It’s difficult writing my own goodbye to this game since so much of my life and development was tied up in this game. Even if the memories are a bit foggier now, they’ll always stay in my heart as a treasure.
I haven’t been around in this game for as long as the few backers left, but I have stuck with and played Orbus regularly throughout its entire lifespan. This will be long and filled with my nostalgia.
Early Access
I picked this game up on steam with my Oculus CV1 headset on Dec 15, 2017. Reading back through the blog posts, I realize that I purchased the game day one early access when it released for everyone, not just the Kickstarters.
Even before the launch I had my eye on the game, but the Kickstarter was already over when I found out about it. I figured it was a good looking VR game at a time when VR was still in its infancy, back when locomotion practically did not exist in any VR game and if it did, it was rare.
Getting into the game was amazing! I almost never talked to people in the early days since I was, and still am, pretty shy around new people. Regardless, I quickly found out about the runemage and fell in love. This class was exactly what I wanted out of a VR RPG! Truly unlimited by the game, limited by your own skill alone. Quite quickly I got to enjoying the MSQ, random dungeons with randoms all just having a good time. Amazing…
One strong memory I recall is being in Highsteppe and looking at all the level 20 players hanging out with cool looking gear. At the time I was in the mid levels, around level 12 or so with undyed gear I got in the desert and thinking to myself. “Man I’m never gonna get to that level and look that cool…” Kinda funny looking back after 3100 hours that I ever thought I would quit the game before maxing my character…
I recall when talents were added and everyone was so hyped for the tradu wings (oldgame level 20 dungeons) and them being the new hardest content instead of aberrations. Then came updated Highsteppe and the Necropolar to complete the MSQ.
After raids were introduced, I remember hopping between small guilds until I eventually joined Carnage to be able to consistently get a shot at Expert raids… Only ever beat boss 5 once.
I would continue power leveling people’s classes with dot spread in the raid and helping people through Chudkatet for the MSQ while the announcement of Reborn slowly bled the playerbase down to single digits.
Reborn Era
Then came the next era of Orbus where I remember most of my mage friends quitting over the dot spread nerf and then again over the triplicity nerf. But in losing old friends, I also gained so many new ones!
My first few months of Reborn were rough it felt like all the max level gear I grinded for weekly was worthless since the lowest level stick enemies right out front the gates dropped better gear at level 20. But I adapted to the new dungeons and loved figuring out mechanics (Gorgon stumped us Carnage members for the longest time… An embarrassingly long time considering the name.)
Then came the shard level increases from 10 to 15. This was around the time I started to grow apart from Carnage despite being in their content pushing group. It used to frustrate me to no end that some random, no name Reborn guild was so easily one upping us in pushing to run 15s. Then… since I was already getting kinda sick of the stuffy attitude of Carnage, as a content pusher at least (the rest of the members were great). I decided to apply to that Reborn guild.
I was run through a 15 so easily despite struggling to tank shards up to 13 as a warrior! It was all so laid back, welcoming, and much more fun that I eventually decided to say my goodbyes to Carnage, and thus my journey as an Elysium member began.
It was easy to get in since I was already an accomplished player and I clicked with the leaders. The vibes were so much better, that I never regretted my choice. Quite quickly, I found myself leading a content pushing group, or in this case, a speedrun group, once again.
My favorite memories were doing random 15 shards with my handpicked squad of players and goofing off in-between callouts as we topped the Armory shard leaderboards. Since I don’t remember everyone who participated, I will refrain from naming. But easily my favorite shard was when our group did a 15 unprepared mines with over 20 minutes remaining. It was like 1-3 AM for me and I was losing my mind!
Once Citadel HM was released and nobody was getting close to beating it, I remember Scott adding me to his handpicked team of players to finally take Sephotep down! This was my first time ever pushing the hardest content in a game to get a world first clear along with the first ever +7 drop. I will forever cherish my memories of those raids and all the players there who were cracked out their mind. <3 to all of them.
Then… there wasn’t any real content for me to push anymore and I stopped getting on so regularly. Sure Elysium attempted a day 1 cove 15 (and got softlocked :P). But we accomplished all we wanted to do. From then until a few weeks ago. I only sporadically got on the game to do a couple of shards, maybe a raid, lounge around Highsteppe for a bit, and then call it quits for the day. After all, what do you do when you’ve maxed out gear for your main class as someone who heavily focused on that gameplay?
The End of the Past 8 Years.
I’ve definitely left out a majority of my experience in this game. Of every little thing i did, every person I met, every inane conversation. But for me? This game was always about that social aspect, far more so than any other game I’ve played.
As with all great things, it must eventually come to an end, no matter how sad it makes us. Despite all the ups and downs, and despite all of the cursing to Riley, I couldn’t have spent my past 8 years any better than with this community.
I hope that when the next hit game in the VRMMO genre happens, the one that could have truly rivaled Orbus… I hope to see you all there for potentially another 8 years.