Im probably the player type that is most important to any new game. Newbies. These days we newbies have experiences from many games and we have spend money in them. LOTS of it. jeez.. Dont even want to think about total sum over the years.. haha. Anyways I have few starting reactions I want to share and I hope there will be others over the years.
Player age: 30
Points made: 2100+
How long have I played similar games: 10-13 years
How would I rate this game? 6/10
First things I do is to play tutorial, check rankings, payments, forums, message systems, community, overall look and then what I can make of the balance in game. With less than few hours of experience it hard to impossible to say how balanced this game is but I can say something about this game. Not to mention if I want to continue playing.
Payment stuff:
Turquoise, turquoise, turquoise... You can spend it on anything and everything. In all honesty there is way too many money spending opportunities in this game. It gets broken when units, stones, luck objects, storage capacity, fill resources (people and grain), change seasons, holiday modes, battle bonuses, raid permissions... are available to be bought with real money. Not to mention blessings that cost about 20 euros per month. There are even change alliance name and game interface stuff that really should be free to everyone. Just because those are features that makes it actually enjoyable to play. In any good game I would think devs would aim for simple and enjoyable gaming experience.
In short cut significantly purchase options and bring new ones that do not break the gaming experience. No more instant boosts.
Newbie protection:
As far as I can say.. This is broken. It dosent need to be rocket scientist to see whats going on. Too little early on and too much later. This screams to me that game has serious balance issues as well. Although I cannot say anything for certain. Personally I think devs should work towards getting rid of this by working on balance and on reasons why larger player could prey on smaller.
How about defeating 50%+ larger enemy could give you god bonus.. Luck objects/stones?
Production:
30min production option would be much needed
Community:
What little I have seen so far. I think this needs most work. Clans could be better, chat is somewhat primitive and my server dosent even have area in forums.
What is the game?
This is my biggest problem in this game. I havent figured out what is my goal. Is it just to grow? Almost out of protection and I still have no goal in mind.. I could ask tons of questions and tutorial seems to make no impact on me what so ever. I dont learn anything from that. Its just res source for me. Its that useless.
PLEASE MAKE BETTER TUTORIAL...
Now whats positive?
Game looks pretty, theme is fun, production system is to my liking and I like concept of barbarians. What little I understand battle system. It seems to be pretty ok. Im sure I could learn to enjoy this if I would just continue. I also like pre made pictures and fact that there is lot that need to be bought in order to get them. Same with alliance icons. I could actually suggest that some new ones could also require point limits.. Like you need 100k points and 100 turquoise to buy this icon. What I really like that there is purchase items that dont impact the game but rather how I feel as player.
If this game would not give first impression that my money is all devs want. Then this could be very promising game.
Peace out..