WTF happened to this place?

[Prefonteen]

1 hour ago, Dubayoo said:

With regards to Roq and IQ...

...Roq's suspicions are often based on common sense.  You know how people have associated, you see how they continue to associate, and you realize their bonds haven't really moved on.

That said, let's not be naive.  The real issue at stake is we all know what Roq's movement stands for.  It's highly materialistic, highly evidence oriented, and highly realistic.  Yea, people don't deliberately integrate RL politics into their IG personas, but in this game, especially where leaders can show their political beliefs, it ends up influencing who they associate with, especially with regards to such a radically designed alliance like his.  Heck, the historical rivalry is NPO versus t$, communism versus capitalism.  The replacement of t$ with TKR doesn't make things better either since TKR represents the opiate of the masses which communists believe is the real source of capitalism.

The fact of the matter is his movement is based on exploiting how people don't have evidence of behind the scenes conspiracies in the first place while making fun of them for not being part of the conspiracy.  That way, the conspiracy gets to maintain its power while exploiting others...

...but then the fact of the matter is his ideology is halfway justified.  After all, office politics, workplace politics, and familial favoritism in inheriting estates happens.  The rule of law might not always enable corruption, but it sometimes does.

The bottomline is what he believes in isn't ridiculous, but he's getting his just deserts.  The thing is he isn't the only one who deserves those just deserts.

I'd say your assessment flails at the notion that tS-NPO rivalry was in any way based on RL ideologies.

[hope]

What I seem to have noticed is this. 

First, we need to agree that not all alliances are created equal. There are a multitude of alliances that greatly want to bring dynamism and change to the game. However, they can't. Either because they don't have the amount of members necessary, control of an advantageous tier, the treaty ties, etc. The reason people create alliances, and the reason why there have been so many new micros as of late, is because people are bored and want change. Obviously those in the top 15 aren't planning on doing anything soon (at least it appears that way), so people are taking it upon themselves to bring change. Having talked in private with many leaders and FA heads of smaller alliances, they do really want to do something. 

This brings me to my next point, and it's that those who want to bring change cannot, and those who are in a position to bring significant change are unwilling to, for whatever reason. Those who are most inspired to bring change are the young, smaller alliances. Think of it as youthful vitality. Alliances that are older tend to be more fatigued, having fought many wars, usually against the same alliances, for years. They have participated in the cycle many a time. This is where I agree with much of what durmij has said. We need to cycle out the gov members who have come over from See-N, or have been in gov since the early days of the game. They are the problem. Those folks are the reason this game is suffering. They have become set in their ways, and have, for the most part, decided who they're going to be allied for the next years. This is where Roq may say, "IQ was formed from disenfranchised alliances from NPO's former enemies." Yes, and that is a fair point. However, these IG rivalries that many have brought with them from See-N have caused politics to become stagnant. Why ally with someone you've been against for the past 5+ years? 

But, I have gotten off my point. As I was saying, many micros want to do something. Many of them want considerable change, like you big alliance leaders have been claiming you want. I think it's unfair to say that just because someone is in an alliance that has just sat around for the past months doesn't mean that they want change. There are plenty of alliances that are doing things behind closed doors, but they desperately need growth before they can put themselves in a powerful position. Growth takes time, and those alliances who want change usually need a certain amount of growth before they can actually make power plays. 

We have become too familiar with the stagnancy of politics in this game. I want this game to be around in a year, and I'm sure many of you want that as well. But, the game cannot continue if it is dead, which is why I ask that somebody who is in a position to do so, do something. Break off from a bloc, make your own sphere, anything as long as it isn't consolidating our current spheres. 

p.s - I'm not sure why I typed this up tbh, I just felt like it needed to be said.

Edit: Right. My main point was going to be this. People are too afraid of losing. People don't want to make the risky move. To that, I say, grow a pair and shut the !@#$ up. You miss every shot you don't take. Deal with the fact that you may lose, stop being a boring !@#$, and do something. Geez

Edit 2: And to those who may say "and what is AIM doing to improve the current political climate?" I guess to that I'd say you have to wait and see  but I can assure you we aren't just sitting on our pixels and taking a nap. Most everything occurs when nobody is looking (:

Edited November 5, 2017 by Hope

[Edward I]

On 11/4/2017 at 0:46 PM, Keegoz said:

No one wants to be the bad guy. Very few alliances have much ambition and those who do are severely limited by those who hold most the cards.

On 11/4/2017 at 0:56 PM, Rip Hunter said:

This. 

It was seriously underappreciated post. I'm not sure why it didn't get more likes or quotes.

 

[Emperor Penguin Rikkar]

Forgive me for having to doff my fashy-penguin hat, but I’ve been harboring the same fears about the direction of this game for a while now. 

When I popped over from NS, this place was thriving with all sorts of prime shitposters and interesting drama. Wars were quick and constant, and a great source of RP for a political satire-based nation like my own.

 

Now, I barely even check into the forum beyond once every two weeks or so. Wars are colossal, rare, and long- I finally got back to prewar specs just a fee weeks ago from a war that occurred this spring, and I fiddle around daily on this game. I’m running out of prime RP fuel, and whenever I do get anything it devolves into a few placid speeches about rebuilding that stretch over the next three months. 

I have half a mind to call for all-out war, an Orbis-wide ragnarok that would eradicate the moronic circlejerk that we call the treaty web, topple the bloated colossi that are the top alliances, and render this game into a blank slate that we can rebuild upon.  

We won’t see such a fitting end, of this I am certain. PW appears to already be on the way to fading into the ash-heap of virtual history, and without such a colorful cast of players and constant war to breathe fresh life into its veins, I fear there is nothing we can do.

[Ripper]

1 hour ago, Emperor Penguin Rikkar said:

- snip -

I mean... nothing stops you from doing wars.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Ripper

[Sir Scarfalot]

1 hour ago, Ripper said:

I mean... nothing stops you from doing wars.

True, but the consolidation and pixelhugging stops said wars from being destructive and widespread enough to result in the tabula rasa that he describes.

The only thing that can is a widespread rethinking of strategy and goals; is it better to A. gather as much stuff as possible, B. take as much stuff as possible, C. destroy as much stuff as possible, or D. use what you have to fight for what you want to fight for, costs be damned? Most choose A or B. I say we should explore C and D, and I'm actually doing it.

[Dubayoo]

8 hours ago, Partisan said:

I'd say your assessment flails at the notion that tS-NPO rivalry was in any way based on RL ideologies.

I would like to agree except for the selective sociability that strongly seems to be based on whether players anticipate political compatibility or not.  

There are other factors involved as well, but that's priority number one when seeing how players refuse to interact with others.  If you try to bridge the gaps a lot by asking people if they'd be interested in talking with others, you most often get the silent treatment when trying to convince people to talk with the incompatible.

This is the real reason on why we don't see a third sphere pop up.  Yes, there are exceptions to the rule such as Rose on Easy Mode and Cornerstone on IQ, but they are the exceptions, not the rule.

Edited November 6, 2017 by Dubayoo

[Buorhann]

12 hours ago, Seeker said:

Your comment just comes off a little ridiculous considering it was just a sh1 post that had zero basis.  Although apparently sh1 posting and not making arguments/counter arguments is generally accepted around here.  Reference Leos post earlier regarding sh1 posting. (can't cuss apparently)

I believe the point of Roquentins post(s) were to refute others that were denying past rhetoric etc.  I don't think he has made any ridiculous claims that aren't substantiated by past historical events.  

>zero basis

 

It's literally the same stuff Roq has been spewing ever since the formation of IQsphere.  Feel free to go back a few months and check.

[Buorhann]

I mean, Syndisphere literally killed the game for once. =x

 

Just look through the track record till now.  Since the Guardian/Mensa/Syndicate days to this.

 

I blame Guardian.

[Erland]

The major resource update reduced everyone's income a lot, slowing the speed of the game down, as well as making war much more costly by increasing resource prices. Those who complained back when resource prices were low and suggested lowering incomes, don't complain now when the game is stagnating and wars are few and far between. War and rebuilding is now more costly than ever so no wonder everyone's avoiding it.

The proper solution to fixing the deflationary resource market should have been to increase monetary incomes (or decrease monetary expenses), which would have balanced the resource and money supply without slowing down the game and causing stagnation.

[Prefontaine]

15 hours ago, Hope said:

What I seem to have noticed is this. 

First, we need to agree that not all alliances are created equal. There are a multitude of alliances that greatly want to bring dynamism and change to the game. However, they can't. Either because they don't have the amount of members necessary, control of an advantageous tier, the treaty ties, etc. The reason people create alliances, and the reason why there have been so many new micros as of late, is because people are bored and want change. Obviously those in the top 15 aren't planning on doing anything soon (at least it appears that way), so people are taking it upon themselves to bring change. Having talked in private with many leaders and FA heads of smaller alliances, they do really want to do something. 

This brings me to my next point, and it's that those who want to bring change cannot, and those who are in a position to bring significant change are unwilling to, for whatever reason. Those who are most inspired to bring change are the young, smaller alliances. Think of it as youthful vitality. Alliances that are older tend to be more fatigued, having fought many wars, usually against the same alliances, for years. They have participated in the cycle many a time. This is where I agree with much of what durmij has said. We need to cycle out the gov members who have come over from See-N, or have been in gov since the early days of the game. They are the problem. Those folks are the reason this game is suffering. They have become set in their ways, and have, for the most part, decided who they're going to be allied for the next years. This is where Roq may say, "IQ was formed from disenfranchised alliances from NPO's former enemies." Yes, and that is a fair point. However, these IG rivalries that many have brought with them from See-N have caused politics to become stagnant. Why ally with someone you've been against for the past 5+ years? 

But, I have gotten off my point. As I was saying, many micros want to do something. Many of them want considerable change, like you big alliance leaders have been claiming you want. I think it's unfair to say that just because someone is in an alliance that has just sat around for the past months doesn't mean that they want change. There are plenty of alliances that are doing things behind closed doors, but they desperately need growth before they can put themselves in a powerful position. Growth takes time, and those alliances who want change usually need a certain amount of growth before they can actually make power plays. 

We have become too familiar with the stagnancy of politics in this game. I want this game to be around in a year, and I'm sure many of you want that as well. But, the game cannot continue if it is dead, which is why I ask that somebody who is in a position to do so, do something. Break off from a bloc, make your own sphere, anything as long as it isn't consolidating our current spheres. 

p.s - I'm not sure why I typed this up tbh, I just felt like it needed to be said.

Edit: Right. My main point was going to be this. People are too afraid of losing. People don't want to make the risky move. To that, I say, grow a pair and shut the !@#$ up. You miss every shot you don't take. Deal with the fact that you may lose, stop being a boring !@#$, and do something. Geez

Edit 2: And to those who may say "and what is AIM doing to improve the current political climate?" I guess to that I'd say you have to wait and see  but I can assure you we aren't just sitting on our pixels and taking a nap. Most everything occurs when nobody is looking (:

This is actually a fairly solid post. Part of what it doesn't address, at least in my experience is the burden of leading one of those top 15 AA's. It's one thing to have a band of pirates, or blood thirsty agents of chaos, but leading what has become the standard top tier model for alliances comes with a lot of baggage. I'm not going to repeat what Hope said well enough above regarding the political baggage but instead I want to highlight the baggage of being, in some cases, solely responsible for the enjoyment of possibly hundreds of people. 

 

Some leaders in these games, probably most, actually care about their members prosperity. I did with Guardian, and I did in TEst. Both alliances were run very differently in the political arena, but that was in line with what I wanted for an alliance, and made sure the members that followed me knew what was in store. War. Not everyone was always happy and that will never be the case but as time goes on the majority of dissenters will move on elsewhere and your alliance will have a play style that lines up with what you want. That makes running an alliance more enjoyable and in the end more dynamic. One of the things with leading TEst I found quite liberating as a leader was having no real obligation outside of finding us a fight. We would go into a fight thinking "We're set up decent for this, but since we don't have a shit ton of paper it could end poorly". Everyone knew that, and in the end it ended poorly but lots of fun was had along the way, even on the way out. It was one of the best years I've had playing these games, I'm glad it was my last one.

I bring that up to encourage leaders to break out of the mold a little. You'll be happier leading an alliance in the manner that you wish. You should want to have some fun and mix things up. That burden of doing right by your members might be holding you back. I would advise you do it anyway. Lead the alliance you want to lead. A handful of you currently have the power to fix what is wrong with these games. The other option is enough members getting fed up and rallying together to take the power from the current boring power structure. 

 

However none of this is likely to happen. No one likes change, and we're lazy. That and Sheepy is rubbish. 

 

 

EDIT: The gif in my sig is actually fairly on message. Remember this is a game. Losing and winning doesn't matter. Doing epic and fun things does. 

Edited November 6, 2017 by Judge Dredd

[丂ħ̧i̧₣ɫ̵γ͘ ̶™]

58 minutes ago, Judge Dredd said:

This is actually a fairly solid post. Part of what it doesn't address, at least in my experience is the burden of leading one of those top 15 AA's. It's one thing to have a band of pirates, or blood thirsty agents of chaos, but leading what has become the standard top tier model for alliances comes with a lot of baggage. I'm not going to repeat what Hope said well enough above regarding the political baggage but instead I want to highlight the baggage of being, in some cases, solely responsible for the enjoyment of possibly hundreds of people. 

 

Some leaders in these games, probably most, actually care about their members prosperity. I did with Guardian, and I did in TEst. Both alliances were run very differently in the political arena, but that was in line with what I wanted for an alliance, and made sure the members that followed me knew what was in store. War. Not everyone was always happy and that will never be the case but as time goes on the majority of dissenters will move on elsewhere and your alliance will have a play style that lines up with what you want. That makes running an alliance more enjoyable and in the end more dynamic. One of the things with leading TEst I found quite liberating as a leader was having no real obligation outside of finding us a fight. We would go into a fight thinking "We're set up decent for this, but since we don't have a shit ton of paper it could end poorly". Everyone knew that, and in the end it ended poorly but lots of fun was had along the way, even on the way out. It was one of the best years I've had playing these games, I'm glad it was my last one.

I bring that up to encourage leaders to break out of the mold a little. You'll be happier leading an alliance in the manner that you wish. You should want to have some fun and mix things up. That burden of doing right by your members might be holding you back. I would advise you do it anyway. Lead the alliance you want to lead. A handful of you currently have the power to fix what is wrong with these games. The other option is enough members getting fed up and rallying together to take the power from the current boring power structure. 

 

However none of this is likely to happen. No one likes change, and we're lazy. That and Sheepy is rubbish. 

 

 

EDIT: The gif in my sig is actually fairly on message. Remember this is a game. Losing and winning doesn't matter. Doing epic and fun things does. 

I don't play for politics, but this is something that works in general. Works 100%.

"Always keep your foes confused. If they are never sure who you are or what you want, they cannot know what you are like to do next.

 

Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you."

[Dubayoo]

5 hours ago, Erland said:

The major resource update reduced everyone's income a lot, slowing the speed of the game down, as well as making war much more costly by increasing resource prices. Those who complained back when resource prices were low and suggested lowering incomes, don't complain now when the game is stagnating and wars are few and far between. War and rebuilding is now more costly than ever so no wonder everyone's avoiding it.

The proper solution to fixing the deflationary resource market should have been to increase monetary incomes (or decrease monetary expenses), which would have balanced the resource and money supply without slowing down the game and causing stagnation.

I make around $3.5m everyday with the surge in processed resources.

Maybe people just need to manufacture and sell them more.

[Micchan]

3 hours ago, Dubayoo said:

I make around $3.5m everyday with the surge in processed resources.

Maybe people just need to manufacture and sell them more.

I make 7M everyday with commerce, and I lose them at keno

Get on my level 

[Holton]

On 11/4/2017 at 0:46 PM, Keegoz said:

No one wants to be the bad guy. Very few alliances have much ambition and those who do are severely limited by those who hold most the cards.

Not only does the game lack antagonists, it lacks tangible goals that can compete with the tangible goals of growing your nation. If we have goals, other than the #1 spot and bragging rights, I think we'll see a political "boom" of sorts where people become interested in risking growth for the potential benefit.

We don't have scarce resources that give tangible benefit to compete over, but other iterations of nationsims have shown that we can't because it allows the dominant players to form an impenetrable hegemoney while the losers stay on the bottom.

 

So what can we do to correct this? What beneficial, but also scarce, resource can be created to fill this purpose without destroying game balance? I think the philosophy of player-created content has stagnated. If a lot of people don't care, then the philosophy fails. So we need something, but what?

 

One thought I've had is meaningless points. Rather than the indirect method of climbing alliance ranks (growth and strategic war / damage avoiding / mass recruiting), we have a direct method of ranking. Said method could be measured in "alliance points" which expire after a set amount of time (to prevent stagnation due to dominance).

You can gain points in several ways:

- in game awards such as highest infra, most nukes, oldest nation, etc.

- gaining or looting treasures

- winning individual wars

- winning alliance wars (have mods add points based on outcome or have an actual in-game alliance war mechanic)

- Posting actively on the forums

- Buying cities and certain thresholds of infra (every 1000 infra gives you points)

- etc.

 

Having multiple methods of gaining points allows different types of alliances to be relevant to the rankings. Size matters, wars matter, generation and consumption of resources matter, raids matter, posting matters (even spam), growth matters. Etc. The benefit being you can directly impact your alliance rank but only by doing MORE than just existing and growing, but growing can still contribute.

 

Meaningless points is one of the best ways to motivate without impacting game balance. It's been shown to work in other games. It could work here.

 

Edited November 6, 2017 by Holton

[Micchan]

1 hour ago, Holton said:

snip

[Roquentin]

7 hours ago, Holton said:

Not only does the game lack antagonists, it lacks tangible goals that can compete with the tangible goals of growing your nation. If we have goals, other than the #1 spot and bragging rights, I think we'll see a political "boom" of sorts where people become interested in risking growth for the potential benefit.

We don't have scarce resources that give tangible benefit to compete over, but other iterations of nationsims have shown that we can't because it allows the dominant players to form an impenetrable hegemoney while the losers stay on the bottom.

 

So what can we do to correct this? What beneficial, but also scarce, resource can be created to fill this purpose without destroying game balance? I think the philosophy of player-created content has stagnated. If a lot of people don't care, then the philosophy fails. So we need something, but what?

 

One thought I've had is meaningless points. Rather than the indirect method of climbing alliance ranks (growth and strategic war / damage avoiding / mass recruiting), we have a direct method of ranking. Said method could be measured in "alliance points" which expire after a set amount of time (to prevent stagnation due to dominance).

You can gain points in several ways:

- in game awards such as highest infra, most nukes, oldest nation, etc.

- gaining or looting treasures

- winning individual wars

- winning alliance wars (have mods add points based on outcome or have an actual in-game alliance war mechanic)

- Posting actively on the forums

- Buying cities and certain thresholds of infra (every 1000 infra gives you points)

- etc.

 

Having multiple methods of gaining points allows different types of alliances to be relevant to the rankings. Size matters, wars matter, generation and consumption of resources matter, raids matter, posting matters (even spam), growth matters. Etc. The benefit being you can directly impact your alliance rank but only by doing MORE than just existing and growing, but growing can still contribute.

 

Meaningless points is one of the best ways to motivate without impacting game balance. It's been shown to work in other games. It could work here.

 

 

This probably the best solution presented so far. The mainstream PW meta is to grow as much as possible, so people avoid risk since carries potential inhibition of growth. Cities being indestructible rather than making it easier to take losses makes people more invested in building/growth and then they're either stuck in that mindset or biding their time to do anything. We have the leaderboards already here, but they don't really exist on an alliance level. If you could have some alliances going for most casualties, some going for most infra destroyed most wars, etc. The issue is, I don't see how meaningless points would alter the current game culture. It would require people to alter their mindsets, which is the harder part.

[Ogaden]

7 hours ago, Holton said:

Not only does the game lack antagonists

[Holton]

1 hour ago, Roquentin said:

 

This probably the best solution presented so far. The mainstream PW meta is to grow as much as possible, so people avoid risk since carries potential inhibition of growth. Cities being indestructible rather than making it easier to take losses makes people more invested in building/growth and then they're either stuck in that mindset or biding their time to do anything. We have the leaderboards already here, but they don't really exist on an alliance level. If you could have some alliances going for most casualties, some going for most infra destroyed most wars, etc. The issue is, I don't see how meaningless points would alter the current game culture. It would require people to alter their mindsets, which is the harder part.

Well the meaningless points directly tie into rank.

So it both incentivizes fighting for the #1, and allows way more options in getting there (or contributing to getting there).

 

So they don't offer an in-game boost per se, but I personally believe that the top alliances are often the ones new players turn to when picking a first home. Just a quick pitch though. Rewarding activity is shown to raise activity - people will literally log in just to spam to raise their post count, for instance.

[Roquentin]

7 minutes ago, Holton said:

Well the meaningless points directly tie into rank.

So it both incentivizes fighting for the #1, and allows way more options in getting there (or contributing to getting there).

 

So they don't offer an in-game boost per se, but I personally believe that the top alliances are often the ones new players turn to when picking a first home. Just a quick pitch though. Rewarding activity is shown to raise activity - people will literally log in just to spam to raise their post count, for instance.

So the leaderboard would be the alliance rankings rather than score and people would be drawn to those? 

The vast majority of people won't be active for in-game benefits. Baseball players with 100 teams are a minority and would be the most active people in terms of in-game playing. Spammers are a minority too and as forums have fallen out of fashion, there's much less spamming and very few people who care about their post counts . The type of people who want dedicate time to games do so due to having a different attitude to the game because there isn't always going to be a reward.  It can be more a waste of time than anything. You could offer a decent amount for spamming or grinding and someone who doesn't want to do it otherwise won't.

[Holton]

41 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

So the leaderboard would be the alliance rankings rather than score and people would be drawn to those? 

The vast majority of people won't be active for in-game benefits. Baseball players with 100 teams are a minority and would be the most active people in terms of in-game playing. Spammers are a minority too and as forums have fallen out of fashion, there's much less spamming and very few people who care about their post counts . The type of people who want dedicate time to games do so due to having a different attitude to the game because there isn't always going to be a reward.  It can be more a waste of time than anything. You could offer a decent amount for spamming or grinding and someone who doesn't want to do it otherwise won't.

I believe the tried and true method of keeping these type of games alive is the best way to go. These games will always appeal to a niche. You can't really flip the dynamic into a mobile-game attitude or it'll really kill what makes the game great - and keeps it populated.

If I wanted a quick occasional waste of time, I would go play Clash of Clans or something. These games are meant to be hashed out on forums as this entire venture is effectively a text-roleplay-thing.

[Dubayoo]

22 hours ago, Micchan said:

I make 7M everyday with commerce, and I lose them at keno

Get on my level 

Give me 300 more days and 7 more cities, and I'll see what I can do.  :-P

No city grants either.  ;-)

Edited November 7, 2017 by Dubayoo