[lokken]

What's also important is that the larger the universe, the friendlier it is to newbies. Right now, it's all rather incestuous with the worst galaxies being mopped up pretty quick before any kind of real combat starts. Not that the short rounds make attacking your alliance enemies particularly efficient at the moment. With a bigger universe newbies will still be hit of course, but with a sufficiently long round, they'll have the latter end of the round to pretty much do what they want provided there isn't too much stagnation. In addition, I think a bigger universe will encourage people to balance their fleets more simply because there will be a bigger variety of threats for players to consider.

The advantage of planetarion is that in the era of mobile internet it has the accessibility it needs to work without the massive commitment of being near a computer all the time. There are also far more functions in game to help your colleagues deal with incoming without you needing to get online. In my view the game needs to strike a balance between rewarding commitment and making demands of people that they will never accept (e.g. getting up at 3am). Most players at the top level will do it, but that's because they have become genuinely appreciative of the game. As mz has described, this may be minimised with a more global player base and alliances would probably find it beneficial to balance their membership by timezone.

Whatever happens I think the game needs to focus on encouraging co-operation. In my opinion this means a largely random universe, only allowing small buddypacks, abolishing exiles and make players need to build their galaxies. The introduction of geography back into the game will reinforce this need, as you'll need a strong galaxy to survive in your cluster and you'll need to participate in the cluster alliance and you'll probably meet with people who will get involved in the war raging across the universe. Better players will moan, but in the earlier rounds working in a siege situation was something that many of the top players had to contend with and simply accept they were going to get a shitty ranking for the sake of the team. A cluster war also gives ordinary players the chance to participate in wars that matter. Right now it is all a bit of a closed shop and we need to change that.

The so called strategy and 'meta-game' that I've described above is what makes Planetarion exciting beyond the standard gameplay of a space-game where tactical knowledge, discipline and a bit of luck get you ahead. The very best players (who will ultimately be alliance leaders) have been good at these things to some extent, but they are first and foremost astute diplomats, respected leaders, long-term strategists and masters of logistics in terms of making sure hundreds of fleets are used in the most efficient way possible. Those working under them may not aspire to any of these commitments, but a good alliance will typically have players who are aware of all these things, know their station and understand the game mechanics and team strategies at work.

A good game of planetarion in my view will place massive demands on the alliance players to succeed and dominate the metagame while giving a newbie a challenging introduction with a community (first and foremost the galaxy) that will help them get started and give them access to the alliance game. My view is that the game needs to encourage community, communication and co-operation and make people realise that it's the best way to succeed. A profile or passport that you could pass from round to round and add 'friends' so you could keep tabs on all your mates playing and help each other out would be great, actually. At the same time, it should stop rewarding it as excessively as it does. Co-operation is its own reward by and large.

Alliances and alliance players have always pressed for more game changes to help them. Sometimes they are right (some players are quite selfless and responsible in fact), but quite a bit of the time they are just being extremely self centred and selfish. Why alliances need private galaxies and a -1 defence ETA has always been beyond me, why do they need an extra advantage when newbies get none beyond their galaxy and alliance players are all sitting in the same IRC channel anyway? Whoever is running the game needs to realise they need to cater for every type of player in every change they make. There's also the 'what to do between ticks' issue but that isn't really about the nature of the game.