Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

I was pretty vocal back in the day about how much SEV sucked. I recall saying some pretty bad things about Atrocities. Oh, I'm not apologising, just recollecting.

I see a lot of people who were optimistic about the game getting fixed back then, have changed their tune.

I hope Aaron has a back-up career, because his current project seems doomed. He never really made a decent or interesting game outside of the SE 4x games, and nothing really since SEIV, which is around ten years old. Now he doesn't even own the franchise.

I don't know whether World Supremacy is aiming for Risk or Hearts of Iron, but whatever it is, it's a crowded field. So is Space 4x these days, but that wasn't really the case back when SEIV came out. Nowadays you have everything from Sins to Distant Worlds, with a whole bunch in between. And they're being made by professionals.

I've been following the discussion over on Legacy. Laughable. I really hope they put something out but the minutiae is up their *** at this stage. I'd love to see an open source SEIV with a flexible, moddable engine. Once Shrapnel got involved with Legacy that didn't seem so likely. Fancy selling out, before you even have something to sell. Nice.

So, back to the title of this tirade.

If SEV had never happened would SEIV still have a vibrant community, or did it kill the joy entirely for most people? I can't even think of opening SEIV without getting a shudder of disappointment thinking back on SEV. More so, because there were improvement in SEV that could have made SEIV better.

OTOH I dug out my cherished copy of Stars! the other day and happily lost a couple of evenings to it. And that was made by ex-Microsoft Excel programmers in the 90s.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

I don't think SE5 absolutely killed the Space Empires franchise. I seem to recall, just a little bit, that at the very end of the SE4 patch cycle, people on this board just weren't talking about it as much. When, just a couplea years before, this board was really jumping, constant stream of questions, new mod ideas, etc. Maybe ... maybe, we all just grew up?

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

I think it did.
On the other hand, there are a couple of active project to recreate SEIV as an open source project. I have high hopes there.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

IMHO SE5 did to SE what Vista did to micro$oft! :doh: The GAME sucked but all the modders kept pushing it, till no one was left to listen. I installed the demo, played through a little and uninstalled it, all in one day. Not enough time you say? Enough time to realize the UI was not smooth and that's where the game IS played!

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Crap.
The UI is far from being "smooth" in SE4, with the missing of the right-click and all.

All in all, SE5 is the better game, because
- the AI is actually using scripts, not simple to-do lists
- those (and many more) scripts are accessible to modders

Do not play the demo, use Kwoks Balance Mod and watch in awe when the AIs actually take some sensible decisions!
(What you'll never see in SE4, as the AI does not really "decide" anything there ...)

What killed the SE series was not SE5 in itself, but the absolutely dumb idea to sell it to Strategy First:
They won't fund the still needed patch (and come one, no game is really finished, ever), they don't even react to email and the support form on their website does not work :(
Without that last patch, there are some bugs with show-stopper potential, which cannot be worked around completely.

Nevertheless, I've switched to SE5, and only go back to SE4 very seldomly ... and I always find its not worth it, no matter which mod I use ...

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

I agree completely. We still have here a working forum, while the Strategy First forum is down since weeks!
But as Arralen, I do play SE V because of the much better AI (modded of course), but I don't play SE IV anymore as the AI cannot be improved to an acceptable level.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

I prefer SE5 over SE4 as well for a variety of reasons. There's a lot of potential left in the game, but unfortunately its also held back by some performance issues and a few niggling bug/interface issues. If you have the game and haven't played it for a couple of years, try the latest patch (v1.79) and give it a go. There's still a lot of players enjoying quality games.

SE5's shaky release didn't really help to re-invigorate the Space Empires community and by the time it had been patched to a respectable state, many players had already moved on. Unfortunately, I think Strategy First kind of left MM to dry on this one, not providing (or perhaps insisting on?) the resources that were needed for the game to be a success.

There's still a decent crowd at Fyron's Spaceempires.net site, with the most active SE forums around for both SE4 and SE5.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

As for the drop in activity here, that's just Forum migration. It happens when a game migrates from one developer to another or when the focus of the community shifts.

I agree with kwok about the game's release. Strategy First left Aaron to wither on the vine while plucking SE from him. Now if there is another Space Empires game it'll either be by another developer at strategy first or when someone makes one to fill its vacancy, but I don't think it'll come from Aaron. Strategy First strikes me as the kind of company that'll buy all the rights to a brand and dump the original developers.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

I loved playing SEIV, once I discovered it's existence. If it wasn't for a small article in one of the computer game magazines, I would never have heard of it. I played it for a couple of years, then sort of lost interest once I lost my internet server. then I discovered the public library here in Tampa had computers with internet, so I was able to catch up and regained my interest in the game. I think by then, SEV was coming out or had come out, and bought it, probably much later than the rest of you. I loved it, much better than SEIV. I didn't know much about how Strategy First got their hands on it, but I went with the flow and played, after downloading the most current mods and shipsets. But again, I've kind of lost interest. Maybe because there's not much on this forum anymore. That's what kept me interested in the game, the camaradre (?) I was getting from this forum. The helpful advice and tips on the game also kept me interested. But now, I think this is the first time in months I've visited this site. I don't know what it will take to get me back into the game. There are other games I'm playing, plus I recently started playing hte Dungeons & Dragons on-line game. Hey it it's free, it's for me! And if I could get a credit card, I'd probably be playing the Star Trek online game too. Maybe they'll have a free version one of these days. Maybe I'm just burned out on the game, or it's format. I don't know. If there ever is a SEVI, I'd buy it and hope for the best.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Been a fan of Space Empires since III. I've never actually modded the game or downloaded mods or even got involved in the communities!

But I'm still playing V now with a friend even though I stopped playing just after release (too many show stopper bugs) but now I'm enjoying it again.

What mods make the AI "better"? I've never done mods :S

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php

This one. :)

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Does that do AI as well as the tech trees?

Because I like the infinite old tech trees :P

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

But the AI does not like it (as much).

See Q1 thru Q3 here: http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemodfaqs.php

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

The major problem is that SEV is not really a direct sucessor to SEIV, as the playing style changed too much from one game to another... I mostly stopped playing SEV because it took too long to process it´s turns in a reasonable time, as it is a showstopper for me....

I play 4x space games a for a loong time, started in VGA Planets and i´m today at Sins.

Now, for the first time ever, i´m considering a Real-time space strategy game as a good sucessor for the classics 4x space games (I´m talking about Sins of a Solar Empire)...

My evolution of good 4x space games:

VGA Planets -> Stars! -> Master of Orion 2 -> Space Empires IV -> Sins of a Solar Empire

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Try Kwoks mod with the small systems submod ... greatly reduces turn generation times especially in mid/late game.
Does this by reducing the system size, and scaling down movement, sensors etc. accordingly.
It would cut down on processing time even more, if it didn't add lots of IQ-points to the AI - but that's a change that I at least really appreciate ;)

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Oh thanks guys, the balance mod was a "mod" that was meant to be the master file!?

Wow. Also I agree with the "wait a few tech levels before upgrading" and if it helps the AI it helps the AI :)

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Killed it for me. :( I bought SEV based on my enjoyment of SEIV. After that I couldn't go back to SEIV.

Playing Distant Worlds now and not looking back.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

SEV hates vista. That's the biggest problem for me.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Huh?? I have Vista on my laptop, and SEV works fine for me.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

I absolutely agree with these two statements as to the core cause of Space Empires decline.

Firstly, SE5 was just TOO different from the previous incarnations, and had too many issues combined with an altogether new game style and awkward learning curve. While it does have it's diehard fans, SE5 has proven to have been realistically much less popular overall than SE4 was.

Secondly, and more importantly, selling off the franchise to Strategy First was a catastrophic mistake, and a costly one to Aaron personally. They even went so far as to have barred him contractually from working on another 4x space game for quite some time, and then all but abandoned any further development or support for SE5.

The combination of these two things dug a deep hole and have been slowly been pushing the SE franchise over the edge into it.

The odds are there might be a viable successor to the SE games, but there won't ever be any further development of existing, or hope for any new, SE franchise games.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Worse, they made a Facebook game out of it :doh:

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

And not a very good FaceBook game either. It appears to be a game shell used for many of the FB games which has strained itself to seem to be Space Empires themed. But it doesnt feel like an SE game.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

I had no idea Aaron had been barred from developing Space Empires. I actually thought that his new ground combat game was him developing ground combat for the next SE incarnation. :(

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Barred? Thats news to me.
I guess I do remember something about him selling the game to Strategy First.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

It was news to me too, Gandalf. I was just going by what Black Knight posted on the first page of this thread (post 20);

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Strategy First turned space empires into farmville

And it sucks!

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Financial difficulties

On March 12, 2009 Strategy First's parent company Silverstar Holdings Ltd was formally delisted from the NASDAQ market after failing to meet a timeline extension to become compliant with NASDAQ Marketplace Rules, specifically they "had not regained compliance with the stockholders’ equity requirement"[10]. The final statements publicly published by Silverstar were for the period ending December 31, 2008, filed on February 20, 2009[11]. In these statements, Silverstar indicated that Strategy First revenues were minimal for the three months ended December 31, 2008 ("about $400,000" out of revenues of $8.7 million), with the bulk of revenues coming from the Empire Interactive division. Silverstar's total loss for this period was $3.4 million. As of December 31st 2008 Silverstar reports current assets of about $4 million versus liabilities of $17 million. Accounts Payable and Royalties Payable totaled $4.3 million, versus only $422,000 in available cash. In their management review Silverstar states "These factors raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern. Since June 2008, the Company has been seeking to raise additional capital in the form of both debt and equity; to this point with no success. The results of the quarter ended December 31, 2008 have further impacted the Company’s liquidity position and without a very short-term solution to this lack of liquidity, there is substantial doubt about the Company’s ongoing viability."

Subsequent to the SEC 10-Q filing, Silverstar reported that on May 1st 2009 their Empire Interactive division filed for "administration" (bankruptcy) in the UK, and that "Empire has sold its intellectual property assets to New World IP, LLC ",[12] and all 49 staff were laid off.[13] New World IP then leased the rights to publish Empire's entire catalogue to Zoo Games.[14]

Additionally, Silverstar has reported that it is in default on its repayments on both its 2008 and 2006 Debentures

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_First

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

heh. if SF is that desperate for cash, maybe Aaron can buy the rights to SE back with the change in his pocket... :P

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

And again we see some of the pros and cons of the big boys business plan vs someone like Shrapnel who was created by an independent developer specifically to give other options to independents. The marketing/shelfware version vs the publicity/distribution version.

[rant mode on]
The M/S version requires too much cash paid out ahead of time. That can mean advance payments for developers and big payback (eventually), and large sales audience, and games that go in bargain bins like some people keep harping about in the other Shrapnel forums. But it also means large debt to the distrib company which must be paid back before profit checks appear, sometimes 1 or 2 years. Also tends toward much more distributor control setting deadlines on the developers to finish the game in order to meet the advance advertising, setting DRM standards, setting prices, and of course buying the future rights. AND the possibility of total losses before the developer ever sees any profits. Possibly with a still outstanding debt that must be paid back.

The publicity/distrib version requires almost no advance money being laid out. The game gets covered in every online gaming magazine, blog, newsgroup, etc. The profits are quick, easily tracked by both parties so no hard feelings over questionable incomes, and the developer sees checks quickly. And because there is no gambling with advanced funds this model supports independents that otherwise wouldnt be touched by the big boys.

So for those who continually want to tell Shrapnel what they should be doing like the big boys do it so you can hope for bargain bin copies later, remember that everything has its pros and cons.
[/rant off]

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

To imply that it's the Microsoft model is a bit wrong. If you look, Microsoft only throws its money into games that print money (looking at you Halo), companies like activision, ea games, etc. tend to take on semi-safe bets while others yet take biggest risks. Just look at the quagmire that is Duke Nukem Forever.

The current model in game publishing seems to be very similar to that of the music, movie and book industries at times, which works sometimes and other times it doesn't. Just imagine how much money was pissed away in Tommy Wisaeu's "The Room" or on any SyFy original movie.

I think shrapnel's model is fantastic for what it does and hopefully can only bring them greater success.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Of course its not wrong. Its just different with its own pros and cons. Its a money-chasing template which makes many other things secondary. Shrapnel would have to change alot to pursue it.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Actually DNF is a unique situation. For the most part they will self-funded until I believe near the end, where they then needed a cash influx from Take 2. If DNF hadn't been self-funded there's a good chance it may have actually come out years ago, since the problem was 3DR constantly tearing it down and rebuilding it every six months. A publisher would have just said, "Screw it, ship what you got." Sure, it would have tanked and would probably have been crap, but at least it would have shipped and everyone would have moved on.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

It wasn't entirely self funding, Take2 poured a lot of money into its development and things came to a head recently when 3dRealms asked for another chunk of change to bring it to market. The problem with DNF's development was exactly that, the guys in charge of development kept scrapping it to go with the latest game engine or redoing entire sections of the game because of something visually neat they wanted to use from another game. Also known as Feature Creep.

Take2, which had supposedly sunk well over 30 million into the project, was fed up and naturally refused. This in turn caused 3drealms to self-destruct in a rage-quit and fold. It went to court and a few dramatic episodes later, the capable people at GearBox (many who are former 3drealm staffers) got a hold of it and they are bringing it to market now.

But the game's development was an unmitigated disaster. 10 years ago, it might've been a huge hit, but now. i don't know.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Unfortunately many game sequels take this poor direction even with successful games... instead of improving a successful game developers will create a new game. The sequel of a successful game merely needs to fix previous bugs, add more game content, improve AI design/coding, increase map sizes and add more strategy.

While it didn't happen with SE5... the biggest mistake made by game developers is the extreme focus with providing the most recent high-end graphics.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Disagree about the high-end graphics
It used DX8.1 which was already outdated by 5 years (and mostly replaced in the gaming market also)
Which is why many people had problems with the game in Vista, due to DX8 not being installed with it, meaning it was emulated

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

You obviously read my statement incorrectly. I said it "didn't" happen with SE5. :rolleyes:

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

I did, oops lol

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

Well, when I bought my laptop, it had Vista, and I had no problems loading up SEV and playing it. I really like SEV compared to SEIV, but I seem to be in the minority. I don't really need a grahpics hog of a game, and SEV seems to have pretty good graphics. But it plays very well on my laptop, and that's all I need to know about the issue.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

I still think going 3D was a stupid move by Aaron( or publisher?). Can't even imagine how much work he must have spent on that, and then bug-fixing it and probably having to re-implement every feature from SEIV. Even if he had outside help, that's still a tremendous amount of work just to get where the previous game is already at.

And all that time and resources could instead have been used to improve upon SEIV's gameplay and updating it with some nicer 2D graphics from a decent artist. Distant Worlds is an excellent example of how 2D graphics still work just great for this type of games, being pretty much the best 4x game to come out the last decade or so, especially now with its expansion.

Sad really, as Space Empires was definitely one of the 4x games with the most potential.

Re: Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?
 

I gotta stop posting drunk. I read this thread backwards and was surprised to discover I started it.

I love the look of Distant Worlds but my one campaign attempt left me pretty dissatisfied. I gave it a weekend but I started automating more and more until it was virtually playing itself. Mustn't have the attention span to micromanage any longer. Kind of an expensive mistake and makes me question Matrix Games demo policy. I may go back to it.

If SE5 had just stuck to 2D graphics it would have addressed the bulk of my criticism and looked far better, potentially.