Planetarion Senate - Meeting about R10

[Sonnenbomber]

This night we had a so called meeting of the Planetarion Senate with represantatives of

Eclipse
Elysium
FAnG
hirr
IPC
LDK
NewDawn
NoS
RaH
Rock
SpaceHamsters
Seraphim
ToT
Templar
Virus
WolfPack

for an information exchange about R10.
Most important theme were the planned changes of the ally system. The reason why we had this senate meeting are this changes because most alliances/communitys are uncertain how it goes on with Planetarion and their future in this game.

Please read this log to get detailed informations:
http://www.team-sushi.de/_tot/sb/senate.txt

Thanks to [ND]ColCarp who organised and invited us to this meeting. We hope to get a constructive discussion with the creators and the PA team and have some of them in the next Senate meeting in.

Regards
The Planetarion Senate

[lokken]

define block.

[Scouse]

Haha. Go lokken.




(I'm wondering why the senate is going to work this time when it's always failed in the past).

[Sonnenbomber]

Originally posted by Scouse

(I'm wondering why the senate is going to work this time when it's always failed in the past). [/b]

We dont have any real power or anything to decid, so there is nothing what can work or not, the sense of the senate is to tell the creators and the Planetarion community what our members and we think about R10 and to make some suggestions because most of us are uncertain and want to avoid that this changes finally ruin the game. we want hold Planetarion alive, we want to play this game. so its just understandable that we want to make some suggestions and get in contact with the creators when we think that PA comes maybe on a wrong way.

[LEFF|pm]

lol :]



muuuuuhaa

[Cochese]

This is a big step in the right direction.

Ulimtately, you (we) are what makes this game...the alliances who participated make up a very substantial portion of Planetarion's customer base, and if organized into a clear voice, is a force to be reckoned with.

All the advertisements and trial rounds in the world won't keep the game running without the existing alliance communities--the lifeblood of Planetarion.

It's about time you all realized just what that means, and did something productive with that potential, instead of just complaining about changes round after round.

As is usually the case with such things, it took the impending metamorphosis of Planetarion as we know it to motivate this movement...one can only wonder how things would be now, if this had happned much sooner.

Be aware of the power which your voices, together, will carry...and use it wisely. There probably won't be room for error.

Good luck.

[mist]

[23:25] <[FAnG]Benne> im also concerned at the 1 alliance policy that the have got in the ingame alliance system4
[23:26] <[FAnG]Benne> it makes a hard decision for every member as he said wether to play with para or alli
[23:26] <[FAnG]Benne> which could well break every alliance up
[23:26] * Nem3sis has joined #0ne
[23:26] <[FAnG]Benne> which when u throw ppls BG's into the mix only make that decision harder

as i recall spinner has said that para/cluster alliances will be possible as well as the "real" alliances. judging from teh travel times my guess is that para/cluster people will have 1 hour less eta than alliance people, meaning that it's important to be friendly with your neighbours and to have an alliance, while meaning that random people far away arn't a lot of use to you.

also, i've thus far seen nothing to do with attack limitations. in my experience most planets are covered by one person, so it doesn't matter who you attack with, therefore attack groups don't really need an in game alliance to work

[23:47] <[ND]ColCarp> What Spinner should be looking at is how to attract and keep more casual players
[23:47] <[ND]ColCarp> people which PA can grow on
[23:47] <[ND]ColCarp> instead of alienating the people he already has

saddly, if spinner scares one hardcore player off and gains one casual player he makes the same amount of money and needs less server/bandwidth to maintain them.

at the moment "hardcore" players roid casual players in to the ground, making the game dill for them and they don't come back. While i'm not convinced about the way he's doing it i do think that spinner needs to do something to rock the boat so that the "newbs" mix in with those who've been playing longer.

[00:20] <Nem3sis> none I was dragged in here, although all I see that is happening is creators are trying to stop us doing what we want and trying to tell us what to do

isn't that what the rules are FOR? i mean, call me pedantic (many do) but if there were no rules against farming would people be doing it? i think so... the whole point of the game is to play the rules to the fullest, imo changes to the rules need to be looked at as making the game more or less fun, not as spinner trying to control people

[00:22] <Nem3sis> could add some ability for us to access our in game alliance details to link with our sites/irc servers
[00:22] <Nem3sis> although
[00:22] * [IPC]Staff is now known as [IPC]afkasec
[00:22] <Nem3sis> I dont relaly see that happening

read creator's hour
there *might* be a link to your external website, if you're good little boys and girls. spinner has point blank refused to allow things like php pages to talk to pa. reasons were, shockingly, not forthcomming

[00:52] <[ViruS]SK> and i cant say we have gained alot of new players nor made the rounds more interesting
[00:52] <[ViruS]SK> this is mostly because we all have a conflict of interest
[00:52] <[ViruS]SK> we want the game to get better
[00:52] <[ViruS]SK> and we want our own alliance to win
[00:52] <[ViruS]SK> in most cases 1 doesnt go with the other
[00:53] <[ViruS]SK> so the creators efforts to put certain limitations on alliances is good

finally. unfortunatly we have to rely on spinner getting it right so that this happens, and thus far he seem very good on the "this'll be cool" and not so great on the "this'll work because..."

all in all, the game will live and die on how fun it is. if shaking up the alliances makes the game more fun then good for spinner and pa. if all it does is piss people off then pa's sunk.

i noticed that there's 16 alliances represented there. with 150 players each that's 2400 people represented. if i recall there were about 5K planets in round 9, so that's maybe half the people who play represented.

that's the half who're most likely to loose from the alliance changes represented

is it surprising that the senate came out against the idea of a shake up?

if you're going to try and form a think tank:
1) have all the facts about what you're trying to think about
2) try and represent all parties, not just the ones that are likely to agree with you

better luck next time
-mist

[edit] changes a sentence so it makes sense [/edit]

[AlbinoSquirrel]

Hats off to CC for actually organizing something like this. I didn't bother reading it, but CC's always been one for the Senate idea. Good to see it actually "happening" for once.

I doubt Spinner will listen as i havent seen hell freeze over recently

[HobbieRogue4]

I'm thrilled someone picked up the Senate idea after Zeus dumped on it and Prince voraciously wiped his ass afterwards.

I'd like to see various Senate representatives discuss how to reign in their members when it comes to babbling on AD about "powerblocking" as if they were pubescent boys who've just snuck a peek at their very first porno.

[Aryn]

hmm... shame you didn't advertise this before the meeting. i'm sure there are a lot of people who would have liked to have attended.
i agree with mist. by inviting certain people from the above alliances you're getting a bit of a biased discussion.

[Cochese]

Originally posted by Aryn
hmm... shame you didn't advertise this before the meeting. i'm sure there are a lot of people who would have liked to have attended.
i agree with mist. by inviting certain people from the above alliances you're getting a bit of a biased discussion.

Seeing as ColCarp organized it, I doubt he refrained from inviting anyone...especially on a list that includes both IPC and Eclipse...two alliances that are on ends of the proverbial spectrum.

Funny how they all basically agreed on everything; it seems quite obvious the bases were covered, and no bias was present in that meeting.

Had certain alliances on that list been excluded then yes, it certainly would have been a biased discussion.

I am interested to know who you think was there that shouldn't have been, and who wasn't there that should have.

[Gerbie]

Originally posted by Cochese
Seeing as ColCarp organized it, I doubt he refrained from inviting anyone...especially on a list that includes both IPC and Eclipse...two alliances that are on ends of the proverbial spectrum.

/me feels very excluded. :P

Nah I didn't miss anything. It seems like a very pointless discussion. Everybody I talked to that has actually seen PA X was very positive about it. Stop moving thin air (or bytes). Just wait and see.

[Morden]

Originally posted by Gerbie
/me feels very excluded. :P

Nah I didn't miss anything. It seems like a very pointless discussion. Everybody I talked to that has actually seen PA X was very positive about it. Stop moving thin air (or bytes). Just wait and see.

should be interresting to see if it is ready in time fr i16, personally I wouldnt hold my breath.

and your probably right about it being pointless, as spinner has made up his mind about r10 and a lot of things which would have made it enticing to alliances, have been cut out, wether due to lack of funds, or time, such as scaling down the combat code.

all in all, if the time they'd put into agents/engineers and a few little features which havent been announced yet, was put into making the the game work and getting the alliance system sorted, then a lot more would come of r10, from what I see now of the code and the intended features, I wouldnt give 50-1 odds of the being a round 11.

[Rember]

I miss an alliance though

[MegaNova]

Originally posted by Rember
I miss an alliance though

i miss more then one

[TAFKAJ]

mmz i know which one u mean Rember

[Sonnenbomber]

If you mean Vsn, we tried to get an HC from them in, but all were off or only idling.
and what other allys we should have forget?

[CrazyConrad]

Originally posted by Sonnenbomber
If you mean Vsn, we tried to get an HC from them in, but all were off or only idling.
and what other allys we should have forget?

Oly ??

[Leshy]

<[Ely]Rez> i think spinner has got it in his head, unfortunately, that established alliances are the problem..

To be honest, I wonder if that isn't the case.

This game isn't won by who is the most skilled player, or has the best strategies. It's won by which alliances band together, stuff which happens pre-round. Look at Round 9 - VvomM was already massively outgunned and thus defeated by NARSWEET before the round had even begun.

What was the fun of the early rounds? You'd end up in a galaxy with a bunch of people you didn't know. You said hi, explained who you were and you tried working with your galaxy and cluster. Now you join your galaxy, and try to hide your identity in order not to be exposed as a member of Alliance X, while trying to figure out who the people in your galaxy are, or more importantly, what alliance they belong to.

Alliances aren't playing in the interest of the game - they play in the interest of themselves and/or their members. If they have to exploit every single rule and option to win, they will do so, whether it's "ethically" correct to do so or not. Planetarion was never designed to be an alliance vs alliance game, it was a player vs player, galaxy vs galaxy game.

Round 10 is going to be a new game. It has similarities to Planetarion, but it's no longer the same game. If an alliance can't move on to a new game and adapt, then perhaps the alliance community isn't as strong as you'd like to think.

P.S. What's the use of random galaxies if you're going to play with your alliance anyway?

[JC]

Originally posted by Sonnenbomber

and what other allys we should have forget?

Ther are a hell of a lot of alliances out there that seemingly werent invited to this meeting. Imo it would have been a much better idea to have advertised it in some way so that the smaller alliances, who continue to get ignored, would have had a chance to attend and maybe voice their opinions.

Vision, Vengeance, TiT, Olympians, Entity, TFD, CP - the list goes on.

[Anihilat0r]

I guess 3 or so rounds of being staunch and loyal allies isn't enough to get an invite from ColCrap to these kind of things.

[Gerbie]

Did Madcows quit as an alliance?

edit: I suddenly get the feeling 2/3 of VoM and 4/5th of Vommv were bashed so badly that their remenants are no longer considered to be significant.

[Legator]

well i wanted to attend but i was 3 weeks of this month injured ill etc so i forgot that there was a meeting. :/

[Heartless]

/me applauds Leshy.

To me this looks like the church (= the alliances) trying to prevent people from discovering new technologies in medieval.

[Hala]

Leshy alliances might well have played a key role in some of the problems that have occured with Planetarion but there is no avoiding the fact that without the say, top 10 major alliances in PA currently and if there members all suddenly decided to stop playing, you'd lose what? 2-3K people? Maybe more, and thats not counting the unaffiliated people who would quit afterwards because all there friends have.

Now I have no idea if that'd happen (I haven't been following RD 10 developments that closely) but you would think that Spinner would take on board some of the feedback given by alliances, after all many stayed loyal and paid there money to PA over the last 4 rounds thats it has been P2P, and they'll form a significant part of the customer base for next round.

From a strictly business/commercial point of view it makes sense to keep your customers happy, and it appears that a significant portion of PA's customers are concerned and anxious about the changes that have been proposed. Perhaps the full details have not been released etc, but perhaps Spinner should put in some effort in the customer relations are of the game (which has been sorely lacking for as long as I've been playing) to smooth these fears over.

You know it makes sense.

[Heartless]

Originally posted by Hala
Leshy alliances might well have played a key role in some of the problems that have occured with Planetarion but there is no avoiding the fact that without the say, top 10 major alliances in PA currently and if there members all suddenly decided to stop playing, you'd lose what? 2-3K people? Maybe more, and thats not counting the unaffiliated people who would quit afterwards because all there friends have.

Now I have no idea if that'd happen (I haven't been following RD 10 developments that closely) but you would think that Spinner would take on board some of the feedback given by alliances, after all many stayed loyal and paid there money to PA over the last 4 rounds thats it has been P2P, and they'll form a significant part of the customer base for next round.

From a strictly business/commercial point of view it makes sense to keep your customers happy, and it appears that a significant portion of PA's customers are concerned and anxious about the changes that have been proposed. Perhaps the full details have not been released etc, but perhaps Spinner should put in some effort in the customer relations are of the game (which has been sorely lacking for as long as I've been playing) to smooth these fears over.

You know it makes sense.

It's not really customer friendly if you serve the wishes of a certain group of customers and this customer group tries everything to keep other customers away with their behaviour and then complaining that the company does not pay enough attention on getting new customers.

[The_Fish]

Originally posted by Gerbie
Did Madcows quit as an alliance?

edit: I suddenly get the feeling 2/3 of VoM and 4/5th of Vommv were bashed so badly that their remenants are no longer considered to be significant.

at least he made an effort, if you can do better then go and do it, stop whining and do something about it if you care that much.

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Hala
Leshy alliances might well have played a key role in some of the problems that have occured with Planetarion but there is no avoiding the fact that without the say, top 10 major alliances in PA currently and if there members all suddenly decided to stop playing, you'd lose what? 2-3K people? Maybe more, and thats not counting the unaffiliated people who would quit afterwards because all there friends have.

I will be the first to agree that alliances have played a very important role in keeping people in Planetarion. If it hadn't been for Fury, I'd probably not have been here either. However, the playerbase is still shrinking. That indicates that alliances are not the place to look to, if you want that to increase again.

It's my opinioin that alliances also restrict the inflow of newer long-term players. All of the good players are in the top alliances, and all those top alliances have a 'Join by invite only' policy. New players will never be able to join a decent alliance and will only serve as one-stop roidshop for the larger alliances. The focus of people in large alliances lies with their alliance, not with their galaxy - newbies in their galaxy may be able to get some instruction, but if they're active they'll get cnutted in a large alliance attack, and if they're not active enough they'll be exiled.

Everything in Planetarion has been done before. There is no new ground to explore for alliances - a round of PA is no longer a game, but a standard set of procedures to be followed. Round winners are decided behind the scenes on IRC between the top alliances, and by those who can bend the rules furthest without breaking them.

Alliances will still be there in Round 10, but they will be there in a different format. People in alliances will still be able to play together, and most alliances already have a community program running in order for people to still hang out together, whether they're playing together or not.

It's obvious that the situation with alliances needs fixing. Powerblocking is a serious problem, and alliances can not be trusted to voluntarily weaken their own position in order to create a more level playing field and enjoyable game. As long as alliances are not a part of the game itself, there is nothing that can be done to directly control them - history has showed that time and time again. And alliances will only go in-game if that means they'll have a serious disadvantage otherwise.

Either Planetarion X will address the alliance problem or it will go down the same route as Planetarion has. And alliances will either evolve or become extinct. If they seriously have to worry about falling apart in Round 10, then I have serious doubts about their self-proclaimed community strength.

[Zh|l]

Originally posted by JC
Ther are a hell of a lot of alliances out there that seemingly werent invited to this meeting. Imo it would have been a much better idea to have advertised it in some way so that the smaller alliances, who continue to get ignored, would have had a chance to attend and maybe voice their opinions.

Vision, Vengeance, TiT, Olympians, Entity, TFD, CP - the list goes on.

Thats because it was a conspiracy. What noone wants you to know is that this "Senate" covers up the most varied block in PA's history.

At risk of my position I present to you the TRUE r9.5 politics:


Eclipse/Elysium/FAnG/hirr/IPC/LDK/NewDawn/NoS/RaH/Rock/SpaceHamsters/Seraphim/ToT/Templar/Virus/WolfPack vs Vision/ Vengeance/TiT/Olympians/Entity/TFD/CP

Let their be war.

[Legator]

Originally posted by Zh|l
Thats because it was a conspiracy. What noone wants you to know is that this "Senate" covers up the most varied block in PA's history.

At risk of my position I present to you the TRUE r9.5 politics:


Eclipse/Elysium/FAnG/hirr/IPC/LDK/NewDawn/NoS/RaH/Rock/SpaceHamsters/Seraphim/ToT/Templar/Virus/WolfPack vs Vision/ Vengeance/TiT/Olympians/Entity/TFD/CP

Let their be war.

piece of a cake for us.

after we beaten them we will break up so the universe wont get to boring.

[Hala]

Originally posted by Leshy
It's my opinioin that alliances also restrict the inflow of newer long-term players. All of the good players are in the top alliances, and all those top alliances have a 'Join by invite only' policy. New players will never be able to join a decent alliance and will only serve as one-stop roidshop for the larger alliances. The focus of people in large alliances lies with their alliance, not with their galaxy - newbies in their galaxy may be able to get some instruction, but if they're active they'll get cnutted in a large alliance attack, and if they're not active enough they'll be exiled.

Well that might be true, but I don't think you can have round 10 if you piss off the alliances, none of the new features and ideas put forward by the Creators has stirred my imagination and in a market where you can play games with far more features and better graphics (mmporgs like eq etc which are a form of competition) you need imagination stirring ideas to get new players. The way PA has spread in the past has been through word of mouth and you need those alliance players just for that if nothing else.

Excuse my cynicism but I just don't think PA is sustaniable in P2P format, its a web based game which in reality offers nothing to the "casual" gamer unlike other games on the market which require a regular payment. As such I doubt PA will ever recieve a vast influx of new players whilst its P2P. The result? Well if you lose those alliance players or a significant portion of them PA is pretty much screwed because you're not going to get enough new faces joining to make up for those who leave.

It seems so easy to blame alliances, blocking etc for all the problems PA has had in terms of numbers since its become P2P, and I'm not stupid enough to deny that they've played a role by making PA "proffessional" but to totally place the blame upon alliances is idiocy and an attempt to hide from the real cause, PA is just not offering anything new, with or without these new fancy features Spinner is promising I doubt it will excite very many people imaginations.

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Hala
The way PA has spread in the past has been through word of mouth and you need those alliance players just for that if nothing else.

[...]

Well if you lose those alliance players or a significant portion of them PA is pretty much screwed because you're not going to get enough new faces joining to make up for those who leave.

Where exactly have you been the past rounds? The amount of players has been getting less and less each round. If PA continues in the current way - it's doomed anyway. Alliances are in no way adding to the amount of players - if anything, they are reducing the rate at which people leave. Those two are not the same.

It seems so easy to blame alliances, blocking etc for all the problems PA has had in terms of numbers since its become P2P

Alliances are certainly not even the main problem of Planetarion - but we are discussing their role in this thread. And the professionalism, secludedness and their treatment of the smaller players are in no way any help to keeping the new players that do sign up.

the real cause, PA is just not offering anything new

And now that PA is offering something completely new, there's complaints about how it's no longer the same and thus alienating it's players

[mist]

i know! lets can random galaxies and instead have random alliances! that'll be 1337!

um

wait


no

they're both dumb...

anyway. when i origonally posted i didn't mean that alliances had been excluded i meant that people had been excluded. I think of my gal of 25 at the moment maybe 10 are in alliances. ok, half of the rest are probably multis/farms/scan planets but that still leaves a significant portion of people who're never going to be heard if you hold senates of alliances

i think people are currently combining two problems:
1) pa is loosing players
2) pa isn't gaining players

at first glance these look to be the same problem, but actually they're quie different. you need to do very different things to keep players and to attract new ones.

keeping players means making the game interesting for somone who's aready been there. planetarion has been the same for many rounds now. lets face it, we all know the start up plans, what ships to build etc etc it's not a game, it's a repetative routine. The actual winners don't have to have individual skill, they just need to have a big alliance behind them. hell, someone said they need to be the ones who can bend the rules most and get away with it, from my pov it looks like they need to be the ones who can cheat most and not get caught :P

attracting new players is different. someone turns up and wants to start playing. cool, they get going. a week in their galaxy gets attacked. not so cool. they're not in an alliance, so they get cnutted. if they're enjoying things that rebuild, and get cnutted again. and again... and again... not the *best* advert for a game is it?

saddly, which the lack of change in the game is to blame for at least some of this alliances DO play a big part. if alliances didn't exist then there'd be no blocking, less organised large scale cheating and that noob in my gal wouldn't be getting wasted by alliance attacks several times a week

on that basis something clearly has to change. with a game rewrite comming up it's sensible to try and change it.

anyway, you talk about spinner trying to control alliances. so far i've not actually seen any real control. ok the 150 member limit is annoying, stupid and pointless, but who does it affect really, are there THAT many alliances with more than 150 members?

imo providing decent in game hosting would be great, it'd allow alliances to talk to and control their members better, and save the security problems that people seem to keep having with their own alliance sites.

none of us ACTUALLY know what the alliance mechanics will be yet, and already people are complaining about things that don't understand. for gods sake people, give the man a chance, i know it's not very likely but he might actually produce something that's good!

[K-W]

Leshy, I think you are missing one important point. The leaders of allainces are players just like you, and surprisingly enough want new players, and want the exact same things as you. That is the message, not that allainces want things at the expense of the game, but that we feel that spinner is running a very high risk of destroying the game. Maybe he needs to take that risk, but we are simply saying that if he both destroys allainces, and doesnt really attract new players, PA will die, as the players he does have will leave.

That is not selfish, it is not counterproductive. There seems to be some idea that the changes being made will do waht the creators say they will. Considering the situation, the best game designers in the world would deserve skepticism, and with due respect the PA team are not the best game designers in the world. So, with that in mind as far as the attracting new players thing goes, if they are going to destroy the alliance communities in doing so, I think good odds on PA dropping players like crazy.

[Aryn]

i think mist has been reading my mind :\

anyway.. that's the point i was going to make. it's not necessarily that you missed out alliances (you have.. check out AR to see some) but that you've also missed out the unallied. i myself am unallied though i'd love to be part of a discussion to see changes in pa. (though not the whole player union idea) you guys simply have no idea who you're missing. there are die-hard pa players you don't even know. 'n00bs' as you term them playing round after round in a tiny alliance you've never heard of. they're the ones you bash every night, yet they don't give up, they come back round after round because they have fun with their friends. one day however.. perhaps it's been a terrible day in rl, they come home to find themselves in the middle of 12 waves of attacks and they just simply give up. they quit. their voices never get heard because the bigger alliances concider them insignificant. the older players laugh them off the forums by saying 'you don't know anything'. gayle went through that, and she didn't give up until she got some respect. unfortunately the other players don't have the time or patience for it.

it's those people i think you need a representative for.



also.. don't use that stupid argument about 'if we all quit pa is dead' well that could be true to a certain extent.. but if you think that threat is actually going to make pateam go 'hmm.. omg.. we should do what they say!' then you're completely wrong. it's like if my friend says 'give me $5 or i'll stop being your friend' i'll say 'cya' but if she says 'can i please have $5' then i'll concider.

[Razorback]

Originally posted by Aryn
some Aryn rant

first of all i want to thank ColCarp for putting in alot of work into getting atleast those 50 ppl inside there. which infact like someone said represent a good group of ppl.
This means in no way to discredit someone neither does it mean someone wasnt invited. As far as i know were various alliances not reached and some even didnt want to take part in the meeting. Aryn i find it rather hillarious that you push ppl in the dirt for meeting up. Quiet frankly if you were so eager to have your voice heared you would have started something yourself. Im not defending who did what here, just saiyng you should prolly some ppl with good ideas cut some slack as you cant really offer anything more interesting. Your attitude exactly reflects why we have and had no senate because its always not good enough and always not what all want.

Noone in the meeting talked about "we want to do this and that" neither was it only yes sayers if you may say so. The log representing here was voted on and contains our main points. all alliances have different views on certain things and want ofc know different things as the info flow is atm not the best. BUT and that is a big advantage all these ppl met up not to form a "group" but to discuss things. If you felt left out, i guess colcarp would apologize you were missed but this was kept pretty small to get things in the go at first. Especially you calling us ignoring "noobs" or "lesser players" is pathetic because you force a view on us which seems a blunt generalisation. Seeing 2 ppl from Spacehamsters were there or ppl from ipc or hirr (no insult) even seraphim and others were present which seem in your view "lessers".

I dont like your attitudes of beeing a pessamistic person. If you would like to set something up. board pms and irc pms Aryn are the key not moaning that you werent asked.

Your 2nd argument makes it look even more pathetic. none of the alliances said "we dont pay if you dont" because thats a rather silly and childish attitude towards the whole problem. Threatening ppl wont bring any fun in the game, but you might in your huge wisdom consider customer support and customer information not important but thats what we ask about. Atm alot of desinformation goes around and alot of "it might or it could"'s are in the air. What you fail to see is that if customers dont like the game they leave. And tbh i think Alliances are by far the biggest community pullers in this game. You might have your bunch of friends but i think every alliance can agree that a good portion of their players after 9-10 rounds consists of "with the team stickers" or "ppl who dedicate themself to the alliance". This customergroup is not neglectable either.
And you slandering any attempt to only talk to ppl looks pathetic.

[Leshy]

Originally posted by K-W
Leshy, I think you are missing one important point. The leaders of allainces are players just like you, and surprisingly enough want new players, and want the exact same things as you.

I'm not saying that's not the case. It is true however, that large alliances want to win the game - using the rules to their maximum advantage. I do not see alliances saying "Using escorts or bashing newbies is 'not done' and is grounds for losing membership." I don't see alliances consciously not blocking in order not to upset the balance of the game.

[...] as the players he does have will leave.

They are doing that anyway. In my humble opinion, PA needs to stop focussing on keeping their old users from leaving, and instead look at how to attract new users and keep them.

There seems to be some idea that the changes being made will do waht the creators say they will.

Where's the evidence otherwise? I can understand how you have worries about what's coming, but I suggest you have a look first before you start the whole "Spinner is destroying the game" routine.

[Aryn]

it wasn't ment to slander the whole idea. i also applaud the senate idea getting off the ground (you must have forgotten that i tried to help it happen last time)

you missed the entire meaning of my post if you think it was only there to insult the senate.

*snip*
Seeing 2 ppl from Spacehamsters were there or ppl from ipc or hirr (no insult) even seraphim and others were present which seem in your view "lessers".
*snip*

you're way off base if you think i meant those alliances as 'lessers' those are well known alliances etc etc. like i said.. take a look at AR and you'll see what i mean.

having 50 people attend any meeting is great :P all i was pointing out is that those 50 people in no way represent the whole of pa. and i'm pretty sure that the views of the top (and not so top if you want to put it that way) alliances are not the same as the rest of the universe.

i have no idea how you can get in touch with everyone, but i just suggested that advertising before the meeting would prolly have been nice. i'm not upset at not being invited personally :P it was more the idea that it seemed to be for top alliances only.

as for the ending comment, i have seen people use the idea of the senate as a 'spinner listen to us or we'll leave' the comment was more directed to them than to the whole senate.

[Razorback]

Originally posted by Leshy
I'm not saying that's not the case. It is true however, that large alliances want to win the game - using the rules to their maximum advantage. I do not see alliances saying "Using escorts or bashing newbies is 'not done' and is grounds for losing membership." I don't see alliances consciously not blocking in order not to upset the balance of the game.

You failt to see a very important part, the part us beeing the customers. Infact you can come with accusations like you wish, in the end the customers basically will play the game within the rules. if pa is inept to create a universe which will limit this effects then its their own fault not of the customers.

They are doing that anyway. In my humble opinion, PA needs to stop focussing on keeping their old users from leaving, and instead look at how to attract new users and keep them.

infact thats your personal view. as far as i know do "alliances" pay pa. something which is in some way needed for pa's existance so not listening to those who pay the show might be fatal if the new customers dont storm in like exspected. If you think PA attracts new users by utterly ****e customer support and not keeping deadlines etc i think you should know better leshy. Take off your rosa pateam glasses.

Where's the evidence otherwise? I can understand how you have worries about what's coming, but I suggest you have a look first before you start the whole "Spinner is destroying the game" routine.

Urms not everyone is in "the team" so can infact leech all infos from spinner. that was a major point of the gathering. we wanted some more infos rather then the doubious cloudy things spinner is offering. Because again you fail to see that the arrogant saying of yours and others "you dont have to pay for it if you dont like it" goes both ways. So dont confuse careing about respective groups and PA as a whole with "wanting a say" or "getting some special threatment".
Just a small reminder Jolt bought pa and so far it made no or not much cash with it. If round 10 is a tummylanding you can be pretty sure they will maybe try another round but sometime soon their will to butter money into something not paying off will be over.
The intentions of almost every alliance and player is to keep PA alive, and i think this whole thread is more a sign that players want to HELP instead of beeing ignored. In the end of the day its spinners choice and all talking will be null and void but by putting up this show on the boards leshy i can tell you you surely dont show the best of pa. If the only reaction towards a legitimate request for a meeting is "feck off or pay what you get because you are the root of all evil" then its a weak treatment.

[Aryn]

the whole 'i'm the customer.. so give me what i want because i'm always right' is the entire wrong attitude to have. i dislike serving people like this at work and IN FACT i have the right to refuse service. i did this last thursday when a man was so completely rude to me, treating me like i am supposed to do everything at his beck and call, i went and got my boss to deal with him instead.

these are the kind of people that a business doesn't care if they leave.

now then..the people who show that they care (i'm not saying you don't) are the ones i'm more happy to help.

see the difference? i'm not slagging you or anyone off.. i'm just pointing things out.

[Razorback]

Originally posted by Aryn
it wasn't ment to slander the whole idea. i also applaud the senate idea getting off the ground (you must have forgotten that i tried to help it happen last time)

you missed the entire meaning of my post if you think it was only there to insult the senate.

*snip*
Seeing 2 ppl from Spacehamsters were there or ppl from ipc or hirr (no insult) even seraphim and others were present which seem in your view "lessers".
*snip*

you're way off base if you think i meant those alliances as 'lessers' those are well known alliances etc etc. like i said.. take a look at AR and you'll see what i mean.

having 50 people attend any meeting is great :P all i was pointing out is that those 50 people in no way represent the whole of pa. and i'm pretty sure that the views of the top (and not so top if you want to put it that way) alliances are not the same as the rest of the universe.

Noone from the ppl above said we want to represent the whole of pa, im pretty sure this is impossible as even allianceleaders can only "represent" in a certain way-
As i said alot more alliances were tried to be contacted but due to various cases were apparently not there and infact 50 ppl is great. better then nothing tbh. So unless you pull something off with all ppl i kindly ask you to cut colcarp some slack. If you wish to do an all pa meeting you can find me in #eclipse im pretty sure i or another eclipse hc would love to attend to a meeting where all pa is present and even not allied players.

i have no idea how you can get in touch with everyone, but i just suggested that advertising before the meeting would prolly have been nice. i'm not upset at not being invited personally :P it was more the idea that it seemed to be for top alliances only.

i neither but as i said painting things black is so easy if you dont have constructive ideas eh ? Advertising was done in some way and i think 50 ppl showing up is quiet a big achievement. Tho you fail to see that "representing everyone" was no intention nor stood on any flag. "meeting others and discussing things freely" was a point. And asfar as i read the first thread it includes an invitation to anyone who wants to attend next time.

as for the ending comment, i have seen people use the idea of the senate as a 'spinner listen to us or we'll leave' the comment was more directed to them than to the whole senate.

Then try in future not to put things into ppls mouth you apparently dont know about. Because it kinda demonizes a good concept by assuming wrong things.

[Razorback]

Originally posted by Aryn
the whole 'i'm the customer.. so give me what i want because i'm always right' is the entire wrong attitude to have. i dislike serving people like this at work and IN FACT i have the right to refuse service. i did this last thursday when a man was so completely rude to me, treating me like i am supposed to do everything at his beck and call, i went and got my boss to deal with him instead.

these are the kind of people that a business doesn't care if they leave.

now then..the people who show that they care (i'm not saying you don't) are the ones i'm more happy to help.

see the difference? i'm not slagging you or anyone off.. i'm just pointing things out.

Well beeing a customer gives you certain rights how far they go has the company to decide. And ofc the customer itself because if he deosnt like the treatment he leaves. On your personal lifestory i can say we all dont know the details how and what you work as, infact alot of businesses still have the "customer is king" rule as the market is full of offers and one customer less buys his stuff next door.

This comment was meant towards your story not towards pa as it has no relevance for our situation, i was merely making the point that pa has no customer support and thats a bad sign. Anything calling itself a company should care about its customers and like i pointed out a customer who gets balantly told that he is a little poohead who can go where the sun aint shining if the doesnt like the product (like it was on many occasions on these boards) is certainly not a happy customer and not a customer who brings in new customers, which pa is relying on to a big extend as the only "advertising" pa had was mouth to mouth.

P.S. if your company wouldnt care about this customer your boss wouldnt have botehred to deal with him he would have just told you to hang up. So infact your perception of your company not careing is not entirely correct as customers pay the bills in the end. even those who are difficult.

[Cochese]

Originally posted by Aryn

having 50 people attend any meeting is great :P all i was pointing out is that those 50 people in no way represent the whole of pa

Perhaps not, but between them all, they represent at least half of the committed, play-every-round people.

and i'm pretty sure that the views of the top (and not so top if you want to put it that way) alliances are not the same as the rest of the universe

Again, the largest portion of the customer base are alliance players...a great deal were represented, and no doubt more will be present at the next (assuming there is one) Senate meeting. For a 1st meeting, this was a great turnout covering a huge portion of players.

I doubt the attendees are now "exclusive members" and no one new will be allowed to participate.

i have no idea how you can get in touch with everyone, but i just suggested that advertising before the meeting would prolly have been nice. i'm not upset at not being invited personally :P it was more the idea that it seemed to be for top alliances only

Granted that could have been a good idea, there was some unpleasentness the last time this was publically discussed/advertised, and the time before that, it was "invite only" by the Creators...and Zeus (or whoever was running the 'original' Senate) utterly dropped the ball. The lack of interest also hindered it greatly; it has to be player-run and independent to succeed, bottom line.

as for the ending comment, i have seen people use the idea of the senate as a 'spinner listen to us or we'll leave' the comment was more directed to them than to the whole senate.

I think it's a good idea to have a vast portion of the players organized into an entity which can represent their views and opinions, and have an impact on game. It is basically "our" game as the die-hard players, we're the ones who keep coming back round after round...but, I also think this is more of a "Spinner, just ****ing listen to us!" type of thing. The trial round will likely determine if people put their money where their mouth is, and actually leave.

I think Spinner is trying to make changes (with good intentions, don't get me wrong) that haven't been entirely thought out or calculated, and for too long has been fighting against the alliances when he should be embracing them. Ultimately, we all want the same things.

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Razorback
Infact you can come with accusations like you wish, in the end the customers basically will play the game within the rules. if pa is inept to create a universe which will limit this effects then its their own fault not of the customers.

Thank you for proving in two sentences what I've been saying in this thread. "Powerblocking is not against the rules, so if I ally 25% of the universe and make it a very boring round for all the other players, that is Planetarion's fault. And now that they are taking steps to prevent that happening, I'll complain about how my alliance is being restricted in playing the game."

as far as i know do "alliances" pay pa.

As far as I know, players pay for Planetarion. Alliances may give players an incentive to stay and pay for the next round.

something which is in some way needed for pa's existance so not listening to those who pay the show might be fatal if the new customers dont storm in like exspected.

The current customer base is declining. In order for Planetarion to survive, it needs an influx of new players, not a halt to leaving ones. That does not in any way imply that no attempt should be made to keep the current userbase content.

If you think PA attracts new users by utterly ****e customer support and not keeping deadlines etc i think you should know better leshy.

Both of these things are bad, and serious attempts are being made and have been made to improve upon both of these points.

we wanted some more infos rather then the doubious cloudy things spinner is offering.

Isn't there going to be a free preview of the game before it actually starts? If you want to know how a game is going to be, you play the demo and then decide whether the game is worth it or not.

Constructive input is of course very much welcome, but a bunch of people shouting: "omg the new things is going to destroy allainces!!112" isn't particularly helpful to anyone.

If the only reaction towards a legitimate request for a meeting is "feck off or pay what you get because you are the root of all evil" then its a weak treatment.

I don't see any request for any meeting. I just see a bunch of people speculating on a few things they have heard about next round and drawing out doom scenarios because they don't know how the game will turn out.

In addition, if "feck off or pay what you get because you are the root of all evil" is the only thing you've read from my posts in this thread, then I suggest you get some reading glasses.

[Aryn]

well i do agree with you there (the customer thing) and with my little story i in no way said 'you're a rude little **** and i refuse to serve you'.. instead i said 'let me get my boss to help you'

ok i'll stop with the rl story as it's no real relevance to pa.

again i say i was by no means slagging the whole idea. i think it was great.. but i was just giving it a bit of critisicim.


coch. i think CC's idea of the senate is a lot better than yours (no offense.) it seems to be working a lot better as well. his looks more like a meeting to get ideas and general concensus about things.. yours seemed much more like the whole 'do what we want or we'll leave' thing.

[Whis]

More info is indeed needed so an as broad as possible group of ppl can state their ideas, suggestions, etc to the whole new r10 thing. It might already be too late for that though I dunno. The feeling I got from reading the meeting log was that it was more an attempt by most (not all) alliances present to safeguard their existence, current way of doing things, advantages, etc (understandably ofc) more than looking at what's in the interest of the entire community aswell as the future of pa. If this senate idea is continued it should have the 2 things above in mind and not preserving as much of current alliances as possible.

[Structural Integrity]

I just read a part of this PA senate meeting (talking about people who are way too far into this game ) and it seems that their main concern is their alliance falling apart due to people having to choose between cluster/para/local alliances and their old alliance for the reduced ETA. They fear that this whole new concept will cause players to leave in bulk.

However, I see this a bit different. I think Spinner hopes to break alliances that span over multiple rounds. Whenever you get tossed into this new universe, you'll will be forced to make new friends through politics, instead of being able to rely on your old friends.

Whoever thinks this is a bad thing is a tosspot who's to lazy to find himself a few new friends.

If Spinner & Co manage to pull this off he managed to bring back the feature we've missed the last 6 rounds: active politics.
The only politics we have nowadays is the unallied player putting together a whiny message to persuade the big guy to recall his fleet.

Ofcourse, people will say that "he's alienating existing players", but I really doubt that many will leave because of this. Instead, I believe that many will learn to adopt, and with regional politics back in play you open up new ways for the newbie to be successfull in the game.

Well, I can only guess what Spinner wants to achieve with this alliance thing, but if this is what he wants then he's doing the right thing IMO.

As a note for the big alliances, I know you feel like you've just been robbed from your anal virginity because of this, and that you might lose what you've built up in the past few rounds. But you should also understand that blocks, dominating alliances and stagnation have led to this situation. Regional politics will reduce stagnation and break the dominating alliances.
You might like this more than you first expect.

[Heartless]

Well ... this to the Senate people:

First of all, look up my 2nd post in this thread, about the customers.

Second, what was this senate meeting useful for?

People complain about a game which has not been released nor fully balanced yet.

Third, PA will never ever in a million lightyears be able to control each player's doings. It can however control certain things, but not prevent blocks.

All in all it was a nice idea to have a senate once, when it was about blocking. It might even be a nice idea to initiate certain things.
But it is no way to design a game which is far too much coded to be extremly changed.

[EDIT]
Round 10 is not supposed to be the same game. Round 10 is supposed to have currently experienced players to think again. It is not intended to have a "they did step a there, now it is step b to have the same result"-feeling. Round 10 will be a lot more real gaming instead of following repetative steps.
[/EDIT]

[Razorback]

Originally posted by Leshy
Thank you for proving in two sentences what I've been saying in this thread. "Powerblocking is not against the rules, so if I ally 25% of the universe and make it a very boring round for all the other players, that is Planetarion's fault. And now that they are taking steps to prevent that happening, I'll complain about how my alliance is being restricted in playing the game."

i guess anyone complained about restrictions or changes which would make sense. there were many offers infact on the boards to this topic that they werent considered is neitehr the customers fault and you might want to check that in all means the customer has according to the eula no rights anyways unless his country gives him rights, But thats hairsplitting, and when a company starts to blame its customers for things getting out of hand its becoming ridiculous, the name admin comes from administrating not from "selling something you run yourself".

As far as I know, players pay for Planetarion. Alliances may give players an incentive to stay and pay for the next round.
The current customer base is declining. In order for Planetarion to survive, it needs an influx of new players, not a halt to leaving ones. That does not in any way imply that no attempt should be made to keep the current userbase content.

As i stated earlier a wise hand should be all whats needed to solve both problems and in no way i said it should be "prostayers" and vs "joiners" please dont try to put arguments into my mouth.

Both of these things are bad, and serious attempts are being made and have been made to improve upon both of these points.

Thats great but has nothing to do with r10 features as apparently only a small clique of ppl who are in pa team and who hang around pateam are getting infos while others are simply ignored. So you coming to this boards and saying "nanana if you would know what i know but im not gonna tell" is not really helping the issue.

Isn't there going to be a free preview of the game before it actually starts? If you want to know how a game is going to be, you play the demo and then decide whether the game is worth it or not.

Isnt that in polite words the "you either buy it or not" argument just covered up abit ? You dont get the fact that ppl didnt want to change things, they want info and offer their views on changes and maybe get spinner to reconsider or rething some changes which might have negative effects. Another view cant hurt, can it ?

Constructive input is of course very much welcome, but a bunch of people shouting: "omg the new things is going to destroy allainces!!112" isn't particularly helpful to anyone.
I don't see any request for any meeting. I just see a bunch of people speculating on a few things they have heard about next round and drawing out doom scenarios because they don't know how the game will turn out.

So infact you rate anyone apart from yourself as an silly idiot who isnt allowed to have his own views on things. or even "fears" to some extend. About it beeing helpfull, i might be wrong but customers dont have to be helpfull nor rational hehe.
And the meeting as stated a couple of times was indeed meant as an exchange of views and some alliances dont share certain views either. So i dont actually know where you got your generalisation from ? BTW a cause for all this might be different statements from spinner in CH and in his announcement towards r10. In one he is quiet pro alliances in the other he seems to be contra. So if someone gets fears or confusion it might not be entirely irrational.

In addition, if "feck off or pay what you get because you are the root of all evil" is the only thing you've read from my posts in this thread, then I suggest you get some reading glasses.

As i stated above you covered it more politely infact some others didnt, and if YOU would reread what i wrote (hint glasses) i made no statement that this was all you had to say, just that this statement appears with you and some other "officials" abit to often.