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A plea to various alliance leaders


Starcraftmazter

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Here's a wild and crazy idea. Everyone who thinks blowing each other up all the time is "fun" get together and do so. Just leave the rest of us out of it, thank you. This means no attacking other alliances and calling it a "tech raid" just because they don't have any treaties. If NOT having a treaty isn't a clear indication that a group wants to be left OUT of the treaty web, I don't know what is...

If the alliance leaders you've got aren't cooperating, leave and start your own alliance.

In fact, why not petition admin to create your own world where you can do that all you want? If your theory about the quiet majority really just wanting to war all the time is correct, such a place should be overflowing with membership...

oh wait... :P

What a crazy idea! The fact that the tech-raiders who supposedly want war as their method of finding some excitement in this game aren't, in fact, going at it as we speak would seem to indicate that what those people really want is to win a war. Poor darlings.

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It's been said before and will be said in the future and admin will never do a thing about it unlike adding stupid wonders like mars and moon.

The game needs scarcity and war must be profitable. If that was the case, incentive to wage war would exist. As it is, war is clear loss of profit and nations fall behind nations who are not at war. While this may be "realistic" it also makes the game tend toward peaceful equilibrium and massive treaty web rather than toward skirmishes, campaigns and smaller wars waged for profit.

Game needs scarcity and war should be at least borderline profitable. As it is, game just goes toward it's natural equilibrium which is world peace.

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Assuming they survive for more than 6 months without an alliance. I'd call that a stretch.

Anyway, I do think there's always a danger in taking the fun out of a game when people take winning too seriously. That applies to CN as much as any game. Even had a major war erupted over the TPF conflict, both sides were so afraid of losing that they took to the strategy of putting nations of a certain NS in peace mode. It would've been a stand-off and not fun in the slightest, which is why I laugh when people complain about the war ending prematurely.

I never mentioned being unaligned. People will not stay if what they worked hard on is destroyed in pointless wars, be it a tech raid or an alliance war. Idiots and my idols are the cause for both of those things.

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There's a difference between being the leader of an alliance and being someone who actually has an influence in world politics.

Correct. Plus alliance leaders also have to balance dealing with foreign affairs and dealing with domestic matters. I, for one, already spend WAY to much time dealing with foreign affairs and not enough with domestic. ("domestic matters" being real life ;) )

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The old hegemony did much more good for this game than it harmed it. I think the fact that the number of players is steadily declining even after the dramatic shift in power proves that point for me. There were a lot of people playing this game only to see the hated NPO defeated, and once that happened, they bailed. After all, what was left to do? They beat the game, in the only sense that they knew how to beat it.

But yeah, if you want to have fun in this game, you generally have to make it yourself. I suggest trying to recruit from neutral alliances or threatening another alliance for no reason whatsoever. Always worked for me......

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The game needs scarcity and war must be profitable

I agree with the first part of this, not the second though. If war is profitable you just end up in a situation where everyone is at war all the time, and that's not fun. (If I want to play a war game, I'll play one with far better mechanics than CN.) War should be a last resort, but it should be over something – scarce or limited resources which are necessary for success. In RL we fight wars largely for resources (gold, silver, slaves, oil, water, depending on what era you're looking at) on a limited planet, despite the fact that they are very expensive.

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my 2 cents:

1. anyone joining CN today is facing an insurmountable obstacle. The older nations have an NS that you will never (no matter how well you play) be able to catch up to. The same is true of alliances. No truly new alliance has a chance to become significant, due to the size of the older nations.

2. This is partly caused by the fact that war can't destroy the improvments and wonders a nation has. If a nation was smart enough to have a big warchest, it will recover quickly after any war. There is no means in CN of resetting the clock.

3. As many have pointed out, war is unprofitable.

4. CN is slowly becoming so heavily legalistic, that starting a war with a CB of "I don't like you" is a sure way to be rolled.

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I think the biggest problem is that most alliance leaders are protectionist. They fight tooth and nail to improve their alliance in the standings and that means avoiding war. I bet had that TPF conflict happened two years ago, we would all be covered in the snow from our nuclear winter.

I have talked to lots of semi-established nations and they have expressed disdain for the elitism of the leadership circles. A lot of leaders seem to think they are in higher class, and that their opinion matters more. You can see this in how smaller AA's are regarded by some of the larger ones.

Also it seems apparent in many AA's that there is a structure of cliques. With on group of players being more highly regarded than the others. Often times new members are regarded as tools to improve the standing and prestige of the alliance. This game has become a numbers game, and has deteriorated in the community aspect. Sure for us old nations the community is still there, but how many AA's have waves of new members eager to pitch in.

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The old hegemony did much more good for this game than it harmed it. I think the fact that the number of players is steadily declining even after the dramatic shift in power proves that point for me. There were a lot of people playing this game only to see the hated NPO defeated, and once that happened, they bailed. After all, what was left to do? They beat the game, in the only sense that they knew how to beat it.

But yeah, if you want to have fun in this game, you generally have to make it yourself. I suggest trying to recruit from neutral alliances or threatening another alliance for no reason whatsoever. Always worked for me......

I agree. I left after we defeated GOON back when and only returned recently. Even now, I don't really have a goal to aim for and am just kind of wandering around trying to figure wtf happened after this Karma War you all speak of. Things used to make sense for me, but with the NPO still under its constraints, the void of power left open does make it a little interesting.

However, I do see a little less action on the blame games anymore. No more... "Oh how dare you say that my Bacon tasted bad! I declare war!"

Bad CB or not... it's a war, and what else is there to look for in a game of nations? Granted, we could see which nation/alliance will become the richest, but truthfully... will anyone care?

Even the WWE sparked alot of interest. A few coworkers found it an insteresting story and were about to check the game out until I told them how everyone stopped suddenly.

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Cut NPO loose from the terms that they are under so they can re-join the active world community. Like them or hate them, they are what made the game lively.

Now days it seems the leaders will only go on an offensive war if they are 100% sure they will win in a curbstomp. No matter if they are right or wrong. Basically, all the leaders have learned how to CYA through treaties and diplomacy. The CBs...they are weak or not worthy. The only aggressive acts today are disrespectful or rude comments on the OWF by bitter immature bored individuals. Talking the talk, but no one walks the walk.

You want to stir things up...white peace NPO now. for the good of all of CN.

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I'm going to say that NPO probably did the most destruction of the community than any other alliance, the best option I think is if they disbanded and formed multiple splinter alliances, now that would make things more interesting.

There are too many "old flags" still flying in CN. Those are the ancient alliances and those are the alliances which were reformed like \m/ and GOONS. They are the ones that need to rest and they are the ones that need to split up and form new alliances, get some new blood into the mix.

Edited by Fort Pitt
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Cut NPO loose from the terms that they are under so they can re-join the active world community. Like them or hate them, they are what made the game lively.

Now days it seems the leaders will only go on an offensive war if they are 100% sure they will win in a curbstomp. No matter if they are right or wrong. Basically, all the leaders have learned how to CYA through treaties and diplomacy. The CBs...they are weak or not worthy. The only aggressive acts today are disrespectful or rude comments on the OWF by bitter immature bored individuals. Talking the talk, but no one walks the walk.

You want to stir things up...white peace NPO now. for the good of all of CN.

hahahahahahahahaha. are you honestly trying to make it look like NPO never went into a war (except the Karma War) when it was not 10000000000% sure they had a curbstomp going? seriously?

also, look at some of those comments you speak off, again NPO. do not even attempt to make it seem as if NPO was something other than what it was. also, NPO tended to sit on the periphary in some wars and let others take care of the job (UjW anyone, WotC/SPW).

frankly, others just need to grow some balls and get going. the Blue Balls war should have grown if CC just went in and actually honored their treaties rather than save their own @#$% at TPF's expense cuz they might have lost a war. wait, wasn't NATO on TPF's side. heh. seems like ya'll the ones talkin the talk but not walkin the walk...

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I had a suggestion that I thought would be brilliant and then I thought of a way to game it so it turned out to not be so brilliant.

We're at the point where a strategy for fighting a war is to not fight it.

It's easy to say "disregard the treaty web." But we all know the first alliance to do so will be curbstomped. If we choose to prey upon neutral alliances, members of those alliances will not be able to do what they want to do and will leave the game. No solutions, there.

The fact that the game is so simple means that players wanting more out of it need to be in the OWF and on IRC. Those that don't want that, leave. If there was more to running our nation than paying bills every day and collecting every 20th day, people would stick around for the intellectual challenge... or for the scavenger hunt aspect, depending. But we already know which resources are so bad you need to reroll, how to build up through tech deals, and what order to attack in. The mechanics of the game are a checklist.

There needs to be more real innovation.

The question then changes. No longer do I wonder how to keep more players interested in the game. Now I wonder how to keep Admin interested in the game. Without the innovation, there's not much here except for a small percentage that will show up and do the RP thing.

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As has been said. Theres only so much that logging in, collecting taxes, paying bills, and buying stuff can do for people. Eventually the game gets old and people walk away from it.

Hell even Ive thought of taking off because it gets so boring from time to time. There hasnt been a major ground shifting change to gameplay since really the first year or so of gameplay. Since then the changes have all been to help larger nations keep getting stuff.

Honestly I see the single greatest problem is the lack of quick growth. As has been stated back in the GW era even if you got stomped into dust you could rebuild fairly fast and be pretty close to the "enemy" in NS in a relativly short time. These days its not unheard of for a person to lose 60k+ in a war and then be set so far back that their nation is just in shatters. And unless you had a ungodly warchest its going to take you a long time to rebuild to being back to where you were. Not to mention the fact that now people demand large amounts of reperations which also slows down re-growth. I dont mind the reps its more the inability to grow fast that bugs me.

Unless some change are brought about to make it so new players can grow faster and catch up to older nations were going to continue to see a steady drop in players.

People can say that they need the "community" to change to keep people around but IMO thats BS. The community is constantly changing. The dynamics between alliances and people are always changing on the forums. Its not like the people that someone may have liked last week are still their friends this week. The only big difference from the "golden days" is that there isnt a clear good and bad guy side of the web. And even that isnt totally true because there are good guy and bad guy alliances for everyone scattered around the web. Honestly there has been more change to the political landscape in the game in the past few months than at any time I can remember. And I've been here for ages. If anything proves that the politics and community alone arent enough to keep people around then this is it.

I also agree that people need to start playing the game how they want to. Just because people think its wrong to go out and go nuke rogue on someone doesnt mean you shouldnt. If you have fun causing some chaos, then go do it. Hell theres nothing quite as exciting for people to wake up and see that a rogue has decided to hit them. It means some action for them and even if they go and complain about how its "unfair" or "wrong" that the rogue is hitting them they are still enjoying the short bit of war they get.

If people want to go around and try to "spy" stuff from alliances then they should do that.

Honestly this game would be a lot better if people just played it how they wanted to instead of how they "should" play it.

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hahahahahahahahaha. are you honestly trying to make it look like NPO never went into a war (except the Karma War) when it was not 10000000000% sure they had a curbstomp going? seriously?

From what I've seen and read, NPO thought that was going to be a "curbstomp" as well. Just saying ;)

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hahahahahahahahaha. are you honestly trying to make it look like NPO never went into a war (except the Karma War) when it was not 10000000000% sure they had a curbstomp going? seriously?

also, look at some of those comments you speak off, again NPO. do not even attempt to make it seem as if NPO was something other than what it was. also, NPO tended to sit on the periphary in some wars and let others take care of the job (UjW anyone, WotC/SPW).

frankly, others just need to grow some balls and get going. the Blue Balls war should have grown if CC just went in and actually honored their treaties rather than save their own @#$% at TPF's expense cuz they might have lost a war. wait, wasn't NATO on TPF's side. heh. seems like ya'll the ones talkin the talk but not walkin the walk...

See, you just proved my point. Thank you.

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I think there are several reasons why the game is shrinking.

Tournament Edition. Let's face it, SE can be pretty boring. It's a lot of talking and not a lot of doing. I think a lot of people sign up thinking that they are going to be playing some kind of large-scale, online version of "Risk." Instead what they find is an online version of the Model UN. What action there was has been co-opted by the existence of the much faster-paced TE.

I happen to like the model UN style of SE CN, and when we have a war here the after effects are felt for months, if not years afterwards. Unlike TE where it gets reset ever so often and every one goes hard because there are no long term consequences, if you get curb stomped into oblivion you can pop right up again in the next season and start again. And in TE politics & diplomacy is virtually non existent beyond warfare with the opposite being true in SE where diplomacy & political manoeuvring is the norm and large scale war an unusual event.

EDIT -

Honestly I see the single greatest problem is the lack of quick growth. As has been stated back in the GW era even if you got stomped into dust you could rebuild fairly fast and be pretty close to the "enemy" in NS in a relativly short time. These days its not unheard of for a person to lose 60k+ in a war and then be set so far back that their nation is just in shatters. And unless you had a ungodly warchest its going to take you a long time to rebuild to being back to where you were. Not to mention the fact that now people demand large amounts of reperations which also slows down re-growth. I dont mind the reps its more the inability to grow fast that bugs me.

This is also one of the problems, alliance demand reps that are record breaking and designed to cripple the alliances they are levied upon and then look confused and wonder why the game is failing and there is very little excitement?

Edited by Prime minister Johns
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See, you just proved my point. Thank you.

if you say so buddy. you really had no point whatsoever other than some big misconceptions about the NPO era as well as spreading the hate towards those on the other side of the fence rather than realizing that it was your side that stalled in the Blue Balls war just recently and not the SG side.

so again, what point did i prove? if you state "talking the talk and blah blah blah" realize that i was in an alliance more than ready and willing to go in at a moment's notice to back up our ally Athens. that is completely unlike TPF's allies who stalled for almost a week before making a bunch of noise on the OWF while lacking anything of substance in actual wars.

so again, it seems as if it is the CC side that is talking the talk (huge amount of DoWs and DoSs) but failing to walk the walk (24 or so actual war declarations in game).

so while i understand what you are saying, you need to switch who you are speaking to as Athens/RoK/GOD/\m/ actually fought against TPF. CC did nothing at all but flap their gums a whole helluva lot while sitting on their @#$%. SG was ready and willing to go in but couldn't until CC went in which never really occurred. then well peace happened cuz Athens/RoK/GOD/\m/ got bored/felt bad for TPF/felt they had punished TPF enough and gave peace.

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I think the biggest problem is that most alliance leaders are protectionist. They fight tooth and nail to improve their alliance in the standings and that means avoiding war. I bet had that TPF conflict happened two years ago, we would all be covered in the snow from our nuclear winter.

I have talked to lots of semi-established nations and they have expressed disdain for the elitism of the leadership circles. A lot of leaders seem to think they are in higher class, and that their opinion matters more. You can see this in how smaller AA's are regarded by some of the larger ones.

Also it seems apparent in many AA's that there is a structure of cliques. With on group of players being more highly regarded than the others. Often times new members are regarded as tools to improve the standing and prestige of the alliance. This game has become a numbers game, and has deteriorated in the community aspect. [...]

Bingo.

I would think that someone leading an alliance would understand that the game always has and always will be played by and for the benefit of an elite cadre of players in the backrooms.

Finally. Someone. Said. It.

From past experience, the truth is, most alliance leaders have egos the size of the universe. How often have we witnessed people gaining positions because they were RL friends of a leader or because they happened to be professional suck-ups?

Most leaders only open up their door of secrets to people they trust. They trust people who they already have some general RL knowledge of or people they feel will always be loyal to them (and not the alliance). Unfortunately, they see loyalty as who sucks up best.

So, regardless of how much a person does, they can always be trumped by someone who has done next to nothing but might know the ins and outs of kissing rectal muscles.

Anyways, the boring aspect in this game is that realpolitik took over and it's more profitable to isolate alliances and conduct curbstomps instead of fighting even wars. All of that would be ok if it weren't for only 30 people (out of 30k) controlling the flow of the game and its politics. Some here claim it's easy to be part of the elite cadre of players in the backrooms, but that's because their egos don't allow them to realize they are third tier.

[...] From what I see, there seems to be an elevated degree of snottiness that emanates from a large number of the established players who like to post here.

There's too much, "You're doing it wrong" and "You're not very good at this, are you?" type of comments if you ask me. Why can't there be a different way of doing things? The established ideas on behavior, politics, and what are acceptable reasons for war on Planet Bob are limiting the game.

I agree it is irritating. I actually know a bunch of people who will not visit these boards because of all the unbridaled elitist egos running rampant here like a tank filled with sharks.

3. CN as a political game on IRC is horrible. You have maybe a hundred people who are actually involved and then the milling masses around them who flock to the drama when it occurs. It's inaccessible, boring and generally involves being told half-truths or just being told you're not going to get the story at all. The common player isn't allowed access to the fun maneuvering because of the entrenched older class. In effect, if you can't find a way in you either have to invent your own fun or simply idle away. Often inventing your own fun leads to being ejected so that's pretty much out.

Toku, you are making too much sense lately. :P

Edited by SkyyBerry
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I am actually not so sure why numbers are supposed to matter.

I remember "the good old times" around GW 3 where CN had around 40k nations, and when it had PR like from the infamous NoR-Norway conflict.

My alliance at that time, ODN, had around 1000 members, NPO 1600 as well as Legion with about the same number.

At least in ODN, activity wasn't 3 times higher than it was when ODN had the number it currently has and had for a rather long time, I can't speak for other alliances, but I doubt that everyone of those extra players actually "played" the game beyond paying bills once in a while and collecting taxes, and then not knowing what to do in a big war, and starting wars not approved by the alliance constantly.

All in all, the largest number of players imho are of no relevance, because they neither build their nations properly, nor take part in politics. If either one is done at least, it serves a broader purpose, by either being a useful tool in war, or simply a lot of fun to hang out with.

As such, I don't cling to the "I miss John Doe so much" song, simply because I don't miss him.

The game has never really been interesting, neither in 2006, nor now, Alliance politics ultimately is what keeps people interested in CN longer, right now we are at a state we haven't been in for a very long time, and so I won't be crying about the supposed decline of the game when it is infact quite fun to be playing it right now.

Imho more important than absolute numbers of players is retention of players, keeping a new nation from getting deleted from inactivity after 3 weeks, and that's something almost exclusively done by alliances.

So don't complain, keep your community one that attracts players to come, and above all to stay. And that is a challenge that truly shows the quality of an alliance.

Edited by shilo
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!@#$%*ing out the admin isn't going to solve problems. The guy has to have a life and probably already puts in a ridiculous amount of time on this place. If anything its just going to make him bitter and say "$%&@ you, I'll let the game die". So, thank you admin for putting up with us. As shilo of DAWN said before me, absolute player number doesn't matter, rather player retention and player activity is needed. GWIII Legion, the largest alliance ever in CN, was an unorganized cluster$%&@. Having more members doesn't make for a better game or more activity or fix problems, it just puts the current problems in a grander scale. You have 20 inactive nations in your alliance right now? Congrats, at 40k total players you might have 20 more. 5 rogues last month? Maybe 10 now instead. Ect, ect, ect.. The glass ceiling is very breakable. There are numerous alliances where players who started in 2009 are in leadership, MHA in particular comes to mind, where I believe that all three Triumvirs are from 2009. I myself came into this world just a few short weeks before Karma and worked up over 9 months to being the MoFA of CN's 3rd oldest and 16th largest alliance. Its not that hard...

Oh and war will come soon. Very soon :ph34r:

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!@#$%*ing out the admin isn't going to solve problems. The guy has to have a life and probably already puts in a ridiculous amount of time on this place. If anything its just going to make him bitter and say "$%&@ you, I'll let the game die". So, thank you admin for putting up with us. As shilo of DAWN said before me, absolute player number doesn't matter, rather player retention and player activity is needed. GWIII Legion, the largest alliance ever in CN, was an unorganized cluster$%&@. Having more members doesn't make for a better game or more activity or fix problems, it just puts the current problems in a grander scale. You have 20 inactive nations in your alliance right now? Congrats, at 40k total players you might have 20 more. 5 rogues last month? Maybe 10 now instead. Ect, ect, ect.. The glass ceiling is very breakable. There are numerous alliances where players who started in 2009 are in leadership, MHA in particular comes to mind, where I believe that all three Triumvirs are from 2009. I myself came into this world just a few short weeks before Karma and worked up over 9 months to being the MoFA of CN's 3rd oldest and 16th largest alliance. Its not that hard...

Oh and war will come soon. Very soon :ph34r:

i have to agree with this and shilo's assessment. the overall number of CN players is unimportant unless you are a raider. then the decline of noobs to steal tech from is rather bothersome. otherwise, it really has no impact on the game whatsoever.

the fact is, we are seeing a resurgence of old players coming back and playing with the remake of GOONS, \m/, IAA, VE, NoR and other alliances. we also see a much more diverse playing field with new alliances being created and a much more open political scene. sure we are slowly getting back to a bi-polar playing field but currently, it is not set in stone and there are several alliances on the fringe or allied to either sets of major players.

fact is, we are gaining more active players and people who participate in the community. the OWF is used far more now than it has been in a long while. sure much of the political game is still played on IRC but not as much as during the WUT/Q eras.

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