Planetarion Forums

xontas · 20 Dec 2005, 18:50

as i see a lot of changes happening to PA i think it time to speak up
atm we are looking @ a full recode and some major changes to the game/alliance system

personaly i dont see the resons for all the changes, it only takes away the essence of PA
PA is a simple game where you all have a planet and a serain amount of roids
you steal eachothers roids and the biggest one wins
it's a simple consept where the power is in the size of the playerbase!
you can only win if your alliance is big enough

atm PA has so much sides and tactics involved that the new players dont have a snowballs change in hell of staying alive!
you need to run a full study of the stats to understand them and not to mention the complexity of the interface!
the limits on the size of a alliance also limits the recruitment of new players (no point in recruiting your whole class to PA if they are gonne join a enemy alliance (yours is full))

this discussion has been kept in PAteam in the past but no-one ever asked the players so that why i am asking you
what do you guys prefer

1) a new game with a lot of features
2) the simple game thats more colesly related to the old style PA

input please!

mist · 20 Dec 2005, 18:53

the old style pa was free.

Squidly · 20 Dec 2005, 18:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by mist

the old style pa was free.

Minus the costs to run the servers n stuff. Wasn't that why PA was put up for sale anyways?

xontas · 20 Dec 2005, 18:55

yes thats true, but payment and the style of game are not related
also you have free accounts! so thats not the question

its a question about the direction PA is going and does the community support it
because they ARE paying for it, might be good to build the game they want!

mist · 20 Dec 2005, 19:00

payment and the style of the game are intematly related, as payment defines your target audiance.

xontas · 20 Dec 2005, 19:04

yes but you are trying to start a other topic in this tread, its not the question i am asking
i am asking if the current playerbase is behind all the changes PAteam is trowing in
they ARE paying for it
i am not asking if its a payed game! we all know it is so its a mute point

furball · 20 Dec 2005, 19:06

ah, xontas brings his big wooden spoon to the party.

stir stir stir stir.

mist · 20 Dec 2005, 19:09

and i was pointing out the irrelevance of your question

Heartless · 20 Dec 2005, 19:38

Personally I think that Planetarion's gameplay was always flawed, and still is. It is unable to compete with other browsergames which are brought along in a much more professional way.

Thus I think PA should do necessary changes to the things which make the gameplay flawed and maybe add in some strategically interesting moments.

xontas · 20 Dec 2005, 19:53

ok let me explain it so that everyone understands it.

PAteam is working on a recode of the game and from what i have seen its gonne be far more complex then the current PA
basicly moving away from the old system and expanding on the new one
my question is, do you agree with the direction we are going

the reason for asking is to start a public discussion on the future of PA
We the players are the ones that are gonna buy the product, so what product do you want.

Squidly · 20 Dec 2005, 19:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heartless

Personally I think that Planetarion's gameplay was always flawed, and still is. It is unable to compete with other browsergames which are brought along in a much more professional way.

Thus I think PA should do necessary changes to the things which make the gameplay flawed and maybe add in some strategically interesting moments.

Personally, I'm all for the new changes. New stuff is always interesting to at least try out.

But I am curious what kind of flaws heartless is talking about here, and how he proposes to eliminate them.

Kal · 20 Dec 2005, 20:08

From what has been released so far for discussion i'm not sure it looks particularly complex - the alliance tool kit is in essence the same but with a fund added.

Combat we only really talked about a flexibile engine, not a specific configuration for the round.

Possibly the universe structure is a little more complex, but not really that complex.

mist · 20 Dec 2005, 20:08

in direct answer to your question:

it depends what the new game is. if it's vastly over complicated and completely inaccessable than i'd say it's not really a good thing. however, i don't think complexity is neccesarily a bad thing if done well and i don't think the details in the public domain are sufficient to make a decision yet (this far, as far as i know there's going to be something to make blocking less 'good', but no idea what. waves will be included with scans and there may be some silly system whereby you can buy players from other alliances. anyone got any additions?).

as such, i find any comparisons at this point difficult.

any happyer with this xontas?

xontas · 20 Dec 2005, 20:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by mist

in direct answer to your question:

it depends what the new game is. if it's vastly over complicated and completely inaccessable than i'd say it's not really a good thing. however, i don't think complexity is neccesarily a bad thing if done well and i don't think the details in the public domain are sufficient to make a decision yet (this far, as far as i know there's going to be something to make blocking less 'good', but no idea what. waves will be included with scans and there may be some silly system whereby you can buy players from other alliances. anyone got any additions?).

as such, i find any comparisons at this point difficult.

any happyer with this xontas?

yes it is

noah02 · 21 Dec 2005, 10:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kal

the alliance tool kit is in essence the same but with a fund added.

o oh.

Monroe · 22 Dec 2005, 08:19

I have been very comfortable with the direction of the game, and I disagree that it is necisarily getting more complex. I would argue the old combat system was much more complex then the current one, and that the "old" style PA was more complicated for most new players, at least in terms of the combat engine. Part of the trouble with PA has always been the learning curve issue, and a lot has been done by the PA team to address these issues, and imo the game is much easier to play then it was in the past. While I have not seen any of the ideas for the recode played out, I would assume from my own discussions with PA Team members that they are making their best effort to learn from the past mistakes of PA and use player input to drive the direction of the new game. Personally I would prefer a more complex combat system, the current one is kinda dull from my perspective, but I've been playing since r1, so a lot of things have gotten old.

Just my two cents.....

xtothez · 22 Dec 2005, 15:16

I don't understand where this claim of "its more complex" comes from. Just because there's a dozen threads discussing various aspects of the new code in detail doesn't make the final game harder to understand, it just means the community is discussing many new ideas.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xontas

the reason for asking is to start a public discussion on the future of PA
We the players are the ones that are gonna buy the product, so what product do you want

So you just want threads discussing the new code and asking what people want?

http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=188982
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=188983
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=188909
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=188874
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=188908
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=188846
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=188780

Shyne · 22 Dec 2005, 15:22

It should in fact be simpler.

(Others and) Kloopy has the opportunity to redesign the interface and processing entirely.

Some of the complicated forms that currently exist (mining page is a mess in form terms) can be made more compact and visual accessible, and things like the mission page can contain more text and detail to help new players align land ticks/ETA for example.

The AJAX interface suggested is extremely powerful and can only serve to produce a more professional looking game.

I maintain that the game's biggest defecit is the advertising and management by Jolt !

None of my friends have heard of planetarion, or ever seen it advertised. £3.33 is not a lot of money and most adults without a 'i refuse to pay for a game' mentality see through the tiny cost.

cbk100 · 22 Dec 2005, 16:01

What annoys me the most is that I can't even seem to come up with an answer to what I personaly think is best. I loved the game as it was earlier, but I for sure loves the game as it is now too. The problem about all this is that you ask all us old timers (as only very few totaly new players read forums) what we think, but the interesting thing is also what new ppl think. I can immagine how hard it is to get into the game these days and I know myself how easy it was back in r4.
I personaly want more players to PA ofc. but at the same time I want more posible strategies and that often makes the game more complex. I guess there is some kind of tradeoff that has to be considered when discussing this issue.
I think development should go on though cause nomatter what PA is not extremely hard to understand so its all a matter of promoting the game to get ppl here and once they are in a gal with ppl who is willing to help them out then they will soon be soaked in :-)

One more important thing about this issue is also that I dont think ppl want to pay for a game like PA as it was back in the old days as technology moves forward and ppl demands more and more.

I think there is only one way and that is to keep improving the game and then if the results are very good then promote the game heavily to try to give the size of the univse a huge boost.

cbk