[SC] Facts Of What Killed The Game

Well I want to create this post to really address the issue that really killed this game.
We have always been complaining about BOTS and how they were killing the game while they were being used and how they killed the game when BP banned them(ALMOST).

To be honest I don't care if someone "BOTS", the game is expensive but there is a way to get everything without having to bot or use a lot of money.

What I care about is autolock, damage programs,etc. Something that really gives someone a "supernatural" powers in the game.

Now this really didn't kill the game. we survived through it we played through we all know that(I have been playing for over 6 years)

What really killed the game was the change in the Jackpot Battle.
Now you must be asking, why?

Why? First and most important answer:
It took away the motivations of clans to be stick together and fight for something that could be won as a clan and make it easier depending on the power of the clan.

Now people say, "well this is really a disadvantage for users that are just alone or in small clans"
Yes this is very very very true.

But the jackpot was the reasons for clans to:
Declare wars.
Set alliances.
Buy Uridium.
Create more ships.
have everything on the game
Of course use bots (but this is not our fault this is BP's fault because they don't have a real system to detect bots and eliminate people WHO REALLY IS BOTTING)

Literally, people in my server, my leaders(at that time) would only play for the jackpot.
you are probably saying, "Oh this is just gonna go back to those organized clans that are just too many and don't have skills".
Well yes that is true, but that is what makes a lot of people play this game. I will be honest, all my friends left this game because there is no way to beat some good guys at the Jackpot Arena(I have been one of the last 6 people to be fighting for the jackpot so I believe I have a chance) There is no way to make profit or at least get partial money of what you spend on this game back.

When this Jackpot Battle with tons of ship in one map was on everyone played for it we had a goal every month we had reasons to control in the game, we had reason for people to raise against the most powerful clan, we had reasons to betray people, we had reasons to ally with our last enemies, we had reasons to create drama out of the game...

People think about it, drama was the best thing, you had clans competing using money using bots using every single resource in their hands to attack their enemies.

Yes there is a bard part to it "BOTS" "CHEATS", yes but this is not our responsibility, this is BP's responsibility they have to make a REAL bot detector or something that really works.

Yes there will be another BOT era or CHEAT era or whatever, but at least there will be a 2007, 2008, 2009 era where you had people playing 24/7, asking for alliances, setting up wars.

Basically GREED for the money, is like the normal world, money makes things interesting, it makes you want to fight for something.

For example:
Before, we used to fight for the spaceball, fight it all the time, even shoot at it with X4! why? because the spaceball gave us uri, ammo, and most importantly it was the fastest ways to get the jackpot dollars(at the time euros). Companies and clans would fight for it there would be action, not just one company owning the spaceball.

Look this is what bigpoint did to us:
The first took the possibility of a lot of people fight together for a jackpot.(Bad for big clans, drama, fights, people paying the game)

Second: THEY USED TO DO 2 JACKPOTS! ONE FOR AMERICA AND ONE FOR EUROPE. So instead of giving away a total of 20k euros(because of 2 jackpots) they merged it into just ONE.

Third: They changed the jackpot Euros to Dollars, make it even less money.

This are really the reason why a lot of people just quit playing.
THERE IS NO DRAMA IN THIS GAME.

Why would someone spend money on the game? To keep a rank? really? wow that is just so worthless is just a small image that looks good but does nothing.

To show off? You don't get anything, at some point you will stop playing the game and what? nobody will remember you at all.

Who wants to spend a $100 dollars when you can buy some new shoes or nice clothes with that money? (Yes people that win the jackpot, but really? this narrows down to like 10 different people at the most)

THIS IS THE REAL ISSUE! WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!

Now,
Im not saying to go back all the way to that jackpot.
What I want to propose is that since BP took away 10k either euros or dollars.
I suggest that BP makes another jackpot every month, just as the one we had before(The same one).
I mean BP won't like the idea of paying more right..
But I am sure that they want to have:
Wars(Where you spend ammo every day constantly, money, best ships, everything)
Company Wars(Even more money)
Drama(MORE MORE MONEY)
People spending money to defend their bases(I mean really what is the whole point of having a base now? Just to have it? Collect uri? You can easily get out of your clan and collect bonu boxes and nobody knows its you)
Even bring back paying Uridium to restore your modules.

THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS IS TO BRING PLAYERS BACK, GIVE THEM A REASON TO PLAY!
yes I know you can still win the jackpot battle, but at what cost?
Some people just either find a bug to win it, they are really good, they know a way to win it, others cheat and nobody wins it and BP doesn't give any money to anyone, etc etc.

I assure you people that wee need to make BP bring this back, this will bring a lot of players again.

 

Oh boy, if you name your opinion thread with the word "Facts" you are always opening yourself up to easy criticism ...

The American JPA was removed because Americans weren't winning it. I can name 2 people who live in America who have actually won it, Defender and Youngblood. Europeans won the vast majority of American JPAs.
Your complaint about Jackpot Currency being swapped from Dollars to Euros is funny, especially considering the Euro is almost always the stronger currency and so 10k Euros is worth more than 10k Dollars. The only people who lost out on the currency swap were people in the UK.

Your opinion, and it is limited to that, of jackpot being this important to the game and it's survivability is not shared by the vast majority of players and I very much doubt the development team hold the JPA at such a high importance. If everyone was given UFE ships for JPA then a bigger percentage of the current player base would compete, but it would not attract new players to this game.

If we imagine this game back in early 2010, the new client had just emerged and bots were incredibly rare. Now jackpot existed then, be it in a different form, yet I don't know a single person who aimed to win it. It was no more than an event maybe 1 in 5 people signed up to for a good bit of mass group PvP. Yet the game was incredibly popular.
I play this game probably too much from 2007 - 2013 and I never met a single clan that once tried to help get new members stronger for the sake of JPB. That included playing GE1 and being good friends with Ars who won JPB multiple times.


If I wanted to turn it on the head I could simply say that the JPA was introduced Early / Mid 2013 and since then the game has got less popular.
There is without a doubt less people playing now than there was 2 years later, so surely this is the fault of the JPA being introduced right?! No, they are just coincidence ... the jackpot is not important to how popular this game is.



What destroyed this games activity is very simple:

1. Lots of expensive updates in short time (LF4, Apis, Zeus, Havoc, Upgrades).
   
2. First wave of players leave due to these updates.
3. Mass botting starts to reduce cost for players.
4. Second wave of players leave due to mass botting.
5. Mass botting bans begin.
6. Third wave of players leave due to accounts being caught.

Those 6 steps left the games population a shadow of itself with 4/5 players having left since 2011. So what do people do now that the servers are so dead? The stronger clans send wars in order to try and get more people to shoot in the game.

This game will never be anything like it was before, there will never be a single server where mass fights of 100 v 100 will ever happen again, in 2015 there are not enough people who are looking to start a new game who actually want to be playing a browser game. New cross-server events however could provide lots of PvP that the majority of UFE players want.

 

I don't think this would be an issue it doesn't matter if no American player wins it, what matters is that they are giving less money out to whoever wins it

If you read correctly and I am not mistaking you read that part completely wrong because I said Euros being swap for dollars. THAT IS MY ORIGINAL COMPLAINT:
"Third: They changed the jackpot Euros to Dollars, make it even less money."
---------------------------------------

Now I assume you don't know anything about the Jackpot Battle(Old jackpot) in America.
In America the clans that use to win the jackpot every month was Liv,PDT,ACE.
These clans (all ruling on different times) won the jackpot many times being organized, creating alliances, between clans, companies, and even servers.
I suggest you to do a research about the Jackpot Battle in America.


Now why did I say facts? Because I was there, because I was part of all 3 biggest strongest clans that existed in America.
Why strongest? Because we would always win the jackpot every single month(Not exaggerating)
Now yes all leaders, a huge number of members of this clans left because the jackpot was no longer a "team match".

The story is like this, PDT destroyed LIV a clan that ruled Global America,2 & 3 for many years this people kept fighting but they didn't have a chance, then ACE emerged and teamed up with PDT, for some traitors and people trying to win the jackpot for themselves ACE and PDT ended at war, PDT ruled for over half a year, then ACE ruled again, then ACE betrayed and lied to some of their clans, making promises that they would give part of the jackpot to them and they never did, and ACE ended up falling to PDT.
And then the jackpot was changed.

The "FACT" is PDT,ACE,LIV and many more clans are not the same, LIV basically doesn't exist PDT is having a ton of wars, and ACE is the same as LIV. Why?
Because there is no more reasons to organize themselves and fight.

If you dont believe me about this organization of clans and friends to win the jackpot I can show you videos.
Look in youtube.
"Ganador del Jackpot AG1"
"Mr Debol Jackpot AG1"

Look something similar to that.
I can't write more I have to leave at this moment, but I will get back to you(actually wrote all that in less than 10 min any misunderstandings will be clarified).

 

Well here you are just plain wrong, I had given you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you had mistyped it. The jackpot currency was never changed from euros to dollars. It is in Euros on every single server.
http://www.bigpoint.com/darkorbit/board/threads/jackpot-arena-changes.57341/

Second line:
"all prizes paid in Euro"

Alright buddy I'm going to burst your bubble.

3 Spanish speaking clans that existed across 2 (out of 60) servers that liked to participate on JPB had zero impact on the rise and fall of this game.

Now I'm glad you had fun, I had fun with JPB too, was always a good reason to get in a TS and have a massive fight. However I played GA2 on and off over a period of maybe 6 to 8 months roughly and my only experience of Spanish speaking clans, the mian one being liv was that they would send war and try to disband any clan that did not speak Spanish.

So your original point of clans being helpful trying to help smaller ships is rubbish. People used to send wars over BKs, they just do it now over Cubes instead. The people who help others in this game are doing it because they are kind individuals, that never changed, the majority of people were always looking out for themselves and always will be.

I'm in Ars clan, they won the JPB multiple times, I know what an organised group looks like. I organised my own company to take over the entire server for a mods vs players event and held 5 CBS in enemy maps for almost 2 months, I'm a big fan of organisation.
Ars did not go out their way to help smaller ships get better for the sake of JPB, instead they would look for alliances with already strong clans that they could rely on.

I'm glad you took the time to tell the story, made me miss the old days just as much as you seem to miss them. However lets not kid ourselves, the Jackpot is not the reason for why this game went down the toilet, it was the updates we were given 4 years ago that started that off.

 

My bad about the jackpot we assumed that because at some point when you were collecting jackpot currency it would say "Dollars" not "Euros".

Now I don't know where you got that "clans being helpful trying to help smaller ships" things... that is not the point.

Three clans did not have any impact?
well not on 60 servers, because not all of them where ruled by this clans. But just to let you know GA1 GA2, and I think GA3(if im not
How many servers are in America?
All those servers in America would fall in the jackpot to GA1 every single month. Now do you really think they weren't making an impact? Alliances between servers in America was really important too, people there would expect "prizes", "rewards", etc.
mistaking it was out at the time already) were ruled by at least one of these clans.
This servers DIED when these clans stopped playing.

Now the updates, yes it made people quit, it made people that like everything free on every game. I have seen them complain, people complain about everything, specially American people(I'm American).

Why do you think Turkish servers are so populated? or at least that's what I know.
Because they get prizes because they get extra stuff we don't get, better deals, better everything.
Yes, BP started giving us that but when? After 10 months after? Like I have Hercules in my ship that are useless to me, but thats not the point.

The thing is, you bring that kind of jackpot back, and you will see people mobilizing, wars, alliances, motivated people.
GA1 is one of the most populated servers, but at least 60% of its people left, because of the same thing.

Yes the updates again, yeah but this jackpot would give people opportunities to at least try to overthrow a bigger clan.

Only people that want free stuff complain about the game.
Yes before spending 200 dollars was enough to be FE and fight anyone in the game.
Yes right now UFE ships are really expensive, but is still free...

I do not know a single game(Like darkorbit) that would get you top/best weapons in 3 months, games require either time or money to get somewhere(specially a game a pays 10k euros a month).

 

Got full everything in BSGO in a few days with 30+ divine inspirations back when they stacked cubits to buy all the ships, tylium to buy equip, cubits and merits to upgrade them and the ships. Sure its hard now they don't stack but you gotta be opportunistic sometimes and lucky. Luck gets you places lol

 

If you can go be a noob on a new server! You will soon see why people leave almost before they start and clans don't help new players; they shoot them .... not all clans nor all of the old players or FEs UFEs but enough to get popped many times in the first 2 hours.

OK you stick around most clans don't want somebody under lv16. Clans have no part in this.

THen you realize the expense in money or years to be able to compete, which is another major factor with new players leaving; this also has nothing to do with clans.

JPA i will never be able to do it.full stop.
Sorry DupStep if i hijacked your thread
good hunting, Jack

P.S help new players we need them!

 

A few words from me as a player who joined GA1 last year, so I don't know how this server looked earlier, but I see what's happening now:
1. Almost all server is VRU (VRU: 10.3m points, MMO: 2.1m, with top 3 players making up 15% of it) which destroys the idea of DO being a company vs company game.
2. Some VRU players think that they own the whole server. It means that when I'm MMO and I kill VRU shooting cubes in 1-6 they write to me complaining that I dare to kill them, they think that as VRU they are untouchable.
3. Many of such players in #3 don't know a word in English, so they keep insulting/swearing in Spanish (easy way to learn all kinds of spanish swear words )
4. All those "big, top clans" such as S-L, PD etc. are usually invisible in maps. Almost all of those "big players" are useless when it comes to 1v1 fights, so they either die easily or fire an ice rocket/emp+cloak and run - then they call 5-10 players to kill 1 enemy.
5. Being MMO you can fly for hours in 4-x maps without being killed by hundreds of VRU there - they are either botusers or they run without trying to fight. They only fight when it's 5 or more vs 1.

That's just a few facts off the top of my head

 

Everybody has ideas as to why the servers are dead but the thing you have to ask yourselves is WHY ARE NEW PLAYERS NOT STICKING AROUND LONG ENOUGH TO GET HOOKED ON THE GAME ?
I have been playing for around 6 years , been general of 2 companies , run numerous clans throughout my time and watched the server die horribly !
I have recently started again from scratch to see just how easy/hard this game is for new players and to be honest this game is much much much better now for new players then it was years ago !
One of the problems with this game nowadays is it is just massively unfair on the smaller ships in the lowers maps given the power of ubfe ships they can go into nme lowers and wipe out everything that moves in every map within 10 min ! This is ridiculously unfair on new players who do not even know what they are doing yet !
New players need far more protection then they are currently getting or better still the game should have 3 new maps where ALL new players start off before choosing a company so that they can build their ship and gain in level BEFORE they are put into the battle zones .
How long is a new starter going to stick around when he chooses a company on the server that is dead and then within the first few days of them playing they are destroyed non stop by some bored ubfe from another company ? The answer is they won't ! that will simply think stuff this game and find something else to play .
The fault is not the game itself as the game itself is very good it is instead the fact that new starters simply find it insane that level 24 ubfe ships can come into the learning maps I. E. Lowers and wipe them all out !
MASSIVE ERROR IN GAME PLAY ON BIG POINTS PART .
The game is not even all that expensive compared to other games out there in darkorbit you actually get a lot for your money as long as you wait for a MHH .
Clan wars are a major problem on empty servers as bored ubfe clans are bullying every other clan and preventing growth which is another game play fault .
ALL of the faults above need attention and then big point needs to do a massive advertising campaign to bring in enough new players to get the ball rolling as 1 or 2 new players per day on an empty server is not enough to retain those new players when they see the maps empty .