Where do we go from here?

I'm curious kano, where are you going with this game?

25 percent of my faction quit in the last week all citing the same thing, not fun, and no new content.

My mind isnt the best anymore, but last new content was ? st petersburg in july?
Arena experience was pretty well shot this last time out, throttled and slowed down, still havent heard any constructive feedback about me submitting my account information on being throttled and hearing how i happened to trip it out when i wasnt even trying to go fast but just go steady.

I didnt like the story on why i was slowed down.....servers and blah blah, sorry not good enough.

i dont believe a monthly calendar is enough to keep things interesting, nor new un items.

do you want us all to quit? Its starting to feel like that.....

the balls in your court, the question is what your going to do with it.

 

yep its getting like that.... ive posted a few different forum ideas for new achievements aand they just ignored it

 

@Slave I'm sorry to hear that there are issues affecting your enjoyment of the game. We like our game, and we like players enjoying our game, and we certainly don't want them to quit. I also apologize that I haven't responded to your message regarding your specific issues yet, as I've been swamped with a whole variety of other tasks. I did want to reiterate again though that the slow response time that you and many other players noticed in the last arena wasn't anything we intentionally did on our end, and was very likely because of the server issues we've been experiencing. We have been monitoring other arenas since and are hoping that future arenas will be more responsive.

@KZ We absolutely appreciate community ideas and suggestions, and do our best to implement popular suggestions when we can. Quite a few of the recent features and changes to the games have come out of player suggestions, and I am currently looking into ways to better show this.

We recognize and appreciate that our players are very passionate about the game, and as such we're always looking to make it more awesome, which can occasionally delay things like new locations. That being said, I have a sneak peek for what's coming in December:

 

241,711,406 Zombies Killed

that is how many zombies i have killed in one outbreak waiting for new content

that is almost unbelievable that over 10 percent of my entire zombies killed is in one st pete outbreak.
5 months is too long to go, your logins probably reflect and support that, wonder bread you cant update a game a couple of times a year and expect people to be fat and happy. and maybe its not just zs, maybe its all your games, and if thats the case than you guys need to figure out what it will take to keep people playing cuz right now, they are quitting in droves

 

For the record slave St Petersburg was released mid September so it has been 2.5 months since a new location, not 5. Additionally, the # of zombies killed increases with each outbreak so although you have 10% of your total kills on one St Petes outbreak this does not accurately reflect 10% of all outbreak actions you have taken in the game.

I understand you are anxious for some fresh content but lets keep the drama in the realm of truth.

A new location is coming soon. I suppose not soon enough for some but we will be releasing a new location in the month of December so Christmas may come a little early

 

damn, no, I need to finish St. Petersburgh first! Come ooon, wait for me till I finish it.. LOL just kidding. But the new achievements for different things like punches, boobytraps, ambushes and so on would be great addition

 

You like your game? If that's the truth why aren't the Kano devs, or even just YOU a daily player?

 

I know this is a horrifying thought to some, but a lot of employers frown upon their employees playing games while they are meant to be working.

 

Their job is the game.

 

Their job is creating games, not spending all day playing them. You guys don't even like Kano having their "Beer Friday's" to unwind yet you'd be fine with them playing their own games all week? I don't think so and i doubt the person who signs their checks would either.

I too wish someone at Kano played a real account that was active and apart of the game so they could experiences some of what their actual players do, but it's not realistic.

 

Their jobs should include knowing their products, what they are creating, maintaining, building, etc. LIKE ALL OTHER JOBS DO. If they played their own games, they would see how everything they do affects gameplay. As it is now, they make changes, and they just never seem to get why people are upset by them. They see our ideas, yet hardly any, if any at all, get put into play. I think them not playing their own games is a huge problem. They do not know their product, and they do not know their customer. They would have a much better product if they understood it better.

 

Yes but are they working 24/7? No. They have time to play it at home if they really want to. I'm not saying they are obligated to spend their personal life playing, but if someone claims to "love the game" then the least they could do is play it first. There are kano dev accounts that have been inactive for over a year, and the ones that have singed on have only been a few times for a few minutes. You have someone who has played this game daily for years making suggestions 24/7 trying to make it better. You then have a developer claiming to love the game the way it is without even playing it. You seem to have missed my point. People arent fed up with kano taking "beer friday" they are fed up that it's become an everyday thing and new suggested content gets brushed aside while the existing content gets ruined. If a developer wants to admit they don't play the game enough to know about it then that's fine. My point was that someone shouldn't claim to love a game they don't play. It is my opinion though that at least ONE developer should play daily.

 

I'd like to know what changes were added that players suggested this entire year because right now the only thing I noticed was battle arena. Getting a new area every 2-3 months when even people with as low as 1k energy can complete a new area in 2-3 weeks is pretty silly. I don't really count the same calendars with different pics over and over as "new" content either.

 

No they do not work 24/7. they close up at the end of the day and are off on weekends, and if Monday is a holiday , it can be a three day weekend if something goes wrong , then they respond as in server crashes, or things of that nature.

 

smack thanks for the clarification, i knew my memory was fading, maybe it only feels like 5 months when you have been pounding the same outbreak so much you have over ten percent of your entire zombies killed in one outbreak..... (whoever commented on that missed my point - when you have over ten percent of your zombies killed on one outbreak its been too long since new content was issued...)

it might just be me, but i would think they would go home like we do after work, and log on and play for an hour to keep abreast of what is happening in the game and to see for themselves what it is like to stare at the screen and spam the hitlist tab when there is "not a thing to do in the game", oh besides continuing to pack the same outbreak for the last ten weeks, and to continue to pound on the now level 242 clown boss.....oh and i cant forget the 85 undead fights, since there is no fight list either......

can you hear me now?

 

Loud and clear. And like it has been stated new content is coming to ZS very soon.

For those asking what "Ideas" we have implemented here are just a few off the top of my head. Not ground breaking but these directly came out of community input:

• Shooter Challenges for Mobile (Calendars and Card games coming soon)
• Crafting unlock messages on level up
• World Boss feed items removed from regular Boss events
• Increased sale item discounts (so far just LCN and PC)

I can't speak to other co-workers play of our games but I can of my own. I often take breaks of inactivity and then go hard for a week or so grinding out bosses and such mainly in ZS. But for those that feel we should be using our off time to play, if you worked at KFC for 8 hours manning the fryer would you wanna go home and eat bucket of Colonel? Perhaps not a great analogy (ask a KFC cook though...) but I personally like to unwind when I get home which typically does not involve hopping into one of our games. However during this time I often am able to contemplate work related issues from a different perspective than when my head is buried in it which is refreshing.

But that's just me...

 

Does anyone remember when there were no moderators at all, and it was just devs? While all of the devs may not play the games on a regular basis, the mods do play at least one (if not more)on a regular basis. It seems to me that since the moderators have been in place, they have helped devs and other players alike with various things, such as ideas for new content and other things, some of which Smack referenced. Of course, I think we would all agree that more work can always be done, and I for one am confident that Kano is working to make the games more enjoyable for ALL players, including ones that have played longer than myself (about a year and a half). I would like to mention that this thread seems to be geared towards Zombies, which is the only game that I do not play, but there are similarities to the other 3 apps.

 

Sure it's realistic. WB seemed to think so, during an arena pmsl. It is their job to PLAY and test the game. Nothing wrong with Beer Friday's, yet that seems to be the only major thing we hear about on the forum. I'm all for new content, but like There Will Be Blood said, how many time's have people suggested an idea? I've yet to see any of them, integrated into the game. Except the arena, that was discussed how long ago? And it's quite clear, no one is allowed to give feedback, unless its "positive".

 

how hard would it be to just spend 20mins a day on each game for a dev... i would say very realistic and enough time to notice any issue, and maybe would understand alot more of what players want,etc. just my 2 cent...

 

@GoB + TWBB I can understand being frustrated by feeling that the people who make the game you like don't know anything about it, but that simply isn't true. As Smack has mentioned, he spends a reasonable amount of time in the game, and I myself have been playing Zombie Slayer quite a bit over since we launched on Kongregate. We absolutely don't spend as much time playing as our awesome and dedicated players, but that's one of the reasons that we have the community and Community Volunteers set up, to help us help you. And I'm also sorry if it feels like we aren't listening when players suggest things, but that's also not true, we're just working on calling it out more.

As Jared has pointed out, our Community Volunteer team is also a huge resource for both us and players. Our Moderators and Game Gurus help us by playing as much as we wish we could, and using that experience to help players with issues/questions and keep the community fun and engaging.

It really is all about working together to make the game(s) more awesome. We are always looking for players to join our Community Volunteer team, so if you're interested in helping out, feel free to drop me an email at community@kanoapps.com