A minute of your time!!!

[Smudge]

As with all my threads, if your going to flame after reading this, please move down the line and let other people contribute normally.

Now I havnt been around IRC on Netgamers that much recently, the odd 10-20 mins here and there, nothing too much, due to a new job for the summer, college work before getting the job, and the poin that, which this thread will say, is Planetarion, unfortunate as it is, is dying.

Karmulian leaving is a point in this, and the information we are given in return is helpful, but also proof.

----
Kal is co-manager of the Mentor team that assists new players and alliances as well as one of the multihunters.
Xontas is joining us as a multihunter.
----


Agreed, multis are bad, but there are players out there who are innocent but found guilty. Surely making new multihunters are closing real players who have been caught in a net which they not to have been in? For example, Dave and Mindy could live together. Dave is an HC in an alliance called Example. He shows Mindy the game, she likes it and signs up. She also joins Example, and she and Dave go roiding. End result? Dave and Mindy are closed. Playing in "Packs" is about teamwork and friendship, as people get to be together - PA is trying to stop this

Continuing on, there are two phrases which do not seem to apply in Planetarion, but which apply in the real world

a) Too many cooks spoil the broth - with regards to multi hunters and to people who do work / code, opposed to other people

b) If it aint broke, dont fix it - with regards to the portal. I loaded it up and I almost cried!!!!

The organisation and communciation between Jolt and Planetarion is awful too. This strechs back over a year ago to i16 in Newbury, England. Planerarion Round 10 was to be debuted there, but for some reason or another it didnt show. Also, the Rep between PA and Jolt, to my knowledge and idiling in public channels is afk - last time I personally saw him talk was at the most recent Speedgames - maybe someone can say they've seen him talk in public more recently? Eg #planetarion?

The game needs to be sorted out asap, or it, like the Titanic which had so much promise, will sink Because at the moment, playing PA Offline is far more entertaining.

[Blixxard]

it's same old input, and with the same old input same old reply, with the same old reply same old output, with the same old output is the same old input.

[newt]

I raised the point about that "multying" situation in #mentors one day. Let's just say the people with power in PA are ignorant do-gooders. I often aliken them to the liberal democrats (in england); sure theyre full of nice lovely wonderful ideals, but ultimately if in power would **** over the country (or in this case PA :\)

I also aliken multying to racism - they're both terrible and everything, but racism has gone so far now that 'pro-racism' is a much bigger worry/problem for most people. Oh and please no flames about me saying multying and being racism are just as bad as ane another (people like you shouldn't be allowed forums accounts)

[Smudge]

One way to address this situation of the power of people in PA is to have an election of sorts, for an appropriate representitive to sit on PA Team and make sure REAL input from players is inputted into the game, rather than ignored

[Shev]

Originally Posted by Smudge

One way to address this situation of the power of people in PA is to have an election of sorts, for an appropriate representitive to sit on PA Team and make sure REAL input from players is inputted into the game, rather than ignored

This is an invitation for accusations of bias. Why on earth would you want someone from an opposing alliance supposedly making sure your issues were being heard? And don't say that someone neutral could be voted in - everyone in this game with the notoriety to be voted into such a position will have alliances and friends they will be said to favour over others.

Your idea is a 'lite' version of the PA Senate - and idea which has been suggested on many occasions yet never taken off - mainly for the obvious reason that it would just turn into another forum for flaming and manipulation.

[Kal]

we talk to our jolt rep regularly.

the portal may seem a bite bare and pointless atm, but from our point of view it is significantly better than the old one (admin stuff and potential)

multihunters are not evil people, we do reopen people if they convince of us their innocence etc.

the jobs of xontas and myself may be mainly to do with multihunting but we also help out in other areas e.g. support issues, bug finding, game development, etc.

I amy also add that this round prooves the game is not dead. This is the first round where there has been an increase in paid planets - and the number is still increassing.

[Smudge]

Surely thou the Jolt rep should talk to the players as well?
A King listens to his subjects and his people

What sort of percentage are re-opened?

And what basis do you draw upon this having more accounts being paid for? Since beginning of P2P?

[JonnyBGood]

As compared to last round one assumes. I don't think many games have 180k planets (I hesitate to say users) anymore.

[newt]

Originally Posted by Kal

I amy also add that this round prooves the game is not dead. This is the first round where there has been an increase in paid planets - and the number is still increassing.

Lets be fair, its only gone up because of 'fury' coming back and a lot of old people who have nothing better to do during hte summer. I know of 11ppl personally who started playing again for the first time since r9, and they're finding the round shit (apart from one, maybe 2 :/)

[biffy]

With regards to my own involvement with PA I'm in the PA Team irc room daily to respond to anything they need me for and play alongside a few of them in 1:1, all be it not with great results . I don't idle in #Planetarion much because I have plenty of IRC rooms open as it is with my main focus being on QuakeNet, although I do from time to time pop in. If anyone needs me they can get in touch via mail ([email protected]), thru these forums or by messaging my nick "biffy" if I'm online, as Forest did today to raise an issue which I then discussed with the PA Team members who were around. I do check these forums frequently every day to look at any game issues.

On the subject of multiying I believe we have 4 or 5 multi-hunters which, for game with many thousands of players, doesn't seem excessive, especially with most of those multi-hunters having other responsbilities. When you are dealing with the vagaries of the internet in any game tracking down cheat is difficult and this is true of being a multi-hunter in Planetarion. Sometimes mistakes will be made but if we are proven wrong we'll make every effort to correct them.

The portal is something we are aware needs worked on and have future plans for this. The old portal needed replaced with something better but a lot of what Karm had planned for this new version of the portal was tied into the "new" version of Planetarion itself which meant that it had to be scaled back significantly for use with this round.

Compared to the halcyon days of Planetarion with 180,000 accounts it would be quite easy to say the game is dead, but as Kal mentions this is the first round since pay to play was introduced that paid accounts have increased in numbers and by several hundred when compared to this stage of r10.5. We know there is a lot of improvement still required though and Spinner + the members of PA Team are working on ways we can make things better for future rounds.

[Smudge]

Originally Posted by biffy

With regards to my own involvement with PA I'm in the PA Team irc room daily to respond to anything they need me for and play alongside a few of them in 1:1, all be it not with great results . I don't idle in #Planetarion much because I have plenty of IRC rooms open as it is with my main focus being on QuakeNet, although I do from time to time pop in. If anyone needs me they can get in touch via mail ([email protected]), thru these forums or by messaging my nick "biffy" if I'm online, as Forest did today to raise an issue which I then discussed with the PA Team members who were around. I do check these forums frequently every day to look at any game issues.

Surely thou you should be in #planetarion, since this is the main room for the game. And also, if your a PA rep, I dont believe there is much of a PA presence on Quakenet

Originally Posted by biffy

The portal is something we are aware needs worked on and have future plans for this. The old portal needed replaced with something better but a lot of what Karm had planned for this new version of the portal was tied into the "new" version of Planetarion itself which meant that it had to be scaled back significantly for use with this round.

Again, if you had read above, if it aint broke, dont fix it. In my course at college which I just completed, we had an HCI unit, and we analysed how things worked with regards to how things are grouped. The old portal was very effective, as it had the menu on one side, and the "action" buttons at the top of the page. The new page has spread it out on the two sides

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Newt

Lets be fair, its only gone up because of 'fury' coming back and a lot of old people who have nothing better to do during hte summer. I know of 11ppl personally who started playing again for the first time since r9, and they're finding the round shit (apart from one, maybe 2 :/)

the gain is bigger than for 1up alone. next round meassures should increase it further as well.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Smudge

Again, if you had read above, if it aint broke, dont fix it. In my course at college which I just completed, we had an HCI unit, and we analysed how things worked with regards to how things are grouped. The old portal was very effective, as it had the menu on one side, and the "action" buttons at the top of the page. The new page has spread it out on the two sides

the old forum was broken maybe not from a player perspective, but from an admin one it was next to useless. More content will appear on the new portal over time.

[Smudge]

Kal, arnt you reading what your quoting?
I said nothing about the content of the portal, I was saying about the layout of the portal with regards to buttons etc

[JC]

Originally Posted by Smudge

Agreed, multis are bad, but there are players out there who are innocent but found guilty. Surely making new multihunters are closing real players who have been caught in a net which they not to have been in? For example, Dave and Mindy could live together. Dave is an HC in an alliance called Example. He shows Mindy the game, she likes it and signs up. She also joins Example, and she and Dave go roiding. End result? Dave and Mindy are closed. Playing in "Packs" is about teamwork and friendship, as people get to be together - PA is trying to stop this

I cant talk about specifics but in my time as a PA team member i never saw anyone wrongly accused of cheating. The problem is people tend to decide to believe the player and their excuses over the word of PA team who have all the proof of cheating. I have also seen many occasions when it is blatently obvious that people are cheating but they arent closed because PA team doesnt have quite enough proof to make it a concrete case.

Myself and Newt lived together a year or 2 and both played PA. Our planets interacted frequently on both attacks and defence but neither of us were either closed. You can either look at that as the multihunters being blind or you can see it as them realising its 2 people sharing an IP and not just closing them for that fact. I believe its written in the rules somewhere that you cant be closed for IP duplication alone?

a) Too many cooks spoil the broth - with regards to multi hunters and to people who do work / code, opposed to other people

You cant expect 1 or 2 people to cover the whole universe. I agree in many cases PA team and associated PA groups do use too many people and just hand out jobs for the sake of it, but from my experiemnce the multihunter team isnt one of these cases.

b) If it aint broke, dont fix it - with regards to the portal. I loaded it up and I almost cried!!!!

Way too much time is spent messing with the portal when it is hardly ever used.

The organisation and communciation between Jolt and Planetarion is awful too.

When i was there the communication between Jolt and PA team was just as bad. Hopefully its improved by now but i somehow doubt it.

Also, the Rep between PA and Jolt, to my knowledge and idiling in public channels is afk - last time I personally saw him talk was at the most recent Speedgames - maybe someone can say they've seen him talk in public more recently? Eg #planetarion?

To be fair it should be PA teams job to communicate with the public not Jolts. Jolt just tgive the nod on what can or cannot happen.

The game needs to be sorted out asap, or it, like the Titanic which had so much promise, will sink Because at the moment, playing PA Offline is far more entertaining.

People say it every round. PA has been dead since r3 according to forum posts.

Originally Posted by Newt

Let's just say the people with power in PA are ignorant do-gooders. I often aliken them to the liberal democrats (in england); sure theyre full of nice lovely wonderful ideals, but ultimately if in power would **** over the country (or in this case PA :\)

Thats bollocks. The people in PA team dont actively try to destroy PA, that would get them out of a job that they do because they enjoy it. Why else would you spend 6, 7, 8, 10 hours per day doing things for the game. What they do may not always be the right decision in your eyes but they didnt make that decision in an attempt to piss everyone off and ruin the game.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Smudge

One way to address this situation of the power of people in PA is to have an election of sorts, for an appropriate representitive to sit on PA Team and make sure REAL input from players is inputted into the game, rather than ignored

People constantly go on about "Players ideas being ignored" the strange thing is this really isnt the case, if anything PATeam have spent too much time worrying about trying to please the vocal players needs rather than ensuring that the needs of the game are met. All too often decisions on the games direction are made where the number 1 considertion is "How can we not piss the players off" which results in good intetions being watered down so much they become useless, ideas that would have enhanced the game being totally dropped and features which dont fit in with the direction of the game being implemented.

Now quite simply this isnt how a game should be produced as it makes balancing the game almost impossible because as much as we would all like to think we understand this game and could do spinners job ultimatly we clueless. We have no idea how our fantastic idea really fits in with the game structure or what side effects it has or simply how difficult it would be to implement the idea without requiring a major rewrite for it to be remotly viable. As such it really is debatable if more direct player input is really needed, in fact id say really that what the game actually needs is for it to be treated like a game thats new and has no players which would allow them to design a game that works and is fun. That isnt saying that we cant as potential customers put our point and ideas across as everyone needs inspriration just the team shouldnt be trying to force features into the game or cutting features down just because we 'demand; it

As for saying we should be able to vote people onto the PAteam, thats just laughable. Who do you seriously think would be put in charge in this situation, people like those running the top alliances whom obviously have the most people to call upon when it comes to voting. These are people whom arent independant, arent unbiased and have their own agendas. You will basically end up with a PATeam made up of people of simerlar lines of thinking and agenda because they are from the same kind of PA Background which simply isnt good.

Good decisions simply require both sides to be considered and then a decision made using this info to take the project in the right direction based on whats best all things considered not on our personal opinion that doesnt take others situations into account. Its bad enough as it is where PATeam has so few people from oppososing PA backgrounds that there views are often brushed over let alone take it a step further like you want which would no doubt fill PAteam with just one type of person.

After all lets be honest how many people like myself whom are from the 'lower'' player background and are strong 'lower' player supporters would get in in such a vote. We dont have the same alliance member numbers to get us voted in as those in the top alliances have and we dont have the same vocal community of lower players whom are willing to get involved in game politics that the bigger players have so we wouldnt have the same numbers to call upon from outside our alliances and we certainly wouldnt get bigger players voting for us as no-ones going to vote for someone whos instandtly going to try and make it harder for you . So the only way such people could compete with the bigger players for a place and hence ensure the other side is heard would be if there was so few runners for the smaller players and so many runners for teh bigger players that it ended up with small player voting being concetrated and big player voting spread very thinly.

So while the makeup of PAteam as it is isnt ideal I really do think its a better situation than letting us vote in PAteam . Thats also not saying I think PAteam should stay as it is, I would like to see them divesify a bit, i know it can be appealing to go for simerlar people as yourself when choosing a team as it makes things easier but its not always best because it gets too one sided

[newt]

Originally Posted by JC

Thats bollocks. The people in PA team dont actively try to destroy PA, that would get them out of a job that they do because they enjoy it. Why else would you spend 6, 7, 8, 10 hours per day doing things for the game. What they do may not always be the right decision in your eyes but they didnt make that decision in an attempt to piss everyone off and ruin the game.

I'll assume you didn't eat your wheetabix this morning :/

believe it or not the liberal democrats don't sit down and write their policies in an attempt to ruin the country either ..... Maybe i phrased it badly "if in power would **** over the country" = "if in power would (without knowing it) **** over the country"

[JC]

Originally Posted by Newt

I'll assume you didn't eat your wheetabix this morning :/

I very rarely have wheetabix, its too much messing around to make.

believe it or not the liberal democrats don't sit down and write their policies in an attempt to ruin the country either ..... Maybe i phrased it badly "if in power would **** over the country" = "if in power would (without knowing it) **** over the country"

No matter what PA team do they are always in the wrong. The game is never going to get back to what it was and it was the large player base that made PA what is was. So we are left with a load of cynics that moan about the old days and how great they were compared to then so the current PA team must be shit. They never mention they still complained back then about PA being shit. It seems PA has always been shit and always will be, its a wonder anyone plays it .

As Wakey said, PA team tend to do what the players ask for yet get abused when its implemented and goes wrong.

[newt]

they do what the bunch of do-gooders on the forums ask for :/ or just listen to players who still think the game is wonderful. Ok, the rest of us mostly just keep re-iterating "this game is shit" not very constructively ... but thats because we know our complaints fall upon deaf ears

e.g., treating new players exactly the same as the elite. PLAIN ****ING STUPIDITY YOU MORONS IN PA-TEAM!!! unless its cheating on a very grand scale. Whether you cheated or not in your past, new players to the game without any contacts are just bound to cheat (at least a little) until they think to themselves "woah, this game is teh win, I'll start playing seriously"

If PA-team were judges that 100yr old who killed his wife would have been given a life sentance :/

[JC]

Originally Posted by Newt

Whether you cheated or not in your past, new players to the game without any contacts are just bound to cheat (at least a little) until they think to themselves "woah, this game is teh win, I'll start playing seriously"

I cant believe i'm replying to this but anyways.

So you want new players who cheat to just be ignored and left to carry on. Without even bothering to ask the question 'wtf should they be allowed to break the rules if others cant' the following points jump to the front of my mind:

• What classes as cheating that can be ignored and cheating that is not allowed even for new players?
• How do you know who is new and who isnt? It wouldnt be too hard to create a new email address, P nick and use a proxy to change your IP and appear as a new player so that you can gain the advantage of being able to cheat.
• When does a new player stop being a new player and how do you keep track of this? After 1 or 2 rounds? When they get into a big alliance? When they start to understand 1337 5|o34|<?
• What regulations are going to be in place to stop an alliance of cheating new players from winning the game, or at least being one of the most dominant alliances around.
• If a loyal long standing paying customer loses all his fleet to a cheating new player what compensation will (s)he get if any? Or do they just have to accept that they have had their round ruined by a cheat for the good of the game?

I did have some more points but you've disrupted my line of thinking by talking to me on MSN.

*thinks*

• Why would a new player who has been allowed to cheat for however long suddebly stop cheating when they are told they are no longer a new player. It will have probably become second nature by then.
• If they then get deleted for cheating after this arbitary line beyond which no cheating is allowed, what reason would they have with sticking with PA. I imagine most would just give up.
• Why would the current 'old' players accept that new players can cheat and they cant. It may well drive more of them away to other games.

I do agree with the point i think you were trying to make that its practically impossible for a new player to PA to get into the game and get hooked. However, i dont think thats because PA team or anyone has particularly done anything wrong. The dynamics of the game and general 'structure' for new players hasnt changed since when we started. The only real thing that has changed to make it so hard for new players is the size of the universe. Back in the day when we started there were 180k planets, and we were way down at the bottom end of that. I can remember aiming to get 5 million and was over the moon when i hit it. I thought Geoff was a god because he was on 10 million, even though the big players were way over the 100 million mark at that point. We tended to get left alone by the big players because it wasnt worth attacking us for the amount of roids we had. We just had fun attacking and defending against players of a similar size to us, and the game was easier to get into find alliances etc.

Then the universe shrunk. The number of available roids in the universe decreased so much that the top end players had to look at the new players to find easy roids and thats when the game became ridiculously hard for any new planet as they were just bashed continuously.

To be honest i cant see that changing. The way PA is designed needs a huge universe, and thats never going to happen until somebody gets round to creating bit planets. EVen the mentor team wont save new players.

[Wandows]

Originally Posted by biffy

Compared to the halcyon days of Planetarion with 180,000 accounts it would be quite easy to say the game is dead, but as Kal mentions this is the first round since pay to play was introduced that paid accounts have increased in numbers and by several hundred when compared to this stage of r10.5. We know there is a lot of improvement still required though and Spinner + the members of PA Team are working on ways we can make things better for future rounds.

However.... it would be nice if Jolt starts to realise this game can't survive on paid planets alone. We need more players in general, and the only way to achieve that is to have decent free accounts instead of the crap ones you provided us with so far (and to my knowledge this subject has been addressed with Jolt, but you only seem to think about instant money instead of long-term )

[newt]

Originally Posted by JC

I've turned into one of those people newt hates :'(

hmm. I cheated when I first signed up (just by signing up 3 accounts or so and picking the best) - if I'd been deleted I would never have continued playing. Once I'd decided PA was a fun game - ie, got myself on IRC, realised cheating was shit through that community - hey presto I stopped.

Treating new players to a game they know nothing about by the same set of rules as the experienced ones is like treating children by the same set of rules as you would adults.

Its retarded.

And cheating shouldn't be ignored by the "small planets" - but PA-team should be able to look and think "thats serious cheating - he's closed" ... or "that's harmless cheating by a new player - i'll send him a warning"

Another shit rl example: at school, if you're caught cheating in a GCSE exam, you'll be severely dealt with (tis serious cheating isn't it?) - if you're caught cheating in a mid term exam you'll just get told you're a naughty boy.

And this is just one of the minor problems in PA :/ Just glancing through the AD forums you can see plenty more. Time for a reshuffle in the hierarchy if only because 99% of the paying customers have lost all faith in them to apply common sense let alone brain power.

[JC]

Originally Posted by Newt

Once I'd decided PA was a fun game - ie, got myself on IRC, realised cheating was shit through that community - hey presto I stopped.

Originally posted in Newt's signature
[23:50:54] <@Spinner> congrats to the first MORONIC IDIOTS who were cuahgt multiing in the beta, well done

[newt]

yeh jc, private beta to test stats etc Everyone that was active in my channels on IRC knew i was cheating etc. if you're even nearly comparing that to cheating in proper PA .... and anyway, my motives were sound:

"that was bloody funny in the beta cheating ot make sure id beat mitre in the last time he was ever playing pa .... my farms kept getting fk loads of defense ... then the one time i was about to get through, i was closed"

"i was almost in tears controlling 3 accounts in 1min ticks to no reward"

[Smudge]

Whatever happend to the old Quests? Eg build this and get 4k resources, attack someone and get 4 roids?

[Dark-Strider]

yeah those were good ideas i thought. Helped the new players quit alot as it taught them the basics.

Bring back Quests!

[Smudge]

Maybe 2 types of account - vet and newbie, with the newbie accounts having far greater information on display with quests. Maybe a recommended research / building button? They implemented this well in NwN.