Gathering Data

[Eshanas]

Moving this from the comment section: if you want, drop your old images, stories, videos, and what not about SQO here. It'll be greatly appreciated. Honestly I should had started it here from the get go.

I do have plans to do more: like get the source code or any hard data from Castlethorn Vets or Nexeon; but that's down the road. For now - reminiscence, with a bit of ad-hoc organisation. Think of it as a roll-call!

[Eshanas]

I've found a few more images and sites since I posted my imgur album. New album and lists to follow, but here's the old album.

https://imgur.com/gallery/eY6lJHV

[Dancoul]

do you really think you can convince them to give the source code?

[Eshanas]

From Nexon? No, they've moved on and deleted near everything. From Castlethorn, their old employees? Maybe. If someone hasn't nabbed it already!

[Mr. Mauer (Mollari)]

Nexeon never had the source code as far as i know, they took care of the hosting, the payment, but were unable to develop bec the lack of the source files.
Maybe youll find someone on reddit or fiver that will check the adress off castlethorn near seattle and talk to him, i guess hes not aware that so many miss this game

[Eshanas]

Originally posted by Wolvgar:

Nexeon never had the source code as far as i know, they took care of the hosting, the payment, but were unable to develop bec the lack of the source files.
Maybe youll find someone on reddit or fiver that will check the adress off castlethorn near seattle and talk to him, i guess hes not aware that so many miss this game

I have found a few people who put Castlethorn Software in their resumes and I think we all know where Thorn is. One day!

Anyway, more photos, mostly found from stuff on the WaybackMachine and I found Kip's old fansite. I couldn't find anything about the other fansite some links allure to, however.

https://imgur.com/gallery/B3qnTKQ

Kip Kipper's old site:

https://sites.google.com/site/kipkippers/

[3 Ducks In a Man Suit]

https://s927.photobucket.com/user/HeyKidsItsGarm/library/SQO?page=1

Here's all my SQO screenshots. Unfortunately, the Klin after action reports only existed ingame, and I don't think anyone saved the Klin news posts either.

[Eshanas]

@3 ducks in a Man suit

Ohh, neat! I never played Klin so its neat seeing their side.

There are some scattered saved forum posts on TWBM, maybe I can gather their directories regarding the forum?

[Mr. Mauer (Mollari)]

I miss this game, thanks for the pictures brought back some good memories.

[Mr. Mauer (Mollari)]

i once delivered federation personel to klinshaya and got paid in distrubtors and swords <3 :D

[[LL]rnjmur]

Man, I haven't thought about this game in forever! SQO was definitely one of the best "worst" games I ever played.

With how cheap it is to run servers today it is a shame nobody can get a hold of the game and spin it back up. You could probably run it for next to nothing.

[NeoKuro]

Tbh I'd argue you're better off starting the game from scratch...the game is at least 10 years out of date by now in terms of tech (and the languages used would have had lots of development too)...but theres also plenty of tools out theres to develop a new game without having to develop absolutely everything.

I was looking into rebooting it myself, and got a decent ways (in terms of a SP mockup)...but my lack of MP development experience hit me hard when it came to networking :L

I'll return to it someday after my current game-dev project, and when life settles down enough for me to pour serious time into a major project like SQO 2.0. But if you're interested, I'd recommend looking into 'SpatialOS'. Its a piece of tech that basically enables MASSIVE single-shard worlds that are scalable...you still encounter issues such as Floating-point precision issues depending on how you do you do scales, but I came up with a solution to it (its just my SpatialOS installation broke for AAAAAAGES before I could test it, and haven't had the motiviation to attempt it again haha) but its definitely some cool tech. Its used by Worlds Adrift who have a massive game world beyond the FP limit I believe. But no hints how they resolved it sadly ;)

It also works with Unity, and Unreal (or you can make your own game engine if you are insane :) )

I've also got a discord setup (for years now) which we'd discuss it now and then. Its been pretty dead lately mind because I've not done any work on the project xD

[Mr. Mauer (Mollari)]

You are welcome with any game that may be similiar <3
The gameplay detail in SQO was somehow far ahead of it's time
It had it's flaws but the mechanics were stable and pretty damn deep nerd style wise

[NeoKuro]

"stable" 😂😂😂😂😂

[Mr. Mauer (Mollari)]

if there was issues it was due to networking, but teleporting etc factions these mechanics kinda worked :D

[articulateprimate]

I'd love to see the game come back in some form, but I think it's a pipe dream. People have been trying for a decade and nothing's ever come of it. I doubt anything ever will.

I still haven't found a game that can do everything SQO could. Walking around on a moving ship, running a ship with a multiplayer crew, and the surprisingly well-developed bot crew system that was implemented toward the end are things no other game has pulled off in all that time. Sure, it was rough and buggy and had its issues, but the core mechanics remain impressive to this day.