Keep it real, FREE ROUND!!!!

[Digiscent]

ANYONE WHOS ANYONE knows me and misses round4 pa
what about a decent length free round...

[Nadar]

And the nominees for best PA suggestion of the year are....

[Kal]

we only just had a free round, so its unlikely there will be another for a while unfortunatly.

[Digiscent]

nadar likes penis

[Nadar]

Damn right I do, my own!

[Rc mayhem]

its only £5 and as the last free only didnt seem to make any real difference to the player base I cant see it happening again for a long time

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Rc mayhem

its only £5 and as the last free only didnt seem to make any real difference to the player base I cant see it happening again for a long time

well - it did in the round itself, just not in following rounds.

[Chika]

Well, before the last free round we had at least 2500 signups. After howerever we got like 1800 at tick start. Most not paid also. Most never initiating a roid.

[robban1]

well we have to kick the corpse now and then to see if its still alive

but really, the cash pa give jolt is like a pizza lunch for the geeks working there.

free round(s) is needed atm

[Heartless]

Free rounds of a boring piece of crap aren't going to increase a paying playerbase.

[Makhil]

agreed, more than a free round what is needed is to take time to make the game better, it starts by deciding what PA should be like, then sit down and do it.
Ideally it would mean delaying R19 as long as needed. Just running beta test in the interval.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Chika

Well, before the last free round we had at least 2500 signups. After howerever we got like 1800 at tick start. Most not paid also. Most never initiating a roid.

Player numbers for the round prior to the free round and the round after the free round were pretty much identical.

This year only the summer round (this round) has had disappointing numbers, however even that is better than last years summer round.

The true test of this years performance will be round 19, which should end up being a strong indicator as to the future direction the game needs to take.

[Chika]

Originally Posted by Kal

Player numbers for the round prior to the free round and the round after the free round were pretty much identical.

This year only the summer round (this round) has had disappointing numbers, however even that is better than last years summer round.

The true test of this years performance will be round 19, which should end up being a strong indicator as to the future direction the game needs to take.

In what instance besides RD 13/14 has there been a dramatic increase of accounts.
Additionally, I hope your excuse about the decrease being result of a summer round is correct, as lately it seems that "summer round" has just been an excuse.

[Wandows]

I think the best solution for PA would be another payment setup than they currently have, instead of having free rounds, as the free rounds don't really get new players to stick around if the have to pay the upcoming round. Free planets hardly offer any real compition compared to paid planets, while they are meant to attract new ppl that somehow need to feel connected to the game. This currently ain't happening as free planets simply are crap.

Eta -2 max is just a joke and them not even being able to get decent information (Unit scan and perhaps News scans) from a target planet makes them simply unable to play (and thus experience) the game. If you planetarion ever wants to grow PaTeam (and Jolt) have to realize they need to get the new players into the community without 'forcing' them to pay first. Sure, its not a must to pay, but there are only very few 'decent' alliances who accept free accounts if any at all.

There are so many ways to make people want to upgrade without making them the roid-farms they currently are. When p2p was introduced free planets could play the game without limitations (iirc), but their income would come to a halt if they got over 3 million value/score (iirc). This atleast made them a bit more valuable to alliances as they could compete the same way paid planets did, but simply not grow as large. The claim in the manual that they are "absolutely playabe" might be through, but not in the way the current game is being played.

Personally i am more in favour of a system that allows free planets to play and be part of the game, but at the same time makes it impossible for them to compete with a (reasonably) active paid planet. This can be done by giving free planets:
-full eta.
-access to all shipclasses.
-decent income, allow them to use roids mining the same way as paid planets, but give them (for example) 150 instead of 250 resources income per roid.
-upto unit or news scan for the scan tree.

Anything else there is to do in the game, they don't need to play the essence of the game (which is fighting for roids). No engineering, no covert ops. Maybe disable distorters and finance centers aswell.

I think this would eventually pay of alot better than the occassional free round, but as ever this will probable be ignored (again) by PaTeam.

Note to anyone screaming that this would encourage support/multi planets to sign up: I think we can all agree that if you want PA to make a chance on surviving you may just have to give up a tiny bit of security to give new players a better reason to stick around - also assuming MH do a reasonable job

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by Wandows

I think the best solution for PA would be another payment setup than they currently have, instead of having free rounds, as the free rounds don't really get new players to stick around if the have to pay the upcoming round. Free planets hardly offer any real compition compared to paid planets, while they are meant to attract new ppl that somehow need to feel connected to the game. This currently ain't happening as free planets simply are crap.

Eta -2 max is just a joke and them not even being able to get decent information (Unit scan and perhaps News scans) from a target planet makes them simply unable to play (and thus experience) the game. If you planetarion ever wants to grow PaTeam (and Jolt) have to realize they need to get the new players into the community without 'forcing' them to pay first. Sure, its not a must to pay, but there are only very few 'decent' alliances who accept free accounts if any at all.

There are so many ways to make people want to upgrade without making them the roid-farms they currently are. When p2p was introduced free planets could play the game without limitations (iirc), but their income would come to a halt if they got over 3 million value/score (iirc). This atleast made them a bit more valuable to alliances as they could compete the same way paid planets did, but simply not grow as large. The claim in the manual that they are "absolutely playabe" might be through, but not in the way the current game is being played.

Personally i am more in favour of a system that allows free planets to play and be part of the game, but at the same time makes it impossible for them to compete with a (reasonably) active paid planet. This can be done by giving free planets:
-full eta.
-access to all shipclasses.
-decent income, allow them to use roids mining the same way as paid planets, but give them (for example) 150 instead of 250 resources income per roid.
-upto unit or news scan for the scan tree.

Anything else there is to do in the game, they don't need to play the essence of the game (which is fighting for roids). No engineering, no covert ops. Maybe disable distorters and finance centers aswell.

I think this would eventually pay of alot better than the occassional free round, but as ever this will probable be ignored (again) by PaTeam.

Note to anyone screaming that this would encourage support/multi planets to sign up: I think we can all agree that if you want PA to make a chance on surviving you may just have to give up a tiny bit of security to give new players a better reason to stick around - also assuming MH do a reasonable job

I am unpaid and almost top 100 planet ranking for size and score... yes it is annoying to not be able to mine everything - but obviously it is perfectly possible to compete with a free account.

[Wandows]

Originally Posted by Heartless

I am unpaid and almost top 100 planet ranking for size and score... yes it is annoying to not be able to mine everything - but obviously it is perfectly possible to compete with a free account.

I know that there have been several ppl with decent ranked free planets, but from what i gathered they were (mostly) experienced players. This makes a vey big difference compared they new players as they are already known by alot of players and know alot of players themselves, which makes it easy for them to be a part of something. I don't think the game-rank is what makes them stay (how fun is it to end top-ranked and have no one to share it with?), its the community. And unless they can be part of it by having alliances actually want them (because they are a usefull addition) they won't have much reasons to stick around.

Also, by giving them normal eta it might improve the competition in a round aswell.

[-=Zyth=-]

The only reason I play this stupid game now is for the people I know and the community. If the only experience new players with free planets have of this is being exiled into an inactive shitty gal thats being raided by every shitty small planet (who are far worse than large planets, believe me) in other small shitty gals, then that experience of this game is very limited.

How about coding into the game a way that free planets get bunched into an (and I use this term losely) alliance, with its own irc room, accessable through that com unit thing. Much the same way that galaxies work now, but for free randoms.

This is just a different dimention to hooking players rather than nerfing the game further by making it even more newb friendly

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Chika

In what instance besides RD 13/14 has there been a dramatic increase of accounts.
Additionally, I hope your excuse about the decrease being result of a summer round is correct, as lately it seems that "summer round" has just been an excuse.

rounds 13 and 14 were both actually relativly low player base rounds.
Round 11 was the best round since jolt bought PA. Round 15 saw the biggest increase in players from the round preceeding it.

Note Round 11 was a summer round - so the trend of saying summer rounds are bad is not fully justified. However the last two summer rounds were both very poor.

I think however that round 11 was popular becuase it was the first decent PAX round.