I bought the game late, fully aware of the issues.
Why did i do that?
Well, i have to reach out a little to explain that, back to Simtex's Master of Orion in 1993. It was a nice little game, even if a bit simplicistic by todays standarts and even back then. It introduced however a few features that would solidify as a standart in form of the legendary Master of Orion II in 1996. The the games never had much emphasis on visual candy, but what drove them was the brilliant UI (less so in MOO2; personal opinion) and converging quite deep gameplay mechanics in a package that belied its complexity. AI was great and diplomacy especially memorable. The game remained challenging even for experienced players. It introduced ship design and the sequel added the finishing touch implementing such mechanics as refitting ships and expanding stars to entire planetary systems and an evil alien non-player superfaction (sounds familiar? You bet!).
One should think after pinpointing the formula the rest of the industry would bent on refining the elements (i omit the brilliant Alpha Centauri and its expansion Alien Crossfire from Sid here, its no exactly a galactic empire level setting but also a legendary game in its own right for sure). Far from it. Part of this is can be attributed to the success of Dune2 and subsequently Command & Conquer as well as Red Alert.
The race for the RTS genere began. Many, many game designers tried to incorporate a star empire setting into a realtime strategy environmet. One after another they all failed miserably. And they gave up on the idea. Even today there is not much development on the 4X genere... but its coming back... slowly. But thats today. The darkest hour of the 4X genere had still to happen:
Lets fast forward to 2003. After seven years, finnaly it seemed the Master of Orion flame would be carried on by a developer (Quicksilver, curse thy name). It failed. Horribly. Not only the parts the game consisted of didn't work together, it was also downright ugly (as in non-functional perception of game events, 4X games do not have as much demands on the optical side - but this was simply an insult, especially ship to ship combat, it doesn't even compare well to the originals 2D DOS visuals) and bugged as hell. But this wasn't the worst part. They basically invented a totally new way to screw the game concept: macromanagement. It means that by automating away al that tendious tasks of carefully planned empire management and act on a government level of empire affairs. Sounds good? Well, the automation routine ran toally amok. And i mean totally: to stop it from spambuilding colony ships (because maybe there weren't any planets to colonize around) you had actually to delete the blueprint of the colony ship and such things. Instead of managing your empire you fought the automation routine.
They promised to fix it of course. Of course they didn't. They released two ridiciously shallow patches not even scratching the edge of the issues the game suffered from an abandoned it. And with it... and thats the really bad part... basically every 4X player around, most of wich waited nearly a decade for the game. No alternatives. They just left and sacked the money. The darkest hour of the genere and you can still feel the damage done there today.
In the light of these events the patience span of customers who experienced this dark episode first hand is understandably short.
But times changed. Two particulary interesting titles emerged lately.
One was Stardock's Sins of a Solar Empire (and its later added DLC mini-expansions), wich FINNALY managed to implement the bare-bones game mechanic into a practicable RTS environment (and in a quite brilliant way i'd like to add). Someone described it as "a realtime simulation of a turnbased strategy game" wich is a fitting description in my opinion. Its not RTS, it merely uses that as a medium to transcend something incredibly more complex. Nevertheless i feel it lacks hearthblood and detail in game mechanic, as superior as its presentation and environment is.
The other one (and it really set a new standart in gameplay depth in my opinion, especially when it comes to gameplay elements such as galactic menaces - seriously... destroying a Locust Hiveworld? Van Neumanns? Priceless stuff) was Sword of the Stars. I have to admit i initially overlooked the title. Part of this can be attributed to its colorish, almost comic like grapics wich were really not my cup of tea, the othe one to the relatively poor reviews it scored initially. I totally underestimated it. Giving it a try after a debate in the SoaSE Forums about the 4X genere i quickly realized what a gem of a game i had missed. SOTS is not as streamlined as a SoaSE, but boy does it have gameplay depth and heartblood in it. I can honestly say its one of the best games i ever played and one i sank the most hours in, and i played A LOT of games - i started with Pitfall and Pac Man.
Now... back to topic:
Why did i sink my money into this title? Especially after living through the MOO3 debacle?
Because i think its worth it. As i said i bought the game late, even though i waited impatiently for its release before that with high expectaitons. I thought a lot about it and was quite aware of the state the game is in currently.
There is one mayor difference between Quicksilver and Kerberos: they didn't abandon it. And they put a lot of efford into this game despite the bad reviews and all the - not unjustified - rage of customers. I feel they are commited to getting this thing done right. If they would abandon it they had already done so. They won't, in fact they probably can't at this point. And i am going to support that.
MOO3 was a wreck. It was obvious it would never work, no matter how much efford put into it. The entire concept was flawed. SOTS2 has a great concept, its just not finished. Not uncommon these days, but i have to admit it SOTS2 was delivered especially "raw". Its like ordering a hamburger and noticing how the cook drags a cow into the kitchen. Bold but it doesn't actually help much in surpressing suspicions about the time its going to take till you can eat.
I realize more and more my patience isn't that short at all.
One final note to the designers:
You are probably under a lot of pressure and working frantically from what i can figure out by judging the patchnotes, but don't forget that sometimes its better for staying focused on work if you do a break here and there. A day more or less won't have a big impact on the time scedule at this point. Implementing errors because working under constant pressure will. Those of us who have not left at this point will still be here then.
Why did i do that?
Well, i have to reach out a little to explain that, back to Simtex's Master of Orion in 1993. It was a nice little game, even if a bit simplicistic by todays standarts and even back then. It introduced however a few features that would solidify as a standart in form of the legendary Master of Orion II in 1996. The the games never had much emphasis on visual candy, but what drove them was the brilliant UI (less so in MOO2; personal opinion) and converging quite deep gameplay mechanics in a package that belied its complexity. AI was great and diplomacy especially memorable. The game remained challenging even for experienced players. It introduced ship design and the sequel added the finishing touch implementing such mechanics as refitting ships and expanding stars to entire planetary systems and an evil alien non-player superfaction (sounds familiar? You bet!).
One should think after pinpointing the formula the rest of the industry would bent on refining the elements (i omit the brilliant Alpha Centauri and its expansion Alien Crossfire from Sid here, its no exactly a galactic empire level setting but also a legendary game in its own right for sure). Far from it. Part of this is can be attributed to the success of Dune2 and subsequently Command & Conquer as well as Red Alert.
The race for the RTS genere began. Many, many game designers tried to incorporate a star empire setting into a realtime strategy environmet. One after another they all failed miserably. And they gave up on the idea. Even today there is not much development on the 4X genere... but its coming back... slowly. But thats today. The darkest hour of the 4X genere had still to happen:
Lets fast forward to 2003. After seven years, finnaly it seemed the Master of Orion flame would be carried on by a developer (Quicksilver, curse thy name). It failed. Horribly. Not only the parts the game consisted of didn't work together, it was also downright ugly (as in non-functional perception of game events, 4X games do not have as much demands on the optical side - but this was simply an insult, especially ship to ship combat, it doesn't even compare well to the originals 2D DOS visuals) and bugged as hell. But this wasn't the worst part. They basically invented a totally new way to screw the game concept: macromanagement. It means that by automating away al that tendious tasks of carefully planned empire management and act on a government level of empire affairs. Sounds good? Well, the automation routine ran toally amok. And i mean totally: to stop it from spambuilding colony ships (because maybe there weren't any planets to colonize around) you had actually to delete the blueprint of the colony ship and such things. Instead of managing your empire you fought the automation routine.
They promised to fix it of course. Of course they didn't. They released two ridiciously shallow patches not even scratching the edge of the issues the game suffered from an abandoned it. And with it... and thats the really bad part... basically every 4X player around, most of wich waited nearly a decade for the game. No alternatives. They just left and sacked the money. The darkest hour of the genere and you can still feel the damage done there today.
In the light of these events the patience span of customers who experienced this dark episode first hand is understandably short.
But times changed. Two particulary interesting titles emerged lately.
One was Stardock's Sins of a Solar Empire (and its later added DLC mini-expansions), wich FINNALY managed to implement the bare-bones game mechanic into a practicable RTS environment (and in a quite brilliant way i'd like to add). Someone described it as "a realtime simulation of a turnbased strategy game" wich is a fitting description in my opinion. Its not RTS, it merely uses that as a medium to transcend something incredibly more complex. Nevertheless i feel it lacks hearthblood and detail in game mechanic, as superior as its presentation and environment is.
The other one (and it really set a new standart in gameplay depth in my opinion, especially when it comes to gameplay elements such as galactic menaces - seriously... destroying a Locust Hiveworld? Van Neumanns? Priceless stuff) was Sword of the Stars. I have to admit i initially overlooked the title. Part of this can be attributed to its colorish, almost comic like grapics wich were really not my cup of tea, the othe one to the relatively poor reviews it scored initially. I totally underestimated it. Giving it a try after a debate in the SoaSE Forums about the 4X genere i quickly realized what a gem of a game i had missed. SOTS is not as streamlined as a SoaSE, but boy does it have gameplay depth and heartblood in it. I can honestly say its one of the best games i ever played and one i sank the most hours in, and i played A LOT of games - i started with Pitfall and Pac Man.
Now... back to topic:
Why did i sink my money into this title? Especially after living through the MOO3 debacle?
Because i think its worth it. As i said i bought the game late, even though i waited impatiently for its release before that with high expectaitons. I thought a lot about it and was quite aware of the state the game is in currently.
There is one mayor difference between Quicksilver and Kerberos: they didn't abandon it. And they put a lot of efford into this game despite the bad reviews and all the - not unjustified - rage of customers. I feel they are commited to getting this thing done right. If they would abandon it they had already done so. They won't, in fact they probably can't at this point. And i am going to support that.
MOO3 was a wreck. It was obvious it would never work, no matter how much efford put into it. The entire concept was flawed. SOTS2 has a great concept, its just not finished. Not uncommon these days, but i have to admit it SOTS2 was delivered especially "raw". Its like ordering a hamburger and noticing how the cook drags a cow into the kitchen. Bold but it doesn't actually help much in surpressing suspicions about the time its going to take till you can eat.
I realize more and more my patience isn't that short at all.
One final note to the designers:
You are probably under a lot of pressure and working frantically from what i can figure out by judging the patchnotes, but don't forget that sometimes its better for staying focused on work if you do a break here and there. A day more or less won't have a big impact on the time scedule at this point. Implementing errors because working under constant pressure will. Those of us who have not left at this point will still be here then.
