The Final Micro-Expansion

I'm under the impression, based on what I've read, that after they are done with Diplomacy they want to begin work on a Sins-2.  There is some sense to that.  When Diplomacy is ready, it will have been two years since Sins's release.  As the game ages, it will have fewer and fewer regular players who would buy a third expansion a year-and-a-half from now.  Rather, it makes more sense to just produce a Sins-2.

I think from base of sins 2, they should include all of diplomacy and entrenchment in the base game of the expansion.

Considering Ironclad has no track record of other games to go by, I can only draw on how other games worked in the past when it came to sequels following an expansion (and of course we don't know if this is going to be a true sequel or a major expansion, but I'm guessing along the same lines as Mr. Sanchez) -

Anecdotally speaking, I find that sequels usually keep the "best" of the expansion(s) and rework or cast off the stuff that didn't work as well (from the devs' perspective) in favor of new ideas.  Sequels almost never keep everything precisely intact.

I have friends in the gaming industry (EA. Lucasarts).  And it is big and fast.  When a new game is designed, resources are moved from the previous game to the new one.  Patching will continue until the new game is released, so I can see everything thrown into this game, but I believe that the budget got low since Entrenchment was patched beyond what was expected.

Blair puts faith into us as players/testers of the game and will take our opinion into consideration when patching SINS.  Blair can only put so much into the game before going overbudget.

Not many companies become game of the year on their first try.

So there is never going to be an expansion that adds a campaign like Brad Wardell discussed when Entrenchment was still in development? That's pretty disappointing.

theres not going to be another mini-expansion. hopefully another expansion/update comes along with some type of campaign (any type, good or bad, would be better than none to those who disagree)

What C.I. said.

There's nothing stopping them from making a $30 expansion as opposed to a $10 expansion.

To be perfectly honest, Entrenchment was a steal for $10, and I'm sure Diplomacy will be as well. IC puts out quality product, and I'm sure that if they put out a full size expansion it would be worth every penny and probably more. Besides, for something as major as a campaign, wouldn't you prefer a full fledged expansion's worth?

Have faith in IC.

-Itharus

Yes and personally I feel the updates and changes required to move Sins forward cannot reasonably be facilitated by a micro-expansion. What will be interesting is if IC will choose to follow Relic's lead in using ICO like Relic Online to keep the community together, given the MP stats/usage are likely to be very different (speaking speculativly of course).

I would also be prepared to pony up $100 for the right game, if I felt I was going to get good and quality time out of it. With Homeworld 3 no where to be seen IC have got complete control of the niche market right now they should take advantage while they can to establish themselves further.

Well, as reassuring as these comments are, I'd love to hear from Yarlen or someone from Ironclad about whether a campaign is in fact forthcoming at some point. . . .

I hope they add the 6th Capital ship once the game is released.

Im pretty sure IC has something up their sleeve that no ones taken a look at. They dropped a major hint with the screenshots prior to beta for Diplomacy with a placeholder in the CapitalShip bar. And at the same time, I dont know where it is now. But someone posted a thread about some info they pulled off the Diplomacy code that dropped a new Capital name. It was supposed to be some new Destroyer type for all three factions. Diplomacy beta is open to absolutely everyone who buys the game even at this point intime. So it wouldnt surprise me that they are withholding a key part of this new expansion just for the sake of dropping something big that will definitely draw-in more sells.

No...

Just no.

There is truth in these words.

The point of the beta is to test things and generate hype.  Not including a new ship type until the last second is a huge fail on both points.  Ironclad doesn't strike me as the sort of company dumb enough to do something like that.

The first comment is almost certainly correct; they are moving on to a new game rather than sink more time and resources into a two year old game.  As this is the right move.

Im not sure why this continues to be brought up. Its been talked to death why its the final micro. Seriously before I started posting here on the forums. I went through atleast 4 months of old posts reading up on stuff to get a sense of what had happened since I stopped playing SINs and then restarted last summer. You only need to skim anyways to get a rough idea of what your looking for anyway.

One of the main reasons for not having a 3rd expansion is that they ran out of $$$ patching Entrenchment and making some major changes that they never anticipated.  The end result was to cut out the 3rd expansion which only hinted of a 4th race (find the April fools joke about the Care Bear race ).

For now they are pushing the envelope to wrap up diplomacy, waiting for sales on the game, and finishing up with balance issues.  The rest will be left up to onliners, modders, and anyone at Ironclad keeping tabs on us. 

Put it this way, I've waited a long time for a game like this, and it's one that I'll be playing for even longer.