Vendetta Online… 20 years in the making…

I love this game, I love the ‘Potential’ of a ‘New Release’…

I wonder how many have come then gone, - got all excited then moved on - because they could not get ‘more involved’ - with this game ?

Did ‘BlazedBob’ ever figure out how to shoot ? - or did he just give up?
https://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/14/37735

Is there any way to ‘look up’ a player and see ‘last login’ ?
- Of all the people who have ever posted to the forum, how many are still active?

- What are the Total Unique logins - in the 90 days ?
- What percentage of players actually login to the forums ?

I understand there is a new version of the game being worked on.
- how much will be rewritten, and how much will still be the existing code.

How many problems from the past - will be carried over to the ‘new’ version ?
and how many problems will vanish ?

Ships - are very, very, very hard to make ‘VO’ Game Ready.
Will that still be the case ?

The Mission System - will that be the same or different ?

What area’s can we hope to see ‘big improvements’ ?

This forum represents every message for 20 years.
Why not ‘archive it’ - and start fresh forum - for 2023

People can still go back and search the archive.
I would even be willing to help build an FAQ - with ‘Quotes’ from the Archive.

I was very interested to find out how to design ships and 3D Elements - but after some research - it seems it is very, very hard, and I think I should wait to see if it will be any easier in there new version.

I can’t even seem to find a working HUD’s or custom Skins… all the links are broken.

I love this game - it’s so old - The Retro Look - it’s now COOL again !!

I hope you understand my point of view, frustration and excitement.
With Respect - I’m Looking forward to your answers…

I have contacted this guy -

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl96Y4eOFOT/

and asked him if he would be willing to ‘donate’ his ship designs ( for free ) - to VO…. He has a good following on YouTube…

These are his original ship designs, for use in short Films. - So him giving away the IP for free - is not impossible idea. [ yes, I know ship design is not the hard part. - I read all about that. ]

I have no idea if he will ever answer me - but if you don’t Ask - the answer is never gonna be ‘Yes’…

One last question….

What about releasing an existing ship, maybe even an old ‘discontinued’ ship - that renders properly - and a ‘3D Viewer / Render’ ? - like how the ship rotates 3D in the Station View.

Also a model that shows ‘errors’ - so we also can see what ‘Bad’ looks like.

Allow some of us - who love a challenge - to ‘reverse engineer’ - from the ‘Good Model’ - and see if we can figure out how to make ‘ships’ that meet the very, very difficult - VO Ship Standard.

Mike, that's a lot of questions and I don't know that Inc would have time to get to all of them. With only 2 developers, time spent answering questions is time away from developing the game.

The current site is actually not the original. There was a previous version from the early 2000's which has been archived.

The game is updated regularly, so it can't really be considered "retro" as modifications have been made over the years. The visual elements have been updated infrequently and it's true they are not at the level of new games released today. There is not a separate entirely new new version being worked on to my knowledge.

You should ask on Discord about skins and HUDs.

You read Inc's posts about making ships for the game, so you know it's difficult because there are VO specific parameters that must be met from the very beginning. Something that isn't expressly made for VO is (literally) not going to fly. The devs know a lot of people in the industry and would have asked for art themselves if that was all that was needed.

@whistler - Thanks - I will check Discord for Skins and HUDs

Yes, I know - so many questions... Sorry - I will just wait and see if they have time to answer them.

( I typed this below - then saw your answer... )

I have just found someone asking very similar questions to me ( 13 years ago... )

Is Palamedes still here ? - Did he join the PCC ?

Palamedes asked - “ Also would you consider creating a small model viewer utility or maybe telling someone how to import and test a model in the game client? “

incarnate Replied:

“ I did previously put online an example of the ship textures (in that case, for the Prometheus). That wiki is now gone, but regardless, the old example was a bit out of date as it used object-space normal maps and the like. “

“ We do also have a viewer utility… - with the idea of making it available to PCC members. “
“ The viewer can also be used to create visual effects (explosions, shots, trails, jump-animations, and so on). “

“ I thought I could throw together a basic README and let people give it a try. “

So, yes, I'm open to doing all of that, but probably only to the PCC for now. You're welcome to join. “

I will try to respect Rule #1, Rule #8
I will do my best to be " Rule #12 "

It's a great game, I just wish I could be more involved... ( Please let me join the PCC. )

I look forward to your reply.

Until then - I will be Rule #11

@Whistler - " that's a lot of questions "

Yes - Sorry, and I'll try not to add many more...

It's just when I get an idea 'Stuck' in my head - there is only one way to get rid of it - ( Fire and Forget - and see what happens. )

You said... " . There is not a separate entirely new new version being worked on to my knowledge. "

incarnate - Sep 19, 2022
“ For the moment, the current trajectory and focus is on the next-gen version of Vendetta Online, with the updated UX and other features, and a big marketing push. After that marketing push, we may again gauge interest in the engine tech and putting the time into "polishing up" an offering. “

I understand making ships is difficult - and it’s not just ‘Art’ or a polygon model - it’s the complete asset.

As incarnate said… “ We're actually not against people contributing art assets. We just haven't run across very many people who would wholly contribute their work for free (signing over all IP rights), while also having the experience necessary to make high-quality artwork. ”

“ difference between polygon-modeling vs actually creating complete content (a model takes about an hour for someone experienced, a complete asset usually takes a couple of weeks). “

https://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/21226#262881

I was hopeful that if - ‘markom3d’ ( 67k Subs ) - or someone else on YouTube - did ‘Accept the Challenge’ - then we could watch the process and hopefully - Progress.. of this 2 weeks of work to create high quality - potentially ‘VO’ ready ships…

These guys are not ‘AAA Game Developers’ - but they have a good grasp of 3D and seem smart enough.
- I’m just guessing - but I think the biggest issue will be getting them to use far less polygon’s to optimize the assets for games.

The ‘Currency’ for YouTubers to do a ‘cross promotion’ - is subscriber Numbers.
- so if they were interested to do this - they may want (or need) to know how many active players you have. - ( to work out if the time investment is worth it - for them. )

Or this guy… CBaileyFilm ( 49k Subs )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8jC0v4b9I&t=19s

Maybe even Mr Donut ? - The Blender Guru ? ( 2.4M Subs. )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YZzHn0iz8U

Maybe we could get him to do a small Space Ship? And a donut Asteroid ?
- give him a unique signup / payment URL for VO - Then anyone who signs up to VO and becomes a paying member - ( X minimum ) - you donate 0.X to as a Donation to the Blender institute ?

Just Idea's... again, Respect Rule #1 - so I'll stop now... and be Rule #11 & #12

Thanks for your time reading all this.

Cheers,
Mike

This is hilarious

You said... " . There is not a separate entirely new new version being worked on to my knowledge. "

What Whistler means is that we don't work on like a completely new version of a title in the background, like "VO II". Updates come incrementally into the game, often on a weekly basis. Some changes take longer than others (like the major UI updates, etc), but some people expect there to be a "single massive drop", which generally we don't do.

The Q/A costs of massive drops are much more challenging; by doing smaller incremental changes we maintain game stability and become aware of smaller numbers of issues as we go along.. in some ways it's slower, but it's also more stable and feasible for a small team.

incarnate - Sep 19, 2022
“ For the moment, the current trajectory and focus is on the next-gen version of Vendetta Online, with the updated UX and other features, and a big marketing push. After that marketing push, we may again gauge interest in the engine tech and putting the time into "polishing up" an offering. “

What I was referencing in my post was a point-in-time when a number of next-gen projects were completed, and the game would be better suited to more marketing exposure.

I was hopeful that if - ‘markom3d’ ( 67k Subs ) - or someone else on YouTube - did ‘Accept the Challenge’ - then we could watch the process and hopefully - Progress.. of this 2 weeks of work to create high quality - potentially ‘VO’ ready ships…

The concept of having YouTubers working on assets, from a marketing standpoint, is interesting.

However, it has challenges, because the #1 issue in art-asset creation is basically the product's art-director (me, in this case), saying "no, that's not good enough, do it again". I've had to do this with pretty experienced artists, to get the results I wanted out of specific assets (like the Capella, for instance). One tries to avoid it, with a lot of robust communication and concepting, but it still happens.

This would probably not be super compatible with a YouTuber who is trying to create videos as quickly as possible to keep up with the insatiable YouTube algorithm and how it demands that they constantly "MAEK MOAR VIDEOS#@!". Because then he'd be making videos about making content and then instead of it going into the game, I'd be like "you didn't do X, Y, and Z, and these other 10 things have problems, the object needs to be cleaned up in this way, blah blah", and then redoing a bunch of stuff. That doesn't really sound like the most desirable video content?

Anyway, I appreciate the interest. It might be interesting, in some way, to engage with tutorial-style YouTubers at some point, but we would need to make some further updates to our art pipeline to be more friendly and well-documented before that would probably be feasible.

We aren't really looking for more ways to expose the game right now, we already have our work cut out for us. Timing, in marketing as in life, can be "everything". This is a bigger challenge with a persistent MMORPG than a normal title, because we built iteratively, but there are still moments-in-time that are much better than others.

Thanks again for your reply.

" The concept of having YouTubers working on assets, from a marketing standpoint, is interesting. "

" We aren't really looking for more ways to expose the game right now... "

" Timing is everything"

So - Better we wait until you are ready for more exposure.