[UI] Saving Darkorbit. Addressing 3 critical issues

Discussion in 'General Archive' started by BringNothing, Oct 2, 2020.

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  1. I have noticed three critical things while playing Darkorbit.

    1. There are barely any new players in the nooby areas
    2. There's a lot of ufe bots who have gotten away for a long long time.
    3. The game consists of grinding for a reward and no creativity.

    I'll address my opinions for how to improve all three area's.

    1. There are no events for new players, nothing inviting them to play. The game focuses on high level players and ignores the one's that enter the game. Nothing to drag you into playing the game. Instead you are punished when a high level player passes you by and there's nothing u can do but be at their mercy.

    2. Doesn't need any more explanation.


    3. The game consists of grinding and no creative skill. An idea is to create mazes with enemies in-between and have a chest at the end as a reward. 100's of DIFFARENT things to do, will provide content that isn't REPETATIVE. One thing to do in 100 different ways, is not the same thing. A game should feel fresh each time you play it or else you will eventually lose the player due to "I've explored all there is to this game I haven't made it to the end but I know what's coming. Instead of kristollins I'll be killing bukachonka's for a new weapon and after I get the weapon I'll be killing boss bukachonka for the next one" Instead of this, by creating 100 mini games inside one game the game is fresh every time you play. And the grind will no longer feel like a grind

    I truly hope someone reads this because the fact that servers are merging states that old players are leaving faster then new ones join. This pattern won't change until a change happens.
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2020
  2. Zecora

    Zecora User

    1.: There are barely any new players in the nooby areas.
    True and wrong at the same time. Because there are barely any new players to speak of, especially in less populated servers where the hunters love each other but kill everything that is not a known hunter. This strong intensity of PvP towards low levels is what drives them away: You just don't want to fight something that is way above your league.

    2.: Bots are obvious

    3.: The game consists of grinding for a reward and no creativity.

    I could go on about this for hours, if not days. Every NPC is artificially the same. Every map IS basically the same in shape and form. And I feel like in this kind of genre, people are missing out on the opportunities of ambient design. There are so many Sci-fi space games, where you move through space. But none of them are as empty as the space of Darkorbit. You have asteroids, you have obstacles, you have bypassing comets and so on. A big chunk of the maps in Darkorbit have nothing that makes them feel unique and alive.

    That aside, the grinding aspect of Darkorbit has grown in intensity exponentially compared to the 2008 and even 2013 state.
     
  3. κγβε®

    κγβε® User

    I think there are a reasons to why we don't see "fresh meat" on maps.
    There is nothing BP can advertise the game on. Before they decided to erase it we have had Jackpot Arena which was one of the incentives that got us to play Darkorbit. And that also brought the competitiveness into the game which in my opinion is necessary in any online video-game. Unless it's a PvE focused grind game. Not the case for DO though so I think something needs to be added to fill the void JPA left.
    Second it's the Pay to Win aspect which needs to be addressed. That includes all the old content: starting from Galaxy Gates.
    An lastly there needs to be more content (bug-less :rolleyes:) could it be in a form of Dungeons or others.

    Bots have become a plague in the last couple of years.
    We always had bots and cheats but not at this stage.
    That is a result of all the new missions requirements to complete, which are insane and boring to do.
    Some say if BP decides to ban all the bot-accounts the game will die. Well, you don't have to ban all, ban a few and see if the rest will keep using those programs anymore. "Lead by example".
    That is if BP is willing to declare war on bots.

    Sadly the grinding part cannot but grow with the game. If anything they need to make the in-game progression more appealing and fun, like you stated.
    That is related to adding new content (re-thinking of the old content) and removing PtoW as much as possible.

    Darkorbit is a small game running an old design concept, and they are trying very hard to keep it alive, or if you want to see it negatively, they are trying "to milk the last cows" as much as possible before going down. In both cases it's obvious they focus on the development of content for those who still play.
    The only reason I can think of of why they don't spend too much time on welcoming new players is that the DO department is not receiving enough resources.
    Every online game I played have an "invite a friend" system to reach as many players as possible worldwide. That was the case also for DO. Not anymore and that says a lot about their intention to grow the player-base. Instead we got server-merging as a solution.
    What I am trying to say here is that they are not trying to welcome new players, but rather trying to keep those who still play and pay active. And that's why we don't see any resource put into re-thinking of the old content (missions for example).

    They had an opportunity to make the game alive again knowing that Flash was going to expire in 2020. I don't know how much BP wants to keep the game online but they should've invested long time ago and they could've launched Darkorbit Reloaded 2.0 build from scratch and advertise it as new game.
    A lost opportunity I guess, since we have this Downloadable client which really feels like a school project made by a couple of students.
     
  4. The game is to old and broken beyond repair all you players trying to bring life back to the game is a joke everyone left already but the bot's and players who are trying to hold on, best to try other games.
     
  5. Bibulus

    Bibulus User

    Yes the game were not allowed to talk about is much better
     
    thor714 likes this.
  6. thor714

    thor714 User

    wish i knew what that game was.lol
     
  7. Star*Fire

    Star*Fire User

    When the Events starting becoming everyone case the same ship was the first step down the road to boredom. Lets face it the new events are not even fun to do. Well I do like the gates they put up. Then multi-company clans did some real damage. Now we have no company loyalty in the game. Then we have the botts, They are sometimes what seams to be 35% of the ships on some maps. This has unbalance the game so much, How could you ever compete unless you cheat. "Myself" I would walk away before I would undermind my self respect and cheat, because I'm unable to do it on my own. I'm hanging on just hoping they fix it. Did like playing this game but as my rank drops daily because the botts are now taking over. Why pay to play when your entering a no win scenario.
     
    Bibulus and BobAlmighty like this.
  8. Bibulus

    Bibulus User

    The best event was the flowers and that turned out to be a bug which they very quickly fixed, amazing how they can fix things when it's in our favour
     
  9. I don`t see this game lasting much longer. Its turned into a cash grab where they only dish out chat bans and let accounts zombie 24/7.

    We see nothing from the dev team anymore , while the number of illegal accounts increase. Making this game better isn't rocket science but positive features take years to even start a beta run.... This doesn't sit well with me when I happen to play other games where 1 man works faster than this team. I think its time to jump ship.
     
    LoyaltyΛboveΛllLaws likes this.
  10. 1. There are no events for new players, nothing inviting them to play. The game focuses on high level players and ignores the one's that enter the game. Nothing to drag you into playing the game. Instead you are punished when a high level player passes you by and there's nothing u can do but be at their mercy.

    There used to be but not anymore. Invasion gate nowadays is something that nobody likes. It was way more better with the old aliens.
    Plutus Experiment for example was a good event for beginner, everyone could participate and get stuff like lf-4 in the assembly