Stellar Frontier gone for good?

[myname]

Well to put it simply, SF has pretty much died out, it was fun while it lasted, most players are now playing other games such as continuum or ogame, others also play starport ge a bit too. All depends on what kind of game you like. Speaking of which...

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN IN THE LAST 2 YEARS!@$#!^% ;D

[Master]

Lol.......I've been furthering my studies in a foreign country the past 2 years. I didn't have any spare time to even visit SIN website. To make matters worse, this country only has intranet and no internet( Don't ask what country it is). Anyhow, I'm back for the summer, so I decided to check in with SF and SIN but apparently everyone has abandoned the game, however that doesn't mean they should abandon the SIN website.

[myname]

Its a shame more of us couldn't give you a welcoming back, There isn't much going on which is why there is a lack of topics

[chillfactor]

Well, I've been away from SF since forever, my fleet, DEAD, is all torn apart, the new leader is a shadow now, and most members no longer play... So it can be said I'm the last of those mohicans...

No what I want to ask, is nexus.game-server.cc alive? even though I followed step by step Tovec's instructions to get to the new nexus, I downloaded the fully upgraded version, so I cannot get it to work (oh... HELP!...btw)

I miss those good ol' times when I spent my work hours (7pm to 9am) playing SF since nothign happened at work (I work @ a bank as ITS overnight...)

[SFWebmaster]

Jul 25, 2008 9:22:19 GMT -5 @myname said:

Its a shame more of us couldn't give you a welcoming back, There isn't much going on which is why there is a lack of topics

What My_Name said.

[chillfactor]

Sad... Sad but true... but well looks like the nexus @ game-server.cc is dead...

[SFWebmaster]

I just connected to it successfully a few hours ago, so I wouldn't really call it 'dead'. No one was playing though, so I spose it is dead in terms of population.

[chillfactor]

I tried last night and it didn't work...

[SFWebmaster]

Worked when I tried just now. You sure you have nexus.game-server.cc in the Nexus box? sf.stardock.net is down so that won't work (sf-x.stardock.net, sf.stardock.com, and sf-x.stardock.com won't work either).

[chillfactor]

my bad... the address lacked an R...
now I'm playing...lol.... but looks sad... there's no one...

[SFWebmaster]

mmm, yeah, game's dead these days...

[STR]

It's dead, ffs.

I'm here to say "Hi" to Tovec, who said my name on MSN 20 minutes ago...yes I've changed my screenname on MSN cause I'm no longer in contact with anybody (SaT has yet to realize my "other" name). I'm willing to talk to anybody on MSN (you should know my MSN, ask Tovec)

[chillfactor]

I'm thinking of invinting a couple friends to build a new fleet... just to freshen things a bit...

[Nyphur]

Aug 8, 2008 3:13:09 GMT -5 chillfactor said:

I'm thinking of invinting a couple friends to build a new fleet... just to freshen things a bit...

Waste of time. When it was created, Stellar Frontier was on par with games of the time and was a thriving, fun game with a nice community on the stardock newsgroups (and later on forums). I remember my rivalries with McCune and how we both hated Anaxis for being a stuck up old man. I remember the fleets, the fleet battles and the politics that we all made up to go along with it like war declarations and moles ("mole mole, who's got the mole?"). I remember the Knights of Arcea, Drengin Elite Fleet, HOPE etc. I remember my good SBC clanmates DarkHelmet, MercuryImposter etc. They were good times and it was good fun but it can never come back and here's why:



Stellar frontier was originally designed as a demo to showcase OS/2's viability for graphical and network clients. Stardock picked the game up and asked its creator Douglas Hendrix to make a windows version for retail. Because Doug saw the game as a shitty side-project and never intended to be a full time game designer, development of the game was almost zero.

Most development fell to the players in the forms of mods and some pretty good ones were made. I remember the world war 2 mod that was all submarines in sea and islands for planets . I myself made the Master of Orion 2 mod, which I abandoned when a game update broke it. A while ago, I found it lying around and found an old version of the game that it worked with. I quickly finished up the mod and put it up for download here: www.eve-tanking.com/moo2/ (ignore the bottom section, that's for MOO2 itself)



Now I'll be perfectly honest with you, the failure of Stellar Frontier was entirely Douglas Hendrix's fault. Did you know that back when Stellar Frontier was released, popular MMO EVE Online was at a similar stage in its development? At that time, EVE Online was a little 2D game being developed by a group of guys from Iceland. The difference between EVE and SF is that they continually developed EVE until it became this massive, epic 3D world. They eventually went live with it and it's grown organically ever since, now with over 250,000 subscribers and a peak concurrent user world record of over 40,000 and rising.

The fact that people still want to play SF shows that the game had massive development potential. Due to lack of development, the game was eventually superceded by better ones and people stopped playing. And the worst part is that SF could have been where EVE Online is today if Doug hadn't thought of it as a shitty little side-project.


I should mention that I'm a computer science student now, I'm a good programmer and have taken a shine to 2D game design. If I wanted to, I could make a new game that is basically Stellar Frontier and continue development but it's too late. The opportunity SF had in the games market is gone and I'd be starting essentially from scratch. Instead I'm working on a remake of Master of Orion 2, a game that I like more than Stellar Frontier and a game for which a market still exists (thanks to MOO3 failing horribly). I keep a development blog over at www.nyphur.com to help myself keep track of development but if you're interested you can take a peek at it.

[chillfactor]

Well, all toy say is completely true, although I was thinking more of inviting some buddies to play, since I have a couple of my Aces Keys rolling on my desk drawer and the nexus is there. This would just be to attempt to bring a new generation of players, those tired of starcraft, counterstrike and warcraft.

I have hopes that it will work, and if it does I'll bring them to this forum.

[SFWebmaster]

That sounds good chill! I'm also going to be setting up an actual (ad-free) forum on Stardock's site for Stellar Frontier soon. Might help... the current Stardock SF forums are on Proboards and let's admit it, it doesn't really look all that professional or sleek.

Oh, and nice to hear from you Nyphur!

[chillfactor]

Something my boss always sez... "The sun will rise and we'll see results..."

Let's just get to work on it, this game still has a lot of potential.

[awmalzo]

just saying hi ;p

[chillfactor]

...hi!

[chillfactor]

WTH?! The nexus is dead?!

Can't get a respose, and it's written right!