At least, to my knowledge. I hate to create another of these threads but having to sift through all the crap other threads were made of, perhaps it is time to start a fresh with a new idea.

I am making this thread mainly because of reading thread after thread of why IC is dead and thread after thread of "this person is dishonorable" or "this person is raping us" or "this person broke nap". I am making an effort to attend to each of those problems through this one thread so we can stop the bitching (so to speak)

Now, from my understanding, people are always saying the decline of IC is because of NAP breaks and raping and what not. Fair enough. However, this wasn't happening years ago. Let me draw this out for you:

Year      Players      what happened

2003 --- 3-4000 --- no nap breaks, people had honor

2009 --- <1000? --- nap breaks, honor or no honor

does anyone see a correlation? I do. Because of a lack of people, there have been families that have resorted to dirty deeds in order to thrive. Where once there was a hundred or more families there is less than 40. The lack of players to assist this endeavor has created a small rift in what would be IC that is causing this disaster. The less people there are, the less families. The less families, the fewer targets. The fewer targets, the harder it is to grow once you nap people. Thus, if you're napped to everyone within 6 camaar ticks of you, then you attack the next person you are in range of, be it rank 10 or rank 30 as the family needs new space to grow.

Another correlation is the increasing time period. As time increases, so does technology and as technology increases, people flock to the newer technology because of how it is more...shall we say, better? For lack of a better term at least. Why play a text based game when you can SEE your ship, FLY your ship and FIGHT with your ship? (EVE). I remember someone saying in one of those milllions of threads of this kind that, because of the technology changing, people have decided to move on to better stuff. Most people here remain because of the community. Even if 65% of IC is idiots and the other 45% is geniuses.

I feel that because of a lack of people, there needs to be a cut-down on the number of naps or maybe when people make a nap. I know certain families go shooting for a nap at bor in order to prevent a war. After being with Kagar and OrBit, I understand now that the way a nap SHOULD work is that after you war someone, then you nap them; or maybe after you hit somebody and they want a nap, you make your own choice. Problem here is resolved in the matter of lessening the number of naps and/or having naps made after a skirmish/war etc. Not a "ooo, this guy is big, let me nap him. 50 planets? better than losing 100" kinda bullshit.

or maybe pnaps are killing IC and not the 48 hour naps which can be broken later on for more fighting.

I think I saw someone once mention the lack of advertising also kills the growth of the game. I'm sure that plays a role too

Lastly, and this is to each player, The thing that I cannot stress enough is that this game is about fun. If you attack somebody much lower ranked than you and they are on the edge of leaving, they might just leave. You may add them to your wall of deleted players, but they might not return, leaving us with one less player and eventually one less family. If we continue to do things the way the are, eventually we may just end up with a game that has no future, just a bunch of bums and friends bumming around jacking off and what not with a forum. If we attend to the problems 2 years ago, a difference could have been made. Now, the only thing we can do is stop attacking people 20+ ranks below us because that is just telling people "you are learning and growing, yes, but because I'm bigger, I am going to take your planets".

"That is part of the game" yeah, sure, but taking 100? 200? 300? planets from a family with barely 600 is bullshit. I can see 30-50, but 300 is overdoing it. People need to realize that there is a cutoff point to attacking. When you get to that point you simply have 2 options, 1. continue attacking and make yourself an ass, or 2. leave them be and offer them a 48 hour nap. whatever, sometimes people just see these small fams as an easy target and just want to get their family easy planets to win the game. Stupid asses and small families! FIGHT BACK! my fam, 14, was rank 26 and soccer_09 retook and fought back against Zidi and his family, rank 1, and won! You guys can do it, you just have to work hard and do your best. If you take it lying down, then you are asking for it practically. The mods aren't going to say "Hey, you guys, no. Stop, that's naughteh."

in closing, I would simply like you guys to think about this because it is probably the most serious post you will ever get out of me (short of the ones I made awhile ago in politics)