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[Inglonias]

The other topic I found about this game was 300 pages long and the last post was 11 months ago, so I'm making a new thread.

So, Shores of Hazeron. Easily the most ambitious indie MMO I have ever seen in my life.
The trailer is here
Another trailer that makes the game seem much more exciting is here.

For those of you who don't want to look at the trailer, look at the trailer. It explains the game far better than I can.

The best way I can describe this game in one sentence is Spore Space Stage: The MMO. Except, unlike the Space Stage, Shores of Hazeron is actually good.

Again, the trailer really does a great job explaining the game.

[Rift]

Yes, yes, and yes.
They added enemy pirates and timed/remote explosives that can be used to also blow open doors though.
...
Also, combat rolls are quite a bit different, with a small chance of critical hits that allow you to penetrate armor.. so no ones invincible anymore..

[kg333]

Yes, yes, and yes.
They added enemy pirates and timed/remote explosives that can be used to also blow open doors though.
...
Also, combat rolls are quite a bit different, with a small chance of critical hits that allow you to penetrate armor.. so no ones invincible anymore..

Read:  Haxus added pirates that pull from any published designs, including secret, unbuilt TL32 designs from some of the larger empires, and repeatedly spawn mobs of up to 10-15 of them in your systems at whatever your current tech level is.

The warfleets of virtually all empires in the game were wiped within a week, and instead of recognizing the system as fundamentally broken, Haxus just toned them down slightly to 5-7 at a time, since he stated he wanted to keep large empires from being run by only one or two players. 

I was running a good sized empire (Blitzfaust) on the edge of populated space with a couple friends, and we got buried by pirate versions of Tymas and Toucan warships.  Couldn't even build new ships, since they spawn in orbit within reach of the pirates.

Basically, the game went from "not very new-user-friendly" to "haha, screw you."  I was severely disappointed, since the game has so much potential.  I used to play another game called Starport: Galactic Empires that effectively went down the tubes due to a head-up-their-ass developer who wouldn't listen to his beta testers, so I have little hope things will improve at this point.

KG

[Aklyon]

Starport GE is still running I think. No idea at the current state of it, though.

[kg333]

Starport GE is still running I think. No idea at the current state of it, though.

It is, same as it's been running since 2004 last I checked: a small player base with about 1-4 people on any given server at a time (keep in mind this is advertised as an MMO), and mass accusations of favoritism getting thrown around based on token purchases ingame. 

The pattern I'm seeing is a programmer who has a really great game idea, like Starport or Shores of Hazeron, and has the resources to go private to develop it.  They then proceed to spend the next decade in alpha while they mess around with major feature changes that alternately astonish and alienate their playerbase, while mostly refusing both advice from their testers and the idea of hiring an outside point of view to keep them on track.

Exceptions I've seen are Toady, who has DF planned out, so no one's surprised, and Notch, who basically hired a team and his own boss to keep him on track.

KG

[Inglonias]

Read:  Haxus added pirates that pull from any published designs, including secret, unbuilt TL32 designs from some of the larger empires, and repeatedly spawn mobs of up to 10-15 of them in your systems at whatever your current tech level is.

The warfleets of virtually all empires in the game were wiped within a week, and instead of recognizing the system as fundamentally broken, Haxus just toned them down slightly to 5-7 at a time, since he stated he wanted to keep large empires from being run by only one or two players. 

I was running a good sized empire (Blitzfaust) on the edge of populated space with a couple friends, and we got buried by pirate versions of Tymas and Toucan warships.  Couldn't even build new ships, since they spawn in orbit within reach of the pirates.

That WAS true, but that is no longer the case. Pirates are now only a nuisance. You can play safely.

[Moghjubar]

Aye, I talked to Haxus about it for awhile and he at least made it where new pirate space stations spawn without the wolfpacks, so a few equal-level patrolships can keep a system clean.  Main problems with them still are the 'Toxic Waste' syndrome where higher TL people can come thru your system and leave you a mess of a max TL pirate station, and the fact that setting up patrols thru multiple systems doesn't work so well (they will get separated and picked off eventually, due to no squad-making possible).

He also since then said they may still be too frequent, so might tone them down some more.  I've also talked with him at length about other ways to do them (via zone control, with some rebalancing of how officers work too) and he said he was interested, but as with all things hes still the only developer so any massive changes takes awhile.

In other news, I'm working on an offline version of the ship designer, and so far place / save nearly everything (and also a lot of things the in-game designer can't do, but is technically possible/renderable).  Just need to finish up a few loose ends and add some buttons before its technically usable.

[kg333]

That WAS true, but that is no longer the case. Pirates are now only a nuisance. You can play safely.

Aye, I talked to Haxus about it for awhile and he at least made it where new pirate space stations spawn without the wolfpacks, so a few equal-level patrolships can keep a system clean.  Main problems with them still are the 'Toxic Waste' syndrome where higher TL people can come thru your system and leave you a mess of a max TL pirate station, and the fact that setting up patrols thru multiple systems doesn't work so well (they will get separated and picked off eventually, due to no squad-making possible).

I had been following the nerfs, including the pirate stations.  It's a step in the right direction, but I still view requiring multiple warships at the max TL you can produce in every system as a fundamentally broken system, and the "Toxic Waste" problem is not a minor bug, especially for empires starting near populated space.  Are the pirate stations still spawning on a daily basis as well?  That put a lot of hurt on smaller empires who may not log in daily.

KG

[Shadowlord]

Keeping your warfleets landed at cities, not putting officers in your stations, and keeping freighters at low tech levels should reduce the TL of the pirate stations that spawn to that of the freighters, I think (and they shouldn't spawn at all except as a result of spotting the freighters or other ships in space with a player or officer aboard).

The main problem is still in dealing with them when stations can be designed to be deadlier at the same TL than a warship due to lack of engines, FTL drives, not having as many troops (being that they aren't used for invasions), etc, or when something vastly more efficient than your own designs is chosen. On the plus side, the stations are supposed to despawn after a couple days, but that still keeps you from playing for several days if it launches pirates to intercept your ships (and you don't design ships fast enough to get away from them).

Edit: A thought. I wonder if the pirate-station-spawner detects docked ships?

[Calhoun]

There is currently an empire run by the folks who frequent the DFC steam chat/teamspeak. Its called The Flying Company, and it could use some new blood, as we've sort of slowed down ourselves. We're pretty decent in size. Look us up on the rankings.

[Rex_Nex]

Very interesting game that I spent forever setting up just to find out it barely runs on my video card.

[hemmingjay]

Very interesting game that I spent forever setting up just to find out it barely runs on my video card.

it barely runs on any video card. Fun though!

[Imofexios]

Very nice game but cant get over by fact it is very sluggish\laggy what comes in moving around.
 

[Akura]

If I had a home connection, I'd be interested in getting back into it. I happen to be an excellent ship designer(at least in terms of crazy/awesome designs, not practical, efficient ones ).

[Poltifar]

Man, I never got to build my dream space ship, a totally peaceful non-military super-luxury-yacht. Might join an established empire just to be able to do that.