Gamma 159 days 9,357
Fenix 348 days 5,438
Epsilon 531 days 5,225
Delta 720 days 5,159
Ceti 901 days 5,038
Beta 1,076 days 4,986
Alpha 1,266 days 5,756

I'll be speaking about the downfall of the beta server in particular but all servers are lacking minus Gamma for now if things don't change. It is in my interest to see that something positive happens to Beta as well it's the only server I've really played. You, the devs, haven't got a dime out of me in more then a year because of your callous disregard for the player base and their requests. You listen to the 2 week old account that knows nothing about the game instead of the 2 year vet that goes to sleep thinking about this game(sadly). I'm hinting at the artwork that is coming up which was pushed mainly by newer players and not older players as they would slow down the pages just like the newer skins.

I suppose I'll start with the new languages things. Being from America I'm naturally ignorant and arrogant. My question to you is do you really think this would bring AE more customers? I've seen no change in the member base since the language packages have came out. Nor do I think there will be one. It simply provides those that can speak/read English as a second language a way to play AE in their native tongue. While that I guess is good I hope not much time is devoted by the AE staff to make this happen. I'd also like to point out the fact that some people whom play this would like to see less non-English speakers and that a motto of theirs is "A farm that can't speak English is a perfect farm"(don't necessarily agree with such a statement). I just don't think this is the way AE is destined to go despite of AE's origins outside the English world.

My ultimate point is that you guys need to stop supporting AE and instead reinvent AE a bit. After every blob war and after every blob crash their are massive quits on the server. I believe Beta had at least ~100 quit immediately after the biggest blob battle in B20 if I remember correctly and it was probably more then that. The server that once was 5.4k members is now below 5k in a ~3 month time. Personally if I were you I'd be looking for a way to encourage people to not blob by way of putting incentives for staying on ones base(obviously more then CCs). Also making building up an account faster and easier. This can be done by not affecting the higher level players by giving newer accounts more credits somehow. I'm sure most AE accounts created are lost in the first month because the game is so slow in the beginning.

AE devs you have to capture the player once more. I've had so many old friends quit in the last 5 months because of this stagnant game. I understand you could probably care less about the player's themselves but you should care about the money we give you.

Regards,
The Don

I'm not a translation volunteer, but I believe once the framework was done all of the actual translation work itself has been done by volunteers from the player base, so the devs themselves aren't spending all of their time translating. At this point I believe the time spent on translation work by the dev team itself is pretty minimal.


Honestly, it would take a hell of a lot in the way of incentives to get people to leave fleet on their bases...like incentives that would make hitting fleet over your own base totally unprofitable (otherwise, why leave the blob?). In that case, you might as well blob anyway, because there's no real reason to run around hitting things; everyone just camps in the safety of their own fortress instead of the safety of the blob, and the net result is the same. I know this has produced page after page of fruitless discussion that has gone nowhere, but I think giving enough of a penalty to blobs to add risk while not making them entirely useless is the best approach. Adding different safe ground isn't the answer, as things will still be stagnant, just in a more spread-out fashion; making the current safe ground a bit more dangerous would probably do more to get things moving.


The problem with this is that you will have a ton of older players complaining about how it's unfair that they didn't have such a bonus when they started. They'd need to get something in return, imo, even if it's small. I agree rebuild times need to be sped up a bit somehow; getting ZF'd in the later servers means you are out of the game for quite a while.

True that. I dont think any in the game stuff has done anything but portogese. But ofc we probably dont have any swedish in game staff so that doesnt matter So yeah volunteers like me is doing all the work

Cool Story Bro.

Yeah, translations don't take any resources from them, they have suckers.. err.. volunteers... doing it for free.

I'm disappointed Beta has pulled ahead of Ceti. I thought we were leading the charge :/

Hey guise, all older servers have been hovering around 5 k since approximately six months after the next server opened.

Except alpha, but it seems even alpha is catching up now.

Get used to it.

meh, I'd be too lazy to have to learn and adapt to anything new and revolutionary anyways.

I do accept that Beta is a limping server. But we at FR have battled over FR's time and time again. If there were an sudden need to add something, we would think of it and add it.

Playing Style in beta will simply have to change, just like the other 4 servers (-Fenix, Gamma) had to do. If Former-RAGE guilds would stop being warmongers it would very likely get players up again.

tl;dr Beta Will adapt, Beta will change, Beta will thrive

I think all of you who have replied to Don's post missed what he was saying.

He is the First paragaph of Don's post, Quote:

"I'll be speaking about the downfall of the beta server in particular but all servers are lacking minus Gamma for now if things don't change. It is in my interest to see that something positive happens to Beta as well it's the only server I've really played. You, the devs, haven't got a dime out of me in more then a year because of your callous disregard for the player base and their requests. You listen to the 2 week old account that knows nothing about the game instead of the 2 year vet that goes to sleep thinking about this game(sadly). I'm hinting at the artwork that is coming up which was pushed mainly by newer players and not older players as they would slow down the pages just like the newer skins."

What he is saying is the owners of AE are adding cosmetic additions. The frills, etc. when they should be looking at the game play. Yes you got to entice the new players but AE I am sure makes more money off the Vets. AE owners need to keep the game interesting but need changes in game play, etc or you are going to loose even more Vets.

If this is a true business, then you got to keep your customers satisfied or they will leave you. IMO, they are leaving in droves.

I know it is a balance to keep the new players happy but Vets who stay day in and day out need to see some changes that will perk their interest to be more active and happy.

Don, offered suggestions. Don, I was offering a suggestion to point out what a majority of Veteran players agree upon, BLOBs suck and are boring...

The Way the game is played needs to be looked at. Sure it will cost time and money but you all keep it the same you are going to find you are going to lose a lot money because you did not spend the time.

We want changes - I am going to get like Don and let my account go to a free account. And then after a couple of months we don't hear anything, I am going to leave the other two servers I play on. After than, I don't see any changes I think I will go on and find another game to waste my time on.

Maybe there could be a limit for fleet on a system for a guild such as like 500m or something,and then there is a set time like the tick for eco then when it is passed it takes like 10% of every fleet away....like a wormhole. I know its still a blob but a blob of that size could be taken down unlike the 8b blobs. Also since its only taken on ticks if u were staging an assault you could avoid the tick and make a hit...just a suggestion... improvements can easily b e made but i think its a decent idea

I leave for one day and beta is dieing?


But really if there was a choice between showing the images of the ships or not that would be great. All the people who would like images can see images and all of those who enjoy the non-images could enjoy the non images. Or just put it into one graphic package and leave it out of the others. Sure I'd like to see what is come up with but i rather we have a choice. If that was what was being thought of then sorry for being redundant. I would like to see some ingame changes. A new ship, a new way of playing. Imagine what a new ship could do.... it would open up a new world of attacking a new challenge to master the new attacking technique.

About how to sped up production perhaps adding (1) metal to all production structures would help a bit and for econ..... make capitals stronger. There is a lot of little things to change in the change that would make rebuilding easier.

Old players are leaveing, But im seeing new players come about also. The problem with just adding change or something new to keep old/new players keen isint realy going to work, As it will always come down to " We want more " & then in time we are going to be left with a crap game no one will hang around for.

While on the subject of change everyone im sure wants to move forward, but sadly when ever something needs to be changed to keep the balance of everything in order. There is a huge back lash directed at AE/team. The game as it is now, is well balanced... ok, not perfect but its good. By adding something new ( ship ) there is going to be change needed for other ships & there in lays the problem with the community.

Its just a game anyway, people dont live forever in these things regardless of what it is. Well on a personal note regardless. If any server is "dieing" its due to the over bareing politics & wars of the server which is player side problem not the game.

I am a beta player of 666 days and counting, I have played this game 666 days today (no joke). Since starting this game, my econ grew and grew to finally topping out that just over 10k. Most people think that I sent alot of my money on this game but they are wrong, I have sent 0 dollars with 0 cents on this game. But other have have sent their own money on me to get my account that high, so to this day I still thank them very much. Last month I was thinking of finally sending my own money to upgrade myself for entire year but I decided against it since I have been witnessing alot of old time players quit the game for good. When I started 666 days ago some players would quit but sometime later they would rejoin the game again, but not this time around. The old time players are quitting for good. I am witnessing entire galaxy sectors that once where full of bases slowly disappear into empty planets.

So tell me, why would I even rethink about sending money on a year's upgrade now? I am even doing everything possible to get my beta account banned. I already have gotten my alpha account banned, I am still working on the Epsilon account. That one might be the last one to go since the guild I am in might be small but they are really cool people, very active and helpful with one another. So what can I do now, just wait until no one is left or post a link to some porn site on my profile, get my last warning then I am gone for good. I think I will just post the porn link, I always good like to leave with a bang or in this case a white cream bang.

DOES ANYONE WANT A FACIAL?

Account: Upgraded
Expire: 29-11-2009

Account Start: 1,017 days

I've been playing for over 1000 days, and I play in beta. I agree that AE's resources should be more invested in expanding game play. I however do not like that most of AE's resources are being spent in Art Work and Cosmetic features. In my opinion, it adds less to the game then the devs think.

BUT I don't see beta, nor any server dieing for some time. If anyone can remember when Alpha and Beta were both young, they only had a couple thousand players and AE still made $$$.

I agree that too much time and effort is being spent on cosmetic changes. All the languages were unnecesary. AE did just fine for a long long time in English. And artwork? Seriously? Artwork? What a waste.

As to the topic title, yes Beta is dying. The player count is slowly falling and regions that used to be quite full are now mostly empty. There are two main reasons for this:

1) AE is dying as a whole. Alot of us are at a point where there just isn't anything useful or interesting left to do. Thus interest falls off and older players slowly leave the game, while very few new ones stick around for any length of time once they realize they can never be competitive.

2) Beta specifically is dying because it has become a one guild server. There are two sides to this and to me neither side has much if any motivation to keep playing. If you are not in AA, you can no longer compete. It's over. On the other hand, if you are in AA, there is nothing left to prove or accomplish and as you slowly farm everyone else out of the game there will be nothing left to do but civil war. Thus players in both groups lose interest and quit.

Personally, I've been logging on to this game every day for 3 years and it's getting pretty old. And every day has been upgraded as well, and it's not worth paying for any more. And it's pretty obvious other players feel the same way.