Banning a whole country is completely unnecessary. Many (big) online companies (such  as Netfirms for example) have put a system to prevent credit card frauds by requiring you to make a visual confirmation of card possesion by sending a scan or photo of the card after each purchase request. Also, country ban can only be done by IP, which is extremely easy to circumvent, especially for those with a little higher degree of computer proficiency (in which category most of the frauders fall in).

So, basically, what you have accomplished is only negative, and you gain nothing from it, only loose honest customers.

only a few people really play this game anymore. I liked the community. But pretty much as soon as EvE came out, and a patch that really changed the way the game was played (in many people's opinion in a bad way.) They pretty much jumped ship.

And the "devolopers" you are talking about is 1 person, who is the only coder. To be honest he does listen to the people its just alot of things happened in his personal life so he couldn't devot as much attention to the game. Great guy and wish him the best.

But yea this game is pretty much on the dead side.

One developer?

Lets see...

We currently have:

Richard "Faustus" Lyle - Lead Programmer / Owner
Drafell - Content Manager / Community Administrator
Shigernafy - Web Developer / Content Developer / Community Administrator
BackSlash - Content Developer / Portal Developer
Smartin - Content Developer / Community Moderator
Nat - Content Developer / Sound Engineer / Community Moderator

Richard does almost all of the coding for the core game engine (Medusa) and the hosting platform (GameCQ), as well as being the owner of the game itself and the relevant IP.

My role is kind of difficult to describe. I am not really a programmer, although I have a good enough understanding of C++ to work with the source code. I seem to be overseeing most of the content changes, which includes designing and implementing updated ship layouts, weapon damage values, and pretty much re-balancing the entire game system from the ground up. In addition I am also working on improving some of the in-game effects (both visual and audio).

Shigernafy takes care of a lot of the website development, as well as assisting with content development and balance changes.

BackSlash is assisting with developing the new layout designs and improving the GameCQ content management system (the game Lobby and update manager).

Smartin is helping with implementing the balance changes.

Nat is assisting with implementing the balance changes, as well as creating and updating the audio effects.

Everyone mentioned above also does a lot more that isn't listed, and I cannot avoid mentioning those in the player base who have been invaluable in helping to provide testing and feedback, and even providing us with some source material for inclusion within DarkSpace.

We try hard to actively include the community in the development process.

Almost anyone that wants to get involved can.

Wow, DS is still alive?!  I got to say, when i saw ds on the game list with a even semi-active forum I was stoked.  Unfortunatly, after reading some of post in the forums I realize not much has changed since I got fed up and quit. 

  First, Draf is nice enough, heck all the mods/admins in ds are (excepting backslash who who is the most arrogant man I've ever met) but you can't really trust most of what draf says.   Draf has a tendency to give news on the slant.  Like what was said about have several devs.  While true they may all be "devs" no of them are really working on ds.  Also, that bit about wanting input from the commuinty and letting them have a say.....yea your free to post in the forum any idea you have, but it's gonna get ignored either because no ones doing anything, one of the other factions says no, backy doesn't like it, etc.etc. Besides, the only thing the community ever really wanted was a patch..a hot fix...an update...anything at all... I mean most of us would have been satisfied with a semi-vague time table of when we could expect something.  What we got instead was more than a year of "the patch will come out in two weeks tm". (bleh i can't remember how to make the trade mark symbol)

Second, Ds has crap loads of problems.  Tons of lag,de-syncs, disconects, uber noob ships(you get real frustrated when your battleship lands a full salvo on a scout ship and does no damage), exploit ship set ups, broken ranking system(it's more than possible to move from ensign to admiral in 4 days), broken money system(when your ship is destroyed you get a full refund of your credits, so whats the point of having them?), faction hopping, low player base(often times you will find yourself alone in the mv), many flamers in the forum, cursing, harassment, the list goes on for quite awhile.  Now, draf may dispute some of these , but i was there and I believe i spent more time in game than he did. 

Third, all the above makes it sound like i hated ds, I didn't but, this is a third party site so I was honest about the game and it's drawbacks.  The truth be told, after playing a few other mmos(EVE included)  DS still blows them all away.  It is a truely awesome game once you get in to it, and now that I know it's still active I'm gonna re-join.  Hopefully, draf won't hold this against me when I ask for my rank back.

I hate joo voltron! :-P

With regards to the [apparent lack of] development, I advise you to take a look at the [url=http://beta.darkspace.net/index.htm?lang=en&sid=&module=files.php]Beta client[url].

There is only one member of the Development team who hasn't contributed something within the last month, although that's due to issues not related to DarkSpace itself.

There have been a large number of changes and improvements, and we are really close to being able to roll out version 1.500. In the last month there have been in excess of 149 individual bug fixes and balance tweaks, and 36 new builds for players to test.

Version 1.500 is already a vast improvement over the release version of the game, however we are not yet satisfied. There are a few critical issues that still need to be addressed, although we cannot give an eta on how long this will take. It is entirely possible that the new version could be rolled out within a week. But then again, another issue may crop up that we have to resolve, and that could delay us for another couple of weeks or so.

If we could give an accurate TTL for 1.500 we would.

Oh yes, another member of the development team:

Doran - Community Administrator / Content Developer

it was late when I posted, so I didn't get a chance to download DS again before I went to bed.  Most of my comments were in regard to 1.483 version of the game, but your reply makes it sound like 484 has released. Is it true?  Is two weeks finally over?  I'm heading over to pale star right now!!! I warn you Draf, if you got my hopes up for nothing I shall return and flame the crap out you(j/k) .

tsk..it's still 483   Hopefully, it's an updated version of 483 but, it doesn't matter because i still really liked the game.  Draf, since you are apparently watching this thread, how about prodding F in to sending me a new password.  I had some trouble getting my username and pass to work.  I messed up and thought i had the pass wrong and clicked for a new password, when actually i was using the wrong username.  Now i can't login until I get the new password. 

hmmm..I requested a new password hours ago and haven't gotten a reply. I tried to create a new account and haven't gotten a reply to that either.  Is DS down or are you really holding my post against me Draf?

This game is actually pretty good; It's the community that made me uninstall. Waiting for JGE/STO.

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