What happened before the test?

The previous test session was on December 8th, just after our 120h live streaming marathon called Indie Story. That gave us ample time to get some new press for Gangs of Space. Usually, we try to get between 100 and 150 new players for each new session, in order to slowly increase the load on the servers.

We were in contact with Krayn, one of the authors of LFG (a French web-TV dedicated to MMOs on jeuxvideo.com), who tested Gangs of Space and gave us some of his expert advice. So we were very pleasantly surprised when he announced us he'd give some word about Gangs of Space in one of their specials, scheduled for early 2014, just before the 6th session! (here's the video, we are at the end of it!).

We were very happy to get this coverage, because we really like this program. So we gave them an access key to invite their viewers on the Alpha. Even though their videos have a lot of viewers, we were expecting a very short segment, so we thought it would bring 40-50 new players maybe. But the coverage was longer and better than we expected, and we got more than 500 new players in just a day!

At this point, stress was catching up with excitement: of course we're extremely happy to get all those new players, but... will the servers support the load? will the gameplay be interesting with so many players at the same time in one system?

January 9 was the release of the video, and January 12 the day of the test.

January 12, Pirnapocalypse Day !

Let the numbers speak for themselves:

Players and game time

• 365 different players connected to the server
• max peak of 132 simultaneous players
• for a total of 882 hours and 11 minutes of gameplay

Havest

• 2.241.476 DNA
• 16.151 Medals

Losses

• 801 ships destroyed
• 11.206 items lost forever

We love the Empire!

• 549 contracts accomplished
• 967 contracts failed (but still partially paid, I think the Empire is too generous with you!)

Conquesting the Universe

• 78 sectors conquered by the players, 4 by the enemies
• 315 sectors "pacified" in 13 different fight systems
• 123.503 asteroids exploded
• 122.995 Pirnats annihilated
• 13.971 Vermillons vaporized

I see dead enemies

• 118.252 Asteroid S0
• 26.916 Pirnat Wasp
• 22.339 Pirnat Scout
• 20.047 Pirnat Scout MKII
• 14.967 Pirnat Spike
• 10.958 Pirnat Miner
• 8.296 Pirnat Hunter
• 5.410 Pirnat Pickelhaube
• 4.934 Pirnat Hunter MKII
• 4.652 Vermillon Berthos Evo
• 4.262 Pirnat Miner MKII
• 3.846 Pirnat Drake
• 3.845 Asteroid S1
• 3.804 Vermillon Melenos
• 2.421 Vermillon Berthos
• 2.227 Vermillon Melenos Evo
• 1.103 Asteroid S2
• 1.007 Pirnat Lobstor
• 867 Vermillon Merros
• 527 Turret Gatling
• 251 Asteroid S3
• 52 Asteroid S4
• 13 Pirnat Mega Blade (Boss)

Which makes...

• 733 enemies per player on average! Not bad!

So now if you're asked what you did last Sunday, you know how to respond in detail!

From this session, we will mostly remember the poor MEGA BLADE, the new Pirnat boss. You were so numerous that he really had no chance to survive, poor one...

• Video of one of the first boss kill - Gang TMG

But rest assured we won't leave it that easy! We already worked on making him a lot nastier::

• Boss design live with Grouroux on Twitch

For those who want a look at what they missed, he're is a list for the many streamers and Youtubers that make videos of the session:

• https://communaute.gangsofspace.com/t/gangs-of-space-dans-la-presse-et-ailleurs/18

Thank you so much to all of you who made those videos: : Wirow, arsdant, Galette, Bestio, Nejaa, chateaucoussin2, lanf3ust, Zulu, Krayn

You can also have a look at the dev stream for the session start:

• Pre-test with Erhune
• Servers opening with Grouroux
• Erhune takes it back a while after

What to learn from this session

Keeping only the most important stuff in mind (because there would be LOOOOOTS of things to say):

What went right

• In spite of the unexpected number of players, the servers handled well, and the game stayed playable.
• The game is even more fun with more players!
• The new players seemed to like the game quite much.
• Our Twitch live is working well to explain the game, welcome the new players...

What went a bit less right

• Fight systems are not fun with too many players.
• A hardware problem on one server at some point, which interrupted the session, but that wasn't something we could do much about.
• The boss was far too easy.
• We already knew it, but it can be quite difficult to understand the game as a new player.

What we're gonna do

In addition to what he had planned for v0.13, we will limit the max number of players per map, open more fight maps at the same time, tweak the boss, add some networking/performance optimizations, add some random generation mechanism to the maps, improve the chat... A lot of big and small things to make the game more comfortable with an increased player count.

And at last

Many many thanks to those who pre-ordered Gangs of Space these last days. Your trust in us to deliver a unique and pleasant game he very much appreciated, and it gives us even more confidence to give it all on this project. Together, we'll do it!

We have also decided to announce the next test session for Sunday, February 2nd! (other timezones)

And until then, feel free to say hi on our Twitch channel!

#