5/11/2009

8/31/04

8/30/04

8/27/04

8/26/04

8/24/04

8/23/04

8/21/04

8/19/04

8/18/04

8/17/04

Hows it work? There are 10 divisions, from assault mechs (division 1) through infantry (division 10). Currently only division 9, vehicles (5-20 ton), is up and running. There is currently only 1 arena in that division. Expect more classes to open very soon, with more arenas per division as well. Demand and interest is being carefully logged (based on enrollment and betting figures) and if demand and interest are high enough, we will add more arenas and divisions. As you can imagine, if there were many arenas open in all divisions all the time, the few players on at any given time would be spread too thin to generate enough demand for good matchups, or enough betting interest to provide high enough prizes.

To duel, you need to register a unit for dueling. Empires may register up to one unit per level for each division (1 unit for level 0s). You can unregister at any time to make room for another unit if you like, but you lose your rank when you unregister. The system is set up like a ladder. When you start, you enter at the bottom rung and must work your way up by winning duels. If you don't enroll for a duel in a 24 hour span, you will drop a rung. This makes sure that the top stays a little volatile, as obviously everyone won't be enrolling for duels every single day.

The arenas cycle through several stages, starting with enrollment, then betting, then "In Progress." In the enrollment stage, which lasts 10 minutes, people may sign up to duel. You can only enroll registered units, of course. When the enrollment period ends, the computer selects two of the enrolled units to fight. These are closely matched when possible by rank, with some precedence going to those who have not fought in a long time, and those with higher ranks. After the selection is made, it enteres the betting stage.

Betting can be done in any amount by any empire, including the two competitors. The betting phase also lasts 10 minutes. Only one bet may be made per empire. You can view the total amount bet so far on the duel, but not who the bets are on. When the betting is over, the duel begins, and at that time you can see the breakdown of how much money was bet for each side. This is important, because it determines your payout.

During the duel, anyone can watch the duel in progress and root for their favorite unit. There is also a new chat room set up called #neveron_arenas where you can chat with other players who are involved in, or are watching, the duel. When you are connected to the chat server, just type /join #neveron_arenas to enter. If you are dueling, you can give up, or forfeit, at any point. When you forfeit you lose 1 point of each skill, and 25% of your reputation, in addition to losing the match. This penalty allows you to keep the unit, and live to duel another day, but with a penalty. I expect those with high ranks in the standings will want to maintain their lofty positions at all costs, and it is smart to throw in the towel when you are clearly losing.

After the duel, the payments are made. All the money that was bet on the loser gets paid out. 80% of it is paid to the winning betters, distributed proportionally to how much they had bet. The more you bet, the more you win. 10% is paid directly to the empire of the winning unit, that is his prize. The final 10% is distributed among all the top ranked people in that division. That is to say, if you are ranked #1 (or close to the top) in a division you earn money every time a duel is fought in that division! This should lead to rather large payouts to those who can maintain high ranks. Finally, as all these arenas are physically located in Neveron City (0,0) whoever owns that zone gets a small portion of the proceeds.

If you have questions about these new arenas, please join #neveron_arenas and someone will help you. Hopefully someone will write some comprehensive arena help files in the next few days as well. Lastly, and importantly, creating new additional empires just for the purpose of raising the pot of an arena duel will result in the deletion of ALL your empires and permanent banning from the game. We need this feature to be accessible to everyone, from your first session onward, so we are going to crack down extremely hard on people who try to abuse this. The last thing we want is to be forced to put some kind of "level 1 and up only" limitation on the betting feature.

8/15/04

8/13/04

8/12/04

8/11/04

Tier 1 (0-999 CF): 200,000 Tier 2 (1k-9999 CF): 10,000,000 Tier 3 (10k-99999 CF): 50,000,000 Tier 4 (100k+ CF): 200,000,000

Those listed costs are assuming you have war declared. Without war declared the cost will be 10x as high, just like before. If there is now DOW, there will be an additional doubling of those costs for every level your target is below yours. Remember that you may declare war on anyone who attacks you first, regardless of level, or anyone at all your level or higher. As always, when you reach level 10+ any empire may declare war on you at any time (even higher levels). For example, you are level 5, fighting a level 5 opponent. You have trapped his mech force in a non-city zone but cannot kill it, so you request your level 10 faction leader to drop in and wipe out the enemy army. The level 10 must pay (2 million for non-DOW attack on an empty zone * 2^5 (for 5 levels difference) = 64 million to attack that zone, plus any applicable hot drop or transit costs. Thats a lot more than it would cost him under the old system, but still cheap enough so it pays to have big friends who will help you out. Now, lets say the poor victim had the wherewithall to have the units in a city with 100 buildings (50 CF each). In that case, the level 10 would have to pay 3.2 billion to hit the zone! Certainly out of his budget.

Here are the simplified DOW costs, which will no longer vary by empire but be strictly based on your level. Now please remember, that if you are declaring war on someone lower level than yourself (because he attacked you first, or he is level 10+), you use the DOW cost of HIS level, not yours!

New Declaration of War costs:

• Level 0: 200,000
• Level 1: 500,000
• Level 2: 1,000,000
• Level 3: 2,000,000
• Level 4: 5,000,000
• Level 5: 10,000,000
• Level 6: 20,000,000
• Level 7: 50,000,000
• Level 8: 100,000,000
• Level 9: 200,000,000
• Level 10: 500,000,000
• Level 11: 1,000,000,000
• Level 12: 2,000,000,000
• Level 13: 5,000,000,000
• Level 14: 10,000,000,000
• Level 15: 20,000,000,000

These costs have not yet been implemented, and will be worked on today and throughout the week. Please check the updates regularly if you are confused when your attack costs are not what you expected.

8/9/04

Static zone attack costs The cost to attack a zone will no longer be a nebulous unpredictable feature factoring in the land area and city sizes of your opponents or your own army value. The attack costs will now be fixed, based on your level, and will be one of four values for every zone you attack, of any target of any size. Which of the four costs is used for each zone depends on the total CF (city size) of the buildings in that zone. Specifically, 0-999 CF will use the cheapest cost, 1000-9999 CF is the second tier, 10000-99999 is the third tier, and 100000+ CF is the most expensive tier. Attacking empires of lower level than yourself will cost much much more than attacking someone your own level or larger. So much more that it will be prohibitively expensive if the levels are not extremely close.

WL Removal and OMT for all War level, another mysteriously unpredictable value for most players, has been removed. The only purpose War Level was serving at the end was to prevent empires with armies that are much stronger than average for their level from declaring war on and recieving discounted attack costs against average empires of a given level. To maintain that effect while removing the lag-inducing and overly obscure war level calculations, we have allowed ALL empires to become subject to the oversize military tax (OMT). Previously, only level 9+ empires were eligible for OMT. With OMT for everyone, it will be cost prohibitive for a level 5 empire to maintain that company of super mechs that would allow him to devastate his fellow level 5 empires. Again, this should simplify the game by removing an imperfect and complex system that served little purpose.

Changes to DOW Declarations of War (DOW) will still be available against any empire your level or higher. Likewise, they will still be available against any empire that attacks you without you attacking it first. Please remember, you lose the option to DOW lower level attackers as soon as you counter-attack, so DOW first! The "Declare war on all attackers" option will be removed. Now for the changes: DOWs against lower level empires (only possible if they attack first of course) will not be based on your own level anymore, but will cost only as much as the lower level empire would have to pay to declare war on you. So if you are level 13 and a level 0 empire attacks you, you may declare war on it for the cost of a level 0 DOW!

Here are some of the obvious ramifications. First, attacking larger empires with lower level empires no longer affords you any protections, as the larger empire will be able to cheaply retaliate by declaring war for what is to him a negligible cost. If you attack someone big, you had better be prepared to surrender, because if he wants to he will now have the option of coming after you. Second, you can no longer bait smaller empires into a war with you by attacking a zone, waiting for the retaliation, and then using the "declare on all" option to get cheap attacks on them. Third, losing all your cities while keeping your army hidden has additional penalties because if you do not quickly retake some of your population your OMT will become astronomical. Remember the size army you may have before OMT kicks in is based directly on your population. People should seriously consider defending large population centers because of this, and be extremely wary of setting a high surrende rate. Fourth, there is no longer defensive cost benefit to owning a very small number of zones and cities. In fact, it can work against you, as the fewer zones and cities your opponent need attack the less total cost he must pay.

These changes are going to be added over the upcoming week, so please don't expect immediate changes. The WL removal and OMT addition has already been implemented but will be carefully monitored and adjusted as needed for fairness. Other changes will be added as soon as possible so please check the updates if you are confused as to why your attack costs have changed. Actual figures for the attack costs and DOW costs at each level will be posted as they are implemented.

8/8/04

8/5/04

8/4/04

8/1/04