Stellaris coming soon

[alex_brunius]

Yes well, it seems likely it will be a good games but...

It's a paradox games and that could be very bad.

I have been burned by crusader kings 2 and Europa Universalis 4. They have like 15 expansions each. Try to calculate the cost of buying all that. I fear they will do the same here.....

What was the actual issue you had with these games in their base format causing you to "been burned"?

Surely that the devs put a lot of effort to keep developing these games and are selling extra content long after release for us players that played 500+ hours and want more content can't be seen as a bad thing?

[boggo2300 (OP)]

What was the actual issue you had with these games in their base format causing you to "been burned"?

Surely that the devs put a lot of effort to keep developing these games and are selling extra content long after release for us players that played 500+ hours and want more content can't be seen as a bad thing?

Actually I'd be kinda interested to hear as well,  I've never heard anyone actually having much issue with any Paradox game,  especially since when the do release an expansion you get the updated version even without the expansion,  you just don't get the new features (for example I never got the Aztec invasion exp for CK2 as I hate the idea,  but still got the new version of the game,  just with no suddenly appearing South Americans)

[Paul M]

The tech "deck" is a good idea.  The semi random research was in sword of the stars as well.  I think it is the best solution to the inevitable min-max issues that otherwise will show up.  Plus it makes you play with different toys in different games.  What I am not sure of is how different it will be at the end of the day.  Does each game uses a different deck (so some cards may not be present) or if it is just a case of random options so that if you play long enough all the tech will be available...the wiki and development diary sorta hint that some tech you may not get another crack at.

One thing I'm unclear on is if you can have more than one class of a particular size of ship.  The Twitch tv with the blorg they seem to have only one type of CT, DD, CA and BB in use.  I'm unsure if that is just to simply the fleet or if that is a fact.

Your choice of FTL locamotion I suspect will also make a big difference in the game.  Looks like there will be lots of viable alternatives with each play when you considere ethos, traits, tech and drive.

[krip123]

"One thing I'm unclear on is if you can have more than one class of a particular size of ship.   The Twitch tv with the blorg they seem to have only one type of CT, DD, CA and BB in use.   I'm unsure if that is just to simply the fleet or if that is a fact. "

From what i gathered you can have different models of the same class.  The devs in the blog streams just like to use one model.  There was a part of the videos where they made a new design of a station.  They saved it and they still had the old one in the list.  He then proceeded to delete the old one and keep only the new design.

[boggo2300 (OP)]

The tech "deck" is a good idea.  The semi random research was in sword of the stars as well.  I think it is the best solution to the inevitable min-max issues that otherwise will show up.  Plus it makes you play with different toys in different games.  What I am not sure of is how different it will be at the end of the day.  Does each game uses a different deck (so some cards may not be present) or if it is just a case of random options so that if you play long enough all the tech will be available...the wiki and development diary sorta hint that some tech you may not get another crack at.

My understanding is it's the same deck no matter what, however some cards do not go back into the deck if they aren't selected when they come out,  though since it's a Paradox game I would expect that there will be tech deck mods around within a week or two...

I'm hoping it won't take long for there to be a graphic pack for the Star Wars empire, so I don't have to make my own for the "Monochromatic Imperium" race I'm planning on playing on Monday

[Zincat]

What was the actual issue you had with these games in their base format causing you to "been burned"?

Surely that the devs put a lot of effort to keep developing these games and are selling extra content long after release for us players that played 500+ hours and want more content can't be seen as a bad thing?

Sorry for the late answer, was away a couple of days.

There are two reasons for which I consider an excessive amount of DLC content a bad thing. And, between the two games, for me this is more prevalent in Crusader Kings 2 (the one I played the most).

1) The economical aspect. If you sum all the DLC expansions (I'm not talking of music and portraits, I'm talking of content Dlcs).  I think it comes to ... 150 euro? Or something like that. Convert to dollars if you want. Apart from the cost, this is bad for another important reason. One might say: ok, don't buy those expansions if you don't want them. BUT, I play with mods. And almost all good and/or extensive mods require you to have all the expansions that came out up to that point. So, something that should be completely optional becomes... not so optional.

2) Of all those expansions, some are low quality. They don't have a lot of content, or they have questionable mechanics which immediately turned out to be a bad idea, or they introduced bugs which hampered the gameplay. And instead of fixing those bugs, the devs put out even more DLC to make more money. I REALLY don't like to feel like a cash cow.

So in general, to me the DLC overload of those games is bad because it really feels just like milking the cash cows as much as possible, instead of fixing bugs and broken mechanics.

And I fear that Stellaris will follow the same route....

[Thanatos]

I agree with the previous posters regarding the DLC and being a cash cow. But my problems with Stellaris are mostly due to the fact that I don't believe that Paradox Interactive can make compelling games.

I am a game designer, and from my point of view, which is very technical, Paradox's games are bad and boring. They remind me of a rocket engine pieced together with material from the scrap-yard and duct tape. That kind of thing also explains why it has so much DLC. I guess Paradox just prays every night that the imagination of players carries them through the game's shortcomings.

I fear Stellaris will share the same design decisions that went into CK2 and EU4, and HoI and what not. The feature list of Stellaris makes me cringe, because if it's made on a modified Clausewitz engine, the list is a bunch of lies and over-exaggerations.

But I am ready to be surprised. But whatever, even if Paradox cleaned their stuff up, and made a genuinely good game, from every perspective, I still think Aurora will be superior.

[boggo2300 (OP)]

Sorry for the late answer, was away a couple of days.

There are two reasons for which I consider an excessive amount of DLC content a bad thing. And, between the two games, for me this is more prevalent in Crusader Kings 2 (the one I played the most).

1) The economical aspect. If you sum all the DLC expansions (I'm not talking of music and portraits, I'm talking of content Dlcs).  I think it comes to ... 150 euro? Or something like that. Convert to dollars if you want. Apart from the cost, this is bad for another important reason. One might say: ok, don't buy those expansions if you don't want them. BUT, I play with mods. And almost all good and/or extensive mods require you to have all the expansions that came out up to that point. So, something that should be completely optional becomes... not so optional.

2) Of all those expansions, some are low quality. They don't have a lot of content, or they have questionable mechanics which immediately turned out to be a bad idea, or they introduced bugs which hampered the gameplay. And instead of fixing those bugs, the devs put out even more DLC to make more money. I REALLY don't like to feel like a cash cow.

So in general, to me the DLC overload of those games is bad because it really feels just like milking the cash cows as much as possible, instead of fixing bugs and broken mechanics.

And I fear that Stellaris will follow the same route....

Hmm,  I play games both with and without mods, and I've never hit a mod that wont work because I don't have one of the DLC's.  since you get the engine upgrades even without the DLC's  I have actually encountered the other issue far more,  a MOD that won't work with the latest engine (since I have Steam autoupdating my engine whenever theres a new DLC) and I have to fiddle with the version downgrade feature in Steam to drop my game version back to what the Mod can handle.

Now you've piqued my curiosity and I'm going to have to go hunting for a mod like you describe.  incidentally what you describe is exactly the issue I've had with Civ V mod's though since theres only 2 expansions for that possibly not so bad (even if those 2 expansions actually cost more than all the CK2 dlc's added together)

[boggo2300 (OP)]

I agree with the previous posters regarding the DLC and being a cash cow. But my problems with Stellaris are mostly due to the fact that I don't believe that Paradox Interactive can make compelling games.

I am a game designer, and from my point of view, which is very technical, Paradox's games are bad and boring. They remind me of a rocket engine pieced together with material from the scrap-yard and duct tape. That kind of thing also explains why it has so much DLC. I guess Paradox just prays every night that the imagination of players carries them through the game's shortcomings.

I fear Stellaris will share the same design decisions that went into CK2 and EU4, and HoI and what not. The feature list of Stellaris makes me cringe, because if it's made on a modified Clausewitz engine, the list is a bunch of lies and over-exaggerations.

But I am ready to be surprised. But whatever, even if Paradox cleaned their stuff up, and made a genuinely good game, from every perspective, I still think Aurora will be superior.

I disagree with just about everything you've said,  I don't think you can make direct comparisons between Aurora and Stellaris for a start as they are trying to accomplish completely different things. 

can you give examples of what you think are lies and over-exaggerations on the Stellaris feature list?

I'm not trying to pick fights with either you or Zincat,  I'm just trying to understand the gripes because neither I or any of my friends that play Paradox games have struck anything like you guys are describing.

And ok the rate of DLC releases in 2012 and 2014 was pretty quick at roughly every 2 months,  there have only been 2 since then, but theres still no need to buy them that I can see unless you want to play the specific culture that's being expanded (I still don't have Sunset Empires,  and pretty sure I never will because the concept seems really stupid to me)

[Zincat]

And ok the rate of DLC releases in 2012 and 2014 was pretty quick at roughly every 2 months,  there have only been 2 since then, but theres still no need to buy them that I can see unless you want to play the specific culture that's being expanded (I still don't have Sunset Empires,  and pretty sure I never will because the concept seems really stupid to me)

For me, the main point is the fact that they were releasing DLCs with borked up mechanics and without fixing bugs.

For example, there was this horrible bug with the research. I always played heavily investing in research. Building all the proper buildings, sending my spymaster to do research, always paying for the research events and such. I LOVED it, and to me it was important.And eventually, after much toiling, I was successful in reaching the top, being in the first place research-wise. In fact, I was even ahead of time in all fields!
However, there was  problem in which somehow some territories would spike up because of a bug. Once, an empty territory in Russia, with 1 in all techs, rose to the penultimate tech level in one year in all fields. After investigating and asking in forums and such I discovered it was because of some mercenary bands and/or religious leaders, which became lords and were awarded (supposedly by mistake?) "tech points". I am sure you agree that seeing a primitive territory suddenly outstripping any other territory in the world in 1300 or so can only be considered a bug.

To me something like this is a deal breaker, and that game was immediately terminated. And to my knowledge, it was never fixed (I did skip the last 2 DLCs though)

Or, what to say about Way of Life? After that DLC, in vanilla games, suddenly the game was all about the Focus and my courts saw an INSANE amounts of intrigue, events and assassinations. Like, it was so frequent that everything else felt marginal because you were always dealing with THAT instead.

Or when they changed the way regents worked, meaning that basically if you got a regent you were completely immobile until your ruler came of age. I can understand being limited, but being almost unable to do anything?

Or I also read about some serious problems with alliances during wars in one of the DLCs I skipped.

Some of these problems MIGHT have been fixed after I stopped buying / playing, but honestly, these things were really bad. They were just feeding us DLC after DLC, completely ignoring the QUALITY of what they wanted us to buy.


This is why at a certain point I got fed up with the game and it's endless stream of DLCs...

[Thanatos]

I disagree with just about everything you've said,  I don't think you can make direct comparisons between Aurora and Stellaris for a start as they are trying to accomplish completely different things. 

can you give examples of what you think are lies and over-exaggerations on the Stellaris feature list?

I'm not trying to pick fights with either you or Zincat,  I'm just trying to understand the gripes because neither I or any of my friends that play Paradox games have struck anything like you guys are describing.

And ok the rate of DLC releases in 2012 and 2014 was pretty quick at roughly every 2 months,  there have only been 2 since then, but theres still no need to buy them that I can see unless you want to play the specific culture that's being expanded (I still don't have Sunset Empires,  and pretty sure I never will because the concept seems really stupid to me)

I am not trying to pick fights either. I understand my opinion is far out in the left field, and is very unpopular, so I'll try to tone it down a bit while explaining what I mean.

First of all, Aurora and Stellaris are both 4x games. Whether you call one a turn based strategy, and the other a grand strategy, does not realistically, make a difference. In both games you expand, exploit, etc etc. A thing people point out about Paradox games is diplomacy, and on the surface this is the stark contrast between Stellaris and Aurora. Paradox Games have a weird diplomacy/politics system, that limits you in every possible way. It is supposed to be modeled after a feudal society, but run a check list of the things Paradox Games let you do, without triggering an event. Aurora on the other hand just has a 'do they hate me or like me' meter, and in my book it works fairly well. If you can roleplay or imagine a grand scenario of how your Wannabe King Bob the Nobody wrested his Kingdom from his brother's incestuous hands- then you should be able to roleplay and imagine long diplomatic discussions in Aurora. If we can all agree on this, then the most stark difference between Aurora and Paradox Games does not seem that... different at all, and we don't need to go over the others.

As far as the feature list goes, I'll try to break it down for you, with how I imagine it will turn out, and why this is basically a lie/fraud/scam whatever you want to call it. But don't misunderstand me. The industry has been doing this for years.

Deep & Varied Exploration: Yeah, no. It is space in 2D, with random generation of dots on the map. Conway's Way of Life has more variation than what I expect this to be. As far as the 'Deep' part goes, it's just going to be an event, from a pool of 20 events. Just about every modern 4x game has this, and quite frankly, it is the weakest way one can implement variety.

Look towards the leaders in PCG and compare an event system to what they have. Ultima Ratio Regum procedurally generates clothes and languages. Dwarf Fortress proceduraly generates music and poetry form. It is like saying, hey, Aurora has a deep and varied race system. Every race is different, as their stats allow them to live comfortably at different temperatures and Gs.

Enormous procedural galaxies, containing thousands of planets: It would take me two minutes to code this up. Elite did this on a floppy disk. Not worth the mention. More impressive would be 'Dozens of solar system types, with handcrafted planet art' and even then I would snore. Why do they make it sound like it is 'OH MY GOSH SO AMAZING'.

Explore Anomalies with your heroic Scientist leaders: Events. Give me a text file, and so far, the feature list suggests I can code a Stellaris clone within the hour.

Infinitely varied races through customization and procedural generation: Already been there in previously mentioned features.

Advanced Diplomacy system worthy of a Grand Strategy Game: You mean this time around I can actually discuss trades and conquer or subjugate whoever I want whenever I want? Start civil wars? Give foreign aid? Send over materials for nefarious purposes in getting a proxy war started? No? Then get out.

Ship Designer based on a vast array of technologies: *yawn*. It's probably gonna be like what... 10 modules? Maybe 12? Yeah. I am so excited.

Stunning space visuals: I was wrong. Stellaris does have something over Aurora.

EDIT: I said I would tone it down, but it seems I just can't get a grip on my displeasure and it's pouring out. I won't edit what I originally wrote, but please try to understand where my opinion comes from. I grew up on games like Elite, Star Control, Master of Orion, Master of Magic, Heroes, Emperor of the Fading Suns, Warhammer 40k, D&D, all the good oldies. And in every way, compared to games of their time, these games have been superior and leaders in innovation and game design. When I see people tout CK2 and games of that nature, as a masterpiece and holy grail of gaming, it just makes me sad. The hype train of Stellaris is so long, at this point, that if you laid it out on the earth, it would wrap around the globe twice. And this is based on realistically looking, at best mediocre mechanics.

Have you ever seen or played Phoenix Command? It is a RPG system so complicated that it is unplayable. Resolving a single bullet hit takes a good hour. What I am trying to say is, being complicated is not good. And being simple does not mean bad. But Paradox games fall into neither category. I would at best call them 'Inconvenient'. Just like PC, they have good ideas, with a strong concept and vision. But the execution falls short. The game is carried by the imagination of players who do not mind the fact that research does not make sense. Who do not mind that 4000 Knights can get beat by 2000 peasants. Who do not mind that their brother who killed their mother, is not a valid 'I KEEL U' target for conquest.

Now, I will always applaud a game that can engage a player to make greater of what they are given through the interface, but if that is the requirement to enjoying the game, how can it be called good?

[boggo2300 (OP)]

Thanks to both of you for the considered responses,  and while I personally don't find your arguments convincing (except about bloody regents,  I hate that! Though it does strike me as both deliberate and correctly modelling what they wanted to model there)  I appreciate the insights.

[Paul M]

Looking at the gripe list there...I'm not sure it is very valid.  Based on the Twitch stream you can see that a lot of these points are covered.

1.  The map may be 3D but I'm honestly not sure how much that brings to the table.  Looking at a 2D representation of 3D space (which until holoprojectors or VR comes on line is standard) probably reduces the impact of real 3D.  I am also not sure what you are really complaining about.  Starfire has a random universe generation model...as does aurora as does Stellaris as does SEI-V at sufficient zoom it is dots on a plane.  Stellars so far as I can see has stellar types, anomolies (more than 20 easily), blackholes, and other such things.  Planets themselves are varied in size, value, blocker tiles, and type.  You could certainly do it more detailed or less detailed but it at least from what I can see far exceeds what MoO tossed at you, and may be better than what Endless Space, SEI-V, or Sword in the Stars produced.  Exactly how varied and such well that I can't say.  But on the other hands to the player a system is binary...it is either worth exploiting or it is not.

2.  Races seem to be quite varied.  And judging by the lead AI programers comments they behave differently according to what they are....Peaceful traders are different then Xenophobic Militarists.  I have no idea if the shape of the creature plays any role...do fungus being like other fungus beings more than lizard beings?  No idea...

3.  Diplomacy has limits but most of what you want you can do if you have sufficiently good relations with the race or if they are sufficiently motivated to accept the trade.  So you can ship minerals to a race in the hope that they build more ships and start a war I'd imagine.  The diplomacy seemed to be going on quite a bit in the Blorg game.  There is limits...you can't drag your allies into a war unless you offer them some of the spoils...and that strikes me as sensible.  The limitations seems to be more about preventing player abuses then limiting player freedom.  And no previous 4X SF game had diplomacy worthy of the word. 

4.  Ship customization looks to be ok...not spectacular but ok.  From the wiki at least 2 types of defences (armour and shields), and 20 or so different weapons in 5 groups (lasers, disruptors, mass drivers, missiles, weird and wacky).  Different combat computers and drives additionally.

I have a number of PI titles, some I like some I'm not so keen on.  EU4...probably have to re-install and try again.  Rome..no way...a macedonian army in the middle of Gaul is not possible and indicates a totally broken game to me.  Victoria...well I've played argentina to the end but the convoluted mechanics of the game I can't get behind...I managed to destroy the economy of Prussia and in the Vic2 demo destroyed the US economy...so well...hmmm.  HoI 1, 2, 3  I initially liked 3 but it had too many issues for me.  If they would be issues for other people is not clear...I'm pumped on HoI 4 because it seems to have fixed those things I didn't like in the previous editions.  CK and CK2 I like these but haven't had much time for CK2.

Mods are  not relevent to me, as I find that for every one thing a mod does I like it does another I don't...so I just play the game.  I also feel on the philosophical level that a game should be playable without mods as I paid the game company for a viable product.  3rd Party fixes aren't in the deal...and should not be needed.

If I like stellaris remains to be seen but it doesn't seem (from the twitch stream) to be too bad over all.

[jem]

Enormous procedural galaxies, containing thousands of planets: It would take me two minutes to code this up. Elite did this on a floppy disk. Not worth the mention. More impressive would be 'Dozens of solar system types, with handcrafted planet art' and even then I would snore. Why do they make it sound like it is 'OH MY GOSH SO AMAZING'.

As an actual programmer, here have five minutes, give me code. And no, I don't accept just dots on a grid.

[Thanatos]

As an actual programmer, here have five minutes, give me code. And no, I don't accept just dots on a grid.

I am an actual programmer too, you know. This isn't so hard. Instead of actual code where I tell a few pixels to light up, allow me to direct you to something spectacular.

https://github.com/Mindwerks/worldengine

Now that is impressive.

Paul: A few games actually did 3D space, and it had some interesting consequences. One of the major gripes I heard about Stellaris was, if the space is 2D, you can get locked in, IE surrounded by non-hostile non-beatable races. It is fairly simple to code up what Stellaris, SEI-V, Aurora and Starfire did. But it's not magic, and not worth the 'deep & varied' or whatever they are claiming it to be. I mean, when we get right down to it, I guess it IS varied. But really, is it really that special? Chess too has varied tiles, you know. It's like saying the user interface is a feature.

Races being varied... well, a lot of games have this. Some different text, different internal values that control behavior. Heck, Aurora has this when you select the government type.

Now, I am not saying the game will be bad. Whether I like it or not, does not mean that on a technical level the game is bad. I just dislike their feature list, and what they claim their game has.

Imagine seeing a pacman clone on steam, and it's feature list went like this:

* Deep & Varied levels with infinite procedular generation
* A new experience every time you start the game
* Multiple endings
* 48 hour long story
* Innovative "Eat or be Eaten" system

How would you feel?