Give me back my 15 dollars....

[Elevator]

Eminem wrote a song with a line that fits quite good to the post I am writing. He wrote about how crappy some CD's were and he sang: "What's this bitch retarded? Gimme back my sixteen dollars" Kinda fitting...just I payed $1 less for a far worse product...

I have played since r1 (left after r7, came back for r9.5), probably one of the few left..changed nick a few times. Still remember the fun of Thief?s and Pirates, Battleships and Interceptors...the old alliances, the fall of the great alliances and now it is time for me to say goodbye... During the time while playing I have grown quite a lot, more than I realized, now I am probably making way more money than Spinner could ever dream about...but that's not the main point.

The game, as it started (I know a lot have been said so I don't want to repeat everything) was great...it had good sides and some very weak sides. Error messages and 120k planets was a whole lot of fun....and now, what have the game become. A tiny little game where all the fun parts have been removed....not bcalc, no REAL manual....a lot of random things you just got to deal with. And I have to say, the game is really, really boring.

Why could you (Spinner) not listen to your old players? Why could you not use basic marketing strategy and make sure your costumers stayed with the product? I do not understand how you have gotten the game this far, my best bet is pure luck...but who knows what was really behind everything.

Enough said, this is a sad day....Not leaving the game due to real life...I could have made time to play, but it is just no fun...and I have no idea why I spent $15 on this game...I should probably have tried it out for real first. Just for the principle you should give people back their money if they truly are dissatisfied with the product...

Again...this is a sad time.

[Nadar]

Wheren't you in my gal last round?

man last week i was in total agreement with you. i hated it, but for some reason i started likeing it again. i dont know if i was just overly bored since pa takes up so much time and i have nothing to fill that void but i am starting to come around on the game. the lack of a proper bcalc does suck, but i think once you play for a bit you start to learn about the ships and such it does become easier. its unfortuante that the game forces you to play for a month and a half to figure out how to enjoy it as opposed to reading a proper manual and knowing what to do from tick one. i think spinner gave this his best shot, it just didnt work out the way he had intended. i really think that making real ship stats so a true bcalc can be done would fix alot of probs.

[Mushroom]

Again this brings up the question of which lost more players: going pay to play, or Spinner's ideas?
To be honest, i think it was pay to play... that's when the game got shot in the heart.
And this round was a complete gamble to try and bring more life into the game... a brave attempt, but it doesn't look like it's worked, unfortunately.

[Yam]

you live and you learn..

perhaps the next found (if there is one) will incorporate the older features which the die hards moan about :¬)

[G.K Zhukov]

The Die hards who are steal left. Even most of them have left long ago..

[Elevator]

Originally Posted by Nadar

Wheren't you in my gal last round?

Kinda...didn't really play to much last round, but at least I enjoyed the game....

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Elevator

Why could you (Spinner) not listen to your old players? Why could you not use basic marketing strategy and make sure your costumers stayed with the product? I do not understand how you have gotten the game this far, my best bet is pure luck...but who knows what was really behind.

We wulls needs a clever bits of markheding stragety in order to atthract new cuztomers and still retain teh old skool player base.

Being concervative about the game engine will retain the oldies "happy". On the other hand, the old players effectively exclude the coming of new players. Or at least MOST of it. Being innovative will piss off the oldies, but MIGHT attract some more newbies. Which I doubt. Because PA has never had any marketing or sales trickery. And unlikely will. The creators are codewhores. Not businessmen.

I'm wandering off-topic.

[Ado]

creators are codewhores. Not businessmen.

You joking right ? one of the creators is a codewhore the other is an "ideas" man, who self taught himself rudimentary coding.

[WipeOut]

I think I can safely assume to be one of the last...50? 100? players left who started playing in round 1. (I do not recall you btw)

Anyway, I think you should stop moaning about the changes in the game, they were inevitable; competition would have crushed pa as it was before round 10.

Back in the days however, competition was less striking. The only other major browser-based game I can remember from back then is 'Utopia'. Nowadays however, there are thousands and thousands of pa-clones, and simular games.

When you are a trend-setter, the most important thing to look after is that you stay ahead of your competitors in regard to quality (gameplay), otherwise they run you over.

Draw your own conclusions.

[AllFather|away]

Originally Posted by G.K Zhukov

The Die hards who are steal left. Even most of them have left long ago..

Who did they steal? (left = LEFF? )

[G.K Zhukov]

its a typo AllFather. steal = still

[Hicks]

Zhukov in spacko typo making loser shocker !

[G.K Zhukov]

Originally Posted by Hicks

Zhukov in spacko typo making loser shocker !

Hicks in bad syntax shocker!

[Ultramar]

Any1 noticed how a PA R8 Clone (********) has managed to attract more people than PA r8 actually did? This may be because of the amount of multi's cos its free... but what about the amount of ppl who are willing to play cos its free...The only reason why PA is dying is cos ppl dont wanna pay for the game, most of the people who wanna play would be teenagers without an income and many parents spend enough time trying to get their kids off the PC's and arent gonna pay money for their kid to play at 2:00 in the morning!! The player base also seems to have got older over the last few rounds, i bet most players are now between 18-30...

Its not Spinners ideas killing the game, he's trying to make it appeal to more/different people. Just because some ppl dont like it desnt mean its the reason why less people are playing, would u play the same game round after round? or would u expect changes....

i totally agree with u, elevator. i played bout 4 rounds before the changes (i. e. payment, races etc.).
i think the races are ok, what i don't like are the changes concerning research and construction, it's hard to have a strategy now. you have tons of ways to go but you are completely unsure about the benefits.
in the old days you had at least a perfect manual - if you saw the old PA tech tree, you would break down and cry... now you have some text pages with info like "The ship stats are currently available in-game, at the bottom of the menu.". sorry, but this sucks.

i know it makes sense to update a game. for instance, i play dominion since round 7 (actually, i started playing coz PA sucked). you can't compare any round with the previous one - changes are made, some survive, some don't. but the "spirit" of the game remained! in PA, this spirit died IMHO.

maybe dominion is a good example for a game which didn't die although you pay now: you still can have a free account. but then you have lots of ads and some features are disabled. vets pay since they don't want to miss those features, n00bs can play a whole round and decide afterwards if they pay for the next.
i think many ppl here are scared off because their round will end before the end of the round. wouldn't it be nice to have free, ad-supported accounts and ad-free ones?
in dominion, you pay 7 $ for 7 weeks, so the 15 $ are ok - how bout changing PA a bit in this direction?

another good thing would be the use of paypal or another payment engine.

[cbk100]

I just have one thing to say.

Spinner, just make sure you at least make one simple rule for next round: No alliances are allowed to work together if their combined member-count exceed 100 members.

I don't want to explain why cause the reasons should be pretty obvious and I don't have too much time available here. I just know that its time that Spinner really does something to stop that blocking crap and it has to be done with consequence.

cbk

[Sturge]

meh, I played since r2, up until r7. then 9.5 (since free is goooood)

It's changed in good and bad ways, but it can't cater for both markets fully, so I think a fairly decent job has been done to find a balance. And lots of old players kept playing didn't they? I know I did for a while.

[LFFPicard]

Well i recognise wipout, and i ahve been here since the start.

Yes p2p killed the game, but not everythign can run for free,
The simple fact of it goign to p2p was mainly because banner advertising was going under, and is worth squat.

One thing i think will help revive the game and help with the compotition is:

R1-9 - Speed or slow games, reduced lengh reduced price, or the ocasional free speed roudn thrown in.

People want R1 give them R1, people want R6 give them R6.
Plenty of people will play the, maybe rotate the, do 2-3 at a time, but do it. people will play it, i assure you.

I myself wouldnt mind a couple games of R1-3 and i would be willing to pay £3-5 a round

LFFPicard

[TouRiQueT]

This game is totaly dead. I dont see why Spinner and co are still going at it. They lack the necessary capital to do anything substanicial, namely, a much needed marketing campaign.
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