Avaris

This is so frustrating if true. I recall it being used to quell the old SSD debate. "Well we are going for an earlier timeframe, so no SSD. But you will get the earlier ships like the Venator" :: sigh ::

Yeah, replaying "your favorite classic battles" becomes difficult without the classic units and relatively small caps. Maybe bump the min requirements up to par with most games released in 2005? Then bump the unit cap to 40?

I haven't been around for a few days, and i can't believe this thread is still going. When it comes to starwars, Realism IS balance. Why are we still talking about it? Are people not reading the earlier pages?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I'm trying to collect donations to buy gift certificates for Mustang Ranch to send! It will help release some of the stress from your long hours of labor! Than you for taking on such a huge project. It can't be easy to make a game for a fanbase with such high expectations! We appreciate the effort.

"where 1 infantry can take down 2 or maybe 3 calvery units." that is not balanced or real. Also, as far as AT-ST goes, we have no idea how such things are have been finalized (or even where they are at this stage). So, it doesn't seem prudent to make arguements about that.

Lol, infinite: I stand corrected, VtM is a good example. Boy I hope EAW is better than that initial release though. And there is the reality that VtM had a smaller budget and a more niche target audience. Which will generally factor into the quality of a game. But, a game "shouldn't" be left to mods to fix. It should be made right the first time, and then mods "supplement it".

Yes, bashing is not a solution. But there is a middle ground. If you go into a barber shop to get a haircut, and they aren't doing it as you wanted, what do you do? You politely tell them again what it was that you wanted, rather than thinking to yourself "Well, this guy is nice and he is trying real hard. I'll just live with it". What I mean by that analogy is simple: The game is being made for us(Granted, we only represent a 'sample' of all users. But generally our opinions can be universalized with a fair degree of margin of error). So, if its being made for us, we have a responsibility to make sure its understood what it is that we want. (Without bashing or flaming or anything of that sort). But we can't forget that we are the clients. Without us, they would have no point in making the game. And without them, there would be no game. Everybody here is therefore equal.

Well I definetly don't think any issue will have 100% support. And when designing a game, it should be about what "most people want" which translates into "what will be most successful" for the publisher as well. Obviously, based on the number of failed games, there is sometimes a disconnect between gamers and publishers. This balance debate comes up again and again, and I really think its just an arguement about definition. Everbody wants a game that has an equal change of victory for both sides. In that sense, we all want balance. What I think this debate is suppose to be about is: Should the empire have stronger ships and the rebels have more "quality" heros and better intelligence? Unit wise, they are not "cookie cutter" balanced. But odds of winning is equal and balanced.

Oh that too. XMLS files are expensive and boring. Forgot to point that out.

And therefor the answer is YES! Silly peoples. So can you clarify to put this debate to an end?

Well Igor, we may be the people who will be buying the game, but our majority oppinions will not mean anything in the end. I want this game to do well as much as anybody, and I question the "market survey" results if thye suggested that making the game unrealistically balanced was best for the games success. However, we have no experience in this field and will likey be proven wrong. But my unproffesional, avid gamer, opinion is: Balance bites. Its what teeter totters in kindergardens are for Starwars is an underdog story and not technologically balanced. It is the mighty empire vs the impassioned patriotic rabble fighting against the odds for what is right. And untimetely one of the elements that makes the story so appealing and emotional, and why we all came to love it. Granted, this is a game and gamplay is important. But it is a starwars game not a game that happens to be starwars. And there is no reason I can think of that it can't be both "true to starwars" and "fun to play from both sides" without "unrealistic balancing".

Delphi, can you tell us why EAW is to have requirements that are lower than any major RTS released in 05? When its an 06 game? It seems that population caps and unit detail could be improved 50% if the requirements were set to indsutry standard. In fact, some well selling games released in the last few months have requirements that are twice what EAW asks for. Nathan, I never follwed the geforce line that closely, but I recall MX cards generally being built on the previous line's core. So a Geforce4MX was a gefore3 core. But, either a gefore3 or 4 core would work according to that German site.

Phantom, you wouldn't at all need tools for that. Notepad works just fine. But try building a new scripted map for a new planet with new building and native creatures with special abilities in notepad XML will allow you to edit unit sizes, strengths, speeds, and pretty much any function that is "data" driven. ie. is determined by a value/number. Though XML is very dynamic and can do a lot. but many of the more complicated things it can do are not as simple as "changing a value".

Umm, I made a post but it apperently vanished. Hmmph. Retyping this will suck, I'm making a much more condensed post this time (Prolly best for everybody else). Things we know "heros dying" "experience" "gui" can not be easily changed. Suggesting that the tings that can be changed are mainly data driven. (units, prc, weather, etc) The problem with adding a faction is that it will change victory conditions, change planet bonuses, and several other "faction specific" things. Now, I don't mean to say we cant change planet bonuses from a "numerical" standpoint. I'm saying that is we can't "add" planet bonuses to a third faction, then there are problems. for example: If Byss has a population bonus for imps and rebs, we can easily "change" that pop bonus. But can we add a pop bonus for a new faction? That would have to be predesigned most likely, depending on how intigrated many of the faction elements are. If The reb faction is denoted by a "1" and imps "2", trying to tell the game to assign a bonus to faction "3" might not do anything at all. So, I would say that unless they built it with the intention of "more than 2 factions, while only using two slots in their release" then we may be out of luck. However, we don't know if they did. Or if they did not, if they can make that change for us without too mcuh work. Like i said from the beginning though, nothing is impossible with the right amount of decoding and recoding. But the amount of work would be remarkable if you had to change all the C code which was setup to only support two factions. Lets hope that isnt the case. I got an idea, lets ask this question next time Pg offers us a Q&A. Oh wait. damnit. PS: A, this is a highly simplified explanation, so please don't get on my case about certain aspects of my point from a programming standpoint. I didn't want to bore anybody. And: Skirmish mode may not have any faction related elements or conditions, and may be easier to add a faction to.

Phantom, We definetly don't know everything. But I haven't seen a trend of people getting really upset about things we know nothing about, its by and large thigs that have been confirmed. We don't need to know if every capital ship is only one point to know that there won't be more than 20. And although we "don't" know for sure, PG has mentioned that ground units will varry in their "cap point" requirements. Thus, its fair to assume the same is true for space units. That being said, in all likelyhood we are looking at less than 15 units per side. (Give or take). Now, 15 (or even 20) is less than most people were hoping for, and that is why they feel disappointed. They were told that "Yes there would be a unit cap, but that it wouldn't be noticible" and "You can recreate classic battles". But 15-20 units only, is a noticible amount by most standards and far less than classic starwars battles. Further on the same line, classic battles has been reduced to "Yavin" which doesn't even have capital ships. And thus, you have people complaining. These are reall confirmed things, that fall short of peoples expectations and result it people displaying their disappointment. It will always be like that. But as I said, I'm all for the smaller ship count and this issue doesn't bother me. All in stride though, when they release good news (And there is plenty of that to come im sure) you will see everybody up in arms about how great the game is again. As PG said, balance is good

PG, I think everybody wants "balance". But what is in debate is "what does balance mean?". What does it mean to you?

Yes, one time I was chatting with George Lucas about how unbalanced starwars was....and he made a move towards me but fell forward onto his belly. (Actually, i didn't meet him but he was flirting with my girlfriend once at a party in SF. Very true story)

hehe, ok

Well, we have been given bad news of late. It is natural that "bad news" will be followed by disappointed threads, and unfortunetly it makes people emotional and leads to people going overboard. But it is exactly the same for good news. But to say we should't be negative about bad news because we haven't played the game is the same as saying we shouldn't say good things about good news. Everything is in stride. We respond to what we get, that is all we can do until we get the game. And then we get to make our final judgments. But that doesn't mean we should sit here silently until then. We are all too invested and excited.

Ok, well I can't find a post exactly in regards to it. But some generalizations can be made. He says that you can't "add" an experience system. You can't change the displays. You can't make heros die. And a few other things. What these have in common is that they are not numerical values, leaving me to beleive that "most" things are hardcoded, other than models and stats, and certain gameplay features driven by numbers. (Ie. time, PRC elements, weather, etc etc). However, If they "designed" the game to have more than two factions, but only implemented two, then we are fine. But if certain elements are hardcored two "only two factions" such as victory conditions, planent attributes etc...then we would be hard pressed to add a whole new faction. Skirmish mode is much less likely to have "faction based" elements and therefore more likely to allow adding a new faction. Sorry for jumping the boat on this entirely. I don't mean to razzle people. I would say if they "did not intentionally plan for it" then the likehood is slim. If they "did plan for it" then of course we can. So, we just need to know if they planned for it. Or if they had not, if they can go back and fix a few things. Which wouldn't actually require a huge amont of time with a lot of people working on it.

Yeah, i'll look for it. And I didn't say its "impossible" only that it would require some serious recoding in C. Far beyond what people do for normal mods. It would be a task more on the lines of Counter Strike (If not more complicated). Its not XML though, I can tell you that just from my expereince in coding. But, off i go, ill see if I can find his post. (or maybe it was from the chat log)..

It is not a guess at all. Delphi explained "generally" what was harcoded and what was not.

"Realism never directly equals fun" This whole concept of realism vs balance makes no sense to me at all. Is everybody here saying that if they were to make it REAL then the rebels would always win? They won in the story. As we all know, the sides "ships" weren't balanced. The empire had much stronger ships. But the rebs had great heros, a little bit of luck, and some great intelligence and strategy. The empires stronger ships couldn't make up for it, and therefore they lost. But it was "very close". So, it seems to me that REAL is BALANCED. How can being "real" to starwars then in anyway "unbalance" the game?

He is stating that lack of community voice for what is "important and not important to them" has led to games that do not meet our expectaions. But I agree, it is a bit random and out of contect. Just like this entire thread. It is mainly flame. And flaming isn't productive under any circimstance. It just gets everybody upset.

Guys, most of these questions have been aswered, or strongly hinted at. These are the answers as I understand them to be. (Or in some cases, what seems very evident based on what has been said and hinted). I think technically the Hypervelocity gun could pose a serious threat to the Death Star, except I think the Death Star can destroy the planet at a distance that the Hypervelocity gun could not reach it. None of that matters though as the Hypervelocity gun is Imperial only. Units can't fire at the DS and the DS cant fire at units. The death star wont even have a hull/shield rating. Do fighters affect cap? Squadrons won't effect pop cap at all. They are anticipated by the capital ship pop cap. (i.e. ships that carry more fighters will have a higher pop cap) Which conduce me to think that each unit count as 1, one example is the avatar we have in the upper left corner of the site, we can see a fleet of 10 or 8 Star Destroyers and a lot of ties, maybe each unit count as one, if it is that way, then there is not much problem at all. I suspect that those screenshots are made on good systems. I suspect (Said this in another post) that LA went to PG and said "You have to make the game run on these specs" after the engine had already been made, and most of the models. At that point, PG's arms were tied as far as unit caps and found 20 to be the highest they could good and still meet LA's system requirements. Will it be possible to mod in another faction without replacing the ones already in the game? For Skirmish maps and Campaign? No. The coding for that would not be in the XML. Its hardcoded. It would take some very advanced C++ tinkering to change such a thing. And in light of the new information about modality, not very likely. Can you steal more then one Imperial vehicles with the Rebels or only Chewie can steal only one? I suspect hero's have a "mana" system allowing them to only use their special abilities so often in a certain amount of time. Once a ship that chewie is in has been destroyed, he appears on the ground next to it. If he has enough energy, he can take another. Will multiplayer games be hosted by pure Gamespy or will there be plans to remove gamespy and put in a Lucas or Petroglyh server? Will there also be a direct IP? There are no plans to remove gamespy. LA has likely entered into a contractual agreement with gamespy. By making EAW gamespy only, gamespy is automatically promoted with every copy of EAW sold. In return, gamespy gives favorably reviews and free website promotion for the game. This is why they took SO long to get us any info about multiplayer. They were still trying to negotiate with several parties. However, there will likely be a direct IP and the mod community would be able to develop their own third party software that can sniff out EAW games and allow players to connect to them via IP. Is it possible, that my own ships hit themselve? No Do the fighters self repair? Yes, but not during battle. If they survive the battle they are instantly repaired. Fighter damage is not persistent. Any fighter losses will also be replenished upon the finishing of the battle. Are there boarding Craft? No boarding craft. Though there may be a hero that can steal small ships. Can we create heros or just purchase heros like luke, can the Hypervelocity gun reach the death Star and affect it? Heros are purchased in Skirmish mode. In Campaign mode and galactic mode, your available heros are based on which planets you control. Planet A will have a hero or two for the imps and for the rebs. If an imp player takes the planet, that hero becomes theirs. If the hero dies and they do not control the planet, they will not get the hero back until they reclaim the planet (Assuming he has been dead long enough to respawn) What happens if I have a fleet that is 15 size points attack an enemy and have a fleet of 10 size points set to show up after the battle. What happens? Does the game prevent you from telling the 10 size point fleet to go to that planet in the first place? Galactic map freezes during combat. No new fleets will arrive. If your fleet is larger than 20, then the rest will be placed in reinforcements and can be called upon once you have lost a ship in the battlefield. Can Heroes do special missions?, like Boba Fett hunting Han Solo or Han and Chewie stealing imperial technology? Nope. Bounty hunters can be hired to try and track down heros and abduct them. They are also available based on what planets you own. But they are NPC. Player controlled heros simply have "special abilities". Oddly enough, Boba Fett is not a bounty hunter, he is a player controlled hero.