If mehul had actually played the old game a little more, I suspect it might still be thriving. Instead he took the deist 'disinterested clockmaker' approach and his creation foundered when it found itself an unloved burden to its creator.

There are a couple of mods I like, most I am disinterested in, and slagpit. As much as he irks me with his belligerence and puffery - I can not even conceive that he would ever cheat - he is far above that. Why would any of them even consider cheating at something that they have poured so much of their energy into? Talk about fluffting in the nest, THAT would be fluffting in the nest.

At the same point, how arrogant is it to suggest that after all the work they put into building this playground that they should not be permitted to have a turn on the teeter-totter for themselves.

Shame on you for your thinly veiled insinuations Earl, shame on you.

of course they should be able to play for many, if not all of the reasons stated above. That said, I'm not sure who turned Slagpit,qz,Pang and/or whoever else into unquestionable saints but I'm pretty sure there is most definitely a chance they might cheat/etc. Some of you should read up on some of the goings on with online poker if you think having a good thing going keeps admins from not cheating...

online poker? what sort of monetary benefits will qzjul, slagpit or pang get from cheating? they dont even get paid to run this game.

they woudl get no monetary benefits. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything tho...

Pics Patty!

you brought up online poker, which i assumed was a game of chance where real money could be won? lol

His point is not even valid.

THats's just stupid.

Do you guys know that the only reason the game mods/admins are the game mods and admins - is that they want to keep the game going, i presume, so that they can keep playing.

If you ask them to take away the only fun they can have - what's the point of developing the game further that doesn't make any money? Did you pay to play? I didn't.

Admin/mod should play as much as you want.

and Thanks to qz, Pang, slagpit, nukevil, martian, rockman etc for their effort.

Yes has, and as far as I know he hasn't used his admin powers to give himself or PDM any sort of advantage.

100% Admins should play!
We've seen the neglect of owners who lost interest.

Our Admins have been awesome! I give them on A for all that they've done.

Now, I do agree, they should stay out of politics.
I also think rotating alliances is a great idea, though Maki- none have come to Monsters, yet.

Our Admins rock! They have the trust of the super duper majority of the community, there are always Idiots, Ignore them. Keep playing! Keep building, Keep investing

We appreciate it. except for the idiots:)

A lot of people here expect the impossible and then get upset when they don't get it.

why are sounding bitter when everyone here supported you slag

yes

the question we should be asking is how did we let martian become our mod?:p

*runs*

martian is the only person who's met both me & Pang IRL heh... I've skyped pang once during the jared loughner stuff, but other than that have only been online contact with the others hehe

martian is the common thread (or enemy!) betwixt all of us!

Obviously there are issues that arise with admins playing but they are far overshadowed by the issues that would arise if they did not play.

If it seems like they are doing a bad job leaving their admin privileges outside of the alliance server then bust their asses. The admins, minus slagpit, are big enough to recognize their indiscretions enough to satisfy me, at least.

i like how the admins modify the game based on their play experiences.

mehul did a better job when he was an admin and playing. after he stopped he stopped caring about the game (and this is why utopia was better maintained cuz he played that)

Apples and oranges, hanlong. I think your assertion is unfair and unfounded, as well.

I think it's hard to care about something you don't do yourself, and hard to make the right choices when you don't see the effect of the choices you make.

I support admins continuing to play.

He has a point. I am still upset that my parents never took me Disney World as a kid......

The biggest issue is that pang, qz and slagpit have kinda closed the circle around themselves. They are a few 'helpers' but it's those three that run the show.

It figures that there has been very little motivation to improve the war aspect of the game since EE has been created, instead we have moved to a lot of netgaining tweaks and improvements.

It just follows logic because as they say, they play to enjoy the game. They prefer to net, so why would they make it less enjoyable by making it harder to net?

dagga they have done plenty of war changes. Chill

if they didn't play they'd get bored and make a game called Utopia and go play that and let this game fall to pieces, and then open a coffee shop.

or maybe that's what happens when they get bored of this game.

dagga should create Dagga Empires 2025.

They haven't made "netgaining changes" they've made changes that effect playing strategy.

Playing strategy is used in netgaining as well as fighting, is it not?

EVO's site is still hosting on the same server as EE isn't it?

That is a concern, whether there is abuse or not, there's still a possibility of it happening.



WOW programmers and admins play under a different name, and they usually do not tell anyone that they are one. If admins playing the game is to TEST things, then Pang has done it right, he switches around between alliances, sometimes under new handles, sometimes helping a smaller alliance out.

What is my concern is that slagpit and qzjul still holds leadership roles within their alliance. By all means they should be able to help the alliance that they built, but where do we draw the line?

When new players come to AT, they see posts by Game Developers, then they see some admins argue and defend one specific alliance over many issues. I think that creates a bad image. It doesn't even matter if the admins don't cheat, it's the image IMO.

Some admins might think I'm all out against them...

but I just want to help this game be a better product...which is what i think why most players still hang around..

FOOD
Gets a change in private market price every other reset. Netgaining tweak.

SPY OPS
Advanced warning for first strikes with clan admins able to view failed ops. Makes it harder for smaller alliances to spring a surprise attack. Hard to claim this as a pro-war change.

ATTACKING
Ajax/Jscript attack system is the biggest (and pretty much the only) pro-war change EE has implemented. Great addition, but attacks need to be slowed down by a 1/4 or 1/2 a second or even more..

LANDGRABBING
More ghost acres helps bottom feeding and means more land / production. Means bigger stockpiles, higher networths.

BONUS SYSTEM
Extra turn - Benefits both approaches to the game..
PCI Boom - Netgainers
Indy Boom - Netgainers
Food Boom - Netgainers
Oil Boom - Netgainers
Building Costs - Netgainers
Defense - Neither. This is touted as a war change, but a war change would mean there would be an Offense bonus. Or 'Defense' would simply add to Warfare tech, benefitting both Offense and Defense.
Luck - Arguable.. Missile bonus is pretty negligible and probably has more effect in reducing eathquakes etc..
Expenses - Netgainers
Private Market Units - Netgainers
Resource Decay - Netgainers
Free, Permanent GDI - Helps out untaggeds, and all exploring netters.

----------

The biggest tweak the war dynamic has had in EE is the speedy attack, which is excellent, but needs to be toned down by a bit. In the overall scheme, the game has continued to give bonus and strategy changes aimed to spice up and improve the netgaining component of the game. That's great, but what is worrying is that the war aspect of the game has been left in the development dark ages. There are no formal methods of 'declaring war' on an alliance level, no ingame war stats or rankings, nothing to promote fair contests (challenge system for example), nothing to level out the effects of first strikes.. In summary, when compared to man hours working on netgaining tweaks, war is left alone..

It is frustrating to be on the other side of the fence to our admins, who are doing a great job at balancing and tweaking netgaining, but open themselves up to critisism when war is conspicuously left unattended.

GeneralEarl made this thread because he is himself heavily bias in his mod role and probably thinks, to make himself feel better, that the admins must be bias to some degree in their roles as well. This thread has no merit, get over yourself GE.

Dagga: We know how hard it is for you, stop crying already.

"he biggest issue is that pang, qz and slagpit have kinda closed the circle around themselves. They are a few 'helpers' but it's those three that run the show."
Only somewhat, they are the only ones who have consistently been willing and able to put the time/effort into coding. In terms of game modifications/testing they definately are the ones who announce publically but they aren't the ones driving all the ideas all of the time. In any organization there needs to be a hiarchy with someone (or group) of people "in charge" otherwise little gets accomplished.
They probably appear more closed right now because they are all busy with unrelated rl things, however they are still doing stuff regardless of that. They also are willing to consider any/all volunteers for stuff.

As far as game moderating goes the people with admin in the title very rarely get involved anymore unless myself or another game mod really needs their help with something or if a new mod tool is needed.

Dagga: triple crown winner of spin,spin,spin. Shame we can't fix all that bullfluff that comes from your mouth. Hey is Forgotten your relative? Or was there a game change that made him excel in the spin dept too?

Oh and dagga, the thing about closed knit circle the admin's have is bullfluff, and completely invalid. The reason you don't get to talk to them are pretty obvious. All of them are pretty friendly, as long as your not an asshole and talking smack all the time. Kinda like RL.... Oh that explains why your in mom and dad's basement still.

and I did a mental count.. I've met at least 50 people irl who play/have played this game including people in/were in Sol, SoF, Rival, omega, rage, laf, IX, RD, MD, Elysium, DoD, Imag.
I would say that 95% of the time it's been a good experience.

I haven't met anyone in evo irl oddly (nor evo's predecessor tags).

didn't you meet qz, martian?

i think he's an evo'er...

anyway, the only reason to feel like you are on the "other side of the fence" with the admins, dagga, is because you yourself choose to be on that side over and over and over again. Including like 3 times in this post. Your analysis is entirely wrong as well, and I feel bad for SoL if you are in charge of discussing how the changes impact fighting. You're doing a disservice to yourself, your clan mates and the community in general by posting garbage like that.

oh crap that's right.. qz is in evo and I did meet him..:P

I'm sorry dagga but I still don't see how the changes you posted are "netgaining changes".

They are changes that effect strategies people run in order to build strong countries, agreed. But isn't it a good idea to build strong countries for war as well as netgaining?

I don't get it. They make farmer stronger, that helps people who netgain as farmers and poeple who fight as farmers.

Same goes for casher, techer etc. Making them capable of getting bigger, or producing more, helps you in war.

If you can't see that... then maybe you dont' know as much about war as you think you do.

The more I think about it, it seems like Mehul did the right thing. It's very easy to criticize someone like that, but you can't really understand without attempting to admin a game like this. The bottom line is, as long as you post anywhere and make yourself available to the community, you will inevitably get dragged into politics or something worse.

Let's take the most basic admin role: implementing and posting gameplay changes. Lots of people have gameplay ideas. Some are horrible ideas. Some are unrealistic. Some are incompatible with the others. Yet somehow we are expected to respond to anyone. Ignoring the fact that there probably aren't enough hours in the day to do that, as soon as you disagree with someone or say that you won't be implementing their ideas, it turns into a big problem because everyone takes it personally.

"You aren't implementing my ideas because I'm new."

"You aren't implementing my ideas because the admins hate warring".

"You aren't implementing my ideas because X is your favorite strat."


Want a more concrete example? FFA demanded to know why we allowed "self farming". The demands were similar to those find in the most recent Announcements thread I made. Well what could go wrong with explaining things to players, right? So I spent several hours of my free time giving a thorough, honest explanation to those who wanted it. Unfortunately, there were two sides to this issue. No matter what I said, someone was going to be disappointed. And of course, those who were me attacked me personally, doubted my integrity and even threatened the game.

I can think of examples of spawn playing on this server and getting attacked for it because he is a moderator on another server. People took something simple (a mod playing on another server) and attacked him personally for it and made it into a political issue.

There are a group of trolls in this community who made ridiculous accusations and attack the admins and mods personally, then cry foul if we defend ourselves. If we defend ourselves, then we are "getting involved". Are we not allowed to defend ourselves and have opinions? Apparently not.

A lot of people have asked for more professionalism. I don't think that means what you think it means. Let's try a real life example: imagine someone entering a restaurant, jumping on top of a table, and then screaming at the top of his lungs that the cooks spit in the food. Nevermind the fact that he's wrong, has been proven wrong before, and is negatively impacting the experience of the actual customers in the restaurant. Obviously it would be wrong for the owners to throw him out. The EE community asks us not to throw these people out.

As it stands there isn't a single physical person banned (temporary or permanently) from posting on the ee forums. There isn't a single person banned from playing. There isn't a single person banned from the irc server. Yet from listening to the people who do stupid things and who do get occasionally banned, we're a bunch of horrible dictators. Yes, a bunch of horrible dictators with empty prisons and empty morgues. I guess it's more alluring to talk fluff behind people's backs, think up wild conspiracy theories, and make trolling posts on the boards.

So I'm going to be honest, which is apparently a big problem. But that's too bad, as we allow the rest of you to be honest. I don't care enough to look at your fluffty countries or your boring conversations on irc.

If you're one of those people who demands access to the admins on the boards, but then tries to drag them into politics or insults them personally over gameplay changes (there are several in this thread), fluff you. And fluff anyone else who has a problem with the admins exercising the same freedom of speech that we give everyone else on our servers and our forums.

Yes they should be playing.

*claps at slagpit's post*

Unequivocally yes. One of the main factors in the demise of earth 2025 was the disinterest and apathy on the part of it's admin. It is to the advantage of the player base to have admins that are actively involved in our community and game.

Well said :)

Honestly I do think that admins shouldn't involve with politics of the game, but when we demand their time and for them to be available to answer our questions, then it should be a given that they have to be involved in the politics.

I think the player base should take a chill pill, all of us, admins have the right to take sides because they aren't just admins, they are players as well.

Slagpit don't mind the idiots, the world has its fair share of them and they thrive in the interwebs :)

Oh and I can be an idiot sometimes, so I will apologize for whatever half though baseless insult my brain can cook in the future.

:)

Yeah someone needs to add a like button to Slagpit's post.

Yes, they should play if they want. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fluff.
/close thread

I have to admit that I hate that tag admins get to see fail spy-ops, that does suck for warring tags. But most of the other changes have not really altered the dynamic of warring/netting all that much. If it had - I suspect warring alliances ability to blindside and annihilate a netting tag would have been diminished - instead they are as as overwhelming as ever.

well said Slagpit

its sad that this thread has come to the point of an admin posting that

You've never talked to qz about anything programming related have you?

Anyways, to the topic at hand... honestly, there probably is a case to be made about admins playing in alliances and the possibility of them being tempted to do something to benefit their alliance rather than something to benefit them personally. I just don't think it's an overly compelling one to make.

Of course, them simply playing the game is a good thing for the game.

Funny,

when Pang was leading LaF, people trash talk all they want, and now that Pang isn't in LaF and others bring up concerns over the other admins.

it's insulting to admins.

"To that end, if the admins playing on the Alliance server is that difficult for you to deal with, there's 5 other servers where most of us don't have time to play. Maybe give those a try :)"

This is the type of attitude that should be not present when you are a game admin and attempting to be professional.

If this game was actually popular and had a more deverse player base, people ay actually react negativily to being talked to like this instead of being used to is.

edit:

"I don't care enough to look at your fluffty countries or your boring conversations on irc."

If the game admins of this game are unable to act professional, then there is absolutly no hope for this game.

Actually I'd say your attitude should not be present. Shall I be professional and permanently ban you instead of engaging in an argument?

Professional? I would hardly call running this game their profession. They run the game for free, or perhaps at a slight loss. I more consider them running this game as a charity, and if you're fluffing about the food at the soup kitchen then get your ass out and go elsewhere.

Slagpit,

i never accused you of cheating, but it's obvious your dead set on thinking that I am accusing you.

I think all I'm asking, and what I guess some other players are asking for, is that admins stay away from political arguments because it poses as being biased and projects a negative image for new and returning players to this game.

I was never hostile against 'you' personally, if you want to take it that way and ban me for it, there isn't much more I need to say.