State of RK

Just be honest.

You can change your vote at any time.

I voted no.

I've been playing a long time, and this is the lowest I've seen the game get in terms of activity. The game is slowly dying and it is bleeding out and painful to watch.

The devs could turn it around, but they seem to be occupies with ways to make bank. I understand the need to get paid, I really do; but I've yet to find anything that earns my money.

The economy sucks. The war code is 8 years old. Travel, justice, and robbery need to be updated. These are major problems now facing a much smaller game than it was. At least when it was bigger, it's sheer size alone could alleviate some of the problematic symptoms these things cause; but now, they shine so bright it is hard to do anything without noticing the lack of care in the game.

It's sad.

I think the IG stuff in RK are meaningless... so to me, there's no right or wrong direction. I've disabled 3D, and most of the other stuff (whether I think they're "fun" or not) are... kinda pointless too. Paypal doesn't support my country, but the only thing that's tempted me to pay for the game is the birthday gifts for some characters my char likes.

It's all about the forums. This time around, I've stopped reading political threads almost completely, and I never participate in them at all. As for stories, there's more and more cheesy crap to read and roll your eyes at there, but there are a few good threads too (can't think of an example atm but I know they're there! lol) I think you make your own fun with your own stories, in a way?

Plus... like RK was ever really fun, really!

I do agree that some things should be updated, but I think the developers are not doing that because (other than laziness) they would get all these players whining OOCly about the robberies, for example? I don't know... I think player-wise, things are really bad. I rarely see actual characters with flaws. Everyone is so perfect and romantic and modern (not to mention, a sex god!) and whatever, and I personally find that really, really boring.

So... voted no, just for that.

I voted no.

Like old leather - it is comfortable and familiar.

However, that comfort and familiarity comes from the people who play it (NNGO) much moreso than the game itself.

I liked it better when the game was yellow and black.

I think question should be "Is rk moving in any direction at all ?" Pretty much stagnated nowadays. Of course I could come up with many ideas on how to improve the game, but whats the point when admins cant even finish their own ideas ? Now that, alongside with fixing years old bugs would be an improvement.

I'd give it couple more years before the english speaking countries die out completely. If I were to put a date on it. 2017 and it goes dead for english speaking world. (Scotland, Ireland, England)

No.

I have stated the reasons already to the Game Admins, but they just don't want to listen.  They want to use the cool new development tools, increasing the pace of the game (timers) and higher end graphics.  That pushes out the players with older computers, or those that have no interest in clicking on timed actions.

And when the problem was pointed out (on the older computers and browsers) the Game Admins told everyone they HAD to upgrade their browsers to play (if they couldn't it was time to quit the game).  I have been told that even computers that can use the newer browsers can't handle the resource gobbling of the new status bar, and the entire time they are in RK their CPU's are clocked at 100% (which some really hate, and switched to using the mobile version because of it, or quit the game completely).  This happens on XP systems, with decent RAM and processors, not really old ones, maybe 5 years old.  When game upgrades push out 10-20% of your player base, and the people running the game don't care, that's a sign the game is headed into a death spiral.  

It wouldn't be that hard to keep a fully functional low-end graphics version of the game for use by those players.  Heck they could use the mobile version and just fix the things that don't work.  It would take less than a month I think, but it seems the goals of the Game Admins are not player retention, and I'm really unsure exactly what they are trying to achieve (it seems like they want to morph RK into a different game that is IG focused, where characters interact only with those in their current town using 3D, and that's not a game I'm even interested in). The Game Admins seem to think they can force players to adapt to their new game paradigm. I don't think they can, and in the end, RK will lose most of their preexisting player base as a result.

RK was a game with simple IG functions, low graphics, low requirement on RL time daily, with a rich RP on the forums.  That's what the existing player base wanted, and as it changes more and more players are leaving the game.  The focus and basic requirements of the game have changed, and I don't think they meet the expectations of the player base RK built over the years.

It's lost it's magical spark, more so for us older players than anything. The forums were such a huge part of the game for me and once it was switched over and basically taken apart, losing everything. I lost interest. They took the rpg out of it imo. Causing a divide between players I have never seen before in any other game. In a way I understand where they're going with it, trying to make it more appealing to new players for this day and age, and that's what some forget, this type of game in general is dying. We are what we make of it. Obviously I'm not happy with the admin, they certainly don't like me. Honestly it's because I don't have any patience anymore. There is quite a bit that we've all waited for, for so very long, it's frustrating and to watch admin put more effort into other games, of which we all know what happens...when you're spread too thin the ones that count don't matter and those newly created, will all slowly disappear. Just the name of the game.

Voted No, but with understanding. It's a dying breed.

I've quit off and on over the years because I get frustrated at times. I made a promise that I'll keep <3 and like you said Dee, it's more the familiarity and friendships that keeps me. I'd definitely be sad to see it let go, only for the specific reason that I'd be afraid I'd lose touch with everyone here.

I believe RK never made money when it was growing.

Thus the owners don't give a shit about what the older players want...even though the older players are really the ones that likely have the deep pockets.

They figure that we'll bitch and moan and go away; while the new blood pays the bills.

This game is history.

All that said, I still play based on the memories. I remember how obsessed I was with figuring out how to maximize profits on my cows. I remember robbing for the first time. I remember so many good times; battles; horrid debates in the forums; etc. That's one reason I still logon: hoping to relive the old memories and make some new ones. And that is why I will play as long as it is free.

I still miss those old gold graphics  The beauty of this game used to be that the daily IG actions were very simple and non-time-consuming, yet the extent of options and interactions was very complicated and required players as a community to explore and figure them out together.  Now, the direction the admins are going is to reverse those - to make basic IG actions more time-consuming and annoying, and to dumb down all the exploratory areas with idiotic tutorials and checkboxes.  Meanwhile, there haven't been many new areas/tools/options to explore recently, so those of us who have done it all already are getting bored.  And since the new style is only attracting new players that like checkboxes and clicking on buttons every hour and decorating their houses - as opposed to exploring and sharing and writing - and the rest of us are bored and checking out or quitting altogether, the game is dying.

So I'm the only one who voted yes.

And the only reason I voted yes is because I have seen more new players than I have seen since I first started three years back, and they seem to give a shit about getting new players.

As a game it's not the same as it was, and I like the game a LOT less than I used to. Back when I started there was a lot of passion wherever I looked. I started out fighting beside AO/JO, who despite his endless faults, really tried to make things happen and big things. Watching him talk about all these gigantic-seeming projects we were undertaking was amazing. He failed, of course, but it was cool being able to just get caught up in blind passion

Then I finished with him and started playing with Rothgar, once again, despite his negative traits, he tried to do big things. He did accomplish quite a few of these things compared to JO, but then Rothgar did what a lot of others did and just started doing everything himself. He didn't let others get caught up in his schemes, everybody became a pawn. That's a big problem from the player base, there aren't any magnificent quests and goals that I see large groups pulling together to accomplish with the mentality that they are all equal, and everything is shared. In my first year I saw a lot of that.

There's still groups like this, that help everybody out, but there's three problems that these groups tend to have. Either they've just gotten inactive, because they have enough power that they don't have many projects to work towards. Or they get targeted by everybody else because their challenging the types of players that have been in power so long that they have the power to wipe out somebody challenging the status quo. Then the groups that don't have either of those problems, are just too small to meet with success, not enough manpower.

I think it's the players that lead to that problem with the game, not all the players, but just 90% of the leaders in the game. Now I'm running with the SB, who actively do stuff, they're not targeted so much that they can't accomplish anything, and they have the manpower to do what they want.

But they're in Holland, I had to go outside of English RK after over a year of searching for a group where I can just do crap without worrying about all of these internal politics. It just works like your average gaming group. NNGO is pretty good, but in my opinion it isn't that active. Lot of just sitting around that you guys do from what I've seen.

Oh, but that's beyond the game developers.

For legitimate gaming problems, the mechanics are just shitty. Courts are OP, that's my biggest complaint. Everything else I can deal with. Not saying everything else is good, but it works.

I don't see a better alternative yet, when there is one I'm probably going to jump ship and go there. If it does die, I'll just kill off my character in Secfenia and make a more interesting guy there. After all, if RK dies I'll be able to grab who knows how many of my minions to come to Sec with me

I guess I should bother to comment. To put it simply, when you spend more time in updates announcing new 'clothing contests' which you will then take the winners of, and turn them into IG equipment which is only affordable through tokens, that you have to buy with actual money, rather than actually giving the game more features and decisions, then you're probably headed in the wrong direction for us. Again i say us, because 'we' as a collective have to accept that RK is going, and has been going for a long time, in the direction of a Facebook game with 'timers' with 'outfits' with 'pets' with 'backgrounds' and with 3D.

The clear posting direction of people here is that they preferred the simplistic 'graphics', the few clicks a day sort of system, which is old, it is old because it fits in with a time when people only had a very slow internet connection, one computer in a household and having to compete with the phone ringing to actually be able to do anything. Now everyone has the internet in their pocket. Through smart phones, tablets, laptops and computers, combined with wi-fi, 3G and 4G it's near impossible to NOT be able to connect to the internet. So with that change of limitations, with people now having a higher frequency of usage on devices and increased availability of the internet, you have seen how people have moved towards the 'timer based' hourly/two hourly clicking cycles of App and Facebook games, which feature purchasable currency and a visual aids [which can be purchased with this currency] which draw people in to spend money.

That's what RK is trying to change to, from the older days of web browsing and computers, to this on-demand, always accessible smart-phone dominated world. Is it going to work? Who knows? Is it going to piss off old players who are used to the old system? Yes.

I've said before, I don't mind it, but I play other browser games which are far more simple and more preferable to RK in my own opinion, because it retains those older features. That being said their life-spans like RKs is on the decline, because the internet social realm is changing, and our preferences are 'old' and our own numbers are declining. Whereas the seemingly 'new' preference has a growing demand. RK for me is going in a forwards direction, attempting to appeal to new markets, but unfortunately it's not the right direction for me, who prefers the simplistic format, non-3D and updates that are more about features than clothes, and for those features I happily spend time on other games.

Springtime wrote:

RK was a game with simple IG functions, low graphics, low requirement on RL time daily, with a rich RP on the forums.  That's what the existing player base wanted, and as it changes more and more players are leaving the game.  The focus and basic requirements of the game have changed, and I don't think they meet the expectations of the player base RK built over the years.

This, so much this.

And echoing what Anto said. I have seen this game dip in the summer to near dead. But usually by September things pick up. And by October? Shit is back to how it used to be. I can hardly believe it is November by the amount of tumbleweeds blowing through the english speaking realms now. It is crazy.

I don't play this game for the facebook-like stupid time waster arcade games they have added. I tried the mini games once just to see and grew annoyed. Again like Anto said--the war aspect hasn't been updated in ages. And if they want to make money---update that!! So many people buy tokens during wartime it is incredibly frustrating that they don't nurture THAT. You know...what the actual customer base wants?

The main problem with RK is that there is a ceiling that all players eventually hit and are forced to stay there.  So a person gets full stats, a ship, reaches level seven, becomes count or even King ... then what?  There is little point for vast amounts of IG currency because there is little to spend it on to enhance your gaming experience.  So where are the challenges?  I play lots of games, including the time waster games like bejewelled and games of that ilk.  Some games have a beginning  middle and end, some games are puzzles and some games are bubblegum for the mind.  RK fits in there where?  Well it doesn't, is is neither challenging nor a puzzle.  It tells no story and offers no twists.  So yes, the forums are fun and that holds people for a while, but the forums are not the game, the best part of RK is the people that play it, not game itself.  Yet these same people are treated like nothing, their wishes are ignored and the facebook generation is catered to but badly.  

I have no problem with a game making money, in fact, I think it should be making money or else it is a waste of time.  I have a problem with a game that makes money but delivers nothing for that.  As long as the players make the game, I will stay, but my interest has gone from working very hard to make a positive contribution to signing on once a day to click a few buttons.  I certainly don't go on the forums any more because any writing I do, I prefer to keep to myself now.

Not voting yet, cause I'm a little curious to see how the changes to mentorship and the spawn of newborns work out over the next few months.  It does seem like it's become easier to get newborns to your town.  I'm not sure where those newbs are coming from though, cause many of them don't seem like a good fit for a writing/RP intensive game.  If more new players means less RP rather than more, then it seems like it's not actually a net positive, at least in my not so humble opinion.

I will say I'm completely bummed that so many people don't really write very much any more.  I miss having more RP on the forums to read.  (Yes, Bekah, you're one of the people I'm looking at here.  I used to enjoy reading you.)

Spot on Bekah

I stayed level 1 for many years because there wasn't anything to look forward to.

I voted yeah, maybe cause I want to think it's a yes moreso than actually believing it.

Silverr wrote:

I am unable to vote in the poll. But if I could, my vote would be NO

Posted for/on behalf, of Silverr.

Voted no, game is not going anywhere. Forums have lost the appeal they once had. No one wants to RP anything anymore it seems. Only place that is active really is the glenn. And heck half the time i forget to go there.

Towns are dying, seems to be just the hard core players left. And heck i am not even old compared to alot of you that have been here for 5+years.

I do hope something happens that will spring life back into the game. But from what i can see unless you are at war with someone, there is nothing to do.

I haven't voted because I am open-minded about the 3D and the like, even if with mixed feelings.

What really bothers me is the number of players, especially after taking out the inactive/retreat/dead and the clones. My understanding, which is only from players talking, is that they aren't advertising because it is unprofitable and costly for them to do so. It is really strange to remember what the population used to be like locally, and then to remember that back in those days, there was talk about how low the population used to be compared with an earlier point.

It does seem that like Kat said, English-speaking-RK will eventually have to close. Or perhaps more likely be turned into a couple of small counties largely consisting of very old players. I was actually wondering the other night, if Kat's prediction were true, if I could picture myself being in some French speaking town, like some old relic.

It's really disappointing. The population. The solution must be very simple (advertising). But if it's a net loss for them to do so, is that understandable or acceptable?

For me as a player, no. It may be the right direction for the game and the next generation of RK players, but I'm really not interested in the 3D game they are slowly moving towards.

I no longer visit the forums on a regular basis. I'll occasionally look in to see if there are updates on Church stuff I should be aware of, but that's it.

Really I've always found the RP world to be lacking - I prefer set ups which have a clear and consistent world picture and where there are Game Masters who will roll some dice to decide on outcomes of actions and who will provide the NPCs and environment - otherwise it all feels a bit pointless. I've enjoyed writing with a number of people over the years but yeah, in the end, it's always felt a bit blah because we are our own GMs. And the lack of connection between what is IG and the RP world of RK has always felt a bit ridiculous.

I turned off the 3D stuff as soon as it started and haven't looked at it since. I don't play the mini-games. I don't like the fact that the way to attract new people to your town is linked to using the 3D.  And I'm really not interested in decorating a house ...  I'm guessing that eventually everything will be done through the 3D villages - working, using the market etc. I'm assuming that was the point of adding them to the game. When that happens, I'll leave. I get a lot more fun playing other games.

I voted no.
Now, I do buy 3d stuff, have a house, hell even "upgraded" my house, but honestly what do I have to spend my money on other than that? I find it terribly buggy, and it smacks of a really bad attempted copy of something like IMVU or Secondlife.

Any real growth tends to be due to the player base more than their own advertisement for the game.

Prices for their new features is ridiculous, at least for anyone in North America. Were I to want to buy that big house with tokens, it would be 1990 tokens or right around $50 for me. For an item that does nothing, cannot be used really to further the game, role play, "played in" etc $50 to look at a bad rendition of what a house back then looked like...and I'd still have to furnish it etc!

The games I tried...glitchy and again way over priced for what you get out of them. On a free try I think I won a fraction of a pound once?

For RP purposes, I would say it's nearly dead. I have always felt that when they segregated the forums they killed the game. I hate the Glen. But how else are you to RP with friends and people you want to? No one wants to have an npc in places for the off chance they can rp with a friend, and who wants to travel (sometimes across the ocean) to participate in an rp thread? Add to that there are so many rp snobs in the game who have no issue letting it show. As a mod I have gotten (far too frequently) requests to delete a persons rp from a thread because it isn''t up to the standard the OP was wanting in his thread. This may be due to the fact that the game has always been an old boys club of either you belong or you don't...but with the smaller populations it is very excluding to new players who aren't an alt for an already established player.

I guess with saying that about the old boys club mentality, you could in a way also place some of the blame for the direction on players as well. Us older ones are jaded with alts ad clones. We know that "this" is the way to do things and when some new person dare say "that" might work better we slaughter them in forums. There are rules on top of rules in some places on how you act, what you can do, who you can associate with....more and more voice their insistence on how the game should be played their way or not at all.

I promised J when Donnor and Bell got together that I would stay as long as he did and it would finally be Don & Bell like it should have been for however many years we had been trying He actually got me back into RK as I had been fine not playing it. (know that tidbit sucks for all those who still insist on spreading Bell is a whore who sleeps around on him, but the bond between him and I is far too great to tarnish with a stupid rp game) So for the time being, I'll still be playing, and hopefully rp a bit more (12 hour shifts suck for rp) My strongest factor of playing or not is friends, and has nothing to due with the game itself...because honestly, for as shitty of a game as rk is....I have become friends with some amazing people who I would have never met otherwise.

I added the option to be 'not sure'. I was initially against adding this option, but I would rather have a 3rd option than have people just cancel their vote if they feel in between at the moment, only to not vote at all.

So, there it is. Feel free to adjust your votes accordingly. We won't count any time stamps yet.

I feel like I should also say that I love that there are some people who are still writing away, and that's pretty much why I stuck around longer than a couple weeks when I came back. Props to Trinity and Bella for that, off the top of my head, thinking of people who frequent this forum. I know there are prolly a dozen others I should mention, but I cheated and looked up to see who posted here recently to think of some I like to read. ^^

I do agree that the mini games are an utter waste of time and resources. Secfenia does them better by making them less hungry for computer resources, less likely to crash, and offering rewards that while small, are consistent enough to make it worthwhile to play regularly.

Have to admit to being fairly horrified by what Bella said about people wanting posts removed due to quality of writing. I mean, for Pete's sake, just make a CRP or IRP if that's such a concern and make a point of only inviting those who are up to your standards. Or buck up and enjoy the writing for what it actually is, which is just a bit of fun, and stop worrying about whether everyone involved is writing well enough. Most of us writing RP in RK have plenty to worry about with the quality of our own writing anyway.