Where are you from?
I’m from Florida in the USA.

What do you do, when you’re not playing with Zandagort?
Besides work, I generally like to play grand strategy games like Europa Universalis III or Victoria II.

How did you get to know about Zandagort, why did you sign up?
I was looking around for another space 4x game similar to Astro Empires because I wasn’t happy with the pay-to-win structure they had. I found Zandagort and felt that it didn’t give such severe advantages to people who paid money and thought it would be worth a shot and stuck around.

Since when do you play Zandagort?
I’d say I’ve probably been playing it for a couple of months now.

Why did you found Serious Space Dudes?
I participate on the Something Awful forums and thought I’d start a goon alliance and get some other goons to come along so we can do goony things. You’ll see what we have planned in the coming weeks .

Do you like scifi? What are your favorite scifi books, films, games?
Oh yes definitely. I’m a huge fan of the more “talky” Sci-Fi series like Star Trek where they use Sci-Fi to explore contemporary issues. I’d say that about half or more of the stuff I play, read, or watch is Sci-Fi.
That said, my favorite Sci-Fi movie would have to be Short Circuit. It’s not the most well known Sci-Fi film out there, but it was my absolute favorite movie as a kid.
As to books… I’d have to say Ender’s Game. I managed to get through it without it being spoiled and the twist blew my mind.
And games… I would probably have to put “Portal” on there. I might play 4x and strategy games more than any other type of game. But there hasn’t been a Sci-Fi game as refreshing as Portal in as long as I can remember.

What do you like most about Zandagort?
I like the supply chain aspect of it. It’s a little like the Anno series.

What do you like least about Zandagort?
If there was one thing I would change it’s the pacing. The slow ramp up for new players is rough. It can take upwards of 2 months before a player will be out engaging with other players in a meaningful way besides just talking with them on their alliance message board or chat.

What was the most interesting story that happened to you in the game?
When I started Serious Space Dudes. My old alliance-mates were super pissed that I started a competing English speaking alliance. Many pubbie tears were had.

On average how many hours do you play a day?
Too many

How did you name your planets?
Things related to Daft Punk mostly, so either songs, or I have one based partly on Interstella 5555 which is basically a movie set to Daft Punk’s Discovery album.

What is your favorite type of ship?
Only had the starting carrier and a handful of frigates so far. I can’t really say much about the ships.

What’s your gaming style? (e.g. builder, fighter, etc)
Well, usually in 4x games I’m more of a builder than a fighter. I’ve been mainly focused on getting a solid platform for my shipyards to spit out my fleet, and helping my alliance mates with spacebucks.

What motivates you in the game, what’s your final goal? Beating Zandagort, ranking high individually or as an alliance on the toplist, building the perfect economy, or something else?
Mostly causing havoc and shaking things up.

How do you think we could recruit more players and reduce drop-out?
Speeding up the early game so that people get into meaningful interactions with one and other (and that doesn’t necessarily mean fighting, it could be trading, or other player/player interactions) would help a lot. Buying some ads on Something Awful wouldn’t hurt either .

Would you like to be able to customize the look of the game?
Eh, Astro Empires had that and I never really used it. I wouldn’t care much either way.

Do you use the forums, do you read the blog? If not, why not? What would you change on them?
I’ve posted a couple of times on the forums, but a link to your language appropriate forum that’s visible while you’re in the game would probably drive a lot more traffic. Right now, if I wanted to visit the English forums I would have to search Google for the blog, go to your blog post about the English forums, and click the link, which is kinda out of the way and something someone who only visits the site infrequently would never think to do.

Do you think some kind of scanner would be useful? (that lists enemy fleets in your territory)

Probably, although I’d make sure to not tie it up behind a paywall. Astro Empires had their behind the pay wall and that meant that people who paid money had a huge advantage tactically over those who didn’t pay.

What other gaming do you do?

Well, I already talked about the videogames I play, but I do play some Warhammer 40k tabletop from time to time, and that’s fun.

What question would you have preferred to answer I didn’t ask? Answer it as well.
If you could go back and change anything about the way you’ve played so far, what would it be?
Me, I’d have avoided losing my starter carrier. It was a stupid mistake and set me back a week or two in expanding to other planets.

What would you ask from the next interviewee?
What type of planet is your favorite and why?

The galaxy shrank from 14828 planets and a population of 80 billion to 185 planets with 5 billion people. 3 billion equivalents of spaceships were destroyed, 2.2 billion of which were aliens.

The remaining galaxy looks like this:

Bering Galaxy after the war with Zandagort

And the map acquired from Zandagort and put together piece by piece was this:

War plan of Zandagort against the Bering Galaxy

The table in the upper left corner means: 4 waves arrive. The first goes to the end of the arrows starting from the tiny circles and consists of zeuses. The second goes to the circles and consists of mosquitos, castors and polluxes. The third goes to the same place and consists of castors, polluxos and zeuses. And the fourth and final wave arrives at the black dots and consists of all alien ships except for zeus.

On the map the first three waves arrive at the black rectangles and go along the arrows, the fourth arrives at the black dots. The circles at the arrows indicate the class of planets attacked by the second wave: class A: single dot, class B: square in the circle, class C: cross, class D: line and dot, class E: two dots. Aliens arriving at the empty circle attack all classes.

Tiny gray dots indicate planets that remained before this attack. The map is rotated by 112.5 degrees.

Congratulations to all who helped decrypting the war plan or killing the aliens. And to all who managed to survived these turbulent times.

Where are you from?
I’m from the U.S. I’ve lived all over this country including New York City, Los Angeles, and Honolulu. I currently live out in the country where you can see the stars at night and feel the silence.

What do you do, when you’re not playing with Zandagort?
I live with my daughter, who works too much. So, I help her with her household, play on the computer, do some sewing and some gardening and try to do my exercises daily.

How did you get to know about Zandagort, why did you sign up?
I found Zandagort while doing an online search for science fiction games. My very first computer game was called Star Flight and it is still the best. It was in the days before mice and we played on an amber screen. But I digress. I’ve been recovering from an illness and was house bound for almost 2 years. I’m much better now, but I started playing computer and online games to keep my brain from turning to mush. I find that there are a lot of people who do the same thing.

Since when do you play Zandagort?
I started playing in the middle of server 3. I barely had enough time to build ships before Zand arrived. I was wiped out quickly, but learned a lot.

Why did you found Destiny?
We needed another English speaking alliance. I was in the Skaro Faction in Server 3, then an Hungarian alliance on Server 4. While the guys in the Hungarian alliance were great to play with and they taught me a lot, the game, any online game, is boring if you don’t have people to talk to. So, please, all chatty English speakers, come to Destiny.

Do you like scifi? What are your favorite scifi books, films, games?
I’ve always loved Sci-Fi. I’m an original Trekkie. My daughter is also a big fan. So, I took her to Star Trek conventions when she was young. I’m not as big a fan of fantasy, but I do love the Elder Scrolls series and play them on the X-Box.

What do you like most about Zandagort?
The Math. I used to teach math to children and have been called a walking calculator. I run extensive spread sheets along side this game.

What do you like least about Zandagort?
Some of the interface is clumsy, but that takes money to change. I know that if you sold advertising space like a lot of other games you would have lots of money to upgrade, but I’ll take clumsy over advertising banners any day.

What was the most interesting story that happened to you in the game?
You form friendships in these games. Especially when you talk to someone several times a week for months. I still think fondly of ‘Why’, the leader of the Hydran Protectoratus from Server 4, who passed away just before the end of the server. We’ve also lost several good players to this economy. I miss them all.

On average how many hours do you play a day?
Too many. I leave my computer on and check periodically as I get things done around the house.

How did you name your planets?
I always have a theme. But so far this time I’m just using colors. I may get more creative as time goes by in this server.

What is your favorite type of ship?
I love all of the battleships.

What’s your gaming style? (e.g. builder, fighter, etc)
I’m more of a builder and I’m a believer in humans working together to build a better resistance to Zand. In-fighting will only lead to our destruction. Some day we will work together to build a strong enough resistance so that we can take the fight to him. If enough of us survive the upcoming battle we won’t have to run. We can build even better planets and ships. Then find his bases and maybe why he’s doing this. (I am a dreamer.)

What motivates you in the game, what’s your final goal? Beating Zandagort, ranking high individually or as an alliance on the toplist, building the perfect economy, or something else?
The community motivates me. I think that’s true in all successful games. I play in a notorious alliance in an online game called “Grepolis”. I play there with people I’ve played with before. The alliance was formed for all of us to play together. We are the top alliance and we do “kick ass”, but we also have a lot of fun doing it – community.

How do you think we could recruit more players and reduce drop-out?
Well, those are two very different questions. Recruitment means getting the word out, advertising. When you can afford it, I would recommend Facebook ads.
As for retention, well, this can be a slow going game. But I’m not sure the new players realize how much you have to build to be successful. I’m glad we now have an English speakers’ forum. Now we have to get people to use it.

Would you like to be able to customize the look of the game?
Not really. If I want to customize something, I’ll play a Zynga game.

What do you believe Zandagort “thinks” about when he prepares his attack on human civilisation?
I don’t know, because he’s not just killing us, he or she is wiping out entire planets. Maybe they need the space.

Do you use the forums, do you read the blog? If not, why not? What would you change on them?
I read the forums and the blogs. So far I won’t change anything, but as a woman I retain my right to change my mind.

What do you think about the changes on s7?
We still don’t have penalties for those who pirate other humans and it’s a bigger and bigger problem. The natives are restless and don’t care about the endgame. We need incentive for beating Zandgort and for working together.

Do you think some kind of scanner would be useful? (that lists enemy fleets in your territory)
Yes. I’m not sure what you mean, but it sounds good. Need input.

What question would you have preferred to answer I didn’t ask? Answer it as well.
Well, you didn’t ask me what I did before I was retired.
I ran my own business and retired at 40. Then I went back to school and got my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. So, the plan is to start writing. I’ll still be at home a lot, but more productive.

What would you ask from the next interviewee?
What other gaming do you do?

If you like statistics, from now on you can have it every day at zandagort.com/s7/stat/ and zandagort.com/s6/stat/.

Not much changed in Kitty’s life since then. She read cheap old space pulp fiction and dreamt of adventures and adventurous men. Normally everyone outgrows this period. But it was not exclusively Kitty’s fault that she didn’t. Daydreaming is the sport of the hopeless and hopelessness is rarely chosen.

Kitty’s home planet was once a flourishing titan planet. Its prosperity stammed from the constant arms race, and although as a typical colony most of the profit was pumped out of it, the workers and miners could still make a decent living. And so would have it been till the end of times, were the planet not lying on a triple border. This geopolitically unlucky position led to systematic lootings and conquests. The local population could tolerate this, but finally after one of the empires occupied the planet, it decided to exploit it permanently.

Resources were quickly exhausted due to high production and the economy collapsed. This time not only the profit left the planet, but capital and finally the workers as well. Average lifespan jumped to 67 years in a couple of months and the youngest person was well over fifty. The planet was doomed. Its dwellers having tea and waiting to die.

Kitty was not young either, she was just over 61. And why didn’t she leave the planet as the others? Perhaps she was too naive and did not believe it was the end. Perhaps she was too patriotic who loved this snowball so much she couldn’t just leave it behind. Perhaps she was just too slow to decide and by the time she made up her mind it was too late. For it was too late now. No spaceship capable of flying, no man capable of driving was left on the planet. Nobody and nothing came here except for hyperwave radio broadcasts. The remaining population switched to self-preservation.

Kitty might have lived her life like this till the end, had not the long awaited adventure caught her up. A stray pirate ship crash landed near Kitty’s house due to a failed engine.

Getting over the first shock she became very enthusiastic. The pirates were a bit scruffy but really friendly. Especially after they tasted Kitty’s food. During their first lunch at her they joked about inviting her to be the chief cook on their ship. It took ten days to fix the engine. Although mines and factories had closed long time ago there were still enough spare parts. The pirates were preparing to leave. By this time they loved Kitty, this dear old lady so much as if she were their mother. So this time their invitation was not a joke.

Kitty could not sleep a bit that night, she was just flouncing in bed. All her life she was waiting for this. To set sail to outer space with a bunch of pirates and experience unbelievable adventures. And yet now that her dream was about to come true she became uncertain. She had to realize that dreams elaborated for fifty years outshine reality. Even this one and a half weeks were enough to see that these pirates were not exactly as she had imagined. What whould happen if she spent a month, a year or even more time with them? She would probably get disappointed not only in them, but in space, spacetravel and adventures. She realized that the perfection of dreams outmatches the reality of reality.

Next morning the pirates could not understand why she said no. Kitty didn’t tell them the real reason, because she did not want to hurt their feelings. It’s not their fault that they don’t compare to the non-existent pirates of her dreams. She baked them a few pans of pine nut cookies as a farewell gift.

Kitty was sitting on the porch when they took off. She looked up to the sky above the snowy mountains but she only saw a blur of light instead of the receding pirate ship because of the tears filling her eyes…

She never heard about them again and died a few years later. So she didn’t know that these nice pirates left the galaxy not much later. She didn’t know that although they were defeated in the Pirate Civil Wars they survived and fled. She didn’t know that once they arrived at the Cartwheel Galaxy they decided to give up piracy and populate it as ordinary citizens.

And she didn’t know that a pine nut from one of her cookies was planted and from that single nut during the next hundred years a whole wood has grown. A norwegian wood.

The Cartwheel Galaxy

Click to the map to view the details.

And if you are interested in the voyage of mankind in the Zandagort Universe, check this out:

Zandagort galaxies s1-s7

How old are you?
33

What do you do, when you’re not playing with Zandagort?
Girl friend, music, reading, watching movies, learning Hungarian language:)

How did you get to know about Zandagort, why did you sign up?
A friend of mine told about that game.

Since when do you play Zandagort?
First Pixell started on s3 now I’m his 4th reincarnation.

Why did you join Hello Kitty?
Cause they offered me good chance to learn the high tech PvP techniques, and they let me to play in my style.

Do you like scifi? What are your favorite scifi books, films, games?
Yes,i am a great Star Wars Fan.

What do you like most about Zandagort?
PVP combat

What do you like least about Zandagort?
Too many players play Zandagort as the Farmville and when somebody attacking them they crying like a baby. I fully respect the Umbrella Corporation they are different.

On average how many hours do you play a day?
As many needed, but i don’t like the great wars they take too much time.

How did you name your planets?
Nothing special

What is your favorite type of ship?
Heavy cruiser

What’s your gaming style? (e.g. builder, fighter, etc)
I’m a soldier. My superiors set the targets, i’m executing!

What motivates you in the game, what’s your final goal? Beating Zandagort, ranking high individually or as an alliance on the toplist, building the perfect economy, or something else?
To be a famous fleet leader and help my alliance to reach their goals.

How do you think we could recruit more players and reduce drop-out?
I think you need some good PR assistant.