''Battlestar Galactica Online'' was a browser-based massively multiplayer online game (MMO) loosely based on the 2004 television series ''
Battlestar Galactica''. Released in open beta on February 8, 2011, it was developed by
Bigpoint Games
Bigpoint GmbH is a German video game developer. The company develops stand-alone browser-based games as well as social network games. Bigpoint has over 200 million registered users (announced in June 2011). Bigpoint.com states that 337,104,419 p ...
and Artplant using the
Unity game engine
Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a Mac OS X game engine. The engine has since been gradually extended to support a var ...
for the game client in the browser. The game server was written in
Erlang. In less than three months of release, the game surpassed two million registered users.
Bigpoint announced in early January 2019 that the game servers would be closed at the end of the month, and the game permanently shut down in the early morning hours of February 1, 2019.
[http://view.newsletter.bigpoint.com/?qs=5a6cf1366334ce1f60129e10351bc4357f905f6f9169725b7dbf7dca409155b67c2679d610fcaf1a338253d9bb0b188bc83be33d2c38efffe455d03c8419957def01ab620fae6f702f3b8a019934b3e6]
Gameplay
Battlestar Galactica Online was a space-based flight-combat game set in the
Battlestar Galactica universe, in which the player took the role of a pilot. A player could select to be either a Colonial (human) or
Cylon (cyborg) pilot upon registration, after which the player was locked into that side. Multiple log-ins were possible, allowing players to create multiple pilots of both factions. The game was a browser-based
MMO, though it had an upper limit on the number of players that could be in one sector at a time. Battles could take place between hundreds of pilots at once.
Once registered, the player completed an in-game
tutorial
A tutorial, in education, is a method of transferring knowledge and may be used as a part of a learning process. More interactive and specific than a book or a lecture, a tutorial seeks to teach by example and supply the information to complete ...
,
during which the plot of the game is shown. After completing the tutorial a player would enter the game at their home sector. The game comprised various sectors that could be jumped into, and both sides could win control of individual sectors. Players could also fight each other in "battlespace", a small area separate from the sectors designed for small scale pilot vs. pilot engagements.
Ships were arranged into four main types: Interceptor, Assault, Command, and Multi-role. These were then subdivided into three classes: Strikes, Escorts, and Lines. A fourth class, Capital Ships, also existed and consisted of Carriers,
Battlestars and Basestars.
There were also stationary game features such as "outposts" and "platforms" which could be targeted, and mining ships could also be created that the other side could attack. Players achieving points could see their scores through the leaderboard and '
level up', with the game having no defined ending. Ships had to be bought, and were unlocked for purchase as the player levelled up.
Players could either purchase ships and weapons with virtual currency they bought from Bigpoint, or "
grind
A blade's grind is its cross-sectional shape in a plane normal to the edge. Grind differs from blade profile, which is the blade's cross-sectional shape in the plane containing the blade's edge and the centre contour of the blade's back ( ...
" in-game to collect enough points and merits to buy and equip their ships.
References
External links
*
You can pilot a Battlestar in Battlestar Galactica Online right now!PC Gamer April 14, 2011
Battlestar Galactica Online passes one million player milestoneMassively April 15, 2011
{{Portal bar, Video games
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games
2011 video games
Battlestar Galactica
MacOS games
Space combat simulators
Video games based on television series
Space massively multiplayer online role-playing games
Persistent worlds
Video games developed in Germany
Windows games
Inactive massively multiplayer online games
Bigpoint games
Artplant games