OGame

OGame
Publisher	Gameforge
Senior Developer	Alexander Rösner
Erstveröffent- lichung	October 3, 2002
platform	Web browser
genre	MMOG , browser game
control	Keyboard & mouse
language	32 languages, including German

OGame is a browser game by Gameforge AG , in which the player builds an empire peacefully and / or warlike in space.

OGame was developed by Alexander Rösner, known to many OGamers by his nickname Legor . The name OGame - composed of the words online and game - was initially only intended as a working title for the game. Due to the fact that the game quickly became known, the name has remained until today. Gameforge AG from Karlsruhe operates and internationalizes the game. A development team is constantly developing OGame.

content

The player takes on the role of a ruler over a planet and builds an economic and military infrastructure . The three raw materials required for this, metal, crystal and deuterium , can be obtained through mining, trade, expeditions to unknown planets and / or raids on other planets by players. The military units follow the rock-paper-scissors principle to a certain extent . Through research , a player can colonize new planets and gain access to new technologies , buildings and better weapon systems .

There are no game rounds in OGame - a universe has no end in time, and no goal is given. However, you get points for built or researched raw materials, whereby you rise in a ranking, while points are deducted for lost ships and defense units. As a rule, players therefore choose the goal of climbing as high as possible in the ranking.

Like most browser games, the game runs around the clock in real time , so your own empire is unprotected when the player is absent. This is also the decisive factor in the development of addictive behaviors, as they can well occur in such games. If you are absent for a longer period of time, there is the option of activating the so-called "vacation mode". In this the player cannot be attacked by others, but also does not produce any resources and cannot carry out any fleet actions.

The complexity of the game develops with the increasing availability of buildings and technologies. Various help offers are available to newcomers.

Universes

The first game world ("Universum", "Uni" for short) was opened on October 3, 2002; each universe is completely independent of the other universes. The German version accommodates an average of 1515 players each. This makes OGame one of the largest browser games in Europe. At times there were more than 2 million player accounts in over 700 universes, with numerous players having an account in several of them. OGame is currently available in 29 country versions, whereby the country version of Great Britain is also the English-language international version. In this there is a speed universe (Uni 35), formerly called PrOGame, with 5 times the game speed.

Here is an overview of the countries where OGame is available. The ending of the URL and the number of active universes are given in brackets :

Argentina (.com.ar, 5)	Bosnia (.ba, 18)	Brazil (.com.br, 15)	Denmark (.dk, 15)	Germany (.de, 25)
Finland (.fi, 5)	France (.fr, 78)	Greece (.gr, 10)	Great Britain (.co.uk, .org, 54)	Italy (.it, 51)
Japan (.jp, 6)	Croatia (.com.hr, 3)	Mexico (.mx, 4)	Netherlands (.nl, 21)	Norway , (.no, 2)
Poland (.pl, 78)	Portugal (.com.pt, 32)	Romania (.ro, 10)	Russia (.ru, 26)	Sweden (.se, 6)
Slovakia (.sk, 7)	Slovenia (.si, 2)	Spain (.com.es, 71)	Taiwan (.tw, 16)	Czech Republic (.cz, 14)
Turkey (.com.tr, 62)	Hungary (.hu, 10)	USA (.us, 13)	UAE (.ae, 3)

The servers in China and South Korea , each with 9 universes, were shut down in November 2009. The reasons given were country-specific, technical problems and the consequent low interest (a total of approx. 6000 and 7000 players).

Although the German OGame has reached Uni 91 or Mizar, there are only 84 active universes, since Uni 24 is missing and universes 32, 35, 36, 37 and 38 were closed in the course of the universe merger. Uni 24 was a time-limited, chargeable “speed universe” in which construction, flight, research and production times were reduced to a fifth of the original time. The “Electra” universe runs at four times the speed and is thus similar to Universe 24. Uni 6 was intended as a test universe for the development team since it opened, but was released for play again in December 2008 as a beta universe for redesign. Jupiter, one of the most visited universes, is the first special universe in which the community was able to decide on specifics.

In order to participate in the respective country versions of OGames, a command of the corresponding game language is required. For country versions in which too few players are expected, English is also allowed as a colloquial language.

In November 2010, the so-called "Universe Fusion" was announced in the official OGame forum. The universe fusion, called unifusion for short , is supposed to counteract the decreasing number of players in the universes by merging several universes.

The “exodus” and “target universes” are determined by the developers during the unifusion. Players from the Exodus universes have the option of choosing a target universe. After a few weeks, all Exodus universes should then be closed. Players who have not selected a target universe will then be deleted.

After a test on a prototype in spring 2011 and the removal of several bugs , the first merger phase was carried out with the merging of universes 32, 35, 36, 37 and 38 into universes 30, 31 and 33 in July / August 2011.

Officers and payment system

Since February 2007 it has been possible to activate paid extensions, so-called officers , that unlock production bonuses or other advantages. This also includes the Commander , which offers advantages in terms of ease of use.

On September 19, 2007, a new payment system was introduced in OGame and the game currency Dark Matter . Dark matter can be bought, stored and exchanged for in-game features such as officers or mine boosters. You can also use it to summon a trader to exchange raw materials.

You can also find dark matter on “expeditions”, but the yield is rather low. That is why it takes a comparatively long time to get enough dark matter to buy officers or similar in-game expansions with "expeditions" alone.

At the end of August 2010, with the introduction of an update, both the prices for some officers were increased and an innovation was introduced, with which one of the planets with all facilities and the moon can be placed in a free place in the dark matter (for about 12.50 €) Universe can move.

Redesign

The redesign, mostly abbreviated as "RD", is a complete redesign and redesign of OGame. The entire surface was changed, the entire source text was also revised and the programming switched to Ajax . So many old bugs were eliminated. In addition, the code has become much clearer and extensions can be inserted more easily. The game behavior was changed only in a few points.

A major innovation was announced by the developers for the first time in August 2007. As a result, there was talk in the community of the “great new”, GN for short . From October 2008 a promotional video and first screenshots of the redesign were published. On December 4th, 2008, two beta universes were opened with a redesign. Since the new code contained bugs, several updates were installed by July 15, 2009.

On August 4th, 2009 the release of OGame Version 1.0 followed and the start of the universe "Andromeda". This was the first universe with a name as an identifier. All universes then opened have the redesign. All old universes, with the exception of Universe 20, got the new surface at the end of May 2010. The game behavior changes were finally adopted on September 23, 2010.

Community

OGame has a large and active community . In addition to the main forum, there are alliance forums and alliance areas.

The game has its own IRC network , OnlineGamesNet, which can be reached at irc.onlinegamesnet.net. Since March 26, 2010, this can also be achieved via IPv6 . The OnlineGamesNet now has over 3000 of its own alliance channels.

Since the end of 2005 there has been a wiki project on OGame called OWiki . The aim is to provide comprehensive help on OGame and to be a reference work for projects and people related to OGame. The OWiki respects neutrality with regard to controversial aspects of the game.

In the course of time a large number of external tools have been developed around OGame. Tools of the most varied forms were created. Examples are alliance and player statistics, battle simulators or battle report archives.

reception

The basis for the success of OGame is or was found in the following points:

• The old design was kept simple and thus opened up a large number of potential users. The short description texts, which were under every building, every ship and every research, clarified immediately about the properties and functions.
• The game begins psychologically cleverly with very inexpensive buildings that only need a few minutes and few raw materials to build, so that you can make visible progress right at the beginning, which in turn maintains and promotes the initial motivation. Later, the expansion stages cost a multiple of the starting building and can take days to complete.
• The real-time strategy game guarantees, despite its fundamental simplicity, a variety of strategies from which one can choose. Thus, both defensive and offensive strategies have reasonable advantages and disadvantages and are designed to be equivalent. In addition to elements of an economic simulation , there are also aspects of a war game , and it is inevitable to use basic skills from both areas. Since also more economically oriented players have to protect their raw materials, they are also forced to deal with the combat strategy part.
• OGame is one of those games in which the rounds have no time limit. This means that months and years of work are not deleted at some point. The buildings and research are limited in their expansion stages only by their increasing costs and construction times as well as by the size of the planet, in principle the game can run forever.
• In the course of time, the possibility of cooperation has been expanded. In addition to the alliance system in the browser game, there is also the alliance combat system, which enables joint attacks and joint defense. This is a significant improvement, especially for weaker players, as a well-organized alliance can protect them from attacks and they themselves can attack superior opponents together with others.
• At OGame, we value the protection of beginners:
  • There are inexpensive defense systems ("Def" derived from "Defense") that can be rebuilt by up to 70%
  • A robbery usually steals a maximum of 50% of the available resources (up to 100% for players whose gaming behavior makes them bandits in the honor point system)
  • An excessive number of attacks on a player is prohibited
  • Only ships and defenses are destroyed; buildings cannot be damaged
  • Colonies cannot be conquered
  • After the start there is a point-based protection phase in most universes, called "noob protection"

This protection has been expanded since the implementation of a new noob protection.

Awards

• 2010: Nomination for the German developer award in the category of best customer support
• 2012: Nomination for the “Best Browser Game of the Year Award” in the Favorite Strategy Game category

criticism

Comparison of the number of players in the respective universes.

• The regular opening of new universes leads to a massive decline in players, especially in the older universes. Universes with steadily increasing user numbers hardly exist any more. Ways to solve problems such as the universe fusion were repeatedly addressed by the gaming community.
• OGame is being increasingly commercialized , this is particularly evident from the paid subscriptions. The officers were particularly criticized. The point of criticism is that one can buy an advantage in the game through the officers. For example, a player with a geologist gets 10% more resources. This is particularly beneficial in the start-up phase of a universe. The syndicate responded to this primarily in the official forum with a protest to stop the introduction. In the course of development, additional payment functions were introduced (such as "production booster" or additional building areas).
• With the help of the service provider Offerpal Media , OGame.de temporarily gave the opportunity to receive dark matter if, in return, e.g. B. downloaded software , but malware was installed on the computer. You could also download ringtones to your cell phone, but this was associated with paid subscriptions.

Web links

• Site of the game
• Browser game wiki

Individual evidence

1. ↑ current account data ( memento of the original from March 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Server in China and Korea switched off ( memento of the original from March 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. interview 
3. ↑ Universe Jupiter starts. ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: board.ogame.de 
4. ↑ Announcement of the Universe Fusion. ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: board.ogame.de 
5. ↑ Start of the fusion test. ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: board.ogame.de 
6. ↑ The merger is coming! ( Memento of the original from July 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: board.ogame.de 
7. ↑ Information on dark matter. In: board.ogame.de
8. ↑ GamesVZ.de: Dark Matter as OGame Currency ( Memento from May 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
9. ^ OGame forum
10. ↑ Server restart & IPv6 written by OnlineGamesNet on May 24, 2010
11. ↑ New noob protection in planning. ( Memento of the original from February 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: board.ogame.de 
12. ↑ OGame
13. ↑ OGameforum: The Unifusion as a panacea? A critical consideration.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
14. ↑ Criticism against the Gameforge. In: board.ogame.de
15. ↑ Survey in the OGameforum about officers ( memento of April 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
16. ↑ Offerpal: Dangerous offer. ( Memento of the original from May 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: board.ogame.de 
17. ↑ Criticism in the OGameforum about Offerpal. In: board.ogame.de