Is Planetarion still pay to play?

[DeityLord]

Hello,

I'm wondering if this game is still pay to play. I have quite a few friends playing in another (dying) game and we were looking for alternatives for a free game fairly similar to ours.

I had an awesome experience with Planetarion back in 2003, I'm curious how the community here is still doing.

Thanks!

[Veedeejem!]

Hi,
Planetarion is not pay to play, you have the option to pay and recieve 2 one time bonusses (1 free resource or free roids bonus and 1 construction or research bonus, both have to be used at the same time though), some extra skins and the removal of advertisements.

Hope this answers your question

[DeityLord]

thanks bud

do the advertisements go away completely? or just for 1-2 resets?

[t3k]

You have to pay per round. Every round you sign up a new planet, you sign up a 'free' account. You then need to pay to upgrade your planet. Each round.

Should you reset your planet during a round, you will not be required to re-upgrade your planet and you will get the bonuses again.

[Veedeejem!]

Kenny (or asust3k w/e), you don't have to pay or need to upgrade your planet.
You can play the game just fine without spending a penny.
It's not like PAteam visits every person that signs up irl and puts a gun to their head forcing to pay. If you pay it's your own choice.

DeityLord, if you want more information on the bonus you get when paying i suggest you click the following link:
http://game.planetarion.com/manual.php?page=34

[Bubert Samson]

I think Kenny was referring to how often you have to pay if you do choose to pay.

But yeah, a paid account is given a small bonus, but its nothing that makes them invincible.

[DeityLord]

thanks guys

I'm an alliance leader of a different game. We're prob a few months and prob 2 years at most before the game is too small. We were looking to jump ships to somewhere.

I do see that the main server here is about 1.2k players? It does seem rather small unless there are more than that? Has this game shrunk over the years too?

[Bubert Samson]

There are about 1.7k planets atm, so yeah, the game has shrunk considerably since it started.

We just got a new owner though, so there is some optimism for the future.

[DeityLord]

Was Jolt the previous owner? Jolt is the current owner of Earth2025 which is the game that was already dying, and now in worse shape than when it was previously neglected by the original creator.

[t3k]

Woohoo! It Wasn't Just Us They F*cked!! Yeah!!!

[Bubert Samson]

Originally Posted by asust3k

Woohoo! It Wasn't Just Us They F*cked!! Yeah!!!

I think that says it all really


but yeah, they were, and they (along with OMAC) seemed perfectly happy to let the game die.

[DeityLord]

LOL I cant believe this!

[Mzyxptlk]

Jolt is the Satan of browser based MMOGs.

[SteInMetz]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Jolt is the Satan of browser based MMOGs.

Unless its filled by multis, in which case they love the game.

[DeityLord]

Jolt/OMAC are bastards. In the past at least we only had a neglectful owner. Now we've got that but we get server down times, sometimes for days, random error messages, messed up code, etc.

You get 1 apologetic, albeit worthless OMAC employee asking for patience and understanding. Its been several months of this unstable atmosphere. We were hopeful things would get better when we heard of a 'new' owner, but it looks like there is no saving Earth, especially not without good advertising.

[_Kila_]

Have OMAC not tried to close your game down yet? they tried to close PA down but then someone bought it...

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by DeityLord

You get 1 apologetic, albeit worthless OMAC employee asking for patience and understanding. Its been several months of this unstable atmosphere. We were hopeful things would get better when we heard of a 'new' owner, but it looks like there is no saving Earth, especially not without good advertising.

What was his name? We had one of those here too.

[DeityLord]

Mehul Patel was the owner of Earth2025 and Utopia. He sold the games so he could help fund more terrorist activities.

[t3k]

DeityLord, I think you should bring the entire playerbase from Earth over to Planetarion. We'll make PA the Geeks Last Stand Against Coorperate Terrorism!

[DeityLord]

Its a possibility,

Our server is down to a handful of warring alliances and we've been fighting for ages.

Its becoming very redundant, especially with all the traditional rules that were setup during the period when the game was popular by alliances.

Finding the most suitable future home is what we're looking into but it's gotta be large enough to make the game enjoyable or we'll end up in the same position.

Can anyone explain the primary problems Planetarion currently faces? Are the politics here becoming stagnant? Any alliance made agreements that make it less fun (like server-wide treaties)? Is there any cheating occurring or anti-cheating measures?

How are the wars being fought here like? Any detailed would be very appreciated. A server move would be a major undertaking and if un-successful, many would just find a new game, quit, go back, etc.

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by DeityLord

Are the politics here becoming stagnant? Any alliance made agreements that make it less fun (like server-wide treaties)? Is there any cheating occurring or anti-cheating measures?

How are the wars being fought here like? Any detailed would be very appreciated. A server move would be a major undertaking and if un-successful, many would just find a new game, quit, go back, etc.

Respectively:
Not at the moment, but at times they have.
Not at the moment, but at times they have.
There is little cheating these days.

Basically alliances hit each other for a week or two and then move on. Attacks launch every night and land midday. At times a returning fleet is attacked and a lot of ships die. The war between Omen and Ascendancy this round is an exception, it has lasted for longer and looks to be more intense. I haven't seen any serious fleetcatches yet, but that might come.

[Kattepis]

Originally Posted by DeityLord

Hello,

I'm wondering if this game is still pay to play. I have quite a few friends playing in another (dying) game and we were looking for alternatives for a free game fairly similar to ours.

I had an awesome experience with Planetarion back in 2003, I'm curious how the community here is still doing.

Thanks!

I think most things are explained pretty good here. I can only advise you to signup for the mailing list and create a planet next round. Then you can see for yourself how things are going

Just pick a lowrank alliance and go there to learn how it all works

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Kattepis

for the mailing list

For the what?

[Kattepis]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

For the what?

Well i stumbled upon a pa mailinglist somewhere. Guess theyll be sending mail out when a new round is starting. Dont think its much fun for them if they start halfway. Many people keep attacking low value planets.

[Mzyxptlk]

I had no idea that existed. We live and learn.

[M0RPH3US]

Originally Posted by DeityLord

Its a possibility,

Our server is down to a handful of warring alliances and we've been fighting for ages.

Its becoming very redundant, especially with all the traditional rules that were setup during the period when the game was popular by alliances.

Finding the most suitable future home is what we're looking into but it's gotta be large enough to make the game enjoyable or we'll end up in the same position.

Can anyone explain the primary problems Planetarion currently faces? Are the politics here becoming stagnant? Any alliance made agreements that make it less fun (like server-wide treaties)? Is there any cheating occurring or anti-cheating measures?

How are the wars being fought here like? Any detailed would be very appreciated. A server move would be a major undertaking and if un-successful, many would just find a new game, quit, go back, etc.

There is no alliance napping all universe (succesfully), there is always wars in Planetarion, sometimes pretty even ones (like this round), sometimes pretty boring ones (when one alliance dominates everyone else). But if there is a boring one going you can only blame the alliance hc´s around for not doing enough to prevent it.

The problem PA has is the shrinking playerbase and maybe some minor issues about the game beeing less interesting for small planets, who get raped daily.

But both things is beeing looked at from the new owner and i am pretty confident here, after years of owners doing nothing then counting money (which got less and less) that this time this new owner will bring back PA to its good old days (maybe not to 120k players, but maybe to 5k)

however with :
Clusters: 13
Galaxies: 90 (would be more if gals weren´t that big, is looked into!?)
Planets: 1689
Alliances: 89 (its less alliances really competing and holding more then 5 players, but still a good amount of alliances involved)

i wouldnt say this game is dead, i personally enjoy my time playing it (and invest more time then i probably should)
it just needs fresh blood, fresh ideas and some advertising!

all these things will be changed though, and i hope for the very best for PA´s future

come along with your friends, test it out,and u absolutely dont need to pay to play, the boost up you get for paying, you can crash in a single unsuccesful night or gain in a single succesful one

hope to see you guys around (to test it u can still signup now, get used to the game a bit, there is still quite some ticks to play and also a havoc coming up)

[DeityLord]

Hey guys,

Just to update anyone who cares, a vast number of us have decided on the game called astro empires.

The 10k base players made it very intriguing for us, its a bit more advanced than what I remember of PA and the world is immense.

I appreciate all the input from you guys when we were looking for the alternative and I wish you all the best of luck reestablishing what OMAC left to die. If anyone is interested in checking out AE though, give me a hollar sometime. We've moved over 140 players from Earth so far and we're nothing but a spec in the universe, its great!

Email: [email protected]

[Mzyxptlk]

Good luck and have fun.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by DeityLord

Hey guys,

Just to update anyone who cares, a vast number of us have decided on the game called astro empires.

The 10k base players made it very intriguing for us, its a bit more advanced than what I remember of PA and the world is immense.

I appreciate all the input from you guys when we were looking for the alternative and I wish you all the best of luck reestablishing what OMAC left to die. If anyone is interested in checking out AE though, give me a hollar sometime. We've moved over 140 players from Earth so far and we're nothing but a spec in the universe, its great!

Email: [email protected]

While AE has more players - look at the round lengths. I would guess that a large proportion of the players no longer login. I wouldn't go as far as to say PA has more online players at the moment, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a similar number.

edit: at time of writing AE has 850 ish players online, PA had 600 ish log in within the last 2 ticks. So the differences are not that great.

[Mzyxptlk]

Would it be interesting if every planet automatically gained a small number of roids every tick?

[M0RPH3US]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Would it be interesting if every planet automatically gained a small number of roids every tick?

good idea
why not research it and build "roid constructors"
- machines collecting dust around your planet and forming em using some ultra-special beam to an asteroid able to be mined

i see 3 more researches coming and up to 20 constructions
^^ can´t be a bad thing (just the short length of the round seems an issue, which could be countered by reducing research times all together

research lvl1 & 10 constructions form 1 asteroid every 10 ticks
research lvl2 & 10 constructions form 2 asteroids every 7 ticks
research lvl3 & 10 constructions form 3 asteroids every 5 ticks

maximized constructions = 20

[Mzyxptlk]

The reason I'm asking is because of the fairly rigorous auto-deletion protocols in PA. Why do we remove abandoned planets from the active universe? The longer I think about it, the more I find myself opposing the ability of a galaxy to exile non-desired planets altogether, as well as the auto-deletion and auto-c200 mechanisms, and even self-exiling. Can anyone give me a good reason why any of these things are good for the game (as opposed to individual galaxies or players)?

The game needs a social contract between experienced players and new players. When experienced players are forced to work with newbies, they will automatically impart knowledge on them, improving the game as a whole. This already happens on a small scale, but it mostly targets the players that have already found IRC and already have a fairly high level of activity (ie, who log in two or more times a day), and not the more casual gamers.

If this happens, then the amount of new players that quit before they finished out their first round should reduce significantly.

All that remains then is finding a way to preserve the abandoned planets in the universe, by giving them a role to play, rather than just being obstacles (for example, to be farms for smaller planets). This mechanism can used to artificially increase the size of the universe, while simultaneously it's good for planets that aren't as active as most of us forum-goers are, because it gives them relatively risk-free targets.

[Light]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

The reason I'm asking is because of the fairly rigorous auto-deletion protocols in PA. Why do we remove abandoned planets from the active universe? The longer I think about it, the more I find myself opposing the ability of a galaxy to exile non-desired planets altogether. Can anyone give me a good reason why the ability to exile planets is a good thing?

Note the difference between exiling (the ability of a galaxy to exile another planet) and self exiling (a planet's ability to find a new home).

As then the fight for a top galaxy spot becomes redundent and more of a lottery. At least with exiles, it allows the galaxys that want to.. to have a shot at the players they want.

Although i do agree with you, the ability to exile does go against what the buddy system + randoms tried to do.

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Light

As then the fight for a top galaxy spot becomes redundent and more of a lottery. At least with exiles, it allows the galaxys that want to.. to have a shot at the players they want..

I disagree. It becomes more important, because it would no longer be a matter of being ruthless toward newbies and getting the best exiles, but of sufficiently educating the players we would nowadays disregard completely.

I updated my post, any comment on the changes?

[Light]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

I disagree. It becomes more important, because it would no longer be a matter of being ruthless toward newbies and getting the best exiles, but of sufficiently educating the players we would nowadays disregard completely.

I updated my post, any comment on the changes?

In theory you would be right but it'd still come down to which galaxy got the most actives without additional mechanisms in place.

I agree with what you're saying and it'd be good if there was a mechanism in place to give abandonded (or inactive) planets a place (or role) in the universe rather than auto delete. Also that the current Buddy + Random system needs altering as inactives are just exiled from top galaxys.

Apart from that, i cant really comment anymore as the simple mechanism of adding a certain amount of roids per tick to every planet wouldnt solve the problem by itself.

[Gary]

It is a good suggestion. In other games they keep the inactives as part of the game so smaller players can get a start - farming is not frowned upon because everyone has to start somewhere.

As the newbs get better from farming, the established players passing on their knowledge will become more self fulfilling as they see their efforts turning into something good.

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Light

Apart from that, i cant really comment anymore as the simple mechanism of adding a certain amount of roids per tick to every planet wouldnt solve the problem by itself.

Obviously not. It's a part of the solution, but certainly won't turn lead to gold all by itself.

[Crowly]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Can anyone give me a good reason why any of these things are good for the game (as opposed to individual galaxies or players)?

There is no reason that exiling is good for the game as opposed to the players and galaxies that want to win.