It seems kind of a stretch to say they are copying Zero Hour. I'm sure that's the only game in the history of gaming to offer modified versions of the same faction. And even if they did, what the hell would be wrong with it, zero hour was a great expansion pack.

I hope for moddable AI as well, but it certainly not a game breaker if they don't have it.

Waiting for game play features before pre-order. 

New ships, new factions, better explosions are fine but playing the same way gets old quick.  I would like to know, for instance, what the rebels have to offset the advantages in material resources the loyalists to be successful; what new tactics are available to the rebels to be able to fight; what about the possibilities of a mixed human-vasari-advent rebels with weird ships designs.  If we are going to play the same way as Trinity or the original but with new factions and ships and lighting, then what is the point? 

I will wait to see a little more gameplay features or more info on the rebel abilities before ordering.

Did not say that they did -.-
And wrong with it? Nothing wrong with it... But my personal unattackable opinion that I have all the right in the whole known and unknown universe to have, I found Zero hour's faction to be unbalanced. yes, some of them had nice little airplanes, but they lacked stuff on the ground.

And that is what I fear the factions of SoaSE will be aswell. Vasari faction that focuses on "Deathball SB" while ignoring support, or TEC that focuses on economics. heck, a whole faction of tTEC, all with different types of trading ships and no guns on 'em at all, almost sounds like fun.
Ofcourse that won't happen to the TEC, but I hope it helped to verify my point.

I don't think so... Zero Hour was with different Colonels or Generals leading the army and they had different specialties (not saying it worked all the time). If anything, splitting loyalists and rebels will more likely make one faction fight dirtier or fight with some twist on their tech tree.

Not likely to have one faction ignoring HCs or scouts because they have splintered appart. 

Well to be honest I think zero hour was more balanced that Sins has ever been. I had many fun hours showing my friendshow mistaken they were to think any particular general was bad. If you played them right you could win with any of them.

Unless you mean by unbalanced you mean to their strategies. In which case that was the point, if you wanted to win with ground units it shoul be obvious not to play as the air force general. In many ways chosing a particular general was a gamble that you could maximize their strengths more than you were hindered by their weaknesses. And if you didn't want to take a gamble, you could always still play as the base faction, which is an option Sins should have if it is really going to move in that direction.

But if for some reason you feel otherwise, by all means keep your opinion. I was just puzzled where you were coming from. Don't take my sarcasm too personally.

 

I have a question, If I buy Rebellion, it includes Sins of a Solar Empire + Entrenchmen + Diplomacy + Rebellion? I mean, it includes all Sins expansions?

Yes, Rebellion has all the content.

Has it been answered whether or not a Rebellion purchaser (who had never purchased any other Sins games) could run Vanilla, Entrenchment, and Diplomacy individually or if they would be strictly limited to playing Rebellion?

Fro 30 bucs who gives a FRACK.  I pre-ordered this thing right on the spot

no - Rebellion is a seperate game - I believe it has all the features ofthe other games, but  you cannot play each seperately if that is what you are asking.

Hooray!  Of course, this means my SoaSE fever is in full swing again! Now I just need to convince all of my friends to pre-order this as well.

...and maybe play Diplo/Entrenchment for the next ~8 months.

Why wouldn't they just include the exes?

 

How do you know this?  I don't think any of the developers have actually said that.  (Or did they?)

I asked Yarlen on IRC and he said they're not sure yet, but will likely end up including the vanilla/entrench/diplo executables. Don't take it for anything set in stone, however.

I hope they include them just because new players are going to be overwhelmed by having to learn 5 tech trees (military, civilian, diplomatic, entrenchment defenses, factions) in addition to starbases, diplomacy, and whatever else they throw in.  My advice to newbies is that they should start with Vanilla and work their way up.

OMG! The box art has a pretty ship.  I want.

 

Thanks

What do you mean? Bungie/Blizzard could be the next Ironclad...

I will be waiting on the pre-order.

 

Love ya Ironclad and Stardock..... but the pattern is

Sins = excelent

Entrench = nice

Diplo = huh?

and now Rebellion.

 

So I will wait until I have some more meat and potatos before I buy the meal.

But I am hopefull.  If you can deliver, I would love dusting the old ship captains hat off

i find reading the comments ammusing. people are complaining about the price before they see the actual game/beta. dont shoot a game down before you know ANYTHING about it really (aside from a few ideas that can change. anything is possible between now and then).

 

i think its really to early to say much about the game, personally i would not preorder right away when a game is still in a planing stage (even if it is based off of a established base game, a number of things can happen between now and then as i said earlier)

 

on another note, not everyone is looking for the same thing in a game, and personally i liked diplomicy :p it was quite an interesting addition to the game. will be looking forward for to beta (at which point i will be pre ordering :p). one thing i would like to see personally though is a scenario maker for maps as well as the ability to assign/complete specific objectives through a map (such as colonise here, or resupply here, etc and gain strategic points for it) 

Its fun to read you comments as well, lol

hmmm, the whole idea around SOSE is 3 factions at war.  In war you usually do what you need to survive, not take certain planets for no reason.  I feel these assignments would be just another form of the AI telling you to take out 3 of the enemy ships.....3 ships really? or the mission to destroy Civ labs.  lol and what would these "strategic points" be good for?? lol,  it sounds kinda good on paper, but SINS is just not the game for missions and objectives.  Mission: Survive, Win at any cost,  Objective: Kill Enemy to the last planet or Diplo them to death.   Thats the mission/objective of SOSE.

 

Umm you have to pre-order to get the beta....... so why wait?  Early pre-orders just motivate the company to put more effort into the game, they show the developers that they are on the right track!!!  So pre-order away!!

 

Well, if he's using Paypal then he needs to wait until the beta is available to preorder, otherwise can't do it.

Just happened by the other day and saw the announcement.  This game is still my favorite and I still have LAN (yes, I said LAN for those who say no one does that anymore) parties with my friends and brothers.  I have bought numerous copies for friends and relatives for gifts and thus have to say I have spent more money on this game than any other.  This was one of the most perfect games I have ever played out of the box.  Even the Beta ran smoother than some of the finished games I have played.  Add to that the lack of invasive DRM and the fact that it worked out of the box without having to register/unlock the game and you have one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences in recent memory.

Now, I have one question.  Is there going to be a retail/box version?  I've seen a lot of speculation, but nothing from the developers.  Digital copies are all well and good, but not everyone (4 of my friends and a few relatives come to mind) have a reliable Internet connection, if one at all (3 or more at least of the previously mentioned people and possibly me soon if my hours get cut at work anymore than they already have).  This is one reason why we still have LAN parties.  Some of us live in very rual areas or can't afford Internet access.  As far as it not selling, when Trinity came out, my local Wal-Mart had a several facings of it on the shelves, and they sold out of it before I got paid and could get my copy.  I had to wait until the following week to get my copy.  Best Buy seemed to sell it very well also.  Gamestop, admittedly, not so much.

The point being, there is still a market for retail copies.  Even if everyone had reliable high-speed Internet in their area, they may not be able to afford it.  Now, having said that, lets go into how it could be done a little cheaper:

1.  Simplify the packaging.  If you have your game in a DVD case (which is pretty sturdy and is protected from scratches by the shrinkwrap), why do you need the cardboard box around it (original Sins and Trinity)?  This is unecessary and could be eliminated, saving on printing and manufacturing costs.

2.  Eliminate the paper manual.  Before anyone complains, let me point out that the manuals for Sins have always been included on the disks in .pdf format.  To tell the truth, I have never even taken them out of the box other than to see my serial number when reinstalling.  I always look at them on the computer and only print out the pages I need.  This could, once more, save on printing and manufacturing costs, not to mention saving paper.

3.  Charge more for the retail/box version.  You did it with the original Sins, so do it again.  Rebellion costs $39.95 for the digital copy?  Then charge me $5-10 more for the physical copy.  This will help to generate a return on your investment.  Some recent PC games already cost $60, so anything $50 and below still seems like a good deal to me.

4.  Supply the larger retailers, including those who sell products other than games.  As I mentioned above, Wal-Mart and Best Buy seemed to sell lots of copies locally (Wal-Mart, despite recieving many copies always seemed to sell out a few days after delivery), whereas Gamestop did not.  Some of this was probably due to the fact that the larger stores see more business during the day, hence more people see the game (plus, none of the Gamestops locally have much in the way of shelf space for PC games and WM and BB still have isles devoted to them).  Since they sell other products as well, many people go in for something else, see the game, and maybe impulse buy a copy (pun not intended).

5.  Make the retail copies available in your online store.  A no-brainer.  This will also help you unload any retail/box copies that didn't make it to stores (when sales begin to slow down).

Also, as a last resort, what if you made it possible to download the original version of the game from Impulse directly onto my own disk?  This could allow gamers to download the original game before the updates.  This would have several advantages, such as allowing gamers to revert to the original version of the game (for Mods, for example), allowing gamers to always have access to a physical copy, possibly allowing gamers to access Impulse on another computer to download their copy if they were without Internet access (my friend accessing his own copy on my computer, for example), and helping to prevent piracy of fully upgraded copies of the game (since the copy in question would be the original version).

These were just a few suggestions.  I felt that instead of just commenting/complaining, I should at least propose suggestions to the problem.  I really would like to hear from the developers on this.

I have the retail copy - pretty box but no one buys pc games this way anymore.  Stores like Gamespot are continuing to decrease the shelves alloted for PC games for this reason.  I think they should just include the box art and inlay as a PDF file for us to ooohand ahh over.  That's my take

They only thing SD said is that they're not sure if there will be a boxed version or not, haven't made a decision.

Will we get some Images and / or Videos soon?