Sins of a Solar Empire Is Inspired (And Inspiring)

I would respectfully disagree.

BTW I don't think the dev's have ever said this is the first real time space empire game.

This thread is not ORIGONAL.

After looking at screenshots of it, looks closer to GC1 graphics wise than anything current. Definately not in the same league as Sins.

The reason I post this is due to the comment from Blair Fraser shown below. He seems to state that they just made up this sort of game from scratch and that it is so unlike anything that has ever been done before he had to make up a new word for it. In reality Pax Imperia is exactly like it (Sure it doesn't have the same level of graphics obviously, but the game play is simliar and at least the enemy fleets didn't run away Still AI Was bad back then too) I'm not saying Sins is a bad game, I actually love it. I'm simply saying that all these claims of some ground breaking new genre of games they've created here are insane. There is no new or original to be had when it comes to games these days, and those claiming that they have are plainly telling untruths. (Portal for example, not a new idea, not even slightly. Its already been done)






Blair Fraser :Of everything mentionned here the point I agree most strongly with is: yes, Sins diplomacy needs serious work and we will be re-doing it (probably for the expansion).

I've read just as many 'energetic' threads like this where the majority of people feel its more 4X than an RTS. It really just depends on the crowd. Hard core micro / tactics RTS players are particularly vehement that Sins isn't an RTS by their standards but there are just as many people who claim RTS games aren't really strategy games at all but really Real-Time-Tactical (RTT) games so who knows.

But here is what I have to say about the whole RTS/4X/RT4X thing. Definitions and classifications are so gray. I just made up the word RT4X 3 years ago to describe the game we were making because it felt so different than anything we'd ever played or heard of before. In that sense it doesn't matter what RTS or 4X really is - RT4X is its own classification and because I made up the word I can put whatever I want into its meaning. If you want a definition just play Sins because RT4X is whatever Sins is.

Considering that Pax Imperia was made in 1997, you point is sort of moot.

April fools is next month Serondal!! Gosh.....

When Blair said:



He most assuredly didn't say:



I think it's fair to assume that Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain was such a mindnumblingly putrid gaming experience that Blair and Brad simply never played or heard of it before.

Well yea , but the OP mentioned Sins having only slightly better graphics and that was what I was refering to.

I agree about the RT4X not being a totally original concept, but I haven't really seen it presented to the player in the fashion that Sins does. I played a lot of Imperium Galactica II, which is as many know a real time(variable time) 4X game. A very well done one at that, but a very different experience than Sins as I imagine Pax Imperia would be.

Hey, if people can say that MOO2 is better than MOO3 based only on superior game play (and not graphics, not that MOO3 had many graphics O.o) I can say that Pax Imperia is superior, in some ways, to Sins. Having said that I would love to see Stardock get a hold of Pax Imperia and do a new version using this same game engine though I doubt it will happen. I seem to be the only person who ever played the game or at least who thinks of it as a positive gaming expericing like most people consider MOO (1&2). I'm still waiting for someone to remake Master of Magic

Pax Imperia is actually from the early 90s. It's a bit rubbish, and not really as successful as Sins (particularly multiplayer, variable time flow = fail) but it *was* 1993 or whatever. It is however very much more sophisticated, and cribbing more ideas from Eminent Domain would probably help Sins.

Remember, PI was a Mac game originally and I don't remember any real PC notice for it: it wouldn't be impossible at all for people to have never heard of it and cetainly never played it. However, since PI never described itself as a 'RT4X', Blair can still make it up. PI would just be retroactively included in that classification.

Frankly I think breaking up games like bad techno into 5,000 genres is worthless at best and nerd e-peen stroking at worst. But hey, I roll my eyes at '4X' anyway... I remember when it was something they made up for ads.

Here's how Pax Imperia looks, yeah, Sins only looks marginally better. Woooo boy, those are some incredible graphics!!!



And lets not forget the incredible review scores it received.

http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/198267.asp?q=pax%20imperia

i own pax imperia and i do not believe in any way shape or form that PI is better than Soase. Comparing the two is not even close to fair.

PI was based on animated gif's and sprite technology. NO 3D rendering, no light sources, no bump mapping. Soase beats most of the 4x games with its 3D engine and textures hands down..so how did you come up with this judgment about PI again?

when you attacked planets in PI you had ONE perspective, no camera control. Same way with ship to ship combat. My memory is a bit fuzzy on that however, but i do not remember ever being able to control the camera, spin around ships, or zoom in close enough to be right beside the weapons fire. Your right about the planets, however again they were animated gifs or sprites, you could not go to the dark side of the planet and see the city lights. the gfx technology in PI cannot be compared to soase at all.

I enjoyed PI, but dude comparing it to sins, sorry but i cannot and would never agree.

My picture!? Whelp, here:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/pax-imperia-eminent-domain/screenshots

This post wasn't about pumping up Pax Imperia so I'm not really worried about how bad its graphics were or how bad the scores were. The "its own box" reference was something I read Frogboy saying, though I can't find the post now (of course)
The point of the post is just that Sins is not a new genre or new anything. It has all been done before, and parts of it at least better. Sins is not ground breaking, there is nothing about it that is above average. The zoom in feature has been done, the RT4X has been done, in the end sins is just another game that is no more ground breaking than any other clone game in the past. I think the reason this game is so successful is the companies ability to market it as something exciting and new and ground breaking while not taking any of the risks that come along with making something new and exciting and ground breaking. This might be why so many people have posted about how they feel betrayed when they play the game, or they may just be idiots. I might just be an idiot in your opinon, and maybe I am You can agree with me or not, just wanted to express my opinion. Again, I really like the game, but I am also a Stardock Fanboi so my vote doesn't really count there.

BTW, I wasn't really comparing Pax Imperias graphics directly to Sins. I'm just saying for that day and age they were good enough to get the job done. Sins graphics are just good enough to get the job done compared to the flashier graphics of this day in age. The ships are bland and generic in both games, and for me hard to tell apart even when zoomed in. (space battles in pax took place on a square board, when I say zoomed in you clicked on a little battle icon where the two fleets were fighting and it zoomed into the battle field level, it wasn't a smooth process

I have to disagree with the OP.

I have played Pax Imperia. Yes, the strategic map is real time, but battles do not occurs in real time. Your ships and planets moves around in real time, and you direct your ship to explore also in real time. But when battles occurs, time freeze and you go into a tactical battle screen where the combat is happening in there. What this means is that multiple combats will not take place simulatneously. There are no other fleets movements while combat is taking place. This is not the case in Sin where you actually have to manage multiple fronts at the same time while managing your empire growths. Reinforcements as well as retreats will happen as the battle is going on.

I have not played Imperium Galactica II, so I don't know if it actually uses a real time system of both strategic and combat at the same time or time freeze during combat. So for me, Sin is the first of its kind.

This is false, the battles do occure in real time in that game. When you zoom into the battle time stops outside of it, but if you zoom out the battle will continue. Thus you can have more than one battle going on at the same time with the game still moving forward and the empire growing, as in Sins. The techology just wasn't there to make the game continue to move outside of the battle once you'd zoomed in. However if you zoomed out and played with something else and came back the battle would have progressed. You could have more than one battle zone at a time and go back and forth between them to focus fire until the battle was lop sided, sound familiar?)

Really, who cares? It's not original, great!!




You don't say!!


:NOTSURE:




Huh!?

Imperium Galactica 2 sucked real bad. Even if it WAS the same, nobody would care.

Now, the question: Who cares? I think it's asking too much for the devs to research into every single thing they say pubically.

Still laughing over the fact that he said Sins only looks marginally better, and Pax is the "better" game. Pretty funny how quickly he contradicted himself when his argument started looking ridiculous. Hella funny!

And he's serious!!

Good question, and I supose I'm the only one. I'm not complaining just pointing out, I really like the devs and I do really love the game. I supose my intention was to start a thread about games that have had an effect on Sins or to get people talking about Pax Imperia II (Which I thought was a good game) Maybe I was too attacking with my OP, that was not my intention so I'm sorry. Maybe I underestimated the venom of forum members, though I should have expected counter attacks. Sorry to bring up the pointless subject! Now it is time to let the thread die and flame someones else.

I'm not mad, I assure you. This has been genuinely amusing.

I'll be the first person to admit I'm a heavy victim of Nostalgia. I'm sure if I went back and played the game I'd probably take it all back Some times games are a lot worse than you remember them being. I guess if you consider at that time I was only playing like 1 new game every 6 or 7 months I didn't have much to compare it too. I was one of the beta testers for Space Empires II and I still have fond memories of that, but when I go back and play it I wonder how I could ever stand to look at it.

(Response written, then deleted when I realized I was thinking of Hegemonia and not Pax Imperia... sowwy!)

Dunno about Pax Imperia, but Sins is t3h r0xx0rz, original or not.

I love Sins overall except in Pax Imperia 2 (which was the PC version after MAC did PAX1 it was WAY BETTER in the star systems and planets overall. SINS needs some trimming to do on how their memory usage works. As it stands the CPU and graphics cards are getting overloaded due to all zoom lengths being processed at the same time. I kinda found the way points between planets kinda silly since in general "warp" has always been between stars in EVERY game and show not planets inside one solar system. Basically if Stardock combined Galciv 2 and SINS = the perfectly created game. They both have opposite bad negatives and opposite positives for the most part.