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[hemmingjay]

EDIT: wrong game

[Something Evil]

Ohkay. I'll be frank. What you've done is dumb beyond measure.

You can't force PvP like that in a heavy multiplayer game as an initiative to keep players from getting bored.
All that you're doing is putting in a useless and unpleasant gating system. What you're saying is "U no PvP? Then no content 4 U." Which is kinda dumb, especially as PvP was pretty much dead before. (Edit:) Which means players aren't interested in it.

I may not know much about game design, but I have played a fair selection of MMORPGs, several Travian clones, as well as the original, and a good amount of AAA titles, be they FPS, RPG, what have you.

First, do you know why players leave an MMO, or a heavily multiplayer browsergame? Do you know why, for instance, Blizzard just lost over half a million subscribers a few months into Cataclysm? Because they didn't add content at enough speed to keep it interesting, and the content they did add was easily beaten by players.
If you want to keep players and add new ones, give them peeks at endgame content, make sure they can eventually get to a fair bit of it (not all of it, give the casuals some, leave most for the dedicated players, and give some to the hardcore players too), but gate it enough so you can't just breeze through it, but it won't be a nightmare to get to, either.
And always add new stuff. Rockets. Satellites. Moonbases. Go nuts!

Secondly, do you know what is a huge selling point for games these days? Achievement systems. Players love achievements to death. It doesn't even matter that there's no incentive to them like there is for Microsoft Points. The PSN awards are testament to that, as are CoD achievements, even though they don't help the game in any way, or can't be redeemed for goods. The ones in Warhammer40K: Space Marine get you gear/abilities or cosmetic features. WoW has had them for ages (and they were used to gauge players' abilities), and every MMO seems to have copied them over simply because players adore an occasional pat on the back and a shiny ribbon. Hell, even Steam has them for almost every game on the platform, and they do absolutely nothing but feed your e-peen.
So add more achievements. How long can you go without eating? Or sleeping? Can you get over 125 stat points in Str/IQ? Can you get your timing perfect and farm over 150 units of food? Again, go nuts. Make them as absurd as possible. Have players want to get to 10.000.000$ savings just because there's an achievement for them to get, i.e. "Scrooge". Maybe make some give titles that can be added to the player's name?
Bonus points if you customize their icons and give them witty names.

[Reelyanoob]

suggestions? well for a start i have many economic ones :-

balance it so all the crops are worth growing not just the magic barley + chickens combo.

Create food processing e.g. bakeries to turn grain into bread. reduce STR value of raw grain. Give fresh fruit & veggies a +1 mood modifier or something.

Make hunter a better profession e.g. by making it tied to woodcutting, and other forest-related things.

Add bungalows as a buildable structure on more than just city plots. Make bungalows rentable too.

Fix jobs (and mine rent) so that they can be optionally paid per-output for woodchopping, mining etc. there could be base-pay and per-unit pay. this will un-break the job system for people who have their own tools, while also making costs more predictable. Make the tick-limit be an optional unit-limit in those cases.

EDIT Also - Pre-approval of specific people for jobs! Make pre-approved people able to see closed jobs which they are approved for. Also - able to give a raise, probably on a per-job basis, or extend ticks on tick limited jobs. And order jobs in the job screen by pay.

Allow for-sale market items to be listed as "citizens only". this will make people use the markets more. perhaps have a citizens price and an export price settable separate? Or export tariffs? Create a "direct trade" dialog system where players can agree on a direct exchange. this would become subject to local tax rates.

[Something Evil]

Derp is me.

Reeyla is right.
The game also needs a good deal of re-mathing.
Tier one tools are completely disregarded, for one thing. Give some incentive towards the use of hatchets, sickles, whatever. Make them cheaper/more durable? Or, if you're feeling a bit evil/lazy, gate the higher tier tools like tractors?
Want to use a tractor to farm? Well, how about not sucking at farming, for starters?

Edits: Also, I would like to thank you for actually listening to the playerbase and not going ahead with the MXP bit. That would've caused untold quitting and rage.


Another idea would be more materials. (Here we go to the more content scenario.) Have training troops take Military Rations, made, perhaps, along with Canned Food, Canned Meat and Instant Pasta at a Food Processing Plant. Add more metals, maybe? Mine and smelt Tin for canned stuff, make Light Plastics for Rations and stuff (styrofoam, rubber bands, god knows what you can stuff in this category), or use high-carbon steel for heavy arms and big buildings. Some people like having three thousand resources and eighty production lines to keep track of. On the other hand, some do not, so the idea would be to gently poke and prod for some middle ground.

Also, another idea would be to make some resources interchangeable at the same building. No more lumber for smelting iron? Got coal, tho? Okay, then. Use some of that. No more tin for cans? Plastic cans can be just as sharp, annoying to open, and non-biodegradable, right?

[forsaken1111]

The tools as it stand are just ridiculous anyway. Many people don't even bother repairing them, simply building new ones because they are very cheap.

[Helios]

Good idea about the awards, I'll definitely consider that.

We are thinking of adding a lot more raw materials now, but each country having only specific ones. It should make trading a lot more interesting, and conflicts are a lot more likely to happen.

Not too difficult to add to either, so we can create these changes pretty quickly.

[Geneoce]

Seems I may be jumping into this a bit late, but what the hey lol.

Wheres bay12's HQ? still rocking in Libya?

[gimlet]

Yeah there's still a few die-hards in Libya,  hanging out and seeing what they'll do with the game.   And working to build and test some military stuff...
So come on down!   Oh and since I see most of the ones earlier in the thread are inactive now, you might as well use an active player's referral code (me) : INV15840C906

[Geneoce]

Excellent. I'll blaze through the tutorial and make my way there

[Something Evil]

Libya and Brazil have bay12ers.

Also, before adding in new materials, rebalancing what's already in the game should take a bit of a higher priority.
I mean, Mango? Honestly? The icon for that crop should be trollfaec.png.


Edit: For the love of Yog-Sothoth, move the Work button for jobs above the Quit button, and put some space between them. A LOT of space. Maybe color Work with a deep green and Quit with a bright red?

[Helios]

We decided to reset the game today, so there's a new "round" starting now.

If someone wants to try the game where everyone starts from the same level, try now Libya could be number 1 pretty easily I think

[chicagohotdog]

Just signed up for this game as ChicagoHotDog.  Is everyone piling into Libya again?

[Servant Corps]

May I request a status report?