Adjustment of the pre-set application form

[DeletedUser2458]

Related to these posts.
Issue/reason: Players aren't "forced" to fill in the application form, respectively recommended questions to introduce themselves. They send it to ally leaders partially or completely blank. This can lead (and I believe it leads in the most of cases) to ignoring that applying for. It can also seems that these questions are asked by an ally leader even though they aren't. So, both (leader and asking player) can be quite confused.

Solution: In my opinion, there are fortunately many solutions to get better currently situation as I don't have experience it's helpful at this moment. Yep, just removing this feature could be really simply... but, it can be still useful if there are some adjustments on leaders side (and this is important).
Leaders should be able to disable this.
If it's enabled, they should be able to create completely own bundle of questions. If they don't create them, then the pre-set questions can be showed in default.
The pre-set questions could be still showed in a menu of recommended questions when creating (or editing) of the own bundle of questions. I don't say these questions are bad in all cases, so it can be a good pattern, let's say.

I also think these questions should be answered in a pop-up window (with some description text in way of Before you send this application, you need to answer these questions. Your answers can decide if you are invited.) which would appear after clicking on the applying for button. It would be possible to send it after all text areas are filled in. Then, leaders would receive some report about this application form (as it already is) and this report would contain a link to the Alliance window, respectively the Invitations tab where some list would be. This list would contain name of player, date and 4 buttons - accept, decline, show (to show the application form) and answer (which would lead to the private message window with pre-filled recipient box). When rejecting player, he should be informed about that.

I welcome any discussion about currently and suggested states.

 

[Draba Aspera]

Thank you, Thasoss, that´s really a nuisance, and I have made my opinion known from the beginning.

First of all: Game designers/devs should not intervene in any ingame player-to-player communication.

Hi,

My name is xxx. I just found your alliance via the alliance finder and I would like to join you. I am looking forward to an invitation.

Greetings,

Even when those first and much shorter "semi-automated" application forms were introduced into the game, at once the quality of both the applications and the overall initial conversations between leaders and new alliance members dwindled considerably. On Beta you could guess that was because of the language barrier(s) (and human beings tend to be lazy, after all), but it was the same in the German market (and other local markets, as some players have told me).

It got worse when the current longer version was introduced. Communication between applicant and alliance lead is now (at least potentially) reduced to pressing a button "apply" on one side and a button "invite" on the other side. In every company there are interviews and other selective processes helping both applicant and company to decide whether they can get along. You will not choose a new team member, one you will work with for years, just by receiving an empty questionnaire - a questionnaire that stays empty because it contains questions which are ridiculous (they were even worse before they got revised) and do neither reflect what the applicant wants to tell you nor what you want to know about him. Also, it has not been observed that an application is not a process where one side is asking questions and the other side has to answer them - an application is a mutual process. I would never accept an applicant not asking questions and not showing any interest in the company he is about to join - and somehow the same is true for alliances in Grepolis game worlds. New players have next to no chance to join a decent alliance when they make use of those empty application forms, just as people without any work practice will not get a job in a decent company when their CV and letter of application won´t stand out of the average or show some sort of individuality and effort. Just handing in a template copied from the internet will not do the trick for them.

If Inno insists on keeping that weird application system, it should be possible to disable this form and/or to edit its content. I know that this invitation and application system has been introduced to make joining an alliance easier for new players - but as so many well-meant features it does not work in their favour.

 

[DeletedUser4336]

great idea, leave it for those who have language issues, but be able to disable/ edit before sending