people's troops, lands, and buildings. There is also at least one Utopia related
file with a trojan in it floating around. This undermines the game and makes
people afraid to play Utopia because they don't understand how this works. All
they know is that "maybe my computer might get a virus or trojan. Solution: The
java hack has been fixed by Echelon so you won't have to worry about strange
java effecting your province. Don't download files unless they are from reliable
sources whether they are Utopia related or not. That's something people just
need to learn.
enough. Utopia has to make sure there enough changes between rounds so that the
game remains challenging while not changing the flavor of the game. Solution:
Continue to add new races. I would not have played this round at all if not for Halflings
for example. Make sure that new features, spells, thief ops, and
buildings are added each round (even if you have to drop some old ones). Make
sure to listen to the players and keep making the game better.
way too long for a round of Utopia. Earth works at two months in length because
it is a much quicker game. Utopia is too time consuming for a two month long
commitment from people. There are tons of abandoned accounts (gold farms) all
over the place near the end of the game. That tells me that at least a certain
percentage of people are getting tired of the length of the game and are
quitting. Plus, after the first month little tends to change as far as rankings
go. Last game in the final month my world ranking moved up and down about 7 or 8
slots total in the last month. My kingdoms rank moved up and down approximately
1 slot on the World Rankings in the final month. So taking into consideration that
most people's ranks are pretty much set after the first month, why
continue? Solution: Shorten game to 1 month long.
fashioned war between two kingdoms. However, for a number of reasons, it's just
not profitable. Sure, war isn't profitable in real life but in this game it
should be. If people have the most fun when their kingdom is at war, then every
effort has to be made to encourage war. Solution: Make more changes to the rules
encouraging war. Make it so profitable to be at war that those who aren't almost
constantly at war will not be able to keep up. Make land grabs, income, fame,
NW, etc. all go up radically when you go to war (at least if you win) and you'll
see more war.
provinces against large provinces. There have been some steps taken to weaken it
but it still a game wrecker. A player can stay tiny and build almost nothing but thieves.
They are secure knowing that Diminishing returns keeps larger provinces
from being able to destroy them despite their paltry military. Then they burn
their opponents homes. A single province can still completely destroy a Top 50
player within a couple of days by reducing their drafts and income to almost
nothing while giving them millions and millions of GCS worth of homes to
rebuild. Solution: Drop arson.
other has now become a common occurrence. Because of these attacks, more people
create multis and join other alliances to protect themselves. This is a vicious
cycle that ruins the game for the majority of players. Most people just want to
play their provinces and are only interested in teaming up with their kingdoms.
If people feel like they have no chance to compete because they don't want to
join an alliance or spend hours socializing on ICQ they will become discouraged
with the game. Solution: There is no easy solution. I would suggest banning out
of game alliances. If evidence of being in an alliance or gang banging is found,
that would be a deletable offense. Would they catch everyone? No, but it might
make a dent in the growth of alliances.
distributing provinces. This round about ½ of the top kingdoms in the world from
last round (if not more) ended up on island 22 and 23. Many kingdoms were short
players as well. In previous rounds (and maybe in this one, too soon to tell),
"Newbie Ghettos" were set up where large groups of late starters were put
together, all of them unable to help themselves or their kingdom. It can't be an
ideal experience to be on a kingdom that only has 6 or 7 players or on a kingdom
where you are hopelessly behind the rest of the world. Solution: Allow people to
pick their own kingdoms. I know there are concerns that multis will end together and
give each other aid. Do much more extensive kingdom multi sweeps next round
and limit how much aid provinces can send each other. This will limit the multis
and allow everyone to play where they want too. Excitement would sweep through
Utopia as the recruiting began for next round. This would be the most positive
change Utopia could make.
It is not unusual to hear regents from top kingdoms and elite players say they
play as much 2 to 6 hours a day. Logging in to train troops 10-12 times a day,
spending 30 minutes to an hour and a half looking for Land Grabs and Rob Vaults
targets, talking on the forums, responding to messages, etc. On an average day I
played 2 hours of Utopia. Personally, I went less (on rare occasions) and other
times I played much more. Solution: There are a lot of them that are possible.
You could drop rob banks, set up and auto train function to train troops and build
buildings, set up a search engine for a NW and land range (to help find
land grab targets), limit people to 1 hour per day max time, Increase the 20
hour bonus so much you couldn't compete without it (it's getting there, but not
quite), etc. But something needs to be done about how long it takes to play the
game.
resources. They are running a free game on the internet and that can certainly
stretch your resources to the max. That being said, there are constant server
problems that can be very frustrating to deal with. Some people only a limited
amount of time to access the net each day and dealing with those server errors
can make it difficult for them to even play. For diehard players who play a lot,
server errors can add as much as 30 minutes per day to the already considerable
time they spend playing Utopia. This is something that is universally making
Utopia's customers unhappy with their product. It is also one of the biggest
factors that causes people to quit the game. Solution: I'm not tech savvy
enough to suggest one and don't have the money to donate for them to buy an
elite server. All I can tell you is this is an important issue for them to deal
with.
arson, account trading, etc., etc. More and more players are cheating and it is a
vicious cycle. Player A land farms and Gold Farms and Player B feels like they
will fall behind if they don't do it. Player gets attacked by an alliance or
multis and decides that next round he'll make some back-up to fight with if
anybody messes with him. On and on it goes. Meanwhile, the legit players get
rarer and rarer and everyone gets frustrated when obvious multis burn their homes
down, try to bring down other provinces and kingdoms in order to raise their
main provinces rank, gang attack provinces, climb the rankings, and generally make
the game into a sham. Solution: I have a full article on eliminating
cheating in Utopia. That gives in depth solutions.