(The previous discussion topic was getting out of hand so I'm separating the announcement into two and adding some elaboration)

Fellow wizards, there has been much activity on the island as of late. In a long meeting with Kendral, Vern, Pursten, Dude and the other Elder Wizards, we decided on some changes to gold.

[b]There are three changes, if you would like to share your feedback about these changes, please look at them in combination not in isolation.[/b]

1) You now receive a gold bonus from Kendral every day you play. This bonus will come within the first two refills of energy so if you've already refilled your energy twice today (Sunday), it will start for you tomorrow (Monday).

2) The gold bonus from leveling up is now variable, but overall it has been decreased because of the daily bonus. However, the casts required to level-up are unchanged.

3) You now get more gold for your donations than you did before, up to 10 - 25% more depending on the donation size.

Again, please consider these 3 changes as one, do not focus on one single change without considering the other two at the same time.

The reason for these changes is the same as always: the purpose of gold is to provide a reward for those players who donate to help support the island. You still receive gold for free, just as you did before, but the island survives solely off donations, and these changes are intended to still provide free gold yet still encourage and reward those players who donate to support the game!

[b]Of course, we are not taking away any gold that you previously had. This only affects new gold earning going forward[/b]. If you're interested in the reason for gold in the game, please see this explanation:
http://theenchantedisland.com/topics/694

And, I want to reassure everyone that we will continue to add silver quests and plenty of fun game play that does not require gold (the seed mastery being the latest example).

Thoughts & feedback always welcome. Happy casting everyone!

-Your Friendly Town Elders

thank you thank you thank you!!!
This is such good news.
oh and did I say thank you??

:-)

I noticed you took the phrase 'slightly decreased' out of #2 since that was a lie. Hugely decreased would be a better description. I went from receiving 860 gold when I leveled up to 290 gold when I reached level 40. That's a 66% DECREASE!
I've read about all the changes and unfortunately the island population is going to drop because of them. :(

What happened to the three pages of comments now that the original message has been split?

-- post removed at the request of the poster --

@Ginger, I know what you mean, never have I seen a topic deleted before, did not think that anyone on here would be cowardly enough to do that! What a pity that they had to be like they now show themselves to be, and how shameful too in my opinion. I hope that everyone who posted in the original will repost again, in future if I stay here I shall copy and paste my comments to a document so I can put it back out into the wizarding community. It is such a shame, I really thought that the Elders were different to the others, I can see the amount of wizards going right down again and then perhaps they will stop and think about what they have done to such a brilliant game. I shall not be able to donate again, family circumstances will not allow it and I am glad! No more lining the coffers of these people who have wrecked a great game in the name of donations! Bless you Ginger, Love and Peace xxxx

what happened to the three pages of posts? Suddenly there are two announcements - one about the gold changes in general and one about the tool bar.

Well, I don't like posts being deleted...

About the changes, let's see how they work in the next few days. I *do* like that we get gold daily when playing a bit. I also *do* like that we get a bit more for the donations. In my opinion, the items are still too pricy if paid with real life $. I still honestly think people would be happy to donate more, if they would get twice as many goodies for it and would have the option to donate as little as $1.99.

As I don't know how much gold we get daily, I'll wait and see if it balances out the big drop in gold when leveling up.

Ok I just now leveled up. Kendral said she'd give me 280 gold and I only got 170. I looked up the gold per level (which hasn't been changed yet) and 280 was significantly less than what it said on there. Which is fine with me. But when she said I'd get 280 I expected 280 not 170. I was hoping to get some of the new seeds with it. That shorts me over a pack. I'm not one to complain, but that just bites.

Hi everyone, I couldn't keep up with the previous topic, there were separate unrelated discussions taking place so I separated those out. I haven't deleted it, but I moved it to a private area so I can finish reading and digesting everything.

I started a new post to clarify the initial announcement to address some of the confusion.

If your thoughts in the previous topic were not addressed in this update, please re-share.

@Robyn: I'm investigating this now to see what happened.

I'm sad

Thank you, Keith...

Getting it every day is a lot better though :)
Do we have to completely refill twice - meaning not cast when we've got 1/8? or does casting 8 times when it becomes available still count?

@Carla: "Two refills" is just an approximate, you don't have to actually get to 0/8, if you keep casting a couple times, break, a couple times, etc that will still work.

question answered - Kendral just arrived! :) I'm not sure 12 a day makes up for such a big decrease though - but it is nice to get all the same. Thanks!

@Sandy I'm sad too...

Unbelievably HUGE decrease in gold for leveling up. If I'd taken a few green dragons last night, I would have got 2000 gold going up to level 41. This morning I got 130. Sharon, a 66% decrease sounds good to me right now!!

I'll reserve judgement until I've seen what the daily bonuses are like, but my initial reaction is that this is NOT the way to keep loyal players playing...

less gold for leveling up, but gold bonuses for every day use. this takes the passiveness out of the game does it not? as to get the same amount of gold you have to cast every day....

@Ginger: I'm really sorry that you feel this way. We really enjoy having you on the island and appreciate the donations you have made. You and all the other wizards who donate are what make the island possible. This is one of the reasons that we *increased* the amount of gold you get by donating.

Let me try to reply to each of your points. First, you are encouraged to share your opinion, we've always encouraged this. A couple posts above I explained what happened to the previous topic.

We know that most players cannot afford to buy gold, and that is okay. That is one of the reasons why most of the content on the island is free. The purpose of gold is as reward to players who donate to help support the island to enable them to enjoy extra additional fun. Everyone can earn some gold for free, but gold is a special item that is earned primarily from donating.

We are not expecting people to shop to earn gold, the toolbar is unrelated to the changes that were mentioned above, it's an optional extra for some people who would like it, but by no means do we expect everyone to want to do it.

I think I don't understand what it means that we get gold "within the first two refills of energy". Could somebody please explain this more in detail? My max. energy is 10. Does it affect this somehow?

@Eve: Actually, the contrary. Having gold *only* for leveling up rewarded people who do as many casts as they, now players who play a little bit each day, but may not do as many casts per day, end up better off.

It depends on exactly what is meant by "passive", but most people do casual regular play, so daily bonus + level-up bonus balances things a bit more between the different types of players.

Doesn't sound like it to me, Carla. If you have dropped from 860 on level-up to 290, then you are getting 12 gold each day you play (just going on what people have posted) you will need to play 30 days to make that loss up! It is slowing down considerably those who do not wish to buy gold ... and making if rather boring to play. Correct me if I have this wrong, please.

Ah, I am a very sad wizard right now. I thought the amount of gold we got was perfect. We got enough to play some, but still had to work at accumulating more in order to finish the quests. This was my favorite game, and I am very sad to see how much the gold has changed for leveling up. I was really, really looking forward to the levels where you got 1000 gold. I don't want to have to download a toolbar. EVERYONE has a toolbar and if we installed every toolbar a game/site wanted us to, there would be no space left for the browser window. I probably won't give up this game completely, but I doubt if I will be spending the same amount of time on it as I was before today. Darn! I was in such a good mood before reading about this :( I had noticed the island population dropped by many thousands of players. Now I understand why, lol. My personal opinion? This was not a great move. I do wish you could have waited until I had cast my last 165 casts to level up before you changed it. Now it is not something I am looking forward to as much as I was :(

i don't log in every day, although i do most days, i just want to know the differance between gold i got, and gold i'll now get...
it's frustrating all the sudden changes... maybe too much for me, casts, snow gone, gold, just keep the game simple is all i'm saying...
i play more over 4 days a week, than i do 3, as i can't EI at work. and 12 gold a day won't make up for the loss of gold at leveling up. it take me about a week to level up, so 7 days at 12 gold a day is 84, mmm. it won't be anywhere near the same

@Kimberly: I'm sorry that you are disappointed. The amount of gold you will now get from playing is just about equal to what it was before the timer changes a couple months ago. Basically, the amount of gold *increased* for about two months, and now we are adjusting it back to where it was since the start of the game.

Also, please don't feel the need to install the toolbar. It's unrelated to these gold changes, it's just an extra for those players who would like it.

The island population dropping recently was unrelated to these gold changes, it occurred before these changes.

I do hope you'll stick around and continue to enjoy the game! There is so much fun to be had here and plenty of new fun in the works.

@Eve: We are keeping the game simply! It's difficult for me to tell you the exact difference in gold from before to now, it depends on how much you cast and how often you play. But you'll still have plenty of free content, and you'll still get gold for free to try the premium content.

Keith i'll soon tell you the diffferance in gold. i level up about once a week. i'll be keeping notes and let you know.
i actually feel quite upset/angry about the whole thing. and i know i won't be the only one

@Keith, I do not understand your reasoning about the gold at all. This was about the game and the people who play it was it not? How come it is now about those who donate against those poor souls who do not, it is discrimination you know and as someone who was able to donate and now unable to do so anymore I am glad I could always appreciate the point of view on both sides. I feel betrayed and so do a lot of us and I think it would be fairer if you just put the gold we got when we level up back to what it was. The way it is now is so unfair it is cruel in my opinion. You know how long I have been here and probably how much I have donated in the past, just because a persons circumstances do not allow them to donate is no reason to discriminate against them, and this is what it feels and seems that you are doing by taking this action. Yes the drop in population was recent, did that not show you that people do not like what is happening here? Give me one good reason to alter my opinion if you can. xxx

Eve, of course you're not the only one :( From what I understand, instead of getting 860 gold when levelling up, I will only get a half of that amount. Now, with the price of premium seeds being 100 per a pack of 5, I was able to do the snowflake quest on two level-up rewards. Now it would take me four to finish a quest that long, and I honestly think a lot of us will be unable to finish quests for a long time if we have to level up that many times to be able to afford seeds (let alone anything else from the premium shop). I have nothing against encouraging people to donate, and the toolbar seems like a good idea (though I don't have it because I use Chrome), but I'm very disappointed that in order to get gold, we will now have to cast all day and all night just to be able to do a quest :(

Keith - I don't see how your statement (about the gold we get now after today's changes is just about equal to what it was before the timer changes a couple months ago) is true. I've been here 8+ months and I was getting 860 gold for a while before the timer changes. Before that amount I was gettng 600+ for a while. Those amounts are no where near the 290 that I got this morning when I reached level 40!

@Keith: The amount of gold didn't really increase in the last 2 months, you just enabled us to not have to be here every 15 minutes to cast our 2 casts. The level up gold was still the same, it just took a shorter time perhaps to level up since the timer didn't stop when 15 minutes had elapsed. I have been leveling up about every 4 days or so without using Green Dragons, so 12 gold a day will not even come close to what I am now losing. I realize I don't have to install the toolbar, and most likely I won't. If any of the "New Fun" you have planned involves the use of Gold, it won't be so much "Fun" anymore.

One thing I have learned about games on Facebook, is that changes in the games will always be made. Some of these changes people will like, but many of them people won't like. There isn't really anything that us as players can do about it. In my experience, the more people complain about something, (like thinking the amount of level up gold wasn't enough) the more gets taken away until you wish you had just been happy with it the way it was.

I stopped being mad at the changes in these games when Roller Coaster Kingdom started making us pay for visitors (I deleted that game just after they made THAT change, lol), but that doesn't stop me from feeling sad because I know playing this game will never be the same again and I really enjoyed it. It is okay though, there are always going to be other games to try and they too will be fun until too many changes are made.

I really like the idea of daily gold, I havent seen Kendral yet but ive been refilling my energy with fairies and I used a green dragon, so I am a little confused as to when to expect her! thanks for all your hard work and effort!

The elders seem to be taking time to read the messages posted in this topic-so I am repeating what I said in the other place!!

I wished I had known about these new changes last night--I would not have gone to bed!!
I was very close to leveling up and wanted that 840 gold so much so I could buy some more gold seeds!!
Here is what I just got!!
"
Glorious! pc, you just leveled up! You're now a Swan-

level wizard (level 13). Your magical abilities are

growing!

I'll award you 140 gold!"

I am so upset--I may have to go into the bedroom and cry a lot!!
I have only been here a couple of weeks and have been very diligent--I have won all of the silver quests already and even completed the crystal snowflake quest using the gold I had stored up!!
Now I don't know where to turn.---Is this finis? Farewell? Goodbye?
I am almost 81 years old and had finally found a game I adored--but limited income precludes spending money to buy gold!!

I'm just going to keep playing and see how it works! I was having so much fun trying to master a seed I didn't even notice I had leveled! I only play to have fun....

@PC the Novice, Oh my dear I really feel so sorry, it is for people like you on a limited income that some of us have been battling for about how much gold it costs for just 5 seeds. I absolutely adored this game too, it was a place to indulge in my imagination, an escape from pain and somewhere I found real friends. Now it is somewhere that is causing deep distress to many, myself included. I hope that after reading all the posts the Elders decide to return to the gold rewards that were in place before this debacle. It is so sad that so many have already left, I think a great many more will now. I too am not certain, I shall wait and see what happens in the hope that common sense and decency with compassion for those less fortunate is uppermost in their final decision. Take care dear lady, Bless you, Love and Peace xxxx

I've seen this happen before many times in the past. It is sheer wizardry how a good game that is fun suddenly turns to the dark side and begins being a cash cow.

I'm not putting anyone down, please don't misunderstand, but decreasing the gold for leveling is a MISTAKE, especially at the prices in the premium shop.

I'm very sure there is a way to make good money with this little cute game without killing it for those who cannot spend, i.e. by slashing gold for leveling you have "unleveled" the game and if you have noticed, the number of wizards is rapidly dropping!

I hope you don't make the same mistake so many have made before you in other games.

Happy casting everyone

I just leveled up, and was told that I was getting 210 gold. I had 79 gold to start with. Immediately after this, my total was 199 gold. So, not only was I shorted on the gold earned by leveling up, I also lost the gold I had on hand? I sincerely hope someone will look into this.

Also, the gold changes pretty much bite. I think it would be reasonably fair to make the premium seeds available with silver too, except maybe make a pack cost 1000 silver OR 100 gold.

Am not too happy with the changes either but decided you know what, let's donate some gold. you guys are working for it after all. But never did get the 'extra free gold'. Donated 49,99 USD and only got 4999 gold added. Not the promised 6000. Could someone please fix that?

In thinking about it for a few minutes, and reading the previous posts, I think that I too may just call it quits on this game. I loved it initially and have played it faithfully every day. I have bought some little bits of gold, but I can't really afford to do that much, but I didn't mind doing it when I could because I really enjoyed this game. But I've finished all the non-gold quests, and this new nonsense with the multiple levels of seed mastery is boring, all the new quests are gold only, and it appears now that I will have to level up at least 4 times per quest to finish them, because the gold seeds are too expensive and the quests require insane amounts of seeds. I've lost track of the numbers for the most recent quest, but I'm guessing it's already taken at least $5 to get as far as I have, and now I only get enough gold to buy one seed pack. Wow. I'm really underwhelmed and underimpressed and feeling pretty much underappreciated as well.

Elders, I loved what you had. I do not love what you have created. I will not install any toolbars, period. Even if I did, you don't support Chrome and I don't support the others.

First, I am not quite clear why some people are expressing anger and being hurt. This is not a personal slight against anyone, this change is about balancing the game so that it can continue, and not only continue as it is, but continue to grow--continue to add new content, quests, features, etc.

My biggest request to everyone is: please continue playing the game to give these changes a chance! These changes are not fundamentally altering the game, it's the same game you've come to love, with all the same aspects.

I think I've figured out at least part of what is causing some confusion, so I'm going to try to explain more completely what is motivating these changes. If you are upset, please read this and I think you'll better understand how these changes are not significant--they're brining the game back to what it was before--and they're actually *good* for all of us.

What is difficult for everyone to see from the outside, is that the amount of gold being earned for free has been steadily increasing. These changes bring the gold back in-line to what it was before. This seems counter-intuitive at first because at high levels you get 860 gold for level-up, and this number hasn't changed. That's true, but that's only one factor which affects free gold entering the game. The number of casts per day is another factor, this is what has been increasing. By allowing players to increase their max energy, adding crickets, green dragons that can be earned for free in various ways, and a couple other things--all of this translated into more play-time, specifically, more casts per day on average. We made all these changes because we thought they'd make the game more fun, and they did, but there was this unintended side effect as well.

All these changes led, on average, to more free gold being earned per month for most players. The problem is that, as the amount of free gold has increased, average donations per player have declined. And donations are what make it possible for the game to continue.

Keeping this game running requires a lot to be balanced to go right. One of the things that requires being balanced is the fact that it costs a lot of money to run this island, and the game continues only because of the donations we receive from players. The balance between free and premium content is important. We could make all the content free instantly, and if we did, there would be no donations and we would have to shut down the game. It's in all of our interest for us to monitor this carefully and keep things in careful balance.

Here is how I did the game balancing was this: I closely analyzed how much gold, on average, players *were* earning per month before we made the string of changes. Then I analyzed how this went up over time as a result of a series of changes. Now, we obviously don't want to undo the changes. As just one example, increasing max energy has been a good thing! We just needed to rebalance this side effect.

Roughly speaking, the amount of free gold, on average, increased by a factor of 2x. So if my calculations are all correct then these three changes will, on average, take the free gold earned per player down by about 50% -- to the amount it was *before* these changes.

I could go into even more detail and summarize the calculations, but at some level we need all of you players to trust us. We welcome feedback, we love to hear it, it gives us tons of insight into what we should do next, new ideas, emotional fuel to keep working hard. But in all fairness you need to give us the benefit of the doubt too. We didn't create this game by simply randomly stringing together ideas. There is a lot of careful thought and analysis and creativity that is involved every step of the way. This change, like every other change and new feature, was not done lightly. We thought about it a lot.

I recognize it's difficult to see and appreciate all this from the outside. It's easy to make the mistake of thinking, "last week I got 860 gold for leveling up and today I got 250" but there is so much more that goes into it than that single data point. For those that are interested, I hope this post provides a bit more insight into that.

@fluff: I just credited you the missing gold. There does seem to be a small bug where the amount being displayed is sometimes different than the amount being credited. We're investigating why this occurs sometimes, we'll figure it out and get it fixed very soon.

@Sharon:With the gold changes, the gold per month will be about the same now compared to what it used to earn before the timer & other changes. If you look at the single number (level-up gold), that's missing the full context. My long post above elaborates on this.
average which results in more free gold per week.

@Mez: The drop in island population had nothing to do with game changes, it was because we tried a partnership with another Facebook game to introduce the island more people. It turned out the kinds of players of this other game, some of them like EI, but the games are too different so many of them are not sticking around. But that's okay.

@pc: I'm sorry that you just caught the edge of this change. I did announce at the beginning of the week that we were working on some changes for the week and considering level-up bonus. I actually expected to release this on Friday but it got delayed because of some extra testing. Inevitably some people would be caught on the edge of this.

@day time lust: It is not fair to characterize these changes as "turning to the dark side to be a cash cow". Keeping this game running requires a lot to be balanced to go right. One of the things that requires being balanced is the fact that it costs a lot of money to run this island, and the game continues only because of the donations we receive from players. The balance between free and premium content is important in order to keep right. We could make all the content free, and if we did, there would be no donations and we would have to shut down the game. It's in all of our interest for us to monitor this carefully. Please see my long post above for more explanation.

@fluff: I think you wrote your post before my longer one, so see that now, but just to comment on two things: we are adding more free silver content, and please don't feel like you must install the toolbar. This is an extra that some players will like but it's by no means a requirement. Also, I'm sorry that you don't like the seed mastery, we have new quets and features in the works and I hope that you'll like some of them.

To all of the people screaming about these gold changes, I say this:

Please take the time you won't be spending here to program and host your own game on a purely donation-based system. Be prepared to pay $1,000 or more per month in hosting and bandwidth charges, plus the cost of the servers themselves. That money has to come out of your own pockets, offset a little by those who offer to donate. And don't quit your day job while you're doing this - 'cause it's not going to cover your living expenses.

Be prepared for people to scream at you whenever you make the slightest mistake, no matter how quickly they make good on repairing it. You'll get people telling you how much they hate you for not giving them more for free, no matter how much it costs you. They will tell you how you are unfairly helping people who do help offset costs, because everyone knows the economy is for crap right now. Of course, none of them will realize that that same economy applies to you as well.

Enjoy the several months it takes to get it started. Let me know when it's ready, I'll sign on and play for an hour at least before I start telling you how badly you're doing your job.

@ Keith the All Seeing:

My reference to the "dark side" in no way is meant to be a snide poke at anyone, rather an allusion to something I've seen in oh so many games. The carrot and stick principle with the players being the unfortunate donkey that can never reach that carrot is something that has ruined many games. I, for one, totally understand that nothing comes for free and that running a game most certainly costs money. I already made a few donations and received gold for free as it was a few short days ago, but with the "free gold" cut backs without lowering the prices in the premium shop is a very big deterrent (at least for me) to reach for my credit card.

I had no issues with making a donation knowing that I'll also be getting some gold for leveling up, thus buying some "green dragons", but for 200 gold at the decreased leveling gold it is no longer worth it for me to donate, so I'll use the minimal free gold for the occasional owl or other cute creature that may appear.

Thus, the gaming experience for me has unfortunately dropped to the point where I'm no longer concerned about leveling and have decreased my playing time on the game. If fun and playing the game is "light", then this game has turned "dark" to me.

I hope you can understand my point of view (as I certainly understand and respect yours), as these changes have lost you at least one (me) donor that otherwise would happily contribute to your excellent efforts in keeping this game fun for all.

Keith, I had 5 casts to go before leveling up when I quit last night. I expected the 840 gold today. Kendral instead awarded me 230 gold. I still had some gold (less than 100, but can't remember how much ATM). However, after leveling up I now have 162 gold. Obviously the same bug that affected some others, so please credit me with what Kendral awarded.

I will say that I understand the reasons behind what you've done, but perhaps it would have been better to explain it all before you implemented it. People would still be angry, as I was, but perhaps understanding how increasing the number of casts cut into the donations you received would have helped some and would certainly have prepared me; I wouldn't have quit casting when I did.

I have donated in the past and intended to keep doing so when possible, but I do have to say that the combination of gold change/toolbar addition is giving me pause. I'll cast awhile longer and see.

If gold quests are meant to be a reward for the people who can afford to donate actual money, then could there please be less of a focus on gold quests? Mastery levels are pretty boring for the rest of us to work on for months while all the rich people get to work on cool gold quest after cool gold quest. I think it is important to consider that the number of gold quests increased along with the amount of gold people were earning, is that not right? If there weren't so many new gold quests all the time, compared with the infrequency of new silver quests, I think it would be a lot less painful for those of us who can't afford to buy gold. Just a thought.

Keith, I was expecting my 840 gold and literally just leveled up with a "whopping" 140 in its place. I'm not going to say disgusted, but I'm going to say angry, furious, and any other word along those lines. This isn't right! I literally *just* leveled up and then saw this part of the announcement! I had been looking forward to buying those seeds in the premium with the gold I earned, and now I won't have enough to succeed in meeting the challenge with this badge. Like so many others, I can't afford to invest time and again--and let's be honest: Enchanted Island is going to get perks--probably via money--for the ads that apparently will begin. I downloaded the toolbar and don't even see the benefits from that till 2 days from now. 1 search till I achieve an additional 3 gold??? Sorry, but I have been patient...again and again and again through the various glitches the site has had. I've bounced browsers to accommodate the changes FB kept making, and now to see I've lost more than 84% of the gold shown I was to receive at this level!

http://theenchantedisland.wikispaces.com/Levels
Level 23: Wyvern
Casts to level up: 430
Gold Bonus: 840 gold

See how upset Kristin the Weird is at having received 230 instead of 840? Wait till she gets to level 23 and gets my whopping 140!

Change it and correct this insult to our intelligence, or I suspect you'll be seeing thousands leaving by the droves! I may otherwise be among those leaving soon.

To those who suggest we start our own games, that's not the point at all. I know and give kudos and credit to those who do so, but when the levels like the gold are already in place, you don't change the numbers and expect people to stay. Changing the numbers says you're not thinking things out well before changing the dynamics as was done here. You do your homework before you play arbitrary with people's minds.

thumbs up @ buckaroo :)

i too was waiting to level up hopefully today and get the usual 840 odd of gold to buy more premium seeds and complete those quests.. the minimal gold I see ppl are getting now is quiet upsetting as it takes quite alot of seed packets to complete these gold quests :( I have donated very regularily too even tho i cant really afford to because I loved this game.. I myself feel alil dispondant and distressed at the moment and wonder if its really worth all this fuss. Maybe the premium gold quests should have the amount of gold they cost to complete reduced along with the reduced levelling awarded gold.

I have gone through more than two full refills today, and did not receive any gold for the daily award. I also did not play before the announcement was made today, so I guess I'm not sure how the daily awards are suppose to work.

-- off-topic post removed by elder --