Discussion Time

[Kloopy]

Despite what it may seem to some people, PATeam have been discussing many new ideas and changes we can make to Planetarion. I've seen a lot of requests for more discussion of feature between the community and PATeam, especially for the reintroduction of Creators Hour.

For those of you who have joined since we last ran Creators Hour (CH), it was an hour or so set aside every week where the top people from PATeam would have a questions and answers session on IRC, answering questions asked by members of our lovely ocmmunity.

Now what I would like to see is something a little better than Creators Hour. For a start, it was always difficult to give solid, trustable answers in those weekly sessions. And since Jolt have overall say on all things PA these days, it can be impossible to reply to some suggestions or comments immediately.

Therefore, what I would like to do is to introduce weekly Discussion Hour. On the Monday of every week, I will start a thread on the forums where people can suggest topics for discussion. I will choose a suitable topic or two by the middle of the week, say Wednesday evening. After announcing that weeks topic(s), you will have until Sunday evening to research and produce arguments or opinions on the topic.

Then on Sunday evening, I'll run Discussion Hour (DH) where we have a structured and semi-formal meeting to discuss those topics which, you, the players want to disucss. After finishing, I will summarise the meeting and post minutes. If there is anything that we want implemented into PA, the portal, the manual or anything like that, then I will write a letter to Jolt explaining our decisions and asking for particular action.

I would like to see some suggestions that are interesting, can provide a decent amount of discussion and would inspire people from right across the community to participate. A couple of topics I have come up with to begin with are;

"A more graphically based Planetarion with more use of javaScript to provide an exciting interface to the game."
"Random events happening throughout the round. Such as missions or quests at random."

Please give me your thoughts on this idea. It might not work, but I think it would be a fun thing to try and could produce some really effective results. Please; discuss.

[Desse]

Could be nice, but since we have seen again with the shuffle, that spinner/Jolt doesn't listen to the suggestions put forward, I think it is just a "cosmetic attempt" to keep your customers quiet.

[Kloopy]

Cosmic attempt? You obviously weren't here last time I was in PA Team. If I, along with the community, come up with a decent idea, I will not shut up talking to Spinner (or Jolt) until I get what we all want.

I'm serious about this idea, and I'm confident we can get some results from it.

[Desse]

Too bad you weren't active three days ago then, when we needed them to listen.

[xontas]

desse, thats something to discusse
but i know for a fact that this is not a cosmetic suggestion!
if you know any of the people in PAteam you will know we wanne make this game grow as much as you guys.

so if you have a point to discusse (like you said above) i suggest you bring it up

[Jester]

How about you make the next topic 'a rigerous design process to prevent stupid ideas from achieving fruition'?

[Conall]

Kloopy - I think it is a great idea. I would however, think that an official Jolt representative needs to participate. After all, they own the game and in the end will make the decisions. If they would entertain an open dialogue with this community then I believe there is much to be gain from it. That is if this community will take the time to build solid logical arguments and suggestions.

[Conall]

Originally Posted by Conall

Kloopy - I think it is a great idea. I would however, think that an official Jolt representative needs to participate. After all, they own the game and in the end will make the decisions. If they would entertain an open dialogue with this community then I believe there is much to be gain from it. That is if this community will take the time to build solid logical arguments and suggestions.

Seconded

[Kloopy]

For a start, who the hell seconds their own post?

It's an interesting point though. However, have you seen a Jolt rep that really knows how the community works and who has a good knowledge of what the game needs? I think it's sensible that we discuss problems and ideas between real hard-core gamers and take the ideas, once forumlated, to the Jolt representative.

[Jesterina; This post was meant to contain some level of humor. It was intended lightly and I love Biffy to bits.]

[Desse]

Originally Posted by xontas

desse, thats something to discusse
but i know for a fact that this is not a cosmetic suggestion!
if you know any of the people in PAteam you will know we wanne make this game grow as much as you guys.

so if you have a point to discusse (like you said above) i suggest you bring it up

We had something to discuss before the shuffle, and we discussed it with Kal and A2, yet we still see the mockery of a round created by faulty code.

And as round after round has showed, no matter how good the intentions of PA-team are, it really bears no relevance to what actually happens to the game.

[Conall]

Originally Posted by Kloopy

For a start, who the hell seconds their own post?

It's an interesting point though. However, have you seen a Jolt rep that really knows how the community works and who has a good knowledge of what the game needs? I think it's sensible that we discuss problems and ideas between real hard-core gamers and take the ideas, once forumlated, to the Jolt representative.

[Jesterina; This post was meant to contain some level of humor. It was intended lightly and I love Biffy to bits.]

LOL

A schizophrenic. I actually meant to second Jesters post.

Fair enough on the discussions prior to a Jolt rep being involved, but I think having a Jolt rep communicate with us live rather than through static letters or a liaison would get them closer to this community and this community closer to them. This would do us all a world of good.

[Volo]

You actually made me register an account this time, as for ages now (read: since pax) I wanted to write in big size 7 color red capital letters in the forums "please stop 'improving' Planetarion". Yes I know you heard that a thousand of times before.

But not to be all-out negative, there should be some serious discussion about going back to what Planetarion really is (pre-pax, and other hybrid rounds that came later), and starting fresh from there. After thousands of core players in the community left the game, someone should really take a hint, eh?

Regards.

PS: I seriously hope that javascripting Planetarion was just an example and not a serious 'idea'

[jerome]

How many people really think Jolt care?

I mean, it`s still fresh in my mind, during r11 eor ceremony, when biffy made a speech of how "this was very successful round" meaning they made money, and after he finished his quick speech, he quit and the ceremony had barely begun.

This may have been due to him having to "go somewhere", but his etiquette in quitting, does support a notion amongst the game`s community of how Jolt just wants the money.

I can see this post getting fiercely defended against, but hey, sue me for telling what I saw/felt, like quite a few other players.

Not a bad idea though by the way.

[Jester]

I'd also like to suggest that the first discussion be about what form the proceeding discussions should have. I have some serious doubts about the viability of the form as Kloopy has explained it to me.

Also, Volo rocks for proving one of my points.

[Volo]

Well actually...

It seems to me now that you (Kloopy) are re-inventing the wheel. Creators Hour is one thing, as the conversation is pretty much one-sided. What you have in mind is (IMO) much more suited for forums than IRC, and much easier to manage as well.

On forums, you can actually take your time to think, write what you have to say, edit it so you're certain your post says what you wanted it to say, and then finally post. Odds are that someone's thoughts and ideas will be much more coherent in a forum post than an IRC conversation.

IRC as a media is far too dynamic for anyone to be able to state, not to mention prove, his/her points, even if you organise it like I've seen on IRC meetings before (taking turns, etc). It's much more difficult to read and follow, conversations tend to get messy, it's technically impossible to reply to other people's statements, everyone will have to type as fast as they can to get their point accross, and all that within a timeframe of 1 hour... I can't see it working (at least not with more than 4 or 5 people).

[JC]

Your main problem is going to be that the community contains a fair few pricks that wont shut the **** up when you try to hold any kind of discussion as i found out on the few occassions i tried to do things similar to this for speed round/alliance stuff. What you need is some struactur to the meeting and a method of giving everyone a say without interuption.

What ytou seem to have planned here it just an informal chat, which i cant see working at all. To begin with (until you either ban a lot of people or they get bored of +m) you will have everyone arguiing at the same time. Nobody will have chance to put their point of view across fully without it being shot down mid-sentance by somebody with an opposing view point.

Nice idea but you'll need a lot of patience and organisation to get it to work as you intend it to imo.


Edit:
Volo was typing at the same time as me obviously. He has a point, forums do allow for this sort of discussion to work better as it removes a lot of the problems i just outlined. I dont see the point of doing this on the forums though as it would be nothing more than a copy of the suggestions forum. Might be an idea for PA team to give more input on there actually, but seeing as i havent looked at it for a while they may well already be doing that.

[Tactitus]

Yeah, I'd say use the Suggestions forum--that's pretty much what it's there for and it's almost always suffered for lack of creator/PA Team participation.

For a forum to really work well you might want to have a bit more aggressive moderation--to keep topics on track, remove redundant posts, etc; but if you're really serious about pursuing this you can sort all that out as you go.

[mist]

good luck

in my experience pa and jolt only react to situations, so i don't rate your chances of proactive change particularly highly.

however, if you're going to get anything done you do need to organise things properly. one of the most important things that people seem to miss around these parts are the problem boundaries. for example, in the recent shuffle moving paids wasn't an option, yet people kept saying it should be done. pointless, never going to happen, waste of discussion. if you want jolt/pa to take you seriously then you need to come to the table with what's impossible, as well as what's possible

-mist

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

Yeah, I'd say use the Suggestions forum--that's pretty much what it's there for and it's almost always suffered for lack of creator/PA Team participation.

For a forum to really work well you might want to have a bit more aggressive moderation--to keep topics on track, remove redundant posts, etc; but if you're really serious about pursuing this you can sort all that out as you go.

Tactitus is a bastion of sanity as usual. I definitely agree that the focus of all this should be on the forums. Taking the better suggestions to IRC occasionally can work, but I stand by what I said (to Kroopy) earlier about having a 'come one, come all' session in #planetarion not being very well thought through.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by mist

however, if you're going to get anything done you do need to organise things properly. one of the most important things that people seem to miss around these parts are the problem boundaries. for example, in the recent shuffle moving paids wasn't an option, yet people kept saying it should be done. pointless, never going to happen, waste of discussion. if you want jolt/pa to take you seriously then you need to come to the table with what's impossible, as well as what's possible

I agree totally, but I'd also add that the other side of the coin is that Jolt/PA needs to explain what the boundaries are and, preferably, why they're there. Too often suggestions disappear into a void and you only find out months/years later (if ever) that there was a pretty good reason why they couldn't be implemented.

And of course, boundaries need to be challenged every now and again.

[Kloopy]

I'm well aware that there will be people who don't believe in me or my idea. I'm well aware it will be a struggle to get what we want out of Jolt and to change the way things work at the moment. However, I do think that after a few discussions - in which I accept there will be teething problems - we'll have a productive and effective regular discussion time.

To clear up an earlier post, I don't intend to wrap up the conversation after just one hour, I'll make sure I'm around for as long as it takes to finish talking about a subject and to come up with a short summary every week that seems to be, in general consensus, the best.

It appears that we do need to discuss how this Discussion Time is going to work, though. I'm more than prepared to host a meeting on IRC to work out how this can be run this to the best my abilities, ensuring that we get as many participants as possible.

As for the suggestion of running this on the forums, I'm not convinced. I'd like to use the forums during the week to allow people to generate their arguments and suggestions, to talk to other players and their alliances and form proper comments. During the time between announcing the topic(s) for particular week, the discussion can talk place on the forums.

However, on Sunday, I'd really like to find some solution to hosting the meeting on IRC. I'd encourage everyone to read the forums thread on the current weeks topic to ensure they're up to speed on what has been discussed prior to coming on IRC. But I do think that IRC is a valid medium for this sort of meeting and I think, between us, we can find a way to run it efficiently.

If anyone would be interested in working out a way we can make this a success, I'd like to meet you on IRC perhaps tomorrow (Tuesday 18th) evening. If there is interest in progressing with the idea, please let me know.

[mist]

if you actually want to get things done, you need a spokespersons per pov and a moderator. each spokesperson then sits in a channel, or has a load of pms going and then expresses the views and arguments they get in a hopefully coherant manner. if you have any form of free for all then the debate will fail, as everyone starts shouting. however, in this model it's very easy for people to feel that they're not getting their say.

-mist

[G.K Zhukov]

A quick three questions mr. Kloopy.

What autorithy do you have?
Will talking to you get us anywhere?
Wont Jolt and Spinner be as ignorent as ever?

[Kloopy]

Zhukov, in responce to your questions;

I guess the authority is that I'm labelled as one of these PATeam people. Perhaps, in the literal sense, I have no authority when it comes to decision making, but I am one step closer to Jolt than most. I get direct access to Biffy and the rest of the team, which is invaluable when it comes to having an influence on those final decisions.

Talking to anyone in PATeam should, in theory, get you somewhere. Most issues brought up on the forums, on IRC and through email do get passed back into the team IRC channel, but I theorise that if a structured, thought out and sensible argument is delievered to the team/Jolt - as opposed to a load of whining complaints or abusive comments - the community will have a more effect stance and thus get a better responce.

I've not been back in the team for very long, so I can't comment on Jolt's ignorance or lack thereof, however I can say that Spinner isn't ignorant. He's human, just like the rest of the team. We all make mistakes. Perhaps PATeam makes more than most other humans, but as a divided team, we can't agree on all important issues. I'm a big believer that an ignorant response to current affairs in our community is a lot less likely if we spend some time to get together a proper report before contacting the team properly.

[Inca]

I am a little offended reading this post, if nothing else people should take a step back from their own whining and bitching and think.

Every major change in PA has the players flame it, its a fact whatever is done some one won't be happy with it. In the past few weeks, people moaned xan were weakened, terrans made uncompetitive, exiles, reshuffles, gal setup, everything that has been done has in some peoples eyes been wrong.

Kloopy has not come on here to tell you that its not wrong, that the players complaining are wrong, that jolt is amazing, in fact he has done the something so profound too many people cannot even see it. The one thing 90% of the flames have in common, whatever the subject is that the person posting knows better. Its a fact, read through the refund thread, about the guy that is a businessman and knows how to treat people whereas jolt/pa don't, read through any of the exile/reshuffle threads, no1 would have done it like pa did, they all had the hindsight to do it different etc etc.... God damn the people whining are almost clairvoyent in their knowledge, but Kloopy, much unlike me, isn't mocking you for it, he's actually agreeing with you. He's come here and said he will try and be not only proactive, but communicative and also humble to players idea's. He has said in uncertain terms, lets discuss more with the players and like he says he is part of the pateam, he is the closest that we are realistically gonna get to Jolt, at least give him some damned respect for trying.

At the very least, the only harm that can come out of this is a Kloopy getting hassled in a chat room, i am sure that is a sacrifice we are all prepared to make However on the upside as already mentioned it will get a member of pateam "at the players disposal" sorta speak and willing to try and improve both the game and the community. It will allow idea's to be thrashed out, discussed and for all intents and purposes ripped apart for loopholes. Importantly there will be time before hand to raise issues, ideas and points and to make informed comments. I think a lot of the recent idea's have struggled because of the very lack of this, the gal setup, no1 was really in a position to say it wouldn't work, pateam weren't able to pick up on suggestions that it mite not work, perhaps players didn't fully understand how it would/wouldn't work..... all these things quite simply caused because of lack of communication.

Having said that it does requite some moderation. The poll on the portal asks which race is likely to be strongest this round, and without going into too much detail, look at what people chose and i am really aiming this at the better players, be realistic and think what really is strong. My point? well i don't always think that the "average player" gives the best point of view, or more likely, the most balanced point of view. I don't want to disregard anybodies opinions but very few players (as seen from almost all posts on here) think with the bigger picture in mind. I don't know the in's and out's of pa finances but i am reasonably sure that it is far from making fortunes, in fact i would be suprised if it made much more than a menial profit by the time everyone concerned has finished. You have to bare all these things in mind, without Jolt there would be no PA, without new players there would be no PA, without the experienced players making the game as competitive as it is there would be no PA, without the pateam there would be no PA, without the community, the players in allainces 11-30, the servers, everything has to be considered. This is why i think the idea will fail simply because the "loudest" voices will not be the ones with the balance to suggest ideas that are satisfactory to all involved.

Edit: lol my big without speech had withouts next to everyone except one "with the pa there would be no pa" not a bad mistake, hehe

[Kloopy]

Thank you for your support Inca, you mention though that the lousdest voices won't be suggesting the ideas that are satifactory to the game in general. This is something we're all well aware of, and something that I intend everyone involved to be told. If we ensure that people realise screaming their opinion is not going to help, perhaps even hinder their objective, then I have faith they're less likely to put up that fuss.

I agree that it'll be an insane job to moderate the discussion, but if we manage to somehow control it - which of course needs a discussion in itself - then I think we can give a chance for most people to air their views.

I strongly agree with you that a large proportion of the people who play this game won't be able to give an opinion which suits the game as a whole, but this does not mean that what they have to say is not valid or applicable. Everyone should have an input, a chance.

What I'll conclude with is that I believe the ones who have the most sensible ideas, those who know what they're talking about and can forumulate their opinion in a decent mannar will natually become those who are listened to in any discussion. What I've found in PA before is that we need a mixture of people, we need those who have sense and can guide a conversation. But they need prompting, people miss things and they don't always come up with the most elaborate ideas. A player who's not very good at the game, who may not understand the dynamics of it, could well have something to say which puts ideas into other peoples minds.

I think the diversity of people involved could well turn out to be beneficial to the whole thing.

[Tactitus]

I don't think irc is well suited to this sort of "discussion" (at least with more than four people)--unless by discussion you mean everyone shouting out their opinions. A discussion requires fewer people or a slower medium (like a forum) where people have time to think about what other people are saying and (hopefully) respond intelligently. Moderator(s) help, but to the extent the moderators do their job then only a few spokespersons will be heard anyway.

Oh well, I hope it works out for you.

[Kloopy]

Thanks Tacticus,

To quickly reiterate before I hit the haystack, I do want to use both medium. I wish to run a thread every week in which we can have a moderated, slow paced, structured discussion. Then on a Sunday evening, those who are interested can join me (and other team members) on IRC to discuss the finer details.

This way we're accessing as much of the community as is reasonably possible. I'm well aware that some people will steer clear of the IRC discussion but will talk their hearts out on the forums during the week. But I'm quite sure there will be some people who do the opposite.

Sleep well, everyone.

[Volo]

Actually, I for one, never said your idea is wrong in the first place. The idea in itself is alright (naturally, if it proves to have any effect on PA/jolt, but that's yet to be seen...), except for some minor technical details - such as holding a serious meeting on IRC. I'm glad that you plan to hold discussions on the forums as well, though, and if that's the case, I'm still certain most of the serious discussion will happen here.

Anyway, we may as well try and get it started.

As a sidenote, in reply to Inca's post, just to get something straightened out although it's slightly off-topic here (but then again, don't reply on this subject ;p).
Firstly, I've nothing at all against jolt. They are responsible for the servers (or lack of), promotion and marketing (or lack of), but nothing that actually involves the game itself. This idea might fail, because someone "up there" refuses to accept the fact that anything post r9.5 isn't worthy of the name "Planetarion". You can keep whining about how much I whine, then I can keep whining about how much you whine about how much I whine, but facts are facts. And fact is that PA today isn't even close to what it was in the rounds before PaX (yes, all those "evil powerblocking stagnation newbie-bashing cheaters multies farms" rounds). Proof for that fact? - number of registered accounts.

[The_Fish]

I have to say I admire your effort Kloopy, but I think it will all be in vain. Mistakes will always be made, they won't listen, and if they do, they will listen half hearted, sort one fault and make another one.

This rounds gal set up has really made me lose faith. And the attempt at fixing it wasnt too good either. Many people urged them to change it to be more logical, but it hasnt worked. I dont see how it will change in future.

[Mek]

hmm, sometimes i just dont get people around here...

Kloopy is trying to make a difference by giving us a voice, yet all u guys do is slate him....even if you do think his idea is fraught with problems etc, atleast give him the benfit of the doubt and have a little more faith in his ideas... at the end of the day he has more say with jolt than we do..

so use this thread for what it was intended for and make suggestions for a discussion hour and not for flaming jolt/pa team etc please

Thankyou

[wakey]

Sorry Kloopy but this simply wont work,. As others have said IRC is not a tool for indept discussions because in depth deisicussions require time to think about what others have said and to respond with a constructive counterpoint. This simply takes some time and the way IRC is by the time this has been taken the discussion has moved on by about 10 points. Its something I used to try pointing out in PATeam meetings because its simply where alot of PATeam problems also arise, theres too many people taking part on indepth discussions which means people lose the thread of discussions easierly, good points are missed and so on.

Thye forums are much better suited for such discussions although even then I dont think they are perfect because its the loud. normally big alliances players who get their say while others stay out of it for fear of ridicule (which sadly happens no matter how tough you mod and it takes just one comment to scare these lower people off). Not to mention people often use their staus in the community to infulence ideas rather than ideas themselves.

Whats really needed is a method of communication that doesnt bring peoples views on others into the equation. It shouldnt be a case where you let either the persons name or their reputation (or lack of it) effect your true views but it should be simply the arguments they put across that matter so reallyt some form of anonymous discussion method

[Kloopy]

This is the type of constructive critisism I'm after. Have you got any ideas for an anonymous system? What about setting up a board on these forums which requires no signup. When you "login" to that board, you get a server-assigned unique nickname and, unless you clear your cookies, that nickname stays with you. You're then able to keep track of individual people (rather than all being called "Guest") and it gives the ideas, as you suggest, more importance due to the nicknames behind them being hidden.

Thoughts?

[Chika]

I think it is great that you are trying to help kloopy. But tbh it seems as if pa team is intentionally making the game suck. Very poor decisons and actions. There have been numerous "bright ideas" from players and they seem to be ousted without a second thought. You say you can change things, to be on topic, a more graphically based planetarion would really rock, but i can't see how it could be implemented. And the random missions sounds kind of bad. Due to the fact that PA team will find some sort of way to make it the worse it could possibly be.

[Kloopy]

Those very idea's that are ousted without second thought are the ones I want to see discussed in the form I'm proposing. If they're given enough air time and planning, they can't be ignored. So, please, bear with me and at least give the project a chance?

A more graphical planetarion could have a picture on your overview showing roughly what constructions you have, it could show in pictures the amount of roids you have around your planet. We could have a picture for each research, each ship and each roid type. Where galaxies are in the Universe could be shown on the Universe page and the layout of planets in a gal could have a place on the galaxy page. There are plenty of eye-candy things we could do to improve the look and feel of the game, alot of them being relatively simple to implement, by simply changing the layout of some of the pages.

But perhaps in my ideas there, I'm setting my aims too low, perhaps other people in the community feel they have better ideas, things I've not even contemplated.

As for your comments on the missions idea and how PATeam would make it awful, surely this whole idea of talking features through means we can make sure we present the suggestion thoroughly thought through, so that, when implemented, these things don't turn out to be crap.

[Chika]

Originally Posted by Kloopy

Those very idea's that are ousted without second thought are the ones I want to see discussed in the form I'm proposing. If they're given enough air time and planning, they can't be ignored. So, please, bear with me and at least give the project a chance?

A more graphical planetarion could have a picture on your overview showing roughly what constructions you have, it could show in pictures the amount of roids you have around your planet. We could have a picture for each research, each ship and each roid type. Where galaxies are in the Universe could be shown on the Universe page and the layout of planets in a gal could have a place on the galaxy page. There are plenty of eye-candy things we could do to improve the look and feel of the game, alot of them being relatively simple to implement, by simply changing the layout of some of the pages.

But perhaps in my ideas there, I'm setting my aims too low, perhaps other people in the community feel they have better ideas, things I've not even contemplated.

As for your comments on the missions idea and how PATeam would make it awful, surely this whole idea of talking features through means we can make sure we present the suggestion thoroughly thought through, so that, when implemented, these things don't turn out to be crap.

I am sure players have thousands of ideas. Great ones, silly ones, etc. What it all boils down to is implementation. Planetarion has 1400 free planets. Before we suggest anything we need to find out why that is. We need to find out why every round players are attacking defending the same exact people. We need players. We need promotion. I suggest we get a better promotion stunt.

[Kloopy]

We've got our first suggestion, then?

"How can we improve the number of players in the game whilst simultaneously increasing the proportion of those that upgrade to full paid accounts?"

[jerome]

reasons to why pa has such a small playerbase, in order of "importance":

1] Lack of interest in such online games, in general.
2] P2P
3] Lack of much "real publicity" for the game. Positive publicity that is.
4] Presence of bad publicity, things like the shuffle etc this round,didn`t help.
5] The insistence of some old-core players in assuming this new version of PA isn`t as good. They`re wrong, to an extent.
6] The "feeling" of that Jolt, the game`s owners, doesn`t care much for the game.
7] The "feeling" that the PATeam makes decisions much more to either a] to the sway of the popular demand even though it doesn`t mean it`s right ie: the r12 betas.... so many pointless changes because of whinging... b] because it`s convenient for the PATeam, rather than their customers ie. round start date / insistence of no shuffle because they didnt have effortwhile time to code one properly? and when they did, it was because of a popular demand, rather than becaue it was exceptionally required. [whine]Furthermore, the insistence to keep the yellow in the colourscheme of the r12 skin, it can we please have % figures of how many people use each skin? I seriously don`t understand why it wasn`t offered with other colour schemes... the yellow just plain blinds ffs :/[/whine]

[Chika]

Originally Posted by Kloopy

We've got our first suggestion, then?

"How can we improve the number of players in the game whilst simultaneously increasing the proportion of those that upgrade to full paid accounts?"

Very great phrasing, and direct. I think you have about 1600 votes for more players to play PA.
I think adding aspects to the game, is not really the deciding factor of drawing more attention. When people come here, and they talk to the community, a lot of these people tend to stay. The problem is, people are not hearing about PA. Another thing is, the year is 2004. PA feels like the 90's. Why not try to take it from text based period. Jolt is behind us so i know the funds and resources are easy to obtain.
SO when people hear about the game, they will not see "text based" and become turned off. Interactivity is what makes an online game rock.
TBH 1600 players playing 1 game is not bad. In a text based situation it is. Why not try to make PA in suck a way that 1000 players would be more than sufficient to have fun? That would undoubtedly draw more players. Also, Pa takes up to much time. I have to admit that I really like the game, but when my wife threatens to call the internet provider offic and try to get the internet shut off, maybe its gone to far. You can't really half heartedly play PA. Make PA as to where you can play it at your own will, and not at that of some uber active fat man with glasses in Talahasse somewhere. I could go on forever.

[mist]

disagree

the principle problem is that an individual player is irrelevant.

for me, i enjoyed the first round i played because what i did mattered, i didn't have someone telling me how to run my planet, i actually had to figure it out myself. if i wanted defence i had to sort it out myself. despite how they're generally slaughtered on these boards, being a newbie was fun.

i stopped playing with pax, but before then i'd sign up and do exactly the same thing as i'd done last round. my alliance would sort out any diplomacy for me, if i wanted to i could turn up in the alliance attack and defence channels each night and not have to actually talk to a human being for the whole round (MOs don't count, sorry ). this is the way to win, but it's not fun.

if pa is to get big again it needs to appeal to people. there needs to be some individual skill in the game, it needs to be exciting again. pax did some good things. it introduced more variables. however, there's still only one way to win. with the removal of random roids the tick plans are even more exacting. all of the 'good' planets will be the same. it's dull. there might as well be no individuals.

the number of people playing this kind of game has dropped because, simply, there's better things for people to do with their time. everyone's got bored. if the game was interesting, involving, then people would come back.

plenty of people p2p other things. i don't see why they'd not pay for planetarion. however at the moment the game's dishwater, the support's abysmal and there's no planning or advertising. hardly shocking that people are leaving.

-mist

[Kloopy]

There are lots of issues in there, all of which we could spend hours talking about.

1) Why are they interested in other places? Why have people moved on from the webbased genre?

2) Does this freebie account + paid upgrade system work? Is it the best solution?

3) Where are the best places to advertise to get the player who are still interested in webbased gaming? What sort of advertisement targets them best?

4) Perhaps there's only one solution to this and it's to start doing things right and change the reputation of PATeam. Difficult as it may be.

5) How can we change that opinion? I've played rounds from 3 all the way through to the current one, and I don't think either is better. They're different games, and in many respects, PAX is much more enjoyable, for me at least. If old style PA was enjoyed by the old pros, what is it that they think is lacking from PAX? And in asking that, I'm not after simple "R3" answers, I'd like to hear what dynamics people miss. I'm sure there's a way we could incorporate some old style PA features into PAX.

6) I know noone is going to believe me when I say this, but Jolt do care about the game. We've got our permanent Biffy in the team now, and he's excellent, knows about the game and can get permission for things from Jolt Management. Just as one example, in the runup to the shuffle, to ensure everyone who wanted to stay in their gals, Biffy was doing payments about every 15 minutes, when it's normally done much less regularly. He even cut his shower short so that he got people upgraded in time for the shuffle.

7) The chain of bad/outrageous decisions taken during the start of this round, was in some way, due to the problems being so urgent. One of the aims of Discussion Time is to ensure that these things are discussed before they become a problem, to enable us to make a better judgement in those intense moments when things crop up. Just as a side note, things are rarely done to suit PATeam, we've just recently had to make a balance between out choice of options, all of which help the community to different levels, along with the time each option takes to implement. Sometimes, we've just not had the resources to do a decent job.

As for getting a breakdown of who is using which skin, I'll get on it and hopefully have that for you later.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Kloopy

This is the type of constructive critisism I'm after. Have you got any ideas for an anonymous system? What about setting up a board on these forums which requires no signup. When you "login" to that board, you get a server-assigned unique nickname and, unless you clear your cookies, that nickname stays with you. You're then able to keep track of individual people (rather than all being called "Guest") and it gives the ideas, as you suggest, more importance due to the nicknames behind them being hidden.

Thoughts?

Implementation of the system is where you hit some trouble, while you need it to be anonymous for those using it (and maybe even from most of PATeam because lets be honest most people in PATeam have had a run in with someone or other and as such arent as open to their comments) there has to be some identifying factor to prevent abuse. After all we dont want someone whos often very extream posting an idea and then bouncing around various differnt machines, ip's or simply wiping cookies and posting what seems to everyone alot of support.

The obvious way of acheiving this would be to tie it to our PA Accounts but then we hit problems of excluding some very useful voices. Now I know that when I was in PATeam this was a popular notion and I also know Jolt feel the same as there are some none players who do seem to go out of their way to cause trouble but i do believe that exclusing the vast majority for these few is wrong, after all they are able to supply a unique insight that current players cant.

Its things like this that the passport system would have been perfect for, we could have been held accountable in some way while remaining anonymous but seeing as this is something that was supposed to be in place back in r8 or 9 it would appear we have more chance of seeing flying pigs before we see the passport system fully working.

[Chika]

Originally Posted by mist

disagree

the principle problem is that an individual player is irrelevant.

for me, i enjoyed the first round i played because what i did mattered, i didn't have someone telling me how to run my planet, i actually had to figure it out myself. if i wanted defence i had to sort it out myself. despite how they're generally slaughtered on these boards, being a newbie was fun.

i stopped playing with pax, but before then i'd sign up and do exactly the same thing as i'd done last round. my alliance would sort out any diplomacy for me, if i wanted to i could turn up in the alliance attack and defence channels each night and not have to actually talk to a human being for the whole round (MOs don't count, sorry ). this is the way to win, but it's not fun.

if pa is to get big again it needs to appeal to people. there needs to be some individual skill in the game, it needs to be exciting again. pax did some good things. it introduced more variables. however, there's still only one way to win. with the removal of random roids the tick plans are even more exacting. all of the 'good' planets will be the same. it's dull. there might as well be no individuals.

the number of people playing this kind of game has dropped because, simply, there's better things for people to do with their time. everyone's got bored. if the game was interesting, involving, then people would come back.

plenty of people p2p other things. i don't see why they'd not pay for planetarion. however at the moment the game's dishwater, the support's abysmal and there's no planning or advertising. hardly shocking that people are leaving.

-mist

Its not really about individuality. If it was, people wouldn't play online. people will always draw to groups, It is just more fun that way. Nearly every online game has a clan of some sort or something. The problem is Guru's within the game. Activity. these Guru's set the tone. That is what makes PA boring. I can name like 5 names right now, and most would agree that these are potential winners. PA is to predictable. I don't mind having fleep make up like someone else, just don't make my round decided by trying to keep up with this person or this group of people. Being a Newb is fun, but people have drawn so far away from the actual game, that having a login is not enough to enjoy the game. With external forums, Irc and private servers, a newbie is left out. And most will agree that for the most part, planetarion is played outside of your login. Newbies don't know wtf a Rock or a MISTU is. they don't know who the hell a Synthetic_Sid is or a Spinner. New players are totally left out. Cut off the fat and make having a login enough to enjoy the game. If i log on to CS right now, I don't need to know anyone. I can play my 30 mins and then go to sleep. Get PA like that, and all our problems will be solved.

[mist]

to 'enjoy' the game people have to be part of alliances. you can't force alliances to accept people. therefore, this is impossible. alternative is to make alliances illegal, which then ruins the game anyway.

in order to enjoy planetarion you have to spend some time playing it, same as everyone else. when you started playing CS i'll bet you wern't great. you'd show up and get shot, you'd not know the map etc etc. with experience you've learned to shoot faster, learned the tactics etc. the problem is keeping people interested while they're learning.

that said, i do agree to a certain extent about a login being enough to play the game. i, however, think that the login should also work for the forums, if things could be worked out so that it also worked for irc it'd be great, etc etc

-mist

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Kloopy

There are lots of issues in there, all of which we could spend hours talking about.
1) Why are they interested in other places? Why have people moved on from the webbased genre?

Cos humans are fikle creatures who will always put looks first. Just look at the computer market to see this, why do most people buy TFT monitors when they can buy better CRT monitors at the fraction of the costs,? cos they look good. Why do people buy macs when they can buy/build a PC that will outperform it in all areas at a fraction of the costs? cos it looks good.

Looks make people pay more and put up with inferior products and sadly this often forces companies to try and go down the style route just for the sake of it and make a right hash of it. PA shouldnt go down this for the sake of it as it can carve out a maketplace for it without doing so if they focus on making the game more involving for the player without making activity being too demanding (might seem like a contridiction to some people here but by involving i mean making us feel part of the game more, we are very much still outsiders looking in rather than in games like SWG, EVE ect where it draws you in and makes you part of the world)

If style elements can be added without adversly effecting the game and without being unprofitable then they can be considered but only if they enhance the game somehow

Originally Posted by Kloopy

2) Does this freebie account + paid upgrade system work? Is it the best solution?

Under the restrictions that Jolt have to make money and it hence has to be p2p then yes it probally is the best solution all round. There are others but the problem is they quite often either end up being "pay to win" ideas or simply are revenue streams that arent guarenteed. The only way to really do it is limit accounts that are free to make people upgrade which will generally guarentee enough people do to cover costs

Originally Posted by Kloopy

3) Where are the best places to advertise to get the player who are still interested in webbased gaming? What sort of advertisement targets them best?

I'll tell you where not to really adversise yet it still seems to be one of the few places that still is and thats the various gaming communities

The later rounds of tradiotional PA really tarnished the image of the game and those in these communities generally know this or experianced it, until some real good word of mouth starts to tip the balance you will struggle to rectuit from these places. Targeting some none conventional avenues would probally end up being more worthwhile where the word of mouth hasnt damaged the impact

Originally Posted by Kloopy

4) Perhaps there's only one solution to this and it's to start doing things right and change the reputation of PATeam. Difficult as it may be.

As long as Jolt hold such tight reigns on PATeam you cant do this effectivly. It just comes across too often that PATeam are spouting Jolt propaganda that may or may not be true. Its simply very hard to trust anything said by PATeam under these conditions. If PAteam were let off the leash slightly youd gain alot more respect. Yes this might result in some misguided comments BUT tbh its better that than having a community who mistrusts those running the game and even if the comments do cause the odd "uprising" in the community I for one see that asa good thing because any time you can recapture the old passion this community had for making the game bigger and better is a good thing.

Take the alch situation for example there were somethings thta came up in that which if Jolt hadnt been so scared of negative comments they could have learnt some things about the community and become a little more open and approachable and got the community on their side more and used the community as the asset it is but instead they decide to tighten the leash and increase those attached to it

Originally Posted by Kloopy

5) How can we change that opinion? I've played rounds from 3 all the way through to the current one, and I don't think either is better. They're different games, and in many respects, PAX is much more enjoyable, for me at least. If old style PA was enjoyed by the old pros, what is it that they think is lacking from PAX? And in asking that, I'm not after simple "R3" answers, I'd like to hear what dynamics people miss. I'm sure there's a way we could incorporate some old style PA features into PAX.

This is where the playerbase its its own worst enemy. When most people talk about original PA they are doing so through rose tinted specticals. For someone whos played every round its very difficult to be critical of original PA because no matter how bad it became in later rounds it would still have the glory days to fall back on as well as being the game we all fell in love with and it will always be special. People dont like change and when your changing something they fell in love with your going to have problems (outcry about star wars changes or the various brands like coco pops and such like who changed their name shows this)

The thing is PAX was needed, original PA was designed for that Space and Time and it really didnt adapt at all to its changing enviorment over the rounds. if the changes that needed made due to the differing factors were made when they were needed today the original game would no doubt be simerlar to PAX but because we were introduced to it slowly we wouldnt have had a problem like we have now and we may very well have had a substantial more players as many wouldnt have been driven off by the lackluster post p2p rounds which drove old players away and didnt allow new players to intergrate easierly

Originally Posted by Kloopy

6) I know noone is going to believe me when I say this, but Jolt do care about the game. We've got our permanent Biffy in the team now, and he's excellent, knows about the game and can get permission for things from Jolt Management. Just as one example, in the runup to the shuffle, to ensure everyone who wanted to stay in their gals, Biffy was doing payments about every 15 minutes, when it's normally done much less regularly. He even cut his shower short so that he got people upgraded in time for the shuffle.

As i said above the problem is they dont show this, they would rather stay distanced and treat the community as the enemy. Take Geoff for example, we have all heard of him but who actually has an idea who he is. He has the time to surf the forums and comment to PATeam on his dislike on the way the community reacts to certain things or how he thinks the mods are doing poor jobs BUT has he bothered to introduce himself. Ive pointed this out to biffy various times that the likes of himself and geoff for example need to be more visable and open but it keeps getting ignored instead they would rather tie anyone mildy officials hands in tape and then seemingly sit back and do nothing.

Jolt have done alot of good things and when biffy says they should get some praise for that hes right but as long as they continue to undo and mask these achievements by being so standoffish then the community is going to be wary and critical of them

Originally Posted by Kloopy

7) The chain of bad/outrageous decisions taken during the start of this round, was in some way, due to the problems being so urgent. One of the aims of Discussion Time is to ensure that these things are discussed before they become a problem, to enable us to make a better judgement in those intense moments when things crop up. Just as a side note, things are rarely done to suit PATeam, we've just recently had to make a balance between out choice of options, all of which help the community to different levels, along with the time each option takes to implement. Sometimes, we've just not had the resources to do a decent job.

This rounds issues were discussed before they cropped up, just those who raised the issues we have seen were seemingly ignored because the idea of full random or full private was unpopular. Its been the same in the past PATeam has looked at the numbers rather than the arguments and end up implementing things which while populat are riddled with so many potential problems which could cripple the game if not dealt with correctly

[Inca]

I think refferring to the cs issue you have the problem that i a complete cs virgin like me could play for half an hour and in that time i could shoot some1. For that 1 person i would be happy and want more, and it would maybe drive me to play more etc etc... the problem is the nearest comparison PA has is a successful attack, which even assuming you signed up pretty much as the round started, you would have to do a lot of reading, have a reasonable idea of game concepts and then prolly have to wait 4-7 days to land that attack. But really i don't think that is the issue, people who play PA usually have some idea of text based games and so they know what there letting themselves in for.

For targetting more players i do think other text based games are the key, a PA player is a certain type of person and the reason PA has more appeal than say Daoc/Everquest/Ultima/WoW etc, is because its the community. Your actual "active" time on pa, and i am not talking about being logged on, i mean the time spent actually doing your PA account is amazingly low. I do think that other text based games do't have the same level of community, nor perhaps the interaction that PA does. This is an angle of appeal to (for example) utopia players, where for all your in a kingdom (galaxy) your success is largely based on your own province, not the others around you. In pa you need a successful galaxy and more importantly a successful alliance. Its been said a lot of times before but the key to getting more players is to get them on irc and get them applying for one of the smaller alliances. Which leads to a new problem, i would argue that any alliance in the top 15 is a medium-big alliance, and that covers about 70% of the paid players, thats one hell of a percentage. People refer to the "old school" of pa and the ratio's have not been that big before.

This kind of leads to 2 more points. Firstly PA is now easier than it was before, especially the starts. With no roid scans/wave amps, research/construction so easy its a laughable and they even made it so with starting resources every player in the game almost has the exact same early ticks. As games go on naturally people get better at them, when you add to this pa team make the game easier (albeit adding wasteful stuff like covert ops for multi's etc) it does like somebody said make the game very uniform. Also some1 mentioned guru players that really play pa seriously, and i reckon i might fall into that catergory. But i don't think its 5 players, during protection there were maybe 500 players who to within a tick or do didn't miss a thing, maybe even slightly more, its amazing the dedication pa inspires. I do agree that part of the problem is that there is so little individuality, when added to this PA making the starts easier etc so far this round there is very little diversity, That said we are all somewhat biased because of the game we're playing right now, with cruisers and battleships both out, the defence of them is now a priority, and so fleets will massively diverse and give us a little more spread in the game. The person who mentioned guru's also said he could name 5 players all with a shot of being #1 and frankly i don't think thats true. Now more than ever i don't think the #1 player is decided by the individual and it is totally an alliance thing, i firnly believe that last round some of the better 1up players that sent the defence when it really mattered, that hit the smaller less xp targets because it was needed that took hits when others around them prospered, they didn't finish top 10. XP/Socre is part of that as its easily possible to whore it instead of actually play the game, it by no means shows a true reflection of which players got their alliance to #1 and more than ever is why people are more interested in the alliance rankings not their own.

The reason a lot of players (in my opinion) rate round 2/3 as their best ever round is because there were far less exceptional players. This made it easier to envy those, but also meant you could go about your day to day pa life without being too involved with them. Now of course it is a rat race and you have to be up with the crowd because so many people are doing well and maybe unlike in the past with so few small alliances about, does mean that to even have a fun competitive round you have to put in the effort to be there. Some of the changes have made pa a far better game, the fact there are no stupid 6 hour attacks available or even 7 is far better, alliance tags and -1 alliance defence, no cluster attacks to rape smaller players, its all good. Ok you have to balance these against some of the less sensible changes, but even so i refuse to believe that pa as a game is suffering because of the rules.

P2P, quite simply without it PA will not exist, its not up for discussion so theres not much point even mentioning it.

People are fickle and right now whats on their mind is the start of this round. To keep word of mouth about PA good something needs to be done about that. PA team half heartadly admitting it wasn't ideal etc, well i think from reading forums you can see that is not appeasing the masses. In my opinion a big step to restoring confidence in the pa team and therefor its idea's is to maybe plan out the start of next round well in advance, show that they have learnt from blatant and perhaps avoidable mistakes. I think that the first discussion topic, it would be nice to get straight to the point and discuss r13 set up, this would give everyone a chance to see if this idea will work, if pateam can restore confidence in its players and maybe most importantly if PA is looking to the future or dwelling on its past. There are probably 5 quite different views on how to set the galaxies up on these forums, and maybe more if the debate was open, i would like to see how people and the team react to teh pro's and con's to these but i think the big test of both Kloopys idea and the "vibe" that pateam wants to improve on this rounds problems, will be to see if an acceptable solution can be discussed reviewed and planned, all within an acceptable time frame, between players and team a like.

[Kloopy]

Thanks for taking the time to write that wakey, you've brought up some very valid points.

1) I'd like to see us, as a community, discuss ideas for improved graphics, to give the game some eye candy and make it look as inviting as those TFTs and Macs. I think I nearly orgasmed when I saw how Macs switch users. [Basically, the programs you're running on the screen form one side of a cube. The cube then animates and turns to the next side on the cube, on which you see the other users's programs. It's absolutely sexy, and I want a Mac because of it.]

So I totally agree, we need to produce something that makes people go "Wow". Something that touches the part of their brain which makes them subconsciously attracked to Planetarion.

2) I agree with you that the current free+paid upgrade is probably the best solution. It's meant new users can join and get a very decent view of how the game works before paying with their hard earned cash.

3) You've cottoned on to something which really upsets me. Planetarion once had the best intangible asset of a fantastic reputation. But through recent rounds, we've had some very major changes which, due to the highly competative nature of the game, have really tarnished that reputation. As you say, wakey, alot of people know of PA and laugh at it's mention.

However, in my opinion, I think we're through alot of the worst of PA. At the moment, despite the problems we've had getting this round under way, PA is doing well, it's not heading in a bad direction. It's just a shame that bad press takes so long to dissipate.

Perhaps with a large graphics overhaul, some new features and a more immersive and personal round 13, we could dispell alot of those old reputations.

4 and 6) The Jolt people have alot more than just PA to deal with, and I can understand from a business point of view if Geoff wishes to spend his time on other projects which his company run. This is especially true since PA has a team of (uesless? :grin dedicated volunteers who keep the game running without his intervention.

If we can ensure the community gives consistent, constructive advice and critism to PATeam and Jolt, then there is no reason why both the team and the community can be trusted a little more, and we won't have to rely on Jolt Management stepping in when we hit bad situations.

5) Again I agree with you; The community who have been around long enough to have played the old style Planetarion are going to be thinking back to the glory days. And rightly so, they were good fun. Perhaps the change from Round 9.5 to 10 was indeed to big as you suggested, thus alienating alot of the players and persuading them to leave the game.

So is this not something we can learn from? Can we perhaps make bigger changes between each round to keep up with the altering climate of online gaming, to keep our game ahead of the competition? Whilst doing this, of course, we'd have to be careful that we don't change those dynamics that make the game popular. It's very hard to maintain a game like Planetarion. Making changes that current players can adapt to and new players can easily learn is not a trivial task.

7) The problems we got at the start of this round were unusually bad, I think even all of PATeam admits that. But it's happened now and again the best we can do it try and learn from it. Which is one of the backing ideas to Discussion Time. When it looks as though we're heading into a problem, or making a bad decision, the community has a chance to politely and through an organised channel, discuss those problems.

[biffy]

Originally Posted by _ryzekiel_

How many people really think Jolt care?

I mean, it`s still fresh in my mind, during r11 eor ceremony, when biffy made a speech of how "this was very successful round" meaning they made money, and after he finished his quick speech, he quit and the ceremony had barely begun.

This may have been due to him having to "go somewhere", but his etiquette in quitting, does support a notion amongst the game`s community of how Jolt just wants the money.

I can see this post getting fiercely defended against, but hey, sue me for telling what I saw/felt, like quite a few other players.

Not a bad idea though by the way.

The end of the round was on the week/weekend that nearly all the Jolt staff were in London working on our stand @ the GameStars Live exhibition or meeting up with business contacts at the European Gaming Network convention. I was staying in a hotel from Tuesday through to Sunday and the expo shut at 6.00pm so I could only get online via 40p per minute hotel dialup link. Due to the cost I could only therefore spend a short while online each day and used my little time up on that day prior to the round ending, the start of the round end ceremony itself and then later that night to check email. I hope this explains why I wasn't on for long.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Kloopy

4 and 6) The Jolt people have alot more than just PA to deal with, and I can understand from a business point of view if Geoff wishes to spend his time on other projects which his company run. This is especially true since PA has a team of (uesless? :grin dedicated volunteers who keep the game running without his intervention.

obviously geoff has a lot of things to be doing. however, i can recall his intervention wrt pa in two circumstances. first, he opened a cheater, broke the eula and generally caused a fuss. then he had one of the pateam, who was telling the truth and had community support, sacked. if he's only got a little time for pa i can think of sooo many ways he could spend it more constructivly

-mist

[JC]

Originally Posted by Kloopy

So I totally agree, we need to produce something that makes people go "Wow". Something that touches the part of their brain which makes them subconsciously attracked to Planetarion.

I think you've misunderstood Wakey slightly here. Its all well and good making people go 'wow' to start with, but it doesnt take long for that wow factor to fade away and then the only thing that will keep them around is the quality of the gameplay rather than graphics and other fancy add ons that dont actually add anything to the game itself. I'm not saying having a 'sexy PA' is a bad thing, but making it at the expense of producing a PA that runs well, has a good balance etc etc would be disastrous as there is only so long people will stick around to look at graphics. Concentrate on the gameplay rather than graphics, those can be sorted later time permitting.

I've never actually played EVE but i think from rumours i have heard that it isnt doing as well these days. If i was to have a guess at why that was i would say because people realised there isnt much to the game other than its fancy bodywork.