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.

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.

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

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

You might notice there seems to be a bug….

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.

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?