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The Good, the Ugly, the Bad of DA

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The Good, the Ugly, the Bad of DA

from GalCiv2 Forums
I should begin by saying this is a personal review of DA and in no mean should it be taken as anything else

The Good

By far the best two aspects of the expansion in my opinion are the hazardous enviroment planets and asteroid fields. These add a nice new twist on the gameplay and make it feel fresh.

The new ship designs are very nice and I find myself using template ships most of the time. They are cool looking and I cannot make any better designs myself, so I use templates.

New ship combat system feels better than the old one and it actually makes more sense now that every gun is handled independently.

I find Mega Events neat and they are just what they are very Mega and shake up the game like an earthquake.

The tech tree boxes have made the tech tree easier to navigate.

New galaxy creation menus are very easy to navigate and good overall.

Some gameplay tweaks are very nice IMO, like like limiting ship speeds via bigger engines and being able to use diplomacy less frequently.

AI seems bit wiser and provides real challenge even on tough difficulty level! And its getting better with patches, enough said?


The Bad

UI. I find UI the most dissapointing aspect of the DA. I admit being a bit of a UI zeatlot and find myself constantly irritated by even the slightest short comings of UI. Overall DA UI does its job and I have seen many games with far worse UI but there are many places where the UI just seems unfinished, you only have to open the rallypoint pop up menu to see what I mean.

Espionage system. This subject was discussed to the death on many topics during beta but developers shooted down the communitys ideas. Instead of implementing a deep/rich espionage system we got this over simplistic shallow espionage system which I would rather have as an option than hard coded feature in the game. Disable buildings or remove enemy agents, thats the espionage in nut shell.

Diplomacy. If my memory serves me correctly, improved diplomacy was on top 3# when the most wanted expansion pack wishes were asked in a poll. So whats new? Two threaties that make it easier to gain alliance with an AI opponent. Where is the more meaningful United Planets? The ability ask opponents to remove their SB from your influence zone and so on? I also must mention that the whole diplomacy trading lacks real logic, you must guess what makes the deals work since there is no indication what the AI values and how much.

Land combat. Ship combat has gotten lots of love with patches and now even more with the expansion pack, but how goes it on land combat side? Billions of citizens are given laser guns and send off to commit genozide on another planets. There can be all sort of explanations why this is so, but the end result is the same, Land Combat is over simplistic and boring. Where are the army forces that I remember were talked during development?

Game Mechanics. There are many just plain bad gameplay mechanism quirks that have carried over to DA from GC2. Here is a list of some game mechanic flaws that come to my mind:

1. The most obvious is ofcourse the absolute micromanagement hell of starbase constuction. There are people who say "why not use rallypoints" etc, but its a lame excuse in my opinion, since even if you use rally points it does not become much clearer. This because when the constuctor hits the SB and ask you "what would you like to build" you have no idea which SB is in question. Clearly the developers took another route with mining bases, why not implement same sytem on SB construction? Automaticly and neatly, no need to bother the player with trivial things like moving every single constructor to the right SB.

2. I find it akward as h*** that there is no hotkey for moving autopilot moves. This is something GC1 had but GC2 is missing, very weird.

3. Lack of borders. Yeah Yeah I know space is infinite and there are no borders in space, but this is a game. We humans define everything with borders like our countries, our houses, personal areas and the list goes on. I fail to see the logic why SD has to try and make GC2 unique this way. I think its a bad move as it goes against our very nature as territorial animals


The Ugly

DA is a pretty game except the utter ugliness of land combat! If it was my game, I´d be ashamed of the land combat graphics, but thats just me.

Ship Combat videos. They are better in DA than in GC2 but I find the automatic camera quite bad overall. Either it jumps all over the place(cinematic) or zooms way too far away from the battle (top down). Ofcourse free camera solves this but consider the lazy folks Formation choosing for fleets would have been nice add too.

There are literally tens maybe hundreds of new premade ships at your disposal with DA, but zero new portraits and civilization logos to be found. Somebody at graphics deparment had brain shortcut

Planet textures are blurry and ugly.


Verdict = 7.8p

I admit that I had too high hopes for an expansion pack and that is the reason for such a long "The Bad" section. Hopefully this can be taken as constructive critism and developers consider these things when GC3 is on the drawing table.

Also it should be considered that this rather harsh verdict comes from a fellow who has probably played too much of GC2 alrdy. So its only natural that the most intense WOW just isnt there anymore. All in all I would say that the expansion pack is a must buy for a relatively new players of GC2. If you have beated GC2 to the death over and over again, DA probably wont bring back those sleepless nights like GC2 did.

Hope people can discuss their own views of DA and take my review as it is. Which is just my personal view of the expansion pack and nothing more

69,187 views 160 replies
Reply #26 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I kinda like the idea of having the ability to choose urban or rural, gorilla or formation


Cry havoc! And let slip the gorillas of war!
Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It was the auto spell check, chalk up another one for AI that slips...

thou rough the creak.

I.e. through the crack.
TouchTasks - Access tasks with ease on Windows touchscreens.
Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

1. The tech tree. I just don't like how it's amazingly rigid. I can understand it being as such so it's easier on the AI given their different goals. Drengin can just go down the military line...

The tech tree is much MUCH MUCH harder for the AI to do than the traditional tech tree.

In the typical tech tree, there's only a couple of branches all which provide multiple benefits.

Going up the military tree only in GalCiv will lead to defeat -- you won't have the economy, manufacturing, or technological strength to do much.

 

Reply #29 from JoeUser Forums Top
I have to say, I think the tech tree, looks much more organized and easier to know what the hell u are researching. I wish it was in DL.
Reply #30 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have to say, I think the tech tree, looks much more organized and easier to know what the hell u are researching. I wish it was in DL.


Thats true. Although, they aren't what I would call "Breakthroughs". Whoopdie do! I just got laser V! I don't mean to be negatively sarcastic, but it was fun to research the tech tree. But it has gotten darn repetive now that I've played it more that 100 times. I think you should also have a large and abundant tech tree for super ability choices. Take for exaple the super trader, that race would have about five more trade techs to research giving them an immense advantage. You could have the super adapter ahve immense bonuses for all planets. Super dominator would have a choice of the ships that would appear. The super annihilator would have better spore ships that would be better with each tech.(I personally think spore ships are overpowered. They should have a percent of success) I'm sure the other abilities could have advantages that would more unique tech line if combined with the alignment techs.
Reply #31 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


I must add that Iam not trying to bash DA as a product Iam simply trying to improve it and the next generation of games coming from SD! It is my belief that through consturctive critism we as a community have a way to communicate our thoughts to the developers, after all they are making the games for us and themselfs ofcourse. It was not my intent on making DA look bad or anything, I just tried to bring up stuff that I think could be better in it.




I totally with that sentiment, it seems that SD is pretty responsive to what the fans want. So on that note I'll just say that while I am really enjoying DA, the thing I was most dissapointed with was the fact that they didn't flesh out the UP. This feature has a lot of potential, and I belive it could really add a lot to the game. At the very least the players (and other civs) should be able to propose thier own initialives and what not, this would also make leaving the UP have a bigger effect on the game, as it is now it dosent really matter if you leave (but I usually stay in anyway because I think this feature is neat, and could be turned into something incredible)
I love the idea of being able to throw mu political weight around in a manner other than paying other races to go to war with someone.
Reply #32 from Stardock Forums Top
The tech tree is much MUCH MUCH harder for the AI to do than the traditional tech tree.
In the typical tech tree, there's only a couple of branches all which provide multiple benefits.
Going up the military tree only in GalCiv will lead to defeat -- you won't have the economy, manufacturing, or technological strength to do much.


Wait...so why not make it easier for the AI so s/he can eat up my processing time on other decisions?  
Reply #33 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To be perfectly honest, asteroids, planet environments, custom player creation, they should all have been introduced in the base game, not in an expansion pack. They're more or less basic for this type of game. That there had to be an expansion for this can only be regarded as strange.
As for the best expansion being the "10" to which all other expansions should compare to, that's about the most absurd opinion I've heard on the subject.
Only by reading these forums you could think 7.8 is not that bad of a rating, with all the problems the expansion still has. Also, I think there's a lack of "creativity" on the part of the dev team - I mean, some things you just think "what the hell were they thinking?"...
Reply #34 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm amazed at how asteroid belts are being a bit put up as some big feature. I was hoping space would be a bit less empty than that.

Persistant nebulae? (not anomalies that vanish once you've gone through them!)If you fought in them they could maybe make your shields not work...or limit your sensors so it's a great, but dangerous, route to take to sneak attack your enemies!

The endpoints of a stable wormhole would become key strategic locations. Maybe stars at the end of their lifecycle and going supernova, collapsing into blackholes!

Don't get me wrong, there is good in the expansion, but if we want this series to progress we should nibble at what was weird and could be improved upon!
Reply #35 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

A group of 3 asteroids, when mined up, can end up producing something like 120 base resources per turn. So yea, I'd say asteroids are a "big deal".

For a future sequel, we have tons and tons of ideas. But expansion packs are designed to take an existing game and expand on it.

The question isn't whether Dark Avatar turns GalCiv into your own personal ideal. The question is whether Dark Avatar makes GalCiv II a better game (or at least a $29.95 better game). 

It's always tempting to compare games to some mythical ideal. But in reality, we have to compare things to things that exist. 

We go through the forums and listen to what people have to say. Often times, we'll simulate out an idea to see what people think.  Wormholes, for instance, sure sound neat, until someone loses because a nearby wormhole popped out a zillion Drengin battle cruisers without warning.  People have requested wormholes and the like for nearly 15 years now. We've considered the feature, played it out internally and decided that no, they woudn't be a good feature in our game.

The object of a game is to be fun. Not hard. Not simple. Not complex. Fun. Features exist to make the game more fun.  And most often, features that sound good on a forum would be disastrous to the fun of the game if they were ever implemented.

Reply #36 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
People have requested wormholes and the like for nearly 15 years now. We've considered the feature, played it out internally and decided that no, they woudn't be a good feature in our game.


So have you used this same formula for Space Carriers? If not, will you? It seems to me that the topic of carriers has far more people for the idea than those opposed. Just thought I'd ask since it has always been the one and only real request for the game that I have (and actually the one and only feature, besides the UP actually doing something, that I am sad didn't make it into the expansion). Anything?
Reply #37 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The object of a game is to be fun. Not hard. Not simple. Not complex. Fun. Features exist to make the game more fun. And most often, features that sound good on a forum would be disastrous to the fun of the game if they were ever implemented.


"Fun" is galciv2, but I would like to see a REAL challenge. I'm not syaing it isn't but it should be like a chess feel like when you have to sacrifice your rook to take out their queen or vice versa. Your queen gets wiped out. In english though, it needs to have a flare to it. Asteroids, IMO, shouldn't be leashed to stars. They should cover mass expanses to create choke points or go arounds. The map needs to be bigger...but with huge,REALLY HUGE, spaces in between solar systems and less space in between stars and their planets. I mean the drengins are popping up right next to the terrans. That isn't a far away travel in the game. 20 weeks tops. It should be years(game time) to have the drengins shove their transports at my doorstep. What I'm getting at is a startrek feel. They were always discovering new races and planets. It wouldn't of been fun for picard to discover all the races and plaents in 3 years, would it have?
Reply #38 from Stardock Forums Top
 
It's always tempting to compare games to some mythical ideal. But in reality, we have to compare things to things that exist.

We go through the forums and listen to what people have to say. Often times, we'll simulate out an idea to see what people think. Wormholes, for instance, sure sound neat, until someone loses because a nearby wormhole popped out a zillion Drengin battle cruisers without warning. People have requested wormholes and the like for nearly 15 years now. We've considered the feature, played it out internally and decided that no, they woudn't be a good feature in our game


The idea of wormholes, for me, came from Birth of the Federation. Not the sharpest strategy game on the block, but a starbase at the mouth of one with a standing fleet. And if a player doesn't want surprises we'd prepare for things best we could?

I still get surprised in the way DA is right now. One which you may find in another post that 1520/0/0 doesn't actually mean 0 defence for the missile and mass. I was very surprised when I lost my fleet. More so surprised when an enemy fleet went the long way to attack my planet just so I wouldn't notice it.

I think the idea of what is 'fun' is subjective. Some of the features current I don't find fun.(like the galactic council)
But I'm also understanding the final decision is from you guys(the people actually going to make it). I must be happy with something otherwise I wouldn't have bought it.

The question isn't whether Dark Avatar turns GalCiv into your own personal ideal. The question is whether Dark Avatar makes GalCiv II a better game (or at least a $29.95 better game).


I don't think it was worth that much(It's an expansion afterall) I used tokens though, so I think I got away with it.
Reply #39 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The object of a game is to be fun. Not hard. Not simple. Not complex. Fun. Features exist to make the game more fun.
Thinking about it, I believe most criticism on GalCiv2 is caused by over-agressive application of that principle. You fudged with stuff to make it easy and fun and in the process made the game weird and illogical, destroying the whole athmosphere you tried to create.
You fudged with the UP, espionage, combat system, movement system, economy (spending and trade), diplomacy - and all you did was essentially cause a lot of confusion because things are not how they are supposed to be, but simplified to something illogical.
I know the principle of "Fun over realism", but realism is fun to a specific degree, because the impression of realism creates a great athmosphere. In this forum there is a lot criticism about some steps where you went very far away from realism to keep things simple, which destroys the athmosphere and thus destroys the fun.

I hope you remember this post a few days in the future, because it sums up a lot of the criticism I read on this forum.
Reply #40 from Stardock Forums Top
United Planets...I have no idea why I keep calling it the Galactic Council. :\
Reply #41 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"To be perfectly honest, asteroids, planet environments, custom player creation, they should all have been introduced in the base game, not in an expansion pack."

AGREE!

As for the best expansion being the "10" to which all other expansions should compare to, that's about the most absurd opinion I've heard on the subject."

Further Agree. 10/10, 5/5 should be reserved for expansions where everything asked for and clearly missing, within reason, from the game should be available. There is no map editor, no multiplayer, I'll stop right there because any objective/impartial judging of features would conclude that though DA is an improvement and does add some additional functions as well as tweak gameplay, it does not, add a lot of features/contain features requested by many in the community for whatever the various reasons are.

"Only by reading these forums you could think 7.8 is not that bad of a rating, with all the problems the expansion still has. Also, I think there's a lack of "creativity" on the part of the dev team - I mean, some things you just think "what the hell were they thinking?"..."

I agree with this too, lack of creativity is probably a better way of stating a failure to innovate on a large level. They went with safe and secure game design and catered to the in house audience rather then going out and seeking a larger share of the market.

And that's, ok.

"I think the idea of what is 'fun' is subjective. Some of the features current I don't find fun.(like the galactic council)"

You and a lot of other people think the GC sucks.

"The question isn't whether Dark Avatar turns GalCiv into your own personal ideal. The question is whether Dark Avatar makes GalCiv II a better game (or at least a $29.95 better game)."

Marginally better.
Reply #42 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is in response to those who think my (and Gamespy's) 10/10 review is absurd.

Why don't you post YOUR idea of a 10/10 expansion so that I can rip it to shreds?

You may subjectively state that DA sucks, and that's your opinion, but realize that your views are aberrant. To say that this content should have been included with the original game is absurd, especially considering the universally high reviews and awards that GCII received. I would think that someone in the videogame industry would agree with you if you knew what you were talking about, but alas, Gamespy, IGN, Gamespot, Computer Gaming World, etc. all disagree with your viewpoint. How unfortunate for your argument.

Using your logic, CIV should have included the Great Wall of China, etc. and Warlords sucks. Dawn of War should have included the Imperial Guard and the extra units to begin with, so Winter Assault sucks, not to mention Dawn of War should have included a strategic map to begin with (after all, like you say it's already in so many other games), so Dark Crusade sucks. I could go on, but the coffin lid of your argument has already been nailed shut.
Reply #43 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wow, this has turned into a bitchfest worthy of... well of an internet message board. For the record, in my opinion, this is damn near the perfect 4x game for me. DA just made it moreso. I'd like to see a few things tweaked or adjusted, I'd like to see an even stronger AI, but in general I think my wants happen to align pretty well with those of the designers. I'm looking forward to anything else you guys may do with this game. Keep it up.
Reply #44 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Why don't you post YOUR idea of a 10/10 expansion so that I can rip it to shreds?


Ok, how about a bug free, cheese free, thoroughly tested gameplay and campaign module? Rip me to shreds please.
Sure DA has some new stuff (even though...), some fixes and improvements. The fact is, some of them were *needed*, like the combat system (even though it now presents other problems). Is DA perfect? Nope. Not a 10 then.

You may subjectively state that DA sucks, and that's your opinion, but realize that your views are aberrant. To say that this content should have been included with the original game is absurd, especially considering the universally high reviews and awards that GCII received. I would think that someone in the videogame industry would agree with you if you knew what you were talking about, but alas, Gamespy, IGN, Gamespot, Computer Gaming World, etc. all disagree with your viewpoint. How unfortunate for your argument


Have you ever thought that it might be *your* views that are aberrant? The reviews are worth what they're worth. We all know how some reviewers do their thing. The *real* reviewers, the players, say different in these forums. It's not bad, but it's not great either.

I could go on, but the coffin lid of your argument has already been nailed shut.


Heh, aren't we full of ourselves?
Reply #45 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
someone loses because a nearby wormhole popped out a zillion Drengin battle cruisers without warning.


Hmm, and logistics? And don't the Drengin SA do something similar? And some mega events? This kind of argument is weak. You already have the stargates in the background story, use them. They're power hogs, that's their weakness. Use that to control them. See the lack of creativity?

The new features in DA, when I said they should be in the base game, that was because GC's direct competition already features those, and lots more. This game seems unfinished, a starting point to keep adding new features, at the expense of consecutive "expansion packs". That's not good.
Reply #46 from Stardock Forums Top
In some connection to the rigid tech tree (which supposedly makes it harder for the AI) was this the same reasoning for the Starbases? If I recall, and correct me if I recalled it wrongly, GC1 had one starting starbase and then from there you decided on the modules.

I'm not a fan of the three starting starbase. I don't think any starbase anywhere would ever be as such. A starbase is generally a major hub of politics, trade, and military keypoints. It's strange for me to have one solar system with three big starbases each specific to their intended design. The cutscene when you make your first starbase implies this big investments are something that are generally few and far inbetween.

And just so it doesn't seem like I'm talking all things I don't like...

I love designing my own ships,(although I prefer the actual system modules to have been done abstractly), I love the genre in specific and setting. I love watching trade routes in action, I love the events(although not how they seem utterly random and always seem to focus on my home planet) and mega events. I love the tech descriptions. I love the talking to the AI. I love how big the galaxy map is and how I can zoom in and out.(although there is way too much 'emptiness').
Reply #47 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Starbases are another of those implementations that I can't understand. They're there only for you to spam a sector or planet with as many as permited, to give you an accumulated effect. They're exploit/cheese material - I mean, look at the tiny hull exploit. Even their effects *sound* cheesy, trade route spamming?
SBs should be built in orbit of your own planets, not in the middle of nowhere.
Reply #48 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Why don't you post YOUR idea of a 10/10 expansion so that I can rip it to shreds?


Ok, how about a bug free, cheese free, thoroughly tested gameplay and campaign module? Rip me to shreds please.
Sure DA has some new stuff (even though...), some fixes and improvements. The fact is, some of them were *needed*, like the combat system (even though it now presents other problems). Is DA perfect? Nope. Not a 10 then.


You may subjectively state that DA sucks, and that's your opinion, but realize that your views are aberrant. To say that this content should have been included with the original game is absurd, especially considering the universally high reviews and awards that GCII received. I would think that someone in the videogame industry would agree with you if you knew what you were talking about, but alas, Gamespy, IGN, Gamespot, Computer Gaming World, etc. all disagree with your viewpoint. How unfortunate for your argument


Have you ever thought that it might be *your* views that are aberrant? The reviews are worth what they're worth. We all know how some reviewers do their thing. The *real* reviewers, the players, say different in these forums. It's not bad, but it's not great either.


I could go on, but the coffin lid of your argument has already been nailed shut.


Heh, aren't we full of ourselves?


I.e. you don't have a notion of a perfect expansion pack beyond some vague b.s. about being bug free and gameplay perfect. In that case, any review metric becomes meaningless, because all expansion packs which are actually on the market and ever will be (which will never fit your notion of perfection), will be squeezed into a narrow range of scores that become difficult to differentiate.

And nothing in the expansion was *needed* to get you to buy the game, which you have clearly been playing for a while now. Some morons in this thread seem to have that oh so sexy sense of fanboy entitlement where they judge their games not against other games that actually exist (i.e. the world by its own terms), but based on their own mastubatory ideals. Which makes your views practically worthless.

Think harder....

Reply #49 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"To be perfectly honest, asteroids, planet environments, custom player creation, they should all have been introduced in the base game, not in an expansion pack."

AGREE!

As for the best expansion being the "10" to which all other expansions should compare to, that's about the most absurd opinion I've heard on the subject."

Further Agree. 10/10, 5/5 should be reserved for expansions where everything asked for and clearly missing, within reason, from the game should be available. There is no map editor, no multiplayer, I'll stop right there because any objective/impartial judging of features would conclude that though DA is an improvement and does add some additional functions as well as tweak gameplay, it does not, add a lot of features/contain features requested by many in the community for whatever the various reasons are.

"Only by reading these forums you could think 7.8 is not that bad of a rating, with all the problems the expansion still has. Also, I think there's a lack of "creativity" on the part of the dev team - I mean, some things you just think "what the hell were they thinking?"..."

I agree with this too, lack of creativity is probably a better way of stating a failure to innovate on a large level. They went with safe and secure game design and catered to the in house audience rather then going out and seeking a larger share of the market.

And that's, ok.

"I think the idea of what is 'fun' is subjective. Some of the features current I don't find fun.(like the galactic council)"

You and a lot of other people think the GC sucks.

"The question isn't whether Dark Avatar turns GalCiv into your own personal ideal. The question is whether Dark Avatar makes GalCiv II a better game (or at least a $29.95 better game)."

Marginally better.



Name a single expansion that threw in a massive number of features, i.e. was creative, without screwing up balance, A.I., introduced a massive number of bugs, etc. And don't hit me with the moronic strawman that DA had its downsides, because relative to stuff that is already on the market, its a work of art.
Reply #50 from Stardock Forums Top
I think it's a very bad thing to call anything perfect. Firstly, nothing is perfect and to give it that sort of pedestal implies that nothing in DA could be improved: Which is a very bad mindset to have.

I'm sure the developers pay more attention to what people didn't like and their opinions of improvement rather than being showered with compliments which could make them complacent.

And insults really don't help anything.