Official SE5 release date announced - September 12

[Ed Kolis]

http://www.strategyfirst.com/press/DisplayArticle.asp?sLanguageCode=EN&iArticleID=329 6
Yeah, it's not August, but it's not that far off anyway! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif
Though I wish the boxart was a bit more "glowy space combat" and less "brooding Jraenar infantry", I guess the boxart doesn't matter, it's what's inside that counts, right? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Ragnarok-X]

The game is pretty cheap imho.

edit: that will probably mean 2-3 more weeks coding, afterwards the game will go gold which usually 3-4 weeks.
Is 3 weeks enough to make the game worthwhile ? im curious http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Captain Kwok]

Who is saying the game isn't worthwhile now?

$40 is an excellent value.

[Tampa_Gamer]

I would also keep in mind (based on his history with SE4) that Aaron is always committed to fixing bugs and adding player-suggested improvements well after the usual two month patch window of most other games. By releasing in September, instead of trying to aim for a December release of the holy grail (e.g. a bugless game), the fans benefit from being able to suggest improvements and provide feedback.

[Ragnarok-X]

Tampa_Gamer said:
I would also keep in mind (based on his history with SE4) that Aaron is always committed to fixing bugs and adding player-suggested improvements well after the usual two month patch window of most other games. By releasing in September, instead of trying to aim for a December release of the holy grail (e.g. a bugless game), the fans benefit from being able to suggest improvements and provide feedback.



This is dead argument. I would rather have a bugfree game, then a bug-filled (or even only with occasional bugs) game 3 months earlier. Its easy, releasing a bugged game earlier will allow the producer to earn money "earlier". Since a decent game usually earns you a load of $$$ you not only win a lot on interests, but "patching" will require less work than a "full" day of coding for a proper release.
There are so many examples of this...MoO3, Civ4, HoMM5, Titan Quest etc ++
In response to your "the fans can ask for suggestions" thingy -> what exactly makes it different, if the fans ask for support in september or december :p

[Phoenix-D]

Captain Kwok said:
Who is saying the game isn't worthwhile now?

$40 is an excellent value.



There have been rumblings from beta testers that SE:V isn't 'done'. Without much detail.

As for a publisher-pushed release date- I doubt it. I don't trust SF, but they'd have more to gain from a delay. Publishers LOVE November/December releases, for example..unless perhaps they thought SE:V would get lost in the flood.

[Captain Kwok]

I recall SFI waited to release SE:IV Deluxe in stores after December for that reason.

[Saber Cherry]

Ragnarok-X said:
There are so many examples of this...MoO3, Civ4, HoMM5, Titan Quest etc ++



Titan Quest is already in the "Halls of Shame", I see http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That's not really fair, though, considering that half of it works half the time, and that 25% is very fun. For some reason, people (probably nVidia users) seem very willing to forgive/defend Civ4... not me, though.

Games get reviewed at release. If a 'C' game at release is patched a month later to be an 'A' game, it will still eternally have 'C' reviews, and have sold like a 'C' game for the first month... and forever after, because in month 2, people will still see 'C' reviews. I understand why people ship an F- piece of trash, and patch it later so it won't delete your registry anymore... since in another 2 months, it would basically be an F- piece of trash with slightly more obsolete graphics. But I don't understand why people spend years developing an 'A' game, and ship it 2 months early as a 'B-' game.

Not to say this is happening here; I have no idea, and I'm not commenting on Space Empires (though I do wonder if GalCiv2 is stable yet). But in general, this whole concept of "faster and brokener" that plagues computer games is utterly baffling to me, since it is so obviously idiotic and self-defeating. Even the excuse 'I thought it was done' is obsolete in elementary school, when you find out that turning in a test as soon as you have scrawled something by every question does not magically grant you a better score than people who take time to make sure the answers are right.

[Fyron]

I still have some graphics issues with Civ4 on my ATI card. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

For some reason Civ4 tends to crash to the desktop during wonder movies. Recently however I've had two consecutive occasions where, right after the game zoomed in on a city where I'd just built the Pyramids, it crashed my entire system and gave me a weird kind of BSoD I'd never seen before. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Ah well. The rest of the game is OK though IMO http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Tim Brooks]

I would also keep in mind (based on his history with SE4) that Aaron is always committed to fixing bugs and adding player-suggested improvements well after the usual two month patch window of most other games. By releasing in September, instead of trying to aim for a December release of the holy grail (e.g. a bugless game), the fans benefit from being able to suggest improvements and provide feedback.



I hope you are correct. But, there are two things that could possibly work against this:

1. It takes two for patches. Both the developer and the publisher must support the game. Aaron wanting to update the product doesn't work if SF won't allow it. And SF has a record of not supporting releases for long. Look at JA and many of their other titles. They are still selling half completed games from 3-4 years ago.

2. Aaron is no longer an independent contractor and now, more than ever, not in control of his game. Malfador is now SF.

[Xrati]

Face up to the times! MONEY / GREED drives just about every business decision these days. Even if Arron is not ready to release SEV there will be pressures by SF to get it out. All business's have their "profit schedule" for the end of the year business projections. You as a consumer, will never know "what goes on behind closed doors" when it comes to product releases. I've seen companies put garabage out, knowing that they'd have to rework the product, just to meet their promised delivery date. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Be careful of what you ask for, you may just get it!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

[DarkHorse]

You can wait until the year 2047 and there will still be bugs; every game ships with bugs. There are millions of possible computer configurations out there, and it's impossible to thoroughly test them all. If you want homogenized hardware, buy a Mac and enjoy the two or three games that are available for it.

Personally, I'm drooling over fully scriptable AI. I can't wait to start tinkering...

[Ragnarok-X]

DarkHorse said:
You can wait until the year 2047 and there will still be bugs; every game ships with bugs. There are millions of possible computer configurations out there, and it's impossible to thoroughly test them all. If you want homogenized hardware, buy a Mac and enjoy the two or three games that are available for it.

Personally, I'm drooling over fully scriptable AI. I can't wait to start tinkering...



I seriously hope you dont want to argue over bugs. If you compare todays games with the ones from 10 years ago, you will see a rise in bug/problems within the hundreds %. And most of the bugs we are talking about are NOT, i repeat NOT, referring to system/setup, but rather a failure in the GAME itself.

[Fyron]

Of course, the games of 10 years ago were much less complex beasts... But even 10 years ago there were tons of games knowingly shipped with bugs. There was never this utopian ideal of bug-free game shipping at any point in history.

[Ragnarok-X]

Imperator Fyron said:
Of course, the games of 10 years ago were much less complex beasts... But even 10 years ago there were tons of games knowingly shipped with bugs. There was never this utopian ideal of bug-free game shipping at any point in history.



Examples ? I cant imagine a single decent game from 10 years ago which, in relation, was as bugged as todays games.
And even though games get more complex (I dont think todays game are more complex, only from a graphical point of view), today a game has much more development time (3-4 years today, 1-2 years 10 years ago?) AND ***much*** more development game and progressivly more developers.

Face it, the industry is milking us/their customers. Every recent game had patches coming out not even a WEEK after the game was available in retail.
10 years ago, i can barely imagine patches at all (compared to today), and even if there were patched, there were definitly no game-breaking bugs/problems. Today every major game is rushed and released bug, there is no doubt about it.

[Phoenix-D]

Well, lets see..aside from the DOS configuration nightmares, which meant some games never really would work, you had:

1998: Extreme PaintBrawl!: shiped with NO AI. Players often got caught on geometry. Was given *two weeks* coding time, start to finish.

1997: Streets of Simcity: So badly coded the framerate dropped to single-digits when more than one car was on-screen

1995: Mechwarrior 2. Some verions released without a functioning mechlab (equivilent: if SE4's ship-design screen didn't work). Many problems with joysticks, crashes under Windows 95, hanging on exit, etc.

And that's just from a 5 minute search.

EDIT: a search of Google Groups gives people *****ing about "patch a day" syndrome back in 1997, as well..oh, and the infamous tendancy of patches to make your saved games not work.

Fallout is getting to that age as well, and it has quite the slew of bugs.

[ToddT]

I guess known of these will count as decent games, but i can name a few and interestingly the first 3 all tied to windows. Serria's SpaceBucks only need one patch but with out that patch game could not be finished, sierra's outpost (the first one) Shipped incomplete had patches that followed, certain aspects of game where still broken.
Battlecrusier3000......... any way i currently have over 100 games in my closet going as for back as 15 years.
every that went by problems became more common. they increases with Windows. the more lines of code you have in a program more potential for problems, games having been getting larger, now run primary run in windows (itself a source of game issues) window pacthes have broken games. graphics is a source of problems because they are now render objects, their not static images.
Some bugs that may cause serious issues may only show up in limited situations, may be known about but have yet to be isolated (while windows itself not game' its MS practice to ship a buggy product get jump on possible competition.The First release of windows 95, it had a known memory leak, patch made it 95a, patch was even ready at time 95 hit the shelves)
showed a game ship with major bugs no, but i would truly be surprised if there where none, and i personally know of case where testers tried to conceal a bug from the game creators, in order to exploit it later.(that attempt failed in part because they couldn't keep their mouths shut)
Some bugs literally nothing more then a single value being entered wrong, but causing an issue some where else, that has no direct connection to it.
I remember a an assembly program i had to create in electronics class it was short had only a sinlge error, but more time to find it then create the program in the first place, reason program essentially erased everything from just above the error to the end of program. the problem was in how it was entered, but since that was gone.....
minor bugs i would complain about biggies yeah those should be fixed be fore release, and probably will.
most of the bugs in SEIV that i'm aware of have not caused me to much grief

[Will]

Ragnarok-X said:
Every recent game had patches coming out not even a WEEK after the game was available in retail.
10 years ago, i can barely imagine patches at all (compared to today), and even if there were patched, there were definitly no game-breaking bugs/problems. Today every major game is rushed and released bug, there is no doubt about it.

To be fair here, one week after retail release does not equal one week developer time. To go Gold, the situation would generally go something like so (completely making up amount of time here, but 4 weeks sounds very reasonable to me): 28 days before release, software is frozen; 26 days before, everything is packaged together for easy installation; 25 days before, you start pressing discs and stuffing boxes; 7-10 days before, you load up trucks and ship to distribution centers/stores; then the game is released in retail everywhere at the same time. That leaves developers with about 3 weeks of time to continue testing, bug squashing, and planning new features to either make it into patches, or expansion packs. So patches coming a week after retail release could very well represent another month of developer testing.

As for patches, I see SF as taking advantage of the precedent set in SEIV. If they want to keep Aaron on as one of their developers (since the SE series is a labor of love; why else work on it for over a decade, largely by himself?), they will likely support patches through Spring '07 (May?), but then they will probably want a Classic/Gold split or "Expansion Pack". That could come around Summer '07 (August?), and then we have another period of patches working up through Winter '08 (March?). I could also see SF hiring some developers to create "official" mods for the game. User mods will still be big in the core fan community, but it would be hard for hobbyist modders to top an experienced design team working full time on a mod (and one that is officially pushed by the publisher, at that). I fully expect that SF will eventually hire a game designer, a writer, and a few modelers, and make a mod that is to SEV as Counter-Strike is to Halflife. New races with new descriptions and backstories, new technology trees, possibly unique to each race, and a slew of pre-made scenarios.

[Ragnarok-X]

People, it wont help you naming one bugged game for all 3 years. I was explicitly asking for TOP games.
Top as in 2005/2006 = Civ, Homm, TQ, Sacred, Vampire Bloodlines etc ++.
EVERY game (with a *FEW* exceptions, usually shooters) these days is bugged.


Will said:
To be fair here, one week after retail release does not equal one week developer time. To go Gold, the situation would generally go something like so (completely making up amount of time here, but 4 weeks sounds very reasonable to me): 28 days before release, software is frozen; 26 days before, everything is packaged together for easy installation; 25 days before, you start pressing discs and stuffing boxes; 7-10 days before, you load up trucks and ship to distribution centers/stores; then the game is released in retail everywhere at the same time. That leaves developers with about 3 weeks of time to continue testing, bug squashing, and planning new features to either make it into patches, or expansion packs. So patches coming a week after retail release could very well represent another month of developer testing.



No offense, but what exactly is your point here ? Games shouldnt be pressed if they are bugged. Thats an easy point imho. Developers/Sellers are playing with your money, easy as it is.
Would you buy a car whichs brakes arent working, in mind "oh well they will work in 2 weeks.".
Or maybe "oh well they MAY work in 2 weeks" ?

There is no way to argue about that.

[Captain Kwok]

I agree for the most part with Ragnarok on this one. Games these days are more "bugged" than the past and it is partly due to cutting expenditures and rushing titles. Although I will also contend that the games are much more complex and have to be able to run on some many different system configurations that it will be difficult, if impossible, to achieve bug-free releases when releasing to the mass market. Perhaps in this case an open-beta could help. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[DarkHorse]

Would you buy a car whichs brakes arent working, in mind "oh well they will work in 2 weeks.".
Or maybe "oh well they MAY work in 2 weeks" ?

There is no way to argue about that.



You've obviously never had a car recalled.

[ToddT]

funny i named 3, you references past 10 years, the First comand and conqueror game had several issues patched after release, one bug actully allowed a player to place a building anywher on the map, well beyond ones on base.
sevearal other of the C&C games also had patches, just because you may not haave problem with game doesn't mean its bug free. just means you have not don anything to trigger it.
i remember a game near the end a certain spot, would be termeminal , would load a previous save and it would still happen, called it in gave the info and that it repeated. believe it or not they called back an told me the couldn't reproduce it, didn't surprise, since then i had learned the dead spot was random. When you first entered area was when it set, so if your save was before that, the spot would move, after that it was fixed, so if what you needed was not affected by it you would never know it was there.

Hmm TOP games only based on the names you listed that rules out SE

[Phoenix-D]

Ragnarok-X said:
People, it wont help you naming one bugged game for all 3 years. I was explicitly asking for TOP games.
Top as in 2005/2006 = Civ, Homm, TQ, Sacred, Vampire Bloodlines etc ++.
EVERY game (with a *FEW* exceptions, usually shooters) these days is bugged.




Dude, I could do this all day. All I did was grab some quick examples.

Are you seriously arguing that Mechwarrior 2 and Quake weren't top games? Because they were both bugged. Fallout might not be considered one based on sales, but it is incredibly favored by the players. Also bugged.

X-Com had a fun little bug where it'd give you all flares to defend your base, and a slew of others.

How about Civilization 2? Auto-settlers would hang the system, using help would sometimes crash the game, lockups under high windows resolutions, AI problems, problems scrolling between cities, autobuild issues, unit abilites that didn't work, population that would reset to zero when it got too high, incorrect turn date tracking, sound card related crashes, and more.

Command and Conquer Red Alert: Patched up to version 1.08. Can't access the patch list, but I know 4 player multiplayer was added in a patch.

HOMM:2 - can't find a patch list but a search turns up numerous bug complaints and crashes, including the choice comment from someone playing a port: he played it to level 9, it crashed twice, and he was VERY PLEASED since it was much more stable than the PC version..

Is that enough examples yet? The only reason to claim older games weren't buggy is nostalgia. Yeah, some of the newer ones are worse than some of the older ones, but it works the other way around as well.

[Xrati]

Keep in mind that there is a big difference between a game being released with bugs as compared to a game that has hardware conflicts. With all the vendors out there trying to keep from violating patent laws they are force to "THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif which forces a patch to attempt a fix. ANY game that has been properly playtested should be relativly free of (large) bugs. There is always going to be someone who'll tinker with a game and find bugs. That's because you just can't determine what everyone will end up doing with a game engine. Those are really the people you'd like to have as playtesters. I guess it's like a version of the ink spots. Everyone will see something different/

I believe that SEV has a good group of playtesters and will be released relativly bug free. When you expand the amount of people that get introduced to the game there will be bugs found and patches made for them. Life goes on!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Ragnarok-X]

Phoenix-D said:

Dude, I could do this all day. All I did was grab some quick examples.

Are you seriously arguing that Mechwarrior 2 and Quake weren't top games? Because they were both bugged. Fallout might not be considered one based on sales, but it is incredibly favored by the players. Also bugged.

X-Com had a fun little bug where it'd give you all flares to defend your base, and a slew of others.

How about Civilization 2? Auto-settlers would hang the system, using help would sometimes crash the game, lockups under high windows resolutions, AI problems, problems scrolling between cities, autobuild issues, unit abilites that didn't work, population that would reset to zero when it got too high, incorrect turn date tracking, sound card related crashes, and more.

Command and Conquer Red Alert: Patched up to version 1.08. Can't access the patch list, but I know 4 player multiplayer was added in a patch.

HOMM:2 - can't find a patch list but a search turns up numerous bug complaints and crashes, including the choice comment from someone playing a port: he played it to level 9, it crashed twice, and he was VERY PLEASED since it was much more stable than the PC version..

Is that enough examples yet? The only reason to claim older games weren't buggy is nostalgia. Yeah, some of the newer ones are worse than some of the older ones, but it works the other way around as well.



You should consider the amount of money involved in this. A current game has a budget *several* times higher than the budget of our all beloved oldies.
All of the bugs you mentioned i cant remember. I have played every game from your list, and i dont remember patching at all, especially not to make a game work at all. Of course they are a few things, like the well known fallout, which had plently of bugs. Then again, it is VERY complex, and open. At that time, the industry was not "perfect" enough for such stuff.
Those days i wasnt even able to patch since i didnt had internet and i believe there were many who hadnt.

Just FYI, the games you mentioned were of the top games, but they werent released within a year. You are merely naming a few blockbusters, released over *several* years. As of now, ***every*** major game is usually bugged, and thats considering the market for computergames has grown by a LOT, and with it, the money involved.


Oh, and just as a sidenote, how comes PC-games are bugged all over, while console games usually (99%) arent ? I tell you why: The developer knows pc games can be patched, while console games cant.
So he takes the RISK of distributing BUGGED software by PURPOSE, because it will mean a win in both time, and logically, money.
Your money, and my money.
I seriously dont understand your point of view. You appear to find it okay to buy broken stuff. If so, would you like buying my car ?

[Fyron]

Rag-X, you are splitting hairs here... It doesn't matter if the random samples are all in the same year or not. There were fewer games released each year 10 years ago than today, so how is this requirement even relevant?

Forgetting about bugs is just more evidence pointing to nostalgia. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif I remember a lot of bugs in Civ2 that either required patches, or were never fixed.

Console games have always had plenty of bugs. It's a myth that they are 99% bug-free. With a console game, features tend to be dropped wholesale to make the deadline, rather than be left in slightly buggy, since they can't be patched or improved in an expansion.

Also, P-D never implied he likes buying broken things, just that games in the past were no less broken than today.

[Phoenix-D]

..Rag. Do I need to go through and do EVERY released game with a list of bugs, or what? I'm not aruging that bugs aren't a bad thing, only that your perception of older games having drasticlly fewer bugs isn't right.

Console games have bugs as well, just not as much- and a lot of the difference is directly due to the fact that a console has ONE set of hardware, which the dev gets more or less direct access to.

EDIT: and you're changing your argument.
"Examples ? I cant imagine a single decent game from 10 years ago which, in relation, was as bugged as todays games."

Now, unless you want to take the buggiest of today's games unless the LEAST bugs of 10 years ago, that doesn't hold water; I've given you plenty of examples to show that.

And with that I'm out.

[Will]

Tell a strapping young developer of 20 years to work on a game, and turn it in when it is done and free of bugs, and he will die of old age before submitting for distribution. And what that developer leaves behind will still have bugs.

And re: console games supposedly having fewer bugs. Consoles all have the exact same hardware, with the exact same OS configuration, with the exact same drivers. The majority of big showstopper bugs for PC games only affects a few players, and can often be fixed by uninstalling, upgrading drivers and libraries (DirectX/OpenGL), then reinstalling. But gameplay bugs will always exist, in console and PC games. Law of diminishing returns says eventually you will have to release the game, otherwise you will never recover the costs of making the game in the first place; that's why we will never see a bug-free game worth playing.





(and by worth playing, I mean a tic-tac-toe game, where the game has very few numbers of states that can easily and quickly be enumerated, doesn't count)

[Ruatha]

I remember my PC Zone magazine that arrived each month in the later part of the 80:s and the 90:s, eventually it started having floppys and later on CD:s on the cover.
After a while they had two floppies, one with patches and one with demos. The Cd always had a patch section.

About cars.. I have my car at service every year, sometimes to fix bugs ("This is a known bug with this car, the contact is substandard and often glitch", etc"

[LordAxel]

Every game wil have a bug the main issue appears to be they shouldnt be shipped with major bugs.
I mean i still dont know how they ever shipped games like Deadlock 2 that wouldnt even run without a patch

[Azselendor]

Most of the time, it's a very easy decision to make. It's simply because they don't care.

[Renegade 13]

Ragnarok-X said:
Would you buy a car whichs brakes arent working, in mind "oh well they will work in 2 weeks.".
Or maybe "oh well they MAY work in 2 weeks" ?

There is no way to argue about that.

Big problem with your analogy; vehicles are required to be as "bug-free" as humanly possible because your safety (and life) depend on it! Your life won't hang in the balance if a game has a few bugs, it will if your car does http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Comparing the auto industry with the PC Gaming industry is like comparing a White Dwarf star to a supernova http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Ragnarok-X]

Oh well, i have some more arguments at hand but i feel i will be misunderstood because of wrong grammar and/or wording.

At any rate, if you think its okay to buy games or stuff in general which is broken, do so. I simply wont, easy as it is.
And, even considering the amount of critism i got, i cant understand your point of view at all. You are spending your money for stuff that is mostly not working and you think thats fine ? weird.

Anyways, one more thing. You all like the point "oi so many systems, its very hard to make a game bug free".

But you obviously oversee i was clearly referring to GAME bugs, bugs within the code who have absolutly *NO* reference to a system setup. You like the bugs of Civ2 ? Fine, those are GAMEPLAY bugs, within the game, with absolutly no corespondence to a potential different setup.
That also negates the point of "consoles are always the same", because even if they are its not important since the bugs i am talking about are created not by graphical issues (which is usually the problem with hardware-based bugs) but gameplay bugs.
And, once again, these days almost every major game is retailed, with a patch or several patches following close after. Face it: The customer is being played with.,

Renegade: The reason i chose car vs game is easy. Because of the money. For the standart 16 year old guy a game is pretty expensive, as is a car for a 30 year old guy. I can as well just take a flat screen tv, that pair of inliners or potentially even your new mobile phones with loads of functions.
The gaming industry was a niche market years ago, but is more and more moving towards the mainstream. With this, the amount of money involved grows (Ubisoft, 60% more gain this year, anyone?), and so the Industry more and more moves towards "we want easy money, lets arse the customer", just like every other major player.

[Xrati]

This probably leads to the real reason that home PC game sales have been declining in the last couple of years, drawing attention to the console games. I just don't believe that games are playtested well enough these days as to trap bugs before it is released. OR else all the people who purchase the games are considered the 'playtesters.' http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Fyron]

Ragnarok-X said:
At any rate, if you think its okay to buy games or stuff in general which is broken, do so.

The arguments I've read seem to have been to the effect of "games today are not much more bugged than in the past," not "we like buying buggy products." Nobody likes buying buggy products, but that is how it is, so we have to make do.

That also negates the point of "consoles are always the same"...

No it doesn't. Console games require an order of magnitude less testing time on graphical/system config issues, which means more time to test other things (or faster time-to-market).

[Renegade 13]

Ragnarok-X said:
Renegade: The reason i chose car vs game is easy. Because of the money. For the standart 16 year old guy a game is pretty expensive, as is a car for a 30 year old guy. I can as well just take a flat screen tv, that pair of inliners or potentially even your new mobile phones with loads of functions.

I can understand why you chose the example you did, but I just don't think it was a very good comparison. Perhaps a better comparison would be Game vs. Book. If a game is buggy and you can't really play it, it's similar to buying a book that's missing a few pages here or there. I think that works well as a good comparison. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Dizzy]

Well, I can tell you right now it wont sell into that crossover crowd if thats the way the box art looks. It's completely stupid! No one's gonna buy that lizard in a monk robe game!

They shoulda put a hot terran chick with tits and a space ship on the front. Tits and space ships sell. Lizards in monk robes dont.

[dogscoff]

They shoulda put a hot terran chick with tits and a space ship on the front. Tits and space ships sell. Lizards in monk robes dont.



Dizzy wins the "tell it like it is prize." This week's prize is a spaceship. With tits.

[Caduceus]

dogscoff said:
Dizzy wins the "tell it like it is prize." This week's prize is a spaceship. With tits.



Reminds me a bit of this comic (http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip186.html) .

[capnq]

Imperator Fyron said: The arguments I've read seem to have been to the effect of "games today are not much more bugged than in the past," not "we like buying buggy products." Nobody likes buying buggy products, but that is how it is, so we have to make do.

I think that's Rag-X's point though. If people stopped buying shoddy products, companies would have a financial incentive to improve quality. There just aren't enough people willing to pay for quality.

It's like the old saying: "Fast. Cheap. Good. Pick two." Enough people pick "fast & cheap" to keep the shovelware coming.

[Tampa_Gamer]

Tim Brooks said:
I hope you are correct. But, there are two things that could possibly work against this:

1. It takes two for patches. Both the developer and the publisher must support the game. Aaron wanting to update the product doesn't work if SF won't allow it. And SF has a record of not supporting releases for long. Look at JA and many of their other titles. They are still selling half completed games from 3-4 years ago.

2. Aaron is no longer an independent contractor and now, more than ever, not in control of his game. Malfador is now SF.



Tim - you are absolutely correct. It was his dedication to the fans by continually patching and adding things to SE4 that has partly kept me involved with the series since 2000 (and of course the inherent fun in modding and relationships with other fans over the years). It's funny how patches with mostly bug fixes and some new features make you want to play certain games again. Typically, anytime a new patch comes out for a game I will typically give it a whirl again, even for some that I shelved long ago.

I know that when confronted with the patch question on a chat as recently as this weekend, Aaron confirmed his intent to patch SE5 for a very long time (one part of the equation as you put it). However, if SF does not support Aaron in his wishes, then I don't doubt the SE series will die an untimely death.

[bearclaw]

I hope SEV is a big success, because I think Aaron deserves it with his dedication and superior game concept.

I'm eager for the game because SE games are all I play.

I'm looking forward to playing games with all you guys in the future because this is by far, the best online community I've ever been a part of.

Even if the game is only a a mediocre success and only draws in a relatively small number of new people, I have no doubt in my mind that Aaron will continue to provide us all with the same level of commitment he has shown us all over these many many years.

Bugs in games are unfortunate, but inevitable because of the climate that PC games have evolved into. Wish it wasn't so, but it is. I'll be lined up at my local PC game store on Sept 12 to pick up my copy regardless.

bugs or no, I feel that because of our enthusiasm and Aaron's dedication, SE isn't going away anytime soon.

[Ragnarok-X]

Renegade 13 said:I can understand why you chose the example you did, but I just don't think it was a very good comparison. Perhaps a better comparison would be Game vs. Book. If a game is buggy and you can't really play it, it's similar to buying a book that's missing a few pages here or there. I think that works well as a good comparison. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif



Hey,
okay, i 100% percent agree with you. Your example is DEFINITLY way better. Thanks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[rdouglass]

There has never been any computer software that has been released without bugs. There has never been any computer hardware that has been released without bugs.

Period.

Here's some of Intel's latest known hardware errors and they seem to have no intention of fixing.
http://geek.com/news/geeknews/2006Jan/bch20060123034350.htm
They are just an example of why I say "no hardwarew or software is bug free".

[ZeroAdunn]

Ragnorak: Everybody else here is pointing out examples of how games in the past have been just as bugged as modern games, or how it isn't just games that are released with "bugs."

Could you please make references to the games that have these horrible game destroying bugs you are referring too?

[DarkAnt]

Bungie made a game that would reformat your hard drive. I forget what it was called, it was some version of myst I think. Anyway, that would not only ruin that game, but ruin all my other games installed.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I once made a bugless 'Guess-my-number' program.

It even had two difficulty levels.

[atari_eric]

So it releases... after my birthday. Swell.

[Parasite]

Any word yet on Preordering SEV? I don't really care about what serial number of disk I get, but I would like to run it soonest!

[Ragnarok-X]

ZeroAdunn said:
Ragnorak: Everybody else here is pointing out examples of how games in the past have been just as bugged as modern games, or how it isn't just games that are released with "bugs."

Could you please make references to the games that have these horrible game destroying bugs you are referring too?



Hey, i stated a load of current games

- Sacred, unpatched crashing
- Titan Quest, unpatched slowdown crashing
- Civ 4, unpatched, first patch was released by fans, MemLeak
- Oblivion, beta patch after 4 weeks, Graphic Issues. Localization problems (big one) apart from US-release
- Rise of Legends, unpatched / Memory Leak

Can continue this list for the last 4 years if you like it.

[Wade]

-----So, I assume that SEV is approaching it's final release form.

[ZeroAdunn]

Now Ragnorak, how are those bugs any worse then bugs in the past? I mean, I can think of hundreds of games with bugs that are just as bad that were released over my life time. Hell, The Legend of Zelda: Links awakening had a bug were sometimes it would crash and when you restarted the game all the castles would be marked as completed so you couldn't finish your saved game and that was on the NES.

[StarJack]

Like a lot of folks I've been waiting on this on a long time. Here's hoping the coding is better than the game box graphics!

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Indubitally. Or something.

[baby_arm]

According to Shack News (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/43249), SE5 is out on Tuesday. Either they're a bit confused or they know something we don't. My guess is the former.

[Tampa_Gamer]

baby_arm - My guess is they got their info from the "Wargamer" website. Which still has the incorrect date of 8/12 instead of 9/12.

[Wade]

Strategy First states that SEV is due out in late September. http://www.strategyfirst.com/press/DisplayArticle.asp?sLanguageCode=EN&iArticleID=329 8

"Strategy First will be hosting various Contests, with promotions and prizes to play for. Upcoming Contests include: Best Game Modification (Mod) Contest, Best Fan Site Contest, and a Space Empires Trivia Contest. More information on these contests will be coming your way soon.

Please also stay tuned for the first edition to the Space Empires Dedicated Newsletter which will be out September, 2006.

Space Empires V is due to be released late September, 2006. Is rated E for Everyone by ESRB. For more info on Space Empires V please visit: http://www.strategyfirst.com/en/games/SpaceEmpiresV/" (http://www.strategyfirst.com/en/games/SpaceEmpiresV/)

[Possum]

Woohoo! Official release date set; quick, let's have a long, involved argument about bugs in games!

[Atrocities]

Remember that when most anticipated sequels to loved games come out, they are immediately trashed, bashed, *****ed about, hated, despised, thrown out, returned, and generally do improve over time as a following develops. Keep in mind that when SE IV was released it was continually updated with patches and new features.

[Gandalf Parker]

There is no way it will match everyones idea of what it should be. And no one here can possibly give it a fair shake as if they were a newbie seeing it for the first time. So yes, there will probably be more gripes than praise at the beginning.

The test will be..
do we delete it or keep in on the machine? Do we keep playing it even with the gripes? Do we make suggestions and wait for patches?

For me personally, unless its so bad that I delete it then I think I will probably bite my toungue on anything I dont like at first. Try to give other people a chance to judge it on their own. Especially in outside forums.
Just IMHO

Gandalf Parker

[Q]

If you find bugs then I see no reason to remain silent as it will help to improve the game.
SE IV had a few very nasty bugs when it was released as far as I remember and I am willing to tolerate them in the beginning.
For me there are two key points that will decide if I switch from SE IV to SE V:

1.) AI
2.) Modding possibilities

[LordAxel]

It will stay there were many people who did not like how se3 was changed to se4 and they hung around. I personally disliked se4 alot when it first came out

[Uncle_Joe]

Without wading through all of the info about this can someone answer a quick question?

Will you be able to fight the tactical combat in multiplayers TCP/IP games? If not, is this something that is planned for a patch or expansion or something?

Thanks a lot

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I'm willing to give the game a fair try. I think that's what will really determine it's success.

[scJazz]

37 days ago there was a post regarding the release date of the new version of a game we all know and love! Since that OP this thread has been hijacked into a discussion of why Aaron's sellout to SFI is going to cause SEV to be an uberbugged screwup of epic proportions.

We are talking about Aaron here folks. Are there going to be bugs... yessssss. Will the bugs be worse cuz Aaron is working for the Man... yah maybe but it is Aaron's freakin game! Let it go!

Most importantly if we use up all the mud slinging it around before the game we'll lose out on a great chance for self-righteous indignation when we pay money for a totally screwed experience (which isn't going to happen anyway)!

[StarShadow]

I'm with Narf. There are some things about SEV that I'm not quite happy with, but I'm certainly quite willing to give it a fair try.

[Xrati]

It's mod-able!!! If you don't like what comes in the box get going on your own creations. Maybe it'll be good enough to release on one of the boards.

[AMF]

StarShadow said:
I'm with Narf. There are some things about SEV that I'm not quite happy with...



Like what?

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[scJazz]

I'm gonna go with... spending a bijillion hours on pretty 3d graphics instead of using those CPU cycles on something useful like... a severely demented AI er sumpthin.

[Gandalf Parker]

I agree there. Im not sure if the 3d graphics were a good tradeoff. Its gone to a shelfware distributor and it looks very shelfware but truthfully that wasnt on my list.

Id rather have had larger maps, more AI's, more involved AIs (then purely for my own dreamsheet command-line hosting, output files for web pages, and a linux text-mode host)

[AMF]

What is the map limit? Can it at least go to 255 systems? Is it PBW compatible?

Actually, nevermind. I'm gonna stop asking questions - I'll just work myself up into a lather and get wiggy.

I'll just wait and see. But, I too am not a fan of form over substance...hopefully it won't be. I'm sure it will be great.

[Caduceus]

The map max is still 255, from what I've heard.

[StarShadow]

Well basicly, the whole 3d thing for a start,I think the time spent on 3d candy would have been better spent on AI/Diplomacy, also, I'm still quite iffy on how tactical combat will be. I might end up liking it, but it doesn't seem very likely. Also, I'm not a fan of the Starfury system of ship design, but I might be able to mod it to something I like better.

[Possum]

Atrocities said:
Remember that when most anticipated sequels to loved games come out, they are immediately trashed, bashed, *****ed about, hated, despised, thrown out, returned, and generally do improve over time as a following develops. Keep in mind that when SE IV was released it was continually updated with patches and new features.



Atro, you know, that statement triggered a forgotten memory.

When SE4 first came out, people were *****ing like mad about the fact that, (unlike SE3), you could only build one thing at a time on a given planet.

And I bet when SE3 came out, (I wasn't here that far back!), people *****ed about some change from SE2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

My only thought on the subject is that while I have unlimited faith in Malfador, I have, errrr, how to say this nicely, certain reservations about Strategy First.

[Gandalf Parker]

Just to devil-advocate my own previous post...

You all realize of course that the 3D wasnt necessarily done for us. We all stayed with SE thru the things that sent other people away. So of course we would rather see that extended than invest in eye-candy. The pretties were added to impress the fickle public who cant see past 2d graphics. It goes hand in hand with shifting from what I think of as a publicity and online publisher to a marketing and shelfware one.

I can just hope that it achieves the larger player-base that it was meant to hook into. Hmmmm do I hope that? Maybe not. But Im sure they are hoping for it.

[Fyron]

It's not all about the "pretties..." There are game mechanics to think about too. Personally, I think the concept of a continuous time combat engine is far superior to the insanity of the SE4 combat engine. Sure, you can build a turn based system that tries to emulate continuous time with complex initiative and phases and all that, but why do that when you can just make it actually be continuous time?

It's not like Aaron went and built a Total War type 3d graphics engine for the game... It'd never get done if he tried to do that by himself.

Possum:
I don't think anyone will be able to ***** about SE5 construction queues. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[AMF]

Ok, so where do I go to pre-order this darn thing?

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Q]

I agree with Fyron that an improvement of the combat engine compared to SE IV will certainly be most welcome.
And certainly you can't please everybody, but that makes modding possibilities even more important.
Which implies: make as little hard coded limitations as possible!
Therefore the maximum number of 255 system would be a bad news IMO if it is hard coded.

[Raapys]

Sure, you can build a turn based system that tries to emulate continuous time with complex initiative and phases and all that, but why do that when you can just make it actually be continuous time?

I'd prefer a complex turn-based system, really. All other considerations aside, real-time combat is and will play differently, regardless of the ability to pause whenever, etc.

[Suicide Junkie]

It is a very complex turn based system if you get down to the nitty gritty details.

It is simply that the turns are one millisecond long, with non-instant weapons and turning.

[Ed Kolis]

Hehe, sort of like "Titans of Steel" on autoturns, if you want to think of it that way http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Though I do wonder if the turns are really run every millisecond... that would be an awful lot of turn processing for every measly frame of animation... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

[Karibu]

On MOO2 there was a nice (though imperfect) way to simulate realtime combat. Ships had initiative, which then gave you the turn to move. Though, for some reason human players had every time the first move. I think initiative should be calculated by many things like:
- level of engine
- engine capacity divided by ship size class
- experience of the crew
- experience of the fleet
- level of battle computer

Also, there should be different initiative for guns and movement (you may have superior engines but lousy battle computer or vice versa), and also - very difficult to implement - if two ships are have almost identical initiative but one has slightly better, the better ship should not be able to do everything before another ship gets the change.

My logic would say that high engine initiative gives you some movements (perhaps 1 or 2 squares) before another ship gets to move his one square. An example:

Ship A: total movement 7 squares, battle computer level 1
Ship B: total movement 5 squares, battle computer level 2

Battle:
Ship A moves 1 square
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 2 squares
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 1 square
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 2 squares
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 1 square
Ship B moves 1 square

Firing: If guns itself have no initiative and both ships would have same weapons, firing order depends only of battle computer. the ship B would fire first when in range (even if ship A would move inside the gun range and still have movement to go, but at this point Ship B gets his firing turn).

Example continued:

Ship A moves 1 square
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 2 squares
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 1 square
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship A moves 1 squares (ship A have 1 more square to move)
Ship B fires at ship A
Ship A moves 1 squares
Ship A fires at ship B
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship B fires at ship A
Ship A moves 1 square
Ship A fires at ship B
Ship B moves 1 square
Ship B fires at ship A

etc.

Of course, this is a crude combat model but similar what I hope to see in SEV. You get the point. Well, can SEV betatesters give any preliminary information about this or does NDA prevent you from comment? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Ed Kolis]

Um, it's been known for a long time that SE5 combat is not turn-based, so why are you asking this? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Karibu]

I have been out of things lately. Enlighten me. Can I see specs/preview of the game somewhere? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Ed Kolis]

Ahh, sorry http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Here's the official page with a feature list, system requirements, screenshots, and whatnot:
http://www.malfador.com/Se5.html

Note that one of the screenshots shows ground combat with hexes; that is a very old one - ground combat is now realtime just like space combat http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Karibu]

Thanks for the link. However, it doesn't really tell anything about the game, except what you can see from the screenshots.

[Captain Kwok]

I keep a more detailed feature list along with some exclusive screenshoots of SE:V at my website:

http://www.captainkwok.net/se5info.php
http://www.captainkwok.net/feature-se5screenshots.php

The smallest time segment you can run auto-pause in is 1 second.

[Uncle_Joe]

I asked it before but didnt see an answer.

Real quick for a tester or anyone else who knows:

Will you be able to play out the tactical battles in multiplayer TCP/IP games?

Thanks in advance!

[Raapys]

It is simply that the turns are one millisecond long, with non-instant weapons and turning.

And the fact that all ships carry out their actions/orders at the same time, as opposed to "real" turn-based combat where you do one ship then the other.

[Atrocities]

Space Empires V

The year is 2400.00 and the galaxy awaits exploration. Who could have ever imagine the wonders and horrors to come. Where peaceful exploration and diplomacy fail, conquest begins. Immerse yourself in the role of leader of your very own galatic empire. Explore the technology, build ships, and colonize the galaxy as you battle against other races for absolute power.

[Suicide Junkie]

Raapys said:
And the fact that all ships carry out their actions/orders at the same time, as opposed to "real" turn-based combat where you do one ship then the other.

It only seems that way because the turns are so short.
In reality the CPU can only deal with one ship at a time, and time steps have to be quantized in a finite computer.

You might say that even real life is turn based, with each turn being one planck time (5.4 x 10^-44 seconds) long. And that system works quite well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Puke]

Atrocities said:
Space Empires V

The year is 2400.00 ...



what, you dont think its being upped to 2500.00? thats enough time for a good game of SE4 to reach the top of the tech tree, and then be blasted back into the industrial age by galactic war.

[Atrocities]

Actually I think you can reset the date. I am not sure of this and don't want to say you can in case that was some sort of secret or something. But if you can, that would be sweet.

[Kana]

Being apply to set up our own timeline for mods would be super cool...

[Puke]

what would be super confusing if each race had a unique callendar. so for the texrux it would be year 4000, but the eee would be marking a new calendar at the year 50 or something.

and of course each race would have time that passed at a different pace, depending on the orbit of their particular homeworld around its primary star.

and each planet would actually orbit its primary star at a unique rate.

or, you know, maybe that wouldnt be so cool. it would actually be a pain in the butt to keep track of.

[capnq]

I cannot imagine a situation where different races having different calendars would be relevant. All that matters is how the race you're playing measures time.

[Captain Kwok]

You can change the starting date in settings.txt for SE:V.

[Ed Kolis]

Yay! Now my 21st Century Mod can start in the year 2001 if I so desire! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Any way to change how much time passes per turn? In SE4, it's 1/10 of a year; in Stars it's a year; in GalCiv it's a week (!)...

[Puke]

what, you are going to make the starting facilities a mix of first world and third world nations that produce various resources and adversely impact the planet in some way?

and then you cant build anything real until you spend a few (tens of) decades researching "world government" and "practical space program"

that sounds irritating. and it ruins the suspension of disbelief if you have to pay attention to how those things happen. just roll the clock ahead 400 years, and hand-waive away the reasons your planetary government formed and developed spaceflight.

i mean seriously, if we have to imagine an entire humanlike species forming a common collective for government, directed towards a single purpose, its not really a sci-fi game anymore. its totally fantasy.

[Noble713]

Gandalf Parker said:
Just to devil-advocate my own previous post...

You all realize of course that the 3D wasnt necessarily done for us. We all stayed with SE thru the things that sent other people away. So of course we would rather see that extended than invest in eye-candy. The pretties were added to impress the fickle public who cant see past 2d graphics.



I've been playing the SE series for 9 years, ever since a friend gave me Space Empires II (which had HORRIBLE graphics, BTW). I like 3d graphics. I WANT 3D graphics for the Space Empires series. I guess that makes me one of the "fickle public", huh? On a side note, besides SE4 there is one other excellent 2D game that I play: Hearts of Iron 2 with counters for unit icons. I'm not sure how it would look with a totally 3d engine, but if Paradox said they were taking things in that direction for the sequel I would wait for screenshots with pleasant anticipation.

As for "Aaron should spend his time on the AI and not fancy graphics": if what I've read about the scriptable AI is correct, the talented modders in this community will churn out AIs vastly more capable than what Aaron can do programming and debugging the whole game by himself. What the mod community CAN'T do, however, is change a 2D graphics engine into a 3D one, and there is only so much you can do to improve 2D.

I guess I look at SE4 and SE5 not so much as games, but game engines. Much as the Quake 2 engine served as the basis for most FPS games for years (including Half-Life), Space Empires serves as the basis for a variety of different 4X play experiences. Sure they all involve building ships and conquering planets (much as FPSes all involve running around and shooting at people), but the nuances vary. To me, the best games are the ones that are flexible enough for the community to create phenomenal, polished, unique games from the base model (Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat for Half-Life, Rhyse and Rule for Civilization 3, Total Realism for Rome:Total War).

Are you going to argue that 2d bitmaps are more flexible than a 3d engine? Would you honestly rather stare at totally flat graphics instead of 3d ones if it had no impact on gameplay?

[Q]

" Would you honestly rather stare at totally flat graphics instead of 3d ones if it had no impact on gameplay?"

Of course not.
But I think it is an illusion that it has no effect on gameplay!
Even with a modern computer 3D graphics will limit the maximum reasonable number of ships/units in a combat. But more important as mentionend earlier I am convinced the creation of new races will be more difficult than in SE IV. I would be very surprised (but pleased), if we get as many races as we now have in SE IV.
So the question is simply is the 3D effort worth it?
I don't know yet but I will see and buy the game as soon as possible.

[Raapys]

It will have direct and indirect effects on gameplay. On the actual gameplay itself, and the time taken away from improving the gameplay side of the game.

[Ed Kolis]

Puke: no, I planned on splitting each planet up into several "continents" (represented by "slices" of a planet in the game) that could be each inhabited by a player empire... the entire goal of the game would be to unite all nations under your flag, just like in regular Space Empires, except that all the "human" empires could actually start on Earth http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[AMF]

Will the 3D engine be able to be turned off? (ie: can we do 'strategic combat' still)

[Captain Kwok]

Strategic combat is still available as an option in sequential mode, and the standard for simultaneous games.

[Cipher7071]

3D graphics are nice the first few times you see them. But, if that's a major reason why anyone would buy any version of Space Empires, then they might as well be playing Mario Brothers.

Anyone who's ever been interested in games like chess will probably understand why I say this.

[thorfrog]

So any idea when the game will be released? For those play testing is it really ready?

[Captain Kwok]

Should be going "gold" sometime soon...

[DarkHorse]

Kwok, you tease.

[Captain Kwok]

True is we don't know either. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

[Raapys]

Any spoilers on the music? Would be great if they took after MoO2 in terms of soundtrack quality.

[Baron Munchausen]

Raapys said:
Any spoilers on the music? Would be great if they took after MoO2 in terms of soundtrack quality.



They hired some commercial outfit that does game soundtracks. It's not as impressive as that rumbling intro to SE III http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif but it's reasonable. I don't find it particularly distinctive, though.

[Baron Munchausen]

thorfrog said:
So any idea when the game will be released? For those play testing is it really ready?



No, actually.

But we've still got a few weeks before the Gold disc hits the shelves so the 1.0x patch that will (hopefully) fix the worst problems still has time to get ready.

[bearclaw]

MUST HAVE SOME INFORMATION PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Artaud]

Baron Munchausen said:
They hired some commercial outfit that does game soundtracks.



Oh no! I'll be playing with the sound off then. I'm one of the few people who really likes the music with SE4. I think more of the same would have been great for SE5. Something dark and swirling. Robert Rich, Aphex Twin, one of the artists distributed by Manifold Records...that sort of thing.

I dark ambient music so maybe I'll just play some of my own stuff during SE5.

Most computer game music is pretty bad...unless you're between the ages of 14 and 20, which I have not been for a very, VERY long time...

[Raapys]

I'd say game music 10'ish years ago was pure excellence, in many cases. Wacraft 2, Diablo 1, Daggerfall, Dune 1/2, Transport Tycoon, HoM&M2, etc. Some later games like Homeworld and Medieval TW have done a nice job as well.
Can't remember any new games with outstanding soundtracks, though.

[leo1434]

The Strategy First says in the features section:

"Huge Galaxy: 100 solar systems with 15 planets each"????

What about SEIV 255 star Systems??

Please tell me there can be at least 1000 solar systems!

[Phoenix-D]

Around 100 systems was the default for SE:IV as well, so I wouldn't worry too much on that account.

1000 systems would..not work. That isn't micromanagement hell, that's kicked OUT of hell micromanagement.

[Captain Kwok]

255 is the max.

[dogscoff]

Captain Kwok said:
255 is the max.



Boo! I want stupidly-giant uber galaxies with hundreds of AIs milling about. After all, we'll all still be playing se5 4 or 5 years from now, and PC tech will have advanced to make that more than manageable by then.

I thought giant galaxies had already been announced as a feature of se5..?

[Captain Kwok]

There was talk of, but for some reason or another it never happened.

[Baron Munchausen]

Captain Kwok said:
There was talk of, but for some reason or another it never happened.



This should be the official motto of SE development. There are always these grand plans and hopes, but it always falls back to what one frantic programmer can get done in the few months before he needs a new boost to his income.

[Possum]

Hmm, all this talk of the tactical engine has provoked a few questions in my alleged mind.

1. What on earth is meant by "continuous time"? Is this just somebody who doesn't like the phrase "real-time" making up a new one, or is there a difference?

2. The moment when MP SE4 lost its magic for me was when I realised that the person who created the game (at PBW) had an inherent advantage, since the ships fired in order of the players numbers. The person who created the game was always player 1, and would always fire first. At the common warp-point confrontations, this was a huge advantage.

How is SE5 going to answer this?

[Phoenix-D]

#2 is irrelevent in SE5 because the combat is in real time; ships will fire at the same time. (SE4's later patches fixed the player-order problem, BTW)

People started using "continuous" time because others heard real time and thought ALL of SE5 was like that, not just the combat.

[Captain Kwok]

Possum, in Gold/Deluxe SE:IV, the defender gets first shot - since you've just switched over.

I guess continuous can be taken as the action is occuring concurrently. Which means that order etc. does not matter.

[Raapys]

What happens if for instance engines are damaged mid-flight? Will the ships stop, or will they realistically continue to drift in the current direction?

[Captain Kwok]

Raapys said:
What happens if for instance engines are damaged mid-flight? Will the ships stop, or will they realistically continue to drift in the current direction?

They'll come to a stop... which is probably better for gameplay...

[mrscrogg]

Barnes and Noble , release date for SE V , October 17th

[Possum]

Kwok, thanks for the info, and I'm delighted to hear it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Kamog]

Hmm, that's too bad that the galaxy size is still 255 maximum. On the bright side, though, each solar system is bigger so we can still have bigger games, right?

[Fyron]

You can easily have bigger games in SE4; just increase the number of planets per system. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

Possum said:
1. What on earth is meant by "continuous time"? Is this just somebody who doesn't like the phrase "real-time" making up a new one, or is there a difference?

Whenever I say real-time combat, someone obssesses over how RTS games play and how it'll ruin everything, and generally miss the point. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Q]

It would just have been nice to play once in a really huge galaxy where travelling from one end to the other would take very much time unless you use warp point manipulation to create interstellar highways.
More important than the maximum number of systems are however the maximum number of empires and the maximum number of units in space (in SE IV I always reach the limit of 20000).

[mrscrogg]

Q , if that's what interests you start SE4 with no connecting warp points , develop warp point manipulation and go from there

[Q]

No, the warp point opening to create abbreviation would just be a small additional point, but the main thing is the huge galaxy, were you can expand and meet new races even in a very late game.

[Raapys]

While I agree that would be nice, for single-player I've to say that the game is already way too slow to process turns with the current max number of AI's and star systems once you're 100+ turns into a game. If the AI in SEV is better, it most likely uses even more CPU time to process each player.

I think the better solution would be to actually make large star systems that take some time to travel through, and in which you could discover things, i.e. you don't know everything about the system as soon as you enter it.

[Captain Kwok]

You pay maintenance for units in SE:V so you might not just let them accumulate willy-nilly. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Q]

Captain Kwok said:
You pay maintenance for units in SE:V so you might not just let them accumulate willy-nilly. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



Please tell me that this can be modded to zero maintenance!

[Gandalf Parker]

Raapys said:
While I agree that would be nice, for single-player I've to say that the game is already way too slow to process turns with the current max number of AI's and star systems once you're 100+ turns into a game. If the AI in SEV is better, it most likely uses even more CPU time to process each player.




Actually thats one of the things which has kept the game on my machine. Games with long thinking time is good for me. Otherwise I would never get anything else done. Just think how productive I would be if SEV supported 1000 stars and 100 AIs.

Everything has its pros and cons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[mrscrogg]

I had thought I had heard that SEV was to have the ability after you have conquored your own galaxy to invade another or have it invade you

[Noble713]

Q said:

Captain Kwok said:
You pay maintenance for units in SE:V so you might not just let them accumulate willy-nilly. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



Please tell me that this can be modded to zero maintenance!



Why would you want to do that? 0 maintenance isn't very realistic. It allows you to accumulate substantial military capabilities without paying a dime for them.

[Captain Kwok]

Q, in playing myself I haven't really felt any extra micromanagement with unit/facility maintenance. But ofc, it is completely moddable.

[Q]

That is good to hear.
Why introduce maintenance for units, if almost everybody is complaining in SE IV that fighters are too weak in later game, dones are almost useless and satellites offer only limited protection for planets. The lack of maintenance was the only real advantage of these units.
If you pay maintenance anyway, why not building only ships??
And if I don't care about one thing in a game like SE it is realism ! It is only the question what makes the game more interesting.

[Captain Kwok]

Although that is assuming that things have remained the same from SE:IV... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

[AMF]

Ok, so...all the hype for SEV indicates that it is much more 'mod-friendly' than SEIV. My question then is this: those of you who were playtesters, have y'all made mods yet, and is the hype true?

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

And...who's gonna have the first mod? is there gonna be one right out of the gate?

Just wondering.

AMF

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Captain Kwok]

As you can expect, SJ has a Gritty Galaxy mod of sorts and a few other people have works in progress.

[StarShadow]

Out of curiosity, and if permitted by the NDA, I have a couple questions about armor/shields and modding.

Reportedly, armor is being changed to work on facings. Will it be possible to mod armor to work the way it does in SEIV?

Shields, will shields work the same way as armor does (ie. by facing), and will it be possible to mod that back to SEIV norms.

[Baron Munchausen]

Sorry, no facings for either armor or shields. It's too much calculation when there are possibly hundreds of ships in combat. So your questions don't matter. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Yimboli]

So................ is this thing coming out tuesday or what?

[Kamog]

Oh, it's that's the day after tomorrow. Doesn't look like it will be out that day...

[Yimboli]

Has anyone seen any news since Sep 12th was announced here http://www.strategyfirst.com/press/DisplayArticle.asp?sLanguageCode=EN&iArticleID=329 6 ?

[Captain Kwok]

It hasn't been posted officially by SFI, but a few stores like Gamestop have posted Oct. 17 dates, which sounds very reasonable IMO. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[StarShadow]

I could have sworn someone said damage would be done to the side of the ship that was hit (ie facings). Oh well, if that's not the case, I'm just as glad.

[Sivran]

Possum said:
2. The moment when MP SE4 lost its magic for me was when I realised that the person in slot 1 had an inherent advantage, since the ships fired in order of the players numbers. (snip). (snip).

How is SE5 going to answer this?



Corrected for you. Defender fires first on warp points, regardless of player number, and player number 1 is not always the game creator.

....Unless you're referring to Pre-Gold.

[Zaamon]

Yimboli said:
Has anyone seen any news since Sep 12th was announced here http://www.strategyfirst.com/press/DisplayArticle.asp?sLanguageCode=EN&iArticleID=329 6 ?



http://www.strategyfirst.com/press/DisplayArticle.asp?sLanguageCode=EN&iArticleID=329 8

"Space Empires V is due to be released late September, 2006."

[AMF]

I'm led to enquire - why would a game be released in September? I'd always heard that Sept is the worst month to ever release any new product, what with the holidays not yet here, fiscal year budgets tight, just over the back-to-school buying season, and it being a well documented bad month for stocks and so forth, why did they choose Sept? I would personally rather wait two more months to make sure it gets a bigger market share.

Just curious really.

Thanks,

AMF

[Ed Kolis]

Bigger market share? When all the other games are being released? What sense does that make? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[AMF]

Well, under the same theory that you want to place your shoe store in the same neighborhood as the other shoe stores - to capture your share of a market that you know already exists, rather than to try to get into a market that may provide lower demand. It's been a long time since I've taken anything resembling a marketing or business class, but going where there is an established market for your product was one of those basics...I thought. I could very easily be totally wrong - I'm not an MBA type.

Although it is pretty well documented that Sept is the yuckiest month for the stock market, I think becuase people are typically saving their money up for the holidays, etc...stocks almost always dive in Sept, IIRC.

But, of course, stocks are not games.

Really was just curious as to the logic.

Thanks,

AMF

[Kana]

StarShadow said:
I could have sworn someone said damage would be done to the side of the ship that was hit (ie facings). Oh well, if that's not the case, I'm just as glad.



I thought the damage was directional...which mean any armor on that side would be damaged first...or we could hope...Shields might be a different matter

[Baron Munchausen]

Kana said:

StarShadow said:
I could have sworn someone said damage would be done to the side of the ship that was hit (ie facings). Oh well, if that's not the case, I'm just as glad.



I thought the damage was directional...which mean any armor on that side would be damaged first...or we could hope...Shields might be a different matter



Hybrid systems are always confusing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif No firing arcs, no shield/armor arcs. But directional damage.

Damage to components is directional. Or supposed to be. Damage to shields and armor is not. Yes, armor 'components' are placed on the ship like other components but they all get destroyed before any of the inner components are damaged. Or that's how it's supposed to work.

[Ed Kolis]

Nobody said anything about not being able to implement leaky armor, though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Artaud]

AMF said:
I'm led to enquire - why would a game be released in September? I'd always heard that Sept is the worst month to ever release any new product, what with the holidays not yet here, fiscal year budgets tight, just over the back-to-school buying season...

Just curious really.

Thanks,

AMF



I'm not sure release month will make any difference for this game. It's not your typical computer game. It's not a shooter, or a RTS game. The graphics technology is not cutting edge, etc etc. I can't see that SE5 is going to be competing against any other game for market share.

I think the target market for SE5 is going to be receptive to it no matter what time of year it's released. The target market for an incredibly deep strategy game like this is people like you and me, who don't just play a game to "beat" it and then lose interest in a couple of weeks. If SE5 is any good we will be playing it and modding it for years and years.

[Kana]

Baron Munchausen said:

Kana said:

StarShadow said:
I could have sworn someone said damage would be done to the side of the ship that was hit (ie facings). Oh well, if that's not the case, I'm just as glad.



I thought the damage was directional...which mean any armor on that side would be damaged first...or we could hope...Shields might be a different matter



Hybrid systems are always confusing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif No firing arcs, no shield/armor arcs. But directional damage.

Damage to components is directional. Or supposed to be. Damage to shields and armor is not. Yes, armor 'components' are placed on the ship like other components but they all get destroyed before any of the inner components are damaged. Or that's how it's supposed to work.



I still say that Aaron missed out on a good opportunity to add something special to the game other than glitz and glamour via 3d graphics. With neither the armor, shields, nor weapons on a directional basis, then what is the need for directional damage to components. Its not like you removing ability for the ship to fight from that side...all weapons arc, so there is no reason to destroy facing weapons, and I cant think of any other reason that directional damage, would have any effect. Sounds like useless code, that basically couldnt be finished. Without weapon, shield, armor arcs, there is absolutely no reason for directed damage...

[Spoo]

Kana said:
I still say that Aaron missed out on a good opportunity to add something special to the game other than glitz and glamour via 3d graphics. With neither the armor, shields, nor weapons on a directional basis, then what is the need for directional damage to components. Its not like you removing ability for the ship to fight from that side...all weapons arc, so there is no reason to destroy facing weapons, and I cant think of any other reason that directional damage, would have any effect. Sounds like useless code, that basically couldnt be finished. Without weapon, shield, armor arcs, there is absolutely no reason for directed damage...



I agree. Non-directional shields/armor is disappointing.

[Q]

Spoo said:

Kana said:
I still say that Aaron missed out on a good opportunity to add something special to the game other than glitz and glamour via 3d graphics. With neither the armor, shields, nor weapons on a directional basis, then what is the need for directional damage to components. Its not like you removing ability for the ship to fight from that side...all weapons arc, so there is no reason to destroy facing weapons, and I cant think of any other reason that directional damage, would have any effect. Sounds like useless code, that basically couldnt be finished. Without weapon, shield, armor arcs, there is absolutely no reason for directed damage...



I agree. Non-directional shields/armor is disappointing.



To be honest: I am glad there is no directional shield/armor. Of course it would be interesting if it worked like in starfury and the computer in strategic combat would move the ship optimally and you had some good computer aid in ship design. But if these two "and" are not fulfilled it could be quite tedious and frustrating.
Don't forget that probably 99% of all combats will be strategic.
On the other hand I agree that you could have left directional damage out completely.

[Captain Kwok]

One of the things to keep in mind is that with adding weapon arcs and facings, you make it much more difficult to balance individual shipsets. Unlike Starfury where you might have to balance a dozen or so ships, SE:V has about 150 to worry about. With the directional damage, once shields and armor are down (or special damage types are in use) it plays a minor role such as in a pursuit, where a fleeing ship tends to be hit in the engines first etc. Lastly, fleet battles tend to end up in melees anyway, so if most of these features were active there wouldn't be much difference in the end result.

[AMF]

So...speaking of battles...are the combats now greater than 30 turns, and floating? (ie, don't have corners, so you can do that pursuit thing you allude to...)?

I just keep up with the pestering questions, don't I...

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Captain Kwok]

Combat is time-based and there are no corners. If a gap between a chasing ship and a fleeing ship reaches a certain distance the combat will end.

[Ed Kolis]

Yay! I kinda suspected that you could flee combat in that manner but it's good to hear confirmation of that!
Presumably that distance is moddable, and perhaps it might even be a formula, so for instance if you start with Chemical Rockets going 20 km/s or something and eventually get Hyper-Quasar Drives going 100 km/s then the distance required to retreat could increase throughout the game as the average player's tech level advances? Or is it time-based - based on the speed of the fastest ship in the pursuing fleet? (e.g. "if the enemy ship can't reach your current position within 30 seconds the combat ends")

edit: clarified from "can't reach you" to "can't reach your current position"

[RonGianti]

I just assumed that some shipsets would be better than others, and that you would have to pay for better ship sets the same way you pay for any other advantage at the beginning of the game. Oh well.

So now we have to pay for maintenance on fighters? Oh great. Are they completely useless then? Are they just a little niche item or just something to bypass completely?

[Ed Kolis]

They are now individually targetable, rather than stacked in groups, and the lack of area-effect weapons means that ships with only big guns will be wasting a LOT of firepower trying to blast those little buggers out of the sky http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

99 drushocka fighters in space, 99 drushocka fighters
Shoot your DUC, blow one up, 98 drushocka fighters in space!
WHAM! 98 structural damage!
98 drushocka fighters in space, 98 drushocka fighter...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Captain Kwok]

One complaint overhead early on was that fighters were too strong... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Q]

Is the problem of accidental ramming (like in Starfury) eliminated in SE V?
Did you or any other betatester ever have a combat with something like 500 ships and 2000 fighters?
Sorry for all these questions, but we are just too curious and impatient.

[Captain Kwok]

Ships pass over/under each instead of colliding. I've already offered some speculation on performance with large numbers of ships earlier in this thread.

[reen]

Will there be mines in the 3d battle or is it like Space Empires IV?

[Ed Kolis]

Dunno, but I suppose you could create extremely slow drones which serve the same purpose... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[NullAshton]

Isn't it September the 12th today?

[RonGianti]

Captain Kwok said:
I've already offered some speculation on performance with large numbers of ships earlier in this thread.



I went back through the whole thread and can't seem to find it. How many ships in a battle were people were seeing before it was unplayable?

[Captain Kwok]

Woops. It was this thread:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=440663

[RonGianti]

got it, thanks!

so... fighters are 2d objects? IIRC in Starfury they were 3d, no?

[Captain Kwok]

I think when you're zoomed out far they might be, but zoomed in it's the actually model for certain. Not entirely sure about the first part though.

[NTJedi]

Any reason why Dominions_3 and SE5 are being released around the same time?

Just seems like both games could have acquired at least a little more money by releasing at different times.

[Wade]

I assume that the Mega-Evil Empire function will be present in Space Empires V. Is it still quite drastic where everyone declares war on you? Even a neighboring weak empire that will be destroyed?

It would be better if the closer empires and those in good relations to you would slowly detoriorate relations with you over many turns.

[Artaud]

Here we are--September 12. I didn't really think SE5 would be released today, but I did have the tiniest little hope...especially on a cold, rainy Cleveland day like this.

Oh well. It will be here eventually.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Ed Kolis said:
They are now individually targetable, rather than stacked in groups, and the lack of area-effect weapons means that ships with only big guns will be wasting a LOT of firepower trying to blast those little buggers out of the sky http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

99 drushocka fighters in space, 99 drushocka fighters
Shoot your DUC, blow one up, 98 drushocka fighters in space!
WHAM! 98 structural damage!
98 drushocka fighters in space, 98 drushocka fighter...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


I suggest that be the new, official unoffical SEV theme song.

[capnq]

NTJedi said: Any reason why Dominions_3 and SE5 are being released around the same time?

Because they are being released by two entirely different publishers who have no incentive to coordinate their release schedules, which may not even be legal anyway.

[Will]

Or, it just so happens that they both ended up being at some stage of "ready" at around the same time, and add in that a release around mid- to late-October is good for sales leading up to the holiday season, and interest in computer games increases towards the beginning of the winter season because our northern friends are more likely to stay inside for entertainment than to brave the snow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

And while I think that there is some overlap between potential players for SEV and potential players for DomIII, I don't see one cutting in on the sales of another. If anything, there would be a mutual increase, as the crossover players evangelize to the other player base.

[reen]

Regarding the different ship/ unit classes, will there be only one class of fighter, mine or troop?
Because that seems to be the matter, link:
http://www.malfador.com/se5empstyle.html
Any idea, anyone?

[Captain Kwok]

There's Small, Medium, Large versions of all Fighters, Troops, Freighters, Weapon Platforms, Satellites, and Mines.

[reen]

Wohoo! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Raapys]

I've been wondering; is there, or will it be possible to mod in, optional weapon properties in the design window, ala MoO2&3? I.e., you first research the weapon, then additions to the weapon; miniaturization, continues fire(improved accuracy), weapon improvement, etc. In the design window you can enable the ones you want for an increase in cost, increase/decrease in tonnage used by the weapon, range, damage, etc. Same goes for missiles and such( i.e missile shield). I thought it a pretty neat option in the MoO games, unfortunately lacking in SE except for the limited 'mount' feature.

[Captain Kwok]

To be fair, all these items were possible in SE:IV with its "limited" mount system to the point where they could be applied on individual weapons or vehicles.

[Caduceus]

I think these can be represented by different pictures, but a single pic, just magnified, can suffice.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

As far as I know, weapon values are the result of formulas in SEV.

[Ed Kolis]

Yeah, speaking of mounts - a while back someone said that mounts can change a lot more about a component than they could in SE4. Would it be possible for you to go into a bit more detail? I'm itching to make mounts that change the target type of a weapon (like the Heavy and PD mounts in MOO2 - heavy weapons couldn't target fighters and PD weapons could target missiles automatically), or mounts that change the move points generated by an engine (Massive Mount C-T Engines anyone? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif), or a plethora of other options... I already know that mounts can be levelled, by looking at some of the latest screens (ooh, level 100 Heavy Mount... wonder how powerful THAT is? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif) Is it possible to make mounts that affect seekers properly? How about applying multiple mounts to a component, with boolean restrictions (You can have a Heavy Continuous-Fire Laser Beam in MOO2, but not a Heavy Point-Defense Laser Beam!)???

[Major_SNAFU]

Current relase date is October 16, according to the print out I was given at the EB store. I plunked down my reservation $ because they were not planning on carrying it at the store closest to me.

I really hate the fact that consoles have taken over the gameing industry. (grump, grump)

[MrSnuggleBunny]

Major_SNAFU said:
Current relase date is October 16, according to the print out I was given at the EB store. I plunked down my reservation $ because they were not planning on carrying it at the store closest to me.

I really hate the fact that consoles have taken over the gameing industry. (grump, grump)



dagummit! Beat me to it.

Local Gamestop has it hittin' their locale 10/18.

[NTJedi]

Major_SNAFU said:
I really hate the fact that consoles have taken over the gameing industry. (grump, grump)



If PCs are the first to incorporate VR Gloves and VR Headsets into the games then the gamers will come rushing back. Unfortunately if the console games are first the PC will suffer even more.

[Artaud]

Major_SNAFU said:
I really hate the fact that consoles have taken over the gameing industry. (grump, grump)



Me too. Shelf space for PC games has shrunk steadily over the last few years. Most stores only stock "big" titles. I see entire rows of one particular shooter (a genre I'm getting sick of).

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Long-term is harder than short-term.

[AMF]

Ok, I have entered serious stage 3 JONESING for both SEV and Dom3. This is killing me. I may need to take up GalCiv2 just to get through the next month.

And, ohmigod, Lost and Battlestar Galactica are starting again in early october. That month is going to be SO unproductive.

[Raapys]

Yeah, October is gonna be the tv/pc month of the year. SEV, Dom3, Gothic3, Battlestar, even NSF:C might be worth playing through once. And a new Deftones album. Perfect.

To be fair, all these items were possible in SE:IV with its "limited" mount system to the point where they could be applied on individual weapons or vehicles.

True, but compared to MoO's system it is, as mentioned, very limited. I think modifications would be a neat addition.

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/8944/moo3ga3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Ed Kolis]

Eww, MOO3... the game where you have to manually install the miniaturization upgrades that have no drawbacks to them whatsoever... the game where there are a million other things horribly wrong http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif Couldn't you have used a screenshot from MOO2 instead? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Wait a sec, you mean you can actually make point-defense beams in MOO3? I thought PD in MOO3 was limited to anti-missile missiles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Raapys]

As much as MoO3 was a huge disappointment to just about everyone, I've to say I really enjoy it when I've installed dozens of hacked exe file upgrades and some mods(they're still making them). It has a completely unique feeling to it, as in you actually feel that you're a leader of an empire, not a 'detailist' universal-role thing person like in the other 4X space games. You show your planet leaders what you want done, and then they go ahead and do it; but not necessarily like you would have. In other words, very realistic, epic, unique and, with the right mods and updates, fun.

[Puke]

NTJedi said:If PCs are the first to incorporate VR Gloves and VR Headsets into the games then the gamers will come rushing back. Unfortunately if the console games are first the PC will suffer even more.



Theyve already done this, and no one seemed to care. so they stopped. Actually they didnt entirely stop, there are still many on the market. But very few people use them.

Even Nintendo had the powerglove and a red-monochrome headset thing.

http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm has some good links.

[Ragnarok-X]

Raapys said:
As much as MoO3 was a huge disappointment to just about everyone, I've to say I really enjoy it when I've installed dozens of hacked exes.



I defintly agree here. Whenever im bored, which usually happens once each year, a few weeks before christmas i reinstlal MoO3, install the hacks a some mods and play until february, when im again bored of it.
It is a good game, but you have to work with its major flaws.

[NTJedi]

Puke said:

NTJedi said:If PCs are the first to incorporate VR Gloves and VR Headsets into the games then the gamers will come rushing back. Unfortunately if the console games are first the PC will suffer even more.



Theyve already done this, and no one seemed to care. so they stopped. Actually they didnt entirely stop, there are still many on the market. But very few people use them.

Even Nintendo had the powerglove and a red-monochrome headset thing.

http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm has some good links.



Well it has me wonder why game developers didn't pursue games in this direction. Perhaps the devices were(are?) too expensive./threads/images/Graemlins/icon41.gif Who wouldn't love to play a race car game, sports game, RPG game, or FPS game in a virtual reality. With some games the gloves would also provide better exercise then our current keyboards and mouse. The games being made don't seem to target VR technology instead they're made as being backwards compatible so even those without these devices can play.

Recently saw on television the Univ. of Arizona has setup a VR environment for training and testing their football players. Players wear body suits and perform exercises which can judge their performance and effectiveness on computers. The quarterback wears a VR headset for practicing gameplays.

[Ed Kolis]

http://www.nintendo.com/newsarticle?articleid=aT85VZmuLFtGkO9m1HSsJ2PdSlh7 Sc0b&page=

Who said Nintendo gave up on VR? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Sure, it's not all that immersive compared to true virtual reality, but hey, anything to get gamers more physically active... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[AMF]

Is there as yet any assessment about the viability of the current PBW server, or another similar server, for running SEV games? Will there be an SEV PBW server? Does SEV have organic PBW-friendliness?

Impatient and extremely annoying minds want to know.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

AMF