Star Wars: Empire at War demo out tommorow

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2006-01-22 06:14am

I've played the demo over the last few days, and the game seems decent to me. The full version would probably be a lot more fun, with more ships, multiplayer, and a lot more planets to conquer. At least I hope so. The models seem pretty good to me. This is a RTS after all.

Some of my biggest problems with this game:

-I agree, the asteroid fields and nebula clouds are silly.

-Turbolasers aren't LOS weapons, you just point to something and your ships will be able to shoot at it. For example, you can shoot through a space station to nail a shield generator on the other side. On the ground, those big turbolaser turrets can hit your troops when they're on the other side of a mountain. That's really lame. Surprisingly, capships miss each other a lot...

-Does taking out the various ship systems even have any real effect, or are they just targets with different names? I noticed that ships still moved even if you blew out their engines. Why come up with a good idea like this, and not even use it?

-That Rancor might as well be fucking Godzilla. It can one-shot kill tanks and AT-STs for crying out loud. I understand that they wanted to add creatures to make the game more interesting, but wildlife should be a threat to one or two infantry squads, at most. When you have a heavy army, shit like that shouldn't even phase you.

-Fett wank is in full effect. Boba Fett can run right into the middle of your army and take out dozens of troops and maybe even a few vehicles with his flamethrower, and then waltz right back out with only minor to moderate damage. If there's a bacta tank, he can keep attacking you with impunity. I beat the ground mission a couple of times, but not once did I kill Boba Fett.

-The way starfighters are handled is silly. Rebel fighters have absolutely no need for carrier ships. It would have been better if they handled this like Rebellion, in which hyperdrive was an advantage but all fighters still needed to be carried by capital ships. Rebel fighters should enter the battle ready for combat and be able to independently retreat, but they shouldn't be allowed to travel long distances and maintain blockades by themselves. I noticed in the tutorial that you can make special "raid" fleets that allow you to run blockades and directly land troops on an enemy planet. Why couldn't they do a similar thing with starfighters, and allow you to make "hit-and-run" fleets that can attack a nearby planet's space defenses, but couldn't maintain a presence there even if you won? As for Imperial fighters, it appears that large space stations and capital ships can continually churn out an infinite amont during a battle, until their hangars are destroyed. That's also pretty dumb.

-Is it even possible for an attacking space fleet to retreat? I don't think it is.

-"Build points" are stupid. You should be able to build your base however you want.

-The Cinematic Camera is a big disappointment. You should be able to select certain units to follow, and be able to control the camera angles.

Things I liked:

-The two sides don't play the same. This was a big problem I had with Rebellion.

-Different types of units behave a lot more realistically than in other RTS games. Infantry is great at taking out other infantry, but they're slow. Tanks are fast and are great for pursuing or flanking the enemy. Artillery is slow as shit and has no in-close fighting ability, but actually has pretty decent range (not less than one screen, the way it is in games like Warcraft or Starcraft) and tends to blow up things in a general area. Air support is a fleeting effect, and doesn't play like a bunch of hovering tanks.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-01-22 07:12am

Jim Raynor wrote: On the ground, those big turbolaser turrets can hit your troops when they're on the other side of a mountain. That's really lame. Surprisingly, capships miss each other a lot...

Indeed- and what's up with the size? The thing is freaking huge, fuck knows how it's supposed to get an angle on units that hug the ground.

-Does taking out the various ship systems even have any real effect, or are they just targets with different names? I noticed that ships still moved even if you blew out their engines. Why come up with a good idea like this, and not even use it?

Well it definitely works for destroying the shield generator (a criticism of my own as already noted, Y-Wings/ TIE Bombers being able to attack shielded components without going through the shields first) and the weaponry.

-Fett wank is in full effect. Boba Fett can run right into the middle of your army and take out dozens of troops and maybe even a few vehicles with his flamethrower, and then waltz right back out with only minor to moderate damage. If there's a bacta tank, he can keep attacking you with impunity. I beat the ground mission a couple of times, but not once did I kill Boba Fett.

Actually I killed him, but it required two of those Multiple Launch Proton Torpedo systems the Rebels seem to have. Stupid.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-01-22 08:20am

Stark wrote:I've never seen you so unsatisfied with a game, IB.

Agreed, then again, its rare since I've ever been so justified in my attacking this game.

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba · Post by **Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba** » 2006-01-22 12:03pm

Just got through it, and I have to say that I liked it and I'll buy the game. Space and ground combat were fun and very star warsy, but because I suck at RTSes in general I got my ass kicked on Tatooine when I played it. The AT-AT and the turbolasers made mincemeat of all my beautiful tanks. And I couldn;'t even get those Human civvies to build things in the "buildzones" or whatever. Then again, I erred on the side of caution ad never landed Han, so that could have been my weakness.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2006-01-22 12:26pm

Vympel wrote:
Actually I killed him, but it required two of those Multiple Launch Proton Torpedo systems the Rebels seem to have. Stupid.

It just requires another hero, and a bit of support. Fett died pretty quickly, but that's what he's there for. Hero units would be pointless if they were easily killed.

Jim Raynor, retreat will be activited in the full game. This is just the demo, and there are many things that have been twinked because of that.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2006-01-22 12:28pm

Ace Pace wrote:
Stark wrote:I've never seen you so unsatisfied with a game, IB.
Agreed, then again, its rare since I've ever been so justified in my attacking this game.

Well, I've noticed that if people make up their minds about a game before hand then it takes something significant to change their minds one way or another. In my case, I really like the game. It has its weaknesses, which will hopefully be addressed in the full release. However, even if those aren't addressed in the full release it'll still be a blast to play with a friend.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2006-01-22 01:13pm

I managed to kill fett easy enough with han and chewie, he's not super powered you just have to use a hero unit. The game was fun, for me its star warsy, i don't get that how can a game about star wars with star wars units and star wars sound effects not be star warsy enough for you?

Its a demo with 1 ground map outside of the tutorial, sorry but criticising the game for "small maps" on a demonstration with only 1 map in a custom demo campaign is a bit silly. The full game as you may have noticed has several different campaigns, if you click on them you can see that there are a lot of planets available in those, hopefully there will be quite a bit of variation. Even if theres not it wouldn't mind, as i'll explain below

Same about the criticisms with the space map, its just 1 map showing you what the game can do.. they probably just chucked everything in there that they could, saying every map will have asteroids or every map will have those nebula is just wrong, and personally i didn't mind them as i just sent my ships around them anyway.

Space combat was way more interesting than the ground combat, and i think thats how its supposed to be.

Telling your ships to attack engines and turbo lasers etc does work. They stop firing when you attack weapons, attack engines and the ship is crippled (they can still move although extremely slowly, using manouvering thrusters only? i recall a ship in hte EU doing that.)

A.I was dumb, they just attacked you by trying overwhelm you, but thats what i do anyway cos im terrible at most RTS. And i hear it'll been dumbed for the demo anyway.

Unfortunately in the demo there was no "defend your own planet" but thats okay as we only had the one planet anyway. in the full version, particularly multiplayer this will probably add a lot to the game.

I actually had an idea like this for a game when i was 15, first battle takes place in space. Once you've got orbital control you've practically won, just requires cleaning up on the ground, something i felt most space rts's have lacked until now.

The reason you can't build your own bases is because you actually don't go down to the planet except for purposes of defending it against ground attack, thats why most controls take place from the orbital view and why can't decide how to place your base. In the full game you'll have several planets and several bases, micromanaging the construction of one base is time consuming enough trying to do it to several bases would seem tedious and would detract from the game, atleast for me.

Ground battles are the last resort not the norm, cos even if you planet is under attack and it gets to ground attack and you win, you need to get orbital control back somehow.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-01-22 08:18pm

While we're at it, I've never heard of those cruisers that you have when playing as the Empire part of the tutorial. Have they been in the EU before?

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2006-01-22 08:59pm

I believe Empire at War has a bunch of completely new ships, just like Rebellion did.

Zeond · Post by **Zeond** » 2006-01-22 10:12pm

Jim Raynor wrote:I believe Empire at War has a bunch of completely new ships, just like Rebellion did.

The only ones I didn't know about are the Tartan, Marauder and Broadside Corvettes and the assault frigate but they may be EU ships and I am not familiar with the EU at all.

You can see the entire tech tree by clicking on the button with the question mark right under the droid in the tactical view.

Screen Shots from Tutorials 3 and 5 for anyone who's interested

You can cycle the cinematic view by pressing spacebar but it still leaves much to be desired.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2006-01-23 02:42am

RogueIce wrote:
wautd wrote:
wautd wrote:fuck this, 8 kb/sec and after a few hours I lost connection so I have to start all over again. I'm going to wait untill more links will be available
Found a slightly better link (as in 400kb/sec better) and gave it a try. Ground combat gave me a "meh" but space combat was quite fun. I think the full game will be ok. Not bad but also no classic
Where? The best I found ended up degrading to 15kb/s and stayed there.

http://games.telenet.be/ (you need to register there)
But since that's a belgian site and you live in Florida, it will probably not be that good for you

According to someone at Spacebattles, there are already a bunch of mods out for the demo that allow you to build more ships:

Bester wrote:There are some mods out for the demo already

[color=red]http://www.eawhq.de/index.ph ... =3[/color]

Theyre in german but easy to installed.
The large one adds lots of units for the rebl skirmish.
Going to try the imperial one.

Basically you put the mod.exe in Empire at War/GameDate and the folders in EaW/Gamedata/Data

Calamari cruisers are cool.

And btw assclowns. All the units that are visible on the build bar in this demo but greyed out are NOT the fucking shiplist.
As you go up a tech level and build different buildings it unlocks more units and they magically appear

If the game can be easy modded, I'm sure as hell a lot more interested in buying the game

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-01-23 02:49am

I just played the Demo a bit and found it... lacking. Space battles are alright between capital ships, but fighters move chaotically with random 'traffic jams' between fighter groups occuring. Clipping through objects is a major issue (my X-Wings flew through a starbase). Space combat is alright, but the 'terrain' again is stupid. Why not make terrain give penalties or bonuses, instead of being impassable walls?

Ground combat's awful. Infantry seem to have little real use, and the map is too small. It's chaotic, and your firing range is about equal to visual range. Certain blast weapons are too potent against infantry, and it's really dumb when my big, vulnerable artillery peice SLAUGHTERS enemy stormtroopers by running them down.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-01-23 10:55am

Yeah, the ground combat really sucks ass, IMO. This opinion has only been reinforced the more I play it. It's terrible. I can't imagine what changes they'd make to the retail version to make it suck less. I still don't mind the ground combat graphics, but on closer inspection, they're not great. I can't sotp comparing it to Act of War, it's just a far superior game in every aspect of ground combat, especially the infantry.

Space combat is passable, but really, the models just aren't good enough, nor are the effects. Not when Homeworld 2 exists, sorry.

I'm glad my brother is getting this, because I'm dead against paying for it myself.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2006-01-23 02:45pm

My main gripe with the game is the maps are too fucking small. I can understand the game has been dumbed down to reach a broader audience, but goddammit, if you fight in space or invade a planet, does it have to be the size of a football field? There is little space to outmaneuver your enemy so it always ends up in a giant slugfest where the side with the most guns wins.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-01-23 03:17pm

wautd wrote:My main gripe with the game is the maps are too fucking small. I can understand the game has been dumbed down to reach a broader audience, but goddammit, if you fight in space or invade a planet, does it have to be the size of a football field? There is little space to outmaneuver your enemy so it always ends up in a giant slugfest where the side with the most guns wins.

Again, its probably been dumbed down for the demo (I can't imagine that the Kashyyyk map could possibly be the real one, for example). Frankly, I'm suprised they gave us a sample campaign map at all.

Thunderfire · Post by **Thunderfire** » 2006-01-23 03:30pm

I've played the demo too. My main complain is that the hero units are overpowered. It is not hard to kill anything with the falcon in the non training mission. Homeworld is still the champion when it comes to spacecombat.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-01-23 09:50pm

I noticed this Q&A link to TFN:

EaW Designer Chat

Reasonably enlightening, and it did address (at least vaguely) some of the concerns voiced here (like the cinematic camera, for example).

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2006-01-24 02:38am

Noble Ire wrote:I noticed this Q&A link to TFN:

EaW Designer Chat

Reasonably enlightening, and it did address (at least vaguely) some of the concerns voiced here (like the cinematic camera, for example).

Compared the the Ground Map of Tatooine in the Demo, How big are the maps going to be in the full version game?

They vary in size. Some are LARGER, some smaller and some about the same. There are over 80 maps to explore.

Not a good sign...

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-01-24 02:45am

Unless they release something that *really* addresses the issues...

On another note, I've tried the mod which actives the entire map. It's better, I'll give it that. It feels a little like rebellion, but a lot more like a big game of Risk. It's all about grabbing planets and holding them with a little maintence as possible. Personally, I like Rebellion more, but a decent modder could do wonders with this (for instance, turn ground combat back into a rebellion-eque abstraction).