hit me up.
if you're curious about RoK, this is a great video to check out:
^ this was made before Vikings civ existed but trust me, don't start Viking transfer into it later instead.
Anyone who plays Rise of Kingdoms or a clan war RTS, hit me up, I'd love to chat to an enthusiast.
Posts
Total:
7
I disagree to that video, China is a good rival to Britain. (he admits it too)
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@RationalMadman
I played grepolis for a year or two
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@Sum1hugme
This is much more complex and sophisticated than what that seems to be like but I love how there's always something to do in it.
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@RationalMadman
In grepolis, the most important thing is to start or join a well organized alliance. Otherwise, once your city hits about 5k points (a city can get up to about 13k points), you'll get farmed by a bigger player. The difficulty isn't so much in building the city as it is in coordinating with your alliance to defend against attacks, or coordinate them, etc.
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@Sum1hugme
In RoK, there's levels to it in that sense.
Unless you're a hard spender with previous knowledge of the game, it's optimal to swing between medium alliances, eventually what you want to do (and this is fairly unique to RoK) is join an alliance that's medium but 'family' (super allied) to a huge clan so that you can gradually work towards the power level for that bigger clan and it's fairly certain they'll accept you due to which clan you are a part of.
Unlike what you describe, even when there's no rules established in a Kingdom, most understand etiquette and mainly attack only during a one day event called Kill Event. Outside of KE, the wars are based around flags and fortresses of clans, which indeed is a problem if you're part of a weaker clan but you tend to be able to see it coming a mile away so to speak (if you're active daily) and can easily get out relatively fine. The harshest punoshments happen during KE, where if you're not shielded up (you can't attack or spy but same can't be done to you) and your clan happens to get cocky and pick a fight with a nearby big one... Well chaos ensues. This actually happened to me, I ditched that clan for several reasons, a guy from the old clan blocked me in anger (literally what we mean by blocking lol) but it is what it is. Their clan has since disbanded and fused with one of their allies, I really don't regret the ditching, my new clan's leadership is friendlier, just speaks worse English (many Filipinos and Vietnamese on that game, even Spanish and German speakers, very international, the in-built translator seems weakest with filipino-to-English but luckily a couple of them are bilingual and help translate when it's very difficult to understand.
I will stick to this clan for a while for sure, probably gonna upgrade along the allied clans when I've overtaken the clan in my power level.
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@Sum1hugme
Just as with the other one it ends up reaching a point where either I accept it as a chore or pay to cover my relaxation (neither is desirable).
So, ironically, I can see the flaws with it that Mesmer mentioned earlier. It doesn't fit very well into anyone who has a busy lifestyle and who then doesn't want to spend much on a game.
The core issue is that games like this require consistent effort and dedication from the player. This, of course, is by design and makes it a very stimulating pastime, except that when you factor in how many hours are in every day, how much energy you have and the emotions of real life vs even the game (yes, it gets emotionally intense, it's a social clan game with drama and rivalries) it amounts to a grind, where the grit required is something that acts against the pleasure from the game. There is no pleasure from spending money on a game in itself, the pleasure if from the progress but if you constantly feel like the progress is requiring you to either work your ass off in the game or in real life to pay, it amounts to the game not being a game, it's a chore. Thus defeating the reason you played the game in the first place (to have fun as you let off steam from your chores).
I do see the appeal of these games and could even see ways each could be refined and/or improved but ultimately it doesn't matter how you design a real-time strategy game that is based around clans and building, either it becomes a chore or it becomes a bore... I know it rhymes but that is indicative of the irony of it all.
Eventually, of course, it becomes both but at that stage you feel so invested into it all that you don't want to quit and let all your time, effort and actual money go to waste.
This doesn't make me at all say that I see particularly how this type of game is worse than any particular game franchise that is pay-to-play, since this is actually free to pay and all payments are your choice but I do see the problem with the structure of it, you end up trapped and don't know a way out. It may take your phone breaking (but then you have emulator, however it will still factor in) or something along those lines for you to start to see the issue.
I happen to be someone who both can get 'addicted' to these games and yet can remain resolute with how much I spend etc (I guess it's upbringing that plays into this though, since I was always raised to understand what any cost really means and stuff) so I don't personally notice the 'predatory' aspect of these games as too brutal or harsh and don't see these companies as particularly immoral, compared to any sort of 'pay us to get pleasure' service. However, I can somewhat see the issue given the social elements of the game (you're in a clan etc) and how it keeps you stuck, afraid to wither away and lose all your progress. It doesn't matter how mentally disciplined you are, the quitting feels horrible at worst or dull/numbing at best. I would say that one thing that could improve these game types is if there were 'levels' and I don't mean newer servers because that's already there and is fair enough. There could be 'levels' to the servers and you move up or slide down the servers based on your progress, this would be far, far fairer and superior even helping you with matchmaking for the clan wars. The reason they don't do this, which is justifiable, is that this would also force you out of your clan and make you stuck in a whole new server, interacting with all new poeple who are just as powerful or even slightly more powerful than yourself.