To cullman, discussion on Player Base Size causes.

Cylence · 2014-04-17 07:29:11

This discussion originated in this thread http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … hp?id=2839
Just continuing it here, so we don't hijack the potential team thread.

Cylence wrote:

cullman wrote:
If it wasn't for alts there wouldn't have been droves of people that quit this game. There wasn't an alt problem in February or at least a major one and I was getting robbed 10 times an hour. Look at the number of people who quit cause of cheating. This argument has gotten old.
The player base could be small for any number of reasons. 8 bit graphics, no tutorial, steep learning curve, it's a niche game, the permadeath, the lack of sales or marketing, the attention time required to spend watching or having your house torn down, the tedious and monotonous rebuilding because of the lack of ui features (intended), no robber leaderboard, no stats, no teams, no avatars, no achievements, no rewards, no customization, no leagues, limited mods (by the way, awesome work iceman and company).
Feb is right after launch. People could just not like the game after trying it. It's pretty punishing.
I have no research or statistics to back up any of the reasons I stated. Therefore, I can't compel you to believe any of those things have to do with our player base.
cullman, if you have any meaningful research or statistics that will support your claim, it will be helpful.

cullman wrote:

Cylence wrote:
cullman, if you have any meaningful research or statistics that will support your claim, it will be helpful.
Would you like me to point out all the threads where people say they are quitting because of cheating vs. all the threads where people are saying they are going to quit because of the 8-bit graphics? Additionally, all the other factors are well represented before you buy the game, the fact that it's 8-bit graphics, the fact that's it's permadeath, the fact that Jason himself said that the average person wouldn't even understand the game until 10 hours in (that was the article that caused me to buy the game). All of the other things you have named are right on the label of the game practically. Yet, every day someone throws up their hands and a thread complaining about cheating and says they are giving up. I see no other threads saying that there is any other reason to quit. Again, I think another huge problem is the community just shrugs their shoulders at this as the game slowly dies. I will say that Jason's fixes to the bounty have already had a massive impact. Notice how many paintings are all the sudden very affordable in the auction house. Just one week ago, when I said that dual accounts were free money, everyone was arguing with me that, sure maybe you can pick up an extra couple $100 a day dual accounting. I think we've shown that was not the case - so why are people still arguing with me about the next sticking point. I have one goal, it's to make this cool game mechanic of puzzle maker and puzzle solver survive in some form or another. My preference would be for that surviving version to be this version of the game.

Yes I would have liked you to point out all the threads, but you didn't.
So I guess I'll do it for you. Searched back to Feb 1st for any posts with a subject related to cheat, quit, or dual account. I listed down the ones that actually had quit possibility in them.

Below is what I found, does it back up your theory?

cullman wrote:

"Yet, every day someone throws up their hands and a thread complaining about cheating and says they are giving up."?

http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … hp?id=2817
Awesome streamer who takes breaks from the game because it is frustrating. If you watch his stream, he's quit before and come back for other reasons. And it had more to do with the lockout system this time around. He'll be back.

http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … hp?id=2826
Not a quit thread, but this guy is still playing and discussing building with us

http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … hp?id=2815
He's still playing.

http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … hp?id=2457
This is my thread where stefan said he was gonna quit, but he's still playing.

http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … hp?id=2421
CircleOfSorrow, really liked the game but didn't like that it wasn't fair. This guy is your poster child.

http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … hp?id=1171
Quit because $2kers wrecked his starter house (also related to this older thread
http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … p?id=1110)

http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … hp?id=1125
Quit because tired of self deaths. Although he seems like he still continued to play after for a bit, but his posts have dropped off.

http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … php?id=870
Quit because of he believed a dupe account was robbing. This could be two people and is something that can't be fixed.

http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … php?id=850
Quit because he felt the game didn't have much to offer him and he was unhappy with the income.

CircleOfSorrow seems to be the only actual one. A lot of them have a beef with two accounts sharing maps (or one person sharing maps across two accounts). I don't think there's a fix for that. I don't think it backs up your theory.
If I missed a few threads, please let me know. But even then if I missed it, is it really as "rampant" as you say it is?
In the case of CircleOfSorrow, he was pointing out the fact that people could make money and transfer, even though he didn't have all the details correct. However, he still wouldn't have stayed around because he wanted a fair world. And in a game where someone can easily share a map with another, you have to accept it or move on. If you do have a solution for map sharing, I'd love to hear it.

cullman wrote:

I will say that Jason's fixes to the bounty have already had a massive impact. Notice how many paintings are all the sudden very affordable in the auction house.

I don't think you took the all the factors into consideration, like how about a player robbing all the top end houses and committing suicide which put the paintings all on the market and drove a lot of money out of the game. The surviving houses might not even be interested in paintings. All the people who were and bought them up just got robbed.
I'm not saying the bounty change didn't have an impact, but jumping to the conclusion that affordable paintings are a direct result is quite a leap.

cullman wrote:

I have one goal, it's to make this cool game mechanic of puzzle maker and puzzle solver survive in some form or another. My preference would be for that surviving version to be this version of the game.

Which is why I'm still conversing with you. You're passionate and smart, but you really have to stop being so negative. Think of ways to bring positive ideas or plans. Maybe write a guide on how you can setup a house to catch people who transfer money and stir up a group to take down their main accounts. I liked it when you were discussing the other server where you would try to make it a fair world. I also liked your contest where you put up money for someone to break your vault. I also liked when you put money for people to break other vaults (of people you deemed as cheaters)

I understand that you love the puzzle aspect of this game. Jason has stated that he doesn't want it to be that game and has given us this unfair world. I still love it because it came with the puzzle aspect. And I try to enjoy that part and hopefully help people find their place by informing them of things they can do to have fun in this game. That's the reason for the two guides I wrote and my opinion on multiple accounts and how to deal with them.

This game is emotional. People rage. And some will blame it on cheaters, or exploiters (real or misguided). There's plenty of ones that say, "how come someone walked right into my vault, there was a 1 in 6 chance, they must be cheating." In some threads, people responded with care and tried to see if they person was actually a victim of a map hack.

My point: Use your posts to show people how to enjoy and create a puzzler game despite the flaws in the original game. It may have been designed to show us paranoia and frustration, but we can take what we want from it. We can show people the fun things we found in a game so eventually defeating. So please, stop assigning blame, and just continue with your positive contributions.

cullman · 2014-04-17 07:50:54

Thanks for the respectful and adult discourse. I think we will have to agree to disagree whether or not dual accounting is the reason for attrition. I did not start the discussion in that thread, Box whatever, basically said, "if it wasn't for dual accounters I would never get robbed". I don't like that kind of talk and I disagree, as I believe there would be more actual players if there weren't so many dual accounters, and again Jason has said he doesn't like dual accounters. Every time someone says "but dual accounts are actually good, or not that bad or whatever - it hurts the community. So I am going to argue about it on the spot, every time. So if people want me to shut up about dual accounting, they should stop posting pro-dual accounting messages. The communities stance on this, especially after Jason has made his view clear, makes me want to give up a little more each day. You pointed out a number of threads where people did say that they were quitting over dual accounts, and sure some people have come back, but I think it's cause we are actually trying to take some steps to fix it. You didn't give me any counter threads for people quitting over 8-bit graphics or any of the other hypothetical reasons you gave that people might quit. Here is what I think that most people don't realize, registered forum users represent less than 5% of the total number people who have bought a copy. So even if people aren't coming in and complaining on the forum, I think many are quitting simply cause it is too hard to get started. Granted Jason said it would be hard (remember, that's why I bought a copy), but when someone comes and drops a $10k bounty and $2k of tools into my $2k starter house, that has $400 in the vault, then comes by with a different account 30 seconds later and grabs it, something I have been able to make happen to myself 7 times in the last week with the right intentionally dumb looking house designs. Then when this newbie comes into complain about why anyone would bring 10x the value of stuff into their house the community says, "quit whining build a better house". Who isn't eventually going to say, "this is a cool game in and all, but unless I want to buy a second account, hit refresh all day, watch my beginner house like a hawk, I cannot even afford to try to finish learning the rest of the game." Forget, the expense of the second account, who has the the time.

As for the paintings coming back into the auction house, yes that was due to blip or someone wiping out some big houses, by bigger point was that there was like 10 paintingss that were desirable for less than $1500. Something I haven't seen in a long time. I don't want to name any names, but I will give you another example of how the bounty thing has improved. Ever since I put some bounties on cheaters I have had offers from people to dump me money in exchange for real life dollars, grab map shots for real dollars, rob people for me for real dollars, trash houses for real dollars, etc. The bounty thing was meant to look like I was just angry guy, but really it was my primary vehicle for research on how actual cheating worked. If you don't believe me, you can ask Jason I explained that this was my intention to him very early on. Here is the kicker, since Jason implemented the bounty fix, people that used to offer to drop me $20k a night (every night, btw), are now reaching out to me and asking if I can drop $1k of tools into their house. Right there, that tells me that fix had a huge impact. The guys who could dump me $20k a night due to dual accounting are now asking me for money. You can call me a complainer or negative or a blamer, but show me another player that isn't trying harder or spending more of their own personal money and time to try to fix the flaws in this otherwise incredible game.

Cylence · 2014-04-17 08:49:07

cullman wrote:

I did not start the discussion in that thread, Box whatever, basically said, "if it wasn't for dual accounters I would never get robbed". I don't like that kind of talk and I disagree, as I believe there would be more actual players if there weren't so many dual accounters, and again Jason has said he doesn't like dual accounters. Every time someone says "but dual accounts are actually good, or not that bad or whatever - it hurts the community. So I am going to argue about it on the spot, every time. So if people want me to shut up about dual accounting, they should stop posting pro-dual accounting messages.

He actually said it's sad, but he's just happy anyone is robbing him.

BoxDrunken wrote:

Not that many people play anymore I only have one account and i only see a small number of people die in my house daily and its all the alts of other people. If it wasn't for them no one would be robbing sadly, I mean i have a video of howe to get to my vault up on this forum and i m on the front page for houses..

I don't think he's saying he's pro dual accounting. I now know your resolve in speaking up against anything slightly pro dual account, but could you at least compromise by making a thread topic and linking out to it? Sometimes it hijacks threads when arguments begin. Maybe a general one like "Updated Log of Pro Dual Account statements that hurt the game."

cullman wrote:

You didn't give me any counter threads for people quitting over 8-bit graphics or any of the other hypothetical reasons you gave that people might quit.

I didn't say I would, it's all theory, and you also don't have enough research or statistics to back anything up either. Which is my point. There's no way to prove anything.

cullman wrote:

I think many are quitting simply cause it is too hard to get started.

I totally agree with this (with no evidence). It's a hard game and very hard to get into. There's a lot of things that aren't explained and people feel cheated even when they aren't a real victim because they just don't understand what happened. Sure, there are advantages and the game is unfair, either by design or due to flaws. People witness this but don't understand what they can do with a single account or with a friend.

cullman wrote:

... example of how the bounty thing has improved... Right there, that tells me that fix had a huge impact.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the improvement, but I was well aware of what the change would do to people who were farming families. I just don't think it had anything to do with the paintings issue this weekend.

cullman wrote:

You can call me a complainer or negative or a blamer, but show me another player that isn't trying harder or spending more of their own personal money and time to try to fix the flaws in this otherwise incredible game.

Iceman.
I'm not belittling your contribution or effort, just responding to your request.

Going back to what we do agree on: "I think many are quitting simply cause it is too hard to get started."
... and what we both want: "a larger player base."

Maybe you could create a starter walk-through and tutorial to make it easier for people to get started. It would also have factual information on the possibility of abuse (crowdsourcing your maps) that could prepare new players for their frustrations. From what you said, I think you have more information to share on how people have advantages in game.

Once that's done, maybe you can pull in new players by funding an idea I had awhile back: http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … hp?id=2377

Also, I hope you can come up with a better idea that I can for the economy issue. Mine sounds wacky, but it's all I could come up with.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2014-04-17 07:29:11

To cullman, discussion on Player Base Size causes.

#2 2014-04-17 07:50:54

Re: To cullman, discussion on Player Base Size causes.

#3 2014-04-17 08:49:07

Re: To cullman, discussion on Player Base Size causes.

Board footer