aoumd

I am the Barbarian with the 15 airlines which are currently ranked 1-15 in game Rδ.

I wanted to post and just mention that while these airlines are truly spammy, for players who are not interested in spamlines, to "keep the faith" and "hang in there."  I created this network of spamlines to generate enormous valuations in order to fend off the threat of another potential competing alliance which, well, is no friend of the Barbarians...and which often materializes in "Unlimited Airlines per Player" games.  So far, this competing alliance has not emerged so far in Rδ.  I will keep adding to my valuations for the majority of this game to truly try to keep ahead of such a competitive threat should it emerge later on in the game.

However, if we get towards the end of this game and the competitive spamline threat I am protecting my alliance against does not materialize, then barring vaporized by WW3 nukes or some other IRL calamity, I plan to liquidate the majority of my airlines.  The idea is to allow others with more realistic airlines to have a shot at most of the valuation trophies available in this game. 

While I feel it is important to try and prevent a certain historic alliance in Rδ from further monopolizing valuation trophies, I don't want to simply take its place.  This monopolization may be driving people out of the game, and my goal is not to drive people away from AE.  I want to win, but I don't want to monopolize.

That's all for now...just wanted to make sure you know I'm not trying to be as greedy as I may seem.

And major kudos to the founder of RitzAir for creating the "Barbarians at the Gates" Alliance!  If you're based in the USA in Rδ I recommend joining.  You'll get a LOT of through traffic from any mutual hub!

The concept of AE v4, and indeed effective administration, programming updates, etc. to the game has been discussed for the six years I have been playing this game, with little in the way of new changes.  Now, this forum has started hosting discussions regarding the game itself losing players due, in part, to becoming stale.

At this time it appears that AE has very little in the way of administrative or programming resources, and even less to actually program a new AEv4.

AE is also free.  There are a lot of ads in this game, but those likely don't bring in much net revenue less the cost of maintaining servers.  Not enough to make it worthwhile of the time needed to program, release and administer patches to AEv3 or introduce AEv4.

Therefore, my proposal is this: AE remains a free game, but perhaps they can introduce an optional fundraising campaign, perhaps through a Patreon, Ko-Fi or other crowdsourced model, to raise the funds necessary to hire the programming resources necessary to finish and introduce a patch to AEv3, introduce AEv4, and make it more worthwhile for mods and administrators to keep the game going well.  I don't mind Yuxi getting paid for his time on this game.

I'd be happy to make a donation to any such campaign.  And while many players are not in that financial position, I'm sure some others are.

Thoughts?