[Homeworld Universe] HW3 Roadmap updated, Everything planned is coming in November!

Olivaw

-Loki- wrote: »

Yeah I haven't pulled the trigger on buying this yet, and I'm avoiding actual spoilers, but what I'm hearing about the campaign from many different people is that.

Kinda disappointed it took this long and this is what they made, espcially when the first game is held up as the golds standard of 'this is how you tell a great story in an RTS'.

It’s truly absurd that this game was in development for years, and this is the story they came up with

I am particularly curious how the cutscenes ended up the way they did. They’re so strange that it almost feels like a last minute change, but given how the story is written, that can’t possibly be true. Which makes me wonder: did the devs actually want this all along, or was this the equivalent of studio notes from the publisher? Because it really does feel almost nothing like Homeworld

BahamutZERO

disappointing to hear that you don't feel like it measures up to deserts of kharak. I thought deserts was pretty pitch perfect for homeworld.

Morninglord

I'm halfway through and am definitely wondering what all the fuss is about, it's been fine so far, just some problems with the quality of the cutscenes and some occasional stilted dialogue.

It's very different in presentation but there's nothing "unHomeworld" to me about any of its ideas.

I've heard it gets worse in the later half tho so we'll see. I've seen a few interviews with the writer side: this was intended, but quite stripped down from the sounds of it. The technical manual gives tons of backstory which probably changes my perspective.

The reddit is having a total meltdown.

Athenor

I am not sure how far I am in the game, and I've been putting off jumping back in because of other addictions, but I will say one very noticeable thing is that in this, you are definitely playing as Imogen, from her perspective. This definitely wasn't the case in HW1 (where you were a distinct entity and spoken to directly). HW2 was a bit more blurry on if you were playing Karan or someone else.

This is also a case of a LOT of expectations and nostalgia building up over time, combined with hatred of Gearbox (which is valid) and a game that was planned to come in very hot until Embracer let off the steam and let them slip a bit.

Morninglord

An interesting thing I learnt is that the original was planned to have nothing but text intros up until a few months before release, when the publisher stepped in and said er no, make something.

The minimalist story was very much an accident of circumstances, which lets people project their own interpretation onto "Homeworld".

Given that critiques of every game since has had accusations of "not being Homeworld", any narrowing from that broad minimalist take to any kind of specifics is immediately gonna cut off lots of people, as their own headcanon feels disrespected.

This is only compounded by the presentation changes, which is instantly alienating. I've seen a wip animatic from early development and even though that story presented seemed even crazier, plenty of people were saying it was better.

-Loki-

I’ll definitely buy this and play it eventually but it’s moved to ‘wait for a sale’, unfortunately.

Aegeri

I was going to get this, then the bad reviews combined with starting Jagged Alliance 3 + System Shock remake completely derailed any chance of me playing this any time soon.

Morninglord

I would say anyone that was unhappy with the mystical hyperspace cores and unbound godhood themes in HW2 should wait for quite a price drop here. It isn't even remotely interested in backpedalling any of that stuff. It takes it, extrapolates, and forges full steam ahead.

Even if this was presented with the old animatics and tone, that is still there.

Olivaw

Morninglord wrote: »

I would say anyone that was unhappy with the mystical hyperspace cores and unbound godhood themes in HW2 should wait for quite a price drop here. It isn't even remotely interested in backpedalling any of that stuff. It takes it, extrapolates, and forges full steam ahead.

Even if this was presented with the old animatics and tone, that is still there.

Yeah that stuff does rankle my jimmies, but it’s really the way it’s presented that’s killing my interest

The character focus is one thing, but the cutscenes themselves feel bizarre in how broadly they’re animated. At one point the evil bad guy spreads their arms in what feels like a pose intended for someone about to break into song, like the villain in a Disney movie

Say what you want about people being picky but that sure ain’t a Homeworld vibe to me

Fiatil

Yeah it's weird to me that they would go away from the cutscene style of 1 and 2 (and Cataclysm, and Deserts of Kharak).

It's a very particular vibe that is kind of core to the series. I'm one of the people who really enjoyed Homeworld 2's story, but part of it was that the presentation was very good and similar to 1 even if it did go a lot harder on the Space Mysticism stuff.

It's also like....a cheap and fairly easy to pull off style? One of those things where I have no idea why you would go away from that when it's effective, beloved by the fans, and easy on the budget all at the same time. Why spend extra money to make it worse?

If I have to pick two things that make Homeworld feel Homeworld -- I was going to say "spaceships" followed by "the feel of the cutscenes", but hell I can look at Deserts of Kharak and it feels pretty Homeworld-ey without even the spaceships. So bump that up to #1 probably.

Morninglord

I don't mind the cutscene change and I liked the mystical stuff, which is a major reason why none of this affects me. There's a few problems with the plot, some dialogue, the cgi is funky sometimes, but for me these are minor. It's easily an 8/10 game to me. And it still feels like Homeworld to me.

Homeworld to me is encapsulated by a feeling of being outgunned, isolated and desperate. Not particular style of cutscenes, not a specific vibe. Just that. It has that. So I'm fine.

A bigger problem for me is some gameplay issues I hope they address.

Athenor

The HW Devs have posted a Dev Update!

Steven Messner wrote:

[BBI] Steven Messner
—
Today at 2:14 PM
Dev Update: The Journey Ahead
Hi everyone,

We’ve just posted our latest Dev Update which outlines some of the ways we’re incorporating your feedback about Homeworld 3, including improvements to Skirmish like Hyperspace Jumping and a rework of the tech tree.

Read it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1840080/view/4174352435313658427

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to respectfully share their thoughts and feelings about Homeworld 3. The development team has been reading every comment, thread, and post. Though Homeworld 3 only just launched, we’re keen to keep improving the game even further. We’ll be sure to share more progress updates as we move forward.

Cheers!

Hi everyone,

Now that the dust has begun to settle, we’d like to share some details about Homeworld 3 and the journey ahead.

We’ve been collecting and prioritizing your feedback about Homeworld 3’s gameplay. As always, thank you! Here are a few things we’re taking immediate action on and we will continue to update you on their progress. Additional work is in the planning stages, expect new updates in the coming months.




Open maps & “claustrophobic” maps
Though terrain is a major feature in Homeworld 3, we’ve heard that many of you miss the vast, empty maps of earlier Homeworld games. Some of you also feel that Homeworld 3’s maps can be too small or “claustrophobic.” We have already started work on our first new Skirmish map without large terrain — just open space.
We’ll also look at other maps to make sure you can pull the camera out far enough and, if necessary, make further adjustments.

Strategic pacing & directional damage
We have heard your thoughts on the overall pace of combat. Homeworld 3 is definitely a faster-paced game, and many of you feel like you aren’t able to maneuver properly or employ tactics like flanking. We’re increasing the health of units.
This will allow you more time to maneuver in an engagement to make use of things like directional damage.

And, just to dispel any confusion, Homeworld 3 has directional damage!

There’s been some doubt about that, which we think is due to the pace of combat and that it wasn’t present in the War Games demo. We’re also increasing the efficacy of directional and flank damage.
We think this will increase Homeworld 3’s strategic depth by incentivizing unit positioning and smart maneuvering.

Improving unit behaviors
Speaking of maneuvering: During the next several weeks you’re going to start seeing improvements to unit behaviors. For example, things like larger ships needing to engage from the same plane of combat and various other behaviors will be addressed over the coming weeks and months. We also have fixes for issues like units occasionally forgetting their orders
and improvements for various units like Suppression and Torpedo Frigates.

Hyperspace Jumps & a new tech tree in Skirmish
Skirmish has long been a staple of Homeworld and RTSes, and there’s a couple of things we think we can do to improve this experience. Notably, we are exploring implementing Hyperspace Jumping in Skirmish
, allowing you to teleport ships across the map for some audacious gambits. We’re also reworking the Skirmish tech tree to help make strategic player choices more meaningful and allow early game fleet compositions to be more nuanced.

Tactical Pause & Time Dilation for solo Skirmish & War Games
This will be coming up in our June 1.1 patch. For users who want to pause or slow down combat in solo games— now you can, just like in the campaign!



Above: Also coming in Patch 1.1 is a new War Games Artifact that'll unlock the ultra-powerful Heavy Suppression Frigate variant.


Mod tools incoming!
We’re continuing to work toward the launch of Homeworld 3’s official modding tools. If you’ve browsed the mod.io dashboard within Homeworld 3, you’ve already seen the cool things the community is creating. Our mod tools will only empower that effort. Officially, they can be used to create and share Skirmish maps, but for adventurous modders who aren’t afraid to go into uncharted territory, there’s a lot more that could theoretically be done — and we can’t wait to see what this community creates.

To be clear, all of this will be moving forward in parallel to our ongoing bug-fixing and improvement efforts. By the time Patch 1.1 drops in June, we’ll be on target to address over 150 issues and counting — including performance improvements, better support for AZERTY and QWERTZ keyboards, and many, many other things.

With the help of this community, we will make Homeworld 3 the best it can be. To that end, we will strive to incorporate your gameplay feedback even more in the weeks and months ahead.

Thank you,
Blackbird Interactive and Gearbox Publishing

Morninglord

Aaaaand that's pretty much all my gameplay issues addressed.

Olivaw

Increasing unit HP is a huge change that I think will directly benefit the game, because holy shit if your unit was being countered you might as well kiss it goodbye

Strike craft felt functionally useless because the moment they started dying, they were probably down to useless numbers by the time you were able to get them out of the engagement, if getting them out was possible at all

Apogee

So I just watched Mandalore's review, and it's... pretty rough! I did skip the spoiler section but I've gathered enough from headlines and comments to know that it's pretty bad.

https://youtu.be/nuC2I8s6qf8?si=Qkv4Zc4weinF2WF_

On the plus side, it sounds like the new patch is going to fix some of the gamplay concerns. HW3 is still looking like a 50% off purchase, though.

Olivaw

Yeah Mandalore just starts cackling several times during the “story spoilers” portion which if you’re familiar with him is a bad sign

Lord_Mordja

I finally beat this game after some (seemingly) catastrophic computer problems meant I couldn't play much for the better part of two weeks. I enjoyed it, but with a billion caveats.

-The story is as awful as everyone says it is, and goes whole-hog into the space mysticism bullshit that even HW2 kept more in the background. Even when you were salvaging godships and dueling a telepathic mongolian warlord, it still felt like you were part of a larger military operation, which isn't the case in HW3.
-CG cutscenes: also pretty crap. Especially whenever it went to Imogen's stupid hyperspace island, god everything about that...And there's a reason most smaller studios contract out their cinematics.
-Luckily all the ingame art, sound, and music was as fantastic as ever. Just a beaut all around. That said, HW2 remains my favourite wrt ship design. HW3's Hiigaran navy draws from DoK's, with their, smooth, flat surfaces and protruding conning towers. Both games definitely trend towards a more modern naval aesthetic than the older ones do.
-The underlying gameplay is also clearly built off of DoK's, with its focus on terrain, its ship classes, lack of modules, UI, and it's overall scale, though it's definitely doesn't handle as smoothly. Like DoK, I spent more of my time zoomed far out than I did in the other two Homeworld games. Using the "classic" mode, I rarely had any issues with the camera or controls, right up until I started using battlecruisers. Adding them to my capital ship flotilla seemed to cause my smaller ships to lose cohesion, I think because the BCs try and broadside while every other ship doesn't? Giving them an independent control group solved this, but still, kind of a pain. As for the terrain, I think it's an interesting way to handle a space game, but I do agree that it makes things feel smaller and more constrained. Which I actually didn't mind too much in the campaign itself, but for skirmish matches I had to choose the larger map sizes even just for 1v1s.
-Regardless of the story, I liked the campaign itself. Varied mission design and encounters kept things fresh, and like I alluded to before, it had some stunning backdrops. Do wish there were more/more developed side factions like those raiders from early on. Kind of short, but I don't think notably more so than the other games. This series has never had long campaigns, and HW1 in particular has such minimal mission scripting that I was just rushing through the endgame when I played it a couple years ago.

Anyway, I just don't buy the idea that something went disastrously wrong in its production. I think that Homeworld 3 is more or less the game BBI set out to make (barring the standard development foibles and budgetary limits you'd see in any other studio title) for better and worse. Def can't pretend it was rushed, given the timeline. While there are some notable bugs and jank here and there, it never felt broken or unfinished to me. There's a conceptual through line from the original HW2 Dust Wars prototype to DoK to HW3 that feels thought out. Even the story isn't really incoherent in a way that suggests a lot of cut content or hasty rewrites: it's just bad and poorly presented. I don't think it's a case of death by committee because so many of the shots it takes are weird enough that no committee would underwrite then. Is Homeworld 3 all that I'd hoped it would be? No, not at all, but if the alternative is "no new Homeworld game" then I'll take what we got. I had my fun, and with the overall reaction to the game, I doubt there'll ever be a Homeworld 4. So it goes.

BahamutZERO

What is DoK? e: Oh, Deserts of Kharak. Right that makes sense.

Athenor

Patch 1.1 has been released!

Patch notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1840080/view/4172101902792400725

Hello Commanders,

Today’s Update 1.1 brings new Multiplayer content (including a powerful new ship variant for War Games) and over 100 bug fixes and gameplay improvements. At the end of this post you’ll find the full, itemized patch notes, but if you want the high-level overview, the next section outlines the most notable additions and changes.

First, we want to reiterate our appreciation for those of you who have taken the time to respectfully share your feedback. While this patch does address a few widespread topics, we’re still investigating a variety of feedback and requests not included here. We are grateful for your understanding and patience. Homeworld 3 wouldn’t exist without this community and we’re determined to keep incorporating your feedback and suggestions as we are able.

New Free Content for War Games and Skirmish!



Meet the Heavy Suppression Frigate, a powerful upgrade over the standard Suppression Frigate and is available immediately (assuming you’re lucky enough to receive the requisite Artifact during a run).
What sets the Heavy Suppression Frigate apart from its base version is the addition of a pair of Dual Heavy Mag Cannons mounted on top and Pad Mk. 2 Light Rapid Fire Railguns along the bottom hull. That’s a lot of extra firepower, but the Heavy Suppression Frigate has a nasty trick up its sleeve: Enemies hit by the dual cannon will take extra damage from ALL sources. We’re excited to see how this further empowers your War Games fleets!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PbmmaQWIvc

Of the 12 other new Artifacts coming in 1.1, several offer new specialization routes for upgrading the Suppression Frigate and the Heavy Suppression Frigate. The CQB Pattern (and unlocked Upgrades), transforms your Suppression Frigates into absolute devils in close-range brawls. Meanwhile, the Area Denial upgrade path does almost the opposite — trading survivability for increased range.
There’s more to discover in War Games’ 1.1 Update, with 9 new challenges that each unlock new Artifacts including welcome upgrades to Hiigaran and Incarnate Frigates.

A New Skirmish Map: Karos Graveyard



Karos Graveyard is a new map added to Skirmish mode. This map is reminiscent of earlier Homeworld games where there was less terrain, and more open space for combat, and greater distances between starting positions for combat.
We’re really excited to see how players adapt to this new map and look forward to your feedback.

Update 1.1 - Bugfix and Improvement Highlights
While you can find the complete patch notes below, we wanted to take a minute to call out some fixes that address some feedback we’ve received since launch. So let’s dive in.

Tactical Pause & Time Dilation in Solo Skirmish & War Games
First mentioned in our last Dev Update, you can now pause or slow time while playing War Games or Skirmish solo.

General Gameplay Fixes & Improvements

• There’s a lot of fixes in Update 1.1, but there’s a few we think deserve special attention:
• After using an ability on a target, ships could occasionally start attacking other enemies instead of the initial target.
• Ships would occasionally fail to resume the Guard command after engaging in combat.
• Frigates sometimes moved to match their target’s height when given an Attack order.
• Giving deployment orders to multiple turrets at once while in Tactical Pause could cause an issue where only one turret was deployed.
• The In-Game HDR option in Video settings could sometimes be turned on despite the Windows' HDR option being set to Off in the Monitor's settings.
• VO for all units was missing when selecting ships while playing as the Incarnate fleet.
• Added a "More Info" button to mod detail modal that links to the mod URL.
• Kala Terminus 2-6 player Skirmish map has been updated. There are new player starting positions and more resources to support larger and longer PVP and PVE matches.

A Look Ahead: Mod Tools Incoming
Our team has been hard at work on the mod tools and we’re excited to announce that we’re finally ready to release them to the community. Though there are a few loose ends to tie off, we’re currently looking to release Homeworld 3’s official mod tools sometime later this month! We’ll share more information soon.

As a refresher, the mod tools will support the creation and distribution of custom Skirmish Maps. However, those of you who aren’t afraid of swimming in uncharted waters will find the mod tools are quite capable of doing much more.

Before we get to the patch notes, we have one last thing to say: As we continue to incorporate community feedback into Homeworld 3, it would be invaluable to us if you took the time to leave a Steam review or, if applicable, revisit your existing review. Thank you!

Homeworld 3 Update 1.1 Notes
New Content for Multiplayer

• Added new content to War Games!
• 9 NEW challenges
• 13 NEW Artifacts
• NEW Heavy Suppression Frigate
• Unlock the Heavy Suppression Frigate with artifacts

Added a new map to Skirmish!

• “Karos Graveyard” Skirmish map has been added. Long-time fans should recognize this map’s open, spacious inspiration from previous Homeworld games.

Added support for Time Dilation & Tactical Pause in Solo War Games & Skirmish matches.


Updates
In this update, we have addressed the following reported concerns from players:

• Chinese localization has received many fixes. We are continuing to investigate further improvements here.

Gameplay

• Achievement “Destruct Sequence Alpha-One” would not always be granted in campaign missions after using the Scuttle command on any ship.
• Achievement “Untouchable” would occasionally be incorrectly awarded to players that were receiving damage.
• After using an ability on a target, ships could occasionally start attacking other enemies instead of the initial target.
• Ships would occasionally fail to resume the Guard command after engaging in combat.
• Attack Move orders could unintentionally change to a Move order when multiple strike groups were created after changing formations.
• When the first Move order of a unit still in Parade formation was queued, it was possible that the ship would reference their build location.
• Changing formations to one that would “split” the current group into multiple smaller groups could result in some units stacking with other ships.
• Units set to Sphere formation could fail to approach the enemy Incarnate Mothership when ordered to attack.
• Changing the formation of Strikecraft or Corvette units from Parade formation with the Production ship would occasionally cause them to fly in circles.
• Ships switched to a Passive stance while they were attacking targets would continue to engage and attack until all targets in sight were destroyed.
• Frigates sometimes moved to match their target’s height when given an Attack order.
• While a Torpedo Frigate’s range ability was active, missiles could explode before reaching their target after a certain distance.
• Suppression Frigates would cancel their ability when ordered.
• In some instances, Support Frigates would stop repairing the Mothership.
• Battlecruisers would exhibit unintended behaviors with stationary targets and not consistently attack them.
• Carriers would occasionally allow large salvage to be taken that should have been brought to the Mothership.
• Starboard and Port cannons on Incarnate Battlecruisers did not always deploy before firing.
• Capture Corvettes and Resource Controllers were observed to move towards enemy ships that could not be captured when players right-clicked on them.
• Railgun Corvettes would charge their ability but wouldn’t fire on a Titanship. We’ve reassured them that it’s for the best to use it.
• Strikecraft would occasionally get stuck inside and near the Titanship’s dock.
• Some Incarnate ships wouldn’t flash to indicate when directional damage was received.
• Units outside of the player’s field of view would sometimes be added in Box selection.
• Guard Turrets were not always included in bandboxes.
• Giving deployment orders to multiple turrets at once while in Tactical Pause could cause an issue where only one turret was deployed.
• While the game is in Tactical Pause, it was possible that the queued unit limit (100) of the Build/Research Panel could be exceeded.
• Some Asteroids could be missing Navigation data for ships.
• Commands using special symbols (such as /, ], or [) were default bound to the symbol keys for a QWERTY keyboard layout, even if the player used a different keyboard language layout.

Multiplayer

• In some instances, players would encounter network errors that could prevent them from joining multiplayer games.
• Linux users could desync in multiplayer (Linux players must use Proton 9 for fix to apply).

War Games

• Players could occasionally receive “Connection Failed” or “Retrying Connection” notifications before fully loading into the next stage
• Desync Errors could be displayed after hyperspacing to the second stage.
• In the Deep Space map, one of the resource nodes could have its large resource pocket separated from the node.
• Players could gain more experience points at the end of the playthrough if the last stage was New Galaxy map.
• The “Intercept Enemy Transports” objective could mistakenly complete if a transport reached its exit point.
• In the Under the Ice map, an objective blocker could occur due to the Lost Probe staying in place if ships passed through the capture area without staying.
• The location of an incursion point in the Under the Ice map could cause some Incarnate ships to spawn and go through the terrain.

Artifacts

• The incorrect ship tactical icon would be shown on these artifacts: Cluster Missile Turret Pattern Artifact, Railgun Transport Pattern Artifact, Tactical Bomber Pattern Artifact, and the 8 Smart Missile Frigate Artifacts.
• Artifact “Hiigaran Strikecraft Boost” was unintentionally available as an upgrade for Incarnate Beam Fighters in the “Experimental Weapons Fleet”.

Skirmish

• Kala Terminus 2-6 player Skirmish map has been updated. There are new player starting positions and more resources to support larger and longer PVP and PVE matches.
• Trinity Gate and Naraka map’s starting positions were the opposite of those shown on the lobby preview.
• When creating an offline Skirmish match, the host was sometimes placed into Team 2 by default.
• In the Buran Ice Shelf map, slot 1’s resource nodes could have more resources than the other slots.
• Assets on the Buran Ice Shelf map could load without collision.
• Build caps for Railgun Corvette would not always match the Corvette Population Caps for Hiigaran players.

Campaign

• Tutorial: Torpedo Frigate could occasionally move outside of the playable area if they destroyed the allied ships before the player’s ships attacked them.
• Kesura Minor: Barrage Frigates could occasionally be destroyed if captured after destroying the Carrier.
• Trinity Gate: It was possible to use the gate without controlling all three data spires, which was not the intended behavior.
• Trinity Gate: Attack Frigates could unintentionally be added to the fleet population when captured.
• The Lighthouse: A progression blocker could sometimes occur from the possibility of the Carrier salvage setting stuck if the Resource Carriers delivered it on the same movement plane as the Mothership.
• The Lighthouse: Passive units Guarding another ship could break off and chase moving asteroids.
• Naraka Gate: The Mothership could sometimes not appear at the Repair Bay after watching the cutscenes when the NLIPS option was disabled.
• Chamber of Storms: The hyperspace Incarnate Battlecruiser cutscene would not fit correctly in Ultrawide.

Visual Updates:

• The In-Game HDR option in Video settings could sometimes be turned on despite the Windows' HDR option being set to Off in the Monitor's settings.
• The Khar-Sajuuk Mega Beam VFX cut off prematurely in rare instances.
• Durring the Hiigara mission, the explosion/smoke trails VFX of Combat Drones occasionally stuttered when destroyed.
• The VFX that played when Power Regulators exploded were incorrectly implemented.
• VFX attached to lights sometimes persisted after a ship was destroyed.
• The smoke effect on damaged Mothership sometimes lacked depth fade in the material which could cause particles to visibly clip with geometry.
• Ion Cannon Frigate had a mesh split
• The Fleet Bomber would disappear a short distance away from the camera when cloaked.
• Active gates sometimes shone excessively when the camera was positioned close to them.
• Ship lights occasionally flickered while the camera was moving.
• The lights on facility assets occasionally flickered and were overscaled.
• Pausing the title while certain ships were maneuvering would occasionally cause their auxiliary engines to flicker.
• The engine trail bloom of fighter-class ships sometimes popped in and out suddenly on medium and low settings.
• Engine trail colors occasionally randomly changed for ships produced after 2 minutes of gameplay.

Audio Updates:

• VO for all units was missing when selecting ships while playing as the Incarnate fleet.
• There was occasionally no audio notification for new chat messages.
• It was possible for no feedback to play when undocking a unit with the “Auto Launch” option set to OFF.
• Skipping the first Cinematic could cause the in-game speech to break.
• Friendly Carrier, Destroyer, and Battlecruiser lost voice lines would incorrectly play when an enemy of each type was destroyed after loading a saved game.
• The lost Carrier’s voiceline would play when an enemy Carrier was destroyed.
• Captured Raider Barrage Frigates occasionally lacked VO when selected or ordered to use abilities.
• Raider Command Carrier weapons were quieter than intended over distance.
• The notification speeches regarding the Resource Controller and Carrier being under attack were occasionally absent for the 'Remastered Fleet'.
• The Naraka Gate SFX would repeat three times when opened.

UI:

• Added a "More Info" button to mod detail modal that links to the mod URL.
• The research requirement for the Incarnate Missile, Smart Missile, Multi-Beam Frigates and Carrier all mentioned Assault Frigate instead of Attack Frigate.
• The movement line occasionally became shorter than the initial movement range right after ordering a ship to move to a marker.
• A debug string could present itself in the movement disc’s tooltip when specific languages were selected.
• In the Lobby Browser, when a lobby was selected, a debug string was occasionally visible to the right.
• When selecting units quickly, resulting in more than 12 unit icons in the Unit Selection Panel, icons for units at the bottom of the list occasionally appeared over the units at the top.
• Not all Mothership upgrades were occasionally displayed in the 'Ship Upgrades' panel.
• Backing out of the "Restart" pop-up occasionally limited the 'ESC' key functionality until the "Exit" tab was clicked.
• Players occasionally did not notice that they could scroll down to select options when creating a multiplayer lobby.
• In the Context Menu, abilities on cooldown occasionally appeared as available and did not offer negative feedback when selected.
• The ship info panel occasionally lacked Unit Stats.
• Save and Load cards created on the Chamber Of Storms mission weren’t formatted properly on some resolutions.
• Camera Input Bindings were editable when Camera Movement options were disabled, which could be confusing.

Fixed several crashes and many additional minor bugs

Athenor

Noelle just dropped the news that the (slightly delayed) patch 1.2 and War Games DLC is about to hit.

[GBX] NoNoelleNo wrote:

Homeworld 3: The Kalan Raiders Fleet Pack DLC and Update 1.2 Will be Released on Aug 15

The Kalan Raiders Faction DLC (available as part of the Year One Pass) lets you command these ruthless brigands in War Games, where you can wield two fleet compositions: the Raider Fleet and the Capture Fleet to explore powerful new strategic options.

Update 1.2 will include support for this DLC, along with a host of gameplay improvements, bug fixes, and free Skirmish maps!

Additionally, we just released a Preview of Update 1.2 on Steam and Epic Game Store so that our amazing community of modders can get a head-start on evaluating if their mods need additional updates to work in Update 1.2.

Read more about the Kalan Raiders Faction DLC and how to access the Patch Preview here:
Steam | Homeworld Universe

Interestingly, they have pretty complete instructions on how to check out the preview builds, which is nice.

I don't see a full rundown of patch notes just yet, however.

manwiththemachinegun

Did they patch the warship time to kill?

Athenor

I couldn't tell you. The only patch I haven't recorded in this thread was hotfix 1.11, which doesn't appear to have any game balance changes other than fixing some newly introduced artifacts not working right.

Athenor

And here we go. Noelle's post pretty much is a summary of the Steam notes, so I'll copy those here.

When setting all of today's content live, we saw reports of an issue with Year One Pass owners on Steam not yet receiving the Kalan Raiders Fleet Pack. We are urgently working to resolve this issue and will provide an update as soon as we're able.

Hello, Commanders!

Today we are releasing Update 1.2 for Homeworld 3. This update includes a host of gameplay improvements and bug fixes — some of which are a result of invaluable community feedback. This includes several improvements to Frigates and Capital Ships to make them more reliable and powerful, various UI improvements, and optimizations that can significantly increase performance for some users.

Update 1.2 also introduces two, entirely new Skirmish maps for all players.

This patch also includes support for the Kalan Raiders Fleet Pack DLC for War Games, available for individual purchase or for those who purchased the Year One Pass. This DLC introduces two new fleets, a variety of new ships, new challenges, artifacts, and a new skin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnYJW5DUFZg

We’re eternally grateful for players who have left us respectful, thoughtful feedback in the months since launch. Our work to respond to that feedback continues. In particular, we’d like to acknowledge three common requests that we are seeing more recently:

* Increase Strikecraft survivability, especially when they’re taking fire from larger ship classes
* More granular control over unit combat behaviors and rules of engagement
* More intuitive attack priority when using the bandbox to attack groups of enemy ships

As these are broad, complex topics that influence nearly every game mode and unit, it is imperative that we investigate these requests and potential solutions carefully. But it is important to us to let you know that these topics remain a top priority for us. If we’re able to implement a viable plan of action to address these requests, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Homeworld 3 Update 1.2 Notes
New Content for Multiplayer
Added two new maps to Skirmish!

Tears in Rain
Expanding further on the open-style map first introduced in Karos Graveyard, Tears in Rain provides a similar open battlefield for skirmish combat with a refined focus on providing a minimal amount of scattered terrain pieces to serve as additional tactical options, ideal for certain playstyles and fleet compositions. With resource distribution tending either towards the perimeter or centralized, ventures across open space to strike your enemies are a gamble.

Arran Perimeter
In the Arran Perimeter, a fragmented piece of very large terrain is the foundation that leads players into making high-level decisions that can lead to victory or failure. The large vertical pieces and symmetrical arrangement are populated with resources and surrounded by open space, offering more than just a backdrop for fleets to clash.

Updates

In this update, we have addressed the following based on community feedback:
* Repositioned and reduced the size of the Hyperspace button to better allow players to continue playing after it appeared
* Added retiring and scuttling to the command panel
* Increased weapon damage for capital ships of all factions
* Updated special attack feedback to indicate ability range
* Limited research to one at a time to increase the importance of strategic choices
* Updated the “Taiidan” fleet customization preset’s inverted colors
* Corrected splat damage texture improperly appearing on capital ships after completing a mission and loading a new one
* Added a rebindable hotkey to select all undamaged ships to complement the hotkey for selecting all damaged ships


In addition, we’ve also addressed the following reported concerns from players:

Mod Tools & Editor

* A new version of the Editor has been deployed on EGS.
* In order to avoid any compatibility issues, we highly recommend fully uninstalling the previous version of the editor before installing the new one.

Gameplay
* Frigates could occasionally back away further than required from approaching targets
* Battlecruisers in a group would sometimes not move or attack when ordered to attack a group of ships
* Erratic or unintended frigate movements could occur when trying to acquire line-of-sight and/or get in range after receiving and order to attack a new target
* Non-leader frigate in formation would occasionally try to get back into formation position instead of attacking
* Incarnate Smart Missile Frigates could occasionally not track their targets properly, causing them to miss if the target was moving
* Hiigaran destroyers would sometimes not attempt to target enemies horizontally, which resulted in their turrets remaining mostly idle
* Ion Cannon frigates would sometimes turn backward during and after attacking a target
* Increased the damage of the Barrage frigates ability
* Recon ships set to Aggressive stance and Guarding a ship would occasionally change command on their own to Attack and would not return to Guard after the target was destroyed

Multiplayer
* Host migration could fail in some instances in matches of three or more players
* In two-player War Games matches, one player leaving could occasionally result in the remaining player not loading to the next stage
* Matches could receive a desync error after hyperspacing to the second stage in War Games
* Incursion points in War Game Production Bay map sometimes ceased to function based on the player’s location
* Objective markers were not consistently localized in Production Bay and New Galaxy War Games maps
* Added an error message informing a player if they cannot join a lobby due to a mod mismatch between players and the lobby host
* The “Move Carrier to location” objective marker could sometimes detach from its location and move erratically through the map
* Enemy probes could stop kiting away when their faction’s Mothership was destroyed, causing long probe hunts in “Destroy All Ships” Skirmish matches
* Carrier would sometimes not be centered in its hyperspace window when moving between stages in War Games
* The Incarnate AI would sometimes not use the Smart Missile frigates in Skirmish, leaving them inactive at the side of the Titanship

Tech / Performance
* Addressed a few crashes observed through user reports
* A new round of optimizations have been done to significantly increase framerate in many situations around combat
* Further improvements to Dynamic Splat Damage system for increased readability and performance
* Steam Deck users are no longer in a separate multiplayer pool and are able to create and join multiplayer matches with PC players
* Resolved the framerate hitch that happened after completing a War Games challenge on EGS
* Implemented improvements to the Experimental Camera Collision feature. There is still more work planned for upcoming patches
* Benchmark level seed was adjusted to make results more consistent
* An issue could occasionally cause the game to crash when trying to load replays from previous versions of the game. This adjustment has invalidated all previous existing replays but prevented new replays from becoming corrupted from future patches
* Fixed an issue causing contextual movement orders to behave incorrectly in modded Skirmish maps created with the Homeworld 3 Mod Tools & Editor
-- New maps created with the new version of the editor will not contain this bug anymore
-- Existing mods will need to be manually fixed by changing the Collision Presets in the SimUniverseBoundsVolume from “overlapAll” to “NoCollision”.

Art Updates
* Bukhari Support Ships lights that were unusually bright in War Games

Audio Updates
* The “Battlecruiser lost” voiceline would sometimes play when an enemy battlecruiser was destroyed.
* Some SFX feedback was missing when performing various ship actions

Kalan Raiders Fleet DLC Content
Added support for new War Games content for those that own the Kalan Raiders Faction DLC

Two new War Games fleets
* Raider Fleet: This fleet has extensively raided Hiigaran space, and can produce a mix of Hiigaran and Kalan ships
* Capture Fleet: This fleet specializes in capturing enemy units, and can produce a mix of Incarnate and Kalan vessels

Both fleets include Kalan Raider ships seen in the campaign, as well as 3 brand new ships

From the campaign:
* Command Carrier
* Barrage Frigate
* Pursuit Fighter

New Kalan ships:
* Swarm Fighter
* Mine Launcher Corvette
* Capture Frigate

* 11 NEW Challenges specific to the Kalan faction
* 40 NEW Artifacts specific to the Kalan faction
* New Kalan Raiders emblem and fleet customization preset featuring unique color pattern & emblem
Fleet customization emblem and preset usable in War Games & Skirmish

manwiththemachinegun

Those all seem like pretty good fixes

Athenor

We just got an update on the roadmap. The TL;DR is that they are scrapping the original plan for spaced releases in 2025, and instead moving all their planned content to launch in November. This doesn't surprise me in any way; the game didn't exactly have legs, and frankly was never going to be the big blockbuster that Gearbox treated its stuff like. Having a long, drawn out roadmap for what are essentially small updates just didn't make any damned sense. And now that Embracer has cut Gearbox loose, well.. I suspect the funds are drying up fast for more development. And thus, the game will go back into hibernation. Curse you, Pitchford.

(Note, I have no ill will for the Gearbox employees who promoted the game or anyone at BBI. They did the best with what they were dealt.)

[GBX] NoNoelleNo wrote:

An Update to Homeworld 3's Roadmap
We want to take a moment to provide an update on what's next as we look ahead to the rest of the updates initially revealed in our Year One DLC Roadmap for Homeworld 3.

Following the release of update 1.2, we made the decision to combine all remaining paid DLC and free content drops in the roadmap into one unified delivery in November. Combining the content into one beat will allow us to focus all our resources and provide you all with a higher-quality experience.

This change means that, come November, we’ll be releasing two content packs that were originally scheduled for 2025 with the objective of delivering the most complete Homeworld 3 experience, and many of your requested changes, sooner. In total, you can look forward to three (3) free updates and two (2) paid DLCs worth of content launching as one major update in November.

To learn more about what will be coming to you in November, make sure to read our blog post where we talk about free player-requested features, free content, and provide a little more info on the factions coming to Homeworld 3!

Read on: Steam | Website

[Ath: This was edited in after the initial post.] Note: "Campaign Missions" on the roadmap refers to the area of the game that will be updated with the player-controlled mission end. This will allow players to advance to the next mission in their own time after objectives have been completed. There will not be new or updated campaign missions in the November update.

Additional details from the website:

"Homeworld wrote:

Content Coming in November:

We’ve spent the last several months listening carefully to the feedback you’ve shared with us. We’ve also begun to work with members of our community to beta test some upcoming balance changes we intend to roll out in the Skirmish and War Games modes.

With the changes we’re making, we want to assure those of you who purchased the Year One Pass that you will be getting everything we’ve previously promised. Additionally, we’ve made modifications to our plans to include elements requested by the community.

Free Player-Requested Features Coming in Nov:

Highly requested features like Hyperspace Jumping in Skirmish mode and the ability to control when you move to the next mission in the campaign are both smart suggestions and elements of previous Homeworld titles that allow for more strategic gameplay.

You’ll be able to surprise your enemies with a rapid assault or zip away if your mothership becomes surrounded. Our goal with this feature was to have it feel similar to the experience in previous Homeworld titles, however, there are a few key differences. Hyperspace capabilities in Homeworld 3 are unlocked via individual ship-type research options. Each unit in the Frigate, Capital, and Mothership classes have a hyperspace core research option that is unlocked and then obtained like any other tech advancement in the game. Like previous Homeworld titles, each jump will cost RUs based on the length of the jump — requiring you to carefully weigh the decision to surprise your opponent.

To defend against these incursions, you can research Hyperspace Inhibitor abilities for the Hiigaran Support Frigate and Incarnate Disruption Corvette. The Hyperspace Inhibitor ability creates a protective sphere that blocks Hyperspace passage. When the Inhibitor ability is active, any ship making a Hyperspace Jump that flies through the inhibitor field will immediately be forced out of Hyperspace.




Another piece of feedback we heard loud in clear was that resourcing was just too efficient. Too often players weren’t required to make strategic decisions about which ships to research or build, because they had the resources to do everything. In Homeworld 3, we simplified resourcing by merging Resource Collectors and Controllers into a single unit, aiming to make macro-management more intuitive. However, this change unintentionally removed key strategic decisions related to economic development, present in previous titles, where players had to carefully balance resource investment with tech progression and defense. To restore this strategic depth, we made several adjustments: Resourcing rates are reduced by a meaningful amount, starting resources in Skirmish are lowered to drive early-game decision-making, and the cost of Resource Controllers is significantly increased to make them a riskier, more meaningful investment. These changes aim to reintroduce the tension and rewards of economic decision-making.



In update 1.2 we made a significant change in how we handled research in all game modes by introducing the queued system. No longer could you research everything simultaneously. However, this was just the first step in our tech tree changes. We have now added a more traditional RTS-style tech tree where units and research are unlocked more linearly, with unit and research unlocks being gated behind unlock requirements. This — in conjunction with queued research — has significantly improved the flow of Skirmish mode games while creating opportunities for meaningful strategic decisions. Alongside the changes to resourcing, we’re excited about how this new tech tree and queued research will reward tactical early-game decision making.

(Gif of blinking hyperspace out button on screen as mothership cruises around the skybox collecting resources)



Additionally, you’ll now be able to explore the beautiful scenery in the campaign missions while collecting all those precious RUs to fuel even more powerful fleets before moving on to the next leg of your journey. Currently, many of you felt that there wasn’t enough time to catch your breath, make repairs, and generally get prepared for the battles ahead. With this in mind, select campaign missions, where the narrative permits, will allow you to choose when you are ready to advance.

Free Content:

The free updates described in the roadmap are also a big part of the path forward. For those who haven’t purchased the Year One Pass, we’ll be adding more than 40 Artifacts, and 9 Challenges for free to help shake up War Games for everyone. This includes the introduction of a new ‘Ultimate’ class of Artifacts that becomes available after collecting an Artifact Pattern and one of each of the upgrade Artifacts. Ultimate Artifacts partially cancel out many of the negative effects associated with traditional Artifacts, taking your ships to new heights of unmitigated power. It also increases the importance of Artifact selections: do you broaden your picks in the pursuit of collecting the Ultimate Artifacts’ required upgrades or do you stack identical Artifacts to push your units into a specific niche?

New Paid DLC:

New factions for the War Games mode will enter the fray with our paid DLC packs. These franchise favorites introduce exciting new ships and strategies for players to explore. Each new War Games faction comes with two unique fleets, new ships, dozens of new Artifacts, and 10 new Challenges to test your skills as a commander.



Little information is available about the history of the Taiidan after the fall of the Taiidan Empire or during the subsequent rise of the Taiidan Republic and through the Vagyr War. However, it is widely believed that during the Age of S’jet, the Taiidan took their place alongside the Hiigarans in the new system of representation that formed during this time of prosperity. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the Taiidan forces would find a place in the Hiigaran Naval Combat School’s War Games.

The Taiidan now join Homeworld 3’s War Games mode with two brand new fleets. The ships in these fleets should feel instantly recognizable to anyone who has played Homeworld 1. The fleets consist of classically-inspired Taiidan ships, with some modern tweaks thrown into the mix.

These new Taiidan fleets will add a new depth to the War Games experience as they defy norms established by all other War Games fleets, such as relying on the Carrier and its Resource Collectors for harvesting resources and the ability to deploy a capital class ship, the Taiidan Missile Destroyer.



On Kharak, Kiith Somtaaw was a major religious and mining Kiith. After Kharak burned (spoiler!) and the Kushan people crossed the galaxy returning to their homeworld (Hiigara), the Somtaaw continued their mastery of mining, only this time in the vast reaches of space. Some rumors say they honed their combat skills by defeating a mysterious evil, others say they developed their skills with countless years of target practice smashing asteroids. These hardened Somtaaw warriors now join Homeworld 3’s War Games mode with two new units and two new fleets.

As a Hiigaran sub-faction, in addition to two brand new ships, you will notice several familiar ships forming the basis of these Somtaaw fleets. However, on closer inspection, you will see a few variations that speak to their mining heritage and the need for extra survivability in regions not protected by the core Hiigaran Navy. For example, they armed Resource Controllers and their heavy-hitting Carrier with Ion Beam turrets.

We thank you for your patience as we work to deliver our post-launch vision for Homeworld 3 in November. Many other elements are coming beyond what we unpacked above including new gameplay mechanics, optimizations to existing features, as well as bug fixes and performance improvements. Many of these were developed or solved through insights provided by the amazing Homeworld community. We’ll be sure to include detailed patch notes ahead of launch for your review.

Of course they were going to put Taiidani and Somtaaw ships in the game, but I am still quite happy to see it (and to already own it thanks to the collector's edition!)

Fiatil

Yeah now that the smoke is cleared....I'm not really sure who they designed this game for?

The main thing that stands out for the Homeworld series in 2024 is the story and atmosphere. Once upon a time in 1999, Homeworld 1 had revolutionary graphics and revolutionary gameplay by taking place in 3D space. Blew our minds! But that's a moment in time -- the world was slowly transitioning to 3D and here's this cool space game that nails the transition and looks really damn good. It's not reproduceable as a "wow!" moment. Okay, but it also had heart. It had these low-fi cutscenes and this way with its minimalistic storytelling and its soundtrack to nail some vibes. You feel for the people in the story, even if there's like one named character and three voice actors in the entire game. Hard to pull off, but they did it!

Then we get Homeworld: Cataclysm, it's made by an entirely different studio, but hey look they nail the vibe too. No crazy big budget, the graphics and gameplay are no longer some mega revolutionary thing -- they do spice up the formula with more weird stuff like interlinking shield ships and freaky beast faction -- but the vibe is cool and it's generally pretty beloved.

Homeworld 2, hey pretty similar. The graphics are pretty shiny, the backdrops are extra gorgeous now, the music is great, but it's not some $100M game revolutionizing the tech industry. The gameplay is solid and fun, but really nothing super revolutionary. But the vibe is there! Yeah they went a little more Science Fantasy and really hit in on the mythology stuff which not everyone enjoyed, but I'll argue that the presentation and vibes are just as good as the first and I got chills multiple times playing through the story because it feels really good.

Everything above took place within 4 years, but it had a formula that people liked. Well okay, now 20 years pass. People want more Homeworld. There's clearly some nostalgia and desire to feel Homeworld vibes again leading to this game being made, right? That's what it always did well! The core that runs through the series.

So we're going to....completely change the presentation of the story. Those low-fi black and white cutscenes that couldn't have cost a ton of money to make are gone, and we have...something else that looks kind of goofy and nails exactly 0 vibes. The story is bad -- they didn't set out to do that of course. But maybe if you at least tried to tie your Big New Anime story ideas to the old vibe....it could work like, a little better? Or you would realize the tonal dissonance is pretty bad and maybe tweak the story, I dunno. And we're going to add terrain to space. The big revolution of homeworld 1 was full 3D movement -- it's space! -- but now we've decided the best thing to shake it up is space terrain, which specifically de-emphasizes the 3D nature of the game and space. We're also going to try to add some non-standard "Wargames" thing and push it really hard instead of skirmish, presumably in some completely insane pursuit of becoming a more games as service e-sport thing with a long development tail? You miiight look into the history of the RTS genre and see how hard that is to pull off, and how Homeworld has 0 skin in that game, and maybe not do that.

And the rest is history I suppose.

Morninglord

Wait, what other games do 3d based ship combat like Homeworld in the last 20 years? Or even during that 4 years? Sins? And?

Fiatil

Morninglord wrote: »

Wait, what other games do 3d based ship combat like Homeworld in the last 20 years? Or even during that 4 years? Sins? And?

It wasn't my intent to say that there were many/any others that do. All I intended to communicate was that the 3D movement itself wasn't as much of a "wow!" moment in Homeworld 2 and Cataclysm as it was in 1 -- since we had seen it before in 1 -- but that those games managed to be cool and fun despite it being a bit less novel.

Morninglord

Oh, no, it was still amazing. Hard disagree.

Fiatil

Hey fair enough -- your impressions are your own.

I was just trying to say that you can't start the same revolution twice? It feels like you're reading me saying "slightly less amazing than the first time I did this thing" as saying it was "boring" though, which was not my intent at all.

Morninglord

No I'm saying the reason people wanted another was because if anybody wanted cool 3d fleet combat they had to play a 20 year old game because nobody else does it.

You definitely sounded like you were downplaying this as a reason because all you talked about was the story.

The vibe and story were important but 99.99% of the time spent playing previous Homeworld games was that space combat! The stories were a minute or two at the start and sometimes end of missions, with short in game cutscenes.

A large part of the reason people were angry at HW3 is because the AI is terrible, the time to kill was too fast, and there was no strategy to the space combat. The story sucked but if the gameplay was good it would have been ok. But that sucked too.

(The mere existence of terrain had nothing to do with this, its 3d terrain. You can go over and around it. The problem is the AI blows at handling it. Although when it does work it out it's pretty amazing. Ships will move in and out of cover and take potshots, and you can flank around an object to hit rear armor. But just as often they get stuck and jam together and get killed, and the tunnel system doesn't work at all.)

Athenor

A small point of order, the intent was ALWAYS to have large 3d terrain - however, the way they had simplify hit detection in the original engine (by basically making all hit detection a giant sphere/oval around the ships) made it impossible to do terrain right and have it be interesting. So they moved the cool terrain to the skybox.

I personally think that having Non-Linear Inverse Polygon Scaling on by default was a mistake. It made the fighters feel way too slow and really screwed up how the turrets worked.

Beyond that, no comment on the overall story or vibe, other than to say I really did miss the animatic style. If nothing else, use the art style from Deserts of Kharak and the Modipheus RPG/board game. I suspect the cutscenes came down on high from Gearbox trying to make the game into a Blizzard style RTS.

Fiatil

Morninglord wrote: »

No I'm saying the reason people wanted another was because if anybody wanted cool 3d fleet combat they had to play a 20 year old game because nobody else does it.

You definitely sounded like you were downplaying this as a reason because all you talked about was the story.

The vibe and story were important but 99.99% of the time spent playing previous Homeworld games was that space combat! The stories were a minute or two at the start and sometimes end of missions, with short in game cutscenes.

A large part of the reason people were angry at HW3 is because the AI is terrible, the time to kill was too fast, and there was no strategy to the space combat. The story sucked but if the gameplay was good it would have been ok. But that sucked too.

Oh okay.

Yeah I do think the reason that Homeworld wound up being a successful, beloved, and ultimately commercially viable series is because of the mechanics in concert with a really great presentation and singleplayer campaign. I think that charging $60 for a game that is generally praised for its gameplay but crushed for its story and presentation failed completely, and you need a pretty meaty singleplayer/story experience to charge that much for a Homeworld game in 2024. I think that in 1999 I was more than happy with just the pure gameplay of Homeworld 1, but as I aged and spent more time with the series the thing that stuck with me and would make me excited for buying a sequel is a new story with more of those awesome "Homeworld vibes" of the first three games. I think the people that will buy an RTS for competitive multiplayer only is a vanishingly small market in 2024 -- the distaste people have for that is a reason the market has shrunk so much since the late 90s. The reason the genre was so popular was always tied to fun single player campaigns (Command & Conquer, Starcraft, Warcraft, Homeworld, all got em) and the ability to play the game "wrong" in multiplayer back in the day. There was less centralization of information and you could just turtle up and do comp stomps and stuff and as the genre became more focused on e-sports it drove out everyone who didn't want to put the time into that. I think it's very very hard for an RTS in 2024 to succeed on "pure gameplay" (especially for $60), and hell even the genre juggernauts rose to prominence largely because of casuals enjoying the campaign and more casual gameplay, allowing for a large enough population for fun competitive play to those who wanted it (I say this as someone who has historically been much closer to the non-casual end of the spectrum -- there just are not very many hardcore competitive RTS nerds out there now-a-days). I also think that if I just want pure gameplay, I can just go play Homeworld 2 which still looks very pretty and is quite fun.

If you look at the reviews, this is backed up pretty strongly by other people. The positive reviews (both professional and Steam) will generally say that the story is terrible, but that they like the underlying gameplay. The negative reviews are much more likely than not to focus on the story and presentation. The reviews, overall, are very poor relative to the other entries in the series largely due to this effect. The amount of people who stuck with the game despite saying they enjoyed the gameplay but disliked the story was very small, as evidenced by the incredibly low current player counts. The game overall appears to be a tremendous commercial failure, as evidenced by the game being sunset early and the incredibly low peak player counts.

There is no such thing as an objectively bad game -- I'm not here to tell anyone that -- but there is such a thing as a game that tries to target a market that isn't there, and fails in executing the core concepts that lead to the success of the priors. And the biggest differentiator between 3 and the others -- the thing that comes up the most -- is not the gameplay being substantially worse, it's the story and presentation being real bad.

Morninglord

I guess my problem is you asked "Who was this meant to be for?" as if you are assuming they knew the story and presentation was bad.

Obviously they thought it was good, and they just failed at understanding what people like.

Basically you are heavily overthinking it.

They swung and missed catastrophically, on all levels. That is why it failed. There's nothing more to it than that.

And there is a lot of criticism of the gameplay beyond the casual "its fun" positives. Go look a bit deeper at reviews, go search on reddit, you'll get detailed breakdowns on how bad the AI and overal gameplay really is. The reason there's so few praisers of the gameplay is cos there's a small number of people who will like anything. It doesnt back up your whole overcomplicated market analysis idea. Anyone who brings up "I liked the gameplay" in the reddit has a reply in detail that lists everything they think is wrong with the gameplay.

Fiatil

Morninglord wrote: »

I guess my problem is you asked "Who was this meant to be for?" as if you are assuming they knew the story and presentation was bad.

Obviously they thought it was good, and they just failed at understanding what people like.

Basically you are heavily overthinking it.

They swung and missed catastrophically, on all levels. That is why it failed. There's nothing more to it than that.

I think they were silly to ditch the cutscene style of the originals, specifically, when I constantly hear from people how much they loved them.

I acknowledged in my first post that they didn't intend for the story to be bad, so no need to repeat me there. I think they took a stupid risk and my speculation is similar to Athenor in that I think it was Gearbox meddling or something because it was just a silly decision given how much praise the old style was given. It was never some revolutionary new graphic technique, even in 1999. It was lo fi, low budget, and received near universal acclaim in all 3 prior entries.

I also think they were silly to push the War Games thing so hard, as I don't think most people wanted that and I think they spent a decent chunk of their budget on it. Same with the emphasis on space terrain. So those three things, specifially, were silly and avoidable decisions that never made sense if you're familiar with the history of the franchise and genre. The rest of it, yeah they just messed up stuff and clearly didn't mean to make the game bad.

Morninglord

Fiatil wrote: »

Morninglord wrote: »

I guess my problem is you asked "Who was this meant to be for?" as if you are assuming they knew the story and presentation was bad.

Obviously they thought it was good, and they just failed at understanding what people like.

Basically you are heavily overthinking it.

They swung and missed catastrophically, on all levels. That is why it failed. There's nothing more to it than that.

I think they were silly to ditch the cutscene style of the originals, specifically, when I constantly hear from people how much they loved them.

I acknowledged in my first post that they didn't intend for the story to be bad, so no need to repeat me there. I think they took a stupid risk and my speculation is similar to Athenor in that I think it was Gearbox meddling or something because it was just a silly decision given how much praise the old style was given. It was never some revolutionary new graphic technique, even in 1999. It was lo fi, low budget, and received near universal acclaim in all 3 prior entries.

I also think they were silly to push the War Games thing so hard, as I don't think most people wanted that and I think they spent a decent chunk of their budget on it. Same with the emphasis on space terrain. So those three things, specifially, were silly and avoidable decisions that never made sense if you're familiar with the history of the franchise and genre. The rest of it, yeah they just messed up stuff and clearly didn't mean to make the game bad.

I disagree with space terrain, but agree with the others.

If everything else had worked and the AI could handle it, the space terrain would have been completely fine. You aren't locked to it. The game isn't 2d. It's interesting. The implementation is just, like so many other things, a failure.

Fiatil

Yeah that's fair. There's a world where it could have been pulled off, it just seemed a tricky needle to thread -- one that always ran the risk of being counterintuitive because of how open homeworld is, if not pulled off really well. I liked the campaign levels in 2 that had terrain based elements (like needing to hide in the gas clouds for cover), but it was never something I really wanted more of and never as a core feature in skirmish mode.

Athenor

The first cry back in the fig campaign was requesting a return to physics based stuff. They knew from the beginning exactly what the die-hard Homeworld fans wanted.

Now the whole fig thing was... a disaster, really. It was Randy Pitchford's pet idea and has been well documented in other scenarios, but ultimately it hyped the game back when only the most basic of outlines was conceived for it. It also meant that the most die-hard of players were already locked in at a given price point well before any thought of what the game would actually be scaled to was decided. Seriously, the only reason I didn't drop the full $500 for a "Share of the game" was because I didn't have that kind of cash, and I regret not getting the reprint of the artbook.

BBI was working on other projects, notably Hardspace: Shipbreaker and a couple other contractual things for Gearbox. They didn't put much resources on HW3 at first. And then came the big ramp-up and deciding just what they wanted to do. Remember, BBI was founded by a bunch of people who tried to buy the original Homeworld IP, but Pitchford basically outbid them. They then wanted to make a spiritual successor that was less ambitious, and eventually Gearbox brought that on as Deserts of Kharak. And from there the Remasters were done, and finally BBI got to do HW3. BBI's basically been trying to make HW3 for a long time, and Gearbox has been an angel and a devil on their shoulders. And again, I say this fully knowing that the comms team and community folk over there are awesome!

You can tell Pitchford/Embracer wanted Homeworld to be their big sci fi/anime project. I mean.. HW Remastered was a pretty cheap cash-in, all things considered. We then got: Homeworld 3, Homeworld: Mobile, Homeworld: Revelations (the RPG), and Homeworld: Fleet Command (the board game). That's the kind of push a AAA title gets.. and yet, Homeworld has NEVER been a AAA title. If anything, its early coverage was very much closer to what an "Indie" would eventually become a decade later. Relic had this idea for a game, Sierra On-Line agreed to publish it, they struck gold because of the RTS boom. That they eventually went on to make Impossible Creatures for Microsoft has been pretty much forgotten by the world, and then eventually they were bought out by THQ and kind of skyrocketed thanks to Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War.

From moment 1, I knew HW3 was a monkey's paw situation. I had high, optimistic hopes. Hell, I still do. But there was the financial burden of Pitchford basically not letting other people play with his toys that had to be accounted for. And then came the delays, and the poor previews, and the very, very vague fig backer updates, and the lack of talking about the engine or the combat or anything else until just a few months before the game was originally supposed to launch. Everything spoke to a shoestring budget being pushed by a company trying to recoop money desperately and forge a franchise. While this is all speculation, I also speculate that BBI was not given what they needed to make the game they truly wanted (or that the fans truly wanted)... and in the end, the only winner is someone like me who just wanted more HW stuff, and got exactly that. I really hope Modipheus continues to put out things.

So yeah. In my ideal dream scenario, BBI would be able to buy the rights to Homeworld from Gearbox. The wrong of the THQ fire sale needs to be righted, and hopefully BBI can do a truly fan-oriented game that isn't trying to be an esports darling or a live service game - both of which it was obvious Gearbox tried to get HW3 to be.

(Oh, and as someone who was there - the plot and gameplay of HW2 were not very well received, especially after Barking Dog knocked Cataclysm out of the park. The loss of physics based weapons, move to modules, and the more overt space magic stuff turned off a lot of the hardcore fans I saw in the community. Hell, having Karan S'Jet on the cover was kind of a negative, especially given that she was sporting a partial buzz cut look that would not become popular for another decade and a half. But that's always going to happen. Personally I like the progenitor stuff, though I admittedly haven't finished HW3 yet to see where things go.)

Fiatil

Athenor wrote: »

(Oh, and as someone who was there - the plot and gameplay of HW2 were not very well received, especially after Barking Dog knocked Cataclysm out of the park. The loss of physics based weapons, move to modules, and the more overt space magic stuff turned off a lot of the hardcore fans I saw in the community. Hell, having Karan S'Jet on the cover was kind of a negative, especially given that she was sporting a partial buzz cut look that would not become popular for another decade and a half. But that's always going to happen. Personally I like the progenitor stuff, though I admittedly haven't finished HW3 yet to see where things go.)

I think I'm the only one that's mentioned Homeworld 2's story in this recent conversation, so I wanted to clarify that I agree with this, was there too, and acknowledged in my first post that the story of 2 was not universally beloved.

I'm down for some space mysticism, if done well. I know a lot of people preferred the more hard sci fi vibe of the original, and reacted negatively to the shift at the time. But I think they pulled off the rare feat of doing some Space Fantasy but keeping it kind of grounded and mysterious at the same time. They kept the tone of 1 and Cataclysm, and they managed to avoid the cardinal sin of over-explaining everything. Like you "meet Sajuuk", who is a legendary god in the mythos of Hiigarans, but it's ultimately just a larger than average, very strong, and silent progenitor capital ship. It doesn't join your party and start talking about how awesome it is to be a God and tell you that you too could be a god if you just split the atom this certain way, which so many properties do and wind up de-mystifying the whole experience. It reminds me a bit of Book of the New Sun where there is some really crazy space fantasy shit happening, but still manages to keep it feeling mysterious and a bit confusing and unknown. This is also what lead me to speculating that maybe just having the tone and presentation of the earlier games would make the story of 3 less universally negatively received, but there's ultimately probably a bit too much bad anime in there for it to make a tremendous difference.

And I do think over time the story became more highly regarded among the community as people started accepting it more for what it is than what it was in relation to the first game. Not everyone of course, I know we have dissenters here and elsewhere and I get that too. And yeah there are plenty of people who didn't like the gameplay changes, but overall the review scores of the original game and the remaster lead me to believe it wasn't as big of an issue as a lot of the more hardcore fans made it out to be (not to dismiss gameplay or story concerns at all but it was a low 80s game and it's a huge gulf between that and 3). The difficulty scaling in the campaign was dumb for sure though -- you kind of just become aware of it and work around it which made it enjoyable to me, but it's a flaw when you have to specifically game the system like that (and they did release a post-launch patch to tone down the psychic AI countering all of your ships a bit, but not entirely).

Athenor

Wasn't trying to call anyone out or anything, just... getting to be the old fart in the community that only some people remember was around at the beginning (or as near it as the closed beta contest IGN ran was). The game is very near and dear to my heart and I just wanted to wax poetic about it.

I've written exactly 1 piece of true fanfiction in my life. Yes, it was about Homeworld, and the like of a stealth fighter pilot.