Bulfleet.com - Official Forums

Seyhall написа:QUOTE(Seyhall @ Jul 6 2007, 09:47 PM)I hear what you're saying, and I agree Bulfleet isn't a perfect game. But what game out there manages to satisfy both full-time gamers and casual twice-a-week gamers? What game has that perfect balance between offense and defense so that neither one feels the other has an advantage, yet both continue to be challenged?

Let me say that in my experience, Bulfleet is rather well balanced. Compare it to the very popular and sort of similar game of Travian. In Travian, you almost feel the developers ganged up with the elite players just to grief the noobies. In Travian, there is no limit to attacks. There is no attack range and there is no limit to the number of attacks. Worse, destructive attacks are pretty easy to launch in Travian, but in Bulfleet they require the Death Star, which nobody can build until they're way up there in rank.

Another thing too is that you cannot call back attacks in Travian. Once you press the button, you have 90 seconds to change your mind; after that, it's like launching a rocket. Yet in Bulfleet, you can take an attack back at the last minute, and most players will do that if you come online while an attack is incoming. Why? Because they figure there will be no resources to take by the time they get there. Since you're online, you can spend them, or if nothing else, reduce them to nothing by trading them in the trade center.

Also, Bulfleet limits you to 20 hours a day of play, and further, prohibits sharing passwords. In Travian, on the other hand, sharing an account is allowed. So players in three different time zones can work together on one account, and achieve 24-hour play. Not only do they get to attack more, they can tell when an attack is coming -- oh, because Travian doesn't email you warnings if an attack is coming. If you're not online, tough.

As far as evasive strategies, there are far fewer in Travian. The closest thing to "fleetsave" would be to make some quick trades on the market. Unfortunately, most market trades in Travian are 2:1, so you lose 50% of your resources, and worse, you can only exchange a maximum of 10,000 resources on the market at once. Considering the differences in costs, that would be maybe 100,000 resources in Bulfleet. But in Bulfleet, you can safeguard as many resources as you can carry.

Now, as far as English is concerned, yes, it would be very convenient for English speakers -- or more precisely, for non-Bulgarian speakers -- if the game were in English. Many European games (like Travian, but many more) actually have English-only policies. English is the official game language even if the game is in a non-English speaking country. Now, I realize that English is the world's lingua france, but still... it's kind of rude to expect people in other countries to speak our language. I actually applaud Bulfleet for sticking to its guns and keeping the game in their language.

And finally, I have found the players in Bulfleet -- most of whom speak English rather well, but even the ones who don't -- to be a lot friendlier than players I've interacted with in other games. In Travian, many are downright bullies, attacking you and then sending you mocking messages, adding insult to injury. Here, in Bulfleet, I'm friends even with the players who attack me (unsuccessfully!) all the time!

And, btw, I'm a first time player and hardly part of the elite. I don't oppose changes, but I also don't know what changes could be made. As far as money is concerned, I would think committed gamers are more likely to pay than casual ones, but I could be wrong.

Seyhall написа:QUOTE(Seyhall @ Jul 7 2007, 08:49 PM)Oh, I'm sure it's a business to the company that owns Bulfleet. I'm sure they would rather make more money than less money, but what do you suggest? The risk of making changes is that it can drive the paying players away without necessarily converting the casual players into paying players.

You are right that there are many inactive planets, but notice that they almost always have 0 points. That means the players logged in, probably just once, and then never came back. They left for many reasons but probably not because they were attacked. After all, you are safe from attacks until you have 100 points. So would changing the game mechanics make them stay? Probably not.

I am interested in game development, so what are your ideas? I have given the issue some thought, and I have never found a way to make PvP satisfactory to both winner AND loser. If you make it too easy to attack and win, the defender complains. If you make it too easy to defend and win, the attacker complains.

In any case, I don't like PvP. I think there is too much aggression and hostility in the world already. Why bring that into a game? But on the other hand, how to make cooperation (the opposite of aggression) fun for people? That's difficult too.

Seyhall написа:QUOTE(Seyhall @ Jul 8 2007, 06:06 AM)Aw, I really hope you don't think you're targetted because you've posted here. Really. I doubt 10% of the players participate in the forums, and moreover, as I mentioned before, the players here aren't mean like that. And there's no ruling clique. Really. I'm a first time player, and I see no evidence of cliques. I've asked here and there, and haven't run into anyone who plays with a lot of friends. You sound pretty upset, and I don't know what to tell you because, well, because I don't find the game that unbalanced, but I know you do. What game have you played that had better balance?

As far as your options, well, yes, don't leave ships parked on your planets. And before you say you shouldn't have to keep your ships skippity-hopping all over the place, keep in mind that in many games you don't even have that option. You know almost always when you're going to log back in, don't you? Even if it's 8 hours later, you can still safeguard your ships. If you lower the speed to 10%, even a round trip between two planets in the same solar system takes 8 hours or more (depending on your speed research level).

And by the way, who are you raiding. Unless you're raiding only inactive planets, you're probably making them feel the same way you feel when you are attacked. Nobody logs in to find their resources gone and says, "Oh, that's okay because my attacker was my size and not too much bigger."

How many people in the game have you met and talked to? That makes a big difference, just between you and me. I have communicated with every person who has attacked or even spied on me. I start joking back and forth with them, and most of them stop attacking. And it's a game with those who continue attacking me because I usually manage to evade them, and we both have a laugh.

Also, there is only a loose correlation between game points and military development. This is because players can choose how to spend their resources. Some like to build their military very early in the game, and that's their choice, but many powerful militaries have fallen because they did not have a solid economy behind them. The player who spends all his resources on researches and mines first will probably be more powerful. That guy with the 65 battlecruisers spent almost 4 million resources on them, so 4,000 of his 16,000 points are just military. You can imagine that his resource production and research levels must be lower than someone who's 16,000 points are pure development.

So what I'm saying is don't be mad. Come on, it's a game. Learn the tricks and techniques, make some friends, and have some fun.

P.S. If you hit the Add Reply button at the bottom of the page instead of the Reply button at the end of the post, it won't include the previous person's whole post, which isn't necessary since it's an ongoing conversation.