[S1914] Legacy-Removal Feedback Thread

  • An interesting read so far.
    There are a few in here that will recall Java. It went away and the players grabbed their pitchforks and things became a bit 'interesting' for a while.
    The player base recovered as they adapted to the changes.
    Now, Legacy is gone, as Java has long ago.
    And yet again, the pitchforks come out and the discussions are interesting.
    I note a few things about this. First, the loyalty of those that play this game. Not to simply kick some rear, not to be smug. We play to have fun. To teach. To learn.
    The game is the same as when it was Java. The format changes. So do cars. Phones. Heck, even kids change as time goes by. And we adapt to these changes and still find enjoyment with the changes.
    This will be a growing pain. No doubt. But, constructive feedback is what will improve upon the issues. Same as when we went to HTLM from Java, and from Legacy to what is here now.
    I for one, will still find enjoyment in the game. It remains intact from a strategic point of view. Just different seats and transmission to deal with is all.
    I would ask the vets to find the issues. Report them and be patient to allow for corrections and improvements. We have been here a long time. I for one, intend to be here for a long time yet to come.

    A half truth is merely a half lie.

  • It was interesting to read all your articles.

    I found it enjoyable to find players I've met in so many games on all servers.

    Players who have been my allies and enemies in so many battles and who are now fighting for the same cause, a fight that unfortunately we will lose, all together.

    All I have to do is say goodbye to the great generals, the instructors, the strategists who were lucky enough to play a splendid game at its most magical moment.

    Today with the end of legacy mode dies "Supremacy 1914", only our names will remain to remember the good times spent online.

    Thank you all.

  • Mhmm intersting point with the Java,I always belived that the older Legacy version was Java.But no I have now recalled these images I believe this is the Java version you are talking about South Paw yes? So since this is already an interesting thread lets compare all 3 version that we had.

    First Java(or so I believe)

    Then the final Legacy version we had

    Last the revamp pc version


    And just a small send off of our favourite version :*

  • Indeed. I did not know such archival photos actually existed anymore. A fine tribute to a award winning game back in the day, and thanks for a fine blast from the past Helgraf.
    And, as you can see, the differences are in stark contrast to the Legacy now mourned. Change is inevitable. Life gives few choices, but at least they are choices we get to make: Accept it. Change it if within our power to do so. Get out if the cost is too high.
    Again, I enjoy it more than enough to try and relearn a system yet again, knowing that the premise of the game itself provides the same months of enjoyment as it did in the Java years.
    Thanks again for the trip down memory lane.

    A half truth is merely a half lie.

  • We actually have a good few minutes of footage from that version.All the screenshots are from the old bytro youtube channle,if you speak german you can go down a whole rabbit hole of a memoty lane following this link(don't worry its not a rickroll):

    https://www.youtube.com/user/Supremacy1914/videos


    And if you feel like reading old forums there is the WayBack machine,unfourtanly from my searcing and study nothing of value survived,but the old fourms and layout also bring a tear to the eye.There is still some readable role plays and a few tournaments here and there.Have a nice day/night

  • OMG. You so rock. I may actually appear in some of the old forum discussions, before I did a name change way back when that is..... again, thanks for the info Helgraf.
    DoGeeseSeeGod among others. Bet Rage and Godi are still listed in there.....

    And tournaments. *sigh* Some good times, along with the old Player League.

    A half truth is merely a half lie.

  • No problem.Very likely you could appear I seen other team and non team members appear,if you need help I can guide you through the WayBackMachine.Number 1 top tip is to always open all links in new tabs as many didn't actually save and that saves you to constantly reload the same page.

  • The thing is, legacy was a step forward from java. Imo legacy was a big improvement to java, ive seen a few arguments against it but they are far and weak. I havent played much of this game in the java era, but i took the liberty to refresh my memory whith the images. The new mode is a step back. If legacy was a clearer and simpler UI to java version, the new version is the exact oposite.


    So although its true players sometimes complain about every change to what they are used to, i dont think the situation is exactly the same

  • Ic3, nothing in life is apples to apples for a comparison, not even apples.
    The point I try to make, is that the game remains. Graphics, controls and features change as the player base changes to support their expectations because things in life and technology advance or digress.
    I played 'PONG' when it was first introduced. I would not waste the time now to do so, but back in the day, it was amazing.
    My expectations have changed drastically from those early days, and simple is not always best, especially when compared to the success of the CoW franchise. You build on success at the expense of established norms at times.
    This is one of those times. Legacy, like Java, will be a memory that will rival my recollections of "PONG' as time marches on.

    Fun in it's time. But that time has passed.

    A half truth is merely a half lie.

    Edited once, last by South Paw ().

  • Ic3, nothing in life is apples to apples for a comparison, not even apples.
    The point I try to make, is that the game remains. Graphics, controls and features change as the player base changes to support their expectations because things in life and technology advance or digress.
    I played 'PONG' when it was first introduced. I would not waste the time now to do so, but back in the day, it was amazing.
    My expectations have changed drastically from those early days, and simple is not always best, especially when compared to the success of the CoW franchise. You build on success at the expense of established norms at times.
    This is one of those times. Legacy, like Java, will be a memory that will rival my recollections of "PONG' as time marches on.

    Fun in it's time. But that time has passed.

    kinda like tetris

    All is fair in love and war

  • Ic3, nothing in life is apples to apples for a comparison, not even apples.
    The point I try to make, is that the game remains. Graphics, controls and features change as the player base changes to support their expectations because things in life and technology advance or digress.
    I played 'PONG' when it was first introduced. I would not waste the time now to do so, but back in the day, it was amazing.
    My expectations have changed drastically from those early days, and simple is not always best, especially when compared to the success of the CoW franchise. You build on success at the expense of established norms at times.
    This is one of those times. Legacy, like Java, will be a memory that will rival my recollections of "PONG' as time marches on.

    Fun in it's time. But that time has passed.

    Everything you say is true. However it is also true that some games dont appear to ever die. Or even outlive their sucession. The reason you left pong is because the expectations today are better and more refined., but poing is still pong. Supremacy isnt dead. People still want to play it. And this is , imo, not a case of a a shift in player base. Yea, whithout legacy the game will still move on, but imagine AoE2 had an update that completely changed the UI for something objectively worse. Its not a matter of what the players expect, is a matter of product quality decreasing. Unfortely, gaming in the last years have had their expectations very low which allows companies to do some "interesting" actions, specialy attempting to appeal to a mobile market.


    Fun in its time. I agree. I used to love MMOs now cant stand them. But i still want to play supremacy, i havent outgrown supremacy. Most people left my game after the new mode became mandatory. I stick arround, i give every shot i can to this UI, but it just makes the game worse. Yea fun has passed, not because i outgrew a game, but because the game outgrew me to something i belive is worse. I dont belive im alone. And the fact after 1year+ of adding the new mode people still have the pitchforks out because they do still enjoy supremacy.


    Pong is a good example actualy. The game is what it is, still similar to what it was. If you do enjoy the game, you can do it right now. But making an UI this bad means i want to play a game, but cant force my self to fight an awfull AI that barely lets me see whats going on. At least pong is... pong.


  • There are a few in here that will recall Java. It went away and the players grabbed their pitchforks and things became a bit 'interesting' for a while.
    The player base recovered as they adapted to the changes.



    from what i saw in most of servers player base never recovered

    ofc there were more accounts( thanks to multis) but there were fewer players, games, alliance games and pro-players have almost gone extinct


    from the 12 years perspective I can say supremacy never recovered after Java-related users left the building.

    Increased exodus could be related to shutting down tournaments, alliance games , all skill-based initiatives and supporting p2w but now it is hard to say how many left only because of Java removal.

  • Everything you say is true. However it is also true that some games dont appear to ever die. Or even outlive their sucession. The reason you left pong is because the expectations today are better and more refined., but poing is still pong. Supremacy isnt dead. People still want to play it. And this is , imo, not a case of a a shift in player base. Yea, whithout legacy the game will still move on, but imagine AoE2 had an update that completely changed the UI for something objectively worse. Its not a matter of what the players expect, is a matter of product quality decreasing. Unfortely, gaming in the last years have had their expectations very low which allows companies to do some "interesting" actions, specialy attempting to appeal to a mobile market.


    Fun in its time. I agree. I used to love MMOs now cant stand them. But i still want to play supremacy, i havent outgrown supremacy. Most people left my game after the new mode became mandatory. I stick arround, i give every shot i can to this UI, but it just makes the game worse. Yea fun has passed, not because i outgrew a game, but because the game outgrew me to something i belive is worse. I dont belive im alone. And the fact after 1year+ of adding the new mode people still have the pitchforks out because they do still enjoy supremacy.


    Pong is a good example actualy. The game is what it is, still similar to what it was. If you do enjoy the game, you can do it right now. But making an UI this bad means i want to play a game, but cant force my self to fight an awfull AI that barely lets me see whats going on. At least pong is... pong.

    I like the AoE II analogy and completely agree with you on that a decrease in usability is not preferable. However somewhere else a comparison with windows 7 and 8 was made, which I found to be far more fitting. Win7 was a gem. It was functional fairly soon after launch, it as intuitive once you got used to some key functions and a large portion of systems ran it so it was well supported.

    Then game windows 8. Lets simply not talk about windows 8. It was terrible and doomed to fail for desktop users right at the start. Creating an "all in one" solution has downsides for everyone and upsides for only a few.
    Fortunately this is not what we're trying to do. We have a dedicated desktop and mobile viewmode so we don't have to pack everything into one mode. I'd like to compare legacy and "new" to windows 7 and 10. Let me emphasize that I was determined to use win7 for as long as possible as I knew everything I needed to know for my daily work and private interests. Win10 didn't appeal to me, it was new, I didn't want to relearn processes that I had already mastered and it promised little to no advantage at that point.

    I was pretty much "pissed" when I was forced to switch due to discontinued support for win7 and work. I quite literally made an effort to downtalk win10 and to boycott it, but eventually had to give in. Everything looked weird, I was upset because some functions were different and I simply didn't know as much as I did in win7. I still knew how an operating system works however. I knew how do utulize a task manager, how to set up my hdds and not to delete sys32. Pretty much all it took for me to accept win10 was to get used to some redesigns and to accept that it isn't exactly like win7 in every way. By now, I don't even recall what win7 supposedly did better. Win 10 outgrew its baby issues as it saw continuous support, many others switched to it so I was able to learn from and with them and now I'm at a stage where I will probably defend win10 until the bitter end.

    Long story short: we're not trying to force you to play a desktop strategy game with a mobile oriented view mode. We're already evaluating your feedback on how to improve the "new" standard and will continue to improve it over time. In the end every one of us at Bytro invests 8-9 hours a day working on something that is related to our games so you can be damn sure we're not just doing whatever without thinking about it first. In some cases we're limited by time, in some by ressources but in none by willingness to improve. To be honest, we're all just human so in rare cases we simply might not see the best solution right away or have to correct ourselves. This doesn't mean we will roll back to legacy and throw every hour of work that went into the now standard mode over board but instead we'll try our best to learn and incorporate feedback in order to do the best possible job we can.

    Textwall over, Slyx out
    (not really but it sounds cool)

  • Okay, I feel we're beating a dead horse and further discussion on how to change things to "allow" us to be able to play the game so we can still enjoy it will prove to be fruitless.


    This will probably be my final post because I'm going to hang around for another couple of weeks and if nothing has changed, I will be deleting my account.


    In any case, I am very serious when I say that this strongly resembles what happened to Coca-Cola back in 1985. It's something I have a very intimate knowledge of because my company worked with Coca-Cola Canada and we got to learn firsthand what transpired with an event that has been called "The greatest marketing blunder" AND "The greatest marketing coup" in history.


    In 1984/85 Coke was losing market share to Pepsi and somebody decided that the best way to take back that share was to make some adjustments to their formula so it would taste MORE like Pepsi. In April 1985, Coca-Cola introduced a new formula for its Coke soda, known informally as New Coke. It was renamed Coke II in 1992, and was discontinued in July 2002.


    Now what transpired during that time was a revolution. SOME Pepsi drinkers switched to the new coke but many hard core Coke drinkers left the brand completely and some even switched to Pepsi. Pepsi was even making moves to bring out their OWN version of the original Coke which they were going to call Savannah Cola.


    Coke scrambled and were making minor adjustments to their beverage to try to get customers back but nothing worked UNTIL they launched Coke Classic which was of course, the ORIGINAL formula. Suddenly, market share blossomed because loyal coke drinkers returned, the ones that switched for the new brand stuck around and Pepsi even dropped their plans for their new cola.


    Now, I'm not saying that Bytro is going to do something similar but I do suggest the leadership in Bytro examine that story very closely because if a company as large as Coca-Cola can admit they made a mistake, it's something to think about.


    "Have a Coke and a Smile". ----- There was a reason that slogan NEVER got released in Canada by the way.


    *Please note, no horses were harmed or injured in the creation of this post.

  • We may be rivals Furry but don't delet your account,leave it for the history we need the memories.Maybe one day you'll feel like playing one round and find the game is playable again.

    Okay, I feel we're beating a dead horse and further discussion on how to change things to "allow" us to be able to play the game so we can still enjoy it will prove to be fruitless.


    This will probably be my final post because I'm going to hang around for another couple of weeks and if nothing has changed, I will be deleting my account.

  • Can someone plz tell me where is video tutorial showing how to use new UI? Do i have to set up a new account to see it?


    there is so many differences and colorful items I lose myself in that. I also lose battles and wars because of that.

  • I must say, I am both astounded and pleased that those who are or where die harders are at least trying to let time and Bytro prevail. Provided that they get good feedback and patience, as Buddha pointed out in CoW layout, the possibilities are there. I hope for the communities sake, so is the patience.
    I would miss seeing the familiar personalities in games, chat and the forums.
    Be part of the solution or you are part of the problem I was always told.
    Furry, as always, you bring a smile to my face. No horses... too funny. Well done old friend.

    A half truth is merely a half lie.

    Edited 3 times, last by South Paw ().

  • Is it possible to save our preferred playing mode as a default for all log-ins rather than each time you log in , and each map you open having to go to turn off sound effects, music, and then toggle to low graphics display and then show nations colors on each map? 4 clicks + wait for map to re-load then another click...be nice if this was saved and not have to go thru same process with opening each map.


    It is like each time I open the ice box to grab a cold drink, I have to first grab ice pick to chip away the frozen ice built up around the drink since last cold drink was grabbed...LOL

    index.php?eID=image&uid=11763503&mode=2

    Embrace your true nature , enjoy games and have fun!





    Edited 2 times, last by Hastings TNT ().

  • I have to say that the Coke analogy doesn't apply here. The Coca Cola company probably immediately saw in their market data how worse the adoption rates and revenues of the new coke were, and they had to react to them. The situation is exactly the opposite to S1914. S1914's main metrics all improved since we launched the revamp mode and made it the default 2 years ago. Before we launched the revamp mode there were even talks in the company to let S1914 slowly fade out because it was performing worse and worse and didn't meet today's standards anymore. But we decided to give it one more big shot and thus the Revamp was born. The metrics improved after we launched it. If we hadn't done that the game would have died already. Would you have prefered that? I know not everyone is a fan of the new graphics but perhaps it is better than no game at all, right? I can tell you that nowadays with the Revamp S1914 has the best metrics since its inception a decade ago. Most amount of active players, highest revenues. So it was all worth it. And this is not only coming from new users who leave the game after some days, I really have to disagree with the notion that this is our new playerbase. We still have alot of die-hard players and that is backed by metrics, the average account age is actually quite old for our user base. Plus, as I told earlier in this thread, since we deactivated the legacy mode last week we barely see any change in S1914's metrics.

    So yeah, while Coca Cola saw in their data that they made the wrong move and had to react, we are not seeing this in our data - to the contrary. We are making the game ready for the future and our data supports that. We have to constantly improve to stay relevant in today's gaming market. As I said earlier, we also try to incorporate your feedback where we can and you can indeed expect some improvements in the next weeks. I hope you hang in there and continue to provide us with feedback.