My Distant Worlds Review

Alright, this is going to sound bad, but what you're missing is the expansion. I've never just played the vanilla game, but the expansion adds in a sins-esque sidebar that really helps alleviate the interface issues. Honestly, 90% of the things I do in this game are through the sidebar, and I can't imagine this game being anything but a hassle without it.

The rest of the things you hated were pretty spot on, like the poor graphics and the ui and game being really obtuse in places. Those things are undeniable and just things you have to put up with if you like the game. But some things, like the fuel system and private sector I think are polarizing instead of just flat out bad. Fuel adds a lot of logistics to invasions, and is probably even more important than maintenance when it comes to how many ships you can field in war, but I don't think the problem with it lies with the mechanic itself but with the lack of feedback, which you get over after your first few games. The private sector on the other hand I think is one of the best parts of the game, and is one of the things that really makes it unique.

Comparing it to MOO3 though? Distant Worlds isn't my favorite or anything, and even with the expansion I think it's a good game with a ton of small problems, but that's ice cold D:

 

Honestly, I think your review is overly harsh for little reason. While I am not one who believes the game should get a 10/10, it is a solid game which should probably rate around 8 to 8.5 range. Going through your main points, I will agree that the UI is a bit daunting to the uninitiated, but since most of the screens and data can simply be ignored via massive amounts of in-game automation, this becomes more of an annoyance for those who already want to get their hands dirty with all the various numbers and stats. One of your UI points was a monitoring panel of some kind, which the expansion added more streamlined panel to allow for you to have easy access to this data.  As for your point about the dated 2D graphics, I think your claims are ultimately baseless. Distant Worlds is a game that allows the player to enter a galaxy which can house over 1000 star systems, while also allowing the UI to zoom from the full galaxy display to a ship orbiting a single moon without a single load screen or pause. While this may be similar to Sins of a Solar Empire, a large map in Sins is about 4 star systems compared to the 1000+ available in Distant Worlds. As a design decision, 3D would actually hurt the game as it would require a massive amount of computations that are better spent on the game mechanics. Lastly, your point about the public/private sector divisions seems a bit silly, and you ultimately do not discuss the matter for any real length. While the player do not have direct control over the exact movement of resources or population in the empire, the player does have the ability to decide what resources are mined directly, where to place star ports for resources to be deposited, what races/empires to have trade treaties with, etc. Honestly, I could not imagine trying to control the hundreds of freighters in my empire after the first couple of years in the game, nor would I even want to.

What I really find funny is that you don't even discuss the parts that are actually lacking at all. The worst parts of the original DW are probably the lack luster AI and the dubious research system. Honestly, I would grab the expansion and rewrite your review. I think you would find it a much more pleasing experience.

I had the opposite opinion. I thought that the above review of the review was overly harsh for little reason. The rating may be harsh, but it's fair if it's consistent with other reviews on the site. By 'consistency', I'm not just referring to consistency in terms of ratings, but also to the preferences that contribute to those ratings -- in particular, the review's preference for micromangement over macromanagement. 

I'll be more specific. I think that you and I fall down on the same side of the micromanagement/macromanagement divide. (Micro- and macromanagement in terms of decisionmaking, not micro- and macromanagement as usually applied to strategy games.) I can't stand macromanagement games because they result in, for me, over-automation and over-abstraction. Sure -- as the above poster insists -- the game allows players to manage their empires in certain ways, but those ways aren't, again, for me, interesting ways, especially when considering what they replace. 

These are matters of taste. And although I may have academic beliefs about the corrigibility of aesthetic judgments, in this case, there probably aren't any arguments that you or I could provide to persuade those who disagree to change their opinions and vice versa. I think that the review could do more to acknowledge that the game may appeal to others who -- like the above poster -- like macromanagement games, but I don't think you should compromise your rating because they disagree. 

Edit: Er, in other words, this:

I guess I am lucky in that I didn't find the graphics or the User Interface issues enough for me to dislike the game.  Underneath the tough interface (which is actually a pretty good interface now with the expansion) the game is superb, very complex but at the same time very accessible even from the beginning because of being able to automate so much.

I love shiny grahics but I'm really glad that I am still able to enjoy a good game even when the graphics are 2D and basic like in Distant Worlds.

 

It's amazing how game reviews can become just completely subjective opinions and entirely swung by the reviewers preferences in games.  This isn't a pop at you but I'm damn glad I never read this review before buying the game or I would have probably missed out on one of the best games I have played in recent times.

Yeah, fuck reviews (no offense to OP). I watch gameplay videos and that's it. I'd rather take a dive on a bad game every now and then, than miss a great game every now and then.

My take on the review is exactly what OP pointed out, you either love it or hate it. As I read the review I felt it was well reasoned and he clearly stated his expectations and why they were not met. I think many people just can't get past the 2D graphics. I don't mind them because I find the game engaging and rich. But then I play and enjoy some games that make DW look like a cutting edge graphical masterpiece. I love eye-candy just as much as anyone and would love a Masters of a Solar Orion Empire hybrid. I also agree the RotS expansion may address the information access problems and cleans up some of the advisor pop ups with a message menu moved to the right side of the screen. But the screen is busy and you need to mouse over the icons and wait for the pop up help to tell you what the button does. After a while I suppose I'll have it memorized.

DW need to be checked out. It really needs a demo. There are still people coming to the DW forum saying things like "Wow. I'm so glad I found this game. I've never heard of it until now." Some game just fly in under the radar. Sins was that way for me. It had been out a year before I had heard of it and the only reason I had found it was because I was Googling about DRM and Sins kept popping up as the example of a hit selling game with no DRM. So at least Adamsolo's review is out and generating a dialog about Distant Worlds. I don't agree with the score. I would rate it an 8 or higher. I do agree that some expectations may not be met.

I also agree with not trusting all reviews and making up your own mind. I might have missed out on Armada 2526, which I also enjoy, if I had listened to the general buzz on the Internet about the game. Again a demo would help.

Here we go.


@the_dingle

The fuel thing is more bad implementation than bad design decision, I grant that. But I'll check the expansion to see if that is better now.
The private sector thing ... I didn't like it, but I'll make another shot in the expansion review.

That's how I feel, DW was my worst sci-fi strategy gaming experience since MOO3, I cannot lie.


@kenata

Again, I reviewed DW vanilla. I'll review the expansion, and if the thing is there now I will give it a plus.

Sorry but I made my points about graphics clear. DW has the worse graphics I've seen for years. Ships rendering is a joke. MOO2 graphics are better, I'll say no more about graphics.

I don't even want to go there because if I do the game will drop to 3.0 easily.

Again, I reviewed DW vanilla, I'm not gonna re-write anything. I'll review the expansion in a week. I have no problem in giving it a 9.0 if its worth it.


@zigzag

I guess that may be the key for the hating vs loving. I can't stand macromanagement games also (like MOO3 ... see the_dingle, here is the link to MOO3). And there are people that like MOO3 by the way (not me). I can't stand the simulation aspect of DW also, its too serious and tedious, I want a game to have fun.


@Haree78

I find this amazing. You state that DW is "one of the best games you have played in recent times". This is incredible. DW was one of the worst 4x gaming experiences of my life. I'm not saying this in a bad or sarcastic way, I'm just curious to understand how a game experience can be so opposite. I thought we 4x Sci-fi Strategy guys would have similar taste. We after all have the same school right? Master of Orion and Master of Orion 2, or ... are there other schools? Space Empires people? It cannot be Master of Orion 3 people. I find this puzzling. DW is a case study for me.


@Heavenfall

Believe me, you WON'T miss a great game, only if you want to. Bad games that don't release demos, that's something to fear.


@mbaron888
Boy I would love to ear some examples.

8 or higher is amazing. Checkout some gamespot scores: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/distantworlds/players.html?tag=scoresummary;user-score

You have many 5.0s (with many people agreeing with), you have a 2.0, and you have some 8.0s (you fell in this category) - the average is 7.3 (which I still find high). I never found a so "fanatic" community in a good way in a 4x game before. In the forums people said wonders about DW since day 1 and even day -55. There were many fans and many people saying this was the successor of Master of Orion, others stating the game was spectacular, a blast. So I requested a review copy to Matrix Games full of excitement. Started playing ... 3 hours passed, ok, the learning curve. After 1 day, 2 days I stopped. What a piece of crap!!!

No offense to you people that like and even love the game, but hardly DW will ever be a game for me. I will try the expansion with a open heart to see if I change my mind.

I'll try to post the review next week, so stay tuned.

Thanks to all for all your feedback, I found it very interesting, the criticism, the agreements. This has been a lot of fun for me. At least I'm having fun with DW in some aspect

Count me in as another person who absolutely loves loves loves DW.  Why do I love it?  For a handful of reasons:

1) In a world of 4X games that are all essentially the same as each other (build up as fast as possible and crush everything in your path), DW breaks the mold by being an unabashedly complex sandbox.  I personally love that I can play the game without the goal of conquering the galaxy (I usually play with victory conditions turned off).  It gives the whole thing a Europa Universalis in Space feel, which is a good thing if you, like me, are a huge EU fan.  The result is more of a role-playing experience (role-playing leader of X alien species) than a "must optimize my play style" experience.

2) On a related note, the level of customization at the game start is amazing.  If you want, you can play in a galaxy with lots of pirates, and advanced interstellar empires as a small, new-to-space civilization trying to make it.  Or you can start in galaxy teeming with independent colonies, as an advanced technological civilization that hasn't expanded.  Or you can... and so on.  The options are incredible, if you take the time to tweak your starting situation.

3) The automation is fantastic.  Don't want to manage something?  Let the AI do it.  It adds even more spice to gameplay.  Sure, you can control everything, but you can also, say, leave your entire war machine to the computer, focusing on research and ship design.  Or you could do it the other way around.  Either way, there's added challenge and, I would say, fun in playing a limited role.  Hell, you can even design yourself a single uber-ship and fly it around doing solo pirate raids if you want, leaving the rest of your empire to the AI.

4) The economic system is so wonderfully in-depth, principally because it is not nearly as abstracted as in other games, whilst not being something you have to micromanage.  I absolutely love that every component you build requires actual specific resources to get built.

As for the game's weaknesses...

1) The graphics may not be anything special, but they don't need to be.  As another poster points out, DW in 3D would be a computing nightmare and, I might add, a player's nightmare.  Consider Majesty and Majesty 2.  The latter is a more polished game in many ways (fewer exploits, more challenging campaign), but being in 3D gives it no advantage over the original Majesty, which was an ugly 2D game that is, nevertheless, extremely functional.  Or consider almost any Paradox game.  3D for EU3?  No thank you, it would only get in the way.  When I consider a DW merged with, say, Sword of the Stars, it just makes my head hurt (since that SotS galaxy map gives me the spins already) and my GPU burn.

2) It is true that the AI is still a work in progress, as well, but that's to be expected in such a complex game with such a small development team behind it.  The AI is, despite its imperfections, certainly competent enough to give you a game, especially if you don't purposely try to use its weaknesses against it.

3) As others have pointed out, the UI and research trees have been greatly improved in the expansion.  Also, they've fine-tuned automation.

4) My biggest gripe, still, is the ship design screen.  It's just too bland and cluttered.  There's not really a good way to tell if you're putting too much or too little of a given component in a design, and there's no good way to compare designs while you're in the process of designing (unless there's something I don't know).  So I mostly leave design to the AI, except if I need a very specific ship for a specific purpose.

I think, though, that DW is a polarizing game because of how different it is from the accepted mainstream.  It is a game that chooses inferior graphics and greater complexity instead of being shiny and streamlined and easy to play.  But it doesn't make those choices out of laziness.  Rather, it is a "throwback" only in the sense that it looks old; it is instead as if someone retreated 10 years, and then said "what can we do with all of the increased computing resources since 2000 besides making the game look better?"  The answer: huge galaxies with thousands and thousands of civilian ships simulating a real galactic economy of 20 space empires, all running in real time, and zoom-able so that the whole thing takes place on a single map.

So yeah, I'm a fan, if only because so few developers choose to make games in the way that the DW team is making DW.

Well not in the same 4x space genre, which is my favorite. (I'm looking forward to seeing how Gemini Wars turns out)

War in the Pacific and Uncommon Valor. Both turn based WWII Pacific Theater games.

Harpoon Ultimate Edition is an RTS based on modern sea warfare.

I have always described DW as a Strategy / Sim.  Depending on how you play, it can be more strategy or sim.  Based on your review, I think you are more of a strategy guy, because some of your points are subjective.  I love strategy games, but I also love sandbox style sims, so the private sector didn't bother me at all.  I also have no problems with the graphics.  The graphics are perfectly adequate for gameplay, which is fairly unique.  Better graphics would have been nice, but the underlying game is what is important.

That said, it does have some flaws, some of which were fixed by the expansion, such as the improved UI and technology tree.  I'd still like to see a bit more variety for ship weapons and defenses, but the Expansion tech tree is decent.

For me the most interesting stage of the game is when your empire is still small enough to be jockeying for access to different resources.  At some stage, you pretty much have access to all the strategic resources as well as enough luxury resources, and the game becomes about either war or at least maintaining your empire and improving your relations.

Pretty much all of the strategic resources are needed to function as a late game empire and build advanced technology ships.  I would have liked to see more strategic options where specific resources conveyed specific technology or weapon benefits.  While there are some specific resource dependencies for some weapons, there is also a lot of overlap, and late game empires generally don't have much trouble finding what they need, as long as they can protect the private sector infrastructure adequately.  It is more of a logistics problem than an "access to the resource" problem, such as what you would find in Civilization.

Luckily, people can do a lot to tailor the game to their liking with the game start settings.  I tweak mine for less planets to colonize in medium sized galaxies with a lot of races.  That way there is more jockeying for resources and expansion worlds and more benefits to trade or conquest to secure enough resources.

DW is a really fantastic gem in the rough with unique gameplay.  It wasn't fair to compare it to MOO 3. 

 

 

EmersonPF nailed it with his post. And Cykur addressing the Strategy vs Galactic Simulator is a very important point.

I am an avid gamer and have been since I got my first computer, a TRS80, back in 1983.

Distant Worlds is definitely one of my all-time favourite games - absolutely a stand-alone first place amongst all the space 4X games I've played (Stars!, MOO2, GalCiv 1 & 2, Sins, SOTS, Armada 2526, and many many others).

I love the scope and random life of each galaxy. I love the limitations because of the fuel system and I love the uncontrollable private sector. To me it is a space opera where your impact on the galaxy can be great or small depending on how you like to play. Your strategy shifts depending on your race, your neighbours, your position, your resources and special locations. It is beautifully unbalanced.

I can see that people who like to play strategy games as though playing chess with eye-candy wouldn't appreciate the creative drama the game brings - but I guess everyone plays games differently. Each to their own.

Like EmersonPF said:

Distant World = Europa Universalis (III) in Space. Including the bad UI.

You either like the concept of macro management, goalless, sandbox games or you don't.

IMO the answer to why it is loved by many is right in this thread. It's a giant universe simulator that can be tailored to how you want to play it. Play as the overload emperor or zoom in and just play as a fleet captain and follow that ship around on it's adventures in the universe you created.

Distant Worlds unique features are it is real time, it's a huge galaxy, and the AI does a reasonable job running the areas you want automated.

Many interesting and valid points made by many posters.  I enjoy DW, with the expansion.  I haven't played vanilla DW, (un-expanded.. LOL) so its difficult to gage some of the reviewers statements and some  of the responses.

While i disagree with **some** the 'harshness' of the reviewers comments, I also agree that the game has its issues.  (more later)   I commend the reviewer for doing a review, and giving us all the opportunity to discuss DW.

First, i hate RTS games.  Why?  I'm mid 50's and have ostio arthritis in my fingers.  I do continue clarinet lessons, and force my fingers to do things (no wise cracks here, please).  I am grateful its ostio, and not rheumatoid.

mbaron888' reply #13, and das 123 (above) crystallizes the reason i enjoy DW (w/expansion).   DW allows a wonderful variety of levels of customization (read automation).  Users are not forced to play DW as a RTS if they so chose.  That rocks!

several specifics.

 1) I have no problem with the fuel / refuel aspect of the game.  It just forces a player to actually consider that his/her 'navy' is not totally self contained, and does rely on a logistics chain.

2) The game stinks on implementing one aspect of long range scanners.  If a hostile fleet is in-bound to one of my colonized planets, ('vectoring' as the game says) even with ships/fleet fully equipped with scanners, and even with the hostile fleet fully and continually in scanner range, interception doesn't work.  Said fleet will politely ignore the enemy, even when adjacent, and focus on the position the enemy was at when the intercept order was given. I have to deploy my ships to the target colony and prepare an warm welcome.  (Yes, i know its 'warp' speed.) Thats disappointing to me.

3) DW has more than enough to have repeated re playability.

I enjoy DW and have suggested several of its features as ways to enhance EWOM.  My two galactic credits.

 

 

 

No I didn't.  My closest experience was Sins of a Solar Empire or Homeworld, ie. RTS games.  I find turn based space empire games innacessible (strange as I love board games).  Tried to like Gal Civ 2 and failed.

Regardless though I am in the complete minority there, everyone in the DW forums who is a fan is always mentioning their days with MOO 2 which means nothing to me.

For me Sins was probably the best RTS I have ever played second only to Homeworld.  I love the theme although Homeworlds theme beat it, but most importantly it allowed me to control my Empire on a strategic level which is much more fun than getting involved in all the little boring details and micromanaging fleet fights.  Most RTS these days are made for the click fest, perfect build order unit spam crowd and give me the same taste as bile in my mouth.

 

Distant Worlds allows me to control my Empire on a strategic level, every game is randomly generated, I can use custom races from popular fiction, Diplomacy can be interesting even though it is single player and the game allows me to include or change the degree of elements of the game I may or may not like.

What's not to love?

I love Distant Worlds and the expansion because:

+ Options and more options

+ Automation: everything automated or nothing at all

+ Private sectors: making the galaxy alive!

+ Fuel system: one must know how to plan ahead as in thinking strategically, not tactically.  I, however, want the developer to shrink the range of the ship.  I don't want to travel half a galaxy at the start of the game.

Well, I guess I belong to the "love it" group.  As a warning: if you love Sins then you might hate Distant Worlds.  They are considered real time 4X but not the same like your left and right hand.

Interesting discussion. Have to say I disagree with the OP review.

I must be in a minority of a minority because I'm a lover of TBS games, particularly space 4x, but actually didn't think MOO2 was the holy grail. It was good, but not amazing. GC2 actually came the closest to me considering it as a great 4x game, but it ultimately became boring - a certain sense of sameness over everything - and I stopped playing it. Can't stand RTS but DW is definitely not a RTS - unless you consider EUIII a RTS.

Which is one reason I love DW - as other posters have noted - its' the sense of the universe being alive with all the private ships and other empires busily humming around their business. The sandbox openness of it is great. And playing it is fun - which with my limited gaming time is key. With the customization options you can jump in at any stage and set it to any pace - beginning with one colony and do the colony rush, or with a mature empire struggling with the other empires, or anywhere in between.

Definitely there are some UI issues (ship design for sure) and some AI balance issues (ease of invasion, overimportance of the homeworld being two that particularly bug me). But not serious enough to dent my enjoyment and the developers are pushing out lots of good stuff in regular updates. The expansion is actually light years ahead of vanilla DW. Research and fighters to name 2 key enhancements.

The automation is fantastic. I would call myself more of a micro-manager and DW gives you the option to micro-manage what is important to you (e.g. fleets or base placement) and leave the boring stuff for it to macro-manage. And it does a pretty good job of it - e.g. building mining stations, escorts. I don't feel like I need to baby-sit it all the time, like I do when playing Civ.

And the forum is extremely helpful for new players and well mannered. And the developers participate in it. Like Stardock does here.

 

'

 

Dwarf Fortress. Quite possibly the best game-simulation ever created. Uses only ascii graphics (although I use a sprite graphics pack).

I agree with the refueling can be annoying. Bad graphics are not really a problem but that's personal taste. Diplomacy could use some work (most games do). UI did need some work (the expansion helped it out). AI isn't perfect but the developers keep working on them and I enjoy fighting them. I wish they incorporated some of the ship customization ie how the ship looks from GCII. Score was a little low in my opinion. The expansion though really does help improve the game. Hopefully you can enjoy it.

Them's fightin' words.

Moo2 was not the holy grail, Moo was.

 

Though I agree with adam, DW just didn't have it for me, and though I bailed long before the expansion, I could not get excited to try it again because the first brush just didn't do it for me.  Which is odd, because I liked Moo3 (after user patches and mods) and I like the idea of automation and playing at a macro level.

 

DW just wasn't fun or engaging, and the fact that it has those 'low budget' issues doesn't help it, even though that's not what is a make or break situation for me.

Neither MOO nor MOO2 are any Holy Grails. Both were great games when released, but they are rather outdated now. Though they are still fun to play. I have not tried DW, though I am familiar with SSI/Matrix. I recently downloaded and tried the Steel Panthers edition they offer, Steel Panthers:World At War, and the game is garbage. Great ideas very, very poorly implemented, as with the original. There is no AI, just very cheesy cheat codes. Basically the same as the original Steel Panthers with all the bogus unit tech details and cheats instead of a competent AI. From what I've seen about DW, it doesn't seem like these guys have mended their ways very much.

To be fair, while Matrix is the publisher of DW, they aren't the developer.  Nor are they developer (SSI, as you point out) of Steel Panters.  Code Force - a small New Zealand based development team - wrote and continues to work on Distant Worlds.  Saying that your experience with Steel Panthers has bearing on DW is like claiming that your experience with Demigod has bearing on your experience with Sins of a Solar Empire.  Same publisher, but completely different games, completely different development teams.

I think the same happened for me, the first impression was so bad that ruined my experiences with the game from that point forward irreversibly. The major problem is as you summarize, DW isn't fun or engaging. But as I said I'm willing to give it another shot. This weekend I'm going to install and play the expansion (Distant Worlds: Return of the Shakturi) with no formed expectations. I'll let you know how it went.

PS: By the way, you are all invited to vote on my blog week's poll. Question (appropriately): "What do you think about Distant Worlds (the original title, excluding the expansion)"

Link: http://www.spacesector.com (the poll is in the column to the right just below the facebook plugin.

 

By the time the appropriate level of automation was in place, so it might be FUN to play, it was playing all by itself. That was kind of cool, but quite short lived.

Graphics is never an issue for a FUN game but a game has to be FUN to forgo them. DW was not bad visually but as noted, like MOO2, way to spread-sheety for my tastes for a game, even with automation on. If I want spread-sheety, I just open my House Management (hope to have enough) Funds spreadsheet.

Now that is as unfun a game as anyone will ever design on a PC...

Sadly, I bought it (with good expectations) as a filler game, while EoW mature(d/s). Bummer.

Worst bit, I didn't even get a coaster, so it could prove at least somewhat useful after the fact. Damned digital dnlds.