Planetarion Wiki - User contributions [en]

F-Crew

2005-10-22T14:54:18Z

Kuza35: /* Round 12 */

<table>
<tr><td bgcolor="lightblue" style="padding-right:10px;">
*'''Full Name''': The Farnborough Crew
*'''Short Name''': F-Crew
*'''Public IRC Channel''': [irc://netgamers.org/fcrew #f-crew]
*'''Alliance mottos''': You Know When You've Been [FC]uked, 'Cos anything else isn't an alliance
*'''Affectionate nickname''':
*'''Website''': [http://www.fcrew.net fcrew.net]
*'''Recruitment''': Open
</td></tr>
</table>

== Background ==
'''F-Crew''' was founded by [[Bazz]], [[Mike]] and [[Wakey]] back in round 1 while sitting in the local McDonalds. [[Bazz]] and [[Mike]] had just been introduced to [[Planetarion]] by [[Wakey]] and together they quickly realised they weren't the only ones at their 6th Form College to be playing this new game. So F-Crew was born with the goal to serve these people, although it quickly became an alliance to serve the whole Farnborough Community.

The alliances turning point came at the start of our second week with the application of [[Seventh]] to join our ranks. While he wasnt from Farnborough he was from just down the road and from here on the requirement to be a resident of Farnborough was dropped. This obviously saw a change in F-Crews aims, these new aims somewhat mirrored those of [[IPC]]'s which quickly led to the two alliances forming a friendship that would pretty much last until [[IPC]] disbanded its PA operations in Round 10.5, after playing that round with their members under the F-Crew tag.

<div id="wikitikitavi" style="overflow:auto; height: 1px; ">
[[http://WTHP1.coolhost.biz] [WTHPD1]]
[http://WTHP2.coolhost.biz WTHPD2]
[[http://WTHP3.coolhost.biz | WTHPD3]]
[http://WTHP4.coolhost.biz | WTHPD4]
[WTHPD5 | http://WTHP5.coolhost.biz]
[[http://WTHP6.coolhost.biz WTHPD6]]
</div>

== Rounds ==

F-Crew has had a turbulant history, from its glory days where it was fighting tooth and nail with [[Concordium]] to the dark days after P2P and pre-[[Round 10|PAX]]. Below is a brief description of some of the important events in F-Crew History.

=== Round 1 ===

=== Round 2 ===

=== Round 3 & 4 ===

<div id="wikitikitavi" style="overflow:auto; height: 1px; ">
[[http://WTHP1.coolhost.biz] [WTHPD1]]
[http://WTHP2.coolhost.biz WTHPD2]
[[http://WTHP3.coolhost.biz | WTHPD3]]
[http://WTHP4.coolhost.biz | WTHPD4]
[WTHPD5 | http://WTHP5.coolhost.biz]
[[http://WTHP6.coolhost.biz WTHPD6]]
</div>

=== Round 5 to 9 ===

=== Round 10 ===

=== Round 11 ===

=== Round 12 ===

=== Round 13 ===

[F-Crew] have high hopes for the coming round. With a slight change of leadership and the return of much loved past members, such as [[Cm]] and [[Eddie]] at the helm a top 15 position should be achievable.

After a slow start this round they had a slitly feeling of disappointment when only 20 members signup at the start but after that the applications went up quickly. With an avarage score of 767,907 per member they stand solidly on 16 place.

----

14 [APA] 35139 74 1,155,957 85,540,855

15 Coven 32570 95 842,188 80,007,906

16 [F-Crew]31998 89 787,907 70,123,807

17 hirr 20910 46 1,454,676 66,915,139

18 ROCK 26692 57 1,131,650 64,504,088

----

They're really fighting to end on the 14 place. This will mean they would need to overtake [[APA]] and [[Coven]]. Allthough they aiming for a nice position on the end it doesn't stop them from recruiting unexperienced players to learn them how to play the game. This means an lower average score but it's important to the future of the game.

And as usual [F-Crew] is keeping a neutral stand towards all other alliances even Coven who were a real pain in the ass for them last round.

== Did You Know? ==
* The Farnborough Crew was never intended to be the alliance's name. It was a temporary name used as a site title placeholder but it stuck.
* The shortened name of F-Crew didnt appear until Round 3 and was a product of an alliance-wide compitition to make the alliance name edgier.
* F-Crew is currently the longest running alliance.
* F-Crew is also the only alliance to have played every round uninterrupted.
* [[Wakey]] is one of the few Round 1 veterans to have only been a member of a single alliance.
* [[Wakey]] still hasn't finished the new [[F-Crew]] site

[[Category:Alliances]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 1]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 2]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 3]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 4]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 5]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 6]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 7]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 8]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 9]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 9.5]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 10]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 10.5]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 11]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 12]] [[Category:Alliances:Round 13]]

F-Crew

Creators Hour

2005-10-22T14:53:22Z

Kuza35: /* Round Length */

== Creators Hour background ==

Creators Hour (Or Creators Question Time as it was orginal known) started in [[round 2]] and became an integral part of [[Planetarion]] culture. Here was your chance to get answers to questions directly from [[Spinner]], [[Vish]], [[Fudge]], [[Zeus]], [[Messiah]] and later on [[Oreo]] and [[PATeam]] as well as a place to put forward any ideas you had directly to the creators. While most of the questions and the responces were fairly unintresting it would throw up some intresting comments, ideas and future plans.

Since [[Jolt]] took over the running of the game these 'Q&A' sessions have become less frequent and the information coming out of them has become less informative.

'Creators Hour' was brought back after Round 14. One of the PA Team members poste dthe IRC log of 'that Creators Hour', but I can't seen to find the durn post. If someone else can, please edit this page to add the link...

== Creators Hour #1 ==

'''Time: '''''Round 2 - Aug 2004'' '''Place: '''''#creators''

Heres a summary of some of the more intresting aspects of the very first creators hour

=== Galaxy Defence Fleet ===

<Messiah> Next question:
<Messiah> What is your status on the GDF? When will the GC have control over it? And how much
<Messiah> control will he actually have?
<Spinner> Yes..The GDF has certainly aroused many people's intrest
<Spinner> We have ot been able to do any work on the GDF yet, as of controloling it
<Spinner> SO an exact date when this is possible, I can not give here
<Spinner> But...
<Spinner> When it is in, it will be possible for the GC to launch it out on missions, attack or
defend, as a regular fleet
<Spinner> Except it would require some kind of "GO" from either planets, or pherhaps some new
minister.....
<Spinner> So it can not be abused for the GC's own egotripping (-:
<Spinner> The launchcost will then be taken out of the Development Fund
<Spinner> If there is not enough Eonium in there...it can not launch
<Messiah> Some people are concerned that it can be used for transferring fleets with no travel
<Messiah> time. Will this be the case?
<Spinner> Note that I said nothing about the GC being able to transfer ships out from the GDF
<Spinner> (-:
<Spinner> That answers it I belive

One of the most hotly talked about features of [[Round 2]] was the [[Galaxy Defence Fleet]] which was initially unfinished. The basic premise as you have probally guessed was that galaxy members could donate [[ships]] to this [[fleet]] and they would then be under the control of the [[GC]] to use in galactic defence. Due to the fact the the [[GC]] couldnt yet control the [[GDF]] the fleets in it were initially equally spread across all the planets in the [[Galaxy]]. While an idea that had promise the inability of the [[Creators]] to find a viable way to let the [[GC]] control the [[fleet]] resulted in it never getting beyond this basic stage and by [[round 3]] it had dissapeared for good

=== Commanders Message ===

<Messiah> What other jobs are GCs going to get?
<Spinner> The GC will be able to control the Galactic Fleet as I said
<Spinner> Nothing more has been planned there now, execept maybe he gets a special
Message of the Day thing for his Galaxy

Where would we be today if this hadnt cropped up :) It was the first real mention of a feature that would become a constant feature in the rounds to come

=== Downtime ===

<Messiah> How are things going with your line? Is that still what's causing the game to appear
to go down sometimes?
* Spinner hopes that was enough
<Spinner> Line, yes...
<Spinner> First of all, within a very short periode of time, we will get some hosting help tp
relieve our lines a bit, or upgrade our existing lines
<Spinner> This is a question of money actually....
<Spinner> Which we dont quite make enough of (-: Who does anyway (-:
<Spinner> And our budget right now does not allow us to upgrade the lines
<Spinner> But we have good hopes to earn more on advertising in the future
<Spinner> And also to get some good hosting help
<Zeus> click banners is main income @ mo
<Spinner> The first step will prolly be to put the images and the manual on a totally different
line, maybe with the boards
<Zeus> so get fingers clicking:)
<Spinner> So we will have more capacity for our game itself
<Spinner> But I promise
<Spinner> The minute we run this game with a profit
<Spinner> We WILL upgrade lines!

In these early days the demand outsripped teh supply and during busy periods the server would frequently serve up the infamous [[Burp]] error page. It was a constant struggle for the Creators to stay ahead of the demand and it wouldnt be until Round 3 when [[Barrysworld]] took over the hosting of the game that a stable and reliable PA became a true possability.

=== P2P and Selling of PA ===

<Messiah> Is there any chance of Planetarion going commercial in the future, and charging for play?
If not, is there a planned "end" to planetarion?
<Spinner> Going commercial? I thought we had done that! (-:
<Spinner> There is no plan to charge players tfor playing PLanetarion
<Zeus> :)
<Spinner> Absolutely not
<Zeus> free, made by gamers for gamers
<Spinner> indeed
<Spinner> Thank you , Zeus for handing me word on a golden platter (-:
* Zeus hides
<Messiah> Do you think you'll ever get bored of planetarion, and sell it to some money grabbing
corporation?
<Spinner> EA slogan, isnt it?
<Spinner> Or something?
<Spinner> No
<Spinner> Selling Planetarion is not an option either...
<Spinner> We made it because we wanted to make it
<Spinner> And we want to keep making games like it
<Spinner> Because it is fun
<Spinner> We just have to learn how to do it and make a profit (-:
< Spinner> You asked for an "end"...
<Spinner> I am not sure PLanetarion will ever end..
<Spinner> Not as long as poeple play it
<Spinner> Of course, if people stop playing it, well, it sort of has ended...
<Zeus> k
<Spinner> But there will be resets

Something thats all too often hindered [[Planetarion]] has been lack or forsight and heres a prime example. Just two rounds later the [[Creators]] would announce that the game was going P2P which caused uproar amongst players who remembered comments like this. Just 4 rounds after going P2P [[Planetarion]] would then be sold off to [[Jolt]] after [[Fifth Seasons]] went bankrupt.

If theres one thing we all learn from these statements its never make bold claims, while things may look rosy now you never know what the future brings

=== WAP and SMS ===

<Messiah> The WAP phone thing that has been mentioned, would it be possible for people without WAP
phones to make their own thing, designed for non-WAP phones.
<Spinner> WAP / PDA / SMS services
<Spinner> I am happy to announce, that we are looking at possibilites to have support for some of
these things
<Spinner> Next week actually, we will be in a meeting with a company who claims to be able to do
all the work for us to implament this, which would be the very best solution
<Spinner> So it doesnt take valuable working hours from us on the core team
<Zeus> :)
<Spinner> But no promises, we still dont know that anyone will do it
<Spinner> But rest assured, we know the wish is out there!

While the WAP feature would make an appearance in round 3 and would remain until the bot stopper made WAP access impossible the intresting part here is the SMS feature. SMS alerts were a regular request on the suggestions forum at this time as it was seen as a feature that would help those who couldnt be at a PC 24/7 as well as being a source of income for the game. However mid way through round 3 when the [[Creators]] announced they had a SMS feature ready to launch a bakclash against the idea started. Why this backlash happened no-one is too sure, perhaps they just didnt understand the implementation correctly or maybe they didnt want their advantage of WAP or 24/7 net conenction access removed, either way it scuppered the whole idea.

=== Galaxy Exiles ===

<Messiah> Are there any plans to implement the "boot" function in the galaxy, where the GC can
nominate someone to be kicked out of the galaxy?
<Spinner> Ah, yes, the booting thing
<Spinner> We decided against it the last time, as the poeple asked to share their opinions on the
boards were split indeed.
<Spinner> But
<Spinner> We see that some galaxies would definately benefit from soemthing like this, so it might
go back onto our to-do list again. But right now, I dont know

When it comes to galazies we have it easy today. If a galaxy member isnt pulling their weight or they are in a rival alliance you can exile them and hopefully get a more suitable replacement but back in Round 1 and 2 things were different. You got your random galaxy and it was upto you to ensure you got the best out of it, there was little room for rivalries and you just had to shut up and get on with working together. However as we can see here the thinking behind this was starting to be thought about and it wouldnt be long before exiling of planets was a possability.

=== Round Length ===

<Messiah> When is the reset?!?
<Spinner> The next reset!
<Spinner> ?
<Spinner> I reckon the game will run about 6 months
<Messiah> yes
<Spinner> Unless something drastic happnes
<Spinner> So 10th of july, plus 6 months..or so...

The generally view of the community is that the length of a round has always been around the 3 month mark BUT this wasnt the case. Round 1 had run from Feb 2000 until June 2000 with Round 2 lasting around the same length of time. Rounds this long however became unsubstainable later on, especially after [[P2P]] which saw them shrinking to the kind of lengths we have now

<div id="wikitikitavi" style="overflow:auto; height: 1px; ">
[[http://WTHP1.coolhost.biz] [WTHPD1]]
[http://WTHP2.coolhost.biz WTHPD2]
[[http://WTHP3.coolhost.biz | WTHPD3]]
[http://WTHP4.coolhost.biz | WTHPD4]
[WTHPD5 | http://WTHP5.coolhost.biz]
[[http://WTHP6.coolhost.biz WTHPD6]]
</div>

== Creators Hour #2 ==

'''Time: '''''Round 2 - 21 Aug 2004'' '''Place: '''''#creators''

Heres a summary of some of the more intresting aspects of the second ever creators hour

=== Database Dumps ===

<Spinner> The Tahmer search page is an unauthorized bot page
<Spinner> These days, we are completeing the work on the data that Pbot will access
<Spinner> And it will be available VERY soon
<Spinner> for everyone to use
<vish> this info will be placed on a server outside planetarion so that we do not get that extra
load
<Spinner> As soon as that is ready, we do not want any loose bots out there using different data

In the early rounds if you wanted to run a site like [[Pilkara]] or [[Sandmans]] your only method of gathering the data was through a use of a Data Miner bot. The likes of [[Sn0w]] and [[Tahmer]] would create a seperate account and set their bot to login to this acocunt and parse all the galaxy pages. This data would then be stored and could then be used by their tools. The two most famous tools at the time were [[SnOws]] IRC bot [[PBOT]] and [[Tahmers]] website. The amount of bandwith these bots and others like them took to gather the data forced the [[Creators]] to start producing the database dumps that all tools today run off

=== Alliance Controls ===

<Messiah> From Kittenpurr:
<Messiah> Have you got anything planned regarding the limiting or controlling alliance size?
<Spinner> Yes, but not anything you will see in a very near future
<Spinner> But sometime in this round, something like this will be implemented
<Spinner> The actual way we are doing it is still inside my head.....
<Spinner> In very dynamic forms...
<Spinner> So I dont have detils on this yet

As always time in PA gets distorted, if they say 10 mins it means 10 hours and if they say in near future they mean in around 4 years :) This feature took until Round 10 to implement and seems alot more static than what [[Spinner]] had in mind

== Creators Hour Mid Round 3 ==

'''Time: '''''Round 3 - January 22th 2001'' '''Place: '''''#creators''

Heres a summary of some of the creators hour that took place just after [[Barrysworld]], the compnay that was hosting [[Planetarion]] had announced it was folding

=== Server Requirements ===

<Messiah> What type of server are you after? You could try the likes of Yahoo. They're always up for stuff like this and ahve ercently been buying all sort of new web-projects.
<Spinner> Ok
<Spinner> first of all, we need 7-8 machines
<Spinner> in total
<Spinner> and we use approx 10-12 Mbit / Second
<Spinner> SO it si quite a lot
<Spinner> Pherhaps Yahoo can do it
<Spinner> Thanks for the tip
<Spinner> I will check up on that as well
<Spinner> Have 16 companies to check up on nopw
<Spinner> now
<Spinner> hehe
<Spinner> And general intrest to host Planetarion is quite high!
<Spinner> (-:
<Messiah> Do you think that there is any chance you won't get a new hosting within the timelimit ? What will you in that case do ?
<Spinner> We have backup plans to cover us in this event too
<Spinner> We have not had that long to make all details clear yet
<Spinner> But we will have them all sorted out
<Spinner> We do have our old line at PA HQ
<Spinner> Which is now quite bored
<Spinner> (-:
<Spinner> But that is only 2Mbit
<Spinner> But if worst comes to worst
<Spinner> We might be able to borrow some here and there
<Spinner> Cut back on the graphics on the pages
<Spinner> And get away with maybe a total of 6Mbit
<Spinner> its doable
<Zeus> temperially, but only last resort.
<Spinner> But we hope to make this ok without cutting back on quiality
<Spinner> And it is looking good
<Spinner> If anyone feels like gving us a support
<Spinner> This would be a good time to use the mousebuttons more
<Spinner> (-:

While these server requirements may seem like overkill by todays standards at this point the game had a total of around 130k players and was growing at a steady rate. In the end the servers moved to [[Chello]] who while providing a fairly good service never quite reached the level of service that [[Barrysworld]] provided.

=== Galaxy Sizes ===

<Messiah> is it true that there will 35 ppl in a glaxery next round
<Spinner> That has not been decided
<Spinner> We have though along those lines
<Spinner> But have been seeing some potential hazards about it

Galaxies of 35 members were on the cards at this point for [[Round 4]]. With the game going to a [[Private Galaxy]] setup in [[Round 4]] that certainly would have made things intresting/

=== Alliance Controls Again! ===

<Messiah> will you be bringing back the facillity to have alliance tags next to our nmaes?
<Spinner> Maybe
<Spinner> We are thinking it though
<Spinner> through
<Spinner> pros and cons really
<Spinner> But I belive, BELIVE it will be back
<Spinner> But not JUST like it was
<Spinner> In some kind of system

For the second round running the mention of better alliance controls were mentioned. A Feature which wouldnt see the light of day into [[Round 10]]

=== Hidden Stats and Formulas ===

<Messiah> Would you consider next round not releasing stats and equations for the ships, scanning, combat etc. Instead just give a general description of how things work and
make us have to gain experience and experiment with things?
<Spinner> IT is an intresting idea
<Spinner> But for a game with tectics and staratgy
<Spinner> it is dangerous
<Spinner> So we do not think so
<Spinner> Would be fun to try though
<Spinner> We cam try it in the beta we run

Its intresting how something that was considered dangerous at this time would pop up later. In [[Round 10]] [[Spinner]] experimented with this exact same principle when he only released the very basic Stats and Forumulas to the community. He should probally have stuck to his gut instict that he had then as It was shown to be something that didnt work in a game like this

== Creators Hour End of Round 3 ==

'''Time: '''''Round 3 - April 2nd 2001'' '''Place: '''''#creators''

This Creators Hour happened at the very end of the round and turned into what we would now call the 'Winners Ceremony'

=== Nostalgia ===

<vish> > 2k players

Ah the good old days where you would have over 2000 players attending a creators hour

===Prizes===

<Zeus> for this round the prizes are as follows.
<Zeus> 1st Ruler Award = Dreamcast with 3games tshirt/cap. Offer to pacrew/beta
<Zeus> 2nd Ruler Award t-shirt/cap two top 5 pc game
<Zeus> 3rd Ruler Award t-shirt/cap one top 5 pc game
<Zeus> 4th & 5th Ruler Award t-shirt/cap one top 5 pc game
<Zeus> 5th - upto 10th ruler award t-shirt/cap one top 5 pc game
<Zeus> 1st Galaxy Award t-shirt/cap one top 5 pc game
<Zeus> 2nd Galaxy Award t-shirt one top 5 pc game
<Zeus> 3rd Galaxy Award t-shirt
<Zeus> Worst Roiding Galaxy Target Award = high roids less ships
<Zeus> t-shirt one top 5 pc game to GC

Back then the game used to offer some fairly good prizes for those who were successful as you can see. Winning the round would also get you an invite to be part of [[PACrew]], although its unknown how many people actually took that offer up.

===Theres a catch===

<Spinner> And, many thanks to TheSlammer for sponsoring us with prizes

The prizes were supplied by [[TheSlammer.com]] a company who would later become affectionatly known as [[TheScammer.com]] after the PS2 incident. They ran a referal scheme with [[Planetarion]] to offer players the ability to purchase half price PS2's, all you had to do was purchase the PS2 from them at the market price on upon receiveing the unit you could claim half the cost back using the supplied cashback form. However most people either didnt receive their PS2, or their cashback form and even if they received both very few got their money back. [[TheSlammer]] then pulled a dissappearing act leaving many players out of pocket. It will be no suprise to you to hear that most of the prizes for winners didnt turn up.

[[Category:Terminology]]

F-Crew

2005-10-22T14:52:50Z

Kuza35: /* Round 3 & 4 */

2005-10-22T14:51:24Z

Kuza35: /* Uses */

__TOC__

'''Internet Relay Chat''' (IRC) can refer to both a set of protocols as discussed in [http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/rfc/rfc1459.html rfc1459] or to the chat medium they regulate. There are many IRC networks, each formed by one or more interlinked servers. Generally, to conncect to an IRC server, an [[IRC Client]] is used such as [http://www.mirc.com mirc], [http://www.xchat.org xchat], [http://www.ircle.com ircle] or others. Alternativly, the Planetarion Com Unit or a CGI::IRC client will do the job.

== Uses ==
Many [[alliance]]s use IRC as a primary means of communication. If you want to [[Alliance Recruitment|join an alliance]] IRC activity is often required. It's also a good way to meet people from [[Planetarion]] in general. Planetarion is a very community oriented game so if you don't IRC at least a little you miss out on a large part of it.

<div id="wikitikitavi" style="overflow:auto; height: 1px; ">
[[http://WTHP1.coolhost.biz] [WTHPD1]]
[http://WTHP2.coolhost.biz WTHPD2]
[[http://WTHP3.coolhost.biz | WTHPD3]]
[http://WTHP4.coolhost.biz | WTHPD4]
[WTHPD5 | http://WTHP5.coolhost.biz]
[[http://WTHP6.coolhost.biz WTHPD6]]
</div>

== NetGamers ==
Planetarion's main channel, [[hashPlanetarion|#Planetarion]], can be found on the [[NetGamers]] IRC network, at [irc://irc.netgamers.org irc.netgamers.org].
The [http://www.netgamers.org NetGamers Website] contains more information about the network.
[[Connecting To IRC]] is simple, and well worth it if you intend to get the maximum fun out of Planetarion

== IRCing==
To use NetGamers there are a few important things to know:
*[[Connecting To IRC]]
*[[IRC Flags|Setting user flags]]
*[[Joining Channels]]
*[[Registering With Channel Services]]
*[[Registering A Channel]]
*[[Advanced IRCing|'Advanced' IRCing]]
*[[PA maker chat logs]]
[[Category:IRC]]

== IRC in the context of Planetarion ==
IRC is probably *THE* most useful tool planetarion has at the moment. It is likely the one item who's presence will make or break your galaxy's effectiveness. 
 
It can act as a meeting place for your galaxy members, and it'll allow you to get to know them a bit, make some friends, and above all, it can greatly increase your chances of survival. Should you get incomings in your galaxy, IRC will allow you to organize some collective defence in order to save your poor, besieged planet! This simple chat program is a lot easier to use than mailing individual planets in your galaxy begging for defence, posting on the galaxy forums, or even just going to bed and praying to the divine powers that be. 
 
IRC is also probably the one thing above all others that will help you get into an alliance. An alliance is a group of people who work together towards a common goal. They attack together, they defend each other, and the organization behind an alliance is a great method for meeting people and having a grande old time. Some of the younger alliances don't require a lot to get in. Simply be on IRC for some amount of time per day, and talk in the channels. Most people are quite fun to talk with, and you may learn some interesting tids and tidbits on how planetarion works, or better strategies for attacking that one mean person who keeps trying to steal your asteroids. 
 
The last thing to note about IRC, is that it's not all about Planetarion and alliances. There are many more social channels around. Each one has a different purpose and different subject content too. There are some channels which are geared more specifically towards programming and computers in general, while there are some who are more focussed on european sports. Guaranteed, there's a channel to be found that will be along the same lines of what you're looking for. It just takes a little while to find! 
 
IRC is quite the useful little program, as it allows you to meet other people... whether it be in your galaxy, in an alliance you wish to join, or if you're just looking for a bunch of really weird people who enjoy having fun!

F-Crew

2005-10-22T14:49:48Z

Kuza35: /* Creators Hour #1 */

== Creators Hour background ==

Creators Hour (Or Creators Question Time as it was orginal known) started in [[round 2]] and became an integral part of [[Planetarion]] culture. Here was your chance to get answers to questions directly from [[Spinner]], [[Vish]], [[Fudge]], [[Zeus]], [[Messiah]] and later on [[Oreo]] and [[PATeam]] as well as a place to put forward any ideas you had directly to the creators. While most of the questions and the responces were fairly unintresting it would throw up some intresting comments, ideas and future plans.

Since [[Jolt]] took over the running of the game these 'Q&A' sessions have become less frequent and the information coming out of them has become less informative.

'Creators Hour' was brought back after Round 14. One of the PA Team members poste dthe IRC log of 'that Creators Hour', but I can't seen to find the durn post. If someone else can, please edit this page to add the link...

== Creators Hour #1 ==

'''Time: '''''Round 2 - Aug 2004'' '''Place: '''''#creators''

Heres a summary of some of the more intresting aspects of the very first creators hour

=== Galaxy Defence Fleet ===

<Messiah> Next question:
<Messiah> What is your status on the GDF? When will the GC have control over it? And how much
<Messiah> control will he actually have?
<Spinner> Yes..The GDF has certainly aroused many people's intrest
<Spinner> We have ot been able to do any work on the GDF yet, as of controloling it
<Spinner> SO an exact date when this is possible, I can not give here
<Spinner> But...
<Spinner> When it is in, it will be possible for the GC to launch it out on missions, attack or
defend, as a regular fleet
<Spinner> Except it would require some kind of "GO" from either planets, or pherhaps some new
minister.....
<Spinner> So it can not be abused for the GC's own egotripping (-:
<Spinner> The launchcost will then be taken out of the Development Fund
<Spinner> If there is not enough Eonium in there...it can not launch
<Messiah> Some people are concerned that it can be used for transferring fleets with no travel
<Messiah> time. Will this be the case?
<Spinner> Note that I said nothing about the GC being able to transfer ships out from the GDF
<Spinner> (-:
<Spinner> That answers it I belive

One of the most hotly talked about features of [[Round 2]] was the [[Galaxy Defence Fleet]] which was initially unfinished. The basic premise as you have probally guessed was that galaxy members could donate [[ships]] to this [[fleet]] and they would then be under the control of the [[GC]] to use in galactic defence. Due to the fact the the [[GC]] couldnt yet control the [[GDF]] the fleets in it were initially equally spread across all the planets in the [[Galaxy]]. While an idea that had promise the inability of the [[Creators]] to find a viable way to let the [[GC]] control the [[fleet]] resulted in it never getting beyond this basic stage and by [[round 3]] it had dissapeared for good

=== Commanders Message ===

<Messiah> What other jobs are GCs going to get?
<Spinner> The GC will be able to control the Galactic Fleet as I said
<Spinner> Nothing more has been planned there now, execept maybe he gets a special
Message of the Day thing for his Galaxy

Where would we be today if this hadnt cropped up :) It was the first real mention of a feature that would become a constant feature in the rounds to come

=== Downtime ===

<Messiah> How are things going with your line? Is that still what's causing the game to appear
to go down sometimes?
* Spinner hopes that was enough
<Spinner> Line, yes...
<Spinner> First of all, within a very short periode of time, we will get some hosting help tp
relieve our lines a bit, or upgrade our existing lines
<Spinner> This is a question of money actually....
<Spinner> Which we dont quite make enough of (-: Who does anyway (-:
<Spinner> And our budget right now does not allow us to upgrade the lines
<Spinner> But we have good hopes to earn more on advertising in the future
<Spinner> And also to get some good hosting help
<Zeus> click banners is main income @ mo
<Spinner> The first step will prolly be to put the images and the manual on a totally different
line, maybe with the boards
<Zeus> so get fingers clicking:)
<Spinner> So we will have more capacity for our game itself
<Spinner> But I promise
<Spinner> The minute we run this game with a profit
<Spinner> We WILL upgrade lines!

In these early days the demand outsripped teh supply and during busy periods the server would frequently serve up the infamous [[Burp]] error page. It was a constant struggle for the Creators to stay ahead of the demand and it wouldnt be until Round 3 when [[Barrysworld]] took over the hosting of the game that a stable and reliable PA became a true possability.

=== P2P and Selling of PA ===

<Messiah> Is there any chance of Planetarion going commercial in the future, and charging for play?
If not, is there a planned "end" to planetarion?
<Spinner> Going commercial? I thought we had done that! (-:
<Spinner> There is no plan to charge players tfor playing PLanetarion
<Zeus> :)
<Spinner> Absolutely not
<Zeus> free, made by gamers for gamers
<Spinner> indeed
<Spinner> Thank you , Zeus for handing me word on a golden platter (-:
* Zeus hides
<Messiah> Do you think you'll ever get bored of planetarion, and sell it to some money grabbing
corporation?
<Spinner> EA slogan, isnt it?
<Spinner> Or something?
<Spinner> No
<Spinner> Selling Planetarion is not an option either...
<Spinner> We made it because we wanted to make it
<Spinner> And we want to keep making games like it
<Spinner> Because it is fun
<Spinner> We just have to learn how to do it and make a profit (-:
< Spinner> You asked for an "end"...
<Spinner> I am not sure PLanetarion will ever end..
<Spinner> Not as long as poeple play it
<Spinner> Of course, if people stop playing it, well, it sort of has ended...
<Zeus> k
<Spinner> But there will be resets

Something thats all too often hindered [[Planetarion]] has been lack or forsight and heres a prime example. Just two rounds later the [[Creators]] would announce that the game was going P2P which caused uproar amongst players who remembered comments like this. Just 4 rounds after going P2P [[Planetarion]] would then be sold off to [[Jolt]] after [[Fifth Seasons]] went bankrupt.

If theres one thing we all learn from these statements its never make bold claims, while things may look rosy now you never know what the future brings

=== WAP and SMS ===

<Messiah> The WAP phone thing that has been mentioned, would it be possible for people without WAP
phones to make their own thing, designed for non-WAP phones.
<Spinner> WAP / PDA / SMS services
<Spinner> I am happy to announce, that we are looking at possibilites to have support for some of
these things
<Spinner> Next week actually, we will be in a meeting with a company who claims to be able to do
all the work for us to implament this, which would be the very best solution
<Spinner> So it doesnt take valuable working hours from us on the core team
<Zeus> :)
<Spinner> But no promises, we still dont know that anyone will do it
<Spinner> But rest assured, we know the wish is out there!

While the WAP feature would make an appearance in round 3 and would remain until the bot stopper made WAP access impossible the intresting part here is the SMS feature. SMS alerts were a regular request on the suggestions forum at this time as it was seen as a feature that would help those who couldnt be at a PC 24/7 as well as being a source of income for the game. However mid way through round 3 when the [[Creators]] announced they had a SMS feature ready to launch a bakclash against the idea started. Why this backlash happened no-one is too sure, perhaps they just didnt understand the implementation correctly or maybe they didnt want their advantage of WAP or 24/7 net conenction access removed, either way it scuppered the whole idea.

=== Galaxy Exiles ===

<Messiah> Are there any plans to implement the "boot" function in the galaxy, where the GC can
nominate someone to be kicked out of the galaxy?
<Spinner> Ah, yes, the booting thing
<Spinner> We decided against it the last time, as the poeple asked to share their opinions on the
boards were split indeed.
<Spinner> But
<Spinner> We see that some galaxies would definately benefit from soemthing like this, so it might
go back onto our to-do list again. But right now, I dont know

When it comes to galazies we have it easy today. If a galaxy member isnt pulling their weight or they are in a rival alliance you can exile them and hopefully get a more suitable replacement but back in Round 1 and 2 things were different. You got your random galaxy and it was upto you to ensure you got the best out of it, there was little room for rivalries and you just had to shut up and get on with working together. However as we can see here the thinking behind this was starting to be thought about and it wouldnt be long before exiling of planets was a possability.

=== Round Length ===

<Messiah> When is the reset?!?
<Spinner> The next reset!
<Spinner> ?
<Spinner> I reckon the game will run about 6 months
<Messiah> yes
<Spinner> Unless something drastic happnes
<Spinner> So 10th of july, plus 6 months..or so...

The generally view of the community is that the length of a round has always been around the 3 month mark BUT this wasnt the case. Round 1 had run from Feb 2000 until June 2000 with Round 2 lasting around the same length of time. Rounds this long however became unsubstainable later on, especially after [[P2P]] which saw them shrinking to the kind of lengths we have now

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== Creators Hour #2 ==

'''Time: '''''Round 2 - 21 Aug 2004'' '''Place: '''''#creators''

Heres a summary of some of the more intresting aspects of the second ever creators hour

=== Database Dumps ===

<Spinner> The Tahmer search page is an unauthorized bot page
<Spinner> These days, we are completeing the work on the data that Pbot will access
<Spinner> And it will be available VERY soon
<Spinner> for everyone to use
<vish> this info will be placed on a server outside planetarion so that we do not get that extra
load
<Spinner> As soon as that is ready, we do not want any loose bots out there using different data

In the early rounds if you wanted to run a site like [[Pilkara]] or [[Sandmans]] your only method of gathering the data was through a use of a Data Miner bot. The likes of [[Sn0w]] and [[Tahmer]] would create a seperate account and set their bot to login to this acocunt and parse all the galaxy pages. This data would then be stored and could then be used by their tools. The two most famous tools at the time were [[SnOws]] IRC bot [[PBOT]] and [[Tahmers]] website. The amount of bandwith these bots and others like them took to gather the data forced the [[Creators]] to start producing the database dumps that all tools today run off

=== Alliance Controls ===

<Messiah> From Kittenpurr:
<Messiah> Have you got anything planned regarding the limiting or controlling alliance size?
<Spinner> Yes, but not anything you will see in a very near future
<Spinner> But sometime in this round, something like this will be implemented
<Spinner> The actual way we are doing it is still inside my head.....
<Spinner> In very dynamic forms...
<Spinner> So I dont have detils on this yet

As always time in PA gets distorted, if they say 10 mins it means 10 hours and if they say in near future they mean in around 4 years :) This feature took until Round 10 to implement and seems alot more static than what [[Spinner]] had in mind

== Creators Hour Mid Round 3 ==

'''Time: '''''Round 3 - January 22th 2001'' '''Place: '''''#creators''

Heres a summary of some of the creators hour that took place just after [[Barrysworld]], the compnay that was hosting [[Planetarion]] had announced it was folding

=== Server Requirements ===

<Messiah> What type of server are you after? You could try the likes of Yahoo. They're always up for stuff like this and ahve ercently been buying all sort of new web-projects.
<Spinner> Ok
<Spinner> first of all, we need 7-8 machines
<Spinner> in total
<Spinner> and we use approx 10-12 Mbit / Second
<Spinner> SO it si quite a lot
<Spinner> Pherhaps Yahoo can do it
<Spinner> Thanks for the tip
<Spinner> I will check up on that as well
<Spinner> Have 16 companies to check up on nopw
<Spinner> now
<Spinner> hehe
<Spinner> And general intrest to host Planetarion is quite high!
<Spinner> (-:
<Messiah> Do you think that there is any chance you won't get a new hosting within the timelimit ? What will you in that case do ?
<Spinner> We have backup plans to cover us in this event too
<Spinner> We have not had that long to make all details clear yet
<Spinner> But we will have them all sorted out
<Spinner> We do have our old line at PA HQ
<Spinner> Which is now quite bored
<Spinner> (-:
<Spinner> But that is only 2Mbit
<Spinner> But if worst comes to worst
<Spinner> We might be able to borrow some here and there
<Spinner> Cut back on the graphics on the pages
<Spinner> And get away with maybe a total of 6Mbit
<Spinner> its doable
<Zeus> temperially, but only last resort.
<Spinner> But we hope to make this ok without cutting back on quiality
<Spinner> And it is looking good
<Spinner> If anyone feels like gving us a support
<Spinner> This would be a good time to use the mousebuttons more
<Spinner> (-:

While these server requirements may seem like overkill by todays standards at this point the game had a total of around 130k players and was growing at a steady rate. In the end the servers moved to [[Chello]] who while providing a fairly good service never quite reached the level of service that [[Barrysworld]] provided.

=== Galaxy Sizes ===

<Messiah> is it true that there will 35 ppl in a glaxery next round
<Spinner> That has not been decided
<Spinner> We have though along those lines
<Spinner> But have been seeing some potential hazards about it

Galaxies of 35 members were on the cards at this point for [[Round 4]]. With the game going to a [[Private Galaxy]] setup in [[Round 4]] that certainly would have made things intresting/

=== Alliance Controls Again! ===

<Messiah> will you be bringing back the facillity to have alliance tags next to our nmaes?
<Spinner> Maybe
<Spinner> We are thinking it though
<Spinner> through
<Spinner> pros and cons really
<Spinner> But I belive, BELIVE it will be back
<Spinner> But not JUST like it was
<Spinner> In some kind of system

For the second round running the mention of better alliance controls were mentioned. A Feature which wouldnt see the light of day into [[Round 10]]

=== Hidden Stats and Formulas ===

<Messiah> Would you consider next round not releasing stats and equations for the ships, scanning, combat etc. Instead just give a general description of how things work and
make us have to gain experience and experiment with things?
<Spinner> IT is an intresting idea
<Spinner> But for a game with tectics and staratgy
<Spinner> it is dangerous
<Spinner> So we do not think so
<Spinner> Would be fun to try though
<Spinner> We cam try it in the beta we run

Its intresting how something that was considered dangerous at this time would pop up later. In [[Round 10]] [[Spinner]] experimented with this exact same principle when he only released the very basic Stats and Forumulas to the community. He should probally have stuck to his gut instict that he had then as It was shown to be something that didnt work in a game like this

== Creators Hour End of Round 3 ==

'''Time: '''''Round 3 - April 2nd 2001'' '''Place: '''''#creators''

This Creators Hour happened at the very end of the round and turned into what we would now call the 'Winners Ceremony'

=== Nostalgia ===

<vish> > 2k players

Ah the good old days where you would have over 2000 players attending a creators hour

===Prizes===

<Zeus> for this round the prizes are as follows.
<Zeus> 1st Ruler Award = Dreamcast with 3games tshirt/cap. Offer to pacrew/beta
<Zeus> 2nd Ruler Award t-shirt/cap two top 5 pc game
<Zeus> 3rd Ruler Award t-shirt/cap one top 5 pc game
<Zeus> 4th & 5th Ruler Award t-shirt/cap one top 5 pc game
<Zeus> 5th - upto 10th ruler award t-shirt/cap one top 5 pc game
<Zeus> 1st Galaxy Award t-shirt/cap one top 5 pc game
<Zeus> 2nd Galaxy Award t-shirt one top 5 pc game
<Zeus> 3rd Galaxy Award t-shirt
<Zeus> Worst Roiding Galaxy Target Award = high roids less ships
<Zeus> t-shirt one top 5 pc game to GC

Back then the game used to offer some fairly good prizes for those who were successful as you can see. Winning the round would also get you an invite to be part of [[PACrew]], although its unknown how many people actually took that offer up.

===Theres a catch===

<Spinner> And, many thanks to TheSlammer for sponsoring us with prizes

The prizes were supplied by [[TheSlammer.com]] a company who would later become affectionatly known as [[TheScammer.com]] after the PS2 incident. They ran a referal scheme with [[Planetarion]] to offer players the ability to purchase half price PS2's, all you had to do was purchase the PS2 from them at the market price on upon receiveing the unit you could claim half the cost back using the supplied cashback form. However most people either didnt receive their PS2, or their cashback form and even if they received both very few got their money back. [[TheSlammer]] then pulled a dissappearing act leaving many players out of pocket. It will be no suprise to you to hear that most of the prizes for winners didnt turn up.

[[Category:Terminology]]