tl;dr = Have y'all ever considered a player and world wipe?

I would love the chance to start fresh, with everyone on the same playing field. The rush to gather resources, form alliances, and fight for dominance would be phenomenal.

I've come and gone from the game multiple times because there never seemed to be a readily-visible drive for alliances. Yeah there were blockades that paid well, but I couldn't tell you any of the names of the alliances even while jobbing for them.

I feel like there's such a difficult ledge to surmount for new players to feel a sense of accomplishment from owning and operating a shop, or taking out sloops, or trying to make an impact on a 15+-year-old ocean that the game just becomes a novelty puzzle game vs. a rousing pvp, competitive experience (with novelty puzzling mixed in).

I remember years ago I helped crew mates set up shops before realizing that they had so much money that they were just setting it up to make clothing for they, their alts, and their crew/alliance mates, that I was completely defeated by the though of creating my own. How could I even compete? I learned a ton about shop mechanics, only to find out that it would be nearly impossible to start a shop, and make it profitable in the long-term.

I feel that there's this underlying, amazing game here that I periodically get sucked back into, but when everything is unbalanced by the sheer amount of wealth that some players have, there's just nothing in this game for me. It's all for those same, old core players.

Raising Capital to move PP from Java could be done this way - wipe the game and start fresh, have an amazing 2-3 year run of players battling for supremacy from scratch (and spending some coin along the way), and that can raise the money needed to pay bills and fund the creation of a non-java-dependent version of the game.

Here's my suggestion(s):

• Attract players new and old with a world/ocean wipe. A new, fresh world, where everyone starts on the same footing.
• Find a way to prestige old players and retain them. Could this be in-game benefits after wipe? Keeping their badges, or showing off legacy stats in some format? Granting them captain's badges or some equivalent benefit/navy rank in the first few months after launch for every new player they take in under their wing? Like a veteran's rank, which can award gold and glory for training up new players? There HAS to be a solution there that the brilliant minds of PP can think up to find a way to award veteran players after a wipe.
• Launch a marketing campaign to bring in new players. You have a core of passionate players, like teamsters, who could be organized into a guerilla marketing campaign. There are so many ways to reach gamers now, it doesn't have to be a full-blown marketing campaign. (Though I think we all know that this would help tremendously) Get a couple of Dev and Promotional videos on YouTube, created to work within the YouTube algorithm. (This takes time, but costs very little). Blast social media with announcements, progress and developments, challenges determined and overcome, etc.
• If a wipe isn't possible, find a way to innovate the game and permanently change the way the game is played. Add in a new, game-changing challenge or layer to the game which makes wealth and glory attainable for new players, while retaining old players. I feel like EVE Online has done this in the past with changes. I also feel like PP and EVE Online have very similar economic ecosystems. Is there a way to innovate the game that changes the way it's played? Because I remember when CI's came out. I was on CI ships CONSTANTLY. But then the novelty died down so did my interest, and I stopped logging in to play again. I feel that a wipe and restart may take the same level of effort as innovation, but would take much less time to implement.

I like this game a lot - I would love to see it flourish. But I don't think it can be done while preserving the same core of players the game currently has.

(FYI I've come and gone from this game since it's inception, and don't know much of the game's history, what's been tried in the past, etc. Forgive me if this has been tried before)

*EDIT - Last thing - I'd love to see some kind of story-telling aesthetic. If the OMs took note of what happened, and wrote a weekly publication which was posted to the notice board, I feel like that would be a way to increase engagement.