OrbusVR Announcement!

[Outlander_Robert]

Hey folks,

OrbusVR began as a project built out of a passion for the VR space and a vision for what could be achieved with help from a dedicated community of supporters. From an initial post on Reddit with a short teaser of work that Riley had begun in his spare time, to a Kickstarter which exceeded its goal, Orbus has always been about one thing – the community and your willingness to help us build something really special.

Since those early days, we’ve launched OrbusVR: Reborn, which was one of the first full titles available at the launch of the original Quest headset, and continued to deliver content updates including new dungeons, new raid bosses, and a story expansion pack. Throughout this time, it’s really been a dream to get to work with you all, and work side by side with each other, to create the first VRMMO.

At the same time, it’s no secret that over the past couple of years the development on Orbus has slowed down, due largely to the constraints placed on us by slowing sales. During this time we’ve endeavored to keep the servers online and to release a little content when we’ve been able to even though we couldn’t afford to pay ourselves to work on the game full-time. We reached a juncture last year where we really had to take stock and decide on the future of the game, as the current state of things didn’t seem sustainable long-term. We wanted to make sure that whatever our plan was going forward, as long as there were folks who wanted to play, Orbus could remain online.

We’re pleased to announce that after a lot of soul-searching and due consideration, we’ve reached an agreement whereby Robert will remain working on the game, and Jake (our long-time Lead Developer) will return to Orbus as a full partner/owner in the project. Riley will no longer be involved as an owner or developer, but will remain a long-standing supporter and cheerleader of the project from the sidelines.

We’ve been working over the past couple of months to hand off all the necessary systems knowledge and access to allow the new duo to take the reins, and with that process well underway, we’re excited to make this announcement and usher in the next era of Orbus.

This new partnership has already been producing good results, and the content released since the start of the year is due to their efforts. In addition to that, in the coming months, you can expect the Seasonal Festivals to make a return, more community events planned, as well as community led content, and a few other exciting announcements we have planned.

Orbus is nearly 7 years old, which is quite a long time in the timeline of video games. The reason it still exists is because it has a passionate community of players and developers that are excited to continue to innovate in the VR space. We’re very much looking forward to what the future holds, and we look forward to many more years of Orbus to come.

Best,

Riley and Robert

[Jake_E]

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to say I’m very excited to be back and I am ready to serve this community once again! I have always been passionate about Orbus and I look forward to what the future holds for this game.

Please join me in giving a huge thank you to Riley for creating this game and sharing this dream of being part of the very first VRMMORPG! (If you have any fun memories or photos/videos to share we’d love to pass those along to Riley)

Also thank you to all of you, for continuing to support us. I am amazed at the resilience of this community. As long as there are players playing this game, then we will do our best to ensure that this game is still going. Our number one priority is to keep the servers up and running which means regular maintenance updates and a lot more involvement with the community. We plan on sharing any news and updates as we move forward so keep an eye out for that.

With that said, Robert and I will be in-game this Saturday (March 23rd) at 1:00PM CT to hang out and celebrate. We hope to see you there!

[Fianate_F]

This is amazing!!! Welcome back!

[Donna_H]

Awesome!!! Welcome back!

[Andrew_T1]

I have a video of treesus Christmas dance and his walk off as if to say you saw nothing. Welcome back.

[Gaiyle]

Welcome back, Jake! This is an exciting announcement.

[Jerald_N]

Riley thanks for everything you’ve done for this game and cant wait to see the future of the game…. I truly love this game.

[Michael_A2]

I only got to work with ya’ll for several months a few years ago but it was one of the most fun I’ve had on a project in the last 20 years or so of industry work. Glad things are chugging along over there!

[Ravenh]

Welcome Back jakeee, I’m glad to see you have come back to the game. The game has felt like it was missing something a purpose if you must ever since you left last May.

Now that you have come back will we have a roadmap for future content coming in the next quarters of the year? If the development team is considering adding more endgame content, please don’t do dungeons again we have been raiding Citidale for almost 3 years in hard mode. I get raids are a huge challenge and time commitment to develop, but a new raid series would bring a huge influx of og’s back to gear and see what they have missed with the game, in turn getting new players to see a more alive game and in turn not refunding.

But even if you are not bringing new high-end content back to Orbus, we are glad to have you back and the game feels complete again. We know you’re going to do wonders for the game can’t wait for orbusvr Rebirth /j !

[Shiki]

I’m really glad you decided to keep updating this game, hopefully there will be some new exciting content that will make me log back in!

[Kevin_S2]

Welcome back Jakee and I would like to thank Riley for his contributions to the creation of the community that we all love so much

[Yeetlord]

So… OrbusVR: Reborn: Reawakened is in development?

[Canadian]

buy me ethernet so i can get better please.

[Outlander_Robert]

Just wanted to make a note that I am working through the backlog of reports/ bug reports/ issues. I hope to get through it before the end of the weekend, but if you have an issue and have not received a reply by Monday and have a current issue please reach out again directly to me or Jake as some may fall through the cracks.

[Lexy]

Welcome back Jakeee!

[aeonblack6]

I haven’t even opened Orbus since 2019, but if there are devs actively working on the game and new content potentially coming out, it might be enough to rope me back in.

I’ll be honest, Reborn never did it for me. I miss the OG map, and always will for nostalgia reasons, but I actually can’t say what 5 years of development (no matter how active it has been during that time) in Reborn looks like. Maybe it’s worth me coming back just to check things out.

What I can say for sure is that during those 5 years, nothing has come to dethrone it as, as far as i’m concerned, still the only VRMMORPG that actually worked.

Here’s what I will offer as advice, not knowing at all what’s in game right now (but will maybe find out soon): full body models with kinematics and full body tracking will draw in people for the social side of things. If you can add in face or eye tracking as well, sick. That will help keep the game populated by people who want an alternative to something like VRChat. MMO’s are meant to be social, and VR is so well suited to that, take advantage of it. If you can implement FBT into the game in some meaningful way (a martial artist class, allowing melee characters to kick enemies away, basically acting as an immersive method to push, etc), great, but if not, at least doing something with it. It’s squandered potential.

There has perpetually always been a new, great VRMMORPG on the horizon, and not a single one of them has proven it’s worth. Be better, learn from their mistakes (and Orbus’ own) and people will return. Good luck guys!

[Rejinx]

Hey! This is cool to hear. I was one that jumped ship when Zenith released but now that Zenith has ceased work on its MMO I was worried that VRMMOs were all but dead for a while. It will be cool to jump back in Orbus after a few years break and I hope the new team can work to modernize this amazing, first of its kind game.

[kaitzo]

if money is running low, would you guys ever consider a paid premium subscription service for in-game content? it could be helpful to keeping the game online, and i would support it as long as it’s not pay-to-win.

it could be super basic, like $5/mo for an exclusive cape, and you could get a new one each month (or even just milestones honestly), and that shows how long you’ve supported the game for.

just an example of something off the top of my head that might help. obviously you guys have given us a ton of content for so little money to begin with, i think a lot of people would be happy to contribute a little more if it meant helping sustain everything that you/we have built together.