CC is declining again!

[ConfederateSS]

UI redesign is the biggest thing imo. Everything else is secondary.


The site looks like it was designed 10 years ago (protip: it actually was)

I joined 8 years ago and remember thinking it was sort of crap then.

As little bits have been tacked on it has exacerbated the problem

-----It's a board game...What is it suppose to look like?... We come on this site to play Risk,so a board game layout. Go Figure? Yes, 10 years ago we had 30,000 active players...Changes ..BAMMMM ...8,000...
-----I said it before...Get rid of Dice Stats(useless)... The forum on the interaction menu... Put Battle Royale in with Join Games...But yet The High Command keeps making changes to save space. Except the ones that are right in their face.....ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...As for Chess,it has been around for 1,000's and 1,000's of years...Despite what others think...It is still played on a 64 squared,8 by 8 board...With 32 pieces,16 on each side...When you go to a Chess site that is what you're going to see... Battleship is still played the same as when ,people used to use pencils and paper...A tactical grid...Granted on The Battleship site,they did add sounds and little flashes when you hit or miss the ships...But the layout is still the same...Exactly what do you want Conquer Club to look like?

[WILLIAMS5232]

UI redesign is the biggest thing imo. Everything else is secondary.


The site looks like it was designed 10 years ago (protip: it actually was)

I joined 8 years ago and remember thinking it was sort of crap then.

As little bits have been tacked on it has exacerbated the problem

-----It's a board game...What is it suppose to look like?... We come on this site to play Risk,so a board game layout. Go Figure? Yes, 10 years ago we had 30,000 active players...Changes ..BAMMMM ...8,000...
-----I said it before...Get rid of Dice Stats(useless)... The forum on the interaction menu... Put Battle Royale in with Join Games...But yet The High Command keeps making changes to save space. Except the ones that are right in their face.....ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...As for Chess,it has been around for 1,000's and 1,000's of years...Despite what others think...It is still played on a 64 squared,8 by 8 board...With 32 pieces,16 on each side...When you go to a Chess site that is what you're going to see... Battleship is still played the same as when ,people used to use pencils and paper...A tactical grid...Granted on The Battleship site,they did add sounds and little flashes when you hit or miss the ships...But the layout is still the same...Exactly what do you want Conquer Club to look like?

battleship added torpedo's. and radar. as well as a host of other things.

[Dukasaur]

-----It's a board game...What is it suppose to look like?... We come on this site to play Risk,so a board game layout. Go Figure? Yes, 10 years ago we had 30,000 active players...Changes ..BAMMMM ...8,000...
-----I said it before...Get rid of Dice Stats(useless)... The forum on the interaction menu... Put Battle Royale in with Join Games...But yet The High Command keeps making changes to save space. Except the ones that are right in their face.....ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...As for Chess,it has been around for 1,000's and 1,000's of years...Despite what others think...It is still played on a 64 squared,8 by 8 board...With 32 pieces,16 on each side...When you go to a Chess site that is what you're going to see... Battleship is still played the same as when ,people used to use pencils and paper...A tactical grid...Granted on The Battleship site,they did add sounds and little flashes when you hit or miss the ships...But the layout is still the same...Exactly what do you want Conquer Club to look like?

battleship added torpedo's. and radar. as well as a host of other things.

That's a good point, actually. With computers, a lot of really simplistic games can get improved.

I remember playing Battleship with my grandfather. We played on scrap paper. We drew our own grid and that's how we played for days at a time. It was totally cool, but I wonder how much of the cool was the actual game and how much was just because I was a little kid spending time with his grandfather. Later on I found out that the rich kids had actual plastic boards with little pegs to put in them, and I was like "why do you need stupid plastic boards? Why can't you play with pencil and paper like normal people?" Then decades later the plastic boards became electronic plastic boards, and they flash and beep and light up, and now there's Battleship on the computer.

When I first played Risk, it was one of those snow days in school, when not enough kids show up to hold actual classes but they still have to do something with the few that are there. So one of my teachers drew a Risk map on the blackboard and we played with chalk marks. Super easy to erase armies when they die. Again, later on I found people with actual commercial Risk maps and the little wooden blocks and lozenges, and I was like, "why do you need to count out wooden lozenges? It's a lot easier to just make chalk marks." Then the lozenges became plastic, and then electronic, and then computerized.

With each iteration new refinements become possible, and once you've tasted a refinement, you can't go back. I've tried to go back and play the original SimCity and the original Civ and the original Might and Magic, and having tasted their more modern version, I just can't get the same enjoyment. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. I've loaded up the original Civ with an enormous sense of anticipation, expecting the same exhilaration as when I played it the first time round, and five minutes with those primitive graphics and those hopelessly restrictive options was enough to make me shake my head and say, "How did I ever spend 18 months obsessed with this crap?"

I haven't played the new Battleship with radar and torpedoes, but I know that if I do, I won't be able to go back and play regular Battleship on paper. I might imagine myself to enjoy it, but it will just be nostalgia, and I won't be 11 any more and my grandfather won't be there to make it all magical. And I guess, to end this walk down memory lane and get to something resembling a point, that is why I both sympathize with and yet disagree with people who talk about "getting back" to basic Risk. Once you've played Conquer Rome with escalating spoils and parachute reinforcements and fog, to go back to something resembling original Risk, which would be Classic map with flat rate spoils and adjacent reinforcements, would be tiresome as hell. You might imagine you will love it, but really you won't. You can't put the genie back in the bottle, and you can't go home again. Mountain Dew might have been the cat's pyjamas when you were 12, but now that you've tasted a Singapore Sling, a Mountain Dew just won't do it for you any more.

[Serbia]

-----It's a board game...What is it suppose to look like?... We come on this site to play Risk,so a board game layout. Go Figure? Yes, 10 years ago we had 30,000 active players...Changes ..BAMMMM ...8,000...
-----I said it before...Get rid of Dice Stats(useless)... The forum on the interaction menu... Put Battle Royale in with Join Games...But yet The High Command keeps making changes to save space. Except the ones that are right in their face.....ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...As for Chess,it has been around for 1,000's and 1,000's of years...Despite what others think...It is still played on a 64 squared,8 by 8 board...With 32 pieces,16 on each side...When you go to a Chess site that is what you're going to see... Battleship is still played the same as when ,people used to use pencils and paper...A tactical grid...Granted on The Battleship site,they did add sounds and little flashes when you hit or miss the ships...But the layout is still the same...Exactly what do you want Conquer Club to look like?

battleship added torpedo's. and radar. as well as a host of other things.

That's a good point, actually. With computers, a lot of really simplistic games can get improved messed with.

Just because you can change a thing, doesn't mean you're necessarily improving it.

Bollocks in 2015.

[Kevi]

As a relative newcomer I only know what freestyle is like now. How was it before?

[owenshooter]

As a relative newcomer I only know what freestyle is like now. How was it before?

quick search yielded multiple threads on the topic... i liked these 2 comments:

Subject: The Decline of 8 Player Freestyle Speed Games

In recent history, 8 player Freestyle speed games were a staple of CC game play.

These games were intense, competitive and fun. On any given day it would be easy to join in many of these games and there was a thriving pool of players participating in them.

In 2009 the brilliant people that run this site decided to dismantle the Freestyle format, despite the objections form the people that actually played Freestyle.

At the time I stated that the change would ruin Freestyle and that FS would wither into nothing. Was my prediction correct?


From 2008-2009 there were 40,000 (8) player Freestyle speed games played

From 2009-2010 there were 28,000 (8) player Freestyle speed games played (20,400 played before changes, 7700 after)

From 2010-2011 there were 15,800 (8) player Freestyle speed games played

From 2011-2012 there were 13,900 (8) player Freestyle speed games played

From 2012-2013 there were 3900 (8) player Freestyle speed games played

From 2013-2014 there were 1000 (8) player Freestyle speed games played

So far this year there have been a total of 89 (8) player Freestyle games played

The last 8 player Freestyle speed game played was over 1-1/2 months ago on 5/29.


Congrats to CC for totally fucking up Freestyle

Subject: The Decline of 8 Player Freestyle Speed Games

Back in the day (heh heh) the suspicion was that the freestyle double turn allowed the most grevious kinds of farming (on speed dubs, 1 vs 1 etc) and was abolished for that reason.

Interestingly, back then a player like demonfork was able to post +6000 scores (as was herpes, rabbiton) from freestyle farming and the sequential community (led by players like blitzaholic..who was of course just as bent) were furious, as it meant that sequential players could never top the scoreboard.

As a consequence, we see now that the top of the scoreboard is exclusively dominated by sequential players.

On the other hand, the rule change did also happen to destroy the 8 man speed freestyle game, which was indeed a great shame as it was superb to watch, even for those of us who didn't play.

So in conclusion, isn't it all rather amusing that the OP who is complaining about this rule change destroying 8 man speed freestyle just happens to be one of the key players who farmed in such a way to cause the rule change in the first place!

I like ur comments here and agree to some extent with much of it. But again, this thread was about speed fs in general and 8 man fs speeders specifically. And in reference to your farming comments I have a few retorts. 1. Casual fs is for all intents and purposes is farming. 2. Farming is either explicit or implied... Farming that is breaking the rules, is explicit, and thoroughly spelled out in then myriad of rules trying to stop it (insert chuckle here). Then there is implicit but "acceptable" farming, which is starting public games where the odds of someone winning against.you is close to zero. This strat is legal, but frowned upon by some. As far as 8 man fs speeders which is the subject matter here, farming on that setting is really not possible.

[ConfederateSS]

-----It's a board game...What is it suppose to look like?... We come on this site to play Risk,so a board game layout. Go Figure? Yes, 10 years ago we had 30,000 active players...Changes ..BAMMMM ...8,000...
-----I said it before...Get rid of Dice Stats(useless)... The forum on the interaction menu... Put Battle Royale in with Join Games...But yet The High Command keeps making changes to save space. Except the ones that are right in their face.....ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...As for Chess,it has been around for 1,000's and 1,000's of years...Despite what others think...It is still played on a 64 squared,8 by 8 board...With 32 pieces,16 on each side...When you go to a Chess site that is what you're going to see... Battleship is still played the same as when ,people used to use pencils and paper...A tactical grid...Granted on The Battleship site,they did add sounds and little flashes when you hit or miss the ships...But the layout is still the same...Exactly what do you want Conquer Club to look like?

battleship added torpedo's. and radar. as well as a host of other things.

That's a good point, actually. With computers, a lot of really simplistic games can get improved messed with.

Just because you can change a thing, doesn't mean you're necessarily improving it.

Bollocks in 2015.

-----There is Classic setting,on online battleship...
-----I've played Archon...The Movie Star Wars..had battle chess...Star Trek had 3-D chess...There is Chinese chess....But there is something about THE ORIGINAL...when it comes to things...Just asked COKE... Your stories were KOOL DUK...I have taught my daughters and their friends...PAPER MISSILE COMMAND.... You take a piece of paper...Draw 4/5 mountain like humps ,with little launch looking things in the front/top...On each side of the paper.. You hold the pencil with the tip touching the paper.. Flick it ...You follow the mark(line) until the end. No matter how light...The other person does the same...You can hit a traveling missile ,or the opposing bases... Until one side wipes out the other... They still love playing...From time to time...
----- You say going back and playing basic setting RISK is boring... I LOVE IT...I still go back and play ATARI/Sega games once and awhile.....I BELIEVE IT IS CALLED RETRO......AS FOR ORIGINAL CHESS...IT WILL ALWAYS OUT LAST ,ALL THE FADS...BECAUSE CHESS TEACHES SO MUCH MORE THAN THE GAME ITSELF... I doubt 20 years from now...People will go back and play CANDY CRUSH...Somethings might be boring,but they make a come back... THEN THERE ARE SOMETHINGS THAT ARE MINDLESS FOR THE MINDLESS MASSES...THEN THEY ARE TOSSED A SIDE FOR THE NEXT MINDLESS FAD... ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)....HAS THE WORLD GOTTEN SO FULL OF ITSELF NOW. PEOPLE CAN'T ENJOY THE CLASSICS?....

[Kevi]

Pepper Panic and Lucky Lantern are more fun than Candy Crush. Nut Tails is pretty cool too.

[Paddy The Cat]

The above discussion about speed FS games has just made me sad. I used to love those games and the community around them, and those numbers you've shown are shocking and depressing, demonfork.

[BrutalBob]

UI redesign is the biggest thing imo. Everything else is secondary.


The site looks like it was designed 10 years ago (protip: it actually was)

I joined 8 years ago and remember thinking it was sort of crap then.

As little bits have been tacked on it has exacerbated the problem

-----It's a board game...What is it suppose to look like?... We come on this site to play Risk,so a board game layout. Go Figure? Yes, 10 years ago we had 30,000 active players...Changes ..BAMMMM ...8,000...
-----I said it before...Get rid of Dice Stats(useless)... The forum on the interaction menu... Put Battle Royale in with Join Games...But yet The High Command keeps making changes to save space. Except the ones that are right in their face.....ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...As for Chess,it has been around for 1,000's and 1,000's of years...Despite what others think...It is still played on a 64 squared,8 by 8 board...With 32 pieces,16 on each side...When you go to a Chess site that is what you're going to see... Battleship is still played the same as when ,people used to use pencils and paper...A tactical grid...Granted on The Battleship site,they did add sounds and little flashes when you hit or miss the ships...But the layout is still the same...Exactly what do you want Conquer Club to look like?

Like it hasnt been designed by a kid with two pencils. There is no "board game layout" template for a website.

And Dice Stats are awesome. Now I have evidence for what I always suspected!

[-1-1-3-]

As a relative newcomer I only know what freestyle is like now. How was it before?

it was more free. and I had such a style.

There was [more] 4+ players freestyle SPEEDgames (1-2 minutes rounds).
Sadly i played them quite bad
And i have to say the maps/settings were not that original . But fun.

And maybe it was even better «before my before».

[rockfist]

Why not bring back the old style "freestyle games" and put some kind of a # of games played requirement to open it up or something along those lines.

I sucked hardcore at the old style freestyle, but I still would play because I am a medal whore.

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

I think we have a lot of members who dont open their inbox or the forum. Massive flaw in a social gaming site.

[owenshooter]

I think we have a lot of members who dont open their inbox or the forum. Massive flaw in a social gaming site.

like the 23K that left the site? *cough*... and yes, they are trying to revive the forums again, and it is a lot better place to hang out than it was during the dark ages of CC when the forums were systematically killed by the monkey and his minions... to me, it was always odd that a site, which was praised as having one of the best forums online, openly sought to destroy it... the promise of a hasbro sale must have been so immense, that the scrubbing of the site had to include the forums... we would have people from other sites create accounts, simply to do battle in the flame war forum with prominent members... if you missed a day on CC, good luck catching up with the forums!!! it was a vast worm hole of so many characters and personalities and wicked smart topics/posts, that it was intimidating to even post, when you were new (or not so new)... now, i feel like there are a steady 20-30 die hards that are here... less than 20 posting on a regular basis (daily)... and i don't know what can be done to revive it... blame it on xbox, blame it on facebook, blame it on whatever you want to blame it on... but when they began to permanently ban members for words said in a forum, usually against the site and it's direction, they unplugged a huge part of the site... the fact that so many were banned for life, BY PAST REGIMES, yet cheaters were allowed to buy back in, was just insane... "they can still play the game, they are not really BANNED from the site." bullshit. they silenced the critics, they started a PRO CC posting scam by the jr. mint mod squad and CC fan boys and we all watched the forums die... i applaud the new regime for efforts to revive... i just don't know what can be done with the membership numbers so low... sigh...-Jésus noir

the flying monkey cc death squad

[degaston]

*cough*

Or maybe... just maybe... none of the changes that were made had any significant impact on the membership, and the decline is simply a reflection of a general decline in interest in playing online board games?

Unless you want to try to argue that CC was so influential that the change in the freestyle rules, and killing the flame wars forum initiated a sudden worldwide decline in interest in playing risk online?

And not only that, but the whole world was so disgusted with the management of CC, that they also decided to stop playing online chess?


*cough* *cough*

[jmyork82]

This is where I would insert the argument for a functional phone app would help revive this game. Do you think these downward trends would be due to phone accessibility to these games? Does this graph reflect searches in app stores for smart phones and other devices?

Why would I go online to a website to play a game when I can access it easily through my phone?

The phone application discussion thread is where we should start making more noise in my opinion.

There is no other risk game that is evolved as Conquer Club, competing games dont stand a chance.

[degaston]

This is where I would insert the argument for a functional phone app would help revive this game. Do you think these downward trends would be due to phone accessibility to these games? Does this graph reflect searches in app stores for smart phones and other devices?

Why would I go online to a website to play a game when I can access it easily through my phone?

The phone application discussion thread is where we should start making more noise in my opinion.

There is no other risk game that is evolved as Conquer Club, competing games dont stand a chance.

Interest in a risk app is growing, but not as fast as the general interest in risk is declining. The graphs are just from Google Trends, and you can look up whatever you like.

I'm not at all interested in a risk phone app, but that's just me. There are many other improvements I'd rather see. I don't think a phone app would revive the site, because interest in strategy games overall is on a long-term decline. Blame video games or whatever you like, but there's nothing that this site can do to reverse it.

[ConfederateSS]

-----I disagree with... Strategy games are dying... Time passes...Then such games make a come back... I.E. Chess and the like...Chess was small in the Middle Ages...Big in The 1700's...Down in the 1800's ...Back in the 1900's...THEY'LL BE UP AGAIN...
-----When my daughter started babysitting...She realized the Greatness of RISK... You can pass 2/3 hours easy, by playing RISK...The kids are ready for bed...The Parents come home...EASY MONEY...Her friends learned the trick too...So on,and so on...
-----I think of the Movie MAJOR LEAGUE...When they had ads on the outfield walls...I'm thinking maybe,Conquer Club...could sell ads on territories(or bonuses)...Like Coke on the terr. of Japan,"I mean Tokyo" ...In return ...C.C. ads could be put on Coke products etc...etc...Does the High Command have a marketing dept? Because the PR dept...sucks...30k---8k ouch ...ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...

[jmyork82]

wow, I just looked up on google trends. Strategy Games are declining. That is crazy!

That may be the actual answer for why this site is declining. The decline in interest for games that involve strategy. Even Chess is declining.

Well, I'm not going anywhere. I love strategy games. f*ck the decline, who wants to play a game?

Also....

I disagree with... Strategy games are dying... Time passes...Then such games make a come back... I.E. Chess and the like...Chess was small in the Middle Ages...Big in The 1700's...Down in the 1800's ...Back in the 1900's...THEY'LL BE UP AGAIN...

+1

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

My personal opinion is that to make this a success again, create a mobile version and close the website completely.

Its not what anyone wants to hear, but is the truth. The 8k existing users arent worth the hassle.

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

Be thankful everyday this site remains open

[mookiemcgee]

*cough*

Or maybe... just maybe... none of the changes that were made had any significant impact on the membership, and the decline is simply a reflection of a general decline in interest in playing online board games?

Unless you want to try to argue that CC was so influential that the change in the freestyle rules, and killing the flame wars forum initiated a sudden worldwide decline in interest in playing risk online?

And not only that, but the whole world was so disgusted with the management of CC, that they also decided to stop playing online chess?


*cough* *cough*

Most enlightening post ever... Thanks Degas, that really puts thing in perspective (at least for me).

[degaston]

-----I disagree with... Strategy games are dying... Time passes...Then such games make a come back... I.E. Chess and the like...Chess was small in the Middle Ages...Big in The 1700's...Down in the 1800's ...Back in the 1900's...THEY'LL BE UP AGAIN...
-----When my daughter started babysitting...She realized the Greatness of RISK... You can pass 2/3 hours easy, by playing RISK...The kids are ready for bed...The Parents come home...EASY MONEY...Her friends learned the trick too...So on,and so on...
-----I think of the Movie MAJOR LEAGUE...When they had ads on the outfield walls...I'm thinking maybe,Conquer Club...could sell ads on territories(or bonuses)...Like Coke on the terr. of Japan,"I mean Tokyo" ...In return ...C.C. ads could be put on Coke products etc...etc...Does the High Command have a marketing dept? Because the PR dept...sucks...30k---8k ouch ...ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...

If you're old enough to have a daughter who babysits, couldn't you at least put a little effort into communicating like an adult? I usually just skip over your posts, because they're so hard on the eyes. What if, instead of writing like you're texting your bff jill, you put a little effort into grammar and punctuation, and came up with something like:

I disagree with the idea that strategy games are dying. Time passes, then such games make a come back. I.E. Chess and the like. Chess was small in the Middle Ages, big in The 1700's, down in the 1800's, back in the 1900's. They'll be up again!

When my daughter started babysitting, she realized the greatness of RISK. You can pass 2 or 3 hours easily by playing RISK. The kids are ready for bed, the parents come home. Easy money! Her friends learned the trick too. And so on, and so on...

I think of the movie "Major League", when they had ads on the outfield walls. I'm thinking maybe Conquer Club could sell ads on territories (or bonuses). Like Coke on the terr. of Japan, "I mean Tokyo". In return, C.C. ads could be put on Coke products, etc. etc. Does the High Command have a marketing dept? Because the PR dept. sucks. 30k - 8k ouch

There, isn't that better?

Now, about the content of your post. Regarding the "timeline", do you have any evidence to support your statement about chess being down or up during specific periods?

The popularity of chess in the Western courtly society peaked between the 12th and the 15th centuries.

(The last three centuries of the Middle Ages.)

And I don't know how you can say that chess was "down" in the 1800's, during the time of Staunton, Anderssen, Morphy, Steinitz (the first undisputed world chess champion) and Lasker.

So, on what do you base your disagreement with the idea that strategy games are declining? Is the decline in web searches for terms like "board games", "strategy games", chess, "contract bridge", etc., not a valid indicator of declining interest? Are you just expressing wishful thinking with no basis in reality, kind of like "The south will rise again" crowd?

When I was a kid, my friends and I played all kinds of board games because that's all there was. Now, there's so much competition for attention, that it shouldn't be surprising that interest in board games has declined. They can tart the game up all they want on a phone app, but RISK is never going to be able to compete with the simple, mindless games that people can play while they're standing in line or taking a shit. And if they go phone-only, I'm gone, because I like big, complicated maps, and I don't want to have to try to play them on a tiny screen.

CC should just be what it is, and try to be the best, most interesting RISK-like game around.

[ConfederateSS]

------C.C. Is the best RISK GAME OUT HERE in cyber space... Most people In The Middle Ages who played Chess were KINGS,MONKS and NOBLEMEN...Not serfs and peasants... There were only a few Chess masters in later centuries,that does not reflect the general public... Do you believe everything wiki tells you? Talk about The rise again crowd... Why are you basing you findings to only those in the West? The East kept things going(saved the world's knowledge),while the West was in the Dark Ages...
------As for Brut.. No board game layout... What do you think we all have been looking at The Past 10 years? I also find playing on a mini or an I-pad,not pleasant...Scrolling up down,in circles... I prefer playing on a Desk/lab top... Where I can see everything at once... We already have a fog setting,that's good enough for me... ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)... Remember when cell phones looked like World War II Walkie Talkies. In the 90's they kept getting smaller and smaller. It was KOOL to get the smallest cell. We are heading back to World War II looking cells,with I-Phones... Like I said,things go and comeback again...GO FIGURE.

[clangfield]

You do know that you can edit your post so that the "out" bit is the last sentence, don't you?