spawn's suggestion on the B&S forum gave me an idea of how to incorporate a very successful event in another game into express

i think we should try a Proffessional/amateur set of express

it will take some work but would probably be very popular with newer players and could improve the long term level of play

as you may know, the card game, bridge, has huge national conventions attended by tens of thousands of players and lasting nine days, four times a year

one of the most potpular events at these championships are the PRO?AM events where professionals and players who have attained high rankings play one three-hour seesion with new players
tis gives new players the unique chance to play with the game's stars
people who never attend a championship come in to play with the stars and then become regular attendees at the conferences
it enhances the newer players' skill levels and helps to grow the game

the pros and high ranking players do it because it is our opportunity to "pay it forward" to the game and make sure that the game continures to grow

in express it can be hard for newer players to ally with the elite
if a top player gets an alliance offer from someone he does not know, he normally looks at the country and rejects the offer

the set would work as follows:
we publicize it on all the forums to attract players to express
the mods check the list of players
they assign elite players to newer players
the elites agree to alliances with the newer players and may even act as mentors if needed

for one week, the elites would have to be less concerned with a top finish and more concerned with helping new players learn the game

this has worked well for bridge, it can work for express

When I hear pro/am I think golf, not bridge. Are you a 70 year old lady?


It is an interesting idea though, one that would require a influx of new players first

^_^ +1

fordy always leads with a stupid question

it is part of their ongoing incessant attempt to derail any attempt to improve the game

theres not many new players in this game, id say 4/5 are 3 years + players.

Their?

I'm in SoF, a clan that will probably war KA/LaE next set, a brewing hatred between the 2.

Just I make a comment towards you, I'm making that comment as mrford, not laex or whatever you are calling them these days.

Your classic dismissal of a large number of comments just because you think they are "stupid" is rather ironic as well. If everyone did that no one would probably respond to you because of all the acronyms that you use that no one understands.

not everyone hass ADD, they understand me.

Your sense of grandure constantly amazes me.

grandure is another engLaEsh word

i will have to ask HWCNG what it means

it might be grandeur but i doubt if fordy knows how to define that word, which would not stop him from abusing it but you can see once again how they attempt to derail any idea by turning it into a mudslinging contest

Back on topic.... as it has already been pointed out, I don't think this would currently work. If/when we get new players (facebook), then it would be something to talk about.

It reminds me of the old random games in primary server, those always seemed to be more fun because it spread some of the more dominant players around.

Holy fluff! I switched a e and a u accidentally!

I must not know the definition of the word!

gregg as long as you go on rants and off track everytime someone you dont like comments on your thread, productively or not, no one is going to pay any attention to your ideas.

just let it go already dude.

Adopt a noob? I'd do it. The winner is the person whose noob finishes highest :P

pain,

of course you are right

now that LaE is dead and there is no ingame or site-preservation benefit to marginalizing the muppets, i should just ignore them and trust that their gratuitous insults will be ignored by the thoughtful.
so i will add that to my new year's resolution list and resolve not to respond their spipes and trust the mods to keep the threads clean.

so resolved

it's not mrford's fault that the ipod can't spell!!!

the thoughtful like gratuitous insults, it gives them something to ponder.

More of the lack of spell check and the fluffty auto corrections

and my clear lack of care for my diction and spelling on a game forum.

If you want to start talking aero and CAD terms I assure you I'll do better

I also support Adopt a n00b

Confirmed about the fluffty auto-corrections heh

Actually lincoln, Ford didnt attack you or your idea, but as soon as ford made a comment you were all over him.

Maybe you should just post about your idea, instead of attacking people about their spelling, grammar or personal illness they might have

warster

slagpit,
i know you dont want me to expose warster but i have to defend myself

that part of his post didnt even deserve a reply

you are better then that, just let it go, instead of people talking about your idea, people start posting about the slinging match

i'm not wasting anymore time with this

just ignore them and talk about your idea

fordy's response was made (and deservedly so as I had the same thought when reading that it came from a Bridge tournament) due to lincoln's Bridge reference LOL Oh come on lincoln..as much as you harp and cry about LaeX all the time, as much as you go for the insults when you can..are you really...really...gonna cry over someone asking if you are a 70 year old woman? If you are, then maybe you are? Perhaps you have found disfavor with Geritol Silver or something.

i guess i should not be surprised at the ignorance of the world's most popular card game

let us just put it this way

if EE ever becomes 0.00001% as popular as bridge pang will be richer than Croesus

hooray for people who fall back to being a grammar nazi when someone argues a point with them.

I happen to agree with mrford - the term PRO/AM immediately makes me think of golf, and seems inappropriate for the majority demographic playing this game. The idea is feasible (given an influx of new players, but not currently), but I would definitely call it something else.

if that is another of your homo erotic comments...

wtf is bridge and is it anything like canasta?

It's like hearts, but for old people.

If it was homo-erotic, I woulda said viagra instead of geritol.

"It's not always easy to get your friends together for a game of Bridge these days. Thankfully, now you can play Bridge any time you want with this meticulously crafted online version! Team up with a computerized partner and pit your Bridge skills against two clever AI opponents in this free version of the classic card game."

http://www.bing.com/...?q=bridge&form=DTPWGX

it is the most complex of card games
it is considered to be on a par with chess in terms of complexity and intellectual challenge
bridge and chess are the only mind sports recognized as Olympics caliber competitions


the grand masters can make millions of dollars and it takes a minimum of ten years to play well(on a national level)
only a few american universities offer full scholarships to great young players but that is more common in europe

many professional players make $100k a year or more playing and teaching the game
it does have a slightly snobbish reputation as others have referred to but one need not be a millionaire to play
it does cost about $12 a session for organied/ranked play

some older people do play it at home for free and that might be what HWCNG is babbling about
but the national events are generally won by men in their thirties and forties

it is actually much more like spades on steroids than hearts

for those who read newspapers, you will see bridge columns in the puzzles section

it would take too long to explain why a bridge pro/am is more analogous to what we want than a golf pro/am is

if you ever want to pick up an extremely complicated, absorbing and ultimately rewarding game that takes years of study to master, bridge is a great choice

"it would take too long to explain why a bridge pro/am is more analogous to what we want than a golf pro/am is"

Nah man...you are the ONLY one who wants this...again. We'd better off doing Sudoku puzzles then having to read your BS again.

as i said in my first post

pro/am: interesting idea but would need a influx of players

bridge: horrible analogy



im sorry that your deductive logic skills are that of the 70 year old ladies you play bridge with, but that is exactly what i said nothing more nothing less.

Maybe a notice on http://www.gameswirve.com that Earth2025 has been moved and upgraded to EarthEmpires ?

I know i had a hard time looking for this game after i left it 12years ago.. Unless someone who had played earth before and knows that its now EE, its almost impossible to get here since googling earth 2025 gets you no where.

There was 11k players in 1 server back then, its safe to assume alot of them are multies but the player base is definitely more than what we have now. Just check out Utopia cause it was under the same banner before and you could estimate how big it was.

IMHO we need to create more awareness to this game, mainly the different hosting for those who had played the game before by somehow making EE tops on the search engine when ppl google Earth2025. Not hoping too much into relying on facebook or other social sites to bring in alot of players. You guys are hardcore internet addict, how many games do you actually play and got hooked by clicking on facebook advertisement?

IF we could grow to a certain size on new players, then maybe lincoln's idea could come into play to get those newbies to continue playing.

The mods have no control of that website, the only place anyone had any chance of posting info was on the forums. There were numerous posts made.

"it does have a slightly snobbish reputation as others have referred to but one need not be a millionaire to play
it does cost about $12 a session for organied/ranked play"

i tell you, if i could play a round of golf for twelve bucks..

pro/am already works on alliance based servers in regards to clans that value/teach noobs. and i think this idea would likely be against the spirit of the game on ...SOLO... servers.

The tutorial general already gives a treasure trove of useful, tho sometimes contradicting, info that helps noobs connect the dots in regards to better strategic gameplay.

Tho, if it were to work, something like primary would be better to try it in. with primary's length and slowness of turns, i think it would give the noob less turns to fluff up and the vet more time to give advice. Express is too quick to really get the point across as a trainer.

Can't imagine the mods would want to sift through possible hundreds of countries to pair noob with vet. a system of registering as vet or noob at coun creation time would be easier to manage.

i would say the FFA server is probably a really good place for someone to learn how to run countries. A much faster learning curve playing 16 countries at a time. Also allows new players to test different strategies side by side.

I agree though clans is probably the best bet for anyone wanting to learn how to play.

The unfortunate aspect with so few countries, even if the player base doubled or tripled, is new players get farmed off the servers.

I have tried recruiting players from other games even had a few come and play a round. Some even recognized the name and laughed outright, because they play games to have fun not enter into a no win situation. A true new player server that allows players to play without getting farmed to death would be much more productive. There are many different ways the beginner game can be designed to ensure a good experience.

This however is up to the community and the game developers based on what they really want.

The pros is you get to grow the game the cons is that some will see it as something that should never exist and destroys the spirit of the game.

If setsPlayed < 50 rank = Amateur
If setsPlayed > 50 rank = Pro

easy peasy.


For you guys talking about the EE staff needing to do more advertising, CLICK YOUR BONUSES! They're on 4 game ranking sites that are built to funnel new players into games and that WE help build their rankings on, they're working on a facebook version of the game, they've done a lot of SEO work on the site, and have a really well built wiki to help new players. I'd say they're making pretty good progress.

Without seeing analytics, I'm gonna guess the user base of the game has somewhere between doubled-tripled since they took over about a year ago.