Homeworld Series

[Norfleet]

Maybe I was too snarky. Pardon. Bad Codex habit.

Snarky? On the Codex? Well, I never!

 

[Catacombs]

seeing this Kuun-Lan model done by one of the senior artists at Gearbox, Jonahan Fawcett, hurts

Homeworld: Borderland

 

[DraQ]

Yes. Less is more. Let the player fill in the blanks. Don't try to ape EPIC NARRATIVE you don't have the resources for. Don't write what you can't write.



There's no Moses in HW1, because the attempt to get the Mothership as a Moses figure aren't that strong. It's a simple narrative of people/faction. HW2 has the sin of trying to make you care through clumsy, badly written and incoherent pseudo-hippie mysticism. With plot holes as big as a Battlecruiser (Makaan trapping himself is the most triumphant example, the Bentusi becoming Generic Precursors and the Generic Other Precursors).

There was theoretically a way to tell a good story in HW2: the Vaygr are in theory an interesting opponent from the little tidbits of lore other than "CAN YOU BELIEVE ITS SPACE MAGIC". But I'll be merciful and consider that HW2 was the remnant of a game they throw out because their original ideas and planning got destroyed. And it feels like a remnant, like the TENTACLE BOMBARDMENT SHIPS that need SAJIUUK THE BEAR because they had the models there and fuck how the fuck do we do the final mission FUCK

You can rewrite the whole story to make the Vaygr the space nomads they supposedly were, crashing in the post-Exile political situation following their mad quest to rule the galaxy. Throw in Republican Taidaani to help, whatever. Make it the war against the Philistines to HW1's Exodus.

Instead we get Precursors and MacGuffins.

(Didn't I already tell that Cata has better writing despite being the Blob in Space? It needs to be repeated.

Such a great post should not go unrewarded, just let me pull out my brofists...

Also I love the moving backgrounds. Just love 'em.).

 

[underground nymph]

Once again about Paul Ruskay’s HW1 OST: it’s awesome and worth getting a good quality copy.
https://youtu.be/6WbvIEL5Iyk
Some interesting insights in regards:
https://kotaku.com/how-we-overhauled-the-homeworld-soundtrack-for-a-new-au-1692665327

 

[Glop_dweller]

The first thing that bothered me about HW2 was that the ships were not individuals in formation, but were instead inseparable squads. This meant that damaged ships could not be sent back for repairs; trying it would recall the entire squad.

Is this even fixable in the engine?

 

[DraQ]

The first thing that bothered me about HW2 was that the ships were not individuals in formation, but were instead inseparable squads. This meant that damaged ships could not be sent back for repairs; trying it would recall the entire squad.

Is this even fixable in the engine?

Forcing squads of 1?

 

[Perkel]

The first thing that bothered me about HW2 was that the ships were not individuals in formation, but were instead inseparable squads. This meant that damaged ships could not be sent back for repairs; trying it would recall the entire squad.

Is this even fixable in the engine?

H2 remastered has an option to use squads or individual ships. The bigger issue was that H2 fucked up ballistics. H2 remastered with 2.0 patch brings back ballistics to H2. Moreover they added a way to adjust rubber-banding in H2.

People may shit on gearbox for initial release but they fixed everything and even made H2 to follow H1 rules making huge incline. They can't fix H2 shitty story but it is already much better game.

 

[jebsmoker]

The first thing that bothered me about HW2 was that the ships were not individuals in formation, but were instead inseparable squads. This meant that damaged ships could not be sent back for repairs; trying it would recall the entire squad.

Is this even fixable in the engine?

H2 remastered has an option to use squads or individual ships. The bigger issue was that H2 fucked up ballistics. H2 remastered with 2.0 patch brings back ballistics to H2. Moreover they added a way to adjust rubber-banding in H2.

People may shit on gearbox for initial release but they fixed everything and even made H2 to follow H1 rules making huge incline. They can't fix H2 shitty story but it is already much better game.

pretty much. homeworld 2 has great mods and atmosphere, but that's it. the stories in the three other games are just infinitely better.

 

[circuit breaker]

With regards to Cataclysm, I forgot to mention the soundtrack, which contributes to the mood of the game perfectly.

 

[jebsmoker]

http://web.archive.org/web/20041120...om/cataclysm/sno-AcolyteInfection.shtml#story

holy shit i've looking for this for well over a decade. very chilling one-off short story.. well, mostly. childhood nostalgia made me feel like it was better, but now that i'm reading it again, the numerous grammatical mistakes stick out to me

 

[Zibniyat]

I think you people are being too harsh on H2, sure much of the criticism is valid, but the issue is one of emphasis since this is one of those cases where a game is heavily scrutinised and criticised from all perspectives all the while giving another game a free pass.

Apples and oranges.

Maybe I was too snarky. Pardon. Bad Codex habit.

Let's try to be less confrontational. See, In My Humble Opinion HW1 is essentially a fluke. They kept the narrative very simple because at the time RTS narratives were simple and they didn't need to build too much of a "character-driven" plot or anything. Many things in HW1 are essentially interesting gameplay challenges, be it the Giant Asteroid or Dog or Ghost Ship or Kadeshi. The entire plot is a very simple Exodus parallel. This works very well in the context of the game, giving it a proper aura. You travel in weird and dangerous lands, hunted down by a cruel Empire, but you know jack shit about the Emperor or whatever. You know the gist of it, and there's the manual for plot and lore dump (as was common back then).

Less is more. You fill in the blanks if the worldbuilding gets you in. Some will love that, some won't.


Cata is the expansion, and it's an expansion. Smaller scale. Dirtier. It has better baseline writing, but the people behind it weren't the same HW1 team. I find it a good B-movie adventure, with fairly endearing "protagonists" (I always think of the Kiith Somtaaw as the equivalent of the crew from The Thing, if the crew of The Thing wanted to solve the problem with a howitzer). Also I love the moving backgrounds in Cataclysm, favourite part of the game. Can't stress enough how much I love 'em.


HW2's development, as far as I remember, was messy. Entire concepts and gameplay ideas were thrown out of the window. It's noticeable, the plot is .... improvised. Plot holes are in there, and the variety of enemies and set-ups is significantly inferior compared to HW1. There's no pirates, no Kadeshi, no Dog.... it's an endless battle against MP Faction 2 and 1-2 models of Precursor ships. Noticeably less stuff. Something clearly went wrong with the development. Furthermore, the forced mysticism feels like .... a badly learned lesson. People didn't think that HW1 was some kind of spiritual mumbo-jumbo or whatever, but suddenly everything is forced and "mystical", it just doesn't belong and directly contradicts the previous game for the sake of.... I'm not entirely sure. A clumsier but more detailed narrative, where you can see the lack of skill coming through.

Don't know if I expressed myself well.

Oh well, I admit to have been superficial. Now that I've finished H1, which required a restart from the beginning (and a much smoother playthrough due to being familiar with the mechanics) and after a total of 29 hours of play, I conclude it is a decent RTS with a good (enough) plot. I also understand why people are angry with H2, since it fundamentally alters many key aspects of world-buidling/lore* and story, and its reliance on various mythical plot-devices is a drawback.

*Which, at first, I found interesting, but upon more detailed reading and examination concluded that it's basically a nominalist's/progressivist's wet dream. However these things are a thing of the manual primarily, and don't reflect within the game, although in the end when the credits roll there's this:

"GOD (whoever she is)"

But I do not take these things against the game as is, and still maintain it deserves a solid 8/10.

 

[DraQ]

Homeworld: Borderland

Hobo in short.

 

[Zibniyat]

Started Cataclysm, it took me an hour of trying various graphical options and registry edits in order to bring it to a good enough level. At the end I opted for D3D (non-software) graphics, and 1600x900 resolution (my monitor's native is 1920x1080), which work best overall: cutscenes are properly rendered, there appears to be no serious graphical glitches and the game still looks better than at any of the (stretched) native 4:3 and other ancient resolutions.

Edit: Quite unexpectedly, at least for someone who had never actually checked it out before, Cataclysm is significantly different in almost every way to H1, especially tonally. There's a couple of minor immersion-related issues as well, perhaps even bugs, like how upon altering formations of ships they sometimes use different voice-overs (male and female, for example). And Ennergy Cannons on Heavy Cruisers feel like cheating.

 

[jebsmoker]

bump bump bump...

beghins is alive; he's given a status update for homeworld: complex:

Great supporters of the Complex project ... I dedicate to you the lines that follow and the release that you will inevitably play. It was not easy to work on a reduced budget, so I had to cut jobs, especially in graphics, but I understand that many of you have been contributing for a long time. However there we are, below I list the main lines of this new release.

-I have completely rewritten the CPU attack code, so you will have games with massive waves of ships in formation (strike groups) that will head towards your base and will be accompanied by warnings and videos. To do this I had to significantly improve the formations and tactics that now work great. Another important improvement concerns the detectability of the ships, now the CPU enemies identify your ships only if "not hidden" so you can escape the attacks by playing in stealth mode, turning off the systems, using the cloak, hiding in the nebulae and/or dust clouds. In short, the maps have been revisited and have a higher tactical level.

-The campaign, I have improved it to the extreme ... bugs, balance etc, but the most important thing is that Jason Millward is our new voice actor, so we have a convincing voice and full content. In the release, you will also play the second episode.

-The Kadeshi, are now playable, complete, I had to stop the creation of new ships due to the low budget, but the few existing ones were re-filled with skills and design, moreover the Mothership has a modular and versatile super cannon. You won't miss the fleet.

-Multiplayer, I played a lot in this covid period, so I added, removed, improved, I think the game is almost perfect now and I am convinced that every game in MP will enjoy you until the end. There are 2 new game modes "warlike" and "stealthy" as well as the classic customizable one, in this way it will be possible to immediately play a game based on destructive battles (very fun in this version), or spend more time in endless matches.

In short, there is a lot of stuff coming and I hope you like it.
The scheduling? It's all over, except for the last part of episode 2, so my commitment is to deliver everything by July 2020.
Images and videos will follow to illustrate all of this, I wish you a good summer.
Beghins.

 

[Perkel]

Nice, campaign so far i tried it, is great. I wonder though why Gearbox didn't hire any of complex guys.

 

[jebsmoker]

Complex version 41 is HERE. Subscribe to its Steam workshop page or get it here:

Complex EVO - dev. build 41
As always a big huge super Thank You!
Build 41 is available.
Kadeshi are complete, challenging and playable. They don't have many ships but I have implemented many features that make them interesting and unique, they are specialized in cloaking and anti-radiation. The campaign has been significantly improved, especially due to the addition of the voices, made by Jason Millward. It has also been balanced and many bugs are fixed. Episode two is in progress, I can only release it when complete because of the few replayability. However, the first part of episode 2 is playable.
The multiplayer sector has been drastically improved, AI has been completely rewritten, Expect huge attacks in strike groups and formations. Maybe here we need to fix a few things in the future, I'm waiting for your feedback.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!At1oaFwZQyhFhZt3pVEF7LqZy2g1fQ

How to install:
1) extract ComplexEVObuild41.zip inside ...Homeworld\HomeworldRM\Data (both "ComplexEVObuild41.big" and the folder "locale" must be there)
2) right click the HomeworldRM shortcut, select properties, select shortcut, add -mod ComplexEVObuild41.big at the target command line (if you don't have a shortcut create it by ...Homeworld\HomeworldRM\Bin\release\HomeworldRM.exe)
3) run the game by your HomeworldRM shortcut (don't use the Steam launcher)
4) it's recommended to play the english version, Complex is not localized

As always a big huge super Thank You!
Build 41 is available.
Kadeshi are complete, challenging and playable. They don't have many ships but I have implemented many features that make them interesting and unique, they are specialized in cloaking and anti-radiation. The campaign has been significantly improved, especially due to the addition of the voices, made by Jason Millward. It has also been balanced and many bugs are fixed. Episode two is in progress, I can only release it when complete because of the few replayability. However, the first part of episode 2 is playable.
The multiplayer sector has been drastically improved, AI has been completely rewritten, Expect huge attacks in strike groups and formations. Maybe here we need to fix a few things in the future, I'm waiting for your feedback.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!At1oaFwZQyhFhZt3pVEF7LqZy2g1fQ

How to install:
1) extract ComplexEVObuild41.zip inside ...Homeworld\HomeworldRM\Data (both "ComplexEVObuild41.big" and the folder "locale" must be there)
2) right click the HomeworldRM shortcut, select properties, select shortcut, add -mod ComplexEVObuild41.big at the target command line (if you don't have a shortcut create it by ...Homeworld\HomeworldRM\Bin\release\HomeworldRM.exe)
3) run the game by your HomeworldRM shortcut (don't use the Steam launcher)
4) it's recommended to play the english version, Complex is not localized

 

[Perkel]

Fuck yes, Their campaign is also pretty nice for folks who want single player extra campaign. Tried previous version and it was very nice.