Feedback New Feature - Show Hall

[DeletedUser8316]

Not to be another thorn in your side Zarok. I know as always you are the messenger stuck on the receiving end of the complaints but if that is true, which I do believe it is as any public published information about FoE and Inno revenue seems to say it is, then why is this needed? If the players are already funding the game enough to allow for further growth than why upset them and turn attention to advertisers instead? Why the squeeze for every cent they can get out of every one of us?

This does not have the appearance of a company doing well financially with a strong interest in player relations, yet one desperate for every penny despite the effect on the actual product/game they are producing. Granted now that we are well beyond the future era (showing the interest and love for the game) we have needed to delve into fantasy land. However in the prior eras no one in the Iron Age was showing hotel service ads to their villagers. This is a move that spites the game and does not enhance it.

Also, I do know you're hard pressed answering everyones questions but if you're able I am very curious about the questions I asked earlier about the data on us being gathered by these advertisers via inno.

You can tell it's bs by looking at the server stats. Those new servers have about 3k or less active players. Older servers run about 6k. The number of inactive accounts is several times higher than active accounts. Right now there's about 200,000 active players on all US servers.. with 500,000 inactive. Zorskog has 3,300 active with almost 1,600 inactive already. FoE is dying on the vine and Inno is trying to drum up some revenue is all. Many if not most of the players on those 2 new servers are players that came from or play on other servers.

 

[qaccy]

Personally I'm going to thank @Zarok Dai for finally addressing the concerns over the ads. It's not any better than I expected, in that there are probably going to be 'bad ads' that appear here and there, but at least it's been stated that there's a vetting process for them to try to ensure that doesn't happen as much as possible. While not perfect, if we operate under the assumption that ads are definitely coming to the game, I think that's probably the best they can do. I'll admit I don't really know much about it, so would someone who does happen to know be able to clarify whether it's even possible to 100% guarantee that ads are always going to be safe? In particular, one of the other folks posting here who are really hard up on being secure while on the internet.

On another note, rewards still sound like they could use an upswing. Not as high as some are suggesting, but perhaps throwing all of the current rewards out the window to be replaced by a small number of diamonds. It really does seem like the best fit for this type of system, after thinking about it some more.

 

[DeletedUser8404]

On another note, rewards still sound like they could use an upswing. Not as high as some are suggesting, but perhaps throwing all of the current rewards out the window to be replaced by a small number of diamonds. It really does seem like the best fit for this type of system, after thinking about it some more.

Just to clarify my position, I certainly wouldn't expect set rewards and building upgrades to be the only rewards, but if they were at least in there as possible rewards...maybe a 10% chance...it would make it more tempting to watch the ads in hopes of the good reward. Much smaller than that, and I wouldn't go for it, though. I'm not watching 100 ads, for example, just to get one building upgrade (and that's assuming averages hold and I don't get a bad streak and end up watching 300 before I get one).

 

[Pafton]

The general consensus is that
(a)The rewards aren't currently good enough to make it worthwhile watching this and increasing IG's revenue for no proper benefit of the player
(b)Security concerns of the players as we feel that directly or inadvertently or online information might be sold to third party advertisers and failure of Inno to guarantee that the advertisers are genuine and reputed

The easy and quick-fix solution for all of these problems is for the devs to sit down and delete all the coding associated with this feature.

No more Show Hall, no more problems!​

 

[DeletedUser7779]

Some thoughts about this:

1) if they leave it as it is - no one or very few will bother watching ads .... we get much more (crap) rewards from incidents in 1 single click!
2) if they add good rewards (like set pieces, SoKs, hideouts, etc) - wouldn't that change the entire concept of a game? I play games for the challenge and I feel it's natural to put some real effort to get good stuff - like DCs or GE for example. If good prizes are rewarded only for watching ads....what kind of game is that? Someone could watch ads all day long and get the same stuff I've been struggling to get for years only because i refuse to give Inno revenue by watching....

Add the risk of getting hacked to this..... the show hall sounds like lose-lose to me

I join others in the plea to permanently delete this feature and focus on improving HTLM5 and GvG instead.

 

[jdorseyfl]

I have worked in the Advertising industry for more than 18 years so the town hall and ads is not a bother to me. However, if all I'm going to get to watch the ads are coins it is a failure. Eyeballs are very valuable. It is not InnoGames job to make the owners of those eyeballs take action it is the job of the advertisers - otherwise InnoGames would just run an ad saying "respond to this ad and get a free car" and see if in-game advertising has an impact. If you are going to get players to expose themselves to advertising you're going to have to give them a bit more - diamonds preferably.

 

[DeletedUser7658]

Impossible to have a try, there is never anything to look at

 

[DeletedUser]

I would like to make one remark which is : if Inno was so proud of this fantastic new feature, why not having made it the main headline news as usually, and instead having made it the 2nd subject after HTML5 which have already been introduced weeks ago ?

Because in relation to porting the game to HTML5 this feature was minor, which is also why I did not reward any diamonds for it's release. HTML5 can potentially affect every aspect of the game, and it is far more important that our community be encouraged to continue testing it as much as possible.
There is no subterfuge here, sometimes a duck is just a duck.

 

[DeletedUser4381]

Just to clarify my position, I certainly wouldn't expect set rewards and building upgrades to be the only rewards, but if they were at least in there as possible rewards...maybe a 10% chance...it would make it more tempting to watch the ads in hopes of the good reward.

No way. My time is being directly used for revenue. I'm not going to spend it for minor rewards I get anyway. Even diamonds aren't much of a draw, as I get those occasionally from other buildings. The only things that will see a general uptake of ads are guaranteed rewards that are otherwise very hard to get.

Alternatively, dump the lottery aspect altogether and bring back the "Shop" from the first Easter event where we could choose rewards. The code already exists to implement a shop, so it needs very little development to put in place, and then just give out tokens of some sort when an ad is watched. (Hey, it could be a little watch.)

Players can then save those tokens until they acquire the number needed for the building/upgrade they want to buy, and as long as the shop has actual worthwhile rewards there will be significantly more interest than at present.

 

[DeletedUser8316]

Personally speaking even if it gave 5 diamonds per ad i wouldn't use it, having been a victim of id theft the possibility of being hacked again makes this a complete no-no
Perhaps if everyone ignores it, it will disappear ..... zero clicks = zero revenue

They'll just make it mandatory either via quests or having to watch an ad when you log in. They need revenue, this a cheap and easy way to get it.

 

[DeletedUser8316]

It will not.

I bet you're going to come to regret saying that.

 

[qaccy]

No way. My time is being directly used for revenue. I'm not going to spend it for minor rewards I get anyway. Even diamonds aren't much of a draw, as I get those occasionally from other buildings. The only things that will see a general uptake of ads are guaranteed rewards that are otherwise very hard to get.

Alternatively, dump the lottery aspect altogether and bring back the "Shop" from the first Easter event where we could choose rewards. The code already exists to implement a shop, so it needs very little development to put in place, and then just give out tokens of some sort when an ad is watched. (Hey, it could be a little watch.)

Players can then save those tokens until they acquire the number needed for the building/upgrade they want to buy, and as long as the shop has actual worthwhile rewards there will be significantly more interest than at present.

If you accept that such a system would probably require watching something like 1000 ads (and remember they're on a timer) to purchase something like a set building or Rogue Hideout, sure, I could get on board with this idea. But I hope you're not suggesting something like 'if I watch one or two ads a day I should be able to fill my city with Palaces by the end of a month'.

 

[thephantom]

I bet you're going to come to regret saying that.

Okay then, let us make a bet on it.

I see a lot of comments that it will be mandatory via quests, it will be presented on login screen, it will cause damage to your computer. While all seem like fine questions to explore, they all seem addressed already with what Zarok has posted. The Ads are vetted by the partners. Additionally you don't have to interact with them, the videos are presented in a secure frame on the game's side and close once the video ends. A building or button being present in the game does not in any way interfere with your security. None if this is on your device or browser, they're all loaded inside the frame once you decide to load it.

The current version of them clearly puts them in places that do not interrupt gameplay and you can easily ignore them if you're not interested in doing that. Not being pleased with the rewards might be a valid point, but I think everyone needs to realize that this is available every 4 hours and takes less than a minute to complete without much effort. Considering the actions required in other areas of the game to obtain a Set Building, does it really seem like good balance to have all the current items replaced with Set Buildings?

Regarding the unavailability of Ads to be watched, it's something that we are looking into and will hopefully improve.

 

[DeletedUser4381]

If you accept that such a system would probably require watching something like 1000 ads (and remember they're on a timer) to purchase something like a set building or Rogue Hideout, sure, I could get on board with this idea. But I hope you're not suggesting something like 'if I watch one or two ads a day I should be able to fill my city with Palaces by the end of a month'.

You always come up with outlandish over the top comments that would only be thought of by the most stupid players. If you wish to generate such things, please don't assign them to me as if I'm the one suggesting them.

If I have something to say I say it, and I've never claimed to want a full set every day. What I do want is a fair reward for *my* time spent making Inno money, and I'm making constructive observations on how the ad system would be more accepted.

Regarding the "1000 ads" for a building, that's obviously never going to work. There needs to be a balance between time and reward for the feature to be used. It's far more balanced to have, say, one or two tokens per ad - limited to every 4h, so 12 tokens at most a day - and price the set buildings to allow a player who watched 5-6 ads a day to accumulate either a smaller set building in about week, or a "centerpiece" building (like the palace) in a month. That would be two months of watching multiple ads every day to acquire a single palace set, which is a) good revenue for Inno, and b) fair reward for fair effort for the player.

EDIT: NormaJeane - 2018-03-09 - Removed a condescending remark.

edit: (LB) It wasn't meant to be condescending, and I have re-worded the sentence to make the intent more clear.
The sentence was requesting that outlandish (and daft) suggestions like the one that was mentioned were not placed in my
mouth, as if I were asking for such. At no point did I do so, and didn't appreciate being used as a very obvious straw man​

 

[DeletedUser4381]

The current version of them clearly puts them in places that do not interrupt gameplay and you can easily ignore them if you're not interested in doing that.

With regards to that bit, is it possible to remove the bouncing aspect of the Show Hall "play" icon? The Tavern doesn't bounce, and the Show Hall doing so is actually a little distracting when I'm looking at where polivates are.

 

[thephantom]

With regards to that bit, is it possible to remove the bouncing aspect of the Show Hall "play" icon? The Tavern doesn't bounce, and the Show Hall doing so is actually a little distracting when I'm looking at where polivates are.

Potentially. Cannot make any promises as to what might change, but it's certainly feedback that can be considered.

 

[DeletedUser4381]

Potentially. Cannot make any promises as to what might change, but it's certainly feedback that can be considered.

Thanks.

 

[miSc]

Let's not shoot the messenger, or the one being the link between us and the devs.
You want to be heard in any way, keep it constructive and in a good tone.
Zarok is merely countering our arguments with reasonable points, to ensure we get a solid debate on the matter.

I have to admit, I am not a fan of advertising in any way or form. However if Inno feels it's necessary in order to create exstra revenue, then so be it. My main concern is about the "look and feel", as I personally won't be using this feature at all. An option to disable it completely ie. (remove it) by unchecking it settings would be delightful - though I doubt thats gonna happen. But the way its implemented now is disturbing to the overall "feel" of the game, it's like placing a hotdog stand in the middle of a basketball court. Ok bad example, but what I'm trying to say is... It doesn't belong.
When IN the game, I want it to be ABOUT the game. I want to feel emerged, and not bothered by outside "ad's, features, credits, news, or things of that nature".

Regarding security that a lot of you seem very concerned about...

The only 100% way to guarantee is to not logon to the web at all, ever. But I think we are all well past that at this point

Exactly. Ladies and gentlemen; Google is spying on you 24/7, every cookie, every thing you do on facebook, emails, instagram, twitter, surfing, searching, not to mention microsoft and other software and their telemetry files sending data back and forth all day and night..
Even your antivirus services sends data back and forth about your traffic when you update definitions..

I work in IT, and there is NO way of being completely safe online. Once you go online, your at risk in some way or the other.
The specific ads shown in FOE are checked, scanned, and then wrapped into a coded frame. Ofcourse it can be hacked, everything can be hacked. But it's fairly clean and safe, especially compared to so many other options out there.
Security is not an argument from my point of view, it's more about the actual feature itself - it's purpose, how its implemented, and the rewards.
And the rewards needs to be increased substantially, if anyone is going to be interested in using the feature.
It HAS to be worth their time, or they won't do it. (even as a new player).
I have 2.5 billion coin and close to the same in supplies in my main world, I have no further need for it.
Diamonds, medals are truly valuable - and would be worth my time.

Also.. keep in mind, this is BETA. We are here to TEST things, troubleshoot, and give our feedback to improve the game.
I've played since 2012, back when the game was "simple". It has come a loooong way since then, and ofcourse there are bumps.
But the occasional lag, slowness/slugginess or errors you experience could very well be on your own end. Here I am thinking about the posts concerning HTML5 testing, and related bugs.
Lot's of you run plugins in your browser, don't clear history, webdata, on regular basis. You run tons of unnessacery software and services in the background, that sucks up your CPU power. MAYBE your suffering bad routing as well, jumping through bad servers and not getting the ACTUAL bandwith your entitled too. Just saying...

Sorry.. got alittle sidetracked there, enough of this novel.. writing.
Summarizing:
- Not a fan of the Show hall or advertising in general.
- If it stays, I'd like to see it implemented OUTSIDE the city "game" (menu, login area)
- Rewards needs to be substantially boosted if you hope to get anyone to watch ads.

- miSc

 

[DeletedUser8150]

With regards to that bit, is it possible to remove the bouncing aspect of the Show Hall "play" icon? The Tavern doesn't bounce, and the Show Hall doing so is actually a little distracting when I'm looking at where polivates are.

Yeah an icon for an available ads but no bouncing.

 

[DeletedUser8403]

I am trying to watch an ad, but it always tells me, that "There are currently no ads available.". is this pure coincidence or are ads only available in certain countries (geolock...)?