erm, two things.

you can build 8 a day.

& the units page already shows how many you can build.

Well there HAS to be some advantage for being a little active. If you miss a day, bad luck son, build eships the next day. Simple as that. I agree we need to facilitate things for less active players, but this is a bridge too far for me
Besides, will missing out on a mere 8 planets ruin your round? I don't think so

Activity is fine and there are heaps of rewards for activity in IC. Many more than it's good for the game (and the players). But there is no need to force people online for senseless things like pressing a button. You don't have to think about it, it's no decision, it's a monkey task.

The ideology of the game should certainly not be: You must play every day, better more often. If you take a weekend off, within 3 month, we have implemented ways to punish that. If you plan to be away on weekends regularly: piss off.

...ad-banner-farm-thinking... but IC is ad and bannerfree and a tact &strat game (no monkey game).

So, it's simple: If it doesn't serve a purpose to make IC more exciting and interesting, if it doesn't add tactical or strategical depth... simplify it or get rid of restrictions. As Pie always says we have to evaluate the game piece for piece.

Yep, we can't be making it so that activity doesn't play a factor at all.

I mean, hey, why don't we make it you just login once at round start, and just queue up all actions.  That way you can log back in 4 weeks later, and your empire is still fine.

Yes, an exagerration, but the point is we want to be making people more active (through some other ideas).  I'm of the camp that, we want to make them log in every day, but not just to build explo ships.  Let them do more to grow their empire through meaningful activity.

Also +1 @ IMLC for using cookie examples!!

Mindless activity is better than less activity at least when someone logs on to build expos they can see if they have been attacked or if their family needs anything but that's my opinion.

top fam in pw has only 5 players, that is they missed out on 16 expos a day over other fams and 24 a day all together, yet they're still top by quite a bit.
if u miss expos then sorry, i mean im stupid active and i have little to no advantage over better players, i can see what your trying to do, but 1 day wont kill you

It's not that it's "major" but rather that it adds to the already high barrier of entry.  This game isn't very accessible to many people, and little things like this are part of the reason.

"If this is a change then when will the change come to make it to where you can build a week at a time because people can't log in for a weekend."

That's a big jump, and not really meaningful.

Anyway, this idea likely won't happen and not just because the consensus so far is that it is unwanted.  This idea impacts a part of the game that is a tricky problem to solve.  Honestly, it's incredibly frustrating for me that the community as a whole seems to think that any activity is good activity.  I have to remind you guys:

1) mass planet building
2) unit/building cost calculator
3) build planets to specific ob%
4) improved planet sorting
5) the map showing systems with particular planet types

The above were all additions to the game that took away required activity!  People seem to overlook this.  The last one in particular is huge: the game (especially before map-gen) used to be such that you had to check system by system to get any kind of meaningful knowledge of the galaxy.

If the argument is really "don't do that, you'll reduce activity!" then we should also remove all 5 of the features listed above.  They did exactly that: they removed the necessity to spend time to do a very specific and fairly meaningless thing.

I think you're realizing my concerns Altruist.

Although, there is also the fact that people who do come to the forums are also the people who have been here for quite awhile.  I've mentioned it before that the forum response isn't a very fair reflection of the entire IC player base, it's just a sample.  It happens to be that the same kind of person who is active enough in this game to post in the forum might be the same kind of person who is successful because of certain things that we are proposing to change.

This brings to light the fact that we need a better feedback mechanism so the opinions include those who are currently unaware that these discussions are happening.  That is on my list.

This is my current belief, although I wouldn't say "no life" but rather the game caters to a particular type of play style that requires a ridiculous amount of dedication.  I think this is bad for the game, and a reason for the declining numbers.

That's a nice thought, but just isn't realistic.  We've discussed making a new game before but it requires quite a bit of decision making and game design that isn't really part of what the current dev team does (though I would love if that were my purpose here).  Look at how difficult it is for us to make small changes within the current game.  Designing an entirely new one isn't likely, unfortunately.

I do think however, that it isn't necessary either.  We are making some steps and having discussions behind the scenes to solve issues like this one.  Unfortunately, progress is hindered by a mostly conservative player base who is resistent to consider the perspective of new players who would bring life to the game.  This idea is a great example of that.

In the end, we have a few options:

1) disregard public opinion and make these changes anyway, given the mods agree to them (which is another discussion)
2) decide not to do anything unless people express that they want it
3) balance between the two

#3 is the best option, and what we are trying to do now.  Unfortunately it is also a slow option.  I am working on ways to make this process faster, by considering a more accessible way to solicit player feedback.  Until then, the best we can do is have discussions like this one and try to explain why the current idea that any activity is good activity is very bad for the game's future.

That's very true.  However, the opposite is just as true.  If you only keep the current players happy you won't attract new players.

You have to keep a balance, and right now the balance is tipped too heavy in one direction.

Building explos is necessary yes.  This specific limitation however is not.

It is a matter of balance.  The limit in place exists so that people are forced to pace themselves.  That itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the details are such that it is too heavy of a restriction.

To those who don't want the cap window extended, I ask what is so special about 4 hours?  Why not a limit of building 1 every 3 hours?  or 6?  The feeling I get is that people just don't want to change this detail at all, regardless of which direction it goes in.  I don't think that is a good way to approach our problems.

That's not really comparable.  Infra ratios are far more complex than ensuring the building of a single unit every 4 hours.  But since you're talking about infra, like I said above if we think that we shouldn't be getting rid of these mindless tasks that are required to get ahead, then we also need to re-instate having to build on every planet specifically (no mass planet building) and having to perform your own cost calculations (no cost calculator or ability to build to specific OB%).  After all, by having those features we are "punishing" the players who would have built on every single planet itself and performed those calculations on their own anyway.  I don't really believe that obviously, but it follows the same logic I am seing here.

I have some business experience as well. =P About 6 years working for a very successful web startup.  When I joined the company they had about 10k users.  When I left they had 20 million.  I do know something about balancing user acquisition and user retention, very specifically with websites in fact.

You are right, they are not mutually exclusive but my statement stands true.  If we are only focused on the current players/customers we will not attract new ones.  That doesn't imply mutual exclusivity, it implies that we are so focused on retaining our older users that we are negatively impacting the retention of new ones.

It is very easy to retain old customers yes.  That doesn't mean it deserves most of the focus.  Our goals have to adapt to the game's situation and right now that situation is that we have a few hundred players at most.

We have to keep in mind that no matter how good a game is, there is guaranteed loss as people just stop playing because of things out of our control (RL situations).  If we don't account for this by also keeping a new stream of players coming in, the numbers are certain to decline.  I believe that is a huge factor in why IC has become so small.

If we don't apply more focus on growth, this game's player count will continue to shrink.