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Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby jltile1 on Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:22 am

Woodruff wrote:
jltile1 wrote:
Woodruff wrote:
Mr Changsha wrote:All of you writing here have accepted that New Recruits want to play a good game of Risk. I think that is an important advance for my argument and I am glad it has been so uniformly accepted. But now I want you to go further. I say that not only do new players want to play Risk, but they also want to keep playing Risk and feel they are advancing on the site. The scoreboard is forcing players to play games they actually didn't come here to play to advance. CC is forcing players to choose effectively unfair settings for the opposition (farming etc) to advance. This site has been corrupted by the expansion in maps and settings. Players have been equally corrupted in a moral sense. This is why the site's membership is declining.


I consider myself very much a "casual player" here. My only real disagreement with you is the idea that I, as a casual BUT EXPERIENCED player on the site, cannot effectively maneuver through the maps and settings that I don't like to reach those that I like. This doesn't make sense to me. In fact, it goes against my very real experience here.

I think I'm not the only one that feels that way, thus why the thread pushed toward the new recruit aspect of things.


Look at what ahunda says


I read it, and I agree with it. But I don't really see where that affects my point at all, to be honest - care to explain?


What should you like explained no as your not playing games nothing cannot affect your points so I'm not sure what you want me to say.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby Mr Changsha on Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:23 am

Woodruff wrote:
Mr Changsha wrote:All of you writing here have accepted that New Recruits want to play a good game of Risk. I think that is an important advance for my argument and I am glad it has been so uniformly accepted. But now I want you to go further. I say that not only do new players want to play Risk, but they also want to keep playing Risk and feel they are advancing on the site. The scoreboard is forcing players to play games they actually didn't come here to play to advance. CC is forcing players to choose effectively unfair settings for the opposition (farming etc) to advance. This site has been corrupted by the expansion in maps and settings. Players have been equally corrupted in a moral sense. This is why the site's membership is declining.


I consider myself very much a "casual player" here. My only real disagreement with you is the idea that I, as a casual BUT EXPERIENCED player on the site, cannot effectively maneuver through the maps and settings that I don't like to reach those that I like. This doesn't make sense to me. In fact, it goes against my very real experience here.

I think I'm not the only one that feels that way, thus why the thread pushed toward the new recruit aspect of things.


I think I can answer most of the replies by concerning myself with woodruff's post.

I think I should also clarify something (and I understand that my comments are rather involved). I am not suggesting that casual players lack the intelligence to navigate their way around CC's many gaming options. Not at all. Of course they can.

What I am saying is that sucess on the site (for most) depends on gravitating their gaming away from the original Risk settings, and that these are the settings that, perversely, most people actually want to play.

Now I am aware that you play your standard games (with varying degress of success), always have, and care not a jot for your rank. Fair enough. But many casual players DO care about having a good rank and advancing on the scoreboard. They therefore - because they are intelligent - switch their gaming to forms they may not actually enjoy all that much. I believe this is human nature at work.

Now I am going to write something horribly elitist. The Alpha players actually have the ability to play sequential sunny and rise well in the listings. The Beta players however, have to corrupt their gaming (freestyle, foggy or most appallingly of all a combination of the two) to compete. They often even out score the Alpha players.

So this is not about the stupidity of the masses. Not at all. It IS about how human nature perverts the system to find success. The site is suffering as a result. Only by removing freestyle and foggy from the game can the site find its soul.

This is a horribly complicated argument I am proposing, but I genuinely feel I am right as to both the fundamental problem concerning CC (and why its membership is dropping) and the only logical solution.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby jltile1 on Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:36 am

Here is the point you join this site, and you found it online or your bud told u about it, as i have, have done with a few friends. You join and get your ass kicked with some bullshit games setting ect. The people that want to play all those settings should be set aside with with there own games. Those players should never be able to start games that new players can join but there is a rule about abuse however it never is In forced.


Protect the new players and make the good player playe amongst them. Why let let a player who has player a couple hundred games play with the best at the game.im courious
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby Woodruff on Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:45 am

Mr Changsha wrote:
Woodruff wrote:
Mr Changsha wrote:All of you writing here have accepted that New Recruits want to play a good game of Risk. I think that is an important advance for my argument and I am glad it has been so uniformly accepted. But now I want you to go further. I say that not only do new players want to play Risk, but they also want to keep playing Risk and feel they are advancing on the site. The scoreboard is forcing players to play games they actually didn't come here to play to advance. CC is forcing players to choose effectively unfair settings for the opposition (farming etc) to advance. This site has been corrupted by the expansion in maps and settings. Players have been equally corrupted in a moral sense. This is why the site's membership is declining.


I consider myself very much a "casual player" here. My only real disagreement with you is the idea that I, as a casual BUT EXPERIENCED player on the site, cannot effectively maneuver through the maps and settings that I don't like to reach those that I like. This doesn't make sense to me. In fact, it goes against my very real experience here.

I think I'm not the only one that feels that way, thus why the thread pushed toward the new recruit aspect of things.


I think I can answer most of the replies by concerning myself with woodruff's post.

I think I should also clarify something (and I understand that my comments are rather involved). I am not suggesting that casual players lack the intelligence to navigate their way around CC's many gaming options. Not at all. Of course they can.

What I am saying is that sucess on the site (for most) depends on gravitating their gaming away from the original Risk settings, and that these are the settings that, perversely, most people actually want to play.

Now I am aware that you play your standard games (with varying degress of success), always have, and care not a jot for your rank. Fair enough. But many casual players DO care about having a good rank and advancing on the scoreboard. They therefore - because they are intelligent - switch their gaming to forms they may not actually enjoy all that much. I believe this is human nature at work.

Now I am going to write something horribly elitist. The Alpha players actually have the ability to play sequential sunny and rise well in the listings. The Beta players however, have to corrupt their gaming (freestyle, foggy or most appallingly of all a combination of the two) to compete. They often even out score the Alpha players.

So this is not about the stupidity of the masses. Not at all. It IS about how human nature perverts the system to find success. The site is suffering as a result. Only by removing freestyle and foggy from the game can the site find its soul.

This is a horribly complicated argument I am proposing, but I genuinely feel I am right as to both the fundamental problem concerning CC (and why its membership is dropping) and the only logical solution.


I don't believe that logically follows.

First of all, I did not at all take your previous post as one denigrating intelligence of casual players at all, so I apologize that my response came across that way.

However, my point is that if the experienced casual player wants to gravitate toward the more complicated settings in order to increase their rank (as you suggest), that doesn't affect the health of the site in any way. Those who are getting pummeled on those maps/settings are still presumably happy in playing those maps/settings, since they are experienced enough to know the difference and haven't moved away from those maps/settings.

There are still a vast number of casual players like me who are perfectly happy chugging along on the fairly basic games and settings, so there is no dearth of opponents nor games being created within that vein. So I'm failing to see how the experienced players' choices affect the health of the site.

Rather, I believe this is wholeheartedly a matter of being able to keep some reasonable percentage of the new players around. Although I am open to the idea that I've completely misunderstood what you're trying to say, much as you thought I took your previous post to be one of denigration to the casual player.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby Mr Changsha on Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:54 am

jltile1 wrote:Here is the point you join this site, and you found it online or your bud told u about it, as i have, have done with a few friends. You join and get your ass kicked with some bullshit games setting ect. The people that want to play all those settings should be set aside with with there own games. Those players should never be able to start games that new players can join but there is a rule about abuse however it never is In forced.


Protect the new players and make the good player playe amongst them. Why let let a player who has player a couple hundred games play with the best at the game.im courious


Forcing foggy and freestyle games to have a rank restriction is an interesting and most importantly simple idea.

However, we don't want to stop new or low ranked players from playing sunny, sequential games. There is no need that I can see. There is nothing inherently wrong with varying ranks playing each other..in fact it is a good thing. But it needs to be done on settings without the very likely prospect of abuse.

Personally, as I said, I would go further and remove the freestyle and foggy settings completely.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby jltile1 on Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:46 am

Mr Changsha wrote:
jltile1 wrote:Here is the point you join this site, and you found it online or your bud told u about it, as i have, have done with a few friends. You join and get your ass kicked with some bullshit games setting ect. The people that want to play all those settings should be set aside with with there own games. Those players should never be able to start games that new players can join but there is a rule about abuse however it never is In forced.


Protect the new players and make the good player playe amongst them. Why let let a player who has player a couple hundred games play with the best at the game.im courious


Forcing foggy and freestyle games to have a rank restriction is an interesting and most importantly simple idea.

However, we don't want to stop new or low ranked players from playing sunny, sequential games. There is no need that I can see. There is nothing inherently wrong with varying ranks playing each other..in fact it is a good thing. But it needs to be done on settings without the very likely prospect of abuse.

Personally, as I said, I would go further and remove the freestyle and foggy settings completely.



I think it really comes down to simple points . There is not much of a easy game here, as players are taking advantage. But the mods see it and do nothing. Point the new people will get farmed and raped no if ands or buts about it.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby jltile1 on Wed Jul 11, 2012 2:12 am

On a huge note look at the score board all freestyle games. What does that style of game have to do with the real game 0. Don't get me wrong they are great at what they do but it really is complete opposite of what a "real" game is about. Put up a score board with people who play real games and then we see what's up. But somehow we live in la la land with all the games here to c who is best good luck as I will be bailing soon.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby Pedronicus on Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:21 am

If there was a separate scoreboard based purely on 3-6 single players (7 and 8 player games get players too thinned out)
on Classic map, sequential, Standard, Adjacent (adjacent is the original Risk game fortification setting) and Escalating (escalating is again the original Risk game setting)

No team games, just singles.... No Private games, all public, but possibly some sort of point requirement because a new guy joining the site and attacking every starting position down to one's everywhere does ruin the game.

Maybe
you have sub 1200 points
1201 + points

I would play that setting more often, as this scoreboard would reflect the abilities of just one person on a very well known map / level playing field.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby Mr Changsha on Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:30 am

Woodruff wrote:
Mr Changsha wrote:
Woodruff wrote:
Mr Changsha wrote:All of you writing here have accepted that New Recruits want to play a good game of Risk. I think that is an important advance for my argument and I am glad it has been so uniformly accepted. But now I want you to go further. I say that not only do new players want to play Risk, but they also want to keep playing Risk and feel they are advancing on the site. The scoreboard is forcing players to play games they actually didn't come here to play to advance. CC is forcing players to choose effectively unfair settings for the opposition (farming etc) to advance. This site has been corrupted by the expansion in maps and settings. Players have been equally corrupted in a moral sense. This is why the site's membership is declining.


I consider myself very much a "casual player" here. My only real disagreement with you is the idea that I, as a casual BUT EXPERIENCED player on the site, cannot effectively maneuver through the maps and settings that I don't like to reach those that I like. This doesn't make sense to me. In fact, it goes against my very real experience here.

I think I'm not the only one that feels that way, thus why the thread pushed toward the new recruit aspect of things.


I think I can answer most of the replies by concerning myself with woodruff's post.

I think I should also clarify something (and I understand that my comments are rather involved). I am not suggesting that casual players lack the intelligence to navigate their way around CC's many gaming options. Not at all. Of course they can.

What I am saying is that sucess on the site (for most) depends on gravitating their gaming away from the original Risk settings, and that these are the settings that, perversely, most people actually want to play.

Now I am aware that you play your standard games (with varying degress of success), always have, and care not a jot for your rank. Fair enough. But many casual players DO care about having a good rank and advancing on the scoreboard. They therefore - because they are intelligent - switch their gaming to forms they may not actually enjoy all that much. I believe this is human nature at work.

Now I am going to write something horribly elitist. The Alpha players actually have the ability to play sequential sunny and rise well in the listings. The Beta players however, have to corrupt their gaming (freestyle, foggy or most appallingly of all a combination of the two) to compete. They often even out score the Alpha players.

So this is not about the stupidity of the masses. Not at all. It IS about how human nature perverts the system to find success. The site is suffering as a result. Only by removing freestyle and foggy from the game can the site find its soul.

This is a horribly complicated argument I am proposing, but I genuinely feel I am right as to both the fundamental problem concerning CC (and why its membership is dropping) and the only logical solution.


I don't believe that logically follows.

First of all, I did not at all take your previous post as one denigrating intelligence of casual players at all, so I apologize that my response came across that way.

However, my point is that if the experienced casual player wants to gravitate toward the more complicated settings in order to increase their rank (as you suggest), that doesn't affect the health of the site in any way. Those who are getting pummeled on those maps/settings are still presumably happy in playing those maps/settings, since they are experienced enough to know the difference and haven't moved away from those maps/settings.

There are still a vast number of casual players like me who are perfectly happy chugging along on the fairly basic games and settings, so there is no dearth of opponents nor games being created within that vein. So I'm failing to see how the experienced players' choices affect the health of the site.

Rather, I believe this is wholeheartedly a matter of being able to keep some reasonable percentage of the new players around. Although I am open to the idea that I've completely misunderstood what you're trying to say, much as you thought I took your previous post to be one of denigration to the casual player.


I'm not sure I could put it more clearly than I have! Though I would suggest that you are considering the point from your own experience (which is fair enough), that of a player 'happy to chug along'. I think a lot more players would like to play on those settings as well, but feel they have to play freestyle or fog to increase their score. I know YOU don't care about that, I know there are others who don't either. But i think a lot players do.

I have always tried to avoid freestyle and fog. I realised within about 10 games here that I could play standard 8 man freestyle and post a mega score. Much higher than sequentially. But I felt that it was creating an unfair advantage - as I really can be online whenever I want - and so refused to play it. I also realised a long time ago that one could farm with team fog. I've always tried to reject it.

The only time I broke this rule was when I was playing 13 colonies speed dubs (fog). Why the fog? Because it was a small map, just dubs, I didn't know the game all that well and I was training a new partner. I took the fog option to increase the chances that my team's better communication would see us through. But I knew that my wins meant very little. Playing teams with fog is akin to playing the game on steroids.

And that is the key point for me. Fog and freestyle options tempt the virtuous into playing games with a stacked deck. Many even glory in it. Players that otherwise play sunny sequential see others dominating the scoreboard with these settings and think 'I have to do that too'. This has created the general feeling on this site that cheats top the scoreboard. But the site has turned most of the players into cheats too. It is the only way to compete for most.

Thus people think the site is crap now.

I know my proposal is far too radical. People are obsessed with the idea that more choice is automatically a good thing. Even when such choices are destroying the integrity of the game. But I will continue to shout into the wind...
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby BigBallinStalin on Wed Jul 11, 2012 5:03 am

Mr Changsha wrote:ask you all a simple question: What game actually brought you to this site? Was it to play a freestyle, escalating, trench warfare, foggy game on Waterloo? Now just pause that outraged mind of yours for a second (which my threads seem to naturally create in many of you hardcore players). Be honest here. Did you come here to play that kind of thing? Or did you come here to play a good game of Risk?


I came here for the free chicken nuggets.

I was furious when I realized that I've been had.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby BigBallinStalin on Wed Jul 11, 2012 5:06 am

Army of GOD wrote:Also, I think the biggest decision of all is if lack wants to take this site seriously or if he just wants to keep it as a hobby on the side. I don't know what the site's income is, but if lack were to hire one or two (non-Filipino) programmers, the productivity of the site would increase by about an infinite percent.


We already know the answer to that. There's been little to no feedback from the CC Elite. It just seems that lack's fine with how things are and doesn't care enough to change things for the better.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby ahunda on Wed Jul 11, 2012 5:40 am

Oh, wow. At this point I am starting to completely disagree with Mr Changsha on almost everything he has said in his last posts. I donĀ“t even know, where to start.

Point 1:

Mr Changsha wrote:''But they can set them up themselves!!!" I hear you all cry. But I wager the new player is rarely immediately premium. He must join a game.

This is wrong, I believe. Freemiums can start/create casual games ? They can not start private games, thatĀ“s all ?

Point 2:

Your definition of the casual player is seriously lacking. I had friends playing at this site, who never visited the forums, gave a rats ass about the Scoreboard, clans, etc. Only came here to play games and did so for years. Casual fun players in every meaning of the word, and guess what their preferred games were: Feudal Foggy, AoR Foggy, ...

Not everybody is playing special maps & settings, because they think, that it is the best way to gain points & rank. As a matter of fact, I actually believe, most play them, because they simply like to play them.

Point 3:

I just looked at the top of the Scoreboard, and from what I see there, at least 50% of the current Top 20-50 are Sequential players. Some of them almost exclusively playing Standard Esc games.

From my own experience I can tell you: Playing 6-8 player Standard Esc games, Sunny & on old school Risk maps, you can reach General and even 4000+ points. If you are good enough.

Your arguments in that regard sound rather like a personal grudge of someone, who has peaked with his personally preferred settings. And you have started that argument about 100 times in different threads in the past already. Yes, playing Standard Flat Rate games you will not reach the Top 20 of the Scoreboard. The reason being, that - different from Standard Esc games - beyond a certain point you donĀ“t find enough players of similar rank anymore to fill your games.

And yet again, from personal experience, I can tell you, why: Unless you have lop-sided dice in the early rounds or someone makes a really stupid mistake, that upsets the entire balance of the game, a huge percentage of Flat Rate Standard games develop into never-ending stalemate building games. And after a few 100 of these games, they are about as exciting as watching paint go dry. Thus many players (myself included), once they have mastered this particular setting, get bored with it and move on to different games.

As I see it, the many special maps & settings are actually what keeps many old-timers interested, so they stick around & keep playing. Because there still is something new to discover, a new challenge to be had, a new interesting twist to the game to be tried.

Point 4:

I agree, that the scoring system is f*cked. But I donĀ“t think, that this is the reason for the decline of the site.

I remember, that a couple of years ago there were never less than 18.000 players on the Scoreboard, and at times as many as 22-23.000. So there is a decline, that much is obvious. But letĀ“s be honest: The discussions about the scoring system, about the Sequential-Freestyle conflict and about Farming issues we had already back then, years ago, when the member count was at its height.

Maybe the f*cked scoring system is a reason for some people to leave/quit the site. But there are many other reasons: People just getting bored with the game and moving on to something else, people undergoing changes in RL and not having time for it anymore, etc.

The problem is, that obviously not enough new players sign up & stay around. And there have been some very good posts here, why that might be so, and what could be done about that.

For players to become frustrated with the scoring system, they must have been around for quite a while already to realise the problems with it. These however are certainly not the main problems for the casual fun player, who - by definition - doesnĀ“t care too deeply about the Scoreboard anyway.

Still: Certainly problems, that have gone unanswered for way too long, with pretty obvious solutions being suggested again and again: Separation of the Scoreboard. Sequential-Freestyle at the very least. If people insist, further separation might be possible (Singles - Team, whatever). But this, in my opinion at least, it is a different discussion entirely.

And now I stop myself, before this become any longer ... O:)
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby tkr4lf on Wed Jul 11, 2012 8:33 am

Mr Changsha wrote:I think I can answer most of the replies by concerning myself with woodruff's post.

You didn't really address my points at all. The point about how it's inherently unfair to force players to play a certain type of game. If some people like to play sequential, escalating, sunny games, and others like to play sequential, no spoils, foggy games, why can't the both just play the game types that they like? Why must there be an abolishing of settings in order to force everybody to play the game type that you like best? Does that not seem a bit excessive?

Isn't there a happy medium somewhere that allows those who want to play more advanced settings the opportunity to do so, but still encourages the classic gameplay that you so desire? Or, in your opinion, must a draconian action be taken to force everybody to play the game that you (and most casual gamers, according to you anyway) want to play?

And how about the point that doing so would likely drive away some of the existing customers who have been here for years? I personally don't care all that much for sunny games anymore. Fog introduces new strategy into a tired old game. I've been playing RISK since I was about 10 years old with my dad and brother. After a while, playing that same game gets old. I can't speak for everybody, but I would be willing to wager that I wouldn't be alone in this, but personally, I would leave the site if they started abolishing settings in order to force me to play a certain game type that I don't want to play.

Can you actually address these points? Because you really didn't in your response to Woodruff.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby Dukasaur on Wed Jul 11, 2012 10:25 am

I too started out almost completely agreeing with the OP, and have gradually begun to agree less and less. Not that I have changed, but Changsha has made a radical leap from his original proposal (have complex and "farming" games hidden by default) to abolishing them outright.

Obviously the majority of freestylers are playing the setting mainly to farm points from the inexperienced. But there are also those who geniunely enjoy playing that setting and are quite happy to play it against others of a similar skill level. The first group can be stopped without ruining the fun of the second group. Hiding freestyle games from the "Join a Game" tab is sufficient. Those who enjoy them can find them through Game Finder; those who do not will not be accidentally lured into them.

To a lesser degree, other difficult settings can also be farmed, so they can be treated in a similar manner. Team games, Manual Deployment, Nukes, Speed, Trench, maps with 1-way portals, and possibly even Fog should be games that one can only find intentionally (ie. through Game Finder or some specialized tab like there already is for Speed games) and not accidentally through Join A Game. We can also tighten the rules on invites into that kind of game to help prevent farming abuses. That would be sufficient to prevent the negative experience that most new arrivals on the site face.

As for the scoreboard-climbing issue, having seperate scoreboards for different game types will solve that problem, eventually. In the meantime, it really isn't the biggest issue here. Most people who come to an Internet gaming site know that they are never going to reach the top of a scoreboard. For starters, no normal adult who works for a living is ever going to be able to match high school kids and welfare bums who can stay at their keyboard 24/7. That's true of any Internet game; it certainly isn't unique to CC, and anyone who has been gaming on the Internet for any length of time has come to accept it. But in any case, even if we did all have equal opportunity, in a group with 5-digit membership most of us still wouldn't reach the top percentile and we know it. I don't think it's nearly as big an issue as the farming/bad-experiences-for-newbies issue that forms the core of your original thesis.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby Tenebrus on Wed Jul 11, 2012 10:29 am

What about deleting freestyle 24 hour games?

Freestyle (which I love) is about speed, quick moving, back and forth. The only thing 24 hour freestyle rewards is farmers, and people who can go without sleep. It's a particularly obnoxious setting for a newcomer and doesn't add anything at all to CC IMO.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby Ace Rimmer on Wed Jul 11, 2012 11:00 am

I used to play a number of 24h freestyle games when I first joined, because I was freemie (and am again). That way I'd be guaranteed a move at least every 24h.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby queen victorious on Wed Jul 11, 2012 11:02 am

Excellent analysis. I am your typical player who enjoys relatively basic maps and settings
who joined a clan and found myself playing maps and settings I was not prepared for and
didn't really enjoy. I also saw my rank drop from Captain to private at one point, and playing
catch-up isn't easy - it's frustratingly unenjoyable.
I've met so many people on here who are fun - i'd hate to see them disappear out of similar frustrations!

Maybe some of us have become embarrassed to admit that "the basics" are what we really
prefer?
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby jgordon1111 on Wed Jul 11, 2012 11:33 am

Absolutley brilliant post changa, I for one agree.

Anyone who wants to play the good old fashioned game let me know, I will be glad at any time to set up the games,sunny,esc,auto,unlimited.

5-8 player games

matter of fact just set some up,everyone invited even if your foed you can join one to start as long as you dont suicide on me,if foed leave message here to be unfoed.
Last edited by jgordon1111 on Wed Jul 11, 2012 11:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby The Voice on Wed Jul 11, 2012 11:37 am

Incredible, I find myself agreeing with almost everything you've stated. I would, however, defy you to form a concrete definition of hardcore and then find the actual percentage of their makeup on this site rather than positing the percentage to be very small.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby natty dread on Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:03 pm

Army of GOD wrote:fog is fun for casual gamers (I consider myself a casual gamer with my 0 active games) but freestyle is literally only for the idiots or the hardcore gamers and is just generally unfun. I wouldn't miss any sleep over it being removed.


I agree with shorty here.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby Dibbun on Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:37 pm

If you want 'real risk' then you need an option where people can choose their own drop.

You already have a SoC, why not make a similar 'intermediate one' focused on getting people to Major? Improving education makes more sense to me than restricting freedom.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby Woodruff on Wed Jul 11, 2012 2:55 pm

Mr Changsha wrote:
Woodruff wrote:I don't believe that logically follows.

First of all, I did not at all take your previous post as one denigrating intelligence of casual players at all, so I apologize that my response came across that way.

However, my point is that if the experienced casual player wants to gravitate toward the more complicated settings in order to increase their rank (as you suggest), that doesn't affect the health of the site in any way. Those who are getting pummeled on those maps/settings are still presumably happy in playing those maps/settings, since they are experienced enough to know the difference and haven't moved away from those maps/settings.

There are still a vast number of casual players like me who are perfectly happy chugging along on the fairly basic games and settings, so there is no dearth of opponents nor games being created within that vein. So I'm failing to see how the experienced players' choices affect the health of the site.

Rather, I believe this is wholeheartedly a matter of being able to keep some reasonable percentage of the new players around. Although I am open to the idea that I've completely misunderstood what you're trying to say, much as you thought I took your previous post to be one of denigration to the casual player.


I'm not sure I could put it more clearly than I have! Though I would suggest that you are considering the point from your own experience (which is fair enough), that of a player 'happy to chug along'. I think a lot more players would like to play on those settings as well, but feel they have to play freestyle or fog to increase their score. I know YOU don't care about that, I know there are others who don't either. But i think a lot players do.


But that's rather the point...they have the freedom to make that choice and "fall to the temptation", and they should have that freedom to make that choice once they're experienced players (and not before).

Mr Changsha wrote:I know my proposal is far too radical. People are obsessed with the idea that more choice is automatically a good thing. Even when such choices are destroying the integrity of the game. But I will continue to shout into the wind...


For experienced players, more choice absolutely is a good thing. I don't buy the general premise you're putting forward that the amount of choice is giving the site the "feel" (for lack of a better word) of a crap site or that those choices are destroying the integrity of the game.
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby eddie2 on Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:08 pm

lol what happened to equal punishment for all.

this ban. posting in game chat after game was complete.. not even any player in game complaining about it....
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=239&t=174283

in regard to this sorry jr.. posting in game chat while game still going on. no warning no ban just a closed... with a comment stating this style of gaming was not abuse so he should not be chatting in it. (but it has been classed as abuse since then.)
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=239&t=110327&hilit=jr24+spamming

This is just a perfect example of how players are getting pissed off with the one rule for one and another for a different player. :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby Armandolas on Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:15 pm

Heloo
We can choose a lot of reasons for memberships decline.
In my opinion there are 2 separate and simple memberships:
1-The ones that are old in CC
2-The newcomers

Reasons for 1 not buying premium again:
-Like everything in life, everything gets boring...we just find new games new hobbies etc.It happened to me in a lot of hobbies.It happens to almost everyone.
(So thanks for the game improvements like fog,trench,nuke,medals etc...Without this CC would have lost a lot more members.)
-Some ppl get so addicted to all this, then it happens that they think this is a real life drama to live.They get so involved that they would just cause troubles,intrigues and that off course will bother some other ppl that just dont care and get so annoyed by these people that they just looses patiente to hang around.

Reasons for 2 not buying premium:
1-Old fashioned WEBSITE...not attractive at all to a newcomer.This might seem irrelevant for all us...but its vital in the web these days.
Graphically its worth 0.Navigation speaking its medieval..and associated with this it NEEDS a GOOD menu to setup a CLEAN and EASY game.

A newcomer dont care about clans,conqueror style of playing or stupid arguments about team games or rank.
Not actually they dont care, but they dont know about it.Only when you are a member for a while u start to read forums etc, etc and start to discover those ridiculous things.
I can give my example that applyies to more than half of CC users..for the 2 1st years after registering, ive never been in the forums.
(Too bad because then i couldnt find that there are some really nice tournaments going on the community)
About premium...the only thing that makes people buy premium is to be able to play more than 4 games at a time
About freestyle..its a nice way of playing...i just dont like it..but when i was freemium that was my n1 choice.

Another important thing that someone said:
Promotion...without promotion work you will not have much success in business

Basically, like said in OP, the newcomer comes to play risk and thats what he will get(maybe u dont know but for the first games u are not able to see trench,fog and stuff like that)When u join u can only join simple games..so thats not even an argument.

So again there are only 2 main reasons: Old guys gets bored
New guys need a modern and website


(there are many nice ideias allover this thread)
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Re: Why CC's Membership is (actually) Declining

Postby hmsps on Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:24 pm

eddie2 wrote:lol what happened to equal punishment for all.

this ban. posting in game chat after game was complete.. not even any player in game complaining about it....
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=239&t=174283

in regard to this sorry jr.. posting in game chat while game still going on. no warning no ban just a closed... with a comment stating this style of gaming was not abuse so he should not be chatting in it. (but it has been classed as abuse since then.)
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=239&t=110327&hilit=jr24+spamming

This is just a perfect example of how players are getting pissed off with the one rule for one and another for a different player. :lol: :lol: :lol:
+1 there is a distinct lack of consistency and that is what a lot of users i talk to find very frustrating. Examples are some threads in C & A locked quickly with threats of punishments from mods and some are allowed to ramble and ramble without any consideration to lock. The suggestions forum is very poor, not mods fault i guess but they push for changes where frankly no one cares and adds nothing to gameplay but good honest suggestions are slapped away quite quickly with the comments "been suggested before etc" not a very progressive site.
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