Official SWGB 2 GB.com Thread

Admiral Vostok · February 12, 2003

1) Give me an example, using a certain number of points, for how you can create a Jedi and a normal Officer with the same amount of points, and I might be convinced.

2) My point was that while the Pegasus guy not flying isn't totally realisitic, it isn't UNrealistic. However, a Jedi Officer who is weaker than a normal Jedi IS unrealistic. This is why I have a problem. It's okay to not be entirely realistic, but to be rather UNrealistic is something different.

3/4) I bent my Wookiee.

5) Okay except that I wouldn't exactly call the GB2 Heroes "godly", though they are better than the average character.

6) Hey! Those are prescription pants!

7) I do in the sense that I want lots of guys who are the equivalent of subordinates, but I don't in the sense that I don't want a Commander for them to be subordinate to.

8) Oh, I just don't feel safe in my forum anymore! Phreak, how do you know that, or are you just guessing?

swphreak · February 13, 2003

2) Well there is a Pegasus unit that can fly, but it is basically a scout and sucks.

6) What the.....

7) Technically, there is a commander for civs. The "Wookiee Commander, Naboo Commander, ect. But they suck and jus have good health. Give them some attack and there's your Civ Commander.

8) I know, the Mod PMed me. So, I'm jus going to leave it alone. . .

darthfergie · February 13, 2003

Originally posted by StarWarsPhreak
Before I even think of what GB2 is gonna be like, I think they should do something to make their own Mulitplayer place like Battle.net. Or tell the Zone to move their butts and do something about games being played in wrong rooms.

What? Their OWN? LucasArts? Man...what have you been smoking? LucasArts is a mooching company. They are not about to make their own servers, etc for a major game when others already make a living at it. Nah, LA will opt for the cheapest. undoubtedly the Zone came with the Ensemble/AoK package that they licensed so it was super easy. If they produce GB2 in house I expect they may run again with the Zone, but who knows...they may opt for GameSpy *crosses fingers*

BTW, please post more quotes in your posts...I'd rather not run back 20 posts of #s just to look at all of them, k. I mean that's okay for a question thread, but PLEASE this is a debate/discussion. Just post like any normal human would. PLEASE! I'm on my knees!

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1) Well give me an example of how a Jedi Officer could be balanced into a normal Officer. I just don't believe they can. The only way I can see it is to limit Officer abilities the Jedi can have, and if you head down that path you might as well just have Officers and Jedi as separate entities.

Jedi- has more healing, mind control, and stealth powers. Killer at close range combat and have highest attack power possible for all leaders. Has no acess to higher tier normal leader powers because of focus on Jedi practices. (you choose your path. If you choose any Jedi powers at all you automatically have your officer skill tree altered at that point. But once you allocate a certain amount of lvls as a normal officer, you can't go back and take the Jedi Path)

Normal- Has all of the higher tier officer powers. Very good support man. Sometimes good fighters, but will be ranged fighters. Can not convert evemy or heal units and have no acess to stealth at early lvls like Jedi do. Larger ATK/DEF bonuses available.

2) So you're saying we can build Mace Windu but he isn't what Mace Windu should realistically be? See this is my greatest dislike, because we're losing realism in a major way when we don't need to. People don't care about the unrealism that airspeeders don't have harpoons but are still good against mechs because that is a small part and not very important. But I'm assuming that we want buildable Officers to be an important part, something like Heroes in AoM. If gross unrealisms are committed in something as central to the game as Officers, I fear bad things will happen. Especially when my alternate provides better realism and better gameplay.

No. Mace Windu is not buildable. He is a hero with set lvls and abilities. He does not lvl up. (or can, but set skills will be added) Only generic/special officers are moldable by human players.

3) How do we know they are a Jedi if they have no Force powers? How do we differentiate between Jedi with lightsabers and high HP, high attack people with a force pike? Trust me, coming from a programmers background this has programmatic problems.

Ah, you want to know the stats of the officer your up against eh? Well that's part of the suprise and another variable to the game. And Jedi with no force powers are not Jedi. Until they select a force power they are a normal officer with no access to any of the Jedi Ability Tree. Once an officer becomes a Jedi, naturally their apperance will change to a robed one. And lightsabers may come default because there may be a problem with Jedi w/ blasters.

4) Concerning Ajax and Arkantos - that's what I'm suggesting for SWGB2! We have buildable Officers that are just like the heroes. You can't customise them, because slight stat changes don't matter in an RTS of SWGB2's and AoM's scale. But then in the campaign only you have some units who are still Officers/Heroes, but are slightly more powerful with special abilities. So AoM buildable Heroes = SWGB2 buildable officers, and AoM Heroes like Ajax and Arkantos = SWGB2 Characters like Luke Skywalker and Mace Windu. Of course they will be somewhat different (activatable special abilities, only one type of Officer is buildable rather than 3/4 heroes, etc), but put basically AoM is a good example of what I want.

May I say FEH to all that. I recently read an article on RoN's SP campaign "Conquer the World". They NAILED it. Overall campaign map, flexable campaign that you decide where to attack, totally open ended, randomized scenario every battle, AND awesome AI. I couldn't believe it. With that open ended system used in GB2 there could be 1 leading officer per province and if multiple officers are present only one may enter as the leader of the battle. They lead the battle and the army and determine minor bonuses you get in game + the aura bonuses if the leader has any. If the leader dies...the leader is dead. No reserection. (maybe if you get complex the second in command can take over if you have another officer in the army to keep your bonuses somewhat highish...but you will take a shock penatly when a leader dies) Officers will be completely customizable excluding their appearance. With officers AND random battles AND a totally open ended campaign it would be an AMAZING game to behold. (of course a game with playable capitol ships or Reb 2 would be super AMAZING...but it's only wishing)

Admiral Vostok · February 14, 2003

Originally posted by darthfergie
BTW, please post more quotes in your posts...I'd rather not run back 20 posts of #s just to look at all of them, k. I mean that's okay for a question thread, but PLEASE this is a debate/discussion. Just post like any normal human would. PLEASE! I'm on my knees!

Okay Fergie, no problemo.

Jedi- has more healing, mind control, and stealth powers. Killer at close range combat and have highest attack power possible for all leaders. Has no acess to higher tier normal leader powers because of focus on Jedi practices. (you choose your path. If you choose any Jedi powers at all you automatically have your officer skill tree altered at that point. But once you allocate a certain amount of lvls as a normal officer, you can't go back and take the Jedi Path)
Normal- Has all of the higher tier officer powers. Very good support man. Sometimes good fighters, but will be ranged fighters. Can not convert evemy or heal units and have no acess to stealth at early lvls like Jedi do. Larger ATK/DEF bonuses available.

While I agree that's how it should work, the problem I see is this: once you limit Officer abilities that a Jedi can take, he begins to be more like an ordinary Jedi. So why not just have Officers who cna't be Jedis, and then have Jedis separate? This way we also get rid of problems with Jedi leading races like the Gungans. However, if done appropriately it could work.

No. Mace Windu is not buildable. He is a hero with set lvls and abilities. He does not lvl up. (or can, but set skills will be added) Only generic/special officers are moldable by human players.

I approve of this but I think this is not what Corran wants.

Ah, you want to know the stats of the officer your up against eh? Well that's part of the suprise and another variable to the game. And Jedi with no force powers are not Jedi. Until they select a force power they are a normal officer with no access to any of the Jedi Ability Tree. Once an officer becomes a Jedi, naturally their apperance will change to a robed one. And lightsabers may come default because there may be a problem with Jedi w/ blasters.

No, what I meant by my statement was the problems with the program chosing what animation to use for your character. Let's say for some reason someone makes a Jedi with a ranged attack. Do you use a Jedi animation (which would probably have a lightsaber) or another one (which probably won't look like a Jedi). I suppose you could limit this by only having Jedi Officer animation and normal Officer animation and when you select a Force power your range immediately goes to 0 and can not be changed. But then what about an Officer with range 0? You'd have to have another animation with a force pike. This is where I see the problems.

Also, if you're only allowed one animation for your character, it takes away the fun of making your own character, because they just look exactly the same as the next guy's personalised characters.

Tell me specifically how you think all this confusion would be solved and I'll be more accepting.

May I say FEH to all that. I recently read an article on RoN's SP campaign "Conquer the World". They NAILED it. Overall campaign map, flexable campaign that you decide where to attack, totally open ended, randomized scenario every battle, AND awesome AI. I couldn't believe it. With that open ended system used in GB2 there could be 1 leading officer per province and if multiple officers are present only one may enter as the leader of the battle. They lead the battle and the army and determine minor bonuses you get in game + the aura bonuses if the leader has any. If the leader dies...the leader is dead. No reserection. (maybe if you get complex the second in command can take over if you have another officer in the army to keep your bonuses somewhat highish...but you will take a shock penatly when a leader dies) Officers will be completely customizable excluding their appearance. With officers AND random battles AND a totally open ended campaign it would be an AMAZING game to behold. (of course a game with playable capitol ships or Reb 2 would be super AMAZING...but it's only wishing)

Well yes that sounds great, but how would Officers work in multiplayer games? Your vision still works if character officers are not buildable in multiplayer but appear as characters in campaigns and are available only in the scenario editor (ie the way I want it).

swphreak · February 14, 2003

I think RON actually looks good. That "Conquer the World" thingy looks really cool. They should have something like that for GB2. It could be "Conquer the Galaxy." You can do what the Emporer could not do!

Off Topic real fast:

Admiral Vostok, still searching for someone who knows more about Star Wars than himself....

oooooooooh man, you may have met your match. . . .

Admiral Vostok · February 14, 2003

Where can I find out more about this "Conquer the World" thing?

Off Topic part:

I challenge you to better me, Phreak. You might now an awful lot about EU, but when it comes to the movies, the real Star Wars, I haven't met my match.

CorranSec · February 14, 2003

1) Jedi- put no points into Range or Armour, plenty of points into Attack, the rest on HP. Normal Officer- Some points in Range, some in Attack, plenty in HP, and a few in Armour.

At least, this is how you could make a Jedi and a Normal Officer. They're different. Not different as in 'more powerful,' but they are different.

2) The pegasus is unrealistic (at least as much as a fictional character can be). The Jedi Officer is unrealistic. But Gameplay>Realism.

3/4) Go back to your other galaxy, you stupid Yuuzhan Vong.

5) Well, I would call them pretty damn good. If you want them to be real-ish, they have to be good.

6) Me fail English? That's unpossible...

7) Okay. But I wouldn't want to have that many subordinates. If you had 20 subordinates, 10 could just lay on the auras (making your troops quite good) while the rest smacked up the enemy with attack powers.

8) Phreak... why did they PM you? You're only a semi-member of the club... you haven't destroyed many threads... et cetera. Could you forward me the message, or tell me who the PM is, or something? I want to settle this.

Not as in a being-cruel-to-mods way, but I think there's been a misunderstanding, and I want to fix it.

About RoN:

No. Wrong scale, wrong everything. Check the "I want RoN for GB2" thread. If it still exists.

Fergie: Um, no. Field Officers who happen to be Jedi are not any different to Field Officers who happen not to be Jedi. Stop attempting to differentiate between them. And I think you need a better grasp of what we're trying to make normal Jedi be... check the "Snipers" thread.

The animations thing:

Yes. As I have said before, each FO avatar comes with two (unique) battle animations- a melee attack and a ranged attack. If the FO happens to be a Jedi, their melee is a lightsaber. If the FO isn't a Jedi, their melee weapons could be vibro-shivs, vibroblades, force pikes, and so on. Ranged weapons could vary from blaster pistols to sniper rifles to typical carbines.

That is to say, Avatar A's ranged attack is using a DL-44 blaster pistol and its melee weapon is a lightsaber, while Avatar B's ranged is a stormtrooper carbine and its melee is a force pike. You don't actually choose whether your FO uses a saber or a vibroblade- the devs choose which avatar gets which.

swphreak · February 14, 2003

6) You lie!

8) Well, I believe I was the lastto post on either the "Alien Jedi Poll" or the "Argh" thread, so the mod probably picked me to send the message. We did kinda spam and post crap on one or both of those.

About RON: I didn't say i wanted that engine, I was jus making a comment about the game, but I stil stand by my lil "Conqur the Galaxy" thing.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/riseofnations/features.asp

Scroll down and you'll see the feature

Vostok: Then you have to put in Star Wars Movies cuz whether you like it or not, EU is Star Wars too.

darthfergie · February 16, 2003

Okay Fergie, no problemo.

YAY!

While I agree that's how it should work, the problem I see is this: once you limit Officer abilities that a Jedi can take, he begins to be more like an ordinary Jedi. So why not just have Officers who cna't be Jedis, and then have Jedis separate? This way we also get rid of problems with Jedi leading races like the Gungans. However, if done appropriately it could work.

Because there ARE people who want to customize their Jedis. Jedi are RARE they should not be easily trainable units in a Temple. Jedi should be more valuable. If one dies you should not be able to go back to the Temple and instantly replace him with another Master. You should have to level him up from a lowly Padawan all the way to Master. The officer is just another name for UNIQUE character. You make the Jedi and level them up through officer creation and development screen.

I approve of this but I think this is not what Corran wants.

When did Corran's opinion go above any other fan? He is just one person and does not represent a majority of LucasArts fans or SW fans in general. He is also not the head of any LA development team and does not seem to be in any position of authority. Why should his opinion be over anyone else's?

No, what I meant by my statement was the problems with the program chosing what animation to use for your character. Let's say for some reason someone makes a Jedi with a ranged attack. Do you use a Jedi animation (which would probably have a lightsaber) or another one (which probably won't look like a Jedi). I suppose you could limit this by only having Jedi Officer animation and normal Officer animation and when you select a Force power your range immediately goes to 0 and can not be changed. But then what about an Officer with range 0? You'd have to have another animation with a force pike. This is where I see the problems.
Also, if you're only allowed one animation for your character, it takes away the fun of making your own character, because they just look exactly the same as the next guy's personalised characters.

Tell me specifically how you think all this confusion would be solved and I'll be more accepting.

Unfortunatly there will probably be only 4-6 different sets of animations for an officer (maybe more depending on how good technology has come by then). 3 real areas and male/female choice. As for ranged/melee Jedi and ranged/melee non-Jedi, I would assume that they would be forced into a merger. Jedi with Lightsabers and melee combat. Non-Jedi with blasters and ranged combat. Ranged Jedi are simply too rare to take into serious consideration.

Well yes that sounds great, but how would Officers work in multiplayer games? Your vision still works if character officers are not buildable in multiplayer but appear as characters in campaigns and are available only in the scenario editor (ie the way I want it).

Well officers in SP (using Conquer the Galaxy) would be made via that screen and over time, but for MP you could have an option screen allowing you to choose how many officers you wish to use in the battle (1-3) and how many lvls will be allowed to the officers. Officers may only lvl up once during combat in SP and might stay that way for MP. That is a gripe about WCIII that I have. The strong stay strong via their ability to quickly lvl up. I severly disliked that and it is what eventually caused me to quit playing it. Also there is the option to play Conquer the Galaxy via MP too adding more depth to the generic skirmish and scenario matches.

CorranSec · February 16, 2003

Because there ARE people who want to customize their Jedis. Jedi are RARE they should not be easily trainable units in a Temple. Jedi should be more valuable. If one dies you should not be able to go back to the Temple and instantly replace him with another Master. You should have to level him up from a lowly Padawan all the way to Master. The officer is just another name for UNIQUE character. You make the Jedi and level them up through officer creation and development screen.

That's the way it will work- for Jedi Masters (see the Snipers thread). Everyone loves Jedi, and to make typical non-hero non-officer non-main character hard to obtain just because of realism will be bad for fun and gameplay. By the same token, to make Field Officers who happen to be Jedi better than Field Officers that happen to not be Jedi is realism>gameplay thinking. But as a matter of fact, you will be able to customize your Field Officers, Jedi or not.

When did Corran's opinion go above any other fan?

Hehe. I thought you'd get rather annoyed by that. But to answer your question, I think he believes my opinion goes above yours, and are more correct than yours. That's what I think anyway...

Unfortunatly there will probably be only 4-6 different sets of animations for an officer (maybe more depending on how good technology has come by then). 3 real areas and male/female choice. As for ranged/melee Jedi and ranged/melee non-Jedi, I would assume that they would be forced into a merger. Jedi with Lightsabers and melee combat. Non-Jedi with blasters and ranged combat. Ranged Jedi are simply too rare to take into serious consideration.

There will be two battle animations- a melee one and a ranged one. They won't have 4-6 kinds of attacks, Fergie. I mean, sure, they might have a walking animation, an idle animation and all that, but every particular Officer avatar has a melee animation and a ranged animation. And you wanted customizable and unique FOs, so I think we should let ranged Jedi be in there.

Well officers in SP (using Conquer the Galaxy) would be made via that screen and over time, but for MP you could have an option screen allowing you to choose how many officers you wish to use in the battle (1-3) and how many lvls will be allowed to the officers. Officers may only lvl up once during combat in SP and might stay that way for MP. That is a gripe about WCIII that I have. The strong stay strong via their ability to quickly lvl up. I severly disliked that and it is what eventually caused me to quit playing it. Also there is the option to play Conquer the Galaxy via MP too adding more depth to the generic skirmish and scenario matches.

Conquer the Galaxy- Um, this is a RoNish large-scale idea, so it shouldn't be in there anyway. In standard games, single or multi-player, you make your starting officer at the start (distribute his/her starting points and all that), and they might get more points every tech tier, after a certain research... whatever. However, I'm not sure if I like the 'lvl-up' idea, primarily because leveling up generally comes from killing things, and the FO won't be killing many things.

darthfergie · February 16, 2003

Originally posted by CorranSec
That's the way it will work- for Jedi Masters (see the Snipers thread). Everyone loves Jedi, and to make typical non-hero non-officer non-main character hard to obtain just because of realism will be bad for fun and gameplay. By the same token, to make Field Officers who happen to be Jedi better than Field Officers that happen to not be Jedi is realism>gameplay thinking. But as a matter of fact, you will be able to customize your Field Officers, Jedi or not.

So you want a game where it’s right just to make armies of Jedi and have to have it where Bounty Hunters are their foil. Feh. Bounty Hunters my arse. Jedi can kick half of the Bounty Hunters back to their little Hutt masters without a second thought. Jedi should be a part of the field officer command system. They would have diverging officer tech trees in which they level up in. Combining elements from RPG into this game draws in people instead of just earning new skills through research.

Hehe. I thought you'd get rather annoyed by that. But to answer your question, I think he believes my opinion goes above yours, and are more correct than yours. That's what I think anyway...

Bit arrogant aren’t you? He said he approved of mine, I was just wondering why the subservient attitude.

There will be two battle animations- a melee one and a ranged one. They won't have 4-6 kinds of attacks, Fergie. I mean, sure, they might have a walking animation, an idle animation and all that, but every particular Officer avatar has a melee animation and a ranged animation. And you wanted customizable and unique FOs, so I think we should let ranged Jedi be in there.

Did you happen to read what I said? They will have 4-6 COMPLETE SETS OF ANIMATIONS. Female and male, non-Jedi and Jedi, etc. As for putting in a ranged Jedi and melee non-Jedi, why? It adds more animations to an already large list. There is no reason to put in wasteful things like that because this isn’t a full fledged RPG, it is an RTS first…even though it incorporates themes from RPGs and various other genres.

Conquer the Galaxy- Um, this is a RoNish large-scale idea, so it shouldn't be in there anyway. In standard games, single or multi-player, you make your starting officer at the start (distribute his/her starting points and all that), and they might get more points every tech tier, after a certain research... whatever. However, I'm not sure if I like the 'lvl-up' idea, primarily because leveling up generally comes from killing things, and the FO won't be killing many things.

Research for officers = bad. Have armor and weapon upgrades for them, but let them upgrade themselves by leveling up. No giving points after you’ve researched a new tech level and no giving new skills after researching them. Level them up to give them more acess to higher level abilities and skills. To gain levels you must get XP. That means kills, but it does not mean kills by your character as was forced upon players of WCIII. Think about how support characters in RPGs gain XP. They gain XP when their party gets a kill even if they did not cast a single spell to hurt the enemy all they did was cast support spells. This would even make more since in this setting since they are commanders and a commander’s merit is based on their men’s performance in battle and very rarely is it based on their own front line courage in killing the enemy one on one. Also you say that the Conquer the Galaxy format should not be used since it is being used in RoN. That’s more like an argument for it than against it. There is no reason it should not be used. The storyline campaign format has been copied many times…the board format has also been used many times before RoN came along. Just because RoN uses it is not a reason for excluding it. I think that GB2 could go a long way to perfecting the board game RTS by using the commanders. Having 3 possible commanders/officers in a battle (1st, 2nd, and 3rd command). Operating across the galaxy means having as many different factions involved as possible. Also it means that you can be the Trade Federation at their peak before Naboo and defeat the Republic. Anything can happen. There would, of course, be several premade campaigns (such as The Trade Federation Power Play, The Clone Wars, The Rebellion, and Expanded Universe) and there would also be a campaign customizer. Say you want to make a game that starts after the Imperials have been driven been driven back into far reaches of the Galaxy and the Chiss are allied with them against the Rebellion/New Republic, tis easily done through the campaign editor. Overall the loose format of Conquer the galaxy supplies infinate replayability to the point where most would rather play Conquer than just a skirmish because of the extra things found in it and include the Conquer mode in MP and you have a nice extended game for those who love to play online with one or two friends often.

CorranSec · February 16, 2003

So you want a game where it’s right just to make armies of Jedi and have to have it where Bounty Hunters are their foil. Feh. Bounty Hunters my arse. Jedi can kick half of the Bounty Hunters back to their little Hutt masters without a second thought. Jedi should be a part of the field officer command system. They would have diverging officer tech trees in which they level up in. Combining elements from RPG into this game draws in people instead of just earning new skills through research.

Did I ever mention Bounty Hunters? No. In fact, I don't want generic anti-Jedi units, as I've said in another thread. I want a game where people can build lots of the most prominent, well-known and loved Star Wars units and send them into glorious sabery battle.

Diverging officer tech trees- you said you wanted RPG elements and not getting better through research, but you want research. Wha? And as for RPG elements... RPG elements would be the 'gaining XP through killing,' and I've already pointed out how that would be bad.

Bit arrogant aren’t you? He said he approved of mine, I was just wondering why the subservient attitude.

I am his secret master! I control him through an implant in his brain! Muahahahaha...... um. Sorry. I wasn't being arrogant. I was joking.

Did you happen to read what I said? They will have 4-6 COMPLETE SETS OF ANIMATIONS. Female and male, non-Jedi and Jedi, etc. As for putting in a ranged Jedi and melee non-Jedi, why? It adds more animations to an already large list. There is no reason to put in wasteful things like that because this isn’t a full fledged RPG, it is an RTS first…even though it incorporates themes from RPGs and various other genres.

4-6 complete sets... geez. That's only 4-6 avatars for a damned lot of FOs. I'm proposing about 35/40- each premade FO has one, and if you make one yourself, you choose one from all of those plus a few more.

Ranged jedi... look, I think animations are a really small concern. That's like saying "we shouldn't have more than one kind of unit, because it'll be too hard to animate."

Of course it isn't an RPG! Who said it was? I just want a lot of different avatars!

Research for officers = bad. Have armor and weapon upgrades for them, but let them upgrade themselves by leveling up. No giving points after you’ve researched a new tech level and no giving new skills after researching them. Level them up to give them more acess to higher level abilities and skills. To gain levels you must get XP. That means kills, but it does not mean kills by your character as was forced upon players of WCIII. Think about how support characters in RPGs gain XP. They gain XP when their party gets a kill even if they did not cast a single spell to hurt the enemy all they did was cast support spells. This would even make more since in this setting since they are commanders and a commander’s merit is based on their men’s performance in battle and very rarely is it based on their own front line courage in killing the enemy one on one.

Armour and weapon upgrades defeats the whole purpose of having uniquely created officers. However, gaining kills to get leveling XP is also a bad idea. People will just stick their officer in an AT-AT or other armoured vehicle(as part of an attack force) and let everyone else hack the baddies up. Pointless- where's the fun, where's the actual RPG experience? In an RPG, I always use all of my characters in combat. If one of them doesn't do anything, they don't deserve XP, even if the game mechanics give them it. By the same token, having your commander just constantly gaining power by your armies going off and killing things is a pretty bad idea.

Nope- I don't want an XP involved with killing. I don't like the XP idea much either (this is not an RPG or super-hybrid, it's a medium-scale RTS), but we have to figure out something. Give me some more ideas. But better ones, please.

Also you say that the Conquer the Galaxy format should not be used since it is being used in RoN. That’s more like an argument for it than against it. There is no reason it should not be used. The storyline campaign format has been copied many times…the board format has also been used many times before RoN came along. Just because RoN uses it is not a reason for excluding it. I think that GB2 could go a long way to perfecting the board game RTS by using the commanders. Having 3 possible commanders/officers in a battle (1st, 2nd, and 3rd command). Operating across the galaxy means having as many different factions involved as possible.

The Conquer the Galaxy, epic-scale format is not this type of game! Anyway, CtG is a standard game type in RoN (I think), not the basis for an entire game. I've never in my entire life seen one of these branching, no-story all-killing 'storylines' that you're raving on about. The board format, if it's like Battle Realms, might be a good idea, but seeing as I'm planning multiple campaigns and not one big one, I wouldn't support it. You can still have many, many factions involved in your medium-scale battles in GB2, and over the course of a campaign you can travel from one end of the galaxy to another... but not all at once.

Also it means that you can be the Trade Federation at their peak before Naboo and defeat the Republic. Anything can happen. There would, of course, be several premade campaigns (such as The Trade Federation Power Play, The Clone Wars, The Rebellion, and Expanded Universe) and there would also be a campaign customizer. Say you want to make a game that starts after the Imperials have been driven been driven back into far reaches of the Galaxy and the Chiss are allied with them against the Rebellion/New Republic, tis easily done through the campaign editor. Overall the loose format of Conquer the galaxy supplies infinate replayability to the point where most would rather play Conquer than just a skirmish because of the extra things found in it and include the Conquer mode in MP and you have a nice extended game for those who love to play online with one or two friends often.

You can be the Trade Fed at their peak, whatever! You can do that in standard games (the storyline is your imagination) or in scenarios quite easily. There are going to be SP campaigns in GB2, and not just half-cocked no-story crazy-non-medium-scale ones that you're proposing, but actual Age-style ones.

You're saying that standard games in normal RTS's don't have ultimate replayability? How do you figure that?

Admiral Vostok · February 16, 2003

Well a few days ago this dead was pretty slow, then I stay away for a while and boom! I'm way behind...

Now to catch up:

Me saying "Corran won't like it": This was meant more as "You're preaching to the converted, tell Corran" than "I must bow to Corran's wishes".

"Normal" Jedi: I still want to see Jedi in the game to the extent they are in SWGB1. It might not be entirely realistic, but it is really fun. I wouldn't mind a system where they start as Padawans and have to earn XP to become Masters, but otherwise there should be no artificial limit on how many you can build.

Customisable stats for Officers: I don't like this idea because I don't think it fits well with the scale we want for SWGB2. WC3 is a small scale RTS, RoN is large scale and SWGB is medium. I think in medium scale games adjustable stats is getting to small-detailed. There are some aspects of RPGs that work well in an RTS, this I believe does not.

Jedi Officers: Well I've come to believe Jedi do have a place as Officers, but I think using customisable stats isn't the way to go about it (see above). So here's my proposal: When selecting you Commander, you can choose to have either a normal Officer or a Jedi Officer. However, the Jedi Officer should probably only be available to Jedi-strong civs (I think Empire, Rebels, Republic, Naboo with the addition of Confederacy, which although it is not Jedi strong it is specifically led by Jedi) and not available to Jedi-weak civs. As both types of Officer are balanced it is not really a disadvantage. Anyway, Jedi Officers get the same Force Powers and stats as a Jedi Knight (not Master, see the Sniper thread for details) and also can chose a limited number of Officer abilities. Normal Officers have about the same stats as an elite trooper, but they can have more Officer abilities than a Jedi Officer. Also, Normal Officer's Leadership recharges faster than a Jedi Officer's does.

I believe this way could be balanced well, and works better in a medium-scale RTS than customisable stats. There would be a lot of Officer Powers to chose from, so there is room for a lot of customisation. You can also name your character if you want to.

Officer Avatars/Animations: I don't particularly want heaps to chose from. This is an RTS above all, and chosing what your character looks like is really a cosmetic thing that can add confusion to gameplay, so I vote against it. I believe there should be only one avatar/animation available for each civ's normal Officers, and an additional one available for those civs who can have Jedi Officers. However, in addition to these there would be pre-made characters you could select (Darth Vader, Mace Windu, OOM-9, etc...) who have pre-chosen skills that you can not change. This is as an alternative to making your own. To keep them interesting, the pre-made characters might have unique skills that you can't get otherwise. So there is a bit of variety possible for what your Commander looks like, but if you chose to have a customised character, there is only one look they can have. You could maybe have two sexes for each though for a bit of variety...

XP for Officers: This is an aspect of RPGs I think works well in RTS games. However, if XP is based just on how many kills a character gets, Jedi will be more advantaged than normal guys. So I think in addition to earning XP for personal kills, if your character uses an Officer Power in a battle and it is a resounding victory, XP can be earnt through the kills your entire army gets (although it will obviously be scaled down, so one personal kill might equal twenty whole-army kills).

Bounty Hunters: We do need that scum. I think they deserve a place in a Star Wars RTS. I think you should only pay credits for them, but they only stay for a limited time. They get bonuses on Characters (Jedi Officers and Normal Officers) but no particular bonus against a standard Jedi. They could possibly have bounty hunter skills similar to Jedi powers in terms of their implementation.

Hope that's everything.

darthfergie · February 16, 2003

Jedi Officers: Well I've come to believe Jedi do have a place as Officers, but I think using customisable stats isn't the way to go about it (see above). So here's my proposal: When selecting you Commander, you can choose to have either a normal Officer or a Jedi Officer. However, the Jedi Officer should probably only be available to Jedi-strong civs (I think Empire, Rebels, Republic, Naboo with the addition of Confederacy, which although it is not Jedi strong it is specifically led by Jedi) and not available to Jedi-weak civs. As both types of Officer are balanced it is not really a disadvantage. Anyway, Jedi Officers get the same Force Powers and stats as a Jedi Knight (not Master, see the Sniper thread for details) and also can chose a limited number of Officer abilities. Normal Officers have about the same stats as an elite trooper, but they can have more Officer abilities than a Jedi Officer. Also, Normal Officer's Leadership recharges faster than a Jedi Officer's does.

Well I can see good points in there…but I still like customizable stats. I don’t think WCIII did enough RPGing personally. Their hero characters…a few abilities, premade stats, very little RPG element except for the XP and assigning powers. Heros were not customizable enough. Not enough uniqueness…just 3 different concrete sets of heros for each side. And they used XP in a very bad way I think.

Officer Avatars/Animations: I don't particularly want heaps to chose from. This is an RTS above all, and chosing what your character looks like is really a cosmetic thing that can add confusion to gameplay, so I vote against it. I believe there should be only one avatar/animation available for each civ's normal Officers, and an additional one available for those civs who can have Jedi Officers.

Exactly. Plus there won’t be 50 officers roming around the map. There would be a max of 3 (if you used the board system). So having the limited number of custom avatars for the characters helps in the long run. As for PreMade officers…yes I think it would be good. In the board format you could earn prestige for wins in battle along the way and the degree of win. Then use that prestige to request premade officers to come to help you in battle. There would be possibly 3-5 premade officers per side so that their importance and rarity will counterbalance with your normal custom officers. The custom officers are also earned through prestige. You request the officer and then build his/her stats and assign them somewhere.

So I think in addition to earning XP for personal kills, if your character uses an Officer Power in a battle and it is a resounding victory, XP can be earned through the kills your entire army gets (although it will obviously be scaled down, so one personal kill might equal twenty whole-army kills).

XP earning:

1. kills of your army (scaled down to ¼ of a personal kill)

2. Special anti-enemy skills such as confusion, etc and their successful usage. (only anti-enemy…if it was counted for usage on your own troops then an officer could level up by just sitting at his base near a bunch of troops in defense and keep casting auras on them)

3. Personal Kills

…as for Bounty Hunters…I was just bashing their usage in GB1…no particular refrence to GB2. I do think they should be in there and I can see them as good anti-officer types, but I also think they should be bought through prestige.

You can be the Trade Fed at their peak, whatever! You can do that in standard games (the storyline is your imagination) or in scenarios quite easily. There are going to be SP campaigns in GB2, and not just half-cocked no-story crazy-non-medium-scale ones that you're proposing, but actual Age-style ones.
You're saying that standard games in normal RTS's don't have ultimate replayability? How do you figure that?

Right. You have to MAKE those scenarios…or someone else does and good scenario/campaign design takes TIME and SKILL. I don’t know about you, but getting a kewl scenario to work out right is quite hard. Setting up 4 billion triggers and wasting 3 days on making the map right…feh. I spent a 2 WEEKS making a Coruscant campaign…placing buildings…buildings…and more buildings…I went out of my mind. Age style scenarios just aren’t fun. They are TOTALLY and COMPLETELY linear. I got bored of GB in a week. I beat the campaign in a few days…experimented with the scenario builder…and then went to playing Europa Universalis II. Open-ended games are truly the best. Totally unique experiences every time. I have always gotten bored with story games. ALWAYS. I would play through all of the campaign and then just skirmish…yay. Skirmish and skirmish and skirmish. With conquer the galaxy format you have the ULTIMATE skirmish. Who cares about a storylined campaign when you know it’s going to suck? WCIII is the only decent storylined RTS I’ve seen in I don’t know how long…I took Blizzard FOREVER to get the game out. Realistically speaking…GB2 wouldn’t have a decent storyline even IF Blizzard took over and worked on it for 4-6 years. And I have to tell you…stories get boring if you know everything in them. No surprise…just the same thing over and over again. Sure you can become an expert and memorize when every trigger happens and prepare for it so that you play through the campaign for the 80th time with only 4 units lost…but that is only for the nuts. I consider myself a casual gammer…I’m not about to play the campaign through 80 times. I’m gonna play it through and once I’ve done it I’m gonna play skirmish mode and maybe a few custom scenarios…but I’ll never play campaign again. With Conquer the Galaxy…the skirmish mode becomes the central feature. Every game is different. Every game is a campaign.

The Conquer the Galaxy, epic-scale format is not this type of game! Anyway, CtG is a standard game type in RoN (I think), not the basis for an entire game. I've never in my entire life seen one of these branching, no-story all-killing 'storylines' that you're raving on about. The board format, if it's like Battle Realms, might be a good idea, but seeing as I'm planning multiple campaigns and not one big one, I wouldn't support it. You can still have many, many factions involved in your medium-scale battles in GB2, and over the course of a campaign you can travel from one end of the galaxy to another... but not all at once.

Why is it not this type of game? Why can’t GB2 be in an epic scale format? Several other games have done so before now. With GB2 in this format you include another layer of strategy on the surface of a solid RTS engine. As for RoN…it has Conquer the Galaxy as its campaign mode and it has skirmish mode…that is it for SP. As for campaigns…I’ve already ranted and raved about how linear they are. As for several sides on the board at once in your very unimaginative campaign format…sure they’ll be on the same map…but allies will be predetermined and you’ll be forced into everything because of linearity. Throught the board game format diplomacy could be taken care of very easily, alling with the Vong could be very easy, but keeping that alliance in tact could be very dangerous in the long run. The REASON you havn’t seen a board format game is there havn’t been many who use the board game format. RoN, Total War use it and some other games use it very mildly…but GB2 could be the perfection of the technique with the central addition of officers and possibly a prestige function. LA could be on the leading edge for once instead of tagging along as they have been recently. The board game concept has been used very little in conjunction with an RTS engine in tow, but I think that overall, more time could be devoted to game mechanics and all sorts of extra goodies if superbly complex triggering and pathetic storyboarding were left out.

BTW, can somebody post a decent summary of the Jedi Master idea in here or do I need to go and make a thread on it because I'm not about to go digging through a SNIPER thread to find some idea on Jedi Masters...

CorranSec · February 17, 2003

Customizable stats: It's not too nit-picking for a medium-scale RTS. It's a simple yet fun thing that you do at the start, and at certain periods during the game. After all, if you can have activatable Jedi powers, you can have customizable Officer stats.

Premade Officers: Uh, Fergie, premades are just like ones that you make up. They're just readily available, and will probably be more popular because they're actual characters from SW. And you don't request officers... you select/create one before you actually begin the game, and then he/she/it becomes available at a certain time.

XP for Officers: As I've said, Officers aren't killers! They're the ultimate support units, but they're not the actual tanky units that can dish out and take large amounts of damage. And as for kills of your army- do you really think it's reasonable for an Officer to be getting more powerful just because a single fighter off exploring killed an enemy trooper wandering around? Or for the Officer to get more powerful because he was standing around as his troops fought and died? Or for the Officer to gain XP just because his power gave your army a 'resounding victory'?

It's incredibly difficult to judge who does what in a battle or the like. Imagine it as a basketball game. Lots of players are passing, shooting, blocking and so on, but only one scores. Should the player who threw the ball into the court to begin with be credited with an assist?

If it's difficult for a human to determine precisely which unit did what, and whether the victory was 'resounding' or not, I think a computer might run into a few difficulties.

Rest assured, I want some kind of extra stat points (perhaps in the form of XP). I'd just like a better way of getting it that what you've suggested.

Linear/board style/epic style:

You want something that totally goes against the style of GB, Fergie, so I think you should have to make it. But I'm sure someone will make a Trade Fed conquering the galaxy campaign sometime.

Age-style scenarios are fun. You want non-linear gaming, play an RPG! Linearity is not, repeat, not a concern in RTS games. It's a simple fact. Non-linearity and replayability is guaranteed to the nth degree with the inclusion of standard games and scenarios, and the fact that there will be 14 quite unique civs and infinite tactics should make the game vaguely fun, don't you think?

Did you beat the AoM campaign in a few days? I think not. And that's just 35 scenarios. I'm planning about 10 different campaigns, with 7 scenarios each. And of course there will be several difficulty settings, and many different ways of doing every mission. So I think non-linearity is not a concern.

Okay, Fergie. You can instantly predict that every single storyline other than WC3's is going to suck. Minions of Xendor! AoM has been credited with one of the most ingenious storylined campaigns ever. Battle Realms has a wonderful campaign with two main branches in Kenji's Journey alone, and I haven't even started on Grayback's campaign yet.

No other sequel in my remembrance (and I play games a lot) has totally changed the format of the game. Your "Epic-Scale GB2" does not deserve to be called GB, because it simply isn't GB. You want an epic-scale SW RTS? Fine. Call it "Rise of Star Wars Planets" or something. But it's not GB2!

There will be plenty of 'layers of strategy.' Games of any scale (epic, medium or detailed) can be good, and I plan GB2 to be one of the best medium-scales of all time. GB2 will have about 10 quite detailed campaigns as well as a standard game mode and full multiplayer support, perhaps even with special multiplayer campaigns.

Several sides on the board? Wha? I never mentioned a board. I don't want to hear a mention of a board. You want a board SW game, make "Star Wars Board-style RTS." Not GB2.

Sure, allies will be predetermined. That's one of the things that makes it an actual storylined campaign. A good game doesn't stem from the fact that you can go on a rampage and kill everything, although this might be a good feature of RPG games.

A very good diplomacy AI could lead to the same diplomatic concerns as you're talking about, but that's not really what this game is about. It's not Master Of Orion, where it's all about carefully making alliances. It's GB2, a medium-scale game with a fairly equal balance between economy and military, tipping towards the military.

LA could be on the leading edge if they made a great game! A board game isn't the only thing that will make a game wonderful! Please, realise that!

Jedi Officers: Vostok, please. Why must you constantly think in realism>gameplay terms. Officer who just happen to be jedi or main characters have nothing over officers who are completely made-up politicians. However, you can customize your Officer who is a jedi to make him more jedi-like (as I have said before) and your politican to be more politician like (such as putting lots of points into HP and armour, not much into damage and the like).

Bounty Hunters: Yes, I want them in there, but not quite like that. The way you're saying it, they're just a generic anti-Officer unit. I don't particularily like that idea.

Admiral Vostok · February 17, 2003

Customisable stats: Yes it is too nit-picky. That's why no-one has put it in an RTS. Even small-scaled WarCraft 3 didn't think it was good to have customisable stats. You said yourself they aren't killers, and presumably no matter how you spend the points they won't be killers. So why spend the points on attack and range? Smart people will put every single point into armour and HP, not attack or range. Why would you when your Officer isn't supposed to be a fighter, but is also not replaceable if he dies? This is why it won't work. Ideally people won't do this, but when designing a game you have to look at what people could do, not what they should. Most people (except me, being the purist I am) will make boring yet highly survivable Officers.

XP for Officers: Okay you're right. I'd like to point out that I said the army has to have made the kill while under the influence of an Officer Power, so the fighter comment you made isn't relevant, but having thought more about it, it wouldn't work. So no XP for Officers. However, I can't believe you think XP won't work but customisable stats will. They are both inappropriate for the scale and role of the Officer.

Linear/board style/epic style: Agreed. We are talking SWGB2 here, not Star Wars Total War or Rise of Galactic Governments.

Jedi Officers: Corran, why must you fail to understand we can have both Realism and Gameplay? Surely there is nothing wrong with that. My ideas for Jedi officers are realistic, well balanced, easy to use, easily understandable, and still just as fun as your Jedi Officers.

Bounty Hunters: Fair enough, they shouldn't completely be an anti-Officer unit, but most RTS nowadays including AoM and WC3 use a paper-scissors-rock approach. So Bounty Hunters might be good against Officers, but there will also be a unit, maybe Jedi, who are good to counter Bounty Hunters.

darthfergie · February 18, 2003

Premade Officers: Uh, Fergie, premades are just like ones that you make up. They're just readily available, and will probably be more popular because they're actual characters from SW. And you don't request officers... you select/create one before you actually begin the game, and then he/she/it becomes available at a certain time.

See you’re still living in your straight generic and common RTS “campaign” world. Open your eyes. On a board map you could have tons of officers with three per world on active duty. You make you officers via buying them with your prestige. The Premades come packaged at a certain level and are not customizable. They have a set tree and would be more powerful than normal officer, although there would only be 3-5 for each side so their importance would be much greater.

XP for Officers: As I've said, Officers aren't killers! They're the ultimate support units, but they're not the actual tanky units that can dish out and take large amounts of damage. And as for kills of your army- do you really think it's reasonable for an Officer to be getting more powerful just because a single fighter off exploring killed an enemy trooper wandering around? Or for the Officer to get more powerful because he was standing around as his troops fought and died? Or for the Officer to gain XP just because his power gave your army a 'resounding victory'?

Um…yes. Isn’t that how all officers advance through the ranks? Based on the performance of men under their command? If an officer soundly beats an enemy and is only a brigadier general they might get a large promotion because of their great victory. Yes the officer did not battle, but he did plan and give orders to those around him for the overall execution of the battle. That is how the army WORKS. I mean if you want to put your officer in an fort in the back of your base so he/she won’t die it is your perogative and this tactic may be required to build up officers later in the game from recruits to decent officers, but normally you would want to take full advantage of their abilities. So you would use the officer. It is all a matter of personal preference.

It's incredibly difficult to judge who does what in a battle or the like. Imagine it as a basketball game. Lots of players are passing, shooting, blocking and so on, but only one scores. Should the player who threw the ball into the court to begin with be credited with an assist?
If it's difficult for a human to determine precisely which unit did what, and whether the victory was 'resounding' or not, I think a computer might run into a few difficulties.

Ah, but if that team won the championship…would the coach not also be credited with the win even though he did very little to help his basketball team win?

Linear/board style/epic style:
You want something that totally goes against the style of GB, Fergie, so I think you should have to make it. But I'm sure someone will make a Trade Fed conquering the galaxy campaign sometime.

Age-style scenarios are fun. You want non-linear gaming, play an RPG! Linearity is not, repeat, not a concern in RTS games. It's a simple fact. Non-linearity and replayability is guaranteed to the nth degree with the inclusion of standard games and scenarios, and the fact that there will be 14 quite unique civs and infinite tactics should make the game vaguely fun, don't you think?

Did you beat the AoM campaign in a few days? I think not. And that's just 35 scenarios. I'm planning about 10 different campaigns, with 7 scenarios each. And of course there will be several difficulty settings, and many different ways of doing every mission. So I think non-linearity is not a concern.

Okay, Fergie. You can instantly predict that every single storyline other than WC3's is going to suck. Minions of Xendor! AoM has been credited with one of the most ingenious storylined campaigns ever. Battle Realms has a wonderful campaign with two main branches in Kenji's Journey alone, and I haven't even started on Grayback's campaign yet.

This is Star Wars. If you make a storylined game it WILL suck. The storyline will be awful…there is no way around it. The Star Wars universe is very established. It is not in incredible flexible area to work with such as WCIII used. The stories in GB2 would have to fit decently into star wars timeline which is already very heavily established. The designers are not allowed enough freedom to realistically make a decent storyline. Plus…I don’t care about it. Storylined games get OLD. And as for 10 different campaigns…COME OUT OF THE CLOUDS! You want 14 civs and secret ones to boot, you want a 3D engine, you want 10 campaigns, you want, you want, you want. If you get even HALF of what you want they’re going to have to ship this game on 2 DVDs! As for going against the style of GB…GOOD! I hated the game and so did almost everybody else I know. I don’t like the repeated themes over and over and over and over again. PLEASE get away from the stereotypes of the RTS genre and expand the horizon a bit. Over that little hill is paradise, the promised land…but it looks to scary for you wanderers, so you continue to make us wander for years. FEH, wait till you play RoN and then come back begging on your knees for this game to be even as close to as amazing. With officers this game should be a major step up on RoN and with the extra years inbetween enough advancements should be made for this game to distance RoN by a very wide margin.

No other sequel in my remembrance (and I play games a lot) has totally changed the format of the game. Your "Epic-Scale GB2" does not deserve to be called GB, because it simply isn't GB. You want an epic-scale SW RTS? Fine. Call it "Rise of Star Wars Planets" or something. But it's not GB2!
There will be plenty of 'layers of strategy.' Games of any scale (epic, medium or detailed) can be good, and I plan GB2 to be one of the best medium-scales of all time. GB2 will have about 10 quite detailed campaigns as well as a standard game mode and full multiplayer support, perhaps even with special multiplayer campaigns.

Several sides on the board? Wha? I never mentioned a board. I don't want to hear a mention of a board. You want a board SW game, make "Star Wars Board-style RTS." Not GB2.

GB sucked and we all know it. If you want a flawed sequel to a flawed game to an ancient formula just buy one of the 5 billion Age or StarCraft clones out there. It’s completely unimaginative to have the standard fare. The patheticness of campaign games astound me. I expect more of games now. I expect quality…not quantity which is what you want. More and more and more of the same crap they’ve been shoving down our throats for years. GB NEEDS a drastic change to even be a decent game. Giving you more of the same is just a waste. “If it ain’t broken don’t fix it” is a motto used often and was used for GB and look where it got it. With opportunities like this you need to try to push the genre farther. It is practically expected in a high end game like this. Tacking on more and more crap over all the layers of crap so far doesn’t help.

Sure, allies will be predetermined. That's one of the things that makes it an actual storylined campaign. A good game doesn't stem from the fact that you can go on a rampage and kill everything, although this might be a good feature of RPG games.
A very good diplomacy AI could lead to the same diplomatic concerns as you're talking about, but that's not really what this game is about. It's not Master Of Orion, where it's all about carefully making alliances. It's GB2, a medium-scale game with a fairly equal balance between economy and military, tipping towards the military.

LA could be on the leading edge if they made a great game! A board game isn't the only thing that will make a game wonderful! Please, realize that!

I said it once and I’ll say it again. In the Star Wars universe you are too limited in storylined campaigns. With open-ended board game format you basically say, “This is SW, Your way.” The player has complete freedom. As for kill ‘em all…that isn’t required. You could make an alliance with a side and win with them still as your allies (Rebel and Empire vs Vong).

Board Game format just seems like THE BEST option out there. Sure you could be the basic stereotypical RTS that doesn’t break any boundaries and gets a max of 85% from a reviewer…you could blow past boundaries…making a revolutionary game like SW hasn’t seen since the X-Wing and TIE Fighter series.

CorranSec · February 18, 2003

Vostok:

1) It gives more uniqueness to the Officers, and makes them better at certain roles, as well as more real and more personable. There's no fun in having supposedly unique and fun Officers which all have 500 HP, 0 attack, 0 armour, 0 range, and 6 speed. Oh, and here's another thought- even if everyone makes solely defensive Officers, people might have incredibly different balances between HP, Melee armour, Ranged armour, and Speed.

2) Good.

3) Exactly! Now, can Fergie please realise this?

4) Your ideas for Jedi are far too complex, especially considering that my idea is perfectly fine and great in gameplay terms. Perfect realism is always the antithesis of perfect gameplay- take the example of the Hero on a Pegasus, the incredibly powerful Main Character Heroes, and so on.

5) Hmm... I'm thinking about a way to have BHs, but I haven't come up with anything yet. Keep throwing ideas!

Fergie:

1) I'm still preferring good RPGs. Generic? Common? RoN has generic unit sets, and a pathetic excuse for a campaign with this foolish 'board' format. AoM has unique unit sets, and a great campaign, which has been touted as one of the best ever. I don't want tons of Officers! We're not playing over the entire Star Wars galaxy, we're playing a game which looks at battle between forces and bases on a medium scale. Why is your crazy 'prestige' idea better than mine?

2) Officers in the real world advance through the ranks because they do stuff well. But that's Realism>Gameplay thinking. Thus, it's a bad idea.

3) But should the coach score an assist every time a player puts the ball through the hoop? No. Should a General get a decoration because one of his underlings executed a daring assault? No.

4) The Star Wars universe during the timeline of the movies is quite established, but what's been told isn't the sum total of what happens in that galaxy. But rest assured, I'm not planning to use main characters and screw around with what's established. I'm making up new stuff, something EU authors have been doing for over a decade now, and doing it well.

Every game gets old, Fergie, but a great story with equally great missions should hold your attention for quite a while, especially with a variety of difficulty levels and infinite strategies to complete each mission.

AoM has 8 different civs, about 20/30 minor gods, 100+units, a 3D engine, and 35 scenarios, with the capacity to handle an infinite number more (scenarios). I think we can top that.

As for going against the style of GB- do you and the people you know hate Age of Empires, Age of Kings and Age of Mythology? They're not repeated themes or stereotypes, apart from GB and AoK. AoM is quite different to AoK and GB, but at least it's the same genre. You want me to get away from the most established, best and most recognised part of the RTS genre? No way. The promised land is here, not with board games that sound worse than Civilisation 1.

You think of RoN, but I think of AoM, widely known as the best RTS game around and luckily for us, the same genre as the GB series.

5) You aren't limited! You can come up with anything you like as long as it doesn't run into the main parts of the established universe. I could easily come up with a tale of a Rebel leader battling to free a group of impoverished civilans from Imperial rule, a group of Old Republic Jedi undertaking a daring sabotage mission against a Separatist space station.... the possiblities are quite limitless, especially with scenario capacity.

You're worried about things going against the established SW universe, and yet you're planning to have some open-ended board game that could end up going against the very tenets of SW.

Kill 'em all won't be required for all things in GB2 (especially the campaign missions, which will have wide and varied objectives) but the game is a battle strategy game, not a diplomacy game. As I've said before- it isn't Master Of Coruscant, or Rise of Empires and Rebels, or SW-Civilisation. It's GB2. You want one of the former, feel free to post ideas for them. But not in this thread.

Basic stereotypical RTS? Look at what I've been saying! AoM has been touted as the RTS game in history. It has unique unit sets, and the average is around 94% in reviews. What do you think you're saying...

Admiral Vostok · February 19, 2003

Customisable stats: It might potentially make things Officers more varied, but it won't work in an RTS. Fact 1: Your Officer is not replaceable. Fact 2: If they die you are going to be disadvantaged. Fact 3: Having a certain amount of armour will let them survive longer. Conclusion: Give them a hella lot of armour. This is what game designers have to consider, although the concept might potentially be exciting, it will end up being used in a way it was not meant to be.

Besides, personally when I'm playing an RTS I care about the performance of my army as a whole, I won't care if one guy in my 300 unit force could possibly have higher armour and longer range.

Jedi Officers: What?! Which of the following seems more complex:

- You select to have a Jedi, select what they look like, enter a name and chose a number of Officer Powers.

- You start with a basic Officer. Through a process of tweaking different stats using a number of pre-determined points, you select you officer to have high Health Points, zero range, high attack, high speed, low armour, medium LOS, so he resembles a Jedi's stats. You then select from a range of Force powers, classfying the character as a Jedi and equiping the picture with a lightsabre. You can then chose what the might look like, as long as it allows for a lightsaber attack. You then enter a name. You then choose a number of Force Powers and Officer Powers.

My way (the first one in case you didn't know) is by far the simpler and it is also better in terms of gameplay and balance.

Sometimes Corran it seems that you believe it has to be unrealistic to make good gameplay. This is not always the case. The way Gameplay>Realism works is that Realism is strongly encouraged unless it detracts from Gameplay. My idea of realism does nothing of the sort. Perfect Realism is not always the antithesis of perfect gameplay, I don't know where you got that from. Example: Large tanks move slow in real life... but wait that's perfectly realistic so we better make large tanks move fast in the game so we have good gameplay... I don't think so.

Bounty Hunters: I think they should only hang around for a certain amount of time. Alternatively you might have to pay for their time, so a trickle of cash is deducted from your stockpile while you have a bounty hunter. Of course they would have to be pretty good to warrant a cost like that, but I suppose the trickle could be pretty slow, so not overly costly. You could decommission them any time and they'd just leave the battlefield and stop charging you. You could maybe even hire different types of bounty hunters, like a sniper, a stealthy assassin or a no-nonsense gun slinger.

CorranSec · February 20, 2003

Customisable stats: It will work in an RTS. Fact 1: Sure. So what? Fact 2: Sure. So what? Fact 3: But so might Speed, Range, Attack and HP. After all, you might want him to be able to actually fight his attackers, or not have to be near them to hurt them, or to have him able to run away.

Jedi Officers: What?! Which of the following seems more complex:

My way: You go into the Officer Creation screen. You can either select from a sizeable amount of premade Officers (Jedi or not) or create your own by spending points on stats, then choosing three Officer Powers. Some people might want to change the stats to reflect Jediness, but that's their own choice. You then choose an avatar and enter a name.

Your way: With Realism>Gameplay thinking, there's this thing called Jedi Officers. It involves totally throwing the Officer concept into disarray and screwing around with the general balance. But at the same time, it also gets rid of all the fun and uniqueness of being able to customize officer stats.

Okay, maybe "complex" was the wrong word. How about this: "wrong."

It is a fact that in some cases, you must disregard realism to create good gameplay- take the example of the Pegasus-riding hero, and the Jedi Officers. The way that Gameplay>Realism works is that Realism is fine, as long as it doesn't interfere with gameplay. Your twisted "Jedi Officers idea" is nowhere near as balanced as my "Officers who might just happen to be Jedi idea," primarily because you can't seem to accept that in the interests of Gameplay>Realism, my idea is far more practical.

Bounty Hunters: I like the trickle idea, as well as the Mercenary-like 'short amount of time.' But I also like my own 'hiring for a mission' idea- click the 'hire' button, specifify a certain target (possibly a Jedi or Officer) and the BH will do whatever it takes to eliminate the target.

darthfergie · February 22, 2003

Originally posted by CorranSec
4) The Star Wars universe during the timeline of the movies is quite established, but what's been told isn't the sum total of what happens in that galaxy. But rest assured, I'm not planning to use main characters and screw around with what's established. I'm making up new stuff, something EU authors have been doing for over a decade now, and doing it well.

Every game gets old, Fergie, but a great story with equally great missions should hold your attention for quite a while, especially with a variety of difficulty levels and infinite strategies to complete each mission.

Yipee skippy I just love playing the same thing over and over again with the same triggers and no suprises. Fun fun fun.

AoM has 8 different civs, about 20/30 minor gods, 100+units, a 3D engine, and 35 scenarios, with the capacity to handle an infinite number more (scenarios). I think we can top that.
As for going against the style of GB- do you and the people you know hate Age of Empires, Age of Kings and Age of Mythology? They're not repeated themes or stereotypes, apart from GB and AoK. AoM is quite different to AoK and GB, but at least it's the same genre. You want me to get away from the most established, best and most recognised part of the RTS genre? No way. The promised land is here, not with board games that sound worse than Civilisation 1.

You think of RoN, but I think of AoM, widely known as the best RTS game around and luckily for us, the same genre as the GB series.

WCIII takes AoM. And Europa Universalis II takes both. And RoN is the long lost king come to claim his throne. And BTW, I don't hate the Ages series...I am just completely bored with it. The reason it's most recognized? Everybody does it...it's old, it's been done, and adding SW to the mix does not make a blockbuster. *points to GB*

BTW, There are two engines for the game remember? A small exterior one and one for battles that can incorporate much of the things you want. All the board game format does is eleminate the weak storyboarded campaigns. (and if they are in there, they will be weak and pathetic stories and you all know that)

5) You aren't limited! You can come up with anything you like as long as it doesn't run into the main parts of the established universe. I could easily come up with a tale of a Rebel leader battling to free a group of impoverished civilans from Imperial rule, a group of Old Republic Jedi undertaking a daring sabotage mission against a Separatist space station.... the possiblities are quite limitless, especially with scenario capacity.

Yayness. I just love those non-discript characters and bad plotlines. I'd rather make my own plot thank you very much. And I'd rather not ruin my own plot by making it myself so that I know all the suprises like the afor mentioned campaigns.

You're worried about things going against the established SW universe, and yet you're planning to have some open-ended board game that could end up going against the very tenets of SW.

In a storyboarded game it is necessary to stick to cannon if possible. In the board game it is a given that you make your own reality. It's established the very second you install the game.

Kill 'em all won't be required for all things in GB2 (especially the campaign missions, which will have wide and varied objectives) but the game is a battle strategy game, not a diplomacy game. As I've said before- it isn't Master Of Coruscant, or Rise of Empires and Rebels, or SW-Civilisation. It's GB2. You want one of the former, feel free to post ideas for them. But not in this thread.

Why not post about them in here? They havn't called it GB 2 and they havn't said anything about the specifics of the game. Once they have those nailed down then I'll specify my wishes. Until then my ideal RTS holds this board game format. As for "kill 'em all"...I havn't seen ANY casual RTS game do a decent job in diplomacy. Especially not the Age series. Sure it PROMISES it. But I havn't seen it yet, except through triggers and human opponents and that is not any kind of diplomacy.

Basic stereotypical RTS? Look at what I've been saying! AoM has been touted as the RTS game in history. It has unique unit sets, and the average is around 94% in reviews. What do you think you're saying...

Um...no. It nailed an 86% from PCGamer US (note- that isn't a bad score...but it isn't hall of fame either). That's 10% lower than WCIII. PCG is my magazine of truth. Also as I played it I experianced nothing spectacular. The game got old fairly quickly considering I had only played it for 5 hours straight when I decided not to go back to it. Medievil warfare is not an era of time I'm thrilled to play anymore.

joesdomain · February 22, 2003

I don't know about Jedi Officers. I would like to see officers for each civilization that have a specfic role in each civilization. (e.g. Imperial Officers like in the movies). I think more hero units added to the scenario editor like more bounty hunters, more of jabba's goons, more buildings and structures to add to maps. I think the structures and buildings should be useable also. I would like to see more of a variety of differences in each civilization.

CorranSec · February 22, 2003

Um... it will be different. Your enemies might try to rush you with troopers one time, but the next they'll build up defensively, and the third they'll create a huge air force.

WCIII does not take AoM. As I've said before, and as many people on these forums alone agree, AoM is widely regarded as the king of medium-scale RTS. And I don't know what EU2 is. But RoN isn't even in the running, considering that it's not a medium-scale RTS and thus doesn't belong in this debate. If you want to see some reasons why RoN is useless in this particular case, go look at the "RoN for GB2" thread.

AoM is not old. AoM has not been done. And GB may not have been a blockbuster, but I want GB2 to be.

All the board game thing does is remove any vestige of medium-scale-ness (and GB2-ness). Weak storyboarded campaigns? Right. As I've said before, how can you possibly say that when you have no idea what the stories will be? Look at AoM's! It's great! It's actually deserving of being a real myth.

Non-discript? Not quite sure what that means, but the characters will be quite unique, have personalities, and so on. And the plotlines aren't bad. And you can make your own plot- make a scenario!

In a storylined campaign, you don't have to stick to canon at all. Why do you think the opposite? Look at the examples I gave!

Why not post about them in here? Because this is the Official GB2 thread, and GB2 deserves to be a medium-scale game. Go and start a thread entitled "Ideas for an Epic-Scale SW RTS." I'll even do it for you, if you want.

As for diplomacy- that's definitely not the main point of the game, but I'll still strive for something better than what the Ages have done, by way of heavily upgraded AIs and so on.

86% is far better than a 'stereotypical RTS' would have gotten. But that's just one magazine, and I can give you a magazine (PCGameZone) which game it 95%. Thousands of gamers have found lots of things in it spectacular (did you ever use a God Power?) and PCGZ promised over 24 hours of great gameplay, which the game has quite clearly exceeded. And it's not medieval warfare anyway- it's mythical, a theme barely explored in the fields of RTS gaming.

Anyway, I'm sure SW won't bore you quite as much.

Crazy_dog no.3 · February 22, 2003

I am back from the land of Mordor to defend RoN in a holy crusade!

I see Fergie has converted! At last u have seen the light!

Now, back on-topic:

Officers- As I see it, there are 4 types of strategy games: TBS, Large-scale RTS (Cossacks, RoN, Medival:Total War), Medium-scale (GB, AoK, AoM) and small-scale (WC3, RA2, Suddden Strike).

C&C Generals belongs in the last one. And C&C Generals is the best current engine to use if u want officers. I'd be happy to play it, but not as GB2.

Bounty Hunters- I would like them in a unit with some kind of special role, but it only costs a small amount of credits/money/nova, no food/carbon, etc.

Admiral Vostok · February 24, 2003

Customisable Stats: Corran, if you could follow my argument you would see my point and not have to say "so what?" to everything. Let me explain something first. In the table-top gaming world of Warhammer, of which I am a fan, there is a class of gamer commonly referred to as the "Power Gamer". The Power Gamer plays only to win. It doesn't matter if they go totally against the spirit of the game, whether the army they put together is totally unrealistic or if the exploit loopholes in the game rules, as long as they win. When designing a game, be it table-top, computer or any other game, designers should keep in mind what these Power Gamers might exploit in there games. Designers should never assume an aspect of their game will be used in the way it was meant to be, they must always try to find ways in which it could be exploited.

Now, if your Officer is not replaceable but important to have, any Power Gamer playing solely to win will say "what is the point of giving him an attack? It's important for him to survive. All of my points are going into his armour and HP. Who needs him to attack when he can sit in the line of fire and not get hurt, but still have full access to his officer powers?"

This is why customisable stats for Officers like yours will not work. I have seen it before and it will happen.

Jedi Officers: I find it amusing that you criticise me for my adherance to realism even when gameplay does not suffer at all. If you read game reviews, you'd see that reviewers and gamers alike are always impressed with how real a game can be while still being fun. Why take away realism when you are not decreasing the fun? It makes no sense.

Besides, you yourself are more of a realism fan than you believe. You want to limit the number of Jedi Masters available. Is this realistic? Yes, there are only a limited number of Jedi Masters. Does this detract from fun? Yes, many people love getting large groups of Jedi Masters and wreaking all kinds of Force-powered havoc. That's why I am not an advocate for limiting Jedi Master numbers. It might not be realistic but it is a whole lot more fun.

However, in the subject of Jedi Officers I just don't understand why you want to totally throw realism out the window. The fact of the matter is you are either a Jedi or you are not. So it makes heaps more sense for Jedi Officers and Normal Officers to be different entities, but since they are both Officers they are available through the same means. My way is far better both in terms of realism and gameplay. So far your argument has yet to disprove that, since you merely criticise my ideas as "too realistic" (which I can't see a problem with) while you don't show at all how gameplay will suffer.

Bounty Hunters: Well it's always good to finish off on something we agree on. I've said before a long time ago in a thread far, far away that I wouldn't mind an approach to bounty hunters where you set them a target, and you don't control their actions while they carry out the mission. However, this idea needs a lot more development. I think the trickle-cost could work in conjunction with this. What would the Bounty Hunter's abilities be? Would they have stealth? What are their weaknesses? If you set them a target wouldn't people ALWAYS try to assassinate the enemy's officer and not waste their time going for less-important targets?

On a kind-of-related side note: Corran, are you opposed to the rock-paper-scissors approach introduced by the Ages and now used in other titles like WC3? I think it works well because while it might not be entirely realistic it encourages you to build a varied army. I think it worked well in SWGB, though I would have made Bounty Hunters less effective vs Jedi, and Air more effective vs everything.

Official SWGB 2 GB.com Thread

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