Getting suicided on by an unskilled halfwit (and ironically by someone charged with making the game better) isn't my idea of fun or of the best way to spend my time. So I'm packing it up and am not going to play a game where the admins condone behavior where someone half-assing it can so easily wreck a skilled player. I was easily going to finish 1st or 2nd this reset (even before what happened to LaF), but I was expecting this outcome the whole reset. Which itself is a statement on the state of the game. The admins might have their reasons for allowing this type of gameplay, but I reserve my right to be bewildered at their reasoning and to do something else instead.

As far as Post Script goes, I obviously won't be there. And Servant went MIA after collecting his first 20 bonus acres this set. So I'll be leaving you all in the capable hands of chevs and Derrick. I wish you all luck under their leadership!

I hearby relinquish all my powers to buch.

But you know i think you're one of the good ones. Keep in touch.

Z sorry to see you go brother.

The game is truly on an ice edge.

It was fun competing while it lasted Z, sad to see the game lose another good guy.

Grow some balls and protect yourself

Another one suicided out of the game. Sad to see you go.

I have to remind everyone that I was saying this all along, this is one of the main reasons that active and positive players quit this game. I know well over 100 that has quit for this exact reason. Alliances have died because of it, and others have been shrinking because of it.

The crew that keeps downplaying it with "you had X acres and Y defence, of course you will get hit", "get even" or "you deserve it because X,Y,Z", I gotta ask you all what is the endgame here? Lets assume for a second that some of you don't legitimatly want players like ZPS to leave the game, and Im asking you; How is the status quo viable in any way?

It isn't. Fully would have been prevented by killing the restart bonus. Trumpoz would not have been able to hit req restarting at 0s. Req wouldnt have raged out were he not hit by trumpoz.

Easy fix to prevent at least 3 players from leaving who left this set, including a dev.

How about for restarts. They come out of protection but can't do any hits for 24 hrs that way alliances can take care of them again before their able to hit again

This works. But the restart was cleaned up very fast by LaF. You still have the 10 LaFers who got hit by Trumpoz original.

I like it how we keep getting blamed for everything but you just admit you fully trust every LaF member to never ragequit and suicide someone no matter how many times we get suicided. I have a lot of trust in my members, but even I don't think thats a reasonable ask.

Who's this you fluff? And laf still owes sof an apology for blaming the suicider trumpoz on us. Also there's nothing u can do about original countries. I simply stated something to help the restart countries die before they do damage

Theres is a lot you can do about original countries. I have made serveral suggestions that would help, others have made lots of other suggestions. I remember you were against most of them, both those from me and those from others.

So both directly and indirectly what you say is its sad to see Imag get suicided and for PS to get suicided and you want to change the game to stop that from happening. But you still want to see LaF get suicided and we certainly shouldn't do anything to stop or mitigate that.

Once again who the fluff is this you?

Theres is a lot [the community and/or developers] can do about original countries. I have made serveral suggestions that would help, others have made lots of other suggestions. I remember [Boltar] was against most of them, both those from me and those from others.

So both directly and indirectly what [Boltar] says is its sad to see Imag get suicided and for PS to get suicided and [Boltar] wants to change the game to stop that from happening. But [Boltar] still want to see LaF get suicided and [the community and/or developers] certainly shouldn't do anything to stop or mitigate that.

Very unfortunate, I hope you do come back at some point and maybe just maybe the game will be better, good luck.

Thanks for the competition Z, sucks you guys are not going to continue.

[quote poster=Gerdler; 48082; 922229]Theres is a lot [the community and/or developers] can do about original countries. I have made serveral suggestions that would help, others have made lots of other suggestions. I remember [Boltar] was against most of them, both those from me and those from others.

So both directly and indirectly what [Boltar] says is its sad to see Imag get suicided and for PS to get suicided and [Boltar] wants to change the game to stop that from happening. But [Boltar] still want to see LaF get suicided and [the community and/or developers] certainly shouldn't do anything to stop or mitigate that. [/quote]

Where have I said I want to see laf get suicided on?

Z don't quit. If I had a quarter for every time I was suicided on so far in this game, I would be rich. Well not exactly. I just wanted to use the term. It sadly happens. It sucks. But you put your big girl panties or I should say big boy boxers back on, and you trudge through.
If you look at enshula, or gains, or Hash (poor Hash).... they get suicided on a ton and they keep going to some pretty good finishes. I think enshula or En4cer got suicided on one set and still made like T5, or maybe he was first. Or maybe that was gerd. Either way. Stay.

The sof want to see laf suicided thing is quite overstated

I think there is a lingering feeling of wanting to war but that's left over from the previous fighting

Best of luck Z

Can't say I blame you, this is the exact reason I have no interest in ever netting in this game again.

There is so much that needs to change if this game has a future.

We need to change our attitude towards this game. Across the board what this game actually is. Every single set this game has been moved towards no risk netting which in fact is killing the game. It gets tweaked to serve purpose for a small group of people and the rest have no reason to continue playing.

Any PVP actions are now frowned upon. ANY

- Remove the bots
- Make land either explored or grabbed like it used to be.
- Change your fluffing attitude towards this game. Bring back the fun. It used to be fun to exchange hits. Used to be a challenge to get 20k acres. It used to be FUN, now its jjust a toxic ceasepool.

Within the attitude change, everything changes.

Change the set finish awards.

Remove the restart bonus completely... its not needed at all. If you war, war. If you net and are suicided on, let you clan mates FA you back. Bring clans together, bring war people to war. Bring back the fun.

20k isnt a hard target to hit, exploring or grabbing

30k -40k is more a challenge.

It used to be harder to get 20k acres when we had less turns and no ghost acres!

I guess Z hasn't seen the proposal on announcements because I think he was one of the proponents of the idea we're going with

Either way, take care -- we'll be here when you're back :)

Pang understands the game is an addiction.
Lol

Crack interwebs

first off I truly dislike seeing players quit over something like this, it kind of gives those who suicide on other countries a bonus win, a freebie for their actions. If anything keep playing to show these players their actions do not dissuade you.

however I can understand if this occurs to your country across multiple resets, it takes the fun out of the game, so why play under those conditions.

next considering the latter here is a thought -- build it into the mechanics of the game, so it just cannot happen.

1. untagged countries cannot hit tagged countries unless hit by an alliance first.
--- i,e. alliances stick to bots and stay away from untagged human players and it becomes impossible for an untagged country to suicide on them

2. New clans with 3 or less members same rule applies when trying to attack an established clan. i.e established = 10 or more resets. in other words you would need to convince 3 other people to join you to hit an established clan. no mistakes no accidents or typos the game simply does not let you land grab into much bigger alliances. Retals however remain intact.

3. If a tagged country or countries double tap into a small start up alliance then the alliance those players belong to lose their protection and any of their players can potentially be suicided on.

4. it kind of puts the onus on the bigger alliances to make sure their members remain in line and only hit bots
it provides protection to smaller alliances and untagged countries, thru a guarantee of if you did not hit them first they cannot attack unprovoked. In other words if you have members attacking non-bot countries and your members get suicided on then it's on you as an alliance for breaking out of what is potentially the very best protection you can have against suiciders.

5. this of course won't stop someone from joining a smaller or even a bigger alliance to suicide from. perhaps a mandatory dec of war from leadership would be needed for any non PS/SS attacks on established clans. with a max # of land grabs in a 24 hour period. 5LGs a day sounds fairly reasonable, beyond this I'm thinking there is some kind of animosity that should be openly declared as we want to war you ... with some kind of cooling off period. It also still allows for provocation but limits the damage that can be done. As always retals remain untouched.

6. provide a warning with a captcha of some kind if land grabbing an untagged human player. It's still allowed but the "oh I thought the country was a bot" excuse goes away. Response to something like that is simple no you did not because the game had you fill in a captcha before you attacked this country.

play with this, modify it, take out the pieces you do not like, or add in extras as needed... simplify it or whatever but keep the underlying premise more or less the same, and you get a server where smaller clans and untagged players get a bit of protection, and established clans get to net without having to worry about getting their reset screwed over.

tigress: that's actually not too bad.
although, it still comes back to taking the risk out of a game built on risk.

Some good suggestions by Tigress. The problem is that attitudes have gone so far that this game is a non PVP netting game now.

Players who want to war? Who do they war? How do they war without upsetting netters?

bla bla bla I wanted

SoF has all your solutions to your problems starting next set.

....

The solution is easy. Upgrade the game to get a decent player base going. It will stretch the damage on risk/reward for going low damage and being suicided on. If you get a good player group going (unlike the 150 - 250 odd some countries now) by ratio the amount of suiciders won't grow much. Especially if you get new fresh players to the game.

What you guys are consistently doing is trying to bandagefix a system that was built for a 1000+ countries. An enviroment that had a natural risk / reward concept with risks being spread due to tons of potential targets.

Right now we see 4 - 5 suiciders a seton a 250 player base. Looking back through SOL boards, saved AT posts and EG stats we had at best 5- 10 a set when we had 1000 players. (I excluded organized netting ruin wars like Imag FSing a netting a tag to make a statement or SOL FSing LaF (which was unwinnable due to the fact that SOL had sustained two wars) to make a point about grabbing SOL restarts or L:L or w/e). I counted those as wars knowing you could see those actions as suidcidal (to do damage being the goal).

Back to the point it means by quadrupling the player base the suiciders only double up at best. So the more players the less noticeable suicider damage will become.


I've said it many times and will say it again. Go talk to the utopia guys. And how they manage to keep a steady 2 - 3K players (and have been keeping that for the past 3 - 5 years). And they have a standard fluctuation of incoming and leaving players.

I’ve been saying the same maki. You can’t code attitude fixes.

Remove bots, grow the player base everyone wins.

geez, is this a war game? isn't there a netting server?

The problem I see coming with the removal of bots is that newbies will be running around with their pants on their ankles in the prison yard.

THat's how it was in the old days, it's called initiation. They learn quick enough.

This is correct. It's not a code problem, or a game mechanic problem, it is a societal problem.

Imagine a society where people can get away with whatever they want without any accountability. Imagine what that would look like.

If you cant imagine one then I give you the phenomenon of "anonymous on the internet".

If you can't infer what I am saying, then I'll spell it out. Remove anonymity, and you create an actual community. The upsides far outweighs the downsides. It means the adults will be in charge, and the children will learn how to behave properly.

The last sentence, some days in this game I can only hope.

Yes but we didn't have the Kool fluff at our finger tips like now, you can play just about anything on mobile now, I recently say an app for GTA V 🤪

Hold my pocket

hmmm... most would not want their anonymity removed, personal privacy in a wargame is probably a good thing to keep. Last thing want is someone knocking on my door asking me why I land grabbed their country.

to grow the base in a situation where you have players playing in such a way that they will end up being the last 5 players suiciding on each other is not good.

fact we do not currently have enough players now to sustain this type of societal built in behavior. Solution is game mechanics very much like we have the humanitarian function. the changes being suggested are limited to the war room and spy center. They can be coded in as added error functions, a handful of checks and the game makes it possible for newer players to get their feet wet without getting destroyed out of the gate.

I am not trying to take away the warring or risk aspects, but adding in accountability. Also adding in controls for clan leaders so they do not have the headache of some member using their tag to create chaos from. if a country detags they lose their ability to do damage as an untagged country. from within the tag leaders can determine if they want to declare war. while still allowed a clan member would need to enter a captcha to attack non-bots including another alliance the clan is not at war with. No mistakes, no excuses, establish up front it was absolutely deliberate. Leaders can then determine if this member is worth keeping or too much of a risk. This is where accountability for actions taken occurs.

It can be coded in, but it needs buy in and it needs to be balanced so it provides an environment for both warring and netting clans while being as new player friendly as possible. This game has a deep rooted and very well earned reputation of being highly abusive to new players. This as you say is a part of this game's underlying social interaction. Newer players would at some level need to given the time to get across the learning curve. As the player base shrank this became darn near impossible. Asking the current player base to play nice with new tags, and new player has been futile for a very long time.

Accountability is a very powerful tool, and there are ways of acquiring this without giving up personal privacy. Coding it into the game is the easiest way.

while netting is good, any good clan leader also understands to maintain, grow membership levels, they need to create an and sustain membership group activity. the clan membership needs to be active, and warring is the key to get members to interact with each other and increase clan activity levels. Winning wars provides the boost needed for new members or even a bit of pride among members i.e. they will be back for the next reset. However perpetual war is also detrimental to moral, especially for smaller clans trying to grow membership.

Crybaby face crybaby face. "Easily finish first or second ". Well doesn't look that way. In liberal utopia no country needs defense. Look what that got you.

I'm not suggesting everybody has to have their full name, address & SSN up in lights ;) I'm talking about accountability at the PC (player character) level. My question would be *why* don't they want to be accountable.

If you want your in game handle to get kudos you play clean and get respect.

If you want to be a bad guy, you are free to - but now you cannot hide it. The field is level, your handle is accountable.

It's self policing. Attempts to try and centrally plan this kind of stuff are always doomed to fail.

I don't agree with open profiles. People are petty, myself included. A player can decide to suicide me over a issue over a decade old. No thanks

fluff

Open profiles is something I can accept, that in theory promotes accountability. Even tho the LCN crews suicide and subsequent acceptance into 3 or more tags out in the open shows that there is generally not enough willingness to hold people responsible for their actions, maybe if it was not possible to get away with it could discourage some of those actions or lead to a situations where clans punish other clans for taking in said suiciders.
It's certainly a change that is worth discussing, but its hardly without cost.
For the netting tags to be part of a solution here we would then be forced to get pact terms with everyone to not take in anyone who suicided the set before and be ready to war our longtime allies over it. For the most part they don't want war so they would avoid taking in the wrong people. There would be no reason to try to change for these people tho as even if you do you wouldn't have anywhere to go unless you create a new profile to play under(which is cheating, right?).

You might say someone promises to behave or some BS like that. Well theres an old saying "Trust but verify" that earth has taught me time and time again that it is wrong and it should actually be "Mistrust but verify".
You, Ugo2, for instance has time and time again promoted your suicide a year ago as something artful and even suggested at times that you consider yourselves saviours of the game because of what you did. You have floated the idea of doing it again periodically as have your partners. Yet the community is not willing to hold you accountable. Monsters has not booted you, and no one has FSed Monsters over it. You are banking on the attitude of this community towards you and the alliances that harbor you to completely change because we know the names of other suiciders too.

Having the current country out in the open is not at all a viable solution to anything imo and would certainly lead to many people quitting the game.

The obvious counter-point to open profiles is that if you want to do something nefarious, just make a new profile and the paper trail isn't tied back to yours

That was always the reasoning behind not opening it up.

Also doesn't stop people like Requiem who suicide on the way out and no longer care about their reputation.

This right here. I was thinking what is to stop me from making a profile to post on the boards and one to play with.

I have asked mods(Primeval) before if one could have two profiles and got the answer that it is not allowed because there are many ways it could be exploited for nefarious reasons (cheating) and very few ways it can be used for benign purposes. I agreed with this reasoning and so I thought that was the end of it.

So at the very very worst we are exactly where we are? What's the problem again?

Fair point. I for one dont think it will solve the problem as I have explain but I also don't really see a reason not to do it.

I really do not care as long as it is not the current set. Most of the time I play the same country name anyway


/shrugs