Compliments for the changes, pa team

[tauric]

I am 38 years old and i have played pa since round two. In 9 rounds i have done approximatly 25 attacks. I think of myself as an experienced player, even an active one. I never ended a round beeing #last, in fact i was always the average player. 5 out of ten, 13 out of 25. I never missed an attack on my planet. I was always there, just never in time to get defence. Yet i defended ingal on uncountless occasions. I have made friends but they are like me, not the sort of people you want in your alliance, for you never know when they will be online.
I was called once on my mobile phone by a gal mate. I am dutch he is norwegian, I kept a stupid smile on my face for about a week and my wife and co workers kept on making fun of it.

Why do i keep playing pa knowing i will never be considered good alliance material? Because pa is fun for me too. I loved the start of each round for it gave me an opportunity to be in the top 50, even top 10 once. Okay for two ticks, but never the less i was there. When the attacking starts i lean back and sleep. I make sure my fleet doesnt get waisted and try to get some score on the turtoise way. I do get bored when the round progresses, but not because of unbalance or the power blocking of alliances.
If you dont like attacking and everyone has said what he wanted to say on the boards, the round dies.

I love the announced changes of round 10. Spies and covert operations taking place directly without eta. Great.
the experienced die hard attacker aiming for score and size will most likely think its no use. And from what i have seen in other games i think they are right, but it will be fun for me and all those other semi (in) actives. Secret revenge for all those standard and boring raids and ways of attacking.

The same goes for all ships shooting. Great. This will definitly make my fleets stay at home more, primairy and secundary initiative set for destroying attacking ships.

Naming your fleets, i have had dreams about my fleets, my ships where precious to me, i went zik only for one goal, to get 48 different ships. Not that i succeeded but i came close, 42.
Just the fun of naming your own fleet will be great.

I know how round ten will go score- and alliancewise, we all know. In two months the game will be unbalenced because of whatever. It took 9.5 rounds of pa old way to get a sence of balance. The winner or winning allaince will be the one most dedicated in exploiting the whatever that caused the unbalance. I dont care, its part of this game. It even resambles life. The die hards dont have to worrie, pa will stay pa.

What i dont know is how the next round will be for me. It looks promissing. I kinda like the idea that all those experienced players are nerveous about all the changes. It feels like somesort of revenge. pld spinner

The real compliment Spinner is for realising that your community of players is devided in two parts. Die hards AND the rest.
Thanks for giving the rest of the community what we want.

Tauric

[MrLobster]

the pros are scared, and so am I.
but pa has been less interesting, if you not in an alliance (in my experience) and if your a n00b its even harder.

pa has been my liFe for 8 roUnds now, i have seen allianCes rise and fall, fury v legion, fury & legion, xeta, fltv. its improved balancing every round, however power blocks have Killed the fun.

pa-x is a whole new game, whY its a clone of planetarion! new and old ideas. it will take them a while tO work everything oUt but they will get there.

good luck to the pa team for pa-X

[Dave]

Lets put it this way.

Having now played the beta, I will not be playing round 10, or any round of new style pa - ever.

I guess I will now be hunting for clones, farewall PA, you had a good life.

[Cochese]

I'm reserving judgment until I see the *final* version of r10.

However, I'm not impressed with the changes so far, and leaning heavily towards retirement

[Mushroom]

older players, who've been around since round 1 etc. tend to hate the changes and appear to be leaving.
Newer players generally seem to like the changes.
I think there's a correlation...

[Cochese]

Originally posted by Mushroom
older players, who've been around since round 1 etc. tend to hate the changes and appear to be leaving.
Newer players generally seem to like the changes.
I think there's a correlation...

Sure, it's called "trading existing customers for new ones" or alternately, "how not to run a business".

"Pld"

[Mushroom]

Originally posted by Cochese
Sure, it's called "trading existing customers for new ones" or alternately, "how not to run a business".

"Pld"

It's not intentional, it's just the way it's turned out.
If PA carried on the way it was, we would have lost people.
PA's changing, so we're losing other people.
Either way we lose people...

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Mushroom
It's not intentional, it's just the way it's turned out.
If PA carried on the way it was, we would have lost people.
PA's changing, so we're losing other people.
Either way we lose people...

I sort of agree; except I think PA isn't changing enough to attract many new customers but is changing too much for the old ones. It seems you're trying to do some of each and failing at both.

[Cochese]

Originally posted by Mushroom
It's not intentional, it's just the way it's turned out.
If PA carried on the way it was, we would have lost people.
PA's changing, so we're losing other people.
Either way we lose people...

Of course, not everyone likes change. I'm simply saying that the risk being taken is enormous, as there's more to lose than gain, imho...especially with a product that isn't clearly better than it's predecessor.

When you change a game, it's usually the norm to remove/fix the bad parts...leave the good parts...and add in new stuff where appropriate/feasable. Basic game design. Removing all (or most) of the good features, and replacing them with mediocre (or worse) features, then adding in useless stuff and the token few good improvements, simply isn't how it's done.

It's not the fact that it "isn't old PA" that has me frustrated...I looked at it objectively, played 2 days to see how it played and "felt", and it's simply not worth $15 or the time it takes to play, imho.

I would gladly pay $20 for "old" PA. You might even convince me to pay $25 or $30, if the existing (well, previously existing) flaws were addressed, and a few tweaks made. However, I would not pay $15 for PAX. I might pay $5 for it, maybe. Probably not though...the gameplay is just uninteresting, redundant, and not 'fun' in any way. Yes, there are good points...stuff that should have been put in long ago, and some things that would have made "classic" PA better.

We'll see when the public beta goes on, and everyone has a chance to try it for themselves. I'll try to refrain from posting an "I told you so", but I can't guarantee anything

*edit* Tactitus summed it up nicely, in far fewer words

[dabult]

Originally posted by Cochese
Sure, it's called "trading existing customers for new ones" or alternately, "how not to run a business".

"Pld"

The old way = no new players, old players leaving.
The new way = might bring new players, old players leaving.

I dont see how that would be "how not to run a company". Companies have to evolve or they will die, it's that simple to me.




Edit; oh as for the original poster, I tend to agree. Due to rl and work in particular, i might be very semi-active r10, for the first round since r6. And seeing as there are more sorta-active, than there are hardcore, I believe the changes so far are in our advantage.
I'm looking forward to it.

Editedit; I would gladly pay $20 for "old" PA. You might even convince me to pay $25 or $30,
Having played since r3 I wouldnt pay more than $5 for a round of the exact same, now becoming more and more boring, gameplay as it's always been.

[Jonas]

I think they changed too much in a row.

I think, with some changes going over rounds, they could get new people, and have few oldies leave.

Im sad, I fear this is the last of PA. I fear it more now than I did when it went out of money and were put for sale. Im gonna play, Im gonna try it. But if its not fun, Im gone

Whatever any1 says, "old" PAs first 2-3 weeks of playing, when you init roids, attack without newsscan and so on r the best part of any onlinegame I have ever played. Before any alliance gets total domination. Its the best. I sure hope this isnt gone. Initiating roids = the best, however I heard Spinner say somewhere that it'd be gone. I dont know, ill play the public veta and see. I sure hope its fun :/

-Jonas-

[isildurx]

Originally posted by Jonas

Whatever any1 says, "old" PAs first 2-3 weeks of playing, when you init roids, attack without newsscan and so on r the best part of any onlinegame I have ever played. Before any alliance gets total domination. Its the best.

Nothing beats losing ur whole fleet 1 day be4 newsies


Ive played a load of PaX, and i think its fun in a gloomy sort fo way, if they just fix some things, and redesign a thing or two, i think it will be good.


P.S Id gladly pay 25$ for old style p.a too

[Zotnam]

PaX didn´t impress me in the beta version. I do however hope that Spinner will come to his senses and [fix certain issues]. Basicly no-one will be able to hold on to his roids a whole round in this new game since you have 1 tick to get defence from your alliance.. The main points of the races, different ship stats/abilyties are gone.. that really made the races special. Pa wants to get new blood, fine, because they are going to lose alot of old players, getting a newbie to pay for something is very hard indeed, on top of that I think that is the biggest fee I have seen in any browser game. I have paid for a r10 account already but if I hadn´t, I wouldnt have played, gl to pa trying to save their life, but if this is the game that is released to public, it will be the last round periode.

[Nitros]

and he shows up again, lo tauric, drop by on IRC, find me in #lch or #tot

[SpazMonster]

Originally posted by Cochese
Of course, not everyone likes change. I'm simply saying that the risk being taken is enormous, as there's more to lose than gain, imho...especially with a product that isn't clearly better than it's predecessor.

When you change a game, it's usually the norm to remove/fix the bad parts...leave the good parts...and add in new stuff where appropriate/feasable. Basic game design. Removing all (or most) of the good features, and replacing them with mediocre (or worse) features, then adding in useless stuff and the token few good improvements, simply isn't how it's done.

It's not the fact that it "isn't old PA" that has me frustrated...I looked at it objectively, played 2 days to see how it played and "felt", and it's simply not worth $15 or the time it takes to play, imho.

I would gladly pay $20 for "old" PA. You might even convince me to pay $25 or $30, if the existing (well, previously existing) flaws were addressed, and a few tweaks made. However, I would not pay $15 for PAX. I might pay $5 for it, maybe. Probably not though...the gameplay is just uninteresting, redundant, and not 'fun' in any way. Yes, there are good points...stuff that should have been put in long ago, and some things that would have made "classic" PA better.

We'll see when the public beta goes on, and everyone has a chance to try it for themselves. I'll try to refrain from posting an "I told you so", but I can't guarantee anything

*edit* Tactitus summed it up nicely, in far fewer words

How long did it take playing PA casually before you became 'hooked' on it? I almost guarantee you it wasn't 2 days playing short ticks and evaluating it 'objectively'. The core of planetarion has never been the game play. The game play has always been an means to accomplish your goals. It has never been 'fun' in and of itself. Where the challenge and fun lies is in the community, alliance and politics, which take time to develop. Beta is not a good measure of how the actual game will unfold. Beta is bound to be boring. You don't have the alliances sitting there hammering eachother and the heated politics to go along with it. You may have a few namby pamby cluster grudges here or there but nothing on the scale of real PA politics. IMO evaluating PA (or any game) soley on the beta is a very enourmous mistake. One I made myself with eve. I played beta and said 'this is boring', because the actual managing of your stuff was pretty mundane. However that is not where the bulk of the game lies. The meat of the game is the player driven economy and corporation politics. Beta is there to refine the game to make sure it is balanced, so no one can take deliberate advantage of any flaws, not as a free preview of what it will be. Untill the new planet management system combines with the political side of planetarion I do not think anyone is qualified to make any sort of statement as to whether it is better or worse than the old one.

[Cochese]

Originally posted by SpazMonster
How long did it take playing PA casually before you became 'hooked' on it?

I never played PA casually. I was hooked the moment I read the manual, and signed up, back in December 2000.
I played about 20 hours straight, and have generally maintained a very high activity level since that day.

It has never been 'fun' in and of itself

Speak for yourself. I had, and still have, a blast roiding, killing ships, and so forth. The gameplay is fun, for me, and that's half the reason I play it.

Where the challenge and fun lies is in the community, alliance and politics, which take time to develop

Again, speak for yourself. The community isn't "fun" as such; we're all a bunch of whiny, cheating, tossers if you look at the group as a whole. The alliances/politics are--and have been--developed since what, r2-4? Nothing stellar has happened on that front in ages. It's the same people, just different alliances, different blocks.

Beta is not a good measure of how the actual game will unfold. Beta is bound to be boring

I've always enjoyed the beta's before; r6 beta was particularly "fun" as we powerplayed like mad at one point (*waves at Sad's 1:3 galaxy). I'd be interested to know if you've even participated in a Planetarion beta before, as I don't recall seeing you there (granted my memory is weak).

You don't have the alliances sitting there hammering eachother and the heated politics to go along with it.

You don't need alliance wars to have fun. Galaxy wars, or galaxy groups (alliances in that sense, not Fury vs Xanadu etc) can be just as entertaining, political, and intense.

nothing on the scale of real PA politics

If real PA had 100-150 players, it would be just like the beta. Obviously a universe of thousands of players will be more involved than one with a mere fraction of that number.

[Cochese]

IMO evaluating PA (or any game) soley on the beta is a very enourmous mistake

Yet we have a beta before every round, to do what? Evaluate the gameplay and features. You can test the game, to make sure it works, and it's fun. You can't test how alliances will interract with each other, and that's what makes the difference in each round of PA; the ship stats have generally had little to do with the outcome of rounds (except cases where they were badly skewed in either way; r2, r4 for example). Alliances still played with those ships, and still did their own thing...they just complained more on the forums.

Beta is there to refine the game to make sure it is balanced, so no one can take deliberate advantage of any flaws, not as a free preview of what it will be

Yes and no. If the game is balanced, but isn't interesting or fun, the Beta should provide a forum for discussing that point, and how to make it fun. Despite the fact it isn't meant as a "free preview", it's still used in that manner by everyone who participates. There's more to testing a game than just the numbers. You have to test it's playability, or all the good intentions in the world are useless...like PAX.

Untill the new planet management system combines with the political side of planetarion I do not think anyone is qualified to make any sort of statement as to whether it is better or worse than the old one.

How could it possibly affect politics? It will affect the way people play the game, yes...but not who they choose to ally with and so forth. People will still play the game in generally the same way: to kill the enemy, get roids, and win.

Nothing in PAX that I've seen will alter politics in any drastic way, and frankly I fail to see how you can think that it would.

Furthermore, having played in all levels of PA from newbie to HC, and having been involved in every beta since r5, I think I'm perfectly qualified to state my own opinion on what I think the pros and cons of PAX are.

I've been around here a long, long time. I know what to expect from people, generally.

[tauric]

"'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt"
Abraham Lincoln

Abe was a wise man Cochese

[Hicks]

You know just because someone doesn't like the changes for PA X it hardly makes them a fool, everyone is entitled to an opinion just because it differs from yours doesn't automatically make them a fool, Cochese has argued his points well and I can say that his views are similar to a large group of players just as yours are.

This was incidentally one of the big problems in the first batch of beta testing, every time someone criticized (I'm sure several of the Titans crew who tester hardcore and who made a large number of suggestions will testify to this) the changes for PA X and suggested improvements they were immediately shouted down by the community types (PA Team cronies) who's only qualification for being there was attending LAN parties. This is a separate issue but if you want improvements in Planetarion make the beta elite and give the testers two or three months to test stuff properly, let them abuse the game the way they will do while playing it and for the love of god act on what they tell you instead of listening to your "We've not played Planetarion since round 4 and even then we were only like Top 21038i2190481912" focus groups. The amount of times we've told you how to improve this game for everyone is beyond count.

I'm not sure how much of this I should go into on the forums if it's to much then don't hesitate to edit it out though I would prefer if it was left in however, it says basically what I said on the beta forums and what I said in my Email to Spinner after his clever decision to replace the first group of beta testers just as they were just starting to get to grips with PA X and suggest real changes.

Planetarion had to change however it's been changed in the wrong ways from and the last beta I played in I was still under the impression it's far from being what it should be considering how long they've had to develop it.

The first point is combat, masses of ship stats have always been hard for new players to get to grips with, removing the stats solved this and also had the effect of removing how scripted the game is both of which will be beneficial to the game, however it's been taken too far and reduced combat to a state that is worse than Round 1. One tick each ship targeting one class all firing it at once. Spinner did actually recognize this and added more ships and classes however ships still lack secondary targeting, which is needed to give depth to combat. If a battle is being fought on a huge planet the people organising the attack and defence should be able to think tactically and send ships which target the other sides and reduce losses as it stands now it just seems more a case of send all you can and hope for the best.

Second races still weren't differentiated, as they should be, if the only difference between the races is going to be ship names and some vague unspecified bonuses then races should be done away with all together they just serve to make the game intimidating to new players. For example as a race Terran should be able to build small numbers of big bulky ships which are slow but do stacks of damage, Xand small ships should have been made ridiculously cheap so they effectively had a swarm ability, Cathaar should have had heavily shielded ships which lacked punch but were hard to kill, they could have been given the best medium ships. However, this again has not happened.

Thirdly your attempts to force alliances to use the in game facilities are more laughable as Alliance Hosting, I think almost all current alliances will use their own tools and simply break into small wings and use the in game stuff as a tag for the defence bonus. Once again alliances will be unaccountable for what they do

Fourthly the scoring system was still open to abuse. I'm sure anyone who's played PA X will tell you how.

Fifthly is the oh so vaulted covert op system. I do like the idea behind it for the reasons tauric suggested it gives small planets the ability to instantaneously hit back against larger aggressors however as seems to be the trend with Planetarion the implementation is sloppy. As it stands now the system is over powered, players can cheaply launch as many covert operations as they want and there is almost no defence against them, I seem to remember in one beta where MrL was number one and he was losing something like 2 ship yards a tick (Bearing in mind it takes like 12 ticks to build new ones this has the potential to cripple planets). If the present system stays as it is I think I'll probably get some retired people to sign up planets for me, have them act as covert op bases so they can be unleashed on people who annoy me (Or alternatively as I'm sure some people will do just multi). What I was expecting when I first read the news about espionage was you would be given character slots, you'd have a limit of say 3-5 agents who you trained (Built basically however they would be extremely expensive) who had their own attributes which grew as they performed missions as they grew in experience additional missions which the agents could perform would be unlocked (Kind of like the character system in Warcrat 3). Of course there was also a chance the agent could be captured or killed. At the very least I expected that you would have to train agents kind of like the current scan system (With covert centres acting like wave amplifiers). As it stands at the moment launching covert ops is simply a no brainer, it requires very little thought and can be done instantly, while I'm sure this will be fun for a week or so, clicking "Launch Operation" time and time again is hardly a challenge. Imagine just imagine how good it could be if this was implemented properly what you have now is an over powered scan page.

Sixthly scan bases have never really been a massive issue in Planetarion, believe it or not they contributed a surprising amount to your revenue. By only allowing the target planet to military scan his attackers your going to force more and more people into account sharing, more than that you've basically legitimised it. By making the scan tech tree so long and forcing people to research more valuable areas you've also managed to remove a large amount of the fun of big battles, I know the idea was to make the game less scripted but where's the fun in not being able to arrange exact defence for yourself and just piling ships on ? Again it makes the game far too simple you've simply gone too far.

The whole idea of PA X seemed to be to give newbies and late starters a real chance, due to real life I was rarely able to play hardcore, I was usually starting several hundred ticks late, I found it impossible to catch up with those leading and it was just as hard to play at the bottom of the pile as it always has been being constantly hit by those who were bigger and having no chance to grow in short nothing has really changed. I noticed though all those who were raving about how good the beta was were occupying high ranks.

For those of you who genuinely believe the playing field has been levelled then think again, the die hard players have already formulated their strategies, built their defence networks and battle groups, they've already all played the beta (Through sharing accounts) and shortly after the round starts they'll developed reasonable battle calculators. Unfortunately once again people will find the same old crew winning the game.

Planetarion should have tried to build off it's already established player base by fixing the problems in the old Planetarion rather than trying to make a completely new game and drive off perhaps 80% of this established player base. Put it this way if I have £10 to spend I doubt very much I'd waste it on a browser-based game I've never played before. For £30 you can get a copy of WarCraft 3 and play online for free as well as enjoy the single player game, to be honest I'd rather splash out on that or another proper game than surrender my life to an IRC chat room as unless PA X is radically improved between the last beta I played and launch it will not be worth it.

[Wrath of Azure]

Originally posted by Hicks
[b]The first point is combat, masses of ship stats have always been hard for new players to get to grips with, removing the stats solved this and also had the effect of removing how scripted the game is both of which will be beneficial to the game, however it's been taken too far and reduced combat to a state that is worse than Round 1. One tick each ship targeting one class all firing it at once. Spinner did actually recognize this and added more ships and classes however ships still lack secondary targeting, which is needed to give depth to combat. If a battle is being fought on a huge planet the people organising the attack and defence should be able to think tactically and send ships which target the other sides and reduce losses as it stands now it just seems more a case of send all you can and hope for the best.

yep, i agree, combat atm is bland and uninteresting. 'Old style' combat was much, much better.

Second races still weren't differentiated, as they should be, if the only difference between the races is going to be ship names and some vague unspecified bonuses then races should be done away with all together they just serve to make the game intimidating to new players. For example as a race Terran should be able to build small numbers of big bulky ships which are slow but do stacks of damage, Xand small ships should have been made ridiculously cheap so they effectively had a swarm ability, Cathaar should have had heavily shielded ships which lacked punch but were hard to kill, they could have been given the best medium ships. However, this again has not happened.

agree again, testers are still talking this very subject. With the loss of emp, stealing and cloak..you can't quite make up for those losses no matter how hard u try. Unless..other special/unique abilities are added, which isn't the case.

Thirdly your attempts to force alliances to use the in game facilities are more laughable as Alliance Hosting, I think almost all current alliances will use their own tools and simply break into small wings and use the in game stuff as a tag for the defence bonus. Once again alliances will be unaccountable for what they do

The current alliance system quite frankly sucks. Popular opinion states however that any alliance system that is created ingame will suck. External alliance tools are much more.....more.

Fifthly is the oh so vaulted covert op system. I do like the idea behind it for the reasons tauric suggested it gives small planets the ability to instantaneously hit back against larger aggressors however as seems to be the trend with Planetarion the implementation is sloppy. As it stands now the system is over powered, players can cheaply launch as many covert operations as they want and there is almost no defence against them, I seem to remember in one beta where MrL was number one and he was losing something like 2 ship yards a tick (Bearing in mind it takes like 12 ticks to build new ones this has the potential to cripple planets). If the present system stays as it is I think I'll probably get some retired people to sign up planets for me, have them act as covert op bases so they can be unleashed on people who annoy me (Or alternatively as I'm sure some people will do just multi). What I was expecting when I first read the news about espionage was you would be given character slots, you'd have a limit of say 3-5 agents who you trained (Built basically however they would be extremely expensive) who had their own attributes which grew as they performed missions as they grew in experience additional missions which the agents could perform would be unlocked (Kind of like the character system in Warcrat 3). Of course there was also a chance the agent could be captured or killed. At the very least I expected that you would have to train agents kind of like the current scan system (With covert centres acting like wave amplifiers). As it stands at the moment launching covert ops is simply a no brainer, it requires very little thought and can be done instantly, while I'm sure this will be fun for a week or so, clicking "Launch Operation" time and time again is hardly a challenge. Imagine just imagine how good it could be if this was implemented properly what you have now is an over powered scan page.

covert ops are gay and will always be gay. Imo, it's only a tool for the weak to fight back.

Sixthly scan bases have never really been a massive issue in Planetarion, believe it or not they contributed a surprising amount to your revenue. By only allowing the target planet to military scan his attackers your going to force more and more people into account sharing, more than that you've basically legitimised it. By making the scan tech tree so long and forcing people to research more valuable areas you've also managed to remove a large amount of the fun of big battles, I know the idea was to make the game less scripted but where's the fun in not being able to arrange exact defence for yourself and just piling ships on ? Again it makes the game far too simple you've simply gone too far.

I agree here too, as it stands right now, the scan tree will be the absolutely last thing that most players touch since there are more valuable areas to research.

[Zotnam]

What Hicks said. Sign ups seems rushed now, because the beta isnt even half done yet... Basicly no-one will know what incoming they have and just get whatever defence they can, yay, exciting! More like annoying. Maybe things changes tomorrow, some stats have been altered but combat is still so simple.. I like the lack of roid scans and the new score, tho I think networth should be used to rank planets too. Some ppl in the beta are complaining that CO´s are underpowered btw heh. I am quite sure the game could be succesfull this way, I mean, bring in the round r9 ship stats and races + no limit to the roids you can mine and I would pay to play it.. even with only one tick of combat. Many improvements seem a bit irrelevant but they add to the gameplay anyhow, the pa feeling IS there, but combat needs a serious overhaul.

[Ado]

Even if they desperately wanted to lose the old players (which they're doing a good job at) new players are NOT going to pay 15 euro's for an average game to log in twice a day. Its called reality.

[Cicada]

i completely agree with hicks (first time thats ever happened)...

i have a free account for r10 (pa name competition), i doubt i'll be using it...

[LFFPicard]

Well i have no basis to give a argument, not being asked into beta, or accepted on the expansion.

I am considering on not even bothering with the next round purely on the basis of what i have heard here,
and the fact that PA as a whole is a letdown.

I cant remember who it was who said it further up but it is true, u get into PA Team by going to lans and kissing creator ass.

I have bent over backwards at times to help, in whatever way i can.
I even handed spinner £40 on the first PA meet ever, back in Summer 2000.
I told him i would give him 10% of all my lotto winnings, so i did.
and continued to do so.
I forked out over £200 of my own money, making compotitions giving away accounts.

For 2 reasons, to help out, and to actually have a comp worth playing.

I ran the original #newbiehelp channel with Goldeneye, befor eit was closed and replaced.

My team and i wrote all the original content for the portal help and support.

i have been involved in beta through R2-6.
Had quite a blast and fixed a few major bugs with help from Cocheese, and JammyJim, (PDS R4)
Jammy made a pds whoe base and we attacked him and got wiped

I feel i have helped out as much as is required to get a position in PA Team, or even a Thank You.

The only thing i have not done, is goto all the lans, and meets and kissed ass..
I went to a couple, had a laugh, bought some drinks.

I have a tendancy to spend to much and not expect anything in return.
Prime example, Hitchin meet, i went to the shop with, Sami, `Paul, Mendosa and a couple others, and came back with £60 of food and drink, for the 30+ ppl who attended.

Mainly Pot Noodles and Coke, but i didnt eat/drink it all
I help and i give, that is my flaw.

But no matter how much i help and give, i never even get a thank you.

There are some respectable people out there.
Sami, Mendosa, Wabbit, `Paul, Phil^ Kloopy, And a few others.
They actually appreciate what i done, and offered to give me a little cash back for what they used.

I even payed Kloopy extra money to help cover the rent of the hall, and didnt expect it back, but Kloopy was kind enough to hand back the cash.

I dont expect alot, i liek to help, even if it gets me in debt..

i help others and thats the bottom line..

All i ask for is gratitude..
PA never gave me any gratitude..

Thats what done it for me..
i liek the gample,
but looking at th eocmments of PAX i dont think it is even worth my playing..

I even offered and announced in CH 2months ago, that i would give away 20 accounts for PAX.
Spinner blew me off..
I mean thats £200 garunteed..

I wont be doing it,
I wont be playing

PA is no longer freindy it has become one with the suits..
all they want is money money money, they dont care what the customers think they just want the money.

LFFPicard

[WipeOut]

I have purchased two accounts, I could always use them to punish stupid forum posters with covert ops.

[Dave]

They may want money, but with what is now PaX, all they will get is a redundancy payout.

[G.K Zhukov]

Originally posted by WipeOut
I have purchased two accounts, I could always use them to punish stupid forum posters with covert ops.

thats the spirit my friend!

[mist]

i'm still not convinced the game will be worth paying for, before any of the changes are considered, for 2 reasons:

1) random gals
the first 10 planets in my gal last round were all apparently paid accounts from round 9, and most of them were useless. the only way i'm going to pay to play with people who log in once or twice a day, only come on irc when they're under attack etc is if my alliance can see my gal status. i can't see that happening, so first reason i'll not be playing

2) the free 2 weeks
spinner says that multiing in these weeks will be pointless, as you'll loose all the roids when you go in to the paid universe.

firstly, if his best defence is that multiing will be pointless, that doesn't show a lot of faith in the multi hunters. i'm told that the tools for this round are better. will the hunters actually be looking at the free universe with them? i'm not going to discuss how to do it, but i think most of us are aware that it's possible to evade whatever the tools do anyway

secondly, if you're going to loose most of your roids when you "pass over" how's someone new to the game going to compete with those who started in the paid universe? if they join after 2 weeks and have bugger all roids they're going to be a punchbag. great advert for planetarion. well done

combined with silly things like not giving ship stats (my money's on ely for having them first btw, assuming noone bribes a creator), forcing alliances to be in game etc etc 'tis going to be a giggle, but not one i intent to pay for

-m

[LFFPicard]

adding to mist.


With this temp portal and gfx in place to show the customers responding to the advert..

Looking at the amaturish layout of this new temp portal and gfx..
They will just be turnign around and heading home again.

You shoudl have had finilized professional graphics and portal system to show BEFORE you payed out for a advert..


As of now, its plain amaturish witch instantly puts a bad opinion on the new game to come.
The customers you hope to gain through advertising, will dismiss the game as a poorly run amature game.

LFFPicard

[mist]

agree with LFF, the info on PAX has a banner ad on it. come on lads, that's a *bit* tacky.

although as that banner add, i'd imagine on a jolt hosted page, is currently advertising freeserve at me it's possibly an attempt at more comedy from spinner

-m

[Cochese]

I hear you LEFF, I too have given a lot of my time to PA in various means over the years. All I wanted in return was for PA to be the best game it could possibly be. That dream was never, and now likely won't ever be, recognized.

The thanks we get after paying for 5 rounds of PA is the cold shoulder, and the distinct impression that the alliance-playing, long-time customers aren't wanted anymore.

That's not a good feeling

[Mushroom]

Originally posted by Cochese
The thanks we get after paying for 5 rounds of PA is the cold shoulder, and the distinct impression that the alliance-playing, long-time customers aren't wanted anymore.

That's not a good feeling

You say that like these changes are purpose-built to get rid of you! That's simply not true. PA doesn't want to extinguish any one part of its community, that would just be completely stupid. I know you like telling us that PA business tactics are bad, but they're not bad enough for us to tell a good portion of the people to eff off!

Now i know the answer to this is "then why are you making a game we don't like?" and to that, i have no perfect answer. What i do ask is that if you do leave, and then one day in the future idly check what PA-X is like again, and realise that it's a better game than it started off as, would you play again? And if you would, why not instead stick around and try to tailor the way the game moves so that it can be like that? OK, Spinner and fudge have made something here, a new product, to start off with. That doesn't mean that it will continue to be them and them alone that develops the game - as we know there is no point in developing a game that people don't want to play. If we know more about how people want the game to move, whether it's implementing new things or making parts of it a bit more like old PA, the better. I'm not saying you have to stay here and fork out the money to play a game you don't think you'll enjoy, i'm just asking you to at least stick around and try to help us turn this cautionary venture into an expedition.

[Cochese]

I don't know that I can play r10 as it stands. Beta testing is a chore, when it used to be a pleasure. There's no "fun" in it for me, and I'm desperately trying to find ways for it to entertain me, I honestly am

Other people may think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but where they see virtues I see fatal flaws. Maybe that's just me, maybe not. My gut tells me it's taken a turn for the worse, and all I have to rely on is instinct and experience as a gamer, and as a "veteran" (meaning long-time, not leet which I certainly am not) Planetarion player.

I honestly do hope it succeeds, but I also hope these changes are temporary. A large sum of excellent features were removed to make the game what it has become, and the quality has suffered because of that. Planetarion used to be a game people copied (have you seen what Emp.Quest is like these days? PA ripoff to the 'T') but now it's lost that 'spark', and I can't see many redeeming qualities a clone game would want to steal. I suppose that's good, in the sense these ideas will remain "here", but that's also a telling sign of un-interesting gameplay.

If I don't play r10, I will be back to see r11, 12, etc etc and hope one of the future rounds is more to my liking. I will always be available to offer my input and suggestions whenever anyone is interested in hearing them, and will certainly do whatever I can to improve the game and community...right now, I'm just dissapointed, and a bit put off by all this.

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Mushroom
I'm not saying you have to stay here and fork out the money to play a game you don't think you'll enjoy, i'm just asking you to at least stick around and try to help us turn this cautionary venture into an expedition.

Some of us have been trying to do that for 3.5 years now. :/

I've never hesitated to offer my opinion on how the game can be improved... and Spinner's never hesitated to ignore it.

Fair enough though, it's his game; but suggesting that we're wanted for anything but paying is starting to sound a bit hollow.

[tauric]

I can imagine spinner playing some online game, posting never used but great ideas on the forums, helping out creators in irc rooms etc. There must have been a point where he thought, i can do this better. And he did.

Now he is on the other side of the table, a creator, he found out the hard way that his best wasnt good enough to satisfy mrs Spinners needs. you know what i mean i hope.

Imagine yourself in that situation. Speaking for myself i would think of all those, die hards, Alliance HC's, noobs and newbies like William Shatner (James .T. Kirk) did, "people get a life, its only a movie".
If this Spinner guy looks like me then he is doing a job which he thinks he can do best. He will without any doubt steal all the ideas you post on these boards but he will never, never let others tell him what he should do. His income depends on this game and its succes. If he fails he will know HE is to blame, and if he continues to read forums you can tell him "told you so".

For now Spinner is telling people "told you so" for 9,5 rounds. He is the one who did it once. I rekkon jolt rather put their money on him and his ideas then mine or anyone elses.

I started this thread as a compliment to Spinner. I was telling everyone how i play because i think a lott of people like to play like i do. When i read these forums it seems to me that the general idea of pax is thats its not good.

I dont know the english term but i dont believe the forum is the average pa player. If i wanted to know how good a new product is, i dont base my conclusions on what the hard core addicts from the old product say of it.

I do not dismiss your opinions. I can believe that some of you realy think these changes are not good for the game. And probably when you took on the challenge and recoded pa yourself it would be a great game to play. But we only have spinner. He is doing this job, and i hope he succeeds.

[Cochese]

If I got something coded, you would call it a PA "clone". Personally, I don't feel like abusing (or taking credit for) the ideas and features from classic PA, which is what clones effectively do. Having been involved in the creation and testing of some of those features, I have too much respect for the people who participated to disrespect them in that manner.

The classic style of PA simply wasn't "bad" at all; it needed tuning (which we commented on round after round, and never went into the game) here and there, but the basic game was quite good.

Now, if Jolt (since they 'own' PA) would be interested in selling the old code, and the rights to it, I would certainly be interested in buying that, and running "classic" PA, with a few modifications--specifically for people like me who enjoyed that game, and don't want to see it die.

I don't want to play PAX, EQ, **********, etc. I want to play Planetarion, the way it should be.

[WipeOut]

Originally posted by Cochese


Now, if Jolt (since they 'own' PA) would be interested in selling the old code, and the rights to it, I would certainly be interested in buying that, and running "classic" PA, with a few modifications--specifically for people like me who enjoyed that game, and don't want to see it die.

Count me in if you pull this off matey

[Knight Theamion]

What Hicks said, but adding to that:



The best thing Spinner did in round 4 till 9.5 was listening to Petru and me in round 5 when we made the races.


In other words, I am good at developing, rather good actually, not at coding, but at specifying, and I think that if you would let the titans crew, or me, or any other creative player do the design it would 'rock rock rock' way more then Spinner ever could.

My favourite 'design' senate would be:

Petru, Jester, Theamion, Rha, Chax, Gayle, Parracida, Singularity, jornx, SilverSmoke.

[Elevator]

Originally posted by tauric
"'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt"
Abraham Lincoln

Abe was a wise man Cochese

Abe was wise, but life is founded upon free will...however you wish to exercise that right is up to you.

As for the game. I will probably try it, and pay for it...as long as the sign-ups are starting on the 22 of August. I have played since r1 now, not to serious r1 and 2 but since SL came around....ahhh... those where the times. Then to see Reborn be deleted and SL smashed in r3 was a true joy (not that I was crushed..but the battles and community). Around in different BG's most of the time since. A lot of fun, but started getting tired of P2P and some changes. Didn't play r8 or r9 but came back in r9.5. Once again, even though I was on vacation most of the time and could not play like in the good old days it was fun. Dispite the fact that I was alliance and BG-less.

However, as the game is "developing" into a new era I think it might be time for the old guys to draw back and let whatever is left try to bring PA on. I will not be playing to seriously, nor will I play any round after r10. It sure has been fun, the community, my friends (RL and online) who have made the game worth playing. It is addictive, you'll get hooked. But it is a time for everything. Time to go back into the Real World and try to rebuild what you have lost as a result of time spent on PA.

It sure has been fun....but the new changes just does not "call" on me.

I would love to have played a r3 once again...though rumors has it it would be impossible due to lack of r3 source code. I think you will have some new blood, some old blood and a part of them will like it though some will leave.

This will be the last round of PA I will ever play...and I am sorry to say so. It's been great!

[Andy_r]

I've held off posting in this thread for as long as I can bear, becaue we all know tha the first rule of Beta is that you do not talk about Beta, and the Second rule of Beta is that you do NOT talk about Beta.

Without giving away anything factual about round 10, I'll say this:

I've been one of Spinner's harshest critics over the years, I've rarely agreed with any of his changes, and since round 3 I've posted long rants about the state of PA's game mechanics on the Strategy forum (and before that on the Suggestions forum).

I went into the Beta hoping to be able to point out some of the flaws and firefight some of the more obvious disasters, but instead I've found a game that is quite simply AMAZINGLY GOOD. I've picked holes in the spelling and grammar of course (and they have ALL been fixed!), and suggested a few minor usability tweaks, but as for the game mechanics, I'm a complete convert.

If round 10 is as good as the beta, we can all look forward to the best round of PA ever. All the fun of the early rounds will be back.

The reason so many people are being negative is that they are trying to use the same tactics that they used to use, and then complaining that they are not working.

It's like introducing checkers players to chess amd having them all complain that it's a dumb game because the can't take multiple pieces in one go and the don't get 'kinged' when they get to the end of the board!

People bash and form powerblocks because bashing and powerblocking were good strategies for winning old-style PA. The beta fixes this! Bash and block if you like, but you'll get resoundingly beaten by people who have adapted to the new game and are having ten times as much fun as you.

I am completely convinced that THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO PA EVER!

[Mushroom]

PA is turning into a marmite situation

[Cicada]

Originally posted by Mushroom
PA is turning into a marmite situation

you didn't figure that would happen?

[Tuhan]

Originally posted by Mushroom
older players, who've been around since round 1 etc. tend to hate the changes and appear to be leaving.
Newer players generally seem to like the changes.
I think there's a correlation...

I believe it is called "Resistance to Changes".

PA should have practiced change management, by introducing new changes gradually to allow everyone to adapt to the new changes, instead of one time major changes. The experienced players may find it hard to play once you have remove the point of familiarity making them tend to quit.

PA could have ran two games at the same time, with the old PA with some new changes and the new PAX so people could play both and adapt to the new features introduced in the games. Eventually as the final changes are integrated into the old PA, everyone would have gotten a feel and know how to play the game.

[Cochese]

Originally posted by Andy_r
The reason so many people are being negative is that they are trying to use the same tactics that they used to use, and then complaining that they are not working

Read what I posted on the beta boards, then feel free to come back and delete this paragraph.

It's like introducing checkers players to chess amd having them all complain that it's a dumb game because the can't take multiple pieces in one go and the don't get 'kinged' when they get to the end of the board!

Except Chess doesn't have flaws in the scoring system which are not only exploitable, but profit those who exploit those flaws.

People bash and form powerblocks because bashing and powerblocking were good strategies for winning old-style PA. The beta fixes this! Bash and block if you like, but you'll get resoundingly beaten by people who have adapted to the new game and are having ten times as much fun as you

Again, read what I posted on the beta boards. Nothing was fixed, just a different system implaced that's still flawed and exploitable.

I bashed, and gained more than I should have all across the board. There's little in the way of new "tactics", simply flaws to be taken advantage of. You should know, you said yourself you had exploited a loophole in the system at one point...No wonder you were having fun.

I am completely convinced that THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO PA EVER!

That's because in all our discsussion, you've ignored the major problems, and looked at things with blinders on. It's perfect on paper, and so of course you'd love it. We all would. However, reality shows it to be anything but perfect, and I've showed you my concerns were exactly correct.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally posted by Cochese
I bashed, and gained more than I should have all across the board. There's little in the way of new "tactics", simply flaws to be taken advantage of. You should know, you said yourself you had exploited a loophole in the system at one point...No wonder you were having fun. .

Just on this point cochese is completely correct. In the third or fourth beta I bashed myself to number one simply through using all my ships on attacks constantly. It doesn't even matter if you have no roids (it's actually better as it lowers your networth, giving you more targets to hit) as long as you keep wiping out planets at your limit. The points for both taking roids and killing ships far outweight the points you lose for losing roids (your ships won't get killed if they're out all the time). There's no cost for launching ships anymore so you'll never run out of eonium either. Fleet catches still appear to remain a valid option though.

Brings up the point of alliance defence however. From what I saw the -1 eta alliance defence option is just ridiculous. Towards the end of the round when nearly everyone will have a universal eta of 8 attacks will be unstoppable unless you have a class galaxy backing you up. How many alliances will have members who will stay online every single night up until 4am to wait for attacks. BCs will literally have 60 minutes to react and organise defence for their alliance. Attacks like this will be unstoppable. It also won't just be FI as all ships now have the same eta.

Covert ops are a great idea but similarly to salvage in r4 I'm worried about how they will be executed. In a universe of 100 people in the beta the number one was almost crippled by covert ops every tick. Unless you're online the split second after the tick top10 players will have to face the fact they could lose a huge quantity of resources. (I think dread had something like 40 security centres built, with security as first engineering priority and was still getting hammered on them).

The single best thing that was added in my opinion is the option to trade resources indefinitely. Especially without the ship stats being fully released and everyone being rather unaware of what exactly they want built. One thing that was suggested and I'd love to see added is an option to target a specific type of roids. This would suit old-style PA better. (Imagine crippling a player by taking all his eonium roids heh).

Some of the ship stats are a bit unbalanced as well. At the start of the round terrans will be seriously handicapped until they can research large ships. Their fighters just die like flies. Fleet tactics are a great addition (the option to destroy constructions could come into play in alliance wars late on, ie destroy a terran's heavy factories (no other ships are worth building from what I saw) and covert op him for his resources every tick until he gets a new one built.

One aspect which could handicap new players concerns the aforementioned "bashing" tactic. Now if you face overwhelming incoming and run your fleet you lose hugely in points when you're both roided (and possibly have your constructions destroyed). Coming online with your attacker at eta 4 (that could be as little as three hours after the attack is launched) and no defence possible would be totally demoralising. You can run your fleet and save it but lose all your points, or stay and die and lose all your ships. It's a catch 22.

Removing roid scans was a rather average idea. It doesn't really do anything to be honest. However if they want to make the game appeal to more players then it's a help at the start if you're not some sad wanker (sorry guys ) who works out the precise roid:amp scanning ratio, or at least goes and looks it up somewhere. It simplified the game a bit but didn't really detract from anything. Probably a change for the best.

Most people's real problems will concern the over-simplification of battles. I must admit I didn't once even bother researching the wave section and I don't think it damaged my ability to play the game at all. Battles are now very simple. Send as many ships as you have at x:y:z. It's rather diminished any remaining semblance of skill in the game I must say. I understand that they wanted a slightly simpler, more appealing to newbies game but I cannot honestly say I think that this is the right way. There is absolutely no skill required as an MO anymore, just activity. There is no skill required in roiding at all, send as many ships as you can at this target and you'll get the roids.

Planetarion now offers nothing new. The alliance situation was the best thing it had going for it and over the past few rounds it has decayed dramatically. There is no individual skill involved in the gameplay in r10. I can't see who will pay 15 euro to play it. My last remaining wish for the game is that it proves me utterly wrong but I just can't see that happening.

[Cochese]

Covert ops are skewed, badly.

Since we don't know the formula for their success or failure, and judging by my experiences (and those of others) it seems that a larger planet will always be open to attack by this means, as the success rate is almost always high enough to succeed.

I had resources stolen *every* tick for like 20 ticks straight...and although it's not damaging, it is a nuisance. That was also the "weakest" Covert op--others are more harmful, and annoying.

As for combat...you *can* use tactics by sending a fleet your target doesn't shoot at (though there is still random fire *sigh*) and destroy ships, roids, and structures--which is the painful part. Losing infrastructure sucks. Bashing is still the most efficient means of fast growth, both in roids and score.

I do not envy a BC next round...or a new player with no one to defend them, for that matter. Ownage ahoy.

[Hicks]

Originally posted by Andy_r
People bash and form powerblocks because bashing and powerblocking were good strategies for winning old-style PA. The beta fixes this! Bash and block if you like, but you'll get resoundingly beaten by people who have adapted to the new game and are having ten times as much fun as you.

Reread what I said about experienced testers. Bashing is still the best way to grow and playing the beta as a small/medium sized planet without much time for Planetarion was still no fun. People seem to have this bizarre idea that because you gain some score if you lose your whole fleet everyone will love Round 10, from experience gaining a few points while losing your entire fleet and not being able to rebuild for like 300 ticks isn't as fun as it sounds. Bashing at your limit will be the best strategy for Round 10 but not just basing, bashing so you kill your entire targets fleet. Also why would power blocking be any worse a strategy than now ? Is there some magic fix that I failed to see ?

Also I never ever recall signing a non disclosure agreement when signing up to the beta nor did any of the members of PA Team I spoke to object to my post.

[dabult]

It seems like Spinner listens to us+the testers after all. Much will be re-writtend in regards of combat and similar things.

There is still hope.

[Cochese]

Indeed. I can only hope the revision yeilds a more practical--and playable--result.

[Andy_r]

I'll skip a tedious point-by point rehash of this debate and just say that it's safe to say we disagree, and neither of us is making much headway at convincing the other.

All the readers of this thread can really conclude is that two experienced players and strategists are having markedly different experiences of the beta as it was earlier today.

The good news for everyone is that it seems Spinner is currently altering the beta specifically to address Cochese's concerns.

Let's all hope the changes make both of us happy :-)