Why make round 9 p2p ?

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by Galaxian
The creators will never be able to eliminate farming / multi-ing. So in the same way some people advocate legalising drugs, maybe we should think the unthinkable and legalise multi-ing.

Because I flat out cannot be bothered to run 5 accounts that's why. If everyone else does it then there's no point me playing, I'd rather catch the cheating bastards at it and have them closed.

[Galaxian]

Originally posted by Gayle28uk
Because I flat out cannot be bothered to run 5 accounts that's why. If everyone else does it then there's no point me playing, I'd rather catch the cheating bastards at it and have them closed.

I agree Gayle, its just that I think the percentage of cheaters they are catching has been dismally low so far, so there is no incentive for the cheaters to stop cheating. Most of them get away with it and will continue to do so.

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by Galaxian
Most of them get away with it and will continue to do so.

And they'll continue to maintain they're doing nothing wrong and that it's the creators that are killing PA, not them with their cheating whining bull****.

[Galaxian]

Originally posted by Gayle28uk
And they'll continue to maintain they're doing nothing wrong and that it's the creators that are killing PA, not them with their cheating whining bull****.

Also true.

[Hardin]

Yes there are cheaters and always will be in PA...

However I think you are overstating their impact in a P2P universe.

My own personal impression is that most cheaters are reasonably unskilled players who are unlikely to finish among the elite.

I admit that I multiied in my early rounds but as I grew into the game and actual got (reasonably) good at it I realised two things.

1) To play to a top standard is almost a full time job. Managing just one planet to a leet level is enough work - let alone trying to juggle more. In the end (despite the advantages of multiing farmings/scans/defence etc) you end up making mistakes and get screwed. Maybe some people can juggle more but my impression is that the real good player generally only have one. I saw much more multi activity in junior alliances than my experiences in good ones (although I am not naive enough to believe that it doesn't happen in good alliances or that there is the occasional scan planet knocking around)

2) Many good players who actually dedicate a substantial amount of time to playing the game at a serious level for a high ranking (Top250 or above) are absolutely paranoid that their planets will be deleted. There is nothing more heartbreaking than creating a rocking planet and then have that wasted.

Now you are dismissive of PA Crews efforts against multiing however in my mind those efforts have increased greatly in effectiveness - particularly against high ranked players and gals.

You just have to look at the end of R7 (deletions in 26:2 and others) and the raft of FAnG players who got deleted mid R8 to see that PA Crew are working against cheat0rs at least among the high ranked. This has created an obvious deterrent among good players - many of who will simply not take the risk of getting caught and all their efforts wasted.

This was why I personally stopped multiing and I am sure others out there took the same decision for similar reasons.

Yes cheating still happens but I don't think it is the plague that it once was in the free universe.

Anyway I am sure some of you will disagree with me but that is my view.

[MelAn]

Originally posted by merlin1955
We can only hope your quiting too :P

...WE? You and your little ego?

I don't know you, nor randal, i just gave you my neutral view on your post..
Don't come me with sarcasm..

-Melly-

[Dibdevlin]

Originally posted by Hardin
Yes there are cheaters and always will be in PA...

However I think you are overstating their impact in a P2P universe.

My own personal impression is that most cheaters are reasonably unskilled players who are unlikely to finish among the elite.

The history of each round has proven that impression to be wrong.

[Scaggydo]

certainly. account swapping is rife amoung players who have finished at the top, (i almost said top players ) and i am sure we all know several who have done so. multis dont tend to do great as it tends to be unskilled newer players who do this. account swapping is however also illegal and not confined to those who finish in the bottom part of the table.

[Dibdevlin]

Most active players have either a scan planet or access to a scan planet.

[zenopus]

Originally posted by MOS
Its clear that we should have to pay

Agreed.

Everyone has a solution so heres mine

If I was running PA I would allow free accounts and pay accounts - with no advantages for the paying accounts. Free accounts, however, would get advertising banners and pop up ads etc. Initially until they get into the game their would be very few of these so they can start to enjoy the game. The better they go and the more they play the more ads they receive until they are inundated with ads. The ads are not there to raise money, although every bit would help, but to annoy the players that are staying on until they pay. They will either decide there are too many ads and they dont want to pay and therefore go away or pay for their account.

There are banner and pop-up killers that will filter that out.

You could also make it that everytime they click on a banner they get a small discount on there account fee (say 1 cent/pence) thereby encouraging people to click on the banners and if they go to enough of them then they get a free pay account.

Not possible in that form. The companies that buy banner space do not allow such blatant incentives.

To avoid multi's simply only allow free accounts to be accessed by an ip address that is not being used by any other account at the time of log in (pay or free). Therefore the multi would have go off line and then reconnect to there service provider to get a new ip address allocated which (with the ads) annoy most and stop them from bothering. It would certainly stop people from having 20 different accounts.

It would stop the casual multi. It also means only one person in a household can play for free. Not necessarily a bad thing.
Dedicated multi's have access IP relays.

For those that want banners back I dont understand. I hate free accounts - I hate paying data download on their ads and having windows poping up all over the place. It's probably cheaper paying for the account than paying your service provider to download all the adds.

Everyone everywhere is moving to unmetered access or better. On regular dial-up you pay by the minute, not by the amount downloaded.

You get points for initiative.
But all of these ideas have been discussed earlier. Probably quite some time ago though - they are probably not even available to read anymore...

Just realised Gayle28uk has already made a very similar reply, oh well, it's all written now.

[Fungi]

Why not offer the players of R8 half price? After all, those who played that round only got half a round.

[Ditcher]

Its always the same.
People who dont think p2p is that smart thing to do give nice backing and reasoning for their views while pro-p2p people call them cheap bastards and tell them to fk off.

Some mental disorder perhaps?

[Fungi]

Agreed ditcher, I don't see why by *not* paying you can be labelled cheap etc. People have their reasons, and whether you believe it or not it up to you, but to label them nasty things is not going to make people come back.

I strongly suggest that those who paid for R8 shouldn't have to pay full price for R9 though. I don't mind the £7 I paid going towards the game, but the fact that I didn't even get half a game kinda pissed me a lil.

[jleedham]

No offence meant to you ditcher, but i think if u where to flick back over these and the mirriad other threads about P2P that have existed since R4, then u would realise why people who complain about P2P generally get accused of just being cheap.

the main reason for it is that unfortuantly these people generally give that impression in there post, as they virtually never expand on the

" P2P is ghey and killing this game and driving all the players away and i for one wont be playing next round if i have to pay, so make it free as i am one hell of an important player and with out me the whole game will fall apart"

type posts which whilst behind this rather immature outburst there could be lurking the most intilectual argument for why the P2P system should be abolished ure average non psychic forum reader is not going to be able to realise this.

If these people whish to not play the game, fair play. and as u say being nasty and flaming them aint going to encourage them to start playing again, however when they do set themselves up for it u cant really blame the people who do flame them

Jsar

[Smugs]

Originally posted by Yazilliclick
Face it the game is simply old now. The only thing that ever made the game really good was the community, they hurt that big time when they started the whole p2p crap and it's been downhill from there.

Regardless of whether it's possible to run this without p2p or not, the game will die if it keeps up. People can pay the same amount or less and get to play a much better community based game such as everquest, ultima online, star wars galaxies or other games. Heck they could even play many FPS or Strategy games for free online (of course there is the cost of the software but a few rounds is more expensive).

The people running PA obviously don't seem to be realistic about what they have here. What they have is a statistical game that directly puts players against other players in an attempt to win. That is not a good community based game for starters. First, it gets tiring fast because the only things that really change are the numbers. Second, the community is all but dead, they did very little to nothing to keep the dedicated community based players around.

Also, in regards to the cost of running this free at the moment, it would be very minor compared to earlier. Earlier there were many MANY more players, now there is a much smaller amount. They likely have an abundance of hardware, too much for their needs.

Face it, PA is dying and won't be arround for much longer unless owners wake up to reality and do what needs doing, instead of pretending.

Agree totaly, " This is to the Creators" I dont want to sound offensive but ive been playing since R3 and this is the worst its ever been, and from my point of View and many many others PA will not be around much longer i hate to say it but PA is dieing.

I remember when the comminity was full of people chatting and having FUN but the community as i new it is not here anymore and if the Community dies PA dies and im Affraid that is what is happening and will happen.

[Quetzovercoatl]

I have played every round up till now but won't be paying for r9.

It's my own insignificant protest because of round 8. It wasn't over, I was enjoying it, and I think continuing round 8 is what we should be doing while waiting for the brand new PA (which I will return for).

If r9 was free for those who paid for r8, that would be ok too

We're customers buying a product. We didn't get what we paid for and now we are asked to pay again for the same thing. Transfer that idea to any other product and see how long they stay in business.

Apologists for the creators should stop trying to use the change of ownership to justify short-changing us on our round.

[Scaggydo]

Originally posted by Quetzovercoatl


If r9 was free for those who paid for r8, that would be ok too

why would the new owners make r9 free to ppl who payed for r8? the money from r8 went to FS, thats who u should have youre qualms with. the money for r9 is going to a completely different company that has sweet fa to do with FS. This new company has paid good money to try and save pa, yet no one seems to be greatful that their game has been saved from closure.

FS are the ones who stopped r8 mid round, not simtech. give them a chance?

I can not agree more w/ mr. dark anthraxs' first post on his thread.

[Shev]

Originally posted by jacob
I can not agree more w/ mr. dark anthraxs' first post on his thread.

Did you even bother to read the whole thread before you posted?

It isn't possible - give it up fs.

[jleedham]

It is well known that i am 100% behind the creators when it comes to P2P and i personally see no reason as to why people should get the service for free.

i do however agree that it would be a fair gesture to allow those players who paid for R8 but didnt recive the whole round to get a discount on R9.

however i also agree with scraggydo, at the end of the day the owners of PA in r9 are not the same people. and so it is as he pointed out unlikly to happen.

Jsar

[beefeb]

well.....its simple really


i will pay, as i have done since it started costing.


i will give away accounts(as merlin stated earlier)


the simple way to make it fun again is to introduce some targets.


now i dont mean feebie noobies, or just roiding some poor bugger to oblivion, what i mean is npc's

these should have a modicum of sense, able to defend/build/initiate etc, but with more targets about, people will grow better and attack more, put them in their own galaxies so as not to **** up anyone paying for the game, someone must have a bot that can run accounts....hahahahahahahahaha....mention no names!

yes there will be abuses, but there always are,no matter what the powers that be do, so at least lets have some fun while its going on.


that way, people can build a taste for the game before getting wiped out, and build friendships/alliances to challenge the ancients!

I can see how the fact that it's p2p may keep some people away...But I think that $10usd for 3 months of fun is a negligable cost....but that's just me.
I know what free games are like....and I find that when you pay for it, you receive a lot more...
Think about battle.net those of you who play any of those games... bnet is a cesspool of lamers, and it lags like there's no tomorrow, but it's free. If battle.net were a paid service, it would be much cleaner...and faster...But it's true there would be more hardcore idiots who are inconsiderate in general. Of course bnet should stay free, cos that's how it is.

As for PA, I'll keep paying for it as long as my life permits me to play it. I think it's worth it. In my case, I'm not putting myself behind from a cashflow point of view, and I have a great time and meet lots of great people.

I played in rounds 4 & 5 (i think cant quite remember now) and unfortunately due to problems with my isp and other commitments i stopped playing as did a lot of rl friends of mine. However i want to start playing again ;0) but atm i think that £10 is a tad expensive as i dare say the game is almost completely different now. I believe that if the creators got hold of the old email database and sent out an email to every (ex-) player and maybe dropped the price for the next round only to maybe £5 then a lot of the old faces would return, i know i would certainly stump up the cash as i found it imensley enjoyable. anyway i had better end it there before i start rambling.

I hope you all enjoy round 9 and i may see you there

[MOS]

Originally posted by Scaggydo
why would the new owners make r9 free to ppl who payed for r8? the money from r8 went to FS, thats who u should have youre qualms with. the money for r9 is going to a completely different company that has sweet fa to do with FS. This new company has paid good money to try and save pa, yet no one seems to be greatful that their game has been saved from closure.

FS are the ones who stopped r8 mid round, not simtech. give them a chance?

In general if a compony buys another they accept any problems, debts, and client issues with the company. When they bought PA they also took the liability to provide what wasnt provided or to componsate the clients for their loss. There have been a huge number of cases where the purchasing company has been sued for actions made by the previous owners in most western countries. They knew this when they took on PA and should therefore recoqnise this and provide some form of compensation to r8 players such as cheaper accounts.

Having said that - if they dont I will still pay and play. During the time r8 finished I have started playing heaps of free clones and none come close to PA.

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by MOS
<snip>

Incorrect. The best example is PC distributors being bought out and their warranties not being honoured by the new owners.

However, even that isn't relevant as Jolt did NOT buy FS, they just bought the planetarion code/domain etc.

Simple fact: Jolt have no legal obligation to you whatsoever.

u gave away free accounts? well, u gonna do it again? if so, im always here...pm me if so, and if not, oh well......

Originally posted by merlin1955
I'll be paying for round 9, just like I paid for the others(and gave away free accounts to people I didn't know). You cheap sickening lot of whiners can sod off now. Pay or go get stuffed. YOU ARE the reason PA got where it is. The sooner you take your whining to another game the better for all concerned.

Get the point? Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.