Homeworld Remakes, It's Actually Happening!!!

[Purple]

It's much better to find reviewers with useful* opinions who you trust to be honest.

you trust to be honest.

to be honest.

honest.

And while I am at it I am going to go find a pink unicorn so that I can chew on its cotton candy mane whilst watching the review being projected on the moon via its magic horn.

[Simon_Jester]

Finding an honest reviewer can be easier than finding a reliable torrenter who can tell bugs introduced by pirating from flaws in the actual game?

You're using cynicism in place of thought, and it isn't working.

[Purple]

Finding an honest reviewer can be easier than finding a reliable torrenter who can tell bugs introduced by pirating from flaws in the actual game?

I newer said I'd find one. I said that I'd wait until the release and per-release hype is over and enough people have bought and stolen it so that there is a large pool of people online that I can trawl through and get a more or less accurate result.

It's the same approach I take with movies. I usually go to the cinema when they are already about to cancel the film in question because I want to see as many comments as possible from as many people as possible as opposed to trusting any officially sanctioned reviewer.

I just happen to value my money and be very cautious about how I spend it.

[bilateralrope]

It's much better to find reviewers with useful* opinions who you trust to be honest.

you trust to be honest.

to be honest.

honest.

And while I am at it I am going to go find a pink unicorn so that I can chew on its cotton candy mane whilst watching the review being projected on the moon via its magic horn.

You seem to think there are a lot of dishonest reviewers. Why do you think that ?

[Vendetta]

Internet randoms are probably the last people you should be trusting to give you useful opinions because the only ones who are motivated to speak out are the ones with extreme opinions, most frequently informed by some kind of deeply partisan position based on fandom of something.

Professional reviewers are usually at least expected to justify their opinion in the body of the review.

[Purple]

You seem to think there are a lot of dishonest reviewers. Why do you think that ?

Reviewers are industry professionals who are paid by the industry to say that all games are wonderful, good and beautiful gems that you absolutely must buy or else you might as well have not lived.

Internet randoms are probably the last people you should be trusting to give you useful opinions because the only ones who are motivated to speak out are the ones with extreme opinions, most frequently informed by some kind of deeply partisan position based on fandom of something.

Professional reviewers are usually at least expected to justify their opinion in the body of the review.

I basically go by letsplays. I wait until enough people have gotten the game that people are playing it on youtube and than I check it out there. It's basically the equivalent to going over to a friends house who has the game and playing a few hours.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

How is this looking? I enjoyed the original HW and Cataclysm a lot, but I can't think of a remake off the top of my head that turned out well. Even the better ones usually inspire me to just pop in the original.

[bilateralrope]

You seem to think there are a lot of dishonest reviewers. Why do you think that ?

Reviewers are industry professionals who are paid by the industry to say that all games are wonderful, good and beautiful gems that you absolutely must buy or else you might as well have not lived.

I'm not aware of them being paid in ways that cause a conflict of interest. Can you name any specific publications that have such a conflict of interest ?

Note that if you claim free copies of the games that reviewers get are a conflict of interest, I'll expect you to prove it. Theorising will not be enough.

I'll give you three examples of reviewers and how they have arranged their business to avoid such a conflict:
- Total Biscuit. Google provides the ads to his Youtube channel. He lets Google choose the ads without any input from him and doesn't know what ads will be playing until they play. When there are exceptions he discloses them at the start of the video. His worst example of disclosure is his SPAZ video, where he doesn't mention that he did some voice acting for it until about 1:39. Before giving his opinion. He has since decided to be more explicit in disclosing promotional videos.
- Jim Sterling. Funded via Patreon, scroll down to the Anything To Declare? section to see his standards for disclosure.
- Polygon Here is their statement on advertising:

We have advertisements on our site, and they are our main source of revenue. Our company has its own advertising team responsible for selling ad space on our site. We do not accept money or other consideration from companies as a condition or incentive to write a review or story, whether favorable or unfavorable, on Polygon. All reviews and other editorial material on the Polygon site are based on our editorial discretion, and not based on the desire of any company, advertiser or PR firm. Advertisers don't ask us to cover their products, and we don't comment about their ads. Our policies do not permit placements of advertorial on Polygon. We will endeavor to clearly mark any advertisement or "infomercial" (videos, Flash animations, etc.) shown on Polygon as an advertisement.

Our website may [also] contain affiliate marketing links, which means we may be paid commission on sales of those products or services we write about. Our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers or affiliate partnerships.

This is easy for them to do. Have one group of people handling the advertising side. Don't let them talk to the people writing articles.

I basically go by letsplays. I wait until enough people have gotten the game that people are playing it on youtube and than I check it out there. It's basically the equivalent to going over to a friends house who has the game and playing a few hours.

That can work. Unless you want to avoid spoilers.

But since you brought up reviewers being paid by the gaming industry, lets talk about lets players being paid by gaming companies:

Pay for Play: The ethics of paying for YouTuber coverage

As you can see, 98 percent of those with less than 5,000 subscribers said that they have never received money from a developer or publisher to record videos of games. In comparison, at least 26 percent of YouTubers with over 5,000 subscribers said they had taken money to record videos.

So clearly as you move up the subscriber scale, the bigger YouTubers are being offered cash for coverage or asking for cash to cover games, and at least a quarter of them are taking it. However, that doesn't answer whether the smaller YouTubers would partake in the act if they were given the opportunity.

There was Microsoft's dodgy deal involving Machinima. A deal that was potentially illegal.

Then there was YogDiscovery, a program proposed by the Yogscast lets play channel where they would take a slice of the revenue from games sales. Now that's a clear conflict of interest because if they make the game look bad, they get less money.

There was the Shadows of Mordor deal, which included terms to hide disclosure below the show more part of the video description. Lets Players took the deal.

So tell me, which Lets Players do you trust to remain ethical ?

[Purple]

I'm not aware of them being paid in ways that cause a conflict of interest. Can you name any specific publications that have such a conflict of interest ?

Well for a start there is the whole think with people who don't rate products well being blacklisted and not getting to review products any more before they are already out and past the pre-order and order stages. Which may I remind you was the original context of my statement.

That can work. Unless you want to avoid spoilers.

But since you brought up reviewers being paid by the gaming industry, lets talk about lets players being paid by gaming companies:

That's not really relevant though given that letsplays show me the gameplay. The guy in the video can say what ever he wants but if I see the graphics are ugly or feel the story is shallow his words ain't going to change that.

[TheFeniX]

Internet randoms are probably the last people you should be trusting to give you useful opinions because the only ones who are motivated to speak out are the ones with extreme opinions, most frequently informed by some kind of deeply partisan position based on fandom of something.

I've got some mileage over the years out of comparing the worst of the worst with people gushing over the game because there's usually a middle-ground you can figure out if you read enough. One thing the assholes with an axe-to-grind are good at is finding all that nitpicky shit that can actually make or break certain games. The gushers will focus on the big shinies instead, which is also useful.

Professional reviewers are usually at least expected to justify their opinion in the body of the review.

My problem with "professional" reviewers isn't them lying, it's that many of them can't actually tell me why they liked a game. They don't actually break games down anymore (although this was an issue with certain review mags even in the 90s). It's "the story is engaging, gameplay is responsive, the graphics are great." This isn't useful information.

Ebert and I didn't agree about much on anything when it came to movies, but I could read a review from him about a movie he hated and still get my own information on if it would be enjoyable or not for me because the man knew movies, more specifically the mechanics of movies and how to explain what was right/wrong with them. Video games reviewers mostly focus on the shiny and ignore the guts. I think this is mostly because they just don't know any better and they usually aren't given a lot of time to review a game.

For just an example, reviewers gushed about the "vibrant and living world of Skyrim" for Skyrim (duh). About how NPCs "felt real and had their own lives." I like Skyrim a lot, but this line is pretty much bullshit. NPCs are lucky to have more than a "go to work, sandbox around, go home, sanbox around, go to sleep, wait 8 hours, GOTO 1" "life" in the CK. This isn't a big deal for someone just reviewing the game for 5 hours (if even) running from town to town doing quests, but becomes noticeable if you play Skyrim as a sandbox game. Spend any time around a major city in the game and you'll hear the same lines of dialog and see the same NPC pathing over and over. You'll also end up console killing every damned bard in the game because fuck you Ragnar the Red.

This is why I stick with Forbes. In general, mind you, they'll at least give me the information I need to make my own decision. Other reviewers are too busy saying "IT'S FUN, 9/10!"

[Enigma]

Unless it has been already mentioned here, the Homeworld Remake is slated to be released on Feb 25 for $35. This includes the two remastered games plus the originals.

[OmegaChief]

It's also up on Steam for those who didn't already pre-order

http://store.steampowered.com/app/244160/

[bilateralrope]

I'm not aware of them being paid in ways that cause a conflict of interest. Can you name any specific publications that have such a conflict of interest ?

Well for a start there is the whole think with people who don't rate products well being blacklisted and not getting to review products any more before they are already out and past the pre-order and order stages. Which may I remind you was the original context of my statement.

And your proof that this blacklisting happens regularly is ?

[Anacronian]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRtqy0CGur4

37 minutes of gameplay and messing around for those interested.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Damn that looks pretty. Glad to hear they're big on the mod support as well; it's interesting to knwo that one of the Complex team worked on the remakes.

[LadyTevar]

Nitram introduced me to HW. He'd played through it before, so he knew what was coming, but I had no clue. Kharak was as big a blow as the death of Aerith in FF7.

I'm just sad that he's not here to see the remake.

[Eternal_Freedom]

God that third mission....I've played the game a dozen times or more and it still hurts to hear "Kharak is burning..."

[White Haven]

The subject did not survive interrogation.

[Rekkon]

To this day I cannot hear Adagio for Strings without getting chills and hearing the opening lines of the 3rd mission.

[Isil`Zha]

I already threw my money at this on steam. Did anyone else notice that in the multiplayer, you can pit HW1 races against HW2 races?

[Eternal_Freedom]

I already threw my money at this on steam. Did anyone else notice that in the multiplayer, you can pit HW1 races against HW2 races?

Hell yeah, I'm looking forward to that!

[Crossroads Inc.]

Ok, so some of us were worrying about just WHY the game is taking so long?
Well the following is a good explanation why... and I am SOOO ok with this sort of delay

Homeworld Remastered is arriving as a Steam download on February 25th, 16 years after it originally launched. The game and its 2003 sequel spent the last 12 years languishing in THQ's vaults before being rescued by Gearbox Software. Doesn't ring a bell? Gearbox is the studio behind the highly lauded Borderlands series, the universally derided Duke Nukem Forever and the largely panned Aliens: Colonial Marines. Rather than just push the titles out for a quick nostalgia hit, however, the company spent the last two years giving Homeworld a high-definition remaster so that it looks as good as we remember. In the run up to the launch, I spoke with Gearbox's Brian Martel and Chris Faylor to talk about reviving the game.

In theory, the idea of updating a few textures sounded simple, but the reality was significantly more complex. One of the first, and biggest, technical challenges that had to be overcome was that the two games were built in entirely different engines. Before any work could begin, therefore, Gearbox had to pull the first title apart and rebuild it inside the Homeworld 2 engine. Using a 12-year-old environment to build a game certainly isn't an ideal scenario, and I asked the pair what this would mean for any future titles. According to Martel, despite its age, the HW2 engine is "so strong and capable," thanks, in part, to the efforts Gearbox has made to upgrade the platform, that it could handle any theoretical sequel. Of course, Martel was quick to add that a Homeworld sequel may not take the same form as the first two, and the team would have to sit down with the game's original creators to "look at what the next game would be."

So, what's the point of bringing back these two games that, outside of a very loyal group of fans, had almost slipped entirely off the radar? As far as Martel is concerned, it's all about how good it was to look at.
"[Homeworld had] such an amazing, well-designed universe and really cool ships. Frankly, it's hard to do sci-fi well, and you can really schlock it up if you aren't careful. I think these are some of the best designs in the last 16 years, because it's really hard to find cool ships in a -- I mean, there's the Mass Effect ship -- but they're few and far between where you go 'this is a sexy, sexy spaceship.'"
But alas, to look at original screenshots of the games now, you'd be tricked into thinking that they're being run at super-low resolutions. The truth, of course, is that both titles were shipped on a single CD, meaning that they only had a footprint of 650-or-so MB to occupy.The ship textures and audio were so compressed that they look "kludgy" to modern eyes -- peep the comparison video below for more proof. Working with the game's original artists, re-designed models with upgraded lighting effects and textures have been added to the game, and the Homeworld Remastered Collection now clocks in at close to 20GB.

As stunning as the visuals are, however, Homeworld's most unique selling point was its groundbreaking approach to combat. For a generation of PC gamers raised on isometric strategy games like Command & Conquer and StarCraft, all of your tactical thinking was horizontal. Homeworld, being based in space, turned this idea on its head by creating a spherical battleground that let you add verticality to your thinking. Now, you could choose to hide your ships well above or below your opponent and attack them from any angle.

Unfortunately, the title effectively disappeared from shelves shortly after developer Relic was purchased by THQ in 2004. Corporate rivalry between THQ and Sierra, Homeworld's publisher, meant that any future games were put on ice, and when THQ began to hit the skids, the rights to the game were put up for auction.
"The '99 release of Homeworld and the '03 release of Two are the only release these games have received. It's also been limited by compatibility issues in the last few versions of Windows, and they haven't been on digital download, so at the very least we're bringing these classics back."
You may be asking yourself about Homeworld: Cataclysm, the standalone expansion to the first game produced by Barking Dog. As the urban legend goes, Cataclysm's source code was lost, and while there are some hints that a copy may still exist, it's probably not worth holding your breath over.

Like any good Homeworld obsessive, I asked what sort of conditions would need to be met before any discussions were had around Homeworld 3. Naturally, sales of the remastered collection will be a big part of it, and a discussion will have to be had with the game's original creative team, currently working on prequel game (Homeworld: Shipbreakers). From their voices, however, it's clear that Martel and Faylor are smitten with the series, describing the remastering project as a "labor of love." And while they're currently in a "wait-and-see holding pattern," if the demand proves strong enough, then the pair would "love to make Homeworld 3."

[Steel]

The videos look good so far. I hope that they haven't stripped out any cool features of HW1 when porting over to the HW2 engine, like the greater control over formations. I also wonder if they'll keep the building craft individually or as squadrons in HW1. I don't know which I would prefer really, but for balance reasons they might leave it as it was. Only a couple of weeks until we see how it comes out, and whether it is worth buying or not...

I really hope that if they make a Homeworld 3 they focus on the secular aspects rather than the mystical bollocks. I liked HW1 and Cataclysm more plot wise as they kept things much more grounded. The myths and history were presented more as things that were known to be unreliable history passed down the generations, whereas in HW2 it was a lot more like the myths were actually how things went, and everything was some kind of magical woolly prophecy come true.

[Zaune]

I really hope that if they make a Homeworld 3 they focus on the secular aspects rather than the mystical bollocks. I liked HW1 and Cataclysm more plot wise as they kept things much more grounded. The myths and history were presented more as things that were known to be unreliable history passed down the generations, whereas in HW2 it was a lot more like the myths were actually how things went, and everything was some kind of magical woolly prophecy come true.

Preach it! All the more for the fact that HW2 spent more exposition-time on the aforementioned mystical bollocks than little things like, you know, who the antagonist faction were and why they were at war with Hiigara.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I'm not fussed if they keep building strikecraft solo or move to squadrons. What I hope is that they keep the parallel building you could do in 1 but somehow lost in 2.