making a VW look like a BMW aint gonna work

just because people who are new to Z are treated as noobs doesnt mean they know nothing

so many people have come from other space strategy games, tried us and left

they leave for a reason. after a while, the game play is all the same.

and if you noticed, I had given up on propsing changes for Z

I am in the push now for Z2 bigger and better

will I leave Z, no. I said I am here for the friends I have made (you missed that part)

but I would like something a little more in depth.

Hahaha, "I said I am here for the friends I have made (you missed that part)". I can assure you, however big that chip on your shoulder is, (sack of spuds springs to mind, lol) I haven't missed anything. Just because I agreed with someone else's suggestion and not yours, doesn't mean I am right or wrong. However, the same applies to yourself.

As I constantly keep saying, the need is to keep the new players in the game, once they've started. That's IF YOU HAVE NOTICED.

Also, to agree with something that makes the game more visually appealing isn't a bad thing, IF YOU HAD NOTICED, lol.

Also, if you had noticed, BMW's are in fact, crap! No disrespect to any owners of that said brand of vehicle.

As I have said before, if you'd noticed, the beauty of the game is its simplicity. Tweak the game, as I have said before, in case you hadn't noticed. But a lot of the long term players that have been here for years seem to be, by and large, happy with the game as it is. There are things that can be done to improve things, yes. But making it too in depth will drive others away.

In summary my thoughts here are that as many have mentioned the war aspect is fine, it coudl use a little shake up from time to time, but it works.
I would suggest that other aspects to appeal to less 'war' type gamers would be a good idea so long they impact minimally on the war section of the game. To address marks suggestions:
-A story would be interesting, to add onto that, multiple stories would be cool, however is there a nice place to insert a story (or multiple stories?) such that they are available for newer players but aren't "in your face"? EXPEDITIONS if there was some chance of recovering a fragment of a story from expeditions... (like pages of a journal/diary)
-A slight enhancement to the galaxy maps would be pleasant (like a galactic overview type of thing), and as for exploration.. see above.
-Named individuals seems extreme to me, unless you're talking about commanders that have a chance to die in battle but provide a slight combat boost and get stronger with each victory. (This would actually be really cool, to have a commander who has a max number of ships he/she can command to a certain degree of improvement, which could also bring about the custom fleets that have been talked about before (like 50bc's +1ec, attach a commander to that and viola, though raiders would need 20+ commanders for that to work))
-Population, I'd suggest this type of thing should be default 'off' in the options, but it woudl be interesting to have some power over what percentage of your planet's population was focused on what (resources, production, research, engineers to enhance defence recovery percentages etc.)
-Better science... I really don't care, but perhaps the flavour text could be redone? (not that I ever read it personally)
-Customization... Perhaps require 1 ruby to change to prevent spamming of this, but I wouldn't be opposed provided any changes to gameplay are minimal (~10%)


To reiterate my first point though, I would definitely like to see stories being recoverable from expeditions, it would provide something to do, though these stories would have to be written by someone which may be a massive obstacle.
Perhaps a story is broken into ~10 parts, and one part released every week or so. Collection of an entire story perhaps provides some slight buff (like one of the +25% 7day ruby upgrades). Finding these could even be 'local' such that only certain systems can be 'explored' to find a story part (1:1 - 1:10) encouraging people to launch explorations everywhere to try and find it, though in such a case it would be cool if there were some hints about where the next one would be:
"... After the hard fought victory, few of our ships remained. Alas recyclers were already inbound from further up this galaxy so we were unable to recoup our losses. We know that it would only be a matter of time before we ran into some large fleet so we are preparing for an all or nothing attempt to get our debris field back, one of our allies was able to send us a phalanx report on the recyclers so we are about to launch an intercept mission. Sadly this may be my last entry, may fortune favour us. End entry 253."
Thus we know that say this fragment was found around '3:55' then when the next fragment is released it's PROBABLY in galaxy 3 above 3:55 which is a massive improvement on the whole universe yet still large enough to be hard to be sure if you will find it.
(A story could even end at a point like this and we might have to hunt down the story of the other side to find out what happened in that attack)

yea i would enjoy a nice bright new interface, but maybe a few..not many complicated elements that can just waste time while my fleets return from raids n such, i always have like 10-30 minutes before raids get back and waiting around is agreeably boring...i for one have no ideas as to how to improve the player base but i would like to see some new features brought in

Einstein's Theory of Insanity: Continue to do the same thing and expect a different result.

i know this sounds a bit crazy, but how about "Z2: Homeland" where you have an economy based homeland that needs to be maintained via food production, cash flow... blah blah blah that can give boosts of your Z1 game.. for example, if you keep farms working at a certain level you can get a bonus to your shipyard building speed because the workers are more healthy.

In essense it is an additional game that has no effect on the mechanics on this game unless you want it to. So, for those that like the game the way it is, fine and for those that want something else to do, they can enjoy that and get a bonus for doing it. You could even incorporate alliance bonuses, i.e. weekly resource bonuses for weekly goal accomplishments.

I realize this is actually an entire new sub-game, but man when I have a level 35 metal mine taking a day to build, it would be nice to be able to do something to help speed up the process besides raiding to build my nanite up another level.

I think I half understand Spankie, but I like where I think he is going with this.

Basically a sim game of your planets population that can have certain boosts depending on what you do in it. I like it, though I have no idea how long it would take to design/implement.

Probably awhile.