When I first saw the picture of the Ragnarov on the orange background with the word "REBELLION" sprawled out on the side, I thought it a dream come true. My favorite game had spawned a sequel, or so I thought.After awhile I learned it was a "stand-alone expansion." This "expansion" came with a hefty tag though: $40. So, having faith in the company that did amazing work with mini-expansions that were $10, I plunked down my coin and said "Bring it on!"As the weeks turned into months, the information slowly began to come together: Titans, a new capital ship, and corvettes, three all new factions, all new tech trees (implied for the factions). All was well and good, I could live without screenshots or videos or interviews from the devs because they were hard at work on all the new content that would be provided.When the beta came out, I loved every minute of it, even with the balance issues that (inevitably) came up. As new patches were released, however, my excitement dwindled.The thing that has disappointed me most was hearing "3 new factions!" "All new tech trees!" "New UI." The way it was pitched to the public was a totally new way of going at things: the Loyalists being traditionalists and the Rebels being more radical and cutting-edge. The bottom line was that they both would have enough new tech to deal with the splintering factions in addition to the other races."Twin Fortresses" alone does not a new tech tree make.A nearly-identical set of tech trees does not a new faction make.A light-green tint to the Advent HUD does not a New UI make.Granted, I did buy this back right when the first teasing shot of the "Ragnarov" came out: perhaps it is my mistake for putting so much behind this franchise and the devs. But as back-and-forth as the "Diplomacy" mini-expansion ended up being, it added more game-changing bang-for-the-buck than Rebellion has.Seems like I am getting shorthanded in the end: corvettes, titans. Woot. Knock off about $15 from the Rebellion price and quit hyping it as the "almost sequel."Note: I'm not mad, just disappointed.
No, it did not.
This is about what we are already discussing in my previous thread.... don't know if another identical thread was needed.
Btw I'm with you , love SOASE and Ironclad but feel just disappointed... i bet many of us have thought :
well... it's not that much for an expansion !!! Maybe our expectations were too high
Why you need a new HUD?, the HUD is OK i like the NEW SKIN, i see other games UI and are very ugly!, Sins UI are simply and pretty, is no necessary make NEW UI, only simply modification (skin)
A nearly-identical set of tech trees does not a new faction make
this is a EXPANSION, you need new faction remaked?, wait to Sins 2, rebellion have more graphics than diplomacy more effect, with same performance. New units, new titan, new capships, if you want ruin a excelent game is your problem, devs prefer and i prefer more optimization, more units, new reserchs, same game structure.
Why try with other HUDs, Factions, UNITS??, if you can download a lot of MODDING. "sins of dark age" "requiem" "dawn and victory"...
Hype vs product... for me is really ok
The price is no OK.
Double post. Sorry
I think that is why the devs gave those of us that already have the game plus mini expansion (read Trinity for those that bought that as well) a discount. For the $30 I paid I like what I got. $40 no unless you have never bought the game or only bought the Original.
yes for $30 so far I think it is still worth it for a stand alone expansion. I did a rough calculation just on the trinity set that I have. Overall with the $60 for the collectors edition, plus $10 for Entrenchment, plus another $10 for Diplomacy (read: $80) it still comes out to about than $0.05 per hour of game play.
flannicus90, I completely agree with you. I have the same disappointed feeling. It's partially my fault for reading the Steam sales blurb and expecting this to be a sequel since there was no mention of it being a stand-alone expansion. I still just cannot get over how little has changed from Trinity despite the inclusion of supposed new factions and ships. Would it kill someone to add more planet types and redo the textures and models of the older ships? Is there no successor for a ship like the Cobalt? Can we get map previews or at least new maps not recycled from Trinity? I just want to echo the sentiment that more was expected from Rebellion. With the release date only a month away the beta gives us a good idea of what the final game will be like.
I don't really feel like modding the game to add more variety or replace outdated assets. I know it could be done, and I expect we'll see some good mods for this game at some point. That's its saving grace. Mods are the reason I still play games like Star Wars Empire at War. Mods are the reason I put so much time into the original SOASE. I'm sure it'll be the same case with Rebellion. I suppose Rebellion and some other games will give me something to do until an unannounced indie competitor shows up later this year.
The techs whether you realize it or not do significantly change the playstyle of the factions. If anything, it goes to show just how little is needed in a game like this to significantly change gameplay.
Corvettes changed early-game balance by halting LRF spam while titans permanently altered the long-term course of games. Those two things have more of an impact than you give them credit for.
Beyond that, who's hyping it as an "almost sequel?" It's an expansion. If you expected more than that, that's your own problem. It's an RTS with 4x elements. Balance in games like this is very difficult to pull off, so adding more things than just titans, corvettes, and a few new techs would have thrown the gameplay into chaos. Three new units per faction already significantly changed gameplay. More than that and you won't be playing Sins anymore.
Aside from all of that, Sins of a Solar Empire is the premire title for Ironclad Games and to my knowledge the only game they've released thus far after four years. On top of that, they're a very small studio of only 10 guys. They need to keep making games and to do that, they've started work on Sins of a Dark Age. You really should put this in perspective.
Ultimately, the gameplay did change significantly (or at least it has the potential to; if you're not using the new units, that's your fault for not understanding how much they change things), particularly online play. The UI now has race-specific skins which are quite nice IMO. The research trees do differentiate the various factions. The rebellion is fresh; the factions haven't had time to differentiate much, but they have some and those few things do make a big difference. I'm sorry if you don't realize that.
Also consider your "disappointment." You paid 30 bucks for a game and wish they'd cut the price down to 15. Count how many hours you've played so far divide 30 by that number. That's the amount of money per hour you paid IC for use of their product. In my situation, I've probably played 24 hours within the first week, meaning that it's just over a buck per hour. True, the game was gifted to me by someone else in the community, but that doesn't change how little it costs for how much I use it. Maybe you play far less than I do, but I at least am getting plenty of mileage out of this and the previous iterations of Sins for the cost of them.
I have a partial agreement with some of your point. I do think that more needs to be done to differentiate the factions from each other. Some very small changes could accomplish this, such as automatic passive bonus/nerf applied to you without research, based on your faction. That way, right out the door they feel different and need a different stratagy. I doubt this will happen, but i think one more ship, unique to that faction would also help. Ideally for balance sake it should be the new capital ship. I like the ones we have for the most part, but i think there should be 6 new ones, not just 3. Discord for adv loyalists, something else for adv rebels. Corsev for the Tec loyals, a different new capital for the tec rebs, You get the idea. I think just those two changes, would fulfill a lot of people ideas about what this $30 expansion was supposed to be, and quash the kind of complaints in the OP
I know that Goa's mod is working on the out-of-the-gate changes and that is something I'd be fine with, but overall I don't feel the need for disappointment.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions and no criticism intended but I see it differently.
Sins was "done". They successfully released the original game and two expansions, added some balance changes and fixes throughout, maintained a gamesever, support and forums but were moving on to other things with maybe one day...in the future...just a hope for a Sins II. They repeatedly said no 64 bit, this is it.
Then Impulse gets sold and Brad comes out and says he didn't like the direction of his company overall and wanted to steer Stardock back to it's first love, games.
Players who kept working on things like TSOP, the normal rabid fanboy posters who loved the game and some of the pro-players who remained ardent were sitting there and I think Stardock noticed that Sins might not really be "done".
They took a shot and pulled on the fanboy base and decided to give the wheel a spin...but they also were angling to get back into the new game business.
So they made a hybrid. Half for the loyal fans that made them a success and the other half a "new game" for players who had never played or heard of Sins.
They could just as easily started on a shooter game or anything else and started fresh.
This is all "IMO" but I think Rebellion was a thank you to old players as much as it was a chance to see if they could offer a reworked Sins to a new player base.
I think the Steam numbers and sales have shown that wasn't a bad idea at all.
If you had never played or heard of Sins, picked up Rebellion--and were the sort of player that loves this sort of game--you wouldn't think, "What a rip off!"...you'd think, "Wow! Not bad!".
Sure, the caveat is the 32 bit limitation in today's dual graphics environment--but that isn't and never has been what Sins was directed at. It was made for thinking players who wanted substance over style.
Rebellion flips old strategies over and introduces new ones, took and aging engine and made itr shine again and fixed a slew of old bugs and limits that had never quite been taken care off.
It's a fair deal in my view. Old players are paying only $30 for the "new game" and that's moved towards "bargain bin" pricing. For a new player who's never run into it before, Rebellion is an absolute gem and a good deal for $40.
dose any one know how much $ they made on preorders? did they release that info or not yet? also i think that Rebellion 'hype' gave them the confidence that this game is not done yet! it has an immensely rich lore i would hate to think that they would finish the franchise with diplomacy!( they have so much more to tell) i WISH there was MORE HYPE (part of the reason i did Fan Art- to get more ppl to check the game out and to increase the player base!) because the more ppl get interested in the game the more chances stardock/ironclad will get $$$ from rebellion sales and then Soase 2 is going to come out- its a win win situation for me i only wish they would advertise it more... but its not out yet...
so devs if u look @ this comment- keep in mind to advertise on gizmodo.com/kotaku.com or youtube or something lol include james lebrone in the ad as a TEC commander lol put up ads on Tv! get Sheldon to mention SOASE on one of the big bang theory episodes...
Course if they make a lot of money off this whole series maybe someone will make sins II. With 64bit multithreaded DirectX11 client server configuration goodness.
Maybe.
Its possible.
I don't know, the $30 still seems kinda high to me. A bit of a money grab and we're all Suckers for Sins.
Here's hoping.
Its a good game and ive always liked SoSE, however without any significant new content, Id rather have kept my money and just keep playing awesome mods like SoA and SoaGE and spend the 30-40 bucks on the next Starcraft in the works.
The Vasari taking forever to be released has not been helpful to people expecting something more than a new big ship and a bit larger fighter aka corvette. The 5-10 new techs are cool, but in all honesty, as a stand alone expansion, this really should have been priced at 10-15 bucks for those that have Trinity already. $40 and even $30 bucks....what in this is worth 40 bucks.
And there aren't 3 new races. There are 6 new titans. Loyalist vs Rebel is like comparing West Coast residents to East Coast residents. Yeah they are different, but they are still all Americans.
If your a new comer to SoSE, buy it because it has all of the previous versions in it + a couple of new items. Great game. Personally.....I have yet to be impressed more than I was with Diplomacy.
Funny thing is that wasn't Diplomacy like $30 or more when it came out? Rebellion is about the same price point for Trinity users. So essentually you paid the same for Rebellion as you did for Diplomacy but got a hell a lot more out of it.
What was in Diplomacy that was so impressive? The whole diplomacy feature was worthless to me.
There was more added to Diplomacy than there was in Rebellion that affected the playability.
And by that logic then people have paid $50-60 bucks to buy Diplomacy (with as you say, not much added) & Rebellion which has even less added.
And assuming that your join date is the time you downloaded the game, a few of us including myself have had a few years longer to expect more of a true "add-on" than you have. Give it time, and you will come to expect more for your money too.
diplomacy was only 10 dollars
lol 50-60$ for diplomacy? well not on the west coast it was about 10 to 15, dont remember, but no way near 60! 60 is like buying a whole new game!... and rebellion ads allot of things too! if u really want a ton of new things wait untill soase2 which might not come anytime soon so i dont recommend it just buy rebellion!
I'm looking now at the back of the Trinity box and description... Yeah, they hyped the living snickers out of features and overstated a ton of things. Gamewise, it's always the same old stuff on a new map. Pretty damn boring and I just about gave up before getting into modding with 7 Deadly Sins and love it -well, love that so much new stuff from so many mods have kept the game going.
If you've played Trinity, it's pretty close to rebellion but without Titans that die then magically get all their levels back so losers don't cry and corvettes that make having a real fleet pretty useless. Oh, the Rebellion paint job and improved tires are great, but by and large same guts and a better air filter.
The fact is, very few (almost no) game makers today are creating strategic games that require skill and intelligence to win--especially in the science fiction arena.
I'll take it. Diplomacy was $30 on release as is Rebellion for previous buyers. I would not have felt ripped off if I had never seen the game and bought Rebellion--I'd have been thrilled with the game.
The changes are more than cosmetic or mere "mod rip-offs".
I agree with this on a few points, but overall I'm happy with Rebelion. The discount for existing players, updated visuals, nicer (kinda) U.I., and the new ships are making this fall into the 'all right' catagory for the continuation of the Sins games. Ya, the hype made this out to be something I would say is more then what it is, but thats normal. I always expect games to be less then hyped because, well, its the entire point of a marketing departments job to make hype.
So, over hyped? Yes, but thats normal. Happy with Rebelion? Yes.
I am looking forward to Rebellion launching, I feel that the upgraded graphics, bug fixes (which would have never happend otherwise), and the increased variety in gameplay is worth the twenty-seven bucks and yes it was $27 not $40, $10 discount plus 10% coupon. However that said I hope that they do not waste any time getting started on Sins 2.
Methinks they will be spending all their energy on Sins of a Dark Age for quite a while, especially if its successful. Could be years until they feel like starting to make Sins 2.
Replacing existing ships with their successors and adding new planet types would be worthless changes that don't change game play or strategy much at all.
All the changes in Rebellion have far reaching effects that fundamentally change the game play. This is what counts, not unit skins or planet types.
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