New Irish Online Space Strategy Game

skateboardP

Hey everyone,

Myself and a friend have recently set up an ogame style space strategy game, it's free so please check it out and join in on the fun!

It's still fairly new so we're trying to get some players on board so feel free to tell friends

Also I hope to setup a forum for game discussion soon enough and i'll probably need some volunteers to moderate etc.

Anyway let us know what you think!

The website is www.basezenith.com

Ponster

A bump 'cos it's Irish.

hal9000

very nice art assets guys!

Dave_The_Sheep

Finding it confusing to figure out how many resources I've actually got at my disposal.

As was said though, nice art assets. Nice idea too.

skateboardP

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

Finding it confusing to figure out how many resources I've actually got at my disposal.

As was said though, nice art assets. Nice idea too.

Thanks! You can see the amount of resources available to you at the top bar, the rates at which the resources increase are on the resources page.

barrybones_wx

yeah, great job, looks brilliant.

Canis Lupus

Am I seeing some Eve artwork in there :P

Gaunty

Giving it a go, seems like it could be good if i could figure out whats going on. A basic tutorial would be nice.

skateboardP

Yea we're thinking about putting a wiki up with some tutorials on how to get started, it would be useful as other players could contribute to it as well

ED E

Layout on the homepage needs tweaking lads:

Canis Lupus

Minor bugbear: Don't like the way on the build page on something you don't have enough resources to build some of the resources are greyed out and there is no mouseover showing what you require to get it up and running so I can't plan anything in advance.

EDIT: I'd also like to see a numerical indicator for resources required for building/upgrading rather than mousing over. Not a massive issue tho

Further edit: Ignore first point... I've figured out if it's greyed out it's not required :P Sorry.

Gaunty

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Am I seeing some Eve artwork in there :P

Just spotted what Canis was talking about this minute. Might want to put in different placeholders. I wouldn't like to put some time into this only for it to be gone with a legal notice.

Canis Lupus

Gaunty wrote: »

Just spotted what Canis was talking about this minute. Might want to put in different placeholders. I wouldn't like to put some time into this only for it to be gone with a legal notice.

It's kinda fun going through everything to spot it. I've been out of Eve for years so it's hard to be sure all but there's definitely a Megathron, maybe a Dominix/Brutix used, maybe a Moros. (someone is a fan of Gallente). The 'Trader' background is also taken. I'd say the rest are generic pictures of 'scifi' taken from google and other things look potentially like RTS artwork.

Anyway, yeah, whilst I won't be telling :P you'll really need someone to change the artwork if you intend to expand. You can't be taking stuff like that and passing it off as your own.

skateboardP

Don't worry we'll be tweaking those things in the coming weeks, we're just trying to get a player base at the moment!

JBnaglfar

Just tried to sign up, but was unable to. The checkbox to accept terms and conditions overlaps with the email address box, so I cannot select accept t&c. Not sure if I described that well, basically clicking to accept the t&c instead selects 'confirm email address'. Tried with both chrome and firefox, if it matters. Screenshot here. Let us know when its fixed, I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Slozer

JBnaglfar wrote: »

Just tried to sign up, but was unable to. The checkbox to accept terms and conditions overlaps with the email address box, so I cannot select accept t&c. Not sure if I described that well, basically clicking to accept the t&c instead selects 'confirm email address'. Tried with both chrome and firefox, if it matters. Screenshot here. Let us know when its fixed, I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Yeah I had this issue too, had to tab to the accept terms checkbox and press space bar.

JBnaglfar

Slozer wrote: »

Yeah I had this issue too, had to tab to the accept terms checkbox and press space bar.

Ah, why didn't I think of that?

skateboardP

JBnaglfar wrote: »

Just tried to sign up, but was unable to. The checkbox to accept terms and conditions overlaps with the email address box, so I cannot select accept t&c. Not sure if I described that well, basically clicking to accept the t&c instead selects 'confirm email address'. Tried with both chrome and firefox, if it matters. Screenshot here. Let us know when its fixed, I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Thanks for pointing that out - please try register again and let me know if you've any trouble!

JBnaglfar

I already registered using Slozer's method, but I checked anyway and it is fixed now.

Zillah

skateboardP wrote: »

Hey everyone,

Myself and a friend have recently set up an ogame style space strategy game, it's free so please check it out and join in on the fun!

It's still fairly new so we're trying to get some players on board so feel free to tell friends

Also I hope to setup a forum for game discussion soon enough and i'll probably need some volunteers to moderate etc.

Anyway let us know what you think!

The website is www.basezenith.com

This post would be drastically improved by the addition of a description of the game, a brief history of its development, lots of in-game screenshots and maybe a video of some gameplay. Presentation matters!

ED E

Bump for cannon fodder :P

skateboardP

For anyone who's enjoying the game and is feeling generous please give us a vote here : http://www.omgspider.com/in.php?game_id=2423

It will help us get further up the list which equals more players!

Also please tell your friends if you want to help support the project!

Cheers and thanks again for all your feedback and comments.

ED E

Wow wow wow. The game is very alpha. Bit early with the monetization lads.

Canis Lupus

Just saw dark matter go up for sale :P

All this game does is make me pine for Epoch Online. Would love another round of that.


EDIT: They're a bit mad as well. For a fiver I could get a GINORMOUS resource advantage.

Zillah

You know that scene in the Social Network where one character is saying they have to monetize the site, and the other is saying that it is too early, they have something cool and they shouldn't risk losing it? Y'know how the first guy got thrown out of the business and the second guy became the youngest billionaire on the planet? Yeah. Too early.

EDIT: Also, in their Terms and Conditions (largely unreadable in parts) they seem to reserve the right to share your email address with anyone they like.

Gaunty

Wasn't expecting it to become a wallet game already. The rewards for small donations are crazy as well. Way way ahead of what a non-paying player could hope to compete with.

skateboardP

Guys the bonus packs are being tested at the moment so don't worry these will likely be adjusted.

As for the T&C's, under no circumstances will your email address be shared with anyone or any company.
This will be amended in the T&Cs

ED E

Zillah wrote: »

EDIT: Also, in their Terms and Conditions (largely unreadable in parts)

Yeah, you might wanna improve your spelling before working on new features. Noticed several mistakes in descriptions etc. Sometimes the grammar is off, looks like a non native speaker?

15. May 2012, 14:42:53	[B]Fleet head qua animal[/B]	Fleet return
One of your fleets sweeps of the attack at the planet [1:9:8] back. You have captured 17 of Metal, 23 of Crystal, 10 of Deuterium and 0 of Norium

RedXIV

Fair play lads, at least you're listening, the donation packs etc are gone now.

Zillah

Ok, decided to give it a shot. Quite liking it so far, nifty little 4x so far. No idea how combat/exploration is implemented but I'm enjoying building my mines and stuff. Am I right in saying that to go into space I need to get some deuterium so that I can get a research lab so I can research the technology that will unlock a shipyard? Interface could really use some sound effects - a few soft bleeps or clicks for the buttons would be nice.

You guys are gonna have so many copyright claims against you if you start making money from this.

ED E

Zillah wrote: »

Ok, decided to give it a shot. Quite liking it so far, nifty little 4x so far. No idea how combat/exploration is implemented but I'm enjoying building my mines and stuff. Am I right in saying that to go into space I need to get some deuterium so that I can get a research lab so I can research the technology that will unlock a shipyard? Interface could really use some sound effects - a few soft bleeps or clicks for the buttons would be nice.

You guys are gonna have so many copyright claims against you if you start making money from this.

Yeah, whats non profit is normally ignored but once if becomes a paid service expect 101 subpoenas.


Zillah you need 2 robot factories for a shipyard, which takes a fair bit of deuterium. Then you need a research centre to do energy tech and combustion engines. Then you can start launching fighters, which cost a fair whack(5k M and 2K C). For now focus on getting 4 good mines going and power for them. Then when you wake up tomorrow you'll actually have some funds to work with. Oh yeah, and pray none of the people above me find you before then.

Canis Lupus

If you click on the technology tab it'll show you the prerequisites for stuff. It doesn't really explain anything but it's a start. I'm holding out for a wiki with some more indepth info soon otherwise I'm going to lose patience with it.

Things in particular:

Space exploration and colonisation
Battle mechanics.
More indepth explanation of what things do.

There's a lot to this game and I get the feeling that the devs know everything about it really well (obviously)but forget that someone new to the game isn't going to have a clue.

Take for example today I asked about fuel costs for a ship. One of my ships says fuel cost 20 deut and it was explained that means 10 there and 10 back which doesn't make any sense. 10 units regardless of distance? Do I have to carry the deut in my cargo, can I not stay at a planet? Do I always have to return to home planet? And that's just one question relating to movement.

MOH

Thought the technology page was rendering a bit slowly. It looks like all those thumbnails are actually 200x200 even though they're only being displayed as 25x25. You'd save a lot of bandwidth by compressing and scaling them.

Zillah

ED E wrote: »

Zillah you need 2 robot factories for a shipyard, which takes a fair bit of deuterium. Then you need a research centre to do energy tech and combustion engines. Then you can start launching fighters, which cost a fair whack(5k M and 2K C). For now focus on getting 4 good mines going and power for them. Then when you wake up tomorrow you'll actually have some funds to work with. Oh yeah, and pray none of the people above me find you before then.

Oh dear. I built a Norium mine without realising how expensive it was. So it's one of those slow burner sort of games. Not sure I have the patience to be honest. Well, in relation to people killing each other, if this game is likely to last we should probably make a boards.ie alliance; based on the look of the game it'll be a lot like cybernations but in space, and there it is all about politics (and from how it seems the game works, joining an alliance is the only way a new player can survive).

Technical feedback: I got a message about having insufficient resources for a metal mine but the numbers and resources were all over the place (it claimed I need 17 norium, which is how much I had at the time). Also the grammar is all over the place, I don't know what 30% of this is even supposed to mean - get a native speaker to go over it for you. (Edit: In the combat simulator for example, you fill in the details and the buttons at the bottom read "Mailing" and "Moving Back" ...apparently "mailing" makes it go and "moving back" resets the fields.)

So...the trader needs 750 dark matter per transaction? I have lots of spare crystal and would like to sell it for metal and deuterium...I'm just cut out of that part of the game for now?

Dave_The_Sheep

The explanation for how to get a shipyard is quite ... non-existent. I couldn't find it.

I assume you can't found other planets without ships, and that you can't build more than one mine per planet. Am I wrong here?

I'd echo a few of the other posters, in that the English on the site shows various translation problems. At least, I assume they are translation problems, you'd need to get a native to look over it.

ED E

Yeah, you dont build more than one of any one building, instead you level it. If you think about it, its more like investing in an industry than building "a mine".

Dave_The_Sheep

Aye, I've levelled up a few times, just wondering. Grand so.

Zillah

Ah here, I was clicking around the menus seeing what was what, and apparently the galaxy menu eats up deuterium without any warning or notification. That's fucking retarded. I supposedly don't have any spaceships, how the hell am I burning through my resources just clicking on the menu? On the verge of giving up on this.

Gaunty

Zillah wrote: »

Ah here, I was clicking around the menus seeing what was what, and apparently the galaxy menu eats up deuterium without any warning or notification. That's fucking retarded. I supposedly don't have any spaceships, how the hell am I burning through my resources just clicking on the menu? On the verge of giving up on this.

I did not realise that. I was clicking through the galaxies and systems earlier looking where players were. That needs to be disabled. Resources taken without any ships being sent out doesn't make sense.

skateboardP

Good news - a wiki is on the way folks which will hopefully clear some things up and will have a getting started guide.

DaveNoCheese

Signed up, like that most construction times are quick... hate games where you have to wait an hour to construct any building.

Looks good so far, how long away is the wiki :P

Zillah

I said it in the chat but I may as well put it here:

A wiki isn't the solution, as much relevant information should be available within the game as possible. It should be intuitive. If you're proposing that players should read the wiki to discover that certain innocuous arrow buttons in the interface will devour resources without any warning or acknowledgement then you're not really thinking about the user experience.

Why does looking at the solar systems tab cost resources, anyway? Am I supposed to imagine my President flying around in some sort of space-pod personally scoping out the planets he is reading up on?

You have 33 players, a dozen of whom don't seem to have done anything other than register and at least two of whom appear to be developers. You need to be ruthlessly taking out crappy features that will drive people away rather than hand-waving and saying "there will be a wiki".

skateboardP

The deuterium usage while browsing the galaxy view will be disabled

Zillah

Sweet. Now send me 40 deuterium and I'll forgive you.

ED E

Zillah wrote: »

Sweet. Now send me 40 deuterium and I'll forgive you.

If I could trade I'd be charitable and give it to ya

skateboardP

Zillah wrote: »

Sweet. Now send me 40 deuterium and I'll forgive you.

Done. This has been fixed.

skateboardP

Just out of curiosity, would any of you use a forums if we set one up? Just seeing if there is a demand there yet for one.

Canis Lupus

skateboardP wrote: »

Done. This has been fixed.

I easily clicked through 10k or more of deut before this was highlighted. I think I should have it refunded as well..... ahem...

ED E

Tutorials added, looking good lads.

Zillah

Wow, did you put all of that together since we started complaining? Looking good eitherway. Are they supposed to be functional yet? I've met the criteria for Task 1 but it says it is incomplete.
Edit: Working now.

ED E

Reward : 10000 Deuterium, 10000 Crystal, 10000 Metal

Oh ****, things are gonna heat up now.