Conquer Club

Well said Owen. BW is doing a great job and I hope he is rewarded for it, in the very least with recognition.

Wait times...Called out or not...

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asellas1025 wrote:Wait times...Called out or not...

The Join a Game page was restructured some time ago to try and address this problem. I, amongst others, think it does not.

Hi guys.

Just my thoughts as someone who is a freemium. I think there are a few problems which push otherwise active users towards the door. This is my second time playing and while I would be an active user, the restrictions mean I feel more like I watch from the sidelines and lose interest as I get a move every other day. My personal feeling is that the site could have far higher numbers and be much more active, if it was more inclusive to freemiums.

Time limits I only have the option of 24hr, while their are 5 variations of speed games I can not play. If I want to play a game, I have to start and wait days or play smaller games. People who are online take the quickest turns, people in speed games are online, freemiums are not in speed games.

Potential solution Have 1 time variation of the speed games available to freemiums or 2 speed game slots. People sign in to play games, not to plan to play games. Members would still have advantage of selection.

Number of games 4 games is not enough to keep freemiums active. As someone who wants to play games and use the site regularly, I find the restrictions far too severe. In a slow paced strategy game, 10 active games may still only bring a couple of moves a day for someone playing ffa's. In endless games, you need to keep players active and involved.

Potential solution 10 games is enough to keep moves coming more frequently, there are plenty of people who will still pay for more active games than that.

The alternative side for me would be if price was lower or there was a light user package. I'd be happy to pay a lower one off payment for changes I've mentioned. I have a far simpler version I can play via my mobile, which has much narrower choice, but allows me to play 10 games at once, all speed games if I want, for a one off donation of $1. While I had intended to jump ship to conquer club and use it as my only risk based game, I've ended up staying with other game and when I have less time, conquer club is the game that gets sacrificed.

With more users, games become more active. The longer games take to fill up, the slower they are played when they get started. I understand you have to keep membership attractive to members, but I think a key part of that is having plenty of active freemiums, everyone starts that way. I'm sure this has all been discussed lots of times before, but I feel its a shame that I still find that I can't use the site in a way that would keep my interest, unless I pay for membership. People like me are ones who keep the site busy or not as the case may be.

The whole idea of having Freemiums is to let them have a taste, but leave them wanting more so they buy premium.

I know, just think you'd get more paying members if there was a bigger pool of regular and active players. Allowing an additional speed slot for freemiums or having one speed length freemiums can use, would have various benefits.

It depends. As you increase the value of freemium (e.g. by allowing 10 active games), then the relative value of premium falls ($25 becomes more costly). In response, some people on the margin will shift from premium to freemium.

Some people will switch to premium and the decision then becomes is it better to go after advertising revenue, ie freemium revenue, or still focus on premium revenue.

Going after one would likely decrease the other. It seems admin has tried both and decided that premium revenue is the preferred target going on results.

ridger wrote:I know, just think you'd get more paying members if there was a bigger pool of regular and active players. Allowing an additional speed slot for freemiums or having one speed length freemiums can use, would have various benefits.

we had almost 25K members 3 years ago, are down to under 10K now... guess what? then, freemiums were complaining about the same issues that you are complaining about... there is now tiered membership, you can get premium for $5-$30, depending on the length you choose... i was freemium for quite some time and managed to have a great time on the site before i ponied up for premium... well, to be honest, someone else ponied up for it... the black jesus has spoken..-Jesus noir

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BigBallinStalin wrote:It depends. As you increase the value of freemium (e.g. by allowing 10 active games), then the relative value of premium falls ($25 becomes more costly). In response, some people on the margin will shift from premium to freemium.

I'd agree that some would shift with the changes, but I think more would voice that particular perspective than would actually change because of it. For instance, you could limit maps or something else as a trade off, if it keeps members happy.

Any game site needs to value its members, but it also needs to value potential members and previous members. People now play a lot of games for free via their mobile devices, if a new player has to sign up and wait days to play games, I think you've already lost a lot of attention that should be welcomed.

owenshooter wrote:

ridger wrote:I know, just think you'd get more paying members if there was a bigger pool of regular and active players. Allowing an additional speed slot for freemiums or having one speed length freemiums can use, would have various benefits.

we had almost 25K members 3 years ago, are down to under 10K now... guess what? then, freemiums were complaining about the same issues that you are complaining about... there is now tiered membership, you can get premium for $5-$30, depending on the length you choose... i was freemium for quite some time and managed to have a great time on the site before i ponied up for premium... well, to be honest, someone else ponied up for it... the black jesus has spoken..-Jesus noir

If this doesn't reinforce my point, I don't know what does.

ridger wrote:

owenshooter wrote:

ridger wrote:I know, just think you'd get more paying members if there was a bigger pool of regular and active players. Allowing an additional speed slot for freemiums or having one speed length freemiums can use, would have various benefits.

we had almost 25K members 3 years ago, are down to under 10K now... guess what? then, freemiums were complaining about the same issues that you are complaining about... there is now tiered membership, you can get premium for $5-$30, depending on the length you choose... i was freemium for quite some time and managed to have a great time on the site before i ponied up for premium... well, to be honest, someone else ponied up for it... the black jesus has spoken..-Jesus noir

If this doesn't reinforce my point, I don't know what does.

actually, it doesn't... but think whatever you want to think...-Jésus noir

ridger wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:It depends. As you increase the value of freemium (e.g. by allowing 10 active games), then the relative value of premium falls ($25 becomes more costly). In response, some people on the margin will shift from premium to freemium.

I'd agree that some would shift with the changes, but I think more would voice that particular perspective than would actually change because of it. For instance, you could limit maps or something else as a trade off, if it keeps members happy.

Any game site needs to value its members, but it also needs to value potential members and previous members. People now play a lot of games for free via their mobile devices, if a new player has to sign up and wait days to play games, I think you've already lost a lot of attention that should be welcomed.

So far, unfortunately, all we've got is opinion. Empirical evidence would be nice.

I think Dukasaur mentioned how letting freemiums play 1-2 speed games did not increase the chance of their enrollment, so they stopped it. If this is true, I'd expect the same from giving freemiums more 24-hour games.

So, I was staring at the open games page and really just saw so many unfilled games. Honestly the pages go on and on forever it seemed. Made me come to this rather broad conclusion. One thing is the game types varied from game to game, sure some held the same options, but there always seemed to be at least one little thing different, like trench on one game, and yet fog on another and so on, on most games. Then of course the maps, theres a lot of them and many people had different ones they wanted to play on. This deems worthy to say that a lot of folks, like to have control over what settings they play under which is why so many games are made compared to how many are probably actually filled. Like me personally, I wouldn't be caught dead playing in a Trench game, I hate em. Doesn't mean I never played them, I tried though others may only want to play in trench games. We have a vast magority that just love their own settings and don't wish to give up that control. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it does hinder the wait times by a lot. Thus, brings me to people saying to many maps or game types, take them away. Bad idea since that would make a lump sum of folks drop off the site all together. In the long run hinder the already falling number.

Well what do we do to combat this one problem alone? Honestly not sure, in order to truly combat it, control has to be given up to some degree. I am not saying that everyone on this site does this and all that jazz, however it is possibly one of the problems nonetheless. Hell I enjoy my own games and mostly they're at least double games because I love playing with my buddy on here as my teammate. This also leads into another problem. We all have or friends and such, that we all enjoy playing with, whether against or with. Doesn't always leave much room for new folks to come in. In all honesty, we can point fingers all day long. However, there are a lot of factors that are contributed as to why CC is experiencing the decline.

We've all taken our turns in this thread and probably others poking at things, either way it's not only staff, but also us to turn things around. Yeah, we can all only do so much, but staff as well can only do so much as well. Who knows maybe it's just not as interesting anymore, maybe the rewards aren't enough. It's a lot of factors, however all we can do is try as well as enjoy ourselves while we're still here. Yeah, I jump around a bit, but I was basically thinking out loud. I got out what I needed heh.

BigBallinStalin wrote:So far, unfortunately, all we've got is opinion. Empirical evidence would be nice.

I think Dukasaur mentioned how letting freemiums play 1-2 speed games did not increase the chance of their enrollment, so they stopped it. If this is true, I'd expect the same from giving freemiums more 24-hour games.

Do you know if it was 1-2 speed slots, or 1-2 games per some period of time, or just 1-2 game buy-ins and that's it?

Whatever it was, I wonder if they factored in the fact that giving freemiums some speed games does benefit the paid members by providing them with more potential opponents, resulting in their games filling faster? The trick is to find the right amount to give them. 1-2 buy-ins might just result in inexperienced players getting creamed and deciding it's not worth it to pay for that privilege. 1 a day (or something like that) might allow them to practice until they feel competent at it, meet some people, develop a long-term interest in speed games, and decide that it's worth it to pay to be able to play several in one sitting.

asellas1025 wrote:So, I was staring at the open games page and really just saw so many unfilled games...

I made some suggestions for unlimited wait lists and a game matchmaker that would help to solve this, but I don't think either one is being worked on.

One thing is fur sure, the lack era was not responsive enough. That has clearly changed. I know he alienated some of the hard core early mapmakers and drove them to waste their time creating a failed alternative site. I think it is not hard to imagine a world where human attention spans end up with the decline that we see. People are passionate and engaged and then life changes and they move on. I hope there are enough people looking for this kind of gaming worldwide to keep this site alive and well. I have no way of judging what the critical mass is. I just appreciate the efforts of the developers and volunteers and gladly reupped yet again. Keep going Big Wham!

Having really got into the game over the last few months (but also having experienced the site a few years back), here are a few of my thoughts:
1. Gameplay wise I think the game is in good shape - plenty to keep up interest with good variety of maps and options.
2. My mind was initially pretty boggled by all the conquer star stuff and I assumed that the only way to obtain these was through payment. But once I understood I now like this feature.
3. I love the tournaments - this has been a big factor in keeping me playing.
4. When thinking about the decline I think external conditions will be a big factor - there has been an explosion in the number of strategic (and other) games that are designed for mobile devices and often free and instantly gratifying. Its inevitable that these would eat into conquer clubs market. I just hope the site can grow/stabilise with sufficient numbers.
5. I think a league system of some kind might help new folks feel part of something bigger and more likely to stick around.

Heg wrote:5. I think a league system of some kind might help new folks feel part of something bigger and more likely to stick around.

I agree that getting people into the clan system or some kind of league early would go a long way to getting them more invested in the site.

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I like the idea of a league system for premium players.

I would also suggest a trial period for people who have never been premium or out of premium (for example) for 12 months.

Give people a free month - get them hooked then hopefully a decent percentage would continue to play and pay for the privilege

I particularly like the idea of a Junior League system of some kind to get new players feel part of something bigger.And to provide potential new recruits for existing clans/

I understand some admins are working on helping new clans get formed and I would be curious to hear more of that and see it integrated into the Junior League concept . One possible variant would be to encourage existing clans to work with the admins to create a "Junior League" a mix of junior clans affiliated to the existing clans as training/try-out academies and new junior clans started by admins and a "one junior clan rule/one clan rule" and some sort of draft system:

[spoiler]A draft is a process used to allocate certain players to sports teams. In a draft, teams take turns selecting from a pool of eligible players. When a team selects a player, the team receives exclusive rights to sign that player to a contract, and no other team in the league may sign the player.

The best-known type of draft is the entry draft, which is used to allocate players who have recently become eligible to play in a league. Depending on the sport, the players may come from college, high school or junior teams or teams in other countries

An entry draft prevents expensive bidding wars for young talent and ensures that no one team can sign contracts with all of the best young players and make the league uncompetitive. To encourage parity, teams that do poorly in the previous season usually get to choose first in the postseason draft, sometimes with a "lottery" factor to discourage teams from purposely losing.

Other types of drafts include the expansion draft, in which a new team selects players from other teams in the league; and the dispersal draft, in which a league's surviving teams select players from the roster of a newly defunct franchise.

Drafts are usually permitted under anti-trust or restraint of trade laws because they are included in collective bargaining agreements between leagues and labor unions representing players. These agreements generally stipulate that after a certain number of seasons, a player whose contract has expired becomes a free agent and can sign with any team. They also require minimum and sometimes maximum salaries for newly drafted players.[/spoiler]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_%28sports%29