Future Alliance Feature - Defence

[Kal]

This idea came from somwhere, possibly suggestions forums, or maybe someone just had it as a crazy idea, but I immeditatly jumped on it becuase i'm insane and added it to the todo list to do at some point in the future, however I have now seen the light and realise some discussion is needed

The idea is a simple one, it is to have a way for galm8s to report incomings to an in game alliance through a quick and easy solution. Put simply, you press a single button and the attack is reported and added to the ingame defence system for each alliance. Now this is great for the smaller alliances with no external tools, and for thoose who choose not to use irc, but at the same time it makes using irc much less useful and according to some would make half of the community disapear.

So I propose a modified version of this idea for adoption in the future. Basically the button would still exist, but it would have delayed affect, the defence call would be reported half way through the tick. This then means that using irc is still a huge advantage, but also means that alliances can relly a little more on the in game defence system and more importantly perhaps gives the in game defence system a use for all alliances in the event of their irc systems failing for some reason.

Of course the in game defence systems also need improving to make them easier and more efficent to use, so feel free to suggest things here as well as shredding the idea I just proposed.

[Forest]

It would have to ahve a delayed effect, and mustn't help experienced players by being immediate.

I can see it helping those smaller alliances who dont ahve the command strctures.

What would happen at the start of a round, when the bigger alliances tend to feed off the smaller ones for easy roids. Would it not make the game a bit stale at the start?

[DukePaul]

If you want to add something usefull to alliancepages, then make a history page. Showing who joins, quits/got kicked, got promoted, got demoted. And ofcourse when this happened. That little bit of information is missing, and it pisses me off.

As for this idea: Guess I'll have to have a look on the ingame alliance defence system, to see how it actually work

Can't think of any major problems with it, and this should help the small alliances, so gj

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Forest

What would happen at the start of a round, when the bigger alliances tend to feed off the smaller ones for easy roids. Would it not make the game a bit stale at the start?

thats an interesting question and i guess it might make things marginally harder for the big and established alliances at the start, but at the same time any increased difficulty they get is an increase in the chance someone won;t get bashed and quit in the first couple of weeks which is surely a benefit to the game.

[Judge]

Perhaps when the report feature is used the alliance button can turn Red for the senior officers within their game accounts, then (hopefully) they would be noticed and dealt with.

having just a report feature means that members/officers would have another area to check each tick

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Quad

If you want to add something usefull to alliancepages, then make a history page. Showing who joins, quits/got kicked, got promoted, got demoted. And ofcourse when this happened. That little bit of information is missing, and it pisses me off.

As for this idea: Guess I'll have to have a look on the ingame alliance defence system, to see how it actually work

Can't think of any major problems with it, and this should help the small alliances, so gj

some of thoose alliance things u suggest are also on my list, though not in the form of a history page so i think i'll add that

[Judge]

Originally Posted by Kal

thats an interesting question and i guess it might make things marginally harder for the big and established alliances at the start, but at the same time any increased difficulty they get is an increase in the chance someone won;t get bashed and quit in the first couple of weeks which is surely a benefit to the game.

idd

[pig]

I think its a bad idea tbh, its just lazy gaming for lazy players, but my opinion

Question though, im assuming they are two packs of 3 and 4 randoms next rnd, now what is it a button press eg for me sayin "1up" to report my incoming or is it annoymonous?

[Forest]

Originally Posted by Kal

thats an interesting question and i guess it might make things marginally harder for the big and established alliances at the start, but at the same time any increased difficulty they get is an increase in the chance someone won;t get bashed and quit in the first couple of weeks which is surely a benefit to the game.

Depends how u look at it.

The way u propose may idd stop them getting crushed in first few ticks, and stop them quitting.

However, it would mean they had more roids for longer, meaning they would be bigger, which would mean they would get more incoming, which a smaller alliance couldnt handle, so instead of helping, it could give them more incoming and a bigger tendency to quit.

Or it may not have any effect on things at all and would be a waste of time coding.

[cypher]

yay let's make it even easier for nubs................... like it wasn't easy enough for them by now... why bother playing when creators just install bots and aids for everything? geez... if you want a decent rank, play for it. if you don't want it and won't play for it, who cares?

[DukePaul]

If the alliance is bigger, then they can surely be better able to cover incoomings - give competent DOs to handle it all, ofcourse. I guess that's the problem for smaller alliances, to have 24/7 coverage of both members and officers.

Still, being bashed into oblivion 3 weeks into the game sounds more fun than being bashed into oblivion 2 weeks into the game. Atleast you have more ships and roids, so the battle is bigger to look at.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by pig

I think its a bad idea tbh, its just lazy gaming for lazy players, but my opinion

Question though, im assuming they are two packs of 3 and 4 randoms next rnd, now what is it a button press eg for me sayin "1up" to report my incoming or is it annoymonous?

i''d go for the report to simply be the information thats on galstatus and reproting that it was the gal that reported it. so each alliance would get the information that they woudl get from someone pasting galstatus for their planets and would know that the gal reported it suing the in game system - we would also want to prevent multiple reports being counted. The system could also be intelligent and only report new incomings since the last report potenitally.

And it may be lazy gaming to lazy people but one of the biggest probelms for pa is it simply requires to much activity - and even with activity u also need to be on irc, and I for example cannot get on irc from work but i would still liek to be able to report incomings on my galm8s even if that info comes a bit late.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Forest

Depends how u look at it.

The way u propose may idd stop them getting crushed in first few ticks, and stop them quitting.

However, it would mean they had more roids for longer, meaning they would be bigger, which would mean they would get more incoming, which a smaller alliance couldnt handle, so instead of helping, it could give them more incoming and a bigger tendency to quit.

Or it may not have any effect on things at all and would be a waste of time coding.

now u r just being difficult

[Forest]

Originally Posted by Quad

Still, being bashed into oblivion 3 weeks into the game sounds more fun than being bashed into oblivion 2 weeks into the game. Atleast you have more ships and roids, so the battle is bigger to look at.

Or give them LONGER incomings, which is more demoralising.

As it stands, small alilanecs quickly come under the bash limit for the top alliances. Keep em bigger for longer, means longer incoming.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by cypher

yay let's make it even easier for nubs................... like it wasn't easy enough for them by now... why bother playing when creators just install bots and aids for everything? geez... if you want a decent rank, play for it. if you don't want it and won't play for it, who cares?

have u tried playing in a small alliance at the start of a round recently, it is far from easy. and being inactive and not irc actibve does not make you a n00b - it requires no skill at the game to come online and paste an something to an irc bot, just as much skill as is required to click a button in the game. So in reality it doesn't make things "easier" and makes them more accessible.

Being active should not be what makes people win this game, having skill should be.

[Forest]

Originally Posted by Kal

now u r just being difficult

I am being realistic.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Forest

Or give them LONGER incomings, which is more demoralising.

As it stands, small alilanecs quickly come under the bash limit for the top alliances. Keep em bigger for longer, means longer incoming.

well if they have just paid to upgrade their account they may be keener to try carrying on rather than quiting before they consider paying.

[Legator]

well - i personally would support such an idea, tho i dont know why it should interfer with irc-activity or would be bad for the activity.

im one of those who are alot online - just have no irc access. such a button would be a hell of a help for me. always mailing all these planets with the hope one forwards your incs.

And also for my galmates, cant contact their alliances because i cant get on irc during worktime.

i personally would say it would help the "community" because more planets get atleast the chance of def.

irc-activity will be always the key for communication and organization and because of that i dont see any danger in that.

[Brimstone]

Comments on this:

What about making that function only available to paid planets? Adds another incentive for paid planets, and forces freebies to use IRC more.

As to the idea behind it, cant see anything wrong with it. The def page ingame hasn't seriously been used since it was installed to my knowledge by any alliance worth mentioning.

It does sorta remove the reason to come on IRC for the less active peeps, but makes the game much more playable.

One down point to this, is that defense is already easy. Making it even easier to get defense is gonna make it harder for peeps to roid again, and its hard enough as it stands.

[mist]

i think this is a terrible idea, as it means that you don't have to talk to your gal mates at all.

the only reason pa 'works' is because of the community. if you want it to keep working you need to strengthen that, and making it so that the buddy packs in a gal neverhave to speak to the randoms can't help with that.

trying to make it so that people don't need to use irc is also doomed to failure. the fact that alliances require irc activity should make it rather obvious that it's a huge advantage to use it. you should be encouraging people to be using it, not trying to wean them off it - what hope have they of prgressing in the game then? as for not being able to get on irc at work - given the prevelance of cgi ircs, bouncers etc i find this hard to believe. last i heard pa even had a built in irc unit. why doesn't that work at your place of work (i assume you're able to log in to pa, or this button would be just as useless for you).

also there's issues with it, in that if you've got hostiles in your gal and your alliance is attacking them do you really want to report their incommings? somehow, i'd imagine not.

given that you're implimenting a system whereby people can mail alliances, a far better solution, imo, would be to take advantage of that to allow people to report incommings. simply making it so that you can multi target mails (so someone can send the report to all the relevant people) would suffice, imo.

on another note, i also believe this idea isn't particularly friendly to alliances. i'm far from an expert on their inner workings, but i get the impression that most decent alliances use their own tools/sites rather than the pa ones (What this says i'll leave for another discussion), however, i'm not convinced as to the value of this to them. is it an attempt to stop alliances using their own skills a la not giving out all the db dumps? are you going to give an interface to the in game system so that alliances can export the data to their external sites (if you come up with some security argument against this, and still allow hcs access to the alliance i shall be quite disappointed)? are you going to allow alliances to run bots to get the info out?

overall, this idea seems to be rather ill conceived
-mist

[Helix]

anything that makes the game simpler FOR THOSE THAT WANT IT TO BE SIMPLER is a good thing. People who are opposed to this are those that are somehow opposed to PAs only chance of getting a larger player base. People who want to are still able to talk on IRC. IRC is still vital for organizing defence. This tool simply allows the casual players and alliances who do not wish to/cant use IRC to have a fighting chance.

Stop standing in the way of progress people, the further PA moves to making the game ACCESIBLE and EASY TO PLAY the better it is. Also, if you do this, dont make it some half a$$ed we give you the call after 45 minutes. Just simply do it, when they press the button it is reported. A simple feature like this WILL NOT be the end PA. However the people who are opposed to change will be.

Great idea Kal, and dont listen to these people afraid of change.

seconded.
you cannot organize def without irc, so delay is shit.
yet there will have to be somebody who presses the "reload" button of his browser 60 times a tick to always get the newest incs.
combine the button with the new abilities of the mow, so if somebody presses the button paste status and all scans made by the galaxy.
and hmm. yet there is the problem of security and or hiding. some players dont want their galmates to know which alliance they are. stupid ones, indeed, but it happened to me that round (then they kicked me after a while).
makin a button which tells you to which alliance you wrote the call would make such things impossible.
makin a button which doesnt tell would make thus things way too easy.
if it works properly a whole alliance can try to hide in this system.
oO;
finished.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Brimstone

It does sorta remove the reason to come on IRC for the less active peeps, but makes the game much more playable.

One down point to this, is that defense is already easy. Making it even easier to get defense is gonna make it harder for peeps to roid again, and its hard enough as it stands.

well its still most efficient to organise defence on irc, i'd like irc to be an efficiency aid not an essential things. The game actually needs a larger inactive player base so there are something for the smaller players to roid etc.

Defence is allready easy yes, but that tends to be in the bigger alliances, they find it hard to get roids but this won't help the bigger alliances due to the fact the information is only available halfway through the tick. In some ways the hal;fway through the tick thing is actually useful and could increase activity of the smaller alliances BCs as they will ave a fixed time they have to look at the in game system - i expect now the smaller alliances suffer from a situation that the system is never chekced so any def calls on it are allways missed.

[Orion Treet]

Originally Posted by Judge

Perhaps when the report feature is used the alliance button can turn Red for the senior officers within their game accounts, then (hopefully) they would be noticed and dealt with.

having just a report feature means that members/officers would have another area to check each tick

That makes it a bit to easy, first idea I think is ok, but if you then also make it light up for officers to see.... They need to be active in the alliance and not have to be reminded to check for def, if they do they are bad officers. So reward the ones who look themselves, don't make buton turn red/light up/whatever I say.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by mist

the only reason pa 'works' is because of the community. if you want it to keep working you need to strengthen that, and making it so that the buddy packs in a gal neverhave to speak to the randoms can't help with that.

they won;t know which ones the randoms are withotu talking to them.

Originally Posted by mist

trying to make it so that people don't need to use irc is also doomed to failure. the fact that alliances require irc activity should make it rather obvious that it's a huge advantage to use it. you should be encouraging people to be using it, not trying to wean them off it - what hope have they of prgressing in the game then? as for not being able to get on irc at work - given the prevelance of cgi ircs, bouncers etc i find this hard to believe. last i heard pa even had a built in irc unit. why doesn't that work at your place of work (i assume you're able to log in to pa, or this button would be just as useless for you).

if its so obvious why don't people use it?

there arn;t actually many good cgi-ircs in my experiance

the pa comunit is a java app so requires open ports and java actually being installed - both of which are unlikely in a lot of companies

Originally Posted by mist

also there's issues with it, in that if you've got hostiles in your gal and your alliance is attacking them do you really want to report their incommings? somehow, i'd imagine not.

no one said you have to use a feature, as you say you could allways mail the alliances you want to defend your gal individually

Originally Posted by mist

on another note, i also believe this idea isn't particularly friendly to alliances. i'm far from an expert on their inner workings, but i get the impression that most decent alliances use their own tools/sites rather than the pa ones (What this says i'll leave for another discussion), however, i'm not convinced as to the value of this to them. is it an attempt to stop alliances using their own skills a la not giving out all the db dumps? are you going to give an interface to the in game system so that alliances can export the data to their external sites (if you come up with some security argument against this, and still allow hcs access to the alliance i shall be quite disappointed)? are you going to allow alliances to run bots to get the info out?

again no one said people have to use a feature, if big alliances want their randoms to report defence on irc then they can get them on irc to do it.
I would like to open up the alliance system at some point in the future, and there might even be a good way to do it based on a way spinner is designing an alliance feature atm, but don;t expect it any time soon as it would be a lot of work.

the key point of this idea is its simple from a code point of view and also easy to use from a player point of view. Yes people could allways pamail the alliances to speed the matter up and they could also use irc to speed the matter up - so having a gal that communicates does increase effiiency in many ways, but i think this would really help some people even if it only helps them in the sense that they then think they are helping their gal out at work etc.

[Ferretus]

For once Mist I disagree with you.

I think that this is a fantastic idea as it saves having to deal with often arrogant and unhelpful alliance players. Our gal has a mix of 3 alliances which is great, however getting in contact with their allies who may or may not be active on the public IRC channel (sitting in a room being idle is NOT active) can sometimes be annoying. What is often the case, out of the 20 or so players in the IRC room only 2 will talk to you and then you have the luck of the draw of whether they are worth a sack of shite.

Yes this will help smaller alliances and this is exactly what we want. The larger alliances poach the best players from the smaller alliances and also the smaller alliances do not have their own tools (just the good ol' ones we all know and love), so this is a feature which would be useful. Until alliance size is reduced or something, the smaller alliances cannot compete as well as they should and this is a feature that would benefit all. I dont think there should be a delay, and I also think that we should be able to add fleet analysis info to it if it is available.

Also this is a general comment to anyone and everyone. To be an effective alliance does NOT require IRC, I've been running this alliance for 9 years now playing in various games and PA is the only game where ppl make this assumption. IRC is for the unemployed people out there (or those lucky enough to have time to wsate at work), those of us who have jobs and lives cannot be on IRC full time and respond to incoming reports. Rant over, don't bother to respond to IRC related rant as you are not going to change my mind on this matter and its off topic anyway.

[AzureWrath]

Interesting idea, I didn't read all the posts here, but will this actually promote players using the ingame alliance system? I mean who really uses it?

A far more useful improvement imo, would be to make the 'status' of a planet an external link. Like, now we can click a button and share combat reports with others, scans, etc. Well, I was thinking perhaps, each planet could have a button and the current incoming (both attackers and defenders) would be viewable in that link for that tick. A copy of the gal status page for that planet basically. All gal m8s would have to do is to give that link to a DC when reporting incoming on their gal m8. Would show all the useful info such as coords of the target, coords of attackers/defenders and the amount of ships.

Thought about that while I was working, thought I'd share it.

[Orion Treet]

Originally Posted by AzureWrath

Interesting idea, I didn't read all the posts here, but will this actually promote players using the ingame alliance system? I mean who really uses it?

A far more useful improvement imo, would be to make the 'status' of a planet an external link. Like, now we can click a button and share combat reports with others, scans, etc. Well, I was thinking perhaps, each planet could have a button and the current incoming (both attackers and defenders) would be viewable in that link for that tick. A copy of the gal status page for that planet basically. All gal m8s would have to do is to give that link to a DC when reporting incoming on their gal m8. Would show all the useful info such as coords of the target, coords of attackers/defenders and the amount of ships.

Thought about that while I was working, thought I'd share it.

Isn't that just the same as copying and giving gal status that way to a DC?

[Kal]

Originally Posted by AzureWrath

Interesting idea, I didn't read all the posts here, but will this actually promote players using the ingame alliance system? I mean who really uses it?

A far more useful improvement imo, would be to make the 'status' of a planet an external link. Like, now we can click a button and share combat reports with others, scans, etc. Well, I was thinking perhaps, each planet could have a button and the current incoming (both attackers and defenders) would be viewable in that link for that tick. A copy of the gal status page for that planet basically. All gal m8s would have to do is to give that link to a DC when reporting incoming on their gal m8. Would show all the useful info such as coords of the target, coords of attackers/defenders and the amount of ships.

Thought about that while I was working, thought I'd share it.

oh i like and if we did that the button coudl effectivly simply add the link the allaince defence page

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Orion Treet

Isn't that just the same as copying and giving gal status that way to a DC?

well what if you could make a page with had the galststus info and scans on it and then have a link to that? that woudl be very fun

[AzureWrath]

Originally Posted by Orion Treet

Isn't that just the same as copying and giving gal status that way to a DC?

Well, yea, same with scans tho? I like the links tho, easier to keep track of, easier to handle the 'bigger' incomings as well..well easier to view I should say.

[ThunderCat]

well me tbh i skiped some poasts
But reading some i had some ideas
so here i go:
1:The button souldnt specify what aliance ur gal m8 is so that was no need to use a def chan
2:The officers should see who reported the call 1st.Why?Well this round i had an idea for the small planets in my gal and tbh it worked.I offerd 2 or 3 ticks of my resurces ( at that time u had like 300k/tick) to whom reported my inc 1st) and small.inactives in my gal actualy got on irc and reported the call ( well they had to paste on gal forums the confirmation from the officer who took then call,i had to ask that officer etc,so this would make it more easy)
3:About the delay thing.Show the reported calls at x:30 then at x:45.IF u come later than x:45 then bye bye
4:Also make the system tell the officer when the inc was launched ( not quite sure if this would be a good idea but hell its an idea)

Anyway this should be all with the ideas
Comments:
This would eally help those who are at work/school and cant get on irc
and if u think the idea would make ppl use irc less than they do,then at signup ask them if they log in from work/school and the ip , then u can only use the system from that ip (cool idea huh ? :P )

enough said.would like some1 comment on that
TC out

[ThunderCat]

uh uh another idea
also make another thingy where gal m8s can tell the alliance that the atttacker with x eta recaled and they can recal their def ships,But that should only work if the attaker is really gone so the gal m8s cant lie

Sounds good.

[Orion Treet]

Falling for fake recall msg's in your own stupid mistake, you should always check with DC, or hear from planet your deffing direkty if you can pull or not, this also encourages irc activity.

[Jeltje]

Sorry I hate the idea

It means a lot more work for dc's as they have to check the ingame def system now (We dont use it). Also it brings up a lot more bandwith for pa whitch is alreay dman slow around tick's
Personally I like the conact about getting defcalls and makign them its part of the game and pushign a button is rather lame. An alliance is all abotu communication and making friends. I think when u add a button less people will show up on irc in the morn because they can push a button.For me that will ruin my fun I have in PA

[ThunderCat]

Well as some1 said b4 if u wana do something in this game u HAVE to be on irc.And then if ur not there then it means u dont quite give a damn about the game.And do we really want those kind of ppl to "play" with us ?Dont think so.Anyway ppl who are irc active and cant come on irc from work/school need this button
Imho
TC out

[Hurragutten]

I think this is a great idea.

Not all people can be at IRC 24/7. Some cant access IRC from work etc.
I travel a lot and sometimes connect through a cell phone. Cant be at IRC usin a cellphone. That's too slow.

This idea will make the game more playable for masses of players. Ofc the hardcore players complaining here would get some less easy competition, but why not take that challenge?

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Jeltje

Sorry I hate the idea

It means a lot more work for dc's as they have to check the ingame def system now (We dont use it). Also it brings up a lot more bandwith for pa whitch is alreay dman slow around tick's
Personally I like the conact about getting defcalls and makign them its part of the game and pushign a button is rather lame. An alliance is all abotu communication and making friends. I think when u add a button less people will show up on irc in the morn because they can push a button.For me that will ruin my fun I have in PA

i really don't think this woudl affect bandwidth or server performance in any way whatsoever.

The reason you do not use the ingame system is becuase you have no benefits from using it, also with the 30 minute delay your existing systems would still have benefits,

[god113]

I really like the idea...

From what I can see, there are only two things this will affect:

Players who can't/won't access irc will be able to help their gal more. - Which might mean the gals outside top200 or whatever have more of a chance of defence.

And alliances at the beginning of a round, so they will have a way of planets ingal anonymously reporting inc (by pressing a 'report inc' button not saying their allie), so they don't have to give out fake def channels and such. So allies could stay a secret for longer? But that doesn't make much difference to anything.

DId I miss something?

Its proberbly been done :P but hey.... whay dont you put a voting poll up????? If it wins.... hey we have the new feature.... If it looses..... hey we go on living....

[Kal]

the reason i said future in the topci title is that this isn;t for next round.

I'm now thinking perhaps remove the 30 minute delay but don;t make it as simple as a single button - maybe u hit a button and it then asks you for any scans you want to add, then it can ask you for any notes - e.g. what defensive ships would be available in gal, or who from the gal might be able to be contacted on irc to discuss defence properly. It could then pamail the alliances the full info as well as adding the basics to the defence page.

[Gerbie]

I like it. I'd like to have a way to have it visual on overview so people won't miss it. It would be a good way to make galmates that do not use IRC more usefull for the galaxy.

[Alki]

how about the button doesnt give the full status of the incs. only to which planet and the eta. actually causing a need for activity, or causing the alliance to jgp there member(which wudnt be able to happen early on).

Or jus get rid of the button and have hostiles appear in the ingame alliance with only there eta, means dc's could sms the player to get on and give exact status, or simply the dc wudnt be able to cover it or simply over-cover it.

Im all for the idea i think it wud be good havin more contenders for top10 alliance positions and actually bring back what the 'top10' means? But making it as simple as ur suggesting, e.g. showing whole gal status, what ships are available ingal etc, makes its to simple.

About the delay, rather than ithe calls appearing on the half hour, why not have a constant delay function(if this is what u meant originally strike this suggestion), whereby once the defence has beed reported say at xx:15 the dc's wudnt get the call till xx:45. but the time delay does need to be brought down maybe to 20mins? for this suggestion to work.

my 2 cents

[Cochese]

Good idea.

No offense intended, but notice the people shooting it down are those who spend large amounts of time online.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Kal

The idea is a simple one, it is to have a way for galm8s to report incomings to an in game alliance through a quick and easy solution. Put simply, you press a single button and the attack is reported and added to the ingame defence system for each alliance. Now this is great for the smaller alliances with no external tools, and for thoose who choose not to use irc, but at the same time it makes using irc much less useful and according to some would make half of the community disapear.

I'd like to argue that such a feature does NOT make it easier for smaller alliances. After all please remember that the defence page is pretty much useless for all people, even BCs. I

For general members its useless because if theres no BC around to arrange the defence they never know about it. While this makes perfect sense as no-one wants to have their alliances incoming details announcedto anyone in the alliance (atleast irc you can tell whos viewed it which reduced the number of people who are suspects if details get leaked)

And for BC's its useless because its not that obvious that incoming has been reported, not unless you spend all your time clicking refresh of the defence page.

And for BC's theres the ultimate problem, for them to be able to arrange defence they have to be able to talk to them, this requires something like irc. Now the alliances who struggle to get members on irc and thus find it harder to cover defence are the smaller alliances. Its hence the people who arent overly willing to use irc who will use this feature and removes one of the few reasons for them going on irc thus has a negative impact on the smaller alliances.

What is really needed if you want to help small alliances with defence is

a) A way to make it easier for people to get on irc. This should incldue some better guides in more obvious places (ie ingame) and a secondary irc client as while the java one is fine normally many people require an irc client that gets around firewalls and people dont normally know about the likes of mouselike

b) Some more alliance tools, either as a bot supplied by netgamers or yourselves or some freely available scripts to help new alliances who dont have the techical skills to setup their own. If its just scripts i'm sure alliances can make some of their tools open source to help others out.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Cochese

Good idea.

No offense intended, but notice the people shooting it down are those who spend large amounts of time online.

That doesnt mean they are wrong, I seem to remember back in r3 most of the people who said private galaxies would be bad for the game were those from alliances who cheated to get private galaxies so didnt need everyone to be given the advantage, while those in favour either got blinded by the 'advantage' and didnt realise that it made things worse for them.

With this idea your just going to flood smaller alliances with defence requests when they already struggle because too many of their members are too lazy to get online (I spent a good few hours writing up irc guides and finding work arounds for peoples connection problems yet still a good number of fcrew members were too lazy to get online to offer help but expected us to help them. I even pointed out that if my workarounds didnt work id have been happy to talk to them via msn, ingame mail, email or any other method to help them find a work around yet did i receive one request for further help, no i didnt)

Yes theres the odd member who has a valid reason that they cant be online and most people can understand this if they have made an effort and explained why they cant but when they dont try, dont let you know why and then turn around and moan at you when you cant defend them as you dont have enough ships to call upon because they dont get online its just very annoying, and not acceptable and doesnt leave for a good experiance for either alliance or member

Originally Posted by Kal

This idea came from somwhere, possibly suggestions forums, or maybe someone just had it as a crazy idea, but I immeditatly jumped on it becuase i'm insane and added it to the todo list to do at some point in the future, however I have now seen the light and realise some discussion is needed

The idea is a simple one, it is to have a way for galm8s to report incomings to an in game alliance through a quick and easy solution. Put simply, you press a single button and the attack is reported and added to the ingame defence system for each alliance. Now this is great for the smaller alliances with no external tools, and for thoose who choose not to use irc, but at the same time it makes using irc much less useful and according to some would make half of the community disapear.

So I propose a modified version of this idea for adoption in the future. Basically the button would still exist, but it would have delayed affect, the defence call would be reported half way through the tick. This then means that using irc is still a huge advantage, but also means that alliances can relly a little more on the in game defence system and more importantly perhaps gives the in game defence system a use for all alliances in the event of their irc systems failing for some reason.

Of course the in game defence systems also need improving to make them easier and more efficent to use, so feel free to suggest things here as well as shredding the idea I just proposed.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by wakey

That doesnt mean they are wrong, I seem to remember back in r3 most of the people who said private galaxies would be bad for the game were those from alliances who cheated to get private galaxies so didnt need everyone to be given the advantage, while those in favour either got blinded by the 'advantage' and didnt realise that it made things worse for them.

With this idea your just going to flood smaller alliances with defence requests when they already struggle because too many of their members are too lazy to get online (I spent a good few hours writing up irc guides and finding work arounds for peoples connection problems yet still a good number of fcrew members were too lazy to get online to offer help but expected us to help them. I even pointed out that if my workarounds didnt work id have been happy to talk to them via msn, ingame mail, email or any other method to help them find a work around yet did i receive one request for further help, no i didnt)

Yes theres the odd member who has a valid reason that they cant be online and most people can understand this if they have made an effort and explained why they cant but when they dont try, dont let you know why and then turn around and moan at you when you cant defend them as you dont have enough ships to call upon because they dont get online its just very annoying, and not acceptable and doesnt leave for a good experiance for either alliance or member

thing is if you go for mist's solution of having people mail the alliances which will be possible next round then whats the point if the bcs arn't looking at the page. also remember the point of this feature is to report incs on your galm8s not on yourself.

If I was running an alliance with this system in place i would simply have a list of people i would defend i.e. the irc active people - the ones that never come onto irc do not deserve defence as they cannot offer it (this assumes the alliance is an alliance that operates on irc).

the only difference under this really is that u might know about the incomings on the planets that are inactive

[Gerbie]

This is not about the members' activity. This feature is mainly focussed at the galmates.