Right. First I'd like to say that I used to play this game, from R2 until R9.5 and I've also played several rounds of PIA as well. With the exception of a couple of weeks for the Elysium reunion tour R14 I havent played since PAX began.
Anyway, when reading for exams a while ago, I tried killing some time and stumbled across these old forums again, and noticed a new round was coming up and decided to play.
Basically not having played with this new PA formula before I started reading through the forums and start up guides etc, and I had RL friend of mine is HC of Rock so he got me a nice spot there, and I was happy to see some old faces from Elysium there as well.
Anyway, due to start up guides etc I was able to get a decent start, and spent most of the first 100 ticks in T100. All the while I felt it was very generic and really boring compared to 'luck of the scan' as it was previously, which imo was alot more fun.
Round went on, my gal did fine, was attacked several times but Rock provided solid def for the most of it, however, getting 4-5 waves saw some waves going through.
Nonetheless, I gradually lost interest with the game. Went on some attack runs and got easy roids etc, but, in honesty, I just didnt find it any fun as I used to with old pa.
So to my actual point of posting these things;
I was a noob in this game. Much was new, and I'm sure I dont know even half of what I should've done still. Although I was a noob, I was lucky enough to be in a good alliance and galaxy who looked after me and tried making the round as enjoyable as possible.
What troubles me is the fact that these are rareities for a new player, which will then result in mass bashing and that you'll never get a 'fair chance' when you now receive multiple waves of incs everytime. Also, this may be subjective, but when the start up now is SO generic and outright boring new players will lose interest.
Also I found many of the new features in this game confusing, even though I have several rounds of experience from these type of games.
All in all, I am not surprised that this game has such a small universe. Nothing about this game in its current state is noob friendly.
I read a Q/A with the creator of this game, Christian "Spinner" Lassem today, regarding his football game project.
He was asked; "You guys had Planetarion, and now you have ML, how are you able to make these games such big successes?" He replied " The most important thing is that you have a game good enough for others to suggest for other people they know ". Planetarion was like that once, it is not anymore.
PS: I'd like to say a big thanx to ROCK for being a nice community and letting me play with you this round, and also my galaxy. For once its actually appropriate to say: "Its not you, its me".
Signing off, Tri