Along the Lines of the Jolt/NG thread

[Judge]

A similar point, but not really on topic so I made a new thread (Mod may take a different view and move it)

As was suggested get or try to get an article/competition going in a computer magazine but instead of Jolt providing the prize of 2000 planetarion accounts, we the community provide the prize of X number of accounts.

I dont know how many people still have spare credits, or would be prepared to buy one (or a few) and contribute them to a prize pool, but I for one have 2 spare credits atm, and would happily purchase some more to put in to a prize fund.

Anyone else?

[Bashar]

If the community were to provide some, I would expect Jolt to provide AT LEAST the same number themselves, as whilst the community does benefit from it, the community is already paying for the game. Jolt would benefit the most from a large influx of players, and I am EXTREMELY dubious about doing anything that suggests to Jolt that it's the community's job to get more players rather than Jolts. It is difficult enough (read: impossible) to get Jolt to do anything whatsoever as it is, let them think the community will fix everything and they'll be even less inclined to do anything (if that is possible).

[Wishmaster]

50% from community and 50% from them should be doable. And all would gain on that.

Hopefully jolt cba to read it, and actually do something about it. Find out who would be interested in such a competition (pc mags etc) and what it should be like. And also find out if / how many accounts the community could pay.

[Smudge]

to be honest with things like this we can use the following formula

Jolt + Helping Community = Pigs flying over London

IT JUST DOESNT HAPPEN!

[CagedFury]

lol Jolt is a business not a service and as such does not have to give a crap about anything but profit (or cash flow if they have no profit) where a service needs to care about the comunity.
I think that they only allow pa to run because there is a (relatively small) demand for it, tbh im not sure if Jolt would prefer more people to play or less to play so they could shut it down. (they obv dont have much interest in it atm)

However back on topic, i think this is a great idea the community and the developer working together to resolve a problem with game, although we would need to get a response from jolt.....

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by CagedFury

lol Jolt is a business not a service and as such does not have to give a crap about anything but profit (or cash flow if they have no profit) where a service needs to care about the comunity.

Quoted for stupidity.

Seriously - the amount of utterly clueless Jolt bashing on these forums sickens me.

[coffee-]

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

Quoted for stupidity.

Seriously - the amount of utterly clueless Jolt bashing on these forums sickens me.

Perhaps you should enlighten the public.

[Kal]

Biffy is away at the moment, i'll point him at this thread as I think its an interesting idea. I'm not certain how such a competition should work though, and I think that its the details of that which would need to be right for jolt to be convinced this is a good idea - as at the end of the day its bad for jolt and the community if we collect a load of credits, try to give them away and no one wants them.

[Smudge]

.....at which point you find a way to give them back to the community some how!

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Smudge

.....at which point you find a way to give them back to the community some how!

You mean, like, returning them to those people who contributed to the fund, and jolt just doesnt contribute to the fund?

Tbh the greater damage, i would imagine, would be in the area of perceptions - ie, the number of people willing to play PA has already maxed out at ~2k . That would be bad.

[Kloopy]

I've been belittled in PATeam circles for this point of view before, but I'll happily share it again now....

It's all well and good having a big drive in advertising. However, once the user gets to the website, they'll bugger right back away. The reason for this is the whole look and feel and complementing graphics are dire for the game. We look like a mid 90's personal webpage. With mordern browsers providing good support for AJAX coding, we could have a website interface that makes the players orgasm.

Quite seriously, I've been doing a load of AJAX stuff in my full time paid job and I've created some pretty funky applications. Everyone who's used Google Maps thinks it's fantastic. Alot of other sites use AJAX to smaller levels, but I challenge anyone to convince me a complete re-write of the game interface to produce a sexy, sleak and intuitive experience isn't worth it.

And once we have the website that'll keep people interested, we can then go out of our way to get new players. And if you don't agree with me, take a course in human computer interfaces which includes sections on the psycology of user interfaces, and you'll be convinced.

Hugs and cuddles,
Kloopy.

[Smudge]

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

You mean, like, returning them to those people who contributed to the fund, and jolt just doesnt contribute to the fund?

Those who contributed can be asked if there willing for those credits to be given away to fellow community members, or could be put into a pool where people who just start the game could be randomly picked for an active account

And thanks for the AJAX link Kloopy, its pretty interesting

[JC]

Originally Posted by Kloopy

And once we have the website that'll keep people interested, we can then go out of our way to get new players. And if you don't agree with me, take a course in human computer interfaces which includes sections on the psycology of user interfaces, and you'll be convinced.

Do you mean redoing the portal at www.planetarion.com or redoing the whole look of the game internally? Whichever you mean i'lk agree with you. PA is pretty much just a fancy Excel spreadsheet in an internet browser. Those kind of games lost their appeal to a large proprotion of 'the internet' many years ago.

[Neferti]

Kloopy and others are right. Looks are *very* important.

In fact, I think the current PA interface is actually inferior to the interfaces we had in rounds 2-9, simply in terms of looks.

[Kloopy]

Originally Posted by JC

Do you mean redoing the portal at www.planetarion.com or redoing the whole look of the game internally? Whichever you mean i'lk agree with you. PA is pretty much just a fancy Excel spreadsheet in an internet browser. Those kind of games lost their appeal to a large proprotion of 'the internet' many years ago.

I'm talking about the game. The gameplay of PA is brilliant at the moment, it works really well. Most newbies and most pro's will agree with me there, I hope. It's just that the thing looks shit for this day and age, or put more diplomatically, it's style "lost it's appeal many years ago".

Kloopy

[Kal]

I agree with kloopy that the game could do with a makeover.... however the more complicated it gets the hard it is to maintain as you need to find people with the relevant skills. For example a monkey could code in html, but more advanced stuff is harder and the prospects of finding someone willing to take it on in an unpaid/low pay way are close to 0

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Neferti

Kloopy and others are right. Looks are *very* important.

In fact, I think the current PA interface is actually inferior to the interfaces we had in rounds 2-9, simply in terms of looks.

i entirely disagree that the current interface is inferior to the early game interface, the current graphics (default skin etc) are very good, and there is a reasonable amount of nice js

[Kloopy]

Yes, but I/we got told off for introducing jS. But either way, it's absolutely certainly an inferior interface compared to other browser based games on the market at the moment.

Kloopy

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Neferti

Kloopy and others are right. Looks are *very* important.

In fact, I think the current PA interface is actually inferior to the interfaces we had in rounds 2-9, simply in terms of looks.

Thats not true imho. MUD's atm are having something of a second coming when it comes to popularity, games like Uplink with its low level graphic too the gaming scene by storm.

And whats the PC's most successful game, that would be Championship/Football manager which blows the compitition even those with fancy 3d graphics out of the water even though its very primative in look.

All looks do is maybe hook a few people in at the start, but then once the flashyness wears off it doesnt keep them staying. People wll play a game that looks basic, they wont play one that isnt good

[JC]

Originally Posted by wakey

All looks do is maybe hook a few people in at the start, but then once the flashyness wears off it doesnt keep them staying. People wll play a game that looks basic, they wont play one that isnt good

As much as i agree with this in principle it is not always the case. A lot of people are pretty wary about spending money online, so if they see what looks like a bland text based game that isnt going to persuade them to part with their cash. If they see something that looks a bit more impressive it may well make them think again. Then, once you've got them playing the good gameplay should hopefully get them hooked.

I agree that good gameplay is the foundation on which everything else should be built but you need some kind of addition bait to help attract people. We live in a time when people expect their games to have flashy graphics etc, so if you want to attract these people you have to gve them this in addition to everything else that keeps people playing PA.

[Neferti]

It's got nothing to do with fancy bloody graphics!! Football Manager at least manages to look smooth and professional. PA absolutely does not!

[Smudge]

Originally Posted by Neferti

It's got nothing to do with fancy bloody graphics!! Football Manager at least manages to look smooth and professional. PA absolutely does not!

And its the only game I actually pay for!!

[Ramihyn]

Note: I am using "you" in the following reply mostly not directed to Kal but in general to "the persons at charge" of PA development. This goes from spinner/FS to biffy/Jolt.

Originally Posted by Kal

I agree with kloopy that the game could do with a makeover.... however the more complicated it gets the hard it is to maintain as you need to find people with the relevant skills. For example a monkey could code in html, but more advanced stuff is harder and the prospects of finding someone willing to take it on in an unpaid/low pay way are close to 0

Thats exactly the reason why a commercial project should always push the limits further - better useability, better gfx, more content, better design, more challenges, better support, better compatibility, better cheat-busting etc. etc. because once you realise that every monkey can code in html and do a cheap clone after a given time, you know why it is necessary to stay ahead if you want people to pay for your product!

If you avoid "more complicated" things and stick on basically the same technical level for too long, then you dont have to be surprised if you lose customers.

Originally Posted by Kal

For example a monkey could code in html, but more advanced stuff is harder and the prospects of finding someone willing to take it on in an unpaid/low pay way are close to 0

Once you realise that with your current and past approaches to solve this problem you wont succeed, you probably should start to think about _different approaches_ instead of kissing your goals goodbye and thereby undermining your potential products future.

Myself and others mentioned solutions to that repeatedly over the past 2 years and i think by now they bite you in your neck. Some people should read a few project management experiences and not only from 100% commercial projects as those obviously depend on investment of large chunks of $$$

[coffee-]

If graphics were updated to make it fancier, or flashier it would be nice to still have a choice of what you wanted to see. Personally I hate graphics of any nature, and would be happy with just text.

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by wakey

All looks do is maybe hook a few people in at the start, but then once the flashyness wears off it doesnt keep them staying. People wll play a game that looks basic, they wont play one that isnt good

Originally Posted by JC

As much as i agree with this in principle it is not always the case. A lot of people are pretty wary about spending money online, so if they see what looks like a bland text based game that isnt going to persuade them to part with their cash. If they see something that looks a bit more impressive it may well make them think again. Then, once you've got them playing the good gameplay should hopefully get them hooked.

There doesnt seem to be one simple answer to that question. From what i read last year from game publishers is that in general US players take much less time to look into a new game then german players. Their attention span is lower so you need to keep them interested with effects/gfx and give quicker satisfaction or they are off for the next game. That makes it hard to sell for more complicated games which dont concentrate on having superior gfx/sfx but deliver more fun on the long run. As an example it was mentioned the "Siedler" series from BlueByte.

Probably also depends on the average gamers age and how they are introduced to a game.

[Dorraj]

i wouldnt be able to give a credit, i cant even buy my own. I have to ask people..... no BEG people, lol

[Judge]

Originally Posted by fingers

i wouldnt be able to give a credit, i cant even buy my own. I have to ask people..... no BEG people, lol

So, if there was a competition your option would be to enter it and maybe win a credit would it not ?