Starpoint Gemini.

[DraQ]

No, it's like Space Rangers 2 or Escape Velocity: Nova or (blatant plug) Star Command. Or Star Control for that matter. Herp derp.

Aren't all those games using actual 2D engine, at least for the space part?

Stalepoint Gemini has no such excuse.

So... the reason why old RPGs were turn based is because of technical limitations?

How is that even relevant.

You code a game with a full 3D engine and use this full 3D engine to represent probably the most 3D environment ever. How? By restricting all movement and action to a 2D plane, of course!


Fallout with the same 2D engine and style of scenery, but with all possible NPCs and objects of interest constrained to a single line and player being only able to move in one axis is actually a pretty good analogy and would be just as baffling to me.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

So it's like an iso RPG where you can only move north and south?

It's space. It's not like you have limits on which side you can go, and wormholes or some shit to teleport you around.

Here, just pretend the ground in this pic is made of stars and you're all set

 

[Shannow]

No, it's like Space Rangers 2 or Escape Velocity: Nova or (blatant plug) Star Command. Or Star Control for that matter. Herp derp.

Aren't all those games using actual 2D engine, at least for the space part?

Stalepoint Gemini has no such excuse.

So... the reason why old RPGs were turn based is because of technical limitations?

I realize this is supposed to be sarcastic/trolling but I still can't pass the opportunity to say: No. And I don't see any connection.
And: Old RPGs were RT.

 

[SCO]

Dolt?!
Listen, smartypants, can you read your own quote, yes?
NO Z SPACE GAEM GRAETEST FAIL EVA!! OLOLOL - those are your words, right?
Lets not touch the more important concepts of gameplay regarding the z axis in such hit classics as Homeworld and its (the z axis) failure to matter but concentrate on the semantics.

Request dumbfuck tag for Orgasm.

 

[Lord Rocket]

No, it's like Space Rangers 2 or Escape Velocity: Nova or (blatant plug) Star Command. Or Star Control for that matter. Herp derp.

Aren't all those games using actual 2D engine, at least for the space part?

Stalepoint Gemini has no such excuse.

So... the reason why old RPGs were turn based is because of technical limitations?

How is that even relevant.

You code a game with a full 3D engine and use this full 3D engine to represent probably the most 3D environment ever. How? By restricting all movement and action to a 2D plane, of course!


Fallout with the same 2D engine and style of scenery, but with all possible NPCs and objects of interest constrained to a single line and player being only able to move in one axis is actually a pretty good analogy and would be just as baffling to me.

Of course it's relevant. I chose that analogy because it's annoying when tards start going on about how turn-based is outdated when in fact it is a legitimate design choice, and you are doing essentially the same thing here - this game uses a 3D engine so it ABSOLUTELY MUST have a Z-Axis! This game is made in 2010 so it ABSOLUTELY MUST have real-time combat!
Again, the devs made a choice. I'm not saying it's the right one but it's a perfectly valid decision and nor is it exactly unprecedented (which is, by the way, is why your analogy sucks).

And: Old RPGs were RT.

Rogue (if that counts) Oubliette Wizardry M&M Wizard's Crown Gold Box games Wasteland et cetera et cetera and in all seriousness you should know better.

 

[Lord Rocket]

Also I still would like to know more about Star Wolves.

 

[DraQ]

this game uses a 3D engine so it ABSOLUTELY MUST have a Z-Axis!

Precisely, I don't see why an iso game should necessarily have to use Y-Axis which is already there either.

This game is made in 2010 so it ABSOLUTELY MUST

How is release date even relevant? If this game was released in 1993 and running on Elite 2 engine (fully 3D) but artificially restricted action to a single plane, I'd consider it just as shit.

I care not if the game was made in 2010 or 1992.
My analogy is as follows (fallout - stalepoint):

Both open terrain and most man-made interiors can be mapped well onto 2D plane at detail level assumed by the designers - space can be mapped well onto 3D space.

The developers have a 2D iso engine to map their desired environment to -
The developers have a 3D engine to map their desired environment to.

The developers would have to be retarded to inexplicably restrict the action to less dimensions that is needed to portray the environment of their choice at desired level of detail despite having means to avoid it - the developers are retarded to inexplicably restrict the action to less dimensions that is needed to portray the environment of their choice at desired level of detail despite having means to avoid it.

2D iso fallout on flat maps with 1D action would be derp - 3D stalepoint in space with 2D action is derp.

And: Old RPGs were RT.

Rogue (if that counts) Oubliette Wizardry M&M Wizard's Crown Gold Box games Wasteland et cetera et cetera and in all seriousness you should know better.

Games as old as EoTB were RT, games as new as Wizardry 8 were TB. Your point?

TB offers better control, especially for parties, and less dependence on player's reflexes, RT offers more fluid action and eliminates time discretization artefacts from mechanics. Neither is inherently, universally better, even if you have a personal slant towards one of them. Even if it could be argued that RT is more advanced, as it required some advances in hardware to run ruleset in RT (then again, first computer games were already RT, so apparently just having any hardware was a sufficient advancement), this evidently hasn't made it obsolete.


Also,

Dolt?!
Listen, smartypants, can you read your own quote, yes?
NO Z SPACE GAEM GRAETEST FAIL EVA!! OLOLOL - those are your words, right?
Lets not touch the more important concepts of gameplay regarding the z axis in such hit classics as Homeworld and its (the z axis) failure to matter but concentrate on the semantics.

Request dumbfuck tag for Orgasm.

This.

 

[Ruprekt]

The lack of a third axis makes it play like those shitty Star Trek games from the beginning of the decade which operate very similar with the camera fixed behind your warship and commands on the interface.

The SFC games were great (not including the 3rd TNG one).

 

[Orgasm]

There is an undeniable correlation between loving tes and being retarded.

True Friends

 

[DraQ]

There is an undeniable correlation between loving tes and being retarded.

Yes. This correlation is negative with TES 2 and 3, strongly positive with TES 4.

 

[SCO]

As expected, another braindead retard.

 

[Lord Rocket]

draq's gonna draq

OK, again, the RT vs. TB thing is just an analogy to demonstrate the fact that you're using a consoletarded argument. One, in fact, that you have railed against in the past.
This is the logic you're using:
X, therefore Y, because Z.
X is either: 3d engine, recent release date
Y is either (respectively): z axis, real time combat
And in both cases the Z is TECHNOLOGY! Well, actually, no, that isn't a good justification. Which you already know so why do I have to explain this to you?

And your analogy still sucks, but by explaining it (and yes I understood it the first time. The reason why I think it sucks is because it's dumb,* not because I didn't get it or some shit) you've revealed your real objection to this game:

the developers are retarded to inexplicably restrict the action to less dimensions that is needed to portray the environment of their choice at desired level of detail despite having means to avoid it

tl;dr I WANT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Which is fine but don't pretend your complaint is anything more intellectual than that.

* Explanation:
OK fine, not implementing something you could have. But, the difference is there's examples of 2d space games that are very good, whereas no-one's made a crushingly linear iso RPG before (although The Spirit Engine is a sidescrolling RPG that, yeah, is some boring-arse shit). So essentially your analogy boils down to:
Something we know to work well is stupid because this wholly theoretical example is stupid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrjtJBxSUKQ

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Also I still would like to know more about Star Wolves.

first and second are afflicted with starforce 3, so i wouldn't bother.
i bothered with the third: the structure is the same, mission based, extremely linear rtwp strategy which doesn't involve much strategy game.
it cheats you into thinking it's some sort of sandbox by giving you a lot of systems to explore (anyway, every system is a very very very small and flat map, a bunch of bases here and there, all on the same height, there's no real reason to go up or down), but if you actually try to do something out of the scripts you die. you just die, your mothership explodes.
sometimes the constrains are a bit looser, you could explore a bit, try to trade... but if you go where you're not supposed to go, most of the time you die, you just die, or you're raped by some unbeatable high level fleet of pirates. so you could try to trade, only problem is there aren't commodities to be traded.
and all the equipment is locked to your level. or maybe, even worse, to which point of the plot you are at, didn't check, didn't really care to check.

some c&c, because there are c&c in this game: the minefield mission.
you're outnumbered and outgunned, but you're a very very very little faster. if you try to listen to all the characters banter you die because there's no time left to do anything.
if you fight back you die.
if you run back you die.
at some point, if you survived by running like a chicken just forward, you could go there or overthere. if you go overthere you die. so you go there instead. now a bug could screw you.
so you avoided the bug too, then you're required to go past that last defense line, the game tells you so, the characters tell you so, and the turrets rape you shamelessly.
so now it's the tenth time you're attempting this mission, you know everything, you go straight to where you're supposed to end, but you didn't trigger every step, so it's like you didn't move at all, you should run back through the minefield again. another reloading.
you reach the last defense line and fly up because those turrets aren't endless, you fly up, up, up for 10 minutes because the ship you have moves like a slug on rohypnol, reach the last waypoint and then, only then, you realize you're really wasting your life, you could have done something better all that time, like picking your nose with a rusty fork.

 

[DraQ]

Lord Rocket cannot into rocketry

No, it's not about technology.
It's about portraying something retardedly wrong despite using the exact technology it would take to do this right.

If you take something and then fail to make use of it, you're doing it wrong. Being constrained to a single plane in space makes as much sense as being constrained to a single line on the ground.
Unless you're making, for example a 2D side- or vertical scroller, you have no excuse.

tl;dr I WANT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, do not want.

I thought I made it pretty clear that "desired" refers purely to the developers vision and point of view, something they will need to pull their vision off.

For example, take Fallout and Call of Pripyat. Both take place in irradiated decaying interiors and wastelandish exteriors. In both you get to shoot a lot of people and mutants with guns, both give you opportunity to wear power armour and even to use diplomacy to solve quests, both end with a fucking slideshow. Yet, the desired level of detail in Fallout is different from desired level of detail in CoP. At Fallout's level of detail you can essentially reduce 3D locales to 2D floor plans in interiors, 2D maps in exteriors, it wouldn't work in CoP which requires more detail to work and at this detail level floor plans and maps just don't cut it.

If you want you can replace Fallout with BG2, CoP with Daggerfall or Morrowind.

* Explanation:
OK fine, not implementing something you could have. But, the difference is there's examples of 2d space games that are very good, whereas no-one's made a crushingly linear iso RPG before (although The Spirit Engine is a sidescrolling RPG that, yeah, is some boring-arse shit). So essentially your analogy boils down to:
Something we know to work well is stupid because this wholly theoretical example is stupid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrjtJBxSUKQ

So? There are also examples of excellent 2.5D FPS games (Doom, fucking Hexen) that don't allow sloping surfaces or room-over room, yet, if someone created an FPS today, using modern engine with all bells and whistles, fully capable of doing this kind of stuff, yet inexplicably made all the slopes into blocky stairs, and used no multiple stories or even proper staircases even where they would beg to be added, then defend it as "hey, it worked in the past", would you accept it or just tell him to GTFO?

 

[Lord Rocket]

What

Dude you're not seriously arguing that the developers compromised their own vision of the game by making it 2d? The evidence would suggest that they didn't, simply because they made the game on a 2d plane - as you say, despite the fact they didn't have to.
Your argument boils down to you having an idea of what a game using Y technology should be. We all have these conceptions of course but it's foolish to argue that a game should conform to those precepts when it isn't really even in the same genre as the games that do comply.
Think of it as a Dragon Age vs. Diablo thing; they're similar creatures but comparisons between them aren't really valid. It'd be fairer to compare DA to Fallout or another quest-driven, dialogue heavy RPG, don't you think?*
And yeah, it's about technology. You say so yourself:

No, it's not about technology.
It's about portraying something retardedly wrong despite using the exact technology it would take to do this right.

See? Also a level of abstraction or two can be a good thing in a game, but we'll be here all day if we try to change each other's minds about that so, well, let's not bother.

Lastly - quite frankly if someone made a game like you described I'd probably be into it since it would be likely to have an interesting aesthetic. Yeah that's shallow but it couldn't be any fucking worse than the shit everyone's churning out these days anyway.

Anyway all that said I'm off to go play this fucker now. I'll be sure to judge it on it's own merits.

* I should probably point out DA sucks balls at this point just to keep those KKK levels up. It really does suck some balls though.

 

[Lord Rocket]

Alright played for a couple hours. Finished the tutorial which took absolutely fucking forever and played the first part of scenario one for about 10 minutes, at which point I exploded.

It isn't as bad as Commie seems to think, but then, hey, it's not all that good either. When you target something the camera DOES follow it, so it looks like that was a bug. The lack of a z-axis isn't a problem either (the only way in which directions matter is aligning your shields. Actually if there was a z-axis it'd just make things more complicated for no reward at all). The pace is bloody slow.
I gather from what I've seen of the combat that the game is MMO-esque in the sense it involves a lot of skill spamming then waiting for shit to recharge. I didn't get to do much of that since I blew up so early but frankly it doesn't seem particularly fascinating.
A bigger problem is the fact the game doesn't give you a lot of feedback - the VOes get spammed at you so it's easy to miss important cues between all the 'I'll teach you some manners' and other such taunts. I'm pretty sure that my weapons systems were taken out before I was shot down but (a) the tactical screen has tiny little icons and 'health bars' that I couldn't see for shit (1280x1024 reso here) and (b) I didn't hear anything about it either. In any case I couldn't fire my guns no matter how hard I hammered my space bar which was intensely frustrating. On the other hand, I am pretty thick so maybe it's my own fault for not paying attention, or I ran out of energy, or something. Who knows.
The most irritating thing was definitely the lack of a zoomed out, tactical view though. The perspective is just bad and because you have to turn with the mouse controlling your ship is bloody awkward. A pseudo-iso view would have been grand.

On the positive side I like the blocky ship designs, which from what I've seen aren't too samey either. The face generator provides for some good laughs as well, as does the voice acting (although when it comes down to it I'd rather have ESL ruskies rasping their way through everything than Americans yanking it up AGAIN). I especially liked the guy who did the main storyline VO, he of the gritted teeth and epic emphasis.

Fundamentally, I don't think this is a bad game. The main issues are UI related and as such aren't unfixable (bigger icons and maybe some flashing borders when something breaks would improve the game immensely).
The combat is... well, it's a skill spam system, reminds me of Dragon Age a bit really so if you found that acceptable then chances are good that you'll find more to like than I did. That said, it isn't utterly shithouse, and the level of challenge seems reasonable.
I'm not sure if I'll go back to it though - I'm playing StarCom at the moment, obviously, and that's a much better game. Overall verdict is 'yeah,' pronounced a little uncertainly but with some hope for the future. It could be good if they patch away the UI woes.

 

[commie]

The lack of a third axis makes it play like those shitty Star Trek games from the beginning of the decade which operate very similar with the camera fixed behind your warship and commands on the interface.

The SFC games were great (not including the 3rd TNG one).

I didn't mean those ones which were like boardgames in space, but rather the DS9 game and some others like it that came out after.

It isn't as bad as Commie seems to think, but then, hey, it's not all that good either. When you target something the camera DOES follow it

No that wasn't what I meant. I meant that your ship doesn't turn to follow the target, there's no convenient button for this obvious thing, meaning that you constantly have to make corrections on the fly to keep the enemy in view while at the same time dealing with shield, power management, weapons. Shit, ships turned to follow targets in the Star Trek Starfleet Command in order to bring weapons to bear if they were fixed in a specific firing arc but not here!

There is a distinct lack of feedback indeed, not even knowing the recharge rates or energy consumption rates in a game like this is bullshit. I too press fire repeatedly not knowing when weapons recharge or why suddenly some weapons are offline

The game does have potential, and is quickly being patched, and so that's why I said avoid 'at the moment'. It does seem a labor of love so I expect it to be pretty good eventually.

 

[Lord Rocket]

Well... isn't that a good thing? Weapons all seem to have a 360 degree arc in this game and you need to be able to spin around like a tard in order to keep your strongest shields pointed at the baddies.
Or maybe I am wrong about the weapons thing, which might also explain why I wasn't shooting back at the guy who killed me.

 

[Trash]

Star Wolves 1 was a pretty cool mission based game which I really enjoyed even if it was kinda rough. Star Wolves 2 was made by a totally different team that managed to ruin what made 1 good. Never played Star Wolves 3.

Will try Starpoint Gemini this weekend. Hear many conflicting opinions about it, which got me curious.

 

[DraQ]

What

Dude you're not seriously arguing that the developers compromised their own vision of the game by making it 2d? The evidence would suggest that they didn't, simply because they made the game on a 2d plane - as you say, despite the fact they didn't have to.

The evidence suggest they did, either on purpose or by being complete idiots. They wanted to make a space game using 3D engine. Space is 3D, their engine is 3D their game is 2D.
FAIL.

Also a level of abstraction or two can be a good thing in a game, but we'll be here all day if we try to change each other's minds about that so, well, let's not bother.

Do we really need to go all the way through the bad abstraction VS good abstraction lecture all over *again*?

Humans are naturally 2.5D, they can't fly, can't jump very high, can't burrow and don't dive all that often. Human accessible space can generally be portrayed as long, wide but not very deep pancake, all in all a rather flat object. Environments such as relatively flat, or at least not too elaborate terrain, and most human made structures are very light on Z-axis or can be divided into disjoint portions that are very light on Z-axis (floors). They can be abstracted nicely as 2D maps. Unless for some reason you need elaborate 3D structures, or your disjoint 2D slices are no longer disjoint, for example due to damage, or want to fly freely, you can do just fine in 2D. Even many FPS games could get away with storing their levels in 2D form, earlier even rendered them in simplified form, assuming either all horizontal or all vertical surfaces, and rendering everything as columns, with only 2-point perspective - that's how raycasting engines worked.

Now, space is just as Z-heavy as it is X and Y heavy, and it simply doesn't abstract well as 2D, because no matter what you do, you drop 1/3 of your translational degrees of freedom (1/2 of your all degrees of freedom, but let's not go there, or I'll have to go full Skyway). It's not fucking pretty and dropping entire axis for no reason would be the same as taking any iso or overhead RPG, which is naturally X- and Y-heavy and arbitrarily dropping one of those axes without changing the way the game is displayed. I don't bitch much about 2D games that do that, because they have to, whether they are overhead space games or sidescrolling platformers, but a 3D game doing this kind of inexplicable shit has earned my righteous ire.

 

[Orgasm]

Lord Rockety, bro, update LP.

Dont argue with furry armchair generals that spew their tldr bullshit and can read a shitty Fictional language...

 

[DraQ]

Lord Rockety, bro, update LP.

Dont argue with furry armchair generals that spew their tldr bullshit and can read a shitty Fictional language...

Learn to distinguish a language from an alphabet or go be dumb somewhere else.

 

[commie]

Well... isn't that a good thing? Weapons all seem to have a 360 degree arc in this game and you need to be able to spin around like a tard in order to keep your strongest shields pointed at the baddies.
Or maybe I am wrong about the weapons thing, which might also explain why I wasn't shooting back at the guy who killed me.

Well the weapons I had they only fired in a forward arc, but even targeting an enemy, the ship didn't compensate for this by turning to face the target when it moved out of the field of fire. Manually clicking constantly to keep the target in view while at the same time managing power, firing, and assigning damage crews etc. is needlessly complicating things.

 

[commie]

Regarding the 3D v 2D space thing, I see the game as only using a 3D engine for the ease of showing 'space' rather than being a true desire to make shit come at you from all sides and give you tactical advantage by utilising the third plane. Yes, it's limiting and shitty and would be far better done as a Homeworld/Nexus thing. Even Hegemonia which was more of a 2D RTS in a 3D engine allowed you to move your ships in the third axis, so it is possible and quite easy to add the third axis even when the general concept of the game is to think of it in 2D. Really though, this game isn't all that different in concept to Starfleet Command which also was a 2D space combat thing done in a 3Dish engine.

 

[DraQ]

Hegemonia was my guilty pleasure for a while - simplistic, wildly inconsistent time and space scales, and so on, but man, was it pretty.


I still feel somewhat dirty.