The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary?

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The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 11:42:28 AM

Tormodino

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Disclaimer: I am not flameproof, so please take this for what it is. Opinions and curiosity, with some gentle critiscism.

During my short recent stint here on the forums I have seen a few comments about desired features and changes proposed by players being something to consider for DW2.
Is DW2 an actual thing being worked on, while the massive potential in DW goes largely unexplored?
It's a rare to play a title for so long and to see so little development and experimentation with the base model.

I would still buy the hell out of any expansion that actually improves and expands on the current game. Even after what I find to be a mostly pointless Universe expansion. I gave money to fund the future development of the DW model.
This is an entitled opinion, and does not necessarily reflect reality, but rather my hopes for this title in particular.

All over the forums there are suggestions and wishes for expanded research trees, better building system, UI and AI improvements and heaps of quality of life and immersion changes.

I'd love to hear what the plan is for the future of DW, and why there seems to be so little desire to allow tweaking of and opening up the core functions in the game (examples: AI, private sector). The promised expanded modding capabilites in Universe are not very impressive, to be perfectly honest. It opened up a lot of options, but they were along the lines of creating scenarioes within the current game model.

Btw, I know that this is a small team and that things take time. I'm not on a schedule. I wait patiently for Dwarf Fortress to release their bimillenial update. I can easily do the same here, and even pay for it.
I'm very curious to know if what we currently play is all that DW will ever be, barring balancing, AI improvements and bugfixing.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 11:58:23 AM

joeyeti

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One sentence:

DW1 engine is too old and it was never designed to be mod-friendly from the ground up.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 12:00:48 PM

Bingeling

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It has been said that universe is the end of the current distant worlds. Apart form patches, of course, and they can always change their minds.

Why "scrap it"? With assumptions of DW being like any other program. Lessons are learnt since starting on the game many years ago. Choices made in the past makes some desired changes hard to do. The game is built on "old" technology, giving undesired requirements like windows media player and internet explorer. Developers usually want to scrap any implementation and start over again after 7 years, because their existing stuff is clunky after too many changes and bad choices in the past.

Why not open up core parts of the game? Because they are core, and not flexible. How would you suggest a 7 year old games should make the AI moddable? How do you suggest that a brand new game should do the same? You seem to have a weird understanding of what a game like this probably looks like under the hood. Modding beyond creating "new scenarios"? That is hardly very easy to do for anything but a very simple game. Even the "make your own game" stuff just allows you to make a scenario in their framework.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 12:07:04 PM

ByTheNumbers

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Erik made mention over on the Steam forums that DW2 is a planned title they intend to work on. The way he worded it made it sound that it's not in actual development yet while they still support to the current DW. So DW2 will eventually be made. Honestly, I think it's sometimes better to come out and do a sequel when current source code may make it more of a pain than it's worth to fix and change things. Starting fresh can allow them to do things right.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 12:07:16 PM

Unforeseen

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Other than the added campaign i kinda do [in my honest opinion] think that Universe was more of a large patch update that cost money than it was an expansion.

Expansions are supposed to do just that. "Expand the game", and if your going to have to pay the price of an entire game for it there needs to be an entire games worth of content in the expansion. Compiling the previous expansions into one, adding a little bit of content, and unlocking what seems like a tiny bit of modding capability and selling it for 59.99 is pretty absurd.

I fully support a potential DW2, and i think there is alot of room to improve upon the previous game. Especially in the AI and Diplomacy departments. But i think that expansions should be released as a stand alone; and they should be priced based on what they are, relative to the original game.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 12:25:34 PM

Nanaki

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The thing about a DW2 is that, it allows you to make some very massive changes but that is both a curse and a blessing. There are a huge number of excellent games out there that had mediocre or downright terrible sequel, Star Wolves, STALKER, Homeworld, Deus Ex. Infact, one of the worst debacles in the history of 4X gaming came from a sequel to a beloved franchise, Master of Orion 3.

The moral of the story is that making a sequel as opposed to an expansion enables you to change a whole lot, but not every change may not be for the better. Each change made needs to be thought about, and even though a lot of old 'mistakes' might be fixed, new mistakes will be made to take their place.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

Other than the added campaign i kinda do [in my honest opinion] think that Universe was more of a large patch update that cost money than it was an expansion.

I think Universe was mainly aimed towards people whom have never heard of or played Distant Worlds, as previously the price of the vanilla game + all expansions was nothing short of astronomical (well over $100). While it may not be a massive improvement to those whom already owned the base game, it dropped the price of entry enough for new people whom otherwise never heard of DW until recently to buy the game.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 1:01:18 PM

Tormodino

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@joeyeti and Bingeling: If what you are saying is true, that is more than fair. However, I do not have a weird understanding of how this works. I have a very limited understanding of how it works.
Finding out the reasons why old parts of the code can not be updated to be less inflexible, as part of paid expansions if necessary, is a major part of why I asked about this.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 1:15:03 PM

fenrislokison

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Personnally, i'm not this eager for modding ability.

IMHO, mods are divided in 3:
- numerous small mods each used by a handful of people
- a handful of great mods used by a bit more of people
- the vast majority of uncompleted, unbalanced and buggy mods
And even for great mods, there is usually only a minority of players who use them.

Great games are great before being moddable and they usually don't get this much greater by using mods. And poor games or ok games never become great because of mods.
Some may disagree with me but that's my opinion for games like civ5, skyrim, the small shadowrun game, galciv 2 and i don't remember how much more.
The only mod i ever remember that renewed the game for me was the Floris mod for Mount & Blade Warband.

So if DW2 is to be born, i don't want it because of modding.

I think DW2 must be developped because as great as DW1 is, it still is getting old. I'm playing it for several years now. I still enjoy it a lot, but i don't play it anymore for its concepts or deepness or whatever, i play it because when i want to play a good game, i think "aah yes, DW is very nice, i want to try to feel like it was like when i first played".
I'm starting to play DW because of nostalgia, like i'm still playing sometimes Moo2.
And nostalgia is also the reason why I bought Universe: because it's one of my favorite games for several years now. I buy Rammstein albums the same way: i don't know what there is inside but it doesn't matter because it's my favorite band.

But even if i'm the first one to recommend it to a new player, it still doesn't change the fact that DW is getting old and, for me, Universe feels more like a Last Stand for a declining game.

I don't mean that DW is dead, this forum proves all days that it is not. It is a fine old geezer, telling the same tales from the past, but no more a fresh young man.

So DW2 project must be started now, before the decline of DW1 become too obvious and the players get tired of it.
I'd like it to be done by the same people for the core mechanics: economy, research and empire management but i'd also think they could benefit from new guys when it comes to user interface, graphics and ergonomy.
I know graphics aren't really the main point of this type of game, but still it counts. Fleet battles in Sins of a Solar Empire where great for example.
And being a small team doesn't prevent to achieve nice graphics, as in Lords of the Black Sun or the Mandate, both currently in development.

I don't really think of any specific part of the game i want to be implemented, but i would like the mechanics not to be too close to those of DW1. Galciv 3 seems to take that path and looks like it will be galciv 2 improved. I fear i'll be bored rapidly because i won't have to learn the game, i'll just have to start the game of hard or higher, learn the new UI, new artefacts and that's it, game beaten.

I don't think however that DW2 would benefit from an improved story mode. The "sandbox" way of playing is better for a 4X game IMHO.

I don't think it should be done to handle galaxy of 10 000 stars or whatever, the scale of the game is fine as it is. Anymore would be overkill and would only appeal to a handful of players.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 2:02:57 PM

Max 86

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IMHO, this game is a classic and I will play this for a long time. My biggest concern is that it becomes unplayable after updates to PC operating systems in the future. It would be sad to let this game fade away because of incompatibility with future PCs.

Here at Matrix already on other forums players clamor for old games to be remade with updated engines because, like DWU, they are classics too and many fans miss playing them. Steel Panthers jumps to the front of my list there, but there are others.

So I see DW2 as being for Windows 9, 10, 11, etc...whatever Billy G. and his crew at Microsoft throw at us in the future.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 2:12:01 PM

ASHBERY76

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There is still a lot of room for DW1 to improve,better diplomacy,senate,more space monsters,events,etc.

Better graphics is the only reason to do DW2 at this point.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 2:13:50 PM

Mansen

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

Better graphics is the only reason to do DW2 at this point.

An engine that handles large numbers of units on screen.
An engine that doesn't perform OOS combat differently than on screen.
An engine that is much more open to modding.

I'd say there are plenty of reasons for a new game. The time might not be ripe for it right now, but "graphics" is far from the only improvement. 2D sprites can go a long way. Higher resolution files and we'd have an entirely different visual side.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 2:15:41 PM

Cauldyth

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I would love to see more DW expansions.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 2:22:04 PM

Osito

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How long will it take to get DW2 to the state that DW is currently in? I suspect quite a long time.

I would like to see a DW2, but I think it is so far away that I'd rather see some more DW first. And remember: some of us are old enough that we might not live to see DW2 :-)

Osito

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 2:49:15 PM

ParagonExile

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I've been plying only for a few weeks now with the release of universe (couldn't afford earlier iterations! $100+!) and this is easily one of the best 4X games ever made. That being said, I can tell even with my modest technical knowledge that Distant Worlds is getting "Too big for its shoes"; the game's potential is outstripping its technical limitations and it suffers from that in my opinion.

A new game, made with a new/updated engine would clear up many issues and allow things we can't do currently; a release 3-4 years from now would be great.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 3:10:32 PM

Fenrisfil

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I think there are good reasons to do a sequel. Tweaking here and there is all well and good, but to make a significant step up from the current game would require adjusting and replacing fundamental game code, which would be extremely time consuming and simply wouldn't recoup itself financially given it would essentially be a DLC for an increasingly old title. Secondly once you get to making radical changes to the game, it basically becomes a new game anyway, so as well as wasting the great marketing opportunity that a new game provides you'd potentially also alienate current fans.

Now of course there are a few specific things that they could have opened up, sure. But that doesn't negate the need for a sequel. I very much doubt they could have done the item on the top of my wish list, which is to provide for multi-star systems. Related to that would be planets that orbit two stars centre of gravity (mixed in with single star orbits) and the whole idea of the stars orbiting each other around that central point. You can see why that isn't an easy thing to just shove in.

Second on my wish list would be a complete reworking of population, planet habitability and colonisation, allowing proper planetary terraforming, dome colonies, populations working and paying tax on large space stations and stuff like that. Installations and troops on worlds that aren't yet colonies would be part of that. All of that is unlikely to be workable until a sequel. So from my point of view, DW2 is definitely necessary!

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 3:42:10 PM

Gregorovitch55

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For me, coming to DW for the first time recently, it is obvious that it is an extremely good space 4X game and i have absolutely no desire to play any other of my space 4X games for the foreseeable. Equally, it is obvious to me that many aspects of the game, particularly the UI, are way below par compared to the quality of the game play and of course the graphics are a decade behind the times.

In this genre, because the sandbox game is far more important than the story lines, to make a sequel that people won't deride as a blatant cash grab you have to make significant improvements in game play and aesthetics plus some fresh ideas and content that are well thought out, thoroughly in keeping with the original's ethos and replace ideas that in the previous game were generally considered the weakest.

The best way to captivate and satisfy the fans IMO is to make a complex game even more complex but at the same time make it easier to handle the complexity by improving the way information is presented to the player and providing new tools to make executing decisions easier. And by making it so gorgeous it makes you want to fire it up just to look at it. This is basically what Paradox do with successive iterations of Vikki, CK, EU and HoI and nobody is complaining. Each new release is devoured in a frenzy by existing fans and brings in a whole new set of players because they are pretty much always simply better than the last one.

DW is ripe for this IMO. There are only two things that can go wrong:

1. The game is dumbed down in a misguided pitch for the mass market.
2. The scope of the sequel is beyond the resources of the dev to deliver

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 3:59:04 PM

ASHBERY76

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Fenrisfil

Second on my wish list would be a complete reworking of population, planet habitability and colonisation, allowing proper planetary terraforming, dome colonies, populations working and paying tax on large space stations and stuff like that. Installations and troops on worlds that aren't yet colonies would be part of that. All of that is unlikely to be workable until a sequel. So from my point of view, DW2 is definitely necessary!

Those could be worked into DW1 pretty easily but sequel or not does not mean that is the designers desire for DW2.Ultimately we know nothing about the plan for DW2 apart from said graphics.It could be simplified for the new steam crowd.

< Message edited by ASHBERY76 -- 6/20/2014 5:00:19 PM >

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 4:04:21 PM

Nanaki

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The thing is, I feel that DW should probably be used as a testbed for gameplay ideas/changes that do not require a complete overhaul. As I said in my previous post, sometimes changes that sound or look good on paper do not work out when actually tested, and it would likely be much better to find out sooner (in DW1) rather than later during DW2's development after considerable expense. Especially since the more changes you do to a core game, the more unpredictable the final result will be.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fenrisfil

Second on my wish list would be a complete reworking of population, planet habitability and colonisation, allowing proper planetary terraforming, dome colonies, populations working and paying tax on large space stations and stuff like that. Installations and troops on worlds that aren't yet colonies would be part of that. All of that is unlikely to be workable until a sequel. So from my point of view, DW2 is definitely necessary!

Thing is, there are a few things here I do not necessarily agree with... Terraforming is one of the few things I dislike, simply because of the inevitability of a race eventually converting all planets into environments of its liking. Imagine an entire system full of nothing but continental planets, or an entire system full of nothing but volcanic planets, infact, these very situations happened during my playthrough of Hegemonia: Legions of Iron. Simply put, it takes character out of colonies and turns them into a mass-produced paradises for the race in question.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 4:31:19 PM

Tormodino

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But these things are exactly what you talk about, Nanaki. Terraforming does not have to be implemented the way you fear. There are many ways to go about making colonies and space habitation interesting and rewarding without leading to gaia-everywhere syndrome.

The tendency to think that any change or new feature has to be an extreme one frequently limit what people think is possible or desireable.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 4:32:48 PM

pkoko

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I just bought DW-U and I feel it is a great 4X game. I feel that other than improved diplomacy, UI improvements, and couple of balance changes; the game is excellent as is. You can always improve something and the cycle never ends. Therefore, I think it is time to start a new game ASAP. The new game can add truly revolutionary features like new unit types, new planet types, unique research trees, etc.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/20/2014 7:16:29 PM

Ranbir

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Good DW2 is coming. I just want it exactly the same stuff, just more of it, on a newer engine that allows more flexible stuff to go on.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/21/2014 8:29:51 AM

feygan

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I'm all for DW2 for a few reasons but you have to separate some of them due to how the game is viewed. For me personally modding is a huge part of my decision when buying 4x games, I fully understand that unless I were to spend years learning how to program I just will never see a game that perfectly fits what I want. That is fine though when you have a game with a large amount of modding flexibility, DW was really never meant to be truly modded, the changes you could make were mostly aesthetic in nature with some actual modding being opened up in the last expansion. Even with that there are quite large limitations on what can be done and the methods for making these changes are somewhat clunky to use. In that vein a game built from the ground up to be modded would be fantastic, however it comes down to the developers own design plan and vision for their product.

The most important reason I can think of though is due to the engine used for DW and taking advantage in hardware advancement. Two perfect examples I can think of in this case are Civilization 4 and Space Empires 5. Both of these games are very old by gaming standards, and yet they do still have a reasonably large amount of folks who play them on a regular basis. However both also suffer from ancient coding by today's standards, this severely hampers the performance of a modern powerful machine. Granted some talented individuals have made great strides with modding to improve things, but factors such as game size, AI numbers etc still cause many of these games to become tedious at later stages.

I can easily imagine that in 4-5 years DW will still have a respectable number of fans who play it weekly or more. But by that time the average level of hardware being used to play the game will be bottlenecked by what will be ancient code. An advanced DW2 engine will be able to make full use of 64bit os environments, and multiple cores. This will allow players to either have vast galactic sizes, or intelligent AI algorithms along with many other things we always crave for any 4x game. This and this alone I think will determine if DW becomes a long running success or ends up in 10 years time as a fondly remembered piece of nostalgia we fire up for 10 minutes before realising how dated and frustrating it has become.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/21/2014 10:02:50 AM

2guncohen

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I hope if they make a Distant worlds 2 is that they don't make the same mistakes as Sword of the stars II.
That game has so much potential but is still feeling clumsy and broken...

What would rock is a distant worlds with multi-player capacities that would literally be fun.
And maybe include warp-space ? a layer of space reality above the normal space

More roles for Units on planets a turn based combat mode for certain objectives for planet assets would be fun.

There is so-much they can add or expand on.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/21/2014 12:32:55 PM

eyegore

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Distant Worlds 2 is a given. It's just too popular...even on Steam...which is a very hard sell for a complex 2d graphics anything. It has to be done because it is so close to being the best 4x game out there but it misses the mark in a couple key areas that only a new engine can address.GUI and A.I.

Overall for everything it does the A.I. is pretty darn good overall. I think a lot that can be improved simply is waiting for a better engine that can handle an expanded code base (and libraries) to pull off.
This goes down to how the A.I. builds and fits ships and bases to how it handles diplomacy, etc on top of it's overall defense/attack abilities and overall strategic thinking.

The GUI is not just needlessly complex, it's badly engineered. I can deal with complex if it gets the job done, but if I'm scrapping 200 bases after I research long range missles because the ONLY WAY to change it's standing orders is to scrap it and GIVE THE ORDER IN THE DESIGN PHASE...something is terribly wrong and thought out and it's not getting the job done. Ever since Space Empires 3 a right click brung up any possible thing to do, include changing an order to an existing base. That age old simple design worked and it is not here and is the single largest reason I can only take so much of playing distant Worlds.

After that there's a lot of features added I could list but they've all been mentioned elsewhere. They all add up to needing a new engine as well.

Another thing to concider is 2d or 3d. Eyecandy is nice but overall we have an epic size universe that takes lots of memory and processing power to pull off---to expand on the current design will take a lot more. Generally speaking 3d is always smaller than 2d...for the simple reason you skin the model and it loads once and it's in the game...whereas 2d requires a series of frames to be loaded into memory for each action...like a soldier walking, shooting, dying. To animate him and his actions usually involve dozens upon dozens of frames to be loaded, quickly exceeding that 1 detailed 3d model. But Distant Worlds is an exception...it is just one flat 2d image that can be turned and moved with a couple lines of code, and for death and fighting the same 2d effects frame is used/replayed for everything...so in this one case 2d actually is less of a memory hog.

Of course Sins of a Solar Empire showed large universes are certainly possible in 3d, and with games jumping to 64 bits --and all the tricks 3d can bring, like LOD, Occlusion Culling, and other built in performance tools just not possible in 2d it is a very hard call for the developers to make. You could go 3d and get the eye candy but you'd be upping the player base default rig requirements by a large margin. And you would lose that charm that 2d brings.

I'd like a more serious look at Lore as well. It seems some mad idea that all 4x Space games have talking rodent and roaches...including popular worlds like Star trek and Starwars...but I'm a hard sci-fi guy. My favorite sci-fi movies are 'believable' sci-fi movies like Gattaca or Children of Men....under no evolutionary vision will a rodent ever speak or enter space...it has no thumbs. And it is just silly to me to have some miles long tech research, complexity in ships and planets in a massive universe and go and ruin the whole thing by putting a hampster in a space suit. Of course this is modable so if they choose to remain lazy in this regard that can be fixed by the player and is not the end of the world, but for once I'd like to see a developer be as serious on LORE as they are with all the other stuff. It is such a huge missed oppurtunity. A serious sci-fi LORE 4x would do extremely well in a market filled with cartoon crap.

I GET Star Trek is popular...but I still laugh at loud when and see Kirk and Crew being thrown across the bridge in just about every episode because in the 23rd century these morons never heard of a seat belt. As much as I enjoy Star trek I never found any of it believable.Something more serious would be a nice change.

< Message edited by eyegore -- 6/21/2014 1:49:43 PM >

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/21/2014 12:57:43 PM

Bingeling

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quote:

ORIGINAL: eyegore

The GUI is not just needlessly complex, it's badly engineered. I can deal with complex if it gets the job done, but if I'm scrapping 200 bases after I research long range missles because the ONLY WAY to change it's standing orders is to scrap it and GIVE THE ORDER IN THE DESIGN PHASE...something is terribly wrong and thought out and it's not getting the job done. Ever since Space Empires 3 a right click brung up any possible thing to do, include changing an order to an existing base. That age old simple design worked and it is not here and is the single largest reason I can only take so much of playing distant Worlds.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/21/2014 1:16:37 PM

Icemania

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling
but the fear of any "2" is of course that it will lose its identity and become a stinker...

So avoid the 2 and call it ... Distant Worlds COSMOS.

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/21/2014 1:49:13 PM

Nanaki

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quote:

ORIGINAL: eyegore

I'd like a more serious look at Lore as well. It seems some mad idea that all 4x Space games have talking rodent and roaches...including popular worlds like Star trek and Starwars...but I'm a hard sci-fi guy. My favorite sci-fi movies are 'believable' sci-fi movies like Gattaca or Children of Men....under no evolutionary vision will a rodent ever speak or enter space...it has no thumbs.

Copy and pasted from a previous post... but:

Hard sci-fi never really had a 'flavor' of alien race, as, the only things we know about alien races is what we can prove/disprove through chemistry (Note: Silicon-based lifeforms are improbable) and the liklihood that we are not alone. Most hard sci-fi just avoids the question entirely as hard sci-fi tends to accept the fact that FTL travel is impossible with our current understanding of astrophysics.

Thing is, the whole concept of 'serious' space species went endemic after MOO3 and is one of the reasons why I avoided the 4X genre for so long. Aside from it boiling down to just making alien races 50 shades of similar looking eldrich abominations, which makes the races about as interesting as watching paint dry, the whole root concept reeks of arrogance, especially since there is the possibility we could be horribly wrong and aliens could end up looking more familiar than we would normally assume. The key factor is that we do not know.

Overall, it just tends to boil down to taste. I much prefer the MOO2/Distant Worlds racial selection as, at least, you have interesting, visible aesthetic differences.

quote:

I GET Star Trek is popular...but I still laugh at loud when and see Kirk and Crew being thrown across the bridge in just about every episode because in the 23rd century these morons never heard of a seat belt. As much as I enjoy Star trek I never found any of it believable.Something more serious would be a nice change.

Not sure if you ever watched star trek, but the DW/MOO2 racial aesthetic is too exotic even for Star Trek's standards, whom mostly stuck with humans with bumpy forheads or different colored skin. Given, this is not due to any willful choice but rather it was much cheaper on costuming* and it only continues even to this day mainly due to canon-fueled inertia.

*The Wing Commander movie is a good example in how expensive and difficult it was to turn actors into even the Kilrathi, and the end result was so crappy that they had to cover it up with horrible lighting. Thats just the Kilrathi, whom are fairly analogous, physically, to the Zenox.

Although, overall, I doubt DW will change the race selection a whole bunch. The last X4 I remember making massive changes to its racial selection for the sake of realism ended up singlehandedly killing the most popular franchise in the genre.

< Message edited by Nanaki -- 6/21/2014 2:52:34 PM >

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RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/21/2014 2:31:27 PM

DeadlyShoe

Posts: 217
Joined: 6/2/2013
Status: offline

MOO3 was unpolished and unfinished and that's what killed it, didn't have anything to do with its racial selection ;)

It's actually pretty fun today if you slap a bunch of bugfix patches and mods on it.

quote:

The GUI is not just needlessly complex, it's badly engineered. I can deal with complex if it gets the job done, but if I'm scrapping 200 bases after I research long range missles because the ONLY WAY to change it's standing orders is to scrap it and GIVE THE ORDER IN THE DESIGN PHASE...something is terribly wrong and thought out and it's not getting the job done. Ever since Space Empires 3 a right click brung up any possible thing to do, include changing an order to an existing base. That age old simple design worked and it is not here and is the single largest reason I can only take so much of playing distant Worlds.

Just want to emphasize: as others have pointed out, you can change the standing orders of a design at any time without having to scrap or anything.

(in reply to Nanaki)

Post #: 28

RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/21/2014 2:36:58 PM

eyegore

Posts: 94
Joined: 11/18/2013
From: Houston
Status: offline

The GUI is for sure not perfect, but I have no clue about what you complain about in the above. There is never a need to scrap anything. Yes, you can scrap to balance research output, and maybe a stubborn mine unable to retrofit is faster to rebuild, but...

What are standing orders? The top left of the design (how to invade, when to flee), can be changed for the design at any time.

When you redesign the new orders ONLY AFFECT that design. If current bases are of a different design you absolutely need to replace them. And it is just crazy. Ever imagine watch Deep space 9 and some new sector wide weapon tech comes available and the captain says....well we need to redesign and build a whole new base because I can't give a new standing order to attack any target.

Hard sci-fi never really had a 'flavor' of alien race, as, the only things we know about alien races is what we can prove/disprove through chemistry (Note: Silicon-based lifeforms are improbable) and the liklihood that we are not alone. Most hard sci-fi just avoids the question entirely as hard sci-fi tends to accept the fact that FTL travel is impossible with our current understanding of astrophysics.

Thing is, the whole concept of 'serious' space species went endemic after MOO3 and is one of the reasons why I avoided the 4X genre for so long. Aside from it boiling down to just making alien races 50 shades of similar looking eldrich abominations, which makes the races about as interesting as watching paint dry, the whole root concept reeks of arrogance, especially since there is the possibility we could be horribly wrong and aliens could end up looking more familiar than we would normally assume. The key factor is that we do not know.

Overall, it just tends to boil down to taste. I much prefer the MOO2/Distant Worlds racial selection as, at least, you have interesting, visible aesthetic differences.

Hard sci-fi can be far more than simply choosing to be either Ernie or Bert from Sesame Street--which is the overall trend today in 4x games. Sins of a Solar empire works just fine as the 3 races being clearly beliavably humanoid. Emperor of the Fading Suns is another Universe with TONS of differences between house/factions/races without going to saturday morning cartoons. Dune...though the space bending aliens are certainly far fetched -- everything else from the many houses/secs makes it far better and more interesting than a Star wars or star Trek....if you read the books that is.

Although it is impossible to imagine what a true alien would look like, it is certainly possible to know WHAT THEY MUST HAVE to communicate and build ships to enter space, and a talking roach does not cut it. It is a matter of taste...but seems to me there's only one taste prevalent...Mickey Mouse in Space. Was cool when I was 10...but at my age now it IS GETTING VERY OLD.

Some of the best sci-fi for my tastes, although poorly done in Hollywood, tend to not kill religion as most 4x games do but make it a center point as it is in DUNE or EMPEROR OF THE FADING SUNS. In fact if you listen to Carl Saigon and others, it would explain how these races reached Space travel without destroying themselves--using Religion (and forbidden tech), Tradition (like a government of Kings/queens over Democracy)- to explain self checks to allow them to reach the tech levels they do before they manage to wipe each other out before ever being able to reach us on Earth...which is Carl Saigon's belief.

DW is simply a generic copy of everything before, and not a very interesting one. And the mods available are mods done to death in every 4x game before it. I appreciate and enjoy extended universe (great, more talking bugs), Star trek and such for what they are but I still see that HUGE VOID or nothing else to choose from.

The modding limitations simply would not allow the concept of a Church from a Emperor of the Fading Suns. The Diplomacy is lacking as well. Too much remains hard coded or limited by the engine itself. If they don't create such a World at least allow the community to create it through mods---

< Message edited by eyegore -- 6/21/2014 4:02:33 PM >

(in reply to Nanaki)

Post #: 29

RE: The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary? - 6/21/2014 3:05:15 PM

Nanaki

Posts: 306
Joined: 6/4/2014
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: DeadlyShoe

MOO3 was unpolished and unfinished and that's what killed it, didn't have anything to do with its racial selection ;)

Unfinished and unpolished? The only unfinished part of the game was the AI, other parts of the game that were also trashed, like the UI, graphics, and gameplay, were definatly in their final, intended state. It was just a bad game that, no matter how much time and money thrown at it, would have been crap no matter what.

As for the racial selection?

MOO3 removed a half dozen races and then replaced them with textureswap copypasta of the remaining, even admitting as such by calling them subspecies. The only actual unique race added was the Ithkul, whom is just another zombie apocalypse in space, which is a terrible trope which should just die in a fire already, mainly because I still remember Homeworld: Cataclysm.

I still distinctly remember the forum arguments back in the day that questioned why the developers removed races like they did. I also still remember the snarky 'for the realisms' replies that Rantz gave. At least the guy's game development career ended with MOO3, so I can be greatful for that at least.

quote:

It's actually pretty fun today if you slap a bunch of bugfix patches and mods on it.

The patches/mods just made it playable and only barely just... there is a long, long way between 'playable' and 'fun'... unless someone overhauled the game from the ground-up after I stopped paying attention to it but at that point it might as well be a different game.

quote:

Just want to emphasize: as others have pointed out, you can change the standing orders of a design at any time without having to scrap or anything.

Indeed, although it would help if the game explains that you can still edit some things with a pre-existing design.

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I ate the batter of the bulge at Hans' Haus of Luftwaffles

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The future of Distant Worlds - Is DW2 necessary?