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Unread 20 Jun 2009, 12:07   #1
Kal
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Round 32 comments so far

As I made some posts at the start of last round about my first impressions logging in, I thought I'd make a new one.

Key first impression is that it looks a lot nicer, the new skins have been integrated very nicly into the portal and the game. But what about the forums? I'd like to see them updated as well. Keeping them on an old skin makes it look as though no one cares about the forums.

The new comunit is also very nice. I'd request a feature to remove personal channels from the list though, as I made one to test it which I don't want on the list. The new comunit appears to work acceptably on an iphone as far as any browser based chat system can. (For thoose that don't know iphone's can;t run applications in the background, so when you use a different app the browser based irc conneciton wopuld be closed.) Interestingly trying to change to a different tab in safari on an iphone is very slow if you are using comunit (and tabbing back als resets the irc conenction - oh well). Hopefully there will soon be some irc clients that maintain connections when the app isn't running and utilise push notifications from iphone software 3.0.

To comment further on the general experience of the game on an iphonem the game looks nice, but pages render very very slowly - i don;t think its a connection speed issue, it feels like there is something on the page that is processor intensive to render (many other web pages have this problem - e.g. www.formula1.com). Its a shame that while the new skins look nice, that they have damaged the gameplay experience on the iphone.

The new price of the game intrigues me (£5.57?) - its not a big enough increase to put me off paying which is good. But I do look at it and think its silly - its just a reallky weird amount to increase the price by. Hopefully it will have the desired affect of increasing income though.

I think in general the updates to the game will improve the take up of new players rather than hinder it, which is good, but there is more to do. While We've had a graphics/styling update to the game, the user interface is still fundamentally broken. What has been done is a kin to putting a fresh coat of paint on the wall, but not botheirng to fill in the cracks. The game's interface needs to be more intuitive, it needs ot be obvious to new players what they need to do without having to read new player guides or the manual. While I think its good that Pete is trying to get a new player guide together, I do think he is missing the point. The game should be designed so that a new player guide isn't needed. I'd even go as far to say that most players shouldn't have the need to read the manual either. Everything should just work.

In terms of changes I'd have liked to the game that don't appear to have been announced or implemented:
-I'd have liked something to protect new players from loosing their ships (e.g. base fleet not taking part in combat)
-I'd have liked some changes to quests - I'd like to the more advanced quests to give some rewards - as its at least something that the inactive players can try to have fun with

One thing that worries me about the future of the game is that Pete appears to want to attract people similar to current players i.e. hardcore players. I'm not sure that strategy will ever work, as I think anyone with any serious time to invest in online gaming is going to be playing other games e.g. wow, eve, etc. I think Planetarion's real strength is that becuase its simple, you don't actually need to be online all the time to do well - you just need to be online at the right times.

I don't know if I'll end up playing this round as I now can;t access any of the PA sites from work, and frankly I'm too busy. But I'd still like the game to continue to grow and improve.
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Unread 21 Jun 2009, 02:14   #2
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Re: Round 32 comments so far

The new skin is very nice, but the most important information is set in a small box on the right side and the most proeminent link when you login is now... logout. Though I like it very much I had to switch to 'text only' because the display of the info is more coherent.

On the homepage, the Sign Up button is big enough but there is no mention anywhere that the game is free. Big marketing failure I think and so easy to correct.

Structure Killers in pod class will change the game, but there is no debate in the discussion forum, no communication, no PA team official position... only the will of the stats creator.
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Unread 21 Jun 2009, 06:57   #3
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Re: Round 32 comments so far

I am also unsure why the figure of 5.57 was come upon. In any business you try and make the value a nice figure

So why not 4.99 (people see the 4 and totally disregard that its actually 5.00). Or even 5.49...

Seeing as its a british company who own/run it, I also doubt the actual wierd looking value is anything to do with currency conversion.
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Unread 21 Jun 2009, 13:22   #4
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Re: Round 32 comments so far

the cost is inflation related - its the same price as the £5 credit when it was installed but with inflation added i think, someone worked it out in another thread.
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Unread 21 Jun 2009, 13:28   #5
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Re: Round 32 comments so far

Love the new portal, a huge jump in appearance - was mildly disapointed that more images hadnt been placed in the rest of the game. But still the portal was the most important thing to improve to get people to sign-up and take part - hopefully this can be used as a catalyst for further change and will attract more players and revenue to fund greater improvements!
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Unread 21 Jun 2009, 14:18   #6
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Re: Round 32 comments so far

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mistwraith View Post
the cost is inflation related - its the same price as the £5 credit when it was installed but with inflation added i think, someone worked it out in another thread.
That would be 5.76
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Unread 22 Jun 2009, 02:25   #7
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Re: Round 32 comments so far

The skin is a nice change, however everything else within the pages still needs improving. Just focusing on the portal here because it's obvious that the game has too many walls of text:

- Stop chopping posts in the middle of a sentence to "view article", please edit the thing to have a separate summary and post content - not every post will need to a full summary and read more content, so stop making us read more.
- Fix the news archives so I don't have to just look through titles, should really be the article content with next/previous page links so I don't have to open every single page just to see the content.
- News is boring, too many walls of text. Perhaps you could use avatars for the person posting the content, or category icons according to which category the post belongs to? Ideally a post should use a picture where possible.
- Do we really need skin selection for a portal?
- Do we really need to see the number of online people?
- Why doesn't the "what is planetarion" page have some graphics and a sign up link?
- Surely we could have some fancy javascript/flash countdown timer for the time until the next round? Would liven up all the pages which include it.
- Top links are inconsistent between different parts of the game (portal, game, manual).

Don't just think that everything is done now that you've got a new skin - the usability of the site/game still needs improving.
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