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Vendetta Online 1.9, New Game Economy, Server updates!

The long-awaited Version 1.9 of Vendetta Online is expected to debut soon, marking the launch of our new rendering engine, totally new game-servers, and a host of new features, some of which we're revealing in this newsletter.

But first, we actually want to talk a little about a product that isn't even ours, but rather is being made by close friends of ours, the German studio RockFish Games. They're making a cool new single-player space shooter called..

RockFish Games are the original team who made the Galaxy On Fire series. They've started a new company, dedicated to making high-quality single-player space titles, and the prototype they've built looks fantastic. Just like ourselves, they're a small, self-funded indie developer, and they're trying to raise enough money to complete the game on Kickstarter.

We would really like to see them succeed (more cool space-games ftw!), and in an effort to help make that happen, we're making the following "Vendetta Online reward-tier" offer:

• If the EverSpace Kickstarter succeeds, we will give every backer a special Vulture ship skin in Vendetta Online (skin still in development, possible prototype below). This skin will be an in-game exclusive to EverSpace Kickstarter backers for a year.

• We will also randomly pick one lucky Kickstarter-backer to win a ONE YEAR premium subscription to Vendetta Online.

So for as little as $5 you can get a cool and exclusive new ship in VO, and possibly win a one-year subscription, while also helping a startup indie game developer finish their great-looking single player title.

We have no financial benefit from promoting this: we'd like to see them succeed, and we know they'll make a great game! Hopefully it's something you might like as well.

Remember, the VO rewards only happen if the Kickstarter succeeds, so help spread the word on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere!

Kickstarter Vulture Skin Prototype

Back to Vendetta Online news.. 1.9 is getting close!

The next major version of the game, VO 1.9, is expected to debut within the next month or two. It will feature a number of changes and improvements, a few of which are mentioned below. A more complete listing of everything slated for release in 1.9 will be coming in a future newsletter:

New Game Economy

Yes, you read that right. We're going to be deploying an experimental new dynamic economy model on some outlying stations in grayspace, in the near future. Unlike existing stations, which have an infinite supply of locally-produced goods, and slowly-rising demand for more distant goods, this economy will actually maintain a true inventory for items manufactured, bought and sold by the station. Thus, if you sell an item to the station, that it did not previously have, it will then offer one of them for sale. Similarly (and more importantly) these stations could be completely run out of available items, making economic and offensive blockades a more viable long-term strategy.

I want to emphasize the word prototype here, this kind of economic model can be chaotic, and the results can be uncertain and challenging to "tame", which is why we've avoided it for so long. But, it is an important part of the overall supply-chain economics that are slated for release in VO 2.0. Imagine, if you will, a player-owned station, with player-conquered territory, being mined by their NPC drones, who bring back resources to their station and manufacture goods they have specified, which are then traded by other players and NPCs who visit said station (or exported by player-defined NPC trade captains).

Looking at it from another view, conquering territory in a sector suddenly becomes a meaningful way to accrue critical resources, or deprive one's opponents of the same resources. This was one of the goals when we started working on territorial conquest all those years ago, and things are starting to come together.

This economic update may show up very soon. Well before the formal 1.9 release. We're hoping for this coming Friday the 21st, but that's not a hard date.

New Game Server

As of this past weekend, Vendetta Online is now running off of an entirely new server-cluster, hosted by Server Central in Chicago, IL. They run a first-class facility, which we've toured, operating from DFT CH1, the 8th largest datacenter on earth. Server Central has a great network, and we've seen improved pings to the UK, Germany and other locations. We are still measuring and evaluating some of our own architectural changes, so let us know if you see anything odd in the game.

What this means is access to a great deal more capacity as needed. Previously, we've been limited to the physical hardware that we actually own, which makes it challenging (even scary) to meet the needs of a huge iPhone promo or other sudden player influx. Similarly, we've been reluctant to take on some server-intensive gameplay, like really massive space battles. This server migration is a first-step towards changing much of that. We've updated a lot of our infrastructure in the last few months, and all of those changes lead to expansions in gameplay that people have always wanted.

Rendering Engine Changes

We've mentioned this in the past, but just to recap, the new rendering engine will formally launch across all platforms in the near future, and will be the default for 1.9.

• Dynamic lights, attached to every energy shot, engine, floating sign, or other obvious light-source. Potentially thousands of dynamic lights per scene.
• High quality dynamic shadows (cascaded Poisson PCF using slope-based depth bias).
• Multi-threaded renderer, making balanced used of both CPU and GPU capabilities (including multiple GPUs in Crossfire or SLI configurations).
• Mac version offers native Retinal display support.

Recap of Recent Updates

As usual, we have far more recent changes than we can easily list in a newsletter, but here are a few high points that should interest people:

• New capship-dockable stations in Dau, Itan, Odia and Sol II.
• Fog and radar limitations are now applied to NPC awareness and aggression.
• Powercells (and energy-drain attacks) now keep NPCs from jumping/warping.
• All nested cargo inside of capships now drops appropriately.
• Raptor UDV (UIT) now has integrated Cargo and Addon Scanners (2000m range).
• Higher-definition asteroids added in many sectors (new models, textures).
• Major changes to Update Client, now more robust.
• Many other improvements to: Gamepad UI and controls (TV play!), sound effects, addon buffs and tweaks, etc.

Keep in Touch

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