7/31/2014 - As We Prepare To Go Live

[Alex]

Hi guys,

 

I just wanted to write an announcement to keep everyone up to date on my intentions for how the reset is going to work. Ideally, at midnight (server time) on August 5th, the "live" version of Politics and War will start. We'll go back to 2 hour turns and normal starting amounts of money. I'm working on writing an in-game tutorial to help new players understand the basics, as well as expanding the information on the tutorials page. I'm also currently working on the city manager page, which will make it easier for advanced players to manage their nation and all their cities from one simple page. I still need to add an e-mail notification option for when wars are declared, as well as an in-game recruitment bonus for bringing new players to the game. One of the things I'll also do some time after the reset is have a thread on the forum where you'll be able to "link" your forum account to your nation for an in-game bonus, to encourage forum participation and activity. As you can probably see, most of the things on my agenda are related to increasing membership and player activity. Some of the other things I've been working on behind the scenes is some in-game control panel stuff for me, you'll notice if you click the "Account" link, there's now a spot where you can see "strikes" against your nation. These work like warning points, if you break the game rules you'll earn a strike (and possibly a nation reset or name change depending on what you've done). If you reach 3 strikes, you'll be banned from the game and the forum. It'll make it easy to keep track of violations and whatnot. You'll also notice that there's a new red alarm bell icon on messages; this allows you to report messages in-game where I can review them and dish out strikes or w/e if need be. Makes everyone's lives a little easier. Lastly, I'm working on a simple interface for myself to easily weed out cheaters, whether it be through multiple nations, illicit bank activity, or trading.

 

Now, some information on the reset:

 

Everyone's nation is going to be wiped, along with all of the alliances. We're going to see a huge drop in the number of nations, as we'll essential get rid of any and all inactives. You'll still keep your account, and any awards and donation stars will be kept because they're tied to your account. Everyone who has an account when the reset occurs will also get a beta participation award.

 

Players are going to start with $150,000, 250 food, and 0 of all other resources. This is how it will remain, presumably indefinitely. You guys will have to build up the economy from scratch by trading with each other. I'm also going to lift the average trade price restrictions on offers, although I will keep the actual average trade price itself for a reference.

 

You will have one city, with 10 infrastructure and 20 land. No improvements.

 

Alliances are going to be wiped completely, as I said. As for "reserving" alliance names, I'm not sure on this. While we could do it by having a thread, it seems to be we'd be better off just letting people try and "take" other alliance names if they want, as Shakespeare put it, "A rose by any other name would be just as sweet." If an alliance has to come up with a new name because someone took their old one, that might just be good for a "fresh" start to the game, imo. I'm open to changing my mind on this if I'm the minority here, though.

 

Now I'd like to announce the new donation options we'll have post-reset. Flags and Portraits and location and name changes will all remain as is, but donation stars have been retired and there is currently no "in-game bonus" donations. Once we go live I intend to bring back something similar, a few different options for players to get a slight nation boost for supporting the game. These donations are going to be limited to one per nation per month, and during the first month of gameplay (August) I will not allow any (to keep things fair starting out).

 

Starting in September, there will be 3 options:

 

$35 - $6,000,000 cash bonus and your city/project timer (normally 10 days) gets reset

$25 - $3,000,000 cash bonus and your city/project timer (normally 10 days) gets reset

$15 - $1,000,000 cash bonus and your city/project timer (normally 10 days) gets reset

 

The money is more of an incentive for smaller nations to donate, while the timer reset is more of an incentive for larger nations. One of these donations per month per nation should be far from "pay to win" or "gamebreaking" while also (hopefully) bringing in enough money to keep things running indefinitely. I hope you'll all agree that this is a fair compromise.

 

I think this is more or less the gist of how the reset is going to work and how we'll proceed. I'm planning on changing the speed of the game from turns every 10 minutes to turns every 2 hours sometime before the actual reset to try and work out any bugs or discrepancies there beforehand. Speed round is more or less at an end, so this shouldn't be an issue. A big thank you to everyone who played speed round and helped bug test also, you guys rock.

 

Thanks guys! If you have any questions or there's anything I didn't clear up, please reply and ask.

 

-Sheepy

 

AMENDED 8/3/2014

 

I'm going to amend this post onto the beginning of the OP of this thread, but for those that have already read up to this point:

 

• I've added icons for beta players and for speed round players. You'll see them on your nations now.
• We're back to 2 hour speed. I think I've got everything switched back over but let me know about things that I've missed so we get it worked out before the reset.
• The City Manager page is operational, I'll add more to it later, but for now it exists and is a useful viewing tool.
• E-mail notifications for war declarations have been added, there's a toggle button for it on the account page
• All alliance pips are going to be removed shortly, as Mr. Blonde has previously announced they'll be a donation option so any alliance (should they meet the member requirement) will be able to have a permanent pip on the forum.
• I've created a thread for alliance leaders to reserve their alliance names: http://politicsandwa...alliance-names/
• Accounts now last for 7 days with no nation before they're deleted, so after the big wipe you'll have 7 days to make a new nation before your account will get removed.

I think that pretty much covers everything, I'll try to answer any more questions here still.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

I just wanted to add in a couple of points on the forum side.

 

All threads in the Politics & War (Beta) forums will be archived, and remain viewable by the public.  The Beta tag will be removed and these "rp" sections will start fresh with the reset.

 

Reset will not affect the warn system.  Warns and bans will not be wiped.  Continue to follow the rules and request removals per the instructions in the appropriate forum.

 

We've covered it previously, but as a reminder, there will be a new system in place for alliance pips when the game resets.

 

 

-Mr. Blonde

[Vincent]

Just want to clarify for the award, I mean will the award refer to the speed round award or is it referring to the Beta Version award? and for the Beta version award I saw the top few nations/alliances getting it - will it be the same for the speed round as well?

 

as for the donation part, I don't really see the reason why it is not available in Aug, I mean it doesn't really matter whether they get it in Aug or Sep or whichever month as after all they will be boosted by that amount of in game cash anyway.

[Atzuya]

150k starting cash, but no free oil and other stuff? This might be hard :z

 

Sheepy, you should at least allow people to reclaim their alliance name should someone managed to steal it. Alliance name is pretty much our identity, having it stolen and unable to reclaim it would cause a lot of rectum rage.

 

Also, yay for beta participation award

[Shellhound]

Time to declare myself as President of UPN.

[Ritvik]

Time to declare myself as President of UPN.

 

You wish you could be part of the UPN

[Vincent]

if we can start with more cash and resources would be nice

[Ayayay]

Might be better to start with 10 of the raw resources (oil, coal, iron, lead, and bauxite) like we did for the speedround as the first turn everything would be unpowered which is weird. I also think we should be able to reserve alliances since we, after all, donated money to get our alliance flags.

Edited August 1, 2014 by underlordgc

[Dwynn]

Might be better to start with 10 of the raw resources (oil, coal, iron, lead, and bauxite) like we did for the speedround as the first turn everything would be unpowered which is weird. I also think we should be able to reserve alliances since we, after all, donated money to get our alliance flags.

Everything will be unpowered anyways since there's no powerplants. Never has been, even in speed round. Nothing changes and the economy basically gets built from scratch and not artificially pump nations because they're willing to sell resources when demand is extremely high.

[emperor666]

yea if someone takes UPN i would honestly quit the game, UPN has been around since 2007 (correct me if I'm wrong) and that is our identity. Sheepy i am glad you are not just donations welcome at the beginning of the game, choosing quality of the game over money is pretty awesome:)

 

however some food in the beginning would be nice

Edited August 1, 2014 by emperor666

[Atzuya]

 

Players are going to start with $150,000, 250 food, and 0 of all other resources.

Sheepy has our tummy covered!

[Dwynn]

however some food in the beginning would be nice

Reading isn't your strong suit?

[emperor666]

Sheepy has our tummy covered!

lol i read through it too quickly, disregard my stupidity:)

[Taureg]

I think all this worry about alliance names being stolen is much ado about nothing.  Someone does that you just have your group keep attacking him until they quit or give the alliance back.  Don't know why anyone would do it to begin with.  You just paint yourself an a-hole from day one. 

[Aenir]

 

Alliances are going to be wiped completely, as I said. As for "reserving" alliance names, I'm not sure on this. While we could do it by having a thread, it seems to be we'd be better off just letting people try and "take" other alliance names if they want, as Shakespeare put it, "A rose by any other name would be just as sweet." If an alliance has to come up with a new name because someone took their old one, that might just be good for a "fresh" start to the game, imo. I'm open to changing my mind on this if I'm the minority here, though.

What about the alliance flags people donated for and the alliance awards?

[Alex]

What about the alliance flags people donated for and the alliance awards?

 

That's a good question, and something I overlooked. I figured I'd just scrap the alliance awards, as they're not all that important, however the flags people paid for I will hold onto and add back upon request. However, if an alliance paid for a flag in beta and then is going to change it's name/flag you're not getting a new flag, but I will add the old one to the alliance if you wish.

[Hereno]

On the topic of flags, are we allowed to buy a flag to go on the in-game drop down? Or are they only designated to alliances/nations?

[Alex]

On the topic of flags, are we allowed to buy a flag to go on the in-game drop down? Or are they only designated to alliances/nations?

 

They are only designated to nations, or to alliances (and then all the nations in that alliance).

[Princess Bubblegum]

You say we keep awards from beta, but will there be awards given for the speed round?

[Atzuya]

I think all this worry about alliance names being stolen is much ado about nothing.  Someone does that you just have your group keep attacking him until they quit or give the alliance back.  Don't know why anyone would do it to begin with.  You just paint yourself an a-hole from day one. 

I'm pretty sure there are certain people from a certain group who would love to do that for the sake of lulz. :z

[Alex]

You say we keep awards from beta, but will there be awards given for the speed round?

 

Yes, there will be.

[SoS]

If someone takes an alliance name there's no way to take it back. You can't delete a nation, or push it off an alliance. I'm not sure I would suggest a mechanism to do that, but people worked too hard to lose their identities. I don't like the idea of rogue, asshats taking alliance names.

[Brooklyn666]

What's the point of wiping alliances? I don't see any benefit, and all it will do is cause a lot of headaches for everyone.

[Alex]

What's the point of wiping alliances? I don't see any benefit, and all it will do is cause a lot of headaches for everyone.

 

Well, when we delete all the nations in the game, the alliances are going to have no members and by consequence won't be able to exist.

 

If we didn't delete all nations and just leave them in their alliances? We'd see the massive taxation on alliances of inactives to help others get ahead, as well as having a bunch of inactives in the game that would be raid targets. We want a fresh start. Again, for taking alliance names, isn't a rose by any other name just as sweet?

[SoS]

You should at least reserve the top 8 or 10 alliance names. Just make it a ban to steal them.

 

Any other name isn't as sweet when you've spent years working on that name.

Edited August 3, 2014 by SoS