In order to limit grossly disproportionate alliances from occurring, how about we set a tag limit at 40? That way, it gives players the ability to create their own tags, etc. and will also bring about the end of 74 countries vs. 24. It would definitely make the game far interesting.

This is alliance server, team server sounds like it might be more for you...

Then you just end up with LaF1 and LaF2

lol, the game would be interesting if we had 400 member alliances again, not 40:P

Alliances would not be allowed to be affiliated with one another. Virtually all other games of this type have these limitations, yet not this one? What's the matter, SS? Afraid that you'd have to fight someone your own size and not be able to issue a DoW and know for a fact that mathematically there is no way you can be defeated?

they wont be able to enforce that hafgan. And I hope the 24 side has some good friends who will join

Are you serious? dude i challenged ix to 1v1 wars when they had 50% more members than laf, numbers mean nothing to laf, laf will win whether you have 20 or 200 members, thats just how it is. Rage picked a fight, now they die, do you want me to appologise for rage being small?

thats what team server is for :D

This is dumb. A group of about 5-10 people can get adequate tag protection if they are willing to act like psychopathic guerillas for a reset or two. Then the major alliances realize the land they get from you is not worth the trouble you cause and just NAP you to get you to go away.

why should LaF be punished for managing to retain a lot of their members through the games steady decline?

LaF was a mid sized alliance back in the day, its not our fault that all the other alliances shrunk so much.

actually it's 73 members, my country got deleted for being demo @ turn 0

psychopathic guerillas...that sounds like what iMag did back in the day.

"Are you serious? dude i challenged ix to 1v1 wars when they had 50% more members than laf, numbers mean nothing to laf, laf will win whether you have 20 or 200 members, thats just how it is. Rage picked a fight, now they die, do you want me to appologise for rage being small?"

The past is the past. What happened 10 years ago does not matter. If you would open your eyes and realize what is best for the community and for the future of this game, then perhaps we could make forward progress. No one is going to want to play a game where there is four "super-alliances" and several much smaller than them. If they do decide to play the game (and don't quit because they get the fluff farmed out of them), then they will join the already ridicuously large alliances and it continues to grow into an even more disproportionate. At the time of this posting, LaF has 73 players out of 664. That's not removing dead countries/inactives, which makes the percentage even higher.

"why should LaF be punished for managing to retain a lot of their members through the games steady decline?
LaF was a mid sized alliance back in the day, its not our fault that all the other alliances shrunk so much."

Perhaps the reason why LaF's "membership" has stayed so steady is because the game is being developed by someone in their alliance. Would it not be stupid for YOUR alliance to not go play the game that YOU develop? Granted, I am grateful that it is being done, but if LaF and the administrators have any intention of this game surviving and not going the way of Earth 2025/Swirve/OMAC, then something must be done.

All I'm saying is this: Until we get a larger playerbase, we need to limit the amount of people within one alliance.

grudge much? for a person claimin to equalize the server your only seemin to go at laf. sol and na aint that far behind them.

no they aint the only clan with a developer

maybe you simply skipped what was already mentioned here. THERE ALREADY IS A SERVER WITH A CLAN LIMIT

Attempting to bring up the idea that the comparative sizes between LaF and RAGE is unfair even though RAGE itself never brought it up- Thats a paddling.

As much as I personally hate H4 and LaF he is right in this case

I think it's ridiculas to try to limit LaF or any other alliances size.
If you want to compete with them, recruit more players.
Else wise just be envious that they still have so many that just can't let go of this game lol.

Kemo,

The server that new players are more likely to play is the Alliance server. While FFA has tags with 300+, more new are going to come here and play on the Alliance server simply because other country oriented strategy games are similar and actually modeled after Mehul's original coding/idea.

While I am currently only using LaF as the example, they certainly are not the only ones who are grossly overpopulated. Obviously if we were to limit the tags to 40 members each, then SOL and NA would have to do something else with their extra members. Perhaps top finishers would end up being the way they select members or even a lottery of who stays and who goes. I do understand that LaF, SOL, and NA and other large alliances have the most to fear by letting the status quo swing the other way, but there comes a time when you must make the leap of faith and do what's the best for the community instead of "the way it used to be" or "back in the day."

Devestation, it's okay that you were not creative enough to come up with the tag limit idea. I am not trying to make excuses or harm anyone's egos, either. I am trying to put forth a suggestion that will most certainly stop future headaches down the road.

wtf
this is the Alliance server.
It lives for headaches!
See IX history.

this just in. laf recruiting more developers in other games to spread our global dominance around.
somebody remind me what clans qz and slag are in so i can properly slap this quote around a bit.

i'm going to feel silly if they're in laf. 'cuz i damn sure haven't seen em around :P

Tell me where you're going to find 36 BRAND NEW players (the alliance's membership count currently under the 40 mark that would equal LaF's 73) to actually be able to compete with LaF, SOL, and company. You're not going to find them. If everyone were able to recruit just one friend to play the game, then it's possible; however, it is highly unlikely.

i agree, but thats your option.

I know that the proposal is going to meet hostility from members of alliances larger than 40 and people who feel that they must continue to think that there's over 2000 people playing this game.

I am definitely beginning to see a pattern develop. People are afraid.

not afraid. many just dont see why a larger alliance should be punished for being able to keep a high memeber base.
Im in a small alliance myself but i hold no grude to those larger than my own alliance.
As was tried to be pointed out to you already. there is another server with tag limits.
The whole people are afraid comment is just weak.

LaF's top 40 would still dominate. It blows my mind how the majority of you have played this game for a decade, if not more, and are still atrocious at actually playing the game.

All I'm trying to do is make the game more competitive. More alliances = more competition. Five man "teams" are way too small.

how about increase the size of the alliances in the team server then.

Orrrrrrrrrrr we could just put in a tag limit here since this is where the majority of our players play and ditch the team server? Hmmm?

that's like asking the Sun not to rise.
not gonna happen.

Then it's an easy fix. We let LaF, SOL, and alliances with numbers greater than 40 play by themselves on the Alliance Server. Last one out, hit the lights.

Didnt rage at one stage have 500 members?

If you wish to play as a small tag, ally up with other small tags. If you don't wish to play as a small tag, try recruiting.

there have always been large alliances, the same as there have always been small alliances trying to survive
nothing has changed in that sense, and numbers are much closer now than they were in the past, when there were alliances ranging from 10 - 400+ members

This is a bad idea - half the draw of this server is either having great protection in the biggest clan, or having the ability to piss off the bigger clans from a smaller clan. If you think the only thing that makes a clan good or bad is the amount of members it has, you haven't been around long enough mate. I've seen 50 member clans that could easily topple 100+ member clans, and 10 member clans that can easily take the ANW title in any set they please.

People have been complaining about this since Mehul ran this game, and the ever present prediction of it killing the game has yet to come to fruition. It's the way the world turns kiddies....the big guys are usually big for a reason, and they usually get to make the rules (which, of course, benefit them). Might as well get used to it, because otherwise the real world is gonna be one hell of a slap in the face for ya....

I'm really getting sick of hearing folks talking about how they can solve the problems in this game by LIMITING people's ability to choose where they play and how they can play. Have you all forgotten that the core premise of this game is that you can play it however you want (war OR net), and it will provide you useful options to allow you to follow your chosen course of game play?

If you want to fight folks 1:1, go play in express, primary, or tourney servers....that's what they're made for.

has stargreggrecruiter found a new alias to hide behind or something? This sounds a lot like his dribble....

Guess what, you are wrong when you try and use numbers against LaF.

Including myself from when EE started, there have been 20 new members that have joined LaF, no, not a returning veteran, but a brand new recruit. These 20 members have stuck around and actually still play a country today.

If I count the amount of members we have removed from LaF, or moved on to other alliances, or new recruits that didn't stick, then that's another 20.

Then we would have to look at the amount of players that came back from retirement, and those that have gone to 'retirement' which ends up pretty even in numbers.

Since you are not in LaF, there's no way that you would know these numbers. But I have logs of applications and I damn well know how many people I recruit and talk to.

I went through the trouble to track down every single person who had played in LaF's email address and spent an afternoon sending emails. I spent hours and hours spamming Primary, Express, Tournament servers manually, since Pang still won't code me a spambot, until I had some personal problems in the recent months.







Now, this has nothing to do with the current wars and political impact of said membership difference, but I take offense in what you are trying to sell, LaF doesn't retain members because we have a Dev on our roster. LaF members don't give a crap if Pang benefits from them playing the game. LaF members play the game because we love the game and we are damn good at it. LaF members play because we play for LaF, we strive to be the best. We have members that have been in LaF for over 10 years and that are STILL active.

There's a reason why we're the oldest and strongest surviving Alliance in this game. We're a family, we don't treat our members like numbers in a accounting book.

Oh, and LaF recruitment is currently closed due to our current war, if you wish to apply, please do so at the end of the reset, thanks for your time and have a Pang'ed day.


~One very annoyed and pissed LaF member.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP8v-PDiQms

he is forgotten and he is pissed.

Making tags hidden would be much cooler (and not spyable). Boxcar could be set up to discover tags as you hit or something. There would be more hitting, maybe in a conservative way which would encourage growth of new strats, while you were discovering who belonged to which tag. There would be rivalries between countries rather than between clans which always eventuates into war.

I remember the game when tags were "hidden" (simply not implemented is more accurate). It wasn't exactly better lol.

LaF irritates the hell out of me and I completely hate their policies, their arrogance and their cavalier attitude towards everyone else.

But this is a stupid idea. This IS punishing LaF for being successful.

The playerbase is just one of the problems.

But cutting alliances to pieces will solve nothing, and if it's directed to LaF, then it's just a cowardly way of making them manageable.

I've been saying this for a long time now, and it falls on deaf ears -- if you want LaF to change their ways, then DO something about it.

PDM has tried under my leadership and has gotten NO support from any of you. And we've paid the price.

So shut the f*** up about LaF already.

Want more players? Recruit your friends and post on Facebook.

<3 tan

Time to respond with a huge wall of text that more than likely few people will read, but here we go. For the record: No, I have no idea who gregrecruiter is or whatever, but it does not matter.

First off, I have played in LaF under a different alias and have also played in other alliances with different aliases. All alliances have their 'problems' and cliques of people who believe that their fluff doesn't stink. The only alliances that I have not played in on this server would be the newest ones here.

Secondly, you people are still living in the past! "We've been doing this for ten years blah blah blah, we had 500+ people in some tags, blah blah blah, we used to blah blah blah..." The fact of the matter is that WHY would people choose to play a game when they're just going to get pummeled and farmed to death unless they join the largest alliance? They will join the larger alliances and more than likely, not move on from there. It's the same exact reason why people on Xbox Live or any other form of multiplayer game ALWAYS plays with the cheapest team/equipment possible.

They will continue to play in these mega-alliances and dominate policies of the game. If all three big alliances joined forces right now, they could perform genocide on the entire alliance server and kill off every single alliance without breaking a sweat. Having said this, no one is concerned for the future of the game? Something must be done, but since LaF and the other large alliances clearly have a strangle-hold on the code, they will not code it in.

If it's not going to happen here, then increase the limits on the Team server to 20. Five people on a team is not enough to do anything without allying to eleventybillion other people.

i do agree the 5 limit should be increased but 5 is in fact plenty to do some damage if your skilled enough

we have just had a lot of people coming out of long retirements the last couple resets, helped keep the net growth rate even or positive.

archiving member emails over the years pays off.

LaFs success will to some degree trickle down to others as well, because as they recruit new members there will invariably become those who are disgruntled or bored and will leave for other alliances.

It's silly to punish LaF for successful IA and recruiting. They aren't cheating, they're just being good.

so all the extra numbers for LaF this set are ALL ex-members?

NONE of them are ex-players from other alliances?

Which is why you will never find my email address anywhere game related....and havnt for the past 5 years:p

The fact of the matter is, why would people play a game where they're told who they're allowed to play with and who they're not, and where success and skill are discouraged? If you want that environment, go over to team where that IS the set up, and stfu in the unlimited clan servers. The day the mods impose that on all servers is the last day you'll see me hanging around....and I'm willing to bet money others will agree on that.

Sorry mate, if you want the REAL reason why Earth was/is dying, just take a look at earthempires vs xbox live, PS network, WoW, etc, etc, etc with all the other new technologies a nearly 20 year old text based game can't compete with. Let me try to put this into simple folk perspective for ya - How many people do you know that still play Sorry/Twister/Charades for fun instead of newer more interactive games????

It has NOTHING - I repeat, zip, zilch, zero, nada, nothing, nil, bupkis - to do with the fact that large alliances dominate the landscape. It's been going on since day one, and for a very long time this game grew exponentially every year even with that happening. Then to boot, you can add in developers/admins (up until just a few months ago) who didn't give two fluffs about the game, and basically just let it descend into unmaintained garbage that had to be re-written just to resurrect it from it's JOLTy user manipulation induced grave.

Don't believe me? Look at player counts in Team server over the next 3-5 sets if the format isn't changed, then come back and tell me if I'm wrong.

i'm betting those email archives were the biggest loss that PDM/Rage/Ely ever had when estats went down.

how do you delete posts>?