PAteam and top rate comedy
 

From here...

Major changes for this round include:

- Signup simplified
- Can add personal notes to planets
- Quick mail option from the galaxy page
- Bcalcs are now able to be added to reported fleets
- More comprehensive ranking pics


It's either comedic genius or someone needs a dictionary for christmas. Really scraping the barrel this round guys :(


Any chance anything genuinely new is going to be added to the game ever?

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Well atleast they are usefull addons.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Only one of those five is useful.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

I just copied what was said in the previous announcement to repeat it etc. Why the word "major" was initially chosen in can't really say.
While the changes are on a grand scale they are useful and several of them are actually things players have requested. Including things like the mobile detection (which somehow has fallen off the list). There are other changes as well, but that's not really of the kind that you'll directly notice, IE like cleanups of various kinds.

The level of "changes" are as we've been told though, what will be done for next round might be different though, so you can only hope you get more large scale changes/additions then. However we can't be changing/adding things on a large scale all the time.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

What are you complaining about, JBG, isn't "new stats" something genuinely new every round?

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Mobile detection and simplified skins is a big win :up:

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

That one is not win. It's like adding another fleet slot, incs don't affect your production and such anymore. :/

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

very shitty addon indeed :S:S:S

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

I've had some time out, can somebody direct me to some explanation of what 'mobile detection' is please?

(p.s. I did a search on 'mobile detection' and it pointed me back here)

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

its something like when u login via phone then the pages that are opening for u in yer mobile browser are more simplier and faster.. i think.. not quite sure either :s

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

I suppose if my Web Design course I was sitting had actually had anything to do with Web Design, I'd probably be familiar with the term if it's something of a nature you're describing.

Thanks, neroon.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

You can test it with Safari by switching your User-Agent (Develop > User Agent), I'm sure some Firefox addon can do a similar job.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Fair enough. It still looks retarded.

Lol? What was the last large scale gameplay change we had? And no I don't count things like changing production or cap rate which are really just tweaks of gameplay. What was the last actual new thing added to the game? I respect what is done in terms of general upkeep on the game, I think we went the whole of last round without a downtime, but in terms of genuine improvement nothing seems to ever happen.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Just so ppl can "see" the difference
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/3938/loginnormal.jpg <-- normal
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/796/loginmobile.jpg <--- mobile/handheld

(obviously the closed notice is just due to differences in when the pic was taken)

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

So what do you count?

Last round had a rather largely changed access system add for alliances, while this doesn't seem to be a big thing, it does mean that every alliance page had to have quite a few changes each, as well as several other pages that uses alliances data/values in some way. And for the players it does mean they get much more control over things themselves.

r30 had the addition of a bcalc, which to some might not seem as much but is quite a bit of work, and judging by the usage, has had quite a benefit and interest from the players.
It also had the alliance intel system added, which is somewhat small, but still provides help to alliances without their own and even established alliances use it.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

I'm not saying these changes aren't welcome or that they don't take time to implement. But in terms of improving the overall gaming experience and giving Planetarion a talking point that can attract new players beyond the same ones we had in r5 these changes have zero impact. Nobody is ever going to start playing a game because it's easier to add players to your alliance or because you have an ingame bcalc. Yeah, for the current playerbase changes like these help keep them around because it makes playing the game slightly easier. Would you try and sell a game based on what's been added to it over the last few rounds though? Not a chance.

Comparing it an actual computer game franchise or whatever what has happened recently is a number of patches and add-ons have been released. Nothing has been done to change the actual game itself and make it more interesting. Maybe everyone else is content with a game where we have around 1500 planets and 600 active players. Personally I'd like to see a genuine effort to expand the game again. And to do this you need selling points.

For the record the last major change in PA has been free accounts becoming viable, and even this didn't show any actual imagination (it did improve the gameplay experience for free accounts and made pa more accessible though so it should count).

Actual new changes for the future would involve being able to do different things ingame from what you can currently do. New ship classes, new forms of combat, new methods of interaction between players outside of combat, new ways of building ships, new research and construction paths and methods, a genuine use for population in some form, a new "geographical" shape to the game, different forms of resource gathering and usage, new approaches to fleet dynamics et cetera. Basically it comes down to two things. New things to do with your planet and new ways to interact with other people. That's what people look for in games.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Something which makes people think "wow!". I'm sure many of the updates are all nice little changes, but when it's obvious that little time has been spent then people will feel a bit cheated.

Part of the problem is that Planetarion is so far behind what it should be, sometimes the features you're adding makes it feel like they should've been added ages ago instead of impressing people. The bcalc is a typical example of this, it may be a nice feature, but you could also argue that it's taken 30 rounds for PA to implement a bcalc.

It also feels like you're just shuffling things around half the time.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

To be honest, there's one coder working on the game, he's not being paid and does it in his spare time, can try and improve the game in ways that have significant impact for us the current players or try and revolutionise the game.
Without someone with a vision on how to do this (Pete was supposed to have one, but seems like **** all so far) and more people coding it I can't honestly see the game going anywhere amazing :/

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

To Cins defense: Quite a few changes which seem to be 'cosmetic' turn out to be relatively huge efforts on the coding side. On the other hand, there should still be some prioritizing of major gameplay additions, at least from Pete. But I guess he is acting like every other owner of PA since 5th Season went bankrupt: It costs hardly anything to run the game and as long as they get their 2500 GBP per round from credits it'll all be fine for them.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

quoted for truth :/

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Well in long term I assume we wana go to something like micromanagement, something that turns the gaming more advanced, regardless its not something to hook up new players really, but atleast adds some challence to the curent playerbase and can possibly be something to make few oldies return.

I wouldnt mind either if the game "forced" you to direction the admins wanted the game to be played. Such as the fleet morale to left the newbies alone. Forcing galaxies to stick together by some rewards from doing so. Or even interrupting political manouvers if the playerbase cant balance on their own. This will atleast stop the shrinking of an universe. I would guess quite a few alliances and HCs still existed if they werent fcked over and over again and they were able toenter a field of battle with somewhat fair and challencing conditions. Also many new players would have stayed for same reasons.

I must agree about addons to new game play. To mention few I self suggested, the ground troops adding a new dimension to battle. Perhaps some weaponary outside casual fleet also, missiles and so on and definately something to counter the covert-ops too. More resources and trading of them would add more to do with the community and other playerbase also, aswell as trading caught prisoners. I wouldnt mind either if the galaxies needed to work more together to achieve better rank, such as common projects, common goverment settings, common pds defence and so on... :) Some units colecting dead metals, scrab, steal funds or to give higher salvage would add something to tactical play aswell.

As I have said multiple times, most of the pa clones have made far more better and advanced features than the mother game itself and used some extra imagination to make them apear. Ofc this is forced to them by not falling to be the same game, but I wouldnt mind if the imagination were used here aswell to develope the game further.

How ever I definately rather play game with easy usage than use my time for multiply clicking to achieve something in game. If the game is easy to access and handle it will certainly make the playing experience nicer and u need less effort to play it. Thats when u can also afford to start adding some complexity to game aswell, when your time doesnt go to unnessesary things and u can focus to mastering your game play.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Changing the game from the same old time sucking number bashing would be great, but lets be honest no one is going to hold their breath.
There used to be a decent number of almost viable suggestions in the suitably titled forum that didn't quite make it, but might have done with a little bit of work. There is upkeep and tidying in the game, and this gets done, but implementing a massive change would take time, effort and ingenuity, all of which are sadly lacking. Or at least were the last time I played. And since the game seems to be stuck in a time warp, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume nothing has changed (the irony).

Even something fun, like adding dead planets to investigate, that had alien ships you could hijack/activate, or minerals that you could mine that were particularly rare and allowed you to build certain ships, with the planets having some form of pds etc etc etc. This is all well and good, and would be a shitload of fun, but when it comes down to it, people who play this game dislike randomly generated advantage. Especially if it doesn't benefit them. And beyond mucking around with new tech (which isn't really all that exciting) what else have we got to explore? A bio-race that suicides its ships for massive damage? Making stats for that would be fun. Meh. Cynicism aside, it would be nice to see something genuinely new.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

A Facebook port would fix all our problems.

Sure, it'd give us a whole load of new ones, but a change is as good as a rest they say...

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

This entire thread is retarted, and only made so someone can be internetcool and make other dummies say "lol".

Why hack on someone doing this for free?

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Because 'doing something for free' is not an excuse to do it exceptionally badly. Additionally, when the best excuse you can come up with is 'we are doing this for free' and 'we do not have time for this' then you might want to consider stepping back from that duty - especially when you making a clown out of yourself for free is just going to feed someone else.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

This is not an excuse. There's plenty of skilled coders in this community. Open source the game. (There's plenty of people that'd do much better with game design too!)
(Edit: yes, an open sourced game can still be financially viable.)

It'd make selling (not financially, selling in terms of getting a product in people's minds) the game easier, but we'd still have the same dev team, which is the problem in question in this thread.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

agreed :)

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

This has been a problem for what, 10 rounds or more?

PA Team run Planetarion, they inherited control but they just won't budge, they haven't had any new members for years. Even though neither Appocco/Cin have enough time to dedicate to the game it seems like they refuse to let someone else join.

Please let new people work on Planetarion, people who actually have a clue about web development, modern games and community management.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Wow.

Round 33, and we're still going over the same inertia that motivated me to leave back in R23, still talking about stuff like micromanagement which I worked on years before that.

Rather than despair, I think I might just pop in to GD rather than sign up a planet. :\

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

What?
You cant seriously be thinking that these changes are 'major' in any way on the coding side unless they have forgone any primary keys on tables; something that isnt the case.

- Signup simplified
A case of rearranging / removing existing fields on a form. Not tricky at all.

- Base fleet can now be ordered not to take part in combat [though ships produced will still be put in that fleet].
Depends on how the combat engine is coded to take the fleet into account, but could be as simple as a status field on the fleet which is on/off for determining if it takes part in combat.

- Can add personal notes to planets
Extra database table, form to add notes, query and page to read back notes. Trivial.

- Quick mail option from the galaxy page
simply a link on a page

- Bcalcs are now able to be added to reported fleets
Extra table with foreign keys, or extra field on reported fleets table. A form for adding the bcalc. Again - not tricky.

- More comprehensive ranking pics
as in graphs? This one would be at least more than an hours work - but no more than 10. If its just static images that get displayed in certain scenarios then this is not at all a big deal to do

- New stats
No code changes here.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Unlike you I do actually have quite some experience developing AAA video games from which I can tell that some things appear easy but by far are not to do easily.
Anyway, my comment was not aimed at all the things done for this round, but as a general remark regarding changes.
For example the base fleet change does actually require changes to a few critical parts of this game, so it does actually take a while to make it sure that it will not break things... and we are all glad if PA Team changes things without making it break the ticker or back ups or anything.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Whereas my comment was regarding the so-called 'major' changes this round and taking issue with your belief that they could have code changes worthy of that title.
Of course, dont let that stop you in your holier-than-thou belief that 'heartless is always right, defying heartless is heresy'

These changes are easy to do in the frontend, the backend, conceptually and in testing; and someone like you should know that.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

This is assuming the code is in a fit state to be easily adaptable, since the last proper rewrite was 20 rounds ago it's a fair guess that with coders being randomly added and removed that the code could be ... a mess, to say the least.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Suggested major change for next round:

When you click on the password field whilst logging on to the forums, the cursor is black and the background of the field is dark green. It makes it hard to see if you've correctly tabbed into the correct field after submitting your user name.

Re: PAteam and top rate comedy
 

Posting here as a sign of support for ongoing discussion.

I'll dip in once every few weeks for this np.