New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

As you all probably know by now, OMAC or something just bought Jolt.
If you havent read about it yet http://www.planetarion.com/news/news...iness-as-usual
the info given is there. And at that site more info about the new owners.

So then, how will this affect us?

Will we fianlly get some owners who will care at all about PA, or someone whos willing to sell it ( plz )? Or will it be business as usuall with promises told and no promises held?

I m for one am positive, as it clearly cant get any worse.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

I am almost optimistic, as you say, can it get any worse?

Jolt have been running this game into the ground, with having an interest in the game that can be compared with the interest you have with the contents of your toilet bowl after taking a dump.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

I think PA also falls under that header?

Beyond that, I couldn't put it better than Kargool just has.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Realistically if they've actually been around online gaming a lot as that article claims then they probably played PA at some point and they'll probably be surprised to find out it's still running.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

i dont want to get my hopes up :(

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Hopefully it means good things for Planetarion. We're reviewing all the games we have links with, be it by ownership or hosting, and examining how to improve them. If anyone has any specific suggestions for how they would like to see things improved then feel free to contact me via email - [email protected] .

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Lets start a r28 predictions thread!

I predict nothing will change.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

does this mean that you, and the rest of the Jolt crew will continue in your jobs, doing little or nothing - or will there be new guys hired to actually do something?

Nothing will happen as long as there isnt changes done and money invested.

The only hope I have is that while going through planetarion, they discredit it as being shit, and are willing to sell it. Now might be the time for Spinner to contact them to see the chances of rebuying PA.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Well it can't get much worse than the current situation, can it?

I find it amusing that biffy is asking for suggestions to improve things. Jolt has always taken a laid back approach towards Planetarion, letting PA Team run things instead of putting in a little bit of effort and taking an interest. It isn't much to ask is it? The company who owns the game should actually put some effort into running the game!

If you want to improve things, take an interest in Planetarion and the community or get someone else at Jolt to do it. Posting in the forums every 5 months or so isn't much of an effort. If you (as in Jolt) want Planetarion to become more successful then you have to put in the effort, you can't let a bunch of volunteers direct your game if you want it to be as profitable as possible.

Get more people involved as well. I don't think any of us expect thousands of pounds to be spent on coders or designers, but the fact is that the people who are currently involved with Planetarion don't have as much time as they used to. New blood and some fresh ideas are needed to bring the game forward, unless you recruit people then this is never going to happen.

I personally don't want things to be "business as usual", OMAC/Jolt should be pushing for changes to improve this damn game.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

There's always hope...

Now lets see if the new owners do something or if they take the same approach as Jolt did with PA... Letting it die very slowly.

Like so many ppl said before me in this thread, it can't possibly get any worse!

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

The announcement reposted by Cin on our forums, is exactly the same as other news announcements on the interwebs, so ofcourse there is nothing Planetarion specific. Business as usual just means the servers won't go *poof* ( http://forums.jolt.co.uk/announcement.php?f=1235&a=118)

OMAC's interests are Persistant Browser Games, so ofcourse that means Planetarion as well as the other games related to Jolt.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

I'll bet Planetarion is about as irrelevant as chinese squat toilets to these guys.

Since that's been Jolt's outlook from day one, I highly doubt anything will change.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

I'm not sure to who you mean when you say "rest of the Jolt crew" but of Jolt's staff only two members have regular contact with the game, myself and Adam who is our Head of Operations, and that is only as part of our duties in the company.

The new owners will most likely have different goals for Planetarion than was the case previously and that will dictate what level of investment there is in terms of time, money and other such resources. I would agree that there has not been enough investment over the last 3 years, for example it is only recently that we can began paying someone regularly to work on the game. That has resulted in visible improvements and hopefully will provide a solid platform for moving forward.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Are you saying that the PA team who has been saying that none of them have been paid all these years actually have been lying?

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Up until about 3 months ago no current member of PA Team had ever been paid for any of the time they had spent on the game. Kloopy was briefly paid for a time but he stopped working on the game due to ill-health and he is no longer a member of PA Team.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

So, who's currently being paid for PA?

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Is this why whoever is in charge of PA Team isn't trying to get any more people? Keep everyone else out, say that nobody else wants to help and then get paid for running this joke of a game.

I could understand if significant improvements were coming, but it still looks the same as it did before. :rolleyes:

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

I cant see any improvements.

Surely hes only being payed fk all anyway, and its part of the NDA to not say how much, so then jolt can claim they are actually investing in pa..
sigh

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

id imagine whatever their getting paid for the work their doing is insignificant compared to the amount of hours they've actually put into it, regardless if it appears as if nothings changed.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

All this anti Jolt stuff is bullshit. Jolt put investment into the game at the start only for US the community to piss it all away with our downright awful and elitist attitude that drove hoards of potential long term players away

Until Everyone of us actually opens our eyes and realise we are as much to blame for the games downfall as anyone and start to adjust our attitudes from "Whats best for me" to "whats best for the game" the game is doomed

So stop using Jolt as an easy scapegoat, sure they could have probably done more in some areas (and been less heavy handed and suffocating in others) but they are no more or any less culpable than PATeam and the community. And as a business No-one is going to invest money into something that's not going to make the investment back because the playerbase ultimately pulls in the other direction when it comes to getting and keeping new players

We need to show we are willing to be part of the solution not part of the problem, especially if the new owners are considering investment

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

fking bullshit.
tired of people blaming us, the community. People aint evil like u may think, and most actually put time to get new players into the game.
Thing is though,that pa isnt as intersting as it was when we got hooked.
Nothing is changing, and the changes done are mostly making it worse.

Where the Fk were the HOARDS of possible longterm players? PA looses a few players each round, its not like we ever ( recently ) had hoards of players, and most of them were old players or people returning.
Nothing has been doen to advertise the game to new players. How can we scare away what isnt there?

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Power to the people, I'm black and I'm proud!

Oh wait, wrong thread. Back on topic, let's just throw some numbers around for sec. There are ~1500 paying customers for PA at the moment of which ~300 are active on the forums. (I am being deliberately generous here, no need to correct me.) In the case that OMAC wants to expand the game I feel it is safe to say that anything these people say should be completely ignored. We are irrelevant; the last, bitter dregs at the end of the wine bottle. Wakey is the bits of cork making things even worse. **** us. If they want a real game they'll come up with their own ideas about mass-marketability and accessibility and apply them regardless of what anyone here thinks. If they are conservatively thinking of even 10k new players then what matter if you lose 300 veterans? In the online gaming business there is no room to consider the last few stragglers at Thermopylae. I sincerely hope that in OMAC's mind we are already dead and a new game arises from the ashes, so to speak.

If they do start listening to people here and continue to apply the same cosmetic changes then things obviously aren't going to get any better. Primarily because they won't be any different.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

It's up to Jolt to maintain their game in the best possible way though.

If you signed up for an MMORPG which wasn't getting anything new, what would you expect to happen? Players won't be too happy, nor will they be too enthusiastic about the game. The players might stay around for a while, but that's probably about it. If you want your community to be excited about your product then you have to make them excited - they can't do this by themselves.

Nobody is bothering with community management and it shows.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

And we can see who's getting paid by Jolt? Glad to see you back flaming the forums Wakey.

In all honesty, I have to disagree with you, as much as you'd like to blame the community for the games failure, you should consider one thing that is important to any company that provides something for customers, that in the end game, if customers isnt happy, then you need to do something about your product!

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

But if the customers actively work against the company (which is what Wakey is claiming), then making any investment at all is going to have as much effect as trying to grow a money tree. In that light, it's totally understandable Jolt never really did anything to improve the game.

That said, I doubt we intentionally tried (and continue to try) to do this. If anything, the total cynicism among the current PA player base is as much a result of Jolt's lack of involvement as it is the cause.

As Achi mentioned however, this cynicism (at this point the cause is irrelevant) means that even if Jolt were to announce a set of changes that would push the game to 10k players a round, then the current player base is going to scream bloody murder, because that kind of change would mean the end of PA as "we" like to see it.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

This is the end.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

I don't think anyone is particualrly at fault for the demise of PA. In a sense its a nautral decline as other technologies gained in popularity.

Could things have been done differently? Probably. Would it have made a difference? maybe.

Fashions come in circles though. maybe this type of game will become more popular in the future, maybe the new owners will be the ones to do it. Who knows, its early days, time will tell what the new owners want to do with the game.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

I would recommend everybody to send an email to the new owners telling them what you think about PA, and urge them to take an intrest in the game.

[email protected] is their email.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

It seems that PA has some fantastic opportunities for growth.

Taking advantage of 'Web 2.0' sites like facebook: Being able to log in over facebook and play it like warbook would probably lead to a surge in players. Taking advantage of increased mobile internet access. And of course it's a game you can (often) play at work/college/school too.


I think there's still a potential market for PA.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

translate everything to spanish and especially to the most popular chinese and hindu dialects. I bet you such an effort, would at the very least, double the # of players. And all it should take is to hire a translator for a couple of months, or give free credits to community players willing to take on the task.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

SO does anyone actually think that the new owners will be positive after they have read the PA Forums ?

This forum is 99% negative.

Everyone complaining in this post, please use the delet my account button.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

What I hope is that the owners are reading and they finally put in the time to put in the development this game clearly deserves.

This game is crying out to become more accessible, to be played on mobiles, through social networking sites and the like. The attraction to planetarion is the sheer amount of teamwork required, and the larger the universe the more depth that can be added to the game for everyone to enjoy it.

Regardless of how the game is run and whatever disagreements I have, I think we have a good game right now. What planetarion has always needed is marketing and a chance for some of the players who really understand the game to be given the opportunity to contribute to improve it. Whether the new owners have the motivation and more importantly the money to want to do it, no one knows.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

constructive criticism tends to become anger and negativity, yes even hostility after years of being neglected.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

I agree with Achilles here.. If they try to care about the remaining players, they are doing something wrong.

They should appeal to all the new players they could get (that is if they even know PA exists)...

I repeat, do not listen to the remaining people on the forums!

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Maybe, I personally just think they should advertise for the game..

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

I agree with Gate here, facebook would be a great opportunity and, I think, wouldn´t be so hard to code. Easy access to a game if you´re already spending time on facebook would be great. And it would give players something to do on a specific site while waiting for the ticks, without steering them away from the game.

Mobile internet is comparable to the early internet, when looking at connection speed and hardware power. This second boost of internet users would be perfect for a browser based and low data transfer game such as planetarion. And it would be even better for those of us that have to work and can only access the game on their mobile.

Those two ideas Game gave are just two examples of focused marketing, not changing the concept of the game.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

If we were to get a surge in players from advertisements, there's a few things I think would have to be done to make sure we retain some.

Firstly, improve access to scans for new players so they can actually play a bit of the game. Shorten protection so they are less likely to get bored/distracted. Simplify the stats tables so they're more accessible. Improve ingame alliance tools so new ones are easier to set up. Increase or remove the current alliance membercap so new players have somewhere to play.

I'd also recommend getting a permanent account or passport type thing that keeps a record of your achievements for public consumption (with the ability to earn 'medals' or 'achievement points'). You can put money into this account and each time you choose to play a round as an upgraded planet, you can spend a little of that cash.*

First round with each account might be free or discounted. A normal round might be £3. Speedrounds could be run - eg 10 second ticks for the length of a normal round would be a speedgame running just over 3hrs. Charge less for these games (eg 50p) and run a load of them.

Getting 5,000 paying planets seems plausible, giving an income of £75k/yr from 5 rounds. If you run 104 of the previously mentioned speedgames with an average 100 players per game, that's another £5k. Extra players would also increase the value of adertising revenue. This looks feasible at first glance and would justify more investment.


*if OMAC have various browser games, it could be a passport for all of them. Like having an XBox live account.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Hold on... Wait...

Is someone paying Wakey for something?


I'm confident you have sufficient spam filters to block the possibly incoming spew of elaborate art pictures dedicated to mostly naked little Asians belonging to a sexual minority.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Now Omac has purchased Utopia aswell..

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

This is interesting.

What I'd like to see is some work to build a single community for all the broweser based games. Perhaps combined forums, "passport", etc.

(theese are my personal views etc.)

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

IMHO at the mo everything PA related needs to stay as isolated from the rest of Omacs stuff as possible. There purchases really do strike me of the 'buying' sprees of the later 90's and early 00's and its a little worrying when you think back to what happened to all the firms that went through the purchasing trend.

If everything gets too integrated if everything does crash and burn it makes salvaging the parts harder. Would be better if before anyone even thinks of integration that things are just allowed to settle down

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

we need someone to talk some sense into them. somebody with streetcred - like JBG :high:

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

seriously though we should they give a ****. bad prognosis for future revenue? hm that might work. force some adds on us and go free. or we could set up a trustfund. ill throw in fifty cents yo.

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I'll donate even thought I dont play:)

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

I'm sure i got some cash saved somewhere...

Freedom costs a buck 'o five!

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

back to topic: Has anybody from PA even had a talk with somebody from our new owners?
Quite frankly I don't believe our old owners (hi jolt) would have anything to say in our best interest since they never once did something in our best interest in the time they were our owners...

(they probably still are our owners but now they're owned too!)

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

I actualy wish they would just delete the forums, the game, the address and just wipe it out of my memory, or make the game as it once were.
Though i dont know if i would find any motivation to play the game again anyway.

Re: New Owners of Jolt - PA
 

Hey guys,

I'm Jamie and I work for Omac. I've been reading the forums with great interest and you'll be glad to hear that I played Planetarion when it was first released in 2000 and am happy to be working with it now and have been catching up on it over the last few weeks.

Things are going to be business as usual for the meantime, and I'll be back soon with more details.

Jamie