Completely agree there Qualan, "Chinese Whispers" is not an effective means of communication, by the time it has passed through several hands down the line, the original message and any salient facts supporting it are far too easily 'lost in translation'. The test server showed promise when it started, but no longer seems to be a place where constructive feedback sees any effective action taken.
We love our new CM.
Newfoundland: 20th November 2011 to 25th November 2014. RIP
It was good while it lasted.
I have watched this thread and was hoping to see a bit of feed back. But least be honest am not a customer that Blue Byte/Ubisoft want. After talking to people it seems that bugs/problems effect a small % of players. These player do 2 things say nothing or say something and get a hit or miss result. I have read the quarter news report for Ubisoft and the company is making healthy profits but that is want a business is all about. Apart from the German server all other hide behind the beta tag this has allowed Ubisoft to take players money and have no come back and there are players that spend huge amount on this micro transaction game. That is why I am not the customer Ubisoft want
As I have bought a few starter pack bought the odd hand full of gems and that is it the reason is I understand value for money. I will sit and wait and hope things will change but am not wanted.
I will fade into the back ground and then disappear. An each week there will be new lambs to the slaughter. I will leave with a bitter taste for Ubisoft and I will tell others who will in turn tell others and one day when the profit margins go down you only have yourself s to blame.
And here is my list of problems
1) game freezes for no reason and at random times
2) get dropped
3) lag
4) build queue will not let me add any buildings to it until the queue finishes
My last Post on the forum. Thanks for what was an enjoyable game
Regards Lazy_Fruitbat
A provision house option to turn saltpeter and titanium ore into granite would be worth considering.
Regarding typos and language consistency/translations, it does actually take time to correct and properly proofread/copy edit. I can speak from experience as a volunteer proofreader that it *isn't* as easy or as quick as people think. Having said that, I do also believe that BB could benefit from having someone go through the whole game to fix inconsistencies and unclear translations. I would suggest that the most frequent question that comes up in help and global is 'what does 0/12 hr mean?' It is not necessarily immediately clear even for native speakers, so I dread to think what it looks like for people who have English as a second language (unless they are pretty fluent).Originally Posted by Dorotheus
It does seem as though the translators have just done a literal translation from German, without much thought going into how it is understood by speakers of other languages. The translation has been done, but the cultural understanding does seem to be absent. I have played several online games by other German companies, and haven't come across this problem before, so it should be possible to solve it. In most cases with other games, a few of the translations sound a little non-native English, but the meanings are still clear.
Still on language issues, my other major gripe is about how BB is handling the influx of players from other countries when there is not a server for their language yet. It is technically quite difficult to direct players with possibly limited knowledge of English out of global-1 to the correct language chat channels when everyone is supposed to be speaking in English. Asking them to type the command doesn't always work, trying to whisper doesn't always work, and sometimes they get chat banned for being new, confused and having had about 5 people tell them to speak English. Implementing a choice of default language channels would help, or employing native 'chat advisers/mods', or sending all new players an e-mail with the chat rules and commands would help.
Obviously at some point different languages will have their own servers, but in the meantime, new players are probably leaving because of a bad initial experience in chat.
regarding language- No one really has an excuse regarding english when they sign up for the game. The whole sign-up process for the euro- english servers is in tah dah ... English.... The eula etc are all in English ...
For 99% of the intended player population there is either a regional server or a regional language server available. If people do not understand English well enough they can chose a variety of localized language servers that will suit their needs i.e. speak a language well enough to participate in the game play.
If/When they sign up for the euro -english language server they can at least suspect that the lingua franca will be english. The separate language channels are there as a favor to the requests of players and to accomodate the multi lingual character of the european zone. For some languages the population is big enough to warrant a server in their own language, for others it is a question of picking a community you fit in best, be it english or another language. Still - for everything the language is and will remain english, be it trade, game mechanics/quests or support. On these servers is it english and ALL players are expected to have enough understanding of the language to be able to function on the server. If they can't, they need to find another language server where they will be able to function in game really. It might sound harsh, but there are enough languages to chose from. Not being able to talk english and therefore using other languages in chat just isnt an option- Especially considering that in many cases the excuse of no being able to speak the language is abused by people to the max and if they feel they can use the excuse, they will and have used inappropriate language in chat or been abusive.
Agreed, as multi-lingual chat would not work here, and has its own problems. However, if BB is trying to cash in on more countries using The Settlers, and I get the impression that they are, then they should have a clear policy and procedures in place to deal with that. Market reach is all very well, but influxes of players that the game is not set up to cope with properly causes problems. Obviously I would not join a German game and expect to play/chat in English, but if there are adverts on country-specific game lists then it may come as a shock that the game is actually in English.
I'm not advocating a relaxation in the rules on the use of English on an English server, but some more thought put into the current situation. People do swear in other languages if they feel that they can get away with it, and it can be difficult to verify that via translation websites, especially since the Mods then need to verify the reported translation. It would be in the interests of the various language groups to have native speakers with fluent English that could take responsibility for peaceful integration of players into the community, and also to moderate the language on the non-English channels.
May I make mention of my perceptions please
- BB's development team appear overwhelmed. Scheduled maintenance often creates more problems than it resolves.
- PvP has not been delivered to a timeline promised by BB
- Currently lag within the game is frustrating
- The promised trade tab has not arrived on time. No fixed timeline has been given for it to appear.
- We are not allowed to mention moderation on these boards which I find far too draconian
- Support is a lottery. I have one occassion been completely ignored when I politely asked support to check their figures.
- Far too many threads are closed far too quickly on the forum
- BB are extremely patronising when they ask players to "wait" for all the latest "wonderful" updates. Why not just tell us what is coming and when it will be here. Announcements are often vague and ambiguous, especially regarding timelines
Specific Issues
- The in game chat menu is antique.
- Chat moderation is inconsistant. Indeed on occasions I have had to leave chat to avoid saying something to a moderator. Some moderators are (in my humble opinion) taking their role a little too seriously. Simply an observation on my part. I accept that this is a subjective comment and I am sure that chat is far better now than it was before moderation. Perhaps all that's need now is some fine sandpaper to rub off a few of the knotty bits. One person stands out in this area as having a flexible and "just" approach and that's Ravel.
Game Issues
- I genuinely belive the game is aligned to act as a filter. The filter is designated to the maximisation of revenue. I am unable to guess if this is deliberate or just a case of this is where the game is after a series of events
- Furthermore I genuinely belive that the filter I allude to above does not factor in a players enjoyment first
- There are some noticeable exceptions to this comment. The graphics of the buildings is interesting
Conclusion
- I would not recommend this game to others.
- However, I have yet to play this style of game that I would recommend
- There are (in my opinion as player) some glaring inconsistancies within the economics of the game
- I have not found a way to overcome these, regardless of budget or time resources
- I doubt BB has designed these as deliberate road blocks with the game
- I have spent £65 over 12 months to play the game. My spend is completely in line with my current thoughts that BB will not be delivering anything great within the next three months - and I have been reviewing the development of the game over the last year every three months.
- Many things take that many clicks to do I lose the will to live doing them. Ironically the answer to this is not to spend money on the game as there are no alternatives.
Further thoughts on chat, prompted by Nuttymut's comments on the chat system.
The game is *supposed* to be Pegi 7, based on the gameplay itself. However the chat isn't and never will be Pegi 7, regardless of how many moderators there are. As a parent of children who are technically old enough to play, I will not be allowing them anywhere near the game in it's current state, as I cannot lock the chat away from them and don't agree to them either posting in chat or reading it. Ironically, I play another game that is actually unmoderated and only has a message to remind players to keep chat 'civil and appropriate for all ages' and most of the players are mature enough to do so.
As I have only played the game for a few weeks, I'm not commenting on gameplay and I have been lucky enough not to experience too much lag.
Last edited by Hippocratia; 14.03.13 at 21:05.
I will throw in my 2cents.
There are some weak points in this game. First of all, I noticed that buffing gets more and more an task which you don't want to do, partially due to lag and partially because the quantity of work it involves, but sadly enough buffing has become an necessity to overcome the limitations of the game. Most of the plants are too expensive to let them run unbuffed, and due to the way adventures are made you need your warproduction to be buffed to keep on playing those adventures.
Buffing should have been a bonus and not something you start doing in the morning and keep doing untill you log off.
Secondly adventures are BORING. There are a very limited number of adventures and most of the time there is only ONE way of doing them. Most of the maps I see is about placing your generals at a specific location, sending your generals with an exact number of troops and getting the same result over and over again. Also, we have lots of adventures which nobody plays. Thirdly some of the better adventures can only be bought by mapfragments or a absurd quantiy of gems. Nobody who is sane is going to buy an Nords which is going to cost you about 5.00 EURO. Just to give an example.
Third, except the Exo-sawmill ALL the expert buildings are useless. Not only because the weapons can be gained faster and cheaper by doing adventures, but also because they are absurd expensive to built. With the latest quests BB is trying to force you building those factories, which have no good use for the typical player.
Fourth, you can play to EOC (end of content) in about six/nine months. Which is way too short. And there is no sign at all that we are going to get new levels. Because the bad design of the game and the costs of doing adventures, its often more profitable to sell the resources needed to do the adventures then to do the adventure itself for getting the loot you really want when you have reached EOC. I am myself L50 and at a certain point i haven't done a adventure in more then a week, and only did one to get rid of my excess settlers..
Well, those are the comments I have at this moment.
I am making a post here as instructed by support who was unable to answer my question except saying "its a marketing decision"
Why design new in game buildings / adventures / generals and launch them on only the German server?
Surely test server would be the only place for them first. Then rolled out to every server, instead I was told we are all equal and all treated the same, clearly not true.
Make available a new general who can hold 220 troops and then a little while later hold an event to see which server can do the most adventures with a prize offered, advantage German huh?
Something definatly not right about that.
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