Future of Distant Worlds

[Webbco]

At the same time, the game has to be fun when not at war. I've played plenty of games where I've tried to avoid war to so I can maintain high reputation with other empires...but then the enemy AI does something silly (thus justifying hostile response), or I simply run out of things to do and get bored.

Maybe a more significant differentiation between skirmishes and full blown war?

[Ranbir]

On the casus belli thing and other interactive diplomatic options. It would be interesting for something like this to develop over time in the game that demonstrates how politics between empires evolves in to something more intricate and advanced.

Like in Civilization games, you reach the United Nations near the end game to show how global politics has gone beyond simple war rararara.

[Simulation01]

One thing that could be fun is an additional layer of exploration beyond exploring the galaxy. What I have in mind is something similar to Warlock: Master of the Arcane. In that game you had the main map or world but, there were these portals that you could enter into another world or dimension filled with alternate landscapes, creatures, and challenges. Something like that would be cool in DW. So you could have these Wormholes that led to other galaxies or dimensions that contained different monster classes and types as well as different races and types. They could be further characterized by extreme space hazards like the bad lands in Star Trek Deep Space Nine. It could fit into the story as well....for example...suppose a race stumbled onto a wormhole that led to the place where the Shakturi returned from. These other galaxies or dimensions could also hold special techs found at planets, asteroids, or on abandoned ships that can not be researched.

This type of exploration could be a late game technology function unlocked by a tech.

[Mansen]

That reminds me of the Arilou from Star Control II. They fled into QuasiSpace to hide their planet from invaders.

[Bleek]

Perhaps WAR should require certain triggers, whereas skirmishes and unruly behaviour 'tit for tat' are par for the course and not deemed war. More in line with how the world works... unless it's North Korea who are in a constant state of war without being at war.

[Plant]

ORIGINAL: Ranbir

On the casus belli thing and other interactive diplomatic options. It would be interesting for something like this to develop over time in the game that demonstrates how politics between empires evolves in to something more intricate and advanced.

Like in Civilization games, you reach the United Nations near the end game to show how global politics has gone beyond simple war rararara.

Would you like to suggest this more intricate and advanced diplomatic system? All i can see are empty suggestions without going into any meat. To compare with Civilisation, Distant worlds pretty much have a better diplomatic system than Civilisation games, with their active trade system and blockades. As for the United Nations, in Civilisation, all it is, is a bland nonsensical victory condition.

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

One thing that could be fun is an additional layer of exploration beyond exploring the galaxy. What I have in mind is something similar to Warlock: Master of the Arcane. In that game you had the main map or world but, there were these portals that you could enter into another world or dimension filled with alternate landscapes, creatures, and challenges. Something like that would be cool in DW. So you could have these Wormholes that led to other galaxies or dimensions that contained different monster classes and types as well as different races and types. They could be further characterized by extreme space hazards like the bad lands in Star Trek Deep Space Nine. It could fit into the story as well....for example...suppose a race stumbled onto a wormhole that led to the place where the Shakturi returned from. These other galaxies or dimensions could also hold special techs found at planets, asteroids, or on abandoned ships that can not be researched.

This type of exploration could be a late game technology function unlocked by a tech.

Rather ironic in that in playing a space game, you have a sudden desire to be whisked away into an alternate universe full of strange landscapes, creature with monsters and different races and extreme space hazards. Why, that sounds like Distant Worlds! Also I dread to think how the AI will be scripted to react to those circumstances.

ORIGINAL: Bleek

Perhaps WAR should require certain triggers, whereas skirmishes and unruly behaviour 'tit for tat' are par for the course and not deemed war. More in line with how the world works... unless it's North Korea who are in a constant state of war without being at war.

They already are, hence why you can invade worlds without declaring war, and why the Gizurean are always shooting at my ships patrolling my mining stations within their territory, and then they have a reduced relationship from "our past dealings with you have been terrible". And in real life even minor skirmishes have huge chances of escalation into act of wars; in fact they are a symptom of being at an uneasy ceasefire, it is certainly not how the world works.

[Bleek]

You're right, I retract my comment. The mechanics go way beyond that of other 4X games and they are solid.

[Simulation01]

LOL I suppose it is Ironic.

[Bleek]

I was talking more about the time scales of things happening i.e. going in and out of war at the drop of a hat.

Nothing is perfect, a lot of other 4X games have really poor diplomacy systems.

[towerbooks3192]

Casus Belli System inappropriate for distant worlds. You are exploring space and facing space monsters and aliens and the last thing you would want to do is negotiate with aliens that are about to chew you and spit you back out.

Excited for DW Shadows!! I am going to finish my assessments tomorrow so I could play it once it comes out.

[Arcatus]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Thank you for the compliments. [8D]

We're about to release Distant Worlds: Shadows, the next expansion. The current plan is to have a modder-focused expansion after that and then start work on Distant Worlds 2. This is subject to change though. If Shadows and the modder-focused expansion do very well we may look at extending DW 1 a bit further, but we'd really like to do a new engine to show what we can do.

Regards,

- Erik

Oooh, nice.

[criticom41]

Wow that sounds like a good plan Eric, great to hear yer thinking of a new one!.....ya this is the best 4x game agreed.

[Icemania]

Erik, now that Shadows is released, can anything more be said? As you can tell from other posts I'd vote AI, AI and AI.

[feygan]

As far as the future of DW is concerned I'm against the idea of 3D, Sure it looks great I'm a long time player of both SEIV & SEV being both 2D & 3D, while I love the 3D aspect of SEV it wasn't until I did my last system upgrade to 16GB and SSD's that I was really able to play it properly (partly due to bad code). But still 4X games that go heavy on the pretty always end up being hogs on resources that leaves the essentials neglected. You only have to look back at the last 10-15 years of strategy games to see the really good timeless ones are those that offer real gameplay.

2D distant worlds gives great freedom to those with higher grade systems to have monstrously large games on the go if they choose, to make it 3D means you then have to get another system upgrade just for some pretty lights. I can get my pretty lights fulfillment from any number of first/third person shooters or ARPG's.

[scotten_usa]

I agree with Feygan. Although 3D is more realistic, 2D is waaaay more playable.

[Dotdotdot]

If the Distant Worlds is to be more fun during peace time, you need to have more ways to interact with your and other empires during peace time. Victoria 2 would be a good example, insofar as you have to juggle the needs of your population. The actions you can take along those lines are limited by your type of government, the parties that make up your legislative body, and the wants of your people.

It'd also be interesting to add cultural differences to races within the game: Humans and Boskarans from a Democracy are going to behave differently from their kin that were indoctrinated in a military dictatorship.

Or maybe even evolutionary off-shoots considering the reason for the Age of Shadows?

Also, we need to be able to build our own freighters and designate our own fuel stockpiles. Or allow our own civilian freighters to respond to resource contracts.

[RockKahn]

I would vote for DW to stay 2D. I don't see, in this scale of game, where 3D gets you anything but frustration. If it were a tactical game, yes.

If you want "eye candy", put a picture of the wife or girlfriend on your computer desk. I wouldn't recommend both.

[paShadoWn]

Casus belli in DW will be awkward. There is one reason that is enough: i want to effing conquer the galaxy. Period. There is also an option to destroy the galaxy but for some obscure reason i prefer domination over destruction. The legacy of vampiric pet lovers i suppose. I play Crusader Kings 2 sometimes and every time it ends the same: i conquer the half of map then it becomes pointless as there are no more doomstack-producing HRE's to challenge you. The casus belly serves only to prolong the inevitable.

New engine? An excellent idea, an engine with greatly reduced graphics will do well. In sense it wont make oom crash so often. Removing all the animations, replacing artwork with 32x32 icons and generally not trying to make "graphic enhancements" in wargame.

3d? Do a simple math: get a big number, square it then cube it. Then you will see how much 2d->3d increases the size of coordinate data arrays. In ten-twenty years maybe computers will get powerful enough to handle 3d Distant Worlds.
Sword of the Stars gets away with its 3d by cheating with turn-based global map and tactical map being semi-flat with limit on few scores of ships. And even then processing turns and loading tactic takes minutes. Sometimes many.

And also i would very like a multiplayer, with matchmaking server. The modern 100mbps networks are imo quite capable of handling it. If you dont live in a backward hole like Florida of course.