lets hear each of yours outlook on the current state of the alliance server.... and also,your outloook on the next set to come..... lay it down, boys and girls

This thread does not apply to me, however here comes my 2 cents.

The game is stale....this is not pangs fault or any other developer/admin. The way we play it is old. There needs to be a new philosophy to how the game is played.

Will this attract new members? No

Will it keep the ones we have? Maybe some of them.

There has to be a change in the way the game is played

This will be interesting.

BRB...

Need popcorn...

to soon to tell, unless im left out of the loop, being neutral thats quite a good possibility.

Handbasket, meet hell.

I predict trolling and a general state of butt-hurtedness on day one of next set. On day two of the set I predict a war. From there, the trolling and butt pains will only increase. Rinse. Repeat.

It's all aces.

I'll get the beers!

Heads: Senseless wars continue

Tales: Senseless wars draw to a close.

*Coin Flip*

Verdict: Tales

Bah, Kennedy was always a closet pacifist.

*Flips quarter instead*

Verdict: Heads

*Wonder what Jefferson thinks*

Verdict: Tales

*Perhaps they'll be less waffling after FDR has a go*

Verdict: Heads

Only thing that's certain is chaos.

i feel a dramatic change should be made in certain phases... yes jets/troops/turrets/tanks are balanced... but maybe change an aspect of them? maybe add in an effective new tab on the left hand side? stock market? bonds? some sort of economy gain? or maybe bring in a trade aspect of the game... trade 40 oil barrels for 500 troops... cash in for turns? 10m$$ = 1? idk something has to be added and some things could be taken away... change can be good if done in the right way

CrazyMatt
SoF HoW

iMag has nothing to say!!! We are netting!

New philosophies only develop in response to game changes.

For example, crippling is far more effective late reset than killing due to the restart changes (a warring philosophy change shifting away from tag-killing).

It IS the fault of game developers. What do you think all the major MMOs do out there? They release new content every 3 months, so players will keep staying interested! Particularly the ones on the Freemium business model (and obviously also the ones on a subscription model).

Here's the "patch notes" for the March 2004 reset, made by Mehul and announced by Swirve:

* Improved overall security in the game, removed bots/multies.
* Increased price of food on the private market from $24 to $32.
* Increased use of oil by military units from 10 to 25 units per barrel.
* Troops now require oil to attack.
* GDI costs dropped from $4 to $3 per acre.
* Fascism industrial 15% and construction bonus removed, oil bonus increased from 20% to 50%, market commission reduced from 15% to 6%.
* Bomb Food and Bomb Oil now steal a portion of the bombed amount.
* Removal of FFA server, replacing it with the 1B server now called the Primary Server. Removal of games 1C-1Z from the 1A server, now called the Alliance Server.
* Humanitarians increased to 20% from 10% in Primary and Tournament Server.
* Reduce the number of in-game allies in Tournament and Limited Server.
* Increased damage on Cruise missiles, and also reduce enemy military readiness.
* Reduced time period for PSes from 22 to 20 hours.
* Changed the number of turns per game. In Alliance Server this is changed from 75(37) to 80(53).
* Gave public access to the country and news data on Alliance and Limited Server at http://e1.swirve.com/data and http://e4.swirve.com/data.
* Increased food upkeep by 25%.
* Changed the maximum tech% of Mil/Res/Bus/Agri/Strat techs as well as the tech formula.
* Changed the explore formula for the better.
* Eliminated the need of a tag country with a new system whereby anyone in a tag can gain control of the tag with the proper tag administration password.


It was one of the most exciting resets, new netting strategies to explore (food PM price change, Humanitarians change, tech formula changes, explore changes...), new ways to war (since troops started to use oil, increased oil usage).

Unfortunately, the game didn't change much after that one reset with sweeping changes.

I feel that our game admins are simply too afraid to change the game, and prefer to stay with "what has worked for years". We need sweeping changes like these, it keeps the game fresh.

I was thinking more along the lines, of the way alliances play

pacts, things like that.

But Floyd, you are talking about emergent gameplay behavior. Alliance behaviors you see today are a result of emergent gameplay (this is highly studied - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_gameplay), caused entirely as a result of game mechanics.

You can call this "metagaming" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming), its a well known term used in many competitive games, such as Chess, Counterstrike, Starcraft, WoW Arena, etc and refers to the evolving tactical strategies used by competitors to counter the evolving tactical strategies used by their opponents.

Alliances will change how they play only in response to 2 things - game mechanics changes, and how other alliances play. The second part, is what you are suggesting everyone to do - change how we play, but this is really difficult to get everyone to agree to. Different alliances have different notions of what they want to achieve, and what is considered fair play - there is no agreement, particularly taking into account past history between alliance heads.

As such in EE, it is evolving towards the "server wars" and "early wars" route because the game favours the FS, and the game favours the side with larger numbers.

Sounds about how a war would naturally play out.

It should be that way. This is "alliance" server. The main thing that makes this server unique is politics. Sometimes unfair, yes, but thats also like real life. Accept in real life people dont switch countries so readily or as often and easily and politics are much more widespread. Our biggest problem ithat we dont have enough alliances, or even enough large alliances. We need new members and even though to most of you the game has became simple in terms of "gameplay" for new players the game takes a bit of time to get a hang onto and an everyday dedication in a world where most are consumed with new "pop up book style" games. Chess is extremely complex yet few play it. This game is alot better than crap like warcraft at least in terms of strategy versus "time played" yet provides less proverbial colorful shiny pictures so less will play it. This is a mass multiplayer game thus needs many players.

All I can suggest is marketing and networking.

Get this game on all the flash game sites (even if it isnt a flash game) like armorgames.com newgrounds.com kongregate.com and the such. Get an app and facebook version. What the old guys need is new players and what the new guys need is just to play because its all new to them.

We really need to make a facebook version.

YOu are exactly right xin.

im just not sure what to change

One thing i have noticed is that it would be nice if when you make a trade pact that you can actually TRADE with the other person rather than sending FA. I mean if I am a Farmer for instance and my trade partner is a Techer it would be nice if I could trade Bushels with my partner for either money or Tech. This would increase the benefit of being in a clan, and wouldn't necessarily benefit really big alliances anymore because you can only have 2 trade partners. Obviously some restrictions would have to be added, like maybe you can only trade a commodity for money or another commodity or both. Also you can't trade something for no less than 80% of the current average cost of the commodity. This way both partners gain from the trade.

oh and you should be able to steal money from an enemy instead of blowing it up. I mean seriously... who blows up a bank instead of stealing the money???? :P

Blame the bots

what do you mean?

hate wars are going to continue next set sadly, just it will be alliances getting carved up piecemeal by SoF/LaF.

only way to get peace on this server is to just bury the hatchet. I dont see that happening. we have lot of people holding grudges and not enough people letting it go.

Let go of the sperm? lol

my spies. ;)

well then your spies are stupid haha :D

you may impregnate someone if you release sperm!!

CRAZY MATT, DRAMATAIC CHANGES ARE COMING, BUT NOT FROM THE ADMINISTRATORS. FOR MORE INFORMATION, SEE OUR UPCOMING INTRODUCTION THREAD (TO BE POSTED SOME TIME BETWEEN NOW AND 2013)

HA!

SAM

hey sam just wanted to let you know about this new technology that all the hipsters are using. It's called a CAPS LOCK BUTTON!!! Seriously PUSH THE BUTTON!!!

Thank you.

.

Previously (like 12 years ago), spy ops could steal bushels, and other stuff. It was abused by netgainers as a non-detectable way of transferring large stockpiles (say from a rank 70 player to a rank 2 player in an attempt to reach rank 1).

So it got removed, you can no longer gain stuff by using harmful spy ops.

This could be solved in the same way bottom feeding was (humanitarians). "People in your intelligence service worry about the possible repercussions of an operation of this nature against a fellow alliance member..." or something like that. At that point, it would have to be cross tag operations meaning either agreements were in place or it's acts of war. :) More fun!

Don't you gain tech by doing espionage, and can't you steal oil?

@Schilling
I agree with you. Maybe you could even have the option to steal or destroy. Like if you steal money you don't get as much as if you blow it up or something. That way if you are in a war or something you can weigh the option of destroying their money or taking it or something like that. Same could go for oil (or whatever), you could set it on fire and destroy like 10,000 barrels or steal like 5,000 barrels (for example).