atWar 2019 and beyond
Posts: 156
Visited by: 912 users
Hi everyone!
As you've heard I'm the new admin. I'd like to introduce myself, share some of my ideas/plans for atWar, and most importantly get your input.
About me: my name's David (most people call me Dave), from Los Angeles, CA, USA. I'm a programmer by trade and I run a small business creating various apps/software.
I'm new to atWar -- to be honest, I've only been playing for one month. My first knowledge of the game was when I heard the owners were considering selling it. I decided to do some due diligence, so I signed up for the game to see if it was something worth buying. Even though my initial interest was purely from a business perspective, I immediately fell in love with the game. I guess it's kind of a special niche, but I absolutely love strategy/war games like this.
I think the game has a lot going for it, but I also have some concerns. These can be summarized in 3 general categories:
- Bugs. Nothing so terrible that prevented me from playing the game, but definitely there are some bugs that need fixing.
- Stagnating user base. I saw the traffic and revenue numbers. Long story short, they've been more or less slowly declining since 2014. They could be worse, but they could be a lot better.
- Toxicity in the community. There's no point trying to sugar coat this. As a new player, I couldn't believe the negative stuff I saw in the forums and in chat. Some people are nice and welcoming, but there are also some jerks who must get their kicks bullying new players. I'm not naming names, but it's really astonishing -- we've got folks who on the one hand complain about atWar "dying", and then at the same time piss on new players.
I doubt this is "news" to any of you. Reading the forums, it's clear you are all aware of these issues. So what you probably want to know is... what am I planning to do about it?
- Bugs: it's simple, we'll fix them. It will take some time, but it can be done.
- Stagnating user base: I think there are 2 parts to fixing this. 1) bringing in new players, and 2) keeping players around. We can address #1 by investing in some marketing, which is something I am looking into. However to keep players, we need to reduce the toxicity problem, which leads me to:
- Toxicity in the community. I'm not sure how or why things got so bad, but it needs to stop. I'm going to start by making sure our moderators have the tools and resources they need. This might mean adding more moderators, or it might mean giving our existing moderators more powers. I will be talking with our mods about this issue.
Now, I'm not one of these guys who comes in and changes everything. I may take a hard line on certain issues that I think are really important. But for the most part I'm here to listen... there are many people who have been playing this game for a long time and I want to hear your thoughts. I want to enjoy playing atWar just like you do.
One more thing I want to say. I know it was a difficult decision for Amok and Ivan to part with atWar. They created it, they put a lot of blood sweat and tears into it. I think it pained them a lot that they just didn't have the time it needed. I know they still want to see atWar succeed and I'm honored they agreed to let me take the reins. I just want to say that Amok and Ivan will always be welcome here, whenever their schedules permit.
I've shared what my top priorities are at the moment, so now it's your turn. I'm open to any issues or ideas you have. Please reply to this thread with your thoughts... I look forward to your input!
Best wishes,
Dave
As you've heard I'm the new admin. I'd like to introduce myself, share some of my ideas/plans for atWar, and most importantly get your input.
About me: my name's David (most people call me Dave), from Los Angeles, CA, USA. I'm a programmer by trade and I run a small business creating various apps/software.
I'm new to atWar -- to be honest, I've only been playing for one month. My first knowledge of the game was when I heard the owners were considering selling it. I decided to do some due diligence, so I signed up for the game to see if it was something worth buying. Even though my initial interest was purely from a business perspective, I immediately fell in love with the game. I guess it's kind of a special niche, but I absolutely love strategy/war games like this.
I think the game has a lot going for it, but I also have some concerns. These can be summarized in 3 general categories:
- Bugs. Nothing so terrible that prevented me from playing the game, but definitely there are some bugs that need fixing.
- Stagnating user base. I saw the traffic and revenue numbers. Long story short, they've been more or less slowly declining since 2014. They could be worse, but they could be a lot better.
- Toxicity in the community. There's no point trying to sugar coat this. As a new player, I couldn't believe the negative stuff I saw in the forums and in chat. Some people are nice and welcoming, but there are also some jerks who must get their kicks bullying new players. I'm not naming names, but it's really astonishing -- we've got folks who on the one hand complain about atWar "dying", and then at the same time piss on new players.
I doubt this is "news" to any of you. Reading the forums, it's clear you are all aware of these issues. So what you probably want to know is... what am I planning to do about it?
- Bugs: it's simple, we'll fix them. It will take some time, but it can be done.
- Stagnating user base: I think there are 2 parts to fixing this. 1) bringing in new players, and 2) keeping players around. We can address #1 by investing in some marketing, which is something I am looking into. However to keep players, we need to reduce the toxicity problem, which leads me to:
- Toxicity in the community. I'm not sure how or why things got so bad, but it needs to stop. I'm going to start by making sure our moderators have the tools and resources they need. This might mean adding more moderators, or it might mean giving our existing moderators more powers. I will be talking with our mods about this issue.
Now, I'm not one of these guys who comes in and changes everything. I may take a hard line on certain issues that I think are really important. But for the most part I'm here to listen... there are many people who have been playing this game for a long time and I want to hear your thoughts. I want to enjoy playing atWar just like you do.
One more thing I want to say. I know it was a difficult decision for Amok and Ivan to part with atWar. They created it, they put a lot of blood sweat and tears into it. I think it pained them a lot that they just didn't have the time it needed. I know they still want to see atWar succeed and I'm honored they agreed to let me take the reins. I just want to say that Amok and Ivan will always be welcome here, whenever their schedules permit.
I've shared what my top priorities are at the moment, so now it's your turn. I'm open to any issues or ideas you have. Please reply to this thread with your thoughts... I look forward to your input!
Best wishes,
Dave
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Ok, first thing first to note here is people commenting here represent less than 1% of the player base. People commenting here are players who love this game and have been playing this game for years. They may represent a very loyal player base but they may not necessarily be one you should be taking all your advice from. Most new players who start this game stay with this game between 1 to 6 months. Then they leave this game permanently never to return. I think that is the biggest aspect of this game that need to addressed first. For example I had invited 5 of friends to this game and not a single one stayed with this game. They gave me 2 major reasons for leaving 1) This game feels advanced to beginners. The community here may not agree but to most newbies this game feels advanced and has higher learning curve than other risk based games. 2) There are not enough players in this game especially during day time in asia. The biggest player base for this game is from Europe and America. So this game is much more active during that time. This discourages new players. There are other reasons apart from that as well 1)Like bugs specifically in the map maker that hasn't been fixed in years. 2) This game also hasn't had any actual upgrade to it in years. Changes to strategy doesn't count neither does adding more upgrades. I am talking about changes to the core mechanics of the game. Like maybe adding more games modes or strategy. 3) This game feels a little pay to win to new players because generals aren't free. This has been pointed by others and its true. Generals give you some unfair advantages to this game. I see apart from this toxicity is mentioned as one of the problems in this thread. I feel this maybe a little blown out of proportion here. Every single online multiplayer game that has a user base can have this problem. Players who end up liking this game will stay with the game regardless. I also have a few suggestions for this game. 1) Since you are taking the reigns of this game from the start it might make sense to rebuild this game from scratch if you can afford to. It also might make sense to move this game to steam where you are likely to get new user base that is more likely stay with this game for a longer duration. 2) If you are unwilling to rewrite this game for other platforms and want to keep this browser based then also it might make sense to rebuild this game again while supporting ajax. One of the major problems I had with this game was if you disconnect before you save your changes for a turn you will lose all your changes. If we implement ajax this problem can be avoided. 3) It will make sense to have this game be supported on other touch screen devices. If we can change the mechanics of this game to have better gesture based features that make it easy to play on tablets, touch screen laptops this game will attract more players. This will also automatically promote this game.
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Fix the mapmaker and add ALOT of new tools/customization to it, i love making maps....Please....Add a fucking "undo the undo" button in map maker...PLEASE! Agreed, this "Toxic" community can get out of hand...But i like that. Even the EU4/CK2 community can get toxic, just happens when you have a community that likes history, geopolitics and strategy games, Brings life and some what culture to the site/community too You should use the polls alot, i loved it when amok and ivan did it, made us feel all connected Add a globe map/option....Ive been saying this for years. I dont believe any other game likes this has it
---- *War in Europe again isn't good for anyone... that's why the EU is an Absolute! Long Live The Forth Realm! Long Live Europe!*
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Hey David, Thanks for giving AtWar a second chance. I'll try to be succinct - which I am most of the time incapable of - so i'll get down to it right now. I do not know how familiar you are with the casual scene, but we are having major difficulties making the competitive side take off. And I believe it could be solved by a relatively simple fix to the interface. Let me try to describe the problem. A typical quick game is started once enough players have joined the game lobby. The country selection phase then takes place, followed by turn 1. A typical casual game is started when a solo player decides to start it. But the game cannot "wait" for other players to join at the country selection phase; the first player has to pick a country right off and trigger the turn 1 immediately. Then, the other players join on turn 1. This has many consequences, but here are the main ones IMO: - You cannot reinforce on the turn you joined; therefore, only the first player that started the game can reinforce on turn 1, all the others players that joined on turn 1 can only reinforce on turn 2. Which gives an unfair advantage to the first player. - Balance of existing maps is destroyed, even when the first player is honorable enough to reinforce on turn 2, because there is an extra income turn for all players. Therefore, all efforts done by the quick community to balance strategies and maps are lost. - Coalition Wars (CWs) are very hard to start, because CWs force all players to join in the game lobby - you cannot join later (for obvious reasons). Casual players have given the name "turn 0" to the country selection phase. We need turn 0 implemented. A simple turn where people can join and pick a country, that's it. Then, it would be followed by the regular turn 1, and everyone could reinforce, and the balance of the maps would be maintained. As a conclusion to my "succinct"  post, I will paste the following comment I wrote after a (rare, very rare) casual tournament was held last year:Finally, I want to point out the fact that we finished this 32 player casual tournament in less than 2 months - less time than the 64 player quick tournament. Not a fair comparison in all aspects, but still, i think we can conclude, in a sense, that casual tournaments are viable. Now this brings me to my main point: there exists an interest in casual play. And I believe it's stronger than many players suspect here. And my personal conviction is that if some key problems were addressed, casual games would thrive at an unbelievable rate. So I will use the success of the current tournament as an opportunity to request a single improvement that would revolutionize casual gameplay, and I obviously mean implementing the infamous "Turn 0". This would have a huge increase in fair play for casual games. The casual game community could take advantage of the incredible work done by the quick game community in terms of strategy balancing, mapmaking, ouvertures, etc. It would allow tournaments like this one to be way easier to organize (you cannot even begin to guess how many hours I spent starting games for players, sending emails to give them the game link + password). And competitiveness would not only thrive because of tournaments, but also because it would allow CWs to be started in a more accessible way. I firmly believe that it would attract a lot of new players, and that the AtWar community would largely benefit from implementing turn 0 sooner than later. I believe it's time for the casual community to receive an improvement it deserves. I know the map maker is the priority #1, but I cannot close this tournament without one last plea to Ivan, Amok, and Clovis1122 to implement this "Turn 0" soon. Thank you
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yea, if you've ideas id love to hear them, this is something id love to change so that all players kno whats going on, and what to expect from moderators
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Yeah don't listen to tirpitz, he's one of the most virulent racists on this site. Reducing toxicity is a good thing, regardless of what he says
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YES, YES, YES!! This ^^^ 
---- Embrace the void 
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Last year sometime I came into conflict with brianwl over a certain which lead to him abusing his powers thankfully there was a moderator to reverse his childish joke but I knew that something had to be done about some of the large grey areas so I had contacted Ivan and rewrote most of the rules which he then updated. I really don't know what more changes could be made if I'm honest.
---- Lest we forget Moja Bosna Ponosna
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This is very true - particularly until you get a grip on turnblocking, this game can get very frustrating. It seems to hit most people by the time they achieve Rank 4. There seems to be a point at which they give up, or figure it out (I almost gave up, and one of my good friends actually did give up, in both cases, we were rank 4s).
---- Embrace the void
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I second this - it has been a problem for us in Casual Ties and The Musketeers, in particular. 
---- Embrace the void
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Sir Hawk Account deleted |
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There is a fine line between banter and bullying. There is also a fine line between protecting the community from bullying and outright censorship. Some people are just far to soft these days, words cant really hurt you unless someone is actively sabotaging your reputation In your social circles. Dont fall for a small minority's pleas for total censorship, but at the same time it is important to find those nasty trolls on atwar that truly are attacking people.
----  We are not the same- I am a Martian.
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Yea, don't listen to this guy who thinks way too much of his own c-sharp skills. He is one of the worst ideologues on this site, protecting free speech is a good thing, regardeless of what he says.
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The people here represent the largest portion of the community, you are confused, the people commenting here contribute to the game far more then most and that should be acknowledged. These are exactly the people to take advice from we have the most experience and many times have the experience to say what hurts the game the most. This game has a very niche player base, it will always be dificult to bring in and retain new players. But rather then cater to that group what the game really needs is a better tutorial, a better progression system, and a better reward system for progression. There is a culture gap between asian game markets and western ones. This game was made by westerners. The way this game is set up might be discouraging to asian markets currently. I agree map maker needs to be a priority. I also agree the current system is to rigid and needs to be more customizable and less restricting. Ialso agree generals are a pay to win advantage. I disagree to rewrite the game and change everything at that point it would of made sense to start a new ip rather then take this one. This game was a few small tweaks from being amazing, the more rapidly in change the core game the faster you'll lose your core player base. Every decision needs to be weighed carefully. That's not a problem it's a feature untill there is a reset turn button disconnecting is the only way to redo your turn if you mess up. Ivan and amok did this with the switch to html 5 and almost broke there game it is now far less user friendly then it was before. I would focus souly on the pc player base, and once the game is successful then make a phone port with it's own server and dumbed down mechanics.
---- We are not the same- I am a Martian.
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Free speech in a private game. Get real. Freedom of speech means your speech is protected from the government. This doesn't mean it is protected from companies or even other people.
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Well we all hate bullies and cancerous people, however you have to understand that the few intellectuals who also burned hours competing at this game and debating on forums, like me offcourse, only hang around after so long to say hi, troll and maybe fight a bit. The community will applaud a tougher, rigorous stance towards cancer, however you have to know your base man. And you wont find many innocent 10 year olds here like you find in mobile games. People who come here usually like war, weapons, violence and history, so political correctness will be a tough sell to these Good luck, welcome 
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Just because it's a company doesn't mean they can't allow free speech and debates in off topic... They don't have to, but they should.
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To be honest, I have to disagree with most of what youve said. I do agree that the roomchat should be monitored more carefully, but if you are going to restrict to what can and cannot be discussed/talked about in the roomchat, it will become the opposite of free speech, the so called censorship. The discussions in the roomchat, no matter what the subject is about, is the core of aw. The fact that people are sharing their views, beliefs, cultures and their opinions, is what makes this game great. People from all over the world are communicating with eachother lol. What more can you ask for. Ofcourse there are rotten apples, who heavily insult, discriminate and make verry disgusting comments, and imo those should be the ones to be dealt with. But most of the times the discussions and chats in roomchat are at one point verry serious and civil and on the other hand contain alot of banter and satire. If mods will intervene on every little offense or form of criticism, the game will turn quickly into a policestate, and I strongly believe that that will ruin the experience for alot of people and will cause them to eventually leave the game. Besides, the way people interpret things differs from person to person, so there is not really a measurement for it, which can cause alot of chaos within the community.
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fcd1 Account deleted |
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The best way to attract new players is to make our platform more available. Regardless of what some users say, PC is generally used elusively for higher end games that require more modifications to sustain more content. I believe that in order to combat the decline of our players is to move the game to mobile. This would allow players to play from about anywhere and would offer more players to engage in. In addition, it would be wise to introduce Automated-content, where the opponents are controlled by Non-Player-Character. Where you could customize certain NPC's that players could play against and give them certain skills and randomization. At War does have a toxicity problem and I think it is due to the lack of moderation and influx of non-western players. I think making a server dedicated to western players (USA/UK/EU and a separate server for non-western players would help the toxicity die down tremendously.
---- In Memory of Knoxford
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Yea, split up the playerbase even more, good plan. have 10 games at most open at once.
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Care to elaborate? I don't really understand your comment at all. Split up the player base? You are providing the platform on mobile to allow more players, automated opponents for times below peak times, and a server where non-english(non-westerns) separate from Westerns to prevent unneeded conflict.
---- In Memory of Knoxford
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>mobile game >a server for only westerners Lol you must be new here
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If the site hosted the game from the same server that mobile uses then PC and Mobile players would be able to play together. I presume you have zero knowledge regarding hosting in general? Also I am confident you are not from the US, as mobile games are a thriving venue. Anyone who thinks mobile is dumb, probably doesn't have a college degree. Have you even played any other games? Tons now allow MOBILE and PC to play together, it's just the smartest business venture. I am not going to waste any time responding to @Tunder as he is extremely uneducated and is just trolling.
---- In Memory of Knoxford
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"Ideologue", says the guy who thinks anyone not white is "inferior" to him and also promotes the racist idea of "white genocide". Gtfo of here and go back to stormfront
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You're projecting things I've never said. I don't believe anyone is inferior or superior to anyone else. That's why I call you an ideologue. Because you believe I have to be a bad person for having different opinions. Btw. wtf is the stormfront?
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Hi Dave and welcome, In my opinion, the most crucial factor in Atwar's stagnating user base was the shift to HTML5 which happened inevitably in 2015, if I remember correctly. The interface changed slightly, but it lost it's sharp, precise touch which was making the intense games really fulfilling and addictive. I'd work on improving the interface if I wanted to get this game the fame it deserve. Also, the toxicity is an interesting topic. I'd advise in offering support to people that feel annoyed or threatened by it instead of starting to ban or censor people. I think this game got a vibrant community in part because people were allowed to post and share so many stupid things. Actually, I think welcoming empowering, forming, assisting and giving tools to newcomers to the game might be the key! Many initiatives took place along the years, but there are many more ways to do this. gl hf 
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You did call me the n-word in that post. And don't deny you're a racist, you've shown a lot of evidence of it. But good luck anyways. No need to keep arguing
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Yea, because what you said seemed 100% like trolling. Thats why I insulted you. I don't care wether a word is racially charged. But go on, believe I'm a heretic for having the wrong opinions.
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No shit
I am not a sys admin so my knowledge regarding hosting is the same as the average American. But tell me, what did I say for you to assume I don't know anything about hosting? I dare you to quote my erroneous/ignorant statement.
When did i say mobile gaming wasn't profitable? I was mocking your idea of porting Atwar to mobile. It is clear to me that you don't know how to play this game, it's very simple: if you knew how to play, you would know that playing from a cellphone will put the player in a huge disadvantage due to the cheer amount of click and dragging.
>comparing FPS to atwar lol you don't have to reply if you don't want to, people who read this will know you are acting like a manchild anyway.
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Nice intro. As a user that stopped playing about 2 years ago I found that I actually got bored of the game after a year and only really stuck around because of the friends and characters that occupy the game. Toxicity to new players is a problem but rivalries particularly between clans in the conoetitive scene was part of the lure that kept me coming back, it might be worth protecring this and encouraging an element of competition. As for getting bored, there were no cool new maps being played and no new strategies being introduced... i can see that the game is limited as to what can be done in terms of strategies but if a new strat came out tomorrow I would happily pay a few dollars/pounds to use it in the knowledge that the new owner wants to help the game grow and can spend time trying to accomplish that.
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