But hold on man...

Ok - would i love to have amazing SP campaign with rich story, as well as amazing send-box mode which is much better than your classic skirmish and great uber MP attached to it all???

Its no brainer really - YES i would

However there is soooooo many games out there which end up being trully half-baked due to the fact that devs/publishers try to squeeze everything in one product - so ultimately we end up with rushed MP and SP...

What IC did here, or at least it sounds like they have done that, is sorted out core gameplay mechanics and overall system, they have glued it to great MP aspect as well as provided us with yet to be seen uber SP mode which can be played in Co-Op... Sure it has no story attached to it but i rather have this approach than half baked product which surely would end up being if IC rushed to include everything...

I am sure i will have a great time on line and off line for at least a year and then dive into the story itself which will surely be much richer that way than if it was rushed and forced in this time around...

This is at least how i see the things - but ultimately lets wait for another few days and then talk objectively about everything since at the moment all we are doing is speculating...

Actually, given the time left on the countdown I'd say we're way past feature lock -- all they have time for is bug-hunting. And, on top of that, let me point out that skirmish mode in this game has a lot more in it than most campaigns. We have in-game diplomacy of some kind, the bounty system, the new economic model they've promised us to go with the new diplomacy system, piracy, and devs only know what else they plan to throw in.

Gonna be another beta for this supposed expansion?

Lol they probably won't make it so they won't have to deal with us again.

A lot of game companies do their crunch time to get a lot done in the last month, hell they could even just put off the release instead of giving us Sandbox RTS.. And all that stuff you've explained, yeah I've played it all before, thats basically a skirmish in any space RTS I've played, it's nothing, it's what most companies make for people to play on the side, hence it is half baked, hell they already have the mechanics for a great game in, why stop half way?

Sure Sandbox might be good for SOME people for SOME time, maybe even most, but just you watch the community will be good and strong, at first, but as people get more and more bored with playing the same game they've before (Sins isn't the first of this Genre) it'll die off virtually instantaneously after a few months, 7-8.

It's a huge mistake releasing something with a few neat details, and no strive, purpose or real reason to play, people play RTS campaigns to get the feeling they've won, and now a days any of the RTS's without stats online, die off it's simple, Gamers are bored of running down the same corridor, just to run through another one. Yes I am aware there is no running or corridors in this game, it's a metaphor.

No, they can't. They have a very specific window in which they must release -- they've already paid for the advertisement in that window, and unlike some companies (blizzard) they can't afford to delay like that. They'll release a rock-solid product (anyone who doubts that, think about GC / GC2 release quality) and they'll release it on time, of that I have no doubt, but they are way past the point that they can change what they're releasing.



Um, WTF are you talking about? All games go gold as a matter of course, but I have no clue what going platinum (that is what you mean, right?) would mean. Please note that games are not like music CD's: going gold refers to the "final copy" of the game CD going to manufacturer for reproduction, ergo going platinum can't have the same meaning (and ends up with no meaning) as a result.



Thats how blizzard does it

Good storylines that you want to replay. Which is (in part) why we don't have a storyline mode for this game, the devs didn't think they could do a quality campaign in this format.

Hey, im fine with the game not having a single player. the skirmish alone will keep me happy for years to come, not to mention next febuary. I reckon the devs have done a good thing in not rushing the game, and not putting a half-assed SP campaign in. Just think, they will have a whole year to create an awesome, not to mention imaganative, campaign; it will rock so much.

As a side note: what is a sandbox mode? ive only ever heard of the term from halo 3, where all of the objects you can place in a map are part of the games sandbox. is this the same for sins? as in you can place plannets and suns wherever you want? or is it just a solar system random generator?

I dunno Ron, it wouldn't hard to make a good campaign with what they have now, this engine could prolly make an amazingly interactive story line, and it's just a shame they don't even try.

Hell a story wouldn't be too hard to write based on the and anything would be fine, but I put it to you, name 3 RTS's that are still successful that have NO campaign, no story and nothing but multiplayer?

And sure it's fake achievements etc, but you're playing a damn game anyways get over yourself lol, you're wasting productive time one way or another, it feels good to have goals and accomplishments to work for not just going "Oh I wonder what planet they will attack first this time!".

In essence, a Skirmish is the same, every time, you attack and defend, at least stories and campaigns have little situational objectives, do such and such to gain such, explore this planet before the time limit expires to save and gain the support of a nearby fleet, blow up said asteroid before it takes out your planet, then do some plot twists like a general you've been working with goes after you and acquires a lot of funs somehow, and you find new allies in some sympathetic enemies and you end up in an unexpected position and then at one point you have to make a choice to re-make an enemy out of your new found enemy and get back with that rogue generals new radical political beliefs or try and fight what he's been doing, all the while being besieged on all sides by every species with either just you and your little buddy who was nothing but a splinter faction now fighting to re-impose itself in the universe, or join up with the psychotic general which gives you power and a large ally but an unpredictable dictator at the reins in which you have to watch your back constantly.

All that could be done on some simple timed events etc and some voice acting you don't even need CG even though CG really helps a game, why is C&C so popular? One o fthe biggest selling points are the live acted/good CG scenes and I don't care if you try and claim I am some sort of minority in the belief because I really doubt you have a group of RTS fans that say "Story is useless!" The only thing separating most RTS's is a story lol, they are the same thing over and over, people like the different story, settings and such, starcraft did so well because people really got into the back story because back then most of us were still weening off of Dial up but still it was hugely popular.

Even Hegemonia has cult following due to its story that would pick up the next one in an instance.

While i haven't played Sins at all, i feel that it's very similar to another RTS game that i know very well: Knights of Honor. KoH does not have a story but it's a 4x game in Real Time. The game is still played by many and does not suffer from not having a campaign. I don't believe that Sins will suffer from that either...(backstory for the races is very important though).

Am I the only one who finds it amusing that people are saying we need a campaign to make the game more replayable? When in fact, Campaigns would be the only scripted thing in the entire game making it a one off thing. LOL

Anyway, Blair has said before that sins Skirmish isn't a standard skirmish. Why not wait and see till you make judgments.

Zing!

Well in this case I believe your going to get your wish. Theres a big difference between some events and a full campaign. According to blair about a month ago he said there will be random events that happen throught the single player skirmishes. They also will illude to the lore of the game. Its not going to be the same experience as the beta. Also, that civ4 analagy is perfect. I play civ 4 alot, no campaign, just some scenarios and different maps. But its a unique experience each time.

One thing though Yarlen- Civ 4 does have 20+ races, that adds alot. However each of the races has the same tech tree (despite a feww different units, buildings and a semi-distinct look and feel) A big part of keeping Civ alive was the scenarios and mods. But definatly the "Official scenarios" like warlords. so if there is a scenario type aspect to SINS hence, more then just different maps, but different maps with different flavor, that could be better then a 1/2 ass campaign.

I think it would be a good idea for the devs to have a campagin in an expansion pack, because the game as it is, it is breaking new grounds for the blending of turn based 4x and RTS generes. It is more important that Ironclad does this right the first time by concentrating on just giving a sandbox mode. A story campaign can be given after the core game is flush out and delivered out the door.

i think when they do eventually start to develop the camaign, it shouldnt be the same old 'you have objectives, go and do them before time runs out/before the enemy arrives', i think they should take a new approach alltogether. in other games, this has been tried before, and i quite enjoy it. instead of the scripted approach, make the story fully changeable. eg. you play as the newly formed TEC. your first objective is to rally the trader ships, and defend the stations which are being used to convert the trade ships. they suffer constant attacks from the vasari, which this early on in the campaign the vasari are MUCH stronger than the TEC. this could be balanced with the fact that the vasari ships are only scouts, so there are only a few of them, but they still can take out MANY TEC ships. anyway, say there is a certain number of TEC worlds in this particlar campaign map, each with a varied number of stations and ships in its orbit. some have more ships than others, and others have more stations (which are harder to defend, due to the fact that there are no local ships to help). the more you convert to the TEC, the more ships come under your control. but the player can make a decision. he can either convert the easyer ship populated worlds, which is the option that will help you the most in the short term; or he can convert the harder to defend station worlds, which dont give you many ships to begin with, but later on in the campaign you will get the benifit of more research stations (ie. more access up the tech tree) and ship production ect. so in short, the harder option will give you more ships later on.

this is just a small example of what could be done. this sort of decision making could be implied to many things, so that each campaign is different, even if the player tries to re-do it (ie. re-plays everything just like he did before) it would still be different, because the enemy attacks would be random (unlike homeworld 2, where they ALWAYS came from the same direction, no matter what)

but, as said above, you devs have made the right decision on planning a campaign in an expansion. develop your hearts out! do us proud in a years time! dont rush!