Empire At War -- the new SW RTS

[Guest JediIgor]

Well, TFN finally nabbed the news..

 

http://www.theforce.net/latestnews/story/Star_Wars_Empire_At_War_88640.asp

 

Turns out there was an exclusive in PC Zone UK. Anyone here live in the UK? How about a nice scan, or retyping the article (the scan on TFN sucks!) ? .

 

Looks to be developed by Petroglyph, and as we speculated earlier, they are mostly ex-Westwood people.

 

Good, bad, what? A step up from Force Commander and Galactic Battlegrounds, but it's no Rebellion 2!

 

So hopefully it won't be as bad as either of them, although I can't quite understand how a Star Wars RTS would work at all. I mean if I was fighting a planetary battle I'd bombard the hell out of the enemy base with my ships .

 

edit: What does everyone think about the name, an Imperial-only campaign? Will we start around Episode 3 fighting the Rebels? Most likely!

[Jahled]

Turns out there was an exclusive in PC Zone UK. Anyone here live in the UK? How about a nice scan, or retyping the article (the scan on TFN sucks!) ? .

 

I'll see what I can do.

 

I see what you mean about the scan.

[TK421]

Strange that they make it one-side only. But perhaps there will be skirmish options etc where you can choose more factions.

But, I think only the Empire side really limits the options. Then again, you can also think of the extreme ordinarily good shit they will make on the empire's story/side to make it attractive anyway!

[Mad78]

Wait and see is all i can say.

[Guest JediIgor]

Strange that they make it one-side only. But perhaps there will be skirmish options etc where you can choose more factions.

But, I think only the Empire side really limits the options. Then again, you can also think of the extreme ordinarily good shit they will make on the empire's story/side to make it attractive anyway!

 

Wow, I didn't even consider that.. I was thinking more like Warhammer 40k where you play as one race in a campaign but can play as 4 in multiplayer.

 

Definitely am scared now, they can justify that kind of b.s. (having only one playable race) thru the "Warlords" books you know

 

Wait and see is all i can say.

 

I'd rather speculate now, that way if I'm wrong I'll be surprised .

[PHSYCOBOB]

hehe. =o)

[AdmiralFishface]

Umm, wait, where does it say the campaign is empire-only?

[Mad78]

The title suggests it but I believe that if the developpers know their job they will make several playable factions in the single campaigns.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

Well, we can't really put too much into what the title says. "An Empire at War" is similar to "Rebellion", though you can play as both side in our fav. SG. I guess if you live in the UK that doesn't mean much since it was called Supremacy there.

 

I have high-hopes for this game since LucasArts was smart and handed production over to anotehr company. If it were LucasArts alone, a single-sided game wouldn't surprise me, but even the newest company to the RTS world would know that you don't restrict such games to one faction only. Lets see if they get the appropriate technology for the era.

[Krytos]

If some of these guys made great games like Dune 2 and Command and Conquer - then there's hope for an exellent Star Wars ground based RTS.

 

 

Then again, I still think Force Commander is a great game

[Mad78]

They should stop concentrating on Ground based RTSs and work on Rebellion 2!

[Guest JediIgor]

Hmm, most LucasArts games nowadays are "developed" by third party firms.

 

Battlefront - Pandemic

KOTOR - BioWare

KOTOR 2 - Obsidian

Jedi Outcast/Academy - Raven

 

I could go on, but I don't remember any other names off hand (and of course Rebellion was by Coolhand but that's not recent ).

 

So I wouldn't get your hopes up that just because a third party is making the game that it's going to be a radical change. The company may usually make games, but LEC calls the shots.

 

Take a look at Raven, an awesome Jedi Outcast was turned into a mediocre Jedi Academy, and the kickass BioWare (whose every game was awesome) was forced to produce a not-as-high-quality KOTOR (come on boys, only one race? heh).

 

We won't have another Galactic Battlegrounds on our hands, but don't expect it to be breaking any new grounds.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

The one thing that interested me was that they are including both space and ground combat in the game. I doubt they will try and pull this off the way Blizzard did with StarCraft (having your space ships on the same battlefield as your troops), so that may be interesting.

 

I was under the impression that LA was giving their developers more control over the games than they were before, but I could (and probably am) wrong. Rebellion, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter and Jedi Knight all had the feel of a strictly LA input, with the developers doing as they were told. Jedi Outcast, KOTOR, and Battlefront felt totaly different from the older games. Maybe LA is just getting a little better with their games... not to the point where we don't expect them to be flops, but better .

[Mad78]

Maybe they are loosening their grip on the devellopers's job.

[Guest JediIgor]

So then this is what you guys are saying:

 

Either the loosening grip is leading to worse games (because games are getting worse).

 

Or, maybe they're tightening the grip (think Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, same outsourced company, but one good, one very bad).

[Stellar_Magic]

Actually JI, I think Lucas arts games are starting to get better. Battlefront, Jedi Outcast, and KOTOR all are better then their immediate predicessors, especially Outcast compared to Mysteries of the Sith. From my point of view the period between Jedi Knight and Jedi Outcast was Lucasarts at its worst. X-wing vs. Tie Fighter (Decent Multi-player but thats it), Force Commander (Good idea, bad UI), Mysteries of the Sith (Snore...) all came in that period.

 

If you take Jedi Academy, the Prequel Games, and Battlegrounds out of the mix most of the games for the last couple years have been quite a bit better. They're still not as good as the classics (X-wing, Dark Forces, Rebellion) but they're better then the last bunch, why? Because they aren't rehashing stuff.

 

KOTOR was good because it was brand new to the genre, and did a fair bending of the Star Wars universe to create a compelling story. JK2: Jedi Outcast brought back the characters of Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors in a way that made sense, unlike Mysteries of the Sith where everything seemed much less like a true "Star Wars" experience (What ever happened to fighting stormies in that anyway?) X-wing Alliance brought back the combat starfighter simulation to a single player experience and gave people a better game then its predicessor (I modded it and made it even closer to the movies ) Then Star Wars Battlefront gave us a new take on ground combat in Star Wars. A step up from the one man army of JK and a step down from the hyperealism of a (This is what I wish they made) Ghost Recon style shooter... Star Wars: Infiltrators anyone?

 

What was bad...

 

Rehashing old material: Jedi Academy was basically a JK:2 mission pack with extra modding opportunities (Which yours truly took advantage of for his own single player musings.)

 

Multiplayer only: Galaxies and XWvTF are the obvious contendors in this problem area. To much emphasis on Multi-player gaming leads to, well bad gaming.

 

UI is dumb: This is what killed Force Commander, great idea, good graphics, bad user interface. Apparently the designers slept through Game Design 101. I also refer to this as the prettiness over playability problem.

 

The Battlegrounds "Duh" error: Why in Star Wars: Battlegrounds do all the fighters and bombers just hover there? Have you ever seen a starfighter hover in a firefight. There was no reason to do it that way, and it was also one of the major draw backs to the game. Should have seen the air combat in REAL WAR: Land, Sea, and Air. Duh guys.

 

Not to mention the Good guys must win problem...

[Mad78]

Well Galaxies was an MMORPG so you can't blame them for limiting it to multiplayer.

I got XvsT and got quite bored after a moment because you kinda go through mission after mission without there being a REAL story.

I only started enjoy the JK series at the Outkast episode even if i found the first one very good. Dark Forces 1 is one of my forever favorite games

I found Kotor magnificient and how it pictured a hole new aspect of SW. If there weren't Jedis it would have seemed like a hole new universe.

Force Commander was too complicated in the UI which kinda killed the enjoyement since you kept on wondering how to do such action.

For me Jedi Academy was an over priced extension of JKII and was boring because you started with the lightsaber and that you didn't need to "deserve" it like in JK2 or JK1.

I found Battlefront very good even if the critics find it crap but a little bit of modding could greatly improve it.

I frankly really enjoyed Battlegrounds and found it very entertaining.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

I actually like XvT more than X-Wing Alliance. I know that graphics weren't as good (one of the things I liked better about XWA) and the laserd didn't converge, but I though it was more balanced. You could take your pick of ships, fight as whatever side you wanted, and the rewards weren't as scripted as those in XWA, as well as there being a greater variety of them.

 

I liked the first Jedi Knight, but I agree with you on MotS. I only liked it for the multiplayer additions.

 

KOTOR is pretty high up there in my favorite LA games and I can't wait until KOTOR II is out for PC. Sure the only changes are the story, a few new toys, and a greater variety of phisical changes, but since when has graphics come before plot and enjoyment? I for one don't care if I'm restricted to being human.

 

I only ever played Force Commander once in the form of a multiplayer game with a friend. Before I was able to build one or two units, I was bombed to ashes by a rebel Y-wing. Very annoying .

[Mad78]

I frankly adored Kotor for the simple fact that even if you don't really like RPGs (a bit like me) you are still hooked by the fantastic adventure and the great amount of action get. And the mini games such as the racing are really cool!

In force Commander it took me an hour to get about with camera and even with that I only mildly enjoyed the game.

[Guest JediIgor]

Well, obviously the newer games are in ways better than the older games (but isn't that expected? why should we buy a remake of an older game?). However, I was mostly talking about the newer Star Wars games and the newer Non-SW games compared to the older Star Wars games and non-Star Wars Games.

 

Let's look at Jedi Outcast anyways (please don't compare it to Mysteries of the Sith, it's like comparing Balance of Power to X-Wing Alliance, silly) -- it was a great game, and I said it was (only problem was not choosing teh dark/light side), then I said "look at Jedi Academy." That is the latest JK-series FPS and it's just a stand-alone mission pack. They even managed to royally screw up the story.

 

What are you comparing Battlefront to anyways? That was LEC's first try at one of those games, and that game should be compared to Battlefield 1942. BF1942 comes out several years ago, and it manages to have: bigger maps, vehicles that don't suck, naval battles, maps that aren't over in a few seconds, etc. Please, Battlefront was a big failure in my book when they could've easily improved on BF1942's success.

 

X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter..? Well, what was so bad about it? That "decent" multiplayer was "very good" multiplayer compared to X-Wing Alliance, in which you couldn't even play campaign or scenarios..!

 

You also refer to Mysteries of the Sith again, when instead you should be referring to Jedi Knight. That game came around the Quake I and Quake II, and guess what, it was way better than both of those games in both graphics, single player, and multiplayer (forcepowers anyone? heh). Nowadays the latest SW FPS is horrible to whatever the competition has.

 

KOTOR was good? Compared to other Star Wars games, maybe. Compared to older BioWare games, it was poorer than Neverwinter Nights, and even more poorer compared to Baldur's Gate I/II. One race to pick, no character customization, only one person is controlled at once, horrible UI, your actions are irrelevant (you can pick dark/light in the end of the game, heh) and there's no point in playing the game twice cause it was easy to do all the quests the first time around.

 

What was good? Star Wars tried expanding to other genres (RPG, Battlefield-like fps).

 

What was bad? They miserably failed, and people like you don't realize that because you haven't played those other games.

 

Here's something to think about, just because a game has more features than its prequel, doesn't mean it's going to be good compared to other games of the same genre out now. For example, why are all the strategies ditching random map generation, hmm?

 

What is a "Star Wars" experience anyways? I want to experience the universe, not the movies. If you want to experience the movies, talk about a "Star Wars movies" experience and go play some console games, they recreate it pretty well .

[Lord_La_forge]

I have to defend Kotor here. It was great the way it was. I didn't miss any plus features. It was a game for everybody, not for hc rpg gamers only. Well it's certainly not playable 2 times, but 1 times was enough anyways, since it's incredible long.

As for gaming experience: I'm pretty sure that people can tell about a game that it's crap or not without playing it as well. I knew that battlefront is garbage before it came out. You can tell it from the compamies stragegy. " I mean, WOa! Let's make a brainless SW Battlefield, to get more money for GL!" Nothing new in it. I mean, they could use their imagination and be more creative. I think Kotor had some excellent solutions and events ingame.

[Evaders99]

I think KOTOR was trying to fulfill the average Star Wars fan, not necessarily the big RPG uberfans. Dumbing it down, more or less, didn't seem to affect how well it was received.

[Mad78]

I really enjoyed Kotor and liked the way it didn't try and bend the EU.

[Guest JediIgor]

I really enjoyed Kotor and liked the way it didn't try and bend the EU.

 

Oh, yeah, it's not like they made up a 3rd Sith War or anything (*cough* for the slow, they did*cough*).

 

KOTOR was not a bad game. I never said it was. Please say it with me though, "KOTOR was not a great game." It was a decent RPG, and what made it stand out was that it was a Star Wars game. Now compared to other Star Wars games (esp. Jedi Academy and any SW console game), it was a lot better. Compared to Jedi Knight II.. well I played Jedi Knight II last week, .

 

Now you guys may go ahead and defend KOTOR, but let's face it, there is really no reason to play that game again once you beat it. It was so obvious to me, I returned it to the store and bought X2 (which also sucked.. *sigh*).

 

I don't know why you guys are talking about hardcore RPGs, the game mechanics can be as complex as they need to be as long as there is a simple and intuitive UI behind it (like in Neverwinter Nights).

 

The fact of the matter is, comparing KOTOR to Neverwinter Nights (KOTOR used a newer NWN engine, same company..)..

1 race vs 7

99 feats vs 143 feats (also in KOTOR ranged feats are useless once you get a lightsaber)

no multiplayer vs multiplayer (gasp)

no moddability vs moddability (gasp)

really hard to stay evil vs really hard to stay good (hmm, which one is right?)

100ish page manual vs 208 page (and NWN had a cloth map too...)

a game that nobody plays anymore vs a game that people are still making modules for

 

So think what you what, but to claim it was a great game is something that deserves further evidence from you to prove me wrong .

 

By the way, Neverwinter Nights sold over 2 million, so please don't tell me it was for hardcore gamers. Hardcore games usually sell less than 500,000 copies.

 

Let's get something straight, the age of competition between games is virtually over. The industry has largely been concentrated into the hands of the few (EA, Videndi, Ubisoft, etc). If nobody complains, there is absolutely no reason why games will be improved. Don't say it's good. Say it's good but could be better .

[Lord_La_forge]

It's good, but could be better