A Possible New Vision of Distant Worlds

[Colwolf77]

Let me start by saying I love this game, its addictive and replayable. What I would give my right arm to see would be for this game to take full advantage of modern hardware. I understand the galaxy representation is on a 2D plane and a lot of people would think it unnecessary to use 3D graphics but if you look at games like Stardrive 2 which even though has its fair share of faults, what it does right is make spaceship combat look exciting and impressive.

I'm imagining a game with this gameplay but with state of the art graphics. I think it would bring in a whole new audience who initially disregard it on first impressions. If it was made I don't think I could imagine myself playing anything else.

Please feel free to reply letting me know your thoughts on this, surely I can't be the only one who wants a modern updated Distant Worlds game?

[VorteeX]

Exacly my post from year ago already [:D] (btw, last week i'm start coding somthing like DW with grphics on DX11 engine.

And Stardrive 2 is 99% ripoff of Master of Orion 2 with Stardrive 1 engine. [:'(]

[RemoteLeg]

I think the graphics are good for a 4X game.
Yes - there's games with better graphics out there, but I think it does the job adequately and the developers have come up with some nice UI ideas that make finding the information I need easier. It's not the prettiest interface, but I think they did a good job.

The depth is where they put most of the work. Many, many times I have scratched the surface of what I thought was a simple subsystem only to be amazed at what I found underneath.

I'm impressed with the skill of the AI delegates. Yes, they are not perfect - they never are. However, I've played games where my AI "advisers" are idiots and keep doing dumb things until I am forced to sack them & do everything myself (e.g. Master of Orion 3). I find I am able to automate quite a few of my Distant Worlds systems and trust the AI to do an adequate job until I get around to them.

It's an impressive game, especially for a small company like Code Force.
RemoteLeg

[Colwolf77]

ORIGINAL: RemoteLeg

I think the graphics are good for a 4X game.
Yes - there's games with better graphics out there, but I think it does the job adequately and the developers have come up with some nice UI ideas that make finding the information I need easier. It's not the prettiest interface, but I think they did a good job.

The depth is where they put most of the work. Many, many times I have scratched the surface of what I thought was a simple subsystem only to be amazed at what I found underneath.


It's an impressive game, especially for a small company like Code Force.
RemoteLeg

I totally agree with you, depth should always be the priority in all games and Distant Worlds gets it right. I just think with all the effort thats gone into getting to this point a graphical update would not be too much of a stretch. They could leave everything else as is and just do this. I think it would increase sales dramatically if this game had a beautiful graphics engine to match its deep gameplay.

[Zangi]

Will it run reasonably well on (my/your/his/her/their) computer?
How much extra time will be [s]wasted[/s]spent on debugging graphical stuff, rather then debugging/working on the actual meat of the game?
Will it [s]limit[/s]impact the scope of the game?

[Colwolf77]

How would it be a waste if its bringing in new players? also the meat of the game is already there, yes the UI is a little clunky in areas and there might be a few bugs but Distant Worlds is a full package that I think could do with a little spruce up. I don't see how working on the graphics engine would impact the development of the game, it would be a clear and definite improvement without affecting the 'meat' of it.

[Siddham]

Personally I would be disapointed if the development priority shifted from gameplay to graphics.

The kind of people who are likely to enjoy a game like Distant Worlds are unlikely to be highly concerned about graphics.
They play Distant Worlds for the gameplay; for mental, not visual entertainment.

I think one way to immediately increase the player base would be a revised pricing policy.
A lot of possible players balk at the price.

[ASHBERY76]

Matrix do not put the budget into the game for top art.DW expansions barely got any apart from loading screens.

[Retreat1970]

multiplayer...

[Colwolf77]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

Matrix do not put the budget into the game for top art.DW expansions barely got any apart from loading screens.

This saddens me, how come games with no depth and appeal get large amounts of money ploughed into them and something as great as Distant Worlds doesn't. Sad days we live in.

[Colwolf77]

I'd be curious to see what would happen if Distant Worlds turned into a crowd funded project. How much would be raised to support its development? I know I would definitely contribute if I knew the end result would possibly be the best 4x Strategy ever created.

[kmunoz]

I'd be happy if they improved the display routines that currently exist. Opening a window is like watching a Commodore PET draw in LOGO, or a mid-1980's movie's idea of gritty computer realism. In other words, fix the draw delay! Then, high quality versions of the sprites that already exist.

[mordachai]

And fix the pop-up windows. they seem to scale the fonts that are drawn into them just a little - like they draw to a back-buffer that is just a little off from the size they display at, so that is the last remaining obvious place where nearly all text is blurry (due to the stretching / shrinking of it).

3D is a waste of money & time. Fixing the display-dialog/overlay, fixing the event-display, those would be far more practical uses of resources.

[VorteeX]

I'm wonder why all think about 3D look, why not to keep 2D look on 3D DirectX surface where can use lights and particles effects. Here good example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... o9YOw#t=73

And multiplayer +1 000 000

[feygan]

It is a nice idea OP but I think you are vastly under estimating just how much goes in under the hood of DW. If you consider that even for those of use with 16GB ram and high end CPU/GPU's we still get game crashes in galaxies with 1500 stars towards the late game. I doubt it is an optimisation thing as the age of DW should have killed that sort of bug. But if you have a player and 20 off other AI empires all with the full goings on in each empire then the amount of computer resources needed are vast. Try slapping on some nice shiny graphics pack to that in full 3D and I think you would have to sacrifice so much real game play for any machine to run, that you would likely end up with a crapfest game that does lots of things half right.

I can understand the desire for it as I would love higher res graphics with full 3D, but sadly i just don't believe it is possible to add that to the existing DW without having to loose something in the mix at this time. However we do have a few years left before Moore's law begins to slow down, so we might just see something like DW3D before most of us go senile and blind.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
Matrix do not put the budget into the game for top art.DW expansions barely got any apart from loading screens.

That's not actually true - each expansion got a fair amount of new art and the series improved art-wise from start to finish, but overall it's all still 2D art and within the limits of the engine so there were certainly no earth-shaking changes in terms of the look of the game. Still, if you compare the original DW to Universe I think you'll see quite a few improvements art-wise.

As far as better graphics in the future, all things are possible. [8D]

Regards,

- Erik

[Spidey]

As one who unfortunately doesn't have a 20 GHz octocore CPU with 8 TB system RAM and 256 GB VRAM on my overclocked and liquid nitrogen cooled quadro-linked graphics accelerator, nor expect to have such a system available anytime soon, I'm thrilled that DW isn't full 3D.

There are a few things that could be done with 2D world rendered in 3D but frankly, I think the graphics in general are perfectly fine. Then again, I'm still playing things like Red Alert, Civ 2, Alpha Centauri, and even Diablo 1, so I guess one might argue that I'm not very demanding as far as graphics are concerned, as long as the graphics do their job of conveying the information I need without breaking my eyes.

Obviously the user interface could be a bit better, but that has very little to do with 3D and everything to do with basic user interface design concepts having changed slightly over the last few decades. And to be fair, I doubt user interface design was a big priority at any stage of development. As long as the user interface was usable, other things presumably had higher priority. Fixing bugs, adding features, fixing more bugs, adding more features, AI optimization, performance optimization, bugs, features, and so on. Those other stages never ended so there probably wasn't ever time to revisit the user interface and take it to the next level. Which is a shame, because it's honestly one of the bigger drags in the game.

Why can't I see what ancient ruins I haven't explored on the galaxy map? What is the use of having an entire galaxy map overlay that shows me nothing except how many systems I've visited? Why do I have to control the component order by the order they're added in? Why can't I decide for myself which components I want shown by default in the window instead of having to rely on game's idea of "most recent" or "all"? Why can't I modify the research queue without having to untag and retag all the techs I want researched? Why are garrison fleets under AI control showing up as idle ships? Why isn't there a "sleep" or "observe this position for 1 year" order in case you'd like your long range scanner exploration ships to do active surveillance of foreign space? Why isn't there a "crap, I clicked the wrong science station, please don't take a six month vacation, PLEASE!!!" option for when you accidentally assign one of your better scientists to that fancy new space station you discovered on the other side of space? Why can't I select what races I want on my planet? And why is it that the ship graphics selection is an uncategorized drop-down with a few hundred elements that is practically impossible to navigate? And so on, and so forth.

Anyway, I guess this is my way of saying that the graphics feature I'd really, really prefer to see in the future for DW is actually something as "simple" as a user interface overhaul. Pretty much everything else is awesome. DW is by far the most expensive game I've ever bought and I don't regret it at all. But the user interface... I've seen worse, don't get me wrong, and at least it's made for PC, unlike some triple-A titles I don't care to mention, but it does let the rest of the game down.

[Bingeling]

I have no issues with the graphics quality, and the user interface could need some help. The main benefit of going "3D" is to move to a modern platform which does not cause too many install issues, or require things like internet explorer and windows media player.

With a 3D graphics engine, one could even hope that things would be lighter on the hardware.

As for hints about the future hidden in [8D], I hope we can get hold of some real bits of info sooner rather than later

[ReadeB]

There's a bunch of art and variety coming out of the modding community. I think a little financial support there would go a long way.

Moddable AI would give the fan base something to chew on.. just look at what mods can do to games like Civ4.

Support for 64 bit memory, DX11.. 12?, adding more modding plug-ins... like UI or new mechanics. Those are the things only Dev's can do.

[SundiataWTF]

Sadly, I am one of the Philistines who believes the graphics/UI is not really good enough. I have owned this game a couple of years now and become obsessed, studying the strategy tips on this forum and really working to understand how to play well. Unfortunately after spending a week learning about the game I am stymied each time by the graphics/UI. I have a very hard time getting the ship/fleet/mining center/planet I want on the first "click." Clicking and clicking over and overagain on blurry 2-D graphics that are piled directly on top of each other, I find myself fighting the UI instead of those pirates and future enemies lurking out there in murky space. Don't missunderstand, I don't mind 2-D, I mind 2-D that interferes with gameplay. IMHO, DW could definitely use a graphical update. I don't care if it's 2 or 3-D, I just want the game to be easier to play from an interface standpoint.