Official "I got the game/First Impressions" Thread.

[Texxxxx]

well then thats your problem right there....

 

IF you want a game soully for MP, try bf1942,bf2

 

My problem is that I paid $50 to play Star Wars Empire at War aginst other people online. It was advertised that this was possible...it's not.

 

btw...BF1942 and BF2 are great games..I own and play them both...but guess what?...besides actually working, they are not rts games like this one, so they are a really bad comparison. Next time when you want to be a smart guy in this thread try this:

 

"Texxxxx, if you want a game solely for MP, try Dawn of War or Lord of the Rings"...oh wait..these would be a bad comparison too... because THEY ACTUALLY WORK!

[Spaxspore]

dont know what to tell u.. since i havnt even played the full game yet...

[Ryebread]

Breiti,

Let it rest and continue your thoughts in another thread please. You gave your first impression, second, third...and you are still here whining. Did you even play the demo? That was a rhetorical question so please don't answer, or at least not here.

 

As for my first impression, I am enjoying it as much as I expected to and eagerly await expansions/sequels. I am most grateful to Petro for giving us a good game that is highly moddable. I'm not bothered by what wasn't included because mods will flesh out the unit selection and introduce different gameplay mechanics. I'll give it an 8 for what it is and a 9.5 for what it can become. My other favorite game is Neverwinter Nights and although the included campaign left me wanting, the ability to make your own campaigns is what gave it legs. I feel the same way about EaW.

[sven8136]

More complexity would have been nice. This is so simplistic a 5 y/o could play it easy. If only it wasn't rated teen... :\

 

I really hope everything is moddable, then I could atleast make the game I wanted to play.

 

Devs: Please, at least support modding. Release any tools you have!

[Ryebread]

Sven,

Petro has already said they will be releasing the map editor in the near future. And most if not all data driven aspects (ship stats, build times, travel times, etc.) of the game are already moddable in the form of XML files. Look in the Mod Forum for details.

[Foland]

"My first impression is based on my preference for multiplayer. I personally don't like single player game modes much. "

 

idk I would give it some time before you worry too much about multiplayer. Many of the Multiplayer games I've played take more than a day or two (the games been out for less than 48 hours) to get it up and running propery... you just can't test hundred/thousands of people hooking up from across the world until the real thing happens.

 

 

anyways... so far the only thing I don't like, which was obvious in the demo, is the lack of persistant damage and being unable to choose your starting fleet.

 

I mean, sometimes I KNOW the empire has a dozen tartan cruisers, but I can't keep my y-wings in reserve. I have to decide between letting my first wave get slaughtered so I can hyperspace more in, or bringing none to the battle and totally lacking bombers. :/

[Lord Pickle]

This is a long post so bare with me.

 

My first impressions,

 

1. Give me the 360 control from HW2. I liked how in HW2 you could rotate the camera and follow any unit but I guess the cinematic camera fills that role. Also let me move my units in 3D space we are in 2006 I have a dual core machine its time to get with the 21st century and give me a true 3D space battle like HW2.

 

2. 20 unit cap. WTF? What is equates to in terms of ships on screen is the DS one ISD and one TIE scout squad, pathetic. Espically since the game is suppose to be epic. I want to see dozens of firgates, hundreds of fighters, maybe a dozen VSDs two ISDs and the DS fighting it out with an equally large Rebel fleet. I don't know if that is possible from a technical standpoint but I trust my point is made.

 

3. Why won't you die? I played the galactic conquest mode and fought and destroyed Commander Ackbar and Home One not once not twice but thrice in the same game. This game is suppose to feature persistent battles? Then why doesn't this sense of permanency extend to heroes? It maybe that this effect just occurs when playing the computer but even if that is true why? You should have to make the tough choice of when to use a hero knowing that they might die. Do you risk Ackbar in a key battle at the beginning knowing that if he dies you may need him later or do you risk losing the battle and extending the war, maybe even losing it? These decisions are what great strategy games are made of but not so it this case.

 

4. Extend the idea of persistence. If a ship is damaged in battle then its only logically that it needs to be repair or else the damage will remain. So why not feature persistent damage until the ship can dock at a space station and repair? It would add another dimension to the strategy. Also if engines are disabled then you would need to get a repair ship to come from a space station. This all sounds reasonable doesn't it? Then way isn't it in the game? I know develpoment is a complex process that is an art but still if your going to use the word persistent the you should logically follow that idea through the game.

 

5. 35 units? Between the Imps. and Rebels and space and land 35 units? That's barely nine a piece again how is this epic? I hate marketing, if the game is epic then call it epic. If the game is a breath of fresh air in the tired RTS genre that takes some steps in the right direction but not epic then call the game that. But not it so many words thats what a thesaurus is for. But more units would have been appreciated.

 

All in all a great game but will some noticable short coming. I give it a 8.5/10. But with mods like legacy of war coming out it can only get better.

 

Hopefully the mods and dev are looking at these posts so they the devs get fedback and the modders and get imput/ideas for their creations.

[Commander Obi-Wan]

Woot Woot!! Just got the game...and the collector edition. Though, I have yet to check to extras out.

 

Well, so far I have started a Empire Campaign. I have completed the first level and now I am off to Fondor. On the first level, I started off quite well, but I start to lose troops quite fast, fortunately I got my reinforcements and went to attack the base. And when I finished I had Vader and like 2 Tie Mualers.

 

After that, I went to try out a GC and I tried a short on with 10 planets. I organized my force and I screwed up and I was attacked and got wasted. And then the Rebels attacked Coruscant and I waste there two.

 

That's about it and to generalize how well I did....I suck. But, I liked the game alot.

[Astrotoy7]

I got *really* bored about 3 hours in.... I really do prefer Rebellion, seriously. back when it was released, Rebellion was truly a breath of fresh air into SW gaming(compared to the FPS/Arcade/Flight Sims that were around). This seems 3-4 years late IMO... RTS has been done so well already in other titles, LA/Petro havent come up with anything revolutionary, just added a SW flavour

 

lucky its a rental, take it back wendesday

 

I'll save my $99.00 AUD for KOTOR3 thankyouverymuch

 

and yeah, bring back flight sims dammit Lucasarts !!!

 

mtfbwya

[Jason91]

Well my frist impressions were wowza and i'm really happy with it... i don't really have any critism's for it eccept for the fact that my comp got scanned in the top 3% of computers scanned and can only play the game on very high and not the highest settings.. oh well.

 

And my other complaint is that there is no 40+ planets for lan so that me and my brother can have a true fight to the death.... but 20+ will do.

 

Oh yeh.. 1 more i don't like the way in galactic conquest to always start out with multiple planets, units and heros... although i know you can turn the starting units down.. i would have been happier with just being able to start out with 1 planet and make my own way around the galaxy.. oh well.

 

And Finially some 1 really f**ked up with the realease dates... Australian's were suposed to get the game on the 21st Januray.. yet i went up to EB games and picked it up on the 17th January.... Beats me all i know is i'm happy is a "Pig in ****" and that its a great game all round.. A few bugs and problems but there fixable... Finially PLZ NEVER GO WITH GAME SPY AGAIN FOR MULTIPLAYER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Great game.

 

Jason gives it 9.5/10

[Evil Jeremy]

yay! no more exceptions! i know that im craxy to think this, but what if Lucasarts tried to create a program that would fuse "EAW" and "SWBII" together so you can et up the battles, and them play them! (i know that it is impossible, but it would be so cool!!!)

[Spaxspore]

its not impossible, easy to do rather, RTS for Space, FPS for ground

[Hound_Dawg]

My first Impressions:

Pros:

Right when I got the game I jumped to the multiplayer LAN. It was awesome, although since we both are so new it took some time to get up. I was playing with my brother, and it was really amazing. He created the death star after I pushed him to a scarce of three planets. Then he went around and destroyed everything. I did not know that the red squardron could destroy the deathstar until after the game. I really like the ground battles, and space battles are good too, although they can seem a little repetitive, but its still nice.

Singleplayer is amazing as well. I cannot believe how big this game is. Everything is out there. Galactic conquest, campaign, and skirmish battles could take some time. I also like how the campaign has a little variety, instead of just Empires on "Endor-Kill them" Its more like, disable the shuttles, dont let them hit lightspeed, disable them with y-wings, watch out for empire fighters, and once you disable the shuttles dont let the empire destroy them (yes their own shuttles).

Cons: Well the first would be, autodetect for some reason put everything at max, including bloom and all that. At first I thought the full version had increased performance (which it did), but my computer was acting a little funny. My biggest beef graphics wise is that the camera is so slow, but im getting over 60fps and the troops are moving lag free, but the camera speed is slow and inconsistent.

Second Con: The way the network multiplayer works is a little annoying. The comp I play on is amazing, nice graphics and fast. Yet I play with my brother who is on the laptop, and his computer is 1.7GHz, ATI Radeon XPress 200M and 384 MB of RAM. It makes the game work in slow motion. And since I guess the multiplayer works like the screens have to sychronized, everything moves slow, but Im getting over 60 fps! Think about it. You bring your nice beast of a machine to a LAN party, only to find out your computer will only work as fast as the slowest machine there. Anyways I just keep playing with my bro, I dont tell him his comp is slow, don't wanna hurt his feelings.

 

So theres my first impressions.

 

P.S. I'm trying to figure out how to make my bros comp faster. I heard that giving the .exe of the program "priority" status would increase the speed. Any other hints?? Thanks

[Ra2er]

I was impressed enough when the demo came out and have been waiting for the game for a few months. I was quite pleased to see that the game was in DVD-ROM format, saves disk change time and makes installation much quicker

 

As for the gameplay; the campaigns are great, skirmishes are great and the online play is great too. It may need a little work from Petroglyph to smooth it out but I've not had any big problems with it so far.

 

Improvements: With the newest patch, most of the balance issues have been resolved. I can't think of any improvements right now other than a bit of work on the online service.

 

Hound_Dawg I have the same graphics card as your bro but I have 512MB RAM, I managed to play a space battle online with 5 other players and the game ran smoothly on 1024x768 resolution and with every visual setting on max, bits of lag here and there but that's expected with that many people playing and all those ISD's getting blown apart along the way lol. Getting more RAM will speed your bro's comp up.

[wedge2211]

First impression: I've never quite had the feeling that I was commanding the might of the Galactic Empire before. God I love hearing things like "Lord Vader has landed!" as Rebel soldiers break cover and flee before the stomping feet of my Imperial Walkers...

[Breiti]

Ryebread,

 

don´t want to offend you but I don´t care about your rethorical questions. Why don´t you just keep them as rethorical as possible and don´t mention them at all ?

 

EaW has a big design flaw and that is that it is mainly made for people who play less than 2 hours. It´s good for having short fun, the fact that you can actually save a multiplayer match is brilliant and I like some quick battles against my friends when I come home from work.

 

But one thing EaW is never going to be :

A real challenging, story-driven, tactical complex RTS game.

Therefore it´s just too simple and repeating and I am still looking for some kind of story.

 

Well ... If anyone´s got anything against my "whining" (as you said Ryebread) keep it to yourself. This thread is for discussions for your first (and second) and what-ever impressions.

 

by the way : I´d never judge a game by its mod-ability. It has to work and make fun out-of-the-box.

[Battlestar]

I just picked up the game and my first impression is that its a great game (atleast for me) Gotta play it more to have a more firm review of it but its looking good

[guyvii]

I think this game is great. I concider myself a hardcore gamer. I like the game. I was worried at first when I saw some of the space battles and the numbers of ships involved but after fighting some battles ( I went thue the tutoral to learn the game) I found it pretty easy. Only some problems clicking on mobs of small ships or the description bubble comming up when I am trying to click on a hardpoint. I love the game. The ground battle was fun and hard. The rock , siccors, paper works well without making it king. Some do not like the imp tanks that have treads and roll over infantry but the truth is, they are way easy to kill and it makes sence that tanks can run over infantry. They are easily destroyed by almost anything so the infantry should not be alone nor in the open. I hear many people saying the game sucks but they do not bother to say why. It is easy to critze but how will you help fix it? I have not tried the multi player but the game did keep me amused for over 9 hours streaght. My wife is Soooo mad. I spend the day I got the game ( pre-order ) and played for the weekend and went to bed after midnight today tuesday. I had to do other stuff during that time ( thank goodness for pause and save game, unlike star wars galixies) .

I like the heros in the game and the fog of war. Many wonderful things in the game that kept me on the edge of my seat. I played the Empire so I never knew then those sneeky rebs would attack me or even bypass my fleet to land on the planet surface to fight a weak ground garrison.

If you want to have fun with the game, you will. If you want to not like it and complain about the game, then you will find plenty to not like. How much fun you have is always up to you. But this is a great game and I loved it and if you give it a chance, I believe you will love it also. Have fun.

[intar]

LOL!

 

This entire thread is such a repeat of just about EVERY major game release. I swear I could copy and paste posts from other game's forums and most of you guys wouldn't even notice...

 

Anyways, EAW gets the "Good Job" award. It's far from perfect, but equally far from bad. Of course, no game is perfect, so expecting perfection will only equal pleanty of dissapointment. As far as I am concerned, this game is perfect for occassional leisurely play, but absolutely a bore on binging. And as far as I am concerned, I don't think Petroglyph wanted it any other way.

 

The strategy is not overwhelming (ala Rome Total War), the management interface requires little micromanagement outside "what unit is placed where", and the battles are actually fun. That is, unless you play the game for more than 4 hours straight in a sitting.

 

One thing I do enjoy quite a bit is the length of the full "Galaxy at War" scenario. It took me almost 4 hours to complete the scenario as the Empire (Die Rebel Scum!). God I love assaulting land maps with 6 AT-AT's

 

One thing that I ended up ignoring, not by choice but through ignorance, was the "Random Missions" offered to you while playing a scenario. I generally discovered that I had already conquered many of the planets that the missions mentioned, and therefore would have invalidated the missions, yet they remained waiting for me to complete them. Seems more of a bug to me that I hope will be fixed in a later patch

 

As far as the bad, there is little to complain about as I already knew what to expect after the modded demo. If anything, I found that many of the features in the full version had actually suprised me. The only thing that I can add is that there is a feeling like "something" is missing. It seems to me that a unit experience system and perhaps permanent unit upgrades that can be researched/purchased on the galaxy map would have added the final bit of strategy that this game does seem to lack. If these two things were added, that "emptiness" would be nicely filled.

[guyvii]

ya, as for the story line missions , the game in the early stages did say to follow the story line ( that is the problem with a story line) so as not to mess of the mission sequince. Hard to blow up Aldran with the death star if you own it already. LOL. It was cute and fun. I will have to take care and try the non-scripted galixy now , after I build up some points with the wife. I had to abandon her at night time to play my game and now she is mad. Thank goodness I could pause it when I had to do something "important" for her. Much better then when I was playing SWGalixy and the group was busy.

[bigbrother25]

Ok, I bought the game just at streetday and of course its the Special Edition.

But i have some points where I see some things to make it better:

 

The maps are just to small. Even the space but also the planetary maps have not enough place

Also in planetary maps there are fixid positions for turrets und I don't like that. I want to build the base at myself with my own defense system.

 

The ships are ok, but the limitation is much to low. I want to prepare for really big fights but i cant handle that cause there are only a few units allowed. Maybe is a limitation based on the cpu-power a solution. Asking the Windows-system, how powerful the cpu is and allow adjustments to get more ships if the power is great enough would be a nice task.

 

The starting money has not enough stages to set. I want to play a fast round but the starting money does not allow that. So I have to wait a long time to start with big ships. Also in Skirmish-mode I cannot find a button to set up the beginning and maximum Techlevel like in Empire Earth.

 

I like the Star Wars feeling very much so this is the best point of the game. The galactic conquest is very pretty and I want to say thx for that. It is always a pleasure to play this mode.

 

All my points are just for the Singleplayer-mode. I never played the multi before. May I have to try it into the next few weeks.

 

So I hope this will give you some ideas for the next patches. Now I have to stop writing. the is a galaxy to prepare for the ultimate fight against the evil empire. ;-))

[jedigun]

I finished the rebellion campaign in 7-8 hours with conquering all the planets....i think it would be the same with imp but i played galactic conquest