Random thoghts about SE

[ShadowE59]

Hello! I'm a new member on this community. I've been lurking this community for a couple of weeks now. I don't use forums, but I'll try to be active.

I learned the term 4X from Shadow Empire. Not only that, now I'm playing Wargames (I never thought of that before). At the moment, only games made by Victor (Adv. Tactics and Decisive Campaigns), Shadow Empire opens me to play other games like Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron, and Europa Universalis, and of course other 4X games like Distant Worlds and Space Empires 4 Deluxe, and more... I discovered Matrix and Sliterine games.

Victor, if you read this comment, thank you! By the way, show some love to your older games; if I'm not mistaken, people are coming thanks to your recent game Shadow Empire.

https://explorminate.co/2nd-interview-w ... ow-empire/

After listening to the podcast and understanding Victor, I honestly prefer Victor do whatever he thinks is best for the game. I like SE, which was made without user feedback early on. I don't want, and I don't think it is a good idea, to take into consideration every new feature users want, because otherwise the game may go in another direction. Keep in mind that most 'good' games were made how the creators or developers wanted them.

Think of classics and define genres: Master of Orion, Doom, Tomb Raider, Civilization, etc. (usually games from the 1990s and early 2000s). Where made without the vast user feedback that usually games are made to day. Now, developers have a vast ocean of information and feedback from users, and they try to fulfill the demands to avoid bad criticism. So developers start adding every feature users want, which completely changes how the developers visualized the game in the first place.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying ignore completely the user feedback, but the essence should not be lost. (That was why people liked it in the first place.) I saw this happens in different games over the years, I remember a turn based RPG game with focus in "rapid tactical combat", suddenly it becomes a "Speed run" because the community keep pushing features, the early supporter moved away leaving half of the bad critics and the community split up.

I do understand should be commercial sense, at the end actual gamer are the customers who will probably buy the next DLC (or maybe not they are more picky about the features), however bringing new gamer/customers should be one of the priority to increase the sales (for the simple reason that most players will not buy the same game several times). Oceania for some reason that I can't understand, is a misunderstood DLC, for me is great DLC, but I don't follow the same logic that most people, "because it has ocean should have naval units", if we follow the same logic, we should allow fishing too.

[eddieballgame]

Nice post & I agree on how developers can be, too, influenced on occasion per demands, negative reviews, etc.
I can say that Shadow Empire is at the top of the 4x genre, thanks to Vic's vision about his creation & his willingness to listen to his customers...if only to tweak things.
Btw, I can highly recommend multiplayer for this game, if that is something you are interested in.