HsojVvad
Posts: 1036
Joined: 3/24/2010 Status: offline
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I keep reading new posts asking about DW. I am a lazy person, and a forgetful person, so I keep saying different things in different posts. So what I will do next time, someone asks about what we think of DW I will link them to here, or I will copy and paste, if I am not feeling too lazy . A little about me, I love 4X space games. I love the MOO series the best. I also love Call to Power 2 and like Sid Mier's Civilization 1, 2 and 4. 3 was such a huge disapointment, I try to forget that it was ever made. I am not a RTS player so I guess that is why I never bothered with Brian Renoylds Civ game. I love Alpha Centauri and wish there would be an Alpha Centauri 2 game. I am more of a turn based gamer as you can see. I herd of DW from another forum, The Birth of the Federation. It's a Star Trek MOO type of game. Actually BotF is actually MOO 3, made by the same people and produced by the same people who did MOO and MOO II. I am greatfull someone mentioned DW there, since I am starving for a new 4X space game. So when I did research for DW, I was horrified it wasn't a turn based game. I really do not like RTS games because you can't pause them and it's usually a clickfest game. But I found out, you can pause it when ever you want. I went "phew" that is great, it should play like Hearts of Iron or Europa Universallis. I always wundered how a 4X space game would play like that, so I got more interested in DW. Long story short, I really like DW. I think it works great. It's the 4X Space game I have been looking for in a long time and I am enjoying it immensly. Now for the long story . Since I lost my job, I am playing it 4 or more hours a day. I havn't had this much fun in a long long time. Civ 3 was a disapointment. Civ 4 was a lie at the begining. By that they lied about the specs you need to really play the game. After many patches and finally a new computer, I could finally enjoy Civ IV. Looking forward to Civ V btw . I was disapointed with MOO 3, and thanks to the modding community, it was a good game to play. Before DW came out, I was playing BotF quite alot to get my 4X space game fix. What a breath of fresh air, DW is. I guess it plays like a RTS game, but dosn't. Since I don't really know how an RTS games play, and what I did play, this is not a click fest game. I guess it's because I pause alot so it does feel more of a turn based game. I play at slow speeds as well, and keep restarting because I love the feel the game has at the begining. I sort of roll play my games, thinking how if I was a space explorer right now, how it would play out. I guess I love the begining of the phase of the games more than the end phases of the games. I love of beautiful most of the planets look. I love how most of the moons look. I like how the stars look. It's really a beautiful looking game, when zoomed in quite close wich is usually the opposite in other games. I love how when I zoom up close, I hear the space station being constructed. I love depending on the order of how the space station is built, it can have it's construction bays being built first, so it can start working on ships. It can have it's weapons online before the station is finished. I like how the mines exhaust fumes and how the ships have running lights on. This game is a living game that is not static. For me at least, zooming in and out is seamless and I have not much problems. I do have a minor annoyance when I am zoomed out, and I zoom in, sometimes it zooms all the way in. I hate it, but it's a minor annoyance. I use to hate making ships in DW. But now that I have read the sticked AAR on how to make ships, I love it now. Quite alot of options. I don't like how much range you get with fuel tanks, but that can be controlled by me at least. I just take off 3 or 4 fuel tanks making my ships not to be able to travel so far. I nerf them myself, just a personal thing. I don't think you should be able to travel half way over the galaxy at least not in the begining of the game. I rather have the AI be able to attack me, but I nerf myself, and not the AI. I wish the design screen was more prettier or easier on the eyes. Bigger fonts, and if I pick 5 armour, it would say Amour X 5 instead of having amour written out 5 times. Hopefully this will be fixed in a patch. This brings another thing. Patches. I believe a game should never be patched. I hate the release now, patch later mentality of the gaming industry. That was MOO 3, Civ 3, and Civ 4, for shure. Release now, patch later to make the game better. But for most people, DW is playable right out of the box. Well, I downloaded so I have no box but you get the idea. This is no excuse, but given how the industry is now, CodeForce is a small comapny. I was shocked to learn that they are a tiny company, but made a huge game. So the way the industry is, I cut them a break now. They are like Paradox, or Stardock. They take part of the forums here, and help us out if we have any questions, or need help. They are active on the fourms, very active. Nice to see a company we supported in buying a game to support us with feed back and help as well. Again, DW is playable, for I say 99% of the people. The 1% that has trouble, Erik and Elliot do try and help. There is a few extreme cases where someone is not happy at all, but that is another story. We all have our opnions, good or bad. That is why I love these forums as well. No matter if you have a bad opnion of the game, Matrix lets you vent your oppnoin, good or ill. It's all the small things in DW, that make the game great. Like I said before, the flashing lights, the sound effects, I can name my spies. Lots of options for the spay game. I love it. The only thing I am disapointed in the spy game is that when you steal tech, you can't. You steal research points, but no technology. But hey, give them credit, they are making a different version of a 4X game, and not a clone of MOO or something else. I don't like the research game either. But it's their version of how it is. Hopefully they will change it in an expansion. I can't really explain why I don't like the research game. When ever I get a new tech, I go oh well. I guess, it's because I already have it. I just have a better version of it, but I don't SEE the better benifits of it. For example. I have better fuel tanks now. Who cares, because all I had to to before, is just add more fuel tanks for longer range. So what is the big deal of having better fuel tanks. Now if a fuel tank had a capped range you can travel, then I can see being excited for having a new fuel tank version, not just holding more fuel or what not. Same goes for weapons. I already have a weapon, but when I get a different version of it, or a newer version of it, I don't go YES! like I did in MOO because all I have to do is just put in more of my older weapons. So I either have 10 old weapons doing the same damgae as say as 3 newer weapons. Who cares. Maybe if I can only put in so much on a ship that might make a difference. The only difference you have is how big your space ports can build. The only thing I get excited for is having bigger construction yards. Now I am no longer stuck at making size 200 ships, now I can build size 300 or what ever ships now. Now I can be excited for something. I do give them credit for something though and wich keeps me in the research game. All weapons and stuff have names. It's not laser 1, laser 2, or shields 1, shields 2, shields 3, they all have different names. That is good. I like the randomness of what techs you get in a game, but I don't like that I can't pick what I want to research. I can see this is designed, for us being a military ruler, not a civilian one. But I love to choose what research I can. I love how in MOO that research is random there and I might not get the same one from game to game, but at least I can pick what I want. Do I research the lower ones first, or do I go for a higher one, to get the next higher one, and by pass all the lower ones. I guess what I am asking for, is just having more options for the tech or research game. For a game that has so many options, we don't have much when it comes to research. Yes I can build more weapons research stations, or industry research stations, but if I can't pick what weapons I want, who cares. I don't care about building a better hab moduel when I wanted construction yards. See there is no excitement when you discover something when it dosn't mean anything to you. I use to hate combat in DW. There is no strategy just point and click. But now I am very greatfull for it. In the begining when there is not much to control, it's great having battles, but in the mid to late games when you can have combat after combat, it gets tiring, and I love the simplicity to it now. So it's a catch 22. Combat not much fun in the begining, but then when you have alot of combat, at least for me, I don't want to deal with it all, all the time. Automation needs to be done better, but they are doing a great job in fixing on how it works, and works better now with the patches. Still a few things need to be worked out, but very playable. MY only major complaint about DW, is when you colonize a planet, it dosn't feel like I have a planet. I can't put in new buildings to make the population bigger. I don't put in any buildings to make them more happy. You put in a stupid little thing called a med bay, or entertainment bay to make the planet happy. I just find this so disapointing. But again, this is their version of the game, and want to make it different from other games. I just think it failed that's all, but they have acknolwadged this, but it might change, might not change. Right now they are working on making this game fun and playable as it is now, so I am hoping in 6 months to a year there willl be an expansion pack that will correct this. Other than that, I love this game. I was floored the first time, my home planet, was a moon. A freaking moon. You can colonize planets, and moons. Sadly you can't colonize asteroids, but they are in there as well. But you can put bases on asteroids though, so I guess it's life like. Who would live on asteroids anyways? No terraforming sadly, but hey that is what expansions are for these days. As others have said, this is a gem that needs polishing. Look at GC II. Look at Civ IV. When these games came out, they were not great. But after 2 or 3 expansions, and many many many patches later, they are great games. I say DW is a good game right now out of the box. After 2 or 3 expansions and many many patches later, I can see this being a great game as well. I can see that DW is Elliots vision of the game he wanted to make, but I also see how he takes in our input as well. Time will tell on what will be out next. But as is, this game is great to play now, and lots of fun. There is a few ways to play the game as well. I will just give one example. You can automate the game for everthing, and just take control of one ship and be it's captian, if you are so inclined. I forgot to mention about the automation, but I turn them all off, so I can control it on how I like it. Maybe that is why I do so poorly, but at least I learn how it's done. So if you like 4X space games, I suggest to buy the games. If you like HoI and EU and space games, then this is a must buy. If you don't like the play style of HoI and EU, then you might not like this game either. But these are my opnions, lots of good things, a few not so good things. But it's been agaes since I played a game where I want to keep playing. There is no one more turn here, but it's one more minute now. I loved Civ II, and MOO and MOO II where I coudn't stop playing the game. DW is almost like that. I just keep playing and playing.
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