getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

This will be an unpopular suggestion, it has flaws and is exploitable, however, I'd like to share with you an opinion of mine.

That opinion is that fake nicking is a huge contributor to the decline of community in PA, and therefore of the game itself. In my experience, people often rarely log in with their fake nick (the bp having a 'real' gal channel and talking in that), people are distrustful, and it leads to boring and dysfunctional galaxies where nothing goes on in gal channels. To a new player who hasn't got an alliance yet, it makes PA ****ing boring.

This is mainly a suggestion to the players and particularly the HCs of planetarion.

That for one round, there is an accord between alliances that they will not fake nick, use fake relay channels and the likes.

However, it will be optional. Alliances who opt into the 'scheme' will not fake nick, and these alliances will share complete intel of any alliances that refuse to join the scheme amongst themselves, but will not share information about other alliances in the scheme (if they do, the other alliance can just retaliate by releasing their information on the original offenders).

This way there is a 'stick', and the 'carrot' is an improved game & community in galaxies that could provide extra interest to a huge number of people.

Getting it started and enforcing it would be a problem, plus it does rely on a little bit of philanthropy, but if a couple of the 'major' alliances were to take the lead and publicise this, it could easily become a popular system that could help to improve the game. I've considered a few of the arguments for and against it, but I don't want to write a huge essay just yet, and I'd like to hear what others have to think. :)

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

i must admit it is a novel suggestion, and as such if it could be implemented the results would be very interesting. The ultimate question is....would the alliances still playing/returning be capable of trusting those within the agreement?

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

What i see is massive incentive to undercut.

Too much game theory :(.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

There are preventative methods...

Some alliances have fantastic intel. They will be very likely to find any fake nicked people through their own intelligence gathering.

The punishment is then meted out if the agreement is taken seriously and is somewhat public. Trust is a valuable commodity in planetarion (as I learnt over several rounds, and it drove me up the ****ing wall tbfh :/ ), and as we saw by Subh this round, if you trade in all of your trustworthiness for the vain hope of maybe perhaps doing slightly better in the round (second, lol?), then it has the potential to utterly demolish an alliance's public image, their ability to perform politically, and even the alliance itself.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

While I think gate is quite right that it would be a bennefit to the community I am afraid I will have to agrew with UN on this one.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

in the long run if the topic stays in this thread then all it will be is theory....for it to become a possible reality then a discussion between the alliance representatives on the matter would address whether it is a feasible suggestion or not...

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

I'll go bug some alliance HCs tomorrow if I'm not too hungover to remember.

For now, it's bedtime <o.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

ascendancy have been supporting this notion fully since our existence (and even earlier for some of our members) but it's also a sad fact that there are too many shits in planetarion for it to happen on a grandscale

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

Depends on the size of the carrot/stick and the ability to find out who the shits are tbh.

Anyway, really, bed.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

While I think it'd help galaxy communication/community building (something most other aspects of the game are attacking (after all, fundamentally this is just "survival of the alliance tags"))..

For the few alliances (what planetarion's about, remember) that might aspire to win, (if it took place) it'd actually make their struggles even more transparent and even less interesting - they'd be even more pinned to the floor tactically than they are already.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

Can you explain this to me?

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

tbh, I guess that aint really possible anymore Gate. it would have been back in the old days when we had thousands of planets outside where every dude was just a ruler of a planet. We got 2k players signing up for PA every round atm, and most people know each other from past rounds etc, they know their faces in rl nor met for a drink before even. So we got a bunch of friends and players who dislike each other for several reasons, means everyone who got the power would try to bash them because Mr. A did that to Mr. B..

to name an example: there was a topic in a nameless Command Channel last round. "R18 Aims: Bashing Mr. X planet to the bones"

So it just wouldnt work aslong as people intend to play for a nice ranking. We need more players..

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

This isnt the first time ive seen a mountain made out of this molehill. Its nice to think that PA could be 'fixed' with something this simple, but its just not the case. Not only would fake nicking be impossible to stop (its already against netgamers rules, isnt ingame, and cant be enforced) it wouldnt in fact make Planetarion a damn bit better.

Why would someone who obviously doesnt see any value in joining or being active in a gal channel choose to join the channel with his real nick rather than just avoiding the channel completely?

The only people you are screwing over are the people who fake nick and ARE active in gal channels, you would be forcing those people to choose between concealment and engaging thier galaxy.

Meanwhile in every galaxy I have been in the most active people in the channel were fake nicks (who helped the newbies to no end) and the people who didnt bother joining the gal channel were just as inactive in our bp channel. Fake nicks do not stand in the way of people getting to know each other if thats what they want to do, and eliminating fake nicks wont stop selfish/lazy people from being selfish/lazy.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

While I don't think 1up's late tagging round was fun to watch (because of what other alliances did), I think it's good that they could hide from view and win. I don't think many alliances strive to be competitive (at all) as it is and I certainly don't want to see them thinking tactically even less.

On a personal note:

Getting rid of relay channels/fake nicks will quite clearly make Intelligence much easier to come by. Call me old fashioned, but I don't like playing a game where everything(anything)'s a given. I enjoy not knowing things about it. It's only remotely interesting when it's something bigger than you.

K-W:

From my experience, players that fake nick are generally pretty reserved when it comes to general chat, they might be great to talk to about Thrud's new battlecalc but that doesn't do much for the galaxy if it's Almeida telling me he's a girl from Australia.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

Indeed I am hestant to say I am from NYC when asked because there arent many NYC planetarion players and this can put a crimp in coversations. There are other popular topics of conversation that are hindered similarly. That said, many topics of general chat dont identify you as an individual, you just have to wait until later in the round to discuss some things. Not ideal I suppose, but it shouldnt keep anyone from engaging thier galaxy.

In my experience PA veterans as a whole arent chatty in gal channels, fake nick or no, because they do most of their chatting with friends in ally/bg/social channels, that or they've learned to only show up when action happens and are off doing something else the rest of the time.

To me the bottom line is that if a player wants to be social and wants to put effort into organizing and getting to know his/her galaxy, fake nicks dont stand in the way(cases of technical issues aside). I think the real problem is that many experienced players cant be bothered to make new friends or organize anything because they dont want to. I think we should place the responsibility on players choosing not to engage thier galaxy, not on the fake nicks they use while doing so.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

Can we get rid of distorters too?

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

people dont fake nick because they fear people dont like them will bash them
they fake nick because they know other people know which alliance they are in
if alliance lists became public then the need for fake nicks is gone
i know that would upset a huge number of people but i would like for this to come out of secret and into public

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

I recall when a troll through the galaxy screens showed the planet alliance next to each ruler/planet name.

Made for interesting target picking when a non-allied player (as I was at the time) was looking for targets, I generally avoided any with a tag.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

This is a better idea and pretty much makes fake-nicking null and void.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

I don't think the alliances would go for this one tho?

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

Of course not, they'd actually have to be able to fight from pt 72 on... :crymeariver:

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

they probably wouldnt be happy about it, no.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

The most valid argument against this suggestion presents itself in low numbers of active PA players. The fakenicking is a way to prevent your own alliance to be revealed to the others in your galaxy (especially when you go random) and it is also important if you have some sort of reknown in the game (good or bad) to avoid your round getting turned into a killfest of certain players. I think that the hostile enviroment that PA creates that forces people to fakenick needs to be removed before you can expect anyone to stop fakenicking..

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

Fake nicking isn't against the NetGamers rules, you may have multiple nicks.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

Gate great Ideam would be amazing if it could be implemented,. as new players first call for contact on IRC is the gal channel, to be greeted with no people chatitng would be terrible.

It would probably boost the retention of new players as well.


NOw the hard but the idea for its implementation is good but unless a few big alliances do it it might struggle to work. Overall I like the idea tho

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

I'm not going to fake nick this round, wanna BP now Gate?

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

I really wish this idea took off gate would make everything so much more fun

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

No, it really wouldnt.

Going back to public alliance tags however :)
Now thats an idea.

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

I'd go for the public alliance tags again.

I can't be bothered to hide or fakenick anyways :)

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

Who needs to fakenick these days anyway?

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

Your mother does as otherwise you'll find out about all the pictures and videos she sends round in return for defence :crymeariver:

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

Using fake nicks sucks, last time I did it in r11 I got attacked by LCH as they thought I was 1up and then attacked by 1up for attacking 1up all in the same week. At least when people know who I am they leave me alone! :(

(edit: added the sadface to get the sympathy vote!)

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

While it may be a little sad that we have reached a point in this game where people are often forced to fake nick I do think that often mores made of it than its worth.

If someone decided to call themselves "bob" rather than their real nick doesn't then mean that they become bad for the community, the impact they have on the community doesn't depend on names but their attitudes. And its peoples attitudes that need changed more than removing peoples choice to fake nick or not, if we can get more people willing to move out of their comfort zone that they find in their circle of alliance friends and to interact with their galaxies more we would see improvements to the community that are vastly greater than anything you'd get by removing fake nicks.

Also I think something people sometimes forget about fake nicks is it causes all people to enter the galaxy with a clean slate. A clean slate which means that you have to get to know your galaxy mates before your aware of their alliances and grudges can kick in. In the past before fake nicks were common i have had more than a couple of galaxies which wouldn't work together simply because of grudges carried over, members of 1 alliance wouldn't help member of another due to previous rounds events and those that stuck around the galaxy too half a round to actually get to know these people and to realise they liked them and that their grudge against them was petty. Atleast with fake nicks you find out the people are 'good guys' before views on their alliance polute your opinions

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

A galaxy where people don't fakenick is a better galaxy. Relations developped can be stronger than in alliances, maybe that's another reason why some allys want their members to fakenick and treat your gal mates as potential ennemies rather than the mates they should become...

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

To aid Gate in his crusade, I have decided not to fakenick this round!

Its really cause I cba and im playing a free account but whatever :P

On a serious note, i think its a good idea Gate. It would be fun with an open round. I doubt it will ever happen tho, and certain people would be singled out and have their round destroyed if it happened imo.

Also intel is one of the fun parts when being in an alliance. Finding important enemies an such is always a thrill. Its simply part of war :D

-Jonas-

Re: getting rid of fake nicking in galaxies
 

A galaxy where people comunicate and cooperate is a better galaxy. Which internet alias you choose in the chat room is of little to no importance.

Why would someone treat thier gal mates as enemies just because they use a different nickname? What kind of a jerk would do that and why would you blame the nick and not the person who treats his gal m8s like enemies?

How you treat people in your galaxy is a choice you make, it is not determined by your nickname.