Disclaimer: Please ignore points I've mentioned that have already been discussed at length and/or are deliberate features of the new game. I've been away, and plan to be away again soon, but I thought I'd share my experience of the reset. Generally it was very enjoyable save a few items, which I've mentioned below.

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-Missiles are FAR too easy to generate now...Perhaps revisit their production rates downwards. This was a serious turnoff this reset for me, even tho I generated my fair share of missiles too. Its just too damn easy to generate the buggers now.

-Spying is too hard (too easy to defend against ops)...there has definitely been a screwup in copying the formula (I know this by gut feel and NOT through knowledge of the actual formula)...It just wasn't that difficult to do spy ops before...for SURE...this is something that I also think needs to be looked at. This was the second most annoying thing this reset. I have never had so much trouble spying with my (as usual) high number of spies. It was too easy to fail ops, it was too easy for target to get in DR of ops, etc.

Also, I'm not sure if the ops have individual formulae like before: i.e. some ops were always harder to get than others (usually just the plain op)...I think theres been a blanket approach here, although I could be wrong. Either way, spying was the least enjoyable change to the game for someone like myself who was used to the old game. I really think u need to get into Slaggy's head and really tweak this.

-I am not sure if this is a boxcar glitch or what, but it seems missiles put a country into DR as well...what?!? Lets keep it to forces that require military action...

-In clan games: AVG nw needs to be calculated on some sort of minimum: i.e. on team server, regardless of number of ppl in tag, avg nw should be based on 5 ppl. This was a feature of the game before that, in some small way, set a minimum for how much leeway clan leaders had. I think it should return. Ppl will no doubt complain that maybe they want to play in a tag of 1 or 2 or whatever and avg nw should reflect that. I think u should ignore their whining and base a clan wide statistic (i.e. avg nw) on some minimum threshold. If they are really upset they should expend efforts on recruiting

-Something that is quite weird is output on military sheet: there are no commas - makes it much harder to read the numbers. Please check throughout the game to ensure that commas appear between every 3 digits (thousands) except for PCI, tax rate, etc...

-I believe military expenses exclude military out on PS...This is not reflective of the country's actual military and is a bit of a removal for reality...a country should still have to pay expenses on military it owns, regardless of the location

-Missiles: Some of the experts need to check the formulae. Maybe they are right but it just seemed odd to me (as someone who lost over 10k to Nukes in team server this reset), that countries with such small acreages were able to take so much off me...Maybe it was always that way, but worth a re-check if possible. Applies to Chems as well of course

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In other news:

-Excellent changes on the grabbing. Much needed and frankly a job well done. I have no idea how it works (as the output I see is different from the one I see in boxcar...but whatever, I dont care...good job)

-Perhaps its an idea, on servers with a lot of turns, like Team, to change the retal window to 72h. It is nonsensical and in defiance of logic to have such a large retal window on servers with so many turns.

I know u, the game admins, have no control over this, but I'm just writing all my comments in one area!

-Perhaps its time to make the game more reflective of reality and have a maintenance requirement of oil for one's military forces...Like bushel consumption every turn, there should be some small oil requirement. In addition to regulating the market more, it will make the strat a touch more powerful. I don't care much for oiler, but it might make for an interesting change.

-Grow the customer base somehow guys. I imagine u guys have already been thinking about this, and I think I chanced upon a facebook idea (I think its brilliant if u can pull it off, but high likelihood of it not happening...I do genuinely wish u all the best tho).

I realize this is a bit of a moot point, and sorry for not adding much value here - but this game has a minimum threshold for it to be fun/energetic/vibrant - I'd venture somewhere at and above 1000 active players (i.e. not just 1000 accounts, but 1000 active accounts). Tough sell, but I wish all the best, sincerely. It'd be good to see this game regain some of its former glory.

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That's all for the moment folks. Generally speaking, great job. I can only imagine how much hard work was put in, and as a user/client/customer, I sincerely appreciate it.

Best,

Raheel

Oh...one other thing that was actually surprisingly annoying: Maybe its just my browser (doubt it, as I used this before as well)...but I have to reload pages a lot in this game.

Like if I click a page (any one) it will take me to the first output of that page after my login. All subsequent clicks to that page will have to be refreshed after getting there. I am not a techie guy, I have no idea why that is but its somewhat annoying.

Similarly, until I delete messages, it keeps displaying I have new messages. I am not sure why (it can't seem to differentiate between read and unread messages).

Hope this is a kink that can be removed.

For reference, if its applicable in anyway, i use Google Chrome.

-Missiles: we use a proper random number generator now, which is why countries get more missiles than they did in the past.

-Spying: we didn't attempt to copy the formula because no one knew it and it was a total mess. I understand what you're saying: it's nice to get decent spies and to get most of your ops on the first try. But is that actually good for the game or fair to everyone else? Btw, normal ops don't add to spy DR.

DR: boxcar does not report DR accurately.

AVG NW: the average NW is based on 10 for non-team clan servers. For team, we don't enforce a limit. We chose to do that because single country tags play at a large disadvantage (no allies) and TNW seems like a more impressive goal than ANW. In addition, countries can't be kicked from the tag.

Mil expenses: this should have been fixed. Can anyone else confirm this?

Missiles: missile destruction formulas are the same.

Retal window: I may or may not agree, but that is a political issue to be decided by the players.

Facebook: the developers have been able to play turns in facebook for a few weeks now.

Accounts: there are around 1000 active accounts, but they are split between many games.

Thanks for the thoughts raheel!

When do u guys think the facebook version will be ready?

i agree with raheel on the spy ops

it is good for the game to have countries with large active spy contingents

if u have spy ops fail all the time as they do now u will discourage their use and a vital part of the game will be lost

-Missiles: If we're, by default, giving more missiles, then in the interests of fairness, shouldn't we start with some base-line level of SDI as well to counter? I mean this is a really harsh change from a netting point of view. One look at SKA forums can tell u why. I literally disarmed lots of missiles on a target only to have him generate quite a few missiles due to the course of his daily turns...almost make sabotaging missiles pointless

-Spies: I actually disagree with you on the need to make it easier for being crappy. The guy with more spies didn't get bestowed with spies by magic. He earned the right, in my books, to get most ops in the first go. Especially because of how much harder spies are to obtain in the first place...a player sustains relatively large expenses not just with a high spy count, but also in the process of getting there. We should not take that competitive advantage away from him in the interests of 'fairness'. But thats just my opinion.

-I didn't know ppl couldn't be dropped from tags in Team. I don't yet know how I feel about that but it balances out the less than 5 thing a little. Perhaps on the team server it would be an idea to get rid of ranking clans by number of members? Almost a silly metric on that server particularly

Thanks for following up Slaggy :)

facebook -> waiting on design updates before I start pushing for more integration, since I'd rather do it once the right way :p

Not that im putting pressure or anything, but when would that be? Can this happen in 2010?

heh i certainly hope it's done by end 2010; personally i was hoping sometime around summer... 'course a few of us need to finish theses in the interim....

..do it right for sure

Pang and qz: Glad u guys have posted here. I do hope u look into some of the stuff highlighted...the comma thing should be an easy fix I imagine. Other stuff worth looking at too.

I'm just trying to help with gameplay experience as a seasoned veteran of E2025. The spy op thing and missile factors are the two biggest concerns. The third is prolly the 'refresh' thing I mentioned for the webpages.

missiles could be fixed by tweaking the starting warfare % to make it rarer to produce missile when u have no warfare tech. It would reduce the luck factor.

That would be an awesome missile to be able to create as a clan, either by pooling resources and making it or by each country being able to produce small parts of this missile. The parts could be tradeable but not sellable and maybe limit it to one piece per trade. Would have to be very hard to find the pieces to.

Maybe even limit the amount of this missile could be created in a set(for everyone not just single countries)

That would be really cool. Also don't put on solo servers.

90% chance to kill the target and 10% to kill the sender.