Round XIII Galaxies

[LordBrem]

I'm not going to pay $10 so I can get screwed over with randoms.

Are you?



Is it better to lose a couple potential randoms, or a significant portion of the core pa players?

Alternately, leave randoms in c200 if they want to stay there. They can explore the game all they want without getting bashed. But prioritizing unpaid randoms over people who pay every round is beyond absurd.

[Buddah]

5 priv per gal 2 or 3 randoms so 7 or 8 player gals

[mist]

i'm not going to pay to play a game that requires me to be up in the middle of the night...

that asside, randoms will be distributed according to activity. after that it's up to you whether you want to try and get yours to be decent, or you want them to quit. i'm not quite sure how this involves being screwed over.

if people are that anti being with others, perhaps impliment an option whereby a pack can be in a gal on its own?

-mist

love the galaxy plan! bring it.
also pls. make it so we can play in the popular links / lynx text browsers available for a variety of free and non free operating systems.

[mist]

how're you going to answer the login question in a text only browser?

-mist

[Kal]

to give a comedy answer - ascii art

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Kal

to give a comedy answer - ascii art

#!@$#&^%^*$^@(*)&$^#$%@O#$!@#@@!*C&^(%$@$$@##@^%&*^%
#%*(&&^Write*th|s(phr453tolog3n:%pl(&et3r088(**&%&&$
*&%$%%$^&*(*)()**()*&(^^%$%$%%^&&*(&&*^&^*(&*(*())*(

I swear it's like some people don't take time to read through the whole thing before posting questions.

The 20 gal thing is TEMPORARY for the BEGINNING of the round only, and serves administration purposes only (pretty much) and mentor purpose I suppose. Whatever, I don't see how the 20 galaxy thing for the first 36 ticks can do ANY harm whatsoever.

Shuffle at tick 36.. I have to agree with those who say that more time is needed sometimes to sort out politics with galaxy and/or cluster. I know you want to avoid stopping ticks but for this to work, that just might be necessary.

I personaly enjoy the buddy system, even if it is a bit flawed right now, the groups of 3 or groups of 2 looks decent in theory, but think of the average member base of the average alliance.
70-80 +
Split that into groups of 2.... so 40 groups... well what I'm getting at is that with the shuffle, random luck could end up putting groups of 2 from same alliance in each galaxy, or close to it, and that messes with galaxy attacks from alliance. IMO, should probably force groups to be made of 3 players.

A comment about alliances organizing players to be able to get in same gal at the shuffle based on score... Perhaps adjust a bit to penalize people who waste time not initiating asteroids.. although I can't really think of anything except upping the roid income for the beginning of the game , and even that seems impractical.

In the end, I enjoy being with friends I've made since I started playing, so myself I'll try anything
All I want is that there is no botching of what is planned to be implemented.

Originally Posted by LordBrem

You are assuming that all randoms want to do well. When you have two IDENTICAL gals, except that one has active randoms, and the other has ones that are not willing to be active/pay/etc. it is not fair. You can not fault privates because the randoms they were given do not want to be active. Not everyone cares about this game; if you do, you should be able to have a gal with others who feel the same way.

Going random is just stupid, period. Also, if you notice, unpaid planets are quite limited. They aren't meant to be on top.

actualy the chances are as equal as possible here. a chance of 1 galaxy getting 4 active randoms and another 4 nonactive is very faint. Becides you can always exile the one who does not try to be active.
The ppl from packs can be just as noobish or even more and not active at all. and if u r far away from top galaxies by score u exile the guy thats not trying and according to formula, u should get a pretty big guy, so your score is closer to winning galaxies i dont know exactly if it is this way. however in this case many ppl can feel insecure of their galaxies, but the bright side of this, they will try being active as much as possible and grow score as much as possible:P

there is no such thing as perfect. there is only as close as possible to perfect. i thing the solution for next round is just like it. i am active, experienced and i am not planning to be in a pack. ill most lilely be freebee first several weeks and u would be happy to get a freebe like me for sure I might pay in advances, but ill be a random still

[CeeRo]

Alliance galaxies could be a good idea, we've had two episodes of galmembers from different alliances attacking and defending the same planet now... :/

[Alki]

tbh 5 man gals, 1 buddy pack per gal of(3 or 4) and either 1 or 2 randoms

[Agerus]

I like the idea presented by the PA Team.

[LordBrem]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

actualy the chances are as equal as possible here. a chance of 1 galaxy getting 4 active randoms and another 4 nonactive is very faint. Becides you can always exile the one who does not try to be active.
The ppl from packs can be just as noobish or even more and not active at all. and if u r far away from top galaxies by score u exile the guy thats not trying and according to formula, u should get a pretty big guy, so your score is closer to winning galaxies i dont know exactly if it is this way. however in this case many ppl can feel insecure of their galaxies, but the bright side of this, they will try being active as much as possible and grow score as much as possible:P

there is no such thing as perfect. there is only as close as possible to perfect. i thing the solution for next round is just like it. i am active, experienced and i am not planning to be in a pack. ill most lilely be freebee first several weeks and u would be happy to get a freebe like me for sure I might pay in advances, but ill be a random still

The top 10 gals in the uni all have active randoms. It's not possible to be t10 w/o active randoms (hence good gals of five ppl are about t25 or so). Would they be t10 w/ active randoms? Yes. Is this fair?

I think packs are even worse; you are only guaranteed 2 active players instead of 5.

This round, when you exile, you get more inactives. No one exiles big active people. Why will next round be different?

Why would it not be better for people to choose NINE other active players? This would make it skill, and not luck, that determines the top gals.

If you want randoms to have a chance, give their gals 2x the members.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by LordBrem

The top 10 gals in the uni all have active randoms. It's not possible to be t10 w/o active randoms (hence good gals of five ppl are about t25 or so). Would they be t10 w/ active randoms? Yes. Is this fair?

I think packs are even worse; you are only guaranteed 2 active players instead of 5.

This round, when you exile, you get more inactives. No one exiles big active people. Why will next round be different?

Why would it not be better for people to choose NINE other active players? This would make it skill, and not luck, that determines the top gals.

If you want randoms to have a chance, give their gals 2x the members.

remember the intention is to spread the active randoms out evenly accross the universe

[God]

Players have been reducing since PA got P2P.

In my opinion what would be nice to do is:

- Make Planetarion free for all or P2P for all

Free for all - 15 players gal
" - Private gals of 10 players

P2p for all- Private gals of 5 players

This would resolve these random players issues.

Having paied accounts and unpaid sucks...or its fish or its meat...

[LordBrem]

The good thing about p2p is that there are a lot fewer multies.

Don't really like the new plan for galaxies, i liked it this round, thought it was fair for everyone!
imo keep it as it is, sounds all to complicated and the possibility of it not workin in peoples favours is high imo!

[tauric]

3663 players in pa
of which 1429 are in one of the top 20 alliances
592 are in alliances ranked from 21 to 100
and 1642 players dont have an alliance.
My quess is that only half of the pa population payed for their account.
we once had a pa player base of 180.000+ players.
This what remained after making it p2p 1%

i cant help thinking that if you had implemented paying accounts in your free game giving them the advantage of buddypacks, or acces to ingame alliances with better eta's , you would have gotten the same amount of people paying with a vast larger player base.

The problems we are discussing here today are partly because there are simply not enough players.
If 50% of your players is paying hence active, the effect on the non paying community is devestating.
This effect gets smaller the smaller the percentage gets.
The solution you are choosing tries to spread the effect equally over the entire universe, but what you actually do is spread 50% devestating effects over all players including the active paying once making the game more fun for the nonpaying and less fun for the paying.

This is been going on since you started p2p.

Please stop your efforts to give nonpayers a chance and trying to convince them its even more fun when they pay. Just give them an account and let us roid them. If they want to keep on playing and have a chance let them pay to join us. Give us payers the advantages of in game alliances (defense eta) let us form private gals or buddy gals and where do you think we will all attack. eachother? hell no, not as long as we can all prey on those unpaying bast*rds. Give us prey.

just open up for free accounts spread the word we need prey and they will come. Theres the real meaning of your own slogan "are you ready to take on the universe".

Please pa team have some more faith in the addictive capailities of pa and change your strategy.

[Pinkerton]

What if paid and un-paid planets could earn self exile by being active? The more active you are the cheaper it would be to self exile so that if you are stuck in an inactive gal you can move..

To prevent someone from costantly hopping you can limit it to planets that are a certain percent in size or activity compared to the gal that they are in.. SO if you exile yourself into an active or large gal you cannot re-exile yourself unless you are larger an more active.

Awesome Idea!!!

[mist]

tauric

your plan seems to call for a higher freebie : paid ratio, so that there are more targets. in order for pa to make the same amount of money for jolt under this scenario, prices would have to go up.

is this desirable?

-mist

[Appocomaster]

Originally Posted by Pinkerton

What if paid and un-paid planets could earn self exile by being active? The more active you are the cheaper it would be to self exile so that if you are stuck in an inactive gal you can move..

To prevent someone from costantly hopping you can limit it to planets that are a certain percent in size or activity compared to the gal that they are in.. SO if you exile yourself into an active or large gal you cannot re-exile yourself unless you are larger an more active.

Awesome Idea!!!

Yeah. So we have all the active people in 5 gals, all in the same alliances, kicking everyone else's ass. 50 people have a nice game, everyone else quits

[mist]

i don't really see the point in lowering excile costs for activirty... why not just lower the cost period?

-mist

[Pinkerton]

Well the whole point is that if you are in a gal where no one is active you can exile yourself. So yes all the active players will endup in active gals and all the non playing or inactive planets will either be deleted or they will be roided down to nothing. If one of these players decides to become more active he will be able to exile himself to a more active gal. This way all players who are playing the game will have a better chance by being in an active gal.

The point of using a ratio of planet-size: gal-size is to prevent planets from jumping everytime they are under attack. If you are in an active gal or large gal then you will not be able to exile yourself unless you are the largest planet. ...or something like that.

This way more planets will end up in active gals

[LordBrem]

All active players are not equal...

[Pinkerton]

Originally Posted by LordBrem

All active players are not equal...

Well, that is beside the point. The object is to get all players (new and old) located with active players. That way how well you do will depend on your strategy and gameplay, not because you are stuck in a dead galaxy where all the free planets have been abandoned.

You can just as easily end up in an active gal with poor players and still get stomped. Buut if you have the skills you can lead the gal or if you are the largest, just split.

This way the game depends on you ability, and not your circumstance

This isn't meant to be an exact model, just an idea that could be developed.

Main problem here imho is numbers, I firmly believe that teh key for private packs is that the resulting galaxies have a good mix, I simply dont think 2 packs is enough achieve this. Even with the randoms your risking one said being pretty much a dicatatorship and using their alliance to gain control which becomes much harder the more 'packs' tthat are thrown in the mix.

I personally really would like to see a move back to 15 member galaxies which would give the equiivilent of 5 packs (which id probally split as either 3 packs and 6 freebies or 4 packs and 3 freebies), if 15 is deemed too much then I guess 12 would be an adequete comprimise which would allow something like 3 packs and 3 freebies.

Yeah, you have 5 top alliances in your gal, and then..... No-one would be able to attack anyone any more, at least not gal attacks, through your alliance.

[God]

Why dont Planetarion make next round free for all just to advertise the game...

Ill bet many ppl would play...and if they enjoyed it, they can play next round paying for it...

[Intruder]

Originally Posted by LordBrem

This is a horrendous idea. How many people paid this round to be stuck with 5 inactives? It is not possible for a gal of 5 active players to compete with one of 10 active players - and the ONLY determination of this is LUCK.

If someone has a group of 10 friends who are all active, they should be able to make a galaxy with their friends. Then, their success in the round will be based on SKILL, not on LUCK.

What is the point of staying up all night to attack and defend if you have 1/2 of the support in gal simply because you did not luck out in the original shuffle?

If you are active, and have friends who are active, you deserve to beat people who are not. They can always cov ops you.


If you really want, simply allow private gals, but cap them at five members. But cap random gals at 10 or 15 members. This would give the randoms an advantage, but would not give some private gals an unfair advantage over others.

Well, that was exactly what happened with me and ruined my plans for this round, but i still believe we should searcho for sumthin that would make new players to interact and learn from the experienced ones. I kept my planet just to help noobies, got 2 members learning how to use IRC and 2 possible paid acc for the next rnd.

The ramdom gal with 15 would only make the problem that happened this rnd happens only with the ramdoms, with the difference that the lucky ones who ended in good ramdom gals would be raped by private gals in the beginning and lose interest then

[Intruder]

Originally Posted by God

Why dont Planetarion make next round free for all just to advertise the game...

Ill bet many ppl would play...and if they enjoyed it, they can play next round paying for it...

I think this is a hypotesis it should be considered, once based on the experience on rnd 9.5. The player base increased after that rnd?

PA could make one rnd free for each 2 paids, that would make ppl join in free rounds to see what is like and some would stop in paid to wait for the free round, but i believe most who would have fun by getting in a nice ally or just findin funny to be roided would keep playing, and this would add to the playerbase increasing that is aready happening slowly


My suggestion is: since planetarion is a popular online game and google is planning to take over the whole internet, Jolt could sell Pa to google and they could make the game free again to get as many new players as possible. yeah, increasing multies sux but at least we will have more people around. Let google pay more multi-hunters to clean the mess

[mist]

jolt won't sell pa

-mist

[Kal]

Originally Posted by mist

jolt won't sell pa

-mist

in fairness everything has a price, if someone offered a stupidly large amount of PA i'm sure jolt would sell it, though why woudl that actually help anything - whoever bought it would then need to shell out even more money for hosting, coders etc and despite would people may think there arn;t that many companies who just like throwing money away.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Kal

stupidly large

my point

-mist

[LordBrem]

Increasing the player base is fine. But not increasing it at the expense of LOSING paid planets. If you give inactive randoms so many advantages, people who actually care about (and know how to play) the game will get fed up and stop paying.

You have bash limits to save randoms, that is enough. Big, active planets SHOULD be able to bash smaller, less active ones.

[mist]

increasing the play base would, hopefully, increase the amount of paid players.

and you shouldn't WANT to bash smaller, less active, planets - it's one of the problems with the game

-mist

[Chippeh]

Originally Posted by Intruder

My suggestion is: since planetarion is a popular online game and google is planning to take over the whole internet, Jolt could sell Pa to google and they could make the game free again to get as many new players as possible. yeah, increasing multies sux but at least we will have more people around. Let google pay more multi-hunters to clean the mess

Hands down, no jokes, the greatest idea I've ever heard.

Someone go start sales pitching to Google

[Master_Alex]

Originally Posted by LordBrem

Increasing the player base is fine. But not increasing it at the expense of LOSING paid planets. If you give inactive randoms so many advantages, people who actually care about (and know how to play) the game will get fed up and stop paying.

You have bash limits to save randoms, that is enough. Big, active planets SHOULD be able to bash smaller, less active ones.

What a perfect idea that will for sure get people intrested in playing this game... NOT! They are looking for a way to get more people to play and for them to have FUN while doing it, and it wouldent exactly be fun getting raped the first round u play... How ever if people that are experienced explained and helped the new people this game would have much more players...But so far ive seen to many selfish experienced players for that to happend. Ofc that might just be me being very unlucky about experienced players but still its only a idea from my side getting the experienced players to help the new people and dont call them noobs and leave them to themself.

I so got the luck of the draw, this is my first round, and I'm loving it, I'm in the best gal, everyone is friendly, and they help me out when I dont have a clue, they save my hide when I get attacked, and I try and help them when I can.

If you've got a good GC, people that arnt going to hold there weight quickly get removed, I watched 2 planet 10's get exiled cause they didnt particapate. Now we've got all good people, and I'm having so much fun, I cant wait for the next round.

I was unpaid but I got upgraded by one of my gal mates, so now I'm enjoying the fun of a paid planet. Next round I'll start with a paid planet, In a private gal with some old friends, and maybe some new ones if they want to join us.

Try not to change the game too much next round, I like the system as it is, its easy and fun, and if ur lucky u get a cool gal with 10 new friends from all over the world.

The self-exile is a good idea, just reckon is should last a bit longer.

I might have missed the point of the whole thread, but I just thought I'd let u know that what I thought of the game and the poeple that I have meet in it.

[LordBrem]

And my gal went through about 50 randoms before we found five who showed on irc.

Luck of the draw is not something you want as part of a gal system.

[mist]

suggest a better solution

note, private gals are not considered better

-mist

[randal]

I think the Idea is quite okay, worth a try.. Mainly trying to get 'good' randoms spread fairly should be a bit better than this round.

This Round's System worked quite good for our Galaxy, even getting one new guy to pay, yay and olé, but i do understand it's shit for Galaxies who really want to go to the Top..


Apart from that, i think all this whining is quite useless. PA has always been a game where you have to face Challenges, and it seems nobody from this 'oh so old and loyal paying Playerbase' is ready to take any anymore.

Good and Active Players will always have their Success. Be it by really teaching the not-so-great guys in the Galaxy, making good Decisions in Exiling, being smart in the Cluster or similar stuff.
Sure it's a bit of Luck if you can reach Top10 or just Top30 cause of the Randoms, but if they do their own stuff right, they still have chances to reach something.



Basically i always thought that giving free Planets more possibilities would be totally Vital for getting new Players. Give them at least an OK eta, and don't limit their Roids so extremely.

In other Words, give them a Chance to get to know the funny parts of PA (Attacking and gaining (useful) Roids and more Resources.. Defend in the Cluster or an Alliance etc.) before you totally castrate them.

Even if it's more multis then again, i don't think a free Planet of today is something that shows people what PA really is.. i.e. won't get many new guys, which we all know is by far the most important thing.



While i'm on it i also think normal REAL Newsies and Mili Scans should come back (mostly the Newsies). Newsscanning is so much fun, like it's now one feels kinda locked into one's Planet.

[x-dANGEr]

Well! i put this idea, if some gal in round 12 want to stay as they are in round 13, you should the following, like when you register in round 13, you are asked if you want to stay in your previous gal. or not, if yes, he will stay with thos who approaved to stay from the previous gal. in round 12, no matter waht are the new coords, this can be known the same as the credits, like you register from the same E-mail you registered from in round 12, about the new comers, they can be disitriputed in two ways, the first way which i know you won't approave, is putting every random 10 in one gal, this will make a lot of inactive planets, the otehr way is after some certain amount of ticks, you take the weakes planet from every gal. and put them together in different galaxies, then get those new players in plave of them, this will give them the chance to play with better players, about the exiled ones, well, their will be strong folks in the strong gals. exiled, so it will be evenly matched, my hopefulled way is simple, leave the gal members as they are now, or make the HC invite prople to his gal, this is a different way ofc.

[NRG-izer]

i think the idea with 5 randoms and 5 privates was not that entirely bad, it flunked only cose of the inactive's

to prevent, well i think it would be good if in the next round it would be 7 privates and 3 randoms, that would be a much nicer idea..

i played pa in round 3-7 and i stoped cose the small payer base and the galaxy system
if i play this game i like to play with my friends together
in round 7 i was in a cluster without any friend coste me a shitload of sleeples nights

so i come back now in round 12
i see still les players
cose there are many other browsergames and they are free
and now you plan to get only 2-3 friends in one galaxy that sucks realy
where is the problem to make galaxys with 8 friends and 2 random people
or the good old 15 player galaxy system
with 10 friends and 5 randoms

a free acount is totaly useless 4 a active galaxy

the best way will be 2 universes 1 with payed and 1 with free acounts and if a free player activate his acount he get transferd in the payed universe

cose if you play that game with a free acount its only frustrating
you be a roid farm 4 the payed acounts
thats no fun
and most people stop playing then cose nobody loves to bew a looser
and with a free acount you could only be a looser

the point is
new player play in free universe
he get the fun of the game
he pay
and have more fun

[LordBrem]

Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

Well! i put this idea, if some gal in round 12 want to stay as they are in round 13, you should the following, like when you register in round 13, you are asked if you want to stay in your previous gal. or not, if yes, he will stay with thos who approaved to stay from the previous gal. in round 12, no matter waht are the new coords, this can be known the same as the credits, like you register from the same E-mail you registered from in round 12, about the new comers, they can be disitriputed in two ways, the first way which i know you won't approave, is putting every random 10 in one gal, this will make a lot of inactive planets, the otehr way is after some certain amount of ticks, you take the weakes planet from every gal. and put them together in different galaxies, then get those new players in plave of them, this will give them the chance to play with better players, about the exiled ones, well, their will be strong folks in the strong gals. exiled, so it will be evenly matched, my hopefulled way is simple, leave the gal members as they are now, or make the HC invite prople to his gal, this is a different way ofc.

That's a GREAT idea. All the gals get to keep their active randoms; or, even better - they get them to give their login details to friends of theirs.

[mist]

wasn't that done between r3 and r4, with rather dubious concequences?

-mist

[p333333]

The idea of 5 priv and 5 random is ok IF it is well performed as described! So i would suggest that the advantages of the paid planets only are activated after the shuffle so the paying people have still the chance to skip this round if the shuffle is scre.wed again or they find them selves outta luck in a gal with 5 n00bs and inactive planets!

[demiGOD]

galaxy set up planned for next round sounds good i say, "go for it!!" see what happens.. the idea on buddy packs before the shuffle to keep buddy planets in the same galaxy i think is another outstanding idea!! that way, activitiy within the galaxy will be motivated by 2 or 3 planets who already know each other, the other planets will feel like they're a part of a good group that has been established as "good" already because they've known each other either from the last rounds, or in real life - its amazing how people get motivated around a proven-organized working environment so go ahead and do the galaxy set up next round, do the buddy packs, and bring back the default where planets can attack their gal-mates!!! ofc, to control roid-farming within the galaxy - create a limit on attacking the same planet within the galaxy to 2 or something

[x-dANGEr]

Originally Posted by Mist

wasn't that done between r3 and r4, with rather dubious concequences?

Like what???

[Pinkerton]

Originally Posted by Pinkerton

What if paid and un-paid planets could earn self exile by being active? The more active you are the cheaper it would be to self exile so that if you are stuck in an inactive gal you can move..

To prevent someone from costantly hopping you can limit it to planets that are a certain percent in size or activity compared to the gal that they are in.. SO if you exile yourself into an active or large gal you cannot re-exile yourself unless you are larger an more active.

I would like to modify this suggestion. Scratch the size requirement.... well scratch it all.

I think the current system is pretty good if you eliminate Privat gals and keep the buddy packs small 2peeps, Then they can just eject inactive planets until the get active players.

[Dr_Zaius]

WHOA! I havent read the whole thread but having gals with unlimited size would really throw up alliance problems! Especially if the gals have low eta still!