February 10, 2011

Server Problems

Filed under: General — Nuno Silva @ 9:31 am

In the last couple of weeks we add several server break downs. We are trying to address the problem as fast as possible.

Yesterday we were able to correct a major problem in the server, a problem that was crashing the server constantly. We hope that for now on the server we become more stable.

Because this server has been given us so much problems, we are planing a change of server. When this change is done we will notify you here on the blog. Just for you notice, we will be changing your server from linux to window, so the game core can be more stable.

In the name of all the team, we have to apologize for this problems and hope that we can fix them as soon as possible.

Comments (37)

37 Comments »

1. -ahem- Well… Nuno, I guess I have to say something. You guys have been pushing and pushing to make this system work, it seems like a lot of effort on your part. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we appreciate the work that you put in…

   However, this last server problem really pushed some buttons, for me personally. I think I’ve been relatively patient with the “coming server change” and the bugs, like everyone else. I think it’s now time to bring up some things…

   In my case, I bought several days of vacation time just before the server crash, thinking that I would need a break to reorganize my fleets, rethink hot zone strategy, maybe do a little planet switching… and then the server went down… for a long while. I didn’t know it was coming, no one did. I thought to myself, “wow, it’s a good thing I turned on vacation mode. Great timing, too… not much more than an hour before the crash. I guess my account will be safe in vacation lock while the server is fixed.” Wrong! A day and a half later, I logged in to find that my vacation had somehow been turned off during the crash, I lost four battles in a relic shield because of it.

   Needless to say, I wasn’t particularly thrilled… So, with a sigh, I turned my vacation back on… this time, I took a break to decide if I actually wanted to return. Several days have passed and I see that the universe still exists (it will continue, of course, with or without me). But I would like to point something out… I’m not the first one to leave because the server sucks. And, if it doesn’t get better soon, I’m certain that I won’t be the last. And look, I’m not trying to be the asshole that points out obvious faults in an effort to make the system (or the developers) look bad. I am, however, going to be the asshole that raises some important questions publically… questions that I’ve asked before that don’t ever seem to get a conclusive answer.

   So, I’m going to ask one last time… What can we, as a community, do to help you? What can we do to ensure that these problems stop now? What will it take from all of the players to help you change things so that you can concentrate on improving the experience rather than chasing your tail to fix bug after bug after bug?

   In short, what can we do to keep Orion’s Belt alive?

   Comment by Redwulfe — February 14, 2011 @ 11:21 pm

2. My auto vacation failed too. I lost this time a arena battle with silverwing and had lose another battle with silverwing at another server crash.

   I think the auto vacation doesn’t trigger because we keep trying to get in. So the system sees us online and just doesn’t turn on. This is just my suspicion. If i’m right i think that this feature should always turn on even if we are online but than again how can we finish a battle????

   Anyway, lately the server has been more stable. Still got that strange NBSP bug, maybe Nuno is right, its because I use Google Chrome.

   Comment by Danceman — February 15, 2011 @ 10:35 pm

3. Hello Eddie,

   I think you touched the wound.

   First let me say that i don’t blame the users for leaving the game
   because of the recent server problems. I totally understand why they
   are leaving and, in their position, i would probably do exactly the
   same.

   Regarding Orion’s Belt, One of the team members left the company, and there are only 2 left of
   the original team and the only that is giving support to the game is
   me.

   This means that if my company doesn’t allocate me to other projects i
   have the time (like i had between september and december). And when i
   have time, the players notice that something is being done in the
   game.

   The problem is that only one person isn’t enough and when that person
   doesn’t have the time, the game suffers.

   Although the other server problems weren’t our direct fault, this last one
   was. And if we had a person working in the game full time, that would
   be located immediately and corrected.

   So the problem here is time. Time for our part to maintain the game
   that we invested a lot of time in.

   So, in the future we have two options:

   - There will be time to correct all the design problems, the major reported bugs, create a new
   server, add the features that are in the drawer (like the bots) and, with a miracle, try to bring back all the lost players.

   - There will not be time and orion’s belt will continue as it is until one day, where we see that is time to stop the game. Maybe when that time arrives, we will convert orion’s belt in a game just based on the board, without that strategy part.

   Unfortunately i don’t know what else to say to you and to all that players, unless to thank you all for playing our game and apologize for all the problems that we had on the game that completely ruined your game experience.

   I hope you continue to play the game, but i would understand if you leave.

   Comment by Nuno Silva — February 16, 2011 @ 9:15 am

4. Nuno, I hope you understand that the purpose of my last post wasn’t to “touch the wound.” This conversation isn’t just about some players leaving the game… it seems to me that this conversation is is shifting to the entire OB system inevitably coming to an abrupt grinding halt.

   Your explanation makes sense. But I want to clarify something… does the company own the OB project? Or is it exclusively yours? As you said, “The problem is that only one person isn’t enough and when that person doesn’t have the time, the game suffers.” If you are busy with other projects, there are no resources for OB…

   We have all seen the result of the company’s current resource allocation, I suppose. If OB belongs to the company, what can we do to convince them to give it more attention? On the other hand… if OB belongs to you… what can we do to convince you to ask for help?

   If I remember correctly, Danceman has suggested an open source solution several times. If we, as a community, have the ability to respond to problems as they occur, the down time will decrease dramatically. Needless to say, you’ll have all the help you could possibly want… Of course, if the project belongs to the company, I could see how there may be a little hesitation there.

   Any thoughts on this?

   Comment by Redwulfe — February 17, 2011 @ 12:25 am

5. Some opensource would be great. I think that a lot of people are very passionate about this game and would be more than happy to do some work on it. It would surely cut down on your work load if we could help you out.

   Comment by Farinata — February 17, 2011 @ 9:42 am

6. Nuno, thanks for the explanation…info is always good and helps everyone gain perspective and understanding.

   Redwulfe and Danceman shared their disappointment with having grand strategies dashed and battles lost. I have had the same, and I’m glad you understand the frustration to the players and especially the leaders. If the server was always like this, it would be hopeless to wage war and keep a team together.

   However, you have given us hope that things will improve, and you can trust that the depth and variety of strategy that makes this game so much fun, will keep gamers here in the meantime. I know that this blog post has caused a stir of good comments/feelings/hope in our alliance. Thanks!

   Comment by resleeved — February 17, 2011 @ 2:12 pm

7. Nuno,

   Some ideas:
   Maybe it is possible, depending on the kind of problem the server runs into, that any player (or some trusted players) get a possibility to inform you (by phone/SMS/etc.) when the server has this kind of problem? So as to keep the downtime as short as possible?

   Another option could be to provide online/remote support by a tech player (someone you trust and has the capabilities to tackle most common problems)?

   Comment by sietse — February 17, 2011 @ 3:52 pm

8. Nuno, thanks for the explanation…info is always good and helps everyone gain perspective and understanding.

   Redwulfe and Danceman shared their disappointment with having grand strategies dashed and battles lost. I have had the same, and I’m glad you understand the frustration to the players and especially the leaders. If the server was always like this, it would be hopeless to wage war and keep a team together.

   However, you have given us hope that things will improve, and you can trust that the depth and variety of strategy that makes this game so much fun, will keep gamers here in the meantime. This blog post has already generated some good comments/feelings/hope on our alliance board. Thanks!

   Comment by resleeved — February 17, 2011 @ 6:43 pm

9. Hi Nuno,

   I believe Redwulfe’s intention, isn’t to question you about why you are not spending more time on the game. We are all certain that you are doing the best you can with the resources you have.
   You say that there are 2 options, either you have some more spare time and problems get fixed and new features put into place or OB carries on as is until one day you decide to just stop it.
   I must say, I don’t know much about developing and programming (in fact, I don’t know anything) but it doesn’t sound to me that one person, who is only putting in his free time will be able to sustain a whole MMO.

   So I guess, things will not really work out with either solution. Which does leave me as a player in a bit of a pickle. Do I stay and battle with bugs, server crashes and error messages until one day you decide to stop bothering too or do I cut my losses and leave now?
   You have a great game idea here and I would hate to leave it but if a third, more viable solution is not found, let’s not kid ourselves, the game will die.

   So I will repeat Redwulfe’s and Danceman’s question. Is there any way that we can help as a community to keep OB alive and kicking?

   Comment by Eldwin — February 17, 2011 @ 7:16 pm

10. I agree on Redwulfe and Eldwin but as a developer I also feel some of Nunos problems. But I also see a big problem with this game, it seems that a company owns it or Nuno has obligations to this company (am I right Nuno?). It seems to me that this game doesn’t pay his salary so he has to do outsourcing development to earn his salary which leaves little time for the game (or no time while he has a new client). Also the company doesn’t give the time nor the resources he needs (time, maybe servers, etc…) but he also can’t ask for external help (i have offered my help) because the company may not like it (am I right Nuno?). This is my point of view and deductions.

    My opinion would be, to save this game, would be to start the game over again (We don’t have the source code and it has a owner) with a new name like OpenOrion (Freeorion already exists, its a open source clone of Master of Orion which i have been posting there to see if they want to clone the battle system of Orions Belt but sadly they are a client app which means it does run on everything, like mobile phones, ipads: http://www.programmingforums.org/thread24522.html). But not just a new name but with a open source license (GPL, BSD, LGPL, MIT etc…) so a community of people could manage it (https://github.com/) and develop it (we would love Nuno, Tiago and Pedro has the head developers). The developers could be payed by donations or by selling quests like World of Warcraft (quest could bring some video scenes like here http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/553025, extra quests, maybe a stable universe and a test universe, etc…). I would also create a auction house for ideas, where players could donate orions on the features they like most, when the donations get to the value of payment, the feature would be developed and the developer would be payed. I would also every month at least one promotion package, players seem to pay more for does packages. Maybe even payed tournaments like you tried once, but the prize money was to high. Do it like the poker tournaments, theres a entry fee and than 10% stays with the developers and the rest for prize money.

    Are there any developers in the OB community? Graphics Designers? Video editors? Adobe Flash junkies? Story tellers? We has a community can make the game grow. We have to just all stick together, that is what a open source community drives on.

    Theses are just some ideas, I hope Nuno doesn’t get offended in anyway. We love the game and we want it do continue and grow but at the hands of a company which there main objective isn’t gaming, it will be hard to continue in this manner.

    The game seems much stable now. Nuno has change somethings and we thank him very much for all his effort. He knows I have always tried to help him find the damn bugs. This last one is for does rotten eggs in the OB community that accused the Death Squadron of crashing the server on purpose…..yeah and losing players and battles too, we just love to do that, really, use your heads guys and girls. We may be enemies in the game but we can all be friends as a OB community.

    Comment by Danceman — February 17, 2011 @ 8:03 pm

11. Your deductions are mostly true, which makes the situation complicated to say the least and as all things, there is always even more to it

    As to the open source proposal, I think it can work and I’ve seen in other games great comunity work! As always this is something that should come from the 3 devs, my option would be don’t stop the game! Wait for your RL to get into place and then start planing what to do, now you’ve got the knowledge, experience and the community!

    A new server could let the game be reborn a little, but if there is no support for it, it’s just a matter of time. I need a beer now…

    Comment by reborned — February 18, 2011 @ 2:28 am

12. Danceman, what you said is true and, like reborned, said there is more to it unfortunately.

    I think that a new server only makes sense if some design rules are corrected and several bugs resolved.

    Were are currently making the tests to change the server to windows but we have encounter some problems that i hope to resolve today or tomorrow in order to make the change as fast as possible. I hope that this change brings more stability to the game.

    The problem is always support. We need to be always there to resolve everything, and that doesn’t happen now. And like Danceman said, if orion’s belt doesn’t generate enough revenue for me to be working 24/7 in the game, i must win my salary other way.

    Things said this i’m going to do my best to bring back Orion’s Belt to a stable version, and discuss with my company the future of Orion’s Belt. It’s complicated to “open” the game, but other solution maybe be arranged, that maybe can involve the community.

    Comment by Nuno Silva — February 18, 2011 @ 8:52 am

13. What a tricky problem. I feel for both developers and players.
    Lets consider the facts:

    OB does not generate enough income to pay its way. It is not a financially viable project.

    To create a more stable version of the game, serious development investment is needed.

    The project appears to be currently owned by a parent company that employs the developers.

    Given these facts, I think that there are three options.

    1/ Fix the game properly. I’m not a coder, I’m a hardware designer, but I do have a background in enterprise class high reliability designs. IMHO, to make this game reliable, it needs to be hosted on two servers in a dedicated site with high reliability internet (backbone) conection. There must be inherent failovers between the two servers so that when one drops, the other automatically takes over. I’m guessing this would mean a massive re-write of the code. Add to this the ongoing work needed to fix bugs and the effort and cost of renting the hardware. I don’t think this is viable.

    2/ Go open source.
    This would mean that the parent company would have to give up the intellectual property behind the game. I don’t know what the company does, or what the value of this IP is. I can’t comment on how easily they could be persuaded to do this. There are legal issues. Nuno and the others have exposure to the code, they can not re-use any of it’s subroutines in other code sold by their company. If they do, then that code also has to be sold with a open source license (since it now contains open source code).

    There is the further difficulty of finding people in the community trustworthy enough to maintain OB. I would assert that any player with developer level access to OB should step out of the current relic wars for very obvious reasons.

    Such player developers could easily do more harm than good too. There would need to be a second version of the game for testing purposes.

    It could work, but there are lots of pitfalls.

    3/ Patch the game so that the ticker stops when there are access problems.
    I’ve suggested this before. If OB can’t talk to the outside world, then the chances are that the outside world can’t talk to OB. A fairly short piece of code could be constructed to detect this condition and to stop the games internal ticker from advancing (or maybe drop all players into “free” vacation).
    This would resolve most of the frustrations, but would not fix the route cause of the problems.

    Personally, I think problems should be broken down into severity and difficulty.
    This is a severe problem, so something must be done.
    Options 1/ & 2/ are very difficult. Option 3/ is easy by comparison.
    So given the facts, my vote is for a patch, even though this would mean continued issues, at least the timeout problem would be resolved.

    Two final points:
    A massive thanks to Nuno and the team for all the work in OB. Please do not think that because we complain we do not appreciate you guys. You do a difficult job with no resources and you do it well.

    Yes, some players have said that DS have deliberately caused the server problems to further their cause. Can we please not dwell on this? There are also people in the world who think that creationalism should be taught instead of Darwinism. They are clearly wrong and this view is not worth our consideration.

    Comment by Mikeveal — February 18, 2011 @ 11:19 am

14. I’m glad to see some additional involvement from the community. To all those that have voiced their opinions, thank you. To those that are still hesitating… what are you waiting for?!?

    @Mike – You have some good input there. I support the idea that we further explore option #3 as at least a temporary solution to a permanent problem.

    @Nuno – I think I speak for all of us when I say we understand that OB is not profitable (yet??) and that you must eat. There can be no argument there. As reborned said, if the system moves to a new (even more stable) server and still has no support, things will eventually be right back where they started.

    I’m not a developer by any stretch of the term, but I do understand the importance of balance… As Mike said, if the community must be involved, specific players that have their hands in the code should probably not be involved with anything that affects the balance of the system. If I were asked to help in some way, I would voluntarily step down from my post to ensure that the system continues to live. I don’t think there is another way…

    So, the bottom line is that you need help. You mentioned that you will speak with the company regarding alternative support solutions. Did you have something specific in mind? Better yet… do they have some ideas in mind? Or (based on the last few posts) should we just assume that an open-source solution is simply out of the question for the company?

    Comment by Redwulfe — February 19, 2011 @ 1:13 am

15. @Mike @Redwulfe – I might be talking rubbish here but I was under the impression that although open source gives the opportunity for anyone with the knowledge to make changes to the code (so that any persistent bugs or new features will have more people working on them) one person still retains review and “approval”. So any unfair/stupid/destructive changes cannot be made. If that’s true, no one would need to leave the game because they get involved with fixing it. Nuno would remain the final reviewer, but would gain a lot of help from the community.

    Comment by Eldwin — February 19, 2011 @ 11:26 am

16. Yes you are correct Eldwin, thats why open source communities use sites like github, patches are uploaded and than reviewed, some are sent back, others are accepted.

    If anyone whats to do his thing, he can also do it but he is creating a fork of the code and surely it will not be in the OB server. This how theres Google Chrome and Safari, both are base off the open source browser webkit (nokia browser is too as many others) which was forked from the KHTML engine from KDE. But as you see, there are different products.

    Orion’s Belt would only be one, any thing else is some other game.

    But I have to say, when the developers were playing this game, as the System Lords, it was much better. If a developer doesn’t use what he creates, how will he know if everything is working or where there can be tweaks. He would only know when someone sends them a email, which is what is happening…. The developer has to have the satisfaction of using his own creation.

    If you don’t trust the developers, than you shouldn’t even be using any product, how do you know your Windows Seven isn’t sending your bank accounts to some one???? Any code can have back doors but it has been proven that organized open source apps are more secure (less known bugs) than company products (Microsoft Internet Explorer vs Mozilla Firefox), theres a community of eyes watching the code. Of course open source isn’t the solution for everything. But I think in this case OB would benefit from it. Clearly the company behide the OB project doesn’t have human resources (graphic designers, enough developers and support). So which leaves it to the people that love the game. There is always a opportunity of revenue, Ubuntu (linux operating system) is free but it earns money developing hardware drivers for paying companies. Orion Belt could earn money with prize money tournaments (like casinos), which would mean the server may have to go to Austria or some country with laws to permit this. Another way could be with well elaborate quest packages, with a story and new missions and a final objective. Like many open source projects there can be a Server to test out new features and to clean out bugs, and a Server for paying costumers which is stable and some premium features. Many open source projects work this way, like RedHat that has a paying operating system and services for companies, than they support another project call Fedora which has all the bells and whistles for mostly personal use, theres even another version from a community of people Cent OS (which facebook runs on, millions of Cent OS servers).

    This is just a suggestion, but it can be done without the help of Orions Belt’s company. Like I said, from scratch, like the Freeorion people are doing because Master of Orion 3 was very bad and they wanted to do something there way. But making something from scratch takes its time, years to get up to speed at the level OB is, all depends on the community of people that joins the project.

    Comment by Danceman — February 19, 2011 @ 5:10 pm

17. what i think it should happen is:

    The server is stable now. I’m going to correct some of the problems and use this convertion to try to have more support.

    The thing is that Orion’s Belt was open source once (in it’s version 1.0 that almost no one remerbers). In that time there was no will from no one external to the project to put the hands on the game. Besides this, open source also brings other problems like possible exploits from people who will have access to the code or, like in other games, copies of Orion’s Belt.

    So forgive me if i don’t take easy the idea of open source.

    I’ll try to convince my company to supourt more this project. meanwhile were are making some tests new windows server.

    Comment by Nuno Silva — February 19, 2011 @ 10:03 pm

18. @Nuno – I understand that you’re not particularly thrilled about an open source solution. I don’t think anyone can promise any deep involvement if the system was to become open source… I do think it’s safe to say, however, that the OB community has evolved since version 1.0. Not only has the community evolved, it has grown. With confidence, I can say that there will be community support for the system if there was an opportunity to give it. However, if that isn’t an immediate option, allow me to move on…

    In the meantime, is there something we can do to help you convince the company to add more support to the project?

    Comment by Redwulfe — February 20, 2011 @ 12:54 am

19. By the way Nuno have noticed that many things here are very similar to Starcraft (there Berg race is like the Levyr, units and strategy). What your company should try to capture is Starcraft fans that don’t have time to be playing in real time. Thats where Orions Belt can win, its battle system lets you play a minimal of move per day, very good for the casual market players which they say is where lots of new players are coming from. But you also need to start paying attention to the mobile market like ipads, tablet androids and the new HP Web OS (there all using the webkit engine). Some small tweaks and its good (mostly in the battle section, the focus keeps the screen keyboard on screen).

    Also there private player site, battle.net is very good:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTRy2JaJXzE

    Also they have very good campaigns, that teach newbies also advance players new tactics and strategies. Campaigns can be a selling point:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icLRsZ-uE0g&feature=channel

    Comment by Danceman — February 21, 2011 @ 11:02 pm

20. sorry I meant zerg are the race similar to Levyr

    Comment by Danceman — February 22, 2011 @ 9:57 pm

21. To clarify my thoughts for Eldwin / Danceman. I would be concerned if any player participating in the relic wars were given administrator access to the server.
    It would be very difficult not to fall across information that would benefit one side more than another. I’m not saying anyone would deliberately look, we’re above that. But it would be difficult to avoid this kind of info. And once you’ve seen it, it’s actually impossible not to act upon it. Even doing nothing is an action.

    If someone’s submitting code for Nuno and that person does not have access to the server, then I see no problem.

    Comment by Mikeveal — February 28, 2011 @ 6:21 pm

22. @mikeveal exactly what a good organized open source project does, and the site github helps with it, you commit patches and they need to be approved. Only the core developers have access to the main server which also all commits are watch by everyone.

    But anyway Nuno has shown that its not possible, the company would not permit it. Only if we start the code from scratch.

    But I have asked him to open source the bot code. Starcraft has bot tournaments. The game has about 20 different bots, each with there special abilities, which makes the campaign game very good. if we had bot tournaments, the community would help the game building efficient bots. Maybe even have design contests, which would also help the game.

    Starcraft even has books written around it. What we need is a health community. Only the OB company can help there. If they treat as well we give them back. A true OB community.

    Comment by Danceman — February 28, 2011 @ 7:39 pm

23. Hello,

    conversations have been initiated with our bosses in order to resolve the future of Orion’s Belt.

    Regarding the server that sometimes crashes after 10 pm GMT we are trying to figure out the cause of it. We are also implementing a system ti warn us more effectivally every time the server has a problem.

    We also have done some maintenance in the server that improved it’s performance.

    What you can do for now? Warn us of the problems that you detect. I register them in your bug tracking tool so when i have time i can address them.

    When i have more new news i will share with you all.

    Comment by Nuno Silva — March 1, 2011 @ 9:20 am

24. I am very new to this game having joined it only 10 days ago. However, having spent a lifetime developing, marketing and promoting games of various descriptions I believe this game is a winner. I am dismayed to learn that it has fallen upon hard times.

    Too often developers become so enamoured of their product that they neglect to recognize the need to make the business model their primary focus. The permanent solution to OB’s problems is to create a business model that makes it viable. At the end of the day money talks.

    How to go creating an effective business model? Ideas offered in this thread hint toward that end, but I believe that the plan needs to be formulated with an overarching strategy.

    I am hearing that some nameless company owns the intellectual property comprising OB. It seems imperative to review the business objectives that prompted the “Company” to fund this project in the beginning. Why have they allowed it to run aground? Is the “Company” in financial trouble itself? One answer might beget 10 more questions, but answers are required before a new plan can be formulated. Any such plan needs to take the interest of the “Owners” into consideration.

    Nuno, you have my email address as it has been provided with this posting. If you believe that the answers to the questions I’ve posed are not suitable for a public forum, I would be pleased to accept them in private.

    I am not a miracle worker but I have had some financial success in the gaming world and would be happy to offer my thoughts with no obligation. I would happy to enter into a non-disclosure agreement to ensure confidentiality.

    Comment by Ray Hibarger — March 4, 2011 @ 4:08 am

25. @Nuno – I hope all is well with you and that, one day, you can maneuver yourself into a position to turn OB (and any other project) into a golden success. Meanwhile, another week goes by with no updates, no changes, no ideas… so I must sadly write the following.

    @All – Again, it’s my turn to speak, I think… Over the weekend, I’m sure all of you have noticed some irregular movements from the Death Squadron. -sigh- We have waited, and waited, and waited… and even with all the ideas and thoughts we’ve shared in an attempt to salvage what’s left of the universe, not much has changed. The connections are still unstable… the support for Nuno is still lacking… and a once intelligent system is burning out like a candle.

    In the last series of server crashes, I came to the realization that the unpredictability of the universe adds a factor here that can’t, in any way, enhance the experience. Nearly three weeks ago when I initiated this discussion, the access issue turned what would have been a very successful relic attack into dust right before my eyes. Until now, I haven’t complained much of my losses… Because of the server access issues, I’ve lost a multitude of blockers, several good combat fleets… even a well-stocked battle moon. And I’ve said nothing… but something like this?!? The server goes down and I time out against a handful of seekers?

    http://s1.orionsbelt.eu/Battle/Battle.aspx?Id=54247100

    With that said, I’ll get to the point. We, as the Death Squadron, have fought long and hard against some terrible odds, and we are damn good! We’re the only alliance that has ever taken and successfully held all twelve relics. And, because of who we are and what we’ve accomplished, we take an awful lot of pride in our history. But now, we’re faced with a new variable… it isn’t the significant numbers of the Foundation horde (so to speak) or the blocking/holding strategy that Mike Veal instituted (good job, by the way, very effective). It isn’t the barbaric reputation we have been given. We can deal with all of these little things, I think our last few maneuvers show our ability to adapt.

    This variable… this new enemy… is the environment itself. There is no sense to it, no predictability, no pattern. We’re being eradicated by the very system we fight for. I’m afraid there is no way to adapt to this… no way to evolve. This is Darwinism at its finest.

    So, we have collectively accepted the facts and made a decision to withdraw from the system. If there was a way to fight, we would continue fighting! But the variables aren’t changing, and we simply don’t want to deal with it any more. A few of our “younger” recruits are still stubborn enough to stay in the universe, but I think it’s only a matter of time until they see that the elders were right. Some will stay to fight only in tournaments. And most of us will simply vanish. So it seems that this is our end… our extinction. The Death Squadron no longer exists…

    Comment by Redwulfe — March 7, 2011 @ 9:43 pm

26. We’re deviating from the purpose of this blog entry, but I would like to congratulate those members of DS who fought till the end.
    You guys gave us a terrific fight. Your strategies were well fought out, and you mostly fought without complaint when you must have known for some time that the outcome was inevitable.

    I do not mean to read as if I am gloating, I have great respect for your players and the way you have conducted yourselves. Congratulations are not undue.

    It has never been the intention of Foundation to replace DS. We do NOT want to dominate the universe and never have. The Foundation admirals are considering ways to keep this game alive.

    We firmly believe that the game would benefit from a fairly evenly matched relic war – perhaps with three or four competing alliances.

    I feel that DS grew too strong, with a disproportionate number of players in the top 20 on the scoreboard. It would be a terrible shame to see these players leave the game.

    Would the remaining members of DS consider joining other alliances, to create three or four roughly equal fighting forces?

    Does anyone have any other ideas to keep the game alive?

    Comment by Mikers — March 9, 2011 @ 1:18 pm

27. @mikeveal

    first the server needs to be fixed. I have send Nuno yesterday a bug thats crashes the server. I hope he fixes it.

    You are right about posting here but we have no forum now. We have no choice to post here.

    Like I have sent Nuno, the company has to cherish the community. A good game without a very good community, dies out. Lets hope our scarifies are heard and something is done. We need a person dedicated to the game. It doesn’t need to be a developer but someone that markets the game, hears us out, brings in new ideas that brings the community together, maybe with contests, tournaments, etc, like it was before.

    Comment by Danceman — March 9, 2011 @ 7:48 pm

28. As an admiral in Foundation, I too would like to thank DS for putting up a great fight. It is too bad about the server issues causing so many to leave. I have some experience with program development and opensource software ( I use it to host foundations forum) and I believe that the parent company of OB should consider maybe allowing some code to be reviewed and modified by players in a compartmentalized fashion so exploits can not be found as only small pieces of code are viewed by players. Also the administrators could review the proposed changes and modify those without notifying the submitter of tweaks. Like mentioned before the bots would be a good trial bit of code as they dont work now so there can be no loss if the company or admins dont like the code.

    Comment by majikjuggalo — March 9, 2011 @ 8:49 pm

29. @Ray Hibarger whats your nick in the game?

    Comment by Danceman — March 9, 2011 @ 10:02 pm

30. @majik.
    From what little I understand of the law realting to open source, if you sell a product that contains open source code, then that product must ship with an open source license.
    So if the parent compnay made the game open source then they would have to check their other (licensed) code projects for reuse of OB source. It would also prevent them licensing OB source in future products.
    If I were a manager in the parent company, I’d consider this a no brainer. OB is never likely to generate a significant income.

    Comment by Mikers — March 11, 2011 @ 4:16 pm

31. @ Danceman:

    My nick is bjorn2in. Now are you gonna kill me?

    I would like to follow up on my previous commentary. I received a prompt response from Nuno, but have not yet answered him. I have spent this time getting more familiar with the game. I am not ready to offer the ultimate strategy, but new blood is desperately needed to revitalize the game. I find nothing on Twitter pertaining to this game. A stream of well written Tweets can be of immense value to bringing in new players. I found a nearly empty facebook entry for the game and its developers. This could be used as a springboard for getting the word out. In short social networking is the key.

    Next, I would ignore development for a while. Obviously the game has technical flaws, but these can take a back seat to recruiting new players. Of course, there is a point at which the technical issues must be addressed. This point will become obvious as more players join.

    As to development, there should be a better in-game communication mechanism. It’s all but hidden. It would be fantastic to see a real time chat capability. There must be open source code available to easily implement this.

    Finally, it is critical that as many veteran players as possible be retained so as to guide and nurture the new players through the rough spots. Their perspective is critical to formulate new challenges to keep new player interested. This blog has some good ideas on where to go from here.

    What’s left of the alliance leaders must move quickly to reform the competitive environment. Never mind that there are flaws. For the most part we noobs don’t know them and don’t care.

    Finally, a new financial paradigm is needed. I don’t see advertising on this site, but there should be. Or there could be exchange advertising made with other game sites.

    I advocate a pay for play model. I believe that the tournaments should be pay for play. But it should be very inexpensive so that there is little resistance to a purchase. It needs to be “throw away” money. I suggest $1 per month per account. My experience has been that about 10% of players will pay to play. Existing players should be given a generous grace period before they are required to buy in.

    As to development, every effort must be made to take this game into the smart phone space. As it is difficult to get one’s app recognized in the iphone space, I suggest Android based phones as the easier target.

    These are my somewhat random thoughts so far.

    BTW was the Orion’s Belt Forum ever successful? I see it’s now loaded with spam. who moderated it previously? what happened?

    Comment by Ray Hibarger — March 16, 2011 @ 3:57 am

32. Hello Ray,

    Regarding the last forum, PHPBB is the worst forum that i know… I couldn’t stop the spam so i made a new forum, in game, as it always should had been.

    @For all

    The new forum is availaible in your upper bar and it’s on a test fase. Meanwhile, please change this conversation to the new forum. Is better for all and maybe new player could participate in the conversation.

    Comment by Nuno Silva — March 16, 2011 @ 9:21 am

33. I tried to create a new thread for this on the new forum

    http://s1.orionsbelt.eu/Forum.aspx#/Type_showTopic/TopicId_56869767/

    You might notice there seems to be a bug….

    Comment by Eldwin — March 16, 2011 @ 11:28 pm

34. http://s1.orionsbelt.eu/Forum.aspx#/Type_showThread/ThreadId_56893199/

    Comment by Eldwin — March 17, 2011 @ 9:49 am

35. Hello,

    I want to begin this comment by saying sorry if I sound a bit aggressive or destructive. That’s not my intention at all. I just want to give a few comments that might or might not help. I have enough experience in software engineering to know what I’m talking about, but I might be wrong in my guesses about the code.

    First of all, the server change or the redundancy people talk about won’t help. The problems are with the code, and no matter how many servers you put behind it, it won’t ever run perfectly. I haven’t ever seen the code, but I can guess how some stuff works and why it can’t scale: the map drawing requires tons of database accesses (and it can be easily optimized, but it isn’t), some subsystems like the fleet movement need a complete rewrite because they were written in a hurry and ignoring better options (A* movement instead of the current “best path, or else change mode”), etc. Also the ticks should be “lazy”, not evalued at ticks but when the new value is needed, like other games like this do, making that load-spikes go away, and making the game a lot faster: no more ticks that seem to drag a few minutes after their time.

    But what keeps people out isn’t that (even if that helps).
    The problem is the gameplay: it needs a big rethink too.
    Now there are all kind of situations that make the game unplayable, like a *new* account being able to hold your fleets for 10 days without user interaction, or the action house premium money laundry. These are because the game designers are coders, not game designers. And this game needs a real game designer for sure, who designs a gameplay without those kind of showstoppers. Putting some sense into the buildings and quests would be great too, but that comes later: first we need a new gameplay.

    Btw, one of the devs says that being open source would show exploits to the people. That’s “security through obscurity” and doesn’t help at all. The most used security suites, and encryption mechanisms are open source. But this game was done by a Microsoft shop, so that’s the common mindset. And I’m a open source zealot myself anyway .

    To finish my rant: A game of this size isn’t really too hard to maintain if coded properly using software design patterns and the right tools. One people should be quite enough. But in the actual status, it needs almost a full rewrite from scratch, and that means about 12 man-months of work, with people with experience. I don’t think it’s doable, given the current restrains. I wish that wasn’t the case, but that’s how I feel. Prove me wrong, please

    Comment by pirrata — March 18, 2011 @ 3:03 am

36. I Have to agree and disagree with you.

    Even though some problems are with the code, most of then are with the server. But this would be a long talk that i would have with you but not here.

    Regarding the universe, the universe is slow because it shows very large quantities of information. In other games, you see only a map, maybe the position of some units nothing else. In here you see everything, since fog of war, aliances, fleet movments, player information. You have everything. That’s why it’s so slow. And it doesn’t make tons of database accesses. It makes 1 database access where it does about 7 queries where it brings all the information needed.

    We also identify several design issues in the past. We couldn’t resolve them because we simple don’t have the time.

    And the tick is lazy as you say. But some things can’t be lazy, like fleet movement, battle timeouts, vacations, etc. The most heavier part of the tick is, without doubt, the fleet movement. Why? simply because everything has to be done sequential. To avoid colisions of fleets in the universe we have to move them 1 by 1 in order to avoid misscalculations. And don’t tell me again that we do a lot of queries. We have 1 to load, 1 to save.

    Regarding the open source, i can say that 80% of the problems are derived from Open Souce software. Why? Although we developed this in .NET (as you may have noticed) we are running the game in a linux server using Mono, the open source version of .NET. Let’s say that the plataform is not as robust as they say.

    Let me end saying that all software has it’s problems. This is no exception. Many errors were made, some for inexperience, some for game design flaws. If it was made today, things would have been made a little differently. And let me say that agree that 1 people is enough, if you have it at full time. That is not the case.

    Finally let me thanks for you feedback, although i think you said many thing without concrete prove, but right or wrong it is your opinion.

    Comment by Nuno Silva — March 18, 2011 @ 8:43 am

37. I’ve been looking around and I haven’t seen no one say mono is unstable. But they do say you have to develop for mono and not for .net. Mono goes in the same direction as .Net but it is a different beast. Many distros already have Mono apps and they are quite stable.

    Maybe its the linux distro your using? does it have a gui? if so it shouldn’t have one for a server. Is it a long term distro like Cent OS or Debian? Or is it a desktop distro like Fedora? Is a rolling distro like debian, always up to date? Or are you using a hardcore, hard to mantain distro like Gentoo?

    What database are you using, mySql? Wasn’t there a 5 connection limit when Oracle bought them out? Theres a alternative to mySql, a project which has a higher connection limit, check this out, its call Maria and still it is a mySql engine: http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/Maria_Preview

    I find it hard to believe that Linux and Mono is responsible for so many bugs. But don’t get me wrong, i’m not blaming you guys, i’m also a developer and I know how hard it is sometimes to just clean everything up when theres so little time.

    Maybe your using the wrong tools, if you are really making it for .Net, than go for a Windows box. Use the tools your more comfortable with. You can’t be mixing it up the way your doing it. If your developing with Visual Studio on a Windows machine and than hoping everything will work on the mono framework on top of Linux libraries, your going to have problems. I know a Windows box will cost you more but if you can’t adapt developing on just for a mono framework with a mono IDE (http://monodevelop.com/), then please move to a Microsoft environment.

    Open source is just another way of doing things, and it has its space. But its not for everyone and every project. I suggested a open source game because, this way you could have help from the OB community. Now we know its not possible. But still there is room for it. Blizzard wins lots of money with Starcraft (close source) but still there bots are open source, last I checked.

    But anyway like I said before and I think Ray Hibarger too. For me now, its more important the community. The forum was a good step forward, we needed that back. Now we need does ideas you guys did a year ago: promotions, tournaments for newbies, tournaments for advance players, small orions contests, more blog posts (strategies, ideas, unit explanations etc…). The community needs nurturing.

    That for me make a great game.

    Comment by Danceman — March 18, 2011 @ 10:32 pm

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