Its Time To Consolidate Servers

  • Thread starter DeletedUser41523
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DeletedUser41523

Guest
One thing that was highlighted above all else in the responses to my plan to save Grepolis thread was the need for an influx of players. Which I fully agree with. The game has backslide hard over the last four years and really its not viable to keep having various language game servers separated, since a lot put up less than 1k players a world, while the rest are in the current state of where EN is at. For context, there are 24 different game servers not counting the Beta testing servers. While the majority account for hundreds of players each,the top populated servers such as EN, DE, and FR still count for thousands each. When you combine all of these together, you'd get a map that would be pushing out into the third ring of the oceans at least. That's without launching advertising campaigns (which Inno should do). There's absolutely zero point to have separated servers because there isn't a player base to support/justify most of them anymore. But they could combine to create a super server and introduce some new competition and playing options into the game.

How It Would Work:
  • Inno releases international worlds only from now on.
  • Each account on every server receives a link in their email to register on an international server. Their gold, awards, greposcore, world winners bonuses, etc, transfer over.
  • Add the option to select your in game language settings.
  • World releases would be shifted to every 3-4 weeks instead of every 4-6 weeks. Adjusted based on demand of course.
  • Each server's forum stays active so information can still be communicated in their language and they could discuss issues in their language.
  • Night Bonus would be deactivated.
Pretty simple stuff. It'd consolidate the player base into one server and would be a massive upgrade over what we have now. More players would be inclined to stick around as its a change of pace and new competiton facing off. Rather than having the same handful of teams in the more populated servers and the one dominant team in the smaller servers. The larger maps would allow for more game play options such as late starts, different routes for expansion, better opportunities for new players, etc. Maybe its not the perfect solution, but it definitely beats the current direction of Grep right now.

Feel free to add anything on. But this concept is something that needs to happen and needs to happen before the year is out.
 
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VIRTUALSELF

Phrourach
Look at every other game out there. No game has country servers like Grepo, and if they do, it is continental servers and they can have that because they have millions of people playing their game.

When it comes to profit for Inno, a global server would give them more money i think. I dont know why you would gold on the Danish servers fx. the playerbase is so small that it doesnt make sense, and my guess would be that the same applies for 80% of the country servers. The funniest servers on EN is when a premade from another country tries to win in EN, so why not just make it all global.

Fantastic idea, the only downside i can see would be that people from country servers dont have night buff anymore, but let's be honest, at this point it's mainly tryhard people who likes no night buff who plays the game.

From advertisment reasons it would make great sense as well, if a new player drops in a world with 10k players, it's much more appealing than dropping in a world with 200 active players, and it's ErikWijmeersch branch fighting Bloods.

It would also give new players a chance to survive, as they wont spawn on the same island as Bucks anymore, instead they will spawn in god knows which ocean with other noobs who joined the server late.

Please INNO for the love of god, at least give a global server a try.. just once.. There is no downside from trying it out at least. Start advertising for your goddamn game, browser games and strategic games are having a resuscitation right now with Paradox games (CK3), Mount and blade, Age of Empires 4 just released, it's not like this genre has died, you have just failed miserably when it comes to luring in players and keeping them in the game.

At this point it's just the same usual suspects, 300 players circlejerking and pretending we dont like each other, when deep down we are the only ones we have...
smiley-emoticons-schneeballwerfen.gif


BTW look at a game like RUST, im not saying it's the same as grepo, but the aspect about you being able to lose everything or gain everything overnight is what the game is BUILT UPON. How many people play Rust? Millions man. People like a hardcore non forgiving strategic game.
 

1saaa

Strategos
One thing that was highlighted above all else in the responses to my plan to save Grepolis thread was the need for an influx of players. Which I fully agree with. The game has backslide hard over the last four years and really its not viable to keep having various language game servers separated, since a lot put up less than 1k players a world, while the rest are in the current state of where EN is at. For context, there are 24 different game servers not counting the Beta testing servers. While the majority account for hundreds of players each,the top populated servers such as EN, DE, and FR still count for thousands each. When you combine all of these together, you'd get a map that would be pushing out into the third ring of the oceans at least. That's without launching advertising campaigns (which Inno should do). There's absolutely zero point to have separated servers because there isn't a player base to support/justify most of them anymore. But they could combine to create a super server and introduce some new competition and playing options into the game.

How It Would Work:
  • Inno releases international worlds only from now on.
  • Each account on every server receives a link in their email to register on an international server. Their gold, awards, greposcore, world winners bonuses, etc, transfer over.
  • Add the option to select your in game language settings.
  • World releases would be shifted to every 3-4 weeks instead of every 4-6 weeks. Adjusted based on demand of course.
  • Each server's forum stays active so information can still be communicated in their language and they could discuss issues in their language.
  • Night Bonus would be deactivated.
Pretty simple stuff. It'd consolidate the player base into one server and would be a massive upgrade over what we have now. More players would be inclined to stick around as its a change of pace and new compeititon facing off. Rather than having the same handful of teams in the more populated servers and the one dominant team in the smaller servers. The larger maps would allow for more game play options such as late starts, different routes for expansion, better opportunities for new players, etc. Maybe its not the perfect solution, but it definitely beats the current direction of Grep right now.

Feel free to add anything on. But this concept is something that needs to happen and needs to happen before the year is out.
btw. Regarding the night bonus thing I've always liked the idea of having everyone be able to set their own 8 hour period as their personal night bonus that would be public information for all players to see. Still lets players use it without it being unfair or punishing to people in different timezones.
 

VIRTUALSELF

Phrourach
btw. Regarding the night bonus thing I've always liked the idea of having everyone be able to set their own 8 hour period as their personal night bonus that would be public information for all players to see. Still lets players use it without it being unfair or punishing to people in different timezones.
Either that or... actually show noobs how to play

Does grepolis even have a tutorial? It's just some bonuses for completing tasks. Maybe updating the wiki from 2012 or make a new ingame guide for new players, where they can experience some examples like how to identify if something is LS or flyers, how to dodge, how to self-snipe, what's the difference between the units etc. etc.

Sometimes feels like Inno doesnt even know their own units
 

1saaa

Strategos
Either that or... actually show noobs how to play

Does grepolis even have a tutorial? It's just some bonuses for completing tasks. Maybe updating the wiki from 2012 or make a new ingame guide for new players, where they can experience some examples like how to identify if something is LS or flyers, how to dodge, how to self-snipe, what's the difference between the units etc. etc.

Sometimes feels like Inno doesnt even know their own units
I mean, why not both? Regarding the night bonus, I like it because it allows softer more casual players to still enjoy the game without having to rely as much on alarm.
 

1saaa

Strategos
This isn't something we, the support team, have any control over but it's certainly something I can once again bring to the attention of our developers/game designers.
Out of interest, how are we meant to get conformation about the devs receiving the pleas of the En community and actually taking them into serious consideration? Instead of them just dumping another email from Baudin into the trash.
 

Baudin Toolan

Grepolis Team
We send in feedback every week gathered from among tickets and forum posts and this feedback is sent to the developers. I'm usually not able to share details about what I hear back as it might pertain to changes that are upcoming but not announced but all the feedback does reach the developers.
 

DeletedUser41523

Guest
We send in feedback every week gathered from among tickets and forum posts and this feedback is sent to the developers. I'm usually not able to share details about what I hear back as it might pertain to changes that are upcoming but not announced but all the feedback does reach the developers.

What degree of feedback, by your estimate, would be required for Inno to get the message? Would it be possible to create an unofficial poll for better feedback?
 

Baudin Toolan

Grepolis Team
I don't believe a poll would do anything more than the posts we've already had which I've been sending up to our developers. This type of change would be a massive undertaking and our server would be the least effected by it. The language used would remain the same, accounts might not need to be moved, etc so our one community asking for a massive change might not lead to that change regardless of threads made or polls created. I can continue to bring this up with our developers as something our community wants but we're just 1 of 20+ servers even if we are a large server. This wouldn't be some easy change by any measure and would require a lot of work so it might not be the direction the developers want to take the game in.
 

VIRTUALSELF

Phrourach
Wasnt there actually an attempt in 2019/2020 to gather all EN and US serious players on Discord and then put them randomly into teams with voted leaders in and then drop in the same world?

@Baudin Toolan I hope you can be honest about this though; What is the roadmap for Grepolis? Compared to the other games Inno have, how many even works at Grepolis? How come Inno dont advertise as much (or at all) for Grepolis anymore?

I don't see how it would be too much for you to answer whether or not Grepolis has a future if you ask Inno.
 

Baudin Toolan

Grepolis Team
In the last year and a half we've had a new end game release, Olympus, which is currently being updated after the first round of worlds with Olympus ended with feedback gathered from our communities. Olympus will be/is being tested out on the Beta server to see how the changes work and then we'll start having new Olympus worlds again. We've also had a new God released and updated in the last year as well. Grepolis isn't a game on which development has been halted, we're continuing to see new features added. As for details on how many people work on Grepolis I don't have that information nor would I be able to share it if I did, same goes with advertising as that is a decision for Inno's marketing team.
 

VIRTUALSELF

Phrourach
In the last year and a half we've had a new end game release, Olympus, which is currently being updated after the first round of worlds with Olympus ended with feedback gathered from our communities. Olympus will be/is being tested out on the Beta server to see how the changes work and then we'll start having new Olympus worlds again. We've also had a new God released and updated in the last year as well. Grepolis isn't a game on which development has been halted, we're continuing to see new features added. As for details on how many people work on Grepolis I don't have that information nor would I be able to share it if I did, same goes with advertising as that is a decision for Inno's marketing team.
I know about the updates, but the game is 12 years old, ofc stuff has happened. Inno are doing an okay job of keeping us in the game, but i mean a roadmap on how the save-grepolis-plan looks like. I just dont see no advertisement or attempt at getting people into the game. The app is messy as well.
 

DeletedUser41523

Guest
@Baudin Toolan fair enough. Just to clarify I was asking for a poll so we have a larger sample size over all + can compare it against the nays.

We are just 1 of 20. But would it possible to gauge for feed back in every active server? I think there’s restrictions for new accounts on forums. But would the comas be willing to punt this idea across their forums and see what the feed back is?
 

well too bad

Chiliarch
Maybe as a community we should branch out. I am sure not all of us are native English speakers and not all from the UK, if a couple of us go and communicate with the other grepolis communities and see if the actually want to merge servers we won't be only 1/20 servers asking for a global server. If we keep doing nothing it will never happen....
For example I also speak French and Arabic so I will be able to go and ask them and maybe propose this idea. If they like it they will join this server in our request.
 
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