Marketing or 'A Free Planet Wins the Round'

[are]

Well, I was told the winning planet of r20 is an unpayed planet.
I am personally quite annoyed by this and I heard others being annoyed by this as well.

However, that's it for the negative part in this post.

An unpayed planet winning the round. I hope someone told Jolt marketing department about this. And hopefully Jolt marketing department is on the move now and does marketing to enhance the palyerbase of Planetarion.
If they don't do it, perhaps at least the Portal Editors write it on the portal in big, big letters.
And as obviously less people will be willing to pay just to not achieve what a payed planet can, perhaps Jolt can fund the coders a bit to implement an alternate method of getting the bills payed. I suggest pay-for-features, e.g.
- Auto-Defcall-Reporting for your planet via an IRC-Bot to your alliance, via email, via SMS
- 4th slot
- Changing Missions while Mission in progress, mainly fake defence to real, fake attack to real attack
- Further enhancing Missions to order returning fleets to attack/defend elsewhere (enables evading fleet catches, higher frequency in attacking/defending)

Regards,
_are_

[bintara]

that is a nice idea but i doubt Jolt would spend money for that

[Felagund]

no more xp

[Nadar]

Originally Posted by are

- Changing Missions while Mission in progress, mainly fake defence to real, fake attack to real attack

Something for those who oversleep

[bintara]

Originally Posted by Nadar

Something for those who oversleep

agreed , totally

[are]

Originally Posted by Nadar

Something for those who oversleep

Yes, e.g. for those. The suggestions i mentioned are of the kind I assume to be easy to implement and nonetheless considered really helpful by many, but not vital to consider not playing without these features.

[Rc mayhem]

The principle of an unpayed planet should not be able to win a round is correct. This round the difference between free and payed was far too little. The ideas you have come up with are rubbish. Far better is to modify the current functions of the game rather than add new ones.

[are]

Originally Posted by Rc mayhem

The principle of an unpayed planet should not be able to win a round is correct. This round the difference between free and payed was far too little. The ideas you have come up with are rubbish. Far better is to modify the current functions of the game rather than add new ones.

Depends on the view.
More restrictions to unpayed planets will eventually make more people that already have an unpayed planet (aka are already players) paying. It will make others stop playing, in no way it will attract new players.
An unpayed planet winning the round. Wow. Go, play this game, you can check it out. it is free. No money lost if you try and you have a real chance to be #1, at least the possibility is not really lower than that of the average payed planet.
If marketing doesn't use this, they are stupid.
Your comment suggests the opposite: slap all new players and tell them they stand no chance anyway as the game is not designed to let them win. No new players for you, sorry.
As I started in my preface, ofc there are people pissed by a free planet winning, but this post is not about you or me being pissed, it is about how PA can use this 'accident' to get new faces in. And as a direct result, how to make some money anyway as obviously running a game like PA costs some money, or at least someone would love to make some money by running this game.

Regards,
_are_

[jerome]

Originally Posted by Rc mayhem

The principle of an unpayed planet should not be able to win a round is correct. This round the difference between free and payed was far too little. The ideas you have come up with are rubbish. Far better is to modify the current functions of the game rather than add new ones.

sorry what? the ideas he came up with are EXCELLENT

i endorse this product/thread

[Rc mayhem]

Originally Posted by are

Depends on the view.
More restrictions to unpayed planets will eventually make more people that already have an unpayed planet (aka are already players) paying. It will make others stop playing, in no way it will attract new players.
An unpayed planet winning the round. Wow. Go, play this game, you can check it out. it is free. No money lost if you try and you have a real chance to be #1, at least the possibility is not really lower than that of the average payed planet.
If marketing doesn't use this, they are stupid.
Your comment suggests the opposite: slap all new players and tell them they stand no chance anyway as the game is not designed to let them win. No new players for you, sorry.
As I started in my preface, ofc there are people pissed by a free planet winning, but this post is not about you or me being pissed, it is about how PA can use this 'accident' to get new faces in. And as a direct result, how to make some money anyway as obviously running a game like PA costs some money, or at least someone would love to make some money by running this game.

Regards,
_are_

It depends how you see free planets. You seem to see them as alternative playing options which lack small features but can be extremely playable. I see them as a way of showing them what the game is so next round or later in their first round they pay for it. I resent the feeling that if you pay you are subsidising a free account and this would probably lead me to not pay for my account.

Marketing should pick up on this definately.

I am niether bothered nor surprised a free planet won.

Originally Posted by jerome

sorry what? the ideas he came up with are EXCELLENT

i endorse this product/thread

My opinion differs. I see them as a short list of additions that come up time and time again but are rejected for various reasons. In his list of 4 I dont like any of them. But that is what this forum is for.

[furball]

Originally Posted by are

I suggest pay-for-features, e.g.
- Auto-Defcall-Reporting for your planet via an IRC-Bot to your alliance, via email, via SMS

This would be a great advantage for players who paid for this option, for the obvious reasons. Is it fair that these players have such an advantage?

Originally Posted by _are_

- 4th slot

Too powerful. A planet with this would be more likely to be able to run his base fleet when attacked, or would be able to launch a lot more attack/defence missions. In the era of 3-fleeting, this hardly seems like a good idea right now.

Originally Posted by _are_

- Changing Missions while Mission in progress, mainly fake defence to real, fake attack to real attack

Simply removes all risk from the game for some players. Sending defence when you don't know if the call will be covered? No problem, just get online 7 hours later and change your defence to fake!

Originally Posted by _are_

- Further enhancing Missions to order returning fleets to attack/defend elsewhere (enables evading fleet catches, higher frequency in attacking/defending)

Incredibly powerful. A very active upgraded player would be invunerable, so to speak. They couldn't be fleet-caught, they could switch targets at a whim to roid an undefended planet (simply recall from your previous target and set a new target elsewhere), they could send defence on tens of calls every day. How would that be fair on people who couldn't afford to upgrade?

[XelNaga]

I always saw paying for the account as donation to support PA. And I think that's the way it should be. The best way to attract new players is to say "it's free!". As long as we have the paid/unpaid system, they can't do that. IMO paying should give you some kind of credits, and you can spend them on some additionnal features, like some of those are suggested. But nothing that would give an advantage in game principles, like a 4th slot. Only stuff that would (theoretically) be possible with free accounts, too.

[Phil^]

its a business, not a charity.
The more paid planets are devalued by giving free planets their advantages, the less reason there is to buy an account and the faster pa will crash into the ground.

[XelNaga]

I don't know in what time you live, but nowadays, you don't make money on the internet by asking them for it. You make it through advertisement and visitors. With only a fraction of PA's old playerbase, Jolt would most certainly make more money. But it would mean risking a period of no guaranteed income. And most regular player would pay for the extra comfort features. With an increased playerbase, that alone would already be more than the few people that pay now.

[JonnyBGood]

You need short, memorable enough ideas to advertise effectively. Being able to tell people that despite the fact PA is pay-to-play now the old PA is still there, but if you upgrade you get more cool feature and added options above and beyond what Planetarion once had.

[are]

The post I wrote had been about this great possibility for marketing we have just now after this very round.
At least the first part. The second part is how to make money nonetheless.
If the pay-for-feature features I named are to powerful or not depends on the people playing. The aims of these features is to reduce frustration and reflect the changed playerbase we have in my opinion.
Active Players in active alliances: active buddy pack, incomings get reported anyway, they get called to FA-scan / evacuate their fleet and probably spend a good deal of their time calcing attacks/defence and strategies. The very top of PA-world consists of these players, but probably this is not even the full of t100, the rest lacks at least one of the possibilities. Most notable probably a buddy pack that reports their incomings.
But after the incomings are reported, it is just the same for the top players as for the rest: they have an active alliance and galaxy to cover them or they have not.
The SMS/email/report feature therefore is just to give more people the ability to play a decent planet that is less frustrating when waking up in the morning and find all ships gone to the hostiles that appeared right after you went to bed. People loosing their fleets that way had been very common in earlier PA, todays they are mostly extinguished from the player base.
The 4th slot is exactly meant for that, a possibility to save your ass despite your alliance demanding at least 2 of your slots. And if you are active enough to use it to attack/defend with 4 slots, fine with me.
The mission changing possibility: Ofc the ETAs are still as if you launch from home, it just speeds up the game. Check the 'I only have internet at work' player: 8h work day, perhaps internet in the evening as well to some extend. If they can reschedule the fleet now and then and have more than 1 action per day, or at least the possibility is great. Now to def or attack multiple times a day you have to be one of those online the whole night (for most players, feel free to give me stats telling me wrong) in an alliance actually having JGPs and JGPing your targets early, recall, resend (elsewhere).
In short: while not modifying the tick speed, it speeds up the game.

The concerns furball posted I don't regard as valid as they are based on the assumption only very active people should have any advantages which is just not in any kind reflecting the playerbase. Just try and get hold of a top alliance HC at 3am, 8am, noon.
And fleet catches are the most annyoing thing to me anyway. Anything possible to make them happen less often is very welcome to me. Most people that quit that game frustrated had been frustrated because they had been the target of fleet catches while their alliance was unable to fight it of. But if you seriously think that fleetcatches are the most important part of the game, just get a maximum total travel time ('fuel tank') and perhaps you should get a planet and play PA once in a while.
JonnyBGood: I won't interfere with the overall marketing strategy, but missing this occasion to do marketing with a very short and very memorable statement would be plain stupid.

Regards,
_are_

[Ceadrath]

Originally Posted by Phil^

its a business, not a charity.
The more paid planets are devalued by giving free planets their advantages, the less reason there is to buy an account and the faster pa will crash into the ground.

As i see it this is the main problem with the paid/free account difference.

On the one hand you can increase the playability of free accounts as we've seen in this round so that they are capable of winning, which is fine and dandy if you want to encourage new players to be able to play competitevly.

At the same time however you manage to piss off the paying member base who then ask themselves is it really worth it to bother paying for an account when it's possible to do well without doing so.

Now this may see like pointing out the obvious, but the experienced players who pay for a or several credits each round are the ones that are capable of running alliances, the ones that for the most part have the skills and put the effort into maintaining alliances that are pretty much at the centre of the pa experience.

It seems to me atm that the game is going in a direction that alienates the very people that the game needs to make it successful, and the reason that many players still play for.

From a marketing view therefore pa team needs to make it's mind up about what it wants, to say that you don't need to pay to play? somehow i don't think jolt would be too pleased about that.

What we have atm seems to be that the only useful features missing from a free account is the bp and engineering aspects, the ones used by alliance players for the most part. This forces those that want to contribute to an alliance have to pay for the game, whilst those that don't won't have to.
( i realise some of this is generalisations, but it's how it seems to me.)

We end up with a situation therefore whereby players that have a potential long term benefit to the game are being disillusioned and turned away from the game, something thats not viable for much longer.


i guess i could have made a thread about some of these points as they go a bit off topic but this seemed the best place to put them

[Kal]

When I register PA on all thoose voting sites etc. I register it as a free game with premium pay-for features (if thoose options exist).

R21 will should see some extra pay-for features.

[Veil05]

Originally Posted by jerome

sorry what? the ideas he came up with are EXCELLENT

i endorse this product/thread

Indeed, F-crew in "shock" non-supportive post.

i think there is some good idea's in this post esp. one where u can issue new orders to returning fleets, however, totally kills off the "fleet catch" tactic.

[furball]

Originally Posted by are

The concerns furball posted I don't regard as valid as they are based on the assumption only very active people should have any advantages which is just not in any kind reflecting the playerbase. Just try and get hold of a top alliance HC at 3am, 8am, noon.

You're acting on completely the wrong assumption. I don't believe that activity should be the be-all and end-all of Planetarion - I'd far rather prioritise skill, strategy and tactics over anything else. If the game's latest mechanics mean that that requires activity, then so be it. If they don't, then I see no reason why the winning player must be the most active.

The introduction of pay-for-features, such as those you propose would change PA from a game where the most skillful player wins (or should win) to a game where the richest players compete amongst themselves.

Take Planet A, who has a non-upgraded planet that they've paid for themselves.

Then compare them to Planet B, who has upgraded in all of the possible ways: Planet B is SMSed, and his alliance is notified, every time he is under attack. He has four fleet slots and so is able to attack much more often, as well as send escort fleet and pod fleets separately. He can change his missions whenever he wants, eliminating a lot of risk from the time-management of his round (e.g. being online to pull defence). He is able to use his returning fleets on new missions, cutting his fleets' travel time essentially in half.

I'm keeping one variable constant: both players are equally active.


Now, tell me this: which planet is more likely to succeed in Planetarion? The answer's easy - Planet B, by miles. The upgrades represent significant bonuses to his planet, enabling much more score to be accumulated in a shorter period of time.

Then answer my final question - is this the type of game we want? This would be a game dominated by the wealthy elite - those who can afford the upgrades to their accounts. You'd be whittling down the number of players with a (realistic) chance of winning from a few hundred to less than a hundred. Would these non-upgraded players stay, left in the knowledge that they have no chance of competing against fully-upgraded players without increasing their own real life financial means somehow? I don't think they would.

[LordBlackheart2000]

Originally Posted by are

- Changing Missions while Mission in progress, mainly fake defence to real, fake attack to real attack
- Further enhancing Missions to order returning fleets to attack/defend elsewhere (enables evading fleet catches, higher frequency in attacking/defending)

Regards,
_are_

1. This would be far to powerful due to if your attacking to then scan see you got defence coming in, and then changing your mission to fake attack, means you would never get caught unless u really overslept, wheres the fun in that, all you would be doing is wasting alliance defence ships.

2. Now thsi showed some promise if it was somewhat modified as such:

If when ur fleet is returning home it has the ability to redirect for defence reasons only & the eta would be based on your eta to home & home to target.
So that if u have to defend in gal which would normally be eta 5 but your ships are still eta 6 from home, then u could re-direct but with eta 6, If however your only eta 4 from home it would take you eta 5 still to re-direct in gal. Hence you always take the longer eta.

Though I'm unsure if this would still be to powerful a tool but would probably be very useful none the less.

As for the Free accounts i would suggest that during the round you reduce max roids to 500 & not 2000 (theres not enough player base for 2000 to be effective) Reduce Constructions down to 50 & not the current 100 plus the other restrictions this would make it slightly more worth it to upgrade should you wish to compete at the top, while still allowing freebies to compete in the earlier stages and get a taste of the round.

Cupelix

[Rc mayhem]

Originally Posted by furball

Then answer my final question - is this the type of game we want? This would be a game dominated by the wealthy elite - those who can afford the upgrades to their accounts. You'd be whittling down the number of players with a (realistic) chance of winning from a few hundred to less than a hundred. Would these non-upgraded players stay, left in the knowledge that they have no chance of competing against fully-upgraded players without increasing their own real life financial means somehow? I don't think they would.

I completely agree with you that these ideas are far from good, despite what anyone else thinks. The situation you describe has happened in ManagerLeague where only around 30 players put enough money into the game to buy their div 1 position and only 6 or 7 can actually win a round. This sucks badly. However, that game survives because of the league structure giving all players targets. If these ideas were to be introduced some form of multi level score targets would be required, and how you create that system I have no idea. Without it though I don't think you are fulfilling your aim of making free accounts playable and to what ever level "winable".

[are]

Originally Posted by furball

You're acting on completely the wrong assumption.

I play PA, you don't. Might give a hint.
I have not said 'make it more expensive', but 'give different reasons to pay'.
And don't tell me you need to be wealthy to afford a current PA account when you obviously have a computer, a internet flatrate and are out being drunk every weekend. At least this is how the usual alliance member I have seen is stated. Rarely anyone is on dialup (which is mostly more expensive anyway) and the biggest problem with paying is the accepted payment methods, not the amount.

However, I still miss the marketing using the situation. On the other hand I have to assume a lot of people would dislike marketing based on the comments i see above.

[Kal]

I'll add some more comments:

The current approach with regards to paid and free accounts is this:
- It should be theoretically possible for a free account to win - this has been domonstrated - note bare in mind that this is a team work game - so perhaps the free account wouldn;t win if only working with other free accounts
- Free accounts should be able to compete with paid accounts - this has been demonstrated
- It should be easier for a paid account to compete - yes free accounts should be able to compete, but it should require more work - paying makes things easier and gives more control over the planet e.g. engineering
- We will be adding more micromanagement type things to PA - a large amount of theese will probabaly end up being paid only features (at least in their most complex form)
- Paid accounts should get access to more "fun" things than free accounts e.g. crazy skins

Now its possible the balence wasn't quite right last round - but I think its hard to judge over just a single round.

I hope that clarifies things slightly.

[are]

Originally Posted by Kal

I'll add some more comments:

Seems everyone focusses on the 2nd part of my initial mail. Will note that for further mails. 1 thing at a time. All I wanted to suggest is use this event of a free planet winning for marketing issues.
Especially on these MPOG voting sites and portal.
No matter if someone likes of dislikes the competition a free planet can do or can't do, a free planet won and this is an event that should be used for marketing.

Regards,
_are_

[Kal]

Originally Posted by are

Seems everyone focusses on the 2nd part of my initial mail. Will note that for further mails. 1 thing at a time. All I wanted to suggest is use this event of a free planet winning for marketing issues.
Especially on these MPOG voting sites and portal.
No matter if someone likes of dislikes the competition a free planet can do or can't do, a free planet won and this is an event that should be used for marketing.

Regards,
_are_

I think the best way to go about doing it is to incorporate it into the announcement about next round that will go on thoose sides. Something like:

Planetarion: Revenge of the free accounts

Round 20 saw the return of comeptive free accounts to Planetarion - this was clearly demonstrated by the round's winner having a free account.

Round 21 will see the resurgence of free accoutns within the game continue along with several exciting new features. Signups open on XX and the round starts on YY.

For more details check out www.planetarion.com

Now I know thats hardly snazzy and needs a lot of work, but I think its a good starting point.


Other options would be to have some PA banners made that incorporate the theme of free accounts doing well - ofcourse the issue there is finding places to put them...

[Phil^]

Of course that can be spun the other way.
Planetarion: If a free planet can win, why bother paying?

I would suggest not making a huuuuuge issue of it, It needs mentioning but dont dominate the annoucements on the fact

[Kal]

I disagree - from attarcting new (or returning players) the most important factor is that they can do very well without paying. Once they have signed up it is then our job to give them additional compelling reasons to signup.

We are confident in our income predictions for this year - the game needs more players, whether they pay or not isn't the biggest issue right now and we are confident that paid account numbers will continue to be high enough to support the game.

[Phil^]

You saw it at the start of this thread, paid planets are ( apparently ) annoyed at the fact a free planet was able to win.

This is the tradeoff which is necessary if you want to make it more feasible for free planets to do well
Either they do , and those who paid are annoyed ( and may end up either leaving or simply not paying next time ) or they do not do well and those who were dipping their toes in the water dont bother returning.
Both situations are bad, and unfortunately there is no real middle ground however i would consider alienating the core of the playerbase who pay, and play round after round worse then risking that someone might not hang around after playing a little while anyway.

Lets face it, the days of browser based games are coming / have come to an end - long term sustainability is unfeasible since new people would rather play something more exciting then pa. Something which is played on a console and not on a browser.
Prioritising new people, over those who have remained loyal seems silly to me - and annoying those loyal players even dafter

I give pa a year or so, maybe 2-2.5 at the outside for the length of its lifespan remaining regardless of what positive initiatives are taken. Negative ones will obviously only shorten it

edit: afterthought.
Something you could try to do, in order to mitigate the annoyance is to offer those who paid for an account in the round the exclusive opportunity to use one of their credits in a special setup, like another world cup.
More fun events like that ( and i mean a lot more events of that nature rather then a simple one-off a year ) is one alternate way to inject a little bit of enjoyment as a reward for the loyalty of players

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Phil^

edit: afterthought.
Something you could try to do, in order to mitigate the annoyance is to offer those who paid for an account in the round the exclusive opportunity to use one of their credits in a special setup, like another world cup.
More fun events like that ( and i mean a lot more events of that nature rather then a simple one-off a year ) is one alternate way to inject a little bit of enjoyment as a reward for the loyalty of players

I quite like that idea. Currently sg's special events, world cups etc are free - it woould be very interesting to make them only free for thoose who have had a paid round inside say the last year - (note this might not be possible immediatly as the EULA might need modifying to allow data retention for this purpose)

[furball]

That's a good idea there Phil/Kal, I like it.


However, I generally disagree with Phil's suggestion that PA won't survive. I simply don't believe that's true - because such predictions have been made many many times before, and none of them have come true yet. Yes, a number of changes need to be made, but Jester and Heartless have come up with some superb proposals for what would probably be PAN3. Implementation of these, combined with advertising of these changes (whether paid or internet-based), would go a long way towards giving Planetarion a stiff kick up the arse, especially with regard to player numbers.

[Gio2k]

PA will not die. It will not go back to over 5k players either in my opinion. The best way to make money is to keep a very playable free account but give paid accounts more than just engineers and skins.
A fourth slot just for ingal defense would be good, not too powerful.
Paid planets receiving random lucky events, like some asteroids or resources.
An ingame-alliance feature telling the alliance that a paid member has incomings is also something i would advocate.

[Sebos]

this prolly should be put in suggestions but it is related to this thread in a way.....

if being able to change missions mid mission for example on return launch at a new planet then a way to counter act the powerfullness of such a move could be to re-introduce fuel therefore if a planet does not have enough of a certain resource to change the direction of the fleet then he can't. Or if the player only has enough to get to the planet but does not have enough to return then the ships get captured by the planet he attacked.

[Rc mayhem]

Originally Posted by Dryph

this prolly should be put in suggestions but it is related to this thread in a way.....

if being able to change missions mid mission for example on return launch at a new planet then a way to counter act the powerfullness of such a move could be to re-introduce fuel therefore if a planet does not have enough of a certain resource to change the direction of the fleet then he can't. Or if the player only has enough to get to the planet but does not have enough to return then the ships get captured by the planet he attacked.

Fuel would have to be implemented in a better way than before though as a handful of Eionium roids used to give a huge surplus so there was never a risk of running out. Maybe it could work as a construction but I don't know if the surplus possibility can be reduced to a playable level.