I've been eagerly awaiting the release of Infinity, at 1st it seemed like everything I ever wanted in a space sim but there are several things that have watered down my enthusiasm:
FTL Travel: "The jumpdrive system will allow a player to select any star and attempt to jump to it. The range doesn't matter. What's important is the mass of the target and the distance to it. Let's start with a simple linear formula where the probability to successfully jump is a function of M / D ( M = target's mass and D = distance )." (A stetement from the main Infinity website) The 2 words that jump out at me are "attempt" and "jump". Firstly: Why, in a space game supposedly set millenia into the future, would space ships have an interstellar drive can only "attempt" to get me to my destination? Exactly how many millenia of engineering knowledge does it take to sort that problem out? And if "jump" means "instantaneous" in this case, then all that work on the Galaxy Generator has been for naught because instant travel kills the feeling of being in a huge, epic galaxy, ala Evochron Legends.
Ship/Equipment Degradation and Fuel Consumption: This brings me to my poll and this is an excellent example of how realism can be detrimental to gameplay; why should/how can real-life frustrations translate into fun gameplay? Apparently, in Infinity, your ships' performance will gradually get worse as more and more systems go wrong the longer it goes without getting serviced. You don't convince someone to say, take up snooker by telling them that the cue requires maintenance otherwise it will snap after 5 shots. That's also why we have racing games, not car repair/maintenance simulators. Just as Infinity is supposed to be a space flight sim, who on Earth would want to play a space ship maintenance sim?
I'm not completely against realism mind; the zero-g in Dead Space was very well executed, especially in the 'tumbledryer' boss fight towards the end and it was the 1st game I'd ever played in which I heard - or more appropiately, not heard - the effects of a vacuum so realistically.
EDIT: Could an admin please delete this thread? I was meant to add a poll to this but I couldn't after i mistakenly forgot to put in the subject.
FTL Travel: "The jumpdrive system will allow a player to select any star and attempt to jump to it. The range doesn't matter. What's important is the mass of the target and the distance to it. Let's start with a simple linear formula where the probability to successfully jump is a function of M / D ( M = target's mass and D = distance )." (A stetement from the main Infinity website) The 2 words that jump out at me are "attempt" and "jump". Firstly: Why, in a space game supposedly set millenia into the future, would space ships have an interstellar drive can only "attempt" to get me to my destination? Exactly how many millenia of engineering knowledge does it take to sort that problem out? And if "jump" means "instantaneous" in this case, then all that work on the Galaxy Generator has been for naught because instant travel kills the feeling of being in a huge, epic galaxy, ala Evochron Legends.
Ship/Equipment Degradation and Fuel Consumption: This brings me to my poll and this is an excellent example of how realism can be detrimental to gameplay; why should/how can real-life frustrations translate into fun gameplay? Apparently, in Infinity, your ships' performance will gradually get worse as more and more systems go wrong the longer it goes without getting serviced. You don't convince someone to say, take up snooker by telling them that the cue requires maintenance otherwise it will snap after 5 shots. That's also why we have racing games, not car repair/maintenance simulators. Just as Infinity is supposed to be a space flight sim, who on Earth would want to play a space ship maintenance sim?
I'm not completely against realism mind; the zero-g in Dead Space was very well executed, especially in the 'tumbledryer' boss fight towards the end and it was the 1st game I'd ever played in which I heard - or more appropiately, not heard - the effects of a vacuum so realistically.
EDIT: Could an admin please delete this thread? I was meant to add a poll to this but I couldn't after i mistakenly forgot to put in the subject.