Skepticism

[Icyglare]

I agree the japs are generally smarter, but that only means they can also be greater ****.

An unfounded uneducated racist comment that transitioned into another one.

[Peralisc9001]

Talking from experience, so your bigot comment is only misleading.

[Icyglare]

Talking from experience, so your bigot comment is only misleading.

Then let me amend my last statement

Talking from experience, statements like that are unfounded, uneducated, and racist.

[GonFreeces31]

Yeah Pherals what are you even doing here? You haven't played this game since like set 4, you don't really contribute anything, you just run around trolling people with incoherent posts.

[Icyglare]

Well Gon, I would say he's all bad. He's been keeping the chat in the forums up and I didn't have a problem with him before. Not sure what's up with the comments lately.

[Logress]

The one "mistake" the Japanese made with alteil, in my opinion, is their expensive and mostly theoretical method of developing new features. Not their fault though, most software development in Japan is outsourced to large programming companies who make the rules. They want to get a project description, a bundle of cash, and then deliver on X date, then the contract is done. Not really a lot of room for things like trial and error, split testing, going back and changing things because of how the users interact with the new feature, etc. Also, because of the expense of programming, they had to say things like "this is what we want to do, but it's too expensive... so how much of it can we do and how can we make it affordable?" Which is why stuff like the chat system feels stuck on and doesn't get used that much as a result. Heck, their new tournament system has a component that floats OVER the MyIczer page at all times. You literally have to close it just to use the My Iczer page... I wish I was kidding.

Now a lot of people around here feel like they don't treat their users well enough. I would say they sort of have what in the US would be a "big company mentality", where they care about what the users do (spend on events like Lucky 7, while spending nothing on stuff like fixed card options and the 500G pre-built) and not as much about what users say (starting a petition against luck-based events, while asking for more fixed card options). We of course expect companies like Sony to act this way, but we're used to small game companies (like the Shadow Era guys) to depend on the kindness of our communities.

And having looked at the numbers, I can't exactly blame them. Alteil is an ecosystem. When it is in 'harmony' it produces sales, when it's not, it immediately spirals downward. It's not like they could cut sales by 15% and make the game a forum darling. More like 95%.

My question, is of course... why not try to change the ecosystem? Which is basically my whole plan. Changing the ecosystem means more than just adding some shop options.. ER, well yeah... I guess we could all just look up the definition of "ecosystem". Anyway, there are symptoms like how victory is so sweet and anything else is so bad... and the only way to get more victories is to get more cards (effectively punishing you for buying avatars), How FM is kind of useless since there isn't much to buy with it and you can grind gran, how if anything goes below a certain price everyone can grind/recycle for it, how there is not really any reason to buy anything but cards, how grinding can actually make the arena a worse place to be, how there really isn't much to do with guildmates and friends in game, how the poor "new player experience" kind of screens out more "casual" players so everyone is hardcore, etc, etc, etc...

[Icyglare]

Wow...... now I'm really looking forward to seeing your plan in action Logress.

[GonFreeces31]

Well I'm hoping you can change things. By "user behavior" I hope you include all the thousands upon thousands of players who left this game due to horrendous cost per content. Here is a reminder of what set me off before and why the petition was started and signed by over 100 players:

Easter Egg Lotto details

Easter Egg 3-star Lotto
100Gran
You can get a 3-star Card once per day after one battle.
* This is not a Daily Lotto, You Can pull as many as you want.

Easter Egg 4-star Lotto
500Gran
You can get a 4-star Card once per day after one battle
* This is not a Daily Lotto, You Can pull as many as you want.

Easter Egg 5-star Lotto
1,500Gran
You can get a 5-star Card once per day after one battle

*If you pull Free Daily Easter Lotto, You are not able to pull Easter Egg 5-star Lotto.
You need to choose Free Daily Easter Lotto or Easter Egg 5-star Lotto.
If you pull this Lotto, you are also getting the Easter Avatar.

This was a scam. This kind of behavior is absolutely unacceptable.

You know what users do when they see BS like this? THEY LEAVE. They go play mtg online or sword girls or urban rivals. Have you seen how many players those games get???

[skillll7]

Sometimes I wonder if Logress reads our posts, laughs at the stupidity then proceeds to swallow it up before producing his next post in the "Skepticism" thread no less.

I had another part to this post, but decided I'd post it on the TCG forum.

[fargone]

The one "mistake" the Japanese made with alteil, in my opinion, is their expensive and mostly theoretical method of developing new features. Not their fault though, most software development in Japan is outsourced to large programming companies who make the rules. They want to get a project description, a bundle of cash, and then deliver on X date, then the contract is done. Not really a lot of room for things like trial and error, split testing, going back and changing things because of how the users interact with the new feature, etc. Also, because of the expense of programming, they had to say things like "this is what we want to do, but it's too expensive... so how much of it can we do and how can we make it affordable?" Which is why stuff like the chat system feels stuck on and doesn't get used that much as a result. Heck, their new tournament system has a component that floats OVER the MyIczer page at all times. You literally have to close it just to use the My Iczer page... I wish I was kidding.

Now a lot of people around here feel like they don't treat their users well enough. I would say they sort of have what in the US would be a "big company mentality", where they care about what the users do (spend on events like Lucky 7, while spending nothing on stuff like fixed card options and the 500G pre-built) and not as much about what users say (starting a petition against luck-based events, while asking for more fixed card options). We of course expect companies like Sony to act this way, but we're used to small game companies (like the Shadow Era guys) to depend on the kindness of our communities.

And having looked at the numbers, I can't exactly blame them. Alteil is an ecosystem. When it is in 'harmony' it produces sales, when it's not, it immediately spirals downward. It's not like they could cut sales by 15% and make the game a forum darling. More like 95%.

My question, is of course... why not try to change the ecosystem? Which is basically my whole plan. Changing the ecosystem means more than just adding some shop options.. ER, well yeah... I guess we could all just look up the definition of "ecosystem". Anyway, there are symptoms like how victory is so sweet and anything else is so bad... and the only way to get more victories is to get more cards (effectively punishing you for buying avatars), How FM is kind of useless since there isn't much to buy with it and you can grind gran, how if anything goes below a certain price everyone can grind/recycle for it, how there is not really any reason to buy anything but cards, how grinding can actually make the arena a worse place to be, how there really isn't much to do with guildmates and friends in game, how the poor "new player experience" kind of screens out more "casual" players so everyone is hardcore, etc, etc, etc...

I believe this post is evidence that while logress was absent from the forums for a long time, he was listening to at least some of us.

The paragraph regarding the game's ecosystem is exactly what I have been waiting (and hoping) to hear. It directly addresses many core issues. I sincerely look forward to the results.