What can we do to make this game more popular?

Balance is interesting, and has several different effects pulling in different directions, but had it's own thread, this is about what we players can do, and balance is something for the devs.

 

I dont think this is a suck thread... but i understand the issues with shift.
I think the point which might have been missed is one of the struggles this game faces, which was part of the review that initally led me to CH, is inventory management.
There are lots of items and you earn lots of items. Some of this has been improved by the ability to sell immediately, but you can spend hours going through inventory which is not my idea of fun.

 

Oh, I agree on the fact there's too many items, and kits of then are not mechanically or thematically different enough (2 force blast and 1 pen zap vs 2 pen zap and 1 force blast, for example).

But we as players can't fix that, that's a Dev thing.

 

You essentially need bad cards in the game, I an happy with the current cards and diverse options!

 

I actually have said that about drawing penetrating zaps, as my first incarnation of my 1burrft / 2priest deck had four blasting amulets. 5 Damage penetrating attacks are useful when you don't have armor removal.

Back on thread topic, I'm going to be reminding another friend later today about Cardhunter, he did show some interest. Wish me luck!

 

When co-op campaign gets released, this'll get much easier, as you can just say any of your acquaintances "yo man, create an account for this free game and let us have some good fun together ♥"

 

So you were happy to move to range 3? Did you win?

 

I always say to my acquaintances, "Yo man"

But seriously I have tried to get several friends into this game. One did not get it, I think the last game he played seriously was goat simulator... The other liked it but stopped playing it when his flash browser at work went out. Apparently he thought IT would not like gaming as a reason to restore it. And finally my most hopeful friend asked me why he would play that when he could play TOR, KOTOR, any of the elder scrolls games, etc... BECAUSE ITS AWESOME!!!! Oh yeah and my magic playing friends would rather play magic.

I think one thing that hinders the game is in the thinking of gamers today. Most mmo gamers want large variations of class/race with a million things to do. And, they are used to items and skills and all that me more readily available via level/dungeon/gold/etc. They don't like the idea of having to collect cards/items that drop randomly. The deck building aspect is also a strange mash up for them.

My deck building game playing friends, well they just don't seem interested in playing an rpg, much less one where again, the cards you can put in your deck are gained almost completely at random. If they are going to spend money on a game its to get very specific cards for very specific decks.

I am sure there are plenty of players like me who have played and enjoyed the different types of games this game pulls from. But I think the best target audience is actually a board gamer. CARDBOARD table top, gamer. Maybe I am wrong, not sure how many of you actually table top board games, but Card Hunter feels like a really cool version of chess to me. Even the graphics with the dice and the board on a felt table with some m&m's next to it make me feel like I am playing a table top board game. Which, imo, is super cool! And, it did take some time for the mechanics of this game to sink in. I have to be like this is not an rpg, as i know it, and this is not magic/dominion/any other deck building game, as I know it. But, its an interesting combination that works surprisingly well. And, its totally new! I realize I am preaching to the choir.

All that being said. The only player I have gotten into the game and stuck for more then the intro battle loves LOVES Agricola. Any one recruiting at the Chess Club?

 

Did I miss anything, what happened to all those higher ELO players? There are only 2-4 players with ELO 1500+ today?

 

Lack of advertising is a big deal. I never heard of this game til I saw it on the humble bundle. The info on the humble bundle said this was a free to play game, but it didn't take too much playing before I bought the bundle to get the extras for this game. Soon after I started playing, my work colleagues asked what it was and they started playing. After playing coop campaign on the test server, we put our single player campaigns on hold until coop goes live and we will pick back up together. This is a good single player game, but I love it much better as a coop.

TL;DR -- no advertising leads to fewer players.

 

Yeah, the return for online ads is like 0.01% and dropping, the last I heard.

Farbs, by any chance, did you look at Project Wonderful for ads? https://www.projectwonderful.com/

Started by Ryan North (of Dinosaur Comics and Squirrel Girl), used on lots of webcomics, and now, it's been a couple years since I had any dealings with it, mostly I was around when Ryan set it up, but the ads are bid per day, not per-clicks or per viewings, and they're auction-like, so you pick the site(s) or kinds of sites you want, and pick the max you want to pay, and it works sort of like eBay auctions, where it will go up to your max if somebody else bids for the same spot the same day, but won't go over it.

I can think of a couple of webcomics that CH would be a pretty good fit for the fanbases.

 

Advertising isn't just paying for ads. For example being on Kongregate and the Humble Bundle were great marketing... even in cases where people didn't sign up. Coca-cola and McDonalds are so familiar (in the US anyway) that they shouldn't need to advertise, but the ability to maintain that sense of familiarity is key because people like to buy (or try) what they know or what seems popular.
Now I know that Blue Manchu ain't a blue chip Mega corp. But the ability to become familiar to more people out there is key. For example I have CH on my Facebook but I think I've seen 1 or 2 posts total. Even a monthly post when the new maps come out for MP could be a way to gain exposure and draw more players, or draw old players back and wouldn't be intrusive. I know that online ads are at best a poor ROI but use social networking... lots of people who play who would be happy to share the message which will reach new people. Ads are not about the first time some sees an ad, it is about all the times.

 

I learnt from few conversations in chat that this game was much more popular in early 2014/late 2013 (e. g. number of concurrent players online in MP lobby used to be 5-6 times higher than during this month). Is this really true?

 

I wouldn't know but I do know that the number of online/active players depends on the time of the day

 

Obviously, but it doesn't answer my question at all (maybe I wasn't precise enough). I want to learn about differences in game's popularity (active players, usual numbers of concurrent players during most populous hours, etc. ) between first half of 2015 and early 2014. Of course, exact data are available only to devs, I am just curious about veterans' overall impressions

 

It is true, largely due to the fact that the game was launched during that period. iirc, you had to queue just to log in. Fun times...

 

Anyway, again, one easy way to promote CH is to play it and rate it on Kong, right now it's still the top rated CCG, more good ratings means more chances for badges, means more players.

 

I did rated it 5 stars on Kongregate, as soon as I realized that I'd not play any other game for months. And it become the only game on 'my favorite list' til today. However Blue Manchu (or Kong) did not win profit (from me, directly); and this is a big issue: profit is the key to keep the game alive (and improving)!
How? Like Travian, for instance, "Pay-to-win" allow 2 types of players ( a free comunity of happy 'advertisers', and the ones who support server's maintaining ). They are in "different leagues", although mixed; and it's not a problem... we should fell somehow grateful to them even when we lose :/

So my advise is to increase the ways pizza can be spend. And negociate with big softwarehouses ( Armor Games ) some interacting... or sharing.... let's say gold coins...
Oh, another thing: allow small purchases by phone, sms... cause many don't use credit cards

 

Keep in mind how great it is to be able to enjoy so much of the game all at once without paying a DIME.

Runescape was an amazing game not because it was "deep" or "complex", but it was a F2P MMO that was actually F2P and actually felt like an MMO - you could interact with other players all the time.

After playing and enjoying so much free content - The option of paying money for any buffs to my character or strong items whatsoever wasn't even there - Members subsciption was almost as natural as breathing. I could not comfortably answer the question "why should I NOT pay 5 bucks a month for this game that I enjoy so much of".

Eventually, the meaningful content came to a halt (and enjoyable aspects of the game were removed), but I think I've shelled out more cash for RS than I have on any other online game I've ever played, and it was not because I thought that they deserved my money. It's because their game was so full of content that I enjoyed. Granted that I also hoped they would continue to deliver more fun content, and for a good while they did. But the main reason I paid any money whatsoever for Runescape was because I loved playing it so much.

As nice as money is, it would be best now for CH to further improve its F2P content, above all else. The upcoming co-op mode will be a nice addition, and it's these little constant additions that will get people to start (and continue) to play this game. Once CH's free content feels like a fully fleshed-out game that people want to sink plenty of hours into, it will grab everyone's attention.