Welcome to the DO Roadmap - Posted by Rick Dekard 25.11.13

Juturna · Dec 4, 2013

Please note that the following posts were made by Rick Dekard on the original forums, on the 25.11.13, and have been copied to these Forums for your information and convenience.

Hi Space Pilots,

Winter is upon us here at DO HQ, so we thought it an appropriate moment to look back at the big releases over the last 6 months and to share our plans for December and beyond.

The really big releases so far this year have been:

Sector Control event game

Hades Gate, first Galaxy gate where you can play with your friends

Improved bot detection methods, causing the demise of “Packet Bots”

Balancing improvement for Credit ships and the re-introduction of the Nostromo

New client Resolution & range changes, enabling us to make a proper fullscreen mode

New User Interface & Homebase, giving a more modern look

Change to the Auction system so that you get your credits back after a failed bid

Free Homebase repairs, with premium users getting free repairs everywhere

New background music with attack loop

Entirely new game entry with new starter missions and better equipment for noobies

Changing many Uridium items to be for Credits

Reworked the starter maps (X-2 to X-4)

The main features we’re currently working on:

Improving our detection methods for Bots and external scripts

Completely reworking the Auction system, enabling us to add everything to the auction

Improving the internal website, with the inclusion of an upcoming event schedule

Replacing all missions and using the opportunity to add a Sci-Fi story

Reworking all old-looking maps to be the same quality as the starter maps

And, some highlights for early next year:

Friends List in Client

Looking for Group

Rework of the old and ugly internal clan pages

I think you will all agree: it has been an eventful year for DO. We are committed to continually improving DO and look forward to working with you so that we can make sure that it transforms in the most positive direction for all. See you in game.

BR,

RickDekard
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Juturna · Dec 4, 2013

Following queries from players, Rick also added these responses (again copied here for your information and convenience):

Hi Pilots,

To give you some more information, we are planning to have hourly, daily and weekly auctions - the most valuable items will be in the weekly auction.

Whether or not LF4 etc will be in the auction is not decided, but Aegis, group boosters etc will be.

We are sharing our roadmap with you because we recognize that you - the community - can help us a lot to stay on the best path for DarkOrbit's future.

BR,

RickDekard
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Originally Posted by Putteringaround
All this talk about the auction, what about some other things as well. I know it's always been this way only now we see it, if we are going to do things to help the newer players, as with the auction; why not have the bonus boxes give pet fuel if you don't have anymore room for ammo?
Hi Putteringaround,

We are looking at removing the ammo limits completely, but we won't be able to get this done until 1 or 2 months, as first we have to do a proper analysis.

BR,

RickDekard
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Originally Posted by TheTaser(V)

Hey Rick, glad to see that you and your team are working on more detection methods for bots. Backpage improvements are okay, as long as everything is either in a familiar spot or still labeled. The new UI client confused quite a few people until we got used to it, so I hope some of that can be avoided with the backpage improvements. Mission replacements; GREAT! Don't forget to add spearhead, aegis, and citadel quests. And I like the map rework so more power to you for the rework of uppers and bmaps.
Now for the auction. I'm not sure why ya'll are doing this but it really doesn't make me happy. I recently saved 450k uridium and bought an aegis, chevron formation, heart formation, and cargo protocols for my pet. Now, I find out that I could have just used a few billion credits to get these items... I realize that was my choice to buy those items, but I did not know that they were going to be coming out for credits soon. I don't see why ya'll want the game balanced. Those guys doing 80k+ with X4 don't want it balanced either. What is wrong with working your way up? I say remove chance from gates, and improve booty chest drop rates. Don't add the stuff we paid good uridium for, to be gotten with credits now.
Side note: Will the pet gears/protocols be level 1, 2, or 3? Has to be level 1 to make it fair for the noobs that just got the pet from the auction right?
Hi TheTaser(V),

Let me start by saying that I agree with what you and others have said about the proposed auction rework. This is why I was keen to show you all the roadmap, as your feedback is very valuable and I'm more than willing to listen to it.

The auction rework is planned for early next year. There will not be any items in it that are not available for Uridium, so no LF4 or Drone Designs (not even in the new weekly auction). We will carefully review all items that we add to the reworked auction that are not currently in it.

Lastly, before we put it live, we will open the test servers to enable everyone to give us more valuable feedback.

BR,

RickDekard
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Originally Posted by Jaxter

All I can think of why they want to put everything in trade is so that they can make new things. So if they do put the LF4 in trade they are probably thinking of introducing the LF5 or something like that. They want to bring out new uri items for us to spend all our money on, well that's what I think.
Hi Jaxter,

We are absolutely not thinking about adding LF5 or anything else like that. Our motivation for doing this is to help new players, however since reading all the posts here I realize that we have to be ultra careful in how we do that.

BR,

RIckDekard
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Originally Posted by cata199818

Hey Rick,but what about increasing reward from NPCs . u need a lot of uri now to become ufe and everybody just does cubes now which is boring, so would u consider increasing the uridium for every NPC ?
I wouldn't consider this currently because the new missions, which will be released in January, will be giving more Uridium.

Balancing the game economy is very tricky, as there are so many competing variables, but somehow we need to find a fair balance and I think the new missions should get us there.

BR,

RickDekard
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Welcome to the DO Roadmap - Posted by Rick Dekard 25.11.13

Juturna User

Juturna User