Question - how will Jolt / Pa give us a round 11 ???

[Legator]

well, the question is in topic.

how ?

i sadly guess (yea well, you dont need to be wise) this will be the last round of this game. Or are there any ideas or so which we dont know ?

This 1700 Paid planets are already a laugh and the marketing wasnt really any good to attract more - or is it just that people dont play this kind of games anymore ?

or is it the fking high price ?

how should a game with so few people attract new one ? is this style of games just for some nerds like us ? (those who actually play)

how should a game with so few people and NO really future for a big player increase hold their core ?

i once said round 8 was the minimum for me (planetwise) then i said not less than round 9. now this....

what are jolt´s ideas, or whoever is responsible for this ?

sad to see it go :/


(btw sanfred - if you ever read this boards - thx for inviting me here in round 3 and then quitting in round 5 ffs - and im still here)

[-QS-]

The core player (those that paid the late rounds) played, because alliance-wars were interesting. Atm, PA-teams tries to make the game itself more interesting, which is wrong imo...
Well well, I don`t play nemore either after round 9.5 ended, but I hope for everybody that still plays, that there will be a round 11, 12, 13,... but I fear it won`t go further than 11

[Nitros]

ppl are not willing to pay for a game when they can also play it for free in a slightly different community

ppl are getting bored with planetarion because (untill now, but too late) no big changes appeared

ppl no longer wished to sacrifise their RL for a game

[Kal]

i reckon its interesting wars we need. I for one don;t sit here on irc all date to initiate roids... i like to talk to people, meddle find things out... thats what the game is lacking, but becuase of the fall in players. I have to say that maybe pa just is out of fashion

[Amoruso]

the amount of dedication needed to even achive a modicum of success is paramount. Not to mention you need to walk straight into a well working alliance or you will lose interest quickly by being bashed often. i think the game is dying and nothing can be done :/

[Maddix]

Jolt is a joke, PATeam finally get something right and have their 'new owners' screw it up with a total lack of advertising. Well I suppose it was Prince's doing to arrange the sale, no doubt he is 'bitter' after being kicked from PATeam. In anycase this is almost certainly gunna be the last round, hopefully everyone will make the most of it.

[Wandows]

There is lotsa things that can be done:



-VERY IMPORTANT:
*clear updates about the state of planetarions next round/the development, what features will be new or going to be tweaked (give ppl something to look forward instead of not publishing info at all or to late.
*clear guide, which doesn't only explain the buttons and stuff on the pages but also includes several start points/play suggestions for new players (maybe first xx-tick plans). Would be good if it was written by someone who knows about strategy. Explain the ticking part of the game more instead of the meaning of all the buttons. Tell them which buildings / ships can be usefull @ what time or fit in which strategy

-lowering price would be a nice one aswell i think as the increase it got is quite alot actually.

-Maybe add a style of payment where you can choose to pay for another month/2 weeks/period of time to play the game or pay for a full round at once. With the periods being cheaper the paying for a full round (but overal a slightly bit more expensive when paying periods for a full round) It might keep more players here as they don't need to pay all at once but can test it a bit more for less money

-Somehow try to get known amongst the "html interface gaming community" on the net and advertise pa there.

-Reinstate races like they where (EMP/cloaked/stealing/normal) would get alot of ppl back or interested again i think. And i mean adding in to the current combat system, not changing it back to the old one.



P.S. about the alliance wars thingies etc.... less players means less alliances means less wars means less excitement, get the players back and the wars will follow =)

[The_Fish]

R10 was the new round, where everyone would love it, and new players would flock to see it, unfortunately they havent, so its the same people who played R9 here, mainly.

Not many of these will be back for a R11, if there is one.

[G.K Zhukov]

PA needs new creators.

[Jorinn]

Originally posted by G.K Zhukov
PA needs new creators.

That won't solve things tbh, as far as I'm concerned this PA's last round, i'm off to play ******** afterwards.

[Hala]

Basically they changed heaps of stuff... pissing off quite a few people who'd gotten used to old PA and didn't like this new PAX. So they left reducing the member base even further.
Then we didn't get this massive influx of new people that was the whole aim of the changes in the first place.

Price can be blamed to a large degree... PAX just isn't competetive on price compared to other games that charge money. Add in the fact that there are numerous free browser based games around now days and you've pretty much got a recipe for poor sales.

Has there even been any advertising at all for this round?

[Legator]

Originally posted by KalVirtus
i reckon its interesting wars we need. I for one don;t sit here on irc all date to initiate roids... i like to talk to people, meddle find things out... thats what the game is lacking, but becuase of the fall in players. I have to say that maybe pa just is out of fashion

yea, i "fear" that too

[Legator]

Originally posted by The_Fish
R10 was the new round, where everyone would love it, and new players would flock to see it, unfortunately they havent, so its the same people who played R9 here, mainly.

Not many of these will be back for a R11, if there is one.

yea indeed.

i just wonder how they thought they can get like 1 k or 2 k new players ? in a way like they did it ?

kept all like a secret etc.

i understand its hard to promote a browser game but they should have tried it different.

If im new to this game, do you really think i try 2 weeks the free trial and then upgrade ? lol

maybe a few percent but not the big numbers (we will see)

[furssie]

Originally posted by G.K Zhukov
PA needs new creators.

What?

[DJet]

PA needs a new name, thats what puts alot of people off it, they've played older rounds, not got on well and just aren't willing to try again, even if they know alot has changed

[Kal]

i think the free trial was a mistake. We should havce forced the existing community to pay, hence posisbly maintaing a basic minimum. The done considerable marketing to attract new players.

I like all of wandows ideas especially the bit by bit paymant as this would allow the scrapping of the free trial

[Maddix]

Originally posted by KalVirtus
i think the free trial was a mistake. We should havce forced the existing community to pay, hence posisbly maintaing a basic minimum. The done considerable marketing to attract new players.

I like all of wandows ideas especially the bit by bit paymant as this would allow the scrapping of the free trial

Round 10 should have been free to get everyone interested and liking the game again. Then Round 11 P2P.

[Kal]

but then round 11 would need to cost more for breakeven to be possible

[reznor]

Originally posted by Maddix
Round 10 should have been free to get everyone interested and liking the game again. Then Round 11 P2P.

Yup, I think that's it!

I feel that there's something inside that we weren't smell for the real creators (spinner)....PaX is totally diff as far as my observation...from scanning to the real battlereport.oh even the manual.....ooops

[Hala]

Perhaps there was a degree of shortsighteness in looking @ the need to break even with one p2p round which has in the end made the ability to break even at all impossible.

By attempting to fix a price which sees them break even in the first p2p round of this "new" PA they have made the price such which many people unfamiliar with what PA is unwilling to pay such an extravigent amount. Yes there is the 2 week trial period but lets face it, the trial "universe" is hardly a good place to learn how the game is played.

As someone mentioned this round should have been free to try to give everyone a proper idea of what this new PA is like and then come round 11 hopefully there would hav been a larger community which could have been a foundation for a game in the region of 10-15K people. Unfortunatly this is not the case and it looks like PA will do what it should have done after round 8 and die.

Its a shame that Jolt appears to have looked in such a short term view.

[Hurragutten]

Price shouldn't be any issue. After all you pay very litle for a 3 months game compared with the cost of buying a game, going to the movies, or other activities.

I believe the problem is now:
Planetarion does not attract new people as they have heard that it's impossible to get in without being really active and being part of a big alliance. Wich is true, so new players don't arrive.

Older players are quitting because they don't recognise the game anymore. Or they go on to RL or other games.

I will most certainly leave after this round and so will others I guess. I am affraid r11 will only have around 1k players. And if that is the case: There will be no r11 - and for certain no r12.

Sad to see a great game die.

[Al_zz]

Also the basis of PA is not only the game but also the irc network. With the free gals sperated and small in size they will never end up on the irc network even. It would be good if the gaming communities of browser based games like PA, SS and the likes would also join hands in sharing their irc networks.

Increasing the galsizes of freebie gals to 25 players again would be much better. That would ensure that there is communication in the gal and it seems the minimum amount needed for fairly inactive group to start with to be able to setup their own mini community.

Also why not leave the paying customers amonst the free customers during the protection phase at least. This leaves the newbies 48 hours to meet experienced players and get info on how to start in the game, how to get on IRC and as a secondary advantage it removes the need for a shuffle.

Also get more info out the new players.
You could for instance have a checkbox on signup for 'new to the game' and then recieve a starterguide by mail and an invitation from the combined alliance community with info about each alliance (if an alliance choses to of course) and how to get into contact with those alliances. Also a newsletter would be an option that could also be checked on signup.

hAl

[wakey]

Originally posted by Hurragutten
Price shouldn't be any issue. After all you pay very litle for a 3 months game compared with the cost of buying a game, going to the movies, or other activities.

It shouldnt be but it is. Just look at the first p2p round, 180k were playing and having fun the round before that but there was no more than 30k who played the p2p round (and half of those got in on the free account that everyone got when they bought an account)

I know people who played 9.5 as it was free but refuse to pay for PAX as they dont think its worth it. With the game so differnt we really did need a free round to get people onboard and the price for subsequent rounds needed to be alot more competative than what it currently is

[Wandows]

i agree we need the free game....... but we also need someone who knows how to advertise and get ppl interested for a new round of planetarion =), last free round didn't have that many (legal) planets either, so ppl should be made more aware of when what is going to happen. And when you advertise for a certain deadline make sure everything is ready so ppl can actually play what they where promised by the commercial add.

We need something like a "Planetarion in 10 steps thing" that is small of size and easy to understand (it doesn't have to cover the entire game very detailed, but just a guide so ppl have a clue about what they should do). We still lack good information about the game, and when new ppl can't understand the game from the manual its not very attractive to try a new game

[Hicks]

Originally posted by Hurragutten
Price shouldn't be any issue. After all you pay very litle for a 3 months game compared with the cost of buying a game, going to the movies, or other activities.

But it is, I mean people seem to think they can compare Planetarion with games like Eve Online and Ever Quest in the price stakes, I mean it really is no contest those games have countless man hours in developement, great graphics and sound. Planetarion has none of these, the reason it was so sucessful initially is that it was free and no one could complain about these things it was simply something to do between other online activities. To be honest and I think I speak for a lot of people especially prespective players, I'd rather pay for a game not a database.

Also about the activity thing, last night I was in bed at 11:00 I woke up at 9:00 without an alarm. I didn't have to pay £10 for that, I win. Using the two games I mentioned above the really nice thing about them are that you can go away for long periods and simply not have to worry, you still need to put hours in but you can choose when you do it, flexibility > *.

Also if you insist on the tick based formula this is how an online space strategy game should be made.

[Legator]

Originally posted by Maddix
Round 10 should have been free to get everyone interested and liking the game again. Then Round 11 P2P.

have to agree here.

and there should be somehow free accounts integrated which can play in the "normal" universe but with few limitations.

like it was in earlier rounds.

of course that might bring alot cheating with it but then we need a good multihunting team. or whatever.

[Tyroka]

Originally posted by Legator
have to agree here.

and there should be somehow free accounts integrated which can play in the "normal" universe but with few limitations.

like it was in earlier rounds.

of course that might bring alot cheating with it but then we need a good multihunting team. or whatever.

Why not let one of those limitations u talk about that they can't be in paid universe more then 1 week (maybe more) ?

So when u try out the game u get into a gal with other ppl (preferably with some paid accounts). There you'll be one of the gal and hopefully your galmates will help you and get you interested. (To make it easier for galmates to know which ppl they should be helpful against it should be marked ingame; either by "new to the game" which could be handled by signup as hAl mentioned and then coded to be shown, or only show if it's paid or not).

After the week u either pay and can stay in the same gal or u will after this 1 week be moved to the free part of the universe (where they maybe should make it possible to play for another few weeks).

This would make it harder to cheat (after all u don't have the time build that much in a week and not time to use the "farm" for long), and the new ppl would meet experienced players that could help them. Then it would be up to us (the community) to show them that we're nice and helpful and make them have fun, maybe even recruit them into our alliances and by that hopefully they would pay.

[Legator]

Originally posted by Tyroka
Why not let one of those limitations u talk about that they can't be in paid universe more then 1 week (maybe more) ?

So when u try out the game u get into a gal with other ppl (preferably with some paid accounts). There you'll be one of the gal and hopefully your galmates will help you and get you interested. (To make it easier for galmates to know which ppl they should be helpful against it should be marked ingame; either by "new to the game" which could be handled by signup as hAl mentioned and then coded to be shown, or only show if it's paid or not).

After the week u either pay and can stay in the same gal or u will after this 1 week be moved to the free part of the universe (where they maybe should make it possible to play for another few weeks).

This would make it harder to cheat (after all u don't have the time build that much in a week and not time to use the "farm" for long), and the new ppl would meet experienced players that could help them. Then it would be up to us (the community) to show them that we're nice and helpful and make them have fun, maybe even recruit them into our alliances and by that hopefully they would pay.

well, i bet there are several options, i dont know which is right. but i guess one week is to less.

we need more "average" back, those ppl who arent 10 hours online a day. that is normally the basic you build on.

nowadays there mainly pro´s playing (actiave wise). normally it should be a few inactives, most are average and a few pro´s.

the basic broke away. only the 24/7s stayed.

[bmwoody]

Using the two games I mentioned above the really nice thing about them are that you can go away for long periods and simply not have to worry

I rather think that the (near) realtime ticks are part of what makes Planetarion interesting and unique. I'm one of those who likes a bit of realism in the game (which is why also like the new combat system... ) It's part of the game to find yourself protection for those times when you won't be available to help yourself.

[Lord_Thunderball]

Name 1 game that loads of people play 24/7 for 2/3 years that is still going on?
Yeah you got games like Counter strike which are old and still got loads of players, but you can stop playing it for a while, or play less. Planetarion is a game which soak up your life. Is it strange if people quit after 2 years? I think not, every game i've played becomes less interesting over time. A game playing this active for 2 years is already very long.

Most games get new players, and that's where the problem is. I won't ever buy credits for an online game I have never played. So no new players coming in. It isn't strange why we get less and less players, and I see no coming back since there is a lot of "free" stuff on the i-net.

Let's hope that those people who still want to play enjoy any roid that is coming, I will only enjoy speedrounds nowdays. Ofcource it isn't bad to think about how to revive the game, but I don't see it coming

[Razorback]

Originally Posted by Lord_Thunderball

Name 1 game that loads of people play 24/7 for 2/3 years that is still going on?
Yeah you got games like Counter strike which are old and still got loads of players, but you can stop playing it for a while, or play less. Planetarion is a game which soak up your life. Is it strange if people quit after 2 years? I think not, every game i've played becomes less interesting over time. A game playing this active for 2 years is already very long.

Utopia, earth2100(?), ****************, Broodwar/Starcraft, diabolo 2. Note the first 3 are tickbased games like pa but FREE and smaller. While the blizzard products kept their players due to permanent tweaking and updating and a big community with alot of events.

[dabult]

Originally Posted by Lord_Thunderball

Name 1 game that loads of people play 24/7 for 2/3 years that is still going on?

Nukezone





It's not 2-3 years old though afaik..and not quite as interesting as PA..but a good competitor.

[Random]

You can't rely on Jolt or PA advertising to bring in players. Advertising isn't going to entice players to play at all.. It's up to the community to bring in new players by referring friends. After all, that is how 99% of us here heard about Planetarion.

I think going back to what PA Crew did in round 4 with the free credits should be tried again. If everyone that intends to play next round buys a credit, they should be given another credit to give to a friend. If the community really wanted to bring in new people, they'd give that credit to someone that would be interested in playing but has never played before. My guess is that most people would exploit the free credits and give them to their alliance mates...but maybe something could be done to deter that like make the free credit planets start later in the round or make all the free planets belong to the same alliance or something. It would be cool if this idea was merged with the semi-private gal idea and make both the paying planet and the free planet join the same galaxy..

Anyway, my point was to re-introduce free credits and somehow incorporate these free planets into the community.

[Lord_Thunderball]

Originally Posted by Razorback

Utopia, earth2100(?), ****************, Broodwar/Starcraft, diabolo 2. Note the first 3 are tickbased games like pa but FREE and smaller. While the blizzard products kept their players due to permanent tweaking and updating and a big community with alot of events.

All these games are running cause they are free(except one time payment for the blizzard games)Then you will get new players coming in. Planetarion don't got those new players. That's what I already said in my initial post. What I tried to say was that planetarion is not dead because the game sucks(people try to find the reason there) it's the lack of new players and a reason is that planetarion isn't (partly) free.

[ronnie]

EVE seems to be doing ok and thats a monthly subscription not just a one off payment.

a few thousand play that (5+ i think)

[Oghy]

It just keeps amazing me how many ppl just grasp at straws and do not understand that PA has had its time.

It doesn't matter who the creators are,
it doesn't matter if there is tons of advertising,
it doesn't matter if this game becomes cheaper (can't anyways, because the minimum cc transfer costs are @ $10)
it doesn't matter if we have another free round...


I believe that Jolt has played their cards exactly right. I'm quite sure they managed to squeeze a nice profit out of PA.
Face it, this game doesnt cost anything...
advertising: they added it to their banner system (0 extra cost)
hosting: compared to one of their cs servers its neglectable... (you can rent a really decent cs server for $80/month)
Maintenance costs: 1 extra server to maintaine out of the dozens they have... perhaps it gets cut down to $100/month
Wages: Apparantly due to a clever contract with the creators they managed to cut them out of serious costs as well... There's the keith guy, but i bet his PA involvement is only a side-job for him.

2000 paid planets: $20,000
Not a bad profit if you ask me...

Now that there are only volunteers running this game, I'm quite sure Jolt will keep this game going for a few more rounds.
Mostlikely they will keep running it untill the breakeven point... less then 100 players or so...


As for the comparison to other paid games... That is a ludicrous... PaX remains afaik one of the only p2p browser text only mporg games out there... (i wouldnt call it massive anymore...)

There are perfectly other possible FREE alternatives, with identical communities...


I guess we have to face it:

The era of Planetarion is no longer.


"Long Live PaX" :eek:



-Yogibear

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Oghy

It just keeps amazing me how many ppl just grasp at straws and do not understand that PA has had its time.

Given the fact that other browser-based games are still running, and that there's still succesful PA clones being played, I'd say that there is still a demand on the market that PA could fulfil. Especially seeing as the free 9.5 had 14k accounts despite it running on short notice and without much advertising, and was still getting a good amount of signups towards the end.

What it needs, however, is player numbers. And the only single way in which that is going to happen is by reintroducing free accounts. No silly 2-week free play, universally seperated free accounts with no interaction. Fully free accounts, which last the entire round and float in between all the paid accounts.

Income would be generated by the option to pay for your account in exchange for more options, such as more fleet slots, no banners at the top of the page, the ability to join/create ingame alliances, more research/construction, possibly a few extra ships, whatever it takes to make paying for an account worthwhile.

Additionally, a prize offered for winning the round would be a good incentive (surely Jolt, being a company in the IT business would be able to offer graphics cards, or other hardware geek toys fairly easily). Speedgames could gather extra revenue at virtually no extra cost.

Now that there are only volunteers running this game, I'm quite sure Jolt will keep this game going for a few more rounds.

I've been told that Jolt really cares about the game. Although I've never ever personally seen any of them pay any attention to PA whatsoever or make any effort (other than Keith hanging around in #pateam to be whined at about stuff like old banners and Round 9 coming soon advertising pages on jolt.co.uk towards the end of r9.5), which was one of the major reasons I quit.

The era of Planetarion is no longer.

Although reaching former glory seems unlikely - to make the understatement of the century - I firmly believe it can do much better than it is doing now.

[Oghy]

Originally Posted by Leshy

Given the fact that other browser-based games are still running, and that there's still succesful PA clones being played, I'd say that there is still a demand on the market that PA could fulfil. Especially seeing as the free 9.5 had 14k accounts despite it running on short notice and without much advertising, and was still getting a good amount of signups towards the end.

Ahh, yes.... the ever returning argument that people DO seem to come onto this game if its free...
Sadly it is false...
Round 9.5 had indeed about 14k accounts when it was running... But after 2 months and tons of cleanups it ended without 6k planets, 6k real players... more or less the same as the round before.
So what we can conclude from round 9.5 is that it is in fact not drawing many new players into the game...
it just generates a hell lot more cheaters and 1-time signups (this game is too complex etc)...


Also... Name me 1 browser text only game which requires a monthly (or 3 months) payment?
As I've said before, there are tons of FREE alternatives, saturating the market... I do not see a vacancy for PA anywhere...
Sure PA would once again have a decent position in the browser game market if it went completely free... But that would just increase costs (more server load) and no revenue what so ever. I do not see this happening.
I believe it might be able to do better, but it will never happen.

PA was a hype, it was new, it was cool, and tons of people were playing it.

The era of Planetarion is no longer...

On a sidenote

Additionally, a prize offered for winning the round would be a good incentive (surely Jolt, being a company in the IT business would be able to offer graphics cards, or other hardware geek toys fairly easily). Speedgames could gather extra revenue at virtually no extra cost.

It would be typical to give away graphics cards to the winner of a game with complete lack of graphics.

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Oghy

Round 9.5 had indeed about 14k accounts when it was running... But after 2 months and tons of cleanups it ended without 6k planets, 6k real players... more or less the same as the round before.

As I said, Round 9.5 as a free round was hardly announced and didn't last very long. There were a lot of signups during the round, and new players were indeed coming in. At least more than in several other recent rounds -> I personally remember a lot of people on IRC I had to tell that Round 9.5 was almost over and that R10 was going to be P2P again if they wanted to play the game.

Also... Name me 1 browser text only game which requires a monthly (or 3 months) payment?

Warriors II. Online Soccer Manager (it has the option at least).

At any rate, as I said, the only way to attract players is by allowing them to play for free. There is no other alternative.

Sure PA would once again have a decent position in the browser game market if it went completely free...

Make it worthwhile to pay for an account and it won't be completely free. PA won't survive as a P2P-only game, and it won't survive as a Free-only game. Hence, a combination is the only answer.

It would be typical to give away graphics cards to the winner of a game with complete lack of graphics.

Heh

[Oghy]

Originally Posted by Leshy

There were a lot of signups during the round, and new players were indeed coming in.

But how many new players were REALLY coming in... Sure lots of signups, but to create a 2nd scanplanet or just to be a multi seemed to have been very tempting for many...
How many of those new players would in fact turn into paying customers in the end.
As for marketing... Its my opinion that advertising for online games like this hardly ever works. The way it goes with online games is word-of-mouth... Face it, practically everyone is here because a friend told them about it... Not because they saw an ad in their game magazine.

Originally Posted by Leshy

Warriors II. Online Soccer Manager (it has the option at least).

Never heard of em, I know this online soccer manager game that is played by a lot of people but its free...
How many people are playing that? and how much does it cost?

Originally Posted by Leshy

At any rate, as I said, the only way to attract players is by allowing them to play for free. There is no other alternative.
Make it worthwhile to pay for an account and it won't be completely free. PA won't survive as a P2P-only game, and it won't survive as a Free-only game. Hence, a combination is the only answer.

My point is, its not going to survive either way... They've been struggling with a good free & p2p combo for ages now...
They only way to get more players is not only by going free, but also by drasticly changing the game... in fact that has proven not to be enough. They will need to come up with a completely new, innovative and thrilling game concept to draw in the masses. They've pulled it off once... It is really unlikely that they'll manage to do it again...

Quite frankly, I think Jolt is all too well aware of this. Therefore they will probably keep it p2p and just let it die a slow death.

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Oghy

How many of those new players would in fact turn into paying customers in the end.

You don't need every new player to turn into a paying customer. You need them to spread the word and thus attract more people.

Face it, practically everyone is here because a friend told them about it...

Or because they heard about it on forums etc, indeed. Which is why you need a lot of people playing it, even if they refuse to pay. Turning down someone who isn't willing to pay, is turning down a potential advertiser. Which only is a viable strategy if you have a guaranteed large enough customer base to turn a profit or at the very least break even.

Never heard of em, I know this online soccer manager game that is played by a lot of people but its free...
How many people are playing that? and how much does it cost?

The Online Soccer Manager game I mentioned, you can play for free. But you can also choose so-called season tickets or premium season tickets, which give you extra options, no advertising, that sort of stuff. They are good for 38 days each, and cost 2 and 3 euro respectively. It currently has about 140k accounts, out of which something like 1k uses premium season tickets, not sure about regular season tickets, but I reckon it's in the 2-4k range. May not seem like much, but keep in mind the game is Dutch and as such it's customer base is only the Netherlands and part of Belgium.

Quite frankly, I think Jolt is all too well aware of this. Therefore they will probably keep it p2p and just let it die a slow death.

No, no! Jolt really cares about Planetarion! Honestly! They said so to MrBrick himself!

[zenopus]

Originally Posted by Nitros

ppl are not willing to pay for a game when they can also play it for free in a slightly different community

The fact that the free accounts in PAX are still running will not inspire people to buy credits for PAXI.

[^AvengeR^]

I wouldve played r10, its just the price put me off, i payed and played r7,8,9, r10 was the cost, but the free planet made the game look crap newayz, -=old pa=-

[Tomkat]

Originally Posted by Oghy

Never heard of em, I know this online soccer manager game that is played by a lot of people but its free...
How many people are playing that? and how much does it cost?

Warriors II was treats
But I wouldn't pay to play it...

[Fernando]

well, honestly i dont like being a pain about this issue, but as I said when I retired, PaX stands no chance to older versions.

Anyone in here does not agree with me that R9,8,7,6,5 where much better than R10?

And then the best part of the game: R4,3 and 2 (and maybe R1, but i didn´t play that )

To be honest, planetarion needs a change. Either bring it back by making it free for 2 rounds (and believe me, this will attract a LOT of new players), which will involve needing a heck LOT of multihunters, OR:
1) Unjoltonize the portal
2) Make it back to the old planetarion format (better races, "more" ships stats, clusters/paralels, etc)
3)Give incentives to new alliances to get to be known, and also make sure the old ones do not disband because of LACK of members (again, this goes to the same question as before; shouldn´t the game go free for a bit?)
4) Advertise the Netgamers IRC, make the community bigger somehow.


And i would post a lot more, but then jolt may not like some :lol:

Anyways, I hope someone takes this in consideration, and does something about the current decay of planetarion.

PS: make more planetarion w00fages, it was great fun and gathered nearly 300 people in #planetarion, which is not a regular sight nowdays.

Fernando
Retired Planetarion Player (until the game becomes what it used to be)

[Fernando]

Originally Posted by Nitros

ppl are not willing to pay for a game when they can also play it for free in a slightly different community

Though i am retired, the comunnity is way different, meaning either all my netgamers friends left to join (********, for example), or i will not trade them. I got bored of ******** after 2 days because of the .... "different" community they have.

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by idimmu

round 11 is going to be pax with tweaks

As far as I know, the exact format of Round 11 isn't known yet - and it is far more likely to be a combination of old and new features.

I wonder if they'll do a WinAmp and call it PaX:9 or PA-19

[Gateway]

Well, imo 1st hit was maden by Spinner when Pa turns to P2P, next reason why ppl don't play/like PaX anymore is that there is too big chances. This isn't same planetarion what it was be4. Too easy be a big etc. My 1st quitting was after r5, but i was back, but i can see nothing isn't different, same old shitty game, different cover or summit

- a. k. a. No-Bless -

[Masterplan]

i think there are plenty of pa players who would pay for the game to be free.
donations have worked well with other games. and i'm sure that if JOLT told us how much they needed to raise to host a round (or more) of planetarion then throgh small donations that amoutn could be raised easily without forcing payment from anyone. who here would pay as little as maybe £2-3 to see another 100k+ player round or so
i know i would pay £10 or so.

so come on JOLT

let us know
and maybe we can help.
if you dont get enough cash then clearly pa is doomed

[I am Idler]

Originally Posted by Nitros

ppl are getting bored with planetarion because (untill now, but too late) no big changes appeared

Planetarion started to loose its playerbase the MOMENT they introduced 1, races 2. p2p.

a combination of the two nailed the coffin for any chance of giving planetarion a long life.

(sure it was innovative, but a bit to complex for your ordinary internet user and thus they wont be bothered)
If you want people you need to keep it simple, and no big poof poof.
the changes made from the hey-days (r1-3) have been of such a major character that everyone but the "most loyal" (insert weak) people left

also, the game is simply not fun anymore. plain and utterly simple