You may want to define "regular spy op". Will you be killing over a market op?
How does killing over a harmful spy op work anyway? Couldn't this be faked?
Anything can be faked by simply manipulating the page html. The tag admin does get failed ops reports.
Falsifying such a report to any clan should be a serious violation subjecting the violator to serious disciplinary action by the alliance. Any alliance willingly promoting such falsehoods should be ostracized and branded as untrustworthy by this community.
Too often we look for those in power to legislate changes to protect against perceived inequities resulting in rules and policies that exceed their original intent or abused.
We will trust our membership to play with honor and integrity and until proven to be otherwise defend them to the end.
I'll be a bit argumentative again. When exactly was this golden age of player to player interaction? I first played on alliance around 2004. I remember alliances heavily pacting out and most countries doing all-X or only hitting untagged countries. I also remember land:land becoming the standard retal policy. Players themselves are the ones who were always pushing for less interaction. Just look at what happened to the team server. The last time I looked there was essentially zero landgrabs. Some clans even boasted about their 1:kill policies.
We aren't advertising because we don't have a good enough product yet. A few folks were kind enough to answer my question about what makes the alliance server special and they said that playing with friends is fun. But that's just a property of the server. Nearly any multiplayer team-based game will have that feature. No one said "it's fun to play with your friends to compete for average NW", "it's fun to win a war with your friends", or "it's fun to create a new clan with your friends and to politically outmaneuver other clans". That's a big problem in terms of player retention.
I think that when players advocate for chaos, they imagine themselves being on the giving end of chaos and other players being on the receiving end of it. In many cases that's only going to be fun for one party.
IMHO, the golden age was probably 1998-2003ish. The game saw several changes during that period as did the player base. The culture on the server started changing around 2002 with many wanting a heavy focus on netting and by this time every major alliance had turn by turn strats that proliferated throughout the community.
It was fun to be a part of an alliance, help it grow and help teach and protect the members
It was fun to make a landgrab and message the untagged country to join your alliance
It was fun to check the retal boards
It was fun to be a part of kill runs
It was fun to try different things while building your country, not quite knowing how it would turn out
It was fun to hunt multi's
It was fun to diplomatically interact
It was fun to build a better site than your competing alliances
It was fun to war for a cause, to die and restart as quickly as you could
It was probably fun to hit the top ten =)
Oh and it was fun to spam the AT boards
Fast forward to today and many of those things either don't apply or have been minimized. Time "in-game" has always been pretty minimal, especially after start up in peace-time. Maybe 20 mins a day if your researching bots to hit, likely no more than 10 min to run your turns. I'm sure we spend more time on our Discords, clan sites and the AT than we actually spend in-game.
I still enjoy the alliance server, mostly for the interaction with my alliance mates. I've found myself bored after using up my turns and played FFA server to fill in the gap. I use the express server to try out new builds and strats to use on alliance. 1A is a unique server, with aspects I don't think you can really get on the other servers. Some of the changes have been for neccessity due to the dwindling player base, some have been cultural made by the player base and some things haven't really changed for 25 years (for example, I use a strat from 2001 that works pretty well with just a few minor tweaks).
From the dev's point of view I'm sure the question is how do we drive more traffic to the site? If the "game" only takes 10 mins a day to play how much more traffic are you going to get even if you double or triple the current player base. Incorporating the tools, clan hosting and additional functions into the game will likely drive more traffic to the server AND as a result more players. If recruiting emails pointed them to join at clanx.earthempires.com vs , or checking stats at an earthempires link vs eestats.com, how much more traffic could be driven to the site.
I think you're on the right track, keep asking the questions. We are NOT ready to let this game die
Or Sakit - If you want a REALLY f'd up experience, ditch Leto and Mercs, and come join The Blackhole. I can absolutely guarantee you'll have all the enemies you'll ever want, and tons of drama to go with it.
BH, 25 years ago we could have been the best of enemies. Ever consider changing your name to Rainbow Hole?
What if we changed the identity of the server so that the best clans are the ones that are good at both war and netgaining? ...
I'm of the opinion that the most disappointing thing to happen in the game (besides the player count plummeting) is the culture shift many years ago that implies the two have to be separate. I feel clan servers are already mostly designed to accomplish the goal being suggested by simply allowing large group cooperation - players changed the meta themselves. At some point attacking, stealing resources from, and/or destroying an opponent became taboo and those that joined or rejoined this community after that shift simply accepted it as truth.
Primeval hit the nail on the head. In the early 2k's a struggle started between the netters and the fighters. Established strats were around but weren't widely available to most players. PvP was the wildcard, magnified by the extensive proliferation of multi's on the server. You could net, but you had to know how to grow a country with defense, have an alliance that had your back and was able to retal. Belonging to a strong alliance meant protection, and it was need in 1a. If you were a small alliance or even worst untagged, you were gonna be farmed.
Somewhere along the line, everyone on started singing kumbaya and looking for a safe space. Bot's replaced land grabbing, and you didn't need defense unless you agreed to a war. Point is, the players made the change in the game culture and the Devs I imagine made some concessions to appease that (latest being clan gdi). There's been some great ideas on this thread, but the best and easiest change to be made is the one the players can make themselves. Theres no need to join an alliance if no ones going to grab you, make the clans mean something again.
Just to clarify, there are great tools out there that enhance the gameplay and make the game more enjoyable. EEStats, GHQ, Market Central, all contribute to the playability to the game. The IRC bots are great if you have access to them. While it's true the game can be played without these tools, it takes some work to do so. I shouldn't have suggested eliminating third party sites, but having these tools installed as part of the game easily accessible to all players would be a plus in addition to guaranteeing the stability of these tools. The short disappearance of eestats is a great example, and LI did a great job filling that gap while eestats was down.
Expanding into clan hosting with these tools available on the clan site could drive additional traffic. But back to BH's point, will there be enough return on the investment and attract enough players back to the game.
On a side note, BH can you stop making so many good points- you're gonna ruin your rep
“I view the alliance server as a place where stronger clans take advantage of weaker clans.”
At it’s core this was designed to be a wargame where the stronger country takes advantage of the weaker ones. The alliance server added the team aspect to this concept allowing weaker players to band together with stronger ones, it changed the dynamic from solo play to who could build the strongest alliance. This was a fluid dynamic when we had thousands of players on the server, now that we’re down to a few hundred no so much.
Netgaining vs. Warring was a debate as far back as the early 2000’s that set many at odds with each other within individual alliances. Many alliances had separate divisions set up for netting and warring (or at least defending the netters). Again, this dynamic has drastically changed with the loss in player base. The challenge of warring and netting back then became a matter of political skill and negotiations among the legitimate clans, while the danger of being attacked existed for all from the multis and suiciders. The building of an alliance, management, development of members and infrastructure as well as political negotiations were all aspects that many found enjoyable, often superseding the actual gameplay itself.
“When I have played to netgain, I actually preferred Teams because the bots in alliance seemed to turn it into a land grabbing competition.”
I totally agree with this comment, the addition of the bots to solely gain land is one of the most significant changes to the game. Along with the current etiquette of not hitting even untagged players for land grabs has turned every set into a race for land without any fear of retaliation. In my opinion this is contrary to the initial concept of the game enabling gameplay with minimal or no defenses without fear of getting hit. 25 years ago, if you had 50k acres with 5k troops, turrets and tanks you would be guaranteed to be hit by non pacted aliances.
“In terms of war, I think killing a country should be slowed down a bit. Or, as we’re talking specifically about Alliance, more that your alliance could do to help defend you.”
I have mixed feelings on this, the ability to kill an enemy country quickly is a reflection on the activity and organization of the alliance. However, with the limited player base it the ability for any alliance to significantly grow to meet competition is greatly diminished. Perhaps having all tagged countries to automatically be defensive allied to each other could bring some balance instead of limiting smaller alliance countries to only 3.
“I think one of the biggest issues with any team/alliance servers is the utilization of outside tools.”
I can’t believe I’m actually going to kind of agree here. Although access to these tools can be accomplished by anyone with the knowledge to do so, not everyone has the ability or contacts to do so. In addition these resources have greatly diminished over the years, the near loss of eestats for example would have had a big impact on individual players and smaller alliances that didn’t have access to other resources. I think eliminating third party sites and making tools such as clan hosting, war and news bots available directly by earth empires could level the playing field.
” Make the bots actually interact with players beyond sending/accepting pacts (e.g., make them have a probability of retaliating that can vary based on factors like how many times they've been attacked, attacked by you specifically, your tag specifically etc.)”
I really, really like this idea. I imagine the bot’s were originally introduced to compensate for the loss of actual players. Enabling to bot’s to act offensively adds a great element back to the game, no longer being able to attack without risk of retaliation.
The Camelot tag has been re-established and should no longer be considered as part of the PDM alliance nor sanctioned for use within PDM. The Camelot tag is once again a sovereign realm.
"If they have 1m turrets, 500k tanks and 1m troops I'd send:
2.6 million JETS. "
Correct me if I am wrong but that break would be 2.5 million jets not including allies and tech and government?
I come up with the same RAW break as Ruthie =) What you're describing sounds more like a readiness issue. Are you sending these 90%+ readiness? I rarely bounce and normally over send by 100-150k jets. Other possibility is you're just a Pang magnate =)
I don't know how many hours was spent on the AT boards complaining about Mehul not doing anything about the multi's. More than once it was said they don't care about the multi's, you stop the multis you stop the traffic. FFWD 25 years and...WOW
Not only did the multis provide the traffic through the site, it gave us all something to fight for or against (key word is fight..at it's heart this is a war game). Netters or fighters, this battle drew us all together to work together in the neverending war. Netters need fighters and fighters needed netters. There were always declared netting sets that ended up in mushroom clouds but that was 1a
More time was spent on membership interactions and diplomatic relations than was ever spent using turns. The draw to the game was the alliances where you went for protection and where you protected your friends.
Netting is all fine and good but if theres no danger of getting first striked or suicided on, aren't you just clicking a button? How satisfying is it getting to 200M NW if there was absolutely no danger that someone would try and take it from you? If there's no danger, what's the point of the clan?
Not sure what the Devs are trying to accomplish with the clan GDI thing but it's not working. If you take the danger out, you take out the challenge. What you're leaving us with is a text based farmville. If you think its really a good idea, set up a "Netting" server, remove the attack button and see what happens.
Look at your own stats 2500 countries on FFA, 500 countries Alliance, and 60 in Standard! Mehul was a genius, even if there were multis in the numbers it was still 10k coountries on a single server.
One final note for clarification, I am by no means advocating for the sanctioned use of multis in 1a, simply pointing out an element that no longer exists which seems to have contributed to the overall experience.
, or checking stats at an earthempires link vs eestats.com, how much more traffic could be driven to the site.