Mission : How would YOU save planetarion?

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Ok, you've just spent £25k on PA, you own the code and you have the future of the proverbial universe in your hands..

Whats your next step...

You can't exactly run an immediate p2p round, ppl wont p(l)ay... So, as many have suggested we'll assume you already have enough capital to provide at least 2 free rounds of PA before being forced to go back to the tried and despised p2p ...

You do have some cash left over but its not limitless. Your ultimate goal is to come with ideas ranging from 'barely alive and looking for new owners' to 'hugely profitable gaming empire'... justify your claims for victory and I'll try to give a fair percentage score and statetemt for each one...

Originally posted by SomeBrightSpark
"e.g. Make it free for two rounds then go back to p2p"



Rating : 35% - Tried and Despised - You'll be stressed and giving up after a few rounds - 'its not worth the hassle' etc

Feel free to make them as long and as crazy you like, but the more serious ones will get the higher %s...

If any one comes up with the idea i've had, i'll give you the grand ranking of 'Rating 100% 'Good ****ing Thinking, That Man''.

Go..

[Carpeia]

planning, setup, r3

marketing.

win the round

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Originally posted by Carpeia
planning, setup, r3

marketing.

win the round

8% - Got the buzzwords right but no content! You've just lost $30k and you're phoning spinner for stress management advice.

(And besides everyone knows the ultmate round would be r3 rules with r2 thieves and pirates )

[Kileman]

Free round with private gals, offer $50,000 (more or less) prize or so for winning gal/planet, large media coverage etc. Have a long round, get the numbers very high again and get people addicted.

Next round make people pay, add more graphics (show the little ship battles as a downloadable movie, the amount of people @ work (net cafe) that ask me "do they have graphics and animations yet" is amazing )

Legalise account selling, so we see the e-bay planets up for sale.

Also possibly have free universe, with free universe reseting more frequently and 'some' restrictions. Then have a seperate pay universe with big prize dependent on the number of players etc (kinda like a lottery).
________
BUY IOLITE

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Originally posted by Kileman
Free round with private gals, offer $50,000 (more or less) prize or so for winning gal/planet, large media coverage etc. Have a long round, get the numbers very high again and get people addicted.

Next round make people pay, add more graphics (show the little ship battles as a downloadable movie, the amount of people @ work (net cafe) that ask me "do they have graphics and animations yet" is amazing )

Legalise account selling, so we see the e-bay planets up for sale.

Also possibly have free universe, then pay universe with big prize, dependent on the number of players etc (kinda like a lottery).

42% - Alliances? Naps? vs £50k? Fk off? I like it ... but i dunno if youd get a licence and ofc ppl will undoubtedly try to cheat . Could work, but could cost you a fortune too...

[Eternity]

round 3 plus unbalanced thieves (way too powerful)

prizes for teh winnar but not as high as 50 K as I doubt any company would be willing to lose so much.

Awards for different categories ?

defender of the year ?
Roider in chief ?
Newbie ?

25 player galaxies 15 paid accounts 10 free,
reduced eta in cluster
better salvage i.e before they fked it up

10 pounds in DJ's hand for no reason whatsoever

-DarK_AnGeL^-

[xtothez]

I would never be stupid enough to buy PA unless I was financially capable of running it for free (i.e. me = multi-millionaire).

Running a terminally damaged game like PA on a budget is like betting your years salary on Portsmouth winning the Premiership.

I'd ban DJ again ...

[Tactitus]

I don't think prizes are necessary--you just end up raising expectations and then dashing them when you can't deliver. No one plays PA for the prizes anyway; PA is entertainment (or ought to be). If people don't get their money's worth playing the round, then you're doomed regardless and a big prize or two handed out at the end won't save you. Nominal awards (e.g., T-shirts) and a bit of recognition for the winners is sufficient.

Spend your money instead on providing a free round or two. That will generate as many accounts as you can handle (possibly more, depending how aggressive you are towards bots & multies).

[lokken]

increase media profile.

persuade huge internet company to take on my idea, in exchange for large, wieldy royalties.

have a free round to attract new players and then market game accounts cheaply, for $5 a piece, using large internet company and media to promote my game. offer cash prizes for winners.

Install far more efficient, professional customer service, with a professional management team. Have a more organised beta testing team.

run game with round 7 stats and nifty four races option, employ sandman to do a decent official stats page. Have an optional text only setting, for quicker loading, saving bandwidth, etc.

Stick news on www.planetarion.com, make the main source of creator contact via the forums and email, as the portal has always been skank.

Aim: to get Planetarion to over 250k paying players, in a 3 month round, random universe, with galaxies of 25 players.

Run Planetarion outside Norway to avoid crippling taxes.

Firstly, i'd like to keep the races thing, that works nicely.

Second, Alliances would be restricted in who they could attack and defend, this would mean that alliances would only be able to defend in-gal and in-alliance. People without alliance would only be able to defend in-gal and in-cluster, but attack anyone.

Alliances would be maxed at approx 100 members (depending on number of players.

The main change, i would build a downloadable user interface. This would include all graphics, possibly some sound, IRC chat client, and maybe limited simulation on battles (depending on size of file).

This interface would save on server load, meaning that pages were no longer served, but would be held on the users' PC. Very easy to do, but it would improve the game alot, and considerably reduce server load. This file would need to be sent out with the application e-mail depending on file size. It might be worth distributing on cd which would come free with magazines?

Each client application comes with a unique serial number which is valid for one free trial. Subsequent update numbers could then be purchased online and would enable the demo account to be upgraded to a full account - with a small subscription fee. This subscription fee would allow the user to play on any of 2-4 servers, but only allowing one account per server, negating any multi'ing.

I could go into much more detail, but then i'd need to write a small business proposal and put together £25k

That's just a rough idea i suggested on the forum about 1.5 years ago of how 5S might be able to rescue PA before it died.

Looks like no one listened to me

[Shev]

Originally posted by EasyRoider
Firstly, i'd like to keep the races thing, that works nicely.

Second, Alliances would be restricted in who they could attack and defend, this would mean that alliances would only be able to defend in-gal and in-alliance. People without alliance would only be able to defend in-gal and in-cluster, but attack anyone.

So you wouldn't be able to defend a friend that wasn't in the same alliance as you?
Thats just ridiculous.

It's a very obvious invitation to account swap to create stronghold clusters as well.

[leknu]

Free round and sell planetary level rollbacks for 10$/tick

[Eol]

Originally posted by leknu
Free round and sell planetary level rollbacks for 10$/tick

Sad thing is, they'd probably make some money off that.

[Scouse]

Don't waste money on big prizes. T-shirts with "I finished #1 in Planetarion round 9" for the top 50 planets or so, and "I finished the 3rd ranked gal in Planetarion round 9" for the top 10 gals, would be enough. People don't play for the prizes, so don't waste money on them when it could be better used elsewhere.

Advertisements. Lots of them. Get the numbers up. Free round or 2.

Don't waste too much on graphics, not really necessary.

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Eol
Sad thing is, they'd probably make some money off that.

For one round, maybe; until people realized that many of their "successful" attacks ended up getting rolled back.

[Eol]

Originally posted by Tactitus
For one round, maybe; until people realized that many of their "successful" attacks ended up getting rolled back.

round 10 - new features:

Rollback rollback... Roids go to the highest bidder

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Eol
round 10 - new features:

Rollback rollback... Roids go to the highest bidder

round 11 - new features:

Rollback Insurance - pay to protect yourself from being outbid.

[Structural Integrity]

1) Give a free round to get a bigger player base, popups/banners will make up income/lessen loss. Take back round-3 gameconcept but with a bigger ship-base. Get a few free-lancers in the team that will work for whatever profit is made from popups/banners (money that is left after paying bandwidth/server costs).
Take on a "if you don't agree with the dev-team then you find yourself another game" attitude for changing stats/gameplay mid-round.

2) Introduce an win32 executable solution with better graphics to limit bandwidth (you don't want to know how much bandwidth is in HTML pages)

3) Run another round, mixed browser and executable solution. banners in both versions will make up for loss.

4) abandon webbrowser concept. At this stage the application will have been developed thouroughly. Introduce small JAVA applet that can be run in all browsers and platform independant.

5) toss out al lot of webservers because bandwidth/processorpower is not needed anymore. Tune down the bandwidth costs. Banners remain.

6) Introduce paid tournaments with faster paced action and smaller playerbase. Also introduce software version with better graphical performance for a fee.
Introduce a small tournament option (payed) for small groups of players (up to 50) and have the person who creates the game set the stats of the game. Income generated by these events (if successfull) will be invested in a new equipment to serve more of these tournaments.

7) At this point running costs will be minimalized. Data transfer is no more that a few bits/bytes for each transaction: something that can easilly be handled by a slower connection.
Expected hardware requirements are one webserver and a heavier database/ticker server. With the player base built up in the first two free rounds, and the still free *big* rounds, bannerclicks (forced or not forced) can easilly make up for costs.

This is how I would do it. I don't believe there is *big* money in a browser-game. Running costs are simply to high and people are not willing to pay while there are other games out there.
Therefore the primary concern is cutting down running-costs. After that, introducing new features that bring in money.
Customer is king, always remember that. You give the customer a world he can adjust/edit the way he wants, the customer will give you his number of his bank account.

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Originally posted by lokken
increase media profile.

persuade huge internet company to take on my idea, in exchange for large, wieldy royalties.

have a free round to attract new players and then market game accounts cheaply, for $5 a piece, using large internet company and media to promote my game. offer cash prizes for winners.

Install far more efficient, professional customer service, with a professional management team. Have a more organised beta testing team.

run game with round 7 stats and nifty four races option, employ sandman to do a decent official stats page. Have an optional text only setting, for quicker loading, saving bandwidth, etc.

Stick news on www.planetarion.com, make the main source of creator contact via the forums and email, as the portal has always been skank.

Aim: to get Planetarion to over 250k paying players, in a 3 month round, random universe, with galaxies of 25 players.

Run Planetarion outside Norway to avoid crippling taxes.

76 % Ambitious but could actually work. Certainly wouldn't make you rich.

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Originally posted by EasyRoider
Firstly, i'd like to keep the races thing, that works nicely.

Second, Alliances would be restricted in who they could attack and defend, this would mean that alliances would only be able to defend in-gal and in-alliance. People without alliance would only be able to defend in-gal and in-cluster, but attack anyone.

Alliances would be maxed at approx 100 members (depending on number of players.

The main change, i would build a downloadable user interface. This would include all graphics, possibly some sound, IRC chat client, and maybe limited simulation on battles (depending on size of file).

This interface would save on server load, meaning that pages were no longer served, but would be held on the users' PC. Very easy to do, but it would improve the game alot, and considerably reduce server load. This file would need to be sent out with the application e-mail depending on file size. It might be worth distributing on cd which would come free with magazines?

Each client application comes with a unique serial number which is valid for one free trial. Subsequent update numbers could then be purchased online and would enable the demo account to be upgraded to a full account - with a small subscription fee. This subscription fee would allow the user to play on any of 2-4 servers, but only allowing one account per server, negating any multi'ing.

I could go into much more detail, but then i'd need to write a small business proposal and put together £25k

That's just a rough idea i suggested on the forum about 1.5 years ago of how 5S might be able to rescue PA before it died.

Looks like no one listened to me

43% Its still pay to play, you'll find yourself short of players and cash!


[edit] love the alliance idea tho

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Originally posted by leknu
Free round and sell planetary level rollbacks for 10$/tick

55% Heh yeah or additional roids n stuff heh

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Originally posted by Structural Integrity
1) Give a free round to get a bigger player base, popups/banners will make up income/lessen loss. Take back round-3 gameconcept but with a bigger ship-base. Get a few free-lancers in the team that will work for whatever profit is made from popups/banners (money that is left after paying bandwidth/server costs).
Take on a "if you don't agree with the dev-team then you find yourself another game" attitude for changing stats/gameplay mid-round.

2) Introduce an win32 executable solution with better graphics to limit bandwidth (you don't want to know how much bandwidth is in HTML pages)

3) Run another round, mixed browser and executable solution. banners in both versions will make up for loss.

4) abandon webbrowser concept. At this stage the application will have been developed thouroughly. Introduce small JAVA applet that can be run in all browsers and platform independant.

5) toss out al lot of webservers because bandwidth/processorpower is not needed anymore. Tune down the bandwidth costs. Banners remain.

6) Introduce paid tournaments with faster paced action and smaller playerbase. Also introduce software version with better graphical performance for a fee.
Introduce a small tournament option (payed) for small groups of players (up to 50) and have the person who creates the game set the stats of the game. Income generated by these events (if successfull) will be invested in a new equipment to serve more of these tournaments.

7) At this point running costs will be minimalized. Data transfer is no more that a few bits/bytes for each transaction: something that can easilly be handled by a slower connection.
Expected hardware requirements are one webserver and a heavier database/ticker server. With the player base built up in the first two free rounds, and the still free *big* rounds, bannerclicks (forced or not forced) can easilly make up for costs.

This is how I would do it. I don't believe there is *big* money in a browser-game. Running costs are simply to high and people are not willing to pay while there are other games out there.
Therefore the primary concern is cutting down running-costs. After that, introducing new features that bring in money.
Customer is king, always remember that. You give the customer a world he can adjust/edit the way he wants, the customer will give you his number of his bank account.

67% Cutting cost and banner click income is good if you can get pa self sufficient you could go far!

[Structural Integrity]

Originally posted by -o|DarkJedi|o-
67% Cutting cost and banner click income is good if you can get pa self sufficient you could go far!

oi... I expected a higher score (lokken got 76% FFS!).... but I agree there is some risk involved in getting it self sufficient. The win32 app might not be "da bomb" according to the community and supporting two media at a time (browser+app / java+app) is difficult.
But hey, it's business

[Tactitus]

[quote]Originally posted by Structural Integrity

2) Introduce an win32 executable solution with better graphics to limit bandwidth (you don't want to know how much bandwidth is in HTML pages)

I think a text-only browser option would be a simpler and more portable approach while still eliminating much of the HTML. Some of us have been asking for such an option for years. As soon as you go to an executable you will lose a lot of potential customers who
1) Don't have win32 environments
2) Can't figure out how to install your executable (don't laugh, there are players who can't get irc working)
3) Can't get your app to work on their system (e.g., they have 13" screen that doesn't even support 800x600 )
4) Don't trust your application (security concerns)
5) Work/go-to-school in an environment where they're not allowed to install such s/w.
6) Play PA from so many different computers that dragging the app around with them becomes too much of an inconvenience.
7) Et cetera

[Structural Integrity]

Tact....

Did you notice the Java applet:

1) platform indepentant
2) easy to use (browse and go)
3) eh.... get a computer FFS (this is very rare)
4) secured by browser (no access to local file system)
5) Again, no install required. Possibly could be running over the HTTP port to bypass proxies
6) The java part rox0rs....


I have everything under controll!!

[K0loth]

Originally posted by Scouse
Don't waste money on big prizes. T-shirts with "I finished #1 in Planetarion round 9" for the top 50 planets or so, and "I finished the 3rd ranked gal in Planetarion round 9" for the top 10 gals, would be enough. People don't play for the prizes, so don't waste money on them when it could be better used elsewhere.

Advertisements. Lots of them. Get the numbers up. Free round or 2.

Don't waste too much on graphics, not really necessary.

I'd prefer a trophy.

[Troll]

Most people here post on how they would like to see the game evolve and that’s fine but in many ways it’s in no way practical. You’re all posting from a hardcore lifer stand point and not from a business objective point of view.

So the question is what are the main reasons PA failed? Now most of you are going to go on about the creators making bad moves, screwing up the stats etc. Although perhaps partially true the main action that killed PA was private gals.

If new ownership takes over and goes back to private gals, then they may as well burn the money they invested. What Private gals do is STOP growth of the game by not allowing new players to join and learn from veterans. Now many will suggest going to the 25 man gal with 10 freebies with limited powers. The problem still remains that this empowers alliances and makes gals a lot harder to attack with out being in a large alliance or attack group. I understand a lot of fragile egos got hurt this round when they logged in to see eta 3 hostiles and no defense was called for from their gal mates. They fail to see this as a good thing, to be in a gal that’s unroidable because people take shifts watching your planet and reporting your incoming ruins the game for the newer players and the non hardcore. The more likely people are to lose the more likely people will be to gain, since losing all the time is not fun a balance between the two is the most common sense approach. I am not a fool, I know this is not always going to be the case, their are people with automated planets that never log out controlled by bots and there is the chance you can end up in a gal with alliances friendly to yours and are active, or in some cases convert people to your alliance. This brings success in PA down to 3 things then Luck, Cheating, Activity and in my opinion 2 of those three is the way it should be.

I don’t think galaxies should expand larger than the current 10 player limit this allows for gals being easier to target, forces some form of co operation between the gal planets (as many of us learned this round) Both being good things.

This was the first round in a random galaxy for many people and not everyone adapted well, give it another round or 2 before going back to the already failed private gal system.

Next is the issue of P2P vs. Free. A free round would be nice, who wouldn’t want a free meal at their favorite restaurant or pint of beer at their local pub. However this will lead to mass cheating, multis will be rampant; no doubt Killmark will be back with his legion of planets. So Free is not the final solution; however it can be used as a publicity tool. Perhaps a free round of PA would be the best way to restore faith in the gaming community, but only if you can provide a top notch running system with the large potential boost in enrollment (not all by returning players read multis) If it didn’t run smooth then those that did come back in hopes of a reborn PA would no doubt become disgruntled and not be interested in paying for the next round.

So the solution overall most likely to last beyond even a free round is that of a free and P2P universe. Now the issue becomes how to balance the two systems allowing potential new customers to try out the game with out it being abused by multis. I enjoyed this round the most because the multi issue was less prevalent than prior rounds and at least if they were multis they paid for the planets, which I guess is less evil in the long run.

So here is what I would do.

1. Free planets are mixed in with p2p planets but they should never exceed more than 3 per gal as to not handicap the p2p players in the gal by some getting 5-8 freebies and some getting none. They should not be able to be spotted right off the bat so no making them planets 8 9 10 by proxy.

2. One of the common uses of a free planet is it being a multi scan planet, to hinder this, free planets should not be able to gain military and news scans. Which are the two most important scans available.

3. Farming is a common problem, the cap does hinder farming in the middle to late stages of the round but in the beginning and this is when farming is the most profitable. In order to hinder this as much as possible the free accounts attackers will be listed at eta1 on all 4 Ministers overviews including over burn attacks which are a farmers greatest tool early in the round to farm undetected. This is not a perfect system nor do I know if it’s possible to implement but at least the Gal could see a pattern and issue the coordinates to the game authorities for review. This keeps the main use of over burn which is for single planets to be able to retaliate against their attackers or friends attackers and gain roids with out an attack group or large alliance.

4. Escort fleets, used by top players to make gains with out taking losses. Personally I despise this tactic the most. This is a lot harder to control, the obvious solution is a score cap like was used in previous rounds, but having 10-100 3 mil planets at your control is still a brutal legion to command. My suggestion here is along with the score cap to use a new capping system. Allowing no more than a percentage of a free planets score to be in one ship class an example would be.

20% fi
20% co
20% fr
20% de
10% cr
10% bs

Obviously this is just an example but would force players to use all the classes to gain maximum score, and would hinder mass FI def planets etc.

5. Score cap should not be as low as they can not play half 1 month of the round before hitting it based on a galaxy wide average. I will leave the math to those that are good at it for this one.

6. Free accounts should not have the ability to use the race specific pods perhaps even limiting free ziks ability so it can’t steal multiple pod classes. This gives people more motivation to upgrade their account.

7. A tougher stance towards free player violations. If it even looks suspicious immediate deletion. These people are after all playing for free. A group of dedicated volunteers or a staff member should be monitoring the free planets at all times to watch for these violations.

8. Free planets should not exceed 30% of the universe

Not sure if I have managed to plug every hole but I feel if these 8 steps were implemented it would go along way to allowing a free and p2p universe to work with limited abuse of the free planets. Some of the rules are strict but again I would like to add that these people are playing for free and most demos for a game you would purchase would not give you 1 month of playability and also have large restrictions on abilities and units available. This is common sense, why by the cow when the milk is free right. The next issue is the balancing of the races. I am not a stats man so I will just quickly throw out a couple of Ideas for XAN since I was XAN this round and believe they have way too many good things going for them, fast cloaked and shoots first.

XAN

Unit scans should show all xan units

Vulture eta 8

Cloaked ability is an option in the launch bar, if you wish to launch a cloaked fleet it would cost double the normal E to launch. Not a big hindrance since if you sent a cloaked def fleet a mil scan still would not know the difference between the fleet of vsh and the fleet of sents unless you launched the fleet of sents uncloaked at another target and your target scanned to see the incoming and saw the numbers and then those numbers would have to be different from the vsh fleet you sent at him. Ummm get the point?

Terrans

PEG INT way too high IMO all fi should fire before the peg

Cath

Kill ships? Ummm make them more like a floating pds less killing more armor and lowest initiative, and there’s nothing wrong with having a race not have a de class. Who says all races need to have a ship in each class anyways.

Zik

Nothing wrong other than the potential abuse of ship farming. I have no solution for that unless you toss salavage for just ziks when they steal?

That’s all, I know my ideas will be flamed but then it’s not really the general public that I am appealing to here rather the new owners of pa letting see it from a more objective point of view.

Troll

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Structural Integrity
Tact....

Did you notice the Java applet:

Yeah, but you didn't have that scheduled until step 4.

So why screw around with the executable at all? Just go straight for the applet.

The applet approach isn't perfect either, however (I've had applets that wouldn't work with some of the older browsers I'm occasionally forced to use). :/

An applet is a lot better than an executable though.

[Nodrog]

Increased. Customer. Service.

Run a free round of PA, but allow people to pay to be in private galaxies, and have regular paying speed games during that time. Best of both worlds - new players still attracted, and old players allowed to be with friends.

Rent out a specialist fast tick server to alliances. For example, allow Fury and Titans to book the this server for a weekend, to have a one on one fight. Prices for this could be maybe 100-200 pound for a whole weekend (easily affordable, given it would be entire alliances involved).

Get rid off all the pointless crap that noone cares about, such as the portal.

Increased. Customer. Service.

Drop round lengths to 8-10 weeks, and make the start of the game less boring (back to starting with 10 asteroids, news scans available sooner etc etc etc). Almost everyone gets bored after 8 weeks: why bother continuing the game for longer than this?

Get decent advertising deals. Refferrals are stupid - try and find ones where you get paid for every person that signs up for a service.

Proper meeting of alliance leaders. Get the powerblock situation sorted once and for all, even if it means threatening to delete random planets of any alliance that is powerblocking. Itll be worth it in the long term.

Increased. Customer. Service.

Get rid of pretty much every idea that has been implemented within the last 3 rounds. Keep races, but actually do them properly.

Take advantage of the community. Why bother hiring people to do things, when volunteers will do them? This may involve treating volunteers with a semblance of respect.

Get rid of the lameness. Someone farming? Delete them. Taking authorised retals? Delete them. Getting regularly accompanied on attacks? Delete them. Want to whine? Go back to ***********.

Increased. Customer. Service.

etc

[Structural Integrity]

Originally posted by Tactitus
Yeah, but you didn't have that scheduled until step 4.

So why screw around with the executable at all? Just go straight for the applet.

The applet approach isn't perfect either, however (I've had applets that wouldn't work with some of the older browsers I'm occasionally forced to use). :/

An applet is a lot better than an executable though.

My plan was to support the applet & exe at the same time. The applet being a solution for those who cannot run the exe everywhere.

Technically a java applet is fine, but requires graphical files to be downloaded from the server, which means more bandwidth, thus increasing running costs. So you want to cut down the applet size as much as possible. You will basically have a textual representation in your applet then.

So, I thought when you leave the nice graphical stuff out of the applet, and put it in an exe that is downloaded once (from a big host) you 1) provide a nice graphical game, that looks MANY times more attractive than a boring screen with text, 2) have another medium you can exploit by providing graphical updates for example and 3) have the portability of a browser game because of the java applet.

So, the applet is merely a solution for those who cannot run the exe (for whatever reason).

Geez.... I should become a manager when I grow up!

[Nodrog]

Java applets are completely awful in almost every single situation, and downloadable clients would turn it into a completely different game. It may or may not be a good idea, but its not really "planetarion".

[clx]

ok
mmmmmmm...........

first, tame a little break, a few weeks maybe, and during that time flood all types of media in all countrys, newspapers, gaming mags, tv, and put ads on all gaming websites, and on places like the msn page where all the n00bies go, and adverts on all the major free e-mail providers.

then have 1 free round,
then 1 speed round that is p2p
then 1 more free round with a prize (graphics card or somthing)

then go p2p


but the more advertising the better

coz the more ppl join the game, the more money it will make in the end

[K0loth]

Some suggestions I have:

a) Make pa free and P2p, perhaps have 2 universes like the creators planned originally?

OR

b) Make a universe made up of pay planets and free planets.

The free planets would have have the following:

• The interface is only in text, no graphics at all. (To lower bandwidth costs)
• The planet is placed randomly.
• The race is selected randomly.
• There is no vacation mode.
• There are banner adverts (to generate revenue)
• Annoying bot question for every time a person tries to login.
• Account gets deleted automatically in 7 days.
• No oppurtunity for self exile.

The pay planets would have the following:

• The user can choose the interface from a selection of skins(perhaps an oppurtunity to link sidebar graphics to their own design on their webserver (eg like gal banner?) or can choose to have just text if they wish.
• The user can select their race.
• The planet is placed randomly or randomly with upto a group of 3-5 friends.
• There are no banner adverts.
• No annoying bot question for every time a person tries to login.
• The account never gets deleted unless its for cheating or own will.
• Oppurtunity for self exile.
• Other extra things?.

The portal would also need to be re-designed and updated frequently.
The portal should have special access for P2P accounts and restrictive access for free accounts.

Free accounts get access to news, a stats site like pilkara/sandman and the most recent creators hour log on portal etc...

Pay accounts get more access than free accounts such as a pilkara/sandman stats site that has extra stuff thats not in the publicly available db dump, full archive on creators hour logs, better customer service, first look at previews of new rounds etc...

Pay accounts would only get access to the creators hour channel and would only be the only ones that can submit questions.

Good reliable prizes for top players and galaxies.

More prizes available for pay customers such as best pay planet in cluster x.

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by K0loth
The portal would also need to be re-designed and updated frequently.

Portal redesigned again?!?! Good Lord, the best thing we could do for the portal is just let it die.

Pay accounts get more access than free accounts such as a pilkara/sandman stats site that has extra stuff thats not in the publicly available db dump, full archive on creators hour logs, better customer service, first look at previews of new rounds etc...

If you try to charge/restrict this information then people will just duplicate it or mirror it elsewhere. Don't waste your time trying.

Pay accounts would only get access to the creators hour channel and would only be the only ones that can submit questions.

Whoopie! A chance to ask a question that gets ignored, misunderstood, or incorrectly answered.

[Scoot951]

Bout 5 mins til my next class, but here's what I've got off top of my head:

1. Better Graphics, particularly some type of animation showing the battles. Not at all impossible, Droidarena had some when I was playing it half a year ago, and I hear they're even better now. Eye Candy = more customers.

2. 1 Free Round to get numbers back up. Also lots of advertising in game magazines, etc.

3. Gal mixed of private and random players (15/10, 10/10, somewhere around there). Both would have to pay when it became p2p again (which it would realistically have to do at some point), private players would pay more.

4. T3 = all for all ship types, it annoyed me when it was changed as it makes it less 'realistic', and newbies aren't too deep into strategy.

5. A Universe Map, '3-D' type deal showing locations of all galaxies/planets, can check it to see where your fleet is at, more detailed eta system.

6. Protection against bashing/some way of making it so you don't have to go without sleep to do moderatly well. Class time, will think up genious idea for this and add it later...

[Troll]

6. Protection against bashing/some way of making it so you don't have to go without sleep to do moderatly well.

hmm I was thinking about this as well. I was thinking of a system know as perhaps planetary shield. This would put your planet into an 8 hour vacation mode so you could sleep and go to school etc. DUrring this time you would gain no resources but couldn't be attacked. Sector scans would show the ticks remaining till you're shield ran our of power etc. you could even make this it's own tech Tree with expanding hours as the tree went up untill it got to a 12 hour shield that allowed you to turn it off manually by simplily logging in rather than being stuck in the mini vacation mode.

I am not sure this is the solution but it would help the people that have a life outside of pa continue to play the game.

Troll

[zenopus]

Originally posted by Tactitus
For one round, maybe; until people realized that many of their "successful" attacks ended up getting rolled back.

That is just a matter of defining the scope of a rollback.

Roids should not included in a rollback.

A rollback would roll back all unit losses at your planet for the last 24 ticks. All units lost at your planet would be resurrected, both defenders and attackers! Any of your ships lost away from your planet would not be resurrected.
Doing this would require going through all planets with battle reports from your planet in the last 24 ticks, resurrecting any ships lost in those battle reports. Not an unsurmountable task - make it happen on next tick, after everything else has been ticked.

Not sure how to handle ziks and stolen ships. Ideas?

A rollback should cost a credit.
There may be a need to limit how often a planet can roll back?

[Eternity]

Employ KIllmark within the ranks of pa crew and utilise his no doubt brilliant bot coding to operate 3K of bots that only initiate and don't build fleet thus avoiding the annoyance of newbieish ****s whining when u attack them, gives the old guard a roid boost and makes raping and pillaging easy and fun.

[Eol]

Originally posted by Nodrog
Rent out a specialist fast tick server to alliances. For example, allow Fury and Titans to book the this server for a weekend, to have a one on one fight. Prices for this could be maybe 100-200 pound for a whole weekend (easily affordable, given it would be entire alliances involved).

!!! (I love this idea)

And most of the rest was good as well.

Change the scan system so it not so much favours large alliances (ie dedicated scan planets). Perhaps consider non-exponential growth so smaller alliances have a better chance of staying alive in the game longer.

Maybe scale down the pace a bit - OB att really does make life hell.

[gzambo]

just a thought but why not run the main game as a free one and in conjunction with that run speed games that are p2p for the more serious gamers
an example would be

1. free round lasting 3 months

2. 3 p2p speed rounds within those 3 months with the owners taking feedback from those paying to play regarding stats,time of ticks etc


in order for the game to survive it needs to be free and random to increase the player base
the alliances can play it out between themselves within the p2p games to see who is the best and the main game can continually bring in more players

PS the speed rd option on p2p is only an option the p2p can also run in real time like the main game

[Madina]

Originally posted by EasyRoider
The main change, i would build a downloadable user interface. This would include all graphics, possibly some sound, IRC chat client, and maybe limited simulation on battles (depending on size of file).

This interface would save on server load, meaning that pages were no longer served, but would be held on the users' PC. Very easy to do, but it would improve the game alot, and considerably reduce server load. This file would need to be sent out with the application e-mail depending on file size. It might be worth distributing on cd which would come free with magazines?

Each client application comes with a unique serial number which is valid for one free trial. Subsequent update numbers could then be purchased online and would enable the demo account to be upgraded to a full account - with a small subscription fee. This subscription fee would allow the user to play on any of 2-4 servers, but only allowing one account per server, negating any multi'ing.

your sir deserve a medal (or a bluepeter badge). Very good idea imo

Madina

[hinch]

as suggested by my partner in crime (lo RR fs) only the domain name is of important and simply point that at SS and jobs a good un

PA is saves by everyone playing SS which makes money btw

[hAl]

The cost effective measures discussed are not that cost effective really cause all require a lot of effort by actual people. Those people will quickly be the main cost factor in the game setup and not the servers or even the bandwith/upload. If the buyer is a commercial one they will need probably limit serious changes cause those will cost incredible amounts of money very fast.

Building a downloadable client with skins built in irc client or what ever else was suggested would have to be done very cheaply to make worth anything really. Many of the makers of these suggestions seem not to have any idea what the cost are to develop internet game software.

Any buyer would do well to get the game up and running for free as is with only some minor rule tweaks and mayby just the addition of some ads or something to get limited revenue back. Probably a buyer has already the possibility to put it's existing commercial activities linked into the game in some way by for instance making people signup for their entire game portal or something.

With the game up and running there might be time to change the game. Firstly adept the game to the needs of the buyer for commercial income generation (which does not have to mean p2p but more likely integration with current activties of the buyer). Then add new features but only those that are commercially viable. Adding graphics effects may seem interesting but most of all seem expensive.

If the party taking over is huge and has already got a great game development going it might be worth investing more as large scale gaming portals can generate large masses to play but there are only a few of those around I'm not sure if any is interested in taking over PA as they migt have their own games in that area.

hAl

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Originally posted by Nodrog
Increased. Customer. Service.

Run a free round of PA, but allow people to pay to be in private galaxies, and have regular paying speed games during that time. Best of both worlds - new players still attracted, and old players allowed to be with friends.

Rent out a specialist fast tick server to alliances. For example, allow Fury and Titans to book the this server for a weekend, to have a one on one fight. Prices for this could be maybe 100-200 pound for a whole weekend (easily affordable, given it would be entire alliances involved).

Get rid off all the pointless crap that noone cares about, such as the portal.

Increased. Customer. Service.

Drop round lengths to 8-10 weeks, and make the start of the game less boring (back to starting with 10 asteroids, news scans available sooner etc etc etc). Almost everyone gets bored after 8 weeks: why bother continuing the game for longer than this?

Get decent advertising deals. Refferrals are stupid - try and find ones where you get paid for every person that signs up for a service.

Proper meeting of alliance leaders. Get the powerblock situation sorted once and for all, even if it means threatening to delete random planets of any alliance that is powerblocking. Itll be worth it in the long term.

Increased. Customer. Service.

Get rid of pretty much every idea that has been implemented within the last 3 rounds. Keep races, but actually do them properly.

Take advantage of the community. Why bother hiring people to do things, when volunteers will do them? This may involve treating volunteers with a semblance of respect.

Get rid of the lameness. Someone farming? Delete them. Taking authorised retals? Delete them. Getting regularly accompanied on attacks? Delete them. Want to whine? Go back to ***********.

Increased. Customer. Service.

etc

75% Some good ideas, especially income from private gals... community > * pld etc... dunno about super profits, but you'd certainly cut costs...

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Originally posted by clx
ok
mmmmmmm...........

first, tame a little break, a few weeks maybe, and during that time flood all types of media in all countrys, newspapers, gaming mags, tv, and put ads on all gaming websites, and on places like the msn page where all the n00bies go, and adverts on all the major free e-mail providers.

then have 1 free round,
then 1 speed round that is p2p
then 1 more free round with a prize (graphics card or somthing)

then go p2p


but the more advertising the better

coz the more ppl join the game, the more money it will make in the end

35% So far speed games on incurred about $4000 revenue and you're spending alot on marketing, straight p2p has failed once already, you could be looking for a new owner after a 3 or 4 rounds..

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Originally posted by K0loth
Some suggestions I have:

a) Make pa free and P2p, perhaps have 2 universes like the creators planned originally?

OR

b) Make a universe made up of pay planets and free planets.

The free planets would have have the following:

• The interface is only in text, no graphics at all. (To lower bandwidth costs)
• The planet is placed randomly.
• The race is selected randomly.
• There is no vacation mode.
• There are banner adverts (to generate revenue)
• Annoying bot question for every time a person tries to login.
• Account gets deleted automatically in 7 days.
• No oppurtunity for self exile.

The pay planets would have the following:

• The user can choose the interface from a selection of skins(perhaps an oppurtunity to link sidebar graphics to their own design on their webserver (eg like gal banner?) or can choose to have just text if they wish.
• The user can select their race.
• The planet is placed randomly or randomly with upto a group of 3-5 friends.
• There are no banner adverts.
• No annoying bot question for every time a person tries to login.
• The account never gets deleted unless its for cheating or own will.
• Oppurtunity for self exile.
• Other extra things?.

The portal would also need to be re-designed and updated frequently.
The portal should have special access for P2P accounts and restrictive access for free accounts.

Free accounts get access to news, a stats site like pilkara/sandman and the most recent creators hour log on portal etc...

Pay accounts get more access than free accounts such as a pilkara/sandman stats site that has extra stuff thats not in the publicly available db dump, full archive on creators hour logs, better customer service, first look at previews of new rounds etc...

Pay accounts would only get access to the creators hour channel and would only be the only ones that can submit questions.

Good reliable prizes for top players and galaxies.

More prizes available for pay customers such as best pay planet in cluster x.

46% - I like the idea of additional things for those that have paid, (always have) but your trial accounts wont get people addicted. It could make a profit, but im not sure i'd invest!

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Originally posted by Scoot951
Bout 5 mins til my next class, but here's what I've got off top of my head:

1. Better Graphics, particularly some type of animation showing the battles. Not at all impossible, Droidarena had some when I was playing it half a year ago, and I hear they're even better now. Eye Candy = more customers.

2. 1 Free Round to get numbers back up. Also lots of advertising in game magazines, etc.

3. Gal mixed of private and random players (15/10, 10/10, somewhere around there). Both would have to pay when it became p2p again (which it would realistically have to do at some point), private players would pay more.

4. T3 = all for all ship types, it annoyed me when it was changed as it makes it less 'realistic', and newbies aren't too deep into strategy.

5. A Universe Map, '3-D' type deal showing locations of all galaxies/planets, can check it to see where your fleet is at, more detailed eta system.

6. Protection against bashing/some way of making it so you don't have to go without sleep to do moderatly well. Class time, will think up genious idea for this and add it later...

38% Again nice ideas but eye candy will be just as boring as the current overview once we've seen it a few times.

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Originally posted by Eternity
Employ KIllmark within the ranks of pa crew and utilise his no doubt brilliant bot coding to operate 3K of bots that only initiate and don't build fleet thus avoiding the annoyance of newbieish ****s whining when u attack them, gives the old guard a roid boost and makes raping and pillaging easy and fun.

5% Im sure the bots would become self aware and cheat their arses off eventually

[-o|DarkJedi|o-]

Originally posted by gzambo
just a thought but why not run the main game as a free one and in conjunction with that run speed games that are p2p for the more serious gamers
an example would be

1. free round lasting 3 months

2. 3 p2p speed rounds within those 3 months with the owners taking feedback from those paying to play regarding stats,time of ticks etc


in order for the game to survive it needs to be free and random to increase the player base
the alliances can play it out between themselves within the p2p games to see who is the best and the main game can continually bring in more players

PS the speed rd option on p2p is only an option the p2p can also run in real time like the main game

25% Its one of many methods needed to generate income, but sadly not enough to keep the business running and more importantly you motivated to keep up the hardwork!