Jan 21st 2011, 13:58:53
in some ways ffa is less of an issue since doing land:land is impractical there you get hit a lot when your land gets high
i was running some countries using ghost acres and 0 defence one set and you can grow really easily
but at some point you flatten off since you lose too much in retals not getting back as much and your build costs go up
if you want to do it you really need to keep yourself in DR there (which means play at same time each day roughly)
id say the worst result is actually that you lose pacts because people see you are phat, get grumpy they arnt allowed to grab you then refuse to pact you next set either assuming you will do the same thing to punish you
im not sure how not pacting translates to alliance, depends on whether the alliances doing it practice/accept land:land really, since if they dont they can only get so far ahead of the pack before they get too juicy to resist grabbing by the alliance which like to topfeed/landtrade
as to what should be frowned on theres two concerns
first whatever will make the game have less point for the established players
second and slightly less important whatever will stop new people/groups from wanting to play, less important because there are less of these and people quickly progress from farmland to not tolerating even a few hits a day by a tag on their tag
id argue its best to hold onto as many of the first group as possible until a better way to help the new people is in the game, as without that getting a whole lot of new people will probably just result in a large amount leaving
the question then becomes does a few people landtrading and possibly getting very high spots keep more people playing, counting less third parties being directly effected, or does it stop more people playing who arnt willing to compete that way, or the third option if the two groups come into conflict does that keep or drive away people
anyway id like to see some more metrics so people who dont landtrade and other groups, like pure all explore can have their own rankings to compete on