LAST WE SPOKE
The last major update to Guardians of Orion was in December 2016. I wanted to go into that a bit and then more importantly talk about the future of the game, including a brand new update dropping this year.
After we had made it to the Official Release (GOO Version 2.0) a few of us had parted ways. It was a strenuous and intense development and in the end I think everyone needed some time away to recollect.
During this time me and Frankie formed a new focus group called DANKIE which we are working on migrating everything towards. For future products this will allow development to be more internal/localized and focus on new technologies and frameworks. In addition to this we’ve also had a lot of former talent from both SPIRAL and TREK come aboard to assist us on current and upcoming productions, acting as a reunion of sorts.
To celebrate development starting back up for Guardians of Orion we wanted to discuss a bit more about our first attempt (Phase 1), what we learned and where we hope everything is headed from here on.
SOME PROBLEMS
There were some problems with Guardians of Orion development Phase 1 due to my Hiring, Design, Political and Communication aspects. Other issues had compounded from these problems.
CROWDFUNDING
The communication problem stems from using models or platforms such as: Indie, Crowdfunding and Early Access where you need to talk about a games direction, future/possible content and more. There were a variety of these types of discussions all over Social Media, Kickstarters and on Steam Updates.
While this is usually (mostly) fine as either the project is successfully funded and fans hold them accountable based on funds received/stretch goals hit OR the project fails to fund and typically vanishes out to never be heard from again.
HONOR
We made the "interesting" choice of continuing to fund the game regardless, going so far as to even reward the pledges we had never received on Kickstarter to thank those that came out.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/orionprelude/guardians-of-orion/posts/1395367
We believed in this game and so we continued the development and released in December 2015 followed by a full year of massive and free updates to all owners. You can see what was added during that entire year of progress (2015-2016) as well as things we still have hopes of adding:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/orionprelude/orion-sci-fi-open-galaxy-mmorpg-shooter
REALITY
Unfortunately the support never came and this was mixed with other significant issues involving some poor hiring choices I had made and some bad feature/tech integration that ended up with extreme consequences on the player-experience side of things.
While I understand frustrations by GOO fans as they were systems we very much wanted in place, it unfortunately doesn't change the fact or nature of these systems or the overall product performance of Guardians of Orion from the very start. It was never self-sustaining, all crowdfunding events had failed (2014, 2015, 2016) and this is something we openly and candidly talked about since October 2015, before the game was even on sale. We continued to cover this during the first year of updates.
[ Trek Industries, Facebook, October 15, 2015 ]
Zitat:
"Guardians of Orion will release no matter what. I've funded the Early Access version (2015) as well as much of the immediate post-release content, including: some weapons, more guardians, new creatures/dinosaurs, more maps and more. We hope the game will sell reasonably well and will of course then use the profits received to grow the game to where we want it to be as well as begin funding some of our next (massive) projects."
PROUD
While a ton of content that we wanted to develop was never able to make it in we are still extremely proud of Guardians of Orion as a consumer product for as low as $1. There are dozens to even hundreds of hours of great friend-based gameplay and it was only ever difficult from a production or development standpoint due to how much we invested and wanted to do.
https://youtu.be/VYaIlnuT00k
CLOSURE (PHASE 1)
We've given closure to fans of Guardians of Orion 1 but to be honest I have always been personally hopeful that GOO could receive another update from a variety of reasons, ie becomes self-sustaining, lowered server costs, increased sales/support or another one of our products becoming profitable to the point that we could do it regardless.
THE RIGHT DESIGN (2017+)
Over time we have constantly worked on designs for a GOO1 update and it was simply a matter of finding the right design. We are very pleased to state that we have found a design that we are happy with.
GOO 2018 UPDATE (“PHASE 2”)
VERSION 2.1 is officially announced and in development, scheduled for Summer 2018. We will continue to keep you updated as things progress.
We have three simple focuses with this update which we are simply calling the start of this “PHASE 2” in hopes that it will be just that:
1. Encourage existing owners to return.
2. Attract new owners.
3. Quality of Life improvements.
We're very excited for this, so much so that we are putting other internal developments on a temporary hiatus to tackle this with full force. I will be personally returning to do work on this as well.
We hope that with the update and the help of community and any press that this can possibly become more than a one last hurrah thing. We'd love for it to become self-sustaining and the opportunity to add some fan favorite content such as stretch goal items like mechs, bikes, boards and more leading up to the showcased concept of v3.0. This is the best case scenario. Worst case scenario we at least get to do another update for any fans of the game, ourselves included.
GAME SURGERY
I can confirm that most surgical aspects won't happen until a theoretical v2.3 based on v2.1 and v2.2 performance. v2.1 is simply focused on working with what is already there and bettering that experience before stacking any new blocks on top. Version 2.2 will introduce new content.
VERSION 2.1 - QUALITY OF LIFE
We want to focus on the many tweaks, adjustments and quality-of-life improvements within v2.1:
Zitat:
( QUALITY OF LIFE - ENGINE/BACKEND )
01 - Compression/Some Backend Optimizations
( QUALITY OF LIFE - SOCIAL HUB )
01 - Add Energy Enhanced Sprint (use ribbon particles from sabres for trails).
02 - Add Bindable Keys for STARTGAMEMENU and TERMINALMENU.
03 - Allow: Jumping + Blinks.
( QUALITY OF LIFE - USER INTERFACE )
01 - Add minimal Hover-Scaling for visual ambience.
02 - Use Player Steam Name (instead of PlayFab account name).
03 - Adjust MULTIPLAYER MENU for Offline Games (Return to Main Menu -- not Orbit)
04 - Remove visual filters on Main Menu & Loading Screens (return to original saturation)
05 - Integrate any basic animations/adjustmnets/QoL on existing UI/Menus/HUD.
06 - Update existing IntroGame Times (MapScene+DropPod) via Pacing + added region info
07 - Add energy pylon particle effect to ion currency for which is buried under thick grass
( QUALITY OF LIFE - ANIMATIONS )
01 - Update EXPRESSIONS - Allow with movement (upper torso blending) + voice command attach.
02 - Add Player/Dinosaur Transitionals (instead of immediate-stops)
( QUALITY OF LIFE - GAMEPLAY )
01 - Elite Drone to now collect ION.
02 - A.I NavMesh/Follow Line (instead of HUD Markers) for NPC/QUESTS.
03 - Integrate Hitboxes (Headshot register)
04 - Add KeyboardInput functionality for Offline Profile Account Creation.
05 - Integrate a few new loading screens with prepared artwork.
06 - Integrate (minimal movement) flight controls for Player DropPod’s.
07 - Integrate missing loadout HUD aspects for PvP game modes.
08 - Smoothing Jetpack Ability Movement Translation (noticable especially if activated when crouched)
09 - Remove Crouch and have BLINK be on input Press (not hold).
10 - Remove muzzle flashes from scoped weapons (silenced SMG, for example)
( QUALITY OF LIFE - ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE )
01 - Fix (enforce) proper spawn cycles through logic and additional spawner placements (North, Outback)
02 - Increase aggro towards perched/vertical players (on rocks - check global transform/seconds not moved X distance) with vertical-focused enemies (IE bones, dila, rhams).
03 - For other A.I types against vertical players/perched players, have them find a new target if they cant reach/haven't contacted a player yet.
( QUALITY OF LIFE - CAMERAS )
01 - Replace GAME thirdperson CAMERA with SOCIAL thirdperson CAMERA.
02 - Pull back the TopDownCamera for a default wide view.
( QUALITY OF LIFE - SERVERS/PROFILES)
01. Improved Server Support + Region Support
02. Discover offline Profile Account Creation crash-bug (likely first use)
ROAD MAP AHEAD
We want to discuss a few immediate plans we have for any other updates we have the opportunity of delivering based on the performance and support of v2.1 and v2.2. These are subject to change but should give a good idea of where we want to head:
Zitat:
CONFIRMED:
V2.1 - Quality of Life Update
V2.2 - Super Secretive Content Update
Zitat:
BASED ON v2.1 and v2.2 SUPPORT
*V2.3 - SDK/Community Tools (Harvest/Slaughter Region Creation)
*V2.4 - PvE Conversion (WarGames and Mayhem redesigned as PvE)
*V2.5 - Offline Progression/Save Slots
*V2.6 - New Guardian
*V2.7 - New Regions (2-3, multiple modes)
*All subject to change based on internal developments/product demands*
We hopes this marks the PHASE 2 of GUARDIANS OF ORION and we look forward to seeing you in Space!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/407840/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/493610/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/104900/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/538190/
Want more? Have Feedback? Join the ORION Discord!
https://discord.gg/RykWMpC
