FAF, an editorial

[wolf bite]

So I have played a round, or about a half of a round, of FAF. It was all somewhat of an accident. I had heard that Blood Wake and Disdain were in grave danger on the BFR server, so I started an account. But then before I even logged in, I found they had been killed. Then a few days later I was reading a post from Urran Voh (I think) on RWL were he said that if someone had not played FAF recently then they know nothing about it. This fair statement I could not disagree with. So I logged back in and kept trying out different strategies to see how they worked and how people would fight against them. I never tried to take over the game or make a big showing, only test it out. Dancing around in the ranks is often fun. I had no knowledge of who anyone was, and liked it that way, as I did not have to worry about allies. Eventually I befriended Farmer Mole. I watched his clan and thought they seemed to be playing fairly and honorably, but had no knowledge of whom they were. I wanted to see the inside of clans so I asked them if they would take me. It took me 2 days to convince them to take me in. Even after telling them who I was, their leader had no knowledge of who I am and said “Is that supposed to mean something to me?). Hehe. Eventually he let me in on a trial basses. Then I found out that they have some difficulties with other members of FAF in the past. I agreed to play normally but said I would not be part of any personal vendettas, if any still existed. I thank those nice guys for letting me play with them and apologies to any friends I may have unknowingly attacked.

I thought I should write a fair evaluation of the programming that many hours of hard work have gone into by the Admins of FAF.

Overall the innovations are excellent. The good parts are very good and the bad things are barely noticeable. In fairness I will talk about both sides of the improvements and add suggestions were applicable. Please do not assume I am putting the game down at all. I say again, the up sides are excellent, the down sides minor. There were only a few things I out right did not like, but most I thought were great!

As far as the flow of the programming it was very smooth. Pages came up in reasonable timing and the game seemed responsive. The player, clan links and others links to pages flowed nicely in playing. The only drawback probably only applies to me. Because I play very fast, I memorize past pages and am backspacing constantly to save time from mouse clicking new. I found that to be a bit sluggish.

The first aspect of the innovations I would like to talk about may not be the most amazing to most, but the one I liked the most. The color-coding on the cash, land and food! Loved it! I found myself watching it constantly and maybe even over relying on the color rather then the amount. I think it could even be better with the addition of the auto loan QMT is using, or a safety of some kind, in conjunction since building structures often takes more then one would assume and can empty the bank account.

There is a positive and a negative with the long list of links to pages on the left side. The positive is a quick and resourceful way to get anywhere. The negative is that I found myself scrolling constantly. This could easily be solved with doubling up on the buttons under each head note to take up less room while still keeping the amount of buttons.

I liked that recent news on players was condensed to show how many times they had had interactions with an individual. This was useful to get a fast glimpse of what had happened. But the ability to separate the last 100 either attacks or defense has been taken away. I feel this a mistake. Assuming a person had been attacked 20 times and the time difference did not condense the attacks, then there is no way to see the last attacks the player had done to see what attacking army they are using. A small bug that I found was the reporting of aid. Although the aid is summarized to see that you had say 3 shipments, it only shows the value of one of the shipments and at times I even found that incorrect.

No prom game has a great guide and FAF cannot claim one either, nor be faulted for not having one. I spent ten minutes trying to find out if guard towers had to be manned and never found that information (to the destruction of the first time I built unmanned towers). However, the page on heroes is one of the best-explained pages I have ever seen and should be the example of what help information should be on all pages.

Talking about heroes, I think they are a great addition to the game but also may have their down fall. I never owned one so I cannot talk from experience as to their use, but that in itself is my point. Since the cost of a hero seems to be based on the player’s size, it seems strategic to buy them early in the round when everyone is small no matter what the cost because in the long run the benefit in the end will be worth the early game loss. However, a late starter is at a disadvantage. Not only is everyone much bigger and already has their heroes to make them harder to fight, but also there is not sufficient time to spend making one and still be a contender. If, however, heroes aged and got weaker in time, this would even out. The new player could get a fresh one if they wanted more power to start the round, the high-ranking player could also re-spend the costs to buy a new one when theirs became almost senile, if they wanted. Thus there is not a benefit for early starters.

The Heal turns is a very powerful weapon. At first I started with what they now call an indy strategy and used Heal exclusively to get back to health. I think I made over 90 attacks and ended up with 100,000 land coming out of protection with my 500 turns and generated enough to hold rank 5. This combination of strategies with the ability to gain so much land can be dangerous.

Sadly I have to admit I really did not understand the stock market. I wondered if there was a way to artificially make it go up then sell all stock with no diminishing value. But I don’t know enough to make a statement. I will just assume it is will worked out.

The build page with build all option was very handy, but even more creative was the demolish down to not lose huts to save from doing the math. Very cleaver!

The mail system is much improved with click able headings to open the selected letter. The mail all in your clan, which I believe the older version of FAF also had, is also handy. A mail system could not be better.

Clan play was well worked out to unify the clan. Not only the mail all as mentioned above, but also the clan forum was very impressive and handy (a small bug was that the creator of the topic was sometimes incorrect). Spy proofing clan communications will really help bring a clan together. I had my second thoughts about the in-clan market as a clan, or a single player with a clan, could horde tons of critters out of reach of the game, but I can see the opposing argument. The clan treasury is a great idea. A clan would have to really trust each other to allow others to have their money within the reach of the greedy. The game tries to cover for this by giving the option to close the treasury from non officers, but this degrades the non officers leaving them no reason to put money in that they can not retrieve, thus leaving them with insufficient methods to hide their goods and separating the clan. The programmers need to to their heads together and find a solution such as a non officer can only withdrawal the amounts they put into a closed clan.

Now the things I did not like:

Being Un-claned. The ability to play unclaned has been completely taken away. Clans can save away large amounts of food, cash, and runes with no loss, unclaned people are limitied to the bank for their cash. Unclaned people can be army attacked for their cash and food which they can not hide while claned people put all theirs back in the treasury nightly. The ability to be maxed to attacks has been taken away as anyone and everyone can declare war on the unclaned at the drop of a hat. Clans can save their armies out of reach of others, unclaned cannot. In short I cannot think of one advantage to be unclaned and a lot of disadvantages.

War setting. If there is a cost to set an individual to war it is not high enough. I had days were 3 different people would set me to war. This is ridiculous to even have attack limits if they can be so easily bypassed. With 500 turns added with the heal option, a person can demolish all a persons towers with hawks, steal all their money with armies with the now easy to beat guard-less army, then take all their land and kill them. This is ridiculous! If both people are in a clan, then they should set the clan to war, not the player. A person not in a clan who wants to over attack has the option of joining a clan so they can set war or just attacking different people in the clan they don’t like. With the way it is now set up, any player can be taken down to the bottom at the whim of a fool. A person should have some protection. I agree there should be a way to kill off annoying unclaned people that are abusing by clan jumping or the like. But not by giving an option that will be so widely misused to daily take a player from 80,000 to 4,000.

I will not talk about my dislike for the bounty option as I posted about it several times when I first heard about it.

I will say for the third time, over all everything is excellent! This was meant as simply a fair opinion based on observations.

The wise programmers at FAF have changed the prom game sufficiently to make a new type of game in itself.


Wolf Bite

<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>© 2005 wolf bite publications. No portion may be reprinted without the expressed written consent of wolf bite.</span>

[bjornredtail]

Thanks Wolf Bite. This review appears to be quite thorough and helpful to players, developers, and admins.

A few responses:

The only drawback probably only applies to me. Because I play very fast, I memorize past pages and am backspacing constantly to save time from mouse clicking new. I found that to be a bit sluggish.

This might be your browser and it's cache. It's difficult to tell where this might come from.

There is a positive and a negative with the long list of links to pages on the left side. The positive is a quick and resourceful way to get anywhere. The negative is that I found myself scrolling constantly. This could easily be solved with doubling up on the buttons under each head note to take up less room while still keeping the amount of buttons.

Agreed... I think I can do this with he skinning system. What I was thinking was to move economic operations to the right hand side, while leaving everything else on the left.

No prom game has a great guide and FAF cannot claim one either, nor be faulted for not having one. I spent ten minutes trying to find out if guard towers had to be manned and never found that information (to the destruction of the first time I built unmanned towers). However, the page on heroes is one of the best-explained pages I have ever seen and should be the example of what help information should be on all pages.

No development effort went into the guide, leaving it in it's current rather broken state. It's on the to-do list.

Since the cost of a hero seems to be based on the player’s size, it seems strategic to buy them early in the round when everyone is small no matter what the cost because in the long run the benefit in the end will be worth the early game loss.

However, you cannot get a hero until you have passed 1000 turns used. This limits the advantage to early signups, although your idea is very good, assuming it is not over-done.

I think I made over 90 attacks and ended up with 100,000 land coming out of protection with my 500 turns and generated enough to hold rank 5. This combination of strategies with the ability to gain so much land can be dangerous.

You are on BFR, so such moves are almost to be expected as a result of the high turn rate. On COG, such a move would not be as easily run.

But the ability to separate the last 100 either attacks or defense has been taken away. I feel this a mistake.

Agreed. I think it is done in the database now though...

War setting. If there is a cost to set an individual to war it is not high enough. I had days were 3 different people would set me to war. This is ridiculous to even have attack limits if they can be so easily bypassed. With 500 turns added with the heal option, a person can demolish all a persons towers with hawks, steal all their money with armies with the now easy to beat guard-less army, then take all their land and kill them. This is ridiculous! If both people are in a clan, then they should set the clan to war, not the player. A person not in a clan who wants to over attack has the option of joining a clan so they can set war or just attacking different people in the clan they don’t like. With the way it is now set up, any player can be taken down to the bottom at the whim of a fool. A person should have some protection. I agree there should be a way to kill off annoying unclaned people that are abusing by clan jumping or the like. But not by giving an option that will be so widely misused to daily take a player from 80,000 to 4,000.

We have been wondering what exactly to do about the kill problem in BFR. Fixing the balance of the individual declare war thingamajig appears to be solution. Thanks for suggesting it, as somehow it had become ignored in our discussions of the matter.

© 2005 wolf bite publications. No portion may be reprinted without the expressed written consent of wolf bite.

May we re-distribute this internally (like in our admin forums and bugs and suggestions)?

[wolf bite]

© 2005 wolf bite publications. No portion may be reprinted without the expressed written consent of wolf bite.

May we re-distribute this internally (like in our admin forums and bugs and suggestions)?

I just don’t want to be taken out of content as an advertisement. Using it as internal memos is not a problem.

I am happy that anything I saw and said may be of help.

As far as the hero aging, I was thinking of every 12 hours of life, their odds of comming into play would be reduced 1%, going down to say 5% to 10% for long games. So after 10 days, you have odds of 80% that they will work.


Wolf Bite

[Devari]

wolf, thanks for the wonderful review!

I'll address some points of yours:

Because I play very fast, I memorize past pages and am backspacing constantly to save time from mouse clicking new. I found that to be a bit sluggish.

Sounds like something with page caching either at your end or ours. Hm...

There is a positive and a negative with the long list of links to pages on the left side. The positive is a quick and resourceful way to get anywhere. The negative is that I found myself scrolling constantly. This could easily be solved with doubling up on the buttons under each head note to take up less room while still keeping the amount of buttons.

Hm... Not sure I would double the buttons. However, what if there was an alternate template? Or perhaps we could bring back the really old menu collapse/expand option. Why did we take that out anyway?

I liked that recent news on players was condensed to show how many times they had had interactions with an individual. This was useful to get a fast glimpse of what had happened. But the ability to separate the last 100 either attacks or defense has been taken away. I feel this a mistake. Assuming a person had been attacked 20 times and the time difference did not condense the attacks, then there is no way to see the last attacks the player had done to see what attacking army they are using. A small bug that I found was the reporting of aid. Although the aid is summarized to see that you had say 3 shipments, it only shows the value of one of the shipments and at times I even found that incorrect.

News was recently re-written from scratch. It is the only thing which still is slightly unstable. We really need to get on to fixing it.

Sadly I have to admit I really did not understand the stock market. I wondered if there was a way to artificially make it go up then sell all stock with no diminishing value. But I don’t know enough to make a statement. I will just assume it is will worked out.

Stock market is based completely on random numbers. So, no tricky stock market games. Just buy, and pray it goes up. Wait, is that any different from the real stock market?

Being Un-claned. The ability to play unclaned has been completely taken away. Clans can save away large amounts of food, cash, and runes with no loss, unclaned people are limitied to the bank for their cash. Unclaned people can be army attacked for their cash and food which they can not hide while claned people put all theirs back in the treasury nightly. The ability to be maxed to attacks has been taken away as anyone and everyone can declare war on the unclaned at the drop of a hat. Clans can save their armies out of reach of others, unclaned cannot. In short I cannot think of one advantage to be unclaned and a lot of disadvantages.

Yes, but you can only declare war on a single unclanned person. Obviously one can simply gang up on one person, which is a bit of a problem - however, it also makes it harder to hold the top simply through remaining unclanned.

The treasury DOES has a limit. Unclanned can store Cash on the stock market - since the gain/loss is only -5/+5 on average, you aren't going to lose much. Food remains out in the open, of course.

War setting. If there is a cost to set an individual to war it is not high enough. I had days were 3 different people would set me to war. This is ridiculous to even have attack limits if they can be so easily bypassed. With 500 turns added with the heal option, a person can demolish all a persons towers with hawks, steal all their money with armies with the now easy to beat guard-less army, then take all their land and kill them. This is ridiculous! If both people are in a clan, then they should set the clan to war, not the player. A person not in a clan who wants to over attack has the option of joining a clan so they can set war or just attacking different people in the clan they don’t like. With the way it is now set up, any player can be taken down to the bottom at the whim of a fool. A person should have some protection. I agree there should be a way to kill off annoying unclaned people that are abusing by clan jumping or the like. But not by giving an option that will be so widely misused to daily take a player from 80,000 to 4,000.

Essentially, that's part of the spirit of FAF. Everything is changable. It takes a lot of careful planning and sometimes alliances to keep the top. However, I've done it and so have a few others.

Speaking as an almost-dethroned Emperor, I can tell you how crushing it can be to log on and see your empire almost in ruins. However, it does have a sort of thrill to it - plus, it means the game is very fast paced.

Thanks for the excellent and well-balanced review, wolf. You raise some good points that have been topics of discussion and some that we hadn't even thought of.

[Slasher]

Wow! What a speech! I copuldn't have said better myself!

[The Beatles]

Thank you for the review, wolf. I spotted a few things:

You can indeed view the full News history of a person on the News page. Just enter a really high value for the "news limit" field.

You can collapse the menu with the little '-' link at the top. The collapsed menu has less links.

~Beatles