Alliances

[aestuos]

My View of the Alliances

Ok well a few points, which I need to make before people read this.

1) These are just ideas which could make the gain less playable for the hardcore players but will make the player base increase. I.m sure 1up and exil like winning I know everyone does but i.m pretty sure and so are a lot of people are if nothing is done to fix the play base the PA will eventually have to stop

2) This post isn’t intended to flame 1up or exil I have the utmost respect for them any alliance which can win when introduced with a new scoring system clearly shows the ability to adapt and to chance to the environment and obviously have the best HC DC and BC and scanners for that matter irregardless whether or not they are tag or not tag.

3) Can we please please please not turn this thread into a who is taggin scanners or co-oppers or whatever that is entirely irrelevant of the post in my opinion but I could be wrong usually am lol.

Ok the problem with pa is that member base is getting smaller people are less interested in the game the logical place to start is why is this.

Possible ideas?

1) People don’t like paying to play? This is doubtful, as the cost is minimal for a game where people put time and effort in. so in my opinion this isn’t true.

2) People get fed up of the usual suspects winning? This is doubtful as well you can’t argue or change who the best alliances are or who they will be for the foreseeable future.

3) Alliance ruining the game, ok well here goes I don’t believe alliances are ruining the game or the scoring method in particular is ruining the game, I thing the main problem is for NEW people who start and want to play PA competitely to keep playing in an alliance where they get no-where. Lets me expand on this.

Say Joe Blogs plays PA he spends one round on a free account learning the rules and ship stats etc. He like the game. Next round he decides to pay and get in a alliance that’s average he then stay in the alliance gets roided has sub average attacks and sub average defense from the alliance he then cannot improve because the top 10 alliances wont recruit him, his contacts wont improve as he is a nobody with an low score.

Joe Bloggs get fed up with this his IRC activity decreases as well there nothing to gain playing the game where he cant improve. NOTE this is a typical situation not a fact for every player.

Solutions???

Ok here is my idea

Joe Bloggs sets up an account and he goes to the alliance window looking for alliances to join He sees two drop down menus.

1) Concordium, fury , legion etc etc
2) In game alliances.

On the in game menu he has four choices to which he can click on

Newbie 1, Newbie 2, Newbie 3 and Newbie 4

These alliances he is automatically accepted into, they have their own IRC channel private and public they have daily raids an offer defense. The difference being that to join these alliances their maximum score can be 0%-40% of that of the average planet in the top 10 alliances. The member base of these alliances can be up to 125. This would ensure attacks would be effective as obviously if your score is that low your fleet = low and also you might not be able to attack as you might not be playing PA that day.

Joe Bloggs Smiles he’s happy however once his score hits 41% he gets kicked out of the alliance and goes to the alliance window again to see four more alliances available to him

Average1, average 2, average 3 and average 4

This is exactly the same as before with channels and forums the difference being that the member base is 41% to 65% of top players average score and limited to 80players.

When his score hits 66% again he gets kicked but he has to use his own iniative to find an alliance his score would also be attractive and he could be recruited he then has contacts via IRC is well known and an established players.

In my opinion the beauty about this idea is all audience will like playing PA those who play on little times a day have a PA home as well with people who also only PA a little they have rivalry between other PA made alliances.

I posted this here because I would like to know alliance HCs view of this and everybody else. Post below or MSG me or IRC

Nick= error

[Kargool]

I think we should reconsider alliances at a whole, instead of having alliances as we have now, we should consider random alliances. You join the game and are automatically put into one alliance. You cant leave that alliance for lets say 128 ticks and all in the alliancetag will have to pull together in order to win.

Would be interesting to have the races as alliances. With a few changes, maybe some addon races it could create quite an funny new insight to the game.

[lilboi]

lol, good luck getting either of them through anyone. BUT i do commend error on putting effort into trying to improve the game, that is needed all the time. I doubt those changes will ever happen.

[Paisley]

One thing I/Thomus did asked Appoco the other day was...

Would it be acceptable to do a "Subh B" alliance which would have been a training ally but would still have the same access to tech, scanners.
Subh HC would have seen this as a means to train and recruit new players to the "Subh A" alliance As our current 3 member vouch recuitment proceedure often knocks back new players at the first hurdle. (This is to reduce the risk of taking in spies)
They would have started in Subh B learn the game and when the oppourtunity came up they would have a chance to play in "Subh A"

A few pros and cons.

1. Would this be seem as a merger in the sense of having a 130 member ally rather than 65 member ally with a training wing.
(Remember the fuss with DLR detagging from ND in r16)

2. how much should/could the two interact with each other.

[Nadar]

Originally Posted by Kargool

I think we should reconsider alliances at a whole, instead of having alliances as we have now, we should consider random alliances. You join the game and are automatically put into one alliance. You cant leave that alliance for lets say 128 ticks and all in the alliancetag will have to pull together in order to win.

Would be interesting to have the races as alliances. With a few changes, maybe some addon races it could create quite an funny new insight to the game.

Have fun playing the game alone, preferably off-line, then.

[wakey]

This kind of idea has been suggested before and the problem with it is it doesnt really deal with any of the problems that alliances lower down have.

For starters whos running these alliances. You need fully committed group of commanders to run it otherwise its next to useless. And I dont see what would make people want to do this, I find it tough enough running F-Crew but atleast theres something to get out of it. The simple fact that players you do well with are automicatically removed means that you have nothing to show at the end as you have no alliance ranking and wont be responable for helping people achieve ranks. Its ultimatly going to be a thankless and unrewarding task

And people will still be attacking members of these alliances and your largly going to be asking these inexperianced players to arranage defence for each other and to teach each other which is largely a case of the blind leading the blind.

Overall I think the situation would actually be a step back as theres alot of good alliances for new players out there whom would probally see themselves significantly hindered by such a system even though the system seems fairly poor.

We need a system thats not creating automatic alliances that are ineffective but helping improve the effectivness of some of the lower down alliances so that new players have a much better opertunity

[aestuos]

I wasnt suggeesting have an elite crew running the newb alliances as that in itself wouldnt work, the def channel would simply be i have incomming, anyone care to help? its terran ETA 10 any one have any anti BS.

simply put the alliances could be rough around the edges but we all had to learn somehow??

They wouldnt have an arby or defcall bots etc just simple plain word of mouth.

The idea being they help each other to help themselves.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Paisley

One thing I/Thomus did asked Appoco the other day was...

Would it be acceptable to do a "Subh B" alliance which would have been a training ally but would still have the same access to tech, scanners.
Subh HC would have seen this as a means to train and recruit new players to the "Subh A" alliance As our current 3 member vouch recuitment proceedure often knocks back new players at the first hurdle. (This is to reduce the risk of taking in spies)
They would have started in Subh B learn the game and when the oppourtunity came up they would have a chance to play in "Subh A"

A few pros and cons.

1. Would this be seem as a merger in the sense of having a 130 member ally rather than 65 member ally with a training wing.
(Remember the fuss with DLR detagging from ND in r16)

2. how much should/could the two interact with each other.

You would have to basically be prevented from any kind of interaction imho otherwise your techically just getting around the alliance limit. All you would lose out on would be the -1 defence between each group of 65

The whole training wing was actually a popular feature back in the day especially in r2-4. The problem is though the Parent alliance is focused soley on the success of the parent alliance and will always undermine the training alliance by taking the better players when its these better players that you rely on for helping with the training. If they are losing what good players they get they have problems training the next batch up.

IMHO anyone considering doing such a thing would be better off approaching an alliance lower down for some kind of strategic partnership. As part of this partnership you would agree not to undermine the alliance during the round and you would offer them as much advice and tools and such like. In return the alliance would act as a stepping stone into your alliance and you would be able to offer them a position into your alliance at any time but they wouldnt join till the round ended.

This means that you still have an alliance whos aim is to do the best they can, which arent being constantly undermined by the other alliance taking their members midround but your also helping bring new blood into the game and giving yourself a way to tap some of the best new players

[wakey]

Originally Posted by aestuos

I wasnt suggeesting have an elite crew running the newb alliances as that in itself wouldnt work, the def channel would simply be i have incomming, anyone care to help? its terran ETA 10 any one have any anti BS.

simply put the alliances could be rough around the edges but we all had to learn somehow??

They wouldnt have an arby or defcall bots etc just simple plain word of mouth.

The idea being they help each other to help themselves.

Thats the point I'm trying to make though, that really achieves nothing. They can learn more and better themselves alot more in a resonable level alliance than they would in this. IMHO anyone would perfer someone whos been on an ok alliance where they have learnt something than in such a group like this where they have no guidence.

[JonnyBGood]

Ultimately I don't think alliances which model themselves as training alliances, or basically those who don't have the aim of finishing #1 at some point, can hold onto their players. It's very natural for players who want to be in an alliance fighting for the top spot to leave an alliance that isn't (even in the long-term).

[Tomkat]

I like it except for thie "kicking players out when they get to xx% of score" thing.

Like wakey said - who'd want to run an alliance where the decent players get chucked out after a certain amount of time?

Now this could be tied in with lokken's suggestion in the other thread of removing the Alliance page. If a player clicks on 1up/ND/Exilition/HR in the main screen, then those are the alliances who do NOT have ranks on the main alliance page.

If the player clicks on the "Give me an alliance!" button then the game randomly selects one of three/four alliances for him to join (with no maximum player limit). THESE alliances can be ranked on the Alliances page, and can compete for the #1 spot there.

It would encourage people to run and play for these alliances, as they can still get #1. It would also prevent these problems from alliances trying to "trick" the system with dodgy member counts or having members out of tag still contributing.

In summary, there'd be two separate ranks - the "main" alliances, which wouldn't be quantified or listed (until maybe the last tick of the round), and these "training" alliances (for want of a better word) who can compete for the #1 spot amongst themselves, and have no alliance limit.

[JonnyBGood]

I wasnt suggeesting have an elite crew running the newb alliances as that in itself wouldnt work, the def channel would simply be i have incomming, anyone care to help? its terran ETA 10 any one have any anti BS.

This doesn't make sense. Most people are in bed at 3-6am gmt, the most active time for attacking, and you'd need DCs to organise defence.

[Paisley]

(This is a personal view and does not represent the collective Subh HC)

Thing is I wouldnt see getting a suffient command crew for "Subh B" in as a problem. Their expertise can be passed on in a "consultant" fashion.
training MOs in attacks and defense, also in tutorials/workshops aswell. whilst not affecting "Subh A" effectiveness.
after all they dont need to be tagged into "subh B".
No reason why "subh B" couldnt have aim like to finish top 10.

Plus sides I can think of for having a training wing would be...
1. it is a means for new players to get around our 3 vouch recruitment progess dubbed the catch 22.
2. It would also show that the top-mid tier allys are trying to do their part to help the PA community to develope and to grow. As it would give that player the chance to show what potental they have if they are willing to put in the effort.

The problem I would see with this is the issue of another means of it being potentally abused solely for the first team benefit and not the second teams.(dubbed the flak ally for example)

PA as a whole doesnt need another "loophole" to abuse like exil's support planets with mass vipers of r15... or the DLR/ND detagging of r16.
... or the discuised tagging of 1up in r17. Arguabily those are strategically smart tactics when they are going for the top prize, at same time goes against the spirit of PA.

Although I do think the Multihunters and PAT team should have put the foot down more. At the same time I do appreiate that they havent went draconian when there wasnt "clear" definitions either.

Would this have a positive/negitive effect on F-crew for example?
I would be interested to hear a view on this.

[Paisley]

Originally Posted by wakey

IMHO anyone considering doing such a thing would be better off approaching an alliance lower down for some kind of strategic partnership. As part of this partnership you would agree not to undermine the alliance during the round and you would offer them as much advice and tools and such like. In return the alliance would act as a stepping stone into your alliance and you would be able to offer them a position into your alliance at any time but they wouldnt join till the round ended.

This means that you still have an alliance whos aim is to do the best they can, which arent being constantly undermined by the other alliance taking their members midround but your also helping bring new blood into the game and giving yourself a way to tap some of the best new players

I really do like that idea, I would say it would be a better alternative to having a B team.

Edit - the down side would be would having a B team / an agreement with 2 allys be seen as a form of blocking?

[Exode]

On the issue of tech for alliances, servers and bots and the like...

Would't it be an idea to put up basically a public server much like netgamers where all alliances have their channels? Maybe with a group such as support/cservice/feds or whatever (dont remember) providing channels and bots for alliances, as well as general tech issues... It would remove the issue of attacks on private servers as that would harm one's own alliance as well. Plus it would provide smaller alliances with a possibility for better communication and easier leadership. Maybe it would even remove the large differences we see today in the rankings allowing smaller alliances to have the same "start" as the large ones each round?

Would also sort of justify p2p to some extent where people are actually paying for a service larger than just the game? (This is gonna get me flamed isn't it )

[Furyous]

Originally Posted by Kargool

I think we should reconsider alliances at a whole, instead of having alliances as we have now, we should consider random alliances. You join the game and are automatically put into one alliance. You cant leave that alliance for lets say 128 ticks and all in the alliancetag will have to pull together in order to win.

Would be interesting to have the races as alliances. With a few changes, maybe some addon races it could create quite an funny new insight to the game.

You'd spend the first 2 weeks deliberating and appointing a command!

Originally Posted by Wakey

The whole training wing was actually a popular feature back in the day especially in r2-4. The problem is though the Parent alliance is focused soley on the success of the parent alliance and will always undermine the training alliance by taking the better players when its these better players that you rely on for helping with the training. If they are losing what good players they get they have problems training the next batch up.

Not necessarily. Wrath never had their members nicked by Fury mid-round afaik. The only promotions were done between rounds. Ironocally, because of this solidarity among other things, Wrath probably equalled the success of Fury in its first round.

I don't think you can run a training alliance Paisley, simply because if you share the command you have a conflict of interests. The only acceptable way would be to have completely separate command teams for both, and for Subh A command not to have a veto over Subh B command. You also shouldn't be allowed to use the same intel tools, as then Subh will have twice as much information from which to map other alliances at the start of the round.

[I am Idler]

Originally Posted by Kargool

I think we should reconsider alliances at a whole, instead of having alliances as we have now, we should consider random alliances. You join the game and are automatically put into one alliance. You cant leave that alliance for lets say 128 ticks and all in the alliancetag will have to pull together in order to win.

.

This sounds more like a speedgame type of thing than a liable suggestiion

The essence of PA has and always will be the current alliances,and the outsiders ability to adapt to the system.

There is no need to change the system. Its working, people are having fun, and thats the way it should remain.

The idea of training alliances has been put to good use before, and should be pretty easy to do again if someone could be arsed to devote some time. Here I take it the self proclaimed saviours of PA (ref. wakey) will come in. Set up a irc room, do a few gal raids, let people get familiar with the game engine, the community and the people who reside here and they will easily move on to a better place when the time is right.

Its not about the quality for most beginners, its about being able to fit in, and fit in fast.

It still amazes me how people round after round suggest or want huge changes in the game play. Why not work with what you have?

If it doesnt work, you're probably not doing it right,

[Synthetic_Sid]

Originally Posted by Kargool

Would be interesting to have the races as alliances. With a few changes, maybe some addon races it could create quite an funny new insight to the game.

Yeah it'd certainly be funny.

In the xan alliance channel: dozens of people calling for anti-de and few offering.
In the zik alliance channel: hundreds of people calling for anti-fr and NOONE offering as they don't have anti-fr that can make defence ETA.

etc

[Paisley]

Originally Posted by Furyous

I don't think you can run a training alliance Paisley, simply because if you share the command you have a conflict of interests. The only acceptable way would be to have completely separate command teams for both, and for Subh A command not to have a veto over Subh B command. You also shouldn't be allowed to use the same intel tools, as then Subh will have twice as much information from which to map other alliances at the start of the round.

I am aware of the tactical exploits... And it is a concern
The reason why it is suggested as an idea to get new players into PA
and keep them.

to continue as wakey said....

Originally Posted by wakey

This means that you still have an alliance whos aim is to do the best they can, which arent being constantly undermined by the other alliance taking their members midround but your also helping bring new blood into the game and giving yourself a way to tap some of the best new players.

So if the PA team and PA players as a whole think it is a bad idea, due to the potental exploits then the worst that can happen is the B team idea gets tossed out. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
I do appreiate that there is a "food chain" with alliances with players.
Whilst the good players will move on up as they should, same time the Training specialist need to get their "moneys worth"
One thing the B team did have in its favour would be an incentive to work at making it to the A team. Rather than I have reached as far as I would like in the training ally time to move to another ally .

Which comes to wakeys suggestion of feeder agreements inbetween allys
Which I do really like, I do see a few down sides

Whilst I do see agreements being ally 1 and 2 about non poaching of players mind round.... it still doesn't mean that the ally 1 can stop his player going to ally 3/4/5 (so on) mid round. only to ally 2.
Would a bitter rival ally of ally 2 will start to target the feeder ally that they wouldnt normally considered targetted?

As it stands none of the heavy hitting allies consider specifically targetting
the training allys, but what if they are seen to be helping their bitter rivals.

[Tomkat]

Originally Posted by Synthetic_Sid

Yeah it'd certainly be funny.

In the xan alliance channel: dozens of people calling for anti-de and few offering.
In the zik alliance channel: hundreds of people calling for anti-fr and NOONE offering as they don't have anti-fr that can make defence ETA.

etc

Heh

Well I guess the stats would need to be a little more forgiving than this round.

It might be interesting for each alliance to only be allowed to pick 2 out of 4 races which their players can play though.

I can't think of any valid reason why it'd make the game "better", but it could be interesting seeing which races are chosen by which alliances.

[robban1]

Originally Posted by Synthetic_Sid

Yeah it'd certainly be funny.

In the xan alliance channel: dozens of people calling for anti-de and few offering.
In the zik alliance channel: hundreds of people calling for anti-fr and NOONE offering as they don't have anti-fr that can make defence ETA.

etc

that only goes with the current set of gay stats

[Tomkat]

Originally Posted by robban1

that only goes with the current set of gay stats

They are gay!

When I looked at those stats I thought "hah - check out those Wraiths. What a bunch of bummers! And those Pegasus sure have turned into a right set of marmite miners! They used to be COOL and STRAIGHT!"

[The Real Arfy]

Originally Posted by Tomkat

Heh

Well I guess the stats would need to be a little more forgiving than this round.

It might be interesting for each alliance to only be allowed to pick 2 out of 4 races which their players can play though.

I can't think of any valid reason why it'd make the game "better", but it could be interesting seeing which races are chosen by which alliances.

Cath and Zik?

[BloodyButcher]

The current hardcoded alliance and current player base does not make it possibole for any strong alliances to realy gain much from a training wing.
If someone tryed that, it would prolly get exploited for the best interest of the main alliance, wich is a problem with these member limits.
Id like to see some fresh blood into PA, but i dont see it happening.

[hook]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Ultimately I don't think alliances which model themselves as training alliances, or basically those who don't have the aim of finishing #1 at some point, can hold onto their players. It's very natural for players who want to be in an alliance fighting for the top spot to leave an alliance that isn't (even in the long-term).

Agreed.

Personally, I doubt having training alliances will help the game in the end. Training alliances that are alliance-specific (the "Subh B" idea) are merely just recruitment wings in my opinion, and will lead to, due to alliance limits, five or six people happily joining the alliance they are 'training for' and the other 55-60 being stuck in the B-alliance with no chance of ever moving, and having lost their 'best' members to the A-alliance. It's very unlikely that as this point in time the HC's of the A-alliance still have interest in running this B-alliance anymore. This is when it would become a non-alliance specific training alliance (god, what a sentence) to a certain extent. These alliances, as JBG said, mostly do not have the intention of possibility to get to the top spots, so will, eventually, loose the better members aswell. Right now, they will most likely loose the members cause they quit the game, as they're stuck in the circle of not being able to join a 'better' alliance.

One thing I'd like to adress though, is that people have to realise this is not something that has popped up since the 'new PA'. This is not something from the latest rounds. In earlier rounds (R2-R3 i.e) there was the same problem. Basically it meant that if you wanted to grow big, you'd have to be in VtS or Fury (there were exceptions ofcourse). However, if you wanted to join VtS or Fury, you'd have to be big, or be in one of their galaxies. The circle has always been here. Back in those rounds, the big playerbase made up for that problem partially though.

It's not due to the alliances though (incidentally, against common belief I've found Fury to be far from arrogant with allowing new blood in their alliance if they have positive word of mouth about them which may be why they, eventually, became as strong as they did), it's due to the nature of the game which is so unclear, and therefore, the 'role' of an alliance in the game is aswell. IF the creators were to turn PA into a war-game for example, it WOULD be beneficial for smaller alliances to have wars with other small alliances, and respectively bigger alliances with other big alliances. This would actually make it fun for the smaller, less dedicated player aswell.

I'm Joe Nobody (hell, I am ), I join this game, I join a smaller alliance, to find soon enough, it's useless to be in one, since they cannot defend me against the bigger alliances, and if we start a war with another small alliance, the big boys come in and steal all our candy. However, if Joe Nobody joined a Planetarion war-game, "Your worst Knightmare" would be screaming for fresh blood to back them up against "Denmark's Sky-rocketeers", and he may actually find the game enjoying without having to join a top-tier alliance right away.

Without any intent of sounding accusatory: Stop blaming the downfall of this game on alliances, blame it on how the game has no decent design whatsoever to allow fluid alliance politics.

[Remo]

It was pretty good way to join an ally as a noob player back in r6. Even when I was noob, I applied for Elysium (I did get recomendations from ingal) and they accepted me in, but not to the primary ally. The tag I joined was Ely's recruit wing Olympus (or something). During rest of the round I attacked and defended with Oly and when I proved myself to be active enough I was accpted as full member and I recieved access to Ely's real channel. This accepting happened during roundbrake.

But the way that beginner finds his first ally comes trough gal chan (as I did). Usually decent gal have at least 1 player that have even some kind of relations to decent alliances.

The real catch in this dilemma is that how to get players to join irc where player actually creates some kind of connections to pa-community.

(sorry for the bad grammar and spelling mistakes, I eve tried to edit it to be more readable)

[SkyHead]

Originally Posted by Paisley

One thing I/Thomus did asked Appoco the other day was...

Would it be acceptable to do a "Subh B" alliance which would have been a training ally but would still have the same access to tech, scanners.
Subh HC would have seen this as a means to train and recruit new players to the "Subh A" alliance As our current 3 member vouch recuitment proceedure often knocks back new players at the first hurdle. (This is to reduce the risk of taking in spies)
They would have started in Subh B learn the game and when the oppourtunity came up they would have a chance to play in "Subh A"

A few pros and cons.

1. Would this be seem as a merger in the sense of having a 130 member ally rather than 65 member ally with a training wing.
(Remember the fuss with DLR detagging from ND in r16)

2. how much should/could the two interact with each other.

Sounds like a great idea to me, whats the problem?
The best alliance should be determined by its organizational skills, its activity, its officers and by its members, so I don't see a problem with using the "B" alliance for extra coverage on targets, though it may not be the best idea depending on different planets value\size.

How about keeping these "B" allies with a lower member count then the regular ones?

The only possible abuse, would be alliances using their B allies to fill with extra good players, but then again why not just create a second tag and keep it a secret?

[SkyHead]

How to get new players to play the game has always been an dilemma, over my time on the internet, I've stumbled across something called autosurfs.

Originally Posted by What is an AutoSurf?

An autosurf is a type of online advertising program. Autosurfs are traffic exchanges that automatically rotate advertised websites in one's Internet browser. They are capable of bringing a large amount of traffic to the advertised websites. Members earn credits for each site that they view, which can then be spent to advertise members' sites by adding them to the autosurf rotation. Sites may additionally be added by external advertisers who pay the autosurf operators.

Autosurfs differ from manual traffic exchanges in that the site rotation is automatic; an ad viewer need not respond or even view the sites. Many autosurfs also pay their viewers a percentage or hourly commission to view the advertised sites. A large number of autosurfs are investment autosurfs: members pay a fee and are promised a certain return on their fee. The "investment" is claimed to be (usually disguised as) a membership or upgraded membership fee and the "return", a per-site commission. There is a strong possibility that most investment autosurfs are Ponzi schemes, and thus breaking the law and/or deceiving their user

If we were to make a splash page for Planetarion, that shortly introduced you to the game and what its all about, alot of us could sign up at these autosurfs and earn credits by surfing, then we all promoted this Planetarion splash page, it might not give the best results at start, but if we were around 40-50 people doing it on several sites, users would eventually get used to the site, and might eventually choose to check it out. Autosurf users are mainly users that spend alot of their time online either way, so why not throw in a game for them?

Either way, all some of us would have to do is do the regular surfing, and we'd earn credits to promote Planetarion.

If this idea is chosen to be pursued, as it should (because it won't cost a god damn dime to try, surf a page, get your page viewed once) I'd also suggest opening for E-Gold ( www.e-gold.com ) as a payment option as thats what most autosurfs are using as a payment option (you can make money with these surfs if handled right) .

Example of an hot autosurf at the moment, is www.NowDollar.com .

They are indeed pretty much all of them ponzi schemes, (but thats how to make good money ; ), but what does that matter for our advertizing?

WikiPedia on AutoSurfing

Most autosurfs have an timer of 15-20secs, so we'd need an really good introduction, but that could be worked on and continuosly be improved. Who knows, maybe we got someone decent on marketing among us?

Power of the right words should never be underestimated, something you'd truely witness in the Autosurf business.

[aestuos]

do you work for them lol

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by aestuos

I wasnt suggeesting have an elite crew running the newb alliances as that in itself wouldnt work, the def channel would simply be i have incomming, anyone care to help? its terran ETA 10 any one have any anti BS.

simply put the alliances could be rough around the edges but we all had to learn somehow??

They wouldnt have an arby or defcall bots etc just simple plain word of mouth.

The idea being they help each other to help themselves.

I thought there were alliances that operated like this. It is the rough idea behind Hidden Agenda at any rate. We obviously aren't an elite crew but the idea is to help people help themselves and give them an opportunity to learn about the game, basic tactics and alliance mechanics while, hopefully, having some fun.

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Ultimately I don't think alliances which model themselves as training alliances, or basically those who don't have the aim of finishing #1 at some point, can hold onto their players.

This is so very true but isn't that the point of a 'training' alliance? At first it pissed me off a bit that I'd give up substantial amounts of time only to have people leave for a bigger, better alliance but then I realised that's exactly why I'm doing it and why they join us. It's nice when old members come around to say hi, suggest us to the newer players in their galaxy or join again when they don't think they have the time to devote to a full-on round. I hope the folks at F-Crew would agree.

Originally Posted by wakey

IMHO anyone considering doing such a thing would be better off approaching an alliance lower down for some kind of strategic partnership. As part of this partnership you would agree not to undermine the alliance during the round and you would offer them as much advice and tools and such like.

I like the idea of sharing advice and tools and although we don't have great tools or advice to give, I am willing to help anyone develop their own tools and swap tips.

There are plenty of nice, helpful people out there and I'd like to thank them all for their efforts.