New Update (Change Log)

Orion's Belt Blog

November 11, 2010

New Update (Change Log)

Filed under: ChangeLog — Nuno Silva @ 8:56 am

After a ruff morning with i finally managed to update Orion’s Belt.

Here is the list of new things:

New design in all the pages of the Auction House
Long asked feature: now, the products you have bid in the past appear highlighted. This way there is no need to go to My Auctions to see which auctions you have bid.
The battle page also has a new design
The tournament battles now have a link to the tournament they belong to
The top pages have been updated with the new design. Also, the pagination has a new style
Because of the numerous reports of anti game, we decided to insert immunity in the fleets. So, when the battle ends, your fleet will have a immunity of 100 turns. This will prevent the known strategy of blocking the fleet. (UPDATED: ONLY AVAILABLE ON DECEMBER 1ST)
Resolved a problem that only appeared in Chrome. The Alliance relics page was all messed up.
Some bug corrections

Also i am glad to announce that soon we will have a new language: German. This language is now available only in the manual.

Comments (28)

28 Comments »

You’re joking? Right?

I mean I get the idea and I like it.

Foundation can no longer block DS & RL’s fleets by continuously sending small cheap fleets to stop them moving.

DS / RL can no longer use the give up button to bully smaller players, by bringing in ever larger fleets. Everyone knows that having held all the relics for over a year, they will win that contest.

BUT

(really big but)

The Foundation policy of blocking has, like it or not changed the balance in the universe for the good.

At long last someone has taken relics from DS/RL.

Our strategy is based upon the principle of blocking. As I understand it, whether or not you like this strategy or not, it was legal. As was the DS strategy of re-attacking with ever larger fleets.

If the developers want to change the rules, that’s fine. This is a great game and you have my support. However, to simply change them overnight is not acceptable.

This simple change will make a massive difference to the way DS/RL and Foundation war with each other.

It would be far better if the change was announced some weeks in advance, to give both sides opportunity to re-think and redeploy.

So, I support your change but I do not support the way it has been introduced.
Yes to the new rules!
(How about waiting until 0.00am GMT Dec 1st 2010 before the change comes into effect?)

Comment by MikeVeal — November 11, 2010 @ 9:53 am
does immunity applies on attacking the fleet only or it applies on firing devastation at that fleet too?

Comment by Golub023 — November 11, 2010 @ 10:03 am
I understand both sides, but if you think it’s unfair.

It’s a good strategy, but is unfair for any player of any alliance. You win a battle and you don’t have the ability to run or to decide to attack again. Your are simply stuck… It’s annoying and many players might give up because of this unfair rule.

We are going to change it, but i will take your advice and only make this feature available on 1 of December. Alliances have more than time to rethink their strategy.

Comment by Nuno Silva — November 11, 2010 @ 11:04 am
Hi all,

About this immunity, you may add something to it : only if the fleet doesn’t move.

If not, a winning fleet can pass through a lot of enemy fleets without being blocked (except if there is a real wall in front of it) which is something that can be used, of course, but certainly abused, and that’s something nobody wants.

We (players in general) may abuse the “give-up and reattack” tactic before, but a fleet moving through the universe during 100 turns with immunity isn’t something that could be permit.

Also, a immunity after a battle isn’t usefull if some use a bug with the vacation in battles that keep the battle freezed while the player is moving and attacking other fleets!

Comment by Ataxard — November 11, 2010 @ 11:34 am
Hi all,

About the immunity, you may add something to it : only if the fleet doesn’t move.

If not, a winning fleet can pass through a lot of enemy fleets without being blocked (except if there is a real wall in front of it) which is something that can be used, of course, but certainly abused, and that’s something nobody wants.

We (players in general) may abuse the “give-up and reattack” tactic before, but a fleet moving through the universe during 100 turns with immunity isn’t something that could be permit.

Also, a immunity after a battle isn’t usefull if some use a bug with the vacation in battles that keep the battle freezed while the player is moving and attacking other fleets!

Comment by Ataxard — November 11, 2010 @ 11:35 am
Nuno dont get me wrong… but it’s been over a year since this was discussed in the blog:
http://blog.orionsbelt.eu/?p=1376
And in the forum it was even sooner =/
I bitxed and bitxed about this and now that the shoe is on the other end (DS/RL) you give us immunity. I dont question the need for it, just the late timing. And yes a lot of player left the game because of this… Too many if you ask me, hole alliances even!!! I’m wondering if Danceman will now be against this or not… ahaha also more info is needed, who will have immunity winner, loser, both? How can you tell they have immunity? etc… =)

Comment by reborned — November 11, 2010 @ 12:01 pm
@reborned Yes I’m against it.

I don’t agree with Mikeveal, that this rule will favor us. I think it will make us change strategies which we can have success or not, we don’t know yet. We just came from a devastating cheat that destroyed us and now we have been regrouping and fighting back. This change may hit us hard again, only faith will know

We have always played with theses rules. We all know how to use them

BUT if reborned remembers and the developers, i did send in suggests for changes. I also never was 100% in agreement with the giveup but I do think maybe with small tweaks we can make it better.

For example, I defended that giveups would be interesting only when both players were online, which would created chases, which is very exciting for me. And if the game had solar winds, we could use the winds to make our speed faster to get away or to catch a fleet, just a idea.

About losing players in the past, yes we lost players that would simple send out a giant fleet, leave them in the universe unprotected, like ashis would do with his queens and terrorize us all because we had no way to stop him. If we attacked it, he would simply destroy us without challenge. Now we send out just enough and battle more fair and challenging battles, BUT we still have stupid battles just to block a fleet. We i came up with this strategy, i would send cheap fleets but with a strategy and it would give a good battle.

Lately players have extended this strategy to just stupid battles that you can’t learn nothing from it, 20 rains or 30 anubis all stuck in a corner.

With the give up strategy, small players had a chance to make a difference. I fair with this change small fleets will just be destroy easily. This is where i think the game loses interest

But does it annoy me, yes it does, foundation members would hold my fleets, of course its frustrating. If there wasn’t a limit in fleets, i wouldn’t care but we do have a limit of 10 fleets per player.

I agree the giveup without immunity gives smaller players a chance but it annoys the stronger players. Thats why i suggested maybe the give up have some tweaks, just from the top of my head:
- maybe only give up when both are online
- maybe give up not have loses for the winning player
-maybe give up with out loses for players that the difference between both fleets is very big (number of units or attack and defense difference), this way the small stupid fleets would be filtered out
- maybe give ups could be negotiated (exchange of resources, units, etc…) but this may lead to cheaters but would resolve by accident attacks

I also in the past defended battle zones, battles that could be took over by many players, like we would be sending reinforcements. But it has its problems too and I think something the past was tested in this way and wasn’t accepted

In any case I did say in the past i would play the way the devs would ask us, I will give it a try, theses are just my ideas and opinions. If anyone doesn’t like it, we always will have the tournaments.

In any case, we don’t have a perfect solution. The giveup is a good war strategy (ambushing and waiting for reinforcements) but its annoying because theres no way to get out of the blocked battle without loses.

Doesn’t anyone have a better solution out there?

I have a question, if our winning fleet has immunity, can we attack again? if so then relic shields will have no meaning, giant fleets will just go threw the shields. I fair you are eliminating one of the key strategies in the game. The game will just resume to building and attacking, put a giant fleet in the relic, after that keep filling it up. The stronger players (players that have been playing more time or has a bunch of cash to wast) will dominate the game, just keep filling up the relic with all you have. Smaller players which is the biggest percentage will just ignore the relics and wars will just stop, alliances wouldn’t be so necessary and the game will die out.

Please correct me if I’m wrong?

I think that immunity for the winning player will need to be tweaked, he will not be able to attack or what i described above will happen.

Comment by Danceman — November 11, 2010 @ 12:54 pm
Sorry I jumped some messages above, I agree with ataxard, only if fleet is not moving it has immunity.

Comment by Danceman — November 11, 2010 @ 1:10 pm
Just a thought, if a fleet is in a relic shield, and it wins a battle, than it will have immunity, which means attacking relics will become harder.

Wasn’t one of the objectives of the developers there be more war with relics. Maybe immunity will just make it harder to attack relics.

Maybe you have thought of this or maybe not.

Comment by Danceman — November 11, 2010 @ 1:36 pm
“like ashis would do with his queens and terrorize us all because we had no way to stop him.” come on man, how many times did I defeated players with bigger fleets then mine? how many times did I lost big fleets to smaller fleets? why? because of good gameplay and strategy! And after a win you can still persue the other fleet, destroy his lights persue and destroy the rest!Protect the wormholes, attack all his planets, play with the fleet limit! Again it’s strategy, stop making it look like you had no other choice, cause it’s annoying really… You did what you thought was best for you at the time, fine by me and it worked congratz, but making excuses that there is/was no other way just shows how biased you are!

Comment by reborned — November 11, 2010 @ 3:02 pm
Here is a thought for DM.
I’m reluctant to share this as it’s telling you how to circumvent our tactics. But I’m going to do so as it ends the arguement that the game rules have to change because of our tactics.

Give up.

If a battle has been going for ages, we keep seinding fleets to stop your fleet from moving, then wait until we are not on line and give up. You will take losses, but you will get your fleet back. I am surprised that DS/RL have not yet recognised the value doing this.

This exchange of tactical give ups levels the playing field between the stronger and the weaker players.

DM is absolutely correct that the fleet limit coupled with our blocking tactic prevents DS from moving. That’s the whole point, it is a very deliberate and considered tactic.
Have people not noticed that we are not destroying fleets that we could easily destroy? It is tactically better when fighting a stronger enemy to keep a medium fleet continuously busy than it is to allow the enemy to replace that fleet with something nastier.

But there are ways around our tactic. The above suggestion is just one way round. Talk to Equinox for example, he is becoming extremely adept at making short work of my blocker battles. It’s difficult keeping up with him.

You should also not underestimate the cost of waging this kind of war. I am very aware that whilst we are doing this, we are throwing large amounts of resources away in the form of light units. At the same time, our enemies are not able to send new fleets to the hot zone, so they will be building and storing units. With players like Equinox destroying blocker fleets literally as fast as I can build them, the remaining DS players grow stronger whilst we remain at our current level.

Our tactics are not foolproof and will eventually lead to another swing in fortunes. This is another argument for not changing the rules.

One other problem I see is the use of a scout fleet. I’ll quite often send a 1 light fleet to determine the size of an enemy. I then custom construct a fleet to either delay or destroy. Attack immunity would completely stop this approach.

A 50 or 100 move immunity would furhter benefit the stronger players. Only those with the full universe discovered would actually be able to chase a fleet for 50 moves.

It’s a shame DM doesn’t agree with me. I completely agree with his posting:
“The immunity will help players to bully one player because if he doesn’t have the power for that fleet that attacks him, theres no way he can ask for help for that fleet, of course with immunity we would have to look for that fleet but not every one has the universe opened up, so that strong member (with money or plays from the start) is so powerful, he will terrorize every one, so the immunity will give power to the richer and older, without immunity, it gives power to the more organized alliance (it balances powers)”

Comment by Mikeveal — November 11, 2010 @ 4:52 pm
@reborned

i’ll be honest your the most difficult player in the game, and you make it hard to like you. The way you approach players now and in the past has been very impolite (remember how you talked to vranasm in the past?). Remember we are all gamers here, lets drop the hatred.

If you read the blogs (even your own), Ashis was the first player to achieve the level 10, he did this by raiding many players and being a levyr which is the fastest to level up. At the time you were occupied with punisher (and maybe tsousa) if i’m not mistaken. I was starting out, still very weak, theroguenite was a bit stronger than me. We were all being terrorized by ashis, as many others which he confirmed in his blog, which was how he grow so strong (he is still the 1st place raider). Also in one of the past blogs showed the fleet that survived the most without defeats, once again ashis queen fleet is the winner. His fleet was so massive, only very strong players would be able to stop him but they were occupied with other problems, this was your case. Do you need more proof?

Believe me i did try to attack him many times (it was the first time I saw Queen fleets), and this was when i started my quest to find a small cheap effective fleets to fight him. But he just kept raiding us. I think maybe he was the spark for me to start the giveup tactics.

This is just a example of the power a very stronger player can have in the game. If its too unbalanced and if you take away the giveup tactics, they will just become stronger.

Don’t tell me about defeating stronger players, you were the strongest in the game and i defeated you many times, yes with the help of our alliance and with good board strategy and tactics also, I won you fair and square. BUT the give up was possible and there was no immunity. I have the battles to prove your defeats.

I just think with immunity it will favor the strongest and believe me i’m much stronger than i was back than. This rule maybe favor me more than anyone else.

I hope Reborned that you calm down and start being a sport and stop being a child with so much hatred.

Good gaming.

Comment by Danceman — November 11, 2010 @ 6:24 pm
@mikeveal

You misunderstood me or it was me who didn’t understand your statement. I only disagreed about it “favoring us” as a alliance. The rule will favor the “strongest players” which both alliances have.

Only here i disagreed with you. The rest I agree.

About your giveup theory, ask Vixard, that has been what i’ve been doing. Yes I’m well aware of it.

Has you stated Mikeveal, we all have a system now. This rule is to late, it should of been done in the past. But it wasn’t and the game kept on going, theres wars, theres enemies, theres strategies.

Why now change the game? What are the developers not happy about?

Maybe if we understood your reasons, we can come up with new ideas.

Comment by Danceman — November 11, 2010 @ 6:33 pm
@danceman: if you have problems with me, fine. Stop trying to make it look like I have problems with everyone. I just pointed out that you could have done other stuff and you always make it look like there was no other way, as you we’re forced by the GOD of OB to do it lol… in my post I pointed out that you won fair and square, I even said congratz, but maybe that’s arrogant and full of hatred for you. Stuff like “I have the battles to prove your defeats.” is you trying to piss me off =P just like you did the first time you beat me in a battle and I’d never did that to any player or to you every time I won against you, but hey maybe that is you being a sport. I know this is a game and I have fun, maybe the problem is I bite back at your talk and don’t bow down to everything you say. Don’t pretend you’re in a superior ground and I’m the child here, I’m old enough to drink in any country xD But hey I guess “internetz serious business” ^_^

OnTopic: I was against give up’s, I still don’t like them but at this moment I don’t think they should be taken out, too little to late.

Comment by reborned — November 12, 2010 @ 3:53 am
@danceman,

I don’t suppose I’m going to convince you, but I still contend that it was not a cheat. Some players simply figured out there was no limit to stored resources. I wish I could have accumulated that much. It wasn’t a bug either, maybe a loophole. If it was a loophole, it’s closed. I agree there should be a limit but at the time there wasn’t.

Comment by kelleybest — November 12, 2010 @ 5:46 am
@ Danceman,
My mistake, I’m sorry! (sometimes it is difficult to get the exact meaning from your English. Please do not take this as a criticism, your English in infinitely better than my Portugese!)

I agree, give up removal or fleet immunity will favour the stronger players. So it seems the only thing we disagree about is the relative strengths of our alliances, as I still regard the DS / RL combination as having a concentration of stronger players!

@ Nuno and the developers.
Reading through this blog post, its sister and the older post, I see no players who are in favour of removing the give up or of a fleet immunity.
There are some good suggeestions for alternatives, but nobody seems to back give up removal or fleet immunity.

I’m quite aware that you guys would not have implemented this change if you weren’t asked to by several players. So could you please prompt those players to join this discussion. At the moment, the discussion is very one sided. It would be good to hear the arguments for making this change.

Perhaps everyone here is missing something important.

Comment by Mikeveal — November 12, 2010 @ 12:43 pm
@kellybest

The cheat was about was doubling resources you didn’t have. Sorry but this sounds like a cheat. How can the same cargo be in two places at the same time, yes it was a bug and was explored but it doesn’t have logic to it, so I think its a cheat. What was worse about it was it powered up a very powerful component of the game, devastations. The main focus of the game is the board, devastations take out that part if they are to powerful. You just sit back and fire away and win without glory.

Like attacking your own relic, it has been always possible, but we have always been against it, its a cheat, its no logical and it ruins the game because it will be impossible to win the relic.

Or would you prefer also that we do that also, would you think we were playing correctly the game? Don’t you think it can be classified as a cheat also? The game permits it, only because its hard to detect it.

Comment by Danceman — November 12, 2010 @ 12:51 pm
@reborned

I have never had a problem with you, you’re the one that seems to have a problem with me, the way you speak to me.

I say many things, i speak my mind, like all of us hear, you don’t have to agree with me. The more were contribute the better the game can become. From a bad idea, someone can come up with a good idea. You can be offended with every idea you don’t agree. I know you have always wanted to have immunity in winning fleets and I have been in disagreement. I haven’t change my ideas, your the one that is changing and its your right, maybe now you start to agree with what I have always defended. I’m happy that you admiral agrees with me. Finally someone that has the same vision as me.

About my first win with you. Sadly the battle history is giving me a asp.net error today. I would love to post here my first victory against you.

My first battle i won against you (after many defeats before), i was so happy, finally I had won the best player of the game (at the time). I only sent you a message asking “what happen”. I don’t think that was bad in any way. I asked you this because of the way I won it.

It was a flag game and I was losing units all over the place, than I had two stacks of panthers which both together would take out your flag, so I attacked the first time with one stake, which used its rebound and hit your flag. Than it was your move and you didn’t defend your flag, so my next move was with that last panther stack, which won the game. I call this the drunken man move LOL

It was my last resort and I won. Is sending you a message asking what happen, this is cruel??? You answered me: “I most of been sleeping”.

in no way I felt you were offended with my message.

Is this why you are so aggressive with me?

If it is I’m sorry, many other players send me more offensive statements and I don’t get mad. But I guess I should not send you messages again.

About me sending you messages, I haven’t spoken with you many times. I remember sending you a message advising that stoneage was going to attack one of your relics. I remember many blog posts that I say many times you are one of the best players (just read the old blogs). I don’t remember any offensive message from me.

Please post here any message of mine that made you be so aggressive with me. I would like to know.

I’m not bad guy, if I was so bad how could I hold a alliance for so much time. I have help the developers, players, even enemies in all I could. I’ve always tried to be very fair with everyone and the game.

I ask again, please post here any offensive statement from me.

I just want us all to get along.

Comment by Danceman — November 12, 2010 @ 1:22 pm
So I’m the one being agressive with you? Child, full of hatred, arrogant, etc… and saying that the way I approach all players is impolite because of what I said to vranasm. lol

I just pointed out that you where biased in your remarks, because it served your interests at the time and you went on witch hunt. If you don’t get that, fine, you also don’t get that I was defending the interest of a lot of players that left the game at that time and they didn’t have “big fleets”, just like you were doing the same for DS. I was top ranked at the time (and still am) but I’ve never felt like being the best, I could name lots of players that we’re better then me but they’re all gone sniff =/ I always helped ppl learn how to play even enemies as long as they wanted, like stoneagefan. You we’re never in the game chat to see tactical discussions happening between lots of the players =)

I’ve never had a problem with you or your opinions, I understand well why you have them, as I said (sometimes I wonder if you do read what I say =/) I don’t agree with how give up’s are “abused”, but at this moment it’s part of the game so we should keep it, don’t twist my words. I’ve never said you’re the bad guy, it’s funny how you resort to stuff that was not talked about in our conversation

As to the battle you won against me, if you wanted you could have posted it a long time ago, why you didn’t do it I don’t know =) I wasn’t offended with your message (I wish this saved the messages longer so we could have the correct message not what you remember) nor am I offended with your name calling, I’ve dealt with worst And just to make a point “trying to piss off” is different from “offending”, but whatever…

For me this conversation is just another piss fight, serves no purpose.

Comment by reborned — November 12, 2010 @ 2:32 pm
Guys, this is only a game, ok? Try to get along. We are missing the objective of this post: Trying to see different points of view about a feature of the game.

so focus or i’ll start to delete comments.

Comment by Nuno Silva — November 12, 2010 @ 2:51 pm
@DM

I will apologize. I didn’t realize the bug (I will now call it that) allowed a player to phantom resources. The way I understood it from the descriptions was the player had just collected massive amounts of resources through raiding and/or AH. If your description is accurate, then yes it was a bug and a cheat.

if you want to discuss more, PM me and we can keep the off-topic conversation out of this forum.
regards,
kb

Comment by kelleybest — November 12, 2010 @ 5:15 pm
@reborned

I’m well aware that many good players always wanted the immunity feature of the winning player. But I can’t agree on something I don’t believe in. I just stated what I thought, no one had to agree with me. If it help our alliance, yes did, if immunity was put in action at that time, the alpha could of won. Both of us just defended what we believed was best. You defend some players and I defend others (vranasm and others in our alliance said they would give up the game). And today I’m happy some more players share my vision even if now it would help me (I’m not that type of gut, i like challenges). The way the game is played at the moment is how I have defended. If I think its perfect, no I don’t, theres still annoying battles.

I was never in the game chat but i was always in the forums (chats don’t record, foruns stay for ever for all to consult). Many times I helped many players. And I trained many players also, of course Death Squadron members. They learned from me and I learned from them. Thats how I become better and I was able to feel comfortable against you.

I also think that its good you don’t agree (more in the past), this raises thought and new ideas. I’ve never been against you, just didn’t agree on your idea of the battles.

Kazoo was one that left us, he once sent me a message that is important, he said that what I defended made the game more for the active players. The old generation were players that would like to come here and play occasionally. With this give up tactics, makes the game more dynamic which means you have to be more active. Thus why we lost so many good players, the none active ones. BUT some stayed and just simple played the tournaments.

This last statement says it all, Orion’s Belt is made of two section, the Universe and the Tournaments. If you are active and bored, and want to explorer new tactics, the Universe is for you. If you are not so active and a very busy person, you have the Tournaments. And in each section there are other ways to play. Universe (raids, wars, arenas, merchant, bounties, quests, exploring) and Tournaments (small tournaments, big tournaments, ladder, team tournaments, team ladder)

Some of us play both. Other choose only one section.

smeshko was a Death Squadron member, he said he didn’t have much time, he now only plays tournaments. Acceptable.

So you see, good for for you to defend them but the developers have thought this well and we have both worlds here. Each players picks what they want.

in 28 games I lost 12 with you and won 16 (since my last defeat with you, i’ve won 11 till today).

I never posted this battle because no one asked. His my famous “drunken man attack” (starts at turn 16), It was my first victory against you, was one of my proudest moments in Orion’s Belt:

http://s1.orionsbelt.eu/Battle/Battle.aspx?Id=16073847

I’m sorry if you were offend with me in any way, I was so happy when I thought I was going to lose once again.

Comment by Danceman — November 12, 2010 @ 6:31 pm
off topic but a suggestion about immunity.

The system allowing players to stay “low level” by keeping one private zone planet at a low level while upgrading the others seems to me an abuse, or at least a cheaty/sneaky way to play, giving a major advantage for a small loss in materials and sticking a whole load of immune to attack planets in high zones. Could this be changed?
For example instead of level being based on the lowest base level it could be based on a points system.

I.e. a level 1 planet gives 1 point
level 2 gives 5
level 3 gives 25 and so on

and 5 points would make you level 1
25 for level 2
125 for level 3 and so on

I’m suggesting 5 to the x as a system because there are 5 home planets but perhaps 4 to the x would be fairer

Comment by Farinata — November 13, 2010 @ 4:26 am
Silva,
Thanks for fixing the relic page

Comment by TheTerranEmperor — November 13, 2010 @ 11:16 pm
I agree with Fatinata. It has always been a bit strange the way we level up.

It has been used as a tactics in the past, before there was a rule that low level players couldn’t be attacked, so this was when the Death Squadron (White.Wolf’s idea, she was very creative) started to use the relic shields. No one could attack us, we would surround enemy ships and they couldn’t get out. Now the only reason is for not losing so many points with bounty hunts.

Its not that its a problem now but it could be better. Or maybe i’m missing something.

Comment by Danceman — November 14, 2010 @ 3:33 pm
How about leveling up with your score like in world of warcraft (i’m not mistake, don’t player, but have player similar games). Your score goes up when you level up your buildings, so its all connected.

Comment by Danceman — November 14, 2010 @ 5:45 pm
I Have to agree with you when you say the level up should be changed. We have an old idea of changing the limit. Have, like other games, an infinite level, or, at least, a higher top level.

Regarding the score as base of defining your level, i think that’s a very good idea. The only thing is that we have to adapt the game to have the new Level, and we have to adapt the buidings to only be available in a certain level.

That is possible be one major change in a new server. Is not good to change a rule so important in the current game

Comment by Nuno Silva — November 15, 2010 @ 8:22 am
fair enough, its nice to know your on it. Thank you Pyro

Comment by Danceman — November 15, 2010 @ 7:00 pm