Ping Pirates!

Ping Reporter: What do you call a captain that gets 80 ore, 10 plasma rock, and 1 uber-crest of death? I am sure you all know what I am talking about here…..you don’t? Okay, for those that live underground expecting radiation fallout, I am talking about the winner of Miss Battlestations! 2008.

Ping Reporter: We have the audacious personality behind this wonderful contest, Keith Parker! Keith, welcome, brief us about this sexist contest.

Keith: Sexist?!?!? I thought the players of that poorly developed application, Pimp, were on that square? Ah well…. Okay, the contest goes like this…

Ping Reporter: Wait! Before you start jabbering on about something, resident-flamer (>.<) Jon Lai says this was his idea, is that true? Keith: Who’s Jon Lai again? Oh yea, well, he did say something about it before hand on a separate thread where I confronted LL on the idea. I had honestly never viewed that particular thread, until he started complaining. I looked and was surprised at the fact that he had mentioned something about it, but didn’t take it any further than make a comment. Amazing coincidence, actually. ;-) Ping Reporter: Okay onward with the explaining!

Keith: K, the contest consists of four rounds. The first round is simple questions that anyone who has been on here for some time should know about. Only six contestants are carried on from this round to the second round, and all ties will result in a tie breaker *short* round. The second round is just a acid filled version of the last one, with questions that range from the obscene to the out-of-date. Four ppl will make it out of here alive to come to round 3. In round three, the questions are on more of a moral and ethical basis. These will be judged by all judges on a score of 1-10. The two that are approved as the best for BS will move on to round four. This is where the community votes as a whole as to who they want as Miss BS 2008.

Ping Reporter: Well, that was quite confusing.

Ping Reporter: Who will be judging the contest besides you?

Keith: Well, we have Stephanie Nguyen, Jeremy Hing, Alanna Chie, Jonathan Parich, YauFai Chia, and of course LL is in here too. Ping Reporter: Hmmm, developer backing sounds pretty legit. Question? How are you going to stop things such as cheating, scalping, multis, etc? Keith: Well, we have LL at the helm of this ship, and I hope he can steer us in the right direction as far as this issue is concerned. We have measures in place to stop people from cheating to make a winner. Ping Reporter: Sounds a little cryptic…

Keith: Well, can’t divulge too much now can I? We might have all the deleted CHAOS members coming out of the woodworks to wreck it.

Ping Reporter: Hmmm, CHAOS? Okay…. I might be interested in joining after hearing about the prizes, what’s up for grabs again?

Keith: Well, The prizes are staged, so that everyone(every girl, sorry Jon, you can’t enter and no, not Nicky either!) who enters wins something for the picture of the Miss BS sign. I’ll run through the official listing:Winner: Custom made one-of-a-kind crest will be powerfulLadies who make it past these rounds win this:1st round: 20 ores2nd round: 60 ores3rd round: 4 plasma rocks4th round: 6 plasma rocks

Keith: Also, everyone who is entered officially into the contest gets a plasma right off the bat. People that aren’t even associated with the contest can get in on the action. Clans are encouraged to support the contest, if you can get half of your clan to join, your clan fortress gets a 5 million gold donation to it. Also, if individuals join both the Miss BS group and the fan page they receive a free 100AP. There are also more things to come for those that participate as the audience so stay tuned!

Ping Reporter: There you have it! And remember you heard it from Ping Pirates! One more question, spit or swallow?

Credits goes to Keith Parker of Ping for this wonderful article!!!

This is the start of a few Analysis and Reviews of the Battle Stations games on facebook, besides the usual 10 questions interviews. It wont discuss about spit or swallow, but more "real" issues facing the Battle Stations community. Like all discussions, there is no right or wrong, only a good analysis and bad analysis, hence Ping does not proclaim this is the right view, it is up to the reader to agree or disagree.

Clan Wars for some time has been an exp source for various active war players. To those who doesn't know about clan wars, the basics goes like this: Every clan has a fort, to take part in a clan war, you have to be a member of a clan. The fort strength is dependant on donations from clan members, the more donations, the stronger the fort. The fort can also be defended by members of their clan. Like ships, a fort can also be sunk, when a fort is sunk the clan is unable to attack other forts, and it will take 48 hours (except for special events) to salvage the fort which is done for free. When the fort is damaged, there is also an option to repair the fort. If a clan sucessfully sinks other clans fort, their clan gets war points. The more war points a clan has, the higher their clan is ranked against other clans. However clans can only attack other forts they are at war with, and of course their fort must be up.

However clan wars while said to be fun, also has their short comings. It has been repeatedly criticised as unfair and buggy. One such bug is the declaration of war feature, if a clan declares war, you cannot attack back unless you declare war back.

Clan Wars used to give so much exp, that the exp gains is as follow : Clan Wars ---> PvP ---> Explore --->>>>> Trading (for traders). However recently Clan Wars exp has been nerfed, and NPCs (from exploring) exp has been buffed. Some of the actions the community has taken are to petition to remove the nerfs.

Our resident Ping Reporter has spoken to different players of different clans of different nature to see how the nerf has affected them and their clans. The clans are :

HCZD : HCZD is a small clan with most of their members current at NS. It is a clan made more for members of the Hwa Chong Institution of Singapore. They seldom resurrect in clan wars due to their service to our nation.

ELITES : Elites is also a relatively small clan with some solid members with 3 Kingdoms nicknames. It is also relatively new and was made together with the Legends clan.

CREED : The former Temasek Hegemon clan, CREED was 1 of the first few clans to be made. Its history could be made into a great story, and at 1 point of time, overtook EVA to become the top clan in warpoints, and has undergone several leadership changes.

EVA : EVA was a clan founded by former Gamblers. For quite a while, they lived under the shadow of Gambler, but has since proven that without JC and his merryman, they are still a force to be reckon with.

Ping : No I didnt interview myself! Ping is the reporter clan of BS!!!

Other clans : Some who I have asked has not replied to at the point of this post.

Disclaimer : The players spoken to are not representing the views of their own clan but as a player. They were asked from different clans hence may produce different answers depending on factors such as size of clan, activeness of clan, and war strength of clan. As their views may be controversal and may not agree with their clan masters or the general community, identities will be protected and hence they will be refered to as XXX member, XXX being their clan.

The following questions were asked :

1) Why did you join your clan over other clans?
This question was asked to find out what made this clan special and stand out as per compared to other clans.

2) Clan Wars : Exp or WP?
These are the 2 main material benefits of clan wars. The question was to see what made players more attracted to clan wars.

3) Which is more important to you? Clanship, Good Fort/Ships, or having LOADS and LOADS of members?
These are probably 3 attributes that most clans strive for, recruitment, quality members, and having fun while doing so.

4) Excluding your clan for obvious reasons, which clan is the best clan and why?
This clan was made to see how a member rates qualities in other clans.

5) Recently LL nerfed the exp of clan wars. In your opinion was it a good or a bad change and why?
Obviously DUH thats what the whole post is about.