All active and good vets in one alliance

[Kard]

Holti wrote:if we had divided up the super active vets between two alliances, feel it would have been one of the more exciting rounds.

I keep hearing this. In globals and in chat, that we stacked our team with the best and most active players. So I wanted to address it, in hopes to get some healthy discussion going.


I dont see how everyone thinks we added all the super active vets to one alliance, the whale alliance is basically the same alliance ive been the last 4 rounds, except JJ, Orca, and Sergie are added, and Beau, OO, Edgecrusher are subtracted, along with a bunch of other good guys, which has us at only 21 members. I dont see how this group is accused of player stacking, when its the same group it has been for 4 rounds, but smaller. Maybe its because im on the inside, i dont know, but from my perspective, i really dont see what the fuss is about. Sufex alliance gave us hell, then went totally inactive, Seldums alliance gave us a lot of hell for half the round, then imploded and went inactive. We lost the draft round. Why all of a sudden are seen so stacked this round? Not to get too off topic, but i want to hear some others perspectives, and hopefully i can see what you guys are.


Not to add a whole nother paragraph or anything lol, but we werent even that far ahead this round. We had planets yes, but other then sergie going on a 20 kill rampage early, no one else really had kills, our route wasnt so much better then what other people had, and we couldnt build our bank roll because Haste was doing such a good job clearing us. SOLO, none the less. Namely, canff, swift and velocity. they mustve cleared a few hundread mill of forces, and wasted thousands of our turns, for us chasing, and reseeding and remining, with just those 3. about 4 days ago or so, Orca offered 200 mil of ours to another alliance, and I was like "wtf, that would give them more money then us!" lol.

Last thing I want some opinions and perspectives on, from those who were on the other side. I keep hearing about how The Whale Company, gangbanging people, cause several people to quit. In one specific case I was there, and it really wasnt a gangbang. I mean it was, but not like you would think. We literaly were just sitting in one sector, not moving, for like 2 minuts, with single mines layed. Then someone ran right into us, and Orca was the only one who fired, and there were 6 seconds between his 2 triggers. Afterwards this player quit. From my perspective, us getting blamed for people quitting to things like this, isnt fair. We werent even moving. If he has used a scanner, he would have seen us and ran. This game is a strategy game, you cant just zoom around willy nilly, with 6 enemies online, not scanning. Secondly, only orca fired, and he had 6 seconds to run. And finaly, that person who died, had just killed one of our guys, 2v1, like the day before hand. Again this is just my point of view, and I really want to hear whats going on from the other side. Maybe we can understand each other a little better.

[Holti]

I dont see how everyone thinks we added all the super active vets to one alliance, the whale alliance is basically the same alliance ive been the last 4 rounds, except JJ, Orca, and Sergie are added, and Beau, OO, Edgecrusher are subtracted, along with a bunch of other good guys, which has us at only 21 members. I dont see how this group is accused of player stacking, when its the same group it has been for 4 rounds, but smaller. Maybe its because im on the inside, i dont know, but from my perspective, i really dont see what the fuss is about. Sufex alliance gave us hell, then went totally inactive, Seldums alliance gave us a lot of hell for half the round, then imploded and went inactive. We lost the draft round. Why all of a sudden are seen so stacked this round? Not to get too off topic, but i want to hear some others perspectives, and hopefully i can see what you guys are.

I had hoped others would explain, since this is a busy week for me. Alas, that was not the case.

You do NOT have the same alliance as the last four rounds, since I used to play in the same alliance as about half of those who were in Rain of Death. XdemonX, Orca, Sergie, JJ, Mack, Azool, Spock, Puredeath (who I recognized as a returning old school vet), and Ravenger were not part of that old group. All are very active, in the case of Orca and Sergei, based on the data I collected to protect my newbies, active 21 hours out of 24. By his own admission, Orca uses scout ping alerts and an alarm clock so he can pretty much be online 24/7. You add that to my former alliance mates - Derek (570), Afro Pirate (I forget his other name), Collider, Fubar, plus those who are very active but I don't know their alts (Mr.Blue Whale, Sea Otter, Hirame, KFK), you already have an alliance that has at least 17 players who are not only long time vets and very good, but also very active. Jester, when he played in the same alliance as I, was not that active, but has become more so recently. So make it 18. You took on no newbies that I could see.

Let's compare that to the other alliances. FTP - Edgecrusher has not been that active since the Draft round. Kinky is probably the only non-whale player who I would consider super active, and even she likes to sleep more than 3 hours a day. Swaggie is active, but also gives priority to his career, family, and sleep. Markus also enjoys sleep and doing things away from the computer. Several players only joined recently - the first couple of weeks, FTP only had 5 or 6 players. Haste really only had three players that were that active - Maddy, Greed, and Turbo Pig. Pierce only came on when he saw a newbie to kill. Jaws did what he mostly does - trade - and he wasn't that active. Even if those two alliances merged (they did discuss it), they would have had HALF of the active players you did, none of which would be on 21/24 hours a day. Both took on at least one newbie.

My alliance was never meant to be competitive. My alliance is set up to give casual players a chance to interact with players they like, give rusty vets a no pressure environment to improve their skills again, and train newbies. My role as leader was to recognize what these players enjoyed doing in game, and finding ways they could contribute to the alliance without feeling pressured to do more. Nearly all of us are married/committed to either our careers (in my case), or to a human. Frankly, most of us are late 20's - over 50. We aren't kids anymore.

You aren't the first to put all the active elites in one alliance, which is why I warned MrSpock that it was a BAD idea to put you guys all together. Siege did the same thing in the spring. Lotus did the same. I know the mentality - you think "Hey, he's a good player, let's ask him! we'll beat them all!" - I've seen that in EVERY online war game that I've played since 1998 (aka, the shareplay days). When we were much younger, had less life concerns (face it, most of us were kids when we started playing. I was a grad student, but still had a lot of time flexibility compared to now), and we had a LOT more players, that mentality works. When you have at most 35 - 40 players who log in every day, that mentality creates a problem.

[Infinity]

Orca offered 200 mil of ours to another alliance, and I was like "wtf, that would give them more money then us!" lol.

I am only going to say that every good leader has a war chest. You have it too, only you might not know about it That info is on need to know basis in any semi-organised but serious alliance.

I don't know anything about activity as seen from the inside, that might vary. We know people build planets, trade, stock drones, seed, mine... but activity is usually best promoted by opping and there's nothing to op on once the route is made :/

Please do not use uppercase for the name of our alliance It is the only thing I am complaining about. Our name is ftp, not FTP.

We are normally active. Each and every one of us, logs in at their usual pace. Which is pretty much every day, less on weekends for some. But we didn't want to play in a big alliance, this is what we wanted to do. Good or bad on the outside, we have friendly chats, someone gets to shoot something, someone gets to be shot, its the game. We could have joined up with someone, but we didnt want.

Kard, dont get worked up, the alliance with most resources, seeming to be the most successful always gets bashed a bit. Every round You know I know.

Early game ending is somewhat silly, cause by the end of the round one of the alliances might get enough money and people signed up for an OP and try and go for a 70. Busting 70s is good fun and good way to spend the money nearing the end of the round. This way, round will end without it.

Cheers!

K.