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BlackYoup Grand Admiral
Joined: December 31, 2009 Posts: 32 From: Nantes - France
| Posted: 2018-01-28 18:35  
Hello everyone,
This is yet another topic about game dev.
Before you start reading, a bit of context (correct me if I'm wrong): three weeks ago, ThePile "appeared" in the development part of the game and hyped a few people to continue the development of the game (see http://darkspace.net/index.htm?module=forums.php&page=/viewtopic.php&topic=54919&forum=285), including me.
Since then, the Discord channel is pretty active, mostly in the dev section and that makes me happy to see people still care about this game. I even played it a few hours these last couple of days.
All of that is great but in order to move on, we actually need to know what to do. Maybe some of you know and it's somewhere in their head, but since it doesn't seem to be written somewhere, for me (and probably others), it doesn't exist.
I think the point of open sourcing the game is to try to get a bit more contributors and players if possible. Or at least make the game more enjoyable for those who play from time to time, or daily.
I see a lot of talk on Discord about features or adjustments, for example: Ships balance. Players talk about it from time to time but if there is something I learned on my side: talking about huge features or huge "game logic change" like this one on a live chat is often not the right solution: it's hard for people to remember what have been said a few days ago and they won't be able to easily find back what was said. What I mean by that is: we may be better using the forums for such topics. Do not hesitate to create a topic to request comments from other players about what you have in mind (you could tag them [RFC], "request for comments" for example).
The other topic I "often" see is the on-boarding of new players and the UI that might be a little too complex.
I didn't see much talk about how we could improve it. This talk might also be better in a topic, at least to ask players opinions and from there, take actions (or not).
Other than that, there are a few bug fixes to do and some ground work with the resourcer, which I'll probably try do this week if nothing else pops up.
All in all, if you have ideas, do not hesitate to express them, create topics about it so people can tell their opinions. Some features will take months to be decided, others a few hours. But that's how it works and at least we will have somewhere to move forward to, which IMHO, is not the case for now.
And I encourage you to comment on this post if you disagree about something, if I said something wrong or if I'm a complete moron.
PS: now that the game is open source, it's (partially) up to the community to decide where the game goes. And you are the community. Every idea or opinion matters
PS2: I didn't talk much about bugs: if you see some, reporting in the dev channel on Discord or through a topic is fine for me. And if it's not a bug, maybe it's a game logic problem.
inb4 "FIX KLUTH AI SPAWNZSS" (spoiler alert: for me there are no bugs)
EDIT: for suggestions, you can make a topic here http://darkspace.net/index.htm?module=forums.php&page=/viewforum.php?forum=36&25365 but please search for an existing topic and bump it if needed [ This Message was edited by: BlackYoup on 2018-02-08 06:52 ]
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Nicon Marshal Faster than Light
Joined: October 25, 2010 Posts: 36
| Posted: 2018-02-03 15:17  
i would have to agree with the what to do part. i myself (having no experiance in development of any game) have wanted to get into the development of a game. when i read darkspace went to open source i was glad that i could have my chance. tho i have no idea where to start even if its a rough guide someone could post would be helpful. could anyone be willing to help get me there? thanks in advance love this game hope to see it continue.
-NICON-
p.s. time is not an issue for me when im not working im always doing a project and id like this to be a project i can work on. plus i can usually learn anything fairly quickly. [ This Message was edited by: Nicon on 2018-02-03 15:31 ]
_________________ HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, PLEASE MAKE YOUR SIGNATURE SMALLER.rn- Pantheon
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BlackYoup Grand Admiral
Joined: December 31, 2009 Posts: 32 From: Nantes - France
| Posted: 2018-02-05 16:26  
You can show yourself on the discord channel
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Muah Dib Grand Admiral
Joined: December 27, 2007 Posts: 6 From: UNIT-420
| Posted: 2018-02-07 08:31  
honestly what killed it for me was taking away elite npc's and most of the npc population. the game is low population player base as it is and that just made it boring.
bring back npc populations with elite npcs and make the maps bigger!!!
i miss the old map....
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Muah Dib Grand Admiral
Joined: December 27, 2007 Posts: 6 From: UNIT-420
| Posted: 2018-02-07 08:50  
Can you guys please use the beta server for testing updates before implementing them! [ This Message was edited by: Muah Dib on 2018-02-07 08:50 ]
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BlackYoup Grand Admiral
Joined: December 31, 2009 Posts: 32 From: Nantes - France
| Posted: 2018-02-07 14:12  
The beta server is updated before the production servers, to test features and fix bugs. The few last releases didn't get tested on the beta server but this was a bug and we did not want that to happen. It is now fixed.
As for the npc population you're talking about I'm not sure I've been around long enough to know what that is :/
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Muah Dib Grand Admiral
Joined: December 27, 2007 Posts: 6 From: UNIT-420
| Posted: 2018-02-07 16:36  
ther used to be NPC dreads, stations and all other class of ships even interdictors that spawned in the perspective factions home system.... this was a viable way to lvl up combat and actualy do combat instead of chasing down recon and troop carriers like now. i think this is a important feature that should be returned to the game considering the player base is super low. gives newer players an incentive to keep playing and allows them to rank up faster.
whoever is involved in the development of this game should take my advice...
stop making changes to game mechanics that already work and focus on making the game more populated. i don't know if its a server issue not being able to handle the load, but i feel populating the game fixing a few bugs and focusing on updating the website are more important to the survival of the game. i want to see new players coming in and them actualy having something do do other than "try" to build a planet. or "try" to bomb a planet. i do agree that ecm and eccm need some adjustments but i don't think messing with the cloak is an effective way of doing so. ICC ships stacking ecm is just as effective and as a cloak if not more so. they need stacking penalties and the ability to switch out more of the auxiliary modules with more variety.
on another note
I'm not happy with the timer on these cloaks either. i know trying to do it with energy vs time was tried and failed but 90 seconds is hardly enough time to maneuver and stay undetected. the element of surprise is halved from this change. i understand that perma cloaks are a pain in the arse as a ugto player but i think you guys went about it all wrong. you need to fix the modules that help detect the cloak, like beacons and eccm instead of hating on k'luth and nerfing their power and in turn driving away all the k'luth players. you guys aren't bringing the game back to life your adjusting game mechanics to fit your own personal needs.
food for thought.................
maybe try and get the game added on steam!?!?
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*Flash* Chief Marshal
Joined: April 19, 2009 Posts: 291 From: Semi retired after 1.67 !
| Posted: 2018-02-07 16:49  
Things that are anoying and made me and some friends stopped playing are the jump drive that takes to long to charge and makes the game very slow. Players rank up to play with dreads and stations and some with cruisers, imagine if a fight is 2 sistems away how long will make to get there ?? Well i get bored to travel 10 minutes foa 1 mi ute fight. The second thing that i dont like is that torpedos range is very , very low. It used to be a longer range with less damage and it really made the game more imterested. Oh and the last one is planet dences ....planets are useless, dictors on them aint working , bombing and killing a planet is for any newb and is very easy. No pd like it used to be. So in my opinion the game should get better not worse. Trust me if this changes take place you will see alot of people back. Till then ill play Ps4 games! Have a good day !
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Doran Chief Marshal Galactic Navy
Joined: March 29, 2003 Posts: 4032 From: The Gideon Unit
| Posted: 2018-02-07 17:00  
Quote:
On 2018-02-07 16:36, Muah Dib wrote:
maybe try and get the game added on steam!?!?
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this is the best idea in the history of ever. this will magically fix all the current problems, paint darkspace in a positive light, cause hundreds of thousands of players to join up and will not backfire in any possible way.
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Sheraton*XO* Chief Marshal Faster than Light
Joined: January 18, 2013 Posts: 482 From: Keel Mountains
| Posted: 2018-02-07 17:06  
I would suggest that an overhaul of the user interface might be helpful. Not sure how feasible that would be though. For instance rearranging the target window from the lower right hand corner to somewhere more immediately visible is one thing I might suggest as a specific. It gets rather difficult to see when there is a lot going on in the game.
-Sheraton
[ This Message was edited by: Sheraton*XO* on 2018-02-07 17:09 ]
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Muah Dib Grand Admiral
Joined: December 27, 2007 Posts: 6 From: UNIT-420
| Posted: 2018-02-07 17:14  
Quote:
On 2018-02-07 16:49, *Flash* wrote:
Things that are anoying and made me and some friends stopped playing are the jump drive that takes to long to charge and makes the game very slow. Players rank up to play with dreads and stations and some with cruisers, imagine if a fight is 2 sistems away how long will make to get there ?? Well i get bored to travel 10 minutes foa 1 mi ute fight. The second thing that i dont like is that torpedos range is very , very low. It used to be a longer range with less damage and it really made the game more imterested. Oh and the last one is planet dences ....planets are useless, dictors on them aint working , bombing and killing a planet is for any newb and is very easy. No pd like it used to be. So in my opinion the game should get better not worse. Trust me if this changes take place you will see alot of people back. Till then ill play Ps4 games! Have a good day !
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yes!!!! these are things that need to be fixed. maybe have short rang and long range torpedoe variants for playstyle. and dictors not working.... lots of things that are broken and every one is interested in changing snap that already works.
seems like the current people developing are just using a dead game to mess around with a toy with... not thinking about the big picture... this game could be great. but no one realy has the intention of making it so.
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Muah Dib Grand Admiral
Joined: December 27, 2007 Posts: 6 From: UNIT-420
| Posted: 2018-02-07 17:21  
Quote:
On 2018-02-07 17:00, Doran wrote:
Quote:
On 2018-02-07 16:36, Muah Dib wrote:
maybe try and get the game added on steam!?!?
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this is the best idea in the history of ever. this will magically fix all the current problems, paint darkspace in a positive light, cause hundreds of thousands of players to join up and will not backfire in any possible way.
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i sence sarcasm in a effort to dismiss a truly good idea. this wouldn't hurt the game anymore than its hurting. you guys are killing me with your fiddle faddle bull snap..
get a select few people to be developers get rid of gameCQ fly under a new banner close the open dev and submit it to steam.
i don't know jack snap about code but i know how game mechanics affect game play on a bigger scale. ive seen many game come and go...
this is all i will say cuz it feel like there already are a select few doing the dev and they don't seem interested in making any actual fixes to the game. they just want to tweak the stats and play around with it.
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Muah Dib Grand Admiral
Joined: December 27, 2007 Posts: 6 From: UNIT-420
| Posted: 2018-02-07 17:23  
Quote:
On 2018-02-07 17:06, Sheraton*XO* wrote:
I would suggest that an overhaul of the user interface might be helpful. Not sure how feasible that would be though. For instance rearranging the target window from the lower right hand corner to somewhere more immediately visible is one thing I might suggest as a specific. It gets rather difficult to see when there is a lot going on in the game.
-Sheraton
[ This Message was edited by: Sheraton*XO* on 2018-02-07 17:09 ]
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VERY GOOD IDEA!
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BlackYoup Grand Admiral
Joined: December 31, 2009 Posts: 32 From: Nantes - France
| Posted: 2018-02-08 07:06  
Hello to all,
Thanks for the feedback.
I edited my first message so you know where to put the suggestions. I won't take a position for or against what you say because I don't have the required knowledge of the game, the players do. But having a thread PER suggestion will help the discussion, instead of having multiple subjects into one huge messed up thread.
Also, please note something: For some time now, the development of the game (if any) has been done on people own free time. By free time, I mean "after work hours", or "during rainy weekends", or "whenever the dev felt like s.he wanted to do something".
Hence, it's quite useless to blame "devs" for not making the game better. Instead, be supportive! Anyone can now contribute and if there is something you don't like, feel free to do it yourself, we would be very glad
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Fatal Mack Bolan(WildCards_58th)*COM* Marshal Fatal Squadron
Joined: June 12, 2010 Posts: 184 From: home planet: Exathra
| Posted: 2018-02-10 00:35  
the distance required for MIRV bombs to be dropable could be adjusted from the 100 gu it is now to something more reasonable like 25 or 30 gu, i just find that being a close orbit bombing specialist is harder than it needs to be b/c the moment the distence drops under 100 gu the bombs won't fire. thank you for all your hard work.
peace out
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