Hanlong hit the nail on the head, I share his sentiments but he communicated them better.

is that a surprise to anyone:P. J/k h4

one thing i realized is

maybe the admins can add a feature where if you make a tag it links them to AT and gives a suggestion/tutorial to make your presence and to recommend them to announce who they are and they are a serious tag.

it's kind of hard to distinguish what is a real alliance or not without announcing it publicly to others. i know one reset within this past year/relatively recently Reckless wanted to make a new alliance and he made the announcement to do so (he ended up not doing it, i dont know why). since i knew he wanted to make a new alliance i offered him a first reset uNAP to help him out. the difference was, i knew about it beforehand so i had the opportunity to help a new alliance come into this game and increase this game's membership. i didn't know DC was a real alliance until now pretty much and at 90 members doing 40 hits is pretty standard landgrabbing. we hit everything that wasn't a established alilance equally, no one is targetting DC specifically. i apologize but LaF doesn't know what DC is/was because no one told us until now.

if we knew DC wanted to be a serious alliance (which btw i still don't know until they talk to me :P) we could've uNAPped from the start and etc.... but obviously we would also make sure they understood 1-3 first before giving them the pact (as a gauge to whether they are willing to learn to be a real alliance).

can we stop jumping to conclusions and work it out the right way guys? stop being so difficult to work with =)

Honestly, im not actually sure that is true. From personal experience, the only reason i joined an alliance originally was because i was getting grabbed, once i did join an alliance the game itself became much more enjoyable, and began to learn the fundamentals of the game itself.

Had I never joined an alliance, I imagine I would have stopped playing a few resets after i started, the game play itself isn't what makes this game good, its the interaction with relation to the game play.

Now in this example it may be slightly different in that they appear to be an alliance of school friends or something? (judging from the alliance name). And so they have interaction with each other already if that is true. But really the best thing they can do if they truly are new to the game is join an established alliance for a few resets (as a division or something? i know i would happily take them into laf and train them if they wanted to), learn the basics, and then start their own tag again.

Once they have an understanding of the relationships between alliances (such as getting pacts, understanding retal policies etc), they can actually play the server as their own tag, but realistically 10 years ago new tags got farmed too, but all it did was force their member into established alliances. Without an FR presence, no alliance can realistically aim to survive on this server, and that has been the case essentially since alliances began.

SS let's say that has been the case since alliances began, why does that mean it has to continue to be the case now that we have less than 1,000 countries? The big guys still around can change that!

while farming the tits off a new tag isnt cool, what H4 says is true. if they werent getting farmed by the same countries they would still be recieving the same amount of hits although spread out amongst a half dozen other tags. different means same result.

you cant cater to every new group of people who want to try the game out, in order to learn the ropes you have to take your beatings and learn how to deal with them. i dont think any new players should come to the alliance server and try to run their own small tag. ive been playing this game forever and a day and i would never consider starting a new tag. the truth is the game is far too small and far too competitive now to be doing such a thing. theres no longer a place for <10 member clans to survive and do well.

I can't provide concrete evidence why kicking a puppy is bad either, but everybody (I hope) agrees that it is. Perhaps if the puppy was just collateral damage in somebody elses competition, I guess winning that competition would justify kicking puppy.

H4, I have a shocking revelation for you that I know is going to hurt a lot of peoples feelings:

You guys won. Seriously, EVO is a shadow of what they were a few sets ago, you have kicked the fluff out of Sol, MD, EVO . . . pretty much everybody. You are the best, we get it. In another week or so, all of the landgrabbing countries in Laf will be fully operational and farming DC out of existance you will further prove your mastery over the rest of us while at the same time 'teaching' DC the right way to play the game.

Congrats on your victory Laf. Puppy's fear you, bask in it.

Because if that doesnt remain the case the people that join the game casually will never find what it is that keeps us all playing perhaps and so will leave the game regardless and never come back, rather than ever getting addicted to the game in the first place.

Would you still play if you had never played in an alliance? I doubt there is anyone here that can honestly say the gameplay of ee is more "fun" in of itself than other games be them console/pc/heck even smartphone apps.

In some cultures....they eat puppies.

YUMMY

PUPPIESSSS!!!!!

haha jk :P


we aren't going to farm the fluff out of DC. i already sent LIonsfan80 a msg and as soon as he responds i'm sure we'll work something out assuming he's willing to learn also =) give us some time. sheesh =) stop assuming the worst all the time.

This is not a valid analogy. Kicking a puppy isn't the same in any sense.

Everyone playing this game, including those being "abused" are doing so of their free will, and everyone understands the risks and the stakes before they start their country every reset. As such nobody is being unfairly treated or unfairly disadvantaged here. It is a game with clearly defined rules. coming out in the bottom once the game gets going isn't a social issue that needs to be corrected, it is a necessary consequence of a game based on competition and rankings.

Everything that is happening is perfectly within the game rules.

Also: It isn't obvious that grabbing countries is inherently bad, and I have provided arguments to the contrary. As such, as part of the debate, if you wish to refute me then you do need to provide supporting arguments to your claim.

lol i was thinking the same thing :)

They have played for a week, they will be teaching you 2.

lol @ KJ

Oh.. Archaic.. no worries, i dont think lafers will touch you :)

as long as they read this post of course :)

I think there is merrit for a larger alliance such as LaF or EVO or any larger alliance to not pact out every other alliance and hit them. Instead of hitting a small clan in its first set.

You pick on the weak and defenseless because you are essentially a fluff who would rather attack someone who can't attack back. LaF doesn't hit SoL, Sof, Omega, Rage, Evo for it causes political work, and potentially a war. When the server is pacted out, the only people who are left are the smaller new tags.

GDI does nothing to stop a declare and then farm.

I also do understand the game has been like this for years and every alliance has had to go through the 'hazing' before they can get established and 'pact' out every alliance. But it's not working anymore, the game is dwindling and players are leaving.

I think this discussion needs to be had, but maturely and removing all the personal insults out of it. The discussion seems to have two sides. One side are the guys for 'looking' after the smaller new tags, and the other side is clearly the people who are farming the fluff out of the smaller defenseless tags.

I think EGO's need to be put aside, and we need to get arrangements in place to protect new players and new alliances.

The problem here is, all of you commenting about small tags being farmed into the ground don't understand what it is to build a new small tag from the ground up. Nor do you seem to comprehend why they are being farmed.

I am one of the few people on this thread who has built a small tag from the ground up without being an established leader at the time. I was new to leadership and had no political ties to the game. The reason why I succeeded is because I learned quickly and adapted my Alliance to thrive.

+50

Also this comment about the game dwindling, please provide a basis for your comment. This game has been on average increasing in players since it's creation. The problem is not enough people joined this game when it first started as compared to what existed in Earth2025.

The only way this game will be fixed is when the Primary Server is fixed and attracting new players. Also regulating how people playing the game risks destroying it more so than losing the new players who are not prepared to learn how to survive on this advanced server.

Sov, with all due respect, I doubt you could pull it off today. In a server with under 1k countries, a tag like DC is dead meat if they dont have some sort of political protection. We are not talking about non-leaders, we're talking about newb players that are still trying to sort out how to play basic strats. Would a single set of amnesty - hell even a couple of weeks to learn how to play - really put us all out so badly?

In another week, Laf and EVO will be hitting them 100+ times per day. A few might scatter and join established clans but most of them will just leave.

I NEVER said to regulate how people play the game, I ASKED the two alliances that are going to farm them to back off and give them a chance. I believe based on hanlongs comments, that they are going to be given a chance to survive.

Inherently, this is a flaw of the way the game is designed. It isn't your fault since the game was designed by Mehul. The game rules are set in stone, and emergent gameplay/behavior arises out of it when group-play is involved.

I told you this before in a wall of text, Pang, the ruleset on Alliance is fundamentally broken because new players are advised to join tags, which in turn means less untags to farm, so untags get farmed even harder by more tagged players. New alliances get farmed equally hard and merge into bigger tags, same problem. But that's how it is - in this game, might is right.

Another example is the Team server. It's a great idea, teams of 5s, but again, the emergent gameplay that resulted from it isn't. The Team server is again fundamentally flawed.

Don't tell me you don't see it Pang. In the same way, Alliance server ruleset is just as flawed, neither the Team or Alliance server allows for new players to enjoy the game. What you need to do is to change the ruleset, the community isn't going to change by a few posts on the forums, they will only change in response to external stimulus (changes to ruleset, war, suiciders, etc).

Again, I've mentioned before that, for example, if you changed humanitarians on Alliance to be in the x4 and /4 range instead of the existing x12 and /12 (it was x10 and /10 in the past, why did it get wider??? it just allows newbs to be farmed even harder with the worse NW gap), it would protect new players a lot more from the top alliances, and force them to either (A) Allow land trading with each other (B) or Allow limited grabbing on each other, meaning 1 hit is ok, but 2 is not, per 24 hours, etc. (C) War another alliance for land. Not only that, the number of hits would go down dramatically, reducing the maximum feasible land size you could attain, and so on, it changes warring strategies too.

You can make a difference Pang. And sometimes, all it takes is changing one stupid number in code.


Edit: The reason why I wrote this post, is to make sure you understand that the emergent behavior of groups of players (whether they play aggressively for ANW, TNW, or war performance, or whatever motivations) is ALWAYS caused by the rules and mechanics of the game.

For example in MMOs that allow player killing, if you let the players do whatever they want, clans and communities will form, some will be PKers, some will be anti-PKers, it can be pretty destructive too, but that's where the game developers step in - they can change the ruleset, say "First 20 levels cannot be attacked" or "Town areas are safe areas" or "You can only attack +-5 level difference (like humanitarians)". You cannot allow the community to police itself. It doesn't work. But inherently, such MMOs are flawed design to begin with, and you see new MMOs transition into Faction-based-PvP instead, and away from FFA-player-based-PvP.

i never said i was going to give them a pact without talking to them =)

good news is LionsFan80 responded but he said there was nothing personal they are just trying to learn this game, he was busy, and this weekend he'll chat with me. he did say he was happy i reached out to him and he understood his alliance getting grabbed is part of the game and he said he was willing to learn how to break out of that cycle, and i offered to help him =)

one of his members are attacking random LaF members who haven't hit them, which is something i would have to address to him as something that's not nice either, etc.

just have to sort out some issues, etc. =)

You are so dramatic

Thats why starting a new alliance as a group of inexperienced players just learning the game is a REALLY BAD IDEA. Many many poeple have recommended to DC that they not do this. People have suggested that they join another tag as a division until they are ready to go out on their own. Others have suggested learning the ropes on a different server (such as team) and then transitioning to alliance.

These are all good suggestions, because they are all right: starting a new alliance as a group of inexperienced played just leraning the game is a really bad idea.

So with that in mind. Why in gods name do we want to promote such behaviour? We want to provide incentive for people to engage in bad ideas now? Why stop at this bad idea, when there are so many other colossally stupid ideas that have been attempted and ruined tags in the past, shouldn't those stupid ideas be subsidized too?

At the end of the day stupidity has to be recognized for what it is, and definitely should not be rewarded. Unfortunately for DC, as blunt as this may be: what they are doing is a stupid idea.

They should take eveyrone's advice and develop the necessary contacts and knowledge before attempting to start a tag on the alliance server. Chances are they will ignore this advice though, which will constitute yet another stupid action.

They can't go to Team unless they get TSO's blessing to do so :p

pretty easy to get, just takes a little communication

There is nothing wrong with #2. I encourage them to utilize those. Your dogma is not ours and it doesn't have to be theirs.

You ask LaF to cut another alliance some slack? Have you been watching their antics in the last 2 years?

lol

just like #1 or #3 or #4

you don't have to retal people who grab you either.

you don't have to have a FA team either.

you don't have to sign any pacts with anyone.

i'm just saying it's typically a bad idea if you want to be successful ;) i would personally encourage you to practice #1 all day detmer. ;P

yea, have to use sol's antics on untags. it's much nicer than LaF's.

http://forums.earthempires.com/...1296594301&z=dear-sol

in 2011 a untagged country was hit 65 times by SOL. after he retal with SS/PS a mere 3 times, SOL killed him.

that's the way to cut some slack!

ROFL!!

In a non-sarcastic/glib way, I like your running outfit. I think your shoes and jersey go well together.

I think #1 is valid - give people incentive to not grab you.

#2 I addressed =P

#3 is really neither here not there... talk to people to avoid problems.. fine.. do or don't... it is really the most practical thing. You would need to have more than half the players on the server for it not to be...

#4 is fine. It is really the same as #3... talk to other players... Building friendships is mutually sustainable.

Once upon a time 8 new kids wanting to play would not have been noticed. This time, there were 4 posts on AT they day they tagged up inquiring as to who they might be. DC comprises about 1% of the server. 8 new people do matter now.

They've caught 34 hits in the last 24 hours, 26 from Laf and 8 from EVO. No other tag has touched them. They are actually making decent attempts to retal (all SS, newbs), and it would be great if they could get a KR going on 297. They are down 3k acres vs 1.3k acres for the 24 hours, obviously that ratio is not sustainable, and its only going to get worse.

You guys do what you want with them, I've said my peace. Good luck DC - you'll need it.

What they are doing is what is best for the server - the problem is a few encourage behavior to drive them off the server. More new blood is best. Players eventually leave and you act like a model where people partaking in the least interesting gameplay (from an alliance standpoint) is the best way to get them into alliance. What they really need to do is play in alliance and try to make it on their own. They need help and encouragement, like all new players do. A few grabs a day is fine and dandy - being farmed like they are is just not how the game mechanics were designed to cope with.

We must do one of the following:
1) Social engineer.
2) Introduce more countries, via new players or bots
3) Change the game mechanics.

Without one of those the game will kill itself off. Someone in this thread cited that this game is growing. Sadly we are probably reaching a general demographic where soon the mortality rate will exceed the recruitment rate. I remember thinking to myself how much the game had changed when it was at 14k players. This game could be so much better if we would foster growth up to a critical mass.

archaic, in what way does getting grabbed actually force them out of the game, do you think the game is more fun due to the interaction with the people that play it, or by watching the numbers on the screen go higher....

Say no one touches them all reset, they learn nothing and finish in ranks 500-800 somewhere and bottom of anw/tnw of all alliances. How many resets of that would it take before they learned enough to even come close to getting a t100. And that assumes they are even the type that wants to netgain, what if they want war but try to SR countries to death because they dont know any better?

The idea that by not interacting with new players you are doing them a favor to me seems counter intuitive.

Detmer:

Nobody is arguing that more new blood isn't best. You are quoting my post but not addressing it. I said that starting their own tag right off the bat when they dont know anything about the game is a real bad idea. I didn't say they shouldn't play at all. In fact I highlighted suggestions that have been made that are good.

How does it not bring new blood to the game to have them join someone else as a division? Or start in another server for a few resets?

Perhaps all of what you say is true, but practically it is a pipedream because you are asking people to self regulate. Any game theory examination of this system's dilemma would tell you that this simply isn't going to happen. So why continue to go on and on about it when there is no practicality to it.

Social engineering isn't possible other than through changing game mechanics (the 2 are one and the same in the context of EE), which I am perfectly fine with. In fact out of the people on the game development team, I am probably the most radical when it comes to wanting extreme changes to the game to shake things up and make it interesting again.

One past example of an attempt at social engineering was Earth Court... how did that work out again? The only other way it could be attempted would be through mod enforcement, and going down that road puts the game is a place where it isn't worth saving anymore.

Aww, what happened? Did you eat some missiles too?, well, you shouldn't bottom farm a country that likes to shoot missiles, :*

if you believe the fundamentals of starting a new alliance / clan is a stupid idea. Why just remove the option to create a clan??

And just have the admins create the tags that exist and the tag admins just manage the password etc

once the new players have learnt the ropes, they can apply for a clan tag just like you do with boxcar... Think that sounds silly?

So does the idea that it's okay for new tags to be farmed the fluff down to the ground to force them to join an established alliance and force the rest to leave...

I actually don't think either is silly.

I think if people are so concerned about new players getting abused because they dont know what they are doing, then regulating their ability to create a tag through game mechanics (like creating a requirement to apply for tags) is a reasonable approach.

Name Tag Members Total Worth Avg Worth
Omega Retirement HHA Center OldMEGA 42 $4,619,779,482 $109,994,750
The Sons of Liberty SOLxK3nt 82 $4,514,055,391 $55,049,456
LaFamiglia LaF 41 $4,089,039,335 $99,732,667

Mate we don't have to read between the lines there. I also didn't say anyone starting a new alliance was a bad idea, my comment was around taking the option away from new players, which is the same thing you are stating if new players choose to create a new tag is a stupid action.

I'm not argueing with you, i think the stupidity is back onto the status of the server, not the individual new player who may want to create his own alliance.

My only comment was, if the alliance server in its current state is not fit for new players to create their own tag / clan / alliance then REMOVE THE OPTION FROM THE MENU...

Because at the moment, new players like the idea of claiming their own tag, running their own ship, they do it, get farmed ( no one can dissagree there ) and then we hope they join other tags, or run the risk of them leaving for good...

sorry I read the rest of your post and edited my reply before you posted that heh.

Hey, if the rest of the server disagrees with what EVO and Laf are doing then team up and fight 'em. That's the way policies get enforced here. All of us who want to play on a server where new players are supported and encouraged and left to learn and grow should create that server by attacking and defeating those who disagree.

hawkeyee has the right idea

agreed.

Now you talk like my Dad :P

If the rest of the server disagrees so much then people will have to drop the anti landtrading pact terms.

Also its pretty easy to run an all turret explore indy and be out of range of landgrabs right now. you can easily have 1M turrets and be safe.