Why does Atwar die?

Prispeval W4R_MaChINE, 08.06.2024 at 18:20

I keep coming back for the nostalgia after all these years, sadly most of the players i played with during my era of atwar no longer play

no investment was made into this game, rather it was sold off. and the small community of amazing players dwindled as life consumed us all.

wish i could go back and play a few more clan wars against clovis and SM, and Laochra and his group.

RIP atwar

That one season where you joined me and swans in "The Timeless Ones" was probably my favourite since MK had disbanded and you guys all joined different clans making it super active and competitive. I don't think there was ever as active as a season as that one was.

1. The old guard grew up (families, jobs etc). This is the main reason and if you dont bring new players to gradually replace the old ones, the game will stagnate (Altho atwar has always been stagnant except during Corona). When I began (2016-17) I played 4-8 hours of Atwar scens mostly, now im 20+ and I dont have alot of time for AtWar, as much as I would like to play. I think the old cohort of 15-20 yo players all got social life now and jobs and it honestly takes 3-4 players to "give up" on the game for that particular side of AtWar (Scens, RP or Comp) to die out, personally I dont want to seem narcisistic, but when i was active and hosting scens AtWar scen side was alive (Not a big feat in any way, considering the avg scen player count is 20-30 players who log in weekly, 40+ tops, and only maybe 3-4 people will go through the effort to host a map)

2. The game is extremly hard to learn for people, its very hard to be skilled, it has a huge learning curve and it isnt beginner friendly at all. Low Ranks being kicked is despised by other people, but the general truth is that they wont get to the level to learn this game ever, Even me (I wouldnt call myself a S tier scen player or even A) a 7+ year player, I learned new things and new strategies/patterns while playing WW1 when i made my brief return here. The time a low rank needs to invest into the game to get good is huge, not many people can afford that. The game doesnt have a problem in attracting players, it is mostly keeping them. Games take maybe 10-50 mins to host and fill (scen ones) and 1.5-2hours to properly end. That is 2.5~ hours, not many people can afford the time to get good at AtWar, even if they can they are likely low motivation/IQ individuals who will never get decent at it.

3. The game has a very limited array of resources to help those new players get good at the game. This is mostly an issue for the scen side, the 3v3/comp side has a huge array of guides/vids on how to play certain countries. If there was an extensive forum post on how to play each side on WW1 correctly, or better yet some kind of Modlike position to help off and guide in real time new players on how to play certain spots, alot more players would stay in the game.

These are the main 3 reasons, more or less 90% of why AtWar is stagnating, and now, for real dying.
some of myths ;
-I dont belive pay-to-win/freemium is an issue at all, especially now. I played AtWar as a non prem for 3+ years and had no issues, I just took smaller roles in scens.
-I dont think that the game-managment is at fault here. The factors that fuck up AW are huge and very hard to deal with, the game itself is very very hard to "sell" to new people

some minor issues
-The game was late to adopt discord and other chatting apps to keep a community connected
-The game is very toxic to low-ranks, not in the kicking sense. More or less in the insulting sense.
-AW was too late to hop on the TikTok wave (I think it has passed now!)

Perhaps, in retrospect the best way to keep the game from stagnating was to give supporter to more motivated people, organize more events, add top 10-30 each month tier list, which would make the game alot more competative, and discuss the game more on Discord and the Forums, if it makes sense what im saying. This game is based on entertainment and it thrives when narratives are created, players want to be proven right or wrong. But i think its way too late.

In short, it was fun while it lasted. I had absolutely amazing memories playing this game ,Met some amazing people who Im still very very close with! Thank you Ivan, Amok and later Dave for keeping this game for such a long time and spending so much energy dealing with dumb teens and psychotic balkaners and turks!

The real reason is that a lot of people came here to play a competitive game and the rank and clan war system was what the vast majority of players were here for in 2014/15 when the game started. But there was no emphasis on expanding the competitive scene or nursing it and making rules or a solid ranked system. These elements were not nurtured early on because ivan and Amok wanted to sell it very early on... they outsourced a lot of responsibility to mods (free) and made sun tzu an admin as the game was failing which was a poor choice and he made some weird decisions while also having his hands tied with regards to things that mattered. So over time people got bored and left. Since 2016/2017 RP was bigger but the game was already dying... player retention was poor and those in charge never appreciated this... in 2020/21 Dave was the owner and he had a disagreement with the core of the old comp community... we're talking about the few guys left that loved comp games and caused a few of us to come back and continue playing comp during covid. Then one day he banned some of those players and a lot of the remaining guys deleted their accounts in protest.... AW was already dying with the player base dwindling. But alienating the core player base that made clans relevent was what killed it. There use to be guys who played this game like a sport... opi, laochra, eagles, mauzer, commando, soldier001, creyente, Clovis and these are just some of those guys that the community looked up to... theres a history to this game most of you will never know. To get a glimpse of what it was all you need to do is search players by elo...

Prispeval Phoenix, 16.08.2024 at 02:34

The real reason is that a lot of people came here to play a competitive game and the rank and clan war system was what the vast majority of players were here for in 2014/15 when the game started. But there was no emphasis on expanding the competitive scene or nursing it and making rules or a solid ranked system. These elements were not nurtured early on because ivan and Amok wanted to sell it very early on... they outsourced a lot of responsibility to mods (free) and made sun tzu an admin as the game was failing which was a poor choice and he made some weird decisions while also having his hands tied with regards to things that mattered. So over time people got bored and left. Since 2016/2017 RP was bigger but the game was already dying... player retention was poor and those in charge never appreciated this... in 2020/21 Dave was the owner and he had a disagreement with the core of the old comp community... we're talking about the few guys left that loved comp games and caused a few of us to come back and continue playing comp during covid. Then one day he banned some of those players and a lot of the remaining guys deleted their accounts in protest.... AW was already dying with the player base dwindling. But alienating the core player base that made clans relevent was what killed it. There use to be guys who played this game like a sport... opi, laochra, eagles, mauzer, commando, soldier001, creyente, Clovis and these are just some of those guys that the community looked up to... theres a history to this game most of you will never know. To get a glimpse of what it was all you need to do is search players by elo...

In my opinion (and I think I've said this before) the "comp community" is just not that important. When I researched this in detail a couple years ago, I found that the comp community is very vocal but very small part of atWar. The vast majority of our users was, and still is, first-timers and random users passing through. However atWar has an incredibly low retention rate, so few of those stick around.

I don't think getting rid of a few obnoxious players rises to the level of "alientating [a] core player base", and I don't think those few's "loss" has impacted our numbers in any significant way. Sure they made a lot of noise about it, but that was all it was -- noise. If you look at the numbers it's been one long continuous decline (except for a brief spike during Covid) from at least 2017 until now, and nothing I've done has been able to change that one way or the other.

If I were to pick the one thing that would help atWar the most, it would be an AI to play against. First-timers don't have the patience to wait for games to fill, or else they get into games with players who grossly outmatch them and get killed instantly. Either way that's no fun, so no wonder people leave. An AI player would completely solve this problem and allow people to get into the game more easily.

I find it amusing that in the poll above people voted for "no marketing". Those people must be completely unaware of the literally thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours we spent marketing the game, to no avail. Sure we got more raw traffic, but the retention just wasn't there, same as now. It was a tremendous waste of time and money, and will always be a waste unless/until something fundamental changes about the game (like the addition of an AI).

Oh well. We can still reboot atWar someday if/when time & money become more abundant for such an overhaul. Until then, it is what it is.

Hello? Yes it's mr genius again at it. Of course the competitive community isn't gonna be most of the game, because FUN FACT not everyone is good/a tryhard BUT GUESS WHAT...... pro players are essential for creating tutorials/helping new players understand the game. More importantly you inspire new players(this game isn't so appealing) but also the competitive scene facilitates the game as fun, even a lot of scenario players love to watch the compet scene ( low ranks too) and lots of competitive players play literally all the other map modes too. While it's true compet is a small amount, being vocal is imperative to the game because of the impact is has to all players, making them encouraged and allowing discussion

A few words from your favorite yapper:

The poll results speak volumes, but we need to be more precise. The game has been marketed at various times over the past few years. A few years ago, Dave shared some graphs showing when and for how long the game was marketed during the first two years of his ownership. I'm too lazy to dig them up now. When you market a product, the marketing pays off if the cost is less than the retention rate multiplied by the net profit of the product you're advertising. AtWar faces challenges on both fronts:

1. Retention Rate

1.1 Brsjak made some excellent points about the retention rate. A proper AtWar game demands an investment of 2.5+ hours from a player's schedule. What I'd add to Brsjak's points is that, on average, people now have less time - or are less willing - to spend on a single game. Both active and casual gamers prefer shorter game sessions today compared to 2014. I use 2014 as a reference because it's when I started playing AtWar. If we compare 2014 to 2024, the average game length in League of Legends, for instance, has decreased from 35-40 minutes to 25-30 minutes - a reduction of about 30%. This isn't by chance; similar trends can be seen in other long-standing games, which have also shortened playtime.

1.2 The learning curve is steep, particularly in competitive play, which has the highest learning curve. Competitive play is difficult to learn, with very few skilled players willing to share their knowledge and invest time in mentoring new players. This has always been the case, with the exception of a few major training clans created in 2013, which helped foster an active competitive scene from 2014 to 2016. Personally, I wouldn't have stayed in the game if a weirdo named Tito hadn't messaged me while I was playing Turkey in a world game. Before that, I had zero communication with the community or any players. The problem with training clans is that no one wants to run them anymore, and simply creating an "academy" branch within a clan to train new players doesn't work. Illyria and a few other former big clans tried creating academies, but only 2 or 3 players from these stayed longer than a year. Players who decide to train newcomers have to give up competing for the season's trophy. The two most successful training clans, JNA and Winterfell, together nurtured over 50 players in 1.5 years. For JNA, the result was a 2nd place trophy after two years when the training clan transitioned into a competitive one. This could be seen as the ultimate goal of such clans - to form a competitive base with their own players. Winterfell never won a seasonal trophy. Training clans could now compete for the most games played trophy of the season at least, an improvement...

1.3 Scenarios share similar issues. Mapmakers spend hours creating them, only for them to be played a few times and then to be forgotten. Unfortunately, it's up to the mapmaker to cultivate their own player base. Aetius's WW1 scenario arrived at the right time, during AtWar's peak activity, and players were willing to invest time in playing it. His scenarios paved the way for a few prominent mapmakers and dozens of active scenario players. Sadly, only Dire as mapmaker remained active from that part of the scenario community, along with about 20 familiar scenario players. We share a Discord server, which helps fill casual games, but this isn't a sustainable model for retaining new players. Players are too focused on winning and don't give newcomers a chance in these games. It's becoming increasingly difficult to fill these scenarios. Moreover, there are no guides on how to play these scenarios, so if you're not in the cartographer Discord, you won't even know the game rules, let alone the map mechanics.

2. Profitability Issues

2.1 Unpopular opinion: Playing AtWar is too cheap to be profitable for its owner. Similar browser games are much more expensive for their player base, with monthly premium subscriptions ranging from $10 to $15. I've never seen a game of this genre offer a lifetime premium option - except AtWar - especially not for a price under three figures. While this may be good for short-term cash flow, it severely limits long-term income. Dave recognized this and attempted to remove the lifetime subscription option years ago, replacing it with a $40 yearly subscription. After community backlash, he reverted to the old lifetime option.

2.2 In other similar games, monetization strategies would involve, for example, allowing players to pay a certain amount of protocoins for additional reinf in a city before reinf turn, or to escape a deadly battle by clicking on the button next to the battle in the battle screen... Implementing such features in AtWar would face backlash from the existing player base, myself included, even though I understand that this is the norm in such games, and large numbers of players still play them.

2.3 Premium prices have remained unchanged since 2014 - $6 monthly and $50 for a lifetime. At one point in 2015, the lifetime price even increased to $70. Over 10 years, from 2014 to 2024, the dollar's inflation rate is approximately 33%. Adjusted for inflation, the monthly premium should now be $8, and the lifetime premium $70.

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These are some hard pills to swallow, but that's the reality. On a brighter note, here are some potential solutions I see. I'll address the issues in the same order:

1.1 Lately, I've found myself enjoying casual games, especially 24-hour ones. They take a maximum of 5-10 minutes a day, and with a bit of chatting in private messages, it might extend to 15 minutes at most. Since I have more free time than usual this month, I've joined two of these games and might join another, needing no more than 20 minutes a day on average.

1.2 The competitive scene needs to find ways to expand its base, possibly by returning to training new players. Instead of farming low ranks in duels, maybe offer to teach them a thing or two?

1.3 Let's acknowledge what Gilalad has accomplished with his Game of Thrones and Middle Earth scenarios. Out of the 88 currently active casual games, 15 are Gilalad's maps/scenarios (17%!). His scenarios are easy to learn, and all mechanics are clearly explained in the guides he creates and shares with all players via PM in every scenario started. Here are two examples of these guides for the scenarios I'm currently playing: A Feast for Crows - V6 and GoT: Seven Kingdoms. Around 60 or 70% of the players in these scenarios are low or high ranks I've never seen before. This is the way forward for the scenario community.

2.1 Lifetime premium should be removed and perhaps occasionally offered for 100+ bucks.

2.2 Consider offering a few more premium perks. Here are some reasonable examples:
- Priority in the picking queue - premium players pick first in quick games, followed by non-premium players. I don't see this as a major pay-to-win change.
- For 100 or so protocoins, a player could extend their turn by a minute (capped at one minute to prevent others from waiting too long). Multiple players could use this in the same turn, with non-requesting players receiving a message on the screen: "Turn is finished, waiting for players who requested an additional minute to complete their turn."
- An additional advanced setting to allow recruiting an extra general every 2/3/4 reinforcement turns in the capital. And, of course, an option to disable this, just like with extra cities, strategies, etc.

2.3 Adjust the prices and perhaps limit premium offers to 1, 3, and 6-month subscriptions.

Enough of yapping, bye.

Prispeval Oleg, 17.08.2024 at 02:08

Nice summation and I agree with all the section 2 suggestions. Don't know when I'll get around to implementing any of those (because... time) but hopefully I can at some point.

I really wish Amok & Ivan hadn't offered the lifetime option.... they gained a lot of money off that (so in a sense, I guess it was a good business decision for them) but it's not a sustainable business model. Unfortunately for me the fact that they did and the community got so used to it meant that its very difficult to stop doing now. So I guess we're stuck with it.... but it really should cost more at this point.

For a brief time, when we had the Covid spike, it looked like atWar might have profit potential as a business after all, and I did my best to take advantage of that opportunity... but ultimately it faded away again. So AW returned to the status of "hobby I work on when I have time", where it comfortably remains....

Prispeval Dave, 17.08.2024 at 02:52

I'm not saying I wouldn't have banned those same players for some of their behaviour, but nurturing the comp scene will only help the game. You can't turn back time or wish on the past. If this was my puppy I'd adapt it for mobile and encourage the comp scene to grow out of it from scratch, with simple intuitive mechanics and a map generation system to keep it fresh. AI is a massive task for a game of this scale with limited upside, why build an AI when its easier to refine the game and have real people play that might actually make you money?

Also the reason AW made money during covid is down to the loyal player base... those that it was able to retain. You need to rebuild that magic, out of competition you build a thriving community, that community puts money into the game... sure theres still a community now but it's a shade of its former self. I dont much care for statistics, I know what it was, because I lived it and remember watching friends I made on here slowly disappear, but a game with a strong community keeps people coming back.

I think AWs saving grace will be as Dave said AI.
AW should "freeze out" and just prepare to install some good AI into this game, once lets use WW1 for example, there is a sufficiently good AI to play countries like Serbia, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania games will become 10x times easier to fill and player retention rate will go up.
I am honestly quiet hopeful.

Personally I started playing this game when it was friend-groups friendly, like haxball or world of tanks. except that afterwind (the name back then) had something different, with amazing level or intensity that is not there nowdays. if you seek intensive games you'll have to be prepared to lose a lot, which is one factor.

The second problem is the game is no longer ideal for group games, most of the vetreans who can actually teach new players to play, were busy in competetive and scenarios, and world map were filled with sp farmers, while beginner room is lurked by sociopath rank 16's second account who take pleasure in beating new players.

Another reason it is not the same is the removal of flower power walls and old tb system. While it made the game more competetive and somewhat fair, it made ally fagging too powerful, and in small maps most of your chances are depended on your 2-3 first turns, if your expansions worked and if you managed to avoid critical rushes. and if you have latejoiners or allyfags against you then you no longer have the tools to deal with them.

Finally, the arrival of scenarios and development of the competetive scene has made the game far more interesting to the 5% of vetreans and pros, but made the rest of the game helpless or clueless, if a new rank wants to find his spot in the game, he actually has to stop playing what most of the new players like to play, or even can play with their upgrades (world maps), and let's not even start to talk about rankisms and players who kick premium rank 7s (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

That is the reason I believe a new AI will benifit 5% of the players, but if we want the rest of the 95% players (new players, who join and leave on routine, in the past 7 years, instead of finding their spot in the game), we need to develop new maps and gameplay (that includes upgrades, turnblocks, new alliances system) which will encourage teamplay and allow new players to enjoy this game with their friends without the assured prospect of being completly annhiliated because the new game mechanics was designs for pros and allyfags.

I mean, for years mods had to compromise between the needs of scenarios and mapmakers and the needs of the competetive community, and the result is some psychopathic inbred game mechanics that made this game look like mayhem for anyone else, we need to find third way, even if it means to create option to choose between 2-3 different gameplays that will suit different needs.

Prispeval Dave, 17.08.2024 at 02:52

Prispeval Oleg, 17.08.2024 at 02:08

Nice summation and I agree with all the section 2 suggestions. Don't know when I'll get around to implementing any of those (because... time) but hopefully I can at some point.

I really wish Amok & Ivan hadn't offered the lifetime option.... they gained a lot of money off that (so in a sense, I guess it was a good business decision for them) but it's not a sustainable business model. Unfortunately for me the fact that they did and the community got so used to it meant that its very difficult to stop doing now. So I guess we're stuck with it.... but it really should cost more at this point.

For a brief time, when we had the Covid spike, it looked like atWar might have profit potential as a business after all, and I did my best to take advantage of that opportunity... but ultimately it faded away again. So AW returned to the status of "hobby I work on when I have time", where it comfortably remains....

Well from my perspective I want to keep my lifetime membership, agree inflation cause American world war III is killing us, new lifetime membership should be more then it was, unfortunately cause my new job I dont have time to play as I used to, but I made great friends here although dont know anyone in real life cause we are very far away, bad time for such a great game, even ppl who had fights with me over many things I m little nostalgic

Long ass block of text ahead, beware

AI is necessary in every strategy game at this point. Atwar is no exception.
I won't get into marketing because I have no idea on how the game is being advertised on an internal level. I also won't talk about trolls since that's just a laughable option, trolls exist everywhere, even irl, you gotta learn to deal with that. AI would also somewhat solve the power creep between veterans and newbies, therefore, there's a beginner lobby already, with tons of forum guides and youtube videos on advanced aw content, so the "hard to adapt" vote option is debatable in my opinion as well.

There is a small issue with that however. I don't believe the amount of effort that goes into developing such a system would provide as much benefit. In other words, it's a great idea, although it wouldn't have a significant impact on the retention, most likely. It may improve the situation for a year or two, or even reverse the stagnation, but you would expect a much greater result for such a huge investment of time and energy (coding an AI feature, even if it's very simplistic and "low elo").

As a proof of concept, imagine the following 2 scenarios...

You are a brand new player who just found the game and you successfully finished the tutorial, played 1 or 2 games against players, and you have reached rank 2. This is already a small portion of the people, by the way. Now you want to enter a game with players and enjoy the game, try to improve, whatever... Here's where the huge difference kicks in.

In scenario A) you see 3 games in the beginner lobby. One of them is a random scenario with a weird thumbnail, a europe preset with 1/10 players, and a world 50k game with 4/20 players. You join the world 50k game. It is turn 3, somebody has already taken the entirety of China and the eastern parts of Asia, there is basically a self-made European Union, and the last two players are fighting in north america. One of the america players is allied to the Eu player, and the Eu player is sending troops over to help. In this situation, you decide to join in the middle east and ally the asia player. He refuses to ally you and the europe player quits. Then you see the winning america player allying the asia player, so now it is 2v1 against you, and you have barely taken the middle east with your limited knowledge of the game. They are also higher rank than you or alts of high ranked players. You either abandon/surrender and try to join another game, or host one yourself, or you try to play with these impossible odds and basically not enjoy the game.

In scenario B) there's 15 games in the beginner lobby, with most of them having 2-3 players, and at least 10 bots. There's a 50k funds world game with 7 players and 20 bots so that is 27/40. You join this game. Then you see that South America has 2 bots only and no players. The bots are set to easy mode in the match settings, so they are not that difficult to kill. You manage to kill the Brazil : Southeast bot while playing argentina, and you have the Colombia bot expanding in the north. You ally the america player and you defeat the Colombia bot together. Now the rest of the world is in chaos with the bots fighting each other and the players, while the players also go at each other. After this long 3 hours game, you are satisfied with the 1.5k SP you earned, and the 'friend' you made (america player).

Which one sounds more enjoyable, more engaging? Obviously scen B, for the vast majority of people at least.

So while there have been solutions in the past that improve the game in different ways to keep the players engaged and show signs of the game being alive, it would not be worthwhile to work on currently (and Dave pointed this out in this very topic earlier). One idea that comes to my mind is the suggestion of making different kinds of no-go zones. There's currently a no-go zone option for mapmakers and it also exists on the default world map, where you basically cannot move troops into (or through, unless they are aerial units). The suggestion itself in the form of an example; you wanna move infantry from Tunisia to Nigeria, in a straight line. You get a movement range nerf of -3 on your infs, since that entire area of the planet is an uninhabited desert (Sahara). It just makes sense to simulate attrition there in some way or at least limit the movement of the troops. In terms of coding this, it is not that difficult either, just copy paste the no-go zone functions for the most part, then the only tricky thing will be to calculate the movement range of the troops which are outside of the zone and moving in, or inside and moving out, but not completely in it.

At the end of the day, there's at least a few dozen ideas like that, but I think AI - by far - would be the most impactful, without actually changing or altering anything in the base game, as you could just disable or enable bots to your liking, and it is an idea that can be expanded upon.

Edit:
Oh boy... I did not even mention the fact that if a player leaves, he can be replaced by an AI. Which could also be a setting you can toggle (whether you want a leaving palyer to be replaced or become neutral).