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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 8:23 pm 
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I will no longer be actively playing this game and will probably go back to playing BNT cause of these changes, even though feature wise BNT is lacking the features of AAT, This kind of change is game breaking IMHO and I am a builder/attacking type of player and usually like to build over 50 planets. pretty silly change I have to say.


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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 9:32 pm 
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Alf wrote:
PJ, could the code be tweaked by the admin to limit the amount of planets per game. Also could there be a limit on the total amount of players.


That was discussed as well a long time ago and there was a huge uproar over having a hard limit on the number of planets. And the number of players isn't a big deal. It's the number of planets and associated items plain and simple. I have advocated having a maximum planet limit for all players for a long time but the amount of complaining becomes catastrophic. Kind of like what we see here.

Also, it's not how often the planet table is updated but how many records that are updated in the database. There is a ton of information being updated for each planet and none of this is performed using loops just SINGLE massive database queries that would make most people get headaches. This reduces the load more than you can imagine but not enough.

This coupled with the number of dignitaries and spies on each planet really puts the largest load on the database. Even with optimal indexing it is still heavily loaded.

This game has always been INTENDED to be run on a shared host. Unfortunately the way things are now that is impossible. If any one of the people complaining would PAY to run their own server with no real planet limit they would find they would be SHUT DOWN in no time. They don't understand. Sadly to do what they are wanting the game would have to be run on a dedicated server, like it is now, like any FPS and that is looking at around $100+ a month. If we lose our location as Tarnus has mentioned would these people who are complaining be willing to pay $30 a month to play the game? We can't afford to pay for a server to cater to their play styles. We have no idea how long we will be able to keep the current server location. It could go away next week for all we know. So we have to make sure the game is able to run on a VPS and those are not cheap either for what the game currently demands.

So there is basically a choice here...

Either accept the changes and start learning to play with fewer planets so we can easily move to a shared/VPS host when we lose the current server location.

or

Complain enough to make us keep the old code for hundreds of planets and then expect the game to possibly go away when we lose the current server location.

That's what it has come down to. We WILL eventually lose the current location. We just don't know when.

I was going to build a new server with faster drives, more memory and faster processor a couple of months ago to handle these things but was informed we might lose our location. So we aren't doing it and being forced to rewrite code in anticipation of losing the current server location.

These changes need to be DONE NOW with an active game so we can balance things out before we have to move. If we don't then we could have our site shut down AGAIN after we move due to database load after we move to a new hosting company.

We have some hard choices we are making here and you can choose to help us and support us or you can choose to hurt us and complain. It's your choice.

We have only had enough donations in the past 6 years, after paying for other things like upgraded hardware or replacing dead hardware, to run the site on another host for a few months. After that then the money will be coming out of our pockets and we cannot afford a server that could run things the way they are now.

So PLEASE help us out and don't throw road blocks in our way or there may not be a game in the future.

We warned about these changes coming last month because that's when things about our current location became unstable.



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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 9:38 pm 
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Methanol wrote:
I will no longer be actively playing this game and will probably go back to playing BNT cause of these changes, even though feature wise BNT is lacking the features of AAT, This kind of change is game breaking IMHO and I am a builder/attacking type of player and usually like to build over 50 planets. pretty silly change I have to say.


BNT can get away with it because BNT IS incredibly simplistic compared to our game. The database queries are very simple in comparison because there is not much there in comparison.

When you start adding features you start adding server load.



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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 10:09 pm 
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As I mentioned earlier, I am going to be switching from this game to a PAID game, where I pay $15 a month, because at least I can trust the people who run the game, even if all they care about is the money. Cephus talked about wanting to know what the costs were and how he could help, and I know there are some others who aren't just freeloading.

As far as your comment about accepting the changes and learning to play with fewer planets, well we could obviously do that if you would have told us before the change. I wasn't aware of any discussions last round about not being able to build more planets. As I was told, there was a "hard limit" of 350, where anything over that caused you to have 40% chance to go indy added to your planets, regardless of how often you checked them, and a "soft limit" that at 50 or less you would not get indy planets. That is how I understood things.

By you changing things mid-round, one player lost 20% of his score, and some of us lost 30T+ credits worth of SD, that even if we recapture the planets we will not get back.

Either let us tell you which planets to destroy of ours and just destroy them, and give a hard limit of 50, or just shut the game down, because what you are doing is completely unfair.


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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 8:57 pm 
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personally, I think this is to late, when something is desired to change, it should be at the beginning of the rounds, so.. instead of an abrupted planetary independence, that there should be a time limit on how long a person does not play, in other words, if someone does not play for like.. a week, a full seven days, then they automatically self-destruct, escape pod is no exception, what do you think?


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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 2:30 am 
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Hydro wrote:
personally, I think this is to late, when something is desired to change, it should be at the beginning of the rounds, so.. instead of an abrupted planetary independence, that there should be a time limit on how long a person does not play, in other words, if someone does not play for like.. a week, a full seven days, then they automatically self-destruct, escape pod is no exception, what do you think?


Actually if you don't play for 2 weeks you are purged. This has been in the game for years.



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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:10 am 
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Location: Bakersfield, California
PJ, I understand the pressures of operating a business as I run one myself. We will be fine with the changes. We love the game enough to hang with whatever is needed to keep it going.

I would ask one thing though. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help. We complain a lot, but ultimately we understand things are the way they are. Just keep us in the loop. It will make changes easier to take.

Cephus


Last edited by Cephus on Sun Feb 01, 2009 2:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:52 am 
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Cephus wrote:
I had no idea that was set, i'm a new player, first round. and I have been playing for a couple weeks, but
I just don't like abrupt changes in the middle of a game. it just doesn't seem right.

what about the people who like building up almost constantly, to be at their best at something they are good at? sounds irritating to me.


The player purge is not a new change. Its designed to keep the game with fresh users. A player that hasn't played in 2 weeks generally wont play in 3-4. All you have to do is login once in 2 weeks and your fine. It also frees the database of an inactive account. When you look at the total players in the game, those are active players. I know some games show hundreds of users which means most of them are inactives. The purge promotes activity... its not a big deal nor has it been for like 3-4 years. I believe its in the wiki as well. When was the last time you played a game and then waited 2 weeks before you came back? Its not a real issue.



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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 2:40 am 
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Just a clarification.. I think your Blog site identifies the poster by IP and my son uses the same computer I do sometimes. The post that was quoted above this one is actually from my son, Hydro in the game.

Cephus


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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Sat May 09, 2009 8:05 am 
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Whether there is any possibility of exact calculation of leaving of planets in independence depending on quantity of planets? It was simple earlier clearly that it is necessary to visit their time in two days but how now to calculate?


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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Sat May 09, 2009 11:50 pm 
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ScHunter wrote:
Whether there is any possibility of exact calculation of leaving of planets in independence depending on quantity of planets? It was simple earlier clearly that it is necessary to visit their time in two days but how now to calculate?


I haven't figured it out, course I don't like building past 50, but the more planets you have past 50 the more often you have to tag the planets. Bun in all actuality, I currintly don't even have more than 10 right now and I easily made the top 20. Plus with the higher colonists limits you can run less planets and make more credits.



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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Sun May 10, 2009 3:05 am 
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correctly
but top 20 begining with 3M pionts. not much

ok tnx anyways. All is clear, it is necessary to find out a practical way :) :o


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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 9:37 pm 
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How about an option to purchase a little ship like the planetary auto trade ship that goes around and touches your planets for you. Would cost some credits to upgrade the engine, sensors, and would use one turn for each warp move & planet it touches for you. You might allow teammates to do this for you but I dunno about that, I just want someone to touch em for me without tking something. LoL


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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 10:47 pm 
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Sorry but we are not going to automate touching of planets to prevent them from going indy. It would make having them go indy from lack of interaction totally useless. It falls under the same category as using trade routes to fill sector defenses.



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 Post subject: Re: Planetary Independence
PostPosted: Tue May 12, 2009 5:15 pm 
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It doesn't take long to touch planets. I can touch all mine (199) in less than 10 minutes, IF I'm not doing any upgrading.
Took me some time to figure out how often/when to touch them, before not having any indies, but once you figure it out, it's not that bad at all.


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