Vendetta Online
Encyclopedia
Vendetta Online is a twitch-based, science fiction
massively multiplayer online role-playing game
(MMORPG) developed by Guild Software
for the operating system
s Android, Linux
, Mac OS X
, and Microsoft Windows
. It uses the NAOS game engine
, a fully realtime flight model and combat system developed in-house that brings the intensity and immersion of FPS-style PvP and PvNPC battle action, set against the backdrop of a massively multiplayer universe. Vendetta Online shipped as a commercial MMORPG on November 1, 2004, with a subscription-based business model. It is updated regularly with new content and bugfixes.
Since launch, the development team has maintained Mac, Linux, and PC support for the game, allowing users on all three platforms to play and interact in the same universe. In 2010 the developers announced that the game would be ported to Android devices, also allowing mobile device users to play characters they had started on laptops and desktops or to begin new characters. In general the development team has a good relationship with the Vendetta Online user-base, often stopping to play online along with subscribed users and responding to user comments, questions and suggestions.
There are a wide variety of weapons in Vendetta Online, some requiring energy to fire, others relying on ammunition, proximity fuses, target tracking, or some combination thereof. As most weapons have a cone of fire assisted by autoaim, effectively deploying weaponry relies less on careful aiming than it does on managing the ship's momentum, energy, attitude and distance to target. Knowledge of combat proves an effective tool as a veteran pilot flying mediocre equipment will often defeat a less experienced pilot using superior equipment by virtue of tactics alone. Certain weapons do require careful aiming however, such as rail guns. Weapons may cause the ship to be displaced or to spin through concussive force. Weapons may also hit a target that has not been selected, or hit an unintended target or friendly ship.
In Vendetta Online, there are three playable nations and many minor factions. The nations are the Itani Nation, the Serco Dominion and the Union of Independent Territories (usually referred to as the UIT). The Itani are reputed for their science and maneuverable ships, the Serco for their warrior nature and armored ships, and the UIT for their trading abilities and neutrality. Choosing which nation to play affects initial faction standings, and which missions will later become available.
Vendetta Online uses a five category license system in which players earn experience toward different licenses by participating in different avenues of gameplay. To earn a better trade license for example, a player may trade commodities between stations for profit or take missions from the local trade guild. As a player's license improves, different ships and equipment may become available to purchase and various types of missions appear. The player's standing in the current faction that controls the space around them also has an impact on what opportunities may be afforded them. Faction standing can be gained or lost through missions or by destroying ships of various alignment.
As the player progresses in licenses and faction certain large scale goals become available. The player may take part in the war against the Hive, an ever expanding race of NPC
Robots vying for control of areas of space containing asteroids rich in valuable minerals. By banding together with other players they may take down powerful enemies such as the Hive Queen or Leviathan, having an impact on Hive activities across many systems. The player may also join the military and take part in large scale conflict between the Serco and the Itani.
Several conquerable stations are scattered across unclaimed systems on the outskirts of national territory (an area known as Greyspace). Controlling these stations allows players to manufacture unique items and weaponry. Conquering a station involves destroying all of the station's defensive turrets within a timed window of opportunity. Once all turrets have been destroyed a 2 minute timer is triggered, at the end of which the first player to dock with the station is given an access key which may then be provided to allies. Whenever a conquerable station comes under attack any player with a key is sent a message, allowing them to organize a defense or a counter-attack.
Vendetta Online has a long backstory, which details the fate of humanity from 2140 to 4432. It was written by the lead game developer, John Bergman.
In June 2009, the game acquired the ability for several players to serve as crew together on one ship. Two years later in June 2011, a guild of players finished construction of Vendetta Onlines first player-owned capitol ship.
The PCC is a separate group from the remainder of the player base as an additional emphasis on "Trust, Maturity, Involvement and English" is expected of them. This is in part to ensure that the PCC remains a productive and collaborative environment that continues to produce high quality content. The PCC is also responsible for helping design Lua code for the game's User Interface
, and testing new equipment before it becomes widely available. The PCC remains an innovative development on the MMO scene, bridging the gap between "sandbox" style player-contributed content and traditional top-down corporate game design, generated in a method reminiscent of Lucas' 'Expanded Universe'.
rated Vendetta as "good", highlighting the novel twitch-based space combat, and a successful implementation of multiplayer space trading and combat
gameplay. However, it was felt that the limited content did not justifty the subscription value, and the ship designs were deemed to be uninspiring. A more recent review by Kotaku
stated that Vendetta was "a deep game with an intuitive interface" taking note of the port to Android mobile devices. Macworld
called Vendetta "a brilliant online gaming experience, clearly influenced by classic space games Elite and Frontier".
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
(MMORPG) developed by Guild Software
Guild Software
Guild Software is a small computer game developer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin founded in 1993. So far, Guild Software's only product is Vendetta Online, a first-person MMORPG that uses their in-house WGAF game engine.-Staff:...
for the operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s Android, Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, and Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. It uses the NAOS game engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
, a fully realtime flight model and combat system developed in-house that brings the intensity and immersion of FPS-style PvP and PvNPC battle action, set against the backdrop of a massively multiplayer universe. Vendetta Online shipped as a commercial MMORPG on November 1, 2004, with a subscription-based business model. It is updated regularly with new content and bugfixes.
Development
Vendetta Online's development team is relatively small compared to many other titles in the same genre, at its largest including four people. The four original developers are John Bergman, Ray Ratelis, Andy Sloane, and Waylon Brinck. John Bergman remains the managing director and has invested much of his own personal finances into the project. The game is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and has been in development since 1998. In May of 2002 the game opened with a public Alpha test to prove the efficacy of the twitch style combat in the low bandwidth environment of that era. In 2004 the game launched as a retail product, with the Linux mascot featured as part of the game box artwork. The retail-CD included Mac, Linux, and PC native versions of the game.Since launch, the development team has maintained Mac, Linux, and PC support for the game, allowing users on all three platforms to play and interact in the same universe. In 2010 the developers announced that the game would be ported to Android devices, also allowing mobile device users to play characters they had started on laptops and desktops or to begin new characters. In general the development team has a good relationship with the Vendetta Online user-base, often stopping to play online along with subscribed users and responding to user comments, questions and suggestions.
Gameplay
The twitch gameplay in Vendetta Online revolves around lining up a correct shot against enemy ships while avoiding incoming fire. The dynamics of this can be complex as ships are moving through 3-D space, and the weapons fire itself has a specific velocity. The ships mostly obey the laws of Newtonian Mechanics although a few artificial limits are put in place to increase the playability of the game. Ships each have detailed specifications such as mass, thrust, torque, cargo capacity, top speed, turbo energy drain, armor, and weapon ports. There are also many variants of the main ship types, some holding certain advantages over others with some advanced variants belonging to special factions. Depending on what equipment is being used and what is carried in the cargo hold the mass of the ship (and consequently maneuverability) will change greatly, affecting combat.There are a wide variety of weapons in Vendetta Online, some requiring energy to fire, others relying on ammunition, proximity fuses, target tracking, or some combination thereof. As most weapons have a cone of fire assisted by autoaim, effectively deploying weaponry relies less on careful aiming than it does on managing the ship's momentum, energy, attitude and distance to target. Knowledge of combat proves an effective tool as a veteran pilot flying mediocre equipment will often defeat a less experienced pilot using superior equipment by virtue of tactics alone. Certain weapons do require careful aiming however, such as rail guns. Weapons may cause the ship to be displaced or to spin through concussive force. Weapons may also hit a target that has not been selected, or hit an unintended target or friendly ship.
In Vendetta Online, there are three playable nations and many minor factions. The nations are the Itani Nation, the Serco Dominion and the Union of Independent Territories (usually referred to as the UIT). The Itani are reputed for their science and maneuverable ships, the Serco for their warrior nature and armored ships, and the UIT for their trading abilities and neutrality. Choosing which nation to play affects initial faction standings, and which missions will later become available.
Vendetta Online uses a five category license system in which players earn experience toward different licenses by participating in different avenues of gameplay. To earn a better trade license for example, a player may trade commodities between stations for profit or take missions from the local trade guild. As a player's license improves, different ships and equipment may become available to purchase and various types of missions appear. The player's standing in the current faction that controls the space around them also has an impact on what opportunities may be afforded them. Faction standing can be gained or lost through missions or by destroying ships of various alignment.
As the player progresses in licenses and faction certain large scale goals become available. The player may take part in the war against the Hive, an ever expanding race of NPC
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
Robots vying for control of areas of space containing asteroids rich in valuable minerals. By banding together with other players they may take down powerful enemies such as the Hive Queen or Leviathan, having an impact on Hive activities across many systems. The player may also join the military and take part in large scale conflict between the Serco and the Itani.
Several conquerable stations are scattered across unclaimed systems on the outskirts of national territory (an area known as Greyspace). Controlling these stations allows players to manufacture unique items and weaponry. Conquering a station involves destroying all of the station's defensive turrets within a timed window of opportunity. Once all turrets have been destroyed a 2 minute timer is triggered, at the end of which the first player to dock with the station is given an access key which may then be provided to allies. Whenever a conquerable station comes under attack any player with a key is sent a message, allowing them to organize a defense or a counter-attack.
Vendetta Online has a long backstory, which details the fate of humanity from 2140 to 4432. It was written by the lead game developer, John Bergman.
In June 2009, the game acquired the ability for several players to serve as crew together on one ship. Two years later in June 2011, a guild of players finished construction of Vendetta Onlines first player-owned capitol ship.
Player Contribution Corps
The PCC (Player Contribution Corps) is a hand-picked group of players that creates content for the game (mainly missions). These players use an in-house developed browser-based mission editor and submit their content to a publicly accessible test server. There the mission can be tested by anyone, and commented on. The mission can then be resubmitted, based on new suggestions. Typically, this process requires several months or more for a mission tree to be brought up to standard and implemented.The PCC is a separate group from the remainder of the player base as an additional emphasis on "Trust, Maturity, Involvement and English" is expected of them. This is in part to ensure that the PCC remains a productive and collaborative environment that continues to produce high quality content. The PCC is also responsible for helping design Lua code for the game's User Interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
, and testing new equipment before it becomes widely available. The PCC remains an innovative development on the MMO scene, bridging the gap between "sandbox" style player-contributed content and traditional top-down corporate game design, generated in a method reminiscent of Lucas' 'Expanded Universe'.
Reception
GamespotGameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
rated Vendetta as "good", highlighting the novel twitch-based space combat, and a successful implementation of multiplayer space trading and combat
Space flight simulator game
A space flight simulator game is a genre of simulation video games that lets players experience space flight. Highly realistic examples lacking any sort of combat include Orbiter and Microsoft Space Simulator...
gameplay. However, it was felt that the limited content did not justifty the subscription value, and the ship designs were deemed to be uninspiring. A more recent review by Kotaku
Kotaku
Kotaku is a video games-focused blog. It is part of Gawker Media's "Gawker" network of sites, which also includes Gizmodo, Deadspin, Lifehacker, io9 and Jezebel. Named to CNET News' Blog 100, Kotaku is consistently listed in the top 40 of Technorati's Top 100...
stated that Vendetta was "a deep game with an intuitive interface" taking note of the port to Android mobile devices. Macworld
Macworld
Macworld is a web site and monthly computer magazine dedicated to Apple Macintosh products. It is published by Mac Publishing, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California...
called Vendetta "a brilliant online gaming experience, clearly influenced by classic space games Elite and Frontier".