The Future of Valor

[LordFirefall]

I’m posting this to let you all know about what GuildMasters have been told over the last few days. This is long, but bear with me as it gives everyone a background to what has gone on for the last year. As some of you know, all GuildMasters are in a Kakao Room with Quark employees, including PwnLaw (Game Lead), Orlor (Support Lead), and Greenthorne (Community Manager).

Last summer, before TBS came out, a variety of players, including Lions, Beta Testers, GuildMasters, and others, made some suggestions to Quark (then known as PlayMesh). MultiCity Management, Mass Scholarship Purchasing, improved stability, and the ability to easily find incoming attacks, were all things PwnLaw promised Quark would work on as soon as TBS was complete. We were also promised that new features from TBS (such as zoomable maps) would migrate to old worlds.

TBS has been here for a long time. However, we have yet to see any of these improvements we were promised. GuildMasters were told yesterday that we won’t see them any time soon. Legacy worlds have now taken precedence (even though huge worlds are still buggy) and we have no ETA as to when fundamental issues with Valor will be fixed.

After TBS was released, Quark began development of a new game called Champs: Battlefield. Some of you may have received beta test invites to it when it was called Project Tick. That game isn’t generating revenue right now. Valor is Quark’s main revenue vehicle. Although PwnLaw has said no programmers were diverted from Valor to Champs, we’ve seen no updates for Valor since development on Champs started. The only thing they’ve done with Valor is offer us Legacy worlds because people have been leaving TBS in droves. Coincidence? You decide.

I love playing Valor (been here since W26) and would like to see it continue to be a great game. I would like to see it improve even more with the things we’ve asked for. However, in my opinion, Quark is only offering us Legacy worlds to generate revenue to develop Champs. They’ve strung out release of Legacy by using Facebook polls. They already know what world settings work, so this is just another way to generate publicity.

I propose we run our own social media campaign to let Quark know how we feel. I’ve started a Facebook page to voice our opinion, as well as a survey for those that don’t have Facebook accounts. You can search for the Facebook page by searching on Lord Firefall. The link to the survey is http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/X76LDD3 .

Remember those Twitter accounts PlayMesh had us use to double our rewards? If you still have them, tell them what you’d like to see by including the hash tag #fixValor.

I’ve presented multiple avenues to voice your opinion on the game. I would like to see everyone who reads this to take the survey. I will provide the details to Quark, via the GuildMaster’s Kakao room, as well as posting it here (if I’m not banned by then) and in the Beta Test Room for all to see. Quark places a lot of emphasis on Facebook, so if we could get more likes than their page, I believe it would send a strong message. Pass this on to all your current and former Valor friends and maybe we can get some changes we want to see.

If I do get banned from posting, it was great interacting with you all! You can still find me on Kakao – Lord Firefall or Firefall.

[Sponge]

Forums have gone quiet recently, the game just keeps getting worse and quark rarely listen to the what players say anymore. I was beginning to think valor was dead. I guess we now know why. I hope you don't get banned just because you care about the future of the game.

Btw, couldn't find you on kakao. Is your kakao ID searchable?

[LordFirefall]

Its searchable, but Kakao doesn't alway bring it up for some reason. I've sent you a 1:1.

150 people have already responded to the survey. 10 more and it will have more respondees than the poll for Legacy World size.

[LordFirefall]

240+ have now responded. 65 more and it will beat the combined like/comment response to the largest post on Valor's Facebook page. That's in 5 hours, compared to multiple days, so I anticipate we will easily beat that.

So far, the biggest problem current players have with the game, is an inability to easily find incoming attacks (67%), and a lack of multicity management (65%). On the bright side, only 11% had issues with customer support (great job Orlor). 40% of responders will not play the new Legacy worlds, unless MCM, mass scholarship purchasing, and being able to find inbounds is fixed.

75% of responders indicated if Quark fixed what they've said they were going to fix, they would play Valor AND spend gold. 21% indicated they would continue to play, and only 4.5% said they were done.

[DirtySouthATL]

I applaud the route you've taken for this. I hate that we have to go to these lengths to get Quark to respond to us. Remember how responsive and active playmesh was on the forums prior to TBS worlds? Remember how they listened to us and made changes based on the player feedback they got? Their bread and butter is valor and they are using all of their resources on their new game, vs fixing what got them to where they are.

How long has it been since we've heard from pwnlaw? He has Orlor or Greenthorne announce everything for him now. No quark employee has surfaced in months. Not even when they went down for 3 days. They kept sending Orlor and Greenthorne in to take the abuse.
They keep releasing guild worlds on top of each other, now they will release this legacy world a week after Guild World 4 starts. I can almost place money on that.

Bottom line, quark has lost a lot of players due to their bs. This at one point was my way to take out my stress from work on someone, now this game causes more stress and drama than real life.

[MyName999]

Gratz to you Firefall... You were the last bastion for Quark-Playmesh, and seeing that you abandon their defense to point the weaknesses of the present status of the game make me really think that Valor is dead.

I'm happy and proud seeing that you're doing cleverly what Quark always had to do: an easy and precise survey on our opinion. But I'm sad seeing that even you fear being banned just to express yourself in a decent, objective way! This show how you can be treatened, or think you can be.

I'll stay here a bit to see if things will ameliorate, and to express myself as a w16 veteran that really had lots of fun and pleasure playing this game, but that now need a miracle to be back in the fields.

[LordFirefall]

I don't think that Valor is dead. I think its close if Quark doesn't do something. The non-gold world they are coming out with and the Legacy worlds is a last grasp at holding players, in my opinion. However, as the poll is showing, they can hold on to the old players. Word of mouth is a powerful thing - good or bad.

As far as being banned, I doubt it at this point. Things have reached a point where banning wouldn't do anything to quell the dissent (although it wouldn't have had much of a chance anyway, if caught early). However, that is a response others in their position have used in the past.

BTW - survey responses have hit 575. In comparison, Quark's most active vote on Facebook had 47 shares, 160 comments, and 135 likes. Surprisingly enough, my Facebook page has had 151 views and 114 likes. I didn't anticipate it would get that many, that quickly.

[KingEvo]

i agree some stuff has to be fixed this game was so badass and i still like the 1k or 5k worlds but they need to add legacy every once in a while and fix some of the bugs.

[DarthBlue]

I'd like to throw out an idea to help fix the difficulty dealing with a large empire...
Put a max city per player limit of 50. Anything conquered after that gets wiped off the map. Then add an abandon city function so you can make tactical decisions once you hit the limit.
This gives multiple benefits, it helps level the playing field, makes it easier to handle your empire, gives interesting tactical choices, emphasizes teamwork, gives a way to win every world in multiple ways without the same BS politics as is current in winnable worlds.

Not trying to hijack the thread, just throwing an idea on how to fix some issues out there.

[Poisonousdeath]

I'd like to throw out an idea to help fix the difficulty dealing with a large empire...
Put a max city per player limit of 50. Anything conquered after that gets wiped off the map. Then add an abandon city function so you can make tactical decisions once you hit the limit.
This gives multiple benefits, it helps level the playing field, makes it easier to handle your empire, gives interesting tactical choices, emphasizes teamwork, gives a way to win every world in multiple ways without the same BS politics as is current in winnable worlds.

Not trying to hijack the thread, just throwing an idea on how to fix some issues out there.

Only 50 that would kill it for me