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Topic: Re: Time for critics.. (Read 6407 times)
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AnonomouSpathi
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Spathi? What spathi? You're imagining, hunam.
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-The races of the galaxy cannot be taken seriously
.....? You're kidding right? Yes. Exactly. This isn't Final Fantasy Seven part two: insane man broods some more. Many of them aren't supposed to be taken seriously.
-Hitting the planet is a problem
Did you invest in a complete set of manuevering and thrusting jets for your mothership?
-Game is boring. Gather resources, spend it all on crew.
Don't get so many of your crew killed, and plan your harvesting routes more effectively. Don't land on superhot planets unless you have the superhot planet landing shield. Bring a full load of cargo pods, and do a big sweep of a selected area to make it efficient.
-Plot isn't so great
Sorry, but seing as you're skipping dialouge and you haven't completed the game, I really do have no choice but to discount your opinion here wholesale.
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FalconMWC
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Perky, just a suggestion but, don't try to judge a game that you have not completed.
Also, No duh you would not like the storyline if you don't read the dialoges. That is like reading a book but deciding to skip everything in quotation marks after you did not like the first sentence. 100% of the books you read like that will have poor storyline.
This game is OLD - I am only three years older than it, so if you compare it to their age everying pales in UQM's presence. Sure there are high tech games out that are fun to play, but they JUST came out. I should hope they graphically beat a 12 year old game.
Point? Don't judge a book by its cover, don't judge a computer game by the first sentence.
BTW: If you want to do something challenging in the game without mineral gathering then....
Do what DJ and myself did. Play the game without starbase.
A. It is VERY hard.
B. No resource gathering!
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« Last Edit: March 22, 2004, 05:39:51 pm by FalconMWC »
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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Oh, and like he'll succeed in doing that without knowing exactly where he's going.'
As for the criticism...
I am curious: how far did you get before you posted?
Suggestions:
If you don't like the voices, TURN THEM OFF. The written dialog, however, is critically important. You will probably want to take notes.
As said earlier, turning jets and thrusters are your friends. To make more of these friends, go to the outfit starship section of the starbase display, and select 'module' and push up so the blinking cursor is on the outrigger of your ship. You should be able to figure it out from there.
Mining is a means to an end, not the end itself. There are MANY planets it is not worth landing on. Do not try to mine everything - you will, as you said, net very little. Be picky.
If you are still having a hard time gathering resources, ask Commander Hayes for advice on the matter. I disagree with him on a few finer points, but in general he knows what he's talking about.
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« Last Edit: March 22, 2004, 06:41:53 pm by Death_999 »
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FalconMWC
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Yeah - True, don't try the no-starbase thing until you have beat the game....
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meep-eep
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Im not perhaps the best person to criticize The Ur-Quan masters since I haven't player it that much. But It doesn't indeed mean that I shouldn't tell about what I feel about it.
So why DO you feel you need to tell that you don't like this game? Especially since you hardly played the game.
+ The idea is nice, althought not very new...
It was new 10 years ago, when this game came out. This is a faithful reproduction of the original, using the original sources and the original content.
- The engine is poor. This something like over ten years old game (original) ? Computers ten years ago were 486's but amazingly some of the combat is laggy with celeron 400MHz. I was thinking that is my computer really slow or the engine and it's programmers amateurs? Not very impressive.
This game was originally *made* for computers like the 386, for DOS (and later, the 3DO). You can't do the same tricks you did on the 486 or 3DO where you had direct access to the hardware on a computer that runs Windows. For instance, changing the color palette was a cheap operation back then. Just instruct the graphics card to do so. Nowadays, in most video modes, you'll have to change every pixel manually.
Also, the game uses more resources, because it *can*. There's always a tradeoff between speed and flexibility. With hardware nowadays, we can afford more flexibility. There's an abstraction layer which allows the game to be run on various platforms, including Linux, MacOS, and FreeBSD.
Also, the music on the PC was originally in .mod format. The music on the 3DO, which we are using per default, was stored waveform audio with barely any compression, and the decompression was done by the 3DO's DSP chip. We're using .ogg format, which is very much more CPU intensive to decode, but it brings back the size of those files by about a factor 6.
Then there's interpolation to make the original graphics look more smooth.
Still, on a Celeron 400, you should be able to have pretty smooth gameplay. Maybe you've got something running in the background (in the system tray perhaps?) which irregularly eats CPU time. Try shutting down as much as possible before starting the game.
Also, if your video card has decent OpenGL drivers, you can achieve a significant improvement by enabling OpenGL support. Supply '-o' on the command line. At some time this will be put in the setup menu, but we're not done yet. Which is another point; we haven't done much on optimisation yet.
- The graphics are too naive. It is certain that the game is old but GOD the graphics are naive. The races of the universe are comical and cannot be taken seriously.
You're obviously missing the point, as you clearly haven't given the game a chance yet. The races are supposed to be comical. The creators of the game have never let realism get in the way of fun. That is not to say that the game is inconsistent. It isn't. The story is very good. I'd even say that there have been very few games in recent and not so recent history that can claim this level of writing. Even the bad guys will prove to have a very good reason for doing what they're doing. Now how often can you say that in a game (or movie)?
If the graphics are terrible, the voice acting is more than terrible. Most of the actors are horrible overkillers like "WHATTTTTT-TA? DOESSSSS MY EYESSSSSSS-A SEEEEE A HJUMANNNNNNNNNNNN-A!?". God, just horrible. Violent spacespiders.. oh god help me! Most of the dialog, or would I say monolog is so boring that I just have to hit that space and skip the crap.
Again, you're taking it to seriously. And generally, the dialog is everything but boring. Only the things the commander has to say can be pretty boring the first time you read it, as he has a lot to say about the story background that means little to you. But just give it a chance.
- The playability is poor. Manual flying is horrible and hitting the planets is a tough job sometimes.
One of the first things you'll do in the game is upgrade your enginges and turning thrusters. That you haven't even done that yet indicates to me that I shouldn't have bothered on replying to your note in the first place.
- Game is boring! It's just hell of a boring: gather resources from planet. Do this hundreds of times wasting over 75% of your income to new crew and fuel. Kill me!
You should not mine every planet. The commander gives some useful tips on finding planets with lots of resources. I suggest you listen to him.
Mining will be only a small part of the game.
There is also probably something more that I don't remember now. I readed the preview of this remake from magazine. The writer told that this is one of the most greatest games ever made. I was very intrested until I faced the truth: this is lower than average space exploration. Thought I cannot tell the whole truth of the game since I haven't completed it.
I think that last remark is rather an understatement. You've obviously given up very quickly. This game is not for the impatient. Don't try to quickly finish the game. If you haven't got the time, play it another time.
But if you're prepared to spend the time, you're in for quite a ride. I fully agree with the writer of that magazine preview. Like every game (except pure action games), there may be a few boring parts, but it's all worth it.
But this is what I think about it now. I prefer something that has more intresting story, characters and so on.
If you find something like that, please let me know, because if this is what you care about, it won't get much better than SC2. And it's got lots of humour and great music too.
And don't get me wrong: I love old games and I don't need the latest graphics. This is just too damn annoying...
I'm sorry this is your first impression, which is unfortunate, because it really is a great game. I suspect you had the wrong expectations of this game. It's not something you do in your lunch break. It's a massive game (it's got 12 hours of dialog alone) which you really have to take your time for.
And don't kill me for this.
It really is YOUR loss. But I doubt you'll ever come back to read this.
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“When Juffo-Wup is complete
when at last there is no Void, no Non
when the Creators return
then we can finally rest.”
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musdanny79
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I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
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I am new to this forum and do not consider myself a gamer. I was born in 1979 and one of the only games that I truely enjoyed was star con II. I can see that people who have just recently started to play the game might not thouroughly enjoy it, but from what I can remember it is the only game of its time that created its storyline with such great percision. I was never able to finish the game due to computer failure, but ever since downloading the Ur-Quan Masters recently I have been able to spend countless hours playing the game. I consider it a classic amoung computer games. As for the story line, if you had been paying any attention you would have noticed the greatest story writing ever employed in a video game.
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Chrispy
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I agree about the bad engeon, and the bad graphics, and maybe with the voice actings. Its true that the characters are developed suddendly, but thats a minor adjustment.
But bearing that in mind, this game has the greatest plot ever written. (Opinion yada yada). It has far more depth than any other computor game, and it can even compair with books and movies.
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Michael Martin
Core Team
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Chrispy: The point that Star Control 2 hit between RPGs and Adventure games is an interesting one, and one that was never really imitated. (I haven't played Half-Life or Deus Ex, but they're the only ones that I can think of that do the same level of blend -- obviously with a different core genre, though!)
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Culture20
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Perky obviously never played SC1 on an 8086 with CGA graphics. 
I think his intent was to compare it to today's games since UQM is being released "now" (future really).
So, to continue with that trend:
+ UQM's plot still marks it high above other games today.
+ UQM's cross-genre gameplay makes it unique among today's 1st person shooters, FF adventures, and RT strategies.
+ UQM has nostalgia value, which few new games today have.
+ UQM is free! 
= UQM's music/sounds are on par with games today; they were outstanding in SC2.
= UQM's graphics are comparable with today's 320x240 resolution games. In SC2 they were good.
= UQM's engine is transparent on 300MHz machines, which are low-end enough to be a good measuring stick.
- Voice acting. Games today hire real actors (usually D-grade). Thankfully, I never played 3DO, so I just don't download the voices. 
- UQM has no netplay, which when compared to games today is a big minus. Compared to games of the time however, SC2 was on-par; heck, URLs weren't in advertisements until 1994/1995.
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Defender
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grab the pitchforks and torches, i feel theres going to be a lynching tonight... 
~DEFIANT
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Lukipela
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While I do respect your right to your own opinion, I have to say I'm a bit flummoxed as to why you feel it so important. Good and bad gamereviews are a part of every games life, and most (except the most rabid fans) learn to deal with it. Different strokes for different folks and whatnot.
However. You have stated your points against SC2, all of which have either been explained (it IS an old game), or dismissed (buy thrusters, talk to people). Your only comeback seems to be, "I still just don't like it". Fine. You don't have to. But that's not a very debatable point, so it really does not belong here. If you want to state truths that are (according to you) your own opinions and not debatable, might I point you to the fine website of www.livejournal.com?
Noone here cares enough for badly constructed arguments to want to flame you really, and if you don't like the game we don't really care either. But why is it necessary to maintain a presence on the forum of a site devoted to a game you really don't like? In what way does that satisfy you?
Really. Just walk away. You don't like the game, get on with your life and leave us old farts be.
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« Last Edit: March 23, 2004, 12:31:31 pm by Lukipela »
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What's up doc?
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Perky
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I know im not good in english especially when it comes to english.
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