Jolt meeting, Your questions needed.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Rumad

You already have hard coded alliances

appologies, when i said alliances i mean the political interactions between them, rather than the alliances themselves. the current coding of alliances, blatatly, does nothing to prevent blocking at all. all the various war/nap implimentations people have suggested are either ineffective or hugely abusable. yours for instance would do nothing to prevent blocking, which would seem to be a major objective

-mist

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by mist

appologies, when i said alliances i mean the political interactions between them, rather than the alliances themselves. the current coding of alliances, blatatly, does nothing to prevent blocking at all. all the various war/nap implimentations people have suggested are either ineffective or hugely abusable. yours for instance would do nothing to prevent blocking, which would seem to be a major objective

-mist

Firstly I really don't think that coding allies would be hard. I think its very easy. As for my suggestion which limited alliances to one ally I actually think it would have helped.

Apart from defensively alliances outside that agreement would be virtually useless except in an attacking capacity the fact that you have the dynamics of small grups of allies would mean that allies would hardly bother with other agreements. However you do start to control the flow of the game,

So I don't necessarily think you are correct. Also as well as that it would b fairly easy to monitor whether alliances were avoiding each other to unduly hamper the game and action could be taken against alliances on a global basis.

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by wakey

If its what you posted above its very simplistic and doesnt really achieve anything

simplistic solutions are often better and more attainable than complicated ones. You cannot avoid people actively trying to get around the rules, but yu can hamper what they do.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Rumad

Firstly I really don't think that coding allies would be hard. I think its very easy. As for my suggestion which limited alliances to one ally I actually think it would have helped.

Apart from defensively alliances outside that agreement would be virtually useless except in an attacking capacity the fact that you have the dynamics of small grups of allies would mean that allies would hardly bother with other agreements. However you do start to control the flow of the game,

So I don't necessarily think you are correct. Also as well as that it would b fairly easy to monitor whether alliances were avoiding each other to unduly hamper the game and action could be taken against alliances on a global basis.

I'm guessing you havent actually played any of the PAX rounds or bothered reading anything on them. As the game is now its a case of the only defence you can really get is from your galaxy and your alliance, without the eta bonus its hard to get ships to attacks (although the differnt eta's for differnt classes has made that easier in rnd11). Now even though this is the case guess what blocking is still an issue. All your doing is letting the big get stronger by letting them take on another big allie who has lower eta's WHILE making the smaller weaker because any allie they take on will no doubt be small also. You may as well just double the alliance member limit ffs

[Blazde]

Originally Posted by Rumad

Apart from defensively alliances outside that agreement would be virtually useless except in an attacking capacity

And it's exactly the offensive cooperation that is the problem. It takes a 30 second agreement between HC of 2 alliances, outside the game mechanics, and you have a block. These days the members don't even need to know, because command sets up the vast majority of targets.

Blocking is imo the single biggest issue in PA in recent (and infact distant) times. Unfortunately noone has come up with a solution.

[Dante Hicks]

As numerous people have stated, more geography in the game would change the way blocking worked.

[Blazde]

More geography needs more players to work properly, but (done right ) it would help yes.

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by Blazde

And it's exactly the offensive cooperation that is the problem. It takes a 30 second agreement between HC of 2 alliances, outside the game mechanics, and you have a block. These days the members don't even need to know, because command sets up the vast majority of targets.

Blocking is imo the single biggest issue in PA in recent (and infact distant) times. Unfortunately noone has come up with a solution.

Well I can't se how sorting some element of it can be abd. the attacking agreements would be obvious and action could be take on entire alliances and allies if they are found to be harbouring such an agreement. Its easy enough to impose should you be able to limit the other side.

I actually don't see whats that hard about it.

And with relation to eta's the point is it gives you similar to uni/cluster/galaxy except you have allies and alliance - possibly by ading +1 hour to attacks to allow galaxy defence or class galaxy defence as the same eta as alliance defence.

The dynamism is that extraneous agreements don't really help - hard coding for me is the only way to go - all i see is people trying to complicate what is a very simple change.

[Blazde]

What action do you propose taking "on entire alliances and allies if they are found to be harbouring such an agreement"?! And how do you propose proving they are harbouring such an agreement?

As wakey said, it sounds like you haven't actually played PA recently...

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by wakey

I'm guessing you havent actually played any of the PAX rounds or bothered reading anything on them. As the game is now its a case of the only defence you can really get is from your galaxy and your alliance, without the eta bonus its hard to get ships to attacks (although the differnt eta's for differnt classes has made that easier in rnd11). Now even though this is the case guess what blocking is still an issue. All your doing is letting the big get stronger by letting them take on another big allie who has lower eta's WHILE making the smaller weaker because any allie they take on will no doubt be small also. You may as well just double the alliance member limit ffs

no not true at all - in act you are getting alliances better chances to cover it (with our ally). I understand what u say about the big getting bigger, but in a growth game that will alwyas be an issue.

If anything the bonus eta's would give you extra avenues of defence and support. I have played pax in the rounds, but not as a hardcore player. I do see the problem but would you realisically as a big alliace attack a big galaxy. I am making an assumption here hat smaller allies wil tackle smaller galaxies and as such the likelihood is that you ae attacking a similar sized group.


If anyting I would say limiing the agreements and giving modified eta times would limit the efectiveness of agreements and means alliances have to adapt to a different environment, which incidentally would change the way in which the game developed.

Part of the reason lage alliances have such strong growth rates is because of there agreements and the ability to pull apart opposition. Yu are efectively halving the chance of that happening.

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by Blazde

What action do you propose taking "on entire alliances and allies if they are found to be harbouring such an agreement"?! And how do you propose proving they are harbouring such an agreement?

As wakey said, it sounds like you haven't actually played PA recently...

I am playing pa - so thats a no go - as for what punishment - I guess e punishment would have to fit the crime, but global removal of score and resources and ships are all possibilities. Continual and habitual misuse could be removing the internal alliance from the game completely and ensuring that the alliance is broken up. There are several ways of dealing with it, but the punishmnet would have to fit the crime.

The proof is easy enough - patterns would emerge and would be similar to multi hunting, but on a global basis. Any egit with an access database and the information on attacks could do that

[Blazde]

So 300+ players block (a very signigicant proportion of the playerbase), and the multi hunters (who have trouble at the best of times convincing the community they're being fair) have to decide how much score/ships/resources penalty to **** all those players off with, and/or break up their alliances where all their friends are. Not to mention that by the time the pattern's emerged they might have already won the round. This isn't exactly a 'simple' thing to implement.

Scenario: You yourself, along with other FAnG HC in rd 10 argued till you were blue in the face that you held no agreements with most of the other alliances in your block. If EET were punished in that situation because they were clearly blocking, would you have accepted the same punishment. Or would you have argued that it wasn't a proper block, or that it was a block of neccesity to counter EET or that it was a block but not as bad, and therefore deserved less punishment. All those are valid arguments, but who decides, and on what basis.

In the more general case, how do you tell the difference between the pattern that emerges from coordinated attacking, and the pattern that emerges when 2 or more alliances independantely decide they'll hit the number 1 alliance to stop them running away with the round.

[mist]

your ideas sound nice in principle rumad, however i'm guessing you've not been in pateam recently... :P

if the pateam is asked to make decisions based on arbitary evidence then someone's going to complain. look at multi hunting - one side swears someone's a multi, the other swears they're innocent - the hunters have to make a decision and one side's going to hate them for it...

now magnify that up to blazde's example. you have to decide if a few hundred people are going to get penalised - some of whom won't even know they're in a block. how many of them are going to be mildly displeased? how many of them are going to go play something else?

on the geography note - why does geography need more players. the whole point of geography is to give you a 'neighbourhood'. outside of that you care much less what happens, therefore as long as there's enough people to fill your neighbourhood it doesn't really matter how many players the game has, so i'd have thought geography would allow the game to continue with a smaller player base, rather than a larger one

-mist

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Rumad

no not true at all - in act you are getting alliances better chances to cover it (with our ally). I understand what u say about the big getting bigger, but in a growth game that will alwyas be an issue.

If anything the bonus eta's would give you extra avenues of defence and support. I have played pax in the rounds, but not as a hardcore player. I do see the problem but would you realisically as a big alliace attack a big galaxy. I am making an assumption here hat smaller allies wil tackle smaller galaxies and as such the likelihood is that you ae attacking a similar sized group.


If anyting I would say limiing the agreements and giving modified eta times would limit the efectiveness of agreements and means alliances have to adapt to a different environment, which incidentally would change the way in which the game developed.

Part of the reason lage alliances have such strong growth rates is because of there agreements and the ability to pull apart opposition. Yu are efectively halving the chance of that happening.

You dont give alliances better chance of covering attacks, well certainly not the smaller one. Most smaller alliance are more often than not streched to their limit when it comes to defence as it is and unless you suddenly think 1up and co are going to decide to use their one ally space for a small alliance (unlikly) then small alliances will be allied with other small alliances whom are also at breaking point when it comes to defence. The only people whom benifit are the big alliances who dont get as many attacks on their members in normal conditions and can cover most attacks anyway on their own but whom now have another 100 people to call upon in 'war' situations.

And come on lets be honest you cant decide to oulaw attacking co-operation else at some point we will all be penilised. Its a simple case that offensive blocking is neccesary at times to prevent stagnation.If theres a common enemy that is basically untouchable by a single alliance theres simply nothing wrong with a few teaming up to put themselves on a level playing field to deal with them. The problem with blocking is the more defensive type thats setup with no goal in mind other than to just sit there and consoldate power by being too powerful to be attacked. You need the ability to let alliances work together in short term missions ottherwise you can get the same stagnation situation that blocks bring if one alliance is able to pull away enough.

[Judge]

Who died and made You King of PA ?

If we want representation we will ask for it.

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by Blazde

So 300+ players block (a very signigicant proportion of the playerbase), and the multi hunters (who have trouble at the best of times convincing the community they're being fair) have to decide how much score/ships/resources penalty to **** all those players off with, and/or break up their alliances where all their friends are. Not to mention that by the time the pattern's emerged they might have already won the round. This isn't exactly a 'simple' thing to implement.

Scenario: You yourself, along with other FAnG HC in rd 10 argued till you were blue in the face that you held no agreements with most of the other alliances in your block. If EET were punished in that situation because they were clearly blocking, would you have accepted the same punishment. Or would you have argued that it wasn't a proper block, or that it was a block of neccesity to counter EET or that it was a block but not as bad, and therefore deserved less punishment. All those are valid arguments, but who decides, and on what basis.

In the more general case, how do you tell the difference between the pattern that emerges from coordinated attacking, and the pattern that emerges when 2 or more alliances independantely decide they'll hit the number 1 alliance to stop them running away with the round.

I am not saying their wouln't be issues or even complaints - but its a fairly solid way to start working towards solving these problems is to have a solution which you can then start to build upon. The question is not whether this idea is all encompassing (which incidentally you will never be able to code out someone trying to get around rules), but what you do have is a sensible starting point on which to hone and develop the way the hard coding works.

I thin what I suggest gives beneifts to alliances in allowing 1 ally, but those same benefits are not given to multiple allies and if the game is being abused then the administrator is more likely to be able to step in (that would again have t be talked about as you have to make sure that the crimes fit the punishment).

By giving no benefits to holding multiple allies you limit straight away the effectiveness of such agreements as naps. I think that this round (even though have some agreements) has shown that alliances and hc's were never keen on the large groups that developed. However if alliances and the game was structured so that it was possible to have in game agreements you would find that alliances woul fllow the new rules wihout trying to excessively break them with extraneous agreements.

Even if such agrements did become reality (naps outside normal allied functions in game), you would find that alliances on the extremities would be used at a later date so they would have to break away at a given time and as such security of co ord sharing in such arrangements becomes less appealing.

I don't think its impossible to implement what I say, far from it I think it addreses many problems that pa suffers but what it does do is give the community a basis of limiting blocks (not disposing as that is unrealistic). I also think in that situation many alliances would even consider returning as I know of two that left purely because of blocking,

As for your example your right blazde - what is doe to on group has to be consistent and on to another - I have no quibles about that as that is fair and consistent.

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by mist

your ideas sound nice in principle rumad, however i'm guessing you've not been in pateam recently... :P

if the pateam is asked to make decisions based on arbitary evidence then someone's going to complain. look at multi hunting - one side swears someone's a multi, the other swears they're innocent - the hunters have to make a decision and one side's going to hate them for it...

now magnify that up to blazde's example. you have to decide if a few hundred people are going to get penalised - some of whom won't even know they're in a block. how many of them are going to be mildly displeased? how many of them are going to go play something else?

on the geography note - why does geography need more players. the whole point of geography is to give you a 'neighbourhood'. outside of that you care much less what happens, therefore as long as there's enough people to fill your neighbourhood it doesn't really matter how many players the game has, so i'd have thought geography would allow the game to continue with a smaller player base, rather than a larger one

-mist

As previously stated - I have said that its by no means perfect and yp thre wul be poblems wih imposing punishment. Bu you make one big assumption here in hat punishment WOULD be necessary. By limiting in game and taking away a lot of benefits from those sorts of agreements perhaps your assumption is wrong?

I could belittle your condesending remark about "you aven't ben pa team recently" but i wont. However, you can't brush ideas like this aside - its implementable and yep there are a few problms but thee are with everything that is introduced and at least this directly tackles with th issueraher than trying to tip toe around the extremities of a problem.

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by wakey

You dont give alliances better chance of covering attacks, well certainly not the smaller one. Most smaller alliance are more often than not streched to their limit when it comes to defence as it is and unless you suddenly think 1up and co are going to decide to use their one ally space for a small alliance (unlikly) then small alliances will be allied with other small alliances whom are also at breaking point when it comes to defence. The only people whom benifit are the big alliances who dont get as many attacks on their members in normal conditions and can cover most attacks anyway on their own but whom now have another 100 people to call upon in 'war' situations..

Firstly you are give a better cance of covering your mmbers. By using an alliance other than yur own you can get outside assiance a a lowr eta which presentl yu dnt have. By giving yur alliance an even lower time you allow you mmbers time to launch to help defend. I am sure yu wont be able to stop all incommings but hat s th nature of the game is it not? Even when I was FAnG hc rund 100% coverage most nights was impossible.

I d disagree that small alliances though cannot be organise enough to compete. Anyone who was in Blackdeath at te start of oun 3 would also agree to this, because we did that.

Originally Posted by wakey

And come on lets be honest you cant decide to oulaw attacking co-operation else at some point we will all be penilised. Its a simple case that offensive blocking is neccesary at times to prevent stagnation.If theres a common enemy that is basically untouchable by a single alliance theres simply nothing wrong with a few teaming up to put themselves on a level playing field to deal with them. The problem with blocking is the more defensive type thats setup with no goal in mind other than to just sit there and consoldate power by being too powerful to be attacked. You need the ability to let alliances work together in short term missions ottherwise you can get the same stagnation situation that blocks bring if one alliance is able to pull away enough.

I am not saying there would not be grey areas - ever law has "grey areas" because by the nature of attempting to define somethin you are trying to se limits. Individuals will always try to use those limits to th best of there advantage.

The problem with blocing in my view is there is no attempt to limit its effectiveness - the only way to do that i limit what you can do with one ally, give some benefits and make blocking with other parties pointless. I think in what I suggest you are doing that. If there was one all encompassing solution it would have been found by now, but by adding something like this yu can limit agreement effectiveness and attempt to stymy the process.

[mist]

i'm not sure what you're going to achieve by making it easier to ally with one other alliance... it'll just mean that blocks tend to be of even numbers of alliances. how is this a solution to anything?

-mist

[Synthetic_Sid]

Wouldn't getting ETA advantage to one another alliance simply allow alliances to have double the members - by having 2 wings (or a main and recruitment alliance) that were allied? Other than that I can't see it changing anything - most "blocks" cooperate primarily in terms of attacking and the suggestion does absolutely nothing to address that. If the vague concept of punishing alliances for cooperating other than with their official ally is meant to address blocking, then why bother this -ETA thing at all? Why not just rely on some equally vague concept of the admins deducting score/roids/ships from any alliances who form "Unfairly big" blocks?

Relying on wishy-wasy statements of admins deciding which alliances are/aren't unfairly blocking will only achieve one thing: a plethora of complaints about admins punishing or not punishing alliances perceived by one party or the other to have blocked fairly, unfairly or not at all.

[Blazde]

Originally Posted by mist

on the geography note - why does geography need more players. the whole point of geography is to give you a 'neighbourhood'. outside of that you care much less what happens, therefore as long as there's enough people to fill your neighbourhood it doesn't really matter how many players the game has, so i'd have thought geography would allow the game to continue with a smaller player base, rather than a larger one

Because the neighbourhoods have to be a certain minimum size to support a varied and interesting gameplay. If it feels small now with a few thousand players (and it does), it'd feel much smaller when only a small fraction of those actually matter to your round.

Also, if everything is localised and players are still distributed randomly, you risk destroying the alliances that are holding the game together, because your alliance mates are on the other side of the universe, and there isn't a large enough player base now to form temporary localised alliances. You could go a long way clumping alliances members together, but with so few significant alliances a lot would ride on the random distribution of them at the start of the round, and you have all kinds of problems with people switching alliances, alliances merging, etc. I've suggested before some elaborate, very drastic and incomplete ideas for a kind of 'dynamic geography', that would force alliances to attack other alliances of approximate size, allow limited blocking and some interesting politics. Perhaps there is something simple that would go a long way towards solving things, but I can't come up with this silver bullet even after months of thinking about it.

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by Synthetic_Sid

Wouldn't getting ETA advantage to one another alliance simply allow alliances to have double the members - by having 2 wings (or a main and recruitment alliance) that were allied? Other than that I can't see it changing anything - most "blocks" cooperate primarily in terms of attacking and the suggestion does absolutely nothing to address that. If the vague concept of punishing alliances for cooperating other than with their official ally is meant to address blocking, then why bother this -ETA thing at all? Why not just rely on some equally vague concept of the admins deducting score/roids/ships from any alliances who form "Unfairly big" blocks?

Relying on wishy-wasy statements of admins deciding which alliances are/aren't unfairly blocking will only achieve one thing: a plethora of complaints about admins punishing or not punishing alliances perceived by one party or the other to have blocked fairly, unfairly or not at all.

it is possible you coul double your mmbership, but as you know from previous rounds recruitment or wings aren't that easy if you don't have the personnel.

Essentially by having a joint agreement to ally you are entering a wing type position so that for me is a irrelevant point. Now regaring your attacking joint powers. Yep yu are correct and I would not disagree with that. What yu ave dne touh is almos created a second class ally. They cannot defend, they cannot do anything efectively apart from soak up targets so whats the advantage? Past rounds have shown that wannabes and clinger ons will fall by th way side after being abused by allies. The question is can such a move sop stagnation - I thnk so.

I won go into the whole mechanism, but if you have a joint ally the idea was that you culd se up private galaxies with that ally. However in doing so you and I know that if you have balanced galaxies your position will undoubtely be stable, but our unlikely to split before the round ends. By doing so you automatically se up a scond tier war system. Break off's wuld probably be early since dead alliances wont fight so you end up with greater dynamism.

Te only idea had coding shoul dbe use is the xtra safeguards it can bring. By comparing member co ords its easy to see which alliances are allied and which alliances are being avoided. Your right yu don't ned o use the eta benefit, but that would create he 2 tier ally system where you have your ally and the a nap.

By forcing his you add in hidden agendas of different groups and you know as well as I do yu would not trust such a person in the early par f the round in case you turned on thm early. I think it would seriously addres blocing and again I stress it isn't all encompassing - just a method of adjusting th way te game balance works. Whe yu tat wn taht road solutions to otehr areas would most probably appear, but until politics are hard coded people will jus continue to abuse the way in which the politics work.

[Zh|l]

Originally Posted by Rumad

it is possible you coul double your mmbership, but as you know from previous rounds recruitment or wings aren't that easy if you don't have the personnel.

Essentially by having a joint agreement to ally you are entering a wing type position so that for me is a irrelevant point. Now regaring your attacking joint powers. Yep yu are correct and I would not disagree with that. What yu ave dne touh is almos created a second class ally. They cannot defend, they cannot do anything efectively apart from soak up targets so whats the advantage? Past rounds have shown that wannabes and clinger ons will fall by th way side after being abused by allies. The question is can such a move sop stagnation - I thnk so.

I won go into the whole mechanism, but if you have a joint ally the idea was that you culd se up private galaxies with that ally. However in doing so you and I know that if you have balanced galaxies your position will undoubtely be stable, but our unlikely to split before the round ends. By doing so you automatically se up a scond tier war system. Break off's wuld probably be early since dead alliances wont fight so you end up with greater dynamism.

Te only idea had coding shoul dbe use is the xtra safeguards it can bring. By comparing member co ords its easy to see which alliances are allied and which alliances are being avoided. Your right yu don't ned o use the eta benefit, but that would create he 2 tier ally system where you have your ally and the a nap.

By forcing his you add in hidden agendas of different groups and you know as well as I do yu would not trust such a person in the early par f the round in case you turned on thm early. I think it would seriously addres blocing and again I stress it isn't all encompassing - just a method of adjusting th way te game balance works. Whe yu tat wn taht road solutions to otehr areas would most probably appear, but until politics are hard coded people will jus continue to abuse the way in which the politics work.

Actually, it would be extremely easy to set up a wing of players. You can share command team members between the wings - just like Fury Provisional and a whole host of other alliances. End of the day, all you need is a couple of trusted people to be HC in this 'wing'

As Sid pointed out, its entirely open to abuse. It creates far more problems than it can solve. Nothing can stop it - as long as Planetarion is a team based game and people have communication with eachother, you cannot stop some sort of politics to happen.

In the small universe nowadays, even 'allowing' one NAP/Ally could seriously bring rise to blocking and the cold war situation before rounds. Additionally, who would enforce outside game issues? So what if your alliance avoids another. Any sane HC doesn't go out to hit every alliance when they have more pressing matters to attend too (in the form of specific hostile from somewhere else). Are you saying we ban alliances having any target choice? There are just too many holes in what you propose for any hardcoded solution.

To finish off, I'm finding the current round extremely interesting. If we had your suggestions, then there would be a whole lot more moaning and perhaps a true victory by now.

[ComradeRob]

I don't think giving people either implicit or explicit 'permission' to make allies is a good idea, for reasons which should be obvious.

Adding extra rewards for cooperation is also a bad idea. The whole problem with PA is the super-effectiveness of alliances, so giving them extra advantages would only make the situation worse.

As to the idea of in-game support for NAPs/allies, I don't think it can work. It would create a regulated universe, with solutions being imposed by PA team, and in every single round there is at least one major complaint about PA team's behaviour (this round's biggest complaint so far being the Mistu/Phraktos merge). Whether PA team make the right decision or not, they'll piss off a lot of people in the process, and the game could do without that.

Instead of trying to impose solutions from the top down, PA team should be looking at further ways to encourage change from the bottom up - with XP scoring being a small step in the right direction.

[waffle]

Why is Forest doing this, and not PA-Team?

[mist]

because the pateam may well know answers to questions, but can't pass them on. therefore, if they're told to ask them what do they say?

if someone not directly involved with pa's asking, then they can ask without worry

-mist

[djcomplex]

Mist, thats absolute rubbish, you seem to have Jolt out to be some nazi style rulers censoring anything they dont like and refusing to allow "employee's" to discuss. The fact is the few PATeam members who are smart enough to think up an idea about having a meeting also realise that it will change absolutely nothing at all. But why not let Forest add a few more minutes to his 15 so you can all read the pointless irc log's of this charade giving you all something else to blather on about while avoiding the real issues.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by djcomplex

Mist, thats absolute rubbish, you seem to have Jolt out to be some nazi style rulers censoring anything they dont like and refusing to allow "employee's" to discuss. The fact is the few PATeam members who are smart enough to think up an idea about having a meeting also realise that it will change absolutely nothing at all. But why not let Forest add a few more minutes to his 15 so you can all read the pointless irc log's of this charade giving you all something else to blather on about while avoiding the real issues.

Seeing as your someone who has spent time in PATeam I'm suprised at this comment. Even before Jolt took over, what PATeam could say to the players was limited and its well known that Jolt
demand even more secrecy than before. I know when Jolt did take over there was alot of talk about PATeam having to sign NDA's for example, didnt remain PATeam for much after this so not sure what came of this but it shows the kind of secracy that Jolt are after.I would say that any PAteam/Jolt meeting would see Jolt having to be truthful but PATeam being banned from revealing the goings on where as with Forest they can just fob him off where needed

[djcomplex]

I still believe it's been exaggerated, and i still believe this is more a pr stunt than anything else.

If you've got a question about pa email [email protected] dont even think for a second that Forest taking your question to them is going to make the slightest bit of difference.

The stupidity of the general population never ceases to amaze me.

edit - my email isn't [email protected]

[cypher]

djcomplex why don't you loose that lame ass attitude?

forest is trying to help. if you don't like it fine, but stfu and don't bug others with it.
some people actually appreciate his efforts. as it's more then others have done or tried. i'm so utterly sick and tired of idiots like you all complaining about everything and nothing yet doing NOTHING to try and get it changed... now someone IS doing something, so let him.

[mist]

i was under the impression that forest was actually going to talk to someone with some authority, rather than biffy...

-mist

[Blixxard]

Originally Posted by mist

i was under the impression that forest was actually going to talk to someone with some authority, rather than biffy...

-mist

Yeah same here. Anyone on netgamers can speak to biffy if they want. It is far from the hardest task.

[djcomplex]

Please refer to the last line of my last post.

Thanks.

[JC]

So Forest had a meeting with Biffy?

Excellent .

[Tomkat]

Originally Posted by JC

I cant see Jolt sorting anything out with a player and leaving PA team in the dark, so imnsho this meeting will be nothing more than a Jolt answering Forests questions in a nice manner to please the public and be done with this 'crusade', with no real outcome from it.

[JC]

My English wasnt too great there .

Anyways, when do we get to see a log of this meeting/discussion? I cant find anything on the portsl or newsletter so i guess we are waiting for a link to be posted here........

[biffy]

JC - I'm waiting on the questions.

It's true that anyone who wants to can speak to me on irc or email, but rather than do this the majority seem to want to rant on here with their anti-Joltness that is generally based on misconceptions or some rose-tinted view on what "teh good old days" used to be like.

[JC]

Ah sorry i assumed the it had all taken place going by 1 or 2 of the responses and the fact Forest gave until yesterday to submit questions.

[Tomkat]

It's nothing to do with "the good old days", biffy.

It's the simple fact that Jolt have done next to nothing to help the game, except buy it and keep it going. They've sodded around with PA Crew/Team, with that NDA rubbish we had.

They don't know anything about the game, and don't really care about it - or so most of us believe.

JC is right. Forest will go on another crusade to rid the PA world of all evils. Everyone will big him up, and it'll work for a day or so. Jolt will go "oh, I see. We'll look into that. We'll look into that too. Things are being discussed about that. Round 12 will be much different. Wait and see, we can't reveal too much!".

Then nothing will be done, and it'll be left down to PA Crew/Team, who are volunteers, to pick up the pieces and try to make a round out of the mess they've been given, and false promises Jolt made to keep the playerbase content.

[Dogs]

well first, i personaly think rounds should last longer depending on the situation with in the game, for instance like last round, Fang and mistu was way ahead, to far to beat, so the game should last for 1 month after the official announcment of stagnation from any alliance, and games that anybody could win should keep playing until stagnation begins from what ever block, alliance etc even if it does last a year if its still a fun round it should keep going all the way. But we should be given 1 months notification and it HAS to be only after a full stagnation, this would give players in other alliances that have given up some more time away from Planetarion as a rest, which would mean they would want to come back as soon as a new round begins , the game should not be reset just cos its the better time for the PA crew, they aint playing, we are.

This is my opiniun anyway.

[mist]

the rounds need to be a vaguley fixed length so that jolt can budget for them. as such, if they're dead in the water they might finish sooner than expected, but the odds of them being extended are slim.

anyway biffy. if we're villifying jolt, how about you post the positive things that jolt has done? the initial buyout doesn't really count, as there were seemingly plenty of others that were willing to do so. what else have jolt done?

-mist

[Forest]

Originally Posted by Zh|l

Actually, it would be extremely easy to set up a wing of players. You can share command team members between the wings - just like Fury Provisional and a whole host of other alliances. End of the day, all you need is a couple of trusted people to be HC in this 'wing'

As Sid pointed out, its entirely open to abuse. It creates far more problems than it can solve. Nothing can stop it - as long as Planetarion is a team based game and people have communication with eachother, you cannot stop some sort of politics to happen.

In the small universe nowadays, even 'allowing' one NAP/Ally could seriously bring rise to blocking and the cold war situation before rounds. Additionally, who would enforce outside game issues? So what if your alliance avoids another. Any sane HC doesn't go out to hit every alliance when they have more pressing matters to attend too (in the form of specific hostile from somewhere else). Are you saying we ban alliances having any target choice? There are just too many holes in what you propose for any hardcoded solution.

To finish off, I'm finding the current round extremely interesting. If we had your suggestions, then there would be a whole lot more moaning and perhaps a true victory by now.

Sorry to quote this post but i wanted to skip over the flaming and bring things back to this very interesting discussion.
Imo, as stated, I don't believe that blocking is the problem, its more the refusing to unblock. This has been changed to some extent this round, with ppl going after the #1, and look at the difefrence in playability. No-one is immune, Everyone can get hit, and there is much more passing of roids between alliances.

The random, with no set blocks, has certanly worked so far this round (not saying it will next round), and has provided a lot more enjoyable playing experienece for a lot more ppl (except me of course, fk off from my planet!)

[Smudge]

Just out of interest, if Biffy is still reading this, are the finanicial accounts for Jolt / Sim Tech available? Eg to find out how much the buy out was, cost of running server etc? Not sure if they have been released - if they have been, please PM me on IRC or post the url here.

[Smudge]

ooh and when do we get to read the logs of the question time?

[mist]

the odds of jolt telling anyone how much it costs to run pa seems slim at best.

however, if you take a look at the cost of renting a server from them for a clanserver or something, multiply by the number of servers, then add in the cost for spinner and biffy odds are you'll get somewhere vaguley close.

-mist

[biffy]

You can view information on any Ltd company accounts via Companies House, although it costs a small fee. Anyone can do this, although the details you are looking for (cost of planetarion to run, revenues from it) are probably not there.

[biffy]

if we're villifying jolt, how about you post the positive things that jolt has done? the initial buyout doesn't really count, as there were seemingly plenty of others that were willing to do so.

If you've ever been in a situation where a company you are working for is up for sale and various parties are interested you would know what a naive statement that really is.

[mist]

being as i never have, care to explain?

that asside, you seem to have ignored the rest of the question

-mist

[biffy]

To actually buy a failed company / product, invest in it as Jolt did during 2003, keep it going even when you are losing money and then eventually turn it around is quite an achievement. To dismiss that as something any of the potential bidders at the time could have done assumes they wouldn't have let it get into the same state as that which resulted in having to be sold at all in the first place, or developed it into their own pet project which disappeared when their enthusiasm waned.

In addition to taking the game from the scrap heap to a now stable footing, Jolt has, aided by the effort and dedication of a number of PA Team volunteers, produced a speedgame series, a solid r10.5 and an enjoyable r11 (even for those of us active in 1:1) in the space of six months. Yes we need to do more and have perhaps missed some opportunities during that time but I consider the last six months to have been a fairly successful time in the life of Planetarion, something that the increase in player numbers over that time backs up.

[pablissimo]

Originally Posted by biffy

In addition to taking the game from the scrap heap to a now stable footing, Jolt has, aided by the effort and dedication of a number of PA Team volunteers, produced a speedgame series, a solid r10.5 and an enjoyable r11 (even for those of us active in 1:1) in the space of six months

Apart from supplying servers, what has Jolt actually done above and beyond PA Team? Have you pushed for specific gameplay changes? Performed any significant market research into why PA is stagnant? Funded or even just supported any off-shoot ventures into experimenting with different avenues that PA's future could explore? Brought in coders external to the project to assess the feasibility of the more adventurous suggestions put forward by the community? Even considered moving the game forwards as opposed to simlpy 'bending' the existing infrastructure to what the existing members want in constrast with what prospective members seek? Been actively promoting the game? Been actively forthcoming with developmental information, with news about Jolt's plans for the game and where Jolt would like to see Planetarion in x months time? Had significantly more community interaction beyond 'A Jolt/PA Liason posting in the odd thread'?

I disagree with some of the questions I've posed above but they have to reflect at least some of what people are thinking.

Saying that you were merely 'aided' by PA Team seems condescending and frankly rude; I would wager that almost every member of PA Team has put more into bringing PA back to some semblance of normality than have the average PA-related Jolt employee, though this is obviously mere speculation based on the information (or lack thereof) of Jolt involvement. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to how Jolt brought PA a stable round 10.5 and how Jolt brought us an enjoyable round 11, and the extent to which you were 'aided' by a group of volunteers who seem to be getting so little official recognition as to be disgusting, beyond a response along the lines of 'lol servers lol'