This Server is going to die because of power hungry people

[FrostyGoblin]

I don't know this Mandalore guy (I skipped C2) but I know Irish likes how he rolls. Yea, nice Wall of Truth that I had to rep. The supersimmers, casual pros, kingpin types, many of us have always been among the most vocal and eloquent protesting in favor of reform.

Too many issues to name here. I could make a huge fact sheet about it. Ultimately I think many of the gamers and players (who are the financial lifeblood of astro brand) have concluded that AE has ruined the integrity of the game.

IIRC Mandy has been a nobody on this game before Andro where he got into xoxo leadership for doing things like KD assignment and I think he scheduled an OP or 2, I could be wrong it's been a while. He wasn't very caught up in Admin related stuff when taken in at first, but he learnt fast and was proactive. He later started on C2 with Sid and when Quake quit Sid got GM and when Sid quit Mandalore got GM.

He's aight, but he IS like the stereotypical american, so take that how you will. We gave some *beep* for it in xoxo.

[TheMandalore]

Actually thats not entirely true Frosty.

I was a vgm in Servers prior to Andro.

Just not in guilds that were successful.

As For your constant diggs at America, i must simply reply:

[FrostyGoblin]

Then I gave much better recollection right?

Mfw Amerifgt

[Wlerin]

I would do terribly as I have little micro, but that's besides the point.

I would indeed argue that taking easily acquirable resources makes me a better player. Only an idiot would go for the mineral expansion next to the enemy base instead of the natural expand, no?

Sure, except in Starcraft both players are guaranteed to start off on equal footing, and both have a fair chance at stopping each other from going for that natural (or blowing it up after they do). In this game, it's a little bit different...

If you start on day 1, then you do start on equal footing. It's the strategies you employ from that point on, and the diplomacy you wield, which makes the difference, not your starting conditions. If you start late, well, if that were possible in StarCraft late starters would get rofl-stomped too.

[IrishEyes]

Why is it that in this server the philosophy of the top guilds is to occ until people quit? No wonder there is a lot less players in this server. It just ruins the game. nobody wants to play and have fun anymore because there are those select few and you all know who they are that purposely try to ruin the game. especially for new players. I get that it's part of the game and all but where is the challenge in being a lvl 60 who immediately occ's a lvl 30 once they turn? You're not good by any means if you do that. if you really want to show how good you are then face someone closer to your own level and really show them who's boss. not the little guy who JUST got into lvl range. I want this server to be fun and have a fierce competition but not at the cost of ruining the game. Let active players grow so that there is a real competition later on between everyone not just the top few.

Clever Thread, but a few fundamental errors in your questions.

The game had evolved into this state over the years, you can never change years of play instantly, just by asking some questions, some 10 years into AE?

Back as early as Ceti(I havent been around that long, but know people), their wasn't even stronghold groups nor was their even blobs, at the start people would play all over fighting amongst themselves in their galaxies. So even as far back as Ceti when more people started to play, people knew to survive the game they would need to start working with bigger groups and combining all their resources.

Next few servers you had big groups of people starting with one another to work together so they didn't die horribly against other groups of players, team work more or less, plus the blob strategy came into place, which makes sense, why not rally up your ships with your team mates for safety.

I started as a no one in Helion(I still am ), didn't even know their was rank pages, didn't even know their was full cluster guilds/alliances, didn't know what bases to build properly on, didn't know what fleet specs worked best, I got beat down, but I was willing to learn, I ended up getting beat down by a guild called stx, which had some well known players in AE, Addex, Vile, Treason, Hayley, Lyra.. I asked questions folded the guild I was leading in 09 and fell into their guild by a merger, that didn't make me safe, I didnt start next 2 servers with them I started Ixion alone and Juno with a diff group altogether, but after getting to know alot more players, not wanting to play like a dick, I ended up friends and in the same guild of players I was in on Helion, what secured my place with them is activity my willingness to play more servers and I wasn't a douchebag, the trusted me eventually, they are all for not killing off players, not just this group, all groups are the same, they will take you in teach you BUT you have to be willing to want to learn, be loyal, be active, not be a douchebag. Is simple really.

So to answer your question, AE cant change as you are asking because it doesn't exist and never has for years, the game mechanics of any guild/group now, is to win their strongholds by any means necessary, which means perma occing people you don't know, they maybe new players or not, but you cannot leave to chance that these unknown new players will stick to their word and fall into your group, AE has evolved to much now, people cant trust just anybody, because now the game has a huge alliances/spy/suiciders/sekret gate builders style, all to help the sides who wants to win/own the server.

I just don't see AE been able to change anymore, too many people have lost interest to even play it now even if new changes implemented. Anyways that's my story, hopefully it helps you out in your journey tru AE but changes never happens instantly it takes time. So don't expect much from this thread to help you.

[Hayley]

I started playing in Gamma, had no idea how to play; read the "guide" on the forums which was pretty awful; rolled into a War Legend stronghold galaxy and watched them destroy/permaocc everyone in the first 2 weeks. I spent ten days turtling on my horrible bases and trying to figure out how to tech for p-rings before I realized it would probably be more fun to play as the farmer than the farm.

I learned how to play by watching them dominate their stronghold galaxy. Then I restarted in the 30's and had the best account in my galaxy - I had a huge economy lead and farmed pretty much everything - it was tons of fun .

You can either learn from the people who are winning your galaxy or you can decide to play like a farm forever and cry about how the game's not fair.

Things are not going to get any easier for those that won't learn how to play the game.

[Dr. Fappo]

The main difference between Ceti and Now is that people identify with clusters more than ever, and clusters are looked upon as guild-conglomerate entities.

Back in Ceti, even though HeiHo had pacted the whole 00s cluster, hardly anyone perceived them or referred to them as the 00s, not even themselves.

I think that the current game strategy is the way forward and that, if more players come and this game survives, there will be a whole new strategy within 3 years.

[Pillow Pets Empire]

I got beat down, but I was willing to learn... what secured my place... activity, my willingness to play more servers, and I wasn't a douchebag... you have to be willing to want to learn, be loyal, be active, not be a douchebag. Is simple really.

Every multiplayer game in the world works this way. I cannot think of a single strategy game I have ever played, regardless of online or a board game, where I had magic psychic powers and was totally undefeatable from the start. Always got beaten by someone, improved my strategy, learned from my mistakes, and generally was respectful to the better players , making friends and being mentored by them.

AE was no different... I got recruited to play here from Lord of Ultima because of exactly what Irish has said. Sure, I had mastered LOU by then, but I had no clue how to play AE. So I listened to the masters, read every single guide out there to gather from them their gems, and discussed different ideas and strategies with my guildmates. Now I have lots of fun and only expect that to continue.

Can this game be improved? Of course. But that's not what this thread was ever really about. It's about the people who don't want to learn to master this game wanting those who have mastered it to suck on purpose. Yeah, I don't I'm going to do that, so... Guess you had better go get your tractor out, till your fields, and plant your crops cause the rest of us got hungry troops that need to be fed by your farms.

[Thorian]

I think a lot of people miss the point of this thread. When i played back in 2010ish. This game was pretty populated. I played on two servers at the time and competition was good. If you picked a random galaxy say.... 15, you might find 2-5 large guilds, 3-6 medium guilds and about a dozen smaller guilds. About 50% of the astros would be bases.

Our guilds were set up to control maybe a region or a few regions as a stronghold. With the rest of our bases spread out for strike bases. We would war with another guild, destroy their fleet, occ them for a bit, then move on. We saw absolutely no benefit in making them quit the game or move to the 30s,40s, or 50s. It was counter productive to harass players and make them quit or move because we would have no one left to fight. And then we are playing space farmville. So we would leave them alone a while and as long as they didnt try to plant a strike base IN our stronghold region we wouldnt try to force them to move bases.

Once a player removed a capital ship or fleet we parked on their base as a perma farm ship...we let them be for a while regardless of if they was in a guild or what guild they was in. Many times if they asked us nicely( and we wasnt at war) to end occ. we did.

We had respect for other players, we didnt harass players, and we sure didnt try to make them quit or leave the area.

All those players seem to of left the game. Now everyone wants to turn the game into space farmville, control half of or entire servers and run everyone else off the server. What is the fun in that? If you want to play farmville go play farmville and stop trying to turn AE into farmville.

I noticed many of the respectable players have left the game. On the forums their is a complete lack of respect especially for new players. They are ridiculed made fun of and ignored. Anything they say is completely disregarded as irrelevant to the superior intellect of the board vets.

Its like the current player base in this game is anti social, or has almost zero social skills and tolerances. Im introvert and im more socially accepting than 90% of the people i see posting here. If your that against playing with others go play single player games and quit ruining games like AE for people that like competition and socializing.

I am playing on a couple of servers now and only a few day old. Honestly from what ive seen of the state of things. I really have little interest in playing the game. As soon as i come out of protection, im either going to be forced to join the dominate guild probably in its lowbie guild or im going to become their farm. I have no interest in maintaining a farm. And joining their zerg isnt really that appealing either as their is literally almost no one to fight at least not anyone remotely close. So its pretty much farmville here. Just got to decide if i want to be the farmer or the field...and i might not even get that choice.

Hold on my dog is snoring and its way more entertaining than the immediate outlook on the future of this server.

[Kedart]

You are preaching to the choir, buddy. We all know that the game in it's current state is cancer. As long as this state remains the most optimal way to play, we will continue to play like this.

If the devs wanted their game to not be cancer, they would do something about it. Obviously they don't care, and the playerbase has given up on caring with them. The game is bleeding out players at a hilarious rate. At this rate, next server will struggle to populate 20s, and it would be freaking awesome if the server after that can't even open 10s. Could make for some interesting gameplay, though, with everyone jammed into one cluster...

[Thorian]

You are preaching to the choir, buddy. We all know that the game in it's current state is cancer. As long as this state remains the most optimal way to play, we will continue to play like this.

If the devs wanted their game to not be cancer, they would do something about it. Obviously they don't care, and the playerbase has given up on caring with them. The game is bleeding out players at a hilarious rate. At this rate, next server will struggle to populate 20s, and it would be freaking awesome if the server after that can't even open 10s. Could make for some interesting gameplay, though, with everyone jammed into one cluster...

Ahh the old blame it on the devs trick. Sometimes that works because sometimes it is the devs fault. But in this case its not. This game has pretty much not changed mechanic wise since i played 5 years ago. We did fine at not ruining the game...how did the current population of the game not manage the same thing?

Well because you get a small group of people that are arrogant and egotistical and must be number 1 because they arent doing so well in the rest of their life. These people somehow manage to lead guilds. These guilds of course follow them and they want to war with everyone. Drive them out of our space. THIS IS OUR SPACE!... and that space gets bigger and bigger as they more greedy and more power hungry. All the good players leave and your left with a player base of egomaniacs( as is evident if you read the boards), some diehards that wish for the days of old, and a few new players that havent figured out whats going on yet.

Everyone sits on the board and plays the victim. Oh the devs wont fix the game, well that server is ruined. open a new cluster, open a new server. Why so we can just repeat it? You know what they call doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Insanity.

The player base is the cause of the problem, not the devs. The original players that caused the problem by getting everyone in the mentality of we must rule this server may not even play anymore. People may just do it because its the way they been playing for so long. Regardless, the player base is the cause not the victim. The victims are the ones that wanted a competitive fun game that enjoyed fighting multiple guilds and not being permafarmed by a mega guild...They left.

Stop playing the victim and start being the solution to your own problem. Their is no reason why you have to follow these people that say " So first we are going secure our stronghold in the mid 20s, then we will take out everyone in the rest of 20s and run them off, then we are going after those people in the teens". All you have to do is say...ok your not leader anymore because we dont want to play that way. We want people to want to join the game. We like having local guilds to fight with rather than fly for 2 days to get a fight. We like competition. We like having random people and guilds in our area to recruit from and fight. So...your no longer leader of the guild. Bye. "

Its one or a few person(s) in your guild making these decisions to ruin the game. They are using your fleet to feed their egomania. It is your choice who you follow. So stop being a bunch of sheep and start telling these people they are no longer in power that they are ruining the game with their world domination mindset. See how long they continue to play. As soon as you take away their self importance and power, they will start whining. This game isnt any fun now. Cant even move my fleet from base to base without risk of being attacked. To many people in our area, they might see where all of our bases are. This game is boring, if your not going to try to win then whats the point....

These people dont understand the concept of " Its an MMO, its not meant to be won." By trying to win it you destroy it. You destroy the essence of what it is, what its about, the purpose of it. All they understand is that i must win. Ive played a lot of MMOs and some suffer from the same problem AE has because someone always thinks they need to "win (insert game)" and they manage to get people to blindly follow them.

I offered a suggestion of how the devs could curtail this problem in the feature forum yesterday. I suggested wiping the oldest 7 servers, allowing guilds on those servers to transplant to any current server fully intact( that should make for fun times) and then starting over on those 7 servers with a new version of the game... More to it than that... but do you know what the first response to this idea was? " A lot of people are going to rage quit cause they have spent hundreds of dollars on an upgraded account over 8 years on those servers." ARE YOU SERIOUS???? Its four dollars a month! And services were rendered for that $4 that month. Its not a stock certificate. You dont get a return on your investment anymore than you do for a movie ticket at the local theatre.

Its up to you guys if you want this game to die or live on. The devs might help you out some...but im sure their are few of them around since you guys managed to run off most of the players....thus revenue...thus salaries. So im sure the devs are probably limited either in time, number, or both. Since they have to eat and pay bills.

[Kedart]

Nevermind, you are delusional. People play to win, and QQ'ing on the forums because people don't want to hold hands and sing kumbaya makes you hopelessly naive and idealistic in the best scenario, and delusional in the worst.

When players find that the optimal method to play the game is toxic to the game, it's up to the devs to step in and find a way to make that no longer the most optimal way to play. People are going to play whatever way is most effective, and you can't fault them for that. Well, you can, but we go straight back to the naive thing.

[Sha]

I agree with Thorian mostly. But realistically it's wishful thinking at it's best. As stated people play to win. Nothing is going to change it unless game mechanics are changed hence why people blame the devs. If thedevs want to save the game they'll have to change the rules

[Thorian]

Nevermind, you are delusional. People play to win, and QQ'ing on the forums because people don't want to hold hands and sing kumbaya makes you hopelessly naive and idealistic in the best scenario, and delusional in the worst.

When players find that the optimal method to play the game is toxic to the game, it's up to the devs to step in and find a way to make that no longer the most optimal way to play. People are going to play whatever way is most effective, and you can't fault them for that. Well, you can, but we go straight back to the naive thing.

Actually a majority of people play MMOs for the social aspect, NOT to win. You cant win at an MMO, its not designed to be "won". Its designed to be a socially interactive game in which you work together to achieve a goal. Thats why the player base here is so small. 500 people on a server? Really? thats tiny...i have more friends on my facebook page than that. Most of the social people left the game except a few diehards hoping it will get better and a few new players that straggle in.

Whats left are the ones that say " I must win AE!!!!!". Really? Is it winning when you push a noob out of your little area of space. When you permafarm them into quitting? An entire guild against one player that is just learning the game ...i have to say that is mighty impressive. You definitely won AE there. You are super elite when you do that. You dont only win AE but you win the entire internet!

Its like me playing chess with a 5 year old and winning in 10 moves and saying YEAH i won! im king! Really? Back when i played winning a war wasnt my guild walking all over some guy that just left protection. That doesnt make you a winner...it just makes you an ******* and that is why this game is dead.

Furthermore, MOST people arent self destructive in nature and realize that if they dont tolerate, help, and leave noobs alone that the player base will die off and the game will become boring and ultimately close. However you get a few on a power trip that manage to start running people off, making noobs quit, etc...and they ruin it for everyone with their egomania.

Do people need someone to babysit them to behave? We didnt when i played. Do you need someone to keep you from mass murdering all your neighbors? We had respect for other players, enemies, neutrals, and friends. A tiny bit of self control goes a long way. You shouldnt need the devs to babysit you. Just like you shouldnt need laws to keep from murdering all your neighbors. If you have that little self control then you should perhaps work on that aspect of your life rather than play AE.

Regardless, I came up with a way in which the devs can babysit the player base, since many of them dont seem to be grown up enough to play nicely with others.
Here is the thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=117296" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Baylor]

You are preaching to the choir, buddy. We all know that the game in it's current state is cancer. As long as this state remains the most optimal way to play, we will continue to play like this.

If the devs wanted their game to not be cancer, they would do something about it. Obviously they don't care, and the playerbase has given up on caring with them. The game is bleeding out players at a hilarious rate. At this rate, next server will struggle to populate 20s, and it would be freaking awesome if the server after that can't even open 10s. Could make for some interesting gameplay, though, with everyone jammed into one cluster...

Really it's this. I agree with much of what Thor says as well, hate the game not the gamer as they say. Altruistic behavior gets punished by zerg and treachery, especially in strongholds where no guild makes compromises within their own homeland security suite. Saint did honor 2 protectorate guilds in QJump and Blood.

Its also true that in MMO, the 2 broad types are social warrior and combat warrior (we could assign them different names). Some of us are both. In the past I took ae too seriously, now I am more of a social astro gamer myself, but only after many servers of conquest and killing enemies who wanted to, exactly as you complain about, wanted to rape us off the server, force us to ragequit, declare us a loser on the borum, and perma farm us forever.

I can only speak for Saint, but guilds like Saint are the exception (giving mercy, and options) not the rule. We've beaten literally dozens of GMs who wanted to destroy us. So be about it don't cry about it, tl;dr & /thread