Matrix Games Forums

Can we get one please i want to pick this up without having to wait for the Christmas sales???

Well, the new update is not official yet, but will be soon. The one year anniversary of the Universe release is coming up as well, so who knows? [8D]

Regards,

- Erik

\( ﾟ◡ﾟ)/

nod nod, wink wink

Picked up my copy of universe on the steam sale they had for launch last year. Only recently started playing though as I have a bad case of steam wallet and it's packed to the gills with 80% off games I will probably need a second life or possibly a third to have enough time play them all.

However this game will certainly take a bite out of your time if you love grand strategy and my first game outside the tutorial was 200+ hours. I foresee many additional campaigns lasting as many hours in my future so my steam wallet is getting mighty envious. [:'(]

ORIGINAL: M J R

Can we get one please i want to pick this up without having to wait for the Christmas sales???

Can't figure out why they need a sale. This is the well developed, premier 4x space game on the market with a big fan base and lots of mods. There is no way I'd put it on sale. I guess 10% maybe, if I was a bit inebriated and feeling happy. I've paid full price for every iteration of DW and consider every penny well spent. I wish even a quarter of the other games I have were as good an investment of my entertainment dollars.

You're in the minority. Lots of people on Steam and elsewhere simply turn away the moment they see the price tag. Whether you agree with that or not is irrelevant, because they're lost sales at the end of the day.

Sounds like a sale is imminent, so soon more people will get to enjoy the best space 4X ever made. [;)]

I have keep checking everyday now so i dont miss it if it does happen lol.
My guess though it would be at least a week long sale if it happens, maybe it would start on a Monday as a Deal Of The Week special.
Only guessing so dont ddos me if i am wrong >.<

ooooo if they wait till Monday they will miss a lot of memorial day sales that will happen starting Thursday night. Many people off on Friday and the 3 day weekend looking for something to play.

ORIGINAL: HerpInYourDerp

You're in the minority. Lots of people on Steam and elsewhere simply turn away the moment they see the price tag. Whether you agree with that or not is irrelevant, because they're lost sales at the end of the day.

That's kinda like piracy. You can't really prove they are lost sales because you don't know the minds of others simply your own mind and your own mind is telling you others will do the same as you but, you simply can't prove it. [:D]

My spidey senses are tingling.....

And yet it's still a incredibly niche title within the 4x genre, with most of the complaints about it that aren't game/bug-related some variation of 'why is it so expensive?'.

But don't let me get in the way of your blinkered view of the world.

ORIGINAL: HerpInYourDerp

And yet it's still a incredibly niche title within the 4x genre, with most of the complaints about it that aren't game/bug-related some variation of 'why is it so expensive?'.

If the game had modern 3d graphics no one would really be complaining but they see old style pixel graphics and immediately associate it with a game made back in the heyday of the type like master of orion and others.

However its what's under the hood that matters here and you certainly get what you pay for in the latest universe bundle.

Also the dev and publisher have access to the sales numbers and since this game is as you say a niche game with a loyal following they might know that they can charge a higher price to maximise profits.

Saying that the game could use a general ui, ai and gfx update as you can do a ton with pixel graphics and still not really stress out the overall game performance.

This game still has a ton of potential and maybe the dev and publisher can take a card from arcens deck. What used to be a one man operation with its popular but niche ai wars which started out like dw with basic gameplay and quite frankly primitive graphics and sound but with constant updates and clever low cost but steady expansions he morphed it into the current extremely fun 4x tower defense supreme commander mash up game with just as much replayability as this game. Building off that he made some key partnerships with a sound guy another coder like himself and a starving art studio along with a very dedicated volunteer group doing bug testing to upgrade his existing games and branch off into completely new territory with other fun games like federation or tidalis. Definitely an indie success story there and one that should be followed.

In fact Distant Worlds Universe is already similar in development pattern to the game you mention
Distant Worlds has been developed through a series of years and expansions and constant updates to be the game it is today
and the development continues...there was a new update delivered a few days ago

Tbh, I'm on the completely opposing side of the whole graphics argument; I don't see anything wrong with it's current 'dated' (or however you want to put it) presentation as the game is pretty much 100% CPU - I'd much prefer some of the serious lategame slowdown/performance problems be sorted before any UI update or shiny new graphics be rolled out, although this has nothing to do with the issue I have here.

No, what I'm getting at is that so many people here seems to have this idea that listed price for the game is somehow completely irrelevant when talking about the pros/cons of the game, yet it is a major reason why a lot of prospective players end up shying away from taking the plunge and there are even the numerous posts & topics not including this very one on this very board asking about sales/price/etc. that said people have conveniently forgotten about. Even I was one of those a bit sceptical, having it on my Steam wishlist for quite a while. In fact, if it were not for a bit of good fortune in getting a bunch of nice drops I flogged on the market a few months back that ended up paying for most of the cost, I may well still be on the fence about whether or not to take the plunge and buy it.

ORIGINAL: HerpInYourDerp

Tbh, I'm on the completely opposing side of the whole graphics argument; I don't see anything wrong with it's current 'dated' (or however you want to put it) presentation as the game is pretty much 100% CPU - I'd much prefer some of the serious lategame slowdown/performance problems be sorted before any UI update or shiny new graphics be rolled out, although this has nothing to do with the issue I have here.

No, what I'm getting at is that so many people here seems to have this idea that listed price for the game is somehow completely irrelevant when talking about the pros/cons of the game, yet it is a major reason why a lot of prospective players end up shying away from taking the plunge and there are even the numerous posts & topics not including this very one on this very board asking about sales/price/etc. that said people have conveniently forgotten about. Even I was one of those a bit sceptical, having it on my Steam wishlist for quite a while. In fact, if it were not for a bit of good fortune in getting a bunch of nice drops I flogged on the market a few months back that ended up paying for most of the cost, I may well still be on the fence about whether or not to take the plunge and buy it.

Well to be fair those of us who enjoy the game so much we feel the need to discuss it on an online forum are going to overlook the warts and flat feet of our love.

But the discussion is about why do people think its overpriced and the reason is it looks like a game from the past even though its not.

However there is no reason the devs can't poke the publishers for a bit of a budget for another expansion that bundles in needed fixes to everyones various gripes and bring in a larger installed base to boot.

This is why I pointed out arcens model as the devs are highly active with the community who responds with lots of free qa work and ideas for new features via his well thought out bug report and feature submission process.

As to the shiny new graphics unlike 3d which takes a large team of artists all doing seperate work with 2d pixel art its as simple as finding a couple of talented starving artists and mailing some legal forms around then poof you have a budget art studio cranking out new hires art assets on the cheap they can send to you from the other side of the world using the internet.

Steam tried this but failed due to blatant money grabbing by taking the lion's share of the money and leaving the modders with diddly so hopefully matrix isn't as greedy and knows how to make a fair profit.

You obviously haven't seen Reach for the Stars graphics. [:D]

Cutting edge graphics for me are not the most important thing when making a choice of to "buy a game or not", one of my favorite games of all time is Masters Of Magic and thats 20 years old which still has not been matched to this day even with all the latest graphics and programming experience ect.

Initially i will admit on first glance graphics/looks are what will grab your attention and make you take a closer look at a game, but if the "gameplay" and a certain amount of depth are lacking it wont hold my attention for long(funny enough pretty much like a woman lol).

I would rather the graphics be clear and functional and the interface be clean and easy to read and provide me with all the information i need in a logical way than the engine displaying all the latest rendering techniques and endless filters ect. Graphics are nice to have for sure but should always take a back seat in my view.

On the other hand if you create a game with the latest graphical technology it will inevitably cost you more in time and money than if you use a ten year old engine ect so you would expect to charge a premium for a product using the latest and greatest technology right????

There is another space 4X recently released that has more shiny graphics...
but I prefer the look of DW
There are no doubt some graphical improvements which could be made inexpensively
for instance the ship and object models are relatively low res
so they could be improved easily
the present look of the game (which I like very much) could be sharpened-up
I dont think that would cost all that much in development time or expense