Wikipedia
Planetarion (commonly referred to as PA) is a browser-based massively multiplayer online game. Created by'' Fifth Season AS'' in early 2000, then bought by Jolt in 2003, and then purchased by Renegade Games in 2009; it is now currently owned by Jagex Games Studio. The game places players in control of a planet, with the ability to mine its asteroids for resources, enabling them to construct a fleet of spaceships to attack other player's planets. Although its popularity has declined with the emergence of other similar games and the introduction of a pay-to-play model, which has since been changed to a freemium format, the game is currently still active, and as such is one of the oldest running internet games of its genre.
The objective of the game is to attain a higher score than your opponents, which can be achieved primarily by stealing their asteroids and destroying their fleets. The game offers a player the choice between five races, each with their own types ships and advantages, allowing for a variety of strategies. Every few months, the game is reset, at which point winners are declared and a new round of play starts, commonly with a number of new features and updates to keep the gameplay balanced.
The game updates once per hour, which is called a tick in-game. Every action within the game, from the construction of a factory to the attack of another planet, takes a set number of these ticks, which gives the game a unique mix between turn-based and real-time gameplay, as it allows players only a limited window of time to react to other player's actions. Because of this, cooperation and communication between planets is a necessity, which leads to a strong sense of community play as the players organise themselves into alliances. As such, Planetarion has an active presence on the NetGamers IRC network for direct communication between players.