Those crazy Von Neumanns, they apparently attacked me but I saw nor heard from them for 5 minutes. (I liked the post-battle screen with the text though: Zone Render Here!!!!)
Apparently Steam released the Initial Oct 14th beta build instead of the release build. per Sword of the Stars twitter they are in the process of correcting this. Steam should auto-update to the new version once the upload is done.
If that build is only two weeks old, I'm a long way from filled with confidence. I suspect that we're going to be subjected to a great deal more sighing and eye rolling on the part of the devs, to the effect that its some nerve for us to expect games to arrive on time and in a playable state, and anyway its not their fault its steams fault and don't you know how lucky we are, that people as smart as they are are willing to even let people like us look at their products.
But hey, by next spring, we might well have a playable, enjoyable product.
(I've worked with and for a lot of assholes, and Mecron has shown himself in his forums to be an asshole. No matter how smart the are, assholes are always fuckups, in the end.)
I don't know if it applies to non-MMO development, but most of the MMO games I've tested tend to be bug-filled shitfests all the way up until the public gets its hands on it ("open" beta). Then the patch gets applied and showstopper bugs that testers have been screaming about for months finally get fixed so that the general public doesn't perceive the game as a bug-filled shitfest.
What I'm saying here is to wait until the updated version before preaching gloom and doom.
Maybe I'm not used to it yet...but things are taking too long to do.
It IS overly complicated. Deploying fleets is.. strange to do. Click destination, then objective, THEN find out who is in range?
Starting ship designs are named in Theme, not by function? That's silly.
It seems you add ships to a fleet by opening the fleet manager, and dragging and dropping? Not from the main UI?
The battle system seems far harder to use as well, I spent half a fight trying to figure out how to tell me ships to close to weapons range on their own. Instead they seemed to want me to micro them into position by hand so they may or may not actually open fire. 5 minutes of combat with 9 cruisers vs 2 cruisers, and I destroyed the mission section of one hostile. I swear the majority of my ships weren't actually firing on the target.
I'm hoping the new build is great, but what I really wanted was Sword of the Stars: with improvements! Not let's reimagine everything from the core UI on down and apparently forget everything we learned making the first one.
edit: and yes, the patch may fix all of this. UI changes are easy to patch usually. I have my hopes up, but if the patch is just a mistaken 2G of data, I also wonder why it's not up yet :P
I will admit, I think I might warm to the mission/fleet system. I rarely used more than like 10 active fleets as hivers in SotS1, but there were many reasons to want ships around planets (spare gates, police cutters, etc) and I found it really hard to keep track of where all my ships were. This way I can set some fleets on patrol missions and others on standby and when I need a combat fleet the relocate mission will automatically show all military fleets with no active orders that are available within range (which for hivers is any base with a gate station). The naval base system seems to encourage you to build up military bases where you gather ships to form into fleets and send out on missions, which is appealing both froma macromanagement and a realism perspective.
In short there is a lot of promise to it in my eyes, but I expect it will take a long time to get used to.
I'm coming to like the mission/fleet system as well. I think that it'll make things easier to handle when the late game comes around. Now, how do I optimize rate of exploration...
Apparently Steam released the Initial Oct 14th beta build instead of the release build. per Sword of the Stars twitter they are in the process of correcting this. Steam should auto-update to the new version once the upload is done.
Question is how long is the upload gonna take.
The real hope is that the build we have now is some kind of internal stability beta or something. The things wrong with it aren't the sort of things which would be resolved in two weeks, but I think there's a good chance that this is the case. So much of the stuff is so horribly broken and counter-intuitive (no obvious way to delete old ships, escape key doesn't work, no close button on most menu, pressing 'back' sometimes dumps you to the main menu without saving) and the graphics look terrible, much worse than SOTS1.
edit - The controls are also far less intuitive, and it's almost impossible to figure out how anything works espescially in the ship building phase. The 'mission' system is kinda good, but combining the terrible UI with the fact it feels like you're joining the game 30 turns in with three colonies(I hate skipping the early turns, it's probably the decision they've made I dislike the most) it feels almost unplayable.
I don't think people remember just how bad SotS1 was at launch.
The expansions didn't just add content, they added a user interface that almost worked - and was notably absent from the original title. Shit was dumb.
I don't think people remember just how bad SotS1 was at launch.
The expansions didn't just add content, they added a user interface that almost worked - and was notably absent from the original title. Shit was dumb.
Well, yeah, but the game isn't that different. Iteration 1 of the UI should have just been the old UI.
It's going to have been over 6 hours, at best from when they started uploading the correct version to steam to when it's actually going to be available, that's rather sad =/
I hope hivers work better in the release build. I send a gate fleet out with "Gate" orders. They fly out, drop off a gate ship.. then slow boat back home. And while slowboating home, nobody can gate out to the new system.
edit: interesting, seems like a bug actually. Two turns after saying they were going to take 24 turns to get there and back, they ported to the right places.
Has anyone had any luck figuring out how to extend operational range? I've been building Stations, and that seems to do it, but my expansion is so slow.
ffff..so they just tweeted that the upload is almost complete..the upload!...wtf are they on a t1? I have updated my prognosis from rather sad to extremely sad at their performance.
Valve also has to test it, then upload it to all their 100's of content servers, then make sure it's not corrupted there... so yeah these things take some time.
Valve also has to test it, then upload it to all their 100's of content servers, then make sure it's not corrupted there... so yeah these things take some time.
Well, the tweet makes it sound like they've just been uploading it to valve for 6 hours, nothing after their upload has happened yet, at least that's how i read "Upload almost complete, short test, then live." Really valve uploading it from central to their content servers shouldn't take long at all though, that's over their core network.
Friday Night Update - Getting things back on track
Postby castewarkp » Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:16 am
Hello all! First, thanks for all your patience. Even the people who are miffed, you've been both understandably pissed off AND relatively civil, relatively. And boy, we understand how you feel.
We're uploading the launch build now. Steam is being super awesome about getting it set up, then live. We are hurrying, but we don't want to rush it - rushing got us here and rushing will keep us here, so again, we appreciate the patience.
I don't think people remember just how bad SotS1 was at launch.
The expansions didn't just add content, they added a user interface that almost worked - and was notably absent from the original title. Shit was dumb.
It was really bad at launch. I thought the combat system was almost unplayable.
Months and months later I had forgotten about the shitty game I played and accidentally played it again, but updated, and it turned out to be good. A lovely sheen was polished onto what had once been an unfaceted turd.
i think its simple, and he likes it. do you know the lore? or did you watch the opening trailer?
I know the lore insomuch as I played countless hours of the first game, but I didn't read any extra random fluff posted on forums/websites etc. That picture just makes no sense to me.
i think its simple, and he likes it. do you know the lore? or did you watch the opening trailer?
I know the lore insomuch as I played countless hours of the first game, but I didn't read any extra random fluff posted on forums/websites etc. That picture just makes no sense to me.
Its a Suul'ka, one of the 'Lords of Winter', great big old Liir who reject death and force the other Liir to build them fuck off spacesuits so they don't get crushed to death under their own mass when they get big enough. One created the Zuul to screw with the Morrigi and the others have been flying around screwing things up for everyone with their massive psionic powers.
Posts
Think of it as a long-term investment.
Those crazy Von Neumanns, they apparently attacked me but I saw nor heard from them for 5 minutes. (I liked the post-battle screen with the text though: Zone Render Here!!!!)
Maybe I'm not used to it yet...but things are taking too long to do.
I don't know if it applies to non-MMO development, but most of the MMO games I've tested tend to be bug-filled shitfests all the way up until the public gets its hands on it ("open" beta). Then the patch gets applied and showstopper bugs that testers have been screaming about for months finally get fixed so that the general public doesn't perceive the game as a bug-filled shitfest.
What I'm saying here is to wait until the updated version before preaching gloom and doom.
It IS overly complicated. Deploying fleets is.. strange to do. Click destination, then objective, THEN find out who is in range?
Starting ship designs are named in Theme, not by function? That's silly.
It seems you add ships to a fleet by opening the fleet manager, and dragging and dropping? Not from the main UI?
The battle system seems far harder to use as well, I spent half a fight trying to figure out how to tell me ships to close to weapons range on their own. Instead they seemed to want me to micro them into position by hand so they may or may not actually open fire. 5 minutes of combat with 9 cruisers vs 2 cruisers, and I destroyed the mission section of one hostile. I swear the majority of my ships weren't actually firing on the target.
I'm hoping the new build is great, but what I really wanted was Sword of the Stars: with improvements! Not let's reimagine everything from the core UI on down and apparently forget everything we learned making the first one.
edit: and yes, the patch may fix all of this. UI changes are easy to patch usually. I have my hopes up, but if the patch is just a mistaken 2G of data, I also wonder why it's not up yet :P
In short there is a lot of promise to it in my eyes, but I expect it will take a long time to get used to.
Can I get some pictures of the races and not just their ships?
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
http://sots2.rorschach.net/The_Liirian_Social_Life
http://sots.rorschach.net/Physiology,_Hiver
Yeah, just check the bars on the left for race lore. There's some really cool stuff.
No magic boolet update yet. I think I'll amuse myself with the manual some.
"Scotsman Engineering" module.
The real hope is that the build we have now is some kind of internal stability beta or something. The things wrong with it aren't the sort of things which would be resolved in two weeks, but I think there's a good chance that this is the case. So much of the stuff is so horribly broken and counter-intuitive (no obvious way to delete old ships, escape key doesn't work, no close button on most menu, pressing 'back' sometimes dumps you to the main menu without saving) and the graphics look terrible, much worse than SOTS1.
edit - The controls are also far less intuitive, and it's almost impossible to figure out how anything works espescially in the ship building phase. The 'mission' system is kinda good, but combining the terrible UI with the fact it feels like you're joining the game 30 turns in with three colonies(I hate skipping the early turns, it's probably the decision they've made I dislike the most) it feels almost unplayable.
The expansions didn't just add content, they added a user interface that almost worked - and was notably absent from the original title. Shit was dumb.
Well, yeah, but the game isn't that different. Iteration 1 of the UI should have just been the old UI.
In other news, the music is FUCKING AWESOME
Good, I think?
Indeed, although it's epicness is truncated by the fact it cuts out at random whenever the game fails to load a missing asset.
Yeah, this is a game to buy after you get paid this month.
Plenty of new victory conditions - guessing that "last capital standing" will be a godsend to multiplayer games.
edit: interesting, seems like a bug actually. Two turns after saying they were going to take 24 turns to get there and back, they ported to the right places.
Well, the tweet makes it sound like they've just been uploading it to valve for 6 hours, nothing after their upload has happened yet, at least that's how i read "Upload almost complete, short test, then live." Really valve uploading it from central to their content servers shouldn't take long at all though, that's over their core network.
Friday Night Update - Getting things back on track
Postby castewarkp » Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:16 am
Hello all! First, thanks for all your patience. Even the people who are miffed, you've been both understandably pissed off AND relatively civil, relatively. And boy, we understand how you feel.
We're uploading the launch build now. Steam is being super awesome about getting it set up, then live. We are hurrying, but we don't want to rush it - rushing got us here and rushing will keep us here, so again, we appreciate the patience.
I'll follow up when everything is live."
which was posted in the last few minutes, so.
<--- Is not Moe
It was really bad at launch. I thought the combat system was almost unplayable.
Months and months later I had forgotten about the shitty game I played and accidentally played it again, but updated, and it turned out to be good. A lovely sheen was polished onto what had once been an unfaceted turd.
I can't stop laughing.
Also, wtf is up with combat? I spend 5 minutes flying around, not seeing anything, and the combat turn ends.
I...don't get it.
I know the lore insomuch as I played countless hours of the first game, but I didn't read any extra random fluff posted on forums/websites etc. That picture just makes no sense to me.
Its a Suul'ka, one of the 'Lords of Winter', great big old Liir who reject death and force the other Liir to build them fuck off spacesuits so they don't get crushed to death under their own mass when they get big enough. One created the Zuul to screw with the Morrigi and the others have been flying around screwing things up for everyone with their massive psionic powers.
You can summon them at endgame if you're Zuul.