I'm a fan big huge manuals with full specks and boatloads of lore information. I remember back in the day when Civ I came out. It had nearly 200 pages and one helluva of reference section tacked on at the end. Plus a tech tree and civ tree chart. Sadly I have not seen another come close to it in all these years.

Oddly enough as time progressed game manuals got thinner and thinner and the argument given the public was that printing costs were high so in order to keep game prices down the companies skimped on manuals. Coincidentally "insider" and "player books" officially authorized of course, with all the tips and tricks for the game as well as complete walk throughs started to appear for about the same cost as the game. Since then such offerings have become an essential part of the business development plan for major titles.

Then strangely when the PDF came around in the late 90s and developers had a secure medium to use for publishing the manuals digitally the manuals were still getting thinner (with key information somehow finding itself in the after market tip books) and the few games that offered PDF versions were just as thin.

Yet the cost of games kept going up at rates far in excess of other industries adjusting for inflation this coupled with a noticeable decline in quality and support kind of makes one what to go "hmmm...".

But I digress...

I'm sure IC will do Sins justice; after all it is a new franchise and it is only in the best long term interests of the developers to toss some big bones to the consumers to build its community from a value oriented perspective since such actions have proven time and time again to be a major market dynamic for direct and more importantly word-of-mouth sales when establishing a franchise.

Well, don't forget the cost of making a game has increased in advance of inflation. Sprite based graphics are a lot easier to do than full up 3D graphics, for example.

I have not and I'm fully aware of software developments costs in other industries to boot. However accounting for cost of entry and product longevity, expandability & inherent derivative development options, distribution costs as well as infrastructure expenses and personal the on average per unit margins are quite high from the data I have seen over the years.

For example just look at recent news stories about three titles that have each earned well over $100M in less then 30 days on the market and in one instance within the first week. Moreover the industry generated well over $2.6B last month alone!!! Additionally the industry has enjoyed year on year record profits across the board as well as market growth and it should hit the $18B soon if not already in fact. By the way, those numbers dont even include other revenue streams such as licensing and merchandising either - just straight retail sales numbers for software as I understand things.

I just realized something, you are thinking consumer inflation whereas I'm talking product development inflation. I'll stop here because I dont want to hijack this thread anymore then it is already.

NOTE: If any one from IG or SD want to remove these posts from this thread please feel free to do so as I dont think they are appropriate for it - We got way off track.

We have phase lanes to remove wack-a-mole, yet the devs had the "bright" idea to remove phase lanes between stars. Now, all we're doing is playing wack-a-mole with much longer response times. Not fun.

Can we please get star based phase lines back?

I like that system. How wack-a-mole can open lanes between 3-4 stars be?

Very, given the long response times. (Go play Systems at War, and try to jump back to your homeworld *through* the center system... it takes forever and a day...)

Ron stars are anything but wackamole, thats a silly and absurd comment.

long time stardock player (love galciv), first time poster...

so let me tell you... I bought Sins in beta after i was well enamored with GalCiv. And I love this game. Quick game play and the added bonus of having to research techs makes it a winner. BUT what makes it a loser is the AI. I can beat a medium game on "hard" in a hour. I mean really? an hour? the hard AI is terrible. fix it soon. you can't release it like this. my retarded 4 year old cousin would be bored.

btw, love the new galciv expansion updates.

dean

yes, we've got some of our best devs being humiliated by the in-house AI, apparently

as far as Ive heard this is not the Final AI as its more a place holder for the beta.

And yes as long as SINS will be kept alive through expansions (at least 1 per year) I really believe it will sit at the right hand of GalCiv being stardocks best games and absolute must have for sci fi loving gamers. Ive had the beta about 2 weeks now and i still haven't got the game memorized yet (tech tree, units) To me staying fresh, much like produce, is what makes a game great.

PS.. Please dont be like U@W and charge money for multiplayer. please.

You've heard quite correctly If you catch bits of SD/IC chat on IRC (Blair was being kept busy by AI during the Tournament!), it definitely sounds improved



They won't

There is no doubt in my mind that the AI is much better now (it has beaten some developers) and will continue to improve up until release. And even once Sins is release, just as we've been doing since March, we'll continue to release patches, new content, AI upgrades and whatever else as long as enough people are still interested in playing Sins. We basically want to continue the process we have now where we assimilate everyone's feedback and release regular version updates just like GalCiv. Expect Sins to grow and evolve well past the experience packaged in the original box.

Oh, and multiplayer is free!

feature idea: allied build option in grav wells.

idea: there could be an option, or extra treaty allowing you to set up logistics and/ or tactical structures in the grav well of your allies.

purpose: setting up a factory near your allies planets could help a great deal to support in case of attacks. also, in team games, people might consider spitting offensive and defensive roles and as such, the offensive player would want to have factories close to the staging ground, whereas the defensive player would have the better technology to fortify the same grav wells. I'd say there is a whole lot of options where this would be both useful and powerful. yeah, it does make things complicated when alliances break, but if its an extra option, both players should know what they get themselve into, plus there are dedicated locked alliances games, where this wouldnt be an issue.

dunno how much reprogramming it would take, but I thought I might mention it just the same.

I don't see that ever happening Shadow -- it'd be one heck of a headache to program, and confusing / difficult to boot.

What happens if the treaty gets broken? What about someone flooding the opponents territory with cheap, useless units with an eye towards jamming them up? Etc etc.

The manual is 80 pages long and represents the largest cost of manufacture of all the various components. If you guys had any idea how much it costs for each page of a manual, you'd understand why they're no longer tomes. If Civ IV hadn't sold 4 million units, they wouldn't have been able to afford a 200+ page manual either. 

The GalCiv II Gold Edition manual was completely re-written from the GalCiv II version. I'd say it's probably one of the best manuals of the past few years (it certainly cost a load).

obviously I cant speak of a developing point of view. gameplaywise however, I can. what would happen? factories are of course considered hostile, maybe there could be a limitation after treaty break that production is much slower. also - and as I said - this is a huge help, but also a huge danger. if you are short-sighted enough to let someone do this whom you don't completely trust, your deserve to get pounded. its really meant more an enhanced option in team games, since I for one wouldn't allow this on my territory in any non locked alliances game. well, maybe in exchange for huge resource compensation.

new thought actually, in ffa, this could spur an entirely new tactic. you fighting player b and have a front with him. you also border player c who is not your enemy atm and who happens to have a border with player b as well. now, you could open up a second front on player b via player c and shorten supply lines by getting him to establish a factory there. of course this would lead to repercussions, but given enough resources it could be powerful.

in short, a military base in a third partie's territory.

You've got a good point there shadow...

Does that cost per page include PDF format?

The manual for GalCiv2 (the original) is 60 pages long, and other than explaining what things are (such as research means researching new technologies, and you can colonize planets, etc...) it was completely impossible to play the game with only the manual. It was and still is expected to search for online subjects in their forums on on the wiki, and read, read, read, read, and read some more before even attempting a game. And quite frankly, even with the sheer amounts of online reading I've done, it's still an almost impossible game to wrap your head around.

I've actually had members of their forum tell me point black "stop playing the game, and spend several hours reading the forums and the wiki". That is not how one should learn to play a game. I should not have to hunt for technology trees online to know what technologies are available, I should not have to find pages in a wiki to explain how the economy of a game actually works instead of the paraphrased explanations found in the manual.

I'm sorry manuals are expensive, but they are a necessity, especially when one is considering a game of such "epic scale". Produce an actual manual and give the option of purchasing it seperately (ala game strategy guides one sees for almost every game)... I'd buy one. I wish someone would actually make one for GalCiv2, I'd buy it right now (assuming it was more than just a rehashing of the data found on the wiki and forums...)

Absolutely, although most consider it a minor transparent production cost.

I do hope it [the manual] is has some excellent charts and graphs for hard-copy quick reference printing.

Please keep the present any star to any star system. It makes sense and shortens games.

Also, Shadowhal's posts contain some interesting ideas.

Finally, it is a bit distressing to see how much manuals cost. Personally, I've always been fine with a good PDF file. However, the download version of games always seems to be only 5-10% less expensive than the packaged versions. What is up with that?

I made the text a little larger beacause it was a little hard on the eyes at size 2


My thoughts on SINS, Please comment

I’ve noticed new players really treat sins like a normal RTS. To me that’s like treating Bobby Fisher as a kid who likes games. Maybe it's just me but I play sins more like 4x then anything. I think part of it may be that its real time and people feel hurried. Don't get me wrong you do have to stay on top of things, but not like a WAR3 or C&C or any RTS really. I've found that taking my time "turtleing" (sorta) works best. I try to get my home world up and running first with a few research centers, turrets, mines, and decent fleet. I do scout right away especially the planets within 1 phase lane. After about 5 min I go for my first expansion maybe even taking 2 at the same time depending on circumstances. AlWAYs the closest 2. Then I build up a defense on those planets (or roids) and upgrade my home planet more to allow for more ships and buildings, and taxes. I also get the first few upgrades on the expans. (normally pop, tactical and explore. Then I do more research and build a better army and if moneys good another capitol. THEN I build a few more scouts and colonizers. At this point allot could be affecting strategy at this point but my point is that colony 4-7 don’t come for awhile (20 min or more) I find taking time to build a nice versatile upgraded fleet, does wonders for combat. Also building up my initial three worlds (maybe 4 if imp in the middle) then I focus on the research I need. By building up Imp including Trade and broad cast towers.

I've just seen allot of people try to over colonize way to early (ok not allot, 4 exactly) and not spend much time on the tech tree. I also see allot of spamming early ships and trying to kill all the militia in a 5 phase lane radius. Not to mention the lack of trade centers and broadcast towers.

So what do you thin and how do YOU play. Do you agree the game is more enjoyable when you take time and play more like a 4x. Or has everyone but sticking to the formula for RTS and spreading thin and fast? I’m sure its possible to win a game If your good, and spam certain units and colonize fast and often. It just seems to me that taking time is more fun, and honestly a superior strategies. When you take your time you small squads of fighters are very affective through research and quality of units. Within 10 min I have 3 flak ships and 5-7 (for get the name, early fighter-ship) that are decently upgraded with armor and superior weapons. Although I do "creep" sometimes (go around with mid size force and kill militia/pirates/scouting parties) for XP it's normally not until 20-30 min. Is this wrong?

Just wanted to se what you guys think.

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Margin locking justified as protecting retailer distributors (read as storefront). If a publisher undercuts the retailer's prices via digital distribution which in theory should in the neighborhood of 50% cheaper, the retailer refuses to order products from it because it worries about losing sales and customer perceptions about price gouging. This argument is based on inherently higher shipping and operating costs. So retailers feel they cant compete despite the supposedly "value added" and "customer service" factors they bring to the table for the higher cost.

Of course none of this addresses that fact that digital downloaders dont get any physical product and thus should get a much cheaper price. But hey who knows this is a war being fought on the movie & music side of the entertainment industry right now.

500!