Fungi Forums

Video Games => Video Game Chat => Topic started by: Lizard Dude on April 13, 2010, 06:56:11 PM

Title: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 13, 2010, 06:56:11 PM
I'm going to host a game of Neptune's Pride (http://np.ironhelmet.com/) and I invite you to join the game (12 players max). If you want in on this strategy battle royale, post your interest in this thread within the next couple of days. Then I'll host and send out the passwords. It's free for you to join my game. Make sure to sign-up on the site and create an alias ahead of time.


The object of a game of Neptune's Pride is to capture half of all Stars in the Galaxy.

The game is real-time but played over several weeks. You can log in at any time of the day to check the progress of your fleets, view the results of battles, and issue new orders.

Each Star you control will automatically build new ships, raise money for upgrades, and research new technologies.

Your job is to negotiate with the other players, dispatch your fleets to capture new stars, and choose where and how to upgrade your existing stars and technology.

Neptune's Pride is not like any other 4x strategy game because its streamlined mechanics allow players to focus on high level strategic decisions and diplomacy.




1st: Black Mage
2nd: bobman37
3rd: Lizard Dude
4th: WarpRattler
4th: Glorb
6th: Turtlekid1
7th: The Chef
8th: PaperLuigi
9th: Captain Jim
10th: Luigalaxy
11th: Toad
12th: Bird Person
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: bobman37 on April 13, 2010, 09:14:09 PM
Alias: bobman37
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Black Mage on April 13, 2010, 10:39:25 PM
Although I've never played before, you can count me in.

Alias: Black Mage
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 13, 2010, 10:40:32 PM
I haven't played before either! (But I have read some AAR.)
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 14, 2010, 02:40:12 AM
I want at least six people. Where are Warp and Glorb?
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on April 14, 2010, 08:21:10 AM
I actually did set up everything immediately after seeing this thread, but I wasn't sure if I was even going to play. But now that I've been called out, I suppose I have no choice.

Alias: Illyasviel von Einzbern

(Mushroom Boy made me do it.)
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Glorb on April 14, 2010, 01:36:48 PM
I'm game.

My callsign is Octopus Rex.

Maybe I'll learn how to play at some point.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 15, 2010, 05:10:49 AM
Need just a few more until I'll feel good starting. Turtlekid? Brian?
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Turtlekid1 on April 15, 2010, 05:24:56 AM
Ehhhh, what the heck.  I'll take a whack at it.

Alias "Turtlekid."

I'll probably suck at it, though...
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 15, 2010, 03:09:58 PM
I want to create the game soon. The more people the more fun. Is there anyone from #tmk who wants to play who wouldn't have seen this? WeeGee?
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Black Mage on April 15, 2010, 03:18:40 PM
Personally, I'd like to see the game fill up. I'm a little disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm of our member-base.

To those who've yet to join: I'm sure over the years you've been verbally assaulted by at least one of us. Now's your chance to strike back!
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Chupperson Weird on April 15, 2010, 03:40:26 PM
I keep debating this, but my noncommittal attitude toward online things is preventing me so far.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 15, 2010, 03:54:41 PM
Oh hey, what about Captain Jim and/or Bird Person? I know the competitive spirit burns within Jim. Chef or Trainman?

TEM and EM are hesitant but I'll keep working.

I'm more on the Black Mage side too. A 12 player ultro-rumble for the galaxy would be a spiffing good romp.

Remember fence-sitters:

SIMPLE, YET STRATEGIC
MAKE FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
YOU'D ONLY HAVE TO CHECK UP ON IT A COUPLE TIMES A DAY (or less if you want)
FREE
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Toad on April 15, 2010, 04:04:39 PM
I'd like to play. It sounds like fun.

Alias "Toad" (no quoations)
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: The Chef on April 15, 2010, 04:32:32 PM
Count me in. My alias is "Cheffers".
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Weegee on April 15, 2010, 04:50:26 PM
I'll pass. Thanks for the offer, though.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: PaperLuigi on April 16, 2010, 07:10:55 AM
Let's do this.

Alias: PaperLuigi
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Luigalaxy on April 16, 2010, 02:01:37 PM
I'm down for this.

Alias: Luigalaxy
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Captain Jim on April 16, 2010, 02:23:39 PM
Oh hey, what about Captain Jim and/or Bird Person? I know the competitive spirit burns within Jim.

You bet, kid!

Alias: Agent J
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 16, 2010, 05:39:08 PM
ONE MORE PLZ
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: BP on April 16, 2010, 05:46:28 PM
Nope
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on April 16, 2010, 05:48:01 PM
I've been trying to get people in #tmk to play, which is how Jim and The Chef are in - but no one else wants to play, as you can see.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Chupperson Weird on April 16, 2010, 07:14:26 PM
Maybe I'll say yes after this weekend.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 16, 2010, 08:15:56 PM
A tear runs down my cheek every time I refresh Video Game Chat and see a red mushroom next to this thread (about once every twenty seconds).
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Toad on April 16, 2010, 09:39:04 PM
I'll see if my wife might want in. Seeing as she's asleep right now, I'll have to ask her later.. Nevermind.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: BP on April 16, 2010, 10:40:23 PM
Just kidding

They call me BP.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 17, 2010, 12:01:25 AM
Awesome!


New game created

Game 4201566: Fungi Forum Megabattle

The game will start as soon as it is full



The game I created uses all standard settings except I bumped the stars/player down one notch from default since we have so many players and set the amount of stars you start with to 1 instead of default 4 because expanding outward to conquer the galaxy from the origin of a single planet is so much more romantic.

If you haven't seen it, make sure to check out the manual (http://np.ironhelmet.com/tutorial), which for some reason they call a tutorial.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 17, 2010, 12:51:01 AM
I think this link (http://np.ironhelmet.com/detail?game=4201566) will take you straight to my game.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: PaperLuigi on April 17, 2010, 01:00:39 AM
Joined. Can't wait to start. :)
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on April 17, 2010, 01:01:32 AM
No alliances?
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: BP on April 17, 2010, 01:07:38 AM
Oh I just hate things that have requirements of letters and ffffff

Some BP
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 17, 2010, 01:20:05 AM
No alliances?
There is an option to allow in-game mechanics for true alliances with shared vision so you could do a 2v2 or whatnot, but in our game only one player may reign supreme. That's not to say we can't use diplomacy, though. I believe our game still has technology trading, messaging, cease-fire options, etc.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Glorb on April 17, 2010, 09:05:04 AM
I plan on building up an economy based on pancake syrup and just totally shooting you guys with space lasers.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Glorb on April 17, 2010, 09:07:17 AM
Also, what do I do with the game number and password? I can't find any way to to enter those things in anywhere.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Toad on April 17, 2010, 09:44:47 AM
Love that description LD. XD  XD  XD
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: PaperLuigi on April 17, 2010, 07:46:37 PM
We're waiting on you Chef.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: The Chef on April 17, 2010, 09:35:59 PM
I honestly forgot. Aminator school makes you forget things.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 18, 2010, 12:48:49 AM
Yesss, no more waiting.

Now you can just kill the slowpokes.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Glorb on April 18, 2010, 08:00:52 AM
I'm in. Y'all best be prepared for the wrath of Octopus Rex the Dick-Back Pelicanman.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on April 18, 2010, 11:00:17 AM
I like how I can look at my opponents' builds in real time and, for the time being, use that information to see who's actually started playing and who hasn't. And also see that I'm the only person who's put any money into science, which means I'm going to be pumping out techs faster than everyone else (for at least a short time, anyway).
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 18, 2010, 06:56:49 PM
Yeah, it's weird what you can and cannot see about other people in this game.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Glorb on April 19, 2010, 04:40:24 AM
Haha, science is for women. MOAR SHIPS FOR OCTOPUS REX'S SYRUP EMPIRE
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: PaperLuigi on April 19, 2010, 07:10:17 AM
I'm having fun. This is awesome Lizard Dude.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on April 19, 2010, 08:15:31 AM
science is for women
What luck - Illyasviel von Einzbern fits into that category.

(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwarp.falsificare.com%2Fha%2Flastbattle.PNG&hash=7c8c82856fc1a75f49baba949ed99c44)

(She's the shorter one.)
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Toad on April 19, 2010, 08:30:00 AM
(the one in purple..? :p

This is a fun game. It makes me think of a PC game called Master of Orion II: Battle for Antares (I think I spelled it wrong..) where you are doing more or less the same thing as in this game: researching, building, fighting, trying to take over the galaxy.. It was a fun game too.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Glorb on April 19, 2010, 02:47:09 PM
It makes me think of a game called AstroEmpires except it takes ten days to do anything.

And it's AWESOME
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Black Mage on April 19, 2010, 04:09:04 PM
I have to admit I've having a blast with this so far.

Very good idea, LD.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 20, 2010, 03:11:52 PM
Chef, I'm disappointed that you signed up for a game you weren't going to play.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Black Mage on April 20, 2010, 05:05:34 PM
Keep this up buddy, and it's AI time.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: bobman37 on April 21, 2010, 12:43:47 AM
Yeah, looks like Chef got AI'd. Not that it matters, I was gonna storm his base soon anyway.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 21, 2010, 01:11:41 AM
You regain control if you log back in, not that Chef will.

Here's a big SCREW YOU to Chef and Bird Person, who bothered to sign up and then proceed to do... absolutely nothing. Fun!
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: PaperLuigi on April 21, 2010, 04:05:17 AM
I was gonna storm his base soon anyway.

He has one star, it wouldn't be much of a challenge.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Glorb on April 21, 2010, 05:35:31 PM
I hate looking at the leaderboard so much. Stop capturing stars, you dickweeds!
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: PaperLuigi on April 21, 2010, 07:21:41 PM
Start capturing stars.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Weegee on April 21, 2010, 07:30:08 PM
Going by Glorb's statement, this game is discriminatory against those who suck.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on April 21, 2010, 09:41:14 PM
It also requires logging in more than just once or twice a day if you want to actually do well. I imagine this gets worse in the late game, when fleets only take a couple of hours to move from star to star.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: bobman37 on April 22, 2010, 12:25:03 PM
I tried to scroll this page down by clicking and dragging.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 24, 2010, 12:41:38 PM
I tried to scroll this page down by clicking and dragging.
This is happening to me more and more every day. My brain's going to be destroyed in a few more weeks.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: PaperLuigi on April 24, 2010, 01:29:10 PM
Oh god. I tried to scroll the page on YouTube down by clicking and dragging just now. >_<
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Glorb on April 25, 2010, 03:43:29 PM
This just in: Bird Person (a.k.a. Space Turtle Person) got KNOCKED DA **** OUT, SON.

Film at eleven.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Turtlekid1 on April 27, 2010, 07:53:35 AM
I'm probably gonna be screwed by LD pretty soon.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on April 27, 2010, 09:38:04 AM
Hot lizard on turtle action?

<img src="http://warp.falsificare.com/Internet/yo[dukar]urtle.png />

Sounds like TMK to me.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: PaperLuigi on April 27, 2010, 11:44:19 AM
-_-
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Weegee on April 27, 2010, 01:47:03 PM
So, who's Mario in that case?
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on April 27, 2010, 03:20:24 PM
As anyone who's been paying attention to the game would know, bobman37.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on April 27, 2010, 03:41:53 PM
Agreed. While I'm single-handedly fighting off six rival empires, bobman is going to come down with his half of the galaxy that Chef let him take for free and punch my head so hard my tongue sticks out.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Toad on April 27, 2010, 03:51:19 PM
Yes. and he seems intent on taking me out first.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: CrossEyed7 on April 27, 2010, 05:53:20 PM
<img src="http://warp.falsificare.com/Internet/yo[dukar]urtle.png />
lol, censor
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Glorb on April 29, 2010, 04:36:14 AM
I have to have my friend out with some stuff she's going through right now which means I can't play the game properly by logging in every fifteen minutes to stop bobman from raping everyone's ass so I guess that means I'm out. Peace.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on April 29, 2010, 09:23:04 AM
Though Glorb's description is an exaggeration, the "you only have to log in once or twice a day" thing really is pretty wrong. You have to log in at least three or four times a day (and more when the game's in full swing), and if you miss a single day, the results can be catastrophic. I don't see Neptune's Pride catching on as well as shorter 4X games like Civilization or Sins of a Solar Empire for this reason.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Turtlekid1 on April 30, 2010, 08:50:59 AM
I tried to scroll this page down by clicking and dragging.
Just happened to me.  Good Lord, I will be happy when this is over.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Toad on April 30, 2010, 12:40:42 PM
Well, I'm out. Bobman and Black Mage took over my last two stars.

It was fun while it lasted. XD

I wouldn't mind doing something like this again sometime, but maybe with a more familiar game (I think it'd be fun to play against TMKers in Mario Kart Wii, but I know not everyone likes that game..)
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Turtlekid1 on May 01, 2010, 06:33:52 PM
I'm sorely tempted to storm WarpRattler's last star with my big huge fleet, since I'm going to die pretty soon here anyway.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: PaperLuigi on May 01, 2010, 07:01:36 PM
Why haven't you?
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Turtlekid1 on May 03, 2010, 09:31:11 AM
For shame, Black Mage.  I give you a Weapons Tech and this is how you repay me?
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: PaperLuigi on May 03, 2010, 02:46:44 PM
It's going to come down to Lizard, Mage and bobman. It'll be like Goku, Superman and Galactus all trying to beat the crap out of each other.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Turtlekid1 on May 03, 2010, 02:49:02 PM
I assume you're referring to the weakling Golden Age/Post Crisis Superman.  But all nitpicking aside, I'll be very interested to see which one of the three wins this thing.

EDIT: I wonder if the use of the word "fiends" in this sentence is intentional: "Why not get on the forum and challenge some fiends to a 2 vs 2 battle?"  Because if they originally meant to say "friends," I'll be very disappointed.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: bobman37 on May 07, 2010, 11:46:29 PM
GAME OVER
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on May 08, 2010, 12:08:40 AM
I like how Lizard Dude went inactive near the end there.

Congratulations, Black Mage.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: PaperLuigi on May 08, 2010, 11:06:29 PM
Good job, Black Mage.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on May 08, 2010, 11:51:38 PM
Oh man, sorry for the ultro-lame ending. The real-time aspect had started to get on my nerves and I slipped into procrastination mode. "I'll check later" "I'll check after I sleep" Before I knew it, it was over!

It looks like Black Mage just swept through my inactiveness, barely touching bobman territory? Laaaame ending (my fault). FWIW, I had sent both of you a message saying it was time to kill the other at the exact same time. But that's also right about when I started procrastinating. My other master plan was to convince Chef to use his massive dormant fleet to rip through bobman's guts.

So I can complete the OP leaderboard, who died first, Chef or Turtlekid?

I liked seeing how people named their fleets. From people I could see, Black Mage had FF airship names, bobman never changed from the defaults, Warp had character classes and names from something and in the very end a poem thing, Turtlekid for some reason had self-denigrating names (idiots, losers, jerks), Captain Jim had Capcom characters, PaperLuigi had the TF2 classes (obsessed).

Well, I fell down at the finish line but at least I killed people in all directions at the start. bobman got a third of the galaxy literally for free because he was next to the non-player Chef and the n00b Glorb. Black Mage only had to focus on 2 people at a time. I suspect he still would have won in the end due to massive economy (and thus everything else) from this. I was too weak from trying to kill 6 neighbors at once from the start and bobman would probably have trusted me too far into the endgame and/or been ripped up by a rampaging Chef.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Lizard Dude on May 08, 2010, 11:56:36 PM
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flizarddude.kontek.net%2FNP_DeathLemon.png&hash=972caa24dbdd83903976550d82edb65a)
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: bobman37 on May 09, 2010, 05:23:02 AM
What happened was, Black Mage saw through your bull[dukar] instantly, so we teamed up to destroy you. I kept sending you messages to make you think I was on your side still. He made a lot more progress than I did because he was a lot farther ahead in tech, industry and economy. I probably could have contributed to your destruction more, but I chose instead to deal the final blows to Jim and Chef and Glorb and stuff.

I thought you got so cocksure after your attempted deceit that you just stopped playing and were going to check back in after me and Black Mage killed each other.

Chef died first.

Yeah I got a ton of free stars, but that doesn't mean I got a head start. I had to spend all of my money upgrading all those stars, while you guys just took over other, previously-upgraded stars to get free money and industry. If the last part of the game had come down to a three-way free-for-all, I had already lost after week 1. It was fun beating you, regardless of your inactivity. The plan was to take you out asap, making Glorb third place, but BM hit 90 without me realizing it.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on May 09, 2010, 11:00:31 AM
Awesome that you got a screencap of that, LD. The thirty-two-character limit made it a bit of a pain to set that up.

making Glorb third place
So where does the part where I was still alive with a better-defended (and actively-upgraded, since I didn't allow myself to be taken over by an AI) star than Glorb come in?

Black Mage and I were in negotiations for me to help him take down some of Lizard Dude's stars using my Reality Marble (note: all of my fleet names and my alias were Fate/stay night-related) at the end, but he ended up taking care of it himself. With BM's help, I probably would've ended up stretching the game out a few more days, but as he ended up doing everything himself, I didn't do anything. With my stagnated science, the losses I would've suffered from attacking nearby stars would have been too great to make it worth it and would've left my star too weak to fend off any potential attackers, so I went for a safe fourth-place finish.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: bobman37 on May 09, 2010, 11:11:42 AM
We were going to kill you after LD.

What actually happened was, you whined and refused to participate at all until I killed Glorb, giving you fourth place for sure.

Besides, that sounds like a pretty detailed analysis for someone who quit playing the game a long time ago.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on May 09, 2010, 01:45:26 PM
The actual conversation, which doesn't exactly sound like whining to me:

<BlackMage> Right now, you've got a sizeable number of ships, 204 I think.
<WarpRattler> This is true.
<BlackMage> I'm attacking LD right now, and I thought since you don't have anything to lose, you might want to join the fray.
<BlackMage> One last hurrah, if you will.
<WarpRattler> I do have something to lose, though. I don't want to come in anything less than fourth place.
<WarpRattler> And Glorb still has one star.
<BlackMage> And if we can get rid of Glorb?
<WarpRattler> If Glorb is taken out of the picture, then I won't have anything to lose.
<BlackMage> I'll see what I can do.
<WarpRattler> I'll need techs, though. Right now I have no science facilities, so I'm not gaining any research points. Technological advancement has been stagnant for some time now.
<BlackMage> All you'll need is weapon, at which point I will be happy to provide.
<BlackMage> What would be best is if you put all of your ships in one fleet and dive into some of LD's higher Industry Stars.
<WarpRattler> Not just weapon, but range as well.
<BlackMage> We can play it by ear, I can get that if necessary as well. It'll depend on what Stars are left.
<WarpRattler> Right now I see your fleet flying at Keid. Zaniah, my former home star, should be the most powerful of his stars in that region, and probably also the best-defended star.
<WarpRattler> If you conquer Keid and then vacate it to take over other stars, I can ping my fleet off of it without taking damage and fly straight into Zaniah.
<BlackMage> I've already got something enroute to Zaniah.
<BlackMage> But if we can get LD's home star, we'd be fine.
<WarpRattler> Alright. Again, I'd either need a huge range boost or a clean line of stars to bounce my fleet off of.
<BlackMage> Definitely. I'm not even exactly sure which is his home star. I'll have a clearer picture later tonight.

For what it's worth, I did stop playing, in that I stopped trying to expand and just logged in to upgrade my one star when I had a chance. When real life subsided and I finally started having time to do stuff, Black Mage had eighty-nine stars, and one of his fleets was due to arrive at one of LD's stars in eighty minutes.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Black Mage on May 09, 2010, 04:12:03 PM
First of all, Good game everyone. Thanks for playing; it was a lot of fun.

I noticed a lot of questions were being asked during the game, some of which I didn’t want to answer while playing for obvious reasons, so I thought I’d do a little post mortem detailing the events from my perspective and what my thought process was.

At the start, I had never heard of this game. So, I figured it would be best to know what I was getting into and read the website’s tutorial. It was helpful, but I stumbled upon  this link  (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/03/10/pride-and-falls-neptunes-pride-diary-part-1/). The biggest things I took from that link were:

1)   Expand as fast as you can. Not for the purpose of winning (i.e. gaining 90 stars) but in order to have more ‘fresh’ stars to upgrade, seeing as its cheaper.
2)   Diplomacy is a must. Forming “alliances” and non-aggression pacts could be helpful, both to prevent attacks against you, but also lull other players into a false sense of security.
3)   Technology trading is important. Utilizing an alliance to research technology and trading it with one another will yield you higher levels much faster.
4)   The core two technologies to research are Weapons and Speed.
5)   Perhaps one of the most important: Always leave one ship on your star. Always. When you’re defending, you go first. This way you inflict maximum damage to your opponent’s fleets with minimum losses to your own. If someone comes at you with a fleet of 30 and you have 20, it’s to your benefit to give up your star, leaving one ship behind. Repeating this until you can win.


There was a lot of other good information in there (though some outdated) and really put me in the mood to play.

Chef, the last “player” to join the game did so at 11:30pm. I got the email, but was too tired to log in and went to bed instead. When I woke up the next morning, I was a little behind some players (Lizard Dude and bobman are the only ones I specifically remember but I’m sure there were more).  First thing I did was look at my area on the map and see who was around me and where I needed to go.

I did get lucky and got a corner of the map, but that doesn’t come without its own problems. In my immediate area there were a fair number of stars to grab, but in order to expand outside my starting area at all I had two choices:
1)   Research Range and jump westward directly into Toad’s territory.
2)   Push south into BirdPerson’s area.

Both had their risks. It would take me longer to get to Toad, and he had less stars in his area. And for BirdPerson, I would be weak after fighting him, and would now be open to the potential threat of Bobman, Paperluigi and Jim.

I decided I’d push through BP after taking the stars in my area, so the next step for me was to message people I was interested in.
The first message I sent was to Lizard Dude. I offered an alliance with him because he was on the complete opposite side of the map and posed no immediate threat to me. That made him perfect for trading technology within a mutually beneficial alliance.

Second, I sent Toad, my neighbor (though separated by a large empty ‘space wall’) proposing a non-aggression pact while our expansion did not conflict with one another. I added the bold part in the message to feel better about when I’d eventually need to take him over.

Lastly, I sent Bobman a message offering an alliance as we had mutual threats of Toad and BirdPerson.

Toad was the first to respond and agreed. Followed by Lizard Dude who also agreed and brought up Technology trading before I had even mentioned it.

At this point I should mention that my first thoughts were: Economy is immediately the most important to me, followed by Industry, and lastly Science. With more Economy, each payday I could buy more. However, I didn’t want to fall behind in Industry, and needed more ships, so I would pump that as well at a slower rate. This became my strategy the entire game until I had around 90 in Economy.
In regards to Technology research, I went with Speed first because I was racing to get more stars as fast as possible, and war with BP was still awhile away.

Because of all this, I was pleased when LD offered to do Weapon Tech and I agreed to work on Speed.

Bobman didn’t respond to me for about four days, and I took his silence as a bad sign. So during that period, I was giving Toad some advice on which stars to grab first to help prevent Bobman from expanding in his direction (as eventually I wanted to get as much of it without warring with Bobman immediately).
Bobman eventually agreed to work in an alliance, and at this point the game had progressed quite a bit. I accepted, and a day or so later he told me he had an alliance with LD as well and that we should all work together. This benefited me greatly, so I agreed completely and Bobman started focusing on Scanning with the occasional Range tech thrown in.

However, I was extremely wary of this alliance as I know Bobman and Lizard Dude are pretty good friends. If it came down to us three, I completely expected to be the one eliminated first. As such, I had to keep my prospects open.

About this time, I had done well enough with Industry and was running out of stars to take. I still couldn’t reach my northern stars (which were also close to Toad) so I was very interested in getting there quickly, but it was time to push into Bird Person’s territory. Unfortunately for me, BirdPerson had logged in at this point and was now actively playing. Little did he know that my ships were already on their way.

My fight with BP went pretty well. I wasn’t interested in taking all of his stars right away; I was going to aim for his high-yield stars that had industry and economy invested in them. Both to bolster my forces and cripple him.

I ended up taking a lot of his stars in the process, since they were left open and were required footholds to get to his home-star. He had more ships than I would have liked though, and sent them back at the stars I claimed. I had made sure to leave one ship on each, and moved my fleet away as necessary weakening his fleet.

Somewhere in the middle of the fight, I sent Luigalaxy a message. I proposed a non-aggression pact with him, since we were nowhere near each other. I chose Luigalaxy because he had the most Science of all the players. I thought I could start up another Tech trading alliance outside of my LD/Bobman alliance. Luigalaxy agreed, and I suggested he do Range (because I really wanted it). He did so, and when it was completed I sent him a Weapon Tech level, as LD was starting to attack him. However, he never sent me the Range tech, despite saying he would twice. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Paperluigi had sent a fleet of 10 up into BirdPerson’s stars while I was attacking and took two of them (which I avoided). I noticed this and sent Paperluigi a message saying something along the lines of “Hey, we’re going for the same area, and since I’m fighting BP I don’t really want to fight you. I see you’ve got competition with Warp and Jim down south and maybe fighting a third person (me) would be bad for you.”

I didn’t want to make an alliance with Paperluigi at this point because he was my clear next target. He was busy with Jim and Warp and his area was both larger than Jim’s and it would give me an expansion further away from Bobman if we ever came to duking it out, in addition to giving me a way to expand even further.

Fortunately Paperluigi agreed and moved his fleet back into his territory. (And also told me he was allied with Turtlekid) BP seized this opportunity, and took over the captured stars (all but one I think) but had done almost no damage to my fleet whatsoever. I think he made a comment about gaining momentum, but at that point I was diving straight into his home-star’s heart, with strong reinforcements on their way.

Lizard Dude had been providing me with Weapon Tech, as promised, and I was up to Level 3. Some of the other players had invested in Science though, and were ahead of us both. Turtlekid has a weapon skill of 4 here, higher than everyone else. I sent him a message, requesting he trade it to me (Noting I had nothing to provide him now, but if he wanted something in the future I could pay him back). Turtlekid eventually complied and gave the skill to me, popping me up to Level 4. I also went and gave this to Bobman and Lizard Dude on the next payday, hoping to limit the amount of wasted research LD would be doing on Level 4.

BP had a large number of ships on his home-star, but was going to lose to my fleet. Fortunately for me, and to my surprise, he moved them all away, giving up his star. I was very happy at this point, as not only did I not have to lose any of my fleet in a fight, but he had sent his ships westward at stars owned by both Bobman and Jim. That couldn’t have turned out better for me.

Paperluigi noticed BP had taken the two stars he had captured and asked if I needed any help. I told him I was fine (since I had only been letting BP take stars to weaken his fleet), but Paperluigi sent his fleet anyway and took those two stars back. I wasn’t happy about it, but finishing BP off was my main goal and was going to deal with it later.

BP’s stars were all mine (except for the two Paperluigi had taken) and his stats were thus crippled and effectively eliminated him from the game. Previously, Bobman had been expanding eastward towards BP, which made me nervous, but Jim had shot upward and seemingly cut Bobman off. I took this to mean BP and Jim were in an alliance, seeing as they are good friends, but I later found out that this was not the case. I guess BP attacked Jim earlier? Maybe they’ll talk about it.

At this point, I sent Paperluigi another message asking if his seizure of those two stars was a declaration of war. I again tried to convince him that fighting with me would be bad for us both. He returned me a pretty strong response, about how he wanted the stars back and wasn’t worried about attacks, but before I could respond he sent me another message saying he changed his mind and doesn’t want the stars anymore. He warned me that his strongest fleets were standing at the border though.

I decided to try to defuse the situation a bit. I did take the stars back, but offered a non-aggression pact. I threw in something like “as long as our goals are the same” or something so when I inevitably had to attack him I wouldn’t feel as bad about it.

He agreed, and eventually moved his fleet out. I turned the discussion to fighting Jim (and I was genuine about doing so at this point) so we discussed it on and off for a bit.

Meanwhile, Bobman and Lizard Dude were both getting pretty strong. Bobman had begun expanding into Chef’s territory. I was in need of some fresh stars, so I began moving my stronger fleets up to the open stars on Toad’s and my north. At this point I had gotten the Range tech needed from Bobman and was getting ready to take out Toad.

Meanwhile I was getting messages from Luigalaxy about LD attacking him and he was requesting tech from me. He promised to send me the range tech (Despite the fact that at this point all of my techs were higher than his) and asked if I would give him some help/tech. Having had been burned by him earlier and the fact that Lizard Dude was far ahead of him at this point, I decided to just ignore the pleas. (Sorry bud! It’s the way the game goes.)

I think at this point Toad began attacking Bobman and Bobman requested help (not knowing my fleets were already on their way) but quickly turned back on that and decided he had it covered. It was too late for me to turn back, and I wanted as much of the Toad pie as I could get, and took over Toad’s home-star and some surrounding stars. Bobman managed to claim a northern star and some of the ones on his border before I got to them. Ultimately this was a successful move, as I did not lose many ships and got the majority of the stars. I wasn’t sure how Bobman was going to take it, but he didn’t really bring it up.

Having expanded as much as possible without getting into a conflict with Bobman, I had to make a decision of where I was going to throw my lot.

Paperluigi and Turtlekid or Bobman and Lizard Dude. Luigalaxy at this point was all but defeated, Chef an AI single-star master, Glorb was poking around the same six stars he had the entire game, Warp had been roughed up by LD and was on a single star and Jim was cornered to one star by Bobman, myself, LD, and Paperluigi.

I ultimately went with Bobman and Lizard Dude. The three of us were far stronger than the other remaining players in regards to Economy/Industry/Science and Technology and I wasn't convinced I would be able to take them out with the other alliance.

I didn’t really want Jim’s home-star, as it would’ve been a pain to get and then even more difficult to keep come end-game, so I stalled for a bit. Paperluigi eventually sent his fleets in and I saw my chance. I didn’t really want to double-cross him, but LD was cleaning up everyone in the south and Bobman was taking Chef’s stars so it was my only chance to keep up.

So I did. I sent some pretty strong fleets into Paperluigi’s territory and quickly took most of his stars while his main fleets were out. Paperluigi kept the two stars his two big fleets were on and didn’t make much of a move to get his stars back, so I decided I would keep going south.

I sent my fleets into Turtlekid’s territory, but right about at this time LD was getting his fleets over there too. So, in order to try to get as much as I could, I captured TurtleKid’s stars that bordered with LD, to try and cut LD off. It worked pretty well, or LD wasn’t that interested, and I managed to snag a fairly large portion of Turtlekid’s stars.

At this point, Turtlekid revealed he sent me tech early on, which I would’ve rathered he not, but no one made any issue about it (perhaps because I sent it to them?).

We were at a bit of an impasse here. As I recall, everyone’s situation was like this:

BirdPerson: Out
Toad: Out
Luigalaxy: Out
Captain Jim: Out
Turtlekid: I took his stars, but he took one from LD and had his final fleet en route to Warp.
PaperLuigi: Two stars near Jim’s old home-star.
Glorb: Holding on to one star after his rage quitting.
WarpRattler: Still holed up on his one star with 180-200 ships and his Unlimited Blade Works.
Lizard Dude: Had more stars than me, and roughly similar Science and Industry. I was leading in Economy by a sizable chunk, and tried to keep ahead in Industry. For the most part I did, but he got it up there in a hurry.
Bobman: Had more stars than I did as well, but his stats were lower than mine. Still, he had the best position to attack me from.

At this point, I got a message from Lizard Dude about attacking Bobman. I was very skeptical about it, and there was something about the wording of the message. Here it was:

Sent: May 3rd 02:51
Subject: It’s About That Time
Message: The Alliance with bobman proved very useful, but he has grown too powerful and there is little non-Ally blood left to spill. Let us strike him before he strikes us.

First, the message seemed like something he could send to either of us by just replacing the name. But what I found odd was the choice of wording “he has grown too powerful”. Seeing as at this point in the game, my stats were over double Bobman’s and higher than LD’s it seemed like a weird choice of words.

However, I noticed that LD had sent both Bobman and I the next Weapon Tech level about six minutes after sending that message. I knew something was up, but wasn’t sure what I was going to do about it. LD and Bobman were pretty good friends after all, so this was about what I expected.

I responded to LD with something like “Sure that sounds good. I have more ships on the East border than my Northern border so I’ll attack Bobman from there.”

Which was completely false. I was far better fortified on the Northern border. Outside of that most of my ships were still in Turtlekid’s old territory. (I forgot to mention, Turtlekid did the same thing BirdPerson did. I had a larger fleet going for his home-star that had a large number of ships but destined to lose. So he sent all of his ships west and attacked one of LD’s fleets and then crashed into Warp. I couldn’t tell you how happy that made me.)

I noticed Bobman had begun moving fleets up towards his Northern border with me (Toad’s old area). Bobman had also sent LD the most recent Range tech but did not send it to me. I decided to take a gamble here and sent Bobman a message. I also sent LD a Speed Tech level, to keep the illusion up, but not until I was over halfway along to the next level.

My message Subject to Bobman was intentionally the same as LD’s message to me (hoping he had used the same message) where I told Bobman what I thought about LD double-crossing us and waiting to pick up the pieces.

Bobman agreed to take LD down, while pretending to be fighting one another. We exchanged a few stars while moving our fleets to areas to attack.

The next morning we set things into motion, and dove into LD’s area.  There’s not much else to say at this point. We were traded our tech with one another once we began the attack on LD and I switched to Weapons because LD was starting to pull away from us (since he was the Weapons tech guy).

I tried to get Warp to attack LD, but he wouldn’t do it until Glorb was out. I asked Bobman if he could take Glorb out, but he said it would be funny to see Glorb last longer than LD.  I agreed, because it would have been funny. I just told him to keep in mind if we needed Warp, we’d have to take Glorb out.

Things progressed, and then I noticed I had 81 or so stars. I decided it would be a good time to get the rest, so I just set the course and went along with it.

The game ended, and here we are.

I felt bad a few times, such as taking out Toad and Paperluigi, but they both took it well, realized it’s part of the game and I respect that.

Someone mentioned the strategy of hoarding on a single star, but I disagree that that is a good strategy. The cost to upgrade would become far too high, and you would be outpaced by those who are expanding. It might seem like it worked for some people, like AI Chef or Warp, but the fact of the matter is that they could have been taken out at any point. Very early in the game Bobman had the ships to take out Chef, but decided not to for fear of being attacked by Toad and/or Jim. I had the ships to take out Warp while I was there (and LD did as well), but it wouldn’t have been beneficial at that point to do it. The same with Glorb, where having enough ships to be a deterrent might let you stay in the game longer but you’d be giving up your chance at winning.

I was disappointed by the anti-climactic ending, but all in all, it was a blast guys and thanks again for playing!
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Glorb on May 09, 2010, 04:34:10 PM
Haha, you guys all plotted against me and stuff like I was going to do anything. I quit like a week in after I realized I didn't stand a chance against bobman's giant collection of Chef-donated stars.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: bobman37 on May 09, 2010, 10:41:35 PM
Before the game, I tried reading the tutorial, but most of it made no sense. I couldn't get a good feel for how the game played until it actually started.

When it began, it was late at night, the night before I was due to leave the house for about three days. I poked around, tried to learn the system, and created a fleet or two. I went in to the game with the mindset that anyone and everyone was my enemy, and I would have to do my best to defend myself in the imminent free-for-all fray that would occur when everyone's territories expanded into each other. I finished that first night by setting destinations to as many stars as I could until the ETA for each fleet was about how long I would be gone. Then I left the house and let the game do the work.

I came back to the game and found that I had a fat wallet and an early lead in the star count. I also found Black Mage's alliance proposal in my inbox. He suggested we form an alliance, since we had common enemies. I agreed and offered suggestions for early battle plans, consisting of his movement south to Bird Person and my moving east into Chef's territory.

Between this early stage in the game and the later stages, I don't remember many specifics of what happened as far as actual ship movements, but Black Mage's recount of people's ship movements seems quite accurate.

My alliance with Lizard Dude must have been formed outside of the game, because my first in-game message from him was about tech trading.  Lizard Dude mentioned in IRC that he had formed an alliance with Black Mage, at which point I suggested we form a team of three. Lizard Dude agreed, and after sending a message to Black Mage, we were all on board for universal domination.

From that point on, I had a new mindset: LD, BM and I would team up to destroy everyone else by whatever means possible, until it was just down to us 3. At that point, we would break alliances and have a three-way free-for-all to determine the victor. I never considered alliances with any other players, because I was getting enough tech from Lizard Dude and Black Mage and the only physical threats to me were Chef (inactive), Toad (non-menacing) and BP (dying).

We organized our tech-trading as follows: LD permanently researched Weapons, BM researched Speed, and I researched Scanning with the occasional Range thrown in as needed. Each person updated the other two when the techs finished upgrading. This system turned out to be very effective.

Here's the deal with Chef: He went inactive very early in the game, and I got an event notification saying he was put under AI control. I did not take that message lightly, because for all I knew, the AI was going to immediately build massive forces and launch a full-on assault.

From that point on, I slowly but steadily moved eastward into his area, all the while building up the industry of my stars so I'd have some defense for that looming attack. I eventually got over to where I could see his home base, and I could see he hadn't moved from it at all.

I was faced with a decision: attack and eliminate, or leave him, save my ships and hope the AI never moves? I went with the latter, surrounding his home base with strongly-fortified stars, just in case he did eventually move. He never did.

While I was doing that, I started concentrating on moving north, toward Toad. Before I could do much, I noticed he was moving to me at a pretty good pace. I mentally pegged Toad as my first full-on battle opponent and made plans for my ship movement strategy.

Then I got a message from him, which was full of flowers and puppies and assurances that he meant no harm, he was simply trying to expand. I didn't respond, but dismissed him as an opponent and shifted my focus more south, more to Jim/BP areas. Not long after, Toad broke the unspoken cease-fire, taking a star or two of mine. I freaked out because I moved all my ships south and thought he was going to destroy me, and I sent my teammates a message with concerns about my contact with Toad (and, soon after, with Jim).

Black Mage agreed to help keep an eye on Toad while we shifted our main focus to taking out BP and Jim. Jim proved to be no threat, and I found a good star to hole up on and defend against Jim's and BP's attacks. Eventually, they lost all their stars and ships, and when Black Mage's territory met my own, we split down the middle and went even more south.

Toad, after staying stagnant for a while, launched another attack on my loosely-defended stars. I panicked and sent Black Mage a message asking for help, but then something clicked and I realized a good way to defend against Toad. I called Black Mage off before he could respond, but he responded anyway, saying he was already invading Toad. I shrugged, handled Toad's attack and then counter-attacked, teaming with Black Mage to eliminate him. As far as my feelings about Black Mage getting Toad's valuable stars, it didn't cross my mind. All I cared about was that Toad was gone and I could fight someone else now.

My memory is hazy after this point, but my inbox implies I was making plans to move my ships west, to where the final major battles would take place and the last players would be eliminated before it was down to Team Red remaining (LD, BM and I were all shades of red). I tried to perform a new type of trading in the alliance: a star trade. I had fleets that were finished capturing Chef's stars and I needed them to move west, but without a specific, LD-controlled star, I would have to go all the way around.

I remembered reading in the tutorial about how you could attach gifts like stars to messages, so I suggested to Lizard Dude that we trade the aforementioned star with one of a similar build that I had. He agreed, but later I found out you couldn't actually just give stars away. Instead, LD moved his ships away from that star so I could take it without confrontation.

Then my computer got a virus and I couldn't play for a day or so. In that time, Lizard Dude's emptied star had regained forces, and my fleets that were moving there were destroyed. He ended up keeping his star and taking my star. I didn't really care because my range tech was done researching, so I could make the jump west anyway.

From there, I kind of waited and built up my forces while LD and BM finished taking the last part of the map from PL and Turtlekid. Then came Lizard Dude's proposal for an assault on Black Mage. I accepted, but the message felt a little fishy.

There were two parts. Part 1 was the proposal, word-for-word the message he sent to Black Mage about attacking me. The second part was an apology about the star trade I detailed earlier, the one that ended with Lizard Dude getting both stars. But the apology was in parenthesis. I thought, why put it in parenthesis? It felt very much like an afterthought, or a post script, tacked on to a copy-pasted message.

Black Mage quickly sent a message confirming my suspicion: LD was playing us. We teamed up and immediately began formulating our plan to take him down, while trying to make it seem like we were fighting each other.

From this point on, Lizard Dude's ships never moved. I figured he was so confident in his foolproof plan that he could literally stop playing the game while Black Mage and I fought and weakened each other. I was half right: he did literally stop playing the game, but his plan killed him instead of making him win.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on May 10, 2010, 12:27:04 AM
I tried to form a trading alliance with Jim and BP, and I believe I ended up receiving a tech level from one of them, but neither really ended up following through with the idea, and both were out of the game pretty quickly anyway.

(The thing with Turtlekid's fleet crashing into me was great, because he didn't have enough ships left to even get a combat turn.)

Regarding the idea of building up a single star, I agree that it'd be infeasible to carry on with that for more than maybe a week, and that trying to do nothing but that would make you lose for sure - after all, you have to capture stars to win. But thanks to how industry works on captured stars, it'd definitely be possible to build up your first star without expanding for a while, and then use the resulting huge fleet as a katamari.

Regarding the game we played, I had fun, and, as I said in-game, hope we can play sometime when real life isn't going to get in the way. I'm still not sure a twelve-player free-for-all was the best way to go, though, especially when one of those players didn't even play, another didn't log in for the first time until two days after the game started, and three of them pretty much made sure from the start that no one except them had a chance at coming remotely close to victory.

As I said before, I think one of the game's primary features, the fact that it's a long-term real-time game, is ultimately its biggest flaw. It relies on the idea that players will always have access to a Flash-enabled computer and be able to log in for ten or twenty minutes every day, and in far too many cases, one criterion or the other simply isn't possible to fulfill. And, as already observed, once the game gets into full swing and players start attacking each other, even a single day of not being able to log in can be fatal.

I believe there are certain things, such as tech-trading alliances, which should be able to be set up to be automated by the game, since they're something that's going to happen in a lot of games anyway. I also think only showing time in ten-minute increments in a real-time game is stupid. I want to be told that my fleet will arrive in three hours, six minutes, and forty-seven seconds, not that it'll be there in three hours and ten minutes. I want to be told that I get paid in two minutes, not "imminent."
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: bobman37 on May 10, 2010, 12:01:46 PM
I think the flaws you listed are actually what's awesome about the game. I like that it takes weeks and weeks to play start to finish. Sure, maybe someone doesn't have a flash computer, but then they wouldn't have started playing in the first place. The negatives you pointed out lie entirely in the player, not the game. That why Black Mage won and I got second. We wanted to play, we wanted to win, so we spent the time and effort to do so. Lizard Dude would have been in contention for first or second place if he hadn't quit at the end. One could argue that he quit because the game was becoming a chore which he put off until later, but again, that's a user error.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: WarpRattler on May 10, 2010, 01:29:15 PM
That's the problem, though. When you extend a real-time video game to that length, there are far too many variables that the player simply has no control over. A player shouldn't be punished for having his house be struck by lightning and his modem fried as a result, or for having his computer be afflicted with a virus, or for anything else that renders him unable to log in and powerless to do anything about it. Sure, the same situations apply to other games as well, but losing power while playing StarCraft and having wasted twenty minutes isn't nearly as bad as losing Internet access for a day and losing a week or more of work.

Regarding the Flash stuff, I didn't know it was Flash-based until the game started. It's not mentioned in any of the documentation; you'd have no way of knowing before you played the game unless you read about it somewhere that mentioned that fact. So saying a player without a Flash-enabled computer wouldn't have started playing in the first place is wrong.

And games shouldn't feel like chores at any point.
Title: Re: Neptune's Pride Fungi Forum Megabattle
Post by: Turtlekid1 on May 10, 2010, 02:29:21 PM
Black Mage, bobman, LD... no offense, guys, but tl;dr, even for me.

I'd just like to say that my poor nerves almost didn't survive this game and I'm never doing it again.

That, and if I hadn't felt honor-bound to not break my alliance with PL, I maybe would've been more of a match for Black Mage.