Ok, I signed onto this game around their second year in business. YEARS of playing. It was fun. Until... there is a building called the lab. It took a very LONG time to upgrade enough to make free feed. HOURS and HOURS to build up enough game cash for each upgrade, not to mention some of those upgrades take days to complete. Over the years this game added more and more competitive events. To be good at those, players opted to pack in as much production as possible, less space for deco which improves happiness and reduces cost to keep feeding/planting etc. The free feed you can make in the lab is hugely important for this type of play. Well without any warning they changed the lab. Added some other thing you can make now, don't care, but free feed? I'd have to upgrade the thing another SIXTEEN LEVELS just to get what I already worked so hard to have.

So their forum board has been exploding with complaints. At first the mods there said the team isn't happy with this either, leading everyone to believe they might undo this horrid change. But no. For over a month at least now, they have flat out been ignoring everyone. Players I've known for a long time lost all interest, some left the game for good. I have three big farms, run two teams, we all pretty much agreed to NOT participate in those intense competition type events anymore. Most players in my teams haven't even been checking in much since this change. I played every day, usually twice a day, but haven't even been checking in but every few weeks, mainly to see if they ever listened to people. Seems they have no plans to put back what they ruined. The fix could be so easy too. Put the lab back to what it was, create a new building to make new stuff. Easy right? Just say this was a mistake, sorry and fix it. Everyone I'm sure could live with that.

But I doubt anything will be put back. Old time players like me will just move on out, and newbies won't know what they missed.

Well one last word... this is not their first huge blunder. EVERY SINGLE NEW EVENT they have EVER rolled out comes packed with bugs, glitches, or just bad math. (costing more to make something then just selling the raw ingredients would earn is just stupid. Buy a 3 dollar calculator before releasing bone head stuff like this.)

So if you DO decide to try this, be warned. NEVER BLOW GOOD REAL MONEY on a game that clearly is only in it for their own greed. They can and will, usually without warning, up and change something regardless of how much time, or even real cash you put into upgrading what you had. I've seen them pull this stunt over and over.

Finally I'm done with this dumb game. Bait and switch, then ignore your players/customers? NO! Don't spend one red cent on this game and you won't be too disappointed when what ever you upgraded, how ever you spent days, weeks, months improving something, only to have them up and change things, well if it was free, all you lost was time. That's the way I look at it. It was fun while it lasted, but the thrill is gone.

It sucksssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

I played several events and did not get the awards offered plus I purchased commanders in outer realm and one of the commanders I did not receive the artifact below is the response after several emails.
Conversation ID: #*******

### Do not reply below this line ###

Goodgame Studios

August 07,2020, 01:39 +0000

Hello,

Your query has been received and will be processed as soon as possible.

If you have new information or screenshots that you would like to add, or had issues attaching to your original message, please feel free to reply to this message with the new details.

In case you don't want to wait for an answer, you can team up with other players, check the latest updates, discuss our games on our official forums or visit our FAQ pages via the below links:

FAQ pages - https://support.goodgamestudios.com/
Forums - https://goodgamestudios.com/community/

Your Goodgame Studios Team

ValarieAR

August 07,2020, 01:39 +0000

Q: Please describe the problem you are experiencing. If you receive any error message, please attach a screenshot of it.
A: I purchase commanders in Outer Realm and I did not receive the artifact for one of the commander. I am beginning to feel like GGE don't want me to play this game any longer because there is always a problem.

Q: What was the date/time of the issue including time zone?
A: Aug, 6,2020 I don't remember the time

Attachments:

Attachment ( Image)

From Goodgame Studios.

Goodgame Studios
Theodorstr. 42-90, Haus 9
******* Hamburg, Germany
Goodgame Studios is a Brand of Altigi GmbH
Altigi GmbH, District Court Hamburg, HRB *******
Board of Directors: Oleg Rößger, Verena Schnaus

4

Aug 13,2020, 7:56 PM (6 days ago)

To Goodgame

I did not sell the sundial and I am not talking about the sundial I am talking about the damn cupcake to the commander

On Wed, Aug 12,2020 at 8:29 AM Goodgame Studios - Aurélie <*******@goodgamestudios.mail.helpshift.com> wrote:

Conversation ID: #*******

### Do not reply below this line ###

Goodgame Studios - Aurélie

August 12,2020, 12:29 +0000

Hello ValarieAR,

Thank your for your answers.

I'm afraid to confirm you sold the "Sundial of the cunning" too, on the 10th at 02:08 for 12 000 gold coins.

Kind regards, Aurélie

August 11,2020, 22:11 +0000

Ok here we go again I have attached a screenshot showing that I purchased 2
Commanders.

Attachments:

Attachment 1 ( Image)
Attachment 2 ( Image)
Attachment 3 ( Image)

August 11,2020, 13:25 +0000

Excuse me I purchased two therefore give me the other cupcake. I am so
Sick and tired of having to file complaints and then to be told I am wrong
You should take another look and make sure you know what you are talking
About before responding.

Goodgame Studios - Aurélie

August 07,2020, 13:15 +0000

Hello ValarieAR,

Thank you for reaching us.

One ticket with screenshot was enough.

The packages "Legacy of the goat cult" bought with coins did contain the artefact "Long lost cupcake" and one was sold for 12 000 gold coins at 7:47PM on the 6th.

Kind regards, Aurélie

As stated in the correspondences I did not sell anything it was never receive so I suggest do not purchase any rubies or anything with real money. They are horrible company.

I played this game for years and made it to the very top of US1. I once ranked 3 in glory and have been ranked as high as 3rd on the server in terms of might points.

This game is mind-crushingly boring, the graphics are miserable, gameplay tedious and account maintenance a necessary time sink. The only part of this game that is compelling is the people - in your alliance you become familiar with and those you attack who send you wonderful crymail, so upset you burned their castles or stole their fake resources. Please note, this isn't a war game. It's a game about griefing others while trying not to be griefed yourself by making strong allies.

Gameplay: you go into an attack screen and choose values to overcome defenses. The defenders have walls, a gate and a moat. They have a variety of defense tools to boost these, the best of course being purchasable through their in-game premium currency that is bought for cash. You, as the attacker, select enough attack tools to overcome their defense, then send and wait for the hit to land. The best attack tools are those you buy with rubies (so, real money).

For pvp, that's at least somewhat interesting as the game involves a rock, paper, scissors approach - defenders have to predict the tools you're using to best beat you, etc.

But for NPCs, it's insanely tedious and repetitive. Events are the only way to grow in power - and finishing top 100 provides the best rewards. To do this, you have to repeat the attack window over and over, at least 300-400 times per event. Combined with the wait times between sending and landing your attacks, which differ between events (some are as few as 4 min, some as many as 30 min) you end up spending entire days on events to do well. Bye-bye life.

Your commanders (the armies you send) and your castellians (the generals who protect your castles) all have equipment to wear. The best EQ is from events or actual pay to win purchasing (you buy the in-game currency, then buy these, it's straight up p2w), but when looting NPCs you get tons of worthless EQ that builds up in your inventory, waiting for you to delete it. And you have to delete it otherwise the EQ you win might not make it into your "full" inventory.

Deleting this worthless EQ takes hours of your time. You have to click 1 piece, sell it, press yes, then do another. Often the game can't keep up with you and it forces you to wait a few seconds between each sale. No joke, to fully empty an inventory in one go can take 30 minutes. So much fun.

Building your castles takes a tremendous amount of time. So you need food, for example, which means building a granary. These go from level 1 to 30, with each level taking more time than the last. They start around 12 hours to complete, but the last 10 take around 24 hours. GGE used to give skips out, but removed these from events so people would be forced to buy them. Given that you need at least 20 granaries per castle, it will take a new player roughly 3 years to get their granaries to level 20 and then another 3 years to get them to 30 (after lvl 20, you can only build them once per week).

So if you're a new player considering starting this game, it will take you 6 years to catch up to someone like me. Meanwhile, you're prey for all the higher level players. They'll farm you and tell you to like it or go play Big Farm.

Next, whatever the game offers for sale as 'gold' and 'rubies' (the premium, money-costing currency), the 2 buttons are side by side. Which means if you make a mistake, you're burning money. And they won't refund this. Admittedly, they made blowing your money slightly more difficult with the use of a delay timer on the rubies once you push the gold, but it still happens.

Also, the company will admit mistake and still charge you. When a new event came out, I bought the event tools with rubies, so real money. But the tools didn't work. They promised a boost to the scoring of the event, but they did nothing. Eventually the company admitted this on their website and said "tough" to people like me who wanted a refund or a replacement for the next event after the bugs were finished - no such luck. "Sorry we bugged those, but hey, you bought them. So no refund."

Last, all events in this game are now pay to win. The company used to rely upon customers buying tools but as the game has become more pve instead of pvp, and they've given out more of the expensive tools, events have become their cash-cow. People very seriously spend $400 or more per event to win the event and get the best stuff. If you don't spend, you can still make top 100 but it will cost you in time. Alliances can only win events if multiple people spend money.

The game is designed to psychologically manipulate you into becoming addicted. It is based on principles designed in psychology to addict animals called operant conditioning. If you have ever taken a psychology course, you will recognize the principles being applied: semi-random nature of points being awarded, competition that requires much time spent on the game and rewards you, then immediately beings a new competition, and power creep to out-date all that you've worked for or bought, so you have to run as fast as you can just to keep up.

Do not play this game. Do not let your friends play this game. If you believe in the devil, the devil created this game. Go play a fun game with good graphics where the devs aren't trying to crush your soul and strip your creativity.

Yes, you desactivated my account

Damn this new forum

Update on 6/2017

Goodgame Studios added several things to the Empire game that through it out of balance. In an attempt to fix this and save the game they reduced the values of gems people paid 495K rubies for and devalued armor sets that they paid over a thousand dollars per set. More and more people are leaving the game. It is my suggestion that if you do play this dying game you not spend a single dollar. GGS did not compensate these large buyers appropriately. No rubies were refunded. Their money was not refunded. GGS flat out ripped off these people. It is nothing short of a bait and switch (fraud.)

Goodgame Studios Empire game is by far the worst Empire building "strategy, war" game out there! The game lags and crashes continuously. Not only does it crash freezing up the flash player, the connection is dropped regularly. Updates are often rewrites of existing bad code and bring back old problems time and time again. Defending when these updates come without notice and hotfixes come with 1 minute notice most often causes you to lose your defending army. Sometimes GGE will replace them but getting GGE to do so can take weeks. Attack troops can be lost as well and the same thing applies. Expect week(s) to get an answer and it is unlikely you get your troops back even if you bought them.

This supposed "Free to Play" game make tens of millions off their customers yet cannot provide weekend support or hire support for each of their games. During the week, support works bankers hours. Support is for ALL games not just Empire. Support tickets and issues on average take 7 to 21 days to get a response and issues are resolved about 25% of the time. Support has even gone as far as calling a paying customer a liar.

Price increases as much as 200-400% for ruby items are the norm at GoodGame Empire. They are continuously taking features such as a bakery and making changes that wind up gouging their customers. It is beyond the point of ridiculous now.

GoodGame Empire recently added supercommanders that can be bought at a ridiculous price. They also added "gems" The gems for attacks are far superior to the gems for defense making it impossible to defend against supercommanders. You can attempt to buy, once again BUYING expensive defense tools but you still get slaughtered. Once slaughtered it takes a lot of time and coins to rebuild only for someone to come along and slaughter you again. Large, strong armies search for small alliances with minimal defensive abilities and bully them regularly. GGE has made this easy and does nothing to give these people a chance to enjoy the game. When you bring these issues to a larger alliance you often hear "Goodgame Empire has coded it so this is allowable. Don't talk to us, talk to the developers." While people have complained GoodGame Empire only cares about making as much money as possible therefor they pander to the big spenders at the expense of the average player. GGE does very little for defenders and everything for attackers. This has caused thousands to give up and leave the game.

Multiple accounts bullying other players is another huge problem. Most recently, after two months of prodding GGE to act, support finally closed 42 accounts that all belonged to one bully. This same person is already creating more accounts. There is no email verification for playing GGE and nothing to stop a 10 year old from using one email for a hundred accounts. GGE has also admitted they do not block the IP of bullies either.

To sum it up, with money grabbing updates, terrible support, horrible lag, a lazy bug crew and development crew, and a ridiculous slant towards attackers GGE has sucked the fun out of the game. I highly suggest you try Forge of Empires or Imperia instead of GoodGame Empires. You will have a much more enjoyable experience, you will not have to spend a ton of time and resources rebuilding. Weeks can be spent just putting out fires.(In FoE your defending armies are not killed off and left for you to replace and attackers do not have an unfair advantage.) You will have a staff that is hands on and takes care of issues immediately (even on weekends which GGE does not.) Do not waste your time and effort on GoodGame Empire. You will regret it later.

Goodgame steals money if you try to buy rubies. And they are dishonest.