Homeworldy MP goodness

[QuantaCat]

Cataclysm and HW2. How well are they in MP, and more importantly, how good are they now, with windows 7 and all?

Because I detect LAN goodness, but HW2 was always a bitch to get running well.

Also, and suggestions to similar games? Spacy ones of course, but not Sins Of A Solar Empire.

[FriendlyFire]

Once you find people who don't freak out upon realizing this isn't Starcraft, HW2 is actually a very enjoyable MP game. Matches don't tend to be overly long (though that depends on whether you're going humans VS AIs or humans VS humans) and the game's fairly smooth using Hamachi or plain real LAN (RTS games in general are awesome when you're actually in the same room). Plus, HW2 at least holds up very well in terms of graphics, so it's one of the few gems you can actually show to new people without them scoffing at dated visuals. Mods have improved upon that even more so, though I haven't really tried those all that much.

As for alternatives, I'm afraid Homeworld made and killed the 3D space RTS genre. The closest I know of would be Nexus, but the MP's fairly limited and it's quite a different experience to Homeworld, closer to "real time tactics" than RTS. There's a few 2D space strategy games like Sword of the Stars (the first one), AI War or the space bit of Empire at War, but even then you're getting closer to 4X at that point and the gameplay is 2D, even if they say the ships can move in 3D.

[QuantaCat]

Empire at war is fun of course, but less direct as it would (ideally) involve campaigns etc.

[Heliocentric]

SotS has bite sized battles and turn based strategic decisions. To be honest, while I adore Homeworld (mainly #2) multiplayer its exhausting. SotS let's you get your breath back between brutal battles. They are both worth having installed.

[Tikey]

HW2 mp is excellent. It may seem simple at first (outnumber your opponent) but it can get very nuanced when you get the hang of it.

If it's human vs human I'd recommend fair numbers. three player games usually ends up with two people fighting and the other one winning.

[QuantaCat]

So no love for cataclysm then? because atleast that had two different factions to play as.

[Tikey]

I played very little of Cataclysm in MP but I Remember it being quite unbalanced because of the difference in the factions.
The Beast is quite OP at the start of the game. With full research the Somtaaw can overpower the beast easily.
You could say that it forced certain gameplay style (surviving long enough to gain superiority as the Somtaaw or rush as the beast). But that also meant that games usually played the same.

[laneford]

HW Multiplayer used to give me heart palpitations.

Why are RTS' so much more stressful in MP then any other game type?

[Tikey]

because you can't reload :P

HW the first mp was amazing. I've got so many great stories from playing it with friends.

[Heliocentric]

HW Multiplayer used to give me heart palpitations.

Why are RTS' so much more stressful in MP then any other game type?

You need speed in all real time multiplayer games, but in RTS you are spinning many more plates. Sometimes you are spinning surprise plates sent by your opponents, othertimes plates you discounted as being easy.

Resources, recon, evasion, support, allocation and application. You are always screwing something up.

[Dave L.]

I haven't tried installing them recently, but from what I hear the installer freaks out about PCI-e cards (at least for HW and Cataclysm). It was hard-coded to check for AGP video cards for the minimum reqs, and when it doesn't see one in your system it says you don't meet min. spec. and won't let you install.

[YaganaWcott]

I haven't tried installing them recently

[QuantaCat]

Hm. Just finished (well, I stopped to check on my rendering, but yes) playing Homeworld 2 Complex 8. It is lots of fun, and I think Ill go for an MP game with this.

[Tikey]

I haven't tried installing them recently, but from what I hear the installer freaks out about PCI-e cards (at least for HW and Cataclysm). It was hard-coded to check for AGP video cards for the minimum reqs, and when it doesn't see one in your system it says you don't meet min. spec. and won't let you install.

I have Homeworld installed on my machine. It even runs smoothly on win 7.

[Dave L.]

Huh. Just reinstalled Homeworld 1 myself and it does work fine (sort of. It doesn't seem to get along with multitasking very well). I also somehow missed/forgot that Relic had released the source code for Homeworld all the way back in 2003, but it doesn't look like modding it took off the way it did for FreeSpace 2 (probably because Relic did a weird limited license for the source that required registration and being part of the Relic Developer Network), and I'm not having a lot of luck finding any Windows binaries based on the updated source.

[FriendlyFire]

FreeSpace 2 most importantly was the last of its generation, whereas Homeworld got a direct sequel. Most people just went on to mod HW2, which is fairly flexible in and of itself, on top of being far more modern.

[Dave L.]

Yeah, but that's no excuse for the sorry organisational state of the HW1 source modders' forums and website. It's so bad that it'll almost be easier to add proper widescreen support myself than to find a binary that already did it.

[QuantaCat]

is SOTS2 good yet?

[Hanban]

@Quantacat

I'd say stick with the first game. I find it incredibly frustrating to play SOTSII because it gets terribly slow. To play it I basically have to play it windowed so I can browse the internet while waiting for the turn to finish processing.

[Tikey]

I haven't tried for a while but it was working fine around christmas.
@Hanban. It was slow for me, but not "I'm getting old waiting for this to end" slow. More of a "This is taking longer than I'd like" slow.