I"m willing to contribute to the prize pool.

I can throw an ice at this as a prize.I would however suggest an entry fee of a hundred mil a corp.

I'm sorry, I just cant support this idea of not having a DEV ran tourney.  We all wait for one year to have the chance to win one thing and one thing only.  The Vanguard Bots, we don't want some *** loot, or ICE, we want the Vanguards, Period.  (Most of all the players in the game now have more bots, more nic, more everything that we cant even use it all, WHY would we want MORE stuff from a useless pot?)

I see this as just a cop-out of basically "running out of resources".  I know that the DEV's are working extreamly hard to continue this game, to continue there labor of love as it maybe.  Personally, I would hope that they as a team would have a good time to reflect on what this game has really became.  In simple terms, its Stopped.  The wheels are not moving, bots are not dieing, the bases are not flowing up and down.

If all of these things are not a sign of something needs to be changed, I don't know what would be.

Something needs to change, either a outside investor needs to come in and buy the game, or The DEV's need to seek outside help and get others involved.

We have had two years to get things rolling, the first year I agree were good, we saw relatively good player base, good battles ect.  However, in the second things SLOWED, we have to keep the energy flowing, keep the game moving forward and this, is not happening now at all.

Eve had the same thing, but when they hit that point they got outside help and expanded when everything said to shut shop down.

STEAM is NOT the answer, its merely a MEANS to get from point A to B, NOT the driver.  The Driving force must be (in all truth) MONEY. WE need investors to take a interest in this game and to get things rolling again, to get the money back into the DEV's hands so they can do the work to improve the game, and to get others improving the game as well.

Now this, of course is all from the outside looking in, I have ZERO working knowledge of what goes on behind the closed doors.  This is just a posting of how most of the community feels, we all support you, were STILL here playing, subbing, but this support is starting to slip.  Even the hardest players are starting to feel like its time to move on.

No goals and no sand made a newbie very sad.

Merkle can you mopp up your tears and stay on topic. If you have more then enough crap items sign them up and blow them up.

Every thing beautiful will be destroied!!!

I didn't help because it seemed like it would be greifed far to easy. was a good idea on paper but the physical execution gave me a headache. Besides arenas aren't my thing I prefer open terrain where my ewar range is king and it simulates real (old school) Sap events.