Avaris

This is very correct. However, there is a limit to how far back this concept should be taken. When halflife2 was released, and doom3, they had very high relative spec requirements. Those titles were both successful. Its been shown that games that push the envelope actually help drive the computer hardware market. (To a small but noticeable degree). 1GHz processors came out at the very end of 1999 (more than 6 years before the game is released). The average computer cycle is about 4 years. So, the requirements seem to be lower than needed for optimal availability/quality. The reality is: If you have a 6 year old system, you should not expect to be playing new games. (Other 3d RTS game requirements: B&W2 1.6Ghz, Earth 2610 1.5 Ghz) (Popular "successful" games: Quake4 2.0Ghz, Fear 1.7 Ghz), (Space Combat: X3 1.7 Ghz), (Games for children, whom generally have lower quality machines, and are the group you are likely referring to: Chronicles of Narnia 1.5Ghz, Harry Potter 1.4Ghz). Now what was your point exactly? Every publisher other than LA seems to think differently. Maybe LA feels that marketing their new movies through happy meals has changed their demographics and that you can't expect a 8 year old to have a computer built in this millennium. OR maybe, simply, they want to milk everybody. I respect what you are asking. But I feel the same way about unjust optimism. Only I would never express myself so rudely.

I suspect that this might be what happened for the "seemingly" low pop cap. 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.

Ok, there is an obvious easy solution to this. Petroglyph games should simply buy the Starwars franchise from Lucas Arts, since LA seems intent on keeping it from being all that it could be. Jk of course. Naja, I agree with you but this thread feels like flame rather than practicality.

Well you are right, but this post is a bit too much. Each of these points is already being made in another thread. And, each of these are still a it unclear. SSD for example: Delphi said "or maybe multiplayer". This may mean that there are different "modes" for multiplayer. One mode requires you to kill the other teams main ship (The Imps get an SSD). But that begs the question, why not just make it a regular unit?

exactly, i had pointed that out on previous page. Attacker has 10X the ships, but is forces to play 1 vs 1 against the defender who also has planetary weapons and a level 5 station. Ouch

It is pretty clear fighters dont count. That ties in to why they can be produced by the ships themselves. They are small, die easily and are expendible. So, making them count against population cap doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So, ussing your 3-2-1 model, that would mean 3 ISDs 3 VSDs and 5 Patrols would be a full fleet. Larger galactic problems aside (Like when one player has 10 times as many ships but can only put forth an equal amount for battle) I think that number is fine. It will make ships more valuable and hopefulyl therefore more durable. Quick out-of-control conflict has never been my impression of starwars. But others may disagree.

Well, logic says you can bring a fleet mouch greater than 20 into a system. However, you can only put 20 units on the board at once, the rest stay in your reinforcement box. Trying to win a battle may turn into whoever can twitch new units from the box quicker.

Realism is great! But you'll never win over the Quake4 players or the 12 year olds with it......and somehow those bastards have all the money.

Brilliant! Maybe this will draw attention from other threads. Lets see how well it works out.

That is the job they signed up for, and they are compensated well for it. I think everybody appreciates the amount of hard work they are putting into the game. What exactly are you suggesting?

I know. I don't think these things are Petroglyph's fault. Sorry if that was the impression I left. Reading into Delphi's post about how much he is worried about issues with gamespy, and he sent several emails worried about connectivity issues...indicates that at least Delphi has concerns for Gamespy also. Correct. I wasn't saying they should add it now, but rather: If they really felt it important what the fans think, they would have listened (asked) from the get go. Most fans I think would prefer through ROTJ and were expecting it based on comments like "You get to reply all your favorite battles!" I think most fan's favorite battles came after Yavin. Making a game modable shouldn't mean its ok to not make it right the first time and leave the rest of the work in the hands of others. Name one game that was poorly received (based on its shipped version) that was made good by mods? Is that decision based on what fans want or on money? (Though please note I don't think one ship makes or breaks a game. I'm neither obsessed with SSD's or Bwings. But most people would prefer the game to go through ROTJ and it therefore should have been designed that way, if fan opinions matter so much) I am generalizing of course. I don't expect "everybody" to dislike gamespy. But I think any polling would should that people would prefer not to have it. Though, a poll at this point would get 50 people on this forum saying "I love gamespy!" to make it look like they are in full support of EAW. Taking before the game was made, the poll would have been close to unanimous against using gamespy. And that is why they waited so late in development to tell us this. Now all that can be said is "Well, its too late to fix it" or "Well...I don't think gamespy is THAT bad...." This is nether a whine or a rant. I'm just saying that fans should speak their mind rather than trying to be nice (And that doesn't mean FLAME in an unintelligent manner). Saying "Aw well....it will still be a great game" everytime some new disappointing news comes out is not being a responsible fan. By not doing that, we give the impression that taking 2-3 months to return a 10 question FAQ that we as a community worked hard to put together, is no big deal. And that we don't actually care what the game is, what the timeline is, etc. PS: Demo in January now?

My last thread was deleted, any I hope it was from how it was presented (because it was presented poorly, sorry). It was not a flame post, just a bad post. I'll do better this time: "My hope is that we can work together and nail these issues as a group when they arise." PG "Community support and balancing feedback is extremely important to us. The community is our eyes and ears to our non-vocal audience and helps us make better games. We fully plan to support this product as necessary to rectify any issues that may come up after release. " "(Regards to Gamespy) If we have to issue a day 1 patch to fix balance and connectivity issues before the game goes live we will. If another patch needs to be issued 1 month later to fix more issues, than so be it. " Can the idea of using Gamespy get patched? All this feels like lip services. The fans want a game that is accurate to starwars. They want units all the way up to RoTJ. They don't want to use Gamespy. 4 months after saying "Um, the powercore is supposed to be inside the shields" we get "Oh yeah btw, we fixed that on some of the maps". Why not four months ago: "Fans, you are right. We are going to fix that. This game is for you." If the community is the eyes and ears, and we have a responsibility to helping make the game better, then we need to speak out about what we really are concerned about. Rather than just saying "This seems perfect. And the last thing we want is LA thinking that we don't worship them" People who don't make these points are doing a disservice, because we represent a small sample of the entire gaming community. And all of us want the game to succeed.

Imagine this scenerio: You have 500 capital ships and the enemy is down to just 20 sitting at their base. Their base has several ground based weapons and they have a level 5 space station. Plus, it was said long ago that "Any ships that make it through the battle will be automatically healed" (ie. damage is not persistent). How many groups of 20 ships will the attacking force have to send in before they can take out the enemy? 5? 10?

Matt, my posts are in regards to LA not Petroglyph. PG is doing what they are asked and im sure they are doing it to the best of their abilites and will impress us. As far as Kyle Kartan, z95s.. I'd trade them in for B-wings and Interceptors, stuff from the movies that are the core of the expansive universe.

I'm sorry, my original post was far to long and put people to sleep. All I am asking is why does it seem like asking for: (a) A game that is accurate to the star wars universe (Planatary shields as they should be, ISD's dont make fighters, squadrons of even numbers (12), etc) (b) Conent/timeline that the fans want (The starwars universe has more content than you could ever fit into a game, but there are clearly units that everybody would like to see) © A good online community setup (There are plenty of companies that have made good severs for their own games at a decent cost. Bungie.net comes to mind since at the time, Myth 1 was the only game they had. And the interface, community was excellent) Why must we as fans lower our expectations from "what is starwars"? Just because they managed to put out some bad RTS's prior? I don't think those three simple requests are unreasonable. People love starwars because it IS a fun universe. Can't a game stay starwars while also fun for a wider audience? I think my main point was lost. My concern is that the tinkering will make the game unappealing to all groups, rather than more appealing to all groups. And in the end, that doesn't suit anybody. We shall see though, I know I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I guess my point is: I wish I would open up some gamesite preview one day, and read an interview with a designer and hear them say "This is a starwars game and the true fans are going to love it! But we think that it will be fun for everybody." rather than "This game is designed to appeal to everybody! All RTS fans will love it. And hay! Its starwars too, what more could you ask for?". The difference may seem slight, but the mentality it very different. PS: "And, yes, I have seen parts of it. " was that a joke?

I know I haven't posted much, but I read often. I can't but help get the feeling that the fans have been sold out here. I recall a thread about how many copies RTW sold, how many C&C sold etc. C&C sold copies because it appeals to people with short attention spans who could go back annd forth from C&C to quake2. The fact that C&C made so much money if of course why Petroglyph got this job. Granted, this is a business world and everybody wants money. My fear is that every user will be alienated if Lucas isn't careful. There are basically 3 groups of people who will buy this game. Hardcore starwars fan who have been waiting for a good RTS since they were born (The smallest group), Casual SW fans who will buy the game because its starwars(The middle sized group), and lastly, RTS fans indifferent to SW (The largest group). Trying to make a game that balances all these groups is difficult, and in my opinion, shouldn't be done. Hardcore fans will be the least important because of their group's size. Casual fans will buy anything, so not really important either. So the game will be made to please RTS fans. Making a game to please the RTS fans that buy games like C&C (high quantity) means you have to make a very fast paced game that is not strategy focused. (Since that group plays fast RTS and Action games). A game for that group can drift from starwars fact in order to please them (Ie. non-sw ships, inaccurate timeline, ties being built inside SD's etc). And lastly, bad community choices (ie gamespy) because good community isn't important, its a large community that they are looking for. Patches might keep them from cheating, but it doesn't make them fun to chat with or play with. My concern is this: The thing about the action fans is, they don't stick around as much. They buy a game and then move on fairly quickly for the most part. Lucas gets their money all the same. But, for people who truly love starwars, this may be the only opportunity for a good SW RTS for many more years and it will make us stick around. (Rebellion is still being played). But, what happens once the action players who dont' care about SW jump ship? Good action/RTS games are released every 6 months, they will be on to the next. But they will have left behind a game that was made for them and their money. And true fans will be stuck with a game that ignored their desires and expectations. I have heard people say so many times (not just about this game) "We want to make a game that appeals to fans and non-fans alike". And I have never seen it work well. You can't change the fact that starwars fans only make up a fraction of the overall market. Making a game that designwise is for action players, and uses starwars ships isn't a fix. If you want to make a game for people other than starwars fans, then make a game that isn't starwars. Because if this game were to not do well saleswise (ie. Not good enough for the fans and not action enough for the none fans), people might get the impression that making starwars strategy games is a bad idea. People are gonna say I am flamming and such, but I really am not. They are going to say "The game isn't out yet you moron" and maybe they are right. It's just that I've been a starwars fan for a long time and I feel true fans are undervalued. (might i point on the quality of the prequels, the lack of original cut of trilogy on dvd, etc). I feel like starwars has become toy watches at burgerking for little kids who have never seen the original starwars movies. Where the money is, Lucas follows.

Yes, there is a difference between a "gameplay" feature and an "game enviroment". Can't really be compared in my humble opinion

I think quick arcadish games sell more copies. Perhaps we will find out that star wars realism gets sold out. I guess goal number one is to make money rather than be faithful to your license. :: sigh ::

I know this has been vehicle focused so far, but some obvious gameplay fixes: Squardon size = 12 ISD's (etc) cant build fighters Unit verterans Heros Die Capital Ships dont die too quickly, move a bit slower too (They seem to rotate fairly quickly in the videos) Fighter move a bit slower as well (Can fighter AI be tweaked?) Shield Power Core goes inside sield Capital Ships can bombard Cap ships can carry troops

Trying to manage 10+ heros and all their special abilities seems like a nightmare Maybe heros have an auto button so you dont have to keep telling vader to force crush tank by tank. Though that route seems bad too i guess...

Maybe there is no way of knowing if you have killed all the enemy in a battle? You have to decide when to send down your tropps. IF the enemy has units hidding they can jump out and get them. And why do units have to die like flies? Oh well

Well there is nothing stopping you from having all your heros in one place I dont think. Seems like we have seen somes images with a bunch of heros at once. After watcing the videos of vader destroy tanks and tons of jawas, i am a bit scared. Could Vader, Palp, and a handful of other heros take out an entire base fairly easily? And do heros combat bonuses effect other heros? That would be really messed up

Is there going to be a battle speed option, or maybe just reduce the damage of all ship weapons by 70% to slow down combat? Somthing like that. Do we know if these things are moddable?

uum. Air cooling doesn't work in places that have no air like space me thinks