I think Daizan has some good ideas, especially marketing wise. Which is needed to make the pitch of this idea successful. I guess we have a business major among us. I have a question though, its late so I may have misread it a few times. But you said 2+ speed non-morale. I feel this implies only these types of settings. So would 1 speed or morale worlds be released in between the time? If so wouldn't we still have that issue?
I think one counter to the influx of cash would be perhaps organizing to slow that influx. We all have skype, many of us have at least a few contacts and influential players on that list of friends that still play. Now i'm not saying starve inno into bankruptcy. But if they're not listening to the players, then one word from people such as Daizan, Deathwish, Bend24, etc. Would probably go a long way and stop people from spending as much. That would trickle down and probably make a company more open to suggestions. This worked to temporarily drive down gas prices in 2006. Though that's just a theory and its easier said than done.
Atilla, it can be argued both ways. The point I feel is being made is that Inno wants the cash quickly. It will make the same or maybe a little more profit with my idea. Both moves are good business moves on paper. Long term my idea makes more money I feel. But I study political science and not business.
As for noob worlds and elite worlds. I feel the key issue is meshing them. Talk to any premade and you'll see maybe 5-6 of the original 30-60 brought there in the first place. So recruiting new players is important. We want a long, competitive, world. If we end up paying any amount of money, then we better get our money's worth. If i enter a world to play, then I want a challenge when I do play. I want to see the world die in two years and not two months. At the very least a world should last a year. Especially if I choose to spend money on said world.
There's a lot of things that have gone wrong in Grepo when it comes to inexperienced players, the bad learning curve, and them being killed off.
1) It is now possible to be conquest ready BEFORE BP ends. When I first started playing this wasn't possible unless the world was a three speed server. Now you can do it on two speed and if you're willing to spend the money, then you can possibly do it on a one speed server. You had time to fight, to learn to dodge and snipe, to read guides, etc. You were guaranteed almost two weeks before you had to start worrying about being conquered.
2) All of the great grepo leaders have all left or no longer deal with noob teams in a committed fashion. And maybe that's something we should take a little blame for ourselves and fix.
But because the worlds are so quickly released and often filled with premades, who honestly has the time to develop their skills? They get killed, hop, get killed hop, maybe a few luck out and get an invite and become something, but many just quit. Lets face it any notable leader that has commented here isn't going to be around forever. Good leaders are in higher demand now than three years ago I would say. Hell, above average leaders are rare qualities at this point. Anyone who is a solid leader now most likely had some experiences in 1.26 and at least made an impact in the world or to midpoint. I have met very few good 2.0 leaders. And all of them are untested. They'll most likely never have to take on Grepohugs, Illuminati, Alliance X, The Liquidators, The Unit, etc. Or their leaders. But these alliances are only great because of the experiences they went through from long games and strong competition that came from it. The people who pay for this game right now are being robbed of an experience. That's what's saddest of it all. I see a lot of old schoolers right now. All of who would probably want the earlier times back or at least something similar.
Anyways enough sentimental stuff and semantics. Back to business, I wanted to thank everyone for their support so far. Friends, rivals, random players. Its nice to see everyone coming together. I personally think that as long as the list of rising support grows, then it'll be too big to ignore. So lets consider this a petition and a challenge.