Makwu

I’d like to point out that some questions shouldn’t be asked, since we won’t get an answer. (Ie. Will there be SSD’s?). Also, the way a question is asked will often determine how much info you get in return. Asking yes/no questions should be avoided as well as unclear or questions that are five questions in one. (I find they usually answer the one of five that you are least interested in). Just my two cents. 10 Questions I would ask: 1) We’ve seen the DeathStar now and it appears to be part of the fleet. Can it be targeted by capital ships and can it target them back? 2) Skirmishes in all the C&C series generally are very quick and decisive. However, fans of Star Wars know that SW battles generally play out much slower. What are your goals for skirmish speed in EAW? 3) Most RTS games are about simply having more units than more strategy. This turns them into battles of unit construction skills more than tactical skills. What is being done to avoid this in EAW? 4) In the video it shows hardpoints being targeted but it unclear if you can do a general attack or if ships will automatically go to the next hardpoint after finishing off the first. Could you explain how hardpoints work in EAW? 5) So far we know about missiles, turbolasers, lasers and ion cannons. What other types of space weaponry can we expect? 6) In the videos, the fighters tend to clump a lot. Is this a limitation of system requirements, or are there different foemation/movement options? 7) At E3 it was said that the powercore will be outside of the shields on planets “true to star warsâ€

G_S, I have a copy you can have. Just pm me.

Vader, I just installed Rebellion for the first time in about 5 years. I can't really give you must advice since im not very good : ) But... i'd like to get a multiplayer game going once you get more familiar with it. just shoot me a pm

from what we have seen of vader, teh heros are very powerful. but I'm sure the balancing has not been done yet.

if the kids are supposed to be heros you aquire later in the game, what happens if han or leia die early on?

I know I have seen this ship before, but haven't seen it on any of the EAW sites. http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/606/606597/star-wars-empire-at-war-20050421015929116.jpg on the far left infront of the corellian gunship and the unknown reb cruiser?

Good points cobra. The changing of the scaling is still a mystery to me. Some reasons for this could be that they have since changed the scaling, and the clips mixed in the trailer are of the old scaling and the new scaling. Or, perhaps scaling changes based on how close the camera is as in HW. I agree that heros being a bit larger makes sense from a gameplay standpoint. I'd just like to hear what petro has to say on the matter since this has been an ongoing debate. The scaling of the fighters/capitalships to me needs correcting much more than the ground/hero units from what I have seen.

Looking great! And I'm not a pesemist, I just dont feel like spending hours typing up all the good things I see. So excuse me for only posting my cons. No real changes from what we have seen before. My main cons stay the same: 1.Unit scaling needs consistency (Or at least an explanation to the fans of what Petro is trying to accomplish). 2.The shield generator is STILL outside of the shield, this really really needs to be changed. Post Here 3.The fighter formations/movements are not consistent with SW universe. Post Here 4. Ship textures on some of the ships need a lot of work. Imperial ships are looking better but still a bit drab, need whiter hulls and all ships need deck lighting. Star Destroyers are looking better, still need whiter hulls. Deck lighting a must to convey size of ships. Post Here

Ship Textures Continued: I realized my previous post was a bit vague on how i thought the ship textures could easily be improved, so i decided to reflect a bit more on the subject. I think the ship appearances can be greatly improved very easily. Color: The ship textures seem dark and dull to me. Perhaps it is the lighting in the screen captures, but by and large the ships look very dark. Oddly, the imperial ground units seem right on par with the movies as far as texture color is concerned, very light grey. However, the space units seem to be a much darker grey. This is a screen clip I found that shows the color of the star destroyers in the movies: http://www.fantastic-plastic.com/STAR%20DESTROYER.jpg Very light grey, almost white. In addition to color, the ground units appear to have a more dirty/gritty appearance (As the ships in star wars do have). I am very very pleased with the ground units actually. I think they look very similar to the models used in the movies. Deck Lighting: The thing that the ships appeared to be missing that I couldn't quite pinpoint in my first examination was deck lighting. Deck lighting would be very easy to add since the game is ussing DX9. Here is an example of the EAW ship compared to a HW2 star wars mod: link one - EAW link two - HW2 I think that deck lighting goes a long way towards making a ship feel large on screen and making it look more alive. As you can see in the movie clip image i embedeed, they used deck lighting in the movie models as well. Combined with lighter textures, I think the ships would look much better. A deck light is a gives the mind a realworld referrence to size. By simply adding larger deck lights to the middle class ships you might be able to minimize the scaling problems that people have complained about without having to edit actual model sizes as much. An optical illusion if you will. Unit Control: If you are going to have units on three different plains, I think it would be handy to have the unit icons in the HUD displayed on 3 different tabs. Three tabs could be located right above the unit selection area that would allow you to go to each group. You could have a fourth tab for "all units" perhaps. I think this would make managing units, and finding a particular unit more easy. Sorry for so much posting, I'll tone it down from here on out. I've made most of my points.

I broke my original post down into two smaller bits that are easier to digest. These are my main concerns after viewing the demo. Trade Lanes: I can understand from a gameplay standpoint why this could arguably be good. However, do to your desire to make the game as linear as possible and due to the fact that you are using star wars technology as the basis for your game, I think ships should be able to jump anywhere they want. I think you can counter the gameplay issues that this represents by allowing ship movement information to be fairly easily discovered by spies and such. (Though I have no idea how much you plan to implements information gathering techniques, as they do tend to add a higher degree of difficulty). Unit Scaling: I know that you as designers are aware of how far off the unit scaling is from the actual technical specs of the star wars ships. I’m sure this was done to make managing the units easier and to perhaps keep polygon counts down. However, I think great size difference in Star Wars ships is part of what makes the battles feel so spectacular. Star Destroyers feel so daunting due to their incredible size. They were designed to intimidate. That was their purpose. As the scaling is now, they do not look intimidating or powerful in the midst of the battles. When a star destroyer or even a MonCal heavy cruiser starts to look like just another ship in a battle, something that is star wars has been lost. (Also, I think the width/length ratio on the current ISD models is incorrect). Having the Star Destroyers and other capital ships stand out more is vital for both sides because it gives the empire the feeling of dominance while it equally gives the rebels a feeling of triumph when they actually take one out. If you have read some star wars books you know that taking out a Star Destroyer is rare and always a spectacular event. The importance of the Star Destroyer to star wars is this: It is the iconic image of star wars space conflict. In the first scene of episode 4, we see a corvette and a star destroyer. The point of that clip is to show the difference of the empire and the rebellion; to show that the odds based on firepower alone are in the hands of the empire. Throughout the rest of the films the star destroyer is the image of imperial strength and formidability. I am not an empire nut; I enjoy playing rebels alike. But empire or rebellion fanatics are both star wars fans.. and I think most stars wars fans will agree when I say the star destroyer defines star wars space ships. Everything else compares to it. And thusly, I feel the star destroyer alone is the most important ship to get correct as far as scaling and appearance are concerned. I feel the models currently on display fall short of the image the star destroyer is supposed to define. They do not look formidable with the current scaling and texturing, they do not look sinister, they do not intimidate. They look like just another ship that blends in with the rest. Maybe this critique seems unimportant to most readers, but I think in any star wars game, it is paramount. Space Unit Textures: I think the textures could be improved on the larger ships. And I am only comparing them to other star wars games (Taking into account that you have to fit a lot more ships onto the screen that other star wars games). Cap ships seem a bit blockish and don’t have the color contrast from lighted areas to shadowed areas as I think they should. I really feel that this could be fixed with better textures and maybe some bump mapping on the closer versions of the models. The imperial ships are a bit dark and drab looking. A much lighter grey with a higher reflectiveness combined with some contrast/bump map improvements could make a world of difference. The lighting quality on the rebel ships looks very good and much better than the imperial ships at this current stage of development. Hardpoints: I’d like to make a suggestion on hardpoints which would require little modifying of the code (And may be how it is already programmed). If a ship has 4 turbo laser hardpoints, I do not think you should have to tell your ships to attack each one but rather assign the target “typeâ€

Assumptions abound! I know (since we have no game to play and are excited about this one) that we have nothing better to do than sit here and make speculations. Many of these arguments are made with such certainty from a brief 5 minute demo which was not designed to show off actual game play, but rather aspects of the game engine and some of the features. The game is a year away. Relax a bit. I keep seeing references to this and that looking childish. Quite frankly, that argument in itself looks childish. Petro is a group of VERY experiences game designers. Please give them that respect. Now, to answer some of these points: 1. The ships explode to fast. Targeting all subsystems manually seem obsolete. Ther is no pause for orders option: Too fast: Early Stage Demo, hard to judge this. Subgroups: Nobody said you can’t do a "general" attack on a ship and that you must target a subsystem. You are making this judgment because you saw that the subsystems show up when you put your cursor over a ship. Since Petro's goal is to make the game both simply and complex at the same time..the odds are that they will allow both depending on what degree of tactics you as a player want to implement. Further, obsolete? People have been begging for years for the ability to target subsystems, it has only recently starting finding its way into games. 2 & 3. There is to much smoke and fire in space: True. But this game is not being designed for nasa as a flight simulator. No game that i know of has accurately depicted realistic space explosions. If they did, you would be like "Man, your explosions are too simple and childish. They don't look like star wars at all!" 4. Space battles are to short: There is no magic or difficulty in them: After a 5 minute demo in which you were not even in control of and we see a few ships out of a fleet destroyed, It’s a bit to early to make a judgment on this. However, I do agree with the idea that battles should not be quick. The addition of hardpoints is an excellent strategic element that can only be used if ships last for a long time. If it only takes 30 seconds to destroy a ship…then why waste time choosing which hardpoint to attack first? In the spirit of starwars conflict…I think the battles should play out very slowly, more slowly than they are displayed in the demo video. Ships should be hard to take out, and should require thought and effort to do so. If you go into the battle and your ships just start shooting at random things, kill everything and then you win…it would be a shame. I think this concept is important for a starwars game where as it may be less so for other types of games which employ a much quicker combat style. (Ie most land based RTS games). My main points on star wars engagements is this: A) It should take a lot to destroy a capital ship. They should be very valuable items. b) I think retreating should be a very common practice; I think most engagements should end in retreat c) If you loose a whole fleet, you should be just about done for Battles should play out very slowly and tactically. IT should take a lot of strategy to take out just one cap ship. And when you do, it’s a big victory. Ships should be able to take a lot of fire. I think a "hardpoint" should take about as much work to take out as a whole "ship" is in other space conflict games. Once you loose your shields on a cap ship, you need to leave the battle. Rather than think "Oh well, its just a Mon Cal cruiser, I can build another one". The mindset, to stay true to the novels and such should be more along the lines of "Im gonna try to get one of his Star Destroyers!" rather than "Im gonna take out his whole fleet!". I think this would counter the "massive fleet" phenomenon that is so common in games.... while at the same time keeping to star wars tradition. This combined with ship naming and crew experience would make losses really hurt. When you lose a cap ship, it should feel like you really lost something. 5. Ships don't have names nor they have experience gain - this is extremly bad: As I understand it, these features are in debate right now. I agree that ships should have experience and naming would be nice. The issue that Petro is dealing with right now is Heros. Figuring out a system that lets heros boost ship stats while having ship stats improve based on their own experience can be a tricky balancing act. Especially if the heros themselves have experience which improves their command effect. If these abilities are done using multiplication, you can quickly get a ship/hero that is simply ridiculously too strong. Petro has many months to play with this, don’t' get on their case about it just yet. 6. The Characters are not just cool units ! they are SW characters and they should look more real not bulletproof zombies: Eh. Zombies just walk around and poke stuff. I’m not sure where this is coming from. There are just some practical things that can’t be changed. The weapons fire for example doesn't miss, it always hits. That is how the engine is designed. The engine uses math to calculate if the unit is damaged and if so..how much. My only suggestion is to perhaps have Vader use his hand to block incoming fire like he does in the movies. 7. Don't make the FORCE POWERS animations look like Lord Of the Rings MAGIC ! We don't need that ! (*Vader's force crush): I agree that the force effect could use some improvement, but I am also very sure that it will get it. I suspect that the Vader unit was one of the most recent additions and the force powers he uses even more so. 8. Two AT-ATs, a stormtrooper brigade, Vader, and 3 TIE tanks can do dust out of a Rancor if they open fire ! Be Realistic guys: This is clearly NOT balanced yet. I suspect they wanted to show off the Rancor (Because they liked his AI and animation) and therefore just tweaked his stats for the demo. Regardless if I am right or not, the game has not yet moved into balancing yet. So just wait on stuff like this. If you have a rancor take out your entire force come playable demo time, then get back on these forums and complain. I’ll join your complaint. 9. The Galaxy view looks BAD for a space strategy game ! It is looking like a children's apple tree....See Nexus or Freelancer for GOD SAKE ! I'm not even sure what a children’s apple tree looks like. Does it differ from an adult’s apple tree? Anyways, the aesthetic appearance of a strategic map is not very important in my opinion. Its functionality, ease of use, and ability to readily provide important information and statistics are important, appearance is secondary. Also, I'm sure the galactic map has a long way to go in development. This seems like a very minor complaint. 10. You cannot have tradelanes in Star Wars ! If you want them enable the direct jump to another planets but slow it down in comparation with aflyght on a so called tradelane: They have not stated exactly how trade lines work yet. I agree that if hyperspace travel without tradelines is impossible, it will take away from the starwars feel. In my opinion, tradelanes should be something you can control, similar to a system. Controlling gives you tax revenue and other benefits perhaps, spy detection etc. Also, moving along tradelanes should obviously have movement bonuses. 11. My predictions are at this moment that the game will never beat RTW: You predictions are that this pre-alpha non-playable star wars space RTS doesn’t beat RTW’s release candidate?(One of the best RTS ever made) RTW prolly would win though if they were trying to beat eachother...I haven't seen any units so far that could scale the castle walls. They would just sit out there on the wall stuck and all the soldiers inside with their little swords would be untouchable...unless you had some tie bombers in orbit that could come down and bomb them all....hard to say who would win. Oh, and the chariots could definitely outrun the rancor....but with the rancor set with its E3 demo stats, if it could just get close enough to the chariots it could probably take them all out in one swing.... 12. Petroglyph put your gamedesigners to play right now extensivly for 10 days: I’m sure all the designers are both gamers and business men who know they competition very well. A bunch of computer geeks willing to devote years at a time to making a video game (Not to mention the fact that they STARTED the RTS genre) don't know what those games are like? Or what goes into a successful game? Please. 14. The galaxy is way to small and unrealistic: WAY TOO SMALL! There are generally about 300 billion to 500 billion systems per galaxy. Plus some of those systems have multiple planets/moons and asteroid belts which could offer resources. I refuse to play this game until they have at least 1 million systems. That is about .003 of a percent of a realistic galaxy. That is all I ask for… Come on, even if they stopped adding planets and left it at 50-60, that is a very very long game. This is a game, and by its nature is not realistic. They are making a fantasy game, that is in a fantasy world, that is fun to play for a diverse audience. Not just you. They can't make a game that doesn't have at least one complaint from every person that plays it, because what people want varies so much from person to person. Once again, these guys know that they are doing. Next thing I know, somebody posting on here will be saying that they should remove force powers because they put some thought into it and decided it just isn't very realistic.... One has to remember that the starwars fan base is the largest fantasy fan base in the world. And within it, there is a very very diverse group of people. If Petro was to make a game that was ultra realistic with a high learning curve, they would instantly alienate about 90% of the audience. They have been given a responsibility in order to maximize profits and that is: Make a game that can take advantage of the huge potential market to the best of their abilities. Balancing a game to appeal to many types of gamers is never easy. They will do their best to make the most number of players pleased with the game rather than a few players who are super pleased. Making games is a hedonistic indevour.