Comments on: Space Aces: Kerberos On Sword Of The Stars

By: Heliocentric

Heliocentric — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:01:25 +0000

Just thought I’d put it out there to any archive crawlers that this game is still very much worth playing. Progression wars for life!

By: TrashMan

TrashMan — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:56:36 +0000

Yeah Mecron and Miss Demo appear like they are constantly hanging on the forums. Always there to answer questions, sometimes directly, sometimes in a criptical manner, sometimes jokingly.

Kerberos and Bioware are the two greatest developers I know.

By: Kontaro

Kontaro — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:41:12 +0000

Yes, it says a lot about the dev’s being active in the forums when one of the highest posters(if not THE highest), is the big ceo man himself… I can usually see one of his posts in EVERY topic, and often once per page in many of the hotter topics… It is nice, and something you usually don’t get outside of a beta test.

By: Gorilla Shower

Gorilla Shower — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:53:58 +0000

SOTS is one of the best strategy games I’ve played.
Each race holds a different style of play, so that it does give a sense of identity to each one. The very fact that the game, as Cirulis says, gives you a toolkit for your strategy while avoiding a rock/paper/scissors approach allows for some…interesting strategies.
I’ve found multiplayer to be, like most turn-based, a little slow in game progression (which is fine, by the way). However, nothing beats fighting against a human opponent as both of you attempt to find ways to decieve and outsmart the other, or perhaps try to find synergy with your strategy toolkits.
As for the development team, I can’t add much more besides what’s written. They do care for their product, and do care about the players. From the beginning of SOTS, they have always remained active in the forums (especially one in particular).
To sum it up, this is a great game, very solid in design, and highly enjoyable. I recommend this to anyone who is a fan of strategy games.

By: Shadowcat

Shadowcat — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:06:46 +0000

Esha: Well sadly, devoting man-power to accessibility most likely isn’t “cost effective” in most cases. At least not in the short-term, and not if it’s an after-thought (I can envisage certain changes being massively easier if they are taken into account from the beginning).

But when you have a development team like this who are not just making a product and abandoning it, but rather have demonstrated that they are in for the long haul, and dedicated to making the game better over time, you have to figure that you have a much better chance of them taking this idea on board and actually doing something about it.

It can’t hurt to ask, anyway :)

And even if they can’t do anything about it for this game, you might get them thinking about it for their next games…

By: Dreamhacker

Dreamhacker — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:42:00 +0000

I suggested several changes and additions to the SOTS fleet browser on the official forums. Oh the surprise that hit me when the new patch came, and several of said suggestions WERE IN THE GAME.

They’re not kidding, Kerberos really listens to its fans. Worship the 4X gods!

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:30:27 +0000

@David EB Games in NA carries it (or did) as well as Gamestop in the UK.

I highly recommend SotS to anyone who hasn’t tried it. No one has mentioned yet just how highly modifiable it is, with easy to access weapon, tech, ship section files etc etc. I’ve had some fun mucking with the numbers and turning gauss point defense into the long-range sniping chainguns of doom!

By: Tssha

Tssha — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 07:23:15 +0000

@Esha

Even if they aren’t willing to put the resources to the task, one thing I know about Sword of the Stars is that it is VERY modable. You mentioned mods for World of Warcraft and Warhammer, which implies to me you’re somewhat used to altering things for your unique needs. Well, the Devs definitely answer questions like “how do I change THIS?” in their modding forum, and I’m sure they’d help with that.

These are good Devs. I’m sure they’d understand your problem, and they’ve patched a LOT into their game, and some of it was player-prompted. Time compression, for instance, was heavily pushed by the player base. I’m not sure whether they were considering it before, but before they implemented it they described its implementation as “non-trivial”. But, they definitely did it.

Kerberos Devs are about as far from being douchey as any Devs I’ve known. It can’t hurt to ask, as I’ve never seen them trash someone out for making a polite suggestion (key word polite).

By: Esha

Esha — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 02:45:30 +0000

@Shadowcat

This is a fair point, it’s not actually the first time I’ve had developers listen to me so it might happen again. I guess I’ve just gotten used to developers being so insanely protective of their children that even advice about accessibility can be taken as a slight (yes, I’ve seen this, I have stories – one about how even only those of a small per centage are disabled in such a way and thus devoting man-power to a solution would not be cost effective).

It does seem like they might though, so I might kick this habit I’ve gotten into lately of being shy of asking and only dealing with such things if modding is possible and actually ask them. If I do, I’ll report back here with my findings.

I have to admit too that in the past I’ve been tempted to throw together a resource that lists accessibility in different games, and games being released today, and lists how developers respond to requests for the inclusion of accessibility control. This is just another one of those pet projects I realise I should get around to, one of these days.

Because you’re probably right, at least a few developers may be open to the idea of adding accessibility tools into their games, if they’re asked.

By: Ginger Yellow

Ginger Yellow — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 01:27:50 +0000

How did I manage to miss this? It sounds right up my street. Demo here I come.

By: Hargert

Hargert — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:19:21 +0000

I know circuit city is carring it, and I think Target was as well.

By: David

David — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:48:24 +0000

So, I thought to myself “that sounds pretty cool — where can I purchase this Collector’s Edition?”

Turns out there’s a problem. I checked Amazon first, because I have some accumulated credit there from returns… and there’s just the base game, from a non-core seller. GamersGate, which the article linked to, doesn’t sell it.

So I guess I can order it directly from the publisher?

(This is lame.)