Player Council 2nd Term: Discussion

Rachel.L

Phrourach
what, @Fluvisol? a nonstop crying laughing eating pooping merry-go-round doesn't leave your day wide open? :p
nice to see you here too @TaskCo1
the fact that you have posted here is twice more than 4 other council members in the last 2 months
cheers to you both
 

Rachel.L

Phrourach
First, I'd like to welcome @TaskCo1 and @Fluvisol to the EN Player Council

Nice to finally have some members who are involved and participating in the process. And now that the last two slackers have been removed from the rosters, I'm sure @Baudin Toolan is working hard to fill the vacancies.

Now, onto the topics that we have been discussing this week.
  • I've brought up the discrepancies between markets, with the aim of finding out the reasons behind these differences, and making it fair for all communities. EN is one of the only, if not the only, market with a Do Not Suggest list ... EN is forbidden from promoting Skype/Discord chats, while other communities such as DE have no such restrictions and their recent spam discussion with their CM was hosted in part on Discord. Furthermore, NL is used as a test market for updates, even though there is a market (beta) that exists specifically to test new features and updates. These points have all been raised, and when I have answers and the permission to publish them, I will.
Not sure if Kal has received answers or been given permission. However, there has been no response here on the forum or in the dev blog. Anyone from EN who has read forums on other markets (excluding US) will see that they are run quite differently. I read two discussions on the DE forum where several devs took part, one where they explained the limitations of the system and help develop an idea and another where they explained (in detail) how they handled (and admitted to mishandling) a potential problem. I can't get a straight answer from a dev about a simple question on their blog, let alone have them come to the forum for a discussion.

  • We've now been given permission to share a recent insight on the developer's plans for the ways in which events will change over time:
1. events will continue to exist, I am changing the rewards on them to reduce its power, as it happened on Pandora.
3. events are not currently our focus.
5. events are not currently in out focus anymore.

So, bottom line is they are weakening events and not planning to make new/ better ones. Events are will no longer be a time to earn great stuff and stack the inventory. But also, any glitches currently in place probably won't get fixed as the priority is not events. Heads up everyone.

*screenshot for quality assurance
 

Baudin Toolan

Grepolis Team
Fixing the ideas section is on my admittedly long list of things to do. I'll be getting rid of the DNS list and I'll be making an attempt to make the process involved in getting an idea passed simpler.
 

DeletedUser54192

Guest
Fixing the ideas section is on my admittedly long list of things to do. I'll be getting rid of the DNS list and I'll be making an attempt to make the process involved in getting an idea passed simpler.
Thank you for the update on this. Any idea on when the DNS list will be removed? (In my naivety, it seems as simple as deleting the "Do Not Suggest list" and "Wishlist" posts from Figtree's Ideas forum explanation thread.) Even if improving the general process takes a while, removing the DNS list would be a large instant benefit, as it would encourage more discussion and ideas on those topics to surface, which we can take through the GPC as well as the normal process.
 

Rachel.L

Phrourach
Domination Update!
Domination objective
Domination objective starts of as 40%. This value will start to decrease after some time has passed in the world (this time is predetermined by the speed and settings of the world). Domination objective will decrease based on the current progress of the top alliances until it becomes close enough to be reachable. Once the value starts decreasing, it will do so every 14 days.

So, I know I'm old and forgetful but since when did domination = 40%? Last I saw they were proposing 60%.
 

DeletedUser54192

Guest
@Rachel.L: I believe there were a variety of numbers mentioned in posts and discussions in different places. I thought the last number I had seen was 50%, but I'm honestly not sure. Most of the design work for Domination from the GPC was done by last term's Council, and the time since then has mainly been the developers creating it. So in some respects, we were on the same page as the rest of the community with regards to the release dates and the details of how it will work.
 

DeletedUser44867

Guest
about domination percent - last term's discussions it was something that was up in the air, and likely is still up in the air, until it was tested thoroughly to see what the best percentage would be. a lot of people in other servers, and some in our own, believed that 60, and 50, percent would be physically impossible to achieve. It's possible that the developers have been watching the current 'no endgame but hopefully will be domination' worlds, to see what the spread of percentages is currently, and realized that 50% was too high of a target from the way their tests have been playing out.
 

Rachel.L

Phrourach
@Kal Gordon and @Phidippidies, i agree there may not have been a set number (i admitted fogginess) or the devs are watching those current worlds
however, can it be called domination at 40%? idk
i haven't found a number in the NL wiki yet about their world b/c swamped
anyway, it was just something to think about as the beta version rolls out
esp since this is their focus
 

Rachel.L

Phrourach
  • The issue of the controversial war package
    • In response to statements made by multiple council members that we were being held responsible for negative decisions made by Inno that we had no part in or power over, the Lead Community Manager stated that players should understand that, while Inno comes and asks the Player Council for their advice and opinions, they have no obligation to act on them immediately, or indeed at all.
I think we all know by now that inno rarely listens to players. We hope they listen to the gpc but don't hold our breath. In terms of players holding the gpc responsible for inno's actions/ inactions, well, I hope those players are venting and nothing more. Anyone who truly feels you are the same as inno hasn't been paying attention.
  • It has been decided by the developers that no alliance-switching cooldown measure will be implemented at this time. They will continue to keep this idea in mind, especially with regards to Domination due to the way in which alliance-changing could be abused in that endgame mode.
Was a reason given or a better idea proposed?
  • The chosen reward for winning a Domination world has been announced: +10% warehouse capacity to all cities. It was felt that this wouldn't be unbalanced, was unique, and was similar to the World Wonder reward (same percentage increase as the +50 favour capacity).
Is it possible to get some background on what else was kicked around and thrown out? Your reasons for this choice are fine. Just wondering about other options. Understand if privileged and not allowed.
  • The topic of inequalities is still progressing. We are continuing to push this matter, but it is becoming increasingly worrying that the senior management for the game's overall community seemingly has no interest in dealing with obvious equality issues, even when simple solutions are presented.
Perhaps you can also ask why we have gone from a bi-monthly devblog to no update since mid-June, not even stats. Or, get an answer as to why there is no longer a way for me to post this question on the devblog to ask them directly. While the devs often ignored players, at least we could post and TRY to communicate with them.

Due to real life commitments, I will be unable to do next week's weekly update (2nd September).

@Kal Gordon, thanks for being so good with the updates. I think we all understand rl comes first. Besides, this is why you aren't alone in the gpc. By now, all the dead weight has been removed and @Baudin Toolan has found replacements for those who have been kicked out. So there should be five of you, with two having IC access and a back up who can do the update next week. Right!
 

DeletedUser54192

Guest
Was a reason given or a better idea proposed?
There is a reason given by the developer, but we haven't been given permission to share it yet. I will see if I can get permission to publish it.

Is it possible to get some background on what else was kicked around and thrown out? Your reasons for this choice are fine. Just wondering about other options. Understand if privileged and not allowed.

I'm not sure if I can post the other suggestions or not. Again, I will ask and find out. I see no reason why we shouldn't be, but with the situation on other issues, it is necessary to avoid breaking the rules so that we cannot be kicked in order to silence us on issues they don't wish to discuss.

Perhaps you can also ask why we have gone from a bi-monthly devblog to no update since mid-June, not even stats. Or, get an answer as to why there is no longer a way for me to post this question on the devblog to ask them directly. While the devs often ignored players, at least we could post and TRY to communicate with them.
We asked this a short while ago. We received a response, but again they didn't state that we had permission to post it (meaning that we can't, as we need to be actively given permission to post their responses to issues). I will ask if we can. I would hope that updates should start again soon, if the reason we were given was true.

By now, all the dead weight has been removed and @Baudin Toolan has found replacements for those who have been kicked out. So there should be five of you, with two having IC access and a back up who can do the update next week. Right!
Inactive members removed, yes.
Five of us, no. So far as I know, there are currently only three of us: myself, TaskCo and Fluvisol. We have not received replacements for Erik and DizzlJoe.
Currently I am the only Inner Council member. We are in discussion (as it's based on availability for calls, to make sure we have someone for the next Skype call with the developers), but it isn't being helped by the fact that there seems to be an issue with permissions and NDAs in terms of what people should or shouldn't be allowed to see, which is what we are trying to clear up at the moment. So unless that is sorted in the next week (and I will not be around as much to help push that), we will possibly have no update this weekend at all. Apologies for the inconvenience.
 

Rachel.L

Phrourach
@Kal Gordon please don't post something you are allowed as you appear to be the only source of info EN players have. I totally understand that inno doesn't share. I don't understand the EN gpc not being flushed out and you getting assistance. Seems like one more obstacle that is unnecessary.
 

DeletedUser55934

Guest
Please use this thread to discuss any ideas, game concepts, issues or anything else that you feel the Player's Council should bring up with Inno. Also, please put any feedback about the council here. Please try to keep this thread free of spam.

Thanks, and we look forward to hearing your comments.


1) I think not just having the gods and goddess we have now add the the rest of them and for the monsters we could add their titian form
2) you also could take out the one quest where you have to attack one person other wise the person would lose their beginners protection
3) instead of making the the upgrade times so long why don't you make some easier way to cut down times or finish them at a certain time for people who don't want to buy or just can't buy the gold
4) you could add campaign map along with adding in 2 more mythologies
5) the free roam capabilities of freeman gurella warfare but the fighting of total war
6) you get a choice between 3 different mythologies and depending on your choice you will be placed in camp half-blood or camp Jupiter or the house of life
7) add heroes to all worlds
make a creative name for the world and have fun conquering the world

i prefer if you message me in game about this on what might be considered being added or is being added if you need more info message me in game at master of greekmythology
 

DeletedUser54192

Guest
i prefer if you message me in game about this on what might be considered being added or is being added if you need more info message me in game at master of greekmythology
I can't find you on any world that I'm in, and I don't really have time to join even more worlds. So apologies, but the reply will have to be here.

1) I think not just having the gods and goddess we have now add the the rest of them and for the monsters we could add their titian form
  • "The rest" of the gods and goddesses is a rather extensive list. We currently have 6 gods in the game, and there are already balance issues with spells and mythological units. Shared attributes between gods (Athena+Ares for warfare, Apollo+Artemis for archery, etc) would make it hard to create representative and unique spells for them, in addition to the fact that some gods would be hard to create useful spells for.
  • "Titian form"s of monsters doesn't make sense, at least to my knowledge of Greek mythology: the titans were basically an elder generation of gods, and the distinction isn't always entirely clear (some of the titans' children are referred to as gods, others as titans, and a few seem to have debated status, such as Aphrodite). They aren't a particular form of monster.

2) you also could take out the one quest where you have to attack one person other wise the person would lose their beginners protection

This a reasonable suggestion, and one that has been discussed between council members on a few occasions. Partially due to the reason that you stated, but also due to the fact that it cannot be completed at the time it appears for those players who join straight away. (The quest usually pops up a few days into BP, from what I can remember, and protection can't be broken until at least one person comes out of it naturally.)

3) instead of making the the upgrade times so long why don't you make some easier way to cut down times or finish them at a certain time for people who don't want to buy or just can't buy the gold

There are several ways to have shorter upgrade times:
  • Play worlds that have a higher world speed. The longer upgrades still take a while, but it's not as painful as slow worlds can be.
  • Use Efficient Architects tokens. You can get these from island quests, so no gold spend required, and an epic Efficient Architects token will halve the build time of anything already in the queue and anything placed in the queue for the duration of the token's effect.
  • Use Christopholus in the city that you need to prioritise building up (if you play on a world with heroes).
Also, gold is meant to give an advantage (and this is me saying this as someone who doesn't spend money on this game). So you can't really demand that you should get the abilities they pay for, for free, with no real effort.

4) you could add campaign map along with adding in 2 more mythologies


  • A campaign-style would be a completely different game. From what I know, campaigns are usually 1-player, or small groups of players. Not the huge numbers of players you have on most worlds in Grepolis. It could be fun, but it wouldn't really be the same game, so it seems like this is more of an idea for a new game than an improvement to the existing one.
  • I'm assuming, based on your 6th suggestion, that you mean to have Roman and Egyptian as the two alternate mythologies. I would refer you back to my point about balance, and about ending up with copied spells. (If the alternate mythologies didn't have some copy of purification/wisdom/sea storm, they would likely be ignored by the vast majority of players.)

5) the free roam capabilities of freeman gurella warfare but the fighting of total war

This seems like you want a completely different game? More like Age of Mythology, or a version of Rome Total War that includes spells and mythological units?

6) you get a choice between 3 different mythologies and depending on your choice you will be placed in camp half-blood or camp Jupiter or the house of life

Aside from the previously-stated balance issues, I'm going to point out one major barrier: copyright. Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter are from fictional series' by Rick Riordan (as I am sure you know, but pointing it out to those others watching this thread), and likely couldn't be used without permission. House of Life may or may not be subject to copyright, depending on how much inspiration you take from the books (they feature in an Egyptian-themed series by the same author, but the House of Life was a part of Egyptian history already).

7) add heroes to all worlds
The majority of currently-active worlds do have heroes, to my knowledge. I certainly don't remember any world without heroes being released on EN since I joined the game around 2 years ago. I understand that a couple of the oldest currently active worlds still have no heroes, but to add them in at a late stage of the world would create a completely new dynamic. Given that there are players who don't appreciate the whole idea of heroes, it seems logical to have occasional worlds that don't include them.

make a creative name for the world and have fun conquering the world
Is this a suggestion, or a generic well-wishing towards everyone?
 

DeletedUser55892

Guest
We post suggestions here right? Well I'm pretty sure the tutorial at the start of the game, when it tells you to "either found or conquer" a city for your second city, doesn't teach the player on how to actually conquer a city, which might be problematic for new players not exactly knowing on what they're doing, I'm not sure exactly why it isn't implemented, but they should have a quest or just a tutorial at some point on how to conquer a city, also having that quest either specific to the world (revolt/conquest) or just teach both
 

DeletedUser55934

Guest
I can't find you on any world that I'm in, and I don't really have time to join even more worlds. So apologies, but the reply will have to be here.


  • "The rest" of the gods and goddesses is a rather extensive list. We currently have 6 gods in the game, and there are already balance issues with spells and mythological units. Shared attributes between gods (Athena+Ares for warfare, Apollo+Artemis for archery, etc) would make it hard to create representative and unique spells for them, in addition to the fact that some gods would be hard to create useful spells for.
  • "Titian form"s of monsters doesn't make sense, at least to my knowledge of Greek mythology: the titans were basically an elder generation of gods, and the distinction isn't always entirely clear (some of the titans' children are referred to as gods, others as titans, and a few seem to have debated status, such as Aphrodite). They aren't a particular form of monster.



This a reasonable suggestion, and one that has been discussed between council members on a few occasions. Partially due to the reason that you stated, but also due to the fact that it cannot be completed at the time it appears for those players who join straight away. (The quest usually pops up a few days into BP, from what I can remember, and protection can't be broken until at least one person comes out of it naturally.)



There are several ways to have shorter upgrade times:
  • Play worlds that have a higher world speed. The longer upgrades still take a while, but it's not as painful as slow worlds can be.
  • Use Efficient Architects tokens. You can get these from island quests, so no gold spend required, and an epic Efficient Architects token will halve the build time of anything already in the queue and anything placed in the queue for the duration of the token's effect.
  • Use Christopholus in the city that you need to prioritise building up (if you play on a world with heroes).
Also, gold is meant to give an advantage (and this is me saying this as someone who doesn't spend money on this game). So you can't really demand that you should get the abilities they pay for, for free, with no real effort.




  • A campaign-style would be a completely different game. From what I know, campaigns are usually 1-player, or small groups of players. Not the huge numbers of players you have on most worlds in Grepolis. It could be fun, but it wouldn't really be the same game, so it seems like this is more of an idea for a new game than an improvement to the existing one.
  • I'm assuming, based on your 6th suggestion, that you mean to have Roman and Egyptian as the two alternate mythologies. I would refer you back to my point about balance, and about ending up with copied spells. (If the alternate mythologies didn't have some copy of purification/wisdom/sea storm, they would likely be ignored by the vast majority of players.)



This seems like you want a completely different game? More like Age of Mythology, or a version of Rome Total War that includes spells and mythological units?



Aside from the previously-stated balance issues, I'm going to point out one major barrier: copyright. Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter are from fictional series' by Rick Riordan (as I am sure you know, but pointing it out to those others watching this thread), and likely couldn't be used without permission. House of Life may or may not be subject to copyright, depending on how much inspiration you take from the books (they feature in an Egyptian-themed series by the same author, but the House of Life was a part of Egyptian history already).


The majority of currently-active worlds do have heroes, to my knowledge. I certainly don't remember any world without heroes being released on EN since I joined the game around 2 years ago. I understand that a couple of the oldest currently active worlds still have no heroes, but to add them in at a late stage of the world would create a completely new dynamic. Given that there are players who don't appreciate the whole idea of heroes, it seems logical to have occasional worlds that don't include them.


Is this a suggestion, or a generic well-wishing towards everyone?

so i am in the world bellerophon

1) think about their controls athena is the goddess of wisdom and justice,
aries is the god of destruction, apollo is the god of the sun, music and
archery also artimis is the goddess of hunt and the moon but as in their
titian forms of them i was thinking on the lines of adding them in as
bosses for when you fight the bandits

4) not if we do one were the alliances were to battle it out for the map of
the U.S.

5) idea from brother

suggestion


and are you saying i would make a great game designer for if i did create a
game with just some of the ideas i put out their
 

DeletedUser54192

Guest
so i am in the world bellerophon
I take it that is one of the old worlds without heroes? The point stands that I don't really have time to go and join yet more worlds.

1) think about their controls athena is the goddess of wisdom and justice, aries is the god of destruction, apollo is the god of the sun, music and
archery also artimis is the goddess of hunt and the moon but as in their
titian forms of them i was thinking on the lines of adding them in as
bosses for when you fight the bandits
  • As well as her other other aspects, the Greeks stressed her role as the goddess of warfare (usually military strategy). Ares is the god of war (usually the more violent aspect of it). Given the nature of this game, there would be a fair amount of overlap. (There is less overlap in their Roman incarnations: Minerva (Athena) was sidelined as a war goddess and her justice/crafts aspect was prioritised, while Mars (Ares) was attributed to military strategy as well as just violent combat.)
  • Apart from the archery, most of the traits of Apollo and Artemis would be hard to represent in-game. (Especially for EN, where there is no defined night period.)
  • If you'd like more gods to be included, then perhaps the best thing to do would be to design some (hopefully balanced) ideas for spells and mythical units for specific gods, rather than just saying "I would like all the gods", without any thought as to how to implement them. That would make it much easier for people to give feedback.
  • You still haven't explained what you mean in terms of titian forms of monsters? If you think mythical units should be included in bandit camp levels, that is a reasonable suggestion, but the "titian forms" part is confusing as it doesn't appear to mean anything.

4) not if we do one were the alliances were to battle it out for the map of the U.S.
  • The game is already somewhat a battle for territory, and will become much more so when playing the Domination endgame.
  • If you were to change the map into that of a particular country (which would void the vast majority of naval combat), then the logical choice would be Greece, as that's the theme for this game.

5) idea from brother
  • That doesn't really change my response to that idea.

suggestion
  • Given that the aim is already to conquer the world that you are on (especially in Domination, where size of territory matters more than the spread within that territory in terms of core islands / etc), then your suggestion is just that players should get to pick the name of each game world?

and are you saying i would make a great game designer for if i did create a
game with just some of the ideas i put out their
  • I'm not saying anything about your potential skill (or lack thereof) as a game designer.
  • It's not particularly easy to tell either way, as the majority of your ideas seem to involve major overhauls to change the base nature of the game, or are vague with regards to how they could be planned, let alone accomplished. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to pick one or two ideas to focus on, and write a detailed format for those ideas that includes explanations, balance, etc, that people can give worthwhile feedback on.
 

DeletedUser55934

Guest
well i can find their titans but i did find some fun things that might be able to give you some ideas for magic spells and gods and goddesses

follow the link it will give you a list of greek gods and goddesses (hint use their symbol if it is an animal)

for example: apollo symbol is the lyre so we could make 1 of his magic units the lyre

http://rickriordan.com/extra/meet-the-greek-gods/
 

Rachel.L

Phrourach
well i can find their titans but i did find some fun things that might be able to give you some ideas for magic spells and gods and goddesses

follow the link it will give you a list of greek gods and goddesses (hint use their symbol if it is an animal)
for example: apollo symbol is the lyre so we could make 1 of his magic units the lyre
http://rickriordan.com/extra/meet-the-greek-gods/

@master of greekmythology, just so kal doesn't seem like a bad guy responding to you again in the negative, i'll be the jerk
1. inno, the company, can not use any idea we come up with based on someone else's work
if you want to introduce players to other gods, reference an encyclopedia not an author whose work is copyrighted

2. in the ideas forum (https://en.forum.grepolis.com/index.php?forums/ideas.8/), you will find directions on how to propose an idea, such as introducing a new god
YOU must come up with a proposal that the community will then discuss and flush out, if worthy
it is not the job of the gpc to make your idea come to fruition
they have too much to do already
 

DeletedUser55934

Guest
Ares
Ares is the god of war.
what ever you guys or girls feel like saying about him.


Divine powers
1) battering ram----- destroys 4-6 levels of the wall mana 150
2) troublemaker----- causes a revolt in the city for 2 hours and 30 minutes mana 375
3) bears for days------ you will recieve 2 rams of ares mana 50
4) destruction-------- if you send ares's rams of to battle and you use this spell
his rams will choose 3 random buildings and take 1 level from each of them mana 300

Mythical units
Divine envoy
ram
bear




Nemesis
Nemesis is the goddess of revenge
what ever you guys or girls feel like writing about her.


Divine powers
1) de-desire------ gives the attacking land and navel units
fight with 20% more strength mana 70
2) non-heroic power--- land units become 20% weaker in
the next battle mana 100
3) no more plague---- increases the basic resources production
in the selectes city by 70% for 4 hours mana 125
4) rebuilding from destruction---- when you get attacked from
ares and he used destruction if you use this spell thoose buildings
that he knocked down 1 level will regain 2 levels mana 150

Mythical units
Divine envoy
Arachne
spirit of revenge




feel free to make changes to this copy plz do but be more kind this time or give me some one who is kind and not disrespectful because we (as in all the players) would like to see all the gods and goddesses in the game. If you keep being a jerk i will start being a jerk back!!!
 
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