Seriously.. with 700 or less countries, most alliances pacted out.. something has to force everyone to change their "retal" policies.

I think it'd be interesting to start everyone off with a set amount of acres, and then from out of protection, your only choice is to land grab for land - so, if you want to grow, you grab or nothing. Increase diminishing returns, so people have to vary their targets to get any benefit.

Bottomfeeding days are long over.. and were really only supported by bots anyway.

What's killing this game.. and has always been killing this game?
The social aspect of it.. the "policies" and "pacting" alliances enforce that go against the design of how the game itself should be played.

Discuss?

Yeah thats such an awesome idea, oh wait its fvcking terrible. Then you just push more and more people out of the game cause they can't keep up, and almost no new players ever come in.

Yeah, I'd probably quit playing, myself. Land grabbing is more intensive (as intensive as a text-based game gets, anyway) and a lot of people don't have time for it. I do, I just don't like risking getting suicided, or going through alllll that work to find a target.

Bottomfeeding days are long over?

Are you cracked? Removing exploring would ENCOURAGE bottom feeding....why grab a big target when you can grab one that can't retal you 10x?

RaTS... What new players? The game hasn't exactly been growing anyway. Need to work on sustaining the current player base first.


NOW3P... encourage bottom feeding? Bottom feed what exactly? There are no countries to bottom feed.. and if you increase DR to make it not worth it, then people have to look at targets that haven't been hit already.


The idea is, for the game to change to try and attempt alliances to change 1:1 retal policies and have less pacts.


But hey.. if you guys reckon farming the f*** out of any "new" players that might join the game or running all explorers is whats best... cool.... thanks for your input.

Errr so you have to sit around and wait for guys to come out of DRs. So basically you are rewarding those who have no lives and sit around waiting for guys to come out of DRs more than they already get rewarded for (LaF & Evo). They are the guys who do it mostly. Which means people either have to spend more time on the game sitting around and scouting targets, or they just say fluff it and quit.

if you clan is pacted out come and and join The Fist, coz we are most certainly not

by choice that is :)

http://www.boxcarhosting.com/...estart.php?clanID=TheFist

*waits in the shadows for Thomas to come out of DRs*

I think the idea is interesting, but I would just cut the explore rates in half. Maybe try this on the "team" server and see how it works out. Could be a lot of fun!

Rats? Now thats a name I havent heard in awhile.

TAN's idea is better, but I dont think it will really help. I for 1 am way too lazy to bother lg'ing, let alone making it harder to find targets as it is.

Many people like me may just decide to not play, or just have less land, adding to the lg problem we already have.

Given that we have ghost acres, it might be profitable for two people in the same clan and a decent amount of land (10-12k acres plus) to simply SS each other with a couple of jets about 70 times. Unless diminishing returns is based on time, not activity I guess.

I think they should remove Skythe from the game.

Just stop pacting everyone and their mothers and then you will see more grabbing.

The main problem here is not with the game it is with how it is played.

actually most people i know would just quit, they dont want to spend more time on the game as its which is understandable since everyone and their mom on the boards has played for at least 5 years by now and some has played for 10 unfortunately i dont think theres much that can be done to change the game
altho i have some ideas

Dumbest idea ever.
Delete this thread.

<- would stop playing alliance if exploring was removed. it only benefits really active players, and would definitely not help new players. then the new alliance server starts to look like the old alliance server....

(capture the flag server ftw!) ahem :)

The grabbing pool (ie; untags) are getting to be very slim pickings for those that don't camp DR timers and such. The gains are aweful, ghost acres are here, there is potential for midfeeding and interclan hits. And believe me, we farming jerkwads are looking at change.

This isn't going to just magically happen overnight, it takes time. You've waited what 5 years? Surely you can wait a bit longer.

only 5 years? cute... ;)

yeah if i cant play all-x i will quit..
i juz dun haf the time
dun remember grabbing at all since like 3 yrs ago
=P

You've identified the problem, but your proposed solution would do more harm than good.

I think one way that might help would be to increase the ghost Acres and reduce the actual acres lost. This in my mind would encourage grabbing, lower the effects of being grabbed, and help with the fact our playerbase is smaller!

WHY DON'T WE JUST GIVE EVERYONE 1 BILLION ACRES?

You want more LG targets?

1) Tell certain alliances their retal policies (eg L:L for non-pacted) are crap.

2) Tell LaF/Evo to have a life and stop killing the new blood.

Problem solved.

Stop trolling.

Slaggy needs a hug!

lol@isoviet

as for original post: why grab some alliance when there's a risk that you lose on retal more than you grabbed (even w/o l:l retalling)?

good idea for team

Games fine, the population is the issue.

The only answer is bots. Let's face it, the main thing to change from days of 3k+ countries to today was removal of multies and bots. I am convinced we have only lost a few hundred actual players from that time.

So obvious answer return the countries, but in a controlled and intelligent manner. Make them try to retal and set the priority to retal higher when a country grabs them from a member of the admin teams alliance. So a PDM, Evo, or Martian member hits them 2 times its worth 4 hits to ensure no one can question the impartiality of the bots. Then give them some AI that determines when they will retal.

I would even like to see suiciders... LaF comes through and drops a couple of dozen hits on a bot counry then diffuses missiles, bot has no chance to retal it suicides the tag. As an example.

To me this would add the element of surprise to keep grabbing interesting and not let the game turn into farmville.

P.S. Skythe your idea is so terrible and poorly thought out that you should be erased from existence. You basically looked for an issue and then thought up the worst possible solution for it? Are you in banking, financial industry, wall street, or somehow a part of US congressional proceedings or plannings?

Seriously to come up with such a stupid idea with out hours of research into what is the exact opposite of the right solution, would make you the world's stupidest and most dangerous person.

If you were trolling grats 10/10 else please recluse yourself from humanity this instant and never make any decision on any matter for yourself again. Flip a coin, throw darts at a premade board of ideas, or ask random strangers just please never think again. Thank you.

Well, without berating the mans dignity I can say that eliminating exploring is a bad idea. But maybe adding a "total land acres available" feature would make things interesting. Kind of a compromise.

Lets face it, in real time, there are only so many acres on Earth. So, set a limit to how many acres there can be in total on the server and when those acres are used up, everyone's explore rates just go to 0.

I know, I know, the all xers will hate that. So, lets appeal to their game play style as well and add a "random acre generator" to the game as well. Say, certain explorers located a new land with 10,000 acres that can only be taken by exploring, not grabbing. The "explorers" will just be random game events that post in your news, much like the bonus acres feature, except you have to go explore for them. Then it basically just becomes a mad dash on the part of the all xers to get some of that land. BTW, keeping the explore rates the same as they are (dependent on acres already obtained) would probably be a good idea. That would balance things out a bit with with larger and smaller countries since the smaller countries would have the higher explore rate.

Obviously that's a simplified version. Other things have to be considered such as what happens to nuked and chemmed land? When a country dies or is deleted? I'm sure someone will come up with some other issues.

I understand "bots" has been suggested, but to be honest I would have an issue with that considering many of us fought so hard to keep them from the game over the years. It's ironic that they're now being suggested to "save the game."

Anyway, bonus and cheers.

Sorry Pang and Slagpit, we're kicking you out of PDM. You're never welcome back.

Honestly, I don't understand why you play this game if you question the integrity of the admins to even *CODE* the game fairly...

Simple! The first time someone comes through and hits a bot country and is retaled that has been hit multiple times by an alliance where admins or developers resides without retalling that tag will cause fluffstorms, crying, and rage quitting.

If the bots are slightly more disposed to hit admin tags it will show up in the news, and then no one can make any claim.

You can deny and trust the admins as much as you like, the simple fact is only fools follow blindly.

Such an idea simply eliminates problems at a small rate of increased retals.

Say what you will, but even if I were in PDM I still would request this measure. It's worth the slightly higher percent chance of being retalled vs losing more players or being constant called out for having advantages.

I would stop playing the game if exploring were removed. I know several people who are only playing because they can spend 10 minutes a day running an all-ex. Force people to grab and you'll end up driving a lot of people out of the game who just don't have the time or interest to find targets, spy them, buy up, retail etc.

+1.

This game developed a funny way of beeing.

Nobody is hitting nobody nowadays. All the alliances have 90% of others on DNH. 80% of the players go all explore.

Admins must try really hard to find a way of making alliance server work because this is the core of earth. And i do trust the admins as long as almost all of them are part of this comunity and not Mehul.

Anonymous you should give the admins a chance really ... They don`t want this game to die ( i am 100% sure about that ) but it is really really verry hard to make things work around.

If you take look at the big picture ( alliances, hate, policy, number of players on the server etc. etc. etc ) it`s really a mess that is going nowhere.

Early EC sets had well over 2K countries. So it is safe to assume that the game was over that number as well in 2006 and 2007 before it declined to 1.2k or so on average players and then to the numbers we see now.

Complicated policies are why most people don't grab. I used to be a hell of a grabber years ago. I would like to grab today, but half the time I can never figure out if my grab will be considered a "top feed" or if their retal policy just says "L:L" so I'll lose anyway.

The only other solution I can come up with:

-The PEOPLE of this game (namely the alliance heads, FAs, etc.)in ALL alliances need to limit to a set number of pacts each set.
-Complicated retal policies need to be taken down to 1:1, 2:1 with escalating being considered slightly past that. All this 80%, L:L, B:S and top feeding stuff needs to go.
-I would also consider eliminating the all explore safe list, but only if my first two bullet points were implemented.

I think this will open up grabbing immensely across alliances, add some political fun (no more "friendly arranged wars") and will encourage maybe a little less farming on the newer untagged players, giving them a chance to find an alliance, or maybe just encouraging them to stay around or form a new tag.

But as with any solution it carries a few of the same problems in that some players only want to spend 10 minutes a day playing, don't want to calculate attacks, or have to deal with retals. I think some people would still be driven out. You can't make everyone happy, but for the most part this would re-balance the game and open up some room for growth, which is exactly what we need.

No matter how you look at this, what we're doing right now ISN'T WORKING. Apathy is suicide. So, LETS DO SOMETHING.

Good. Well Pang is out of PDM. He now plays in your alliance under an anonymous handle. I hope you will trust him when the bots preferentially launch all their missiles at your alliance.

It would be a decent idea for a new server, maybe alliance. But don't take it away in tourney. I Play and explore there, and would likely not play any more if this time killer required effort.

april fools? 2 years late replies.

I'm playing in alliance this reset first time in many resets and running untagged as a land farm for all. I can tell you that bottom feeding is alive and well q:)

If you make bots you can't make them targets particular alliances over others, whether the admins are in them or otherwise. You took an idea that was fairly neutral and make it inequitable with that dumb suggestion.

Tehehehehehehe