[Influence]

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

This might be the long-term road poor mister McNewbie has to go if he wants to fullfill his wishes to be a PA king, after months or even years of work he can enjoy all aspects of the game.
Wich wasnt what i was saying anyways.

As a former avg Joe turned HC, I can tell you it surely doesn't have to be months of work. Especially not nowadays, all it takes is activity at key times (ie. when incs show), and little bit of calc skills. And perhaps a strategic choice of alliance. As in, you are a lot less likely to become HC in Ultores as you are in VGN.
I personally became HC in TGV in my first round there, having had no publicly known prior HC positions. I can't even remember how i got into TGV that round, but it sure as hell wasn't because i knew Kargool or NiTZ before that round, and it's not like TGV was riddled with former VGN that round either. What I did was actively DC, and even more actively chat to other members whenever. It's shit like this that gets you noticed. You can't expect to become influential in your working life sitting at your desk saying nothing at all to anyone. How would you expect this to work in PA?

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

Community rounds can be much more entertaining and giving than normal rounds for a lot of people as they have to work with people they dont know, and usualy have to step up and do stuff like setting up attacks and what not, wich theyve never done before in their normal alliances.

Full random rounds, either festive or not will not lead to 'other' people becoming more influential. It will be the same people that always lead, leading the same groups they always lead. They just need to cooperate with (err, i mean abuse) some other poor schmucks for a change. They will attack with the same people they always do (because they know they can rely on eachother), and they will not attack those people. Like Mz rightly points out, it's how alliances were formed in the first way anyhow.

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

It can be completely diffrent from normal rounds as most alliances arnt putting effort into winning a "community round", and the "power" belongs to other people than the normal criminals.

Wrong, and funnily enough you even confirm this yourself in your post toward CBA and your derogatory comments toward how FL went into last 'community' round. People will play with their friends, regardless where they are throughout the universe, regardless of which other affiliations your setup forces on them.

The first alliances that were formed were attack cooperations. even within the first cluster alliances the weaker galaxies were preyed upon, especially to gain the early advantage by the higher ranked players/galaxies. So unless you opt for a setup where you don't have to attack, such attack cooperations will always emerge, and they are a hell of a lot more likely to form between those who are already playing together in normal rounds. Again, this is just a basic risk/reward economic decision.

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

A lot of the "pre PaX/PaN" magic was that the game was way more individualy/gal based than it is today. Orginisational skills, stats knowledge, tech knowledge, and sosicial skills was deciding, not who you have been playing with the last few years or what your pa history looks like.
And some people actualy enjoy PA "rounds" thats diffrent from the normal ones when it comes to what the social/alliance/hiearcy structures is based upon.

Ever since round 5, and probably r2, this game has mostly been about alliances(or blocks of alliances), even if there weren't even rankings for it. Claiming otherwise is nothing but cheap nostalgia. Granted if you didn't want to be in an alliance, there was still a way to feel somewhat successful, as there were fifty-thousand other farms out there. But feeling successful isn't the same as being successful. And frankly, if you wanna feel successful now i bet there are still some farms/scanners you can take 20 roids off of.

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

Nobody said anything about only playing with random people.
If you did read the post directed at Kaiba, it would link you to previous set ups(bps/gals).
Any changes suggested wich will remove the possibility for individuals to troll ppl using the ingame features like last xmas will be brilliant suggestions.

The only way to achieve the latter would be to completely remove the fleetpage. Cooperations will always emerge, as again, it's what basic economics dictate.


[

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

Most formed naturally within the clusters.
Or based on who landed in gals together.

Defensive cooperations started within the cluster yes, as cluster eta gave you an advantage. Pretty soon #2 and #3 started working together offensively to take down #1. #1 then befriended #4, #5 and #6 to counter #2 and #3, and none of them were in the same cluster. Guess what, the first cross-cluster alliance was born. Then the round finished, and we went on to round 2. Guess who #1 would rather work with in round 2, #2 or #4?

Also bear in mind that a single cluster in round 3 was 25% of all the planets in a normal round nowadays. The gamedynamics from that day and age just don't compare. Hell, even the dynamics from the early pax rounds are incomparable, just due to the size of the universe.



P.S. Don't get me wrong tho. I am completely indifferent on whatever setup is chosen for the winter round. Even if I would have still been playing I could not have cared at all. But if we are making a case for a setup, than we should at least try to make valid arguments. And beside the nostalgia I already mentioned, I don't see any merit in yours.