Quoting: BeamboomFor me, these games are like purchasing a new car that is a dupe of a car from the 50s. In fact, that comparison is darn good. Modern cars are *objectively* better on every single account. That's why car manufacturers make the cars they make today.

That's a rubbish analogy and here's why: Cars are primarily a means of transportation whereas games are primarily entertainment. Cars are objectively better because we have emission regulations, safety standards, better engineering techniques, computerization and the like. All the technological progress in the world isn't going to make a book or movie plot interesting, music more memorable nor gameplay more fun in of itself. That's because entertainment is a creative endeavour primarily and imagination on the creator's behalf is key there.

Technical progress may enhance the experience but is in no way indicative of a quality product. Taking the argument to the absurd, but logical, extreme: AAA games with the best graphics or the latest 3D blockbuster would therefore be the best games and movies of all time because they have the latest and best techniques and are tailored to a modern audience and equipment.

Nostalgia isn't necessary to enjoy these types of games, though I will concede, it does help at times. What attracts me to these games is that they're fun. It's that simple. You don't need special effects in film to tell a good story and you don't need the latest graphics and physics engines to have great gameplay. It's a stylistic choice to have pixel art and midi-like music and if they're pretty and well polished for what they are, all the better.

It's art and therefore a subjective experience on how each person appreciates it. You don't need to use computer techniques to be an accomplished artist in our times, even though some artists use a lot of digital stuff to create pieces. A lot of art is still made with canvas and paint. Is one intrinsically better than the other? Is the use of real film better than digital in movies? Are digital sounds better than real orchestration? It can't be measured in objective terms nor can you guarantee that people will enjoy one over the other more.

Hopefully that'll make you understand a little of where people like me are coming from. These games aren't like buying the latest and greatest to then suffer through an old TV, if anything it's more like popping in a remastered version of Modern Times or Gone With The Wind in our modern home theater systems.

There's plenty of crappy retro-inspired games too, so trust me, the millions available on phones are a meaningless thing to bring up. I won't buy them just like I wouldn't buy the latest 'photorealistic' annualized FPS game.

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Quoting: VelhoPAs a member of PCMR, i cannot pre-order. It's against the LAW!

BUT, i love city building games. I'll wait for GOL review to decide if i buy it or not.

I'll probably take a look at it when it comes out. That is, if I'm not completely broke :D

The Cities in Motions games had a lot of bugs at launch and my main concern is that it won't be a smooth experience from the start. Paradox Development Studios has more or less been steadily improving in QA and bugfixing but the other studios that publish under the Paradox Interactive brand are a little hit or miss. This is a Unity game so performance might also be a concern.

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Quoting: salsadoomI wish they wouldn't make linux ports a stretch goal. I'm not going to give you a red cent for a game I couldn't play. So either tell me I'll get to play it, or don't expect anything from me. I mean, all it does it make me wait until the linux port is reached before I'm willing to fund anything. Especially since its Unity, its not a hard port. You want my money then just commit to it from the get go.

I wish they wouldn't make Linux a stretch goal either but I think you overestimate how easy Unity is. A lot of devs end up with a lot more trouble than they anticipated because they think that Unity will do all the work. This is why we get a lot of delayed releases on Unity games.

At any rate, you're not giving money to them when you pledge. It's the promise of money. Kickstarter only charges you if and when the campaign is successful (in this case 28 more days to go). I ended up backing the project in a moment of weakness but will definitely withdraw my pledge if it doesn't meet its stretch goal for Linux support. I only hope that the Linux port, if it comes, isn't delayed for months on end as has happened with other kickstarters.

Quoting: KristianUsually "spiritual successor" is used about unlicensed works, but in this case they have licensed everything but the Ultima" name from EA.

It's cool that EA is allowing this to happen. Maybe they are tired of being evil? ;)

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Silent Hunter (4? 5?) would be lovely but it seems too niche and too old to be probable. Then again, Aspyr did port Indigo Prophecy. I have no plausible guesses but would love if either Feral or Aspyr brought over Homeworld Remastered.

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It's been frustrating to wait for this one. Though it was a kickstarter pledge that it would come to Linux, it's been over a year since the game came out on other platforms. Not only that but they released on iOS and android which weren't even targets of the crowdfunding months ago. Their excuse has been that it's all depended on a single programmer to do everything but I would have liked clear communication about their priorities and progress. Getting only hints of potential progress every couple of months while they clearly are busy focusing on other things is unacceptable.

I'm glad I didn't back this game and I'll wait until it's deeply discounted before getting this if it does come out soon.

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Quoting: Xpanderi mostly agree with you on unity and terrible performance.
but there are some that are made properly.. like Interstellar Marines which runs fairly good
Wasteland 2, Shadowrun and Cities in Motion 2

I'm not sure that CiM2 runs as well as it could and Wasteland 2 took a few patches to optimize things.

The performance issues are a pain but it's not like the game is unplayable most of the time. The devs do prioritize performance and have in the past fixed things with patches (usually in a few days of a big update). Given that they updated to a new version of the engine (and that unity sucks) it's regrettable but understandable that there's kinks to work out. But yeah, they should do better. Or use a better engine.

But hey, at least it's not as bad as with Rust where an update to a new Unity version has made it unplayable for Linux users.

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Looks interesting and I gave it a thumbs up on greenlight. I don't really have any spare cash to spare to fund anything at the moment, sadly.

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Quoting: BeamboomThere's nothing wrong in wanting and expecting a good introduction/tutorial from a game when you start it. Nothing wrong at all. To say "hey the info is on the internet - others have made it" is not a good excuse for a poor tutorial in a game.
To get the gamer started is indeed part of a good game design.

To be fair, both CK2 and EUIV have tons of tooltips and if you hover above anything you can usually learn more about it. I think that PDS should update their tutorials more often and have them hold your hand a bit longer. I think that these days a lot of newcommers get into games thanks to lets plays and whatnot that usually cover the basics and paradox is pretty good at promoting itself digitally so maybe that's their strategy. It doesn't help things that patches sometimes change mechanics wildly, especially stuff like rebels. You have to skim through patch notes/go to their forums to stay up to date.

At any rate, Paradox is the publisher here so tutorials and design decisions are mostly up to the devs, I'd wager. On that same note, the only thing that dampens my enthusiasm is the less-than-stellar track record the devs have of bugfixing. My hope is that Paradox will hound them to improve. After the disaster that was Sword of the Stars 2 launch, I think they'll be pressuring the developers to polish up things before release.

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Quoting: BeamboomSo it's written in Java? Interesting. Anyone know what framework/devtools/IDEs/libs are used?

I'm sure if you asked Phr00t (the dev) he'd tell you. He strikes me as the type. Try either his facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/phr00ts.software or the steam forums.

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It'll be Napoleon: TW since it's closest to Empire, engine-wise, if I had to guess. Would probably take the least amount of effort to port. Though I would love it if it was the Tomb Raider reboot instead.

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