PAX 2011: SOL: Exodus Resurrects "Dead" Space Combat Sims

[Yvl9921]

Ace Combat is still a thing, guys. 3D dogfighting never went anywhere, it just hasn't necessarily had its best moments in space.

 

[Vortigar]

This thread illustrates the reason this genre gets so little love. It's very hard to create an experience everyone can agree on is good in this design sphere.

The last couple space games I've seen seemed like glorified spreadsheets to me.

This is not about dissing Freelancer or Eve or whatnot, its about taste, its about loads of empty design space that's just been languishing there for over a decade while games have focused on other things in the meantime. Wing Commander doesn't directly translate into Eve, its a completely different mindset.

There are more people interested in spaceships, the question is how do you tap into that particular vein.

Oh yeah:
The story seems like the plot of a Gundam show btw.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Oh man I haven't seen a game like this since one of my favorites way back from 2000, Tachyon: The Fringe. That was a great game (though nostalgia may be clouding my judgment since it was one of the first games I really got into) and purely focused on space combat. I hope this game takes advantage of the fact that you are in space, i.e. vacuum and low/no gravity environments. In Tachyon there was a great maneuver where you could "slide" shutting off the engines and rotating the craft around while maintaining the same velocity. I'd love to see stuff like that and maybe some more realistic space physics.

Evochron Mercenary [http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/index.htm] is the game for you. Check it out.

 

[NickCaligo42]

It sounded more like dissing Eve to me with it's real focus being more of a businessman than spaceship pilot but I truly don't know. Though it mentioned he worked on Freespace I found both of them on GOG for 6$ so if you want to know what his previous work is like then the option's there. I'm not trying to market his stuff towards you I haven't played them either I'm just giving an example to base his work or comments off of.

What I'm hoping is that he's particularly dissing the X series, but Privateer and Freelancer both also fit in with the "fight space pirates and do lots of trading" sphere.

This thread illustrates the reason this genre gets so little love. It's very hard to create an experience everyone can agree on is good in this design sphere.

The last couple space games I've seen seemed like glorified spreadsheets to me.

This is not about dissing Freelancer or Eve or whatnot, its about taste, its about loads of empty design space that's just been languishing there for over a decade while games have focused on other things in the meantime. Wing Commander doesn't directly translate into Eve, its a completely different mindset.

I don't disagree at all, but I HATE when developers act like douchebags over other, competing games. It's one thing to compare your product to other peoples' to clarify what you're doing, but it's a completely different thing to attack one of any existing, well-established IPs with fanbases in an effort to make yourself look good. By implicating some of my favorite games, he's gone and made it a personal grudge. His game could be good, but I'm going to go out of my way not to buy it because he couldn't use a little tact.

 

[Llil]

Does it play like X-Wing for example, in that the ships control like planes, only in space? It'd be great to at least have the option to play with a proper Newtonian flight model.

 

[Vortigar]

I HATE when developers act like douchebags over other, competing games. It's one thing to compare your product to other peoples' to clarify what you're doing, but it's a completely different thing to attack one of any existing, well-established IPs with fanbases in an effort to make yourself look good. By implicating some of my favorite games, he's gone and made it a personal grudge. His game could be good, but I'm going to go out of my way not to buy it because he couldn't use a little tact.

Fair point.

Janking out words like boring, stupid and calling Eve a super-niche game (how many games have less players, let's count!) isn't exactly endearing.

 

[Greg Tito]

You're missing the point. It's not the HUD that's bad. It's just that you can tell from it that the game lacks the complexity that made space combat sims so interesting and frantic. You know, like shield allocation, engine power, weapon systems, etc.

The game appears to have cut so many corners that it's now a circle.

On Earth 300 years in the future, astronomers discover that our sun is going to go supernova...

Wait what? I thought that our sun couldn't turn into a supernova? In fact the sun will only end it's life in bilions of years. Is this being written by J.J. Abrams?

Chris and I talked about him adding that kind of resource management and he decided against it to focus on different mechanics. If he kept it in it would seem like he's just ripping off of other games instead of innovating. Plus, the weaponry and armor is all based on more of a real-world model so instead of lasers and shields, you have machine guns and hull integrity.

On the Sun thing, I thought of it as a science-fiction story that tweaks just one fact of our reality, this one asking what would happen if our sun would go supernova sooner than 10,000 years.

Greg

 

[Greg Tito]

Does it play like X-Wing for example, in that the ships control like planes, only in space? It'd be great to at least have the option to play with a proper Newtonian flight model.

It does play like a flight sim for the most part but you can turn around to shoot a ship behind you while still flying in the same direction. So there's some leeway.

Greg

 

[karoliso]

You're missing the point. It's not the HUD that's bad. It's just that you can tell from it that the game lacks the complexity that made space combat sims so interesting and frantic. You know, like shield allocation, engine power, weapon systems, etc.

The game appears to have cut so many corners that it's now a circle.

On Earth 300 years in the future, astronomers discover that our sun is going to go supernova...

Wait what? I thought that our sun couldn't turn into a supernova? In fact the sun will only end it's life in bilions of years. Is this being written by J.J. Abrams?

Chris and I talked about him adding that kind of resource management and he decided against it to focus on different mechanics. If he kept it in it would seem like he's just ripping off of other games instead of innovating. Plus, the weaponry and armor is all based on more of a real-world model so instead of lasers and shields, you have machine guns and hull integrity.

On the Sun thing, I thought of it as a science-fiction story that tweaks just one fact of our reality, this one asking what would happen if our sun would go supernova sooner than 10,000 years.

Greg

I suppose trying to innovate is good. But stripping away features that have been well established in the genre seems a bit backwards.

And the sun would only turn into a red giant due to lack of mass.

 

[FaceFaceFace]

On Earth 300 years in the future, astronomers discover that our sun is going to go supernova...

Wait what? I thought that our sun couldn't turn into a supernova? In fact the sun will only end it's life in bilions of years. Is this being written by J.J. Abrams?

It can't. It can (and will), however, expand to multiple times its current size, consuming a large portion of the solar system, so while the supernova part fails science forever, an effectively similar situation can (and will) happen in a billion years or so.

Edit: A Red Giant, as you said just one post further down from the one I quoted =P

 

[raankh]

Isn't this Colony Wars? Without the interesting story mechanic?

I don't see the "Space Sim" here. A modern rendition of IWAR, now that would be a space sim. There have been plenty of takes on the genre lately, but for me they've all fallen flat. Super ambitious projects like The Tomorrow War just didn't deliver, where the X series just feels campy and pretentious to me.

Is it really true that there hasn't been space sims? Rather than that they haven't been anywhere near as good as Elite, TIE Fighter, Freespace, IWAR and the likes?

I sure have played quite a few, but only The Tomorrow War even tried to go to the whole "land on planets" thing. It sort of works, but it also kind of feels like Starglider.

I'm waiting for these guys to really take it to the next level, nevermind these flashbacks to the PSX.

 

[Clonekiller]

Sigh. I really miss these games. With Lucas Arts & their inclination toward nostalgia, why cant they just simply upgrade the graphics on some of their old games and re-release them? An HD version of X-Wing Alliance would be killer, a bigger version of Force Commander would be great, and do you have any idea how many copies an HD Jedi Outcast II would sell?

But no. Let's just repackage the old stuff as is and focus on other stuff. Yeesh.

 

[raankh]

[snip]

On the Sun thing, I thought of it as a science-fiction story that tweaks just one fact of our reality, this one asking what would happen if our sun would go supernova sooner than 10,000 years.

Greg

Eeh, that's not one fact of our reality, it is a large portion of fundamental physics. This isn't science fiction, it's fictional science. It's one thing to use some theoretical part of science (the idea of teleportation, say) and use that to create fiction (say, The Fly)-- however just making some random "what if" scenario and putting it in space doesn't really make it science fiction. Not to me at least. In the words of Ursula K Le Guin, there's some gadget in a sci-fi story, something (or some circumstance) that may well do "magic"-- but does so in a specific context of science as we know it.

Our sun suddenly going supernova is just as non-sensical as the Earth suddenly becoming flat. There's no scientific context.

I say call it a fantasy game, to avoid offending old science geezers like me.

 

[Draconalis]

GTA the space opera?

If you can get out of your cockpit in between missions to do other things, this might be an interesting idea.

 

[Monsterfurby]

GTA in space? Didn't X, X2, X3 and X3:TC do that already with current-gen technology? And Freelancer in the last gen? Weren't all of those great already?

Seriously people, the great part about games like Wing Commander and reigning genre king Freespace 2 was the story. Sandboxes are nice, but when will you understand that "sandbox games in space" are the LAZY way to do it, unless you give your game real depth?

Also - sandbox, but with forced player character identity? That works in GTA, but I expect more customizability from my space trading games.

 

[shiajun]

I guess I'll like this. Why is it that every time Space Sim genre comes up there's no love for the Descent series, only for Freespace? Sure, it wasn't nearly as complex as those but I think that's what made them have more appeal, it was incredibly more fast paced even though you spent most of your time inside tunnels. I especially love Descent 3, as it had more open spaces and rather interesting missions. Seriously, the level where you have to defend the five reactors and spin wildly in 3 axis in a frenzy to make your way around the twisty passages is one of the most intense gaming moments I've ever had.

But yeah, bringing down capital ships is waaaaaaaaay cool.