And I %100 agree on wanting clans official. People don't have to participate in them (I don't begrudge anyone that does not), but you cannot deny all that they have added to this site. Clan leagues, clan battles, people joining tournaments they wouldn't otherwise to play with clan mates, the level of play that increases from clan mates helping teach, etc. All these things are tangible benefits from clans, yet clans are not tangible to Warlight itself.

Leagues done right (custom leagues) would enable clans to play each other.

gui nails it again

There are some other things that seem simple to a non-expert programmer that would help a lot too.

Like filters (and save as default) in Tournament list. People have wanted those forever.

I won't go through them all, I have posted my ideas on UserVoice. But there are lots of things like that. I think that the fact they are not implemented gives people the impression that posting their ideas is a waste of time.

All I am asking for is more honesty from Fizzer. If it would take too much time, then say so. Or if you think it is a bad idea, say so. Most of his comments on there are just "that already exists" or "implemented". But we have no way to manage our expectations right now.

Warlight still stands a niche. With the actual politics to conserve every single game (again i'm not an expert but I suppose the proibitive cost to run the ride is give by the amout of space it needs to keep track of millions of games.) i doubt he can turn this in a making money machine.

If my memory doesn't betray me, 2-3 years ago, someone from Intel or Microsoft (or a big one) contacted Fizzer and i belive he somehow used Warlight as his business card. I wouldn't be surprise if he's working in one of those big companyes or collaborating in one or another way.
But warlight still remains a nich. It's not meant to hit a vast amount of targets (we are talking about a game, not everyone play games, not everyone play strategy games, not everyone plays strategy RISK based games) and due the structure of the game (no perks given by paying money like mant FPS-RPG) there is no chance for this to become a source of money. i DOn't know Warlight's numbers, but that's i belive.

All this said to come to one point: warlight will probably remain runned for hobby. As it's first or best fizzer's project, he won't make a staff team to run it profitably (i wouldn't, but you know, I'm a despote). Even if i hope that one day there will some someone working full time or part-time on its development, i doubt this will ever happnes. Running all alone it's not easy and requires its time.

Leagues are different from clan system.

I guess the question remains, why does he do it? What is his goal?

Is it just something to do with his spare time? (seems like an expensive hobby)

Does he plan to go beyond niche at some point? (and this is just a long testing phase)

He doesn't have to answer these questions, but it would be good to know. We don't know how to best help him when we have no idea what his strategy is.

Gui,

It seems like at least Fizzer himself considers UserVoice to be useful; why else would there be a WarLight page on UserVoice? It is definitely actually used, there's quite a few ideas on there marked as "implemented".

Every idea there can be commented on, both by other players as well as administrators (in WL's case, that's Fizzer). There's nothing to stop you from discussing ideas on the forum before posting a thought-through suggestion (which is exactly what I tend to do myself; I know some other people do the same thing).

As an example, had site-wide ELO ratings been on there, we (and Fizzer!) could try and get a little feeling for how many people actually want it. It would also provide a single place where to discuss (and solve) practical issues. Now we only have a few people (even if they're quite vocal, it's still just a few people) asking for such a system.

Remember that UserVoice is listed as the preferred way to give feedback and suggestions! If you don't like it, fine, but that doesn't mean it actually is useless (you often seem to support your opinion with arguments which are, actually, simply your opinion; you often state your opinion as if it were indisputable fact).

---

Anonymous,

Would an official clan system really be that much of an improvement over the current system of just using tags?

Also, in my opinion, one of the priority should be an official clan system. (..)
THAT is what Warlight would need. In my opinion sure, but i belive most of clans would agree with me.

The clans might be a little biased when it comes to a clan system. :) If you could convince me most of the non-clan players also want such a system, then I'd be much more impressed.

Lonewolves haven't won wars, haven't made the history.

Maybe not wars (which require an army, so you pretty much require an organisation to begin with), but quite a few lone wolfs wrote history! Many of the early Nobel Prize winners for instance. Many explorers travelled the world in very small groups. The, unarmed, Chinese guy who stopped a tank simply by standing in front of it sure made history. Oh, and there's of course assassins, from Julius Ceasar's to Kennedy's, who acted alone (please, no conspiracy theories; you get the point) but made a huge impact...

More importantly though, coding an official, built-in clan system would be a huge amount of work and what would it get us? People can no longer "be" in a clan they're not really supposed to be in simply by changing their name. Is that an improvement? Yes okay, it is. But is it vital? Meh, not so much if you ask me.

Please also keep in mind just about every clan system out there limits people to be in at most one clan at a time, while there seem to be quite a few WL players who are in multiple clans. If you got your official system, that would probably no longer be possible! (Because otherwise there's even more practical issues to solve, such as which clan does your win count for when you play in the clan league?)

I agree with you on that putting an end to multi clan players, but I would be willing to bet that almost all those that do belong to multiple clans would take that as a trade off for an official system.

Chris, I think you will find that people in multiple clans are in them for a reason. I love both the groups I'm in, one of which I founded. I would absolutely hate to have to leave one of them.

Most of the things people are saying they want in this thread, the players can already create for themselves. Leagues, clans, ratings. Granted they are not exactly how you want them, but they work reasonably well much of the time.

We cannot, however, create a mobile client for Warlight. So really, it wasn't a difficult decision for Fizzer to make when deciding what he should be spending his time on.

Problems with a global ELO rating have been alluded to regarding the customisability of games which would most likely lead to a few select templates being used to determine people's ratings. That sounds a lot like what we have already. Alas, Gui's eventual boredom is inevitable, whether he knows it or not.

And I don't really see the benefits of an "Official Clan System." It would basically be there just for convenience because clans are already able to organise their own tournaments quite efficiently.

Readers, ignore that pessimistic post. His country is suffering hard times and he is depressed.

+1 to NoobSchool. I love both clans I am in and would have a very hard time choosing between them.

" A pessimist is what a realist calls an optimist "

- Traynor

or vice versa ...

To multiple clan issue...

You already choose a clan to compete for in clan leagues, etc. It would be the same thing, you would count only towards one. Doesn't mean you can't be associated with more than one (use taglines).

Anyway, doesn't matter. It won't every be official system IMO.

if your issue with uservoice is lack of discussion you can always create a forum thread to start discussion prior to submitting it on uservoice. if there is enough votes it cant get forever ignored. ofcourse time is limited for Fizzer as a single developer, and people often think something is brilliant while ignoring the caveats of how it'll actually work in practical terms. he has to just follow his gut at some point. but if something has enough votes its harder to ignore, at this point ELO rating has a total of 0 votes.

Maybe you missed the part where i explained why i think we need a clan system. People not impersonating a clan member was only one point. Please, go and tell to all those gamers that compete each other on ESL league what they think about an official rating...

Who are you responding to Anonymous? Windu?

One thing to consider about an official clan system is that clans self police. They discourage trolling because every clan has a set of standards, whatever they may be. Sure, trolling still happens, but if it was an official system with rewards like other ladders, you'd see a lot less trolling going on.


I think the biggest need (once the mobile client is done) is a forum overhaul. I think Fizzer simply has too much to do, and empowering some good people to oversee the forums would free him up a lot. Everything would be organized and he could simply focus on the forums that help him the most (bugs, suggested changes, etc), while ignoring off topic, maybe some strategy forums, clan forum, etc. It would also reduce the load on servers if you could edit your posts (less duplicate posts or revising comments), if things were organized better (less duplicate topics). Not to mention if there were ads on the forums it would generate a lot more hits if the forums were better, which means extra cash to help offset his debts there.

I suppose I contradicted myself some (on the load on servers). extra traffic would result in extra storage, but it would be paid for more (because it would be extra hits and not just a person clarifying their idea, wasting space).