An un-named earther said:
"All the policies by alliances in this game broke it, all attempting to prevent landgrabbing.

Now there are no untags to bottom feed... everyone gets to explore only.

That'y why it is boring."

Solution: Every alliance drops all pacts and retals will be strictly 1:1.

Got to admit that would be a fun set :)

that would provide for an interesting set for sure. i think the larger clans would have a slight edge though just due to numbers.

most pacts where originally put in place, to save thier own members from getting retalled hard, or at least thats how it use to be, then they evolved into other things.

It wasn't till you let the netters like LAF create new policies that the current state of the game happened. And warclans always jumping into gang bangs on other clans, that essentially craeted a game that required pacts with everyone, or it left you open to get owned.

Interesting. I shall give it more thought.

It wasn't people being botted set after set that ruined the game? It wasn't the suiciders that ruined countries people had put hours and hours into that ruined the game? It wasn't the virtual lack of any significant game changes for over a decade that ruined that game? It wasn't inactive game admins that ruined the game? It wasn't the servers going down frequently, multiple times over the course of several years, that ruined the game? It wasn't the blatant cheaters that ruined the game? It wasn't Mehul's magic multi detection tool that had the EC mods occasionally deleting legitimate players that ruined the game? It wasn't that the game was at one point in such a piss poor state that it had to be reset every hour on the hour just to keep it alive that ruined the game? It wasn't the fact that text game popularity as a whole slowly dwindled down with the new age of gaming options after the turn of the century that ruined the game?

It was not being able to topfeed LaF that ruined the game.

It's mind-boggling how anyone can actually believe that.

What Theseus said.

People being botted set after set? Could be. Suiciders? Possibly.

The rest? Possible.

I honestly think whats scaring people away is bottomfeeding itself.

I mean, a new player joins the game, doesnt have any contacts to join an alliance right away or simply just wants to try the game out for a few days. Then some person bottomfeeds them, what are they to do but use their only knowledge of the game in attacking and sending 50 GSs or BRs.

ya, LaF's policies didn't kill the game... other factors did

but there is a core reason why we are not planning to shop alliance server to new players immediately... and that is the political/land state of this server.

We have other plans for the land issue, but I really think that this server's alliances need to start thinking about the kind of environment we want to have on this server.

I'm not sure how constructive it is to try to look at mistakes made in the past, except if we're worried about repeating them.

The bottom line is this: if you want this server to succeed, try to imagine the game experience if you were a new, untagged player. Would you keep playing and stick with it? I know that I probably wouldn't. Now what can we do as players to correct that?

No one raindrop believes it is the cause of a flood.

I agree with the above sentiment.

Laf's policies did contribute, It wasn't Laf's LG policies that caused the problems however.

It was the blatent use of multies and bots and the allowance given to them by a large portion of the leadership of multiple alliances, and the lack of action taken by most alliances to stem the tide, of which LaF of the time was one of a number of major culprits.

Those who turned a blind eye were just as guilty as those who perpetrated, and now those who turned a blind eye and those who perpetrated are forced to play a game with a fraction of the user base as a refluff.

I think established alliances need to come to some sort of agreement to reduce pacts, move towards a retal policy where single attacks can only be retaled by the defending country, and untagged should only be attacked a certain number of times in a 24hr period.
If this were to happen, it would benefit us all. It would lead to a large increase of land on the server, and a move away from all-explorer and extreme bottomfeeding strats, making the game a much more interesting place. It would lead to wars being fought for real reasons. It would lead to new players having a chance to grow and not being farmed out of the game.

I think we need a steeper DR rate. Being able to rape a country 4x before any considerable differences in gains kicks in is playing right into the hands of people who take advantage of untagged new players.

There are untagged countries that are over 180 attacks in DR, so I have a feeling that wouldn't help

I think PDM might start doing 1:1 retals on everything including topfeeds and hopefully start a trend, but we'll see next set. It will be inviting a lot of attacks, but if enough people do it, I think it would be worth it.

It's actually easier than you might think to remedy this issue.

Take the alliance relations system OUT of the hands of GHQ, Boxcar etc.. and build it INTO the game.. it is the 'Alliance Server' so alliance administrators should be given a number of FDPs, LDPs and DNHs for their tag. Do what Mehul should have done when he created this server...

The other major part of this system would be that alliances would 'Declare War' on other alliances in-game (similar to GDI declare war).

Say LAF has to make the following decisions;

1. Allocate alliances for their 3 Full Defense Pacts
2. Allocate alliances for their 3 Limited Defense Pacts
3. Allocate alliances for their unlimited Do Not Hit pacts

Possible rules for the alliance 'system';

- All alliance relations would be visible in-game (perhaps hide FDP/LDP details)

- Once your alliance declares war on an enemy, you can only hit the enemy and no other country/alliance can hit you.

- If one of your FDP allies gets declared upon, automatically your alliance may hit that enemy.

- If one of your LDP allies gets declared upon, you must declare war to hit that enemy - and only if that alliance is not an FDP.

- Of course you can never hit a listed ally.

This would be quite enjoyable to code and would bring a new dimension to alliance politics.. More thought would go into the pacts, instead of 'pacting out' to, in effect, stage wars. Wars would be fought a lot less on grudges, there would be less gangbangs, more fair fights and more decent reasons for war. (The best reason for war is always the struggle between alliances for the most important resource - land).

Dagga, I have just one rebuttal for your post, and it can more or less be encapsulated in two words:


Team Server.

Umm that's not really relevant.

Thats just silly.

1- Its an oversimplification of diplomacy
2- Does nothing for 'informal out of game' agreements.
3- Not going to solve the problems with the game.

The real problem with the game is the player base, not something that is going to be fixed with micky mouse band aid stuff like this. Expand the player base, then most of the current problems will be solved.

"dagga
Member

Apr 27th 2010, 11:58:00
Umm that's not really relevant."


Actually, it's more than relevant, but I'm not really surprised you didn't see what I was hinting at.

The Team server was specifically set up for 5-member teams, and the players, who are in alliances on a different server, didn't follow the 'spirit of the server' so to speak, and instead used their affiliations with said alliances to form 'coalitions' with their teams, based on their membership in their alliances.

What makes you think that in-game changes to the way alliances have held relations and pacts with each other for over a decade--in the Alliance server--are going to keep said alliances from keeping additional, "informal", pacts with each other outside the game?

I think that this kind of serious self reflection is very healthy for the game and bodes well for its future.

pointing the finger at specific alliances is just stupid.

I could point the finger back at most of the alliances in the game, including those of every single person trying to claim LaF is the big bad grabbers that ruin the game. I think servant did a good job explaining the overall negative aspects... all of which have a much bigger impact the the game. Also, remember that LaF did all of their "evil policy" stuff within in the confines of the game... other alliances accepted LaF's policies in the end, so no one can really fault LaF when the entire server used those policies for a good 4 or 5 years.

but like slag said, we can look back as to why things didn't work... or we can look to the future.
Or we can just look at other servers as the primary means for attracting/retaining new players, which is what I have been pushing for a long time. :p

Alliance is meant to be the showcase server for the game.. the major leagues, the big time... it's the culmination of everything that is part of the game -- wars, netting, and politics. I always thought that if we rebuilt the game properly, the politics would adjust to help promote the server and the game. It's actually gone the other direction, and that is unfortunate.

Ehh...

As much as I want to bash on LaF and blame them for everything, I think that it's everyone's collective fault for the decline of the game.

I think everyone should stop being so anal with retals and just go 1:1 from now on to really spice up the game.

I disagree wholeheartedly with the premise that there is a flaw in the way alliances play. The game worked fine, great in fact - 10 years ago - it just never evolved. When there were thousands of players on each server and alliance were big it was a lot of fun.

Policies were hashed out over the course of years, alliances forged and broken, big wars that meant something to game play would get named and immortalized. Retal policies did not ruin the game and they will not save it. Half of the server is and always was war tags and they have never really cared about retal policies all that much anyway.

The problem is that the very young guy that created the game got caught and passed by technology and the times. He was way behind on security and allowed cheating to run rampant. To me, the end of the old era was when UCN got taken down - that Fingolfin was considered an audacious fool instead of a rallying cry meant that the cheaters had won. (and I sure as hell am not apologizing for Fin, he was a fluffhead - perhaps another leader COULD have rallied the server).

Dave and Co. are trying to resucitate a paitient that has been left for dead twice, give them a little time - for the first time since BRE, the game owners are ahead of the tech curve.

(how the fluff do you spell resusatate anyway?)

Whatever happened to callipygian?

I agree with archaic that Fingolfin & UCN folding was the end of an era... everything became different after that....

Everyone was turning a blind eye to LaF cheating and playing dirty?

What were we doing exactly?

actually sof leaving the server in 2003 was a huge trigger point.

h4: I blame laf for everything because I can:P

small alliance w/o pacts=farmland

doubt all want to run commy indy all jetters at 10-20 members tags.

H4, even though it is obviously different now and most of the remaining culprits are reformed - everybody pretty much knew that LaF leadership was heavily influenced by some very colorful players. That knowledge weighed heavily into foreign affairs with LaF, which ultimately led to the coalitions that formed during the second half decade of the game (02-06).

"Both Sinn Féin and the IRA play different but converging roles in the war of national liberation. The Irish Republican Army wages an armed campaign... Sinn Féin maintains the propaganda war and is the public and political voice of the movement . . . believed that Sinn Féin and the IRA were inextricably linked and that had obvious implications at leadership level"

Of course, both sides denied it all and it was never proven . . . sound familiar?

You realise sinn fein were and continue to be the good guys.
Likening RD to the IRA is essentially a promotion of their overall goals, while denouncing their methods of getting there.

Fact is every alliance had RD in it somewhere, laf's main connection just happened to be ex laf members, and so the assumption was that they would be pro laf, when really there wasnt much action to back that up. As a netgaining alliance, particularly in the old days, any reason people are scared to hit you is a good thing..

Didn't the Sinn Fein attack and occupy a Canadian or American fort or something? Heh.

there were attacks on british occupied territories in canada designed to put pressure on a british withdrawal from ireland, although that was before the creation of the IRA or sinn fein

hell, archaic, how about i accuse you of being part of, i dunno, the my little pony fan club.
does the fact that (presumably) you, and (definitely) they deny any association mean that you're incontrovertibly a fan of pink ponies?

LaF got ripped on by RD just as much as any other alliance. LaF didn't get any favourtism.

WHO TOLD YOU!!!!

http://tinyurl.com/yb7nalk

If Paradigm is around next set, we will be, in the spirit of spicing up the game, enforcing 1:1 retals on everything, including incoming AND outgoing attacks.

Thus, if you "topfeed" PDM, we can retal you only once. If we topfeed you, we'll retal anything more than 1 retal.

This is for unpacted alliances or untags only.

I urge other alliances out there to adopt a similar policy, and let's see how the game changes.

So what you're saying is, if pdm is around next reset, it wont be around the reset after that, lol.

admin operated untagged bots, go!

@SS - Or I could just leave PDM and create a country every reset and suicide on LaF. It's thoughtless posts like yours that create suiciders. And LaF always fluffes and whines why it's targeted all the time by suiciders.

GEE I WONDER WHY.

"What makes you think that in-game changes to the way alliances have held relations and pacts with each other for over a decade--in the Alliance server--are going to keep said alliances from keeping additional, "informal", pacts with each other outside the game?"

You don't read very well. If you bring pacting INTO the game, 'informal' 'out of the game' pacting becomes less significant. Alliances may even choose to not accept 'informal' pacting. Pacts were introduced by alliances, not the game creators, which makes it hard to control and therefore leads to the problems people whinge about.

If you want alliances to 'voluntarily' change the way they pact, good fluffing luck. There is only one option - put it in the game.

dude im not even playing, and havnt done seriously since the move to ee, i could give a fluff about suiciders, im just making the point that your not going to change retal policies, and any attempt you make with a retal policy as stupifying as the retal policy you just posted will only result in pdm being killed by any alliance you try the enforce that again to the other alliances detriment, ranging from elysium to na. And whats sad is you know im right, your (including other pdm leaders) just pig headed, thats what got you slapped by sof and lost your membership, that what got you slapped by laf while i was leader, and from the seems of it, thats what will get you slapped by an as yet unkown alliance in the near future.

that's fine. we pick fights with alliances bigger than our own. we always lose. but at least we got bigger balls than any other alliance out there.

Throw pacts out the window - it's great fun!

TAN - you're full of fluff on PDM picking big fights. But I still lubs you guys anyways.

TAN's heart is in the right place for sure... but major changes to policies from one reset to the next can never end well for those who push for the changes unless they are prepared to fight for it...

laf did with Land:Land, IX/WoG did with the pactless stuff, is PDM ready to fight to go back to 1:1 escalating?

spicing things up is all well and good, but I think that alliances also need to take into account their own survival/thriving as well. I don't want to see PDM gone from the game, I'd like to see them flourish....

Guys you are getting my thread off topic, kindly quit bickering about which alliance is responsible.

We are all responsible for the in game policies that we choose to endorse as a community. Obviously nothing will change unless the major alliances come to a consensus to get rid of L:L and even cut back on the number of pacts we have. We don't enough people to support having the pact structure we currently have.

SS, you can go troll another tread if all you can do is have a bad attitude and whine like a teenage school girl that just lost her miley cyrus tickets.

No small alliance without heavy political ties will change any significant policies in this game.

You'd need to take a group of alliances of decent size who are ready to war over it for a good year or so.

NOW3P--

Name one war that PDM participated in in the last TWO YEARS where we warred someone smaller than us. I can't think of any, but you might be able to name one time or so.

Other than that, ALL the wars we've fought recently have been against alliances that are at least twice our size (SoF and LaF come to mind, which between them we warred around 5 or 6 times).

hmmm... no.