mrfreezzzz said:

SlopranoDark said:

M'lords and ladies,

Please remember, it's not that the money being kept in a big safe. In the contrary! The money's meant to make those updates, and in order to keep those updates happening, Plarium needs their money.

in 2015, plarium generated a gross revenue of over $100 million. spreaded over 7 games, that's $14 million per game. or, $1.2 million per month, per game.

a total of 600 employees, that's 85 employees per game. let's assume they're decently paid, that'd be an average of $3000 per month per employee. for 85 employees, that'd be $260000 per month. multiply that by 2, to cover charges, taxes and such. it comes to a total of $520000 per month. out of $1.2 million, that still leaves $500000 per month. 

even taking in consideration the CEO, CFO, and all the VPs salary, there's still plenty of money to update the game, as you say, without systematically looting players, with updates that are nothing but money grabbers.

remember that overall people are smart, not dumb. 

remember that most of your customers are grownups, and not kids who don't know much, or at all, about business and company finances

and bare in mind that in a vast community of players, chances are some of them are in the internet field as well, some might even run software or gaming business

so please, stop taking us for idiots.

If you look at wages and such in places like Ukraine, where they got some of the biz, Im quite sure, that wages rather low there. 

sorry if i feel robbed, i spend many for upgrade my buildings and now cost 1/10, in this game you can spend all but not going anywhere, just spend again and again vs free sapphire ppl

I spend for entertainment? the feedback is zero entertainment (not usable)=pay for nothing

an example for children, if you buy a car and in return receive a tricycle what do you do?

1- rebuy from the same seller 300 tricycles feeling you idiot (plarium feedback)

2- changes salesman 

3- you try to exploit your investment consciously and not spend another

choose your option .... 1-2 or 3? if you choose 1 gift a tricycle

Long version:

Plarium is on a charge for money.

This isn't the kind of money that pays the wages and puts bread on the table of the people work in the company, it's corporate greed, to make a fast buck.

There is zero respect for the customers playing the game. There is no desire to create new content to be played in game. Only content to be bought. Customers are fools to be sucked dry. This has been the the case now for about 9 months but it is coming to a head so violently, I am now posting.

I post with little hope that what I write will be understood by a developer that is just part of a blinkered industry that is slowly eating itself. But I post anyway holding on to a slither of hope. After all I have played and loved the game and invested hundreds if not thousands of hours into it.

I also post with experience, I have already seen a developer, of a similar RTS MMO game, go all out cynical cash cow and the game was dead within 2 years, zero customers left.

I could write a small book about the sapphire only updates of the last 9 months but I will call as evidence just one area of today's updates. But this area is so heinous on it's own is stands evidence as the death of the game.

Sketches

These represent the end of the need to raid.

Don't bother playing the game anymore. If you are addicted/stupid/manipulated enough just tripple your castle resource production to the point that 24/7 troop production is assured. What does this take... nothing you can do it right now immediately with enough cash.

Why will this kill the game?

They have just allowed people to buy there way to the end game. You can now buy your way to not having to play the game each day. This isn't even good business sense in the long run because without content these people will literally stop playing and move on from the game. You take short term money to turn your biggest spending customers into ex-customers in the long term.

For the rest of the player base, it just unbalanced the game to the most ridiculous level. Pay to win player logs in for 2 mins and achieves what might make take you 2/3hrs to achieve. It's way over the line of common sense. It will leave people cold. No one wants to play a game which is so unbalanced they can't hope to compete.

I bet a load of sketches will be bought in the short term. I bet the team will be slapping themselves on the back for their cunning and success. In two years time when the game is dead..... well you will just move onto another job I guess, there is no love for this game so will anyone at Plarium even care?.

Seemingly Plarium won't know what a valued customer is until we are all gone, turned cold by cynical, short termist, money grabbing.

Long version:

Plarium is on a charge for money.

This isn't the kind of money that pays the wages and puts bread on the table of the people work in the company, it's corporate greed, to make a fast buck.

There is zero respect for the customers playing the game. There is no desire to create new content to be played in game. Only content to be bought. Customers are fools to be sucked dry. This has been the the case now for about 9 months but it is coming to a head so violently, I am now posting.

I post with little hope that what I write will be understood by a developer that is just part of a blinkered industry that is slowly eating itself. But I post anyway holding on to a slither of hope. After all I have played and loved the game and invested hundreds if not thousands of hours into it.

I also post with experience, I have already seen a developer, of a similar RTS MMO game, go all out cynical cash cow and the game was dead within 2 years, zero customers left.

I could write a small book about the sapphire only updates of the last 9 months but I will call as evidence just one area of today's updates. But this area is so heinous on it's own is stands evidence as the death of the game.

Sketches

These represent the end of the need to raid.

Don't bother playing the game anymore. If you are addicted/stupid/manipulated enough just tripple your castle resource production to the point that 24/7 troop production is assured. What does this take... nothing you can do it right now immediately with enough cash.

Why will this kill the game?

They have just allowed people to buy there way to the end game. You can now buy your way to not having to play the game each day. This isn't even good business sense in the long run because without content these people will literally stop playing and move on from the game. You take short term money to turn your biggest spending customers into ex-customers in the long term.

For the rest of the player base, it just unbalanced the game to the most ridiculous level. Pay to win player logs in for 2 mins and achieves what might make take you 2/3hrs to achieve. It's way over the line of common sense. It will leave people cold. No one wants to play a game which is so unbalanced they can't hope to compete.

I bet a load of sketches will be bought in the short term. I bet the team will be slapping themselves on the back for their cunning and success. In two years time when the game is dead..... well you will just move onto another job I guess, there is no love for this game so will anyone at Plarium even care?.

Seemingly Plarium won't know what a valued customer is until we are all gone, turned cold by cynical, short termist, money grabbing.

M'lords and ladies,

Please remember, it's not that the money being kept in a big safe. In the contrary! The money's meant to make those updates, and in order to keep those updates happening, Plarium needs their money.

Notice that the game has been growing a lot. A little more than 1 year ago, when I started playing, it wasn't as big as now, hence it didn't cost too much money. Even on a level up in that time, you'd get Sapphires! Unfortunately, that has been removed for probably the same reason as I wrote before. Plarium desires money, in order to keep the game running.

So think about it as giving a gift to them. Think that you're not just a Lord or Lady, but rather a hero for spending it on Stormfall, because it definitely helps Plarium!

Remember, though, that purchasing Sapphires is completely optional and thus if you prefer not to spend your money, then you'll have to obtain this in-game currency, which is worth real money, for free in a little more difficult way; earning them at Hamlets for example, which is completely logical in my eyes!

If you're uncertain about where to earn those Sapphires and how you can spend them wisely, check out this wiki article.

I'm sorry if this wasn't really helpful, I try my best to assist!

> SlopranoDark

Aleksandra Miroshyna said:

As I already said, every player chooses different strategy for the game. You may decide to use only those features that fit your strategy. Sapphires that you earn in the game may be used in a way that you prefer.

Problem is though, its to hard to earn sapphires in the game from a grind/effort aspect. You might wreck your army you spent the last 3 months to build in a tourney to get sapphires. You get some sapphires, chance is you got no army left, an the sapphires you got is not enough to get anywhere either. If you look at cost of sketches this is very much through. 

It's like saying sorry you only allowed one raid a month in WOW, but you are able to go collect herbs 10 times a day if you so desire. 

Sending out 10 raids a day in stormfall grow boring over time you know. Saving up forever to get sapphires to upgrade a building one level is a monument of tedious tbh.

You have players willing to spend money on your game, but it's just not cost competive with other things we can spend money on. You priced yourself out. Chance is someone that already got all their buildings maxed have already sunk a considerable amount of money into your game. 

Its like you asking the price of  Porche for the value of a Trabant. Also, the strategy you mention. there is no real strategy to speak of under the curent meta/situation. My league hit a becon this weekend. it was like one dude defending and he revived/reinforce with cash and made our atempt laughable. Where is the strategy in that? Can we have a 24h statis period on bought and revived units please?

We wouldn't know if Plarium analyze effects of anything or just go with the "another one ride the bus" motion. Plarium never release any stats of actual active players, if the game is growing and so on.

Like how many new players joined last mont. How many of these still played end of month. How many players active at a certain level. How many castles in the world that haven't been logged into the past 2-3 months. There is a lot of stats you could post and give us, that is easy to extract from your database. 

great potential and do not realize that 

1 ppl pay 1.000 you take 1.000 for gain 10% you need 1 ppl pay 100

1000 ppl pay 1 you take 1.000 for gain 10% you need 1.000 ppl pay 0.1

with a little effort and encourage ppl to pay another 0.1  for a good reasone you earn double

in games and entertainment, there are many mental mechanisms but if you forced ppl for pay all 100 you take nothing, same thing if someone leaves, you lose 0.1 and not 100

we can expand in the abstract discourse (I want to avoid polemics), the hundreds of castles (suspicious? double? triple?) have contributed to entertainment and bring in the right direction the game? help to destroy the game

is too evident.... not fool people, i can spend 100€ for gain 5k sapphire in a tournament? with 100€ a buy a offert and take many more in case, but the purpose is make life more difficult (wrong wrong and wrong)

perfect words Mehnslayer!!

mobile game take many disinterested ppl but is modern gain... gain for publicity and personal data treatment, here could learn what is a good product but do not care, there is an underlying problem anyway, to many greedy or few error in manage resources or both but is problem for plarium, not for me 

the substance is that they are very far from what is an entertainment (game?)

@MEHNSLAYER

Problem as I see it now, is that they might have dug the hole deep enough to not get out off. The relations with the players is at an all time low. New players joining the game get hit by a wall of neagativity from older players. Older players looking for new games to play, and once they do they bring fellow players with them onto those games. Its like a train of dominos picking up speed. 

We hear about how Plarium got people in charge running the numbers and make decisions based on them, and all is fine. Things not fine by a mile :/ 

this new sketches option is an obvious money grab

it could be the straw that kills the game

I am seriously thinking of send all my resources to league members and dropping out

the number of saphires needed to buy sketches is ridiculous

but hey I see from the new offers since sketches were released

that for only $50 you can buy enough saphires to trade for sketches

it seems to be pay it or else piss off

I am leaning towards the last alternative

shame on you Plarium

Lords and Ladies, first of all I would like to say that I appreciate your feedback and that you took your time to write it.

You all are very experienced players and I'm sure you know that even though our game based on free-to-play model, there are some limitations. We would love to make everything in the game free, unfortunately this is not possible. If we want to develop and support the game further, certain features must have cost a value. Without this, we would not be able to keep the game running and growing for all players. Of course such features should bring players some advantages otherwise why else would they invest in the game? These are facts of the free-to-play model.

I assure you that we have no intention of destroying the game. We want Stormfall to continue growing and evolving.

As I already mentioned, we should release some features that can be opened with Sapphires. However, we always give all players possible ways to earn Sapphires that can be used for these features. Apart from this, we release free features very often. Not a while ago we added into the game a great option for Leagues - League Fortresses. With the last update we released the Dragon. Every player can use them for free as well as almost all posibilities in the game.

If you are playing without purchasing Sapphires, the development of your Castle and the growth of your army may be slower, but if you are active in the game and learn game mechanics, you may reach top players. For sure, our game mechanics is not very easy to understand, your game skills mean a lot for your future success. But you shouldn't learn them alone. We've created this forum not only for collecting the feedback from you, but also for the communication between players.