New Map Layout

[Blade]

Problem is there are no new players to promote the style of game your after.

The player base is use to having things fast, easy and compact. If someone has to use 100-150 turns to weapon up then use 50 turns on tracking one kill they throw their toys out the pram and demand a smaller, faster more compact game.

But that just strangles new players, so they dont stay, so in order to keep the player base the game has happy it keeps to faster more compact games that are not newbie freindly...see a pattern here.

Browser games have moved on since this game started we all know this, so this game would only compete as a game if it was to go down the route of being able to be played and be competitive on say an hour a day. But this game is not geared to be like that. So it relies on vets who sit for hours or at least spare a few hours a day playing it.

Young blood are busy playing xbox, playstation or the likes of WoW.

SMR has to compete with many other browser games out there and lets face it they are much more up to date. The look of SMR has not changed since the late 90's. Speef had the right idea with Flash Merchant (Not so much the flash, but the actual game play aspect) He knew back then that the browser based SM style game would not compete with the times, specially when games like Diaspora was draining SM's players because that was graphical based game that was very simular to SM. Diapsora died too, but still lives on by the hardcore few that kept it going just as Spock kept SM alive with SMR. However Dia (Now Rillaspora) suffers the same demise as SMR. New players are swept away by vets who control the way the game is brought on and new players never stay. This is what SMR HAS to break to stay alive.

[Kard]

Yeah Holti. They started actively taking Phoenix now. Several mines around and some planets at lvl 1. i don't think they're going to commit though.

I asked them about it, and they see nothing wrong waiting for a smaller alliance to build up planets while they sit in fed and hunt newbies. Then they come and take all said small alliance planets as their own.

As this could be a good tactic for a fully grown player base, it's debilitating to a small one like today's. We need bigger maps, bigger nuetrals with planets (not planet galaxies). Make it impossible to check every planet even every three days. We need space to grow.

I cant hardly blame them though. its how the game is designed currently. Just like I dont blame them for using the DC, its the best damn ship, why not use it.

The map design allows them to op from fed, while using minimal turns to arm the best setups, and get to their target and uno in minimal turns, and getting to all the best routes, from fed using minimal turns. So planets are not that important. especialy with a fed in neutral space.

Secondly, the planet gals are so close to fed, they can be scouted and attacked using minimal turns, making it very difficult to develop them to any reasonable size in any short time.

Lastly, letting someone else use all their turns and resources to build a planet gal, then you moving 20 sectors to arm and 20 more to get to the target, leaving your fleet with 660 turns, to then blow it up and claim it for your own, is easy. Defending is almost impossible, because no matter how many times you pod them or waste their turns with guerrilla tactics, you cant make them use over 700 turns. Then, they have this brand new planet gal, they spent nothing to make, and have a large pool of turns and money to secure it. Now the original owners could just op 3 days later and take it back though. BUT, there will likely be no targets on the planets(since fed is only 20 sectors away anyway) and your poor little gal you had to reclaim, has been razed to the ground twice in 4 days, setting you back 2-4 turrets and a handfull of hangars and gennies. Making it pointless to really go after planets and waste your turns and money again. Which then makes it so there is nothing to fight over. Which makes this game boring.


Planets need to be many turns from fed. Weapon shops need to be spread out way more, and the gal needs to be much bigger in general. Its really that simple.

I really feel, Planet gals, and racials should be so far apart from each other, that you have to burn almost a days turns to make the trip. Someone shouldnt be able to hunt racials, then rush to their planet gal to defend it without using like 1/4 your turns. Or vice versa, shouldnt be able to sleep on a planet, then rush to a racial gal when they get a ping, without using like 1/4 your turns. And for ops, you should have to be able to accomplish few things during 1 op. Between arming, and moving to the target, you should be able to raid like 2-3 high lvl ports, or clear half a minefield or take 1-2 mid size planets, or 1 lvl 70. You shouldnt be able to clear the entire gal, and take every planet. Thats just to many turns, too high a game speed, and too tight a map.

Make port density tighter in racials, to make 3x and 4x routes, and make port density wider in neutral/planet gals, to make the big money routes(8x,12x,20x!), far from fed (1/4 turns from fed).

*IDEAS*
-Deacrease Game Speed
-Lower Turn Cap
-Make going through warps cost more turns
-Make 2-3 large neutral gals, between the racials and planet gals, as a buffer

[Kard]

Problem is there are no new players to promote the style of game your after.

The player base is use to having things fast, easy and compact. If someone has to use 100-150 turns to weapon up then use 50 turns on tracking one kill they throw their toys out the pram and demand a smaller, faster more compact game.

But that just strangles new players, so they dont stay, so in order to keep the player base the game has happy it keeps to faster more compact games that are not newbie freindly...see a pattern here.

Browser games have moved on since this game started we all know this, so this game would only compete as a game if it was to go down the route of being able to be played and be competitive on say an hour a day. But this game is not geared to be like that. So it relies on vets who sit for hours or at least spare a few hours a day playing it.

Young blood are busy playing xbox, playstation or the likes of WoW.

SMR has to compete with many other browser games out there and lets face it they are much more up to date. The look of SMR has not changed since the late 90's. Speef had the right idea with Flash Merchant (Not so much the flash, but the actual game play aspect) He knew back then that the browser based SM style game would not compete with the times, specially when games like Diaspora was draining SM's players because that was graphical based game that was very simular to SM. Diapsora died too, but still lives on by the hardcore few that kept it going just as Spock kept SM alive with SMR. However Dia (Now Rillaspora) suffers the same demise as SMR. New players are swept away by vets who control the way the game is brought on and new players never stay. This is what SMR HAS to break to stay alive.

I disagree that you have to be blitz fast and twitched out flashing gameplay, in order to survive these days. Strategy genre is still alive and well, and will always be. Just like chess will never die. The only thing SMR has to do to grow,

1) put a better product together: Turn it back in to a highly competetive, team work oriented, strategy game. Make cost/reward. Pro/Con. Balance it. Put out quality maps and ships. Page has already been doing a really good job of fixing the imbalances IMO. But he is making changes one stage at a time, and we are all getting impatient, after 15 years lol. but part of that impatients is because of the poor map that amplifies the imbalances.

2) market better: We need to play on the niche that this IS a slow strategy game. This is a thinking mans game. And a damn good one. If and when this new marketing comittee starts doing ad banners and whatever else (which is awesome BTW), they need to play on the fact that this is one of the hardest games, with the steepest learning curve, and the hardest strategy and team work elements, on the web today. Put the challenge out, and let all the people who like team work, and like strategy, and like competition, to come try it out.

[Blade]

I would not call this a hard strategy game.

You dont have to think about weapons, or think about what to build on a planet or even what goods to trade as that is a given. Diversity is a hard strategy game, this game lacks diversity at the moment.

[Holti]

Page has done a fantastic job in coding improvements, and I don't say that just because he buffed up Alskant. That he does this without pay and gets a lot of grief over changes (humans hate change, that is well documented!), and I'm surprised he continues to code for the game at all.

I was one of the few players who enjoyed Azool's map a couple of rounds ago, but it was very different and felt it added to the game. Players had to make decisions on what they wanted and needed to do.

At this point, my alliance is discussing what we can do as a team this round. It doesn't appear to be much we can do - planets are a waste, thus why bother with planet busts. Port raids may still be a possibility. Shame is, my alliance is fairly active. But it appears that this round will be a simple trade and hunt round. At least we're having fun in chat.

[Blade]

Nothing I say is against anyone but general feelings on a game.

SMRealms isn't even in google on the first important pages if you search browser based space strategy. That needs to be addressed.

http://www.astroempires.com/

That is the first one, and the log in page is impressive.

[RCK]

I would not call this a hard strategy game.

You dont have to think about weapons, or think about what to build on a planet or even what goods to trade as that is a given. Diversity is a hard strategy game, this game lacks diversity at the moment.

Agree 100%

[RCK]

Nothing I say is against anyone but general feelings on a game.

SMRealms isn't even in google on the first important pages if you search browser based space strategy. That needs to be addressed.

http://www.astroempires.com/

That is the first one, and the log in page is impressive.

I played that for awhile... put SMR to shame

I still get there newsletters... between nice high quality 3d ships and general graphical appeal.

[Kard]

Nothing I say is against anyone but general feelings on a game.

SMRealms isn't even in google on the first important pages if you search browser based space strategy. That needs to be addressed.

http://www.astroempires.com/

That is the first one, and the log in page is impressive.

I played that for awhile... put SMR to shame

I still get there newsletters... between nice high quality 3d ships and general graphical appeal.

Thats an entirely differen style of strategy game. They are not the same. its like saying a first person shooter like COD or HALO is the same as a 3rd person shooter like ghost recon or rainbow 6. there are fan bases for both. Find me another game like SMR. The only one that use to exist was tdzk. its changed into a game like astro empires. Reason they changed to that style of game? The developers said it would take far less of their time to maintain a game like astro empires style, then it does tdzk/smr style.

[Jester-]

I've played AE on three different servers. It's a boring number crunch game. When it comes down to it the only thing that wins that game is greater numbers. You have effectively no alliance cap. It's like 250 members? You build planets and fleet, and it's very slow moving. Very boring after a while.

I agree this needs addressed, but I believe it take a rewording of our headers to make them searchable and include this info for google's search engine.