Space-Pioneers
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Space Pioneers or SP is a free-of-charge browser MMOG. It was developed by Denys Bogatz (nickname "coyer") in 2004.
Bogatz, today a freelance software developer, is also known through his work development work with C-64 emulators such as BreadBox64 for Acorn computers as well as through his administering of various online hotel booking platforms.
Not long ago, Bogatz expressed his concerns regarding the lack of good cooperation with the community and thus decided to look for someone who could continue on the development and maintenance of the game.
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[edit] Plot
There is no official storyline of Space Pioneers. Attempts to develop a plot have been made on the official homepage during the early days of the game back in 2004/05, but were abandoned relatively quickly. Nevertheless, there are loose pieces of information such as the history of the universe in which the game takes place. Those pieces of information can be gathered from the game play itself, where small informational texts are available.
The Space Pioneers universe is set in the far future. The already known galaxies are colonized mostly by highly-developed technological civilizations. Futuristic spaceships enable those civilizations to travel vast distances throughout the whole galaxy. All these achievements, however, are overshadowed by conflicts and wars between power-hungry emperors. Due to dense colonization and the fact that the space on planets is limited, emperors have to explore new, uncolonized planets in other solar systems in order to expand their empires and to grow in strength. Furthermore, emperors are compelled to attack their opponents since their great demand for resources that goes along with the need to colonize new planets can only be satisfied by raiding hostile planets.
[edit] Game Principle
After a free registration, the player may choose one of the existing galaxies, where he can look for a new, uncolonized planet in order to found a new empire. Afterwards he can equip his planet with all sorts of buildings. All actions run in real time, even if a player is not logged onto the game. All resources (metal, crystal and tritium) that are required to build structures as well as ships or to perform research can be mined in metal- and crystal mines or can be produced in tritium synthesizers. All planets have inexhaustible deposits, so one does not face the problem being short of resources for this reason. The amount of resources that can be mined depends on the building's level of development. More advanced mines have a higher output.
After a certain time, a player can invest resources in technologies which reduce costs and construction times for buildings and ships. Research, however, becomes more and more expensive, the better a certain field has being researched. One has to decide carefully whether the expenses of the particular research justify its benefit. Later on in the game, the player can build different sorts of spaceships and fight against fleets of other players. The outcome of these round-based battles is usually a partial or even complete destruction of either the own or the enemy's fleet. By further research, the player can also build colony ships which enable him to colonize other planets or to command larger fleets. The opportunity of a specialization either towards the warrior or the trader is also possible in the course of this game. This again unlocks other features that are specific to either branch.
By building structures and ships or by research the player gains a certain amount of points. He can improve his position in a ranking list and climb up the hierarchy to the Top Ten of the galaxy. Yet, one must not be deceived into believing that this is an easy quest to fulfill... Furthermore, a player can join forces with other players, found alliances or rather join an alliance. Thus, infinite opportunities of trade and war are given causing always new tension. This has to be the case, since the galaxy servers run without being reset. SP is a neverending game.
In addition, a text-based RPG exists in the official Space Pioneers forum, in which players tell stories from the world of Space Pioneers. Moreover, news of the game as well as new alliances and declarations of war can be found in the forum.
[edit] Further Information
While a player who just has started playing needs to invest only a few minutes of game play per day, a player playing the game for several months is likely to spend up to a few hours a day.
Space Pioneers is known internationally. At the moment, there are galaxies for players speaking German, English, French, Italian and Polish. Ensuring the possibility to create a multilingual and multinational community within Space Pioneers, players can set up their native language within the game menu.
In mid-October 2006, Space Pioneers occupied rank #2 in Games Dynamite's Browser-based MMOG charts and in rank #4 at Galaxy News (and even #1 since November 2006). In 2007, SP is ranked third in GD's MMOG charts.
[edit] Premium Account
The players have the possibility to upgrade their account to a premium account. This premium account features an advertisement-free screen, a bigger message inbox, sorting incoming messages and a battle simulator (WarSim) which allows to calculate the amount of ships he must send against an enemy for the best result. Prices are available via the Official SP Game Manual . Please note, that SP is basically free of charge and that an upgrade to premium does not feature any advantages e. g. in the game play.
[edit] Facts and Figures
Page views: 12.3 mln/day; 320 mln/month
Active Player Accounts: 71.000 (57.000 in the German-speaking community)
Number of Galaxies: 23 (13 of them in the German-speaking communities)
Source code: 2110 kB (approx. 11.000 lines of code)
Texts: 300 kB
Available languages: German, English, French, Italian, Polish, Turkish, Portuguese and Spanish
All software used to develop SP is Open Source software, such as Apache, MySQL and Python.
At the Moment (mid/end of June) some galaxies have either moved or are moving to a new cluster server in order to improve failsafety and availability. So far, every galaxy has had its own server, which resulted in major availability problems in case a galaxy server failed for some reason.
[edit] Tools
There is a variety of tools available in Space Pioneers, that do not affect game play directly, but which make things more convenient e.g. searching an enemy's planet, calculating flight durations or creating a database containing own and other planets. Yet, the number of automatic aids is limited, in order to prevent single players from overreaching others. Thus, tools which read or request data from the game automatically, are strictly forbidden.
[edit] Miscellaneous
The average age among the players of Space Pioneers is 19. Yet, there are players of all ages. Just as other MMOGs, Space Pioneers has certain dangers of addiction. Some players reach an activity of over 80%, which means that he must be logged onto the game for almost 20 hours a day. Since there is an automatic logout after 30 minutes of inactivity (i.e. no page requests through clicking etc.), theoretically, it would suffice if the player performs two mouse clicks per hour to reach a 100% activity level. Therefore , the activity indicator should not be overestimated.
There is a comprehensive manual to Space Pioneers, which consists basically of a Wiki filled with contributions of players who share their knowledge of the game with other players. In addition, there is an official Space Pioneers discussion board, in which the latest developments of the game are discussed and where players can contact the developers or other players. The abovementioned RPG forum is also a part of this forum.
Finally, there is an IRC-Channel for players of Space Pioneers as well as a Space Pioneers TeamSpeak server.
[edit] Criticism
Recently the developer began forcing users to disable their adblockers or suffer severe disadvantages, namely turning important features in the game off, publicly denounce those adblocking players as adblockers and refusing support. Despite facing massive protests from the community, the policy is still in effect (as of 2008-02) employing a "number of ads delivered - number of ads seen by individual" threshold requiring collaboration with the ad provider.
[edit] References
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This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of the article are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources, or discuss the issue on the talk page. This article has been tagged since May 2007. |
Games Dynamite Homepage (German)
Denys Bogatz's reference works (German)
Interview with D. Bogatz (German)
Feature in the German weekly magazine "Der Spiegel" (full text)
The developer's latest concerns (German)
