Planetarion Forums - Noobs and re-noobs still screwed !?!!! (cluster 20/21)

|Z| · 17 Sep 2003, 19:29

Facts first:

New clusters have been opened for people who pay and move to the low clusters, cluster 20 and 21. 1 gal has been filled, while there are 1-2 people in each of the rest 19 gals.

Flaming next:

I ended up in one of those gals myself, as I thought I would see if the game was worth playing. Thats what the people behind PA wanted right???

So, why in the dancing-banana

are I and the others who have done this punished with beeing stuck in a gal with perhaps another player if you're lucky, as if we got "Come get my roids cause Im so screwed here all alone" written all over our faces? Cause trust me, I would as everyone else go and roid/score people's ass off if they were in such a situation.

Im not gonna lie and say that this is all new.... but!!!!!! I've seen/heard that this rounds goal is to attract new players to the game and recommend & advertise with the possibility of trying a trial account first. Now let's say a new player does that... then thinks: oh yes, I'll pay for this cause it seems fun. Then he ends up by himself in a gal and what happens? Well, sane and normal pa players would roid him back to the stoneage for sure!

In this case its even worse cause they opened 2 clusters at once, meaning there are 200 spaces to be filled! can anyone explain why 2 clusters were opened at the same time btw?

What I want is a new way to fill up gals. Yeah, I know, those 200 spaces will probably be filled up... but by the time there are a decent amount of people in most of those gals, they have been raped to the point of no return. I mean, especially new players deserve a real chance, but with this way of filling up gals I doubt they'll ever have that.

And a more personal note: This isnt why I paid for. Of course I can be lucky and stay alive untill maybe more people shows up in my gal. But take a look back in pa history and tell me if you think thats ever gonna happen...

Flame away

Maddix · 17 Sep 2003, 19:33

I sympathise totally with you mate, I know a couple of friends in exactly the same position.

Only thing the 'community' can do is not go off and roid those people out of moral principle, but you and I both know thats never ever gunna happen (altho I sure as hell won't do it).

Question remains who, why oh why was each galaxy not filled up in turn, yes maybe a few friends would end up together, but at least they would not be paying to be a farm for weeks on end.

Copie · 17 Sep 2003, 19:35

mmmmm free roids!

/me sends his fleet

Scoot951 · 17 Sep 2003, 19:35

The only bright spot is that in this round attacking for points is more worthwhile than attacking for roids, most of the time, and attacking you might not be worth the trouble.

But yea, sucks to be you.

JC · 17 Sep 2003, 19:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Copie
mmmmm free roids!

/me sends his fleet

That kind of attitude is why PA no longer attracts new players

.

You might as well save up resources and try exciling yourself |Z|, its not like you can end up in a worse gal so you might get lucky.

|Z| · 17 Sep 2003, 19:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Scoot951
The only bright spot is that in this round attacking for points is more worthwhile than attacking for roids, most of the time, and attacking you might not be worth the trouble.

But yea, sucks to be you.

I know things are different this round, but people will come visit anyways thats for sure. Not only that, you dont have the fun in getting a good gal going with a good community, which is more important to me than getting the highest score possible.

But whats worse is what this will do to any new players... we cant simply do it like this if we want new active players

Copie · 17 Sep 2003, 19:42

glad you spotted the sarcasm there

Anu · 17 Sep 2003, 19:43

You are so right. I fully support this flame.

JC · 17 Sep 2003, 19:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Copie
glad you spotted the sarcasm there

Doesnt matter whether you were being sarcastic or not as there are enough people in this community that will quite happily ruin someones round just for a few roids.

SYMM · 17 Sep 2003, 19:51

You do have the slight condolence that people below cluster 12 (i.e more than half the current universe) have a higher eta then you than they do to, for example, cluster 19.
And i'd guess the reason for opening 2 clusters is to stop people paying at the same time to land in the same galaxy

Hexy · 17 Sep 2003, 19:52

awwww poor fancy Z... shall i exile someone in my gal and you can fall softly into place with me?

but your right... 1 - 10 then do it again should be the way to fill a gal want it more random... then open 3 gals and fill them randomly at a time? I havent the answer .. only the sympathy for you.

Copie · 17 Sep 2003, 19:52

Quote:

Originally posted by JC
Doesnt matter whether you were being sarcastic or not as there are enough people in this community that will quite happily ruin someones round just for a few roids.

True, thats the price we pay of playing a multiplayer game though, just like the real world, this game is full of idiots.

Although i appreciate that |Z|'s situation doesn't really help new players enjoy the game. Give a little careful planning then it could have been avoided. Without a shuffle.

How about opening 30-40 clusters at the beginning and adding a planet to each one as they sign up. This means that you wouldn't gave a 10 planet limit on gals, they would just fill up with however many planets fit. Whilst admitidly this would mean potentially half the universe has one planet less in there gal it's a better situation than having 2 clusters b0rked completly. And those clusters are where the n00bs are gonna go the very people we want to enjoy the game more than anyone so they'll stay and be a part of our stagnating community.

/me waits and sees what happens.

Copie · 17 Sep 2003, 19:54

Quote:

Originally posted by Hexy
awwww poor fancy Z... shall i exile someone in my gal and you can fall softly into place with me?

but your right... 1 - 10 then do it again should be the way to fill a gal want it more random... then open 3 gals and fill them randomly at a time? I havent the answer .. only the sympathy for you.

/me fluffles hexy

|Z| · 17 Sep 2003, 19:57

Quote:

Originally posted by Hexy
awwww poor fancy Z... shall i exile someone in my gal and you can fall softly into place with me?

but your right... 1 - 10 then do it again should be the way to fill a gal want it more random... then open 3 gals and fill them randomly at a time? I havent the answer .. only the sympathy for you.

I like sympathy, I can have more of that

And let me know when someone pisses you off, I think they'll like fancy Z a lot better

cypher · 17 Sep 2003, 19:58

Quote:

Originally posted by Maddix

Only thing the 'community' can do is not go off and roid those people out of moral principle, but you and I both know thats never ever gunna happen (altho I sure as hell won't do it).

no half decent player would... as chance of actually getting roids is too low..

|Z| · 17 Sep 2003, 20:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Copie

How about opening 30-40 clusters at the beginning and adding a planet to each one as they sign up. This means that you wouldn't gave a 10 planet limit on gals, they would just fill up with however many planets fit. Whilst admitidly this would mean potentially half the universe has one planet less in there gal it's a better situation than having 2 clusters b0rked completly. And those clusters are where the n00bs are gonna go the very people we want to enjoy the game more than anyone so they'll stay and be a part of our stagnating community.

I dont know what system we need for it, but this time it didnt work very well atlleast. I also want a growing community attracting new players.. and I dont think that they way to fill gals should be one of the things blocking this.

|Z| · 17 Sep 2003, 20:03

Quote:

Originally posted by cyphie
no half decent player would... as chance of actually getting roids is too low..

Not when you are a juicy target, as I guess many new players can be... and re-noobs like me :/

Gerbie · 17 Sep 2003, 20:10

First of all my simpathies.
I see PA team make too many changes without thinking them through.

Now some explanations about why I think they did it.

As you all know the way PA team is filling up gals is being critisized heavilly. They have been filling up the gals lineairly, making it possible to predict where the next person to upgrade would land. This allowed people to create private gals. Despite this fact it has been anounced that no shuffle will take place.

The exiling method has also been critisized. People that exiled ended up in the most empty gal. If a new gal was formed in the beta, everybody who exiled automaticly landed there. Again allowing the creation of private gals.

The original universe for payed accounts consisted of 19 clusters. The 19th clusters only had 5 parallels. After these gals were filled with the lineair method the 6th till 10th parallel were filled in the 19th cluster. Again this method of filling allowed people to get together.

At this point PA team had to make a choice: what now?
The only solution appears to be creating several gals at once and randomly spreading people through this gals. The more gals are created, the smaller the chances of exiling/upgrading to a certain gal.

I think from here we need to find a way to improve the system. I suggest gradually creating new gals in stead of doing it batchwise. For instance, create a new gal when there are less than 10 gals with openings. This would give only 10% chance to land in a certain gal and would give people a chance to land in a half filled gal or a gal with just 1 free spot as well.

aza1 · 18 Sep 2003, 03:25

I wish i had read this thread before i upgraded my account last night; i now have no less than 5 incoming fleets on screen with differing eta's. I will be lucky to have a roid left after this pounding. I have one other person in my gal with 30 roids, one in protection and me. I am a magnet for incoming and my round will effectively go no where unless i can get into a decent gal.

To think i felt sorry for spinner & co with his latest update on paid numbers and the future of planetarion as a result of this.

Please creators a bit of common sense would not go astray!

aza1 · 18 Sep 2003, 03:55

furthermore this is what new players will also be experiencing; i can guarantee they will not find this game fun and will almost certainly walk away and never return.

DJet · 18 Sep 2003, 10:35

Just be thankful that attackers can only land for one tick...

I would ofc share the sympathy, but i've been there before, for the last 3 rounds i've ended up in a high cluster at the start of the round, just bare it out, eventually people get bored of hitting small targets, normally when the alliance wars start up...

masochist · 18 Sep 2003, 10:43

these clusters are great. i exiled myself and now i'm 21:5:4. as u can c its a great gal with very activ ppl.

Hicks · 18 Sep 2003, 11:20

Quote:

Originally posted by JC
That kind of attitude is why PA no longer attracts new players .

Here's another attitude that means no new players, £10 an account.

Spearhead · 18 Sep 2003, 13:25

tbh i dont mind what it costs, when its worked out properly it can cost up to 20 Euro i dont mind....but this utter crap about low clusters not being able to attack 50% of the univ at normal ETA is just wank...and doesnt diserve a penny of my money...if you want to play PA you want to have the same advantages and disadvantages as the rest of the universe...i havent started yet and i'm allready loosing pfffffffff BIG THUMB DOWN!!! the twat who came up with that dynamic tt should be shot in the face

Omnipotent · 18 Sep 2003, 15:30

Quote:

Originally posted by JC
That kind of attitude is why PA no longer attracts new players .

You might as well save up resources and try exciling yourself |Z|, its not like you can end up in a worse gal so you might get lucky.

last time i checked, this was a wargame not a kindergarden where we go by whats fair or not.

Anymore overmanagement from creators side and you can be quite sure you wont even pass 1k paying customers next round.

Stew · 18 Sep 2003, 19:36

I'm in same situation - why can't the Creators just merge these gals so they are all filled! Then we can kick the inactives (if tehre are any!) and get goin!

Pleeeaaaseee!

Zh|l · 18 Sep 2003, 21:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Hicks
Here's another attitude that means no new players, £10 an account.

This is the correct answer.

The competition to PA is just too great nowadays with the release of games like Star Wars Galaxies and Eve Online. Games that give your a free trial for an entire month and then require less than £10 a month in most circumstances.

G.K Zhukov · 19 Sep 2003, 00:06

AO costs like 5£ a month?

Al_zz · 19 Sep 2003, 09:31

Quote:

Originally posted by Zh|l
This is the correct answer.

The competition to PA is just too great nowadays with the release of games like Star Wars Galaxies and Eve Online. Games that give your a free trial for an entire month and then require less than £10 a month in most circumstances.

Those are totally different games. If takes forever full on line gaming time to play in a game like eve (I found it extremly boring even for its excellent graphics). Planetarion requires little effort regularly. You can do with a few minutes every few hours and get by. So you can combine playing planetarion with a job/school/uni and don't have to sit behind your comp playing 6 hours or more a day.

hAl

crunch · 21 Sep 2003, 05:25

I think teh way its been done is absolutely pathetic.

I've been in my galaxy since Thursday and there hasnt been 1 time where I havnt had incommings. I didnt exile myself I joined from the higher clusters so its not like I annoyed anyone. I'm not even remotely big (12k) and i've got top 100 players coming in on me. I really done understand it, why!?

I've been there 2 days and we have 2 spots open which makes us even more vulnerable. Its just getting rediculous and the constant attack means every time I build or try to build its crushed. No one in my gal can defend me as their all in the same position. Now I didnt expect not to be attacked in the game as thats what its all about but its a bid sad not even having a chance in my opinion and I paid to have fun in the game not continuouly get crushed.

Stals · 21 Sep 2003, 05:33

I just support ur thread 110% |Z|

Makhil · 21 Sep 2003, 10:06

When a trial account moves from the free universe to the paid one he should get a 24 hour extra protection...
For the newbie bashing, i know many players who dislike it so much that they take pleasure in attacking the bashers (after a pamail for them to recall).
Maybe we should open an irc chan #basherhunters where high clusters can ask for help.

Twist · 22 Sep 2003, 13:05

but even I would bash them to hell on my own.....
right now I dont cause I bash with my ally
and if only to make them cry and hate spinner...only way to reach him and make him listen is by the money....and as the pros all pay anyhow he does not care about them...so what is left...only the noobs who give him new money. if they wont come cause they have learned to hate this game spinner will start listing...and if not pax will die...and pa will be reborn under an other name.
and with other creators who listen to the people who play.

I posted this in beta forum....spinners answer was to close my account.....
and hell then the top 100 started crying cause my new zik account was a pain in their ass....
greets spinner......they noobs start crying allready

Leshy · 22 Sep 2003, 13:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Twist
I beat up little kids for their lunch money

Twist · 22 Sep 2003, 13:29

lol
right I am EVIL

Wishmaster · 22 Sep 2003, 18:28

someone shuold scan the gals, and name the attackers cooords..then we can attack them at free will:-)

General1 · 22 Sep 2003, 21:00

BLA BLA BLA, I am somewhere in c20.
2day I had my first incoming, and I have been there for 4/5 days now.
We have had 9 or 10 incoming fleets on these 4 or 5 days. So TBH the usual stuff. We covered all except 1 ( beer rox

)