Further, Aesthetic, immersive improvements I`d like to see..

from GalCiv3 Forums

It`s great to be able to add faces to citizens, fleets and state jobs now. Thankyou. Adds immersion. I also love the advances in AI and please keep at it.

But...

I`d like to see more aesthetic improvements too, especially in battle:

1. I would like to see more randomised destruction of ships. For instance, instead of destroyed ships always blowing up instantly could we not have a variety of ship deaths such as:

a, A destroyed ship simply veers off course and strays away into the distance, due to catastrophic damage, on fire with popping explosions to become dead hulks in space. This would be for huge ships.

b, A ship taking time before it explodes even when out of the battle? So it floats away, dead, but doesn`t actually explode until 20 or 30 seconds later, if ever? For huge ships.

c, Ships break apart but it`s parts (on fire, sparking or whatever it would look like in space) and just float apart. again a huge ship thing.

 

The idea is to help create a dramtic scene: As dreadnoughts and starships battle it out, dying and dead space ships trailing sparks float by in the background like a great battleships of the sea that`s on fire as other huge ships fight. A scene of war and catastrophe of war.

2. Audio speech of commanders giving the player a run by of the fight as it happens over long distance comms, "We have contact!" "Taking damage!" "We`ve taken one them down!" "We`ve lost helm control!" "Evacuate! Evacuate!" "The battle is won." And varieties of.

3. Audio speech for the various races we meet would be nice too, WITH the ability to add your own Player speech (or audio file) for your custom leader Civ. You could even grab star trek voice overs for custom startrek factions perhaps. :)

4. also some flavour speech for citizens and where you click to read what a person thinks of a world he`s living on.

That`s it, just some immersion ideas.

 

35,601 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Audio files are big.... (as in the amount of system resources they use to work right)    given everything else the game does and keeps track of, adding an audio file is a rather large undertaking.

It has to be timed with the weapon fire/hit sounds
it has to be timed with the ship movements/animations
It has to be small enough so as to not have multiple "we have engaged..Taking...battle..evacuate!"  overlapping tracks...

thats a lot of  work for something that would not really add much to the game...

Audio files in the diplomacy screen...  now that would add something and give the races some personality...

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Audio files for Diplomacy are iffy.  Voice over talent is not cheap.  When you come back a year later with a new Diplomacy mechanic, you have to find the original voice actors for each of your stock races.  Civ 5 ran into that with its full screen leaders.  You have to figure out what a Drengin accent sounds like to a bunch of games that have their preconceptions, and repeat that impossibility for each faction.  As pointed out above, it would be complicated in places like the battle viewer.

Lovely idea, high probably not cost effective to actually implement.

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I love voice overs and even if they are less complicated than a play by play of battles they would be very good for the game.

I recall the voice overs from SMAC became classics that lived beyond the game. ("God doesn't play dice", etc.).

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I agree...    I'd rather see more music... like different sound tracks for the different ideologies,  or techno in the research screen..  the soundtrack for the game is not bad... but more would be cool!

 

Some audio might be fun... also Stardock need not hire Big name people for the voice acting....     I'm sure Paul and Brad  some of the others wouldn't sound horrible with their own voices....  right? 

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Taslios, reply 4

I agree...    I'd rather see more music... like different sound tracks for the different ideologies,  or techno in the research screen..  the soundtrack for the game is not bad... but more would be cool!

 

Some audio might be fun... also Stardock need not hire Big name people for the voice acting....     I'm sure Paul and Brad  some of the others wouldn't sound horrible with their own voices....  right? 
End of Taslios's quote

You clearly don`t understand what can be done with audio files or even the game you have.

You can replace audio soundtracks of the game easily. I`ve replaced all the game music with my own music. It`s easy, just takes patience.

 

 I don`t think adding audio files would be hard, I`m not an expert, but I`ve seen many games manage it and even if they didn`t want to get voice actors for Faction voices they could allow  audio voice files for custom factions. It`s just doing the coding to direct the audio to the right place which would likely take the real effort. By the way, while voice files may be large it all depends on the Format and how large the speech line  is. Even in 15 year old games like Baldur`s Gate 2 you can replace the sound files of your main character with your own (which I did, incidentally). With today`s computers large Hard drives, audio files are not a problem any more.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

A lot of those things sound good but imo a lot are just more work than they would be worth for such a niche genre.

Id just like a DLC for new/updated weapon animations/fx. We basically have arguably worse weapon and defense fx compared to GC2. I was hoping that Crusade would have another pass at this but sigh nope just the same.

 

Heck if stardock wanted to make some money just do a DLC for epic end game weapon animations or even make a DLC tech tree that has some more end game type items that make it so most of us dont get bored once we hit end game.  As it is now by teching up you basically just get different colored weapon fx and by the time you max our your civ in game you dont really feel like you progressed much compared to start.  Higher end stuff should look and feel meaningful and better. Im sure im not the only one that would do 3-5usd to get some more goodies to play with.  Imo should have charged $20.00 for crusade and included a tech tree content pass/update with new weapons, new fx and new defenses.

 

 

 

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Seafireliv, reply 5


Quoting Taslios,
reply 4

I agree...    I'd rather see more music... like different sound tracks for the different ideologies,  or techno in the research screen..  the soundtrack for the game is not bad... but more would be cool!

 

Some audio might be fun... also Stardock need not hire Big name people for the voice acting....     I'm sure Paul and Brad  some of the others wouldn't sound horrible with their own voices....  right? 



You clearly don`t understand what can be done with audio files or even the game you have.

You can replace audio soundtracks of the game easily. I`ve replaced all the game music with my own music. It`s easy, just takes patience.

 

 I don`t think adding audio files would be hard, I`m not an expert, but I`ve seen many games manage it and even if they didn`t want to get voice actors for Faction voices they could allow  audio voice files for custom factions. It`s just doing the coding to direct the audio to the right place which would likely take the real effort. By the way, while voice files may be large it all depends on the Format and how large the speech line  is. Even in 15 year old games like Baldur`s Gate 2 you can replace the sound files of your main character with your own (which I did, incidentally). With today`s computers large Hard drives, audio files are not a problem any more.

End of Seafireliv's quote

 

No.. I fully understand...   I'm just lazy.   I also dislike modding games until I get bored with the base game...  I'm not bored yet.     Besides we are suggesting things Stardock can do to teak the game..  adding additional sound files is  fairly easy...  the hard part is making the music or licensing the music...

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

One more concern with audio files: translation. As much as I agree that would add a lot of flavour to the game, I fear that a not-AAA company like Stardock cannot afford the initial work plus translation.

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Interesting phenomenon I noticed on games forums: Many people who pop up and throw hurdles in the way because they "think" it won`t work, without any evidence or positive counter-suggestions. It`s like they default to negativity. I notice this a lot.

 

These ideas are for the Devs; they are best suited to deciding whether my suggestions are valid or not.

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Seafireliv, reply 9

Interesting phenomenon I noticed on games forums: Many people who pop up and throw hurdles in the way because they "think" it won`t work, without any evidence or positive counter-suggestions. It`s like they default to negativity. I notice this a lot.

 

These ideas are for the Devs; they are best suited to deciding whether my suggestions are valid or not.
End of Seafireliv's quote

I told you what I thought and gave reasons I thought it wouldn't work.  I even said it was a great idea.  Then I get lumped in with everyone else who dares to disagree or have a negative opinion.  Heathen Barbarians, the lot of us!  

These forums are not your personal pipeline to the devs.  These forums are for everyone to talk to everyone about everything.  This becomes more and more apparent the more you read though our collective ranting and babbling.  It will include negative reactions.  To my observation, the Stardock forums are regularly more friendly than most.  YMMV.

Again, it is a lovely idea.  However, it is the kind of idea Brad has repeatedly mentioned that he does not think Stardock is well situated to implement.  I agree with him this time.  As for "evidence", you can't afford the consulting fees it would require for me to feel I owe you anything, let alone documentation.  You get the brief executive summary of the more obvious, at best. If you actually intend to be persuasive to anyone on the subject, Brad has the biggest vote.  You are going to have to reach your intended audience with persuasive and attractive text.  I and the others are not your intended audience.  Ignore us.  Complaints about irrelevant reactions will never push your message forward.  Focus.  You can do better than this.  You have indeed already done better than this previously.

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting erischild, reply 2

Audio files for Diplomacy are iffy.  Voice over talent is not cheap.  When you come back a year later with a new Diplomacy mechanic, you have to find the original voice actors for each of your stock races.  Civ 5 ran into that with its full screen leaders.  You have to figure out what a Drengin accent sounds like to a bunch of games that have their preconceptions, and repeat that impossibility for each faction.  As pointed out above, it would be complicated in places like the battle viewer.

Lovely idea, high probably not cost effective to actually implement.
End of erischild's quote

Come on, everybody knows Bobcat Goldthwait would be the voice of the Drengin.  "Eeeeehhhh, when is dinnnnnerrrr agaaaiiinnn?"

H. Jon Benjamin (Archer, Bob's Burgers) would play the Torian leader.

Craig T. Nelson (Mr. Incredible) could play the Terran Alliance leader.

Angelina Jolie in her Maleficent voice for the Altarian leader.

Tim Allen (Buzz Lightyear) as one of the alien races.

No voice feature would be complete without John Ratzenberger.