The community's single biggest voting block was no. The I don't mind's presumably don't mind what has happened. And wouldn't have if it went the other way.
People voted no for lots of different reasons, I suspect, but that is immaterial now, unless HCS wants to start refining its poling technique and we have an sequence of polls to find out what everyone really thinks about individual aspects of the new seasons and BB idea. Which would take forever, and meanwhile the game would be on hold, in terms of making changes. This is an HCS designed issue. And HCS will have to work through it.
Seasons as a global with an opt in and XP loss. Might be worth it depending on the rewards vs. the level of XP loss to be encountered. How will the global community and personal targets be determined etc.? Once that is seen a calculation can be made as to whether they will be worth the risk. I think a PvP global is a long time overdue, so this is a good thing to have come out of this process. I was tempted by even the wood rewards in the seasons as they existed, when I saw them. Very useful. Kudos to everyone who jumped in and earned their rewards without knowing what they were going to get, you have my respect.
The ladder coming back. I'll do as before and probably ignore it. I played it before to get moo coins to make dragon draped sabatons. I cashed in my remaining tokens for moo banks when I was told they would be going away. There should be new rewards, hopefully they will draw players in. Activity can be observed. If the ladders' duration is shorter then the rewards should perhaps be less epic than the seasonal rewards, given the duration and stam spent in the seasons vs the amount that may be spent on the ladder. Chazz224 had a good thread about the ladder and possible new rewards a while back, those would be worth revisiting.
The BB reverting. Again, that makes very little difference to my game as generally I avoided it. I used to observe its activity though, and will be interested to see if it reverts to that too, after a burst of PvP joy at having it back. If it does become a desert again - what changes will be contemplated to improve activity?
My impression was that the simplified PvP system was built to be incorporated into the upcoming mobile interface. One click, 50 stam for all, no need to complete bounties etc. all designed to keep things simple and easy for players on the go, and who will play for minutes, not hours, at a time. And perhaps to reduce server stress as well - fewer player inputs in terms of stam selections and individually posted bounties keeps the system uncluttered for the servers.
I mentioned before about strategy on the part of HCS. I hope in reverting to the old system of BB and ladder, the long term strategy to get the game mobile is not harmed. That is down to Hoof and Zorg and the coders. A mobile game is the only way we will get an appreciable bump in game numbers, as far as I can see.
Good luck everyone, I hope we can pull together and make a better game as a result of this experience.
Edited by Belaric, 10 August 2015 - 20:44.