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Messages - Retropunch

Pages: 1 ... 128 129 [130] 131 132 ... 170
1936
Other Games / Re: Spacebase DF-9 (by DoubleFine)
« on: September 22, 2014, 11:45:22 am »
Early access just keeps getting worse. I really wish Steam had better policies for what is allowed to be early access and what isn't.

In my mind, it should be only open to betas (in the sense that it's feature complete but still with a lot of balance issues/bugs) and not a glorified demo with big promises. I do feel that this will change in time as people keep on getting disappointed, but it might take some time.



1937
Other Games / Re: Ultima Ratio Regum - roguelike/Borges/Eco, v0.5 released!
« on: September 22, 2014, 11:37:14 am »
Quote from: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 22, 2014, 04:28:52 am
Eeeexcellent. I do intend to have two levels for each religious building, a "small" type like shown here that might also appear in towns, in other districts etc, and then a "large" version that each religion will only have one of, that will be its main religious hub (like the vatican) that can be found generally in city centres. With modular design as you say it wouldn't be that hard, should only be a day's work to create the larger versions of each tile. Religions for hunter-gatherer civs won't have anything vatican-esque, only these religions that show up in feudal civilizations, but I think all of them should have a religious 'hub' building somewhere. I'm currently in the process of figuring out how city centres are going to generate, and I think I have a good idea for the method that could include (or not) religious hubs whether or not one needs to spawn in that nation. For theocratic nations that religious building would also be the seat of government/rule.

Bow to me, the lord of feature creep!!

I think that sounds great, I really like the idea of a few levels - I feel the more the better (or 3-4) would be good, but obviously a line needs to be drawn. Perhaps very small shrines could also spawn in villages?
Perhaps hunter-gatherer civs would be more inclined to have a 'sacred ground' which could be a natural landscape feature (like a big rock) or something like a ziggurat? Perhaps others would have an elders hut/circle/area, or to a sacrificial place - which may or may not be in the settlement itself. It'd be incredible to see villagers going on a sort of mini-pilgrimage (I think there's a proper Anthropological word for that) to the village elders or their spiritual place.

This could also lead to some interesting game play interactions where the player would need to respect (or horribly defile) their sacred areas/elders/whatever.

1938
Other Games / Re: Wasteland 2!
« on: September 22, 2014, 11:29:12 am »
Quote from: Mictlantecuhtli on September 22, 2014, 10:39:46 am
I'm sorry to say umiman's 'review' isn't much of a review. It's a great game. If you actually have about 5 seconds to look at the UI you might actually have fun playing it. The game is nearly bug free, the combat is solid, the plot is good and quite long. Anyone saying this isn't a solid game is horribly wrong.

Seriously. Three paragraphs whining about left click right click. That's like calling a review of DF that only rages about the UI a review. While it ignores the rest of the game itself.

I'd also like to mention if you've ever played squad based turn based strategy in the last ten years, Wasteland 2 is a very streamlined and easy to play version of it. Go ahead. Play Wasteland 2 and tell me it isn't much easier and fun to play then a new JA, the 7.62 games, any tactical squad based game.. It's unfortunate that the squad-based top-down genre consists of shitty UI, but Wasteland 2 has streamlined this system. And if two mouse clicks changing in functionality that is highlighted on the screen due to it being context based is enough to ruin a game for you.. well... Sorry.

Anyone who says this isn't a solid well made *modern* cRPG is just objectively wrong. I've already sunk 12 hours into it and I don't think I'm halfway done.

The whole thing about UI is, its supposed to be intuitive and if it's difficult/clumsy it can and will mar the experience for a lot of people. That's PRECISELY what happens in at least 50% of all DF reviews, because it's the biggest problem for them. This is amplified for users that perhaps aren't quite as used to tricky/tactical game UIs.

Now Umiman did also point out some things he really liked, and the fact that he just pointed out the UI as a bad thing shows that there weren't any other huge flaws. Basically, his review was 'If UI is something you struggle with/annoys you a lot, you'll find this a bit hard going, but other wise it's great' - which I think is a pretty good review.

1939
Other Games / Re: Distant Worlds (4x RTS)
« on: September 21, 2014, 03:28:28 pm »
Quote from: EnigmaticHat on September 21, 2014, 03:04:11 pm
I view this game as a sort of Mediterranean trading empire in space simulation.  Its not really about the war, its about expanding your influence and defending your trade.  That's why its too bad the diplomacy options are so thin, it really needs a Vicky style system for powerful civs to compete for influence over weak civs.
I completely agree. If Distant worlds had a really good diplomacy/soft power system then it'd be amazing. A lot of the time it feels as though you're just being pushed into war because it's the only way to assert your influence, and the AI is so broken for even normal diplomacy (endlessly switching on and off embargoes and so on) that I normally just turn into a warmonger out of sheer annoyance.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the two 4x games on our forum (Imperia and Galaxia) tackle diplomacy, and I really hope they can do it in a much better way than 'give gift/war/peace'

1940
Other Games / Re: Distant Worlds (4x RTS)
« on: September 21, 2014, 02:51:29 pm »
Quote from: EnigmaticHat on September 21, 2014, 01:48:59 pm
As for playing with pirates if you don't have them the game changes dramatically because you don't need defensive fleets or stations.  The only truly threatening space fauna, except maybe extremely early game, are the nanite clouds and those are incapable of leaving their system.  So as long as you have a strong enough fleet to discourage war, and don't actively piss anyone off you basically don't need to worry about defense.  If you do have pirates on the game is about measuring your expansion rate versus your ability to defend all your various planets and mining operations.  Without pirates I imagine its more about explosive expansion and grabbing every resource and planet available Galactic Civs style.

This is actually a very interesting point, and it actually shows how good it is to have the strong pirates of Distant worlds. I *HATE* the colonization grabbing game in 4x games. It just feels so forced and silly somehow and Pirates stop that becoming an issue.
However, I do wish that the pirates would be a little bit more sensible/not expand quite so much. Even with low settings you can easily end up with 20 or so pirate factions which become incredibly hard to keep track of, especially as they back track on protection agreements constantly.

1941
Other Games / Re: Battleship Commander
« on: September 21, 2014, 02:45:20 pm »
I'm really enjoying it so far. A few things though, firstly I think it would be a good idea to have the ship already equipped with basic weapons already set up. You can always strip it if you want, and it'd really help in the testing phase to be able to just start instantly.

Secondly, do you need any music/atmospheric background noise? It can get a bit quiet, and I'd be more than happy to do you some background music (for free of course). This is some of the work I did for a game (which unfortunately never came out) a while back: https://soundcloud.com/undercult/level3/s-t26lr

While I couldn't do an entire score, I could do some light background ambience to help it feel a bit less quiet if you'd like.

1942
Other Games / Re: Ultima Ratio Regum - roguelike/Borges/Eco, v0.5 released!
« on: September 21, 2014, 02:08:01 pm »
As always, phenomenal.

One thing I'd really, really like to see in this though is a number of different 'levels' of religious buildings and a central ruling place for the religion. For instance, church->city cathedral->central cathedral.
I know this is a lot of extra work, but with a modular design I could imagine that it might not be too difficult. This would allow you to have more options via policy, and also allow for a rather interesting 'gradient' effect, where as you get closer to the central ruling position of the religions, their buildings could grow larger. Similarly, smaller religions may never have anything above small temples.

I can well imagine that this might cause problems in recognizability however, so you'd need to do some careful work to get around that, but I think it'd be very worth while.

1943
Other Games / Re: Wasteland 2!
« on: September 21, 2014, 01:56:12 pm »
Just wondering if anyone knows how/if this plays on low-end systems? I've got a pretty terrible laptop (which is below the min. required specs) but I can usually force through any not-too-graphically intensive game which doesn't need a steady frame rate. Any thoughts?

1944
Other Games / Re: Sub Commander: Roguelike Submarine Simulator
« on: September 20, 2014, 10:21:30 pm »
Quote from: TheGeoff on September 20, 2014, 07:20:40 pm
Yeah, Google Chrome autoblocks basically any .exe hosted on dropbox now saying it it 'malicious'. Why they can't say "This file may be malicious, do you want to continue?" is beyond me, it's a real pain and basically means I'll have to make my own website and host the file there.

Thanks! I've never played Artemis Bridge Simulator but I came across some videos of it when I was doing some research for Sub Commander, it looks awesome! Definitely has the kind of atmosphere I'll be aiming for with the new project.

There's a couple of differences which will hopefully avoid the potential problem of people being stuck with a boring job. The main one is that the game will be played like an FPS - you can move around the sub to wherever you want, so for example the guy in charge of the reactor can come help out the guy monitoring the radar and sonar if necessary. Battling fires, repairing the reactor etc will all require several crew working together, so there should be plenty to do even if your station is pretty quiet. The other thing I think is important is an option to fill player slots with AI crewmen (who can be given orders), so any unwanted jobs can basically be automated - this should allow for small groups to play effectively, or even for the game to be played solo. Still figuring out how everything will work but that's the basic idea. Thanks for the offer, when the game is closer to completion I'll almost certainly be asking some Artemis players for feedback!

That's really annoying, I hope you manage to get the website sorted without too much trouble!

I think there's a careful line which needs to be walked with automation and boring stations. I think there needs to be enough engagement so that those that are on 'boring' stations don't have to wander around a lot just to feel useful, but you don't want it to turn into a sort of submarine shooter game. I'd suggest merging or automating most things and just having command, steering, weapons, engineering and comms(which might incorporate sonar/radar) as the main stations, whilst any other features are done by AI crewmen. Perhaps some of the AI functions could be taken over by player characters if and when needed, to allow for more players to play together/have better control.

Really, I just feel that Artemis has shown me that although 'realism' is great in these games, the game play over realism scale weighs heavily (really heavily) in favour of game play in co-op multiplayer.

1945
Other Games / Re: Sub Commander: Roguelike Submarine Simulator
« on: September 20, 2014, 12:26:11 pm »
This looks fantastic!!!
Not had a chance to play it yet, just thought I'd quickly say that Google chrome is blocking the download!

Edit: HOLY HELL! Your new project sounds amazing! Have you played 'Artemis:Bridge Simulator'? It's a similar idea but in space. I'm a huge fan (and it's very popular in extremely geeky circles) due to it being one of the few multiplayer games which is actually cooperative rather than just sort of 'shooting the same bad guys'. Worth a look at to learn from it's successes/mistakes.

One major thing is that it's one of the few instances where realism definitely needs to be sacrificed for game play. Artemis has a bit of a problem with some 'stations' being pretty boring - because as important as they are, they're just not that exciting to play as. Now on a sub, that problem is going to be amplified, as there's less lasers and more checking. No one is going to want to be in charge of being sat checking the air mix - no matter how important it is.

I'd suggest you either get around this via making it slightly 'futuristic' with a lot of things automated, or having each player character assigned to be the officer for a department (engineering, weapons, and so on) - however the second option might feel not 'hands on' enough for some people. 5 people is definitely the sweet spot for number of players, although it's always good if it can be scaled up (so if you've only got two friends, everything will still work).

If you'd like some more in depth feedback as a long term player of Artemis, do let me know.

1946
Other Games / Re: Veins of the Earth BETA 6 is here! - feedback needed
« on: September 19, 2014, 12:08:13 pm »
Quote from: Zireael on September 19, 2014, 05:09:58 am
I've fleshed out the User Guide part of the wiki: http://veins-of-the-earth.wikidot.com/help:_home

How do you like the character builds? Players have oft requested a 'default' button for character creation, so there's five builds to pick from. Which one do you want as default? Probably not the drow :P, but which one of the four appeals to you the most?

Fighters are always the 'standard' so I'd go for that. Ideally, it's probably best to do one for each 'style' - Fighter, Caster, Rogue eventually.
I think the key to beginner guides is that EVERYTHING needs to be explained, even if it's a little bit obvious. Once the wiki becomes fleshed out with all the listed skills and things, stuff can be linked to, but until then I think it's important that you explain stuff thoroughly.

I wish I had time to contribute, and I will do when I do get time, but until then - keep up the good work!

1947
Other Games / Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« on: September 19, 2014, 11:55:03 am »
Spider is hellish, especially for a caster as stuff can get to you quickly. I wouldn't bother with it unless you really want to go for all the runes.

I'd just dip into a few. I usually do the first few levels of swamp once I've got rpois, the first few Elf once I've got deflect/repel missiles and see invisible. The first level/s of vaults are easy enough if you're very careful and lure things back to some stairs. The worst thing about that is getting sealed in a room by convokers (or is it the other one?), as for a caster that can be certain death.

I have to say, this is the point in the game where I usually use a lot of my consumables and just take my time as much as possible - it's always fine to run away!

However, as far as concrete advice, go for swamp and tank your air up. I wouldn't bother too much with staves really, you'll never really be dual classing.

1948
Other Games / Re: Ultima Ratio Regum - roguelike/Borges/Eco, v0.5 released!
« on: September 19, 2014, 11:13:22 am »
Quote from: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 19, 2014, 12:12:29 am
I have! I've seen a few videos of it on Youtube and it looks great, though the absolute purist in me is slightly annoyed by the fact they've changed a small number of the weapon animations and that kind of thing (I think Nod's artillery have been altered a bit?). Either way, when I have a bit of time I'm definitely considering giving it a look, I've always wanted to play some multiplayer on the classic C&Cs!

There are a few changes - artillery has had a bit of a buff in general, and there are a few units that I don't remember being in (although they may have been in expansion packs I don't have) but it's surprisingly well balanced. The main thing is that it stops you getting that slightly grating feeling that you get when going back to old games and have forgotten how quirky their interface/controls are.

The AI is quite competent too, slightly weak (and doesn't guard it's harvesters at all), but combats basic tactics without too much trouble.

1949
Other Games / Re: Spacebase DF-9 (by DoubleFine)
« on: September 18, 2014, 03:59:17 pm »
I do hate this kinda thing, but at least they're doing the reasonable thing and opening it to modding/source code.

Although I've not played it, I can imagine that even a basic balance mod might do wonders for it. Even relatively low content simulation games can be fun if they're well balanced (like Banished), and I imagine that someone will take up the torch at least for a little while.


1950
Other Games / Re: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND.
« on: September 18, 2014, 03:51:59 pm »
Quote from: vogonpoet on September 18, 2014, 03:42:43 pm
So currently I am looking for some DDEE of Mahkleb advice. It feels like time to start training a weapon, at least a little bit:  I have not been very lucky with books, previous failed DDEEs have had mana issues, and I have found a couple of ok weapons. I have no weapon skill, a basically irrelevant amount of sheild skill, and dont know whether to train axes, maces or polearms, although I am leaning towards maces. I really have no idea which of my weapons will be most effective at 5-10 skill (probably all I can afford right now, unless I dont find some more spells soon)?

I should also probably get Invo to what, 15 or so, if I want to use some servants without too much fear?

Anyone got any tips?

I'd train M&F up as you've got a good demon whip. With spellcasters who I want to do a bit of melee, I always wait until I find a good rand/art and then stick with that as long as they have decent enough attributes. I normally only put 5 or so levels into it until later later on. While you probably won't be using it to take down the big nasties, a DDEE can be a powerhouse of melee though due to dmg shaving, ok attributes and the Earth spells, so it's worth getting started on melee. However, if you find a good polearm they're much more useful with summons, as you can add a significant amount of extra damage whilst hiding behind a summon.

Invo needs to be around 15 yeah. Just remember that you want to be summoning BEFORE trouble! Always have a ready escape plan, and learn abjuration as soon as you can.

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