AE Reboot

[Thorian]

So briefly, ill give a little background. I played AE years ago( as you can see by my account age). It was a different game then. I started on a couple of new servers, checked out the forums. This game has really went downhill. Its not really the devs fault... its more the player base seems to have driven everyone off with blob warfare. Well as a coming back new player, i can tell you unless major changes are made this game is going to keep declining. AE tried to combat this farmville problem with V2.0 servers. But thats like using a coffee cup to bail the titanic.

So whats this game need to be saved? Something extreme. A total reboot. Welcome to AE V3.0

1) Take the oldest 7 servers offline and wipe them.
2) One of these servers will be brought back online as "classic" V1.5
3) A second server will be brought back online as V2.0
4) The other 5 servers are V3.0 servers and will have the following changes:
* 2 servers will follow the V2.0 ruleset unless the V3.0 rules changes them. these servers will be marked as V3.5
* 3 servers will follow the V1.5 ruleset unless the V3.0 rules changes them. These servers will be marked as V3.0 "classic"
* Player will choose which version of the game they will play. This is all they choose.
* Players choosing the V2 rule set will be randomly seeded between both V2 ruleset servers. No option to start in a specific spot.
* Players choosing the V1.5 rule set will be randomly seeded between the 3 V1.5 ruleset servers, No option to start in a specific spot.
* The first 30 clusters/galaxies will be opened up on each server immediately. Players will be seeded in the odd numbers(01,03,05,etc.)
* Even numbers will be extremely heavy on NPCs. This will dissipate over time with the age of the server. In the beginning they will control every astro in even number clusters/galaxies. This is a buffer zone.
* When the servers are full to 29, a new second set of clusters will open up. This will be 30-59 on all 2 or 3 servers at once.
* 31 will not be seeded. It will be filled with NPCs. The first seeded will be 33.
* For the first 4 weeks, the NPCS will not give up any astros. For the 4-6 week period after the server went live they will give up 5% of the astros in each cluster. Every 2 weeks they give up another 5%.
* These servers have a pre determined life span. They will be wiped after x amount of days and restarted again( called ages in games that do this type of wipe). My suggestion is either 182 days or 365 days or 730 days( 6 months, 1 year, 2 years effectively)
* Once a cluster has been filled, it cannot be repopulated. So once the 00-29 are full , we open 30-59 and all new players are placed in these clusters. Openings in the clusters that were once full are left open. This is important so that new players arent starting in a place where they are going to be permafarmed.

Advantages of this system:
1) Random placement on multiple servers with no option of selecting placement make it hard for estabilshed guilds to all move to a single server, start where their guild is, and dominate the area around them.
2) NPC buffer zones mean its harder for guilds to establish a dominate foothold in clusters( such as the 20s). It allows breathing room. It also makes NPC controlled areas hotspots for fighting. Since guilds will want to establish a base there.
3) Not allowing new players to be placed in developed areas will give them a chance to grow with those that are roughly the same level as them. Rather than with players that are months ahead.
4) Pre determined server wipes mean their is an endgame.Even if your guild "wins the server", you wont hold it for long as it will be wiped and started all over.
5) This keeps things competitive without changing the playing rules. It would be fairly easy to implement without a lot of coding changes, balancing issues, etc to the game.
6) Players can still play any of the current ways they play, or play the new system. So there really are no disadvantages.
7) New players are much more likely to stay on the V3.0/ 3.5 servers. Meaning new players to the game.
8) Players that find new friends/guildmates and want to continue playing with them can always play the v1.5/2.0 servers. And they can play all versions at the same time so they dont have to choose either or.


Seems like a win/win to me.

Note on seeding: When seeded, all servers of that type are seeded at the same time. so for the 3 classic servers. players 1,4,7,10 that start will be placed on server 1.Players 2,5,8,11 will be placed on server 2, players 3,6,9,12 will be placed on server 3. player 1 will start in 01, player 2 will start in 01, player 3 will start in 01, player 4 will start in 03 ,etc. When 29 is reached then 01 is started again( every 45 players roughly seeding starts over on the classic servers)

[Thorian]

In addition to the proposed changes:

- Allow those guilds on the servers to be wiped to be transplanted to other servers like theirs( v1.5/2.0)
* The G/L must decide within 15 days to transplant guild. Transplants are to a random server.
* Bases are kept intact with spacing between bases as close to current as is possible.
* Fleets are kept intact.
* New sections of a server may be opened for the refugee guilds. Some guilds may be placed in current clusters.
* Guilds will be kept as closely together as they currently are. ( since bases will be kept as closely to their old location as possible)
* Players are not allowed to move solo. They must move with a guild. They may choose not to move( and thus lose everything on that server in a wipe).
* This can be done with the V3.0 servers to the current (long term)style servers when they wipe as well.

Advantages:
1) Players wont lose their stuff
2) An influx of new developed guilds into an old server means more competition, more fights, more fun.
3) Players that made friends on a V3 server can still play with all those same people with the same bases and fleets on one of the traditional servers and wage new wars with already developed guilds.

[Rabid Parrots]

The thing about this is that you don't currently have one or more 8 year old accounts on these old servers with hundreds of dollars invested in upgrades.

Shutting down old servers or screwing with them in any major way will result in mass ragequits and the death of AE.

[Thorian]

The thing about this is that you don't currently have one or more 8 year old accounts on these old servers with hundreds of dollars invested in upgrades.

Shutting down old servers or screwing with them in any major way will result in mass ragequits and the death of AE.

1)you can choose to move to a new server with your guild keeping everything you have gained.
2) This game is already dead. Its got one foot in the grave and the other on the edge. Ive seen nursing homes with more activity. Someone needs to defib it.
3) If people rage quit because the $4 a month they spent on an upgraded account got wiped out then they should think about therapy.
4) It is common for games to wipe or shut down servers with far far far greater investments from their players than you might have in 8 years.
5) When you spend money for the upgrade... you already got what you paid for the month you bought it. This is like buying a car and expecting it to outlive you because you put gas in it every week.
6) If something isnt done, they are going to just shut all the servers down permanently at some point. Regardless at some point your going to feel like you lost out on your investment if you treat it like gold/ real estate.

Games are for entertainment, Stocks are for investments.

edit to add: The biggest loss on your "investment" is when they can no longer afford to keep servers running because of operating cost and low revenue and then you dont get to play on any server. And as this game sits now...its not desirable nor friendly to new players.

[Soubanth]

The thing about this is that you don't currently have one or more 8 year old accounts on these old servers with hundreds of dollars invested in upgrades.

Shutting down old servers or screwing with them in any major way will result in mass ragequits and the death of AE.

1)you can choose to move to a new server with your guild keeping everything you have gained.
2) This game is already dead. Its got one foot in the grave and the other on the edge. Ive seen nursing homes with more activity. Someone needs to defib it.
3) If people rage quit because the $4 a month they spent on an upgraded account got wiped out then they should think about therapy.
4) It is common for games to wipe or shut down servers with far far far greater investments from their players than you might have in 8 years.
5) When you spend money for the upgrade... you already got what you paid for the month you bought it. This is like buying a car and expecting it to outlive you because you put gas in it every week.
6) If something isnt done, they are going to just shut all the servers down permanently at some point. Regardless at some point your going to feel like you lost out on your investment if you treat it like gold/ real estate.

Games are for entertainment, Stocks are for investments.

edit to add: The biggest loss on your "investment" is when they can no longer afford to keep servers running because of operating cost and low revenue and then you dont get to play on any server. And as this game sits now...its not desirable nor friendly to new players.

Yet you're missing his point. In other words, the other half. New players and even those older players without an upgraded account that play on the older servers like Alpha or Beta, would be negatively affected by your idea. If the old servers were wiped, those players would lose their accounts and everything they've built. That in itself would also lead to mass ragequits and not just the death, but the very destruction of AE from the inside out.

[Thorian]

The thing about this is that you don't currently have one or more 8 year old accounts on these old servers with hundreds of dollars invested in upgrades.

Shutting down old servers or screwing with them in any major way will result in mass ragequits and the death of AE.

1)you can choose to move to a new server with your guild keeping everything you have gained.
2) This game is already dead. Its got one foot in the grave and the other on the edge. Ive seen nursing homes with more activity. Someone needs to defib it.
3) If people rage quit because the $4 a month they spent on an upgraded account got wiped out then they should think about therapy.
4) It is common for games to wipe or shut down servers with far far far greater investments from their players than you might have in 8 years.
5) When you spend money for the upgrade... you already got what you paid for the month you bought it. This is like buying a car and expecting it to outlive you because you put gas in it every week.
6) If something isnt done, they are going to just shut all the servers down permanently at some point. Regardless at some point your going to feel like you lost out on your investment if you treat it like gold/ real estate.

Games are for entertainment, Stocks are for investments.

edit to add: The biggest loss on your "investment" is when they can no longer afford to keep servers running because of operating cost and low revenue and then you dont get to play on any server. And as this game sits now...its not desirable nor friendly to new players.

Yet you're missing his point. In other words, the other half. New players and even those older players without an upgraded account that play on the older servers like Alpha or Beta, would be negatively affected by your idea. If the old servers were wiped, those players would lose their accounts and everything they've built. That in itself would also lead to mass ragequits and not just the death, but the very destruction of AE from the inside out.

... i will say this for the third time. The players on those servers that are going to be wiped can be transplanted to a current server with their guilds bases fleets and upgrade status fully intact.

Second, most people that say oh ill quit if they do that...wont. Every time an MMO makes a change to the game...and i have vast experience at this since ive played hundreds of MMOs in the last 20 years.... people threaten to ragequit. 90% of them dont. They are just trying to get their way and they are so self important they actually think they matter more than everyone else.

Third, those people that ragequit or threaten to ragequit even are what we call undesirables. They are undesirable players that actually do more hurt the game and player base than do to help it. They are usually egotistical. They complain all the time. They expect people to bow down to them because they either A) been here forever and a day, or B) paid a sub fee like everyone else or C) both. Rage quitting and the threat of is no different than a 5 year old acting up in a store because they want a toy. They are going to throw a fit cause they want it. Same thing. So let them quit.

Fourth, the game would not die. Because new players would actually come here and stay rather then leave protection get permafarmed by these old rage quit threatening vets and go on to a game in which they have a chance. In fact the game would likely start growing again with a healthy positive minded population. And since this is the cheapest sub game on the planet, i think it would get quite a few new players especially when used with the twitterstorm suggestion.

[Soubanth]

Yet you're missing his point. In other words, the other half. New players and even those older players without an upgraded account that play on the older servers like Alpha or Beta, would be negatively affected by your idea. If the old servers were wiped, those players would lose their accounts and everything they've built. That in itself would also lead to mass ragequits and not just the death, but the very destruction of AE from the inside out.

... i will say this for the third time. The players on those servers that are going to be wiped can be transplanted to a current server with their guilds bases fleets and upgrade status fully intact.

Second, most people that say oh ill quit if they do that...wont. Every time an MMO makes a change to the game...and i have vast experience at this since ive played hundreds of MMOs in the last 20 years.... people threaten to ragequit. 90% of them dont. They are just trying to get their way and they are so self important they actually think they matter more than everyone else.

Third, those people that ragequit or threaten to ragequit even are what we call undesirables. They are undesirable players that actually do more hurt the game and player base than do to help it. They are usually egotistical. They complain all the time. They expect people to bow down to them because they either A) been here forever and a day, or B) paid a sub fee like everyone else or C) both. Rage quitting and the threat of is no different than a 5 year old acting up in a store because they want a toy. They are going to throw a fit cause they want it. Same thing. So let them quit.

Fourth, the game would not die. Because new players would actually come here and stay rather then leave protection get permafarmed by these old rage quit threatening vets and go on to a game in which they have a chance. In fact the game would likely start growing again with a healthy positive minded population. And since this is the cheapest sub game on the planet, i think it would get quite a few new players especially when used with the twitterstorm suggestion.

Oh I forgot to mention that you're missing a key element. As in which current server(s) theose accounts with astros intact would be transferred to. After all, there are only three 2.0 servers at present and not 17 like on the 1.0 - 1.5 servers. With this idea, you might want to think it through first since atm, there's no way it'll ever work.

[Thorian]

Yet you're missing his point. In other words, the other half. New players and even those older players without an upgraded account that play on the older servers like Alpha or Beta, would be negatively affected by your idea. If the old servers were wiped, those players would lose their accounts and everything they've built. That in itself would also lead to mass ragequits and not just the death, but the very destruction of AE from the inside out.

... i will say this for the third time. The players on those servers that are going to be wiped can be transplanted to a current server with their guilds bases fleets and upgrade status fully intact.

Second, most people that say oh ill quit if they do that...wont. Every time an MMO makes a change to the game...and i have vast experience at this since ive played hundreds of MMOs in the last 20 years.... people threaten to ragequit. 90% of them dont. They are just trying to get their way and they are so self important they actually think they matter more than everyone else.

Third, those people that ragequit or threaten to ragequit even are what we call undesirables. They are undesirable players that actually do more hurt the game and player base than do to help it. They are usually egotistical. They complain all the time. They expect people to bow down to them because they either A) been here forever and a day, or B) paid a sub fee like everyone else or C) both. Rage quitting and the threat of is no different than a 5 year old acting up in a store because they want a toy. They are going to throw a fit cause they want it. Same thing. So let them quit.

Fourth, the game would not die. Because new players would actually come here and stay rather then leave protection get permafarmed by these old rage quit threatening vets and go on to a game in which they have a chance. In fact the game would likely start growing again with a healthy positive minded population. And since this is the cheapest sub game on the planet, i think it would get quite a few new players especially when used with the twitterstorm suggestion.

Oh I forgot to mention that you're missing a key element. As in which current server(s) theose accounts with astros intact would be transferred to. After all, there are only three 2.0 servers at present and not 17 like on the 1.0 - 1.5 servers. With this idea, you might want to think it through first since atm, there's no way it'll ever work.

*facepalm* The 7 oldest servers are 1.5 servers. Thus being transplanted, they would be transplanted to the remaining 1.5 servers...NOT the 2.0. The current 2.0 Servers would NOT be touched. Seeing as alpha and beta have higher pops than the middle servers i would likely just do ceti through ixion.

One new server would be a 2.0 so their would be four 2.0 servers. one would be classic 1.5 so it would be the new 1.5 server. Two new servers would be V3.5( thats the one using V2.0 rules) and 3 would be V3.0( thats the ones using 1.5 rules)

Obviously some adjustments have to be made to the idea. Its a rough draft. You have to figure out what to do with people whos guilds are transplanted to a server that they already have an account on. Personally i would let them keep it on a trust base. It is understood they will in no way use the accounts together and if they get caught doing so, both will be deleted immediately.

[Baylor]

Since you haven't played since 2010 and you don't have accounts on settled servers, which for long-game players are the result of many hours even years of efforting; I think what you are describing would simply massacre the game's population and totally kill both.

or in other words

The thing about this is that you don't currently have one or more 8 year old accounts on these old servers with hundreds of dollars invested in upgrades.

Shutting down old servers or screwing with them in any major way will result in mass ragequits and the death of AE.

Yea, none of the long-game players who got torched like that would want anything to do with this company ever again. And tbh its us the long gamers, and the older than I pros, who have been keeping this game alive on life support for about 3 years.

[Wlerin]

Just because something needs to be done to keep the game alive, doesn't mean the devs should do any tomfool notion that pops into your head. Since that seems to be the gist of your argument here...

AE tried to combat this farmville problem with V2.0 servers. But thats like using a coffee cup to bail the titanic.

No, actually it was more like using a jackhammer to bail the titanic.

1) Take the oldest 7 servers offline and wipe them.

Excluding Alpha of course? Or are you that out of touch?

( called ages in games that do this type of wipe)

And here we get to the real issue. Different games call this different things. That you think a specific term is the norm means you're trying to get the game to conform to a specific game and its clones. That's not a good idea.

Seems like a win/win to me.

The basic concepts may not be bad (in particular, time-limited servers, and reducing the number of active servers, although, you're not actually doing that here, are you?), but I can't agree with most of the details.

Then again, with such a major proposal as this one, you need lots of details or it will never be accepted. Unfortunately, including those details is a great way to get everyone to disagree with you. I personally find most of the choices you've made here to be bad ones. For starters, 2.0 needs to either die or be drastically revised. It shouldn't be propagated onto any new servers unchanged. The map also needs to be revised. As is, every cluster is equidistant from the next, so opening a new one doesn't really give any breaks to new players. I may think of more after breakfast.

[SICON]

This thread is a failure. What you're proposing is undobutedly the worst idea I've ever seen submitted to the FR Forum, and there's been a lot of terrible ones. You delete Alpha and Beta veterans' accounts, and you will have accomplished what even the stale Unwritten Rule of Alpha could not: the death and subsequent immolation in the Lake of Fire of the game.

[Thorian]

Obviously reading comprehension is not a strong point in this forum. Fourth time saying this... ACCOUNTS COULD/WOULD BE TRANSPLANTED to other servers.

Since you haven't played since 2010 and you don't have accounts on settled servers, which for long-game players are the result of many hours even years of efforting; I think what you are describing would simply massacre the game's population and totally kill both.

It wouldnt. Games do it all the time. You guys really need to get out more. Server mergers happen all the time to increase the player base and cut costs. I dont think you guys realize it cost money to support a server that has a population of 400 people and maybe 10-20 logged in at any one time.

You guys keep complaining about a minor amount of money a month that you already received services for... Do you expect AE to go on forever just because you donate your huge $4 a month to it? This game is dying...its nearly dead. All the servers combined dont even have as many people as a single server in pretty much 99% of browser MMOs. As for the population that quit... you mean the ones that drove all the paying customers away.. So now they are the only paying customers? Kind of put AE between a rock and a hard place there. Drove all the revenue off except for the current revenue and now say " well if you make us mad and we leave then your game will die"

And here we get to the real issue. Different games call this different things. That you think a specific term is the norm means you're trying to get the game to conform to a specific game and its clones. That's not a good idea.

No its called living in reality. Obviously their will be players that are going to try to ruin the game for everyone else. Thats how they play. An inexpensive way to fix this that doesnt keep placing restriction on top of restriction on the player base is to simply reset and reseed the server. In addition.. new traditional servers would come on line for those that didnt want to play the new style of game.

And you dont even have to take any of the old servers off line. You could try it with 3 brand new servers. But honestly with this low of a population... im going to guess new servers are probably not in their budget.

The basic concepts may not be bad (in particular, time-limited servers, and reducing the number of active servers, although, you're not actually doing that here, are you?), but I can't agree with most of the details.

Then again, with such a major proposal as this one, you need lots of details or it will never be accepted. Unfortunately, including those details is a great way to get everyone to disagree with you. I personally find most of the choices you've made here to be bad ones. For starters, 2.0 needs to either die or be drastically revised. It shouldn't be propagated onto any new servers unchanged. The map also needs to be revised. As is, every cluster is equidistant from the next, so opening a new one doesn't really give any breaks to new players. I may think of more after breakfast.

This is honestly the most constructive reply ive seen to this. The rest seem to be pretty much whining and moaning about a few hundred dollars over years they invested( literally the cheapest entertainment that wasnt free and they still whine about it)


Well revising 2.0 wasnt in my plan. However 2.0 is the most popular it seems. Therefore i included it. The maps problem was sort of solved with this by creating buffer zones using NPCs in even number galaxies. Random seeding is an important part of this as well. It makes it more challenging because you dont know who your going to start with... whereas traditionally your entire guild can start in the same general area which is basically just asking for the current situation.

I wouldnt be opposed to such revisions. However i cant sit here and think of every little detail for a "suggestion" on a game forum. Also im trying to keep it simple for coding purposes. You dont know how many coders AE has. You come up with some big mega overall code wise and it will take them forever to be able to implement it. then the more you change at a time the more potential for bugs and the harder it is to find the bugs because you didnt just rewrite or add a little bit of code.. you rewrote and added a lot of code.

[Wlerin]

Don't have time for a full response at the moment, just going to chime in on this point:

And you dont even have to take any of the old servers off line. You could try it with 3 brand new servers. But honestly with this low of a population... im going to guess new servers are probably not in their budget.

The servers are virtualised. I don't know how much hardware exactly they have it running on, but the cost of spawning a new server should be minimal (maintaining it may not be, however, especially if there are concurrent blob crashes on two servers sharing the same machine). New servers also generally bring in more revenue than existing servers do, which is why they've opened so many.

... Of course that's assuming they haven't done something silly like run the game on a proprietary server (e.g. Windows Server--it is written in ASP.NET after all) that requires cash to be forked over for each instance.

[Soubanth]

Don't have time for a full response at the moment, just going to chime in on this point:

And you dont even have to take any of the old servers off line. You could try it with 3 brand new servers. But honestly with this low of a population... im going to guess new servers are probably not in their budget.

The servers are virtualised. I don't know how much hardware exactly they have it running on, but the cost of spawning a new server should be minimal (maintaining it may not be, however, especially if there are concurrent blob crashes on two servers sharing the same machine). New servers also generally bring in more revenue than existing servers do, which is why they've opened so many.

... Of course that's assuming they haven't done something silly like run the game on a proprietary server (e.g. Windows Server--it is written in ASP.NET after all) that requires cash to be forked over for each instance.

Wlerin has a point. Also I doubt the servers are one single server split up into partitions. If it was, it would take an incredible amount of space to do in order to store not just all of our account info, but also all the info pertaining to what we're doing within our accounts. The most likely scenario is that they have a bunch of individual servers contained within a single computer-like chassis running from a single power supply (which of course the amount of power and energy cost to run that is fairly obvious) or a whole room full of servers (same scenario in terms of power and energy cost being obvious).

[Winchester]

The last that I heard is that Wizard runs 2-3 game servers on each physical server, and he rents said servers from a third party. That's why the blob crashes on one server have been known to affect the lag on other servers.