Thrag
3439
Wow, yeah. Some things like the sketchbooks are still there, but for example this link from above regarding the impending settlement is gone.
https://www.dogarandkazon.com/blog/2019/6/8/unexpected-message-from-space
as is the settlement announcement
https://www.dogarandkazon.com/blog/2019/6/11/the-only-way-to-win-is
Makes sense to leave the distracting idiocy in the past.
I had actually checked their site this morning and it was still showing the 6/11/2019 announcement on the front page. They must have just done this end of day.
So this is gonna be the thread for Star Control 4, the official sequel to Legend Entertainment’s seminal masterwork, Star Control 3?
Elestan
3441
Heh. It’s probably best to keep this already overlong thread limited to P&F <-> Stardock relations, and use a new one to discuss any new game developments by either side.
I like that idea. Let’s bail on the court shenanigans and start over with new game speculation.
The game will have a chunk of nostalgia to deal with and there are lots of potentially disappointing pitfalls both narratively and mechanically. I for instance dearly hope they get rid of the awful resource gathering system.
I’m looking forward to their sequel.
I’ll happily make a thread once they confirm at least a temporary name.
Please god yes
edit also the combat. I only want to have silly conversations with aliens and to solve puzzles.
You know what would be awesome is separate difficulty sliders, like the Silent Hill games. They let you tailor the combat and puzzle difficulty separately. Maybe in some hypothetical Star Control IV you could scale for Survival (resource collection), combat frequency and difficulty, maybe other stuff too. I’d love something like that.
I agree, Paul & Fred’s new game should have its own thread. But the post didn’t say anything about the new game, so it felt maybe a little early for that.
Since we’re all here, check out this homage to the original flagship image from SC2’s opening cinematic, created by Chris Bischoff, the brilliant isometric artist who made the game Stasis, et al. I just saw it today for the first time thanks to the Star Control Fans twitter account.
<looks suspiciously at all of you>
Star Control 2 is one of the great “kitchen sink” games, so I’m loathe to propose that any element get excised entirely. I think they could make resource gathering less of a slog, or make random combat encounters more fun and less punishing, but think about all the other systems that get cut off at the knees if you don’t have those–what am I upgrading my ship for? What am I collecting new tech for? How do I benefit if I ally with an alien race?
I don’t usually like games that try to do include every conceivable system, but SC2 does everything in a tight, efficient, fun-focused way that works to me. There are a million improvements they could make to the formula, but don’t yank out any whole ingredients!
I’m not sure if it’s rosy goggles, but I think I liked every aspect of SC2. But maybe I don’t have the patience now since we have fifty bajillion games on our queues, whereas back then I may have had uhhhh just sc2 at the time lol. So one game and I HAD to like it :)
those were the days. we were happy then… ;)
I had trouble going back to Star Control 2’s super-melee and Star Control: Origin’s melee combat recently, after playing Galak-Z. Galak-Z has much better momentum and fine control physics in a similar 2D combat situation. So I hope if that they improve the combat instead of just trying to make a more boring version of it like Origins did.
Haha! Can always count on Rock to come in with the Galak-Z plug! That game didn’t stick for me, but I agree it’s a good model to look at for an updated flight/combat model with more contemporary game feel.
Yeah. It’s important to note that Galak-Z only has one ship. So it’s very limited compared to Star Control 1-2-3 with dozens of ships all with different characters on turning speed, thrust, special weapon, main weapon, etc. I definitely don’t want Star Control to lose those! But I do hope they can have a more refined physics model. Because that’s one of the reasons why playing the game felt so good back in the day, and hopefully they’ll improve on that aspect.
I wonder if they’re still planning to bring Star Control Origins to consoles. I’d buy another copy.
Thank you for this link. I watched about 30 minutes last night, and am looking forward to the rest of the remaining 100 minutes or so. This is very cool. I guess maybe this is a great side effect of the whole lawsuit thing in that it forced Paul and Fred to really refresh their memory on the making of Star Control 1 and 2. There’s so many little details here.
Wait - is this a real thing? I always assumed that the whole thing was just an elaborate legal maneuver and there was no real plans to make a new game.
I had lots of problems with various systems in Star Control 3 that went nowhere, but hot damn, I loved their explanation of where the Precursors disappeared to centuries ago. I seriously doubt if Paul & Fred can top that.
