that everyone belongs to from the start. That would give new players immediate friends and enemies and goals.

Any thoughts? Am I crazy?

Pat.

You're not crazy.

Here is what we were already working on:
Win the game: No you can't, but you will be able to win stars in the future, which means you 'won' a game by staying in the top 5 long enough.

No way to die in the game: Thats how it should stay. I don't like people being totally eliminated from the game as it's a community as well. You can get shot back to 0, and when that happens in the feature, one can lose his money as well if his homebase is overwon.

History: We already created that, but were waiting for the server move before showing it. That will also be updated.

Alliances: Well...thats the freedom of the game. You can go at it alone, or join an alliance. That should stay. If alliances want to, they can create alliances with other alliances. We've seen in the past that eventually some ties break and others are formed. I want it to stay like that because that is realistic.

As its also a community, you should be able to pick your own enemies, or try to befriend as many people as possible.

The idea of an "initial alliance" isn't a bad one at all. When a user joins, they are part of "new players" or "greenies" or "noobz" or whatever and all the major alliances would consider them untouchable, with an informal protection pact. Basically, for the first 2 weeks in the game, new players are untouchable by the big players, and if someone messes with them, the major alliances (should feel obliged to) come to their aid and protect them.

This would require a couple things: 1) The ability to automatically stick a player in an alliance when they join the game and 2) The ability for an alliance membership to expire.

I think it's worth exploring, though.

I like the idea of evolving more.
Big Players getting the choice of going on to the next level and are therefor not in the first level anymore.
That will make it easier also for newbies.

New players are lost and alone, not knowing the immense history and depth of the alliances.


All the people who have been playing the game and who are in a high position were all new to the game once aswell. And it's very possible for new players to get somewhere in the game, it takes patience and game tactics, and i'm sure there are loads of players in the game willing to give advice to new players. So new players don't have a disadvantage to 'experienced' players at all, because we had to go through that stage aswell you know.

I don't know . . . I've always seen it as this: you win the game when you own every city. It's that simple. I didn't know that you could never actually win . . . . :sad
Zinc, destroyer of Newbs. ;rocket

love the idea of a newbie alliance.... was tough here at first and would have been nice to have been forced to make some friends... also pushes the social aspect of the game....

let's keep these good ideas comming...

Too difficult I think.

Plus half of the users don't want to be social.
Think what would happen if you would have 500 new users in a day.
And half of them don't return.
Would get sooooo messy in a few huge alliances.
No i don't think thats possible.

I have also been thinking about a newbie aliance. but i havent said anything since i dont know exactly what changes will be made in the new server. Basically a new player should be impervious to any homebase attack atleast for 2 weeks after he has started. This is very important only to alow them to accumulate some money and some experience before they have to face any danger.
But there must be some exeptions. Once a player buys troops then his protection should end. as well, once he accumulates a certain amount of money his protection should end.
basically think of it as GEwar Protectorate rather than an alliance

Maybe when a newb joins give them the opportunity to join a newb alliance, a little message that says "Would you like to join ____ alliance?"

Maybe when a newb joins give them the opportunity to join a newb alliance, a little message that says "Would you like to join ____ alliance?"

Good idea, that would solve the problem of too many people at one time. If they dpn't wanna join then they don't have to