Why this game does not have a bigger community

Lets look at the most successful free to play game out there : League of legends.
What is a big reason for why is it so successful?
Its the fact that you can get everything in the game by just playing it, with in game money.
The only thing u cant play to get are skins i.e visual tweaks to your characters..
You can boost your xp and in game money gain but you cannot pay to have gameplay bonuses making you have an unfair advantage.

Afterwind does not have that.
Not only does it have premium strategies and units you can only get if you pay but you also have just basic game features that you cant use like advanced game options and scenarios...
I cant count the amount of friends who started playing and after a few games when they noticed all of this told me it just feels like a failed system.
This is 2012 premium crap does not work well and players are now used to having games that do not gives advantages for money...

I love afterwind but having basic game options locked is such a bad idea if you want to attract players...It feels archaic and in bad taste.
Not only that but as a player i cant actually buy the game and unlock these features, i have to pay monthly...
This is horrible.

Seriously devs, well done on the game but change this system.Allow to buy everything using sp, allow to buy game options using sp and allow to completely buy premium status.
Free to play games work well like this cause they constantly add content that you can either grind for or pay and people pay....
There is no way this game can become super popular with the current system of payment....Your retention %, I am sure are super low...

Make everything grindable and unlockable and constantly add new content so people are pushed towards paying for new fewtues so they dont have to grind for them.

This is how successful free to play games work...

First of all, LoL and Afterwind are totally different types of games, and a game like LoL certainly has bigger "fan-base" than strategy games like AW. So, don't mix apples and oranges.
Premium feature doesn't give almost any advantage over non-premium players (extra unit - anti aircraft is usually not very useful) and premium strategies can get successfully "replaced" with non-premium ones. Also, the premium members can join any scenario they want, they just can't create it. No offense, but from your post I got a feeling that premium members have so much advantages over non-premium, which is not true.
Also, some online games are pay to play. Btw, Afterwind premium feature is really cheap and anyone can afford it...

It is also how businesses don't work.

Paying for options is not something us as players should even consider having an opinion because it affects the game as a business in addition to our experience. If Amok ha a system that worked better for both the business and game play experience, he would implement it as it would be expedient to do so. It is pretty clear that he doesn't.

I think the system is fine, and you don't have to pay monthly for those features. You can just buy the full pack. (The non-subscription one) Also there is no unfair advantage premium users get. Its not impossible to beat premium users just harder too. Its mainly based on game skill not features. Also one major reason this game's community isn't big is because of the advertising. This game doesn't give the developers a decent amount to advertise. Thats also a reason why the AW Street Team was made. I can't tell you everything about this game so you have to ask the developers yourself.



Amok Ivan

Why did you use LoL as an example to compare Afterwind? Just to make your argument stronger, but... there is a problem with that.

WoW, Terraria, Minecraft and many others -> Pay to play, still have huge communities.
Point Blank, Combat Arms, Tibia, Gunbound, Dark Eden etc... -> Free to play with premium features, still have huge communities.

Also, LoL will have (or already have, since I stopped to play for a while) an only premium map.

In my opinion, it's totally possible to defeat premium members with a free subscription.

Kirjutas BasiC, 08.02.2012 at 11:56

Not only that but as a player i cant actually buy the game and unlock these features, i have to pay monthly...

Well, there is another option.

Tsiteeri:

Full package

Unlocks all premium features forever,
including any that might be added later

As previously highlighted, your arguement as to why afterwind doesnt have a larger community is very weak. Maybe its because afterwind is a turnbased strategy game, which has a very small market.

Reasons why Afterwind doesn't have a bigger community:

1. We're just two guys without the backing of a publishing company or any advertisement budget.
2. The game doesn't have flashy graphics - a big no-no to many.
3. Turn-based game with rather abstract scale (can't see individual units or objects) - more similar to a board game, actually. Only attracts very small audience.
4. Silverlight has a few unfortunate downsides - excluding large portions of users.

Reasons why we have to sell things like advanced game options:

1. We can't sell individual one-use booster items (the way Zynga does). Any attempt to sell something like that will give unfair advantages to the player.
2. We can't sell customized graphical elements (like WoW's pets or wardrobe items or whatever), because the game doesn't use any. That's why we sell avatars and General icons (lame, I know).
3. In general, we have a much harder time than single-player or cooperative multiplayer games, since we have to really watch out for the game remaining fair for everyone.

Wow alot more problems then I thought. But I kinda wonder "@why" 2nd and 3rd from the second paragraph though.

Well the game has to remain balanced, right? The cities' disposition, density, production and income affect game balance, so they all have to be very fine tuned.

1. We're just two guys without the backing of a publishing company or any advertisement budget.
a possible way to solve it: awards for invite people, maybe via facebook, invite friends and if 50 join and play a least for 500 weeks in game you get premium feature? or a special unit like the way helicopters work(click on like).

2. The game doesn't have flashy graphics - a big no-no to many.
dont worry about graphics, the system is the most important part.

number 1 is a good idea

Kirjutas Mr House, 13.02.2012 at 20:30

1. We're just two guys without the backing of a publishing company or any advertisement budget.
a possible way to solve it: awards for invite people, maybe via facebook, invite friends and if 50 join and play a least for 500 weeks in game you get premium feature? or a special unit like the way helicopters work(click on like).

2. The game doesn't have flashy graphics - a big no-no to many.
dont worry about graphics, the system is the most important part.

number 1 is a good idea

I agree that number 1 is a good idea, which is why it already exists. If you invite a player you get sp equal to half the sp they earn in their first week.

I think the main reason is because of the game's genre. Strategy games are becoming unpopular anyway, but turn-based strategy games haven't been mainstream since the 90s (HoMM).

Total War is the only exception, but it's probably best known for its "realistic" battles rather than the map view. And that' just the way it goes. Two of the IRL friends of mine that I've recommended it to that play Starcraft 2 fanatically were warded off by the game being turn-based, though they thought AW's art design was pretty cool.

It will always remain within a niche market in business terms, it can never become huge because its market is small anyway. The focus should be on becoming big within the market segment is limited to... which I'll leave up to Ivan and Amok, they're innovating anyway and if they continue like this they'll eventually become very successful.