Distant Worlds and Sins of Solar Empire

[mightili]

Can anyone compare DW with SoSE? I mean from what I read and see DW is similar to SoSE except it has 100 times bigger universe and a lot more sandbox-ish than comparing to SoSe. Also a lot of elements are given like in Excel Spreadsheet instead of offered as a nice sense making template of progress - research tree for example. Everything is made in DW like its a rocket science. Game don't appear to be very player friendly. Its made like for some class study or something. First time you start the game its like ewwww, what is this?

Someone mentioned that zoom in is pretty impressive. Oh you probably meant zooming in from galaxy view to a system view. DW feels quite strange. It feels very 'amateurish' and on the other hand stuffed with all kind of information some of which you may not need since without having 85% on auto this game feels like you are developing a nuclear weapon without knowing anything of science. Interface is quite odd, game engine feels very unpolished etc. I shoot up SoSE, everything goes so nice and smooth, huge battles, research tree, diplomacy etc... I shoot up DW, and its like ummmm... Is this game for gods of macro-management who don't care about graphics at all? I can't say that this game is worth 40$...

Please prove me wrong.

[HsojVvad]

We really can't prove you wrong. Am I wrong in thinking this is a great game? No. It is our opnions. Your opnion is that DW is not that good of a game. But to say a game is no good with just 2 or 3 comments dosn't make a game bad. Then again 2 or 3 comments dosn't make a game good either.

I don't understand what you mean by graphics? I love the macro-management, becuase that is where Sid Miers Civiliazation games come to a big FAIL. The end game, you can't really micro manage. Well you can if you are for that kind of punishment, but I don't enjoy it, and I usually forget what is what, and jus tclick ok all the time. I love the macro scale. If you don't like the macro scale of games, then this game is not for you.

Just like I don't like a click fest game, RTS games are not for me. We all have different tastes. Not everyone will like micro manegment games, not everyone will like macro management games. Problem is, for most people, they have the Civ syndrom built into their heads. Everything has to be micro and people just refuse to change. This game can be as much Micro as you want if you you like.

This game has beautiful graphics, I can't understand why you say they are not nice. Then again, who care for graphics only, is why alot of games look nice, but play like crap. I find DW plays great with nice graphics. You don't need OH MY GOD graphics to play a strategy game. Anyways, after a few hours, no matter what game you play, graphics don't make the game, it's the game play.

I love how there is so many options in DW. What I am disapointed in, is the documentation for everything the game offers. This is just not Codeforce and Matrix fault, it seems everyone does this now. I find it unacceptable just because this is how things are done now. That is BS. Everything should be documented, espesically when the manual is on PDF and not paper. The manul should be at least 150 or more pages.

But there is so much to the game, there is complexity, there is nice graphics, there if fun in this game.

It's hard to say what is so great about this game. It's all the little things that make this a great huge game.

[mightili]

Well, I am just comparing with Sins of Solar Empire and my first impressions in that game were - wow this is pretty cool. DW however seems more like for geeks that like to see a cargo hold of every ship even though they own thousands of ships.

Also I like the games where developers cared about creating an actual campaign. In DW every episode you create for yourself is still the same sandbox. The difference is only about how many planets you start with, how many ships you have, how many alien races are generated etc. I am gonna play it for a bit, but I am sure I'll get bored soon. Graphics are very average. I mean look at the ship detail... its just funny. [:D] Yeah but then again you can have thousands of ships. I know these games where they treat every unit like a separate object in game and then having problems with game engine trying to calculate all the operations that all the ships do and then having problems during the mass space battles.

Do weapons actually have different shooting particles or its purple lines for every ship and every weapon type? Not sure yet if I want to get into this game too much. Also why can't I change my screen resolution, why is it hardcoded? I can't find any option, neither in registry nor in file. Yeah I understand that game decides the optimal, blah blah, but its not in optimal for my 1920x1200. It seems to be running the game in 1920x1080 which is not optimal for my screen.

[Wade1000]

I understand Mightili's statements. I agree that Distant Worlds is not refined yet in its details of user interface, appearence, subscreen loads, fonts, etcetera. It can all improve soon maybe.

[JonathanStrange]

I love SOASE and DW and SOTS and GalCiv2 - they all have strength in different areas. I think SOASE's strength is in its graphics and polished professional design while DW has a stronger atmospheric and simulator feel that isn't highly polished at all but yet it lives. In DW, people get the feeling that the universe has its own life and goals. In SOASE, one has more the sense of "this is a game that responds along a certain path everytime." I like switching between games and these rough around the edges games like DW may not appeal all the time. But then I like Dwarf Fortress too.

[mightili]

OHHH, and if you haven't noticed this is NOT a 3D game... Its a 2D game... [:D] Come on... We have 3D TVs now and people still make 2D little games for playerbase of 100 people...

[Wade1000]

OHHH, so Mightili appears to be trolling.

In some game types 2D is superior to 3D. 3D sometimes does not help gameplay fun much. Besides grand scale space strategy games in 2D make sense. A galaxy and a solar system can be thought of as on a 2D plane on a grand scale setting. The 3D part of space is abstracted.

Besides, you know that 3D design takes more time and resources to complete... not that 3D is always worth it.

[mightili]

I of course don't judge anyone's taste here. Some people like more micromanagement than others. But there should be a goal in every game. If you make a goal for yourself, I don't find it that fun, though. Its like you already know whats gonna happen, the difference is just how you get there. I like games with campaigns because a lot of stuff is kinda locked out for me, I learn the game by actually playing it while having fun. And I learn the game 100% when I reach the end of campaign.

X-series had the same problem. While their games had fantastic graphics they've only started actually developing missions and story lines only during latest X-series releases.

I think that professional game developers don't really care about making any kind of nice polished space sims due to its very low niche interest. But there are still thousands of us that enjoyed the X3 series and it was so much more fun when there was an actual story line behind the game. Putting a code together and make it complicated to learn, yeah its fun for a few people here and there. I just wish someone finally made something really worth playing... Give me some scripted fun events inside the game. Building ships, exploring, growing your empire, colonizing the planets...

I mean isn't there already a lot of games of this type? Almost every game related to building empire in space is sandbox... And all the difference is that one game is less polished than another have more bugs than another etc, in other words all you compare these sandbox games are how much one game is crappier than another... You don't like say - hey this game has a much better story than that one... Its always - man this game feels like crap, that game feels polished.. etc.

I wish there were more professional developers in this area of game market with a bigger budget... [:(] Everyone seems to be interested in making "Gods of War" and "Worlds of Rat killing". Sarcastically it would be - "Just give me violence and rolling heads and I'll be happy". I guess the times of "Imperium Galactica" are long gone... All we have these days are raising skeletons from a rotting remains of the great games of those times. [8|]

[HsojVvad]

ORIGINAL: mightili

Well, I am just comparing with Sins of Solar Empire and my first impressions in that game were - wow this is pretty cool. DW however seems more like for geeks that like to see a cargo hold of every ship even though they own thousands of ships.

Yeah I use to love this, but I find transporting everything so tedious I hate it now, I find that no fun. But I don't see this in DW. While yes there is cargo holds and what not, we don't put things in them, it's automatically done. I love how CF let us make things as big or as small as we want. You want bigger cargo, but in more boxes. You want faster ships, put in more engines. CF lets us have what we want. Yes the ship design screen isn't the prettiest looking design screen but I love how all the small details we can put on a ship. Vector thrusters so it turns faster, what ever they are called engines so the ship can move, and the what ever they are called FTL drives so it can Warp from one place to another. Add in medical bays, money bays, (what ever they are called) etc. It's the small stuff. I even made my mining facilities, with armour weapons and shields, so they can defend themselves until a fleet arrieves to take care of the threat. Of course now those mines cost me more in maintence costs.

Also I like the games where developers cared about creating an actual campaign. In DW every episode you create for yourself is still the same sandbox. The difference is only about how many planets you start with, how many ships you have, how many alien races are generated etc. I am gonna play it for a bit, but I am sure I'll get bored soon. Graphics are very average. I mean look at the ship detail... its just funny. [:D] Yeah but then again you can have thousands of ships. I know these games where they treat every unit like a separate object in game and then having problems with game engine trying to calculate all the operations that all the ships do and then having problems during the mass space battles.

I don't like campaings. When ever I play EU the first one, I played it so I start from the begining and play till the end. I don't care for scenarios. I believe GC II had them. I never played them, I just played the what ever you call it (darn, I can't remember any names today) I just start with one planet and then try and conquer the galaxy. This is a 4X game, not a scenario game. I never understood scenarios. I find them too limiting on what I want to do. Rule the galaxy.

Do weapons actually have different shooting particles or its purple lines for every ship and every weapon type? Not sure yet if I want to get into this game too much. Also why can't I change my screen resolution, why is it hardcoded? I can't find any option, neither in registry nor in file. Yeah I understand that game decides the optimal, blah blah, but its not in optimal for my 1920x1200. It seems to be running the game in 1920x1080 which is not optimal for my screen.

Remember this game is made from independet developers. Not from EA, or 2K, or Atari or Activsion. We can let the small things slip. Hell these guys are so falcon busy making patches so we can enjoy our games sooner.

Tell me when EA or 2K or Atari or Activision put out a patch when problems were found on day one? CF and Matrix had a patch out 2 days to solve some issues for people. In less than 2 weeks, they released 3 patchs. The other companies release, what, 2 patches in 3 or 4 month time span? At least CF is fixing things as soon as they can.

Give them some slack. Some of the other games you mentioned are from bigger companies so should be set to a higher standard. I am not saying it's an excuse to release a buggy game, but give them credit they are working their butts off to fix the game.

[ASHBERY76]

It is like comparing Command and Conquer to EuropaUniversalis.

[mbar]

ORIGINAL: mightili

OHHH, and if you haven't noticed this is NOT a 3D game... Its a 2D game... [:D] Come on... We have 3D TVs now and people still make 2D little games for playerbase of 100 people...

I like both games a lot. 2D may not make for pretty screen shots but it has it's own advantages. You get 2D sprites in Sins too and I probably spend much of my time playing the game zoomed at that distance because it's easier to control units in the grav well that way. But yeah, zooming in to watch a capital ship explode up close in 3D is pretty sweet.

[mbar]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

It is like comparing Command and Conquer to EuropaUniversalis.

Very true. Sins and Distant Worlds are both in space and real time... but after that they are two different games.

[Kamonrius]

Sins was basic, tedious and unfufilliing. as mentioned before it walked along the same path everytime. battles arent specatuclar as ships sit in place shooting each other, weapons seem to go on dice roll more so than in DW and don't get the oh my god that was awsome feel in battles for SOASE. SOTS was an amazing game in terms of tech, modability and battles but played out the same along a set path with no real interactions between empires.
 
 
DW actually has life going on in it. for example let me depict a2  hour game. Meet an empire the Haako friendly enough, traded maps because I needed resource points to expand, didnt care to check that they ALREADY do not like me because of my strenght (from trading the maps) so they dont talk to me for some time. I run into smaller empires. get along with them as well, started free trade infact but they were no where near as influential as the Haako combined. Haako have enough of me, they erect trade sactions, I thought oh well whatever your smaller friends will suffice. he declares war and soon after his fleet of 1500 in fire power raids my outposts and a large group strikes my capital. Damn should not have given him my maps. I repel and gut his ships, they did not flee and I left most of them cripple. ok he seems to say as he smacks other nearby empires around. trade drops as other empires get subjagated. ok now Im hurting a bit massive fleet I have but not the fuel to get to him with my crap Jump drives. it seems he'll gain power. OPPURTUNITY! Pirates contact me saying they will break the Haako for 6 months with a fee. [X(] k take the money wipe them away. mind you I still have the territory maps so I watch the pirates attack, they break the punative fleets the Haako mount and destroy their strongest Space port over their homeworld. the Haako drop from 950 in MS to 50. some negotiation went on were the subjegated empires broke free and now they are pissed, and pick the haako apart. the haako drop from 4-8 worlds to two and now my problem is..the suped up Pirates I payed and apparently gave technology AND ship designs to kill the haako...so yeah will not find such action SOASE..just spamming requests and pointless missions and ship swarms none of the other features in SOASE seems to make an difference.
 
 
of course this is simply my opinion

[freeboy]

Yep, I do findthe game pretty, I do not find the game too much detail, although I am a big picture gy, probably my tough skin after AE and WITP! lol
So, I am too new to say how truly great this game is, BUT the interactions of the ai empires feel god, I am threatened and also challenge to expand and build... not sure aboutthe fuel refule issues, but these and others are being addressed currently, Don't you love companies like M that have such great responses, one of the senior staff of M is Erik R, and he is directly involved with this... I am pleased, very pleaed...
This game never is goingto be a H2H to player grogfest like tothers.. What it is and will continue to be is an eye pleasing and challenging fun game.. I test and play lots of strategy games, not really liking RTS I find this game VERY FUN.. I pause often giving it a turn feeling, works for me, I see the ticks as turns.. just no next turn button!
My 4x days go way way way back.. Reach for the Stars, some of you where not even born yet when we had this awesome pre cursor to Master of O... and while I suppor tthe dialogue, and the poeple griping, heck I gripe, I wanted to publicly endorse this , very high fun factor!
LOL
and again, thanks for Patch3 due out soon!!!!

[Gertjan]

It is indeed strange to compare Sins to DW. I would rather compare it to a tbs 4x space game. It is indeed the case that DW really is different every game, in the sense that you meet so many different races and the interaction can be quite different. There also many elements which you dont find in Sins (war weariness, trade of techs, colony hapiness, civil wars, independent races). I like how DW took pirates from Sins (I presume).

Kamonrius, note that Sins has gotten quite some additional depth with the two expansions.

To those who have played EU3, is this like DW, very macro oriented and micro is not really necessary/important? How good is the AI?

[Ranbir]

The campaign in sandbox allows you to dictate the story. It is one of the hallmark features of Civilization being such a success. In GC2, it just felt weird their campaign was from one map to another, basically having to restart your progress all the time.

Sins is just a RTS. They tried to coin RT4X but forgot about the depth a 4X needs to go. Besides I'd like to think IG2 before it had some ranking to it. DW is a great personification of RT4X.

This feels like a troll though.

[Jaimoe_MatrixForum]

3D is not always superior to 2D. Think Space Empires 4 VS Space Empires 5.

[Jaimoe_MatrixForum]

I agree that DW still has some work that needs to be done on it but it's not really fair to compare it to Sins. It is a much more in depth game with more of a focus on empire building rather than war, and even with the new Sins Diplomacy expansion there is more of a focus on diplomacy in DW. Even with the steeper learning curve in DW however, I find that so far the community in the DW forum is somewhat more open about sharing tips and strategies for improving your own game than the Sins community is, probably because with Sins there is a multiplayer element and people are more prone towards keeping their little game secrets to themselves in order to maintain their competetive edge.

Both Sins and DW are excellent games but they are not really directly comparable games.

[Kamonrius]

I played Sins with Both expansion packs enabled, and as stated before it feels like a simple RTS nothing more the 3 races call this out as well, 3 races, limited and railway tech, and nothing coming in to shake things up from the outside, its simply an RTS. successful 4x games usually have a number of varying races all with their strenghts and flaws both of which could be exploited and use to benefit you and screw your opposition [:D] that is what I enjoy like I said my opinion [:D]

[HsojVvad]

ORIGINAL: mightili

I wish there were more professional developers in this area of game market with a bigger budget... [:(] Everyone seems to be interested in making "Gods of War" and "Worlds of Rat killing". Sarcastically it would be - "Just give me violence and rolling heads and I'll be happy". I guess the times of "Imperium Galactica" are long gone... All we have these days are raising skeletons from a rotting remains of the great games of those times. [8|]

Yes sadly the days of Imerium Galactica and MOO games are gone. I was surprised that DW was even made. We are a very niche market, and I believe only small developers will make these games now. The bigger companies like EA and 2K etc, just want to make the huges game that bring in the money. They are not happy with 5 000 copies sold while a smaller indy company would be happy with these numbers. That is why we will never see these games again. This is why we will never see another MOO game unless Atari sells the rights. It's just not worth it for the big companies to make anymore. They put the moeny else where, where it will make more money, like Guitar Hero, or Gods of War or Call of Duty for examples.