A way to include Space Battles in SWGB2

[Admiral Vostok]

Here's a Question and Answer from the Ask The Jedi Council section of http://www.starwars.com. It isn't the exact quote I was thinking of, but it's pretty close. The quote I was thinking of referred to Lucas' story as being about Anakin Skywalker rather than the Skywalker family as a whole like this article suggests.

Q: Did George Lucas ever have any idea for Episodes VII to IX, or did the Star Wars novels stomp all over possible thoughts he may have had for the Star Wars universe past the destruction of the Empire?

 

A: At one point early on, George Lucas talked of possibly needing nine movies to tell his tale of the Skywalker family. But as he actually worked through the story line, he realized long ago that the story he wanted to tell could naturally be told in six two-hour films. The nine-episode mantra, however, refuses to die...and we realize, never will. But George says that the story he has to tell will be complete in the six films, which can then be viewed as one epic saga. He says that he honestly has no story to tell now beyond the destruction of the second Death Star.

 

 

 

If you are obsessed with that argument then you could easily say that makes EU increadibly important because of the aftermath of Anakin SKywalkers Actions and what Happens to his Offspring and their off spring.

No, because it is about Anakin Skywalker himself.

[DK_Viceroy]

Yes it says HE has no story to tell but others do. Star Wars is now bigger than what Geroge lucas started off He gave the primordial ooze a quick jab and it's come to life and is bigger than him and all the authors who help nurture it.

[Admiral Vostok]

But it's HIS story! If HE has nothing more to tell, there IS no story!

[DK_Viceroy]

RRRRRRRRRIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGHHHHTTTTT.

 

Nurse We have another one who's being sniffing the glue for too long.

[Admiral Vostok]

Good comeback. You could just admit defeat, you know.

[DK_Viceroy]

I keep fighting even when the final nail was hammered into the coffin half an hour ago.

 

How many people could say J.K.Rowling has Harry potter under control that kind of exploded outwards in waves of popularity.

[Admiral Vostok]

Not sure what JK Rowling has to do with anything, but answer this: once Rowling has finished writing the seventh book of Harry Potter, do you think the world would accept anyone else stepping in to write about Harry's adventures after graduating from Hogwarts? I don't; the story will end with the seventh book, Voldemort will be defeated once and for all, and everyone will live happily ever after. Anyone else that tries to write about Harry Potter is just a second rate author who can't think up their own Universes jumping on the popularity band wagon. I feel the same about EU.

[DK_Viceroy]

Oh Yee Of Narrow Mind I Condem You To The Fate Of Tantalus By the Power of Styx and the 7 rivers in Hades.

[Admiral Vostok]

Well since Viceroy has descended into gibberish I claim this argument won in the name of Purism!

[Nairb Notneb]

(I think this has gotten a little off topic but I want to get it on this) Well, to take the Clintonian approach to this argument, to determine who is correct, it depends on what you mean by "story" for the EU to be important to GL. You are both correct. I mostly agree with the Purist Vostok, that the EU is not important to GL, but, when one watches the "behind the scenes" and the "making of" type videos of SW, GL always makes every decision based on tons of little details that only he is aware of. GL has his own EU in his head, like the Jedi braid for example. If you watch the making of TPM GL says that the side of the head that the braid goes on is important because it means something, but he doesn't say what. Also many of the characters that he puts into the movies are sometimes based on EU characters, or sometimes they turn into EU characters.

 

GL has said that the story he wants to tell is of Anakin Skywalker's life and nothing else, all of the other stuff is eye candy and murchandising. So, Vostok is right, the EU is not important to the story GL has to tell.

 

BUT, the EU is important to GL because it also generates the little details that he is addicted to. Plus it generates more books, games and comics (not to mention hits to forums like this). It also helps keep an interest in the SW universe for a lot of people.

 

So, in short, the EU is not important to the story of Anakin Skywalker the whole point to the Star Wars movie saga, but the EU has helped to keep the interest in it alive and has helped to fuel it financially. They both serve GL, the true living Force.

[Nairb Notneb]

LA has already made a space RTS, it was called Rebellion (Supremacy in the UK). I played it for years. It was very basic, with resources, research and characters. You had to explore space to find new planets, build factories and planetary defenses. There were ground based troops but all they were, were attack and defense numbers. If your attacking numbers were higher than the defense numbers of defending forces you won the battle. It had all of the ships from the movies and filled in the gaps with EU vessels. There was a mod made for it where you can change everything in it even the planets. The best thing was making a Death Star and blowing up the planets that revolted against you when you played as the Empire. You could also send your characters on assassination missions, which was cool. I still have it, but haven't played it in a long time. The mod is great because I made myself into a character, a Jedi, a moff, a stormtrooper, etc.

[Darth Windu]

Viceroy - a smal piece of advice: a closed mouth gather no feet.

 

Getting back to the point, i still think that a space RTT is the best way to have the best of both worlds, ground and space battles, in a single game.

[swphreak]

Originally posted by Nairb Notneb

LA has already made a space RTS, it was called Rebellion (Supremacy in the UK).

 

Actually, I don't consider that a space RTS. That's more of a TBS game than RTS.

[DK_Viceroy]

You also HAVE to look at EU to understand parts of the films, Like What Makes Nerf Herder an insult to a pilot who flies a ship that has speed and capability equal to or greater than the latest starfighter. and that is the steady slow rocking motion of a nerf herding repulsorlift that requires no skill at all, that insult invokes very potent mental imagery.

[FroZticles]

Vostok and Windu hate to burst your bubble but since Lucas isn't planning on making episode 7-9 he stated "EU has the rest of the story pretty much covered" If he did not care about EU to generate much more profit and continuing profit after the movies are over then why did he sell it in the first place.

[Admiral Vostok]

No Froz, you misunderstand. Lucas does care about the money EU brings in. But he does not care about the content of EU. Lucas allowed the EU to exist so he would get more money, not so his story could be expanded upon.

 

Viceroy, we don't need the EU to help us understand that "nerf herder" is derrogatory. That's a given from the context. The same with "echuta". At any rate I don't think you can viably argue that the deeper meanings behind nerf herder have anything to do with the story.

 

Back on topic: indeed Rebellion was a fun game, although it took SO LONG to play. I'd class it as an RTS, though it is quite different to what I think we're talking about here.

[FroZticles]

Well how do you explain him saying that EU will cover the rest of HIS story......

[DK_Viceroy]

Actually it does when you remeber George Loves the little details.

 

Even i haven't heard that but i can quite easily beleive that.

[Admiral Vostok]

Originally posted by FroZticles

Well how do you explain him saying that EU will cover the rest of HIS story......

Where did you get that from? I've never heard anything like that... in fact what with his rejection of Boba Fett's resurrection and Chewbacca's death, evidence points to quite the opposite.

[Nairb Notneb]

In order to have a full range of planetary ground combat and outer space combat combined in one success seamless game, a player must be able to get to both playing mediums simultaneously because combat could possibly be happening at both places at the same time. Maybe combat is limited to one planet at a time and you have a split screen or a hot key toggle switch that will "flip" you from one mode (space combat to ground combat) to the other. This could be cumbersome and confusing. Or possibly the map simply scrolls through the atmosphere to outer space to the combat area, but in space you really need a 3-d world to be a truly great game. I just don't see how combining the two together would work seamlessly. But separately they would be great games. They work in different worlds that don't work well together, in my opinion. It would be great to build a fleet of SD's and bombard a rebel stronghold, to send in a landing party, take out their shields, ion cannon and then annihilate them from above. Or, to even build the Death Star and fire that green laser at those Rebel scum's and obliterate the planet that they are on and see each and every worker and building explode from underneath! Oh, and Rebellion is a RTS style game.

[DK_Viceroy]

It could be done easily in terms of flicking from one to another different menus could be accessed using the F keys

 

F1 Go to surface of selected Planet

 

F2 Go To space

 

F3 Reserach and development

 

F4 Chat

 

F5 Diplomacy

 

F6 Galactic Map { could be used to order fleets around }

 

F7 List Of All Units { Sorted on type and so on }

 

A similar system works on Imperium Galactica 2 and that is certainly not clunky i'd say it's a great game certainly the best combined ground sapce RTS out there.

[Darth Windu]

Or of course we could just do it the easy way and do both seperately...

[DK_Viceroy]

That's not actually related to the topic this is a topic on HOW WE INCLUDE space battles in SWGB2, I really do think everybody should try Imperium Galactica 2 it's a really good game and is a Space RTS with Ground Elements and for SWGB2 that can work in reverse a Ground RTS with Space Elements.

[Darth Windu]

Viceroy - i havent played Imperial Galactica so i dont know what you are taling about. Would you be able to explain in a bit more detail or provide a link?

[DK_Viceroy]

Unfortunatly Digital Reality has gone out of buisness because they disappointed to many people by not releasing IG3 for ages so naturally there is no one to maintain the site and while it is an excellent game and has a cult following sites on it are as rare as hens teeth

 

 

however one reveiwer quoted it as

 

 

It mixes in the strategy of Starcraft, with the space battling of homeworld. It mixes the planet construction of SimCity, with the tank battles of Ground Control. It is really hard to classify this game as any particular type, because it feels like so many different games in one

 

Here are some reviews of it i may later on while doing this reply find a site

 

http://www.pcgameworld.com/review.php/id/154/Imperium_Galactica_II_-_Alliances/

 

 

http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_temp.asp?game=igal2

 

http://www.tts.lt/~valera/games/games/im2/ That one is in russian but it has some pictures including some even i haven't seen yet but then you could play the campaigns a hundred times over and they'd be very different every time.

 

http://www.gonegold.com/gguide/impgalactica2.shtml this one has very good stuff and if you ever buy it which i highly reccomend as highly as you have reccomended Starcraft to me you should check this when you get it since it has patches and the patch that enables a skirmish mode.

 

http://web.tiscali.it/echoweb/

 

That one has a bucket load of information but you can find an eglish version of it and Babelfish could translate somethings.

 

I think if Lucasarts looked at IG2 they could see a good way to implement both It is an EXCELLENT while yes you can't control fighters that could quite easily be adapted and make it star warsy by each ship deploying fighters and you click on the ship and can acees it's starfighter command and set targets which could cut down on Micro. It's a very easy to use system and you can litteraly dive into it. It has it's fault like all game but there are so many good things that you never really realise them unless someone else points out the faults one thing that propably couldn't be carried over is the Music elemt but i suppose some star wars music could be adapted but i don't think the effect would be the same. This could easily be used as a starting point but give the ground battles a bit more importance over space battles and tweak the buidling system a bit to make the civs more unique.