I spent some time recently in Illyraid, a web based MMORTS. I think I racked up 3 or 4 weeks of playtime. It's a decent game with a lot of similarities to Eve Online. I ultimately stopped logging in though. The game just ended up not being engaging enough to keep me hooked.
I think Illyraid lacked interesting decisions to make. As a new player, you're expected to spend your time increasing your research production and performing other building improvements. Eventually, you are able to create another city, but that takes some time.
A sandbox game, like Illyriad, should provide interesting decisions to players as soon as possible. I don't think I should have to put weeks into the game before it gets interesting. It probably explains the new player attrition web games often suffer from. Of course, if it was an easy thing to do, they would all be doing it.
It got me thinking about my development test bed, Stellar Fortune, and whether or not my plans had interesting decisions to make early in their life. Trading is one of the early game activities, which in itself does not provide anything too interesting. However, an event system which presents players with choices on how to proceed might spice things up a bit.
Scars Of Destruction - A Key Feature
1 hour ago
