SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[Raging Deadstar]

Imperator Fyron said:Why would there be no demo? This is not some faceless corporation here... Aaron has no choice but to cater to the fans, or he won't make many sales...

Malfador could very well be a faceless corporation depending on if Aaron managed to get to his wife and avoid the pot roast in time

Personally I Think the 3d Thing will be cool, but from the rumours and answers malfador gave us from the chat sessions.... I think we can safely say this game will surpass SE4. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

[Asmala]

Imperator Fyron said:
For one thing, the diplomacy model will be greatly improved. No more rigid treaty types; we will be able to specify the exact nature of all agreements, down to what is traded, whether you can cross borders, etc.

Yeah the improvements will be great. Hopefully there will be also inbox and outbox to Messages sent between empires.

[dogscoff]

We should go back through this thread and tick off all the requested freatures that aaron said will be in se5.

Population migration, variable planetary population limits, mixed racial bonuses... I'm so happy.

[Hakar]

Here's my 2 research points:

*Research not simply being a matter of 'accumulate point until you have enough to gain a tech, then repeat', but having an upkeep and storage space for technologies.
Technology could be 'stored' in research centers, and should you loose 'storage space' trough war, you would start losing tech. As a result, a great war could, in essence, bLast one or more participants back to the stone age. (or at least the nuclear age)
The upkeep in tech would also have an effect on this, and it would force players to expand or spend time on researching ways of storing more tech.
If you lose a tech, you would no longer be able to build ships using it, nor would you be able to repair certain components.

*Derelict alien vessels, which you could tow back to a planet for analysis or refitting. One Precursor (to steala Star Control term) vessel could just tip the scale of war in your favor. Off course, if certain parts of the ship were damaged, you'd have to replace them with inferior native technology.

*Far more mods for weapons, and other components too.
Including Point Defence (allows it to shoot at units/seekers), Heavy (bigger but heavier), Light (lighter but weaker), Long-range (longer range, but heavier), Short-range (lighter but shorter range), Cheap (cheaper but heavier, Expensive (lighter but more expensive), etc.

*Specific arcs for weapons and shields.

*Limited turning capabilities for ships in combat. The bigger the ship, the worse it turns.
Have components that make ships more agile.

*Have racial traits that cause races to use more Living Quarters and/or Life Support on ships.

*Allow empires to establish formal borders between them.

*More than one dimension. Let empires research certain technoligies to be able to create gates between them, or let them find natural gates that might appear and/or disappear at random.

*Massive siege weapons that allow shots from one or more sectors apart. Imagine having a few of those on a planet and being able to fire at an approaching fleet.

*Colonies producing and requiring a certain amount of food per turn.

*The ability to move planets, suns, or even solar systems.

*Multiple victory conditions, such as an economic victory, diplomatic victory, intelligence victory (install a puppet ruler in every other empire), leaving the galaxy trough some huge gate (*cough*Ring*cough*), or discovering some big Secret of the Universe.

[Kana]

I'm sure someone has brought this up already...but I was going through SJ's Modding FAQ, and I was looking through the Abilities section. There are a few things in there that were not implemented in SE4. I do hope they are in SE5 at least for modding sake.

One of which that stuck out in my mind is the Palace ability. This would be a great ability to assign to say a Empire capital. If captured or destroyed, many things could happen from and out right loss of the game to, maybe just having to relocate, and getting a big hit in moral, and economics and such...

Kana

[brianeyci]

Antonin said:

I don't see how focusing any programming energy on 3D graphics will make a better game.

I never said it would make it a better game heh heh, its just one of my "wishes" like having someone do my laundry for me. I haven't tried starfury yet, but somehow I'm doubtful it can compete with the likes of the Doom 3 engine or Unreal 2k4 engine... so selling the game on its graphical merits would be a stupid idea. Don't overdo the "3D" promotion when ur selling it, or you'll be a laughing stock lol and it will turn off the die hard SE:IV fans (like Antonin =)

I think though there can be strategy in 3D... 3D combat introduces a whole new dimension. Also being able to customize the look of your race "in the game" without being a modder has some appealing aspects, roleplaying and such. Imagine rather than requiring a graphics artist to draw your shipset, you could customize the look of your ships "in the game".

I dunno if anybody has mentioned this, but there should be improvements to the music. Hell, forget 3D. If SE:V was exactly SE:IV but with an incredible soundtrack, I would get it just for that. Do the music and sound effects right this time. Having audio for the built-in races and maybe 20-30 voice sets for people to choose when building their empire would be awesome too... I liked Dues Ex not because its graphics were cutting edge, but because I loved its music =)

Also the RPG elements. I wonder if adding in more native RPG elements would be a possibility... for example, designing your leader, along the lines of Antonin's "governor" idea, but being able to design a leader archetype for your race... maybe the leader gains "experience" as he makes good decisions, and dies off after a certain number of turns, leaving his progeny with a percenatge of his predessor's experience al la Romance of the Three Kingdoms... when the leader dies, there could be a short period where another empire could take advantage of it. The diplomacy model of Romance of the Three Kingdoms was one of the most fun things about it.

Culture should have more effect than just percentage modifiers on building and research and the like, it should actually affect your diplomatic interactions with other races. Combining RPG elements such as leaders, artifacts, actual diplomacy/spies may be too much detail, but who complains about more detail in a kind of game like this. Hell, I wouldn't even object to ships' captains, we have fleet experience already why not have an actual "military" screen where you can promote/appoint governors/admirals/captains and the such.

Anyway maybe I'm from a different generation. But the most important thing to me is having the races come "alive" somehow, and the game come "alive". The atmosphere of the game is generally lacking. I don't know how to put it into words. Bad music + dated graphics are possibly the only turn-offs from reaching a wider audience. You underestimate today's gamers if you believe the detail of SE:IV turns them off. Gamers today play incredibly complex games with complex "tech-trees" and complex strategies. If there was a better implementation al la better graphics, or more accurately "atmosphere", I'm sure SE:V will have more sales. Get a freaking good composer to do the music, pay him whatever you have to. People will buy the game just for the soundtrack

There are some who will stick to their eye-candy, and there will always be some who stick to their strategy. But I don't believe these concepts have to be mutually exclusive (as I said before lol), and can complement each other. So called Eye-Candy can add to strategy, and certain strategies can be eye-candy. etc.

Brian

[Antonin]

Imperator Fyron said:
SE5 will have a lot more improvement than just 3d graphics... For one thing, the diplomacy model will be greatly improved. No more rigid treaty types; we will be able to specify the exact nature of all agreements, down to what is traded, whether you can cross borders, etc. Read the chat session logs with Aaron Hall about SE5 to see a small glimpse at such new features...

Who will be playtesting the game? Is there going to be some kind of selection process in this forum, or will the playtesters just be "insiders"?

I will admit that I am skeptical about what type of game SE5 will be (sorry, I have not read the chat logs yet). It would be nice if some people who are not insiders can take part in the playtesting process. I can't even remotely call myself an insider, but I did help Atrocities develop a race...

[Ed Kolis]

A few players will be insiders, a few will be selected from the Race to SE5 tournament, and the rest will be chosen by lottery, Last I heard.

[Fyron]

Yeah. Aaron likes to bring in lots of fresh blood for each new game...

Kana said:
I'm sure someone has brought this up already...but I was going through SJ's Modding FAQ, and I was looking through the Abilities section.

SJ has a Modding FAQ? Hmm... I like that smiley.

Gamers today play incredibly complex games with complex "tech-trees" and complex strategies.

Such as? Please name one modern non-niche game that can even approach the complexity of a game like SE4.

[brianeyci]

Imperator Fyron said:
Please name one modern non-niche game that can even approach the complexity of a game like SE4.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/...ri/review.html

Enough said lol. Anyway SE:IV isn't niche, at least not in my opinion. And its not the complexity that makes SE:IV shine I think, its the way they organized it, especially the tech tree... and the customizability. No, no other game can compare to SE:IV. But its in a league of its own, so oh well lol.

And FPS do require a different kind of skill... timing is everything. Rather than having as much time as you would like to decide whether to run towards the guy who is throwing the grenade at you, you have a few seconds to make that simple decision. RTS too, a different kind of skill.

About SE:IV... I dunno why people have mentioned turns taking hours. So far I'm taking only a few minutes per turn... simple as checking that my research hasn't run out, designing a couple new ships, and going through my fleet/planet screens to make sure all my ships have orders and all my colony ships are moving... I wonder if joining five games will eat into my time later and it will take five hours for all five turns lol... anyway, I've made most of my "strategies" in my head in my "spare" eg when I'm supposed to be studying or concentrating on frying chicken spare time lol... (don't know if you can call them "strategies", but I was pretty proud when I figured out you could put a planetary napalm on a colony ship and surprise people lol)Anyway the past paragraph was OT so ignore =)

Anyway I think I mentioned in my previous Posts that SE:IV was in a league of its own. What is really appealing is the Theoretical/Applied research aspect. The unique and rich tech tree is what makes SE:IV shine I think, and that kind of mentality should be carried on to SE:V.

There was a post before about different mounts. I totally agree. Weapons should have more differences than rate of fire, damage and range... they should be truly unique and apart from each other. The post a few pages back about different kind of mounts... long range/short range/extended range/high cost/high damage really made sense to me. Perhaps there could be a certain rock/papers/sissors element to weapons... certain weapons better against certain armors.