A hope for Change.

[Paisley]

In hearing the news via
http://www.planetarion.com/news/news...shall-continue

That the PA team in the form of Ranul Tech LTD have control of planetarion.
I have some hope that The PA Team wont do a Jagex/Jolt/<insert_useless_company> and do nothing with the game. (hence there is expectation to live upto PA team)
I've haven't played in 10+ rounds and found Civilization 5 as a substitute for my gaming addiction.
I do miss playing PA and the community banter just not the 1-5am DCing sessions midweek from past rounds.

The problem with planetarion is that the player base is getting smaller and smaller as each round goes on I estimate that there cant be anymore than 500 active players left. the way PA is has to change to have a future.

One of the first things I would like to hear from the PA team on Friday(tomorrow) at 8pm game time @ #planetarion on IRC is the announcement of Implementing a research and Development team where they use the beta server to try out new ideas and improve existing ones. Get the Community envolved aswell it doesnt have to be a 1 man show of one of the PA team.

I would like to hear wha the PA team has for a short term and long term strategy. One thing to consider is for the PA team to have safeguards incase Jagex decides to try and take over the game (if make successful again) via non renewal of licence etc. if possible give option to buy into Ranul tech LTD to raise the capital to actually buy the game.

As a Business model the game needs updating, without it PA is doomed to fail eventually.
Like all businesses you have Existing customers / clientbase... at the same time you seek out new customers so the business can expand. Simple growth strategy 101. How do you make it appealing to the player?

One thing I would like to see is the use of competitive Speed games at weekends or a 8hour-1day event. (like you would do an I event, which I know some of the PA team are fond of) This could attract old players back to play at special occasions that had to give up playing rounds. It Gives casual players more appeal to play.
the business model is open to planning etc.

As for the Main game.
Make changes to keep the existing players happy.
Make changes to attract new players and keep a majority of them.

There has to be short term changes to be made, I would like to see the PA team have long term plans to morph the game.

Ideas I would like for the PA team to try via the R&D team (if they go for this.)
Like if I was in charge senario if you will.

*create an offline mode for players where they can opt fleets for alliance / galaxy ... (ideas to get out of the 1am-6am raid times and try and make it more 24/7 continously)
*DC / BC alliance remote Mode. (remote access to alliance players fleets) (maybe even a galaxy option)
*DC / BC Calc them up mode for alliance.
*open up C200/ roid farms to raids for low tier players. (makes it easier for noobs and learners)
*tweak the bash limit to favour low tier players (even galaxies).
*tweak the cost of initing roids (even free of charge for first 300 roids etc) as it would favour low tier players
*Private Gals of 8-10
*public gals of 12-20 (tweaking of exiling system required)
*alliance capture the flag / Golden roids for top tier planets/alliances. (try and make the mid - top tier more competitive)

Long term ideas would depend on PA team strategy.

What do you think the PA should do?

[BloodyButcher]

Originally Posted by Paisley

In hearing the news via
http://www.planetarion.com/news/news...shall-continue

That the PA team in the form of Ranul Tech LTD have control of planetarion.
I have some hope that The PA Team wont do a Jagex/Jolt/<insert_useless_company> and do nothing with the game. (hence there is expectation to live upto PA team)
I've haven't played in 10+ rounds and found Civilization 5 as a substitute for my gaming addiction.
I do miss playing PA and the community banter just not the 1-5am DCing sessions midweek from past rounds.

The problem with planetarion is that the player base is getting smaller and smaller as each round goes on I estimate that there cant be anymore than 500 active players left. the way PA is has to change to have a future.

One of the first things I would like to hear from the PA team on Friday(tomorrow) at 8pm game time @ #planetarion on IRC is the announcement of Implementing a research and Development team where they use the beta server to try out new ideas and improve existing ones. Get the Community envolved aswell it doesnt have to be a 1 man show of one of the PA team.

I would like to hear wha the PA team has for a short term and long term strategy. One thing to consider is for the PA team to have safeguards incase Jagex decides to try and take over the game (if make successful again) via non renewal of licence etc. if possible give option to buy into Ranul tech LTD to raise the capital to actually buy the game.

As a Business model the game needs updating, without it PA is doomed to fail eventually.
Like all businesses you have Existing customers / clientbase... at the same time you seek out new customers so the business can expand. Simple growth strategy 101. How do you make it appealing to the player?

One thing I would like to see is the use of competitive Speed games at weekends or a 8hour-1day event. (like you would do an I event, which I know some of the PA team are fond of) This could attract old players back to play at special occasions that had to give up playing rounds. It Gives casual players more appeal to play.
the business model is open to planning etc.

As for the Main game.
Make changes to keep the existing players happy.
Make changes to attract new players and keep a majority of them.

There has to be short term changes to be made, I would like to see the PA team have long term plans to morph the game.

Ideas I would like for the PA team to try via the R&D team (if they go for this.)
Like if I was in charge senario if you will.

*create an offline mode for players where they can opt fleets for alliance / galaxy ... (ideas to get out of the 1am-6am raid times and try and make it more 24/7 continously)
*DC / BC alliance remote Mode. (remote access to alliance players fleets) (maybe even a galaxy option)
*DC / BC Calc them up mode for alliance.
*open up C200/ roid farms to raids for low tier players. (makes it easier for noobs and learners)
*tweak the bash limit to favour low tier players (even galaxies).
*tweak the cost of initing roids (even free of charge for first 300 roids etc) as it would favour low tier players
*Private Gals of 8-10
*public gals of 12-20 (tweaking of exiling system required)
*alliance capture the flag / Golden roids for top tier planets/alliances. (try and make the mid - top tier more competitive)

Long term ideas would depend on PA team strategy.

What do you think the PA should do?

The first thing they gotta focus on is fixing the galaxy setup, and make new players valuable to alliances. The alliance limit must go up, it should be possibole to play semi active for old players with their alliances.

[Papadoc]

Just throwing stuff out there. Kinda brainstorming

More Xp for Defending.

eliminate the dead ticks, What really happens after eta 4 in an attack besides a landing scan in the first 40 ticks.

Remove a race, ETD specifically. They are misfits in a Rock Paper Scissors world


Add some sort of gravitational research where you generate Asteroids every (12) or (24) ticks?

Allow two planets per player for one round as a trial and charge credits for both planets, for extra income to spend on advertising

[Paisley]

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

The first thing they gotta focus on is fixing the galaxy setup,

*Private Gals of 8-10
*public gals of 12-20 (tweaking of exiling system required)

I agree with that.

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

and make new players valuable to alliances. The alliance limit must go up, it should be possibole to play semi active for old players with their alliances.

unless player population grows increasing limit would be a bad thing imo.

Originally Posted by Papadoc

...

Ideas for R&D team if PA/Ranul tech impliment it

[BloodyButcher]

Originally Posted by Paisley

*Private Gals of 8-10
*public gals of 12-20 (tweaking of exiling system required)

I agree with that.



unless player population grows increasing limit would be a bad thing imo.



Ideas for R&D team if PA/Ranul tech impliment it

The population could be decreasing due to the limits.
Its just how it is, if you think decreasing the limit to meet the shrinking playerbase is helping us, then you live in backwards land tbh.
People quit cus they cant play in their usual alliance cus their usual alliance is playing for the win, and they have to have 60 hardcore players, instead of 60 hardcore players and 40 deadweight/newbie players.
PA crew should stop trying to please the active playerbase, and finaly do something about prelaunching, gal setup, and alliance limit if they are gonna try attract new players instead of redoing the game.
Allowing two planets per player will not help new players, it will only satisfy the few that puts time into this game now days.
Removing ETD shouldve been done rounds ago aswell.

[Bashar]

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

Removing ETD shouldve been done rounds ago aswell.

I should add that to my list.

[Cain]

how about actually ADVERTISING?
the amount of players will not increase if nobody hears about pa, it has been mentioned EVERY time pa had a change of owner yet it never actually happened.

Roughly pa has 1k planets atm of which 400 are in c200. I think it's safe to say of those remaining planets not even half logs in once a day. How many of those that do actually play ''active'' as in they care? I think between 0-75. There are no top alliances left anymore because these active players are spread around. Alliances like Apprime and Ultores have been the last 2 'top' alliances around, where the activity in Ultores has dropped dramatically lately (ND winning hello?). The only alliances you have left now are casual alliances who just survive but that's it.

These numbers will go down further quite fast. Alot of people who still sign up have been here on and off for a long time (since r1-r5). They are not 15 anymore and probably have a life/wife/kids/job etc. The only new signups you're getting now are ppl who hear about pa from this current playerbase.

If you don't start advertising today pa will be doomed very very quickly.

[mathematician]

how about a new concept?

- make round length infinite
- make planets age (i.e. disappear after (say) 2 months)
- new planets would be placed in C200 and held there for 12 ticks. At the next login after that time, the planet would join the main universe.
- remove shuffle, exile and auto-exile. Make self-exile possible but limited (for example, once per two weeks).

your planet's score is then determined by the score it has when it dies.
the (current) score of a galaxy or alliance would be the highest counted score in the last x ticks.

changes in game mechanics (ship stats, galaxy size, tag limit, ...) would be announced early and be in effect at a fixed tick. If ship composition/stats change, PA team would have to make reasonable conversions from old to new ships.

The time you join PA then does no longer matter, as there is no early/late join. As a consequence, there is no need for late join bonuses.

[Clouds]

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

The alliance limit must go up

Oh would you please shut up about the alliance limit, you're like a broken record.

[Bashar]

As I have said many times, the way to improve the game is not a simple case of "tweaking this" or "changing that". All the issues that people mention are symptoms of the underlying problem, which is a problem of attitude. Unfortunately, PA Team and the community are scared of losing more players and obsessed with increasing the player base. Consequently, every decision is made on the basis of speculation on what would best increase the player base. This is absolutely the wrong approach, it is equivalent to a business focusing on increasing profit. In theory, it sounds like a good idea as that is what the ultimate goal is, however focusing on the goal is a serious distraction. What you have to do is focus on the product and, if you get that right, the final goal (be it more players or more profit) will look after itself.

What I am trying to say (in a very verbose way) is that basically, worrying about how many players there are is utterly pointless whilst the game is crap and the game is crap simply because both PA Team and the community have spent too much time worrying about how many players there are rather than how to make the game good. The distinction between the two approaches is pretty fine and I am sure many will argue that changes have been made to try and make the game better, however from every discussion I have had with Appoco (I am sure he looks forward to my regular "feedback" PMs with a real sense of anticipation and delight), it is obvious that whatever good ideas they take on board, PA Team then waters them down based on their perception of making the game attractive to new players.

As I said at the start, I have said this before many times. Whilst I always find a whole string of people who agree and share this viewpoint wholeheartedly with hardly anybody disagreeing, it doesn't seem to make the slightest bit of difference. Hopefully, this time will be different, but after >10 years, I doubt it.

[Paisley]

Originally Posted by Bashar

As I have said many times, the way to improve the game is not a simple case of "tweaking this" or "changing that". All the issues that people mention are symptoms of the underlying problem, which is a problem of attitude. Unfortunately, PA Team and the community are scared of losing more players and obsessed with increasing the player base. Consequently, every decision is made on the basis of speculation on what would best increase the player base. This is absolutely the wrong approach, it is equivalent to a business focusing on increasing profit. In theory, it sounds like a good idea as that is what the ultimate goal is, however focusing on the goal is a serious distraction. What you have to do is focus on the product and, if you get that right, the final goal (be it more players or more profit) will look after itself.

What I am trying to say (in a very verbose way) is that basically, worrying about how many players there are is utterly pointless whilst the game is crap and the game is crap simply because both PA Team and the community have spent too much time worrying about how many players there are rather than how to make the game good. The distinction between the two approaches is pretty fine and I am sure many will argue that changes have been made to try and make the game better, however from every discussion I have had with Appoco (I am sure he looks forward to my regular "feedback" PMs with a real sense of anticipation and delight), it is obvious that whatever good ideas they take on board, PA Team then waters them down based on their perception of making the game attractive to new players.

As I said at the start, I have said this before many times. Whilst I always find a whole string of people who agree and share this viewpoint wholeheartedly with hardly anybody disagreeing, it doesn't seem to make the slightest bit of difference. Hopefully, this time will be different, but after >10 years, I doubt it.

Question... If given the keys to pa tomorrow how would you go about improving pa?

[Bashar]

Originally Posted by Paisley

Question... If given the keys to pa tomorrow how would you go about improving pa?

Good question, the attitude change I mention would take time to settle and isn't a quick fix. The changes I would personally make would be starting off with the gal setup and exile. This post explains my thinking on the gal setup side of things (much the same as others have said). In addition, I would make exiling more difficult to stop it being so widely abused. Probably through an exponential cost increase after the first few so that people really consider whether or not they should exile themselves/their gal mate rather than a speculative "let's try and get someone better" or an attempt to make a pseudo-private galaxy.

I think after that, I would be removing startup & upgrade bonuses as they seem a bit too much like a "gimme more money!" cheat and I don't think they really add anything. I actually used to enjoy building my planet up and going roiding with only 100 ships. The 72 tick protection was a nice way of gently settling into the round and getting the "feel of it" after 6 weeks off. Plus building up a planet is the point of the game, having it all available at 1 click always has that bittersweet feeling of suddenly having everything you want without having earned it, the very reason why according to psychologists lots of lottery winners actually have a decrease in happiness and a feeling of low worth.

I would then have a rethink about XP. I have pondered it at great length and I can't decide whether or not I would like to see:

XP reduceable either through something like a cov op or just diminishing over time due to "retirement of experienced personnel" or similar.

Change it altogether (still have it gained in the same way) and make it so that certain aspects of a planet are more efficient, for example armour/damage multiplier, initiative decreases, construction/research acceleration, mining bonuses etc. These could then be automatic (with maybe some user input into how they are shared, a bit like population bonus atm) or spendable as if they were another resource. This would most closely mirror the real life concept of experience. This would be instead of contributing to score.

Change it like above, but have it so that experience gained from certain things has different effects. For example, experience gained from scanning/cov ops may make it cheaper to do research "because you've got greater experience and knowledge of the abilities and methods of others". Experience gained from roiding may make your mining more efficient.

As I said, I haven't worked out which I would like to see, and the examples in there are purely to demonstrate the concept rather than considered ideas of how to implement.

I think this would be my starting point, and I am not going to go on all night writing a post that will serve as nothing more than a point of interest (even though I easily could go on all night). Obviously I haven't got the keys and I also haven't got all the information available to PA Team, so there is an element of speculation about these ideas, but these are the areas that I would look at first. Hopefully that answers your question, although I do genuinely believe this is only fixing the symptoms and it is vital to address the attitude issue at the same time to prevent recurrence of the same issues.

[Tomkat]

Coaching
I would set it up so when you create a planet you can go for the "newbie" option which has the advantages of being placed in an established alliance (who then have the responsibility of sorting you out), but you are limited to only two races (let's say Terran and Cathaar for argument sake) and given other perks which help you along the way (perhaps being able to undo initiation of roids or amend decisions). If you choose the "experienced" option then you get more races, a choice of alliance and if you want those Bonuses you need to officially coach a new player. These bonuses won't be a huge amount, but enough to make it worth helping someone else out. The alliances would be made up of something like 40 premade and 20 random.
I know the main argument against this is "what about security of coords?!?" - seriously guys, this isn't 2001. Nobody needs to fakenick and everybody knows the coords of every other alliance within 3 days anyway.


Rewarding activity without encouraging people to wake up at 4am
I like the prelaunch option. I (and many others) are older now and don't have the luxury of being able to screw up our sleep patterns for an online game. Games like this should reward people logging in often and checking often (remember the old amps/waves thing you'd have to do? Where the "best" way to do it was every tick?) but not people choosing to do things at antisocial hours. I know it's what you loved about this game in round 3 or whatever but that isn't where we are now and it doesn't make it fun.


Making stats simple yet subtle
Somehow the stats have become more complicated but are as tactical as a sledgehammer. You can have fun, interesting stats with only 3 or 4 races - this would make the game more challenging and lead to a bigger array of combinations of fleets.


Encourage people to work together
The biggest part of PA has been the social side. The main emphasis should be giving incentives to people who work together to achieve goals. If I'm playing an MMORPG and I'm a healer, I benefit from contributing to the group even though I'm not doing any damage. Could NPC gals be introduced which alliances have to try and take down? I don't know how this could work: possible huge XP bonuses or free upgrade bonuses if you successfully land? With short ETAs on the NPC gal so that MCs in alliances need to keep asking for new ships to add to the fray?

[wakey]

The basic concept needs changed. Even when XP was introduced so you no longer had to play with the intention of complete annihilation of the player you were attacking it was still the easiest and safest way. So it was all too common to find players hitting those much smaller than themselves often in conjunction with another planet with the sole aim of wiping out the planets fleet if they weren't able to run their fleet. Once you lose all your fleet your rounds basically over and for many newer players it is enough to drive them away.

We need a game that forces smarter attacks and prevents complete annihilation while encouraging alliances of a similar level to go at it in a big way as the round developed. How to achieve this however I'm not sure but without a fundamental change its always going to be a game that almost requires it to be treated as a full time job rather than something that's fun

[gzambo]

galaxy and alliance size should be lowered to reflect the lower player numbers but because a lot of the remaining active players need their safety in numbers they will be very vocal opposing this

[BloodyButcher]

Originally Posted by gzambo

galaxy and alliance size should be lowered to reflect the lower player numbers but because a lot of the remaining active players need their safety in numbers they will be very vocal opposing this

The active players would rather want to play With other active players, we need to increase the alliance limits and rework how galaxies is set up to have a chance of making this game better.
Its just a smaller part of this game wich has been vocaling lower limits, most of them allready playing in smaller tags or in "fenced" galaxies.
The alliances like HR/Innuendo should be able to recruit up to 100 if its anyone needing a alliance, and if they want more members.

[gzambo]

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

The active players would rather want to play With other active players, we need to increase the alliance limits and rework how galaxies is set up to have a chance of making this game better.
Its just a smaller part of this game wich has been vocaling lower limits, most of them allready playing in smaller tags or in "fenced" galaxies.
The alliances like HR/Innuendo should be able to recruit up to 100 if its anyone needing a alliance, and if they want more members.

thank you for proving my point

[BloodyButcher]

Originally Posted by gzambo

thank you for proving my point

What you are saying that you will rather have new players to this game in smaller allies where the likelyhood of People being alive is smaller than in bigger alliances? Get a grip, and stop trolling me

[gzambo]

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

What you are saying that you will rather have new players to this game in smaller allies where the likelyhood of People being alive is smaller than in bigger alliances? Get a grip, and stop trolling me

really?
maybe I should troll you so you know the difference
a small playerbase cannot support large galaxy's /alliances and only the most retarded knobjockey fails to see this.
there are plenty of things that could be done to fix/improve the game but while there is a vocal minority (that's you btw) the game will continue to lose players and not have them replaced.
stop thinking about what suits your game play and think about what suits the game as a whole

[wakey]

Originally Posted by gzambo

galaxy and alliance size should be lowered to reflect the lower player numbers but because a lot of the remaining active players need their safety in numbers they will be very vocal opposing this

I agree with you. The smaller the playerbase of any game that collects players into opposing groups the smaller you need to make these factions. You don't want half the game split between two sides.

The only problem is that with the setup of the game as it is where total destruction is on the table so you need active players to help you out but that's a problem even with larger alliance sizes as well so its a more a fundemetal issue that needs fixed than an alliance size issue

[gzambo]

look at it this way, what type of alliance would a new player prefer to join an elitist alliance (not that they would have any hope of getting in their first round) where they are just a number or a small tag where everyone pulls together and knows each other. within the smaller tag players will make more effort to integrate the new player because with limited numbers it benefits them to train/improve the new player for the good of the tag, eg tag size 30 with 5 extra newbie spots (to avoid exploitation the extra 5 places do not count to tag score) obviously this would not work with the current galaxy sizes which is why they need to be reduced aswell.
with 30/35 in alliance tag I would limit galaxy size to 8 and remove or adjust the exiling system

[BloodyButcher]

Originally Posted by gzambo

look at it this way, what type of alliance would a new player prefer to join an elitist alliance (not that they would have any hope of getting in their first round) where they are just a number or a small tag where everyone pulls together and knows each other. within the smaller tag players will make more effort to integrate the new player because with limited numbers it benefits them to train/improve the new player for the good of the tag, eg tag size 30 with 5 extra newbie spots (to avoid exploitation the extra 5 places do not count to tag score) obviously this would not work with the current galaxy sizes which is why they need to be reduced aswell.
with 30/35 in alliance tag I would limit galaxy size to 8 and remove or adjust the exiling system

Small tags would mean a bigger risk taking in deadweight. Hardcoding newbie slots is hard, and will be abused.
How many new players did. Faceless have last round? or FI this round and last round?

[gzambo]

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

Small tags would mean a bigger risk taking in deadweight. Hardcoding newbie slots is hard, and will be abused.
How many new players did. Faceless have last round? or FI this round and last round?

last round 4 and this rd 2, we are happy to help anyone who wants it, keeping players in the game is worth the risk

[BloodyButcher]

Originally Posted by gzambo

last round 4 and this rd 2, we are happy to help anyone who wants it, keeping players in the game is worth the risk

And these players are sticking With you and the game?

[gzambo]

1 is, the other has gone inactive

[Paisley]

Any chance of making this thread more Ideas productive rather than a bitchfest lads?

[BloodyButcher]

Originally Posted by Paisley

Any chance of making this thread more Ideas productive rather than a bitchfest lads?

The main thing in this thread is that there is different views on BP size, tag size, and exile system