An open development call to the SE4 community

Urendi Maleldil · #1 January 22nd, 2009, 01:58 AM

I have been playing games in the Space Empires series since Space Empires 2 in the mid-90s, and I have loved every minute of it. But I believe the demise of the fan-made Play-By-Web service for Space Empires 4 signals the absolute end for the series, and it has brought me to a decision.

The end of SE4 is sad, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. SE4 is a very old game. It's a shame SE5 never lived up to it.

Unless Strategy First releases the source code (they bought the franchise from Aaron a few years back), I don't think we'll see another Space Empires game of that standard.

That doesn't mean there can't be another one like it though.

The market for games with simple graphics that run on low-powered platforms like mobile phones and netbooks is booming. We can only hope that it prompts a developer to revisit the space strategy genre with something like SE4. I know I'd buy it.

I'm not a developer myself - I'm a writer and designer - but if any of you who can program wants to collaborate on a commercial-quality 4X space strategy project in the vein of good old SE4 (RIP), I'm willing to organize it.

Send me an email

If enough people are interested, a Skype conference will follow.

Combat Wombat · #2 January 22nd, 2009, 03:14 AM

I think you should get on #spaceempires one day soon and talk to SuicideJunkie about EH

Black_Knyght · #3 January 23rd, 2009, 03:39 PM

I'll offer up whatever aid and support I can !

Gandalf Parker · #4 January 23rd, 2009, 05:58 PM

You could always open a project on SourgeForge.net and ask for programmers, artists, sound people, etc. Then when it gets to a working apha we could talk to Shrapnel about marketing it.

Ed Kolis · #5 January 23rd, 2009, 06:20 PM

Don't Sourceforge projects have to be, like, open-source??? :P

Gandalf Parker · #6 January 23rd, 2009, 06:24 PM

yes, but open source doesnt mean it cant be sold

Many of them are.

Ed Kolis · #7 January 26th, 2009, 05:13 PM

Who would buy it, though, if the source were freely available? It's not like it would be some monstrous enterprise application that requires thousands of man-hours of paid technical support every year just to keep it running

Gandalf Parker · #8 January 26th, 2009, 05:39 PM

Well some of them hold off things like the UI to add that to the commercial version.

But even without that; CDs of public domain images sell, CDs of Linux sell, CDs of add-ons and mod collections for games sell. It might not sell enough to retire one but it doesnt mean it cant be marketed for some profit. (I still think that a well collected CD of SEIV mods with some installation help on it would sell)

Azselendor · #9 February 1st, 2009, 10:57 AM

SE could badly use a feature rich mod-management tool. Something where one can add mods (either from the disk of a centralized database on the web to download from), create mod packages for others, sharing, and delete. Maybe even a basic modification too with revision control.

As for death throws of the game, SE4 lasted almost 10 years. From release in 11/2000 to now! That's monumental. SE3 was released in 97 and the community for it was dead by 2001.

I don't know what SE5's sales figures were like, but I remember when SE4 was in shrapnel's care it made a lot of money for them because sales figures were once posted here. That will decide if aaron makes another space empires game or if Strategy First passes the franchise to another company or it just dies.

If the fans want to see a superior SE product in the future, they need to get loud now an start saying what they want, throwing ideas around in the community, and drafting up concept art to illustrate it. That way Aaron can see and wrap his mind around what the fans are looking for.

And lets face it, he has a loyal customer base from the SE series. He should exploit that.

Alikiwi · #10 February 1st, 2009, 04:55 PM

Well, I know of one brillant guy who has some artwork that is just magical, and its going to come out in a new mod for SE IV. In fact it will look much smarter.

As for throwing around ideas, I note this site hasn't had any in 2 years roughly, but they do get thrown around in SE.net still to this day.

Do we want an SE 6? Well of-course we do. Are there plenty of ideas? Yes there is. Possible problem is that SE V just wasn't that good, these things happen. However, if one took the best of both worlds, added new ideas, like oh say floating w/p that goes to one system, but next time to another, well you get the idea.

I suppose the real question is, does Aaron see it making money! Yer I know, I'm swearing again, but I certainly hope he does. Still, the next question is why hasn't he or Shrapnel started looking at this? I don't hear any sounds of it happening. Therefore it could well be up to US to get the ball rolling.

Perhaps someone should throw some really great pics at Aaron (softly) to inspire him