So this popped up on my Impulse list today and I think I am going to bite on it. I think that 11.40 isn’t bad and if they can really pull off the feature list then the game will be pretty damn awesome.
This post just made me bite on it. ;) I’d rather buy directly from them than on Impulse though. Dunno why, really.
Well developers certainly get more money when you order directly through them, since there’s not a distributor taking a cut. That being said, I ordered on Impulse. Having all my games/registrations tied to Steam/Impulse is a convenience that’s difficult for me to part with.
Is this an MMO? The Impulse page says I need an active connection and a Miner Wars account to play?
It is an MMO, but as far as I know, it’ll have a long single player campaign. I guess we’ll have to see what it turns out to be.
The basics of the game seem pretty solid. The physics seem snappy and responsive, and mining looks like it could be pretty good fun. I’m not digging the pixel-precise cannon shooting though, which doesn’t work well in any game where the enemies seem so tiny compared to you.
I played an hour or so of this tonight and really enjoyed it. It chugged a bit on my old PC at times, but mostly it ran fine and was fun. I drilled through a few asteroids and then dug out big caves inside 'em. Combat was a bit wonky and AI is weird, but hey, it’s an alpha.
Miners Wars is starting to become interesting. The recent alpha release has added an example mission so there is now a bit of gameplay to try out.
The mission starts with you entering a base which has been excavated out of an asteroid, and you are tasked with finding and destroying the generators. The base is large, constructed out of numerous hard-to-distinguish rooms connected by long twisting tunnels. Whizzing around inside gave me a flashback to Descent, complete with the accompanying feelings of disorientation and nausea.
I wasn’t having much success navigating my way to the final generator until I cottoned on to the fact that some of the wall panels are actually closed doors which can be blown up, giving access to more areas in the station and, crucially, the asteroid’s rocky interior volume. By this time I had run out of fuel, so I started again, now using rockets to blast through the rock and making my own easy routes to the generators.
Unfortunately, destroying all three generators causes the base to explode after a short pause, along with any hapless belligerents who happen to be trapped nearby. In my third attempt I made sure that I had dug a handy escape tunnel out of the asteroid’s interior before smashing the final generator.
This worked perfectly and, back into open space, I was tasked with defending my mothership from a pack of hostiles who, presumably, wanted to let us know that there were really no hard feelings about the incident with their space station. Sadly, my home made exit orifice was on the far side of the asteroid from the ship. Unless there is a stronger thrust level than afterburner that I don’t know about, it was impossible to reach her before she was destroyed, earning me another game over.
By this time my head was spinning too much for me to want to try it all again, but I think there is probably a lot more I haven’t yet seen. Miner Wars is still in alpha so I’ll hope the next test release will be a bit more forgiving.
So this is out today on steam. Anyone have anything to say about the final game?
Looks to me like a more open world Descent with lots of pew pew and destructible enviornments than a ponderous space sim. Is this the case?
I bought it back in 2010 but was waiting for release. I’ve got it installed now but haven’t tried it yet.
I toyed with the beta a little bit ago, had a good time. Looking forward to diving into the full version now. Sadly it’s not the MMO, yet, but it should still be a fun time.
I was interested until I learned it had always on DRM. If Blizzard can’t get me to buy into that, an indie developer has no chance whatsoever.
I think the MMO is a separate purchase as well, actually, when it’s about to come out. Miner Wars only grants you this particular game
GMG has it for $3.75 now using the voucher: GMG25-CZPYL-D5MQ6
http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/us/en/pc/games/action/miner-wars-2081/
I bought into this a while back and tried out the release version finally. I largely agree with KK… there’s some interesting elements, and the open world portion is intriguing, but on the whole I feel like it’s a one trick pony.
It’s cool trick is being able to carve tunnels out of asteroids, and that is a pretty darn cool trick when you see it in action, but everything else in the game feels like an unpolished afterthought.
I’ll probably give it a few more tries and see if I can get farther into the open world elements, but the combat especially just isn’t grabbing be so far.
Always-on DRM you say? No thanks.
So someone wrote this on my blog today:
I’d recommend not getting Miner Wars 2081 and really they don’t deserve mention. They’re banning people for posting deals about it and complaining about the always on DRM. They actually wiped the entire steam community once already apparently.
I was kinda appalled, so I wrote 'em a letter asking for their side of the story. So far seems kinda unjustified to me.
The oldest thread in their Steam community dates back to 11/28/12, so…
Sounds like a bogus claim then since that’s the day they launched on Steam. Interested to hear their follow up and if they even know what this person’s talking about.
They were on Greenlight before that, though.