Distant Worlds: Return of the Shakturi

[WoodMan]

Ah yes thanks Shark, how could I forget that part, its the most fun part of all.  Added it to the list [;)]

[s20dan]

I didn't want to flood the forums with this (it's pretty trivial). Sorry guys, I just don't get it.<me

Its probably some kind of company policy. It is my experience that some companies are completely honest about what is going on, others not so much. They have their reasons, its just you wont find out what those really are.
And yes none of us like it, but what can you do eh?

Normally the smaller the company, the more eager they are to show you whats been going on. And the more willing to answer questions they normally are.

Maybe they just listen to their lawyers too much [:D]

[adecoy95]

is there any chance we will be able to terraform planets or colonize gas giants in this expansion?

[ASHBERY76]

The problem is Matrixgames are too small for a game like Distant Worlds which has a wider audience than most the wargames here.The service is just too slow when compared to Paradox games,ect for news and martketing hype.

[Erik Rutins]

We put the substance before the marketing, in that we're prioritizing work on the game to make sure it's ready and will meet your expectations. We also feel that the relationship we have with our developers and the way we work with them makes for better games in the end, which results in better sales.

With that said, we are doing the latter too and there will be more info posted this week. There is a lot in the works for Distant Worlds, but we don't want to start hyping things too early before we are sure when they will be ready.

Regards,

- Erik

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

We put the substance before the marketing, in that we're prioritizing work on the game to make sure it's ready and will meet your expectations. We also feel that the relationship we have with our developers and the way we work with them makes for better games in the end, which results in better sales.

With that said, we are doing the latter too and there will be more info posted this week. There is a lot in the works for Distant Worlds, but we don't want to start hyping things too early before we are sure when they will be ready.

Regards,

- Erik

*Puts the pitchfork back in the garage*

I can certainly understand that, Erik. I'm happy to wait, but I'd rather post some questions and maintain the hope that they might be answered.

Keep up the good work, the expansion looks amazing. And, if you feel like answering a question or two that would be nice, but not essential.

[Simulation01]

Happy Thanksgiving forum folk, Matrix, Codeforce, general public!!!!&nbsp; I would like to give thanks for everything including Distant Worlds...awesome game....good work!!!!

[flap]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
The problem is Matrixgames are too small for a game like Distant Worlds which has a wider audience than most the wargames here.The service is just too slow when compared to Paradox games,ect for news and martketing hype.

Are you sure that DW really has a wider audience than other games here ?
Also, I don't see anything bad with Matrix games communication right now. They speak when they have something to say.
And actually, during the last few days, Erik posted almost once a day in that thread.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: flap

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
The problem is Matrixgames are too small for a game like Distant Worlds which has a wider audience than most the wargames here.The service is just too slow when compared to Paradox games,ect for news and martketing hype.

Are you sure that DW really has a wider audience than other games here ?
Also, I don't see anything bad with Matrix games communication right now. They speak when they have something to say.
And actually, during the last few days, Erik posted almost once a day in that thread.

There is not a communications problem, its more like the feature list is not finalized and there isn't really anything to be communicated yet. As much as we'd like a sneak peak, if they were to make a premature feature list release and some stuff didn't make it in the howling from the fan base would be unbearable.

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: flap

Also, I don't see anything bad with Matrix games communication right now. They speak when they have something to say.

There are some posters on the tech support forum who would disagree with you.

The moderator there is luke.h. He introduced himself a while back and then vanished without a trace. His last login was almost 2 months ago!

I don't want to seem like I'm flaming Matrix. Erik does a fantastic job and is clearly a very busy man and Elliot is a God! I just think it's obvious that their man power is spread a bit thin while they work on the expansion and maybe we should just acknowledge that.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Igard
I just think it's obvious that their man power is spread a bit thin while they work on the expansion and maybe we should just acknowledge that.

This much is unfortunately true - I should note that the new site/store launch had us stretched about as thin as we've ever been at Matrix over the last few months. That's been the main cause on our side of decreased forum presence.

I also encourage anyone with a severe issue to contact us via our Help Desk, it's the best way to make sure we see the issue as posts can easily be missed in the forums at the best of times.

Regards,

- Erik

[OberonDark]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

The problem is Matrixgames are too small for a game like Distant Worlds which has a wider audience than most the wargames here.The service is just too slow when compared to Paradox games,ect for news and martketing hype.

Paradox has actually been disappointing of late.

[ASHBERY76]

ORIGINAL: OberonDark

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

The problem is Matrixgames are too small for a game like Distant Worlds which has a wider audience than most the wargames here.The service is just too slow when compared to Paradox games,ect for news and martketing hype.

Paradox has actually been disappointing of late.

What?

Crusader kings is a year away from release and dev diarys have already started,Paradox do this for every game.Paradox,Stardock,Firaxis always keep players in the loop many months before release.

[Haree78]

Didn't Paradox do Majesty 2? What a travesty, I wish they cared as much about that game as Matrix does about Distant Worlds.

[YourConscience]

ORIGINAL: Haree78

Didn't Paradox do Majesty 2? What a travesty, I wish they cared as much about that game as Matrix does about Distant Worlds.

No, they only published it. It was done by Ino-CO:

Ino-Co is a Krasnodar-based studio, founded in 2004 by a group of highly-experienced game developers from various teams, brought together by the paramount objective to create excellent games focused on the genre that they all know and love. The studio's previous development project is Fantasy Wars, published worldwide by Atari. 1C:InoCo is a subsidiary of 1C Company.

Also, the game itself is very true to the original. It's just that many people secretly hoped that a sequel would carefully expand on the original, which this one didn't (to a sufficient extent).

[Haree78]

ORIGINAL: YourConscience
Also, the game itself is very true to the original. It's just that many people secretly hoped that a sequel would carefully expand on the original, which this one didn't (to a sufficient extent).

I don't want to derail this thread but as a great lover of the original I couldn't disagree with you more.

[YourConscience]

ORIGINAL: Haree78

ORIGINAL: YourConscience
Also, the game itself is very true to the original. It's just that many people secretly hoped that a sequel would carefully expand on the original, which this one didn't (to a sufficient extent).

I don't want to derail this thread but as a great lover of the original I couldn't disagree with you more.

I think ultimately we agree. What I meant is that they attempted to stick as closely to the original formula as possible. On paper, their game differs only little from the original, but these little differences end up being significant. They include random map generator, different leveling and other such things that on paper might look insignificant, but end up making the game that much less fun if missing. Well, and then the topic of the potential improvements that *could* have been done... And instead we get these utterly nonsensical DLC with more nonsensical campaign levels. Distant world's expansion really is the opposite, really expanding the game play as such.

Anyway, back to thread: Wouldn't it be a good idea to make a little forum contest for a ship design screen design? Submissions should be simply photoshopped alternatives to the current system plus description of the workings and the winner gets a copy of the expansion for free?

I would really appreciate a ship designer that looks and works entirely different than the current one, as well as the currently planned one.

Related to this: in a *second* expansion my single-most wanted feature would be directional damage model and fire arcs...

[Nibelung44]

I'll rerail the thread too and say that I'm very thrilled by the add-on, plus ... I hope that modding support is back in full force!!&nbsp;

[JosEPhII]

Haven't we ran around this tree before? [:'(]

JosEPh [;)]

[Erik Rutins]

Hi guys,

Some notes on modding support:

* races.txt has additional settings that can be used to control race behavior
o Overall Ship Design Focus: influences both research and design
o Tech Focus 1 & 2: emphasize certain tech areas in both research and design
o Special Government and Preferred Starting Government: allows you to assign any special government type to a race and determine which govt they start with (unless set otherwise in game start)
o Expanding: set to N to have a static empire that does not colonize and is quite reclusive
o Can Be Pirate: flag to indicate whether this race should be used as pirates
o Playable: indicates whether this race can be selected by the player in game setup7
* can now have additional ship image families in the folder images\units\ships. Up to 22 families supported, or limited by your computers memory. Map a race to use these new ship image families in races.txt (Designs picture family index)

MODDING SUPPORT PLANNED POST RELEASE

* file to enable modification of racial biases - customize each races natural disposition towards each other
* maybe other stuff if there's demand for it

Regards,

- Erik