[Monroe]

Personally I agree with you randal on the exile point, and it has been argued in many other threads so lets not start it again here. I however disagree on singificantly increasing the size of buddypacks. Every good game of any type has a good balance between luck and skill. If a game is all skill then it becomes pure math and rather boring for all but the very best. If a game is all luck then it becomes very frustating for the skilled player. Significantly increasing the size of BPs or going to a pure private galaxy format eliminates a lot of the luck associated with who ends up in galaxies. This pushes the game too far into the 'skill only' arena imo and causes a few hyperactive good players to have to great of an advantage in the game, leading to stagnation and general discontent in the majority player base. On the other side going to a pure random galaxy structure seems to lean too far the other way and leads to a lot of discontent with the core player base who wants to play with active players. The current compromise while not optimal (if indeed an optimal solution exists) does a decent job of balancing luck and skill. With the elimination of constant exiles the current BP system has a lot of strengths and should be retained mostly in tact in my opinion.