Each user needs a mailbox, just like in an email interface. The mailbox would include:
(1) an inbox folder for incoming private messages
(2) a sent items folder saving all messages sent to others
(3) a draft folder for incomplete messages or messages to be sent at a later time
(4) diplomacy message folders for each game containing all diplomacy messages, sortable by order received, turn number, or sender
(5) a means for composing game diplomacy messages while not inside the Echo Cluster.

Here are some reasons for these suggestions based on my own experience:
--I have made some friends on Nu with whom I have sent some extensive strategic suggestions back and forth in private messages (from the profile page) without realizing I'd never again have access to the messages I had sent, and now I wish I had a copy of what I wrote for my own records, or perhaps to share with others later.
--In receiving private messages, you can only read them in your email, but nowhere on the site.
--Diplomacy messages in-game are a very difficult way to communicate for several reasons. Because of the interface, if I need to check something related to what I'm writing, I've learned first to press ⌘A and ⌘X first, and then when returning to the message window pressing ⌘V to get it back. If I forget to cut and paste, or if, God forbid, I hit ⌘V instead of ⌘X before leaving the screen, then I lose the whole message. It's such a pain!!
--My diplomacy messages are often long and detailed and I'd like a way to work on them parallel to the game and outside the Echo Cluster interface (in another window).
--Finally, I'd like to be able to use non-ascii characters (as allowed in the forums) in diplomacy and private messages. I like to use the endash and emdash in prose writing [ – and — respectively ]; moreover sometimes I write and receive diplomacy messages in foreign languages. All characters with diacritical marks, and characters like ß and — and ≥ appear simply as "?" within the client, and all are useful, at least to some players.

Many Nu players are now often resorting to traditional email to communicate due to the shortcomings of Nu's online message system. For instance, I switch to email when I need for an ally to receive tactical diagrams and specific map markups. I also often send word files or use google docs so that plans that an alliance makes can be edited and discussed inline. I also use big excel spreadsheets to keep track of the layout of the sector, for resource management, for the queue and the PBP totals, and the relevant formulas; obviously this kind of information can only be shared by email or from the cloud. As games become more and more complicated and the spreadsheets and/or diagrams get updated every turn, the in-game diplomacy messages are absolutely no longer an option, so the collaboration devolves into email exclusively.

After the game is over, it would be terrific for other players in a game to see the tactical diagrams and the spreadsheets that I share with allies. That way others can learn from them and even critique them if they see a better way to do things that we are doing. If nothing else, allowing messages to include images and spreadsheets and later making them public could inspire others to spend more time focusing on the details of their own turns if they see that some of the serious players go to such lengths.

So it's a minor gripe, I know...

My old-version face was nice, and by putting it in the middle of a black square I was able to migrate it. Alas, in trying to migrate my signature poem, I was stymied by my inability to put spaces and carriage returns into the text.

So much of the art of oratory is lost in translation to the format of computer text. Pauses, format, font, the emoticon: these are the new tools. Alliteration loses its power but the smiley reigns supreme.

I deplore this state... and yet! One cannot help but revel in the new possibilities; the potential we have for reaching and persuading new audiences is unparralelled. We can reach more -- and with less effort -- than ever before in our history.

It is beholden on us, the new orator, to seize these new opportunities with both hands -- nay, with every tool at our disposal! And I call on you, the administrators and development team at Planets.nu, to join us in this noble undertaking, this great endeavour that will bring us, and the art of persuasive diplomacy, to new heights than ever before, meeting new challenges with the best tools text has to offer!

...

*ahem* Sorry. I've been watching "West Wing" reruns again; I get a little carried away.

Suggestion: Award Campaign Points to Private Games. Set some minimum standards, but don't require they be made public.

Don't get me wrong. I think having a new mode to play for people bored with the old one is great. I'm not so bored that I want to start learning new things to play in a Campaign game, but I don't begrudges others their fun.

But, we have players playing the "Collect Campaign Points" game and to heck with the disruptions it can cause in the games the rest of us are trying to play for their own sake.

When collecting the Campaign Game points impacts games I do want to play, it bothers me. But as long as Private Games must be made public for players that want campaign points in these games to get them, this will keep happening. It has already negatively impacted several games I have hosted or just been in. Especially when those games had special rules.

I have occasionally seen suggestions for new races and except for just having something new to play with have never seen the need. But, it now occurs to me that we could use this mode to solve a long term problem - game drops.

My ideas would be a new race named Reavers based on the Firefly Series Reavers (or alternately named Scavengers.) This race would have the Lizard 150% combat strength and the Pirate ship list but not the Pirate ROB skill. Their race skill is that immediately after any other player drops or resigns a game - all the dropped players ships and maybe bases? - but not the remaining planets, would transfer to the Reavers. The story line is that this is what happens when anarchy strikes.

To somewhat limit this race from being too strong and to keep with the story line, they obviously do not "play well with others." They cannot ally with any of the traditional races and in fact have no Diplomacy Screens to do so with.

Here we would have a vehicle for players wanting a new challenge and a possible solution for the holes left in a game by players dropping.

I can actually pay by credit card anywhere in the internet without having to use paypal.
It would be helpful to have any simple international credit card payment method for instantly getting a premium upgrade.
Since mailing checks, for instance, from Germany to Canada is not the safest thing one can do, the alternative mailing method is not feasible in many cases. Moreover, you can only get a year's premium then.
It's really a pity if people like me (willing to pay for a premium account) drop out of the game because their is no normal way to pay by credit card.

Bests,

legbreaker

Many would argue that the single biggest problem with VGA Planets is and always has been dropouts. Nu has somewhat helped this problem by allowing higher-ranking players to join more exclusive games which theoretically should have fewer dropouts; nonetheless even officers' games still have far too many dropouts.

Not to toot my own horn, but over my entire 20-year VGA Planets career, I have never once resigned a game and have never once even missed a turn (except in circumstances where there were transmission problems or miscommunications when this was a pbem game - nonetheless I've never resigned or missed a turn on Nu).

I would love for the minority of players like myself who never resign and rarely miss turns to get a conspicuous and visible reward. Perhaps Nu could even add another bar to the "achievement/experience/destruction" graph - perhaps a "tenacity" rating that would reward players who reach such milestones as 500 consecutive turns submitted with no misses, or 5 games complete with no resignations of other games in the meantime.

In the forums, many continually suggest some kind of karma system to punish dropouts. I present my idea as a more positive approach. Those of us who have the balls to continue to play a losing position and who continue to remain committed to making the game as fun as possible for others deserve to be positively and visibly rewarded.