Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

Hi guys,

If you are reading this then you have stopped playing Planetarion, are thinking of it or know people who have already. Please spread this link around people you know who stopped playing the game, as I'm interested in why they left, and if they would start playing again.

I'd like to know the main reasons why you stopped playing. Was it boredom, imbalanced gameplay, too few players, removal of features etc. Feel free to rant : )

Jamie

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

I've stopped playing twice before.

First time I quit it was because of some health issues (being called awake every night at 3-4am did not help) and the second time I quit because my pc had died on me and when I got a new one I didn't feel like playing PA.

I think the reasons why I came back though are more important than the reasons why I left. I came back because over the years I have made some good friends by playing this game. I missed them and when alot of them contacted me about playing a round for their alliance I just couldn't refuse...

(btw: it is good to see the new owners taking an interest into PA :) )

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

I used to play Planetarion from r3 untill... 3 years ago, with a few rounds off in between. What i loved about PA was the community, as the game mechanics itself aren't really that interesting. What makes PA great are the alliance communities. I was member of the same alliance from r3 until I quit, and at least for me the community was the game. Playing in any other alliance was unthinkable. When I finally quit Planetarion it was because it simply took too much time. Attacks generally only happen late at night, and you better be prepared to spend half an hour in the morning helping out in defense. This just wasn't working for me, and as I also somewhat lost faith in the game (cheating, dishonesty etc) it just became too much of a chore and too little fun.

These days I play Utopia. While it has very little "larger" community as we know it from PA, it has a lot of nice kingdom (equivalent of galaxies, for those wondering) communities. These work out because they don't change every single round, and as such you don't have to invest time in an alliance in order to get a stable community to play with. Also, Utopia doesn't have the strict on-line time demands as PA - attacks happen throughout the day, much because people are from all ove the world, and there's no defence, so no need to think of that.

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

i'm miss old planetarion

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

I quit due to PA wanting money of me, when your young a fiver means something :) Then I forgot all about the game until I came home drunk one night and found it again. The rest is history.

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

I have quit about 5 or 6 times. I come back every couple of years or so. Why? the game demands unreasonable time investment at irrational hours AND in top of it, chances are a new or a solo player CANNOT make the top 100 unless he commits to an alliance.

PA has come to be all about alliances (even more so than 8 years ago with Fury or 4 ago with 1up), and playing solo or with a small group of players virtually truncates every chance you got at the top 100 (unless you are a vet, playing with a handful of other vets, with logistical support from a few HCs). IMO while alliances have been what has kept PA alive, they are what is killing it slowly.

I signed up for this round cuz is summer, I got no job, and I had not played since last summer. I will not play next round most likely, unless Kargool stops being a bitch calling me a dick. Then I will prolly be a scanner if I want to pay, or just a support account if I just want to freeby it.

I would probably have a paid, serious, permanent account if I could "improve it" (or screw it) with every decision I make throughout years of membership; for example, by playing every round and improving (or screwing) my overall ranking in the community, and by acquiring certain medal-achievement prizes, etc.

With a main account system I foresee playing even during off seasons. I might pop in every couple of months and play a quick weekend round. But we don;t have this do we? Imagine, I have been calling for this shit for years... and "I am not the only one."

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

I quit 3 times:

After round 5: I think then it started to be a pay-to-play game. I was a poor paperboy back then :p
After round 23: due to time shortage (night activity and DC-ing)
After round 26: due to time shortage (night activity etc and HC-ing) and being bored by the game play.

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

Hey guys, thanks for sharing these thoughts, keep them coming.

Jamie

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

I think the time this game demands from someone is a main reason for me to skip rounds every now and then. However, lately there has also come the boredom factor.

Basically this game is too one-dimensional when it comes to succeeding at it. Ok, the combat system is quite interesting again, but ultimately the game only consists of "find a target, launch your fleet, check result" - which is too repetitive to be enjoyable. Real ingame interaction with other players is also limited to combat / information gathering only, which is another point on the downside. It would certainly have made the gaming experience more fun if there would have been options to combine research efforts, a trade market and so on.

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

i quit because, despite all my best efforts to help with coding, beta, suggestions, stats, alliances - all i got was abuse, flaming and was constantly ignored.

In the end I jut got bored of everyones' attitudes and left. This was compounded by someone removing me from the private forums without even talking to me first. It was incredibly rude for someone to do that to me, as I had been a PA vet since r1.

I won't ever return but i pop by to see what's happening from time to time.
I now play LOTRO and haven't looked back since.

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

I quit because i have better things to be doing with my life than devoting it to a web based browser game.
I am highly unlikely to return to play or assist as i do not agree with the direction the game is being taken in nor the competancy of the developers after some glaring, horrendously stupid bugs and their unwillingness to proactively fix all of them

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

I stop playing when the game gets boring. It generally gets boring the more PAteam "refine" away all the fun. I'll start playing again if/when they add fun things to do. For me, fun in PA is about pitting my wits against opposing players in risk/reward situations.

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

@Tux: we still wub you tho, altho you are a bit furry :p

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

i quit due to 24 hour game beeing way to demanding. Its like 8 hours to send a fleet for u to 5 hours later recall. Its missing 1 hour and losing all your roids and ships if ur lucky.

Its waiting 2 weeks to get scans if you havent cannon fodde enough already and instead need more roid research etc... etc..

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

I quit back in the days when you started charging me money, I was young, and #1 couldnt pay it, #2 literally coulnt pay, what 16year old has a creditcard. Join a bit later (rnd 8/9 I think) again, and quit about 1-2 rounds later because there werent any player left playing it.

I miss the fact that you could do whatever you want in the universe, because it's so big. Nowadays, everyone is on eachothers 'lip' and nothing goes unnoticed. The game is to small.

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

Ive played Round1-10.5, then from R19-23 then i've came back from end of Round26 til now.

The reasons why I left were due to school requirements, and i could not fulfill my potential in school with getting up at 4am to get on Planetarion to either try and get defence or send defence, also it was hard during school times to get online to check if i can land or not, as most lands usually landed about 11am.

The reason why ive came back is because Planetarion has/had a community like no other, welcoming people, who you didn't need to talk about Planetarion issues to get along with. Also it passes them long nights if you aint got a girlfriend :banana:

Since being back i've noticed that the forums are dead though, this is due to poor moderating(clamping down on fun), lack of alliance discussions, we had lots of wars in Round27, not even one thread was made saying "ND is going to war with Denial, this is because...". Also you get alot of idiots who don't even play this game anymore, who like to point out that "in the good old days" and people who try and use their big words to slander others.

Other issues I think need attention are the people who run the games. Although i like Appoco and he dedicates alot of time into the game, from a players point of view i think to myself "why should i pay each round to play a game that does not care about its paying customers" e.g. Its been over a week now since last round finished, and all the information we have on next round is on a small text box about an inch squared in length, we've had no release on information such as cost, Battle Pack sizes, galaxy sizes, stats, alliance limits, nothing.

Lastly i'd like to point out the complete ineffiency of a certain person called Fiery. Fiery is Head Multi Hunter, and also runs the speedgame. The EULA is a shambles and the "sentences" she hands out are often either too harsh or too leinient depending on what sort of mood she is in on the day in question.

The speedgame.... where do i start. Firstly I'd like to point out that any newcomer or someone looking into playing Planetarion will first check out the speedgame to find out how enjoyable it is, and how well its run. The topic in #speedgame is always out of date, when Fiery says theres going to be a speedgame, shes always late starting the ticker, and the game is often left running too long, 12,000 ticks the other day, considering the normal round is 1137, thats quite a considerable difference. Lastly i'd like to point out her people skills, this woman has no sense of humour, unless you basically lick her arse, she doesn't tolerate you, and im not prepared to do that or to stomach her bad mood swings which basically swing more towards bad then good, and therefore i was kicked from the channel. For someone who has put alot of time, money and effort into a game to be kicked from a channel for a minor discrepency i find rude and unjust.

My two cents
Disc

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

I played r2-paying then came back r20. Pretty much as with everyone i quit because i was way too young to pay for this game. As of late, handing out £5 to play has also become a bit of a "shall i bother.. its becoming boring". There really needs to be a boost of free rounds im talking like 4-5 in a row even if you have to mass on the advertising and then have an option to pay a certain amount to remove this advertising would be better than the current nerfed free accounts (which imo are stupidly unplayable, even with 1 person winning with a free account, take note this was in a stupidly big xp whoring round.)


The affect paying for text based games has been shown in not just pa but ogame as well (google it if you dont know) they have their own wiki there and its documented how the player base got destroyed when the creators decided to make it pay to play. Nowerdays they have a much nicer system imo, you pay to remove some advertising and get a relatively small amount of bonuses (10% extra resources etc). They have in no way altered how accounts are allowed to play, free and paid accounts are fully functioning. You simply pay for bonuses.

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the comments, it's good to read about the bad side of the game as well as the good. We are taking comments on board as we decide how we are going to move forward with the game and improve a number of areas, so hopefully you'll all appreciate that this will take time as we get to know both how the game works, the community and issues related to the game.

Hopefully at the end of the day we'll have addressed the major issues and come out fo the other end with a better game in a wide range of areas, so keep posting.

Cheers guys

Jamie

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

This might be an interesting read for you:

http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=196809

Re: Planetarion Quit Thread - If you stopped playing, please read and reply
 

You know you belong here with us Phil.. ;)

I have come back after being away for a long, long time. For me it was a time issue. Having a family, a job, and other things that demanded a lot from me made it impossible to play. At least to play well. I came back for the community as well. A lot of good people around, and I have friends from just about everywhere. Also I was "forced" back by nagging irl friends. ;) And I also managed to bring a couple with me back into the game.

If I quit again it will be because of the time issues again. Real life ftw!