Things to do in Distant Worlds: Legends

Title Things to do in Distant Worlds: Legends
Author Tom Chick
Posted in Games
When November 29, 2011

I fully expected that the Legends expansion for Distant Worlds would mainly be cool for adding characters who level up (pictured). I was wrong..

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This sounded amazing until I looked up Distant Worlds and found that it's real time and not turn based. :(

Distant Worlds is a strange beast. Complicated, rather dry at times, almost AI driven to a fault. It does some really cool things, but it's not for the average 4X fan. It's also going to be *very* expensive given that you have to buy it, the Shakti expansion, and now the Legends expansion. And if I'm not mistaken, publisher Matrix doesn't routinely put stuff on sale to tempt you into buying it.

So, yeah, don't take what I'm saying here as a blanket recommendation. :)

That defeat screen is some of the ugliest things I've seen on the internet in the past 2 minutes. But for a defeat screen, I guess it serves in purpose in that, you'll hate it, and try to avoid seeing it.

Ingame aversion therapy!

Hi Tom,

Thanks and good points . The victory screen is due for an overhaul in one of our post-release updates. We want to add tracking of scores by faction as well.

It's not that usual for victory to be achieved within the first ten years, but it can happen. We might set the default for this a bit higher in the next update as it's no fun to lose to someone you haven't met yet. Fortunately, you can continue playing and knock them back down too. :-)

Regards,

- Erik

Hey Erik, thanks for dropping by. And don't read too much into my example here! I was messing around with various game settings to play with the victory conditions. My quick defeat in this instance is in no way an observation about the game balance.

I take full responsibility for dropping too few races into too large a galaxy. One of the things I love about the game is the number of options in the game setup. If I wanted to, I could make sure all the races started out close together in a big empty galaxy. In fact, the new territory feature, which I didn't even mention here, does a great job of painting some cool abstract art if you plunk down a bunch of starting empires in close proximity!

Ooh, good to know. Leave it to me to make an offhand remark about Matrix only to be precisely wrong at that moment.

That's still going to be steep for some people, but I'm glad to see Matrix is offering a bundled deal. Because if you're playing Distant World's without Legends, you're not playing Distant Worlds.

Yeah, it's hard for me to take a chance on it at that price when I got something like 14 games for less than that during the steam autumn sale.

I got nailed by those victory conditions too in my first game (although I won!) and I learned to tinker with them to avoid a short game.

Did you really destroy 0 of the Ikkuro ships and bases during your war or is that screen wrong?

The problem is that people have very different tastes and opinions and not everyone who plays this game likes it. It may be the best 4x game to Taylor Boon, but that's guarantee that I will like it, and $64-$90 is alot for a game that I may decide that I hate.

See how good I am at war? Yeah, it looks like that moment is solely from my breaking our treaty. But you'll have to take my word for it that there was much fighting and even losses inflicted after that screenshot. Many Ikkuros died that month!

Why is this so obscenely expensive? It looks like something I'd be into, but I can't justify that kind of expense. No demo either?

Do they want people to pirate this or something? Not that I would, but there are plenty of people like that.

Matrix titles are always MASSIVELY overpriced. I am a huge fan of their stuff but can't afford it. When a game goes ON SALE and it still more than $50, you're overpriced.

Thing is Matrix claim they're "niche" and have a small customer base. Yet the stupidity is at THOSE prices it will STAY niche, whereas sales on Steam have shown that a price drop leads to a massive spike in sales and ultimately MORE revenue than just sitting at a stagnant price.

Which means either Matrix games are as dumb as a box of hair, or lying.

I can't recommend any Matrix games, despite loving them, as the investment is just ridiculous.

Forgot to add: I have been interested in Distant Worlds from the start, but the price is just insane. Especially when you can go get the complete Sins of Solar Empire on Steam now for about $20. Or the complete Galactic Civilizations II for the price of a packet of cigarettes.

I'd bet Gal Civ can give Distant Worlds a good run for its money in the AI department, and looking a lot prettier too.

I'm pretty much boycotting Matrix these days due to their pricing. Had a good laugh at their "sale" list today. Not to mention you don't get permanent access to download the game as often as you want. In Steam I can install and remove as often as I want. With Matrix stuff, after a certain period if I want to reinstall my option is the hope my DVD backup didn't fail. Already lost one Matrix title that way. Just not worth it anymore.

Shame. Though good in a way. If they ever started pricing sensibly and selling on Steam, I'd be bankrupt.

Niche publishers need to look at Paradox. Those guys have it down pat.

Release high-quality, well-researched games at a reasonable price. Update regularly, with quality expansions, and let the base game go at a large discount after it's been out a while.

When word gets out you've made a good, consistently supported game, people will buy it. The game gets new exposure when the expansions come out, so people pick up the base game then, too (assuming it's discounted). Then they like it, since you made a good product, and spend more money on said expansions.

You even build brand loyalty. I picked up EU3 around when its second expansion came out and loved it, especially when what concerns I had were patched. I've purchased every expansion for it since, plus HOI3 and its expansions, Victoria 2, hell I even went into their back catalogue and bought the original Crusader Kings. CK2 is one of my most anticipated games, etc. etc. The only one I didn't pick up was Sengoku, and that only because of a personal disinterest in the time period.

Tl;dr: I've spent more money with Paradox in the past few years than any other single publisher due to their business strategy, and I was never before a player of "niche" games like they put out. Matrix should try it, or the devs of Distant Worlds should try a new publisher.

I love 4x games, but my God this one is expensive? i would love to pick it up, but nearly $90 for it and the expansions? That is really expensive. Shame, i still play SoTS1 and Gal Civ, this is way too expensive to gamble on :-(

Hi Bonedwarf, et. al.,

A few points. The combined prices is for the original release and the two expansions, not just for the base game.

We are neither dumb nor lying. We have quite a few games priced at the $19.99 and below price point, but we set the price based on each game and our data shows us that in many cases the mainstream pricing rules do not apply as well. I respect that they work for many games but not for all and where they do not work, I hope you will respect that different prices are needed to allow ongoing development.

As far as re-downloads, you can re-download as much as you want now with our new store. If you have a purchase from our old store, contact us and the odds are very good that we can get you a re-download link for that too.

It's true that our games don't use online activation and other forms of intrusive DRM though, so when you purchase a game from us you actually own it and whatever happens in the future, as long as you have that file and the serial number, you will be able to reinstall it and play it again.

Regards,

- Erik

Hi Cal,

I'm not sure how you're ending up with $90? Until the end of the holiday sale and the release promotion, the base game costs $26.99, the first expansion is $16.99 and the new expansion is $19.99. If you want to buy all of them, that's about $64.

Regards,

- Erik