So I picked up Star Wolves 3 in the Steam sale...

[cutterjohn]

... but all of my posts are actually over on rpgwatch.com ATM...

Short and sweet:
It's a bona fide Star Wolves game, same old engine, UI, etc.

(Just found that I had SW1 still installed, fired it up, and the similarities were frightening...)

Also Picked up "A Farewell to Dragons": The translator should just be shot out of hand, as in I stopped playing it for now as translating Engrussian to English got to be WAY WAY WAY beyond painful... and the pathfinding sucked worse... (Beyond that it's a half-assed 3D Infinity Engine(complete with shit textures, models, and animation) in a pseudo-steampunk setting with big titted elf chicks...)

Is it just that 1C has no sense of taste and/or decency whatsoever or is it that 99.999% of Russians suck ass at developing video games? (FFS about 99.999% of Polock video games are at least decent.. and lack excessively shit translations...)

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

Is it just that 1C has no sense of taste and/or decency whatsoever or is it that 99.999% of Russians suck ass at developing video games?

It's both, really. Elemental Games (later Katauri Interactive) have nothing but respect from me for their Space Rangers 1&2, but nothing else comes to mind, right now (Cryostasis, Pathologic and The Void are ukrainian, IIRC). Can't say anything overly positive about Star Wolves series, either - I've found Nexus to be parsecs better in everything but the pseudo-sandbox and the level-up schtick. But eh, that kind of games is rare, so can't be too picky, I guess.

 

[Lemon]

FFS about 99.999% of Polock video games are at least decent..

Mortyr

 

[m_s0]

That's still only one game. Try harder. Like this:
Mortyr 2
Mortyr 3

Yes, they've made sequels.

(FFS about 99.999% of Polock video games are at least decent.. and lack excessively shit translations...)

You clearly haven't played many.

 

[commie]

... but all of my posts are actually over on rpgwatch.com ATM...

Short and sweet:
It's a bona fide Star Wolves game, same old engine, UI, etc.

(Just found that I had SW1 still installed, fired it up, and the similarities were frightening...)

Also Picked up "A Farewell to Dragons": The translator should just be shot out of hand, as in I stopped playing it for now as translating Engrussian to English got to be WAY WAY WAY beyond painful... and the pathfinding sucked worse... (Beyond that it's a half-assed 3D Infinity Engine(complete with shit textures, models, and animation) in a pseudo-steampunk setting with big titted elf chicks...)

Is it just that 1C has no sense of taste and/or decency whatsoever or is it that 99.999% of Russians suck ass at developing video games? (FFS about 99.999% of Polock video games are at least decent.. and lack excessively shit translations...)

Bullshit. 1C makes/publishes many great games. The thing is that they also publish low budget crap under the same label unlike in the west where the crap goes under 'Activision Value' or is flogged off under 'Groove Games' or 'Jarhead Games' or such shit. This makes it seem that most Russian games are shitty when in fact the percentage is more or less the same as in the west. On top of that Russian games at least try different things and are pretty much some of the last bastions of quality turn based and strategy gaming whereas in the west apart from Paradox, we just have low budget, ugly looking amateur efforts.

As for Polish games being 99% better, well I'm Polish and can tell you that it's about the complete opposite. Apart from the Earth series and Call of Juarez and Witcher there's NOTHING else in the Polish games industry of any value. Check out anything by City Interactive! Or classics like Maluch Racer!

 

[m_s0]

City Interactive is just a counterpart of Activision Value and the like. It's copy-paste mass production, not making games and their CEO didn't hesitate to admit this in a few interviews. Selling a product is their only aim. Seeing that City Interactive makes far more money than pretty much everyone else in the business in Poland... Can't blame the guy and the policy of his company. So CI doesn't really count in my book.

Earth is low budget crap, only half of the first Call of Juarez is awesome/playable, the rest is shit. You haven't mentioned Painkiller which is good etc. But I agree with your general point.

 

[commie]

City Interactive is just a counterpart of Activision Value and the like. It's copy-paste mass production, not making games and their CEO didn't hesitate to admit this in a few interviews. Selling a product is their only aim. Seeing that City Interactive makes far more money than pretty much everyone else in the business in Poland... Can't blame the guy and the policy of his company. So CI doesn't really count in my book.

Earth is low budget crap, only half of the first Call of Juarez is awesome/playable, the rest is shit. You haven't mentioned Painkiller which is good etc. But I agree with your general point.

Earth 2150 is the best RTS out there dude, the only Polish game apart from The Witcher that has received almost unanimously good reviews. Good that we agree that the first COJ is best(what other FPS gives you a mission two thirds into the game where you don't kill anything apart from rabbits and is primarily for the atmosphere/plot?) and the second is just COD in the wild west. Painkiller is good for what it is, but not my type of game. City Interactive DO make games(Sniper art of victory, Sniper Ghost Warrior) and publish other cheap shit of course. They should count precisely BECAUSE of their success. It creates a feeling of 'why bother trying to make a good game when CI makes money with shit in Poland?'. This is why Poland is FAR behind other Eastern European countries like Czechs, Hungary, Russia when it comes to quality game production.

 

[m_s0]

This is why Poland is FAR behind other Eastern European countries like Czechs, Hungary, Russia when it comes to quality game production.

My point is that they probably have their own shitty budget games apart from the better ones. You probably just need to dig a bit, same as is the case with City Interactive for someone who's not a Pole. You just don't notice them normally.

Speaking of Earth 2150. Is it just me or is unit production painfully slow? I could never get used to that.

 

[commie]

This is why Poland is FAR behind other Eastern European countries like Czechs, Hungary, Russia when it comes to quality game production.

My point is that they probably have their own shitty budget games apart from the better ones. You probably just need to dig a bit, same as is the case with City Interactive for someone who's not a Pole. You just don't notice them normally.

Speaking of Earth 2150. Is it just me or is unit production painfully slow? I could never get used to that.

Well the unit production was only slow in Earth 2150 if you made uber units. That was the tradeoff apart from the cost and the unit cap based on value which really made you try and preserve your best units, save funds for the starship and limit research to what you thought you needed. This made it unparalleled in depth for an RTS back in 1999 and even now. It is slow even so compared to C & C in production but that never bothered me. Apples and Oranges I guess. I like both kinds depending on the mood.

I'm sure Hungary and the Czechs and Ukrainians(forgot them earlier) have many crap games too, but my point was that in quality renowned games, Poland really lags compared to these countries.

 

[cutterjohn]

Is it just that 1C has no sense of taste and/or decency whatsoever or is it that 99.999% of Russians suck ass at developing video games?

It's both, really. Elemental Games (later Katauri Interactive) have nothing but respect from me for their Space Rangers 1&2, but nothing else comes to mind, right now (Cryostasis, Pathologic and The Void are ukrainian, IIRC). Can't say anything overly positive about Star Wolves series, either - I've found Nexus to be parsecs better in everything but the pseudo-sandbox and the level-up schtick. But eh, that kind of games is rare, so can't be too picky, I guess.

I mainly meant this from a translation, technical implementation standpoint and not so much as being a completely "good" game.

I kind of like Star Wolves, or at least now that they moved beyond the simplistic system of SW1 where you just picked missions to dump you in a sector, i.e. I like the sandboxiness, but they missed a whole lot of things that could really have made the game better. The sectors feel mostly dead as it is now, but I still have fun with it and it does appear to emminently moddable although I'm unsure how much that you can add. (Alot of the mechanics and such are scripted in lua...)

You forgot GSC & Stalker, IL-42, HoMM(even though it was done for a NA publisher), and again Disciples 3(Strategy First -- not out yet but it looks passable and sounds it from previews). Probably one or two more that I missed as well(Etherlords, Evil Island), but you get the idea, Russians like their shotgun approach to games development apparently, while Poles are happy to snipe, and the rest of E. Europe is a hodgepodge of mediocrity.

And, actually just because a game is a budget title doesn't mean that it's got to be utter shit. Drakensang anyone? That was certainly pretty much a budget title and it was WAY better than I expected it to be.

 

[Hamster]

but you get the idea, Russians like their shotgun approach to games development apparently

Hmm, this is like that thing we were discussing when i called skyway out for bitching about SC2 pricing. I believe that one of the main factors defining russian game market is high purchasing power of russian gamers. Hardware here cost higher than in the West and games cost 5 times less. Because of that average russian gamer cares less about his 350 roubles than average american gamer about his 50$, that makes selling unpolished or even outright crap games much easier.

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

You forgot GSC & Stalker, IL-42, HoMM(even though it was done for a NA publisher), and again Disciples 3(Strategy First -- not out yet but it looks passable and sounds it from previews). Probably one or two more that I missed as well(Etherlords, Evil Island), but you get the idea, Russians like their shotgun approach to games development apparently, while Poles are happy to snipe, and the rest of E. Europe is a hodgepodge of mediocrity.

Well, Stalker is ukrainian and HoMM5/Disciples3 kinda make my rage glands swell up, to be honest - as they're more of a cartoonish newshit raepage of their respective titles than true continuations of the series. Even KB:TL wasn't as mediocre, despite the horribly juvenile writing and repetative battles.
Ooh, but yeah, I've forgotten about Etherlords and Rage of Mages - those were nice. I've never gotten around to play Evil Islands, for some reason, but it was also generally well-liked, that's true.
There's also the recent Majesty 2, though I've never played the original and couldn't get into the sequel, which is probably just due to my falling out of gaming.
All in all, can't say the shit-to-gem ratio's very good around here, and the ex-USSR market has always been and will be, for years to come, the priority for the publishers - hence, the shitty translations.

Edit: Oh, hey, Pathologic and The Void were actually made by the same russian studio, Ice-Pick Lodge. Things might not be as grim as I'd thought.

 

[Turjan]

I've never gotten around to play Evil Islands, for some reason, but it was also generally well-liked, that's true.

Although I quite liked that game in the beginning, it was really hard even on the lowest difficulty setting. Many people like that, but I don't.

 

[cutterjohn]

Again, I'm referring to general overall presentation/translation/bugginess and not whether the damned game was even good or not. First things first after all.

I'm also not getting into this Ukrainian v. Russian thing, after all SR1 & 2 should technicaly be Russian since that was where it was developed even though apparently the ENTIRE dev team was Ukrainian then split with the parent company, moved to Ukraine and became Katauri...

Once they get their shit together, we can start taking them to task about having non-fun games v. shittily translated and buggy games.

Anyways, back to the fucking topic you cretins, Star Wolves 3! Go hijack someone else's thread ffs!

[EDIT]
Since I was asked to compare it with SW1, I think that I'll be taking a break from SW3 for a while to play SW1 a little more and make sure I get in all the features of that game to better compare with SW3 as I don't recall much about SW1 since it's been so many years since I last played it seriously or even finished it.

If I knew where my SW2 disk was, I'd also give that a shot for a while to compare the entire series, but that disk seems to have gone missing at some point in the last year or so...
[/EDIT]

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

Again, I'm referring to general overall presentation/translation/bugginess and not whether the damned game was even good or not. First things first after all.

Once they get their shit together, we can start taking them to task about having non-fun games v. shittily translated and buggy games.

There doesn't seem to be much difference in polish between Russian and other countries' projects. The only problem is translation, and I've already mentioned why - publishers don't really care about the global market, since they either don't believe Russian projects can be profitable there or can't afford the marketing they believe necessary to make them profitable. Case in point: HoMM5 was published by Ubisoft outside ex-USSR and sold like pancakes (well, the title is western, but that's beside the point), while being a Russian project with polish and as few bugs you'd find in a Western AAA title. Bottom line: Russian publishers suck, and I don't see them getting their shit together anytime soon.

I'm also not getting into this Ukrainian v. Russian thing, after all SR1 & 2 should technicaly be Russian since that was where it was developed even though apparently the ENTIRE dev team was Ukrainian then split with the parent company, moved to Ukraine and became Katauri...

Eh? All Russian. KI's composed of the team behind SR1&2, both companies were based in Vladivostok (1999 EG, 2004 KI), then KI moved to Kaliningrad in 2008.

Anyway, back on topic: there were also Silent Storm, Soldiers/Faces of War, Outcry, Age of Pirates and Fantasy Wars (if one's into that sort of thing), though AoP's definitely been plagued by a shitton of bugs, at first (got it under control in AoP2, and that's probably the one most worth playing).

 

[cutterjohn]

Again, I'm referring to general overall presentation/translation/bugginess and not whether the damned game was even good or not. First things first after all.

Once they get their shit together, we can start taking them to task about having non-fun games v. shittily translated and buggy games.

There doesn't seem to be much difference in polish between Russian and other countries' projects. The only problem is translation, and I've already mentioned why - publishers don't really care about the global market, since they either don't believe Russian projects can be profitable there or can't afford the marketing they believe necessary to make them profitable. Case in point: HoMM5 was published by Ubisoft outside ex-USSR and sold like pancakes (well, the title is western, but that's beside the point), while being a Russian project with polish and as few bugs you'd find in a Western AAA title. Bottom line: Russian publishers suck, and I don't see them getting their shit together anytime soon.

I'm also not getting into this Ukrainian v. Russian thing, after all SR1 & 2 should technicaly be Russian since that was where it was developed even though apparently the ENTIRE dev team was Ukrainian then split with the parent company, moved to Ukraine and became Katauri...

Eh? All Russian. KI's composed of the team behind SR1&2, both companies were based in Vladivostok (1999 EG, 2004 KI), then KI moved to Kaliningrad in 2008.

Anyway, back on topic: there were also Silent Storm, Soldiers/Faces of War, Outcry, Age of Pirates and Fantasy Wars (if one's into that sort of thing), though AoP's definitely been plagued by a shitton of bugs, at first (got it under control in AoP2, and that's probably the one most worth playing).

Forgot about Silent Storm, and there were two other games that used the engine, the last one was the first XYZ Watch game...(can't remember if it was Day or Night...)

I had their last AoP game and liked it, but I got pissed off with their bugs in City of Lost Ships and their gross delay in releasing in NA. (Forgot about these too...)

As to katauri, AFAIK from what I've read somewhere on an SR forum is that the devs were mostly(all?) Ukrainians. Might've been wrong, but it's another game where it's almost impossible to find info on beyond the 1c forum and the dead elemental forums. Using machine translation on the Russian forums isn't generally helpful, or so I've found...

Sad how many of their "good" are plagued either by a fuckton of bugs and/or shitty translations. IMO AFtD is so poorly translated that they'd've been better off feeding the text through machine translation...

As to releasing outside of their home publising area: WTF?! Almost every publisher expects to publish in NA and make most of their cash there...

anyways, no further game(Star Wolves) progress ATM, as I was detained by other activities yesterday...

 

[cutterjohn]

Is Planet Alcatraz worth it for $5 from Gamersgate?

Just asking since I'm suffering through absolute shit translation and bugs with "A Farewell to Dragons"...

 

[Fowyr]

Sad how many of their "good" are plagued either by a fuckton of bugs and/or shitty translations. IMO AFtD is so poorly translated that they'd've been better off feeding the text through machine translation...

I saw machine translated western games for years. Usually you may find english version, but sometimes not. Thanks to torrents I saved from this shit.
Learn Russian
Furthermore, I think 1C must be destroyed.

 

[cutterjohn]

Sad how many of their "good" are plagued either by a fuckton of bugs and/or shitty translations. IMO AFtD is so poorly translated that they'd've been better off feeding the text through machine translation...

I saw machine translated western games for years. Usually you may find english version, but sometimes not. Thanks to torrents I saved from this shit.
Learn Russian
Furthermore, I think 1C must be destroyed.

I'd learn Russian IF I had motivation like a really hot Russian chick, otherwise it's not worth the bother.

So, I managed to spend a few "quality" hours with SW1 today, and am finding it MUCH "easier" than SW3.

I haven't played SW1 for YEARS, but can't help but thinking that I'm still on training wheels as far as SW1 goes. (Finished Red Corsair mission, then stalling on the humanitarian aid mission and/or smuggling either one doesn't pay anywhere close to the Red Corsair mission(50k v. 10k or 2.5k ...)

"home" base equipment sucks, and the best that I've gotten so far was the "special" corsair fighter itself int he course of the "Red Corsair" "mission".

(equipment is VERY different between the games, as SW3 is giving more, but that leads to... [see below])

(I don't recall any of this at all, but I guess that's not very surprising given that it's so damned pedestrian...)

OTOH SW3 missions are annoying as in my mothership even with good augmented shields(courtesy of a pirate drop w/current game boosting) yet pirates still chew through shields likd even less than nothing from prior games(given my re-newed SW1 exp). Experience also seemsto have been "freer" in earlier games as well as the effectiveness of crappy equipment, e.g. generation 1 fighters.

OTOH both of my guys in SW1 seem to be gunners focused while in SW3 I had a choice of what to focus in and chose piloting, expecting it to really give the overall "best" benefits, which doesn't seem to be the case.

Back to slogging onwards...

BTW: ALL 1C games are discounted(most 75%) this week @ gamersgate.com
so... chances are if you liked SW1 you'll like SW3(and 2) as almost all of the game mechanics are identical...

Now backagain offtopic to translation: well, if you're going to attempt to selll me a game at least try to tranlsate it well, i.e. I'll not be buying on Planet Alcatraz as the translation(hearsay) is at least as bad, or worse than AFtD...

[EDIT]
... so if you have a thick skin wrt translation and bugs, Planet Alcatraz and A Farewell to Dragons...

...and if you liked or even had passing fun with SW1, SW3 is a bargain @ c. $3.50(or whatever it is..) AFAIC...
[/EDIT]

 

[cutterjohn]

Another interesting rhing wrt SW1 that I just stumbled across is that the data.dat file is actually a zip archive containing all of the scripts and other stuff. (From a FAQ at gamefaqs... just went to see if there was any better info of weapons and things and saw a FAQ about editing, and bingo...)

Apparently for SW3 they just elected to not bother using an archive leaving it intact as a directory structure in the file system.

 

[cutterjohn]

...and I haven't played it since around the last post, if you're interested... got BORED... nice idea... poorly executed and dead "feeling" game world...

[EDIT]
nor have I played any more of "A Farewell to Dragons" as the translation is just so godawful shit that... well... it's so shit I really don't know what to say...
[/EDIT]