Big Bad Bob, Vanillastrokes, The Magic One, Italiaj, Ungoliant (that doesn’t go afk), Tangible Taco, Marko and others whos names have faded. Where art thou?
Ive noticed a steep decline in the quality of my opposition, in skill level, experience, and activity; that times out closely with the transition from 64 player matches to 32 player. Now I understand that something needed to be done about the 64s. Every single match you could count on between 5 and 15 players going AFK exactly the same time. This would then provide some players with much easier conquest and leave others too distant from any active players and so disrupt the balance and fairness of the match. I admit this circumstance contributed to 1 or 2 of my 6 64 match victories. Though it certainly also lead to defeats.
I believe whats happened is by slicing the player count in half, the “epicness” has essentially been removed from playing Neptunes Pride. And so the players that are skilled, amicable and willing to put in a good couple of months towards a victory for their alliance, no longer feel enough of a draw to participating in a watered down version of the epic feeling they loved and constantly came back too. Instead we have a cesspool of newbies and 1 fluke win “experts” that are too mentally challeged to provide me with any challenge at all.
These days I find the most joy in trolling, ive developed a reputation doing it and it makes me laugh and so i continue to play. But most of the old crowd has now departed.
Id like to put forth the idea of changing the 32 player matches to 48 player. I believe this is the happy medium between solving the AFK balance issue and still providing the epic feel that a big match of NP relies on
I will not be playing any 32 player games. I won 2 of the 64 player games. playing a 32 player game cheapens the badge for the victories I won in the 64 player game.
also when the change happened from 64 to 32 it also reduced the number of players for personal maps. I can no longer use some nice maps I made because personal maps now max out at 16 players.
Not sure I agree with the entire message here. Some of those players @Slicertos1 mentioned are still around and there are many other skilled players out there, both experienced and relatively new.
The NP community seems to be thriving (although I’ve no idea how many active players there are).
However if your message is to highlight the loss of 64 player games, then I understand and support that point even though I’ve only played a few myself…
…but I don’t believe trolling should be encouraged on any level.
However, if you are in need of a challenge, then I can think of quite a lot of players that would be willing to “mentally challenge” you.
Indeed. Just recently actually I played with Vinegarstrokes, but some stuff happened that made us all so mad that we all rq. During the game, one of my enemies made a FAKE discussion post (yea you heard me right) made a FAKE, PHOTOSHOPPED, discussion post that basically showed me cussing out and insulting my allies behind their back (which is something I would never do). My allies thought I was lying even when I sent my screenshots, and only when I sent a video of my discussions, did the enemy finally give up his act and tell everyone that his screenshots were photoshopped.
Yea we got mad about that and we all left NP for a little while, and I think Vinegar may still be gone. But I am currently playing a 32 with Tangible Taco, Marko, and Big Bad Bob so most of the players you mentioned are still online.
I think I agree with @Karmadrome and @BOsshOgg on this one. I’m currently in a 32p with BBB and Tangible Taco. I see Ungoliant all the time. Italiaj and I allied and won a 32p just a couple months ago. If I only count the 4 active games I’m in, I see around 30 unique players with badges and more than 5 wins. Among those are about 15 players with 20+ wins. And that’s not including @Hulk and a number of other vets that are active but just not in a game with me.
So I’d argue there are plenty of strong players out there. The 32p seem hit or miss in that sometimes you get 12 vets in one game, and sometimes it’s just 1 or 2. But I still find it fun playing with newbies, showing them the ropes means more experienced players next time around. That said, I’ve had really good luck with making custom games that are premium-only. The one that just started has 11 vets, 4 players with a handful of wins, and just 1 newbie that quit on turn one.
But yeah I totally miss the 64 player games. They were some of the most exciting matches I’ve had. 2 of my conquerors are from 64p and 2 are from 32p. It’s a big difference between them too… it used to be there were 2 or 3 huge alliances took over their side of the map then had a big battle at the end. Now it seems like it’s 1 alliance that becomes too strong to stop and there’s not enough room for another alliance to grow and contest them. I also miss making custom 32p games.
I took a long break from NP in late 2016 and it was really slow then, with games taking ages to fill up. It made sense to switch to 32p. But nowadays there are a lot more players around, with more joining. I don’t see a problem for the players with turning 64p back on, it’s mostly the challenges on @JayKyburz ‘s end and I know he’s super busy lately.
Some of us measure the good old days from NP1, and there are many players I miss from those days. @EriccaJonquil, JamesTKirk, Tim of several aliases to names a few. The gameplay was simpler, diplomacy seemed to matter more, but I don’t miss the graphics or the speed tech. End of game was like a twitch game, and I don’t twitch as well as I used to
I was around for NP1, but don’t really remember the game play. keep getting it confused with an Alpha I played “King of the Galaxy” big differences don’t recall research but you gained weapons tech by losing ships in battle within range of your command carrier. so if you fought more you had higher weapons tech.
and you had to gain and hold the center star for 48 hours. a few guys migrated over to here when the Alpha shut down during NP1.
I would like to see the return of 64p games, but other than that diminishment of epicness (they’re “real” words, I swear) I don’t find that this gaming community has suffered a net loss. Some of the ancients have vanished to parts unknown, but there seem to be more players all-around, at all levels of skill, but yes, proportionally more who are on the newbish side. I haven’t been, uh, graced with your presence in a while, @Slicertos1. Then again, I’ve been playing a lot more exclusive games, and taking a break from the 32p ones.
I think it would be interesting to have a 32 player turn based game option. I know it would take forever, but if it were premium only that would take care of the persons who drop out because of the two game cap.
Thanks for reminding me. I still get the notifications even if I haven’t been active for years. Maybe I should pickup a game or two. Really glad to see the community is still here!
the horror. I will not play the 8 team turn based option. someone always waits 24 hours to make a move or never clicks ready… a 32 player turn based game is… would not be my cup of tea…
“Instead we have a cesspool of newbies and 1 fluke win “experts” that are too mentally challeged to provide me with any challenge at all”
You havent even made it to late game in the last 5 or so 32p games Ive seen you in. In fact, I’m not sure you’ve won one, you mentioned all your conqueror badges were from the 64s. Why dont you win a 32p game and show us all how mentally superior you are
Then again, I’ve been playing a lot more exclusive games, and taking a break from the 32p ones.
