Graphics!

[Smudge]

[backstory]So there was I, sitting and coding away doing some programming and I thought why not check PA. I had recently changed skin from the Spreadsheet skin to the one called Clean Sheet which I liked a lot - nice big picture of a planet with my information on there. Now previously my flatmates had seen PA and thought Oh it looks boring. They saw that skin and said "dude whats that?" and they were actually interested.[/backstory]

So my suggestion is get more skins like that, give the screen a bit of a more sci-fi boost [maybe ships over planets?] and then that will make it more lively.

Hopefully!

[Kal]

We would love people to create fun and exciting skins - but we don't really have the skills internally to do it. The best we can really do is offer support to people as to how the skin system works.

[Wandows]

Its hardly a more skins only issue imo, i rather go back to one skin for the entire game (or 1 per race). On the internet looks are important, without the looks no one will even bother to check the game, regardless of how great it might be. I suggest PaTeam puts some effort in contracting a professional designer to create a 'skin', or better said "The PA skin". A skin that basicly shows exactly what the game is all about without ever having to touch a manual, where players would feel they are somewhat playing in space, opposed to the non-pa related stuff used as skins atm. I don't mean the skins are ugly, there are quite a few nice ones in it, but in order to create a game feeling i think a the developers should actively seek for a person who can put that identity into a breath taking skin.

Not to mention the addition of ship / construction pictures. Maybe even a background that fits with each page its meaning, like a research lab idea when going to the research page (something on the background where you see ppl draw designs for a new ships or engine.), construction creating a building on the construction page, a ship dock on the fleet/mission screen, asteroids being mined on the background of the mining page etc etc. Its relatively easy to create a decent game feeling/experience regardless of how the game works. In the end its imo far better than having all those skins (how nice they might be) that are so different ppl from the outside just have no clue what they are looking at.

Edit: but afaik this issue has been raised on numerous occassions with the same result :-)

[Kal]

While I agree that it would be nice to get some graphics professionally produced it is rather expensive (we have looked into it in the past). It is perhaps something we can revisit once the portal/passport project is completed.

That said if someone form the community wanted to produce *the* pa skin we would be eternally greatful.

[qebab]

The clean sheet skin is very nice, but I would like to have a darker version of it, as it is a pain to watch at when you've just got out of bed in the morning and it's still dark inside your room. That's the main reason why I don't use it, anyway.

[Makhil]

Many players don't even know they can change skin and where to do it.
At some point people were asking for a return of R6 skins, now that they've been made nobody uses them... sad