F-Crew and friends seek defensive allies and recruits

[Neferti]

Two of the oldest Planetarion alliances, F-Crew and IPC, made a deal shortly before the round started; since we're both quite small alliances, we decided to join forces under the F-Crew tag (simply because that was made first) for purposes of strength in numbers.

The deal is that our two alliances retain independence within the tag; both alliances have members with HC status. The whole point is to try to make the best advantage possible of the ETA bonus that alliances get.

Since then, we have been attempting to actively recruit other small alliances to join with us. The sooner it is done, the better. If any alliance is interested, the current HCs are Eddie and Wakey for F-Crew (found in #f-crew on netgamers), and XinJin and myself (Nef) for IPC (#ipc-alliance). At least one of us should be online at most times. Please contact us if you are interested in this offer

Also, we are currently recruiting individuals. Individuals who want to join F-Crew/IPC please apply to F-Crew in game, and also contact us on IRC so we can process your application. Hope to see you soon

[wakey]

I thought it might be a good idea to explain here more about F-Crew and why we have got involved with this partnership with IPC and exactly why we at F-Crew feel that other small alliances should follow our lead and come together under a single tag. Hopefully Nef or XinJin can provide a similar post on IPC so you can all see what we are about and what this partnership is about.

Who are F-Crew?

F-Crew are an alliance created by three friends while sitting in their local MacDonald’s, talking about an online game one of them had introduced them to. One of the friends, Bazz, had noticed more and more people sitting around the Computer Centre of the 6th Form College they attended playing Planetarion and hit upon the idea that it would be good if all these people could be collected under a single banner. So The Farnborough Crew was born and before long had evolved into an alliance not just for people who went to the local college but also anyone who lived in Farnborough, people who had visited Farnborough and people who hadn’t even heard of Farnborough before. This expansion saw a new shorter version of our name being adopted to go with the less specialised nature of the alliance.

Today F-Crew is just one of a handful of alliance that remain in the game from the first round and we are proud of our status as the Second Longest running alliance in the game


What do you stand for?

For F-Crew PA has and always will be about fun first. Win or Lose we don’t care as long as we have fun. Of course doing well is nice and something we all like to do but if this doesn’t happen you won’t see us throwing our toys out of the pram. This focus on fun spills into the alliances whole belief system, we don’t believe that our enjoyment should hinder others enjoyment, if we attack someone we will do so in an ethical manner that will leave the planet with the resources to continue having fun. We do not subscribe to the win at all cost attitude which had breed a culture of bashers, farmers and cheaters in many alliances and has led to the mass exodus of the smaller players from the game.

We at F-Crew also feel it’s our duty to stand up against the people, actions and features which have been detrimental to the games development and we will not back down in our fight to help make this game a more enjoyable place for the small.


I'm New around here, why haven’t I heard of you?

While most pre Round 5 players will know the name of F-Crew and know what we are about those who joined the community after this may not have heard of us. This isn’t that we haven’t been around its but as the rounds have gone by its got increasingly harder for alliances like us to survive. In the first couple of rounds we established ourselves as a fairly major player, we weren’t quite at the level of the top two but we in a smallish pack of alliances snapping at their heels. However with each passing round after this the game became more favoured towards the "win at all costs" alliances and when Pay to Play was introduced it was a major blow as it cut off one of our primary recruitment channels which has made keeping the alliance going each round a struggle. You may ask why do we continue fighting what seems like inevitable doom and the answers quite simple really, we still feel we have a lot to offer the game and feel that if our members were to disappear from the PA community there would be no-one left to fight for the rights of the small


So what are you trying to do?

As a small player this game just isn’t fun anymore. The game has shifted so far in the favour of the big that you don’t stand a chance of having any fun without membership to one of the top alliances. With PATeam seemingly unwilling to help us by bring the balance closer to the centre again to make the game fairer we are forced to take action. If small alliances are to get anything out of the round and aren’t just going to end up as farms for the big players we have to take a leaf out of their books and follow the 'advice' they hurl at us anytime we raise the issue of reducing the power the big alliances hold. We have to start working together

How do we go about this then?

F-Crew has already taken steps towards this with us combining under a single tag. This allows us to take advantage of the lower ETA bonus on defence that the tag gives us thus expanding the available defence we all have. We are calling upon other small alliances no matter how small you really are to get behind this movement to create a defensive partnership which removes that big red target that’s painted on all our planets.

Why should we join?

PA is a game of numbers, the big alliances have large numbers and are strong while the small alliances lack these numbers and are easy targets. We can change this, by working together and increasing the defensive pool we can call upon we decrease the numerical advantage these alliances have over us and we stop being that handful of easy 2, 5, 10 or 20 member alliances and become a larger more powerful group who aren’t as easy to push around.

But we don’t want to lose our independence and tag

Let’s first make this clear, you are not merging into us and as such are not losing any control of your alliance. What we are offering you a strategic defensive partnership that’s mutually advantageous to us all. We will not interfere with the running of your alliance, your alliance is your won business and as long as you’re holding up your end of the defence agreement we see no reason why we should stick our noses in without being invited. Of course we would always be on hand to use our experience as the two longest running alliances to dispense advice and help solve problems and disagreements if we were invited but only if we were invited. Once the round is over you will be free to walk away from the agreement as if you’d never been part of it.

As for the losing of a tag, this seems to be a sticking point with a lot of alliances and its one I simply don’t understand. A tag has one real use in the game and that’s to offer better defence times, apart from that its a few letters on a ranking chart showing how your challenging for some lowly spot with another alliance with only a couple of members. Without a reasonable number of members the defence advantage is pretty much worthless. By losing your tag your not losing anything significant yet your be gaining something of use. And I know this might seem rich coming from me, after all we get to keep our tag but please believe me when I say we were willing to give the tag up but it was IPC's decision that we should use the F-Crew tag as this was the one with the most members already signed up so would be the tag that migration too caused the least hassle. If this agreement works and carries into next round we will almost certainly use a tag that’s more fitting to the collective nature of the group.

Ok you have persuade me, how do I get my alliance involved

The above post contains contact methods for us, come and talk to us and we can advise you on the best way forward

[JC]

I dont blame you for all joining up under one tag, seems like a bright idea. My only question is how do you decide which alliance new recruits join? From what i understood they just apply straight to the F-crew tag, but then i would imagine they are filtered into the control of 1 or the other alliances within that tag.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by JC

I dont blame you for all joining up under one tag, seems like a bright idea. My only question is how do you decide which alliance new recruits join? From what i understood they just apply straight to the F-crew tag, but then i would imagine they are filtered into the control of 1 or the other alliances within that tag.

We were basically planning to leave it upto the recruits which as to which one of the alliances they will ultimatly end up in. They will initially be members of just the defence pact where there will be no pressure to join any of the alliance involved and when they feel they are in the position to decide which of the alliances suits them best (or they feel an alliance outside the pact suits their needs better) they can be recruited by that alliance. Theres a joint IRC channel for all the alliances so they dont lose anything by having no direct alligence

[JC]

Sounds like a nice idea. Best of luck with it .

[Neferti]

thanks JC, and Wakey

I'm not really qualified to write much about IPC as i've only been a member since round 6. However, no matter what people might claim, IPC has similar ideals to F-Crew; indeed, it seems to me that, while F-Crew declined, IPC has grown to fill their role of being a friendly alliance for new players and a decent, fun alliance for more experienced players. I do know that F-Crew and IPC were founded at roughly the same time (something like 1 month into round 1, which began February 2000), and that old-timers who remember IPC from those days think IPC is a bunch of incompetent idiots. This is not true. Since round 6 at least IPC has been the most well-organised alliance i've been in (not that, i admit, i've been in many; the only alliances bigger being OuZo which started in round 5, and ICD in round 2).

Basically, like F-Crew, we're looking for small alliances to help each other out. These other alliances do not neccessarily have to have similar ideals to our own. Planetarion has always been a game in which safety can only usually be found in numbers; in PaX, alliances cannot simply have a defense pact to be effective. Instead, we have to actually be part of what the game considers an alliance with each other, to gain a sufficient base for mutual defense, and perhaps even attack.

[AndroX]

heh, I thought most people disliked powerblocking. This is just a way to do it legaly

But go ahead. Wont make a big difference, I think I would have done exactly the same thing as smaller alliance or when new as alliance in the game.

[Neferti]

hmm. choice. 'powerblocking' or 'die'. let me think which i prefer...

[wakey]

I'm not sure I would use the term "powerblocking" as that kind of suggests those involved have some power which quite clearly none of the alliances involved do but sadly such actions are the only way to go. We have put our faith in the creators and PATeam to right the problems with the game that make it so difficult to play the game as a small player/alliance but they have continually bottled out of taking the required action seemingly through fear that the alliances will walk out.

What exactly are the small alliances supposed to do, continue to sit there being bashed or make a stand . We are trying to bring the small together to give them a bit better chance as theres streangth in numbers, We are trying to give the small players a voice so they arent as easy to ignore any more, and most importantly we are trying to save the game. Quite simply if the Team arent going to take action to make the lower end a better place and the Big alliances arent by standing in the way of proposed changes and changing their outlook a bit so they think not about themselves but about the future of the game then it only leaves us the small players and alliances to take action. If we can help make the lower end that little bit nicer, a place where the small players and alliances can thrieve that little bit more and where small players dont think twice about paying for it then we have acheived something and give the game a little bit more chance. Now if this means we have to block so we can work together defensivly so that we arent sitting ducks any more then so be it.

[TheShadowMan]

I wish i had a spam protector for my pa mail. Hehehe only joking Good luck in your powerblocking recruitment drive )

The_Shadow_Man

[wakey]

Yeah sorry for 'spam'. if there was a better way of getting in touch with the alliances then we would have used it (hopefully there will be next round as I've raised the issue with Karm) but atm this is the only way. And think yourself lucky, I wrote the mail and handed it off to a few none serious players who knew they were going to get attacked anyway so didnt mind drawing some attention to themselves but somehow even though they know my co-ords I ended up with receiving one myself

Ah well back to writing replies to all the responces that have been forwarded to me. I'm starting to think it would have been easier to send them from my account so I didnt have to get forwarded the replies, then write a responce and then send the responce back to the mailer to send out.

[Neferti]

hehe i got one too i asked him about it and he said he got a bit carried away

[Epcylon]

lol

Nice one.. good to see there still is some life in the PA fun-based alliances... Good luck to you, after being there at the end of ICD, I know how hard it can be to try keeping things together...

[Slinky]

should of just called it cudos and be done with it

[Assassin]

It is idd nice to see some alliances trying to still make this community great, well done guys and gud luck

[Chef!]

More people to put money into the Wakey's New Hamster Cage Fund \o/

[jimmyd]

hello i have also recently started playing again after a long spell not . and i'm woul be honered if you would let the scottish guard join your multi alliance.

we are small but want to build and have fun, which you guys seem ok. let me know.

[wakey]

I couldnt find your tag on the alliance rankings so I'm not too sure about your size but membership numbers could be a problem. We are currently close to the upper limit and anything over 5 would be a struggle to fit you in.

But if you can supply us with a bit more info about your alliance we will see what we can sort out (Members, avg score and total score for example)

[cheekybru]

Ive been playing PA since R3, and have been in most of the big alliances (WP, VTS JR, Virus, MI, RB) to name but a few, and I joined FCrew as i wasnt as active this round, what can i say other than stunning community, great defence, and not a worry in the world bout powerblocking or anything thats boring, just good honest fun, and as i said, everytime ive had eta 7 or above incs, FCrew have coverd it for me