[Rand al Thor]

Battuta: My bad. Again. Yep, I actually did know that. I did. I swear! I played a trial of Eve many, many moons ago and should certainly have used the term 'time sink' instead and my opinion of the game itself and it's entertainment value is equally just that, my humble opinion and there are obviously a rather large number of people who enjoy it.

Aardwolf: To say that it's easy for a small developer to achieve what are considered impressive modern day graphics is a bit of a stretch. You gave the example of Crysis as a top class, perhaps impractical, example. But everything about Crysis apart from the gloss was average to poor. There are plenty of examples of FPSs developed by small teams that looks pretty decent but are absolute piss in all other regards. I'm not a big commercial 4X player so I can't definitively say that there have or haven't been plenty of examples of beautiful but **** games in that genre but I haven't heard of any. And in this case perhaps the apparently substandard graphics are because they're concentrating on the other aspects of design. A ship combat system based on realistic damage. Solar system wide multi-planet engagements instead of the one off abstracted battle that represented a year of combat in the first game. The creation and integration of a brand new race that are supposed to represent a previously unimagined threat to the existing races but are still balanced as a playable race.

And again, I'm not pretending to think the graphics look good, I actually looked at the trailer and liked what I saw. It didn't take my breath away but that's not why I'm looking forward to this game. You might quietly (or vocally) express your pity for my apparently low graphical expectations but I simply liked it. It fitted asthetically with what I expected and was to me, pleasing to the eye.

As an additional point, the game, like it's prequel, is being designed to run perfectly on low to midrange systems, so gloss does take a back seat to the number crunching.

[Silverlock]

You know, when you become a competent game designer, then - and ONLY THEN - will your views of what should or should not be done in a game have any weight whatsoever.

It doesn't matter what the designer thinks; it matters what the end user thinks. I am a player, and mine is the only form of opinion that carries any weight or any use in designing a successful game.

And it's obvious you haven't played SOTS, or you'd know the AI is VERY good, that the single turn represents month, and thus combat represents months worth of manouvering.

Then what's the point of the complex hit detection you just described? Combat is totally abstracted at that scale. Unless it switches to a realtime mode for it? Which you strongly imply it doesn't.

Basically what you're describing is not only suspect from a programming standpoint, but also unnecessary complication now.

The reason for them doing it that way is that it allows for complex tactical options such as shooting individual turrets off ships. When an enemy is using for example any tupe of projector weapon these can be devastating up close yet have large easily target-able turrets for precision removal.  In addition friendly fire is a distinct possibility. Also the ships have no hitbars, the only way to tell how much damage they ahve taken is to observe the damage on them directly.

Therefore, your ability to command and control is vital, represented in reinforcements and your command ability.

This is further evidence of abstraction, you are not helping your point in the slightest.

Again not at all, in this game your ability to field a fleet is directly related to if you have a command ship in said fleet. If you do not or it is destroyed any subsequent battles or current battle reinforcements will be unable to come in. For example a Cruiser CnC allows up to 36 command points of ships, thats the cnc and 5 additional 6 pt cruisers. If your neemy ahs no command he is limited to I think 12 pts or 2 cruisers.  Command ships are primary targets. Without them you cannot alter your fleet reserves, withdraw wounded ships from battle or change the fleet formation.

Maybe you like the SINS model where you have thousands of simple, insignificant ships that die in spades and everything is a spreadsheet calculation.
I rather prefer having fewer ships, but those ships being more important and detailed and tactics having a bigger influence. Which they do in SOTS.

That's the SupCom model, not a Sins-specific one, but let's be honest: the Sins model represents a degree of abstraction that would be very much the amount of actual control you could project over combat at that scale. I don't like it, but it's reasonably accurate. If I had my way, we'd still be fighting it out with something like Steel Panthers in videogames but that style is dead. SotS' handling of combat however is neither accurate nor is it appealing.

Thats not how SoTS works though. its a TACTICAL 4x. The most important elements are tactical as in how you arrange your ships, the weapon choices you make etc. Sins has nothing like it, the ships are preformed and it uses a Hard rock paper scissors game style versus the much more flexible SotS where you ahve to find out the design your facing and then design a counter ship or strategy.

[TrashMan]

But please stop pretending like the graphics look good; they don't. And please stop operating under the false assumption that it takes huge amounts of money to get cool shaders and graphics like in EVE; it doesn't. Crysis maybe, but not EVE.

I'm not operating under false assumption. The graphics are good. No 4x has better graphics.
Maybe not extra-super-ahwesome-speshul, but who needs that? Only graphics whores.



Ah...so love the SOTS forums.. Here's two qotes from the devs there:

To be honest, I am actually waiting for them to refer to superior set of ship graphics that don't depend on slight of hand/no contact in order to achieve LOD. Or were they expecting to see rivets on a 1Km starship when the camera is no closer and 20M? Like I said...if they had a point of reference, one could debate, but as it is...its just inane internet hater talk and hence we probably all should not sweat it too much.

*shrug* Don't take it too personally, guys. It's an ugly world and a lot of people out there are feeling bad and worthless, all the time. They see the world through poop-coloured lenses.

If you think they're in the wrong, feel free to correct them in any thread where you see them talking nonsense. Just don't get overly defensive about it, and don't let them throw poop in your eyes too. SotS has nothing to apologize for in the graphics department; it's actually one of the most graphically rich strat titles on the market. SotS ][ will be even better.

--Arinn

[Hades]

I actually thing that Sins looks better graphically, SotS II looks stale and dull, not to mention the ships look like they have less detail and the textures are, quite frankly, lacking in detail (the biggest offender would be the Leviathan which has horrible textures). 

[General Battuta]

I do think it should at least look as good as Homeworld 1. But I'm willing to give it points for being a good game.

[Flipside]

Quoting the Devs is not exactly an unbiased opinion, and that's from someone who's on your side. They should really not even be getting involved, and should also not be derisive of people who have concerns or complaints, either address them or ignore them, but don't simply resort to name-calling.

I own SoTS, and the two expansions, and I quite enjoy the game, as I said earlier, the quality of gameplay is always, and always will be paramount in a game. Command and Conquer 1, Warzone 2100, even Hostile Waters are all games that look rather cheap and nasty now, even if they were, in some cases, quite advanced at launch, but the higher expectations in the graphics doesn't change the fun of playing the game.

As I said previously, I find nothing wrong with the engine, and I don't doubt things will improve during development, but it's bad enough having having fans and haters rowing about it, without the bloody authors sticking their oars in...

[TrashMan]

The " bloody authors" have calmed the situation down a bit, if you bothered to read.
Besides, what they posted was on their forum, as a response to questions from some of
the forum-goers.

[Flipside]

I don't care what they were trying to do, or what they achieved, they shouldn't even be getting involved, it was only a few posts ago that you were pointing out the problems of design by committee, and this is exactly the sort of reason why they shouldn't be getting involved.

And whilst they may have been posting on their own Forum, you still saw fit to copy-paste it here.

This is exactly the same as Derek Smart throwing a strop at people who don't like his work, it's uncalled for, a waste of time and completely unproductive, at the end of the day, people will either buy their work or not, it will be down to the consumer, making derisive comments in either direction will make zero difference whatsoever.

And since I'm not a regular at the SotS Forums, I'd like to know what condition it calmed down, was it a bunch of irate SotS fans who were angry at the comments about the Video? Did they just want to hear the developers say something nasty back. Are they grateful for favours that small?

[TrashMan]

I don't care what they were trying to do, or what they achieved, they shouldn't even be getting involved, it was only a few posts ago that you were pointing out the problems of design by committee, and this is exactly the sort of reason why they shouldn't be getting involved.

They shouldn't get involved in discussion on their own forums? Why? Because you say so?
Because you believe that devs have to remain perfect neutrality or some such bull****?

Tehre is no "should" or "shouldn't" in this case.

And whilst they may have been posting on their own Forum, you still saw fit to copy-paste it here.

That's because I found both Mecron and Arinn to be very intelligent people, who often post very deep and interesting things. And their comments usually extend beyond the game, often encompasing the whole gaming culture as a whole.

[Flipside]

Frankly, I don't give a **** what they think, but then you came on here copy-pasting saying "Looky what the Dev's said! They must be right!"

I didn't find the comments particularly intelligent, merely snidey and pathetic and on a par with the worst kinds of people that attack them, if they are happy sinking to that level, it's their problem, but when you fanboyishly start copy pasting that crap on here, it's mine. Thread locked.

I'd already told you off once about discussing the merits of the game, not simply posting insults, you chose to ignore me, and worst still, you copy-pasted someone else's insults onto this board in an attempt to attack the people who didn't agree with you. Seriously, grow up.