if you could add only one more thing...

[Puzzlebox]

That falls flat, if you want the factions to be unique which I think we all do then having a faction creator isn't being very pragmatic, it is not the same as creating an eigth century power in Medieval europe. The developers time could better be spent elsewhere. Implementing a conquer the galaxy mode for instance.

[Majin Boba Fett]

Conquer the Galaxy!!! woot!

[Puzzlebox]

 

Such a feature would be wanted no matter what they called it Nitro but I won't be encouraging you not to gloat anytime soon.

[Admiral Vostok]

I've said it before but I'll say it again: a customisable civ just doesn't work for Star Wars. If you want a fully customisable civ, there are plenty of games out there that offer them. Having a customisable civ just isn't Star Warsy.

 

Having said that though, I would like something similar to what I have in my RTS design where you can use minor civs. They aren't balanced correctly, so they'd be an option like cheats you can turn on or off. This would allow all sorts of minor civs from the movies and - dare I say it - even allow Yuuzhan Vong in the game, yet the developers don't have to spend as much time designing and balancing them. Most of these units are created for the toybox or for appearances in campaigns anyway, why not allow them to be playable in MP (albeit unbalanced)?

[Majin Boba Fett]

gloat? about what?

[Nairb Notneb]

Vostok, I agree with that a customizable civ is not "Star Warsy". It's not, but there are a lot of things that must go into these games that have to be made up by the game designers to get it to play and to keep it played. I think that could be one of them. I do love your minor civ idea and think it would work. Ewoks, sand people, Bespin City could be possible minor civs for example that could enhance a scenario, or game, very much. For a real challenge a player could choose to play as a minor civ at a disadvantage against a major civ and not have as many unit types to use in combat against his/her opponent. That would be great. More unique details in each individual civ, that is "Star Warsy".

[DarthMuffin]

Originally posted by Nairb Notneb

For a real challenge a player could choose to play as a minor civ at a disadvantage against a major civ and not have as many unit types to use in combat against his/her opponent. That would be great. More unique details in each individual civ, that is "Star Warsy".

 

Sorry, but that's never gonna happen. Perhaps it would be nice once or twice for single player, but nobody would want to do this in multiplayer.

 

More details in each civ makes the game star warsy for sure, but mixing stormtroopers with rebel x-wing and destroyer droids is far from being star warsy. Besides, that would make the game horribly unbalanced, and balance is one of the key to keep people interested a game (mp speaking, at least). Perhaps for sp only, but even there, it's a SW game we want.

[Admiral Vostok]

Originally posted by Darth54

Sorry, but that's never gonna happen. Perhaps it would be nice once or twice for single player, but nobody would want to do this in multiplayer.

Not in competitive multiplayer, it's true, but for those of us who like playing for fun just as much as playing to win, minor civs would be an excellent addition. Think of how much better scenario-making would be if the minor civs already worked like a proper civ (they could collect resources, build buildings and train units).

 

The best example of what I'm thinking is the Naga in WarCraft III - except playable in multiplayer. You could play them in the campaigns as though they were a fully-fledged civ, though of course they were underpowered compared to the other civs.

 

Of course, it would need to have a restriction on it so it could be turned off like cheats. The host would have to specify that minor civs were allowed, because the minor civs would not be properly balanced and could be exploited.

 

It would be very little extra work for the developers - they're creating minor civ units for the most part for both the campaigns and the toybox anyway, why not add the small amount of coding that would be needed for them to function properly? Again, they need not be balanced like a proper civ.

[DK_Viceroy]

The naga in Warcraft would require pehaps a hand full of units and a few tweaks to be a fully playble race but they're still not underpowered. Think what would you rather have Five Naga Myrmidons or Five Undead Ghouls?

[Admiral Vostok]

Well no, they're not overly underpowered, but at the same time they're not properly balanced either.

 

I think it would have been cool if the Naga were available in multiplayer as they are, though only allowed in non-competitive games where the host has allowed their use. That's sort of how I envision the inclusion of the minor Star Wars civs.

[DK_Viceroy]

Are you sure of that you have extensiveley complained on the checking of boxes as a getout clause.

[Admiral Vostok]

I know, but this is different. The inclusion of an underpowered civ is different from turning off fundamental elements of the game, such as Heroes, weather, water transports, etc. I'm against turning off fundamental game elements like these just because people might not like them.

 

Turning off the inclusion of minor civs is different though; it's more akin to turning off cheats. The reason you turn them off is not because you don't like them (though it can be), it is more because you're choosing between either competitive or friendly play. Either you have a friendly game with unbalanced civs turned on, or a competitive game with unbalanced civs turned off.

[DarthMuffin]

All right then, maybe minor civs would be a good idea.

 

But why would LA bother doing minor civs when they can't even do major civs properly??

 

They should try to make 2 or 3 unique civs first, and if it works out well, then try 4. If everything is fine (balance being the main problem), then consider adding such minor civs.

 

Blizzard did balance 4 races, and added the Naga for story purposes. Do you know why Naga are not playable in MP (or custom or whatever)? Because Blizzard knew that it would take a crap load of time to balance it with the 4 existing races (and the more races, the harder the balance is). Furthermore, WC3 is 2 years old now, and what people want is a StarCraft 2. For marketing reasons, it is more profitable for the company (and for the customers too, because after 2 years, newer games tend to be a lot better) to work on a totally new game. Since the people at blizzard actually know what they're doing, their games usually have a really great life expanse (SC still being one of the most played RTS, if it's not the most). In any event, WC3 was a test to see if a game with 4 unique sides could be done. And the game was succesful.

 

Perhaps they will add more races in the possible SC2. WC2 had 2, SC had 3, WC3 has 4.

 

Having 5 completely unique sides in a RTS would be extremely hard to make, and I'm sure the peeps at blizzard decided that if they do try this challenge, it would be better with a completely new game. With the Naga in, they would need to seriously tweak the existing races, taking away the spirit of the game.

 

Just to keep on topic a little, I'll conclude by saying that minor civs should be reserved for a game that already has unique, balanced sides (think of it as a little "bonus" or whatever).

[Admiral Vostok]

I know that's why the Naga wasn't made playable, Darth. I'm saying they could have included it as a minor civ, unbalanced and only playable in friendly games... though it would have been a bit weird to have just had the Naga like this. They could also have included the Chaos Orks and High Elves and the other minor civs from WarCraft 3.

[FroZticles]

Blizzard has still not yet balanced all the races, thats why they are still dishing out patches every month to continue the search or the complete balance. I've played online with WC3 for a while and they are still not fully balanced.

[DK_Viceroy]

Not to mention the perpetual unbalancing of the games with a string of new heroes that don't really fit into any sort of story line.

 

Firelord what's a firelord. oh it's some sort of demented creature that wants to incinerate every single thing in the land of azeroth itno molten ooze. Heck it's overpowered it has an everlasting elemental it just attacks for long enough and you have 217 of the blasted things it has inceneration that makes dieing units explode and it has what practically every single mod map has put in the spell Volcano.

 

Goblin Alcehemist what's one of those. some useless thing that people will rarely use oh big woop it can poison a unit for a little bit it can mutate it's ogre and don't forgwet it's only useful skill transmute, yay free gold really doesn't balance out the cost of reviving the thing sinvce it wouldn't last that long.

 

Blizzard actually intended to have 5 races with RoC the Burning Legion but they dropped them.

 

They did the sdame with frozen throne, except with the Naga they couldn't delay the release anymore.

 

Why do you think there are people on blizzards forum on a and i quote a "Glorious Quest Of Naga Fufilment" and a hole slew of mod maps that have the naga as a playable race.

 

Blizzard never had the game balanced in the first place so what the heck finish up the naga and chuck em in they might actually end up finally balancing the game by accident.

[Admiral Vostok]

This brings up an interesting point... is it in fact possible to balance more than three races?

 

Some game companies have trouble with even three - while I do enjoy C&C:Generals, there's no denying it is hideously unbalanced. You're totally screwed on island maps if you're GLA.

 

But history has shown us the balancing three civs is not a hard task. StarCraft, the first of the games with three unique sides, is still held up as a beacon of balance, through both the original and the expansion pack. I also think Age of Mythology, where their original three civs, was very well balanced.

 

Yet when it came to adding the Atlanteans into AoM:Titans, I would argue the balance is gone. The Atlanteans are not as well balanced as the original three. To bad Sithmaster no longer posts here as I'm sure he'd refute it, but I just don't see how Atlanteans could possibly be balanced: they are the only civ with multiple-use God powers, and their workers are far better than any other civ.

 

And certainly from the outset WarCraft 3 has shown poor balance. It will be interesting to see the balance in Dawn of War and Battle for Middle Earth; I'm not holding much hope for BfME after Generals' track record, and as a Beta Tester for Dawn of War I know there have been a lot of balance issues.

 

So, is it even possible to correctly balance four civs, let alone five or more?

[DK_Viceroy]

It is indeed possible Generals has some semblance of balance Zero hour enhances this. I don't know of any island maps bu i highly suspect if there were you'd get the sneak attack power for free at the start. it certainly is that way when you play against the General Alexander Generals challenge.

 

http://aom.heavengames.com/gameinfo/atlanteans/units/villager

 

that is an article of how balanced their villager is if you look you'll find loads of things

[DarthMuffin]

If you want minor races to be like the high elves (only playable without using the editor), then I say it's fine. But as we said before, it's not a good marketing reason, because most people play RTSs online to win. Especially with ladders, there's no reason to play an underpowered race. But yeah, it would be cool to play as the high elves.

 

@ FroZticles : At least they do their best to make it balanced. And Blizzard is about the only company who would "dish out" patches every month to improve their games. Furthermore, the most skilled players don't have huge problems with the remaining balance problems. What's left is mostly number tweaking.

 

And by the way, the Battle.net forums are a really bad place to go. It's full of stupid people who whine over and over again, and yet they can't play (for the most part) the game properly.

 

@Vostok : I'm sure it's possible to balance 4 races. It just takes a long time. When SC came out, they balanced a lot. After a couple of years, it's possibly the most balanced RTS now. WC3 is going that way too, except it takes longer because there are more sides.

 

If you actually play a lot of WC3 on battle.net (like I used to do), you'll see that the balance is not bad. Yes, there was a time the NE were really cheesy, but that's gone. The human nuke is still powerful, but they fixed it.

 

I've stopped playing WC3 for the last months, but a friend of mine is really high level. I've seen some of his recorded games, and who wins or loses depends on the player's skills. Most of the cheese is gone. Also, a good player knows how to counter cheese.

 

I too don't have much faith in BfME. It's the kind of game that, IMO, is only worth playing for the heck of it. Not for ladder play.

 

Haven't heard of Dawn of War though. I'll have to check it out.

[Admiral Vostok]

Well I guess it is possible to balance 4 civs. It's just we don't have such a great example as StarCraft for the 4-civ games.

[DK_Viceroy]

WC 3 is becoming balancved slowly buy surely it's like trial and error.

 

I downloaded the second edition of the new beta patch and it seems to have been made better with a lot of things being fixed and the firelord nerfed but the slight and i mean slight improvement of the alchemist which at one point had the grand total of 2 armour at level 6 now gets 3 armour at level 6 BIG differnce i know but it's trial and error.

 

now if only lucasarts could do that instead of releasing so many hurried games.

[Admiral Vostok]

now if only lucasarts could do that instead of releasing so many hurried games.

Well you have a point there. Blizzard may be a lot of things, but unsupportive of their releases they are not. Up until the release of WC3, they were still releasing a new StarCraft map every few weeks. Of course, if they'd just built a random map generator into the game they wouldn't have to do this at all... that is certainly one thing the next SWRTS needs, a random map generator. In my opinion that's almost as important as proper balance when it comes to multiplayer longevity.

[DarthMuffin]

Support for a game is probably the second most important thing a company should do (the first being actually able to make good games). An excellent game without any support is quite bad.

 

I only know 3 companies who support their games very well :

 

-Blizzard (patches, more patches, and new stuff too!)

 

-BioWare (Bio was founded by two doctors... they know it's important to care about customers)

 

And, to a lesser degree

-Maxis (even though they are with the crappy EA).

 

LucasArts has the EA philosophy in mind, except that EA can dish out games a lot quicker, which gives them an advantage.

 

But LucasArts games tend to be very fun for us SW fans though... I can't wait to try Battlefront! Finally a shooter with no Jedi crap! Go stormy!!! :trooper:

[DK_Viceroy]

Remeber however Maxis has a nasty habit of putting unpleasent suprises in some of their stuff.

 

One thing especially is that hell ridden hamster of doom i last an astronaut a polotician and a police cheif that flea ridden furball and al because of some flea risdden hamster that kills sims indiscriminantly.

 

If lucasarts slowed down or at least had a team dedicated to working on game improvements we might actually get a perfect game from them i'd rather have one perfect game then 6 for the 3 different formats.

 

Some of the better star wars games arn't even made by LA they're subcontracted out.

 

The Perfect example of that is us lucky gamecube owners who get the Rogue Squadron series from Factor 5

[DarthMuffin]

Originally posted by DK_Viceroy

Remeber however Maxis has a nasty habit of putting unpleasent suprises in some of their stuff.

 

One thing especially is that hell ridden hamster of doom i last an astronaut a polotician and a police cheif that flea ridden furball and al because of some flea risdden hamster that kills sims indiscriminantly.

 

Just don't buy it

 

And there's a cure involving the hamster picture. I don't remember how to do it, but you'll find it at gamefaqs.

 

Originally posted by DK_Viceroy

Some of the better star wars games arn't even made by LA they're subcontracted out.

 

The Perfect example of that is us lucky gamecube owners who get the Rogue Squadron series from Factor 5

 

Sadly, that's true. Other examples would be KotOR from BioWare and Jedi Knight 2 / Academy from Raven. And those two games are probably the most popular/good SW games on the market.

 

Btw, was Tie Fighter from LA? I think so. If it is, then it's probably the best SW game by LA.