Pnakotic

Sure, it used to have non-retarded AvCom. But I don't recall any time when there wasn't a surplus of gankers... except maybe right after launch, when the newb-to-ganker ratio was still high and the economy was screwed.

So, uhh... how is that different than any other time in the history of PotBS?

Oh god... yeah, I remember when they rolled in the Phantasy Star crap. Ugh.

So what the heck were the econ changes that supposedly went in a couple months back?

Something new has come out on Steam called "Carribean". It's based on the Mount & Blade system, and looks a lot like everything the original devblogs promised PotBS's AvCom system would be (before they decided to adopt the Phantasy Star arcade ping-kiting fest, instead).

With a team of three guys? Flailinglab couldn't manage that in four years with a team 10x the size...

Nerfed frigates, brought back bundleboats as cash shop items that require random OS loot drops, nerfed accuracy and spikes, nerfed maneuvering... yep. There's been some changes to "quality" all right!

If by "brought back to life" you mean "they finally killed it"...

In the case of PotBS, I'd say the problem hasn't solely been detecting cheating, its been very inconsistent policies as to what sort of behaviors are allowed. And really lax enforcement even when people were caught cheating. They've waffled back and forth on econ-x-teaming at least three times, and it took a month-long forum revolt for FLS to acknowledge that using using alt accounts to sabotage RvR might have an adverse impact on the game. Hell, I don't think they ever even permabanned anyone over the months-long ship duping exploits, though they did slap temporary bans on a ton of people who had unknowingly bought duped ships via the AH... the general response to a new exploit was to compliment the exploiter for being clever, give infractions to anyone who complained about exploiting on the forums, and then ignore the issue until it hit such a critical mass that half a server had quit playing over it. I loved PotBS when I could get good fights, but I'm really amazed it survived as long as it has given the management.

I guess no matter how much things change, some things will always remain the same.

I couldn't even get my account to migrate when PotBS went to Portalus. I'm mildly curious to see where it's at, it looked sort of like they were trying to somehow hammer out some of the power creep and weirdness, but at the same time it really looked like classes were getting pigeonholed without a lot of regard for balance. But... after 4 years of highhopes and dashed expectations, I don't really have much heart to. Plus Fodderboy sorta cheesed me off by permabanning me from the forums on three accounts for pointing out why bad game changes were bad around the time they were ramming 2.14 down our throats.