What Is Wrong With SF
                                                A Not-So-Short Rant By A Fool




           Star-fury is a text based online game, in which, many players vie for the top position in the rankings, and the recognition this brings to them.  To achieve this, most players will join into an alliance, and contribute towards it, and, in most cases, use it's collect might to sheild them from damage and to obtain greater rewards, then would normally be gained from acting solo.  But in recent months it appears that the game has been going "downhill" in respect to the way the game as been played, the general skill of the players, and the lack of new players joining.  It is, however, the lack of new players joining the game which is causing it's downfall.  But what is causing this lack of new players?  Is it the general attitude of the players?  Is the game too hard to learn?  Or are the admins to be blamed for the lack of new players becomming interested in game?  It is in this fools opinion that the players are the only ones that can be held responsible for the lack of new talent.  To be more specific, it's the unfriendly and almost secretive way the players act and talk that is the main deterent against new players trying to join.  

          Star-Fury first started in April 2001 and began to run it's "ALPHA" round.  This lasted for approximatly 2 weeks before it was stoped and the Beta rounds began.  Since no one had played the game before, everyone  had to try and figure out for themselfs how to best play the game and who were the people to follow.  In these early rounds, the alliances were Sector based, meaning that you followed your sector leader(SL) who chose wich other sector to be allied with.  SF grew quite quickly, and by their 3rd beta round, had an large group of players, many of whom had formed friendships with each other, and, due to the change into Empire alliances(where empires join alliances instead of single Sectors) began to play in the same alliance for more then one round.  

       The addition of a IRC server at the end of 2001 added many positive and negitive aspects to the game, and the way that it was played.  This allowed the players to talk to each other, without the use of Instant messengers(IM's) and for a much greater co-ordination of attacks.  This also, however, gave rise to many disadvantages to those players that didn't use IRC, as Alliance Leaders(AL's) began to want only those that could be IRC active to join their alliances.  Without knowing how to connect to IRC, or being unable to use it for technical reasons, such as firewalls and etc, a player was often kicked out of alliance, and couldn't grow at as fast a rate.  The increased rate of co-ordination meant that new targets were passed around, and killed far more quickly then before.  Though, for all it's draw backs, it is however, considered to be a very large positive, and, if a newbie can connect into IRC and find a player willing to teach them, they can be taught faster, and more effectively, then through the in game forums.


        Over the next year SF continues to grow, and many new features are added to the game.  It is during this time that SF experiences it's greatest growth, sees some of whom are still held today as the greatest players ever, and reaches in what many vets call, it's peak.  After almost a year of IRC orientated alliances, all major alliances now use IRC to organise themselfs With the addition of Oracle(the merlin bot) and many other bots, such as ORCA and FUSION, the SF IRC community has also grown considerably.  However, it is during this time that certain SF terms or Slang if u will come to rise, such as "dd" which refers to the Destroyer class ship.  This is the begining of the seperation of the way that vets talk to the way that newbies do.  Because the vets invented the slang, and are used to using them, occasionally when a newbie is started to be trained, they find it harder then it should be, as the vets are using shorted terms, which can sometimes get confusing.  Although during this era of SF leet speak has not fully corrupted the way the players communicate on IRC and newbs are usually trained with ease and are readily accepted.  Also during this time, the idea of "super alliances" comes into play.  these fully vet alliances are made up of some of the best players, and do not care for fairness during wars.  The Most Prominant of these, are Gods(Round2), Hoplites(Round4), and Sacrifice(Round5).  Of These, Sacrifice is usually considered the Worst, as Gods was around from the begining of that round and Hoplites was created soley to destroy one alliance only.  Sacrifice however, was one that caused alot of players to become enemies, due to the varies tactics that were employed during it's existance, the most notorious of all, is it's kicking of smaller empires, to try and create one alliance that contained all of the top 50 empires.  

         Eventually SF shrinks from it's high of over 1000 members, to less then 500.  Admins try as hard as they can to incorporate features that will attract, and protect new members from the vets "newb bashing".  It is also during this time that "leet" or "1337" speak starts to corrupt the way IRC players talk to each other in SFNET.  Eventually the way one would talk in real life, is almost completely different to the way IRC people communicate.  Without prior knowledge to how and why they use the words and expressions they do (with the most notable confusing expression is being the same sex humping) many newbs are confused by what is going on, and when asked to explain game mechanics, many are ignored, as people are too busy with other conversations to help out a new player.  

       So, who is to blame for SF's lack of new and upcomming players?  Is it the admins? No, it is not their fault.  The have tried endlessly to provide us with a game worth playing, and although there are some features that that you many or may not like, everyone is different, so maybe it's a bad feature for you, but a good feature for someone else.  Has the game gotten too hard?  It is doubtful.  The 4 E's, Explore, Expand, Extrapolate, Exterminate, pretty much sums up this game, and many other web based games as well. While the Admins have added a vast array of new features over the past 4 years, the basics of this game remain almost the same as they were when it started, and has, in many players opinions, become even easier to play.  So it can only be then, that the players themselfs are to blame, vets shouldn't be so secretive with their knowledge, and newbies should try a bit harder to get on IRC and get that knowledge out of us vets!


(man, what a hell of a way to do a 300th post! btw, feel free to critisize this)