Nighttime protection
 

I am playing this round after a break of 2+ years i think. My impression is that most of the people around are pretty much the same ones as 5 years ago. It seems that PAs playerbase is after all these years the same old farts, which are getting even older as time passes. Also, i think most of the playerbase is european based, although i would like to see some stats that prove that.
I the stats indeed prove that PA is almost only played by aging euros, i suggest implementing some kind of nighttime protection, where fleets cannot be launched between let's says 0gmt - 6gmt (as an example of a game that implements some kind of nighttime protection see lord of ultima online). I as member of the old fart brigade would be grateful for something like that.

Just a thought.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

link: http://www.lordofultima.com/en/wiki/...ght+protection

Re: Nighttime protection
 

truly terrible idea. why not just ban attacking altogether and make it a race to see who can init the quickest?

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Reduce prelaunch to 2-3 hours max.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

Gio2k is trying to say that the game needs to be more rl friendly. Your pl limit again means that you need to stay up / wake up to launch your stuff. So it's not really fitting into this thread.
However I'd welcome the exact pl + shown in jpegs if the pl time is more than +2.

As for Gio2k's suggestion:
PA has lots of American players too. I think every player should be able to set a 3 hrs night time before round starts. Deadline to set your night time protection should end at shuffle. Once set it cannot be changed. I think those 3 hrs would help all players, not only the EU people. Protection could mean that no fleets are allowed to launch at that time window or - as Gio2k linked - some penalties for those who chose to attack anyway.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

a sleep mode which allows you to enter your planet into 'sleep' for 6 hours is ideal. Plus it would most probably sway most of the action to happen during the day and evening, which i cant see as bring anything but a +ve

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the sleep mode idea forcing launches to the daytime (in europe) would just mean more attacks get covered and even less lands. unless the scoring system is adjusted to incentive battles more, it is a bad idea imo.

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god forbid if they'd make defending easier for people who like to sleep nights. that definitely would not increase the attractiveness of the game to a random average online player who doesn't feel turned on by a browser game dictating his bio rhytm.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

With night protection in place, i would also consider 30 min ticks to make the game more action packed during the day. I also welcome any sound argument against the suggestion, but "I won't land if I don't launch when most sane people are sleeping!" is not one.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

how is it "not a sound argument" that there will be less lands if you have night time protection. it is a fact. how does landing less, seeing less battles and generally less happening make the game more attractive to anyone?

also, why change this game so it is more similar to other games already out there. if that is the idea, may as well just cancel PA altogether.

maybe get some original ideas on ways to improve the game rather than suggesting crap that will just make this game even more boring.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

Frankly If some folk cant be trusted to use vacation mode in its proper manner whats to say that this wont get "misused".

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It can't be misused, because it's not optional. You can't decide if or when you want nighttime protection. At least not in the suggested form.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

When exactly is this "night"?

Re: Nighttime protection
 

Good point ... what might be night time for europeans, isn't the case for Aussies and Yanks

Re: Nighttime protection
 

worst suggestion since the introduction of auto-reported incs :down:

Re: Nighttime protection
 

honestly, the ever-declining playerbase most apparently stuck on the same oldies is a strong enough a sign of the game being really, really boring as it is.

facts are, most people won't really be keen on putting much effort to a browser game that, in order to be played 'effectively', requires you to alter your bio rhytm for.

this is the most sound case of arguing against any gibberish having to do with land this land that time zone this time zone that. it's really nigh insurmountable if you want the playerbase to grow at some point. you just can't have the game revolve too much around a time the vast majority of the population would rather spend sleeping.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

qft.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

As someone who has played PA for a long time and suffered many sleepless nights for the game and subsequently quit because I didn't have the time or inclination to do it any more, I wholly support any idea which enables some sort of sleep mode for planets.

That being said, it's implementation would need some serious serious thinking through but I do believe that unless something like this is implemented or at least something that solves the whole 24/7 activity requirement, there's no way the player base is ever going to expand again regardless of any level of development or advertising.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

I think the idea is worth exploring, but no vac mode exploits plz

Re: Nighttime protection
 

well a penalty in cap at fixed hours seems like a prudent choice. 15% maxcap between 10:00 - 18:00 gametime doesn´t sound that bad tbh. It won´t wreck the ability to launch whenever you want. But still spur people to plan their attacks when (europeans atleast) are awake.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

I agree, one of the worst idea's ever suggested.

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yeah awesome idea

can add a happy hour for everyone landing 19:00 gametime

50% cap then!!!!

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The fact is that features like auto-reported incs are in place exactly to help against night time launches. In a sense, it is already some kind of night time protection, but it still fails to stop the main problem, which is that the game offers an "unfair" advantage to people that can afford to not sleep at nights versus the normal people with day jobs. A game that requires you to be online at odd hours in order to be sucessful is flawed in my opinion.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

I've thought a bit about this the last few days and I'm leaning in favour of the sleep mode proponents.

You hit the nail on the head here. It's not the activity requirements that are problematic. Just look at WoW, look at Eve Online, or any other MMORPG. There are millions of people who are quite willing to spend an eternity playing a game. But look at it from the other side: what if all the interesting aspects of these game were only available between 2 and 8 o'clock? Would you play a game like that? Of course not, that's just dumb.

There are a few caveats, of course. No analogy is perfect and this one is no exception. The unique selling point of Planetarion is the very fact that it's a real-time game. Whereas in WoW you can easily choose to play only 5 minutes a day without suffering any penalties (other than level speed), a certain minimum amount of activity is required in PA to survive, let alone grow.

Even the concessions that are made leave little room for doubt: PA is a game to be played continuously. Vacation mode was not added until round 11 (if I read the pawiki correctly), far past its peak, and has always come with a serious downside: you're safe, but you don't grow, while everyone else does.

It would be foolish to throw the out the very thing that made (past-perfect) PA successful. I believe there is still a market for a good real-time browser game, but no game, no matter how good, can afford to let all the action in it take place during periods when most people aren't around to experience them.


This sounds like a dangerous change, but it's easy to predict how it'd work out. PA has always needed a certain minimum time between launch and land, because people require 7-9 hours of sleep a day. With sleep mode, that restriction no longer applies. There are still certain requirements, such as allowing enough time for defenders to marshall their forces, but even now tag defenders only have 2 hours, much of which is not actually used in most cases. With sleep mode, I'd probably support a switch to 30 minute ticks (or other measures that amount to same).


That is a valid argument, actually, but not one that can't be overcome. For one, the rate at which attacks land is not a fundamental aspect of PA, unlike other constants like as the time between launch and land, which below a certain threshold potentially destroy playability. However, in the larger scheme of things, it makes absolutely no difference whether your land rate is 25% or 75%. We've had enjoyable rounds both with defensive and offensive stats.

In any case, there are valid objections to overly defensive stats and sleep protection would indeed swing the balance a bit in favour of defense. If that's considered undesirable, it can be corrected in the stats. There are also other alternatives, like changing salvage rates or init costs.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

I'd like to suggest some more things:

- take out pl entirely! you should wake up at 03:00 even if you have to work a few hours later. PA goes first!
- Take out auto report! Only planets that can get online are able to report their OWN incs. No more reporting for galmates! Force players to check pa every hour. again PA goes first!
- when your fleet is about to land any mission it should need additional input from players. Some immersive question from your admiral like "Are you sure we should take those roids?" At no input within 5 minutes after tick self destroy should be initiated to simulate your admirals anger about your lack of activity in game.
- Your asteroids should be magnetized once per tick each. Means if you have 1k roids you need to magnetize them all by clicking the "magnetize roid 1 of 1xxx" button to prevent them leaving the planetary orbit and fly to other planets! The repetitive input requirement should motivate the players to stay at pa and not migrate to farmville.
- ban the idea of having a mobile app for pa. Players should be forced to access pa via their own computer (ip address tracking please!). If the player decides to enter pa from a different ip MHs should consider this as multiing and kickban them!

Players not liking these suggestions are whiners and noobs. They should play wow or counterstrike.
-

Re: Nighttime protection
 

[quote=Mzyxptlk;3208532]I've thought a bit about this the last few days and I'm leaning in favour of the sleep mode proponents.[quote]

Welcome to the league of the sane.

I can't tell about Eve.

But World of Warcraft is slightly different. Apart from the tiny fraction of high end guilds (probably about the amount of planetarion players, honestly), you'll struggle to set up a raid that goes through night times.

Even high end progress guilds do it for a 'week' or 'few'. And it's once every now and then, four or so contents a two-year. These people simply take the time off work (ie. real life vacation) and grind it through. It's not the vast majority of the playerbase. The majority spend their time online during peak hours, they sleep at night.

God forbid if you queue 3v3s on Rampage or Cyclone between 01: and 04: game time. You'll get a 15 minute queue which bounces you into a 1900 MMR team you can either win for +1 rating or lose to for -49 rating.

tldr: World of Warcraft peak times are after people get home from work/school and before they go sleep. It's a game that allows you to very flexibly set up the times you want to play it on. This is the 'optimal' aim - a game that has enough content to satisfy a lot of grinding, but at the same time can be played in depth with a pair of hours a day.

Of course there are caveats. However, it's fair to say that the unique selling point isn't selling all too well here is it now. If your product isn't selling, there's something wrong. In a game where social constructions and networking provide for 'content' (if you get what I mean here), selling to a wide population is what makes the game 'good'.

I believe times were slightly different partially due to the lesser dominance of other social online games. I can understand you'd argue with this and that here (UO etc), but MMOs have come a long way in 10 years. You have a lot of more competition, on all pitches. It means you'll have to be seriously more attractive for people to put an effort, especially an effort anywhere near what Planetarion requires.


As you say about stats. It's a valid argument but at the same time it's not much more than a result that can be fixed by adjusting parameters. Ship statistics and game mechanics can play a dramatic role on how much you can land, and it really can't be that difficult to adjust in the end. It's a very limited data set. It's so easy to fix in the end that I can barely see it's relevance.

While it's fun to play with caveats and whatnots, it's easy to take the blunt facts and understand this:

- it's a diminishing playerbase with no signs of upwards trend.
- the time requirements are not only demanding but intimidating.
- would you think the average joe rather plays
a) a great game that consumes the majority of his life
b) a mediocre game that allows him to pick his schedules

(hint: he'll play world of warcraft, with a 3v3 team around 1100-1200 range, and he finds random dungeon heroics difficult)

Re: Nighttime protection
 

I totally agree something must be done.. the rounds ive tried to play serious ive been waked up 2-4 times each night asking for fakes, def or avoiding/doing fleetcatches.. its fun for some weeks.. but this game aint healthy at all in the manner some people play it.

Sleeping 2 hours, being waked.. dulling off for 40min then waked.. then 3 hours sleep until work or school..

In the earlie days of pa this was not the same problem.. the huge playerbase made sure a random galraid on you was happening maybe once each second week. There was simply alot more planets in the universe. Just to point out a example, i started this round being attacked 5 of the 6 first days of the round. Totally random galraids by all different allies. xvx, dlr, ct, newdawn and tof. This could never happend before.. not that i whine about incs. its a wargame.. but ppl need to be able to sleep a whole night once in awhile

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There are enough aussie/usa/asian and even south american players that total up to 300 to make any sleepy time for us Euro's impossible, yeah lets cut out 1/4 of our playerbase good idea

Re: Nighttime protection
 

As a west coast american I could live with what's basically a permanently reduced max cap as long as it wasn't a cumulative reduction, otherwise it could end up being a 5% or less cap very quickly.

If some form of night protection allowed the game to grow significantly I think it would be worth it.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

we're not really interested in 300 players dropping off are we
obviously, a system of 'night time protection' would also need to ensure people can select the time of the day they want to sleep on. the key idea is to make the game accomondate for people's bio rhytms, not the other way around.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

And who knows this might actually increase the playerbase instead of shrinking it ;)

Re: Nighttime protection
 

I'm not sure what you mean, exactly. Are you proposing a system in which people in certain time zones cap less than people in others?

Re: Nighttime protection
 

he's proposing that the european night would be reduced in cap (which is a bizzarre idea, in my opinion. this would mean reducing cap for essentially mid afternoon landings, since early morning/late night attacks would technically land then) in order to provide a negative incentive to attacking at night.

i don't think this is the correct approach.
i'd rather advocate planets being able to define a flat out no-launch (in or out) period of six hours or so per day without the loss of resources.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

Agreed. A few people in this thread seem to be confusing "sleep" with "night in Europe". While it's true that a sleep mode would primarily benefit Europeans, who are asleep when most attacks are launched, the conclusion that this means that it's somehow supposed to only benefit Europeans, to the exclusion of everyone else, seems pretty dumb to me.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

are we now decided that you can push a '6-hour-sleep-mode' button on demand which will deny anyone launching attacks on you. during this sleep mode your planet will continue inbound development, but any outbound activities cannot be committed (this includes prelaunches for attacks and launching defenses). this mode cannot be cancelled on it's duration. edit. i mean, you cannot launch attacks or defenses of any sort while your planet is on sleep mode. prelaunched attacks on you fail. attacking fleets launched on you cannot be done. (i'd prefer if prelaunch was mostly abolished on attack fleets anyways. or shortened dramatically to 1-3 hours. this kind of change would partially defeat the original purpose of the feature). however, if you're already under attack when you activate the mode, this will not be interrupted.

to take into accoung anyincomings you might be target of before you want to sleep, defensive fleets can be launched towards a planet on sleep mode (again, i think the negative metagame implications of ie. 'hiding fleets' are not relevant).

additionally, pushing it will trigger a 23-hour-cooldown that will prevent the mode from being reactivated during that period (i believe 24 hours is too much of a cool for the bio rhytm reasons mentioned above. i am in full understanding that a cooldown of 23 (arbitrary. possibly 22) hours can cause 'abuse'. i don't believe it's a relevant problem).

planet scans will reveal the cooldown and recent sleep mode activations by planets in order to make it easier for attacks to be planned. this way you would be able to tell when a planet can or will activate it's sleep mode.

i'm not willing to discuss the impact of this system to the metagame since i believe the discussion would be too subjective and speculative in nature to provide any reasonable insight. meta will develop itself, and adjust itself to the situation no matter how you change game mechanics. if you want to ramble, please ramble on how the system could be 'better' rather than how your alliance cries and this and that happens because you wanted to be rewarded for sitting on planetarion twenty-three hours a day.

edit. clarification

Re: Nighttime protection
 

Not sure that's a good idea, on the presumption most people will sleep 7-8 hours it'll be so easy to plan attacks as people just finish sleep mode but don't actually login.

Also, it should still be possible to play PA in the current way, ie some nights you may wish to choose not to use your sleep mode, so the hardcore players can continue as normal - you want a best of both worlds solution.

In order for fairness planets should maybe only 75% income while in sleep mode.

The majority of this thread I'm guessing no nothing development because comparing PA to WoW etc is just.. wrong.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

then make it 7-8 hours.
however the cooldown needs to be visible otherwise it becomes too much of a tactical feature (which it will become for hardcore players nevertheless, but thatbecomes metagame discussion then).

and what i suggest in no way denies people the ability of doing this

i'm really reluctant to admit that letting people have their night's sleep in order to make the game more appealing to masses (earleir argument on networking games and the significance of society for 'fun factor') needs to involve a 'fairness factor' that punishes your average joe for sleeping.

yes yes yes it's this and that

the core of it still stands. in games where social interaction is of pinnacle importance the system needs to be appealing enough for large enough masses of people to attract large amounts of people. punishing people for being keen on sleeping at night isn't a way to accomplish this.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

Nope, your assumption that a slight reduction in income is a punishment is wrong. It is a reduction, not a punishment. Activity should be rewarded. Sleeping should be used for nothing more than sleeping, and to keep it this way it needs to be made so it's not just a protection mode.

Fairness and balance is key here. On the basis that PA has degreaded from 200k to 1k players it's safe to assume we have only the hardcore players and some average joes (as you call em) left. So you want to piss off all the current playerbase and replace them with casual players? be my guest - watch PA die overnight.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

it's not an assumption


see i'd be surprised if a hardcore player didn't come up with the 'activity should be rewarded because there are people willing to break their lives for a game and i am one of them reward me please' -argument.

yes yes, you two hundred people willing to do it deserve a reward.
could we, instead of giving it out on resources, simply like, maybe give you a shiny tint to your planet name's colour?

we've all been watching these same hardcore players for five years now
you can sit on your brother's and dog's scan planets for another five years and be doing the exact same shit everyone's been to until now or take a risk and see if you can improve things.

of course it's someone else's choice whether to take the risk or continue like this.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

You can't quote 3 words and just make a comeback without explaining why, that's preposterous. How can this be a productive discussion on improving PA?

And you say it's not an assumption. Allow me to prove you wrong.

Games do reward for you activity actually. So let's start at board games. I'm going to miss every other turn (sleep mode) in my game of chess, and monopoly. By doing so I gain nor lose nothing, but my opponent who can still freely move, his activity is fully rewarded by his opportunity to move twice (and attack in chess) (or buy and accumulate more in Monopoly!).

Now, online games! If I don't log into WoW or Runescape or any other MMORPG I don't get levels, XP, or Gold. In fact i get nothing. It's not a punishment, while I do this the players who are logged in can continue to play and gather resources. Their activity is rewarded as they are far further ahead of me in the game if they play more hours than me.

Now for PA, as it's realtime if I have sleep mode which allows me to gather normal resources, and be immune to attack I'm being rewarded for doing nothing. (Even vac mode doesn't work like this!). It's like being in protection for an additional 6 hours everyday! While anyone who's more active get's less targets to choose from.

If you had income capped, there's more reward for activity (like in every other game) and more reason to be logged in. You don't have to (so it doesn't punish anyone) as those in sleep mode are still protected.

Now, your suggestion also makes thing very difficult for all the allies (oh, sorry EVERY ally) that has people in multiple timezones. So imagine I'm in sleepmode for the next 6hrs and you get incs, and I can't defend you. Now imagine half your ally is in sleep mode, shit one.

I didn't say not to do it, just said you people haven't thought it through properly - which you haven't. Which is why I argue these points. If you don't want to then you obviously don't care about improving PA you just want to be able to be more lazy while playing PA.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

Implementing a "sleep mode" that allows people to adapt their game play into their biological clock in order to attract more players is the change discussed.

Now, assuming such change implemented, adding an income reduction is punishing your joe average for preferring his sleep pattern over a browser MMOG.

Calling this an assumption is preposterous.

Nothing written here broadens my previous statement.

If it is too difficult for you to understand how this is not an assumption then I yield. It then becomes impossible to discuss this subject with you since I'd just be hammering my head on a brick wall and frankly I like my head.

however if you observe the current development of say world of warcraft the rewards for 'heinous amounts of activity' are not something that'd dramatically change your gameplay apart from cosmetics.

i'll still allow for your glittering yellow planet name for logging once each hour over a week's period. maybe if you've set your age as above (insert legal age) your population page autosearches google for a few tits and shows you them for happier planetary population! (this would greatly enhance your night game experience btw,, i need to make a thread for this).


call it achievement.

this is discussing the metagame.
i've already stated my stance on discussing the metagame on this subject.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

i welcome any discussion on the subject.
however for reasons mentioned above i am not willing to discuss metagame on a 'poof' level.
additionally, i'm not willing to read through texts that are shit (i define texts shit based on false claims in the first two lines of the text).

Re: Nighttime protection
 

So yes my presumption is correct then, you're a selfish player who wants to be able to continue to reap full reward from a real time game while their account is suitably safe from the universe.

In the meantime your DCs can't find defence fleets for the Americans/Aussies that are online with incs, this doesn't matter to you though as you're safely asleep in bed.

Also when developing and planing a game metagame is always considered as it is vital to the game success.

Since insulting one another's arguments is the way this is going to go allow me to get into the spirit of the debate by saying your arguments suck and you're too selfish to be playing a game where in order to have success you have to rely on others.

Maybe you just haven't realized yet that if you don't have the time for a real time game you shouldn't be playing it?

On a side note, there's plenty of solutions to the sleep problem. Making additional fleets researchable would be a start, and then allowing defence fleets to reside at certain planets for a number of ticks. (I know this is vague, but you can see how the idea could be taken further to protect planets for prolonged periods of time allowing one to sleep).

Another is everyone sets their attacks, or live launches if they wish. Everyone also defines defensive fleets, when the alliance has incomings why not let the game crunch numbers and send the defence fleets necessary to cover, it saves DCing, it saves searching for fleets and if the inc wasn't coverable then no-one wastes time trying to. Heck this is almost as lazy as your solution.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

Yawn. See aren't you the one making assumptions now.

This is all yet neglecting the fact that the game has so little of the likes of you and that what you call '200k planets' had 79,5k of the likes of the others and 120k of gimmick planets, bots, twins, sisters, dogs and scan planets.

Throwing around wild guesses about how hurtful this and that would be for this and that aspect of the meta is also really, really naive since you're neglecting a wide array of other possible impacts. To begin with, ideally, a reasonable rise in the numbers.

I'm not going to discuss the meta if it's going to be on a level of 'this and that happens oh dear god sky falls down on earth and god's fat ass lands on my face.'

Indeed. Tossing shit like 'your assumption' when in fact I made no assumption to begin with is an insult to any reader's intellect and provides nothing. Clinging into it is even worse.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

Do you know what an assumption is? Without fact everything you say is assumed. Jesus. I'm well aware of anything I have said that is assumed, the point is I defend my assumptions whilst you simply insult mine while making more.

Hilarious how you only address parts of my posts too :rolleyes:

Games reward activity, find me a single game that doesn't. Because if it exists, it's not a game. Game's require participation, games which work in real time require constant participation by definition.

As I said, maybe you are playing the wrong game?

Re: Nighttime protection
 

see

this is exactly why you 500 players get to have all the fun with each other

Re: Nighttime protection
 

There's plenty of successful real time games with more than 500 players.

Please stop embarrassing yourself with ill considered arguments and an authoritarian arrogance that makes you come off like a complete asshole.

If you'd have discussed my original points about capping or reducing something like mining on the sleeping planets rather than dismissing them with insults and bullshit about discussing metagames maybe I'd think you actually had a clue what you were talking about.

The fact is you ignored every suggestion I made to criticise the parts of my posts critical of your own suggestions. It's pathetic and I don't know why you couldn't have been friendly about it.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

is this an assumption too?

Re: Nighttime protection
 

When I played PA at school a lot of others played a far more popular realtime clone.

It began with O and ended with game. And it's still got a huge player base over multiple universes. Only going to mention one to prove myself as mentioning other games is against forum rules. One is enough to blow your assumption of my assumption out of the water.

Seriously that entire post and this is your reply? I most certainly stand by everything I said. This is pathetic.

Re: Nighttime protection
 

which assumption of mine?