Full notes
Full ORION: Prelude update
Read the full published notes in a cleaner layout. The original post stays linked below.
Repeated intro
Hey all - David here. I am the Founder and Director of Trek Industries and the Game Director on The ORION Project. I've spent a life time seeking and recruiting the best talent from around the world. Sometimes I was successful, others not. Right now we have one of the best development teams ever assembled and many of them have been by my side since the beginning.
What changed
- Balance
- Gameplay
ORION: Prelude changes
They definitely don't do it for fame or payment as they could be much more successful elsewhere and I have to believe it's because of ORION as it too had captivated me immediately from a very young age. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFopklaUqvg
THE ORION PROJECT
It's been my life long work to deliver this experience we've only begun to hint at in this first year. We have a team loving what they are working on and committed years of their lives to bringing it to life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKk4x7OwvJQ
OUR FIRST GAME
I've invested everything we made into remastering and repairing our first game (ORION: Prelude) to ensure we were proud of it, as we're the fans. We are proud of what we accomplished and it's become an extremely fun Co-Op game that we and hundreds of others still enjoy to this day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShQ3GBFI4KQ
2014 CROWDFUNDING
In 2014 we attempted to raise funds for The Orion Project but this was unfortunately not successful. Instead we continued supporting ORION: Prelude and developing prototypes in the background. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/orionprelude/the-orion-project
2015 CROWDFUNDING
In 2015 we attempted to raise funds for "Guardians of Orion", a throwback to over-the-top games and the days of SNES/Genesis. We showcased a full playable prototype but this campaign was also unsuccessful. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/orionprelude/guardians-of-orion However instead of ending it there we decided to honor every single backer that supported us and rewarded them a copy of various game(s) depending on pledge level. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR0UQRV0NvY
OUR FOCUS
We've invested all profits from the first game (ORION: Prelude/Dino Beatdown) in order to REMAKE/REMASTER and continually add content to it for years. Most of the resources were exhausted during this development but enough were set aside to self-finance and create the prototype for Guardians of Orion/The ORION Project.
THE CHARTS
Since July 2016 both ORION games have dramatically dropped in overall players, visibility and discoverability. This is difficult to comprehend or link as our first game, ORION: Prelude, was just recently moved to Free-2-Play having a no-risk entry that should typically surge or at minimal maintain original/existing player count values. This was not the case and we haven't seen these low of player counts since 2013. In addition to this our new game, The ORION Project, has dramatically dropped in player counts: The chart above illustrates to us that we were better off ceasing development in Q1 2016. At this time the game had Third-Person, Inventory and Gear added. However once we started to invest and add more, the numbers went down significantly somehow. This is reflective of v1.5 (May 2016) and v1.6 (July 2016) which we started adding fan-favorite features like First-Person, PvP, Multi-Camera PvE and most recently SpaceShips/NPC's. Each new iteration subsequently offers fewer and fewer players.
THE F2P CONVERSION
Over two million accounts were supposed to receive special Premium DLC for owning ORION: Prelude pre-conversion. Platform Linking failed and
Source
Changelog.gg summarizes and formats this update. How we read updates.