Topic: Ok someone has to say it.

As I have been keeping very quiet on the forums as of late, of which I'm sure most, if not all of you have noticed.
I am going to break my silence to put forth a major issue that is coming over the horizon.

Over the last few weeks we have seen several corps jump ship, leave alliances, and just out right change the game and how it is currently being played.

The best and most recent example of this would be 62nd/War.  Or the most recent decoupling of Nova alliance.

Let us first look at what one player has publicly stated.  I quote, "Its not a big secrete that most of 62nd has taken a hiatus from the game. So the rest of us that are left have decided to loan our services out to other corps while the Devs figure out gama and PBS. " -  Khader Khan.

They were a huge power block that just up and left the game after a few consequences from the wall fallout.  Sure I can fully understand this, and they as individuals have every right to do what they wish.

The main point I'm attempting to point out is simply,  "most of (Corp Name Here) has taken a hiatus from the game....while the Devs figure out gama and PBS".

I would seem from my perspective that a lot, if not most of the community at large is simply in a "waiting" period.   

Is this what this game has turned into?  Just wait around until the DEV's give people "new" stuff, then all the players come back and say "well that's not cool enough, we want it this way, with bigger guns and more loots."
With general chat in the meager 30's on the low end, and a huge 110 on the high end.  I would like to ask everyone what is this game coming to?
Is it just a hurry up and wait,  hurry up and give me the next thing? 
Now, I don't mean to single 62nd out on this at all, they are just one of many examples.

Hell Cir, they did it, Chaos, did it, M2S did it, Nex Hun, TOG, RG, Morte,.....yea you get the idea.  When Everyone on the entire sever is just chilling out waiting for the next "big thing".  It really speaks volumes for the direction of the game.  One of which has a small chance of going in a positive way.  If you think for one minute that POS will save this game, you need to look at Eve for a minute and then you will see what a PAIN in the *** they will be, not alone it just becomes amplified with such a small pool of players to attack and defend.

POS will not be the saving grace of this game, that has to come from another source, one of which I'm unsure.

I truly wish, want and hope this game moves in the small chance....I just don't see it, I just don't have the faith that about 30 people seem to have, and they are losing that ground fast.

Just Sayin
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Re: Ok someone has to say it.

Wait until MechWarrior Online release, THEN you will have a problem big_smile

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Re: Ok someone has to say it.

To put it bluntly games like perpetuum & eve need war. War is the driving factor for the games. Any one thats says other wise is a ***. With out war the market stagnation hits the indy players. With out war the casual pvpers stop playing as getting "Good fights" gets to much effort for them.
If the above situation goes on for long enough even the die hard pvpers (like 62nd / war & many other individual players)

3 things contribute to this i feel. Lack of people to create those wars...
The Seeming lack of the interest By the DEVs to advertise the game. I dont care about the arguments that maybe they are waiting for the game to have a more "finished feel" thats a cop out.

And lastly Poor game design. Why should we go to war? my island has the same damn ore & what not the next beta island has. Sure Ego can & does drive wars but then again the same problem of numbers hits the fan.

Untill those 3 things are fixed then PBS will in the short term see a surge in numbers But after a few months those numbers will die.

If Advertising & better reasons to fight wars are given then the game will last.

Eve for all its suckyness has hit on the winning formula for a sand box MMO: Players make the best drama & content.

True Pros make a Podcast to influence the Devs minds, 
The rest of you guys are Hacks tongue

PS. I got my Highways & stopped playing b4 they came in & have never used them! ...... Irony much ? tongue

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

Obi Wan Kenobi wrote:

To put it bluntly games like perpetuum & eve need war. War is the driving factor for the games. Any one thats says other wise is a ***. With out war the market stagnation hits the indy players. With out war the casual pvpers stop playing as getting "Good fights" gets to much effort for them.
If the above situation goes on for long enough even the die hard pvpers (like 62nd / war & many other individual players)

3 things contribute to this i feel. Lack of people to create those wars...
The Seeming lack of the interest By the DEVs to advertise the game. I dont care about the arguments that maybe they are waiting for the game to have a more "finished feel" thats a cop out.

And lastly Poor game design. Why should we go to war? my island has the same damn ore & what not the next beta island has. Sure Ego can & does drive wars but then again the same problem of numbers hits the fan.

Untill those 3 things are fixed then PBS will in the short term see a surge in numbers But after a few months those numbers will die.

If Advertising & better reasons to fight wars are given then the game will last.

Eve for all its suckyness has hit on the winning formula for a sand box MMO: Players make the best drama & content.

This. This times infinity. Squared.

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

i was going to post a opinion and idea, then i realized its a forum alt starting this.

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6 (edited by Inda 2012-03-05 08:05:50)

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

(Sorry I cant write exactly what I know what I think because my main language is not English)

My philosophy about this:

My idea is, seems like the game need something what is dont have now, the "control force" or "spark" or "driving force" (for incentiveness). What will drive the fights, what will you fighting for. (So MAYBE PBS and Gamma will bring this for "hardcore" gamers)

I was here because I saw a lot of potential to Perpetuum, and would like to "help" the DEVs and the game.
(And in my country(Hungary) is this was a big deal, they did what nobody did, so I really proud of them.)

I am dont really care I was here I was play I felt good ingame times, big battles, conversations in my corp., with other peoples. If the game will be end I am not care because I saw what they did and I know that was a hard to do, but seems like never will be end (or in the few years) because the DEV team are would like to do. (Thats why they still working nearly to 200 people and the hopes will be more people)

If Perpetuum wont be succes then I can understand.

My real problem about the game is need more time what I would like to play a "game", because this is really complex you cant do it just come to play and pvp and anything else also, because you need to thinking, figure out what you need, this is hardcore game not other. And this is a paradox situation because I would like play just these games but this is need more RL time but I wont manage that time of RL...

So I see 2 solution:

If DEV s want just "hardcore" gamers (seems like now they choose that way): need to find the "driving force" why teams will fighting for (now there is no this)
> this means you cant reach more people than was here in the beginnings (~10 000 subscribers)
MAYBE PBS, and Gamma islands will bring

If DEV s can open the game for "casual" gamers: need do some "real" PVE (game has a potential for this also)
> this means maybe can bring more people (~100 000 subscribers) (I see this because you just need to check te MMO market the most of game is for "casual" gamers even EVE dont have many subscribers just after 8 years and there much more place for casual gamers also (afaik))

I see 2 most ipmortant things

1. there is no "driving force" to hardcore gamers
2. there is no way to casual players

> less playerbase and always decreasing

EDIT: Obi Wan still said one element what I did just I was writing when he post.

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18.01.2014. [12:57:58] <BeastmodeGuNs> after that i remembered all those warning about 1v1 you lol, and i found out why xD

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

I really feel that the complete silence except for a monthly blog if we are lucky has done a great disservice to this game.  We have had pretty major bugs that have not even been acknowledged, let alone fixed.

I agree that we need war as it fuels many aspects of this game.  Even so, we need the PVE corps and players (carebears) to feel like they can do stuff and contribute in their own way.  Grinding billions of kernals just seems so lackluster, ESPECIALLY when the spawns are bugged big time.

WHY did they feel the need to make Beta a "safer" place to be?  Attacks on Outposts were few and far between that really held any consequence for the holder.  Sure, we saw what a major almost server wide team effort could do to a single outpost, force holder out.  Sure we saw some OPs get down to the low level of 80..  But in the end, No one really cared enough for whatever reason to keep pursuing either defending or attacking them.  Maybe because alarm clock gaming STINKS for both attackers and defenders?

Walls made Beta even safer and harder for the roamers to potentially gank a few miners or other bots before reinforcements came, and ideally a larger battle ensued.  Walls allow people to darn near 100% of time to safe log their miners, and then sit around and contemplate gathering up a group to fight the roamers.  We all know that most of the time if we can only get 3 bots together and opposing force has 12, we will just stay docked and the roaming force doesn't find too  much to fight. 


I don NOT think the PBS will be the saving grace this game needs at this point.  Who will really care, and Why will they care about PBS?  Once they are up and the newness has worn off, it will be another ho hum aspect of the game just like alarm clock gaming and worthlessness of the Sap system.

Current idea of random ore spawn locations is another complete fail, IMO.  Mining is already for most of us not our number one thing we like to do.  It has its place, but just the idea of having to take the time to Scan, get lucky find a spot, THEN assemble the mining force to go out to mine is just another kick to the groin.  Ugh, why make mining even MORE tedious and time consuming?

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

First Binary, your analysis of WAR and 'walls' is garbage like most of your posting. But this post, at least, points out the obvious. Things don't look too hot for perpetuum. I can only say what's boring me about it...

I'm tired of seeing the same handful of guys on the battlefield. This game needs a massive influx of new players.

The rest is debateable. Fighting over resources? Who needs to fight when so few are online to contest those resources?

This is still a fantastic game, that no one knows about.

Sparking to other games

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

Rex Amelius wrote:

I'm tired of seeing the same handful of guys on the battlefield. This game needs a massive influx of new players.
This is still a fantastic game, that no one knows about.

This is & always has been the biggest issue in the game. And it is a subject the devs are silent on.

Ads dont need to be anything fancy even just an adwords search lol gremrod pointed this out.

True Pros make a Podcast to influence the Devs minds, 
The rest of you guys are Hacks tongue

PS. I got my Highways & stopped playing b4 they came in & have never used them! ...... Irony much ? tongue

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

The key issue I find:
Is not removing observers from alpha a good week or two before an effective NPC / PvE alternative was ready for deployment
Is not the change in intrusion system which in the long term decreased intrusion based PVP and increased the hurry up and wait for juicy loot to drop.
Is not the fact the dev's ninja nerfed a skill and then refused to soften the blow by refunding ep / adjusting the complexity.
Is not the implementing of probes only to pull them down 24hrs later because people chose to play the game how they wanted to not how the devs intended or thought people would,
Is not the introduction of walls and then much like the probes had to be changed because people used them how they intended to instead of how the devs thought they would be (or maybe hoped) they would be used.
Is not the Lag-Lines / Failed AI upgrade / <Insert other bug here> which gets denied / put on a low priority because PBS is all of a sudden so important that if PBS isn't put into the game before bug fixes are implemented then the game will explode.
Is not the... wait I think I am out sure I will think of more though as time goes on.

The Biggest issue I see is the lack of effective communication between the Devs and the players.

When I first started during the monocle rebellion of 2010 I was impressed with this game not because it had eve quality graphics not because it had massive player base, not because of some other reason which would usually draw me to a game I was drawn to the fact that the Devs and GMs where present in the game and you could actually communicate with them. I was impressed that they delayed content to address server issues.
however this seams to have been lost as of late. All of the above issues and probably lots more could have been avoided if more communication took place.

I am interested in the new gamma islands and the new content being mentioned in the blogs but if the dev team said "we can release the PBS / gamma islands next week or we can hold off a week and instead spend the next week fixing bugs and being present in the game / running events etc. Have a vote" I would vote for the later 100% of the time and my guess (and probably hope) is that more players would vote the same way.

as the OP said "I[t] would seem from my perspective that a lot, if not most of the community at large is simply in a "waiting" period"

I would prefer to wait for new content in a stable game with very minor issues than in a game which rushes out new and buggy content into a playing environment which is already buggy as it is.

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

The market has been *** in the *** since the wall deployment.  Less people losing stuff the less people buying off the market.  Industrial robots/tuners/miner modules things like that Flew off the market, now your lucky to even see an argano sell on a by weekly basis.

Mechwarrior Online is going to hurt... a lot...

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Re: Ok someone has to say it.

From my perspective, when I started this game back in January last year, it has lost some, if not lots of its drive. Still I find this is the best long term motivated game for me yet.

As a worn out phrase, but still true imho, this game still holds a lot of potentials.

Even if it is a totaly subjective view, but I have been asking myself now to many times, why was either a change of mechanic based i.e. on QQing of  a group of very few, because i.e. they can´t adapt to a rock paper scissors playstyle (this has probably been resolved by itself) or featues implemtented without figuring the effects on the playerbase beforehand. (i.e. Intrusion System). Then decisions on nerfing one thing and leaving others inbalanced InGame. i.e. Trojar / Tyrannos (but this is problably just my opinion). Often I wonder, why the DEV´s contuinoulsy refuse introducing alliance features, even tho alliances or groups with similar interests will band up anyway, so why not give them the tools at hand, to do so.

I am under the impression, that the DEV´s interaction/ communication with the playerbase has become very rare nowadays. Even tho sad, but this is probably because the DEV´s have learned a lot out of history, that every statement in any way, can be and has been hold against them.

Dev´s decisions are often very weired i.e. I personaly never understood how anyone in a sandbox game could be allowing constant character resets, for new ep distribution for a flavor of the month Mech, or simply to clear all traces of your character inGame actions i.e. no responsiblity for your actions. But heck.

I don´t think the new PBS or Gamma Islands will change perpetuum in the long run. It definatly is the right direction. But the game needs long term motivation goals and sandbox tools for pve and pvp alike, for motivation past a 3 month period. We need no more grind elements. New players inGame wont change that. They only last for 3 month most of the time anyway because of that, but still...

... why is there still no proper advertisment campaigns running for this game? All advertisment for this game, was mostly intusiastic players, taking it into there own hand to do some publicity work for this game. There will never be the right time, but at one point, it will just be to late. Even tho players probably leave after aprox. 3 month, you will always keep a few and word is being spread.

Writing all this, I am totally aware of, that this is a small indi DEV team and most likley have a very limited financial situation. You will never please a whole community. Which is probalby a very unthankfull job. Especially as a lot of the people on the forum seem to be self announced game designer and developers. So at the end of the day, I have much respect of what the Dev´s have achieved and I am prepared to keep my subs running. But consider your changes more carfully and seek more player communication into account. Maybe a "Dev Focus Team" a pve/ pvp resprensative playerboard, to draw into the discusions and decisions.

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Re: Ok someone has to say it.

I think the DEV's have a lot to gain from communicating more with the community, giving feedback on ideas and bug reports. Just a simple "we're working on it" would be nice. And also a notification when things like the robot death graph, and the online players graph just gets removed without a word...
I am not too worried yet, the online players count seems to be pretty stable, but if the PBS etc gets introduced, AC doesnt start advertising and the game doesnt grow even with more content and a bigger world... then I will be worried!

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

We need Virtual Wars. smile

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

I don't want to say the next expansion is make or break, but there is certainly a heightened expectation.

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

Arga wrote:

I don't want to say the next expansion is make or break, but there is certainly a heightened expectation.

That's all you got to say I was expecting a wall of text from you tongue


Well anyways, expectation is certainly there. Let's be optimistic about this; there could be 1000-2000 subscribed accounts gathering ep, but inactive waiting for something like PBS but we just don't know. On another thought, they are just waiting for more players to get active then seize the opportunity.  Confidence in the game grows hence the snowball effect. Ultimately new content objective is to attract more players new and old, for that to happen, it must be entertaining and unique in it's own way, but we also need more players in the first place, a catch 22 situation

RIP PERPETUUM

17 (edited by Gremrod 2012-03-05 21:36:00)

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

Binary,

The hurry up and wait stance is what it has come to, for a long of games and not just Perp. Sad really....

But there are things that can and be done to fix some of the issues.

  • A dedicated community manager that communicates to the player base while the devs are busy coding.

  • New features or ideas being presented to the player base on the forums by the community manager and polls being created to get player base feedback. This would help with the fail features being dropped into the game. i.e. the prox sensors first appearance screw up and changes to walls a week later.

  • Developers not throwing in player suggested items/features mid development. (Put them on a to-do list and get to them later)

  • Advertise, Advertise, Advertise after the PBS system has been deployed to live server. Only fix bugs and focus on advertising the game for a while.

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Re: Ok someone has to say it.

This is the response of what I was hoping to get from the community at large, (well all but Rex but to be expected).

I personally do not need a response from the DEV's as I'm fully aware they do comb the forums just as much as the rest of us do.

There are a lot of good ideas of whats going wrong, I truly hope that the Dev's not only READ these ideas, but think of ways to conquer and overcome all the problems that this game is facing.

Just Sayin
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Re: Ok someone has to say it.

Groups justified pushing others out in the game. They thought that they would become better through camping them in and consitently griefing them. Well, you get what you have now. Amazingly people hold to a *** idea that what they did was right in some way, but yet, look at what you have to fight now.

It's just simply stupid how groups justify their actions then wind up saying, 'well noone to fight now'

Take a gander at the killmail boards, it's a joke.

If people realized how they were disturbing the balance of the game when fighting, and taken a step back, perhaps it would have gone differently but that takes age and a bit of wisdom, neither of which I think people have.

WAR fuels the game, makes it interesting, at least war with interesting opponents! yarr

If there was some mechanic to fuel a huge influx of "alpha" dwellers and through that a continuing import of beta clans etc, that would work.

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

I disagree with this stance Mara.  All of the said groups were never pushed from the game, they were pushed from beta.  There is no force, period that can kick push or punish a corp off of alpha.  With that being said this idea of beta should be given is a farce at best.  All of the groups should have to fight for what they want, and that includes having some groups winning said fight, and others losing.

This goes far above the politics that are going on in the game, after that's just what they are anyway.

Just Sayin
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21 (edited by Mara Kaid Pirate of Nia 2012-03-06 04:48:06)

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

Yeah, well when a group constantly camps a station and continually griefs their members, they become pretty discouraged with the game dude. Seen F-navy? Remember some other corps that flew with them? What about AXE etc and others. They had tons of fun, but people just didn't want to let up and kept camping, roaming.

Guess they never got "pushed" from the game, but said screw it and left?

lol twist it one way or another, we know how much our opponent can take, and when we make the conscious choice of stepping over it we shouldn't be surprised at the empty outcome.

One of the best examples of this I remember is talking with prime in CHAOS, he said to me
"Well if we fight alsbale and kick NEX and TOG off, then some group will come back and will be better,
so how do you feel about this?" , he asked me.

"I think you're not going to get any real replacement." I replied.

And well look what happened, did we see a group that was really on the same level as CHAOS move in to alsbale?

A good influx of players would remedy the situation, providing new blood and energy into the open pvp.

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

Mara Kaid Pirate of Nia wrote:

Yeah, well when a group constantly camps a station and continually griefs their members, they become pretty discouraged with the game dude. Seen F-navy? Remember some other corps that flew with them? What about AXE etc and others. They had tons of fun, but people just didn't want to let up and kept camping, roaming.

Guess they never got "pushed" from the game, but said screw it and left?

lol twist it one way or another, we know how much our opponent can take, and when we make the conscious choice of stepping over it we shouldn't be surprised at the empty outcome.

One of the best examples of this I remember is talking with prime in CHAOS, he said to me
"Well if we fight alsbale and kick NEX and TOG off, then some group will come back and will be better,
so how do you feel about this?" , he asked me.

"I think you're not going to get any real replacement." I replied.

And well look what happened, did we see a group that was really on the same level as CHAOS move in to alsbale?

A good influx of players would remedy the situation, providing new blood and energy into the open pvp.

That only works when you have more people to fill the void.... which we dont! *shocker*

Any way the only real pro pvp is camping people into stations for hours on end... like CIR & we all know they were just pure pro pvpers

True Pros make a Podcast to influence the Devs minds, 
The rest of you guys are Hacks tongue

PS. I got my Highways & stopped playing b4 they came in & have never used them! ...... Irony much ? tongue

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

That only works when you have more people to fill the void.... which we dont! *shocker*

Any way the only real pro pvp is camping people into stations for hours on end... like CIR & we all know they were just pure pro pvpers

That was a pro move, man, and look what happens when you do bad stuff like that? You get punished by doing jedi flashpoints. hohohoohohoho

24 (edited by Hunter 2012-03-06 07:40:28)

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

Small talks. I see your discussion and i remember your whining about any "overpowered" things. GTFO. You have that deserved.

"You" means all players who cry in DeV's PM's after each lose.

P.S. +1 to topic author.

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25

Re: Ok someone has to say it.

What’s wrong with Perpetuum:
•    No feeling of ownership of anything in game for alpha or beta corps.

•    Players are not free to explore the game, the game space is small and does not require more than a single day to explore. This is my only real complaint of this game and it has been a sore spot for me from day one. Any living space needs to support its inhabitants. For a sand box game this one it TINY. Heck for a MMORPG this game is TINY. Ill keep saying it until it happens this game needs a massive explosion of playable space in order for it to survive long term. You can add all the content you want but until you have more space then you know what to do with you will never have a true sandbox game. One thing I learned from others games such as eve is that there can never be enough places for people to explore or play in.


•    There is a lack of professions in the game, the three main professions are Mining, PVP and Building things to sell on the market. We need viable alternatives for these three professions. Faction / mission grinding rewards need to be present(sparks are not enough to make the grind worth it) faction ammo is a good start this needs to be expanded to T+ items and faction bots.

•    We need the GM’s back !!! I know there was a lot of behind the rumors of which GM’s were actually in which corps but a company presence on the server makes a big difference whether you think so or not. I wouldn’t say we always need a DEV on the live server but a Gm would nice to see on regularly basis.


•    Content can and has been created by players to keep the game interesting, I think people will keep doing so. I also think that the current focus on PBS is a step in the right direction. Do something and do it well if the PBS system come out good then I will be very pleased and this game will have my support for yet another year. Yes I am being completely honest I am betting heavily on this next big change to be good otherwise I don’t see playing with just me and some pixels being enough to justify all of my subs. I think I am like many other people that want to interact with other but if there are not “others” to interact with then what’s the point?

•    @ grem: I think you went well out of your way to do what you did for the game it needs more people like you to help support it by getting the word out. BRAVO !!


•    Yes im in the same holding pattern that many people are and until there is something that excites people again then this will be the status quo.

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