From technology to politics to video games; these are the random thoughts of a geek with too much time on his hands
Dig in for the long haul
Published on August 29, 2008 By Zoomba In Sins News

Today Stardock & Ironclad Games are proud to announce the first of several micro-expansion packs, for the award-winning Sins of a Solar Empire.  The first micro-expansion Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment is currently in development and will be released late 2008 for $9.95 via Stardock’s Impulse digital distribution platform (www.impulsedriven.com).

Developed by Ironclad Games, Sins of a Solar Empire is a real-time strategy game that adds an extreme amount of depth normally only seen in turn-based releases. One of the highest ranking real-time strategy games of 2008, the title has sold over half a million copies and won several Editor’s Choice awards.

Specifically, Entrenchment promises to bring fans a Starbase defense platform for each race (extremely powerful and armored bases housing a variety of weapons and other upgrades capable of defending an entire planet), turret upgrades for each race to make them more powerful (not only stronger than the current versions, but also upgradable with long-range weapons), mine fields and a Subspace Inhibitor platform that will slow enemy ships within its range.

Ironclad has two additional micro-expansions in development as well. One of which adds new diplomacy features to the game and another that will add new technologies and ships.

The expansions are being developed to prevent fracturing of the multiplayer community. If both players have a given expansion pack installed, the features are available, but if one does not, the expansion pack features are disabled for that particular game.

You can pre-order the micro-expansion now for $9.95 directly from the Impulse Store.  Entrenchment is only available through Impulse.


Comments (Page 9)
10 PagesFirst 7 8 9 10 
on Sep 14, 2008

What exactly do you expect, the source code?

on Sep 14, 2008

The questions are meant for the mods and devs...not you. Besides, it only really has context when you read the older PR stuff and the statements as to what would be released.

on Sep 14, 2008

Fandangdo
The questions are meant for the mods and devs...not you. Besides, it only really has context when you read the older PR stuff and the statements as to what would be released.

And if you'd read their explanations, you would know the answer to your own questions.

on Sep 15, 2008

<!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} -->

No you are wrong Annatar. Their explanations do not answer my questions, specifically when I ask if it was an intentional act to make modding projects more difficult etc.

on Sep 15, 2008

specifically when I ask if it was an intentional act to make modding projects more difficult etc.

Which is exactly what they answered. Really, you should actually read things before you go off making conspiracy theories

In short: no, it's not intentional, but most of the hardcodes will have to stay due to engine design choices that can't be changed now. They'll do what they can to loosen the hardcodes (see capital ships limit, sounds limit), but there's not much they can do beyond that.

Of course, this probably won't satisfy you, but the answer was still plainly given in the past.

on Sep 15, 2008

You are right, YOUR answer does not satisfy me. Nor do I view the 'explanations' you refer to as answers from the dev's mouths, as answering my questions. The word conspiracy is very, imo, disingenuous of you.

 

As for how this relates to the 'gamer's bill of rights', well given the older PR stuff I think it would be fair to say 'rights' 2 and 3 are challanged. The irony eh? 

on Sep 15, 2008

You are right, YOUR answer does not satisfy me. Nor do I view the 'explanations' you refer to as answers from the dev's mouths, as answering my questions. The word conspiracy is very, imo, disingenuous of you.

Then take it from theirs:

Hey all,

We have not forgotten about you

To clear things up a bit: at this point the community has access to pretty much all the tools the developers have - we're not holding anything back out of spite! Also, in certain situations you will come across hard-coded limits which may not make sense to you. Some of them may be limitations resulting from the engine design, but more often they are there to control the amount of memory usage and dynamic memory allocation - to keep the game running as smoothly as possible.

I'd like to get some idea of what would be most useful to the modding community at this point. What kind of tools are you hoping to see in a "full toolset release"? Or as ZJBDragon says, is the main requirement some centralized place to get information about how to mod each aspect of the game?

Cheers

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/311187/page/1/#replies , reply #12

The word conspiracy is quite accurate to describe what you're suggesting, since you're basically implying that they deliberately limit modding because they want to get more money out of people.

on Sep 15, 2008

Will there be new races or a SP campain in the Expansion?

on Sep 15, 2008

TiberiousKirk
Will there be new races or a SP campain in the Expansion?

We don't know how that's going to be done. We know that a campaign is in the works, and we know it's not going to be in Entrenchment. That's about it So we'll get it somehow, but not yet.

on Sep 16, 2008

Sign me up. Sounds like I can't wait.

on Sep 16, 2008

Annatar11

The word conspiracy is quite accurate to describe what you're suggesting, since you're basically implying that they deliberately limit modding because they want to get more money out of people.

You are being very trollish here!

Why is it that nobody can even raise a question or suggest the slightest hint of criticism without you jumping in. It looks rather stiffling. Surely its better to let people express opinions so that the devs know there are such opinions out there, rather than be challenged into silence and hold those opinions anyway?

I thought forums were for debate, discussion and expression of opinions?

on Sep 16, 2008

There's plenty of criticism, in this thread and in others, that is actual criticism. His, however, was not criticism but an insulting insinuation based on a lie that he created.

And he did, in fact, imply that Ironclad is deliberately choking the modding scene because they want money for something that modders would've been able to do otherwise (which does constitute a conspiracy, by the way):

As I said a while back…is it an intentional act to make such modding projects more difficult by not releasing promised tools, in order for you to make profit from expansion packs that would traditionally be made by players using decent mod tools?

All while insisting that they have never addressed this concern, which I was happy to call him out on and prove otherwise.

You may call it trolling, but if anyone's going to criticize Ironclad they should at least do it with a truth, not a blatant lie - and that's what I make sure is known. I don't try to debunk every single criticism, and in the past I've joined in on some (by now, everything that comes up is essentially beating a dead horse because it has been debated before) albeit with a different tone because I have the advantage of knowing some of the reasoning and inner workings from the beta test. But if someone decides to make up a lie and try to use it to smear IC's name and make it sound like another money-hungry company that doesn't care about its fans and only money, well, I'll be sure to call them on it. And I stand by my post.

on Sep 18, 2008

Plus, if you hate Stardock 1) Why are you here on their forums.... and 2) why don't you just go by Spore and become an EA fanatic cause "I'm sure they're much better." 

on Sep 18, 2008

Flipping heck, is this a fanboys convention in here?

I think you will find that people who post critacally or raise concerns about things do so because they care about the game. People who hate the game/developers don't!

I thought this was aplace where you could go to discuss the game, not listen to a monologue from Annatar11? If that is all that is permitted here then its going to be a pretty dead site (and game) pretty soon.

on Sep 18, 2008

If somebody is going to criticize something, that criticism should at least be true.

 

10 PagesFirst 7 8 9 10