This game is awesome. I first came across it on a minigame site about a week ago. I loved the single player but got annoyed with the AI and I was interested in playing more maps, so I came here. This is like the professional version of Kdice, which is the multiplayer version of Dice Wars. I love strategy games, like Starcraft, C&C, Total War series, Civilization...I play this game off of Alltel DUN(dial up networking), tethering my cell with my laptop.

What really makes this game awesome is the maps and the configuration. The variety along with the sheer size of the maps is insane :)

What I would really like to talk about is the potential this game has and some feedback from a fairly new player. I know some of you think that tips from a new player about the direction of Warlight is unwelcome, because most online games/boards of this small size usually have a group of vets who have been here since the beginning that think they run everything. I've seen it happen on so many games of similiar size and every time it turns off a majority of new players.

Here are a few things that should be done to improve Warlight and to bring out its potential: (no particular order)

*Advertisement(to the masses). Simply put, there are not enough people for multiplayer to run efficiently. I play this all day and I am constantly waiting for a game to open or for people to join a game I create. This is another way to turn off new and old players alike. I like the invitation system but there is no incentive to invite people. Perhaps a reward system, or even granting people membership for a limited time, for inviting every certain amount of people. We(Warliglht) needs to use every means necessary to get us out there. People will come, they just need to know.

*Advertisement(for free players). While I do love the ad-free nature of Warlight, it should be a members only luxory. Nothing excessive of course. But Warlight can use this money to advertise the game. This is a win-win. Adds to being a member, and brings players to Warlight.

*Membership(costs). The only available option is $30 for lifetime. Warlight is basically saying that anything less is not worth it. Scratch that completley. Instead, lets do a $5 a month membership. Membership numbers will increase tenfold, bringing in more money, which brings more players through advertisement and maybe more features for members. Warlight would even make more money doing this than the $30 lifetime costs.

*6(player limit). This has to go. Asap. While members deserve the 24 players per game, the free 6 is not working. It should be doubled to 12. Within 5 turns of every game I play, at least half the people leave. I am sick and tired of this. It is ruining Warlight. There should be penalties for this. It is almost impossible to play a full and fair game without everyone leaving. It will be harder to accomplish this with 12. Plus, the game is just so much funner with more than 6 people, and there is a lack of members to catch any open games with more than 6.

*Penalty(time). Part of the above. When you get booted from a game, you shouldn't be allowed to join/open another one for a certain time. This really shouldn't be necessary but it has gotten out of control how often people do this.

*Refresh(old). This has to go as well. Why is it that I have to hit refresh or wait for it to load just to see how many people has joined a game, or to see new chat.

*Diplomatic(options). Right now, you either start off with the same team all game, or you have to trust your private chat. A diplomacy system(something like Red Alert) would be fantastic. You can do everything mid-game. Declare alliances. Declare war(only attack). Declare truce(cant attack until declare war). Every diplomatic action can float across the screen for a certain time and can be viewed in the diplomatic tab. This will change the way the game is played completely and will be a huge improvement.

*Personalize(social). Warlight needs to be more personal and social. Personalize profiles. Add friends. An official clan system. Games are so much better when you have friends you can play with. I don't have any friends on here to really play with since its hard to keep up with people.

This is just a tiny list of things Warlight can do to give a great gaming experience. The potential is there. I plan to do my part in adding to the players here at Warlight. Nobody has to give my thread any real thought but I just wanted to get myself out there. I'll be on the open games!

1) Advertisement to the masses:

Unless you have funds for specific ads, warlight runs on viral advertisement, offering single player on sites like congregate etc., thought you are right, you could do some of this even by yourself or suggest where to put single player version. There are invite incentives, but they are very hard to implement (not sure if anyone has got a free membership because of invites so far)

2) Advertisement for free players:

Yes, it's a very good idea. Probably on homepage and community page would be sufficient and mildly annoying.

3) Membership:

Considering ladder structure and the fact that some of the tournaments can go on for months, it seems like buying a membership for a month makes no sense (not to mention if CLOT development goes forward, it'll reduce the incentives even more).

4) 6 player limit:

Yeah, you're definitely wrong here. The competetive scene goes from 1vs1 to 3vs3 games, very rarely 4vs4. Big games are a privilege for members and rightfully so, it's the same type of incentive as the luck settings are. Most bigger games are ffa's or chat games, they have little competetive value, more structural/fun value. I don't really see the argument why to enable bigger games since there is little to no difference in gameplay between 12-player games and 24-player games. Also if you are worried about people leaving, implement open seat prerequisites, the better the player, the less chance there is of him leaving.

5) Penalty time:

You'd have to be more specific about that. Also you can use open seat prerequisites for your games, so a penalty for beeing booted seems unfair, a high boot rate is penalty enough since no good player will play with you.

6) Refresh:

There is automatic refresh option, it might seem slow, but it's good for the servers. Considering it's an indie game the servers have been working very well so far and making a 1-sec refresh for all games would definitely do a lot of harm there.

7) Diplomatic:

That was brought up many times, a diplomacy system in ffa games is already on uservoice, search for it there, you can vote on it.

8) Social:

It'd be hard for a few reasons:
- there is no e-mail verification
- it'd require another server for the data upkeep
- only one person codes everything, so making steam-like community may be hard.
If you have specific solutions to any of those problems, you're welcome to share.

everyone agrees about advertisements, it's been discussed before.
membership costs have also been discussed before, and tbh i wouldn't pay 5$/month, at least for life i can leave and come back and don't feel obligated to take advantage of it
6 player limit: ever heard of open seat prerequisites? 10% or less boot rate and suddenly no one gets booted ^^
diplomatic relations have been discussed before, just play with people you trust/know
refresh... does refresh automatically every few seconds....
the "personalize" thing already exists... (invite list), just disactivate the auto-add to invite list for everyone you play with

good luck and have fun (;
i do agree that this is the best game out there

sorry for double post:
man, you have 27% boot rate
stop getting booted yourself before complaining about others ^^

triple post! sorry szew, i wrote that before you said anything

I think most people agree that the advertisements to 'free' players is almost a necessity. While I admire that Fizzer is trying to do this all without advertisements, it just makes no sense when that extra revenue would allow him to bring more people into a 'team' and make things so much easier for him personally. It would also allow new features to come out more rapidly etc.

I respect you as a newer player coming out and making this post though. It's very uplifting to see some new players love the game just as much as the old players do! While I may not agree with the majority of your post, the nature of it made me smile a bit.

I think that WarLight should be advertised more somehow. It is a great strategy game (one of the best I`ve ever pleyed) but it seems that we do not reach a lot of people.

Advertisement for non-members is a good option, but most of the players have already agreed on that and it has been suggested multiple times (that does mean that it was a
very good idea of you (maybe a bit easy to think of))

The $5 a month could work, but the lifetime membership for $30 needs to stay. That way you can first try membership for a month to see if you really like it, before buying a lifetime membership.
I don't completely agree with penalty time. Getting booted is not always intentional, there are people out there with bad internet.
And there's already an invite list, I don't really see the difference with a friends list.
And what is left to personalize about profiles? You can already set the picture, tagline, bio, what info to show and a few maps too.

Actually there is one more thing. For example on steam all the games have achievements, for example Portal2 has ~50 achievemtns that you unlock through play in every possible mode. Here it's only single-player stars. During summer when I have more time I might make tutorial videos combined with a series of challenges (in a more-less test form like my recent warlight quiz).

Very Notable Post.

Dude , I remember Red Alert ! I loved that game !

Warlight, you have so much potential ... I hate to see you sitting around all day in your underwear playing computer games. Why don't you go out and make something of yourself? You would really be a catch if you just smartened yourself up a bit.

Self-counseling tends to be ineffective, x.

What I would really like to talk about is the potential this game has and some feedback from a fairly new player. I know some of you think that tips from a new player about the direction of Warlight is unwelcome, because most online games/boards of this small size usually have a group of vets who have been here since the beginning that think they run everything. I've seen it happen on so many games of similiar size and every time it turns off a majority of new players.

Feedback from new(er) players is most definitely welcome; it's a great way to get a fresh perspective. I'm not sure if it's a good idea to come barging in, declare you're new, then blindly assume something about "a group of vets who have been here since the beginning that think they run everything"... Doesn't seem like a great way to make friends.

*Advertisement(to the masses). Simply put, there are not enough people for multiplayer to run efficiently. I play this all day and I am constantly waiting for a game to open or for people to join a game I create. This is another way to turn off new and old players alike. I like the invitation system but there is no incentive to invite people. Perhaps a reward system, or even granting people membership for a limited time, for inviting every certain amount of people. We(Warliglht) needs to use every means necessary to get us out there. People will come, they just need to know.

Are you sure you're not too impatient? To be fair, I don't play real-time games, so you might have a point, it's just that I can't remember having heard this complaint before.
The incentive for inviting new players is having friends to play with. If you go sit in a room together, you won't have to wait for your game to fill up; your friends can join right away!
Giving rewards for invites is a very abusable system. What would prevent someone from inviting a million dummy addresses (my.address+1@gmail.com...)?

*Advertisement(for free players). While I do love the ad-free nature of Warlight, it should be a members only luxory. Nothing excessive of course. But Warlight can use this money to advertise the game. This is a win-win. Adds to being a member, and brings players to Warlight.

Please be careful with the word "should". This is Fizzer's site. In my experience he listens to feedback very well, but in the end it's his site, he alone decides what "should" happen. Besides, some people think any advertisement at all is excessive.

*Membership(costs). The only available option is $30 for lifetime. Warlight is basically saying that anything less is not worth it. Scratch that completley. Instead, lets do a $5 a month membership. Membership numbers will increase tenfold, bringing in more money, which brings more players through advertisement and maybe more features for members. Warlight would even make more money doing this than the $30 lifetime costs.

WL is basically saying that anything less is not worth the hassle, overhead and additional administration, is that what you are saying? (I know it's not; I hope you get my point.)

*6(player limit). This has to go. Asap. While members deserve the 24 players per game, the free 6 is not working. It should be doubled to 12. Within 5 turns of every game I play, at least half the people leave. I am sick and tired of this. It is ruining Warlight. There should be penalties for this. It is almost impossible to play a full and fair game without everyone leaving. It will be harder to accomplish this with 12. Plus, the game is just so much funner with more than 6 people, and there is a lack of members to catch any open games with more than 6.

If you think this is such a severe limitation, why don't you get a membership? You could wait six months to get it if you prefer (save up five bucks a month, the price you yourself suggested, and after six months you'll have the thirty dollar that will get you a lifetime membership). You wanted an incentive to get a membership, here you have it! :)
If you don't like people leaving, you can use open seat prerequisites. Giving penalties is difficult, since there are valid reasons for leaving a game (in real-time games even something as stupid as a connection problem can get you booted). By the way, if you ask nicely, there might be a member willing to create a 6+ player game for you.

*Penalty(time). Part of the above. When you get booted from a game, you shouldn't be allowed to join/open another one for a certain time. This really shouldn't be necessary but it has gotten out of control how often people do this.

As has been pointed out, you yourself have a 24% boot rate. Seems like a case of "the pot calling the kettle black" to me.
Something which you might have overlooked: prereqs! I mentioned them above. If you don't like to wait for open games, a possible reason is that WL hides any open games for which you do not meet the prerequisites. Most prereqs I've seen for maximum boot rate are around 10% to 15%. Your boot rate is much higher than that, which will cause a lot of open games to be invisible to you!

*Refresh(old). This has to go as well. Why is it that I have to hit refresh or wait for it to load just to see how many people has joined a game, or to see new chat.

To reduce the amount of work the server has to do. Servers are very expensive, it's as easy as that.

*Diplomatic(options). Right now, you either start off with the same team all game, or you have to trust your private chat. A diplomacy system(something like Red Alert) would be fantastic. You can do everything mid-game. Declare alliances. Declare war(only attack). Declare truce(cant attack until declare war). Every diplomatic action can float across the screen for a certain time and can be viewed in the diplomatic tab. This will change the way the game is played completely and will be a huge improvement.

I agree it will change the game completely. Whether or not it would be an improvement is an entirely different question! You might like it more like that, but that does not mean other people feel the same way. For instance, in the Risk boardgame there is no (enforced) diplomacy system either; I for one like it that way.

*Personalize(social). Warlight needs to be more personal and social. Personalize profiles. Add friends. An official clan system. Games are so much better when you have friends you can play with. I don't have any friends on here to really play with since its hard to keep up with people.

Then invite some of your friends, what's stopping you? The invite list works more or less like a friend list, have you checked that out already?

missed you, RvW

One more potential suggestion/addition:

Active Light in Profiles:
Kind of like Facebook, there should definitely be a place on WarLight profile pages that tells whether the person is online or not. I couldn't tell you how many times I have tried to invite my clan members of IRL friends to games, only to find out that they have left, despite being online mere seconds before.

Few websites have given me the same level of enjoyment as Warlight (all that porn is not going to download itself!) :-)

It is an honor to be in a position to help others become members.

Question is:

why dont you discuss all this with Fizzer directly? I mean: do you want the communities absolution while presenting your ideas here in the forum? Maybe you want the community itself to present ideas how to improve WL. But if i remember correctly, there was a voting system for Warlight. Moreover, maybe Fizzer is not really interested to advertise the game in order zillions of nine day wonder players crowd this website.

The real problem of this game is its complexity. Noobs quickly find out they need hundrets of games to have a chance winning games versus experienced players. And even small changes in the settings when someone creates a game leads to totally different game dynamics. For example just the change from weighed round to straight round entails many changes you have to be aware of. Most of the unexperienced players are annoyed with this, because it does not meet their expectations to have a chance of winning such a game. Thus they lose and also lose interest in WL and turn to one of the uncountable other games out there.

I remember when WL was advertized on Kongregate, i think it was in Oct 2011. All in a sudden tons of new players could be found in the game lobby. But like a wave they came and went, only a few of them got the hang of this game. So WL is a typical niche game that sure found/finds some enthousiasts, but it does NOT have the potential as a mainstream game, nowadays you just have too many choices. I d say its most enticing for those who also like a game like chess but also want some luck component in it that does it make a little more forgiving with respect of bad moves, compared to chess.

For now I guess the main problem in the game is the limited audience it still has. If ads can speed up the evolution, maybe it's a solution, but it has to be a clear project with numbered objectives, because the ad-free thing is just great and should be cautiously preserved as long as the game goes on and calls more players to compete with us "oldies".

Does warlight need a larger audience? It certainly hasnt improved 4chan, reddit, starcraft, call of duty, imgur, tumblr, facebook, google...