SE:V Poll

[PDF]

Gandalf Parker said:
Except that Ive already bought the game (but would rather not vote that way). And there is also not one for "I think SEV went the wrong direction completely".

I was wondering if it was too soon to poll the question of whether they should be an SEV forum.

Which "wrong direction" ? SE5 is 90% SE4 concept- and gameplay-wise, do you refer to the new move to 3D ?
Although I'm not happy with the UI I still find the new graphics much better than SE4s, which looked like a spreadsheet more than a game at (numerous) times ...

And the SE5 forum is here isn't it ?

[StarShadow]

I'm curious also, what do you mean by 'wrong direction'?
As far as the new graphics go, in my opinion it's mostly fluff, I would have been completely content with SE4 graphics. In fact, I'm hoping that at some point there will be either a mod (if the UI is moddable), or an option for a classic(SE4) UI.

[Gandalf Parker]

PDF said:

Which "wrong direction" ? SE5 is 90% SE4 concept- and gameplay-wise, do you refer to the new move to 3D ?
Although I'm not happy with the UI I still find the new graphics much better than SE4s, which looked like a spreadsheet more than a game at (numerous) times ...

And the SE5 forum is here isn't it ?

I would rather have seen an improved SEIV game (AI, UI, modding, etc) rather than an eye-candy bloated SEV game. Thats just my opinion but I feel that the scren is full of pretty pictures which slow down the game and make it harder to play at a decent speed. I also wonder if the 3D thing might not slow down the creation of new races which is one of the things I loved about SEIV was having something like 300 races in it. And giant maps (als0 modded in later by players). The SEIV out-of-the-box was a very tiney game, almost a demo itself, compared to what the player mods turned it into.

As for the forums, thats exactly my point. I would rather that the SEIV forums NOT become the SEV forum since Im beginning to doubt whether SEIV will die off now.

And I think Shrapnel would support the creation of such a forum. The fact that this forum has traffic is not really a selling point. The load and archiving of this forum is something that just makes me more appreciative that Shrapnel keeps these things running for its ex-products.

[Phoenix-D]

SE5 can have much bigger maps than SE4. Same number of systems in a galaxy, but each system can be ridiclously huge if you want to do it that way- the system sizes are definable in settings.txt.

The AI doesn't seem to be much improved over SE4, but SE5's equivlent of the TDM pack should be much better, given the improved access to the AI.

[Artaud]

Gandalf Parker said:
...I would rather have seen an improved SEIV game (AI, UI, modding, etc) rather than an eye-candy bloated SEV game. Thats just my opinion but I feel that the screen is full of pretty pictures which slow down the game and make it harder to play at a decent speed. I also wonder if the 3D thing might not slow down the creation of new races which is one of the things I loved about SEIV ... And giant maps (als0 modded in later by players)...

I agree with you totally and completely.

Give me the expanded R&D, expanded diplomacy, "ordance" and a couple other of SEV's features, and a souped up SEIV "look," and you've got the perfect game, as far as I'm concerned.

SEV looks like a game that is trying to draw in the "oh look, it's 3D!" RTS/FPS crowd. People who buy games because the "Gamer DoodZ" website said it's the "Best-looking 4X game I've seen all year!!" and then want the cheat codes the day the game comes out so they can "beat" it faster and then move on to the "hottest" new military FPS/RTS game.

I'm being sarcastic here, but only slightly.

[Phoenix-D]

..you do realize that most of the UI problems would be the same if it was 2d, right?

[Captain Kwok]

Phoenix-D said:
..you do realize that most of the UI problems would be the same if it was 2d, right?

Nicely said.

[Barnacle Bill]

Artaud said:
SEV looks like a game that is trying to draw in the "oh look, it's 3D!" RTS/FPS crowd.

RT or not, I think the new combat system is a great improvement over the old one.

Yes, I'd prefer a turned based system with hexes, SFB-like proportional movement & turn modes.

However, what it is is better than what it was.

[Barnacle Bill]

Gandalf Parker said:
I also wonder if the 3D thing might not slow down the creation of new races which is one of the things I loved about SEIV was having something like 300 races in it.

I think this is a legitimate concern, because it certainly worked that way in the Civ franchise. In Civ2 I could and did roll my own unit graphics all the time, whereas in Civ3/4 you need 3D animation SW and I don't have time to learn it.

However, eventually the available Civ3 unit library had everything I could imagine so eventually the issue went away. Looks like CiV4 is on well underway to the same destination.

[Fyron]

Gandalf Parker said:
I also wonder if the 3D thing might not slow down the creation of new races which is one of the things I loved about SEIV was having something like 300 races in it.

I don't; SE4 had a rather slow buildup of ship sets... It wasn't until just a few years ago when shipset count got so high (around/after Gold). The starting community of SE5 is larger than it was for SE4, so there are bound to be more graphics people around with SE5 early days than SE4. A fair majority of original (not screen captures of SW ships or whatever) SE4 shipset authors used normal 3d apps to make their sets, not Doga. Thing is, most of them only made a few sets, so they tend to be overwhelmed in the volume of work by, say, Atrocities, who only used Doga.

Artaud said:
It should be an option when you start the game...

It is there, in the Game Options tab.