How to define an active player is a difficult one!
Some players check in just often enough to pass generated supplies on to other clan members who are actively taking planets, or just continue to be there to accept planets that are worth keeping.
Should this count as active?
There are others who have not been on line here for more then a year. These it is pretty clear cut about.
So, just how would the SL comunitity want to define active?

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"Is not easily provoked"
Translated:
It is not good to wake a sleeping bear

Humm...well we do have many "active" players that check in an other wise fly under the radar.

I think the definition of active should be based on how long it has been since their last log in. Maybe if you go 30 days with out logging in you're "inactive" untill you log in again?

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-People in the dark cause accidents, accidents in the dark cause people.

-Eternal Light "Yeah, You pretty much just "Head F****d me".
-Eternal Light"Ill get training them now your highness"

"I think the definition of active should be based on how long it has been since their last log in. Maybe if you go 30 days with out logging in you're "inactive" untill you log in again"

I think that would be a pretty simple to code although saying that I cant program.

I'd like to know what your idea's are Iiri and where you would like to see the game go?

I've typically used 2 weeks since last login so far - for example, after that point you start losing resource production.

I think that I like the idea of shuffling homeworlds - but since I don't like doing things just once, I'd like to consider having a rotating galaxy, possibly with a small random factor thrown in to make it harder to predict position after time has passed.

I agree that automatic planet divestment is not something very player friendly right now, and should be modified. The proposal that the planets turn green is appealing, but it would require that players who abandon planets also turn them green and that greens behave like normal planets. This would impact assault training patterns, as you would instead have to donate the planet to another player in order to recapture it.

I rather like the idea of morale impacting combat performance, but I don't think that any simple function will permit new players to compete, as vets will always be maxed (presumably they got to being a vet by playing well enough anyway ).

I also like the idea of changing probes somewhat, as keeping target acquisition fresh seems important to having a vibrant active game. I don't think that ships should generally be detectable, but it might be worth it to make some changes to the space page...

Regarding baud wars, I believe that "twitch" gameplay can be a major draw for some players, but I agree that it ought to be consensual. That was the essential idea behind the battlezone, the BZ planets, and the BZ warp.

I agree that defending planets does not have enough of an incentive - in that I would rather focus on the "fun" aspect of incentive rather than scoring, though there should probably also be an improvement in score. If there are concerns about an inactive player winning the round, we might be able to make score adjustments to ensure that that is highly improbable .

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SkyLords Head Programmer

Spelled: I I R I (not irii, irri, or iri).

Force of nature.

Would it be possible to put inactive players planets (or some of them) into stasus (sic)?
This would permit a player who has not logged on for a long time to have incentive to return to the game.
For my way of playing this would hurt, but maybe it would be best to take and set up an alternate universe like the new player area that just takes a token number of planets out of play. After all when they log in once more any thing over 25 is lost. So why not just take some an set them aside in case they return?

__________________________
"Is not easily provoked"
Translated:
It is not good to wake a sleeping bear

To refer to the original question of what games we like, SL was the first MMOG I played and I loved it, when it crashed I looked around a bit trying to find something else and mainly found a bunch of irritating games where you'd get the crap beat out of you after a week and you had to typically micromanage building towns or researching (I'm not a sim fan, I prefer the strategy and action). So SL has always been my favorite and I'm no longer playing anything to focus more on family and religion, but could see allotting a little time to this if it is revived with some changes.

Changes I think could help: (Could refer to Balancing Attacking with Defending post in Support Forum)

Morale- have a running amount, lose per planet/ship and per million of defense, gain for captures and attacks- production bonus based on Morale total-

HWs- You have to have them around so need a reason to make sure they are around, buildings were supposed to do it but question effectiveness and their required defense to build should be required to continue operation, as well as possibly a building necessary for upgrades, including planet (makes it requisite to have a HW if want upgrades and can hurt if you lose it)

Attacking- 300% ships, and though I'm sure I've been stung by Dogg on attacks before shields were popular it is a good point- it takes a lot of ships to break through a decent shield and give the attacker tons of time to get it done- so could make attacking/pirating available beyond 50 ships and would require some adjustments in strategy

I also like Toms mentioning of limiting the number of players in a clan, round win credits award only clan based not individual

I think the market is jacked up, but that is mainly due to lack of activity, need plenty of consumers and producers buying and selling for a market economy to work.

Ship probes, no. It would be nice to be able to find some of those flotillas of banks sitting around, but it adds a large safety net for defense being able to look for attackers ships sitting around your planets.

Reduction of resources for inactive planets, yes- after two weeks of inactivity start dropping planetary resources by 1%/day or some such, probably a little higher % for defensive resources so the planet gets more attractive as it drops.

Inactive notification in profiles- let people know if someone is inactive- was nice in another game I played, even if had a truce with another clan if a player was inactive they were fair game- also had v-mode but I found that to be more of a cop out and didn't like it, most people can find an internet connection once every two weeks.

Planet migration- useful thought- makes probing more valuable- preferably randomized-

There's my thoughts- see ya in a few weeks.

Morale - sounds like a good place to start adding morale code - note that crushing newbies does hurt morale.

Attacking - I could stick a pager on that table easily enough. Worth the cost to attackers?

Market - really that isn't going to get stable until Prof starts to visit. Using it for instant transport and storage is another thing which I might want to change. I'm not simply trying to increase harvesting friction, I would like to create tradeoffs as well between holding and harvesting or obliterating planets. I'd like to gnaw more on this one when I can.

Ship probes - yes and no to the safety net. Ships sitting a couple hundred units off from the planet might be close enough for an attacker, while being outside of a reasonable probing range.

Resource reduction sounds like an interesting idea as well, though it might be more "real world reasonable" to just bonus production when players log in (to present normal levels). Could be implemented with a morale droop - reducing troop effectiveness.

Inactive notification in profiles sounds positive to me - I'll probably write it unless there are some objections.

My thinking long term is - we might drop nearby planets, since with the random curves it would be hard to check daily, replacing it with probing instead for target acquisition. Ships can iflight wherever as before, but once they reach their target they do not burn after it by default (no rotation for ships). Since invisible ships tend to be used as bookmarks, they can serve as warp anchors. Warp drive can not target anywhere without a beacon - and a beacon can be probed (perhaps anything can be, but beacons can be detected at range - active vs passive probes). Planet beacons can be toggled, maybe another building, or just an option, and anything you own with a beacon shows up in warp locations (but not coordinates). Alien invasions of course set off distress beacons, making finding planets possible, and the warp also finds unbeaconed planets still (but they move, so you'd need a detectable bookmark to trace them). It still needs work, but it's the direction of my thoughts presently. Hopefully with these changes defending production planets is more feasible, since there is a limited window to attack, or the planet will be lost to space again, with risk decreasing as time since detection (assuming invisible ships are cleared). Hopefully as well, with greens becoming probe targets (possibly passive vs. active probes, passive can only detect beacons at a distance but are more cheap or reusable) and ships (except invisible ships, of course) there will be attacking going around, and harvesting can be done fast with jumps or slow and stay hidden.

Do I need to do more for attacking? As I write this, I recognize that this might not favor attackers, though my thoughts were basically elsewhere. I recognize that defensive buildings have changed combat since I last crashed a HW - should I introduce a new ship to deal with that?

__________________________
SkyLords Head Programmer

Spelled: I I R I (not irii, irri, or iri).

Force of nature.

"My thinking long term is - we might drop nearby planets, since with the random curves it would be hard to check daily, replacing it with probing instead for target acquisition. Ships can iflight wherever as before, but once they reach their target they do not burn after it by default (no rotation for ships). Since invisible ships tend to be used as bookmarks, they can serve as warp anchors. Warp drive can not target anywhere without a beacon - and a beacon can be probed (perhaps anything can be, but beacons can be detected at range - active vs passive probes). Planet beacons can be toggled, maybe another building, or just an option, and anything you own with a beacon shows up in warp locations (but not coordinates)."



I really like this...

"Do I need to do more for attacking? "
I think the key there is an Experience % increase since right now it costs around 1.9M not counting Uranium usage to do 1.5M damage- bumping up to 300% would even it out to a 2M cost vs 2M damage- or if wanted to make it a little sweeter then could go 350 or 400%. If fighters are similar % then they will hit turrets faster also- but other stuff sounds interesting.

Why did this topic go dead