Operation Death Match, Go!

I haven`t said this yet so I will do so now. No matter what the rules, I will be one of the first to join. Sure, a DM designed to be fair and fun for all would be awesome, but it`s not required. I`ve played this game long before it was reasonably balanced. I have no intention of missing out on a DM for the sake of making a vain point. DM are awesome. The staff is awesome for bringing them back.

Back on topic. I don`t see where it is the majority that feels 3 hours is best. It seems divided between 3 and 6 hours. Both are better than the extremes in either direction (i.e. 1 hour, 12 hours.).

Members I think virtually everyone agrees should be 5. Just so many reasons why 5 would be appropriate for DM. Namely, the most active players any more are in a couple feds. :P

If switch for the first week is possible and can be shut off after that then I would like to make my vote to that if possible. I didn`t vote before because neither side mattered much to me. Now that I have read some input I think this would be the best way. I don`t want stuck in my solo fed if I can be taken on by a fun fed. At the same time I don`t want stuck in a fed I don`t work well with if I decide to join one. So changing in the beginning would be nice, however I don`t like fed hoppers. So cutting them off would be nice. It would show you who your allies are and not have to worry about your members abandoning you when it looks like the winner is decided.

3 hour dp is perfect cause u really want clusters to bounce around for maximum fun... all marus should obviously play plunder maru for the benefit of going newbie pro to sleep and colls will just be poor.
turn storage about 150 is great but 250 or higher with a paid is overpowered thats a ton of lyth u can have shot at u from nothin..... let people bounce from feds but only reward the 5 that are in the fed at the end obviously so that any group of 10 people will have to split up (CC) :) also reward a dm uw and cut the time in half please

shatterdDreams: any intell on a timeline for DM? need more votes? waiting for a decision from BW?

...would rock if we could disable exploring for the last say 5-10 dp outings if we actually made a capture the flag dm, so no fed could explore it home.

The old dm`s had two players, i like that, more targets....with even less players theese days i think we need as many enemies as possible. Larger feds needed maybe and only if this dm have a different objective than the old ones (number of planets at end time).

Maybe another objective could be to do uw(the logical one) or as i would prefer a capture the flag kind of thing(probably more than one flag for more fun, 20 x.u.class the fed with the most at end time win.

imo we could use both miner and terrans and have good gam, but pure terran is fine too.

4 hour DM`s worked good with 12 minute dp, slightly faster than rt. So what ever is comparable to as many dp`s for the duration of this match i think would be good.

MajorDinero Depending on the server DP time of this DM, will force me to play the DM & Race in a different style that i dont prefer. I really think its unfair for older players who enjoy playing collective or Maru on other servers then come to DM and get screwed out of playing one of their favorite races, cause they are more likely to die and restart constantly than being able to build up an empire and fight.

I was looking forward to a DM, but depending on the DP time. It will make my decision if i`ll play or not cause im not exploring / fighting every few hours for borders isnt appealing to me.

Love the ideas. Dp in my opinion should be 8 hours but since it is more to the active crew who don`t need the sleep then 3 or 6 is perfectly fine.

Turns should be max, more hits and activity that way.

Five for a small elite ninja team perhaps? XD No switch but kicking for inactivity would be great. Hate to be stuck with someone who needs the sleep.

This is an exciting and perfect event, more activity is promoted and might attract the newer people to play. Plus this also gives alot of the newer people the chance to hit some real fleets and learn the game. Or have rivals duke it out for hours on end. Thanks to all the staff, this looks like a great success in the making!

6 hour dp Max (less if its an all explorer-race DM)
200 turn storage(won`t really matter)
5 in fed
no switching after first week(otherwise no switching at all)

would love a race theme,(also Ragnarok`s post about letting non-paids try the paid races sounded good too)

Only a few people crying at this point :) I think this is going to be awesome! It is pretty clear that majority understand 3 hr dp is best, and that is gonna be so fun! Lets get this thing started!!! woohoo!!

meh, doesn`t matter if it`s a 12 hour or 2 hour long DP

people will learn how to adapt fairly quickly. Even the casual players can always select a race/income stream that fits their styles. You can explore a few 9000+ larges fairly easily on such a turn intensive server, work on infra structure...and plunder down when you feel like playing/go to sleep.

these sorts of DMs (anything with DP over like 30 mins) will always be biased against colls/maru that`s just life. they are harder races to play.

Personally, I couldn`t care less about the DP times, just can`t wait for the DM to start heh

AmericanMinister - I understand that, but requiring that much activity for 2 months? How many people could play enough to compete? If we are to bring life back into GC, we should appeal to the majority within reason. The DM already benefits the most active players as it is supposed to. A reasonable DP length would be just enough balance to keep the majority of GC players in competing terms. And it would do so without making DM any less activity based. All those extra turns make a huge difference as is. :)

sepent u gotta remember we reward activity. not inactivity... dm server is the extreme activity server. you have plenty of servers that allow u to play 5-10 mins every other day

ok peeps.. i got an idea... why not make it a permanent DM that last few days every months... perhaps 48-72 hrs every months... either early of the month, middle of the month or end of the month...

perhaps the 2nd weekend of every month.. eh?

so it`s gonna be low DP, high storage, 5 fedmates, nice rewards and no fed change every DM... cool eh?

The rewards don`t matter a whole lot as they will hopefully impact the real game very little. However the objective is to compete for the ranks, which are almost entirely based on battle performance. Those with less time to play are at a significant disadvantage already in competing for most wins and most colonies taken. A really low DP length would all but make it impossible to win. And let`s not even think about battle ratio. You would have to make several wins more than loses when you are able to be online just to break even on the several losses you took while offline. Then you have to catch up to everyone else even with the higher losses.

Another thing people like to compete for in Death Match is controlling the ranks them self. That requires rich empires. Which, as mentioned below, will be nearly impossible for restartable races played by people whose life consists of more than GC.

Stop focusing on Death and start focusing on making it fair and fun for everyone.

EvilLoof - That post wasn`t at all productive or on topic. On top of that you are mistaken if you think this game was more balanced a few years ago or even a year ago.

Back on topic. A few things people need to consider about a really low DP. Some of these have been addressed already.

2 months is a crazy length of time to have your soul sold to a game. Imagine being on every few hours, minimum, to fight. Now imagine doing that for 2 months straight. Great for people with no life. Horrible for the rest of us.

This is a Death Match, yes. But consider the effects it has on races that don`t have the luxury of losing all their planets and still coming back to a combat ready empire. Spend 2 months constantly playing, spend half your time building your empire up every day, or play a race that can`t be restarted. That becomes your only options. Furthermore, with restartable races, you will be forced to newbie hunt every battle because you have no way to get wealthy enough to fight at any real power rating. Coll/Maru newbie hunting is fine and profitable. I feel for Guards, whose high base PR makes newbie hunting very difficult.

This really widens the gap for low max colony races also. Collective and Marauder get another kick in the rear while Guardian comes out a little better on this end as they can explore, but Terran are the only race that won`t be easily restarted with a very low (1-2 hour) DP. That will mean high max colony races will have all the money and control the higher ranks.

If people want to place emphasis on DEATH Match, let`s make it a Death Match. 1 Hour DP. ALL races can be restarted. Otherwise, use your brain a little and make DP length something reasonable.

There is one way to really make this a DEATH Match. Turn Off exploring for the last week.

I think it would be great to have 3 weeks to build a strong, profitable Empire. Then, when there is no more exploring for borders, We will find out who can fight and survive.

It may not even take a week for a clear winner to emerge. A strong fed of five might rule the server. But only for a month.

I agree with kelti and archangel. if you want to have another modified rt server then great. but if you want to call it a Deathmatch server then i think the tougher the rules the better. The whole point is to see who`s team is skilled enough to stay on top.

24/3 = 8
8 * 61 = 488

So you`ll pop out at least 488 times in a 3 hour dp Dm. That`s 8 times a day. Yes I like GC, but enough that I`d show up that often in a two month period? No. Were it a short DM, like 1 week, I can justify coming on that much to defend myself, but not over 2 months, I have RL to take care of, and it`d have the potential of burning me out of the game, and going into VM just so I wouldn`t have to deal with any more GC for a while.