Comments on: Hey, Big Fella: Battleforge

By: araczynski

araczynski — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:26:07 +0000

“change the market”? unfortunately probably true, but not for the better, at the least i won’t be buying an online only game. well, unless it s good mmorpg :)

By: Jochen Scheisse

Jochen Scheisse — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:03:31 +0000

I wonder if it will include a card that makes your ships transport the god damn goods around! That would be like finding chainsaw fuel on Mars…

By: Zonderic

Zonderic — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:52:25 +0000

This is basically what I have been craving since 1994 when my friend told me sega genesis was releasing a card reader to visualize magic: the gathering.

By: Nikica

Nikica — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:19:59 +0000

The guy from The Settlers, yay, then I will play it. :) !!!

By: Riotpoll

Riotpoll — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:17:35 +0000

Looks cool, BIG monsters beating up little dudes = awesome.
Hopefully if it does have a micro-transaction thing then you can unlock the same stuff by playing the game; similar to the way Guild Wars works with pvp unlocks now.

By: Jochen Scheisse

Jochen Scheisse — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:09:55 +0000

Big monsters are BIG. Relic invented the Relic units. I wonder if Phenomic can solve the tiny man mass pathing problem?

By: Frosty840

Frosty840 — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:42:37 +0000

I’ve always liked Volker Wertich.
Admittedly this is entirely due to his wonderful name which, if anyone remembers, was on nearly every screen of The Settlers‘ opening credits (you guys all watched the opening credits at least once, right? I’m not the only guy who ever did that?).
The Settlers was intelligent and complex, but brutally flawed; those flaws , though, somehow managed to become an integral part of the game, and made it into something rather amazing for its time.
Never played Spellforce, though.

I’ve always avoided CCGs, though, on the basis that replacing gameplay with large-scale random number generators is abhorrent (dice are small-scale random number generators and are largely awesome. A 0.00002% chance of a given enemy dropping The Loot Of Much Shinyness is a large-scale random number generator and is basically a very, very boring alternative to real gambling, in my book), so I’ll probably give this one a miss. Shame.

By: Okami

Okami — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:22:50 +0000

The game will feature “booster packs” that contain new cards that can be bought via microtransactions. Though all of the cards contained within those boosters can also be acquired by completing campaign missions and killing bosses.

By: Joe Martin

Joe Martin — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:06:37 +0000

From what I saw there’s no microtransactions planned at the moment. The game will be updated freely and regularly according to Volker, though whether the game will sell as a retail or subscription model remains to be seen.

By: fluffy bunny

fluffy bunny — Thu, 15 May 2008 07:52:38 +0000

I also think that SpellForce was a very good game. It had some problems with the difficulty level (at least before the patches), but other than that, it was one of the most enjoyable RTS-ish games around at the time of release. It was fresh, fun and challenging, with memorable missions and locations, and it mixed RPG and RTS elements in a way that actually worked. And it was truly epic as well, with huge levels and a story mode that took ages to complete.

By: RichPowers

RichPowers — Thu, 15 May 2008 05:14:05 +0000

Well that’s good Noc. Some preview somewhere indicated that the game would rely heavily on microtransactions, which I interpreted as something like booster packs.

But I’ll still be a curmudgeon about MMO-like elements infesting genres otherwise free of unlocks and other such nonsense. First the FPS genre (CoD4, TF2) and now probably RTS…blah (ya, tech trees are a form of unlocks, but not in the same way as grinding for 50 scout kills with a damn needler!)

On a side note, I really dig how more RTS games include superunits. Demigod, BattleForge, SupCom, even C&C all have enormous, over-the-top uber-weapons that are far more creative than the usual RTS fare (giant submersible aircraft carrier!? rolling tank factory!?)

By: Acosta

Acosta — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:12:55 +0000

I’m going to disagree on Spellforce being “mediocre”, I think that apart of a good game, it’s the only one that managed the formula to mix RPG and RTS in a satisfactory way. Maybe is not the best RTS or the best RPG, but it was a very interesting game that played like no other.

I played Battleforge a little bit in the european event where it was presented. And looked very nice, one of the focus was in cooperative RTS, with a map design that allowed two armies to work together for common objectives (luring enemies into a point so your ally ranged units could take them from the top of a hill).

Overall is something fairly different, which is always good. For my part, I welcome MMO designs and ideas into RTS, I’m really tired of the actual model and I think we are ready for something else. Sins of a Solar Empire, Demigod, Battleforge (and maybe Dawn of War 2, not sure), this is the type of projects I would like to see more.