I played a bit of the first but it never really grabbed me. It’s a bit more flexible than DoW, where you can still for many factions end up with the same unit in different roles depending on how you kit it out (and you have better defined sides with their own mechanics), but it’s the same basic RTT principle afaik.
I’ve been wondering how this will work vs. games like TA and SupCom. In TA/SupCom, you started small (with a handful of units like any other RTS), and so for the first minutes of the game you could conceivably micromanage individual units as you would in a game of Starcraft.
Then, on larger/richer maps, your unit production quickly passed the point of individual unit micro, so the emphasis shifted to ‘micro managing’ blobs of units (formations were possible but often undesirable) and ensuring you had a good mixture (tanks, arty, scouts, AA). However, Supreme Commander in particular had a nice meta-game balance between the power of the blob and the power of individual units (because unit power scaled so dramatically that a single ship or a few Tech2 tanks were worth microing amidst a sea of Tech1 units).
This scaling was really an important feature and a major selling point because it meant that even in the largest, theatre-scale conflicts where you’d be repeat-building streams of cannon fodder tanks/planes/ships, you’d still have a few flagships or the famous ‘experimental’ units that would serve to focus both the battles and the attention of the players (not to mention the singular Commander/ACU units that were both powerful and the target for ending the game).
Sins of a Solar Empire takes a similar approach with its Cap ships, Starbases, etc., so I kind of think Ashes of the Singularity might need some singularly important units to avoid the ‘1000s of tanks=meaningless units that might as well be hitpoints’ problem.
Well you identify something there - the start shouldn’t be so slow in most RTS games. Hmm.
I do love them promoting features like weapons independently targeting enemies which, er, TA did in 1997. (With physics for projectiles, too, including wind and gravity)
And CoH shows that in a RTT game, you can use R/P/S. In a RTS? Erk…especially when only one side’s subject to it!
(Pet subject, I admit. See earlier link to Building a Better RTS series)
Tomorrow at 9am PDT, we’ll be showcasing Ashes of the Singularity at the AMD New Era in PC Gaming stream. We’ll also be hosting it on our Twitch channel. :)
3 game expansions minimum
16 DLC packs minimum
That seems like a lot.
Yeah, it’s amusing. They do it to show off the value of the thing they want people to buy, the Founder’s pack. But in doing so, at the same time it makes other future buyers to be wary. 16 dlc and 3 expansions are too much.
Just for the sake of argument, why? Without additional info the numbers don’t really mean much. What if the plan is to support a game with an active community over the next 10 years, is that still too much? What if those 16 DLCs are actually just silly cosmetic hats for your units?
Looking at Europa Universalis 4, it has something like 6 expansions and 29 other (mostly cosmetic) DLCs, and it has been out for two years. I actually quite like that development model, as they release a new expansion that freshens the game up for me roughly every 4 months or so. It’s taken a game that I already thought was great and has continued to improve it. So is that “too much”? Not to me, personally.
Ashes is something that’s planned to be supported and updated for years to come, much like the plan with GalCiv3. So a few expansion and some DLC packs aren’t really anything out of bounds as far I see.
Well, I suppose the (irrational?) first impression is that they are going divide their ideas and features a bit too much in between the base game and the future expansions. If they have already planned three expansions, it’s that they already have ideas for cool units or shit like that then… why don’t they put in the base game? Of course I know there are constraints and time and money, but that’s my rational part, the first impression is usually no that rational. As you say it may be the case where the base game feels fully-fledged, like EU4.
It’s the fear of nicking and dimming.
It raises doubts of the fragmentation in the MP community, this being a RTS, though there are ways to solve them, others games did it, like CoH.
The other part of why it doesn’t feel good it’s because it feels weird. They haven’t released the game and they are already say they are going to make 3 expansions? Few games are successful enough to allow that kind of business line, as expansions don’t sell as well as full games.
In the traditional model of selling games, usually making little bits of content and selling it to a player base doesn’t give you as much money as to take the developer-months you need and using them to make a new game. For example in the time several artists design and make new units and new maps for your expansions, they could have done said units and maps for a full sequel, which isn’t limited to the userbase of the base game.
Then why companies do DLC? Because the content:price ratio of a DLC is actually worse than a full game, in other words 90% of DLC are in fact worse for consumers, and better for companies. In very few cases I can say “wow, that’s good value for my money!”. So a game that from the start has a DLC strategy isn’t good news for me. Case in point
In general terms most consumers want to buy something that feels like “the whole package”, a single well defined product, not something that it’s distributed over many small packages (base game here, dlcs over here, expansions over there…). It’s why dlc aren’t popular in first place.
Because economics, which I know you stated already, but let me blather for a bit from personal experience. One of my co-workers, a brilliant software engineer with about 30 years experience in the field, has something he likes to say when we’re discussing how we’re going to architect our code or what features are going to go into the next version: “It’s too bad we actually have to ship this stuff!”. The point being, there’s a never-ending list of cool things you’d personally like to do, great features that customers are asking for, previously completed features that didn’t turn out as well as you’d like and you’d love to rework, etc. At the end of the day, though, you need to ship a product and keep people employed.
Right now at my work, we’ve just released a new version of our software and we already have design plans/features for the next four versions (although it gets fuzzier the further you go down the road). Even with that being the case, there’s still dozens of great ideas that have been sitting on the sidelines for as long as I’ve been around (about 10 years).
While I’m not in the game industry, I’m sure they’re faced with the same problem, if not worse. You have these grand ideas for the best game ever, but you realistically have to cut that back to something you can realistically do with the budget and time that you have. So, you gotta come up with the core game, and then comes the other “must have” stuff that just can’t fit if you want to ship the game anytime in the next few years, and those become major expansions.
This kind of stuff has always gone on, but in the day of Early Access / Kickstarter, the average consumer gets a better view of the sausage being made. When Stardock is asking for $100 for a “lifetime pass” of a game, they can share a rough outline of how much they have planned for the game. They can’t go into too many specifics of course (Expansion 1 will feature X, #2 will feature Y!) because things can change, but they can at least share a rough outline of what your $100 is going to get you.
Sorry for the blathering. I know you know this stuff, TurinTur, but I do see comments similar to your first impression a lot and I guess I had a sudden and strange desire to hear myself talk. Carry on. :)
Exactly Kevin. If a product is offered for a fair price so it is a good value, who cares if they have other features they plan on charging for in the future. It’s crazy to think a company has to include everything they possibly can so customers don’t have to pay as much in the future (not aimed at you TurinTur).
Well, ultimately, the features and content you can put into a game are constrained by its budget. Budget is constrained by projected revenue. DLC and expansions increase projected revenue. In that way, they absolutely can improve the game.
Note that I have no info on how Brad budgeted Ashes out, though being on the inside I will say that we certainly intend to deliver a complete game with 1.0.
I don’t have any problem with expansions and DLC. The EU/CK series quoted above is a good example.
I am wary, though, of 3 expansions and 16 DLCs planned so far ahead of even the game being released. If anything, the Paradox model works, in my opinion, because it’s flexibility. They first put the game in front of their user base, and then they adjust based on needs perceived from real players. They are finished designs allowed to evolve, but if that evolution is pre-planned, it sort of changes how I feel.
Of course, maybe the numbers are placeholders based on the amount of support/dev time they have, and their expected revenue needs (basically, they have a business model on how frequently they want to expand), and there are not pre-planned content or features yet decided. I would be ok with that.
So is it better that the company plan the expansions and DLC and tell no one? On the one hand we want to have a company be open and then on the other we think it is foolish when they do. Stardock has long had the keep adding to a game attribute in my experience. The fact that they are explicit in their long range plans carries more weight coming from them than other companies (besides Paradox).
Say what you will about the games themselves, but Stardock have a pretty decent record lately of supporting titles long-term, from Elemental, FE and the new titles in EA. That says to me they at least have a handle on budgeting long term work on projects as a business, even if revenue from an explicit title does not meet its individual goals over a shorter term. So, I’d be more inclined to believe Stardock will deliver on planned DLC. Also, see Kevin’s post above re development and feature inclusion - you have to stop and release a product at some point. Also note there are much bigger guys that have canned pre-announced DLC in season passes and stuff. I don’t think Stardock have done that yet, but people keep snapping up Season Passes for Ubi titles!
Good games are never finished. They simply ship.
There are so many reasons why you can’t just jam every possible thing into the base game. Besides the obvious economics issue there’s also the concept of easing people into the game bit by bit. There is the element of games evolving based on what the players want.
The general thrust of Stardock’s new series of games is that by committing to a long-term plan with them all, players know that the game isn’t just going to be released and then abandoned for the next game. If a game already has expansions and DLC and such in mind, then you also know that the game itself will receive a lot of support (new features, performance improvements, ongoing bug fixes and balance updates, etc.).
Starcraft II really demonstrated this nicely. They said that SC2 would be released in 3 parts and as a result, they have had years of ongoing free support for the games in order to keep their player base happy.
Anyway, the Founders alpha is available.
Q: What are you calling the core resource everyone is fighting over?
A: Turinium. We were calling it computronium internally (it’s a real thing) but we didn’t like the sound of it.
I’m honored Brad.
Also, it seems they will release a benchmark to sites later today, and one week later for the Founders.