Posts by Klabbauter

I fully agree. For me, the internet is international, it brings together people, cultures, nations ... so I think that an international game should have people around, who can answer in more than 1 language.

Well, I know, many players will dislike it. Some, who did not learn a second language do not feel comfortable, or not really "at home", when different languages are used on one ("national") server. Some will complain or even contact support ...

However, the internet is international. The internet brings together all of us. Maybe the internet (and the fun games of the net) are a chance to reduce differencies caused by religion, politics or whatever. Just when we talk to other people, we can realize, they are nice people too ...

Plus: I heard from the festival server, that languages were no problem. And I know from Second Life, that people who really want to get to know each other will find a way across language barriers. So often I have witnessed to nice people trying to communicate, when a third one joined in, who spoke both languages. Those are situations, when my belief gets stronger, that we still have a chance to become ONE world.

Well, English would be nice to be allowed on all servers, but as players are international, I would not mind, if someone could help an Italian and a Russian to contact each other to set their train schedules or simply have fun.

I have seen several members of the staff, who write in two languages at least. And yes, maybe there should be more of them.

Yeah, sometimes it makes you think ... I got the "first class" quite early, when I first heard of it, I already had it. But I think there is no other advantage than a) it's shown to ev1 that you are First Class and b) you get some machine skins.

Some think, it's bound to gold purchases, but I trust RN it's not. And yes, after some time playing RN you don't need to buy gold. For me, after some years of RN I have collected 750 plus days, that's good for 2 years of RN, 8 rounds (16 on express) ... and it's getting more just by playing. Also my gold supplies have summed up almost 4000 ... unless I do not aim on rank 10+ I can play for the next years without investing only 1 Euro. So, being First Class does not change much ...

... however, if a company selects customers to call them "First Class" that is something SPECIAL. Special for those customers who got picked ... and very annoying for those who were overlooked, not noticed, not picked, though they showed more commitment than others who got that reward.

We know of a few bugs in RN, we know, that the delivery of mails is not really reliable ... so even the selection process of first class customers might have a little bug. Companies normally look at that - even if there is no value other than a logo and some machine skins - with great care not to miss a customer. who should get the award.

It is the little things that keep customers and to award a first class status IS such a little thing, that can keep customers or make them go, if not picked. So I hope there is someone in the company who looks at this ... or customers, who feel they are missed should regularly post in the forum. Both actions might help to avoid some envy about something that has no value but feel good as an awarded status.

No

Translation, cause maybe Jimm does not understand English (remember, Germany was parted and people in the East part had to learn Russian, not English, at school).

Jimm, Samisu, der englische CM schreibt dir:

"Hi Jim, überprüfe bitte deinen Spam-Ordner in deinem Mail-Account. Falls du die Registrirerungs-Mail da nicht findest, wende dich an den deutschen Support support@railnation.de

Du kannst den Support auch von der Lobby-Seite aus kontaktieren, wo du immer landest, wenn du dich ausloggst. (Help Center)"

Meine Anmerkung:

Du bist im englischen Teil des Forums gelandet. Auch wenn du Deutsch schreibst, werden die Posts dem englischen Teil zugeordnet. Es scheint beim Registrieren also wirklich was schief gegangen zu sein. Mindestens die Sprache ist falsch eingestellt.

Für das Forum kannst du die Sprache einstellen - oben, rechte Seite links neben der Glocke ist das "Kontrollzentrum", da unter "Allgemein" solltest du die Forensprache auf Deutsch stellen, dann bist du bei uns.

Ansonsten, schreib wirklich den Support an, und weise sie auch auf diesen Post im Forum hin, dann können die ein paar Umstellungen für dich vornehmen.

Hehe, some like the girls and collect them, some like the boys ...

But good job of both of you ... needs some patience to get them on one screen ...

WOW, golden eggs even!   

Very promising picture, Samisu. Looking forward to easter and the masses of gold we will get.

But Valentines day comes first. Only two days to go. Another fat chance to tell us customers how much you love us.     

I like the word "team" in your proposal, HMR. And yes, I also have the feeling, that on SoE, the games is RULED, always a few people, who with SoE tell "I have been elected, so I am the best, I know it all, I have the power to rule you all!"

First: Team

Before SoE came up, I have seen many teams of announcers, and have been part of them.

Well, there is one rule in any end game: the goods MUST be hauled by ev1 from the same place, the one that has best waiting time. And if there are 100 players, there must be one to tell them "Haul ducks from Mytown North, NOW!"

In the times before SoE I have experienced teams, that were not ruling, but just telling. And as they were able to put their enthusiasm into their words, ev1 followed them.

And the teams were made up by specialists:

- one who had no trouble with the chat to announce in chat, same for the forums and the external chat

- some who were great in maths and calculated a lot: will we haul 200k of wood in 15 or in 20 minutes? How will the time grow at this place, if I see the early haulers?

- one who organized an Excel table with all the places, the number of tracks etc, and with one line to copy and paste the correct announcement

These teams were set up by people, who did not only look for leadership skills and authority, but much more for skills needed in the back office of the team: maths, motivation skills (powering up the players AND the team members), players well connected to the internet ...

Those were the winning teams. It worked with a team of specialists.

And that is, what I am missing in your proposal: Each member of the A-team should be able to tell:
"Which is my special skill(s) that will be an advantage for the A-team?"

Second: SoE Rulers

Well, SoE changed that a bit. We do "elect" presidents and mayors, and the got 12 weeks to use their power. And though elected, they HAVE the power to rule. They decide about the ministers, they decide about the town council, they do not act like elected presidents in RL, who always have to look at the other half in parliaments who come from different parties ... in RN the president is the boss, definitely the dictator, who can dismis anybody from council or cabinets, who does not completely follow his ideas.

See, I would prefer a way of elections, that look more like RL elections. Players of a town elect 2 players for the cabinet, so the president has to work with them, find a way to cooperate ... different from: "If you don't follow my way, I will dismis your."

So yes, I support the wording "ruled by ...", if I look at SoE. Because, at end game, the president still is president, and he will NOT select an A-team looking at skills (well, happens, but rarely, too rarely), he will set up a team of announcers that were good followers to all his decistions and dismissals. In SoE the A-teams are too often just followers of the president. Which means, special skills are missing too often.

And here again your proposal comes in. My idea is first to take some of the absolute power from the presidents, by electing his team of ministers by the players of the five cities. And also, to form A-teams that got special skilled people: motivators, players to do calculations, players to have secure connection to chats and forums, players to contact the other regions ... or to spy there ... presidents who just enjoy playing boss for 12 weeks too often forget to form a good A-team for the end game.

For me the search button appears in the upper right corner of the screen

Edit:

Yeah, happens ... you write a question ... and know the answer

German server Golden Gate

There is one more thought, they bring in and NOT fight for being first for the end game: It starts in early afternoon, and when it's not a weekend a lot of the players are still at work.

That is, why many teams do not fight to be first, they would start with a reduced number of players, while they get visited already by PP hunters who carry all of the first 12 goods into their city. Many love to start at about 4 pm or 5 pm when most of their team members are at home and they can deliver first 12 goods with full power ... and less PP hunters, who spread over the map to the first starting cities.

That is another reason, why teams deliberately stop leveling up, and why teams starting on 2, end up on 5.

RN might think of a later start of the end game, so more teams would be able to start with a bigger number of players ... but then the last team had so start ad midnight or even later ...

As I think, most of the ingame fighting is based on some sort of misunderstanding. Misunderstanding the mixture of the game ideas.

- First there is railroad romance ... people are attracted by the marketing actions showing great railroad pictures and promising great landscapes and maps. But as HMR says: The came is based on competition ... not on romance. However, I unserstand, that people coming for the railroad picturs might get upset by the competition.

- Also, there are solo fighters. But RN is not a game, where you get a gun and have tu run and jump and shoot and collect points and kills ... however, to end up on position 1 you have to do a lot to minimize the chances of others to gain points. So, it's a combat game too (solo competition) though the actiond to be taken are not simple shooting, jumping and running, but they look more like business actions, investing, taking and using majority ... so in this part, it's a zero sum game: taking a majority means someone else loses majority ... being a winner (of majority) includes there is a loser.

- Contrary to this, there is (announced) team action. You cannot win the endgame as a solo player, You need to motivate, lead and coordinate 100+ players to be in the team of end game winners.

So even the end game needs a team and a few playsers with the charisma to motivate, with great ledership skills, with the ability to motivate big teams. Plus: solo fighters can use the end game to gain points by acting opposite to what those teams are trying to do.

3 examples, there are more. RN is a complex game, using combat, competition, leadership, charisma, coordination, modivation, the stron will to be the winner ... so much is included.

However, marketing actions always focus on one of those parts of RN. "Be a team" focusses on team spirit, but they will find competition on majorities. "Railroad romance and great landscapes" focusses on the nice, harmonic features, not on competition. And like the marketing people also players often focus on one part, forgetting about the other parts and shouting at those, who like one of the other parts.

My idea is, that RN should be announced as a complex game, made for people who like the cnallenge to use a combination of their skills: combatting and fithing, compete AND enjoy nice machines and landscapes, do business calculations AND enjoy point and click the trainspotters, showing charisma and leadership AND the will to take advantage, even if that's disadvantage for other players.

RN is a complex mixture of so many game ideas ... it needs players who love to deal with that variety of challenges.

My idea is to tell them, starting on marketing actions, which will attract those customers, who enjoy this sort of game.

Salix wrote:

There are a few other games that tried that and it's not inherently a bad ide (in fact it worked quite well), but it comes along with a surprisingly big amount of work to keep it running, mostly due the "Who watches the watchers?" problem. Similar to AI, this is a method that is viable for massively big communities that have a huge problem with disruptive behavior.
But in general I am a big fan of using this method and creating systems that allow a community to govern themselves. I'll keep it in mind.

So true! There are lots of games, that use observers. (as I suggested: be present). The main objective of the owner of the game to send out observers, is to make their employees know the secrets and strategies of the game and to gain some knowledge about the community they are developing for. But the side effect is: they are thre, sometimes, they are present ... and simply knowing they might be near keeps people from excalating fights and from trolling.

But this is also very true: "who watches the watchers?" A watcher watcher should be a company worker, and there comes the problem: they have to watch their colleagues, who work in the next room, who they meet in the cantina ... I have seen watchers, who definitely say: "I cannot tell the player that my colleague did wrong. I must be loyal!"

They often have this problem of a wrong understanding of loyalty. They feel they have to be loyal to the company, to the watchers they watch ... so in those game, players / customers never succeed with complaints.

At the end, the watcher and the watcher of the watcher feel good, they were loyal to the company, to each other ... but they scared away a customer, which decreases income ... which is definitely not loyal to the company and their own jobs.

I always hope that the bosses of the watchers who watch, have an idea of these human feelings ... of loyalty.

Salix wrote:

Do you think there would be a reliable way to identify the trolls in Rail Nation?

No. Just because it is to easy to point at someone and shout "Troll!". Finger pointing and shouting "Troll!" is ... trolling.

A wise man told me: "You never know, who is in the audience." Even if you witness the action right from the start, you never know, who the real troll is. You do not know it. If you do not know the players exactly, you never know, who started the escalation.

From counselling partnerships and families, I know: you will never find out, who is the troll, the one who started it all. But you can stop the excalating fight and go back to the times when they were not (yet) fighting. Quite often there is a chance to go back on their time line to a point, when they liked each other.

Salix wrote:

Trolls want attention. Making a big fuzz about trolls and threatening them with punishments tends to increase the problem instead of reducing it. Trolls are a rather unique problem because, in a way, they want to be punished, since punishment is a form of attention. Even today the best weapon against trolls is still to ignore them. "Don't feed the troll" is probably the wisest of all internet wisdom and it's actually backed up scientifically.

I would be interested to read about the scientific article that proves that.

Because: there is no way to identify trolling 100%.

Imagine: "HMR talks about biggest problems" ... I like that. But someone else might answer: "RN is fun, stop trolling by accusing them to cause biggest problems!" For me, the person who answerd started trolling, but they are 100% sure, they found a troll.

it is true, in RL and in games many people attract attention by getting punished. Little kids to that too, but also adults, who learnt well in the sandbox.

But I cannot agree to the general rule to ignore a troll. 80% of the trolls came up with a nice idea, which is fought by those who do not like the guy or the idea and attack them personally. The guy reacts, it escalates ...

My (mabe better?) way to react on trolls is: do not feed the troll nor their attackers. Return to the first idea and comment that idea, not the person. Do NOT make comments to character or missing skills of the humans involved, strictly stick to the theme.

This ignores both: the troll and the trolls trolling the troll.

Salix wrote:

That's actually not correct. We just finished a round where 20-25 of us participated.

Well, I wrote: " But today, everyone knows: you are there 0/0 on 0 servers."

Even if the subclause is totally incorrect, the main clause (ev1 knows) can be correct.

Now, if you talk about first round of Broadway, I think there were even more.

But if you talk about a different round/server ... who did know?

When I suggest to be present, I really talk about someone being visibly present from time to time, so players know, there might be a witness of the game owner who might report to support. My experience is, that just 1-3 showing up now and then will stop escalations of fights almost completely.

This is a very nice thread, which should make everyone think ... and I am happy that HearMeRoar met Salix here.

Let me make an example:

Someone takes the majority somewhere.

The problem is: that is totally with the game rules. Like in combat games you are allowed to shoot other players, the RN rules do not disallowed to take the majority of any of the goods or any of the factories on the map.

So, if player A takes a majority

- he achieves a better time for his trains, he can deliver more, that increases his income

- he gets more points (PP)

- it might give him an advantage to win a competition, imagine you can win the bonus machine and all competitors are in associaton X ... taking the majorty from X will make you the winner of the machine

--> those are 3 examples, how A can have much more game fun, without breaking any game rule

However, player B might have less fun from that action of A

- taking the majority from X will make up to 25 members of X suffer from more waiting time

- B gets less points

- B and other members of X will lose the competition for the bonus machine

- the lost majority might destroy any team strategy of the region team, the team in that city, befriended associations ...

So, A did interfere with an action that is totally with the game rules.

Problem is, if he did that on purpose to annoy many other players ... if he has fun in destroying other people's fun, that would be a punishable action ... but how can you tell? Only very few will brag about their action, they sit at home laughing loudly when reading the reactions of the others, and how they escalate to insults ...

For Salix:

There is some contradiction in the messages we get .... when RN tells the objectives of the game, they tell: be the best, take more PP thann others, be the winner ... we hear that for both: single players' objectives and association objectives. So, if we read that, RN sounds like a zero sum game. There can only be one winner.

On the other hand starting screens, blogs etc. tell us: This is a team game, be a team leader.

Marketing actions of RN praise the team spirit ... because there are associations, because the end game will always be team action ...

... but at the end ... well, I am talking of the German section now ... if a new round is announced, only the winners of the zero sum game are announced and celebrated, the team of the city that won the end game is not even mentioned.

The winners are celebrated, but not the team efforts shown in that round.

This contradiction, RN being a combat game that you can only win by making more points than all others, taking more majorities, winning more competitions, investing in more (German: Wartezeithalbierungen) in more cities, being on rank 1 on most goods to be delivered ... and on the other hand the game would not be playable without teams, forming associations, city teams, region teams, motivate to a cooperative strategy, acting together to win the end game ... this contradiction causes a lot of misunderstandings.

A player motivated by winning (zero sum game) will be annoyed by team actions and agreements of teams (like about majorities) ... on the other hand team orientated players will be annoyed by the winners who have to "interfere" to get the points they need. These contraticting objectives of the game, which also are an essential part of the game, cause a lot of angry discussions, that often escalate to insults.

In my experience on game worlds (my experience as dev and admin is 90% in virtual worlds, not browser games) there is one simple way to avoid escalation of diskusstions and insults: be there ... just the creator, owner, publisher of the game being present often stops insults, escalations, unfair interferences. If you are present, you can talk to those, who act to escalate the situation.

Over the decates I experienced the power of moderators who do nothing but being there, making known they are there. And also, if players are arguing or even insulting each other ... even if I just appear, known as one of the devs/creators, they immediately stop the insults and try to talk to me, tell me now much they love the game, and tell be about bugs, directly, so I immediately know about the problems.

Being there, being present, means to get some moderators, so it's a problem of "human resources". But also: in my experience the employees of the game owner should be there.

Managers often thin, a programmer will be better, if he writes code 8 hours a day. Well, let him play the game 2 hours each day, he will write much better (and more) code in the remaining 6 hours, he will know about the humans that play his game, their problems, their wishes ... and being there, being present, he will get to know what causes the interferences ... and how they can be overcome by some coding.

There will always be interferences, some caused by misunderstandings or by competing strategies ... but also many caused by people that only have fun, if they destroy the fun of others.

However: you must be there to know, how it happened, to judge if the action is taken by a killjoy or a good player ... no ticket system, no support, will ever be possible ... the written complaints about rule breaking or interferences will never allow fair judgement. You must be there, there must be a reliable witness.

Salix, you will tell me: no way! We cannot be there 24/7 on all server in all countries.

Yes, that's true. But today, everyone knows: you are there 0/0 on 0 servers. And that makes it so easy to interfere and if there is a complaint to tell: "It's all with the game rules"

No need to be there 24/7 on all servers ... but to show up a few times ... would stop 80+% of all interferences.

May I add an example:

Got the mail today to start a new round with the promise of a surprize bonus if I use the mail button. Well, I did, but as my default browser is FF same happened to me: it stopped on the language selection.

However, this time I did not worry. I closed FF, started the lobby with Chrome and when I clicked to continue on that new server, I was already registered and Lucy came with the surprize starter pack.

So it's true, if FF stops at the language selection, just close it, use a different browser or the app, and everything is fine again. Even those bonusses of mail promotions or Facebook.

Schwanii wrote:

Only preregistered Player can join the Server this time.

Any information how I can preregister?

Never thought about that,but I like the idea.

Why? .... There are pros and cons. Others will tell us, the cons are: possible misuse and envying ....
However, what happens now is not really fun and not really team orientated. The forums of towns, regions and assos are - despite all forum rules, game rule and tos rules - full of announcing wrongdoers, denunciating those players who forgot to change schedules or took the majority at one of the stations. Game forums and chats are full of negative comments about actions of others.

You rarely read something like: "Thank you ManacH for changing your schedules right on time." or "Well done, friends, we did the level up in just 1 hour." .... happens, sometimes, but most often you can read: "Klabbi does not know how to play, look at his trains" or "Klabbauter writes novels but not short and wise forum comments." or "That xyz asso is full of cheaters."

Rewarding players performance is rarely done, writing nice words would be free, but it's hard work for so many.
So, giving out rewards would be a way to show respect and appreciation. There should be a way to spread out little rewards to several members rather than to give one big one to one member.
Some little rewards given out by the chair of the asso might help to reduce flaming and bashing in all forums and chats.

Well, let's see, what I could find. At least, as I am not a serious person, I found 14.
Hopefully the 12 that count, will be among my finds:

OK, here we go.
Group A "Familiar goods". They are goods that we know from the game and carry with our trains:

1. Tools, iron goods
3. Sausages / meat products
5. Pots, household goods
6. A ball (if we trust RN, they are made of aluminium)
8. Lamps ... well at least bulbs
9. Bath ducks, toys.
11. Clothing.

Group B "Freshly introduced". Those are goods I found in the German forum game. so they are introduced today ... yes, that's what I would call fresh.

2. The chocolate chops cookie, my fav cookies.
4. The glove ... well, he holds the other hand deep in his pocket, like he does already on the station seen on lobby background. I doubt that left hand is gloved too.
7. The bodyless snowman's head with its big charcoal grin
10. The sleigh There should be some kids around taking posession of it.
12. The cup of cappuchino ... or is it a goblet full of mulled wine?

Group C: The "not so serious" finds:
13. He is holding a dead white mouse, and as I got a new mouse for my computer 2 days ago, mice count as freshly invented too... for me.
14. Snow. Happened here yesterday, a bit of it at least, a fresh invention after summer, so it should also count.

Server: German server Neuschwanstein

- - - - -

Edit:
There is a rule in the German forum game, that members are allowed to take part in only one language of the same forum game. This made sense in the past, when the challenges were the same. This time, they overlap, but the challenges/games are different, the prizes are different and the time is different.
So, please, Samisu, I took part in both games. I guess that's ok with different games running at overlapping times. If not ... I like the English game much more, it's more fun, more creative, more a challenge. So, if the bosses think that German rule also counts for different games running on the same day ... I would prefer to be in the English game, not in the German game.