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C-Nymph

Necromancer
Just as @Far Reach and @Pauly7 have previously shared the information/communication they found by US Community Manager Nightguest on the US forums (here and here), I would hereby like to share the information I found on the German forum, see below for the copy paste of that post (excuse my google translate version, I didn't go through the trouble of learning German to translate it myself).

There apparently has been a Community Manager meeting with the developers back in september, for which the German CM gathered player-questions to ask the devs and then afterwards posted a report with an answer to some of those questions.

I would hereby also like to direct a request to our EN community managers for better and more open communication about things that have been discussed with the developers or on community manager meetings. I don't think it should be necessary that we have to go dig around on other (foreign language) forums to inform ourselves. Sorry if this sounds too direct/harsh, but I think it's only fair that we ask for clear communication and feedback from our community managers. Please know that I mean well, as I can imagine that investing in better and open communication only benefits the relation we have here with each other and it could clear the air on some very heated topics.

For the exact German topic; please visit this page.

Here's the google translate version of that post:

Tacheless said:
As promised, here is the report from the Community Manager Meeting 2020:

In the week of September 21-25. the Community Manager Meeting took place. Due to Corona, however, this took place online and not as usual in Hamburg. So there were 1-2 workshops, a game evening and a meeting with a few in-house people from the Elvenar team every day. Many community managers from all over the world and a wide variety of Inno games were present at each workshop. For example, on Tuesday there was a workshop on “Law”. Here we were divided into groups and played "Jeopardy". Of course, all of the questions that could be selected had to do with the topic of law and we could learn a lot about how to behave in certain scenarios. So you can loosen up a rather dry topic a lot.
On Wednesday I took part in the security workshop and there was a lot of talk about passwords. And no, 1234 is still not a secure password. And maybe a little interesting for you too: Passwords should be exchanged regularly. Better safe than sorry!

Thursday was a bit more relaxed and there was “Games and Fun!”. We were able to move into different groups here and thus play different games. I first took part in an online escape room. Well, the guys were always faster than me with the answers. But we still had a lot of fun here and were able to solve the puzzles very quickly. Then I joined another group and they played “guess pictures”. And hey, most of them could even guess my "works of art".;)

--​

But yes, I know that is not all you are waiting for on this report. How was the "meeting" with the developers of Elvenar?

Let's start from the beginning: Jonas, Timon, Sascha, Steffi and Tom took the time for us and we started with an outlook on the next chapter and some ideas / plans for the other chapters. Unfortunately we can't tell you anything about it, but it's a shame. :pBut there are still enough ideas to develop many more chapters!

Next there was an insight into the roadmap for the rest of the year and the next six months. Again, we can't go into details, but a lot of work will be done on improving existing game content. We are excited to see what will happen and hope that the improvements will be well received.

Then we came to the question and answer session. We unpacked all of our prepared questions and waited for the starting shot. We would like to inform you in advance that of course we weren't able to ask all of your questions, not even many. Why? The time! Even if the 5 above took some time for us, it just had to come to an end. But do not worry, we have already made new plans for the remaining questions that you asked and we know how we will get answers here, I promise! But please be patient here, as this will take a lot of time. But yes, we will get answers to your questions this year (maybe not all, but many!).

Now let's first come to the question that really worries you a lot: The scroll problem! We explicitly asked again whether the developers are aware of the problem and whether and, if so, what they would like to do about it. Yes, they are aware of the problem and are currently collecting ideas and making more specific plans. One possibility, for example, would be to replace the moonstone library (i.e. a completely new building set) or to revise the moonstone library (no, not to change the distribution of goods).

Another topic of the German community are artifacts. We asked if there were plans for a universal artifact or if it might be possible to freely choose artifacts, for example in a community adventure. In general, the developers are no longer so averse to the idea of a universal artifact, but the situation is that the events should still be the main source of artifacts. So whether there will ever be a universal artifact cannot currently be answered. The "expected" amount of artifacts has also been adjusted, which means: If a player actively participates in an event and solves all quests, one should be able to earn all the artifacts for a fully developed evolution building.

A topic that keeps the German community busy, that there are many buildings that bring bonuses for the fighters, but not really many for the traders among you. So here we asked the developers for their point of view. And well, it works like this: There are some active buildings for the fighters with one or the other bonus. However, there are also things for traders that are indirectly helpful. For example the “Fabulous Fabrication” spell, which temporarily increases the amount of goods. The golden phoenix and the storm phoenix also temporarily increase goods production. The “mountain halls” miracle, for example, also has a positive impact on goods production. So it's not that the dealers have been completely forgotten.

Those were the questions we were able to ask from the German community. Since there were also questions in the other language versions, as mentioned above, we couldn't ask much more questions. But as I said, we already have plans for the other questions.;)

--​

We would also like to introduce you to one or the other question from the other communities, maybe you are also interested in one or the other topic:

One of the other questions was whether there is the possibility of teleporting ancient wonders to the inventory. Here, however, the situation is that this is currently technically not possible, since the current progress of the miracles cannot be saved in this way. The developers would like to have this option themselves, but due to the technical difficulties this will not be possible in the near future.

Another topic that our German community is still asking for from time to time is wishing wells and time blessings in events. Both are very strong items, sometimes so strong that they can become a major economic problem if they are regularly made available to everyone. Unfortunately, this is exactly what has happened in the past and has caused problems to such an extent that we had no choice but to act. Specifically for the wishing well, we had two options: rebalance the building and keep it in play, or remove it from the pool of rewards. Since we did not believe that it would be fair to everyone who had already received and / or placed a wishing well to change its values, we decided to remove it from the game for the time being,

In the case of the time boosters, we have instead reduced the number of items that can be requested in the game as a whole and intend to keep them only in a limited number of features (e.g. Tower of Eternity).

Next question: With the separation of the training loop for units, will we offer more incentives for stock productions? No, there are currently no plans, but we're keeping an eye on how things play out in the game.

Do we have any plans to improve fellowship or player search in the app?

Indeed, it is currently difficult to find the right fellowship for one's situation. We plan to take a closer look at the topic fellowships and the user experience with what this topic (app) includes.

--​

That's it for the community manager meeting. Of course you could tell about this or that, but a lot of it was just internal information and so I will leave it at this point.

I hope some of your questions have been answered and you are not so disappointed that not all of your questions have been asked.


Best regards,

Tacheless
 
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Killiak

Artisan
That post is from the 5th of October, and it says their meeting was at the end of september.... so that means our CM had a month, a whole MONTH, to tell us about this and to communicate with us.

A meeting, in which teleporting AW's was already discussed, whereas my own suggestion on this was posted on the 15th of October. I could have saved myself the hassle of that suggestion, had a certain CM bothered to communicate the contents of that meeting.

I am in awe, but not in a good way
 

DeletedUser6357

Guest
From what I read, I realized that 4 days are set aside for games and fun ...
And in the fall of 2020, special attention is paid to the passwords in the game !!!
Unique!
I don't know about Inno's other games, but it's clear that none of Elvenar's developers are not interested in the players. It follows that no one is interested in the game - everything will go the old way. Christmas is approaching and everyone is busy with plans on how to best spend their Christmas bonuses.
Even with the introduction of the Tower, it was clear that over time, a large amount of unnecessary and unusable resources will accumulate.
 

Pauly7

Magus
I have to agree that communication in the EN forum looks poor compared to what we see on some of the others. The mods and CM do work hard, but I think the principle of communication needs to be addressed. There seems to be a fear that if something is talked about and that doesn't come to fruition then that would lead to player anger. I don't think this is true at all. It would lead to questions being asked about progress, but there would be a much much happier community if we were just being kept in the loop about what was going on. As @Killiak mentioned, the AW teleport issue had already been discussed, but we still weren't given an answer.

As for the meeting - So 4 days were spent playing Jeopardy and escape rooms, but there was only time enough for the German CM to ask 3 questions of the developers... That made me laugh. I can imagine most of them not wishing to share that slice of info!

And also... after all this time spent there isn't a single mention about the new tournaments. That's very strange. With nearly 200 pages of combined negative feedback between here and Beta, did no one prioritise that as an important issue to raise?

Thanks for the information @C-Nymph.
 

Silmaril

Community Manager
Elvenar Team
Please remember that our in-house meetings are generally exactly that and why the community would not be aware of the content until it is confirmed officially.

These meetings are designed to give Community Managers and above any pertinent information needed across a broad spectrum of subject matter that is required for day to day management.

The above copy/paste does not give anything more than you already know, from our replies here, but I will happily condense this for you:

Nothing has been decided upon regarding the Scrolls abundance and the Moonstone Library or Universal Artifacts. Lots of ideas are floating around with this as with all aspects of the game, but nothing whatsoever has been decided upon.

Moving to the teleportation of Ancient Wonders as you know this is not technically possible currently.

Wishing Wells were removed earlier this year and were in effect replaced by the rarer Genie.

Time Boosters were also limited to the Spire of Eternity earlier this year.

Perceived suppies shortages, (from 3 simutaneous Unit Productions) were thought to be easily remedied with the Power of Provision spells, ability to build more Workshops, Crafting ability of Supply Boosters as well as buildings like the Ferris Wheel Galore producing the boosters too.

Player and Fellowship Search in the app are being looked at as a possibility to bring this in line with the browser.


I hope that this puts this into perspective, as you know I prefer to share when I am aware of the full picture. I do not to share when things are just in discussion mode as 99% of ideas never get to the game.
 

Timneh

Artisan
I think the point being made is that there is far more communication between the Elvenar team and players on other forums than there has ever been on the EN forum. Players would like to know that they are being heard and not ignored and mods repeatedly saying feedback has been passed along just does not cut it, we would like answers to questions like other forums get.
 

Errandil

Conjurer
@Silmaril I understand why you don't want to share things before they are set in stone, but the issue with this is that by the time something is final it's already released on beta. Which is a bit more obvious place to check for the info anyway than German forums. Sharing info like in the post in question at least gives players a feeling that something being discussed and may changed.

Like with the spire set: it was released, after five minutes of the release players told on forums that there will be a scrolls disaster and then we got more than a year of silence. Now at least we know that after a year the dev team is aware that there may be some issues they've created, so there's a hope that in another year something will be done.

Such information at least give players hope that there's a chance for improvements, and from what I know, hope is what still keeping at least some players in this game after some recent changes. So in my opinion it's better to share that something is being discussed and may change than to keep silent just in case.

And also yes, I'm sorry to say this, after spending some time at the other forums I get the feeling that there are some communication issues on EN specifically. In other communities CMs tend to discuss much more things with players.
 

Timneh

Artisan
Which is what the team of mods actively do on the threads here Timneh, albeit we are a little thin on the ground for such a large Forum for which I will be actively recruiting for again very soon.

We will have to agree to disagree on that. I have asked loads of questions on this forum and never got so much as a i will try to find out for you. @herodite seems to try the hardest to get answers for players so when you try to recruit try and get more like her.
I would also argue that this is not a large forum, a number of years ago i was lead moderator on a forum that handled on average 2000 posts a day, i class that as large.
 

Silmaril

Community Manager
Elvenar Team
Perhaps I should have worded that better Timneh as currently, Herodite is our only forum only moderator on the team and like the rest of us also fits this in around our rl jobs outside of here.
I would dearly love to clone her and hope that when I advertise again next month that some here would consider joining the EN team of volunteers.
 

Killiak

Artisan
I hope that this puts this into perspective, as you know I prefer to share when I am aware of the full picture. I do not to share when things are just in discussion mode as 99% of ideas never get to the game.

Then it would seem you are missing the full picture on this point.

The point that is being made is that we (on the EN forum) are NOT included enough in the on-goings of the game development, the thought process and what is going on with the dev team. What the German CM did is EXACTLY what we want to see here, and it would even be more lovely if the Devs would chime in now and then.

Communication towards the community (that bit in your title right there) is not just about announcing a new feature or a new chapter. We are actively asking for more information and more open communication, even if the information we receive is on ideas, work-in-progress and all the things that might be discarded in the end anyway.

Your post basically comes down to "tl;dr: No." Well Silmaril, that's just not good enough.
 

Pauly7

Magus
To give this a comparison - At work I often have management meetings. The first thing I will then do is disseminate everything that was discussed back to the wider team. Sure there are always some things I cannot discuss, but aside from those it makes for much happier people to know they are being included and to see how their input is being used and forwarded.

As I said, I do understand the desire not to overcomplicate, but there is a lot of fire-fighting for you to do on this forum and you would be able to handle it much better if people can feel like they're on the same page as you. This is what we've seen happen in the those other two examples. People may still be dissatisfied with the game, but they can see someone fighting their corner along the way.
 

C-Nymph

Necromancer
That is exactly what I meant. Right now, it seems we're only getting the standard responses, very politically-correct. It's like we're deliberately kept in the dark. Even if that is not the intention, it is how it comes across.
Show us a glimpse of what they're cooking in the kitchen, even if they're not going to serve it to the public but are only going to have the team taste it. Take us on the journey with you. We're desperate to get something, anything. Just not a (kitchen)door-in-the-face "no, can't/won't do".
 

Silmaril

Community Manager
Elvenar Team
I am happy that this conversation has taken place, as I had not really considered that although we have been answering and giving out the inormation in the threads as to why ideas would not move forward and why some could. That perhaps a broader picture is needed.

My concern is that when discussing possible game direction this comes close to spoilers, like our beta thread.....which is labelled as it is to stop players who do not want to know from stumbling in there.

But please keep adding suggestions here for this and between us I am sure we can work it out. Although sadly I have got to go back to work now, so I will not be around for a few hours.
 

C-Nymph

Necromancer
My concern is that when discussing possible game direction this comes close to spoilers, like our beta thread.....which is labelled as it is to stop players who do not want to know from stumbling in there.
There's a solution for that ;)
Thanks for being open to the feedback, @Silmaril!
 

Laurelin

Sorcerer
Firstly, many thanks to @C-Nymph for taking the time and trouble to find, translate, and post the material in the OP.

Secondly, I must say that there are a lot of words in that 'report', but almost no meaningful content I can discern, and certainly nothing at all which could remotely be seen as a 'spoiler' (in any normal sense of the word), even if avoiding said 'spoilers' (in a game with very little storyline in any case) is objectively more important than keeping one's long-term playerbase adequately informed of the game's forthcoming direction, which I doubt.

Since starting Elvenar 2½ years ago, I have often read here that InnoGames considers that communicating with their players, especially in advance of in-game changes or additions, is something which entails some kind of significant 'competitive disadvantage', and so it should (a) be heavily rationed or, if possible, entirely avoided, and (b) happen solely via the medium of volunteer Forum Moderators (and/or, most notably when the Forums grow restless, paid Community Managers). The 'report' in the OP suggests, to me, that this intention not to communicate with players continues unabated, and while InnoGames' Social Media outlets are certainly busy (indeed, far busier than these Forums), the actual content of the many 'official' posts and comments/responses there is, upon examination, even thinner and less meaningful than the little information we manage to eke out here.

I have also heard various reasons given for the Elvenar developers' habit of never interacting with these Forums and, instead, communicating with the playerbase only rarely, and even then solely via moderated 'live streams' on Facebook and/or pre-made YouTube videos which are evidently intended more as advertisements than as a form of in-depth or explanatory communication, although of course none of these reasons actually comes directly from the developers, but I can't say that I find the persistent avoidance of the Forums by the developers to be understandable, reasonable, necessary, or useful. It is regrettable that many other, formerly Forum-visiting, players who have also argued likewise in the past have largely now disappeared.

I can think of very few other major (PC/browser-based) gaming companies which even try to behave in this way, although it is well-known that almost all mobile-only gaming companies do so (with or without any rationale being given to players), so the ever-growing enthusiasm which InnoGames exhibits for all things mobile is probably an explanatory factor. Even so, and in order clearly to demonstrate the kind of company-to-player communication which most long-term gamers tend to expect, and which I cannot see why InnoGames should not also maintain, below is a screenshot of the type of detailed, in-advance, and public announcement, explaining overall plans for the game's year ahead, which a comparable long-standing gaming company provides to all of its players at the start of each year [game name removed]:

Game_Producer's_Letter_2020.jpg

In addition to broad-ranging communications of this kind, regarding long-term planned changes and additions to the game which most players like and need to know about - and begin discussing - well in advance, the developers of that game also routinely appear on the game's forums, both to provide monthly updates on smaller-scale, more immediate, and/or 'work-in-progress' projects/changes, and also to personally answer players' more common and/or pressing questions - which, of course, leaves the game's forum moderators (who are company employees, not volunteers) free to moderate the forums, rather than also attempting to act as 'go-betweens' for the players on one hand and the gaming company on the other. In fact, and during many years of gaming, InnoGames is the only major company I have encountered which even operates such a communications system.

I have no idea why InnoGames' management feels - as we Forum Members are often told - that communicating anything of a useful, informative nature to its playerbase in advance, as well as answering players' queries (especially during/following major changes), puts them at some kind of commercial disadvantage, but I frankly don't believe that this argument is even true, since so many other gaming companies behave in the opposite manner. It seems far more likely to be an excuse to keep the typically more inquisitive browser-based and Forum-active players quiet, while the typically less demanding and, nowadays, more numerous mobile-only players, to whom InnoGames devotes most of its marketing, much of its moderating staff's time, and, of late, almost all of its in-game changes as well, are unlikely to become interested enough in the game's mechanics, or in many cases even to stay with the game for long enough, to find the game's Forums and then start asking detailed and/or difficult questions or researching the game in depth. There are some mobile-only players who don't fit this mould, of course, but they are generally few and far between.

InnoGames has been far from shy about broadcasting, at least to the trade and to its shareholders, what its intentions are as far as mobile vs browser-based games (and playerbases) are concerned, so I'm hardly surprised to see the company increasingly behaving as almost all other mobile gaming companies do, but to be constantly told that there is actually some kind of other, secret, and overwhelmingly important commercial reason for this sort of behaviour (but only for InnoGames, unique amongst other gaming companies) is, and always has been, rather insulting to the intelligence.

It would be unwelcome from my own perspective, but at least far more honest, if InnoGames were simply to admit, and advise its players, that they are now a mobile gaming company first and foremost, and that to expect them to behave otherwise is fruitless. It strikes me that the reason why InnoGames persists in maintaining what is effectively an illusion of a two-way Forum communication system between developers and players is in order to 'have their cake and eat it' - by which I mean to try to maintain/retain, superficially, the image and kudos of being a PC/browser-based gaming company, while actually devoting most (and, in the end, all) of its resources and its developers', artists', and other staff's attention to the far more profitable, but still generally less prestigious amongst players (although not amongst shareholders), mobile-only/mobile-first gaming market.

My views are seldom popular, but still, it is difficult to argue against the old maxim that 'honesty is the best policy'... whether it be lucrative or not.
 

DeletedUser6357

Guest
In fact, the en servers and the en forum are second beta testers - only what is a technical problem is taken from what the players write.
For so many years in the game I remember 2-3 cases when the developers have taken into account GAME problems and something has changed because of the game.
 

Pauly7

Magus
I am happy that this conversation has taken place, as I had not really considered that although we have been answering and giving out the inormation in the threads as to why ideas would not move forward and why some could. That perhaps a broader picture is needed.

My concern is that when discussing possible game direction this comes close to spoilers, like our beta thread.....which is labelled as it is to stop players who do not want to know from stumbling in there.

But please keep adding suggestions here for this and between us I am sure we can work it out. Although sadly I have got to go back to work now, so I will not be around for a few hours.
Thank you for your openness to possible development here.

I don't imagine that the sort of information it is being asked for you to share would normally constitute 'spoilers'. Sure, I totally understand that you are not going to come back from a meeting and tell us all about what the next event or chapter is going to be about. Those things are in the category of things you are not able to divulge. I think there are possibly grey areas though. For example - if they let you know that they are working on possibilities to give significant military upgrades in chapter 18 at last - is that something you could share? Perhaps, I'm not sure.

What's more important, though, is for people to know that there is a process going on, that our questions are being put to the developers. We would like to know that if a change in the game is causing great negative emotion amongst the forum users, that this is being conveyed to the development team and how it's being conveyed. I realise that you may often say "your concerns have been forwarded", but that seems like an ambiguous throw away comment.

I can only imagine that, if in your shoes, I was able to meet with the developers and have a chance to ask the important questions, then I would be furiously making notes because I would want to let people know what I was asking, how it was received, and what the answers were like. That's the most important thing people here need from you.
 

Verde

Soothsayer
Whatever information is or is not being shared by Inno in general, simply don't understand why less information should be shared on the EN forum than on other forums ...
 

Sir Derf

Adept
My concern is that when discussing possible game direction this comes close to spoilers, like our beta thread.....which is labelled as it is to stop players who do not want to know from stumbling in there.
Even more basic than use of the SPOILER tag, you've already given the solution to your concern... label it as "May Contain Spoilers". It's already proven to work.
 
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