Draft game Retrospective: My thoughts

[silverx2]

First let me say that i think for the most part it was a success. We had very diverse groups of people being led by people they normally would not have been led by. In some cases we had some newbs getting good on the job training so to speak which i think is awesome for the game, and i think its something we should
continue to do.

Some issues:
People putting themselves above the alliance. In one instance we had an ikky member who was upset and stopped playing because the FE leaders strat was too try and starve the ikky race. Constant wars with ikky, Busting all ikky ports with the hope of making it so ikky couldnt trade, obviously this did not sit well with some ikky members and they through a hissy fit. thats just the nature of the beast when it comes to blind picking. we as members have no idea what the stratagy is going to be going into the game. I think next time it should be draft, then choose race. This will let the leaders figure out what they want to do, and then inform players accordingly.

A whole lot of chiefs, not enough indians. FE had a healthy amount of strong character people, as well as some very big Ego people. This results in Ops that do NOT go smoothly. This kind of goes with the putting yourself before the alliance. People need to learn to shut up and follow orders, and if they want to be leader too bad, they were not voted to be in charge. I dont know how contraction was but there were numerous cases for me during ops where i just wanted to leave chat. Thats not a knock on Edge, as i think he did a great job, but in general its tough putting a lot former leaders and people used to doing one thing underneath someone else.

No clear cut way to determine who is winning and losing. Edge struck out colors Contraction wins. But i think if there was a tangible way to say this alliance is winning or that alliance is winning and by this much etc, it would give both sides kind of an idea of Hey were down X we need to bust some ass and pick up the pace. what if the game kept going and neither side tossed in the towel, who would decide the winner other then who yelled the loudest?

In general i think the game is still kind of stale, being someone that doesnt play every round and coming back for a bit of freshening towards the end of the game which should be the most exciting part, is really just kind of boring. a lot of sitting waiting, and attempting to bust something, only to see that the other alliance has like 5 ikkies online stocking the planet with an almost unlimited supply of drones and shields. Very difficult task, made harder with such Large alliances, maybe next time have 3 alliances for the draft to add a little bit of spice. 3 planet gals, one large neutral and then racials.

For me personally the game felt like it was over the night we busted Contraction, and then they came and busted us and in the middle there were those big fleet battles. I think thats the night we lost it. When contraction steamrolled our galaxy with what 17 people? there was some heated arguements in chat to fight you while you were clearing but we ended up missing some golden opportunities and then told to park since there was no way you would bust the planets, and then DID bust them. for me moral dropped really low and it was just hard from that point forward. But again just my personal feelings.

Anyways GG,

[JettJackson]

Silver I think you found the crux of the problem, some high risk players were taken by FE that didn't pan out, and the lack of aggression ended up being your downfall in the end. The idea was to split everyone up so that it wouldn't be the same people, but Edge unfortunately failed to pick up people he should have for role players. Also contraction hit very well with people that were newbs/returning vets when drafting.

[Kard]

This draft round was the first round I've played in years. And let me tell you, it was one of the most fun rounds I've ever played, and it brought me back, and I'm now playing the next round. The draft round was a success.

FE was a great group and I met a lot of great people I hadn't met before. We had a nice handful of active, talented players. We also had a handful of players who directly affected our success. ACD, Gheng, and others. We had ACD, who emptied our AA and lost 9 ships in 13 days(or something like that) just doing solo 1v1 fights. Never came to chat, or an op. After we dropped his AA limit, he fired on a contraction warbird in an IST, then suicided in his pod on another. People like him, caused others to go inactive.

We had a good game plan and we executed it well. I remember at one point, we were tied for kills and had just tore through the contraction gal and ruined their routes again. We were aggressive. But as more people became less active, we had alot of people doing 1v1, and Contraction started to take the lead. Once that happened, we couldnt get enough people for decent ops. You started gaining on us, then passed us in exp.

By the end, it seemed like no matter what we did, you always had at least 1 more ship, and higher exp. Contraction did a great job of adapting, and gathering ships in a pinch. You also did a good job of keeping a large chunk of people active for the entire round.

Contraction won the round, and I congradulate them.

I look forward to the next draft round.

[N.ator]

DAFT GAME.. so what does that exactly mean.

i think what happens is weekly (the alliance that is "loosing" should beable to draft a player from the other alliance.)

its like nba. you are able to draft players from one team to the other..

[silverx2]

DAFT GAME.. so what does that exactly mean.

i think what happens is weekly (the alliance that is "loosing" should beable to draft a player from the other alliance.)

its like nba. you are able to draft players from one team to the other..

that actually free agency and trades. you can't just pluck a player

[Hugh]

umm, for clarification, Hugh's routes were never in trouble. All your raids worked in my favor. ;-p

[Incognito]

Yeah, you may have damaged part of the route, but we always had a second part that was left untouched

[Pickles]

Well would you look at that. Apparently some admin didn't like the contents of my first post. Well let's try again.

I agree with some of the Silverx2's assessment in that there were too many players acting in their own self-interest rather than that of the alliance's.

I also think FE were going to be on the losing end of the war thanks to limited activity.

However, what killed off the game for me (at least the point I stopped playing) and a few others is being forced to fly past enemy held planets in our own galaxy (under admin orders) only to have the same enemy come a couple of hours later and hit more planets. The admin decision on that one has been made and I still disagree with it. At the very least someone on the Contra leadership should have thought for a second just what they were doing but that would have required ignoring self-interest and I guess we know which one won out. That's the point at which the game ended and the admin decision just prolonged it a few weeks as a glorified semi-wars.

So yeah, nicely played Contra, enjoy the victory. I'm sure you would have fitted in very well with any number of alliances down the years who have crippled the game and slowly whittled down player numbers to critical levels.

[silverx2]

However, what killed off the game for me (at least the point I stopped playing) and a few others is being forced to fly past enemy held planets in our own galaxy (under admin orders) only to have the same enemy come a couple of hours later and hit more planets. The admin decision on that one has been made and I still disagree with it. At the very least someone on the Contra leadership should have thought for a second just what they were doing but that would have required ignoring self-interest and I guess we know which one won out. That's the point at which the game ended and the admin decision just prolonged it a few weeks as a glorified semi-wars.
.

We would have done the same thing in FE if we were able too. It's a game, but its a Game that includes war. You don't stop for tea time in war.

The game needs some sort of Victory requirements where something happens, then the game ends and the winning alliance gets celebratory announcements.. Most games have that.

[Pickles]

We would have done the same thing in FE if we were able too.

And we would have been just as wrong.