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Stardock's presence in forum and GC3 stuck in past.

Posted on Tuesday, September 2, 2014

It seems that posting here is waste of time.

First time I made a bug and impressions report.
2nd time I made a big post regarding a mod I made for GC2 and ideas that they could use perhaps in GC3.
Both times no one from Stardock replied and I don't expect they will.

Surely they can't answer all posts but what's the purpose of posting something if they don't care? It's their own game they asked for feedback.
Especially for 2nd post it took some time to write it and I feel I wasted my time. It's been only a few days but I don't expect they will answer just like the other post which now is weeks old.

So either they are too busy working or don't care to read the forums or both. I have been posting here since GC2 but I won't make any new posts since it's waste of time.

And now about GC3 I have to say like others said and I have been saying since GC2 there are things, concepts and game designs that were outdated back in GC2 and they are outdated even more in GC3. I like GC2 and I would like to see the final version of GC3 but in 2014 a 64bit game should be a lot more than an upgraded GC2. Surely at first look the picture seems very cool better graphics but.. not so much. I have seen older games with more realistic space, more realistic planets and more realistic ideas for colonies, terraforming, tactical combat etc.

It's a big strategy game and it should be balanced but this old recipe of sectors both in space and even worse in planets who are actually small cities on a 2D map it's a more like a '90s game dressed with some nice graphics but even them they can't compete with today's standards.

To me it seems Stardock used they same recipe and they didn't want to make big changes perhaps didn't want to risk it or just they had no better ideas?

Space: Still 2D? Sword of Stars a very simple tablet game and was 3D surely many more games out there I dont remember now. Graphics welll better than GC2 for sure but there are countless examples of older games with much nicer and realistic space.

Sectors: Hexes and now ships travel in zizag motion making they game looks very unrealistic and we go back to 1985 perhaps?

Planets: You can build just a few buildings on each planet and just 1 in a whole sector where normally 2-3 cities would fit. Terraformation is done only for some extra  sectors not the whole planet. Best terraformation was in the very old and best strategy game of all time Master of Orion 2. Terraforming the whole  planet and see it to change from a barren world to an earthlike one. It was nice and rewarding. When you play strategy games you don't care only about tacticts, and numbers you want to do some great things too! You want to build create things, you colonize a planet and slowly you change it becomes an other different world with cities, it changes from the barren rock it was to a beautiful paradise for your citizens. Not just sector terraforming.
Where you build buildings in sectors why not build a city where you expand over the time and as the population increases more cities appear even if you have no control on them they will give you bonuses in production, food etc.

 

Solar Systems: They are still static instead planets orbititing their stars and planets are still big enough to be visible, way bigger than reality. But there are ways to have a live solar system and choosing their planets or moons to colonize.  Click the star and zoom in to see the system, see the planets in slow orbit and select the one you want. Still limited on 5 planets? No moons. In Endless Space a game that was released few yrs ago moons were not directly colonizable with ships but through your colony as an expansion sometimes containing goodies just like planets. eg Ancient Ruins.

Tactical Combat: I have to refer again to MOO2 simply because it's TC was very simple using turns and move-attack-defend your ships and it's what exactly GC needs rather watching some spaceships moving in a funny way by themselves and having no control of it. Now I haven't see yet what TC will be in GC3 but if it's like in GC2 it will be another dissapointment.

Tech Ages: New in GC the tech ages prevent you from researching what you want. Really bad idea. Each player has a different strategy on the technologies he  wants to research first. Either drop tech ages or mod for them will become very popular.

 

This was my last post in the forums just because I feel Stardock is not here to comment and the game is stuck in the past there is no new ideas nothing new to expect. I'm sure it will be a great game and looking forward to play it in it's final version but not so much as GC2 since it feels the same and some brand new ideas are needed, perhaps someone else will do it..