Here's how it could have been a real celebration!

[Malt]

So far, this "celebration" has been more of a forced resource drain without much reward for individual efforts. Some people are cranking out balloons, others are doing nothing. If BB wanted to really make this a celebration and motivate people to make balloons at the same time they could have done the following:

For every 100k balloons donated by an individual, that person gets those balloons converted to 1k granite.

Boom! Instant celebration for all players and an incentive to participate instead of letting others do all the work.

In my opinion, BB is 0 for 2 on global events when it comes to the fun factor, going back to The End of The World. If the next event is the same theme, i.e. forced resource drain with no individual motivation to participate, I vote for our server to opt out of further global events.

All things being the same as this event, would you like to participate in further global events?

[Greyjoy]

I agree, I think this "event' is horrible, and that was before I found out how badly we (the US server) were being taken.

[Ceruhe]

...or you would've just made one massive goals for all servers to unite (since it's a celebration alright) instead of this against each other, which has various balancing issues (and no, x3 gem sale is not one of them, get serious already).

[DocOconquer]

Event never had fair teams. All team pairings were arbitrary, not based on strength, arbitrary except they kept countries together.
-
Eight of top ten teams are German. No German team is teamed with a non-German. In fact few teams are international, and none are in top ten.
-
No German team is not in top ten.
-
Poor team pairing. Rigged teams.

[Oabol]

Event never had fair teams. All team pairings were arbitrary, not based on strength, arbitrary except they kept countries together.
-
Eight of top ten teams are German. No German team is teamed with a non-German. In fact few teams are international, and none are in top ten.
-
No German team is not in top ten.
-
Poor team pairing. Rigged teams.

I agree with point 1
-
I agree with the repetition (with small nuance) of point 1 in point 2
-
I agree with the repetition (with small nuance) of points 1 & 2 in point 3
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I agree with the repetition (with small nuance) of points 1, 2 & 3 in point 4

[Asiastrings]

Speculation, is a terrible disease.

Fact - Countries

Germany - Owns 14 Servers
USA - Owns 2

LOL

Germany Spends - 900% on Settlers Online (it is their National Game)
USA Spends - ? % on Settlers Online (not very popular due to poor marketing)

Compare- German Based Game, German Based Advertising, German Based Events = ? (disaster) ?


As much as I love my new German friends, As much as I adore they're dedication to even my endevors elsewhere. As much as they do for me as a giant test player, As much as they've done for me daily,
want to know what?
today I was kicked over 40,000 in weapons in order for me to test these new adventures, I was short bows, the German guys kicked me everything I needed.
I needed sons adventure, came from German guild.
I needed advice on a host problem, Germans came over and joined our English speaking chat and we had meeting, and a German host is rescuing the problem, why? becuz he said he can.

That is what my friends do and co-leaders, so believe me I swear to you they feel for us. The event probably should of been more of an individual thing within our own countries or within our own servers here in the USA and the 3 Euro splits, discounting Germany.

I believe Poland is the only one that's really suited to be included in German Country Events. If I remember my International knowledge.

Resolution... Fire the American marketing company that Ubisoft has hired to promote its UPLAY. Hire- the Biggest Baddest son of a gun on our planet.
Only This will change our game play...

_____________________________

Just know, Please Please know, You have my word on this- Even though I play very little live game, I do run a great guild of live players of extrodinary talents, from all over the world, some do not even speak English.
I can say, I am one of the biggest English speaking testers in our game. I can say I am of significant Importance to the BB that runs our testing server. He cares of how I am doing and how our guild and English speaking players are doing that he checks with us personally every single day.
He was up last night until 8pm he was on at 6am.

I don't know how else to say this, The NEXT New Release is Dedicated to Level 50 Players. It is Grand~~!! It is beyond what I could imagine... It is going to be Fun as heck... All of you please start building Troops that love to War...

All of you that love to farm, Get ready for Jack in the Beanstalk is coming lolol n its magic...

I am not even close to being done testing this is such a Major MAJOR Phase coming to Live Servers. Remember please this is my opinion only, and i'm sharing for the betterment of our Game.

I have been spending literally over 240 hours testing this phase, and I'm still not done LoL.
BB_SlasH has answered our requests. Wait and see. He does See He does listen and for peats sakes in front of myself and others, ask Davidbartertest, he has done what we have asked.

You will be able to jump your guild to a new host without tearing it down first! Stuff like that. The changes people say they don't listen. Dang this stuff takes time to mold... the modifications to the adventures, it goes on and on. I feel it is how things are approached, everyone complains. This complaining gets nothing done... Team playing does. Most of all, Suggestions with facts Real Facts behind it. This is how we Make it happen in our guild on testing server.

Please wait on anymore complaints about bored level 50 players, i'd be building more xp if I were you, I hear its release is coming around August 8th 2013...
Peace everyone....
Your testing slave;
Asiastrings

Where is the praise for the Science System~~~!!! come now... personally for me I must have it now~~!!! success to my troop building ~~!!!

[RonEmpire]

So far, this "celebration" has been more of a forced resource drain without much reward for individual efforts. Some people are cranking out balloons, others are doing nothing. If BB wanted to really make this a celebration and motivate people to make balloons at the same time they could have done the following:

For every 100k balloons donated by an individual, that person gets those balloons converted to 1k granite.

Boom! Instant celebration for all players and an incentive to participate instead of letting others do all the work.

In my opinion, BB is 0 for 2 on global events when it comes to the fun factor, going back to The End of The World. If the next event is the same theme, i.e. forced resource drain with no individual motivation to participate, I vote for our server to opt out of further global events.

All things being the same as this event, would you like to participate in further global events?

I agree 100% with what you said. BB has failed twice already with the Crisis Events and now twice for the Global Events.

My confidence in BB's ability to do events has gone done significantly. Even the Easter Event (which follows the same pattern as the Crisis Event) was a big flop.
The big problem in the easter event was the same problem in the crisis event. Having 4 different chains that are exclusive only to the players in those level brackets- and having random searches. At least the Balloon event, they 'sorta' learned this time to give everybody the same starting chain. And only give higher players a follow up chain. But the whole balloons donation thing is a flop. And the competition/fairness is also a flop.

[Valtar]

Yep folks, lots of smoke and mirrors on the way!!!

[Candorian]

I've only been donating balloons cause I felt sorry for those that actually wanted to get somewhere with the event on the American servers. Truthfully not having much fun at all with the event. I guess.. Happy Birthday, Settlers? If it wasn't for the free voucher codes every once in a while it'd be a complete loss to me.

[Cyanna]

Asia,

If this had been the 20th anniversary of BB I would agree that could be called a German based event. But it's not, it's the anniversary of a single product they make that is sold globally. Perhaps BB needs to rethink the way they are looking at this whole thing. If the announcement of the event and how it was to be structured was written only for the German servers they should have sent out a different one for the rest of the global community so we wouldn't have been so confused. Because in that way BB was very true to their word. All servers (German) were indeed well balanced & fair.

I'm sure you are aware that there are quite a few German based companies that produce browser games. Since it's first tested and released there of course it has the most members. All games have events that are either cultural or seasonal themes. Some games do have different cultural events that are only released on certain servers but try to make sure that those are as evenly space per country. Most are global events are either a combined community effort or per player rewards. I have not seen an event that pitted servers against each other.. to easy to create bad blood between countries. The mess we see here is more likely due to the lack of experience BB has with browsers games then anything else.

Every browser game I have played in the last 4 years the US members has always been the lowest. It's not the fault of Ubisoft marketing. Browser games are just as popular per capita here. That market is so saturated right now with tons all vying for the same market share I am not surprised that the membership is lower then normal here. Personally I think lack of content, the combat system, and the extraordinarily expensive content for sale plays a bigger part then advertising does.

I have never seen in any MMO a single game item costing $100. I have seen premium games selling vanity packages for nearly that much but never a single item. The first time I saw what was for sale here,what they are used for, and how much it cost to purchase them I was stunned. It was almost funny. But I knew then I would never allow myself to get a personal attachment to this game. And I must say BB is doing an excellent job at keeping it that way.

As far as I have read on the forum I doubt anybody is holding the German people responsible for how the event was handled. They do hold BB accountable though.