Dark Orbit

The Game has a very interesting yet simple Design which is makes it easy to enter and to learn. The Thematic is also captivating though the Story became non-existent over the last 8 Years.

That said there is nothing Positive about this Game in its current State anymore. Payment for real Money wherever you look, very weak and unstable Server and a pretty competitive community to the Point of being nothing but toxic. The worst is the Dev Team. There are so many Problems with Bugs and Glitches yet Event after Event with "exclusive" Payment Bundles get introduced to generate Money. This gets very apparent with its new upcoming "Ship" which looks like its designed by a 6 Year old 5 Minutes before due. This Ship will be again in a Payment Bundle as Code suggests. So instead of fixing the Game they gave up on it in its dying Phase milking the Community for what is still possible as it seems.

I enjoyed playing this game 10 Years ago (played it since February 2008) but the Thing it has become is nothing but a Scam.

This game is the biggest scam where you can put your money. Bigpoint has a new management and it sucks really hard. They want you to install their client but guess what. It doesn't work most time! It keeps lagging and kicking you out of the game. And now the frozen event? Only thing that freezes is the game. You literally can't do anything there!

This is not a review from a new player. You will begin this game with the bare minimum equipment/weakest ship. First, I will start by giving you some information you will need to know to be competitive at a high level. $100 usa dollars on a Helix special hour, that means you BUY with real money, in game currency called uridum- you will receive about 1.3 million worth. In order to obtain the best of everything, it may cost you lets just say 10 million uridum. Now you understand that the game is very pay to win, because even after you do achieve a decent ship, you need other pay to win items such as the best ammo. You can earn uridum in-game by killing npc, doing quest etc, and their are some things you can purchase that will make your grind easier, but ultimately, the most effective way to get a competitive ship is to... BOT, yes. Cheat, Darkorbit does NOT ban them. I know because I bot. I don't want to overwhelm you too much on this topic though, so let's review a few other things.

* Community* Very small, it's more toxic than helpful, people are more often greedy and will bully you. The servers have lost probably 75% of their population since 2010. There are 60 servers but they will be reducing that to 20 very soon to raise population.

*Gameplay* At the highest level after you become addicted, it's skill based, assuming everything is "even' sadly, that's very rarely the case. Other then that... even a person with a fairly equipped spaceship will die in under 10 seconds to a uber equipped ship, meanwhile you will only scratch them... it's ONLY skill based when both players are completely maxed out

*Servers* If too many people are in one area fighting each other the server lags unbelievably. You can have 60 fps and be lagging like crazy.

*Support* It's getting better, they will actually help you now days, probably because of the decline in players.

*Game Developers* Everything they release cost money... period

Clan aka similar to a Guild- Typically every server has one to four bully clans, these clans basically run the server and will do whatever they please, there is NO other clan that will be able to protect you from them. They aren't going to be concerned with you on a personal level, nobody takes new people serious, but they will most likely kill you in 1 second for the luls then go about their business if they see you.

So why play? It's hard to recommend the game in it's current state, I do believe the upcoming server merge will improve the game, and I think the current support team is trying to make the game more noob friendly, better log in bonuses, etc. I play because of the friends I have made throughout the years. I do enjoy the game.

If you have never played this game before, you should keep it that way. It is constructed for the sole purpose of swallowing your spending money and probably your entire soul in the process. Even though it is pay to win, this game could be playable and perhaps even enjoyable. Had it not been for the community that thrives on making your gaming experience as miserable as they are.

I've played for over 10 years so my review of this game might be a bit long. But one of the main problems is the lack of new player support within the orbit, even when Battlestar closed and this because Bigpoints main source of income, you can really see it. Every event within the game is hosted towards players who spend a lot of money, basically just trying them to spend even more. Every feature upgrade and PvP update has this in mind as well, NOTHING is for the quality of the game.

I quit because I realised when I was playing that most the game is cheaters and the other half is PvP players who won't ever fight without their entire team with them. I'm not new to this game by any means, but most players now don't even build their accounts, they just buy them from websites. This game is massively pay to win, assuming you aren't one of the majority who just buy a strong account for 8 times less money.

The game went downhill, don't play this rubbish.

The game is fun but the game is buggy. At some point you will send in a support request. More often than not, you will get Kara Flor.

If that happens, all hope is lost. She is the soup nazi from Seinfeld. Any request, no matter how small, will be met with "it is not possible to do that". She's lying. If the support request goes on for more than a week, she'll turn it on you and say that you were trying to get away with something and she was trying to help you.

Unless it is Bigpoint's goal to drive players away from Dark Orbit, Kara Flor is the most abusive and useless online support person in the history of the world.

Started DarkOrbit in its second year way back when dinosaurs flew in space... it was a great game. Strong players helped weak players and protected noobs. Raids were massive and exciting. Loved the game. Fast forward to 2022. The game is great if you play while watching your TV, eating nachos and letting your bot grind away because you are some greedy, lazy nothing. Or if you pay bucks to have your ship fitted with everything from the spoils of your bot. Then you drive new players out of the game by grinding them constantly for your kills. Brave space hobo you are. I started the game and loved it from the start. Great community. Then botting started and DO (BigPoint) turned a blind eye blaming out complaints on 'lag.' The only lag was their reticence to address the issue. Back to 2022. Bots are everywhere and most player pay and/or bot. Mostly both. Honest players have zero chance in the pvp side. BP added a no-pvp option which on paper sounds great... doesn't it? But it is even more bot-ridden and ridiculous than the full-pvp maps with its roaming bullies grinding noobs into quitting. Maps are empty of real-life players. New players quickly learn how absolutely fruitless it is to advance due to all the limits... game lag, griefers, cheaters, hacks and the ever-present bots, bots and more bots. And may I add... bots. Then the bots, who then have everything -- every weapon, gun, cheat, hack and automation -- grind on all the legit players. Almost none of my long-time game friends, including clan members still play. My son and I play but after seeing the 95% bot population of the maps and getting dinged twice by a guy last night who I knew was a botter, more powerful who had played 6 months over my 12 yrs... I am quitting. Do yourself a favor... if you value fair games... avoid this mess. If you are a cheating lowlife, sign up for DO, you'll fit right in.

Came across from Battlestar Galactica because they gave me the equivalent in gear and a ship to the value of 150 euro all I can say is don't bother, I was destroyed 20 times in 30 mins its impossible to do the missions they give you without getting jumped on. The gameplay is terrible flat screen 2d Battlestar was much better at least you could see the enemy, nobody helps everyone seems to be in it for themselves. Big point made a huge mistake in getting rid of Battlestar and expecting players to come across to this rubbish.

This comes out a bit late, but here it is. I played Darkorbit since 2008 and got a lot to say. This is by no means a 'new player review' but I can share a new players experience, by practice and theory.

Game started out good. Game was alive, it was fun, noone was really outgearing anyone. It was very social but competetive. You had a lot of Clans at the time, always a friend on your side and always something new to do. That has shifted over the years for the worse.

Lets start with the positive aspects of the game in it's current state
- If you are fully maxed out on equip, PVP is a lot of fun

Enough of the good things, let's move over to what's going terribly wrong
Im going to start with simple things
- Servers are dead. Simple as that. The game has no playerbase. As to why, later more
- Servers are laggy. On a low amount of players encountering each other the game gets almost unplayable
- Support was always terrible and unhelpfull and will always stay as it is

Let me explain why the game has no playerbase. It's pretty simple, and many players may already know. It's very beginner unfriendly. For multiple reasons in fact. You won't find help as a new player, you won't find a clan and you will constantly be killed by both enemy and your own faction. On top, the players you will encouter are most likely going to be bots anyway. I would argue 95% of the playerbase uses bots for obvious reasons. Without them, you can't keep up, and obviously can't catch up either.
But hey, wait. There is another reason why you won't keep up. Massive Pay2Win. Let's not call it massive. Hardcore Pay2Win. Without a premium account, you don't even need to start playing the game. But thats just a few $ every month. Adding in hundreds to thousands of $ to just keep up with the real badbois, that played this game for years and invested just as much money as you have to nowadays. Simply to keep up. You are still missing all the skill it requires to play highlevel PVP.
The community itself is insanely toxic. Don't bother asking them for help. They'd rather wipe you off the map before properly communicating with anyone outside their bubble. There will be 1 Clan per Server dominating everything. Noone has a say other than them. There might be 2, maybe 3. At best. And you won't be a part of them, and never will be, unless you pay ridiculous amounts to get up to their 'level' -sorta say.

I myself played active for a good 9 years, witnessed the big banwave in 2010 which wiped out bots from the game almost completely. In 2015 or 2016, not sure here, another one of these banwaves appeared. And my accounts got banned too, because, I was botting at the time. And I'm not afraid to say it, because everyone was already. It's not a secret, it never was.

TL: DR
Bigpoint, or how I'd like to call them, Bugpoint, doesn't care about developing Darkorbit in favor of the community. They showed over the last 10 years, how they can make the game progressively worse. A game that started out good and ended in the mess that it is in right now. Simply put, a game full of bugs, 3rd party software of all kind and hardcore P2W. This game won't improve in future, just keep your hands where they are. Not in Darkorbit

Wish you a great day and hope you are doing fine in this pandemic.

This is an example of what you shouldn't do when you want to get income from one game. I will mention all what's wrong with this game and with no surprise I might be missing something.
- Impossible for newcomers, newcomers can't do anything. Servers are only played by veteran players with Full Elite Equipment, you will most likely be killed by them a lot of times and won't be safe anywhere.
- Pay 2 Win, Tragic to say this game has gone far from worse in this aspect. They say it is free 2 play but in reality it isn't. In order to at least be able to do something without investing money you would require unmatched amount of hours which no one would be able to invest.
-Full of bots and people wasting tons of money. As I mentioned earlier there's no way get something decent at best if you don't use bots or waste money.
-Non Existent support help. Sending a message to support would be utterly useless, they will reply you but in order to help you they will ask data that anyone couldn't have in his hands (receipts and other stuff) and you will most likely receive the answer "We can't do anything".
-Dead Servers.
-Repetitive and buggy.
-Laggy Servers

Owners of this game aren't doing anything to fix all of this despite seeing how their currency is decaying dramatically. This game will die soon, and for good.

If I was able to give 0 Stars, this game will undoubtedly be on the list.

This game was once enjoyable, now it is full of Bug's and Glitches, on top of that the Developers of the game are not fixing them and introducing new assemblies and functions for the game that is already full of problems as if this was not enough the prices for already overpriced items has increased. You are more than welcomed to try to play this game for free but you will be lucky to get out of the port. I would suggest to give it about a year and maybe by then there won't be any one on the maps so you will have them all to your self, DON'T PLAY THIS GAME!

Like many other mmo games, this one became too cluttered with overly powerful payed items and boosts. I started playing over 10 years ago. Back then there were players of all levels and skill everywhere you went. New players with weak ships and maybe a drone or two on the lower maps, killing all the npcs they could to level up and gain credits. Then there were medium level players talking to these low levels in the chat and helping them with quests or sharing profit from killing stronger aliens ships. High level players roamed lowers and uppers, protecting the low levels from enemies from the other companies. Maybe getting a few buddies together and killing cubikons or hitting Uber map. Or sometimes hitting the enemy companies back with a hunting squad all cloaked up. Now there are zero players that aren't full elite. Company chats are dead. The only goal in the game is PvP. No noobs to help out. No Big Boys or Nostromos on x-3 trying to pop their first devolarium. No circling big kris' without getting creamed by an enemy raid. Sad, the game brought me much joy when I'd play instead of sleeping on a school night. I spent more on this game back in the day than I have on any other game across all platforms because the fun and community was worth it to me back then. Now my account I had at full elite when I stopped playing is worthless and will sit unused like the million others. Good job BigPoint, you got your cash. Farewell Darkorbit, thanks for the good times and cyber friendships.

There is no way a new player can enjoy in this game as soon as you go out of the base map you get shot down by enemy or by your own peoples and there is no penalty for doing so they keep shooting until you logout of the game xD what a bs game and then there is payment lol due to this the game have lost the new players who cant keep up with the upgrades without real cash quit. The only players who play this game is who have spent money on this, we the new players who gets in are just a food for the players who spent money and shoot us down. Well nothing much to say about this game its already dying if they dont fix these issues. Anyways darkorbit gonna face its end.

I used to love this game. But after giving this company enough money to buy a new car with cash. I am done. First there chat mods are bias prejudice and ban people just because the have power. Second the support team just plain $#*!ing sucks. You send them a ticket about a matter. And all they do is tell you what they want you to know. Sounds just like a government official. This game and a majority of the staff dont care about paying players much less the free. Its all about money. Well guess what its gonna cause alot of legal probs in the future. Good luck dark orbit of lies

Great game. Alternative to other space games like EVE.

Might be a decent game, except I went through the beginners protection is less than one day. It isnt based on time, its based on level. Take a day and play, and you'll exhaust that before you learn the game. What happens next, is that you get killed by older players, who then camp on the spawn site. And kill you over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and...

This game used to be allot of fun, but now if I could give it a zero rating I would! The game has changed so drastically that if you do not spend hundreds of dollars you will take forever to get anywhere in the game.So many of the new items DO puts out cost money and I believe are overpriced for the game. They add items at different times throughout the year and also add new items on events. However their adding these new things usually results in more game problems. True they do get it fixed EVENTUALLY, but its the overall problems they create.
The support is almost non-existent at times and they appear to totally care less about any problems you may have. Again however they do EVENTUALLY fix it sometimes quickly and sometimes in a month or so.
Dark Orbit is saying that they have a "Fair Play Initiative,"but it is doubtful as many players continue to cheat and DO does nothing about them. I personally have written in about 20 times on one player with three ships all doing the same thing at the same time over and over again and yet the answer you get is their so called "SCRIPT"is collecting evidence. Well 5 months later the cheater is still there cheating away. Almost every player in the server has seen the players cheats and talked about it.It appears however that the DO support answer is basically "we don't care and its not our job!"Well maybe they should learn to pass it on to the appropriate people that can take care of the cheats.
DO has lost very large numbers of players over the last 2 or so years.At first they most likely did not realize the actual numbers of players that were leaving the game.So DO'S answer to the problem is to merge servers to increase the number of players in each server. Now mind you when DO first started it had one server for each country or given area.The game expanded with more servers due to the increase in the number of players was so great. Eventually with the changes and the adding of more money items DO has started their own downfall.So DO in 2018 has started eliminating servers and merging them with each other in an attempt to save the game. I do not believe this is the answer and their end will most likely come in a year or so.
Then you have the Multi Company Clans that are almost 80% responsible for many players leaving the game.In most servers there are usually between 2 and 10 Clans that actively dictate the game to all other clans and players. This has caused a problem with very many other players not being able to participate in the events put out. They will shoot anyone not in their clans away from the alien ships to be destroyed to get the benefits of teh event. Thus only one or two clans benefit from the event with its rewards and thus also making them stronger. HOw many people want to play a game that you can not participate in completley. Yet DO says they do not care.The other problem with these clans is that they love to shoot new players and so many new players just give up. There have also been many of the long time players leave the game because of what it has become. What it has become is a costly game, a game where MCC' S have taken over the servers and only allow those they feel should participate get too and worst of all a game filled with many cheats and yet DO has not felt the need to correct anything.
Recommendation: Do not even bother starting to play this game.It is no longer what it was and or worth it to play. By all means do if you like to play a game that you are dictated to by others in the game, spend hundreds of dollars to achieve a better ship only to be killed by the upper players still and if you wish to see cheats or even maybe cheat yourself.The game is no longer as enjoyable as it once was and fairness has gone out the door!

Darkorbit were to start that is, right here it goes.

Darkorbit is a created by the known company called Bigpoint, it is a free MMO game to play, you don't have to pay any cash to get better stuff (ships, weapons or ammo), unless you want to that is.

You start of with a litle ship that has around 2000 hitpoints at first, but to get a better spaceship or better weapons or even more ammo you got to go around collecting raw materials that you can find around the area of space you are in or you can get these raw materials from fighting NPC spaceships that are also flying around the area of space you are in.

The area's of space are in levels, as you have just started the game you will only be aloud to go into the level one space area, so you will only be able to fight the weaker NPC spaceships ect. Level 2 will give you better enemy NPC's to fight and maybe better raw materials and they just keep getting better as you advance in the area's levels in space as you advance in rank and level.

But this game is not just for the farmville players but for those that are willing to be attacked even as they are just starting out, as you got to pick what company you won't to be part of (earth, mars or venus), you can also betray your company and become a rouge member of this game, or you can change what company you want to be in for a small price if you have the price that lets you change (small if your been playing for a while and got millions). Here is the charge they take from you for changing company.
Here you can change your company for a 5000 Uridium fee.
Notice: Half you honor points dissapears also!
So you will lose soom of the honor you have gained from fighting NPC's or other players.

When you have picked you company you have got to be on alert at all time maily when you are just starting out as you will be easy pickings for the other company's out there, that is were the player vs player comes into the game, as you may think this is not really a war game like any over games you will always be at war with all the other two company's and they can come into your companyy's space area and fight all that is there in your company, they will evenattack you if they see you, so this a warning for all first timer's to this game.

When you are in your company they will not attack you unless you go and betray them there for you be a rouge and will have a little simbol that you see and what the other players see as well so if you get that little simbol you will not only have the two other company's to watch out for but also the company you have pick to join.

You can get little robots called drones to help you out, they can help you defeat other ship's or they can heal your ship. Thats all aboutthose that i can tell you.

You can also pay to get a little help to get better ships ect. And you can pay in two ways the cheapest way is by phone (texting) and that is only for the cheapest amount while all the others is for the use of you bank card (credit card)

The rest i will leave for tyou to find out for your self as i don't want to spoil it all for you by putting it in this little review about the game, but i will tell you this if you like darkorbit, don't forget to try out all the other games from bigpoint you never know you might like them all.

Thanks
Angrynoob
Games Reviewer

This website game is a SCAM.

Although it's advertised as a free-to-play game, everything about it is designed to either induce you to spend real money to protect yourself from in-game bullying from other players, or simply leave to create room for people who will.

I played this game for 2 months. The graphics are lousy. The content is lame. The plot is thin. The character development is cookie cutter or just plain non-existent. The in-game music is awful, nerve-wracking, and played on an endless loop (unless you figure out how to disable it).

The gameplay supposedly is centered around Player Versus Player interaction, but set up in such a way that new players are ALWAYS at a decided disadvantage. As a novice player you are limited to which maps you may play on, but any high level player can enter these map and destroy you at will, and they do so frequently while laughing about it. They are in fact, encouraged and rewarded for bullying you by higher level quests. The only way to level the playing field is to spend real money to buy a better ship, better equipment for it, and premium account status as indemnity against being destroyed. So much for free-to-play.

If you can get past this, and actually form friendships and rivalries in-game you're subjected to the next layer of the game's coercive environment: chat bans. Moderators just waiting to silence you or permanently disable your account for whatever flimsy reason they can. Free player or Paid account, it makes no difference to them. During my time playing I was chat banned several times for using every-day language or expressions. Their chat rules are hopelessly and intentionally vague. I suggested that if they were truely that concerned that they use mature language filters and parental controls, and was given a brush-off response. The simple truth: They want to ban people to force them to spend more money or to make way for people who will.

After you are permanently banned you have no way to remove your credit card information to prevent misuse by this company. Your only recourse is to contact your credit card company or bank.

So, cowardly company creates game revolving around cowardly play and uses cowardly moderators to enforce unrealistic rules, all in an attempt to grab your money. Words of advice: This game is just a cheap knockoff of EVE online. Go play it instead and leave this thing alone.

They advertise free but believe me you have to pay to get anywhere interesting because getting blown away gets tiring after a while.

Support for any billing issues is very slow and most of the time done through a web site. You can't talk to anyone, they ask you for something and you upload it through either a screen shot or some other type of format.

Their systems often lag and it seems their administration makes errors, in my case and speaking of personal experience they billed me $19.06 to much which resulted in a lack of funds on a prepaid credit card of all things. Did not think that was possible!
Anyway the only communication I received from them was when I tried to log back in I got an "Account suspended" page with instruction on how to wire them $111.37, then they would "release my account"

This is how they handle their problems.

Uridium is the game currency and you can collect it ( took about a week to get 1,000 and that doesn't get you much) EG their biggest ship cost 80,000 Uridium, Thats without lasers ( 15 at 10,000 Uridium) and shields ( 10,000 Uridium each) and of course Engines ( 2,000 Uridium each)

You can buy 350,000 Uridium for 99.99 USD The most basic lasers do not damage much. The most basic amo does 1x damage and both of these can be bought for " credits" which you get for selling minerals and killing foes.

You can bid for Elite items that usually only Uridium will buy ( EG: 3x damage lasers amo cost 5 Uridium each, if you have 15 lasers it costs you 75 Uridium per round. The game is designed to make you spend or wander for months just to get a free upgrade that will cost you 500 Uridium to repair if it gets destroyed, I got destroyed 149 times in 2 months.

Even if you do manage to climb up to the most powerful ship you still get killed because thers a little something called the skylab, takes like 75 hours to upgrade from level 6 to 7, this is just one module and there are about 10 of those that must work in conjunction to produce what they call SEPROM.
This enhances weapons by 60% at level 6 I was producing about 600 units a day which is 6,000 rounds of lasers, you can easily use that up killing only 1 tough boss. The storage would hold 1,800 total I had to upgrade to get more. The ship ( biggest they had) hold 1,500 units of anything so unless you buy "extras" you will have a tough go at it.

Now saying all that I did enjoy the game, it just cost me a fortune to do it and in the end, my account was suspended for what I feel was an error on BigPoint part in their billing methods, Overcharging me $19.06. ( on a prepaid card!) which resulted in a lack of funds using a " Forced Post" method of transaction.

At the very least this type of behavior is unethical and I can not in good conscience endorse it.

When this game first started it was a great game.It had a few gliches, but they were usually fixed quickly. Now though it is so diffrent. All the support and administration appears to be worried about is raking in the money and having nothing repaired. They continue to keep adding new items(for $$$)yet do nothing about the game problems that ccur. Sure they fix the easy ones, but the chat between players goes down an average of 3-4 times a week and sometimes for a day or more.The lag has gotten worse also.As for a plyer having an in game problem you can almost forget about supports help and if they have to turn it over to tech support you might as well just start a new ship. I speak from experience with a problem that is almost 90 days old and nothing has been done to crrect it(I have not had acccess to 24 lf4 cannons). You will however hear "be patient" or how support can notpush tech support along. Tech support is non-existent and most likely incapable of fixing anything. Why fix it when you can just add more items to mess it up even more.
This game was good at one time, but the number of players has shrunk drastically to where some servers are all but dead.It used to cost you a small bit of money to get a good ship with all you needed, but with all the new items you will spend a thousand dollars or more.If you wish to go the free roite it will take lots of time and almost forever to attain any status. Then there are the big money players(which DO of course coddles)who will take every advantage to, make your gaming experience a bad one.
The best thing to do is not even start playing this game unless you have money to back you. Also remember that if you have a problem do not expect much help from incompetent support.
Maybe the CEO or corporate people with DO should look into this matter and get rid of those not doing their jobs.Im sure there are good computer techs out there that are competent enough to fix the problems and not go to sleep or be on a constant coffee break.