| Author |
Dark Space Rebooted |
Senti-Onikawa
Admiral
Joined: September 21, 2011
Posts: 37
|  Posted: 2015-01-30 07:29
I won't start up with some silly quip about how the game is dead or anything like that. Despite it's current state and the fact that it's a bit dated, the game still holds up. The issues that it faces are a bit much and had GameCQ not simply disowned and left it to freelance devs the game might not be here or turned into a f2p cash grab. THANKFULLY, they did abandon it and let the players take over. Well, for the most part anyways. So, now the game is struggling to stay relevant and it's 2015. I mean, here's to 14-15 years of activity!
But as I look at the server cost meter and think of my own current financial situation, I feel a kind of pain for this game. It's a kind of pain you get when your cherished treasure is broken or your dog dies. You wish it didn't happen and try as you might, the reality is far crueler than you would like. The UI is dated, the ship designs could do with some improvement, and all in all, the game has server issues that can range from mild and unimportant to major and crippling. I'm not saying our dev team is incompetent (far from it, and I thank you guys for doing everything you've done so far) but they're only a handful of talented peeps who neither have the resources, nor the time to invest in DarkSpace. I WANT this game to come back at full force and be what it can be: competition for games like Eve.
So with that said, I want to attack this issue from 3 directions. The first is funding the crap out of it. I know the devs are resistant with patreon and kickstarter, but at this point you would benefit HUGELY from a crowdfunding campaign. I would suggest (if the data still exists) putting up a video with the crowdfunding page and writing a bit of a bio (and adding on the the video) of what DarkSpace is about, how long it's been around, and the fun times to be had. You will of course need to put yourselves out there on twitter and such (social media is your friend!) but if you put some top, long-time vets on this task I'm sure it could work out perfectly. Basically, call upon some well-known and trustworthy non-dev players to handle PR. Let the world know this baby is still kicking and it needs their help.
Secondary is connected to the first. That crowdfunding wouldn't just be to maintain the servers, but also to get up-and-coming indie devs interested and pick from the lot people you think are qualified for handling things. From what I remember, you're only a handful of loyal players who give your free time for this thing. You have lives, family members, etc that you are required to give 95% of your time to and it's not really fair for a game to ask you to spend time on it. THAT SAID, you have given us more than enough in taking time to keep this thing afloat. So, why not let some other programmers and the like take some of that work off your shoulders? You deserve it, and I don't see why you wouldn't be able to at least get a handful of people interested in helping out.
Thirdly is fixing A LOT of the in-game stuff like AI, that godawful HUD (I know, I know. Technical and financial limitations) and just some of the more glaring issues the game has had to deal with over the years. But, DarkSpace is VERY lucky in that despite other games of the genre ranging from better-designed to less-than spectacular, it also competes with games like Warframe and Terraria for players in general. Games that are out of beta but still have so many glaring issues that players either feel less-than enthusiastic about logging on or they complain and complain and nothing gets done. DarkSpace is lucky in that not only is the staff attentive to player issues, not only do they acknowledge and respond to inquiries about EVERYTHING, but they do it for free. I mean, this is more than apples and oranges. This is comparing a bunch of spray-painted turds to a nugget of gold. DarkSpace is that nugget.
I don't know if the devs will back the idea here or if they feel like it's worth it this late in the game, but I want to say that it is with merit and you're going to need to adapt to the current trends and such if you want this game to keep going. If you do, then don't hesitate. Find your PR guys from the game (and there are a few I would vote for) and put them to work. Just a few hours a week can make the difference. Heck, a single hour from each of them during the week would more than suffice.
But if the devs aren't sure or don't want to add that to the list of things they need to look after, then look to your players before making a decision. I don't always play and I'm sporadic at best, but that's just me. You have a TON of people who want to keep playing this game despite it's flaws. They would probably give every ounce of their time and money to make it better if they could. If you need motivation to do this, ask your players. Would they back a crowdfunding program and improvements that have been demanded for ages? I think this video sums it up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJbmB9k2Y88
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\"You know, Commander, having seen a little of the 21st Century, there is one thing I don't understand; How could they have let things get so bad?\"
\"That's a good question... I wish I had an answer.\"
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Bardiche
Chief Marshal
Joined: November 16, 2006
Posts: 1247
| Posted: 2015-01-30 09:06
A Kickstarter to develop a new engine or give the Medusa engine a much needed dust off and update would be a great start towards removing the technical limitations. Whether that's actually feasible (does one just throw money at it and it evolves?) is something the developers need to decide.
Considering how dated the game is, I wonder if there's even a sufficiently large enough pool of interest to fund anything, though.
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DiepLuc
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 23, 2010
Posts: 1187
| Posted: 2015-01-30 09:22
What DS needs most is human resources. There ain't enough volunteer in fields to make the game more attractive.
I guess DS will move to a cheaper server soon.
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0stego
Fleet Admiral
United Armed Corps
Joined: October 04, 2008
Posts: 153
From: Sol System, Earth, Canada, AB.
| Posted: 2015-01-30 14:06
As much as I would like to see DS come back to life and gain a decent sized community, it seems there is very little interest from the Devs to bring DS back from the shadows, I don't mean this in a derogatory way it just seems every time there is an idea like Steam, kickstarter, indy funding, game changes, ext. there is also always a hurdle that can't be overcome "Medusa engine wont work with.., cost, time, help, cant change this or that because of blah."
It's sad, I would love to see this game go "main stream" and gain a large following.. filling servers giving players something to other then farm AI or have quick PVP battles that quickly turn into trolling and flaming.
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Incinarator
Chief Marshal
Joined: May 24, 2010
Posts: 237
| Posted: 2015-01-30 15:54
Quote:
On 2015-01-30 14:06, 0stego wrote:
it seems there is very little interest from the Devs to bring DS back from the shadows
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Quote:
On 2015-01-30 14:06, 0stego wrote:
there is also always a hurdle that can't be overcome "Medusa engine wont work with.., cost, time, help, cant change this or that because of blah.
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How do these two points exist in the same paragraph? Either the devs don't have interest, or the devs aren't capable of implementing their interest. Choose one.
[ This Message was edited by: Incinarator on 2015-01-30 15:56 ]
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0stego
Fleet Admiral
United Armed Corps
Joined: October 04, 2008
Posts: 153
From: Sol System, Earth, Canada, AB.
| Posted: 2015-01-31 02:03
Quote:
On 2015-01-30 15:54, Incinarator wrote:
Quote:
On 2015-01-30 14:06, 0stego wrote:
it seems there is very little interest from the Devs to bring DS back from the shadows
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Quote:
On 2015-01-30 14:06, 0stego wrote:
there is also always a hurdle that can't be overcome "Medusa engine wont work with.., cost, time, help, cant change this or that because of blah.
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How do these two points exist in the same paragraph? Either the devs don't have interest, or the devs aren't capable of implementing their interest. Choose one.
[ This Message was edited by: Incinarator on 2015-01-30 15:56 ]
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Wow, way to pick it apart my sleepless rant. Good job.
What I meant was if an idea is suggested to the DEVs there is an instant excuse to not do it or shoot it down.
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Incinarator
Chief Marshal
Joined: May 24, 2010
Posts: 237
| Posted: 2015-01-31 11:14
Quote:
On 2015-01-31 02:03, 0stego wrote:
Wow, way to pick it apart my sleepless rant. Good job.
What I meant was if an idea is suggested to the DEVs there is an instant excuse to not do it or shoot it down.
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You restated your previous point as if it changes it any. You're accusing the devs of always having an excuse as to why they can't implement these ideas, yet don't seem willing to consider that these aren't excuses but rather legitimate limitations.
Perhaps if you sit back and think for a second you'll see why accusing the devs of laziness because they are not tackling problems that are far outside their scope is dishonest and unproductive.
[ This Message was edited by: Incinarator on 2015-01-31 11:16 ]
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Jhomes
Chief Marshal
Joined: June 22, 2013
Posts: 92
| Posted: 2015-01-31 17:21
No need to be rude ppl. To the DEVS/ADMINS or to just a frustrated player that wants what we all want, a better DS for all.
Dark space was already in decline when i started few years ago in the 1.6 version but that did not stop me from seeing the potential it has. I think we all have this in common, we can see through the glitches, the unbalenced player base (one faction outnumbering the others in players) and the unbalenced ship designs (meaning either overpowered or underpowered ships which exist in every faction). These are problems that would have completeley killed off a lesser game years ago and yet darkspace remains due to an unexplainable appeal.
There is no quick fix or easy way to push darkspace into being a main stream or popular game, and it might not even be possible. This is not due to underfunding or being outdated but instead because of the uniqueness of the game. To explain this, you have to ask yourself what kind of game is darkspace exactly? Is it an action spaceship shooter? Is it a space themed "Sim" builder type game? Is it a military strategy game? Or is it even more of a RPG? Im my opinion it is more or less all of these rolled into one flawed but incredible game. My point is that the player who enjoys darkspace is a player who likes and appreciates all of these types of games, and sadly in this world that is not the common mainstream gamer.
For this reason there can be no person to blame for current DS situation, but what could do it get more videos of every aspect of gameplay out there for people to see and maybe take an interest in. If we can raise the player base enough the rest will fix itself. (by that i mean the DEVS/ADMINS will have the resources, funding and motivation to grow the game back to its former glory and hopefully beyond).
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2015-02-01 10:04
Personally I'd think a new engine that's essentially an upgraded Medusa would be a good start. A kickstarter may or may not make the funding goal but even if it doesn't there's nothing stopping it from being listed again, there's quite a few games that didn't make their goal at first but did after a relist.
The key is to have many different goals for different funding tiers in addition to a set goal that everything else hinges on, list a bunch of stuff for people to get interested in.
Something like this, for example.
Main goal:
$50,000 needed for engine update/rebuild
Sub goals:
$55,000 gets new art assets and updated ship models
$65,000 gets a dedicated fleet wars server with weekly tournaments
$67,000 gets an AI update, better algorithms keep AI from flying into planets seconds after joining a battle
$75,000 gets a dedicated tutorial server where new players can learn the ropes and get some practice, and vets can get special rewards for spending time to answer questions and give examples.
$100,000 gets mobile apps for fighter and ground combat
$110,000 gets PC ports of those mobile apps
etc.
Yes I'm sure I vastly underestimate cost requirements for most of those things, but like I said it's just an example of something that would make a good kickstarter entry.
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HeadClot88
Joined: February 02, 2015
Posts: 1
| Posted: 2015-02-02 05:14
Hey everyone,
I have been lurking in shadows for a while have just decided to register and offer my 2 cents.
I personally oppose remaking the medusa engine or making an engine in general and here is why -
You will be working on an engine that will be fundamentally take up a good majority of your time when you want to be developing the game. You want to make a game not an game engine.
Allot of systems will need to be rewritten from what I understand Medusa runs of DirectX 8. It will be a time consuming pain to upgrade it to modern standards.
To put this into perspective Torque 3D which was released in 2012 I believe under the MIT license is just barely starting to come up to modern standards for its render engine. That is 2 years going on three.
If you guys want to remake dark space with unreal 4 let me know. I am mostly an artist I dabble in programming (Blueprint) here and there but I do not consider myself a programmer.
I would be willing to help out where necessary if it is a UE4 project.
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Azreal
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 14, 2004
Posts: 2816
From: United State of Texas, Houston
| Posted: 2015-02-03 05:26
If THIS game were "modernized", it would still be as dead as it is. It isnt flash and dash that is missing, it is the fun, excitement, entertainment, any reason to pay, that is missing.
People expect MORE from a pc game. No first-person, no characters, no real ship mod ability, extremely simple bomb planet/cap planet - it aint getting it done.
I keep trying to find a reason, i really do, but in 4 years I havent seen a good reason to bother with this game again. I have no reason to believe an infusion of cash would make a difference. If I did, I would be prepared to infuse it with a five figure investment myself. I own 2 businesses and invest in three others now. Market is all, and there is not one for this limited vision game right now. It needs a new vision, a new direction, before it is viable.
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2015-02-03 11:11
Quote:
On 2015-02-03 05:26, Azreal wrote:
If THIS game were "modernized", it would still be as dead as it is. It isnt flash and dash that is missing, it is the fun, excitement, entertainment, any reason to pay, that is missing.
People expect MORE from a pc game. No first-person, no characters, no real ship mod ability, extremely simple bomb planet/cap planet - it aint getting it done.
I keep trying to find a reason, i really do, but in 4 years I havent seen a good reason to bother with this game again. I have no reason to believe an infusion of cash would make a difference. If I did, I would be prepared to infuse it with a five figure investment myself. I own 2 businesses and invest in three others now. Market is all, and there is not one for this limited vision game right now. It needs a new vision, a new direction, before it is viable.
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It depends, there are still games out there with barebones gameplay (2-3 classes, no level progression, no gear progression, static stats/skills) that survive because of good pvp. Sometimes people don't want something with a bunch of bells and whistles and just want to pick up and play for a couple hours at a time, which is why so many crappy tablet/smartphone app games are so popular and why stuff like farmville rakes in the cash.
Though, yes, more customization would be good for a lot of people. A few more active abilities based on ship type itself instead of just faction specials would be a nice start.
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Jhomes
Chief Marshal
Joined: June 22, 2013
Posts: 92
| Posted: 2015-02-03 20:39
im sure this has been discussed before but why not make the tier 3 ships customizable? I have no idea how difficult this would be to implement but the fire arc portion of customizing a ship may be ackward to do. The first thing nearly everyone ive ever shown DS to asks is can you put whatever weapons you want on a ship, and they are always disapointed when i say customization is very limited. I think this would bring some new players in and give incentive for players to work toward badges and rankings.
Another choice could be to simply redo the tier3 ships that people do not like or use. We all know by now which ones work and which ones dont. IMo the list is somthing like this
good (meaning ships that are used, and work as intended or better)
Frigates- UGTO peregrine strike frigate, KLUTH mauler
Destroyers- ICC rapid assault destroyer, KLUTH ravager
Cruisers- ICC strike cruiser, UGTO tercio cruiser
DREADS- UGTO Elite Assault dread, KLUTH nemesis
BAD (ships that you rarely see because they either have a problem or do not work well or as intended)
frigate- ICC sniper frigate (same exact ship as line frigate with the terrible fire arcs and armor placement and all with only few extra ecms added)
Destroyer- UGTO elite line destroyer (has extra PD beams but has very underpowered cannon and chemical beam armament)
Cruiser- KLUTH scythe ( looks nice on paper but has severe energy problems and runs out very quickly even for a KLUTH ship)
DREAD- ICC Strike carrier (another that looks good on paper but bad fire arcs and lack of any capital cannons make this ship less than desireable to work towards)
Of course i have recommendations for these 
Sniper frigate- take its side fire only gauss guns away and instead give it a single forward only ion cannon, change armor unit from fore mounted to fore,left,right,aft for better coverage.
Elite line destroyer- Increase chemical beam armament from 6 standard beams to 1 heavy beam, 2 flux beams and 2 standard.
Scythe- honestly beams, torps, missiles is not a good combo in my opinion, but if mjust stay this way, replace portion of beam armament with elf beams, and add another reactor.
Strike carrier- scrap all 14 heavy cannons, replace with 4 ion cannons, allow all to fire forward, 2 on each side and no aft.
I think these are reasonable and very simple changes that would push unused ships back into the game and give players new found incentive.
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Senti-Onikawa
Admiral
Joined: September 21, 2011
Posts: 37
| Posted: 2015-02-09 20:27
It's always an amazing thing to see the players of DS come together under a topic and explore the why's and why not's of how the game could improve, should be improved, etc. Not to say the devs aren't paying any mind to the topic (I would bet my bottom dollar on it) but the lack of presence by them only excites me further to the prospects of what they might be thinking. Does the idea have merits? What could be done to quicken the process? How do we generate interest for something like DS? Now, I recall someone in this topic putting the BIGGEST question forward: What is DarkSpace?
Some would call it a space sim, others a space MMO, and many a strategy game. I already mentioned (I believe) that DS has the distinct advantage of being many things across the board. The problems then start, generally with the UI and player-interactions. Another individual brought up that often-times the game devolves into flame wars and trolling and the pvp (while requiring a great amount of skill to even compete) is unforgiving. However, these are smaller issues to a bigger whole: How does DarkSpace compete?
The Medusa engine is outdated. The plane of movement is silly and HUGELY inadequate given that for a good amount of time now we've understood that space is not on a 2d plane and there are 360 degrees of complete motion available, albeit without gravity to hinder movement. And about that gravity thing... The rate of acceleration for a mass in space should be consistent across the board, barring the total potential output of the force propelling the mass. In other words, why WOULDN'T a dreadnought have engines designed to project it across an expanse of space at the same rate of acceleration as say, a frigate? Hell, Star Trek pretty much got it right when they had smaller ships have lower warp factors (Last I recalled the average frigate in DS9 and subsequent series' was capped at warp 5 and was screwed if a galaxy-class wanted to race at non-warp speeds) while larger ones were designed both for combat AND moving across large distances in shorter amounts of time.
I guess my thing is, there can't be a "DarkSpace" forever with how the game is going now. 15 years isn't anything to shrug at either, though. Any MMO worth it's salt will ALWAYS compete to achieve that 10yr milestone and while many fail, it's the ones who not only evolve, but keep players that succeed. For a game that hasn't evolved much past it's initial release, DarkSpace is one of the few "nostalgic" games that prove evolution doesn't need to come early. In fact, I don't want the game to change itself outside aesthetics and an updated engine.
Here's the thing: DarkSpace still holds up as a good game. Hell, I would rate it a GREAT game simply because it doesn't involve a mindless grind, poor RNG, or players smashing keyboards because everyone ran down middle lane and the other team used their brains (some LoL humor there). What DS demands is two things: Adaptation and Skill. The other issue is that other MMO's have this mentality that in order to be the best you MUST learn everything. You're memorizing an entire school textbook of stuff for that one game and there is no guarantee that you'll ever accomplish anything outside a few offers to join clans. Like Halo and CoD though, DarkSpace demands you use your wits and be able to adapt.
So an engine upgrade, more dedicated devs, and some public acknowledgement is what the game needs. That, and cure the UI.
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\"You know, Commander, having seen a little of the 21st Century, there is one thing I don't understand; How could they have let things get so bad?\"
\"That's a good question... I wish I had an answer.\"
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