Results of the first Orkfian Survey – May 2008
I made a short survey earlier this month which I posted in the AatW and Classic forums. In addition there were further answers pm’ed to staff in response to mailers sent out by Martel and Acwder. The survey was left running for just over 3 weeks, there were a few duplications due to people playing both versions of the games so those were taken out and we were left with 76 unique questionnaires. I collected the results today and have grouped similar answers together to give us an overall summary of the kind of people you are..the kind of people that play Orkfia… (NB question 1 on the survey was “what is your name” but I didn’t think there was any point in grouping those answers 
)
Q1: When did you first play Orkfia?
Answers were as follows:
1 Year or less = 2 Orkfians
2 years or less = 10 Orkfians
3 years or less = 11 Orkfians
4 years or less = 4 Orkfians
5 years or more = 49 Orkfians
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Q2: How did you hear about Orkfia?
Answers were as follows:
Another game/forum = 7 Orkfians
Through Utopia specifically = 12 Orkfians
A voting site = 2 Orkfians
Google search for a new game to play = 2 Orkfians
“My Brother” = 7 Orkfians
Friend = 26 Orkfians
Specifically School friends = 14 Orkfians
Work Colleagues = 2 Orkfians
Not sure = 4 Orkfians
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Q3: Do you play both Classic and AatW (Alliances at War/Infinity)?
Answers:
Yes, I play/have played both = 30 Orkfians
Just AatW = 29 Orkfians
Just Classic = 17 Orkfians
Some people also commented here that they hadn’t known they could play on both servers at once, 2 people from AatW commented they would now look into Classic also. However there were also a few comments that people had tried Classic and then gone back to AatW for various reasons.
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Q4: Have you ever been in the Orkfia Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Channels? If not, why not?
Yes = 55 Orkfians
No = 21 Orkfians
The majority of people had tried IRC at some point, it was common to see comments like “I went there once for 2 hours and no one spoke to me so I have never gone back“, some people also just hadn’t thought about going on IRC and others went on IRC only for their alliance channel but commented they had all the friends they need there so see no need to come to the main #orkfia channel.
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General Information:
The age range of Orkfians who took part in the survey went from 15 to 59, with the breakdown as follows:
Age 17 and under: 14 Orkfians
Age 18 – 21: 19 Orkfians
Age 22 – 25: 17 Orkfians
Age 26 – 34: 15 Orkfians
Age 35 – 45: 4 Orkfians
Age 45 – 59: 3 Orkfians
Age not given: 4 Orkfians
Female Orkfians: 5
Male Orkfians: 67
Those who are unsure: 4
Locations:
Canada: 2 ——– USA: 17
Trinidad: 1 ——– Asia (unspecified): 1
Japan: 1 ——– Malaysia: 2
Phillipines: 1 ——– Singapore: 3
Australia: 5 ——– Israel: 2
Portugal: 1 ——- Malta: 1
Romania: 3 ——- Bulgaria: 1
Germany: 1 —— UK: 6
Netherlands: 10 —— Sweden: 14
Unspecified: 3 —— Norway: 1
I guess all this information just showed that there is no stereotypical Orkfian… School kids from the US are there fighting against teachers from Holland, business men against mums. People sitting yards from a sweltering beach are playing alongside those freezing their arses off but among all our differences the one thing the same is we love Orkfia..whichever version it is.
I’ll continue with more surveys in the future and who knows what else we will find out.
~By Jamzi ~
Age 30 – Live
Age 30 is now finaly live.
Happy hunting to all of you.
As you might have noticed with the latest post here on the blog there is now a new category named “Poetry”, one of our players will once a week publish a new poem for us, if you have something you would like to publish dont hesitate to contact me.
The Portal keeps evolving, latest thing was another Forest Green style (which is ofc based on the Orkfian theme named “Forest Greens”), the style is available in both 800px and 1060px width. A cleanout has also been done on the several unused styles for the forum section. Im aiming for getting a rework done on the blog colors and the other styles on the forum soon, some minor stuff still to do.
It’s still not to late to bring your friends into the game!
~Acwder
Beautiful
Your Beautiful tonight
Your Beautiful tomorrow
You were Beautiful yesturday
Your Beautiful everyday
Nothing can change this fact
Truth doesn’t change
Only perceptions can
But I know the truth
My perception won’t change
Since the Truth won’t
Don’t listen to people
Who say differently
Your Beautiful tonight
Your Beautiful tomorrow
You were Beautiful yesturday
Your Beautiful everyday
~Notzri~
Age 29 is now over, awaiting next age.
Age 29 is now over, rankings has been taken and soft reset been made.
Top 3:
- LOLCATS (#12) 47,969
- COUNTDOWN (#27) 45,166
- M4st4hs The land of slackmastahs (#23) 30,972
Updatebutton has now been added for people to try out new strats until the new age starts. Age 30 starts night between 19th and 20th at 00:00, first update at 01:00. There will be another soft reset adding the other age changes and removing the updatebutton.
Stay tuned for more information, this is also the perfect time to get more players into the game, find em now!;)
~Acwder
Age 30 – Age Changes
Hey here is the age changes and the dates for the new age.
Age 30 starts 00:01ST the night between 19th and 20th of may. (First update 01:00 ofc).
This age will also be four weeks long.
There will after the age ends a soft reset for changes and update button to get implented, and 24-48hours before the age starts another soft reset to remove the update button (We’ll post exact times later).
Age Changes:
New features:
- New alliance ranking: Wars
- New personal ranking: Kills
- Tribe vision shows TPA instead of # thieves
Changes:
- Bonus thievery credits issue for eagles
- Incorrect 30% mp bonus for eagles (now 35%)
- Hidden # thieves from the Internal Affairs table “population”
- Updated the elder/co-elder options interface (clean up)
Race changes:
Raven Before:
- Nester (0/0) – 10cr
- Blackclaw (2/0) – 150cr
- Razor Wing (0/5) – 700cr
- Blackwing (5/5) – 800cr
Raven After:
- Nester (0/0) – 100cr
- Blackclaw (2/0) – 50cr
- Razor Wing (0/5) – 600cr
- Blackwing (5/5) – 750cr
Mori Hai Before:
Assassin (6/0) – 700cr
Mori Hai After:
Assassin (6/0) – 600cr
Oleg Hai Before:
- Wolfrider (7/0) – 550cr
- White Skull (0/5) – 520cr
Oleg Hai After:
- Wolfrider (7/0) – 500cr
- White Skull (0/5) – 500cr
Dwarf Before:
Grey Beard (4/4) – 400cr
Dwarf After:
Grey Beard (4/5) – 500cr
The whole WoW race theme that has been mentioned a few times that was supposed to happen this age will be postponed atleast until age 31.
~Acwder
Site update and AatW Age Changes
Hello there.
The summer is here in Sweden and with it comes some changes, first of the blog had a facelift and some changes, now you can comment on posts without having to login. A proper menu has finaly been added now aswell, so far its only added to the acid green style for the forum. More features to come.
Im also proud to present the AatW age 14 Changes:
New features:
- New alliance ranking: Wars
- New personal ranking: Kills
- Tribe vision shows TPA instead of # thieves
Bugs fixed:
- Bonus thievery credits issue for eagles
- Incorrect 30% mp bonus for eagles (now 35%)
- Requesting merging without a new tribe name
- Research rounded to nearest number in Inner Sights (is now rounded downwards)
- Hidden # thieves from the Internal Affairs table “population”
Other changes:
- Updated the elder/co-elder options interface (clean up)
- Admin Message now also features the elder message
- The Tribe page will no longer show elder message
- The Tribe page will advertise the “Quick out-of-summoning option” more obviously
- Global news now has readable times (might add this to tribe / alliance news also)
- Updated the Racial Stats page to order by popularity and show #s
- All forum posts now show human readable time
There is soon only one week left of the Classic age so a hint is that some of the interface changes might hit Classic aswell.
Stay tuned.
Why are you here?
When Orkfia started in 2001 the internet was still a brave new world, Mr Average was coming around to using it for some things but it was still a bit of a gimmick. There was no Facebook, no Youtube and the phrase “I bought it on eBay” was still met with a puzzled expression.
The majority of people used the internet for fairly mundane things, either they were learning something or buying something. There were however a minority who had discovered it’s potential for socialising and having fun. Chatrooms were becoming popular along with simple online games. When Orkfia began, it’s players were excited by the idea of playing against real people and using gaming tactics not just against a computer simulation but having to use real human psychology.
Coming from an age of console games that had set conclusions and set paths for you to follow, Orkfia was a relatively new experience. You could make of the game what you wanted – time could be spent chatting on IRC to recruit people and making friends, or the more evil amongst us (me included!) spent time on there trying to work out enemies sleeping/drinking patterns to find a time best to attempt to kill their tribe. Being able to share your sucesses and failures with the wider community was part of the appeal and this was much more fun than the high score table on your playstation.
Orkfia was able to keep it’s popularity for a number of years but with people’s desires evolving faster than ever it has become a niche in a gigantic market. A lot of players were lost to games like World of Warcraft which builds even further on the principles started by games like Orkfia. Particularly in the last two or three years the internet has exploded into a hub of entertainment and social interaction. Gaming has even become mainstream with the majority of new games having some form of connecting with other people via the internet. Orkfia may have been one of the first fish to grow legs and walk on land but others saw what we were doing was cool and ran past us.
So I can’t help but wonder… with all the advances in gaming and the big commercial companies offering us everything our little gaming hearts could desire – why is anyone here at all? A text based game where we have to use our imagination to see our armies rather than seeing and hearing them – are our imaginations really that good? Some people say it is the community that keeps us together, and indeed many people from around the world have virtually grown up together against the backdrop of playing together on Orkfia as they shared their news of passing/failing their exams, a new job..new babies.
Yet there are new people joining all the time so it isn’t just a load of Orkfia veterans with rose-tinted glasses who won’t let go of the past. Something still attracts new players, maybe not in their hundreds and thousands but still a few are joining every week. Whilst some of these newbies become as much a part of the community as the established players a lot of players still have never logged onto IRC and don’t post on the forum. People do still play because of the gameplay.
I don’t know if we will ever get to the stage where thousands of people are playing Orkfia, personally i’m not sure if I would even like that. I think Orkfia does what it does very well. It’s a non commercial game with no ulterior motive, you can choose your level of involvment whether that be just a daily log in to tend your own tribe or actively recruiting a full alliance and enjoying the power of deciding which enemy tribes live or die.
Orkfia is also one of the few games you will ever play where you can choose to influence the future of the game and get involved at staffing level if that is what you want. Compared to the mammoth commercial games available it may be a speck of dust, but I think for at least a few hundred people of many different countries this game means more to them than any of the multi-million dollar games and that’s quite an achievement whichever way you look at it.
~ By Jamzi ~
P.S. As there is a comment facility available in this new look OT it’d be interesting to see your views relating to this article, do you agree with me or have a different take on things?
