Concerns about this game (IE SOTS2)

[HorseDemon]

Hi guys,

As the producer of Ancient Space, let's see if i can clear up a couple things.

How long is the campaign? How long has this been in development? The movie shown is that in engine?? How would you compare it to... What size of fleets can we have??

• The campaign has 15 missions, each one built "from the ground up", with very little (if any) content reused between the story missions, making each one unique and special. We guesstimate that most missions will take 40-60 minutes of play on average, but it will depend on play style and difficulty. If you never use the strategic pause function, always play in real-time, skip all the side content, it may go faster. If you take your time and strive for 100% completion, it can take longer. There are also three skirmish maps, each with a different game mode, in case you just want to blast away or practice tactics before tackling the story.
• The game has been in development for around a couple years by the small but dedicated team at CFG. I myself have been working on the game for just over a year.
• The announcement trailer was captured in-engine, using actual game assets and mission graphics while missions were playing. The game actually looks a little better now than when the footage was captured because some things have gotten more polish.
• We don't like to compare with other games because Ancient Space has elements found in many different ones and such comparisons risk bringing about confusion. There have been a lot of great space games over the years and to pigeonhole any of them is to do them (and A.S.) a disservice. If you have specific questions about the gameplay or features in Ancient Space we're happy to answer as many of them as time allows.

I just hope the game will be full moddable supported and allow for mods to make there own models for weapons ETC.

The game is being built in Unity. To do "proper" modding you would most likely need a full license and the single-player nature and "hand crafted" construction of the levels also doesn't lend itself towards modding. For those reasons we chose to not focus on open mod support.

One thing I noticed trying to watch there Dev Play was in the RSS Feed it was mentioning weapons DLC??? Really we have to buy Weapons for the ships as DLC???

We don't have any current DLC plans for Ancient Space. The game you buy is one cohesive experience and nothing has been held back. There are no "special editions" or anything planned either. Everyone will be getting a digital art book and soundtrack with the game as well.

 

[HorseDemon]

I'm a bit hesitant on the potential quality as well after seeing the train wreck SOTS II turned out to be, and the half finished shovel ware other companies have released in the same genre. (Legends of Pegasus anyone?)

However at a $20 price tag and the level of quality they've put into voice acting and the videos of game play I'm expecting an epic well executed single player campaign, but not much else beyond that. But at the $20 price tag that's about what I'd expect, and if it sells well DLC is sure to follow. That said I still plan to wait until a week or so after release and see how the reviews turn out to be and play the demo before deciding. (if they offer one)

Without going into comparisons about with other games, let me just say that Ancient Space is in very good shape.

Also... to repeat again: there are currently NO plans to have DLC for this game. The RSS feed seen in the vid contains temporary gibberish text until the game is released, so nothing in there is "for real". If you all love the game and want more, we'll certainly take any requests for it seriously. The Ancient Space universe has tons of potential for future adventure, but it's not something that's even on our radar right now.

 

[HorseDemon]

Actually the Ground Control 2 Campaign in case of story telling and battle intensity was one of the best i ever played. It was a shame that it had an open end and no one continued the series.

Funny that you mention GC2. The producer of Ancient Space (yours truly), as the first "big" game he ever worked on, actually wrote the story, directed the cinematics and designed about half the missions for it. It wasn't really that open ended but I feel that you always need to leave some things unexplained and not wrap everything up perfectly as long as you give the current "chapter" (and the goals of the hero) some closure. You know that there's a happy ending in there "somewhere" but you're not shown the entire journey there. (That said... I did have the next chapter planned, and I personally hope that maybe some day that tale will be told.) GC2's story was a tad cartoony and "over the top" with crazy characters and accents, however. Such a long time ago. Ah, memories... but I digress.

You may find hints of those storytelling philosophies in Ancient Space, but story is much more seriously told... like a NASA mission, but with a plot and intrigue and was written by a fantastic guy called Jesse Griffith. It just isn't "force-fed" to the player as is common with many games. We wanted the characters to always stay "professional" with no melodrama, over-acting, over-emphasis or "personality outbursts". If you listen to a NASA mission control broadcast, everyone always keeps a neutral tone, sounding almost bored, under even the most dire circumstances. To keep everything functional and moving forward, they're basically just relaying information. It's fascinating, actually. We didn't go to an extreme with the neutral tone, but we did have it as a guideline in the studio and had the actors listen to NASA recordings. In a sense, the story works both as background chatter (ambiance) and something you can get involved in if you want to pay attention.

(Can you tell I love talking about this stuff?)