My thriumphs, my mistakes

[leknu]

Dear diary,

For some weird stroke of luck, after a couple rounds break I managed to wander to Planetarion pages and noticed round had just started couple days ago... Bit late, but still... I signed up as random planet and randomly picked Cathaar to be my race to be.

Ok, going random isn't exactly ace plan, doing that as cath even less so.

My first galaxy!
Gal chan on irc did exist, not registered tho... I don't recall ever seeing more than 2 ppl there at the same time.

I exiled when I came out of protection and landed in a far better place.

Galaxy had a chan and even @P! But @P was quite boring chap, no sense of humour at all... and @P sucked balls at arranging def.
I stayed there a couple days, there were at least some people online occasionally, and even on irc (lo bavaria), even helping each other.
With some help, I was lucky enough to hold on to my precious <300 roids.

Ok, this was definately improvement from the previous one, but I'm such a pussy I decided to try my luck elsewhere.

First glance at new gal: bigger than previous one, I'm only planet online, gal has several incs. There is gal chan on irc -
no @P - nobody.
Couple ticks later, I get incs also... No chance of defending I launch 3 fleets out to attack.
I get roided 5 ticks, I roid 2 ticks - 250 roids left, and 6th inc on me catches my returning attack fleet. It's a small fleet,
no big deal, accidental fc I think...

To be continued...

[OlaTa]

Originally Posted by leknu

I signed up as random planet and randomly picked Cathaar to be my race to be.

Planetarion has to hate you ....

[Mzyxptlk]

Lesson of the day: The @ in "@P" is an indication of its op status, it is not actually part of the nick name of the bot.

[Light]

Originally Posted by leknu

Dear diary,

For some weird stroke of luck, after a couple rounds break I managed to wander to Planetarion pages and noticed round had just started couple days ago... Bit late, but still... I signed up as random planet and randomly picked Cathaar to be my race to be.

Ok, going random isn't exactly ace plan, doing that as cath even less so.

My first galaxy!
Gal chan on irc did exist, not registered tho... I don't recall ever seeing more than 2 ppl there at the same time.

I exiled when I came out of protection and landed in a far better place.

Galaxy had a chan and even @P! But @P was quite boring chap, no sense of humour at all... and @P sucked balls at arranging def.
I stayed there a couple days, there were at least some people online occasionally, and even on irc (lo bavaria), even helping each other.
With some help, I was lucky enough to hold on to my precious <300 roids.

Ok, this was definately improvement from the previous one, but I'm such a pussy I decided to try my luck elsewhere.

First glance at new gal: bigger than previous one, I'm only planet online, gal has several incs. There is gal chan on irc -
no @P - nobody.
Couple ticks later, I get incs also... No chance of defending I launch 3 fleets out to attack.
I get roided 5 ticks, I roid 2 ticks - 250 roids left, and 6th inc on me catches my returning attack fleet. It's a small fleet,
no big deal, accidental fc I think...

To be continued...

PA Team decided they didnt care about new players so screwed every random/new player in the game.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by Light

PA Team decided they didnt care about new players so screwed every random/new player in the game.

This isn't true, there are some newbies that are doing just fine. I have 3 virgin PA newbies in my gal and all three have managed to hold their roids so far, and one even landed an attack! Quit posting in absolutes Light, it really doesn't become you.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Monroe

This isn't true, there are some newbies that are doing just fine. I have 3 virgin PA newbies in my gal and all three have managed to hold their roids so far, and one even landed an attack! Quit posting in absolutes Light, it really doesn't become you.

public or private gal?

[Patrikc]

Blame [Dreamz]. He has your shippies.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

public or private gal?

Public of course, that would be a real feat, finding three virgin PA newbies and getting them to join your private galaxy!

I would also like to point out there are several public galaxies still in the t10. While they may or may not be there still at the end of the round, and certainly the primary reason they are there is because of their large number of players, they can't all be doing badly.

[_Kila_]

Originally Posted by Monroe

This isn't true, there are some newbies that are doing just fine. I have 3 virgin PA newbies in my gal and all three have managed to hold their roids so far, and one even landed an attack! Quit posting in absolutes Light, it really doesn't become you.

Whilst she's obviously being melodramatic and all (it's Light), she does have a point in that random gals are obviously so much worse than private ones.
I went random and exiled around quite a few times (my exile cost is now extortionate) - I've landed in a gal with a couple of semi active players and we've had incs every day. It's been 7 days since the round started and I've had 15 hostile inc fleets so far, only one of which was a teamup (2 person). It's worth noting that I have only gone over 400 roids once this round (lasted under a day).
As it is, almost all random gals are the "farm gals" that we'd have in regular rounds where "top players" (hi Sjor/Pommeh) pick up cheap/easy roids.

I wouldn't pin this directly on the introduction of private gals though, I'm inclined to agree with wishmaster that it's due to all the decent/active players going for private gals with people they don't know over going random. There aren't enough experienced/active players to make decent random gals. Sure there may be one or two random gals doing ok now but the vast majority are just dead.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by _Kila_

I wouldn't pin this directly on the introduction of private gals though, I'm inclined to agree with wishmaster that it's due to all the decent/active players going for private gals with people they don't know over going random. There aren't enough experienced/active players to make decent random gals. Sure there may be one or two random gals doing ok now but the vast majority are just dead.

The introduction of public/private galaxies has been a big mistake, the potential for abuse and unfair tactics is huge. Not to mention the fact that newbies are all lumped together, and surprise surprise are not doing well. This is part of the reason I went public, so that at least one galaxy of newbies would have an experienced player to help them out. Honestly it's been fun so far, but I can totally sympathize with the plight of leknu, and there are many like him. Most of the current players don't remember r6 when this system was last tried and what a disaster it was.

I have never been a proponent of public/private galaxies, and I have demonstrated to Cin/Appoco how the existing system can be abused to give a single ally a hugely unfair advantage. I have yet to publish my finding on this for fear that some ally will actually use my plan and ruin the round.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Monroe

The introduction of public/private galaxies has been a big mistake, the potential for abuse and unfair tactics is huge. Not to mention the fact that newbies are all lumped together, and surprise surprise are not doing well. This is part of the reason I went public, so that at least one galaxy of newbies would have an experienced player to help them out. Honestly it's been fun so far, but I can totally sympathize with the plight of leknu, and there are many like him. Most of the current players don't remember r6 when this system was last tried and what a disaster it was.

I have never been a proponent of public/private galaxies, and I have demonstrated to Cin/Appoco how the existing system can be abused to give a single ally a hugely unfair advantage. I have yet to publish my finding on this for fear that some ally will actually use my plan and ruin the round.

Yeah, newbies being completely ignored is a new thing

[_Kila_]

Originally Posted by Monroe

The introduction of public/private galaxies has been a big mistake, the potential for abuse and unfair tactics is huge. Not to mention the fact that newbies are all lumped together, and surprise surprise are not doing well. This is part of the reason I went public, so that at least one galaxy of newbies would have an experienced player to help them out. Honestly it's been fun so far, but I can totally sympathize with the plight of leknu, and there are many like him. Most of the current players don't remember r6 when this system was last tried and what a disaster it was.

See if more people had gone random instead of getting a private gal for the sake of going private there would be far stronger public gals with more scope for newbie involvement. Lets face it, there are dozens of private gals that are, quite frankly, shit.

If there were fewer private gals (ie. only groups of 8 actual friends/people who know each other made private gals) public gals would stand a far greater chance. It's not exactly the system's fault, it's the playerbase's.

Light; you're part of the problem. You are in a private gal with people you don't know very well (in fact I bet they all hate you). Quit bitching.

[Shev]

Originally Posted by Monroe

Most of the current players don't remember r6 when this system was last tried and what a disaster it was.

I was in a random gal that got farmed to hell in round 6 and really enjoyed my round, as did the other (few) semi-active people in my galaxy. It inspired me to actually make friends with some and form our own private galaxy for round 7 along with some other terrible players I met in a random round 4 galaxy. I'm curious as to your qualifications to deem it such a "disaster"?

From that awful round 7 private gal I made contact with better players in negotiating my planet not to be destroyed by in-cluster attacks and moved into my first real alliance. All these things have been gradually removed as apparently they're bad for new players.

[Dark-Strider]

I was briefly in your gal Leknu, but I left as well.
As gal was super inactive. I signed up late and random and as Cath.
Doing pretty well though considering its 1st rnd back since Rnd12.

Good luck with the rest of the round Leknu.

[Wishmaster]

I hope for next round that more people will go to random gals rather than making shit priv gals with people they dont know.

New players need experienced players around them...

[Aryn]

it wouldn't be so bad if allies would man up and attack each other instead of farming newbies.
so i don't think that ALL the blame goes to PAteam.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by Aryn

it wouldn't be so bad if allies would man up and attack each other instead of farming newbies.
so i don't think that ALL the blame goes to PAteam.

Some certainly are. However how can people pass up the opportunity for cheap roids? I don't think it is fair to expect people to not attack those they think they can get free roids from. Hitting other allies is always higher risk, since the chance of defense is much greater then with newbies. This has always been true, and will be true as long as the universe has alliances and newbies. All that can be done is limit the amount of bashing that can be done, which is normally handled by the bash limit. However for the first week or two of the round the difference in value between newbies and active ally players is small and so the newbies get roided. This is life, this is PA, for better or worse. No way around it without inventing a totally new game imo.

[Dark-Strider]

Yeah, random gals do seem to be farm gals.
It's funny when you see your gal which is like 65th in the rankings being mass attacked with team ups. Im not new, but I haven't played for awhile. But I can feel for the new players who are trying to learn the game, and then just getting bashed into oblivion.

Good way to attract new players into the game...

[Aryn]

hmm i quite like rul3r's hybrid idea.
i mean let's face it.. a majority of the private gals were made up of approx 3-4 friends and some other people thrown in to make it a full gal. obviously this varies for some people but i was just making an example. if they had 5player buddypacks that could go into a random gal, i think there would be a lot of people to choose that option.
i actually only knew one person in my private gal, and i've enjoyed getting to know the rest of my gal, but being in a private gal, or a buddypack with randoms would be pretty much the same for me.
also having buddypacks in a random gal would hopefully give some of the newbies a chance. if they're active and willing to learn, the bp should take them under their wing, if they're totally inactive, well, sucks for the gal but wouldn't really affect the bp.

[Heartless]

As I said many, many times before: Remove galaxies.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by Heartless

As I said many, many times before: Remove galaxies.

Why? You don't want any geography in the game at all? You don't want anyone but your allies to be able to defend you? I don't understand. In general people prefer to have a tight nit community to play with. Consistently in human history those who team up with those who offer them the best advantages do well. Whatever PA does should foster this basic human instinct to play on teams.

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by Monroe

Why? You don't want any geography in the game at all? You don't want anyone but your allies to be able to defend you? I don't understand. In general people prefer to have a tight nit community to play with. Consistently in human history those who team up with those who offer them the best advantages do well. Whatever PA does should foster this basic human instinct to play on teams.

I never said that I don't want any geography at all, nor did I say that I don't want people to play together. I suggest you read this thread on Planetarion Suggestions, specifically this IRC log attached to it where mz and me discuss an alternate universe layout.

[DunkelGraf]

Listen to Heartless, he´s german!