SEV is a flop! Glad I preordered Dark Avatar Expansion

It occurs to me, that buggy demos and retail releases are fast becoming the norm, rather than the exception. That said, I wouldn't be too quick to write the game off as a 'flop'.

The Space Empires series does have a very strong fan base, and the 1.07 patch notes do infer that most of the game's ills will be cured!

On a personal note, I rather like the demo.

IMO the new game has a much less abstract feel to it than it's predecessor, which always struck me as being very good, but at the same time rather dry, and uninspiring. And certainly nowhere near as much fun to play as GCII.

Memo to Stardock: Please feel free to email me, re: details of where to send the cheque.

Glad I already pre-ordered the expansion to GalCiv2

I also will have pre-ordered Dark Avatar (note the future pluperfect tense). I'm glad you've pre-ordered it as well, but it's not necessary to bash SEV here, I'm sure they'll get their bugs fixed.

GC2 had its share of bugs at release, but I do have to agree with Grimes. It is getting downright disrespectful, annoying and plain stupid how unfinished some games are at release.

I'm just saying that it's not necessary to bad mouth SEV on this site. Whether SEV is a bad game or a great game or something in between doesn't make GC2 any better or worse. I personally think that GC2 is the best game ever. But I also think that bashing another company's product on Stardock's site is kind of trollish. If you don't have anything good to say, then say nothing at all.

I disagree - people here are into the same kind of games that I'm into. Therefore I'd very much like to hear what people think of the new Space Empries game - good or bad - it will help me decide whether or not to buy it (demo takes way too long to download).

I'm downloading the SE:V patch right now. As compensation for being one day late, the patch is at v1.08, with even more bugfixes.

In terms of scale, I will expect Dark Avatar to fetch coffee and massage my feet since Stardock pushed the release date back by several months.

FWIW: I have already pre-ordered DA for myself. But I'll be playing SE:V while I wait for the release...

I would be happy if SE fan boys would quit confusing unrestrained feature creep with "depth".

'Look at all the features that the computer players can't use and make the game seem very very complicated? it must have a lot of depth!!!'

se is a very complicated board game that targets the hardest of the hard core who ever wanted to play an obscenely complex board game against each other. if you got 100 random strategy gamers together to play seV single player i would challenge anyone who could honestly say that more than 10 of them would really enjoy it. but those 10 who do enjoy it would enjoy it very much.

SEv gets too many breaks because it was done by just couple people. But so what? They're charging the same amount as galciv and other games. The deplorable graphics, the terrible horrible interface, the almost unplayable release. Go onto the forums and find people who have managed to play a game all the way through. Someone said galciv 2 'had its share of bugs' but nothing on the order of what I've seen in seV.

Since i got my copy from steam, I can't get the update yet.

Therefore I'd very much like to hear what people think of the new Space Empries game - good or bad - it will help me decide whether or not to buy it (demo takes way too long to download).

I've only played the demo, and, as mentioned earlier, it's got more bugs in it than a tramp's vest! In the 10-12 hours I've invested in it, I've been treated to more ctd's, lockups, and reboots, than any other game I've ever played in my life. In short, the demo is about as stable as a drunken three-legged pony on crack cocaine.

Having said that, underneath that buggy facade lies true genius, and a game that is a quantum leap forward on it's previous iterations. My own personal view, is that one the most significant improvements to the game is the addition of right-click menus. An absolute boon when sending a ship/fleet to the nearest colony for resupply/repair or refit etc. Of course, there are icons that do the same job, but it's amazing how much smoother it makes the gameplay just being able to to keep the mouse pointer inside the main viewing area, rather than on the UI.

It's definitely a game I will be buying if I can find a retail outlet in the UK.

I'm downloading the SE:V patch right now. As compensation for being one day late, the patch is at v1.08, with even more bugfixes.

Nice one bighouse!

I'm sure that many of us would like to share your thoughts on the game.

Please keep us posted.

Different strokes, as they say.

- Flashy graphics don't matter to me as much as gameplay.
- I really do enjoy epic PBEM games against other people.
- Epic PBEM games are even more fun if players have a wealth of options and tools at their disposal for interacting with each other.
- I bought SE V knowing full well that it probably wouldn't be playable until patched.
- There are plenty of other things for me to do and play while waiting for patches.
- SE games are a lot of fun to play once patched.

SE has always catered to hardcore gamers. Hardcore gamers are a very small segment of the already small TBS segment of computer gaming, so it's not for everyone.

Personally, I'm just thrilled that anyone at all is catering to that market, in this age where console games rule the shelves.

@Sgt. Grimes

I'm sure that many of us would like to share your thoughts on the game.

If you're serious about that, you can read my post in this thread. Cauldyth also makes excellent points in the post just below yours that I agree with completely.

@Xan

I would be happy if SE fan boys would quit confusing urestrained feature creep with "depth".

Some of the features in Dark Avatar duplicate features already found in SE:V, like asteroid mining, and different world types and customizable AIs. Does that mean that Galactic Civilizations will someday also suffer from "unrestrained feature creep"?

SE:V has features like carriers (OOPS! I shouldn't have said that. That's a dirty word around here, isn't it?), mines, starbases that can build ships, and cloaking devices. I recommend that you read through past forum posts on this site. I think you'll find that those features have already been requested by players of Galactic Civilizations...

Look at all the features that the computer players can't use and make the game seem very very complicated?

In opposition to all of the GC2 features that have been nerfed because "the AI can't handle them". Of course, in SE:V, all of the features the AI can't use are fully usable in multiplayer mode, which GalCiv doesn't have...

I recommend that you take a look though the forums at http://www.spaceempires5.com. You'll find that SE:V players laugh at GalCiv because it lacks the features that the Space Empires series has.

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That, finally, brings me to my point. SE:V and GC2 are VERY different games. If you want to conquer the universe in an afternoon, you want GalCiv. If you want a game that offers dozens upon dozens of features AND all of the complexity that goes with them AND the length of time you need to use them, you want SE:V.

I'm revealing my age here for the few old fogeys who will understand this next part, but comparing SE:V and GC2 is like comparing Axis & Allies and Squad Leader. For you kiddies out there, those are both WWII wargames of the tabletop variety. In other words, you had to sit in the same room with your HUMAN opponent(s) and play the game with dice, board, pens, paper, etc. Axis & Allies was a "beer & pretzels" game: easy to learn, easy to play, but lacking everything but the most superficial detail. Squad Leader, on the other hand, was nothing BUT details, with all the flexibility and complexity and time requirements that those details allowed.

I played both, just like I play both GC2 and SE:V. They are DIFFERENT games. Neither is better than the other, it is simply a question of preference. For me, that preference can vary based on the amount of time that I have, my mood, and whether I feel like dealing with other human beings at the moment. I'm just glad that both games exist.

EDIT: Corrected some typos & spelling mistakes.

bighouse said it well.

I'd just like to add a bit more about complexity and feature creep.

One thing I like in strategy games is something I think of simply as "situational" considerations. I don't enjoy complexity for complexity's sake, and I certainly don't like playing spreadsheets. What I do like is a game that allows for interesting situations to develop. Many of those situations can't ever develop without the game mechanics having the additional complexity required to support them.

Examples:

I don't enjoy fiddling with logistics to keep all of my SE ships supplied and stocked with ordnance.
I do enjoy the possibility of fleets getting cut off from supply while in enemy space, and the subsequent strategic considerations on both sides.

I don't enjoy balancing the minerals, organics and radioactives for my SE empire.
I do enjoy the possibility of dependency on foreign sources of those resources, trade embargoes of those resources, and wars over access to those resources.

There are, of course, lots of other examples. Much of the complexity in SE seems like (and is) massive overkill for playing against the AI. However, I see all that complexity as a massive toolbox for playing games with other people. In any given game you will never use all the tools in the toolbox, and some tools you may never use. But the tools are there at your disposal, and the list of ways of interacting with the other players is often limited only by your imagination.

Want to create a United Planets in SE V? You can.

Want to use the UP to ban WMD (planet destroying, star destroying, etc.)? You can.

Want to impose sanctions on members of the UP that violate the ban on WMD? You can.

Want to create two rival power blocks (like NATO and the Warsaw Pact) and give each of those blocks their own United Planets council with its own set of laws for their members? You can.

Want to force a defeated (but not destroyed) opponent to pay you a certain tribute in an ongoing basis, limit what sort of military they can build, and forbid them from trading with other races? You can.

The list goes on. The trick, of course, is allowing for those interesting situations to develop without overburdening the gameplay with the complexity. And of course, the line at which that happens varies from player to player.

According to spaceempires5.com forums stores are giving refunds for SEV. Of course the poor people who bought the game from eb or gamestop are not going to be given refunds.

I might like it once patched given that I liked SE-IV. But I will not buy it given the fact that I have to use Steam.

I hate Steam too, so I just bought a boxed retail copy.

I played the SE series since SE3. As a matter of fact, one of the last patches to SE3 was initiated after one of my bug reports.
I know it because that fix did not do anything else than fix a major bug which I had fully documented

I did not like SE4 demo, so I passed on that one.
I Played StarFury instead (their game, not the other one with that name that came later from another game company.

I was checking frequently the SEV website, to check on the progress, until it was eventually released.

I downloaded SEV demo to try it out, but to my dismay I found that I could not purchase the game other than through Steam (Which I do not accept to use), since I am in UK, and their other distributions (boxed game) are US only.

Since their distributor (Strategy First) is on this network, and I have been a Stardock/TGN user for a while, I was hoping to be able to get it here, but it is not there.

I emailed Malfador about a week ago, but did not even received an acknowledgement to that email.

So, as someone mentionned above, it seems that Mafaldor moved to the 'no user support' kind of company, in which case I would probably be better off moving on...

Well, I amend that, I just received a reply telling me that the game will soon be available in UK.

Why does everybody think that everything on Steam is only on Steam?

http://www.strategyfirst.com/en/games/SpaceEmpiresV/

From what I see, there is an option to buy a boxed set on their website.

And Steam is actually quite good right now. There's no major problems with it like it was when it first came out. IMHO, it's time the anti-Steam rebellion ended - Valve has spent a lot of time and energy improving it and making it more stable.

IMHO, it's time the anti-Steam rebellion ended - Valve has spent a lot of time and energy improving it and making it more stable.

Well, I think that some people will ask you : Are you allowed to launch a game downloaded with Steam if you are offline as you can do with SDC ?

Well, I think that some people will ask you : Are you allowed to launch a game downloaded with Steam if you are offline as you can do with SDC

exactly....

I will confirm as of 10/26/06, the are still show stopping issues reported, as well as general frustration in their community. As soon as I found out there was a MP type of galciv game, I checked it out. Their demo which is a pre 1.0 ver release I guess is crap, well at least for me, since I had two rain-out-the-show issues one which I fixed only to encounter another "access violation" that prevents me from even making it to the splash screen. This is the demo. How do they expect anybody to know about their product if the demo doesn't work? Absolute BS!

Posting on their forum Demanding they fix their demo, as they are up to patch 1.08 for the retail, only yields "hey wait man they are fixing stuff" lol. They released a program that was a bad beta as a retail product and deserve this "flop" description.

I'm beyond exhausted and apathetic at companies, because there are so many doing this, that release crap that doesn't work or if it does work, with major flaws, and yet expect that people are going to buy it. And they do unfortunately! It's just sad. I know a lot of software is developed overseas, and some in the US, I'm only 25, but there used to be something called "Quality" in this country. It's a characteristic that means, durability, superiority, excellence, and functionality. I know the competitive nature of the global marketplace means that corners have to be cut, money needs to be made with less capital investment, but I dearly wish that we would recycle that "Professional Grade" (BS)and renew "Quality is job #1" in our culture, and even export "Quality" overseas, rather then the hyprocracy and shallow crap that we apparently are best known for.

It's coming back to bite us in the ass.

I am playing this game and it's driving me nuts. I don't think I will ever finish a game without a crash :/ But what bites me is that it got great frikinr eviews, where as game like Sword of the Stars which was 99% BUG free, got crappy reviews. I don't understand the industry at all! WTF am I missing? A large bag of cash that is gifted to the reviewer?

I think people, that is players of the game more specifically, are under the impression that the retail release is just a late beta, and that improvements are constantly underway and that they will be supported until the program lives up to the hype/personal expectations of the people playing it right now. But you are correct, as of right now there is no justification for reviewers giving this program a pass in it's current form.

I'd love to get ahold of a cracked copy of the game just to see if I encounter the same issues as I have with the demo but I'll be damned if I'm going through the effort of looking for one or buying a copy of the program.

Ok good late breaking news, I just checked the site, they have updated the 1.08 demo version. It better work or I'm going to have a massive fit. I'll be reporting back on it for anyone who is interested in my thoughts or observations.

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Demo version 1.08 is a go, works on my system no bugs no problems no tweaks, thus far, interface looks complicated as hell though. I'll have more to say about it later on perhaps tomorrow.

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The interface is about twice as complicated at GALCIV so I have no idea how this would work in MP and also beyound that there seems to be about 4 times as many varaibles for stuff, meaing for me at least, 4 times the time to be spent making sure you dont get exploited by some sorta cheap shot. Not sure how a MP game would play. Still working on the demo.