November 19, 2009

What if?

Filed under: Battles, General, Tournaments — Nuno Silva @ 10:01 am

Several players have said that the best part of Orion’s Belt are the battles (and i have to agree with them). For that reason we made a section of the tournaments specially dedicated to the ones that love the board game.

Also, many new players that register in the game don’t have immediate contact with the battles and for several it’s very confusion the presence of the tournaments in the game. For others only several weeks after they began the game, they discover the battles.

The idea is not a new one, but i would like the opinion of the community.

WHAT IF Orion’s Belt was split in 2 games????

The first would be the known strategy game with the universe, planets and battles made in the board.

The second one would be only a game with the tournaments and the battles.

The advantages? the players would not be confused and we could make 2 types of publicity:
- one of the game itself (that is being made for several months now)
- the other to a game where the only objective is to enter in tournaments and play this fantastic board game.

Also the players could specialized in what they wanted. many players register in the game only for the battles (Of course, if they wanted, they could play both games).

Finally, the game User Interface would be a lot cleaner. There wouldn’t be so many elements and the players wouldn’t have to explore so much menus (and sometimes became a little confuse with all the things that we have available).

So what do you think?

8 Comments »

1. Well i would probably stick with the universe only… i just dont like the fleets in tournaments…
   But hey i understand there are people that love only tournaments…

   I think there is a problem with tournaments too, i see some people that lose heavily not ever comming back, there should be maybe more GM generated tournaments with limits on ELO etc., maybe some nicer fleets and less automatic tournaments, that could be overwhelming.

   Btw one thing i miss that important tournaments (like Rookie’s cup) are scrolled out from menu after some number of mini tournaments is reached. That’s not good too.

   Maybe some form of league competitions wouldnt be bad

   Comment by vranasm — November 19, 2009 @ 11:46 am

2. what does having 2 seperate games means? two seperate accounts one for each game same account then you choose game? I see other games where you can do two things missions or challenges, basically universe or battles, maybe change the starting interface or the way you handle the account, but two completly seperate games will seperate players. alot of players discover the fun in battles later on, what then? I dont like the 2 seperate games, but 2 seperate interfaces in the same game might work =) or maybe choose classes when you enter, war lord or feudal lord, one is for battles only other for universe. 2 seperate games would mean double the marketing and other things. make things more apealing, after you win each battle do a pop-up saying you just won 5 orions for slashing your enemy in battle use them in the universe, stuff like that. I’m playing alot of facebook games and what they do is really appeal to the user. Give you stuff to level up so you play even more. This is something that OB lacks in some degrees. Anyway before I go completely off-topic, 2 games no, but one game with 2 interfaces or 2 classes yes!

   Comment by reborned — November 19, 2009 @ 12:34 pm

3. I agree with reborned and vranasm. The tournaments fleets, some are not right, like 50 drillers, whats up with that, in the universe a driller to be useful we use minimal of 400 of them (i won’t even say how much i have, 4 digits ;)). 50 is just useless. This is just a example. About the separate game, i don’t agree, both games be separate and both can be united at the same time, for example, i tell our alliance members to enter tournaments to get battle experience, the universe is not enough. If you want you can create two interfaces, a news section just for tournaments, our custom fleet tournament. I do also agree the tournaments interface needs improvement, view teams still has a bug, tournaments we go though is a pain to find (the battle shoould have a link to the tournament tree), league tournaments you can’t see other plays battles (you have to catch them in the battle previews). The campaigns are a bit hidden and need more levels and better AI and prizes. Ladder is confusing for some. Team battles need improvement, smaller board so we can help our team mate, unit calculator, paralize icon. Like reborned suggested bonus pack system would be great, i had suggested in the past a speed boost unit to make you go faster, a radar unit unit to have more radar (ok i can put a heavy, does the trick), etc… this would give us more objectives. Alliance tournament for training. I agree i like this game because of the battle system.

   Comment by Danceman — November 19, 2009 @ 6:58 pm

4. I agree with reborn :quote:’2 games no, but one game with 2 interfaces or 2 classes yes!’

   Comment by stoneage fan — November 19, 2009 @ 10:04 pm

5. All you have to do is make 2 different areas. The universe game and the Battle/tournaments Area. Make it different interfaces, when you click on universe area you only deal with Universe stuff and same for tournament area. A player will never have to go to a area if they don’t want to.

   Comment by AD — November 20, 2009 @ 3:44 am

6. I agree with reborn :quote:’2 games no, but one game with 2 interfaces or 2 classes yes!’

   Whe know if mantain a game is not so easy and the engine to batle will be the same in the both games and one bug fix will need to do in 2 diferent local.

   I like the war! and make war in universe is much expensive and slouwly maybe reduce the time of unit production will increase the non tournemant battle!

   Comment by battisti — November 20, 2009 @ 6:29 pm

7. maybe two interfaces can be much hard to develop (i would prefer but it seems to me more time expensive) than taking the same game and give it two different links (same code in both at first) and turn some stuff. If this is the case, would than do the second option but have a single sign on, just for the user its transparent that there is two games. I know you guys don’t have much time so things have to be efficient. I would do that, first stage make two copies of the game, than use of course same database, than start turning some stuff off on its game, do a single sign on system. Maybe do some interface tweaks to distinguish each game. This would mean two vacation timers (which would be useful, i use vacation sometimes because have to many battles), etc… The developer teams will know whats best, but we all agree that there should be a distinguished system for both but at the same time united because there are players that play both and we don’t what do separate the comunity

   Comment by Danceman — November 21, 2009 @ 3:27 pm

8. it’s perfect the way it is,
   just put some army bonus to the mini tournaments, it would be nice to have some prizes! like an army of 100 rain, 100 krill and 100 eagle for first place in a mini tournament
   and maybe some runner up prizes

   oh and elo limited tournaments could be a nice option as well, so that it isn’t always me to take the prizes =D hahaha

   Comment by Don Corleone — November 27, 2009 @ 2:35 pm

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