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Unread 14 Sep 2003, 12:34   #1
ArcChas
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Shrinking universe.

I'm not usually one for "doom mongering" but we're now 24 ticks into the round - and there are still less than 2000 paid accounts.

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Unread 14 Sep 2003, 13:36   #2
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there seem to be some payment problems..
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Unread 14 Sep 2003, 15:08   #3
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It's easier to be a God of a Shrinking Universe...
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Unread 14 Sep 2003, 15:12   #4
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Quote:
Originally posted by xtothez
It's easier to be a God of a Shrinking Universe...
The competition is a lot more violent as well, with less targets your more likely going to get gangbanged.
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Unread 14 Sep 2003, 16:07   #5
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Originally posted by Morden
The competition is a lot more violent as well, with less targets your more likely going to get gangbanged.
It was a joke. I see you're not a fan of Matt Bellamy.
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Unread 14 Sep 2003, 16:27   #6
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Unread 14 Sep 2003, 16:39   #7
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Yes, can't say I'm surprised of the declining number of people willing to spend massive time playing pa. The old players will quit gradually.

Maybe if paying was actually an easy thing to do, instead of a link to this and link to that, and read through some article to find the real link in the bottom, maybe if that wasn't the case, more would pay. Or more likely, the few people who were actually interested, and hadn't played before, lost interest when they saw tick-start moved, and then the game starting without a real manual ready.

PaX looks fun to me, but I know there's a fun game behind the not so interesting bla bla at the portal.....Not so easy for a newbie to find his way into the world of pa.

/me fears r10 is the end.
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Unread 14 Sep 2003, 19:00   #8
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Its not about putting massive time in, its not about payment problems, its about a sky high price for something which can't be compared to the old game. Hence old players leave, new players aren't going to pay this price for a game of which they find plenty of free clones for (cause thats how it looks at first sight anyway).

I can't understand why these simple things are so hard to grasp for alot of people.
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Unread 14 Sep 2003, 19:19   #9
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Quote:
Originally posted by Nitros
there seem to be some payment problems..
Biggest problem appears to be that people aren't.
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Unread 14 Sep 2003, 19:38   #10
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Well 2000 paid accounts is actually not that bad for the company running the game.

2000 accounts at an average of almost £10 per account is £20,000 for 3 months worth of game play. so multiply that out for a year your looking at 80K. Thats not too bad.

I appreciate there are costs such as servers and such like but these could be tax deductable. So all you doom and gloom merchants you should wake up and smell the profits !

This game is now a profit centre its business.Good luck to them.
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Unread 14 Sep 2003, 20:15   #11
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Quote:
Originally posted by Little Timmy

2000 accounts at an average of almost £10 per account is £20,000 for 3 months worth of game play. so multiply that out for a year your looking at 80K. Thats not too bad.
The rate PA is losing players i doubt it will last a year and so wont make 80k.
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 00:30   #12
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Exclamation

Quote:
Originally posted by Little Timmy
Well 2000 paid accounts is actually not that bad for the company running the game.

2000 accounts at an average of almost £10 per account is £20,000 for 3 months worth of game play. so multiply that out for a year your looking at 80K. Thats not too bad.
Now subtract out the costs. Servers, two programmers, the ad campaign...
Quote:
I appreciate there are costs such as servers and such like but these could be tax deductable.
Huh? You can't buy servers or pay programmers with tax deductions. A tax deduction just means you don't have to pay taxes on certain expenses; but you still have to pay those expenses.
Quote:
So all you doom and gloom merchants you should wake up and smell the profits !
Here's your first lesson in economics: revenues <> profits.
Quote:
This game is now a profit centre its business.Good luck to them.
Aye; I think they'll need it.


In a pre-R10 CH Spinner said he'd be surprised if there were less than 5K paid accounts in R10. I suspect their "break-even" point is closer to 5000 paid accounts than 2000. :/
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 00:58   #13
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Quote:
Originally posted by Little Timmy
Well 2000 paid accounts is actually not that bad for the company running the game.

2000 accounts at an average of almost £10 per account is £20,000 for 3 months worth of game play. so multiply that out for a year your looking at 80K. Thats not too bad.

I appreciate there are costs such as servers and such like but these could be tax deductable. So all you doom and gloom merchants you should wake up and smell the profits !

This game is now a profit centre its business.Good luck to them.
There's only been 2 rounds for all of 2003.
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 02:16   #14
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Quote:
Originally posted by Scoot951
There's only been 2 rounds for all of 2003.
which mean my guess of PA ending around round16 or so was wildly optimistic.
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 08:42   #15
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Quote:
Originally posted by Heartshunter
[...]its about a sky high price for something which can't be compared to the old game. Hence old players leave, new players aren't going to pay this price for a game of which they find plenty of free clones for (cause thats how it looks at first sight anyway).
[...]
The price isn't sky-high compared to other online-games.
PA isn't a clone, it is an "original", it may in aspects look like a clone of features of other games, but that has to be because PA was basically the same up to this round.
They can charge money if they have the memberbase and offer the gameplay and the service.
And I think the gameplay and the quality of service (delay of start times, shuffle or not shuffle, password max. characters wtf?, new graphic design, ...) are the factors keeping away new players or driving away old players.
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 09:10   #16
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Give it two weeks or so, and see if it's the same story.

A lot of the new players (I'd imagine) are trying it on in the free universe first. Would you pay £10 for a game that might be cruddy, if you had the option to test it out for a couple of weeks first?

Hopefully we'll see new players paying up as they find out it is a good game. Hopefully.
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 11:19   #17
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Quote:
Originally posted by Lanceman
The price isn't sky-high compared to other online-games.
It is. Don't compare this game with an for example online rpg with an evolving / consistant world, where prices are similar. Please show me an online browserbased strategy game with a similar price and bigger amount of subscribers and I'll take my statement back.

Quote:
PA isn't a clone, it is an "original", it may in aspects look like a clone of features of other games, but that has to be because PA was basically the same up to this round.
It is, you and me find PA an "original" because we probably have played for quite a while and have a biased view on it. To new players its either a clone or just one of so many browserbased games around. Players in PA for a big part are here because they got sucked into a community or are here for their friends. Ask around or look around in some threads here, numerous people have a paid account because a) they paid in advance before R9, or b) just stick around for their friends.

Quote:
They can charge money if they have the memberbase and offer the gameplay and the service.
And I think the gameplay and the quality of service (delay of start times, shuffle or not shuffle, password max. characters wtf?, new graphic design, ...) are the factors keeping away new players or driving away old players.
They had the player base, even back in R5 when P2P started alot of people bailed out because they didn't want to pay for it, and it was only
10 Euro's for 2 credits back then.
The price has trippled by now for 1 account, for a game which in itself is nothing special if you are new.
New players don't know anything about poor service, so that argument can only be for mostly old players, who find PA has changed so much, its not their kind of thing anymore, coupled with continuous lacking service and decide its not worth their money and their time.

To be honest, I don't believe there will be alot of new players at all. Most upgrades will mostlikely come from old players either for reasons mentioned above, or they indeed start liking it. New players don't have enough time to get into a community to actually get a reason to stay, 2 weeks is very short, not to mention its pretty hard to get into one in the first place.

On top of this, for a game like planetarion to be successfull you need a BIG universe with lots of planets, an often heard complaint of past 5 rounds is that the universe isn't big enough. The now even smaller (tiny?) universe will contribute to making the game a failure, not only moneywise, but for us players more importantly, game- and funwise.

But time will tell :P
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 11:51   #18
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Re: Shrinking universe.

Quote:
Originally posted by ArcChas
I'm not usually one for "doom mongering" but we're now 24 ticks into the round - and there are still less than 2000 paid accounts.

If the support team would actually do what they are here for and solve the problems we occur I could actually pay for my account.

But after days and days of waiting for them to fix my "problem" I guess it wont be fixed before the two weeks are up and my account will be deleted.

Besides, I dont know why I bother to wait anymore since most of the "good" gals are prolly filled up by now :/
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 12:12   #19
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the problem as i see it is that there are only 4700 players in free and paid uni combined... so we need them all to pay if we want a semi decent round.
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 12:34   #20
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Re: Re: Shrinking universe.

Quote:
Originally posted by CrazyConrad
If the support team would actually do what they are here for and solve the problems we occur I could actually pay for my account.

But after days and days of waiting for them to fix my "problem" I guess it wont be fixed before the two weeks are up and my account will be deleted.

Besides, I dont know why I bother to wait anymore since most of the "good" gals are prolly filled up by now :/
Don't worry, the good gals have been massivly exiling inactive people so there is plenty of active gals to land into. You need a bit of luck though.

Wait for another week or two and the gals will probalby have a lot less slots available cause they will all try to hold on to any decently active player that gets into their gal.

hAl
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 13:13   #21
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Quote:
Originally posted by Heartshunter
It is. Don't compare this game with an for example online rpg with an evolving / consistant world, where prices are similar. Please show me an online browserbased strategy game with a similar price and bigger amount of subscribers and I'll take my statement back.

[...]

Well you didn't narrow it down to online "browser" games in the first place ;-), but besides that (and the fact that other games cost double the price per month in some cases) staff and tech etc.needs to be paid so it isn't too high all in all. What you COULD expect from it is debatable (in question of game quality).

Quote:

It is, you and me find PA an "original" because we probably have played for quite a while and have a biased view on it. [...]
They had the player base, even back in R5 when P2P started alot of people bailed out because they didn't want to pay for it, and it was only
10 Euro's for 2 credits back then.
They should have used the fact they HAD the memberbase once making them "original" or more specific "special in a way"and used it for PR work.
Maybe they tried it, but it didn't work.
I understand people who don't want to pay for a game like this but I also understand the creators taking money for it, in the end it is probably a summary of the faults they did in the past that hinders them now (or the faults they are still doing while trying to cover them with irony).
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 14:52   #22
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Quote:
Originally posted by Lanceman
Well you didn't narrow it down to online "browser" games in the first place ;-), but besides that (and the fact that other games cost double the price per month in some cases) staff and tech etc.needs to be paid so it isn't too high all in all. What you COULD expect from it is debatable (in question of game quality).
Being pedantic, aren't we?

Quote:
They should have used the fact they HAD the memberbase once making them "original" or more specific "special in a way"and used it for PR work.
Maybe they tried it, but it didn't work.
I understand people who don't want to pay for a game like this but I also understand the creators taking money for it, in the end it is probably a summary of the faults they did in the past that hinders them now (or the faults they are still doing while trying to cover them with irony).
I never said I disagreed on paying for a game, paying a price for a service is fine, I have no problems with that at all, I currently play other games for which I have to pay, so no big deal there.
Don't get me wrong, Its not my intention to bitch at creators or whoever, I'm just trying make clear from a business point of view, and with my limited knowledge about games/gamers/prices that the current pricesetup and the quality of the game is not going to work and that from my perspective was very easy to figure out in advance. What they did in the past isn't so relevant for this discussion, but whoever is surprised about the small universe we have, must have been blind once they saw the game and knew about the price.
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 17:46   #23
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@ Laceman:
I dont think you get the coreproblem. PA is special and pa is surely its own genre or atleast was. Just PAX was born because PA couldnt survive anymore purely from beeing special. The amount of paying customers who stayed was shrinking and no new players were replacing them. The price eploded from 5¬ to 15¬ since r4 and payment options got worse (imo).
While the services and performances not really trippled in the same time. Pa has and had reached it quality/price breakevenpoint and overstepped it. For the quality of the game the price is ridiculous. You may claim its a longtime entertainment so its worth it but you have to see that this is a customer argument from an existing customer. Not from a joiner.
PAX made a very risky step and atm (i dont say this wont change) it looks like it failed. The goal was to attract more players by the changes but it looks like the playerbase will decrease again.
A major mistake were imo the radical structure changes. Many praised them as needed but i guess only future will judge this. If you change too much you lose old customers so you must have something which not only brings new ones but also replaces those you lose in this process. something i feel pa failed to do.
R9.5 was a big waste of time. There should have been a low price round to get new players who want to play AND pay rather than 10k multiplanets and the usual 3k core. Playing on a r10 preview basis. Noone joining in r9.5 played something like r10 so there are no bonds formed and i dont see why a new customer who joined a free game should stay with a exspensive paygame which is completely different and just to be found under the same url. (By this logic, if pa would change into a pornsite it would exspect to have 3-5k perm customers with 15 euros per "round" bills hehe)
I personally hope after the 2 week trial the customerbase will double so we can start with 4k payed planets. Considering not all payed planets DO play (prepaid accounts of ppl who dont like it or ppl who go inactive etc) thats imo the minimum amount of players needed to make it play and enjoyable.
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 19:21   #24
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I signed up for PAX, but have so far logged in about twice.
I have been playing since round 1 and to be honest i can't be arsed to learn a new game.
The most fun i have had so far was renaming fleet one to **** ****er.

Apart from having a deadly fleet of **** ****ers, the layout looks far too :duh: for me.
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 19:27   #25
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Apart from having a deadly fleet of **** ****ers, the layout looks far too :duh: for me.
We knew the use of links on the left hand side of the page and your planet details at the top would be radical.
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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 19:27   #26
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I think we could do with having some more white/gray font on the mining screen.
PAX is lacking on the white or gray font/buttons/boxes for my liking.
I mean, having a nice little icon for M, C and E looks a lot better than yet more white font.
The layout and it's lack of graphics, is muddled and a step backwards, and looks like it was done by a 'tard.

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Unread 15 Sep 2003, 22:55   #27
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Big mistake was not having the first round of PaX for free IMO, sure round 9.5 was a hoot, but who on earth is going to pay to play a new concept entirely other than hardened gamers (read addicts) and yes i know there was a few free Betas but its not quite the real deal is it,
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Unread 16 Sep 2003, 07:24   #28
Lanceman
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Quote:
Originally posted by Razorback
@ Laceman:
I dont think you get the coreproblem. PA is special and pa is surely its own genre or atleast was. Just PAX was born because PA couldnt survive anymore purely from beeing special. The amount of paying customers who stayed was shrinking and no new players were replacing them. The price eploded from 5¬ to 15¬ since r4 and payment options got worse (imo).
While the services and performances not really trippled in the same time. Pa has and had reached it quality/price breakevenpoint and overstepped it. For the quality of the game the price is ridiculous. You may claim its a longtime entertainment so its worth it but you have to see that this is a customer argument from an existing customer. Not from a joiner.
[...]
There is mostly not only one single core problem in a project like this, and I think the addition of at least 2 factors are possible reasons for the situation atm.
Your conduction about a core problem which you divide yourself aswell into several problems isn't much different to the discussed points between Heartshunter and me.
Furthermore I also explained why I think a price is justified to take for the game, there are still the other factors which could make you play the game, but which are in a bad state atm, and this comes not from a joiner, it comes from a long-term player who also needs to be convinced to play the game, not only the new ones.
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Unread 16 Sep 2003, 09:24   #29
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I've played the PaX beta...I feel there's something wrong...there's something i'm missing...there's something I am used to why I love the game....feel like i'm not in the game I once addicted to..I'm so sad...but that's how I feel...

Quality players and community what makes it diff from the clones...
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Unread 16 Sep 2003, 13:17   #30
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Hate to say I told you so. Producing an inferior game (thereby driving off much of the existing palyer base) and expecting newplayers to pay £10 for a browser based is ridiculous. All you've done is speeded the death of Planetarion.

Quote:
Originally posted by Amoruso
Big mistake was not having the first round of PaX for free IMO, sure round 9.5 was a hoot, but who on earth is going to pay to play a new concept entirely other than hardened gamers (read addicts) and yes i know there was a few free Betas but its not quite the real deal is it,
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Last edited by Hicks; 16 Sep 2003 at 16:17.
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Unread 16 Sep 2003, 21:21   #31
Psyon
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i see this happen all the time at my company. they keep raising the price of X when the selling of X is dropping and wonder why they cant get new members. if my company would just lower the price, not only would they get more members but returning members would also come back.

for PAX, i would rather pay 5 bucks and have 4,000 planets then pay 10 bucks and have 2,000 planets. if one wants to increase membership, then one must lower prices.

could pax get 4,000 players, yes, the people who payed 5 bucks will recomend it to friends.

the people who payed 10 bucks will just complain about it to friends.
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Unread 17 Sep 2003, 12:15   #32
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the marketing problem of critical mass systems maybe Jolt should read some books and articles bout it
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Unread 23 Sep 2003, 03:58   #33
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Re: Shrinking universe.

Quote:
Originally posted by ArcChas
I'm not usually one for "doom mongering" but we're now 24 ticks into the round - and there are still less than 2000 paid accounts.

I am beginning to suspect your relationship with Planetarion is rather similar to that little white plastic tube of yours

Oh well, a shrinking number of players can hardly be a surprise to anyone. Hearts is right (hehe) really, as a business model, an overpriced browser game just can't work. Actually, any priced browser game is probably overpriced - I think there's something about paying for what can seem like a 'webpage' is something a lot of people aren't interested in. In addition, as old players leave you don't get a new influx of new players, because the entry threshold is too high (due to payment + maybe alliance domination?)... Perhaps especially as the influx would most likely come from younger people than the average paying PA player, and people in their teens (I would imagine) aren't going to want to pay, or are not able to pay. Which is why the average age of players has gone up.

God, I'm so bored :-/
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Unread 23 Sep 2003, 10:46   #34
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Re: Re: Shrinking universe.

Quote:
Originally posted by Eol
I am beginning to suspect your relationship with Planetarion is rather similar to that little white plastic tube of yours
You always were quick on the uptake.
Quote:
God, I'm so bored :-/
So - no change there then.

(Welcome back BTW).
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Amnion (aka The Arcane Chas of Arcania) - Playing PA under those and other pseudonyms every genuine round since Round 2. Most recently (and insignificantly):
Onset of Apathy R94 | Stacks of Resources R95 | The Necromancer of Dol Guldur R96
70 Years of Queen Elizabeth R97 | Worst of The Worst R98
Knights of the Green Shield R99 | Look Out of The Window R100 | Most of All R102
Hard of Hearing (2:7:1) R103 | The Lateness of Your Application (1:6:6) R104 | Kinnison of Tellus (5:1:2) R105
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Unread 23 Sep 2003, 12:01   #35
Ado
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Re: Re: Shrinking universe.

Quote:
Originally posted by Eol
I am beginning to suspect your relationship with Planetarion is rather similar to that little white plastic tube of yours

Oh well, a shrinking number of players can hardly be a surprise to anyone. Hearts is right (hehe) really, as a business model, an overpriced browser game just can't work. Actually, any priced browser game is probably overpriced - I think there's something about paying for what can seem like a 'webpage' is something a lot of people aren't interested in. In addition, as old players leave you don't get a new influx of new players, because the entry threshold is too high (due to payment + maybe alliance domination?)... Perhaps especially as the influx would most likely come from younger people than the average paying PA player, and people in their teens (I would imagine) aren't going to want to pay, or are not able to pay. Which is why the average age of players has gone up.

God, I'm so bored :-/
I find myself in complete agreement with Eol here, pa is doomed it has failed on every major front.

1) we were promised a "new" and "profoundly better" pa, what we have is a play to beta PA, something that the gerbie incident has highlighted more than any other.
2) we were promised new players through an advertising campain (anyone who thought the laughable pczone advert constituted a decent ad campain needs shooting).

As Eol correctly highlighted PA is simply charging to much and they are doing so because they have costs to cover and a ever decreasing player base, a catch 22 situation of the worst kind really. This together with the fact that we have a creator who simply DOESNT LISTEN to the players and does everything HIS OWN DAMN WAY. I have seen no end of posts on the boards about people leaving due to not enjoying the game, spinner is AGAIN going his own way and in the process alienating his customers.

Whos bright idea to risk the shop on making a completly new game instead of adding these new features to the exisiting pa is a clown, old pa with covert ops and a few acts of tuneing would have made me play another round, as it stands pa is a joke.

No doubt I will get 2 arguments back to this :-

1) 10 ukp isnt a lot of money when compared to other games, to this i say the other games I pay 10 ukp for offer MUCH more involvement with me using their resources directly for the duration of my play, plus having staff make FIXES and enhancements and live events. PA offers none of this and most of the PA experience is provided by other players and NOT the pa team. All you have to do is write a browser game, balance it (community involvement) and provide servers and bandwith. Nothing compared to games like Anarchy Online or Asherons Call 2.

2) Spinner is trying his best blah blah, this isnt good enough spinner never fails to amaze me and has done for all rounds, he created a good game loved by 100k players and then failed to listen to ANY of them, he does what he wants and has in turn ruined the game. So many beta solutions that the players WANT, spinner has known about and nothing is done.

Im not even going to try being constructive, its a waste of time, if the players want something and spinner doesnt, it will not happen, flexability is something that isnt in his vocab.

I find it a chore to even write this, I dont care, PA is a waste of time now, a shadow of its former self and I for one cannot wait until the recievers are brought in the coffin nails firmly hammered in.
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