I’ll try to keep this simple.
I’ve been an RTS fan pretty much since, well, ever. So, not surprisingly, when Supreme Commander previews started appearing, I was ecstatic. It had been almost seven years since I’d bought an entire new PC, and that was the tipping point. A week after SupCom hit shelves, I was equipped with my new box to dominate (in my mind) the future of RTS.
And I bloody love that game. The campaign wasn’t exceptional, but it was good enough to keep me interested and gain enough of a grasp of the game to appreciate the genius of its design. Skipping along, I missed the Forged Alliance beta but bought it almost immediately after release as well. Where I thought Vanilla SC was genius, FA blew me away. I soon seriously jumped into online play, something I hadn’t done with an RTS since Age of Mythology. (With games like C&C generals or AoE 3, I would dabble online, but the games weren’t solid enough to make me commit to moving up the ladder).
While the FA campaign was entirely lack-lustre, the multiplayer game entrapped me for a good long while. To this date, FA is my favourite game of all time. Unfortunately, the game is to this day held up by enough irritating bugs/balance issues to throw off even someone who loves the gameplay as much as myself. Thus, due to the lack of dev feedback, these issues, and an absolute lack of patches/new content, I slowly lost interest in the game. To use a poor analogy, even your favourite meal gets old if you eat it every day without any changes. (I’ve been watching the forums lately, and things seem to be improving in regards to dev attention and player-base numbers, so I haven’t given up yet).
It was at this point that I spotted Demigod. I hadn’t known much about Stardock up to this point, but I watched the forums and such through beta 1 and saw enough of what I liked in a developer to pre-order the game and get into the second beta. I enjoyed the beta thoroughly, and was very excited for the full release. Then, of course, I was hit by Demigod’s infamous painful launch. For the record: the game is amazing, and has some of the most potential I’ve seen in a game in a long while. Also, Stardock has exceeded my every expectation that I ever had for a developer; I have more respect for them than any other company I know of as of this moment.
So, despite Demigod’s shaky release, I got some good hours of playing in, and out of my newfound respect for Stardock, I bought Sins of a Solar Empire along with the Entrenchment expansion in a pure act of support for the company, only to find that SoaSE is a brilliant game in itself. I have spent many good hours exploring the galaxies in content.
For those who know me, they may have noticed my drop in participation around the forums and such a while back, and this is true. It’s more than just a switch from FA to Demigod and SoaSE; I’ve really lowered my post counts daily and such dramatically. This killer for me was the simple two monster time consumers of life: school and work. I’ve been spending my hours either studying or working to pay for my studying, as I’m sure other science students can appreciate. This also means I’ve adopted a laptop in favour over my desktop, rendering me unable to play games like FA and Demigod anyway.
So, what am I doing lurking around if I’m too busy to play these games and don’t have a computer capable too at the moment anyway? The simple reason is I don’t want to give this community up. I’ve built up too much appreciation for GPG and Stardock to simply walk away. So, for all you guys who play/put your time into these games, thank you.
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Now, I’ll just point out a couple key things that I’d like acknowledged based on my experience with these games, and then I’ll end this:
In regards to FA:
-I don’t know if there is anything GPG can do about this, but patch is needed ASAP.
-More involvement from devs would be greatly appreciated by the community. Right now, I know a lot of people think that you guys have given up on the game.
-If that patch ever happens, even some minor continual support afterwards would be amazing.
In regards to Demigod:
-Bad launch. You guys are doing an amazing job handing it so far; I’m sure Frogboy’s posts letting the community know what’s happening has prevented your player losses more than you can imagine.
-However, even though this may be an unfair statement, you still need to step it up. To have as many problems as this game does this long after launch is a glaring problem.
-Don’t be afraid to copy what works. Meaning? Take a good look at Team Fortress 2. They are continually generating sales due to their continual release of free content along with ways to let players play the game before they buy. A similar system for Demigod could work wonders.
-Part two of the above statement is obviously DotA. There is a game that is to this day adding content and changing for free; yet people wonder why Warcraft III is still selling copies. Meaning: continue your support for this game, I’ll repeat that it has the most potential I’ve seen in at least a very long time, possibly ever.
In regards to SoaSE:
-I’m sure someone other than me has managed to put two and two together, but have you guys realized that you have a top selling game, with the vast majority of players playing single player, and yet you do not have a single player campaign? To me, this would be my #1 priority, and I would make sure it was a quality job. Don’t be afraid to sell it once you make it though, another $10 digital distribution would be best, perhaps with some other gameplay-improving features.
-Simple additions are what sometimes what matters. One thing that would really make this game special, in my opinion, would be if every solar system was unique. Having things like more types of planets, more varieties of the same type of planet (AFAIK, a there are only two bumps for volcanic planets), more planet bonuses, etc, would really enhance your random map generator in particular.
In regards to Supreme Commander 2:
-It’s much too early for me to make any accurate calls on what you guys are doing, but here’s my list:
-Don’t dumb down the economy too much. I would personally prefer you not touch it at all, but I can see how it is much too difficult for the casual gamer. However, you will lose a large portion of past players if you simply turn this into a Starcraft/C&C clone. People playing “Supreme Commander” do NOT want to simply be a “supreme tactician.”
-I love that you realized that the factions needed diversity, and did not change out to three new factions. However, don’t go too far with the art style. The UEF will lose all their appeal if their units look like toys and not the simple get-the-job-done tough they are now. Less cartoon, more grit.
-I think you may run too far with both experimentals and upgrades. Twenty-five experimental units will mean that each one does a very specific task, in order to keep them diverse. I would prefer less, more useful experimentals, but this is obviously not my call. Upgrade-wise, I saw the SC2 version of the striker suddenly become capable of defending itself against air through a simple upgrade in the recently released gameplay demo. Now, what happened to army diversification? If this upgrade is there so I don’t have to protect my ground forces with mixed-in AA units, what’s the point of having an AA tank? Ultimately, you are reducing the effectiveness of one of your other units through an upgrade. This is not the type of thinking I like to see from someone creating what is the sequel to my favourite game.
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tl;dr, short story of my gamer life pertaining to GPG and Stardock + some of my opinions on their games.
To any old friends, I’m working somewhere where even obtaining an internet connection is difficult, but hopefully with the coming school year I’ll perhaps manage to scrape enough money for one of those ever-dropping-in-price new desktops in order to get back into playing you guys in my spare time.
Pelorn
