[DanH]

As a returning player after a few years out i'd say it's now much harder to get involved in the community aspect of the game, i remember the days of good old cluster alliances or even parallels. even non allied players would find a channel which they could join and meet people. it didn't matter if you weren't one of the elite because half of the fun was aspiring to become one. This thing where you can give advanced orders to your fleet and constructions etc as well... when was that decided as a good idea? it all just seems to reduce the amount of interactivity and participation on the part of the player, I have good memories of waiting up until 4:55 to launch fleets and to arrange defence and if i couldn't be bothered that was cool because there were alliances and attacks going on in cluster that would cater for my needs, and i acknowledged that if i wasn't going to play as seriously then my ranking was obviously going to suffer and again that was fine.
I currently don't really see any incentive or avenue for a new player to get involved in the community side of the game. the ship and race stats are far more intimidating than previously, which coupled with the forums being quieter and less discussion as to what's the best roid fleet etc or best defense against this kind of attack then a new player could well find themselves through lack of knowledge/allies to educate them building and using a selection of entirely useless ships and gaining no fun through the game. of course they could spend hours pouring through the manuals but it hardly appeals to a mass audience. Sadly, i think to get mass numbers back you'd almost need to dumb the game down a bit.