I think it is about time that any inactive player that has so been for an extended period should be deleted BEFORE the clearing out and deletion of more recent inactives.

There are players I see, littering up the universe in Standard that have not been online for two or three years, perhaps longer!

The excuse is that these players have rubies in these dormant accounts. Surely the players not in v mode that are inactive and have not been online for YEARS should be deleted now? If they were worried about the situation they would either start playing again or have put their accounts in to v mode.

I agree, players in v mode that have rubies, keep them. But others, inactive players not in v mode, about time these were deleted and space made!

C'mon Zorg, clear out the dross, clean up space, become VACUUM Cleaners!

I like the farms personally as a new player on standard, the farms give me more of a supply line in order to grow faster; could I do it without them probably but they do make it easier and I would say more exciting. Its been awhile for you oz but finding and pulling in 1.5 million metal with small cargos gives the sense of achievement that finding 13 275k's just does not

Ephemeral wrote:I like the farms personally as a new player on standard, the farms give me more of a supply line in order to grow faster; could I do it without them probably but they do make it easier and I would say more exciting. Its been awhile for you oz but finding and pulling in 1.5 million metal with small cargos gives the sense of achievement that finding 13 275k's just does not

No, don't get me wrong. I am foremost a raider myself. I am not saying get rid of all inactives. But get rid of the oldest ones. As is happening right now, the oldest of the inactives are being deleted, new players are joining, a percentage will become inactive and the cycle begins again.

At the moment new players are being put in to G2. Then it will progress, G3, G4 etc. But then the oldest inactives are deleted. For instance, G2 in Standard server. There is a banned player. At least 3 systems, possibly more, filled with his multi playing colonies. Why? They've been there for at least 4 years! Delete him/her! It's not as if we can even raid him/her.

Then there are others. Just because they have rubies, they have not been deleted. Why not? Let the game and the placement of farms evolve. Unless those old inactives that have rubies are in v mode, delete them too. They will be replaced with new inactives soon enough and then the farms are there.

I understand and can agree to that, after I finish unlocking the tech tree XD

But there will always be farms available. Also players that leave stuff sitting about. You don't have to be above a certain score to take others stuff from them if they can't protect it. Good luck and speed unlocking the tech tree!!

If you want a case study in what happens when Zorg begins to get rid of the oldest inactives with rubies, you need only look to Xtreme.

Last year Zorg began v-moding all inactive accounts in Xtreme which had previously been left untouched because the accounts had more than 50 rubies. This effectively eliminated the best farms for growing players and made building an account slower and more difficult for many. Consider how rare it is that a player with even a few hundred thousand points goes inactive, let alone a player with a million points. The cycle of new inactives was not enough to sustain the types of raiders Xtreme used to have, and as a result, many raiders left the server in the winter and spring of last year. The playerbase, overwhelmingly, did not want to see the change, but Zorg did not reverse it. It was only a few players who already had large very well established accounts who were happy with the change. I wonder if they are still happy after the results, now that it seems there are fewer fleets and less activity. Of course, this isn't the only reason for the decrease in activity in X (it wasn't the reason I ultimately left X) but I think it would be a mistake to deny that it was at least part of the reason for the decrease in activity.

I would hate to see a change like this implemented in Speed or Massacre, but maybe you really do want this in Standard; I don't play Standard so it doesn't affect me either way. Just be careful what you wish for.

The difference with Standard is that new players have one million point protection.

The numbers coming in to the game and staying in the game has increased considerably. What happens when they get to one million points, I don't know. The active player base is growing.

Yes, the odd bigger player, for no real reason will launch multiple amounts of IPMs at these newbs, for no apparent reason. Doesn't keep players in the game, it seems it's a temper tantrum just because he can't attack them. That hopefully seems to be a one off.

I have played other servers now, under pseudonyms, all I can say is that from what I have seen, these other servers seem awash with res. If I can raid in Standard between 700 million to a billion in resources per week. Then with the same fleet I am sure I could triple at least that in the faster servers. I like to see what I am comparing myself against, server to server. As a newb in these faster servers I think it is easy to raid at LEAST 100 million in the first week, perhaps quadruple that in the second week!

What I wish for is that when clearing out the old inactives as they do as a matter of course anyway, then they do it more thoroughly. Or, as you say, put those accounts in to v mode.

It also doesn't help when potential farms go and get themselves banned... But yes Oz there have been players on X who have gotten close to or over 100million in the first week.

take the banned players out of vacation mode but leave them banned. makes more farms for growth. example in standard is alphabet city. what did he have 2-3-4 accounts. all banned and vmode. was great farming place until ban and vmode even tho all the accounts were inactive . lift the vmode on the banned accounts. the long term vmode players with rubies. take them out of vmode and let them be farmed.if they havent logged in in over a year its not like they are coming back. even if they do ,being in vmode means no growth, so if they came back what would they have lost other than their fleet and daily resources. its not like we can farm the rubies from them. more resources outlets lets new player grow quicker and maybe a few will stay .

I have worked rather hard for the sums of money that I have invested in rubies. I was inactive for more than a solid year. Were that account deleted, one here who spends money to help fund the game would never have returned