Sins Of A Solar Empire - Space Rts/4x (or Rt4x)

[Psydotek]

Published by Stardock Entertainment and developed by Ironclad:

 

http://www.sinsofasolarempire.com

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire

 

It's gotten rave reviews, is the next closest thing to Homeworld, and has MINIMAL DRM. Also, the game sold over 100k copies in about 3 weeks after release early February.

 

In fact, the minimal DRM/copy protection is one of the things that's propelled the game into the spotlight. There's a huge discusson over on the SoaSE formus (http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com) about the DRM and how it compares to other games (Bioshock and Starforce comes up more than once).

 

Stardock is one of the few companies that's realized that rather than prevent piracy (in order to "increase" sales) by punishing legit buyers with overbearing DRM, they'd much rather have a kick@$$ game that'll appeal to as many people willing to spend their $$$ on a good game and not worry about those who would not have bought the game anyways. Their only copy protection is a standard keycode which you register with Stardock online and is required to download update patches. This way they reward people who purchased the game and not those who have pirated it. Additionally, you don't need to have the disc in the computer to play, and you can easily install the game on multiple machines (you're technically allowed 2, but i don't see anything stopping you from installing it on more for the occasional LAN party). Their goal is to make the user experience better for those who have purchased the game compared to those who have pirated it (when it's usually the other way around for most other games).

 

Additionally, the game was designed to run very well on older machines (another way of broadening the amount of potential buyers) so you won't be forced to buy new hardware to play but still looks great on bleeding edge computers.

 

Anyways, i've bought it, but haven't played it much yet (still busy with Simcity 4 and *gasp* Bioshock). However it's next in line.

 

---------

 

According to the above, a recipe for success is:

 

1 - Make kickass game

2 - Price it well (SoaSE only costs $30-40 depending on where you shop)

3 - Have it run well on a wide variety of system specs

4 - Minimal DRM

5 - ???

6 - Profit

Edited March 12, 2008 by Psydotek

[airman]

hmm - that looks quite good

[capthowdy575]

iv played this a little its not that bad of a game. i will have to reinstall this later.

[Verran]

Is it true that there's no single player content at all?

[Psydotek]

There's no single player campaign/story mode like Homeworld had. Single player is essentially skirmish mode found in other games. But when you think about games like Master of Orion or Civilization/Alpha Centauri, there wasn't much of a campaign/story either. Pick your race, build, and conquer. Games can last afew hours to afew weeks (if the map is big enough).

 

I'm thinking a that a real time Master of Orion is the best description i can think of with all space battles happening on the same screen/map as the galaxy.

Edited March 12, 2008 by Psydotek

[romeo55]

Meh, looks ok... Seems a bit... clunky in comparison to the Home World series. There is NOTHING on the market that I have seen that comes even close to it... Sucks that Relic had to go under...

[Verran]

There's no single player campaign/story mode like Homeworld had. Single player is essentially skirmish mode found in other games.

So you can still play against a bot or two, but there's just no structured campaign story for single player?

 

That's not that bad then. From what I'd read, it sounded like it was multiplayer only. That'd be a shame. Anyways, if it's anything like MOO, I'll probably like it. MOO and Spaceward Ho! were some of my favorite games in this genre.

[Psydotek]

So you can still play against a bot or two, but there's just no structured campaign story for single player?

 

That's not that bad then. From what I'd read, it sounded like it was multiplayer only. That'd be a shame. Anyways, if it's anything like MOO, I'll probably like it. MOO and Spaceward Ho! were some of my favorite games in this genre.

Or even more bots i'm sure. They were supposed to be working on the computer AI for an even greater challange in the next update (1.3, not sure if it's released yet but should be soon if it's not out yet).

[RimX]

well it seems as though 1.03 is out now...the is no structured single player campaign or anything you can play multiplayer or play a map against bots also one thing that was supposed to be added in the 1.03 patch was that if playing multi and a player quits it will replace that player with an AI instead of just making all that players stuff gone. I've played it at a friends and it was really good, I ordered it the other day so I should have it soon and can play it. The only thing is that if you are looking for a game that is quick and doesn't take a lot of time to play then this definitely isn't the game for you.

[Waco]

My roommate and I have been playing this since it came out. It's addicting as hell and you'll find yourself playing for hours and hours without even realizing it.

[CanadaGUY]

My roommate and I have been playing this since it came out. It's addicting as hell and you'll find yourself playing for hours and hours without even realizing it.

 

uh oh, so i've never played homeworld as i wasn't that into games back when that was out. But i do remember always picking it up to look at it whenever I was in a computer store. Outta all the games it really did seem pretty interesting.

 

Games lasting weeks? I hope there is a pause button

 

Might think of buying this when i get my new build up and running.

[CanadaGUY]

Ok after trying the thing, i'm glad I didn't buy homeworld back then. Just like eve i can't get over how tiny and un-interesting it gets even like 20-30 minutes into the game.