[EDIT] Post removed for NDA reasons.
- Alan.
From a post on Gone Gold:
One thing I’d like to clear up: The AI does build new cities in aowSM. The tester that said otherwise was mistaken. So anyone looking for a reason to not buy this game will need to keep looking.
Josh Farley
Programmer
Triumph Studios
Never played the original, can this “expansion” be played without the original game?
Yes, it is a stand alone.
Hey Gang,
I guess this is better…but then again the flat out NOT building of pioneers sounds to me like it WILL NOT be fixing razed structures if need be.
Well, heck, this is a MAJOR improvement since it at least means that the AI knows how to USE the pioneer units and if it really is a noticiable weakness that they never build new pioneers, tweaking the build priorities I’m sure would be a VERY patchable aspect compared to teaching units how to perform actions they were never programmed to handle.
Wait, so did Josh or someone say that the AI doesn’t build Pioneers? It knows how to use them if it has them, but it doesn’t build them? That seems pretty dang screwy.
It almost sounds like they did half the job…making it so folk who included pioneers in their scenarios will now finally have units that can do what they’re supposed to BUT AT THE SAME TIME, they never bothered to change the AI building priorities regarding the pioneers from AoW2 which simply didn’t make them.
Hey Gang,
Dreaming about the upcoming game a new aspect dawned on me that I’m VERY curious about how its going to work in the game.
Shadowshifting!
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Can a unit with shawdowshifting shift the whole group he’s with or is it an individual thing?
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Where can shadowshifters shift? Can they just shift anywhere on the map and appear on the other at the same map co-ordinates? What if this will put them right in the middle of a large body of water or impassable mountains?
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Will this create a Living Hell for the Anti-Teleport crowd since it would make it pretty easy, assuming the player has some shifters, to appear anywhere they want on the map?
[EDIT] Post removed for NDA reasons.
- Alan
Thanks Alan, good answer!
Alan, were you a tester or something? What’s your overall impression, or can you talk about that?
[EDIT] Post removed for NDA reasons.
- Alan
Hey Alan,
Say no more, didn’t realize these post of yours were not cleared with Triumph folk.
Hi all. I’ve removed some information I should not have posted,
partly to avoid mentioning gameplay specifics (which may even have
changed since the beta), and partly to avoid inadvertently expressing
any opinion about the product until it becomes publicly available.
However, the developers have been really great about listening to player
feedback and becoming involved with the community. If you have
questions about Shadow Magic, I encourage you to contact them directly.
- Alan
NDA?! The game is gonna be on store shelves in a week. :roll:
It was probably “The Suits” that made him take the info down.
Grumble, grumble, damn evil Suits…Grumble!
Hey Gang,
Yeah I’m not going to blame Triumph on this one as it seems to be the norm. There are probably several examples of developers being a little too “loose lipped” but I first noticed it with Microprose’s Magic the Gatheing. The game’s producer was giving folk at this one AOL forum near daily updates on the game’s status with many, “Oh, don’t you worry, it will be out any day now!”. This went on for months with some gamers feebly threatening to sue since the game still wasn’t out. I think it was then after the second or third big delay he stopped telling us anything and we just had to wait.
In this case the only part that makes me nervous is that they seem to be so strongly controlling the release of information when the game SHOULD be out in just a couple of weeks.
Having not heard any sort of going gold statement, however, I don’t see how this is going to happen unless, and some others have pulled this recently, they don’t want to say anything UNTIL the game is in the trucks heading to the store shelves.
Not to worry, the NDA thing is more about maintaining consistent policy than any particular issue dealing with the specifics of Shadow Magic. As it turns out, not all of the posts were problematic, but it seemed like a good idea to play it safe. :)
- Alan
To be honest and kinda pathetic, I will buy the expansion if they only finally fix fucking Internet play. AoW2 is one of the most thrilling strategy games I’ve ever played on the internet, which just makes it all the more inexcusable that, in any given game, you have to deal with numerous syncrhonization errors, inexplicable drops, crashes, graphic lags and the complete monster that is the AoW2 chat window. This stuff should have been fixed in a patch a year ago, but they are still consistent problems, and often require a reboot to even temporarily fix. Alan Au, Jason Lutes, Kent Peterson and I were just playing a really fantastic game, but we had to call it a night after we spent the final hour and a half trying to complete the same turn after crash after crash. Internet performance on AoW2 is just completely unacceptable, and if they don’t fix it substantially in Shadow Magic, that is just a huge middle finger to the fans who’ve patiently trusted them and dealt with this shit for the last year.