EAW PC Games Germany Preview

[Delphi-PG]

Hey guys,

 

Need your help. Did any one in the community translate the PC Games (Germany) preview from February? If so, have the links?

 

Thanks

[Cain]

Yes we have 2-3 persons, and one is a moderator : Seewolf try to PM and email him in the same time. He is from Bavaria / Germany.

 

 

... and to back up your options try Little.B also.

 

 

BTW do you know if our community interview has arived back from LEC ?!

[Little.B]

I can do, but I don't have the magazine. So if someone sends me the article I can translate it.

[Delphi-PG]

Sigh, don't want anyone to do extra work. Just thought it might have been scanned and translated. =(

 

 

Thanks though,

[Samheyn]

Since I don't read the Pc-Games Magazine I don't possess this article but if somebody would send me the scanned images I could surely translate it.

 

And I don't think it's that much extra work

 

Just PM me if the task is still to be done

[Seewolf]

mmh the Pc-Games februar?

mhh i look if i can find it here somewhere ^^

[Little.B]

Its not much work to do I think. We just need the article

[Cain]

Sigh, don't want anyone to do extra work....

 

 

Loll - you underestimate them Delphi they will love to help as much as they can - it will be extra-fun for them - not extra work

[Foshjedi2004]

Yes all of us love extra work Cain !!

[Little.B]

Work?

Cant get enough of it!

[Seewolf]

yes we love doing work until the working time

shortly

i work in a factory and i have enought time to do other things during my worktime on the factory

[Little.B]

And I'm a university student. So what?

[Cain]

Well I'm happy that the problem is fixed Thanks Little.B - you should also post a topic here with the scans on and with a link to the site who is hosting them

 

I remember you mentioned it somewere.

[Little.B]

Eh what? Yes I will do it but (as I pointed out) I need the scans. I can check die PC Games website but in general they only post shortend versions of their previews on their website. But I can check some ... other ... ressources. I see what I can get

 

*edit*

Okay I found the full article on their website ( http://www.pcgames.de/?article_id=349560&page=1 ). I think I will translate it tommorow becuase its my free day

As it seems they also had a smal article about EaW in their last issue. Perhaps I can get that somewhere...

[Little.B]

Sorry I wasn't able to do it today but I hope I will be able to do it tomorrow (here in good ols Germany it's already "tomorrow" ) Damn human bones kept me busy learning

[Little.B]

First of all: Sorry, sorry, sorry it really took very long. Other projects kept me busy and finaly is simply fogot about it. But now here it is. I hope there arent too much spelling mistakes in it. Also some passages were really hard to tranlate so I had to change them a bit. A proefessional translator would surely have made it different buy hey I'm not a professional translator

 

Have fun reading (Remeber, this was published in Feb05)

 

-------------------------------------

 

Star Wars: Empire At War

16.02.2005 15:11 Uhr

 

The rebels know what they are coming for when they arrive at the imperial outpost. The few defenders are no match for the troops landing with mighty transport vessels. After the last AT-AT trembles to the ground rebel pilots rush into the hangar and climb into the brand new prototypes they were coming for. As fast as they came the rebel forces are gone before imperial reinforcements arrive. In their hands the new weapon of choice: the X-Wing.

 

Beginning of the Rebellion

 

This story is not the only one which will be told in Empire at War. "Nothing is rendered in this movie. This is all done by the game engine", says Mike Legg, the president of Petroglyph, an ex-Westwood-employee. The engine is completely new and has been developed fort his new Star Wars-RTS. This step had been taken after the team looked at several completed engines but did not find a satisfying one "Either it was graphically out of date or to weak overall PC-Performance. So we said: Forget about it we have to do something new." All those nice effects like Pixel and Vertex shaders which can be done by DirectX-9-GPUs can be used. Highly detailed units move on well illuminated planets which are full of nice details like realistic water effects or volcanic ash-rains. But ground-battles are only half the fun: For the first time the player will be able to conquer space. These battles will have major effects on ground-battles and the campaign itself.

 

Rewriting history

 

The story of Empire at War begins right after Episode III and will continue over the timeline of the classic movie trilogy. The player can take control over the Rebels or control the mighty fleets of the Galactic Empire."We give the players a basic flied to play on. What he does with it is up to them", Brett Tosti (Lucas Arts) stresses. So like in Battle for Middle-Earth the player will be able to change the history and lead the evil guys to victory. Game difficulty, Size of the galaxy and Win Conditions (e.g. controlling a special percentage of the galaxy) will be adjustable.

 

"This is a continuous universe in which the controlling party of the different planets will change several times. Of course there are key-planets every factions wants to control", says Joe Bostic. Empire at War wants to get away from the well-known linear campaign design. Some units will only be available if the player controls their homeworld. Between the battles the player develops new technologies, builds new units and plans his next attacks.

 

 

Honorable Retreat

 

"In traditional RTS games the player uses 80% of the time to gather and building a huge kind of super-army which is send to the enemy ", says Mike Legg. To win a single mission is only secondary in Empire at War. Important is to do more damage to the enemy then he does to your forces. If the player retreats surviving units will still be available so it is often better to retreat then to fight an impossible battle. There is much to do not only objectives like "defeat the enemy". It can be very useful to use smaller groups of fighters to attack enemy bases and to destroy important enemy ships and building to strengthen your chances in a later battle. This makes scouting is very important. Rebels will use spies which will reveal all the activities at a planet and its orbit. At least as long as they are not encountered by their imperial counterparty: bounty-hunters

 

The big plan

 

Empire at War has ground and space battles which are strongly connected to each other. Most times a won space battle is the pre-condition for an invasion because you have to get your transports past the defending fleet. But it’s the decision of the play where to set his priorities say Mike Legg: "You can say: ‚I don’t invest in many ground troops. I prefer controlling the orbit or vice versa" Butt he buildings on the planet itself can make space battles much easier/harder. Ion Cannons for example can support your defending. But it’s also possible the other way: You can send in TIE Bombers to support your fighting troops on the ground.

 

In deep space

 

For a better overview the game has no "real" 3D view like for example Homeworld but ships will automatically fly over each other to avoid collisions. The feeling of space battles is very different to ground battles, Joe Bostic explains: "It’s like in old naval battles. Stardestroyers have many turrets located at their left and right flanks. To use them all the player has to move the larger vessels into good firing positions by hand. To take out larger vessels the player will need to destroy them party after party" When attacking capital ships the player can select different parts like the engines and shield generators. Once these components are destroyed the corresponding function is no longer available. Just like the generators on Interdictor starships which inhibit enemy ships from fleeing into hyperspace. Much smaller and weaker are the space fighters like X-Wings or TIE Fighters which (just like infantry units in ground battles) consist of several crafts forming one unit.

 

 

Imperial Research

 

Which units are available to the player (and when they are) depends on the priorities in the players’ technology research. Of course the timeline when which technologies are available can and will differ to the movies. The best way to compare the research system in Empire at War is to compare it with Civilization: It’s close to human history but with enough efforts you could build tanks even in the 18th century. The list of units is still kept top-secret right. Next to well known units from the classic movies there will also be units taken from Episode 1-3 and also some new creations. Also some units which appeared in books like the TIE Crawler will be seen in a game for the first time.

 

Still much left to do

 

The release of Empire at War is set around Christmas [out of date info] and because of that there is still much content to be added. Thinks like resource-management are still tested and thought out. Strange things like wood harvesting droids like in Galactic Battlegrounds have been denied. Also there is still much to do referring to the games AI .because the computer has not only to be a good tactician in battles he also has to plan his actions in the campaign. In multiplayer matches we will see the classical "Rebel vs. Empire"-campaign with two human players controlling one faction. In real multiplayer matches up to eight players will fight each other competing about ranks in online-rankings.

 

(German text by: Heinrich Lenhardt http://www.pcgames.de)

(Translated by: Little.B http://www.empire-at-war.de)

[Swiftdraw]

So fighters are going to be in pre-arranged squadrons... Thank you little-b.

[Foshjedi2004]

So fighters are going to be in pre-arranged squadrons... Thank you little-b.

 

Pre arranged Squads aren't really very good. I'd rather have prearranged wings in which you club together certain squads like Rebellion to maximise the strength of the assaults.

[Swiftdraw]

Yeah, but that will be more of a problem for the rebs though. TIEs usually swarm anyhow, with the heavier ones going after specific things (ex. bombers against cap ships.)