Planetarion Forums

The Real Arfy · 2 Aug 2005, 10:12

I know this has been requested/suggested many times before, but I am urging PaTeam to convince Jolt to run round 15 as a free round. From my point of view it is the perfect time to do so, and also very necessary.

Firstly, the memberbase stinks. We all know this, and we all know that there are people missing due to summer. However, what about the players who don't consider this? They will see this as a dying game, and just leave Planetarion themselves.

Secondly, the new round will probably start around the beginning of October. This is when most people begin their new school/university year. Players will begin to find more friends and might introduce their mates - if the round is free, their friends will think "sure, why not?".

These ideas have been discussed before, I know that. But what I am saying is that this is a better time than any other to introduce people to the game, or to call them back. If we can't have a fully free round, then can we at least see free accounts becoming worthy of playing.

Additionally, if it were a free round, it might be nice to have random galaxies - to really try to capture those not in touch with the community.

pig · 2 Aug 2005, 10:31

Great Idea, id back it 100%

The Real Arfy · 2 Aug 2005, 10:42

While I appreciate you backing it - its no surprise seeing as it saves you £10

This isn't so much an idea - more something to grab people's attention in time for round 15.

pig · 2 Aug 2005, 10:48

well unfortunately perspective players of pa prolly wont read this thread, but the idea itself to enlarge the player base is what Im for. PA is a cheap game considering I spend a fiver on a pack of fags and it last 24 ticks, but player numbers need to increase some how, ashame there wasnt an email mailing list made from rnd 4 :-/

Dotatrix · 2 Aug 2005, 11:55

Bring back the multi's!

/sarcasm

I don't care if it's free or not, but more players would idd be much better

Agerus · 2 Aug 2005, 18:07

I dont mind the money, but I agree a free round would be a major boost for PA! If Jolt is smart they'd do it.

Makhil · 3 Aug 2005, 05:41

there are free beta, there's been a free speedround, there are the free (limited) accounts...
OK PA needs more players, but they also need money. The question is how to bring new players in more effectivly. Let say we have the amount of money equal to a paid round, do we :
- make a free round
- advertise

i feel money would be better spent by advertising. PA though played worldwide, is not well known in many potential markets :
USA, Germany, Japan etc... I'd suggest we try to have ideas on how to market PA there.
I like the idea of a ranking per country. People are all a bit (or a lot) nationalistic. You could advertise saying that the country who wins the round can play for free the next round. The players of the said country would be put to contribution to spread the word. You would bring new players for sure, but still get income from the rest of the world.
All you really need is to give people a reason to play PA. 'It's free' is imho not a good enough reason. 'Playing for your country' will appeal to people used to support their national teams in various sports and maybe dreaming of being able to do that too.

Phil^ · 3 Aug 2005, 06:15

thats a heck of a big chunk from profits you realise if say, a person from the UK wins....

wakey · 3 Aug 2005, 09:37

I'm not sure a free round would do much at all to improve the numbers. As Makhil has pointed out theres been many opertunities for players to play for free and these dont seem to have generated a substantial number of players. Also there have been free rounds since it went p2p and again these didnt give a significant boost during that round and pretty much all of these people dissappeared again once charging was reintroduced.

People are willing to pay alot more to play games, PA costs them around £15-20 a year yet the average gamer will spend almost double that on a single game from a shop and aboy 10 times that figure a year on a MMORPG. Theres other things getting in the way of PA's growth, its repuatation for one was damaged amongst gamers by the block dominated rounds after p2p was introduced which killed the game for most outside these blocks, the communities still one thats hard to get into (People arent that willing to help new players, we have people whom rather than creating a warm friendly place in your galaxy will refuse to defend each other and bicker due to putting alliance first ect ect) and the clear lack of support or pressence by people from jolt/pateam isnt helping this round (people having to wait 20 hours for an answer to something isnt good, the userbase all having to hang around for hours when something goes wrong for a pateam member to turn up and sort it and then have to wait another few hours for a decision isnt good either)

Ginga · 3 Aug 2005, 11:54

what you need is a prime time tv add between coronation street!

Neferti · 3 Aug 2005, 12:40

The last free round sort of boosted the playerbase I think, but it came about due to unique circumstances. Round 9 (first round with Jolt) had stagnated very early, and it had been intended as the last round of old-style PA. But as I recall, round 10 (PaX) was still in early development. So rather than have all the players disappear and forget about PA, they ran a free round.

The problem was that PaX was so terrible that we quickly lost all the players the free round gained

wakey · 3 Aug 2005, 13:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neferti

The last free round sort of boosted the playerbase I think, but it came about due to unique circumstances. Round 9 (first round with Jolt) had stagnated very early, and it had been intended as the last round of old-style PA. But as I recall, round 10 (PaX) was still in early development. So rather than have all the players disappear and forget about PA, they ran a free round.

The problem was that PaX was so terrible that we quickly lost all the players the free round gained

The boost in round 9 was hardly amazing and as soon as payment came back it got rid of alot of players. The community simply doesnt give enough help to retain players when it goes paid and the game doesnt appeal to the more casual players which a free round attracts so they leave. No-one wants to pay for something where they are exiled around the universe, get stuck in poor galaxies, bashed to peices and see most of the community treat them with contempt.

You could take Ginga's Corrie suggestion and get a few hundred k players into a free round but by the end the actives would be alot lower and the returners when it went paid again would fall significantly. This community may want to put all the blame on the fact they have to pay, on pateam and on jolt but we are more to blame than anyone. We need to start thinking less about alliance and more about galaxies, players shouldnt be working as individuals in a galaxy, they should be working as one and taking the players they get and work with them rather than discarding and ignoring them

Neferti · 3 Aug 2005, 13:26

I would put the blame also on the fact that PaX was absolutely abysmal... plus the fact that a lot of seasoned players simply didnt want to play it, as it was too different.

We wouldnt have this problem with a free round now. Perhaps it should be shorter than a full round though, say 7 or 8 weeks max.

wakey · 3 Aug 2005, 14:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neferti

I would put the blame also on the fact that PaX was absolutely abysmal... plus the fact that a lot of seasoned players simply didnt want to play it, as it was too different.

We wouldnt have this problem with a free round now. Perhaps it should be shorter than a full round though, say 7 or 8 weeks max.

PaX wasnt absolutely abysmal for the kind of players a free round was trying to attract though. In fact PaX was fantastic for such players as it was by far the most lowbie orientated round of any. Yes the current playerbase didnt like it but for people whom hadnt experianced PA before and had no connections to get themselves top alliances it was extreamly welcoming, certainly alot more that the free round 9 was.

Monroe · 3 Aug 2005, 15:09

I think part of the problem is the fact that PA is really two different games. There is the web based "game" that we all play, and then there is the real game that happens here in the forums and on IRC. Both pieces of the game effect how new players perceive the game, and IRC especially can make the difference between retaining a player and loosing that player. I for one am hooked on the IRC side of the game (the politics and intrigue and whatnot) and unless the web side of the game really sucks whether it is free or not will not make a big difference to whether I play or not. If this game wants more players IRC is going to need to become a more friendly place for new players, and those of us who are longtime members of the community should take the responsibility of meeting them and introducing them to the political side of this game. There is only so much Jolt/PATeam can do to improve the web side of the game, at some point the burden of encouraging new players falls upon the older players.

My galaxy last round was a great example of this, we had about 5 new players in the galaxy who had never played before, and to my knowledge they are all playing this round because they had a great time with us last round, on the IRC side, not necissarily on the web side.