I do not disagree with most of what you say, it makes sense for me, so I will clarify a few things so my point is better understood:Quote:
Alright we have different goals here. You mention dead servers a lot which probably means you put high profit first. Then you are right. Nostalgia servers will not bring high profit and they will not be as full as Waruniverse or something like that.
And you say that the concept of Darkorbit is bad and always the same. You call it an "issue".
This is where we fundamentally disagree. I like the concept of Darkorbit as it was unique with a unique gameplay and setting. Most other games are a balancing hell where the devs try for decades to make different classes play the same and be equally as strong - rendering all classes useless as they are the same at the end of the day. Meanwhile in Darkorbit 8 Iris Goliath was the obvious elite status. No other game is like this and that is good. Every elite player was quite similar except for use of different design. It had some appeal. This elite status gave Darkorbit an identity. You saw them flying around and obliterating you when you were a noob and immediately it becomes your goal to reach this status too. It can take years for non-payment players and it is very satisfying to reach it. This was the golden era of 2008-2012, before BP looked at other games trying to copy their concepts and failing in the process. And it was full of players before and most of them are still alive. It was a great game to play no matter how much time you have be it 20 mins or 8 hours per day. You login and just go and can go offline whenever you want. There was no big changes and a full elite player going inactive for a few months will not become a total noob just for not playing the game. Unthinkable in modern games. It was perfect for a certain kind of player and until 2012 there were many of them.
They all stopped because the game was not like this anymore. Because BP changed it too much too quickly and introduced new items costing 15 million uridium within 1 year from mid 2011 to 2012(from PET to Hercules design), rendering all players to noob status again except the uber whales.
All the people asking for changes were wrong as it turns out people using the forums donīt represent the overall playerbase.
Mind you Darkorbit was one of the few games where old and young people could play together because it offered a variety of gameplay from calm pve gameplay and action packed pvp at the same time with a social aspect of clans - the real story of Darkorbit is the clans. It is almost like a roleplaying game but where people take it completely serious. I never saw this somewhere else and will never see it again. Same goes for the other people from back then. Especially the old players are not really interested in ADHD flashy new tiktok tier mobile games. The old samey Darkorbit was perfect for a quite large demographic. And a Darkorbit server just needs 200 players online to feel very active. I think something close to this is achievable. It might not align with your goal of making lots of money but I think it is a goal worth pursuing for other people. And if the server only has 10 players after 5 months then so be it. At least people know itīs there waiting for them to return in case they want to relive the old times again.
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Yes the goals are different, you say "make money/profits", the way you say it makes it sound like a greedy venture, but that's not really the idea, it's not just about making money:
What I mean is a Viable - Durable - Sustainable project, in the sense it has to:
A) Yes be profitable: it has to have a net positive return, otherwise the dev is sacrificing something.
B) Have the ability to at least sustain a sufficient player base, at best have the ability to grow the player base.
C) Be free of any legal prejudice and recognized for it's own identity
If any one of these 3 points is not met it will affect the game quality and/or longevity.
If the goal is to make a hobby project that is not VDS there is nothing wrong about that, if the dev is happy with his 10 player server. but it's not really what I am discussing. This thread is more about encouraging devs to explore new things, and to also encourage DO players to be open for new things. But no hate for those who want to stick with DO afterall. It's just boring for me to play a 10 player pservers, maybe not for others.
I wish to play a big truly successful VDS top down space MMO with tens of thousands of players in 2026 and beyond.
Then your paragraphs point out the good things about DO that I also like and also agree are good.
BUT
There are also some very bad things in DO, even the earlier 2008 to 2012 versions.
So i'm just saying instead of remaking a DO copy why not make a game taking the good stuff from DO and not taking the bad stuffs ? Or try to enhance the good stuffs.
Here is a list of pservers I know
- War Universe
- Space Aces
- Krypton
- Pink Galaxy
- Space Age
- Andromeda
- OrbitOfWarrior
- AncientOrbit
- Space Age
- Star Dominion
- StarZone
- UberOrbit
- SpaceOrbit
- SpaceFable
- Coalescence
- StarZone
- BlackOrbit
- StarFade
- SpaceLegends
- GalaxySpaces
And more I forgot or don't know
Most of them replicate gameplay of dark orbit between 2008 - 2015
Yet despite being considered the "gold era" of dark orbit none of these project is even close from being at the a glimpse of the level dark orbit was back then. Meanwhile the number of total pc gamers has grown over the years.
So fair to assume that oldschool DO just isn't as good as what nostalgia makes us believe. I believe there is way more upside trying to make something different (for both dev and players) than add one more DO copy pserver in that list.
I also want to add that I discussed this personally with WarUniverse, Andromeda and Krypton pserver devs, and they have all observed by their experience the issues the DO concept has.