Maybe it was already done? The design team had been paid already? They have a strict development calendar? God knows why. I've given up trying to understand Inno logic
Being rather old and lacking much else to do these days, I spend much time mooching around online, seeking answers to this sort of conundrum. And I've concluded that Inno's logic, although this is not immediately visible solely from the perspective of what we, as players, are usually told, whether in-game, here on the Forums, and/or [more often, much to my personal dislike] on anti-Social Meeja, is more or less the same logic as is used by (almost) all high-grossing 'strategy/simulation' mobile games of the last five, and especially two or three, years. The mobile gaming industry has, it appears, quite rapidly moved away from the model which many gamers, quite understandably, still consider to be the underlying focus of not only Elvenar but indeed most 'Free-to-Play' games, whereas this 'old' model (which was in place for so long - over 15 years - that it became virtually 'standard') is in fact no longer the foundation of most F2P games which aim themselves primarily at the mobile (as opposed to browser/PC/console) playerbase.
Until the past few years, the 'standard' model for F2P games was (typically) to regard the game's long-term and strategy-intensive (or at least some-strategy-required) base game as the
primary focus of gameplay (in Elvenar, of course, this is the concept of a slowly improving and increasingly powerful City), with various short-term, repeating competitive elements being added as
secondary aspects (first Tournaments and then, with growing importance, both FAs and the Spire). However, the comparatively new model which mobile-focused F2P games, in particular, have now adopted is largely reversed, being based upon an easier and non- or less-strategic underlying game which is no longer the primary focus of gameplay, but instead is effectively a support structure for the now centrally placed repeating and permanent competitive elements which, as far as the gaming company is concerned, have become the intended core purpose of gameplay, even in games such as Elvenar which do not offer 'traditional' PvP-style conflict.
Of course, players can choose not to engage in the game's competitive elements, and can also choose to play in a solo fashion, but most (not all, of course) players are usually not willing to accept the resulting comparatively slow progression and/or the sense of isolation in a multi-user game where player grouping is not only strongly promoted (by both company and players) but also incentivised with immediate and long-term gameplay-related advantages, the most important of which, in Elvenar, appears now to be shifting - even if this will take some time - from Tournaments to the Spire, with FAs being quite obviously encouraged (some would say near-mandated?) as well.
In addition, and perhaps responsively to [the majority of] online gamers' expressed views and observed behaviours/preferences over the past few years, many mobile games now
also include elements which are not only intended to be more 'fresh' and engaging than
both the base game
and its permanent repeating competitive elements alike (hence Elvenar's now very frequent, always different, and increasingly complex Events), but which are also, behind their overt 'fun' factor, based on the now-well-known revenue-driving concept of 'FOMO' (Fear Of Missing Out). This is typically created by offering otherwise impossible or difficult-to-obtain
but evidently important in-game elements (in Elvenar, primarily 'rare' buildings which confer obvious and notable [if sometimes short-term] advantage, e.g. Evolving Buildings) as well as non-advantageous but graphically attractive in-game elements - and in Elvenar's case (to nobody's surprise, I am sure) the graphical aspect of the game is especially important and is almost certainly one of the primary 'hooks' which attracts many players and then keeps a good percentage of those in the game for at least a while.
Elvenar has been intentionally re-positioned as a 'mobile-first' game
* (in line with the overall policy of InnoGames, especially since their acquisition by
the Modern Times Group), and, as such, Inno's decisions over the past couple of years, which do indeed make very little sense when considered in terms of what a [browser-based] F2P strategy game
used to be, actually make a lot of sense when viewed in the light of what Elvenar has now become.
* One of many online sources :
From Browser To Mobile Game Development - An InnoGames Retrospective
~ Side Note : The above article also explains, in some detail, why many Forge of Empires features have been and still are being ported into Elvenar.
So the old players leave and new ones come through... but the new ones eventually figure out what's going on just like we did and then they leave... and maybe all that is fine for Inno... but why develop chapter 17?
The addition of increasingly difficult-to-complete, prestigious (or presented as such), and, significantly, graphically attractive and interesting-sounding later Chapters also makes sense when one realises that these are not, as they once were, aimed at strategy-focused long-term players who start any given game with the intention of remaining with it long enough to reach the end-game, but rather are intended to be enticing but rather remote 'future possibilities' for new players who are far more likely to stay with the game for a much shorter time, but who still do not, as a general rule, wish to join a game which has an obvious 'end point', since the idea that a game can ever actually be 'finished' is, in modern mobile gaming philosophy, not only undesirable, but likely to reduce even early-earned revenues, upon which mobile games now depend to a constantly growing extent as players become (on average) ever more fickle and easily distracted into other, similar, free-to-download games.
Incidentally, I wonder whether the undeniably growing habit of younger players to 'game-hop' between similar online titles may not even be, primarily, simply part of their inherent nature, but may instead, and with more than a little irony, actually be largely the result of the adoption by so many game publishers of the precise kind of short-term, high-speed and competition-focused gameplay which has so often been intentionally introduced into games which, under the 'old' F2P model, still rewarded loyalty, dedication, and the concept of slower progression towards greater advantage...?
And just for the record: what I say here is
in no way intended to convey any admiration of, or support for, the gaming trends I observe and describe.
I could turn this into an (even longer) essay justifying the premises and conclusions above, and/or bore on at length about the psychology which underpins it all (and which, as I've probably said before, successful gaming companies now know about in much detail), but I'll resist the urge...
