So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I don't think this has been asked around here (at least as far as a quick search of the archives showed), and I thought it might yield some interesting insights.

So, how did you find out about Space Empires (insert whatever iteration you started with here)?

I'll start. I occasionally visit a site called strategypage.com, a public access site with military and wargame news. On their links page, under the Computer Wargames Category, was a link to Shrapnel. Being bored one day, I followed it and started browsing Shrapnel's selection. I saw the listing for "Space Empires IV", and looked up the game. I liked the concept. I was impressed with the reviews. And I loved the demo. So I ordered it.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

Has been, But I could not find it either http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
My brother gave me a copy of SEIII Demo and was hooked from then, I have copys of III, IV, IV Gold altho I do not play III or IV for spending time in Gold (and disc space have almost 1 gig of SEIV) I have done a return with my brother, I told hime of both IV and Gold and he also bought a copy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ July 15, 2003, 13:57: Message edited by: mottlee ]

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

Found SE3 on Tucows.com when I was looking for demos to burn time, got hooked (but kept loosing), and kept checking Malfador's web site when I heard about SE4.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

Research, trial and error (wasting money on other games), and some help from this site: Happy Puppy.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

A friend of mine and I were discussing games like these. He pointed me to SE IV which he found because he played STARS.

He lent me his disc ( http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif )and I fell hard for the game.

I have bought IV and have bought GOld twice since then.

I will buy StarFury based on what I hear from people here, and will preorder SE V at my first oportunity.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I was looking for a new game that interested me, checked out all of the big gaming sites and was underwhelmed. Did a larger internet search and found SE III. Downloaded it, got hooked and played it a lot. For some reason, I never looked on the internet for any additional info for a while, but when I did, SE IV Gold was just about ready to be realeased. Downloaded the SE4G demo, was blown away and ordered gold as soon as it was available.

Slick.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

My story is almost exactly the same as slick's, except that I didn't bother with the se4 demo- I just pre-ordered the game there and then (I had been about to register SEIII when I found SE4 was about to be released.

I wonder what my life would be like if i had never found seIII..?

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

Way back when Pentium 75’s were fast, I was looking for free games on the web. I found SE2 and dl’d it. After a few starts and stops I got the hang of the demo and sent off for the full Version. And been sending off every few years since. Stayed up many a night playing that demo Version. A few battle stations could block a warp point all night in that game and combat could Last hours. Then with the full Version, fighters were king.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

Was performing a internet search on the board games Starfire and Star Fleet Battles. Stumbled on SEIV via a review. Had enjoyed computer games like Anacreon, Empire Deluxe, Starfleet Warlord, and Pax Imperia, so I tried the SEIV demo. Ordered the full Version two days later then pre-ordered Gold a month later.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

During Last september, I was waiting impatiently for the release of MOO3. So I wanted to buy another soft to help me waiting. An internet search on "space strategy game" brung me reviews of SE IV gold... It looked interesting (and quite cheap) so I bought it.

BTW, I've never bought MOO3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ...

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

The devil made me do it.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

Many years ago I had the demo to SEII and me and my brother would play that for hours upon hours. But after awhile we left the game for other games. Then a couple years ago I got the urge to play the demo to SEII once again; so I did a search for it and I found that SEIV Gold was about to be released. I downloaded the demo and fell in love right away. I preordered it and have been playing ever since. I will preorder SEV at first chance and hopefully get Starfury when it comes out.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

Got SEII Demo off some shareware / freeware / demo disk 'package' many years ago. Been playing / following / chasing down the latest Version and have owned copies of everything since....

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

In the long years between MOO2 and MOO3 I got really bored and typed in "Space Empire games" into a search engine. Hey I was desperate! Found SE4 and downloaded the demo. Played Demo over and over but never bought it. I did buy MOO3 and thought maybe my money would be better spent on SE4 Gold!

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

hehe i'm quite recent to the game. I was looking for something to pass the next few hours before i went uptown so i found a space empires II demo on a shareware disc. Didn't go out that day and played my first game which Lasted 2 1/2 days, may i note i never stopped. 3 Nights and days of no sleep later i finally crushed the dominion and conquered the galaxy, that was one of my toughest Space Empires game ever! So after a full day of sleep (my social life sucked back then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) I went Online looking for more information on SE. Found a link to the space empires iv demo (completely missed out SEIII) And played that for a month straight, went to order it and found the gold demo, downloaded that and played it for six months!!! (At 14 £40 is hard to come by if no-where near christmas or birthday) Then Last christmas i managed to buy it and havn't stopped playing. Although i admit i still play the SEII Demo from time to time *sniff* And since i've developed a habit of fallin asleep in mid game, seiv all nighters and many hours spent playing the game! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Aaron, if you're reading this you owe me around 2 years of my life back! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

Around 1996 or so my dad ordered a subscription to the Reasonable Solutions shareware CDs... yes, that's right, back then you could pay money to have a compilation of SHAREWARE games (not the full Versions mind you) thrown together on a CD and shipped to you every month... I guess it was the novelty of having them on a CD or something http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Anyway, on the October 1995 CD (that's right, not only did they send you shareware games but they sent you YEAR-OLD shareware games http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif ) there was this game called "Space Empires II"... I was a fan of Star Trek at the time and I thought it might be fun to run my own galactic empire...

"We are of the Kzintus Empire. Prepare to be subjugated to the Imperial throne..."

"This is the planet Bradan... Slavery just doesn't suit us..."

Well, I loved that game, even with all its quirks (you couldn't conquer planets? you had to POUND THEM INTO THE DUST WITH DISRUPTOR BEAMS then recolonize them??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif ), and even though it was only a demo (I never bought the full Version, for some reason... I guess I was afraid my mom wouldn't let me - I sometimes hid SE2 from my parents because I was afraid they might see the "Barracuda Mk2 hit planet Bradan VII with Phasor III for 2 damage, 20M people killed" and think I was playing some EVIL SATANIC GAME with WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (tm) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

But anyway, I even got my brothers to play in multiplayer games of SE2, though those didn't usually Last long because we got tired of waiting for each other to take our turns, and then when the combat came up we had to call each other into the room and switch off at the mouse...

Finally one day I was at the library and they had these new Internet terminals and I got on the Internet but didn't know what to look for... on a whim I typed in "Space Empires II" and I got the old Malfador site, www.crl.com/~malfador (anyone remember that? gee, it doesn't even link to www.malfador.com anymore!) and I saw sections for - gasp - Space Empires III and the upcoming Space Empires IV!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif There were new Space Empires games out! Well, I wanted to play SE3, but I couldn't because I only had Windows 3.11 (SJ are you SURE you got SE3 to run on 3.11? I thought it required Win95...) Oh yeah, and also the zip file was too big to fit on a floppy disk so I couldn't bring it home from the library... Anyway, every time I went to the library from then on, I checked the Malfador site for updates on SE4, knowing that by the time the game came out (it was about two years from when I first saw it announced, IIRC) I would probably have Win95 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

And the rest is history... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I found SE3 on a game demo CD that came with an issue of the magazine that was then called Computer Games Strategy Plus. I did not buy SE4 until something like 1.5 to 2 years after it came out (or maybe it was a bit less time, I forget) because I was sorely disappointed with all the differences from SE3. When I finally bought it, I think it was at Version 1.34 or whatever it was (and I think PBW had just recently started up). I dove headlong into PBW and never looked back. No SP for me! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

In July 2000 a friend posted about it on the now gone Omega Forums, (Star Trek Based) and I followed the link. I downloaded the demo and fell in love. I then joined the old SEIV Forums, and from there to here in November 2000. The rest is history basically.

A web buddy, Flipper, tuned me into making ship sets, and additionally inspired by the work of Warp_9.

Ship set developing is a lot of fun no matter how you do it. I highly recommend it to any one, and Aaron should have included it as a perk to the game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I hope SE V is as enjoyable as SEIV has been.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

A PBEM gaming friend pointed out SE3 a few years ago as an interesting game to try out. Got hooked.

PvK

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

when was the game released ???

I cannot remember now... I think i got gold Last year... or was it in feb ???

Man I cannot remember ... I am guessing it was in 2001 I picked it up right before 1.17 or so....

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I found the SE3 demo on some old FTP archive way back in the days, and played it on my 486 under win 3.1 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Snowballed from there.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I found a series of shareware games called "Exile", which have now been released under the names of "Avernum", and was looking for other shareware games and come across Space Empires III.
Downloaded the demo and loved it. I even got my wife to play a few games with me.
When Space Empires IV come out, it took me many months before I would buy it over the web, but my wife said that if I didn't, she would...
We have both spent many months playing the game and I think we are in one of the longest running PBW Games.
Even though it means I spend more time in the study at home, earlier this year I received Gold for an early birthday present...

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I never heard of any of the Space Empire games until I read an article in Computer Gaming World, went to the site, read up on the game, sounded good, ordered it, been hooked ever since http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

just some ideas Mac

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

typed "ship design" in yahoo.

i like games where you can design ships.

seIII

[ July 16, 2003, 06:41: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I think I did the reverse. Bought MOO3, was bitterly disappointed by it, and discovered SEIV on the official MOO3 Boards.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I read a review for SEIV Gold in PC Gamer that piqued my interest.

I went to Electronic Boutiques to see if it was on the shelfs, but the staff hissed at me like a cult of reverse vampires!

Then I went back to the mag, got the link for Shrapnel, downloaded the demo, played the Tutorial, started dooling, built a few ships and discovered I could change their names, started to drool more, and then promptly bought the game Online from the fine, handsome, imensley sophisticated folks at Shrapnel.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

First played SEII demo a long, long time ago, in a... erm... nevermind, it was just a long time ago. It was on a shareware disc. I liked it, but didn't get into it too much (mainly because I didn't have a computer in the house to play with it for another year or so).

When we got our first computer (1995, since it had Win95, right when it was first released), I tinkered around with it, and was completely content to just simply mess around in Paint and make utterly horrid attempts at pictures. A couple years later, I was searching the Internet randomly, put in "Space Empires", and found the SEIII demo. Played that for a while, then bought it just after the 1.15 Version came out. Was hooked since then (I'll get around to buying Gold and Starfury... I've been sticking to Classic since I've been stuck without my own computer for a while).

SEIII gave me a warped sense of what "Minimum System Requirements" meant, since I was running it well under the minimum. I was disappointed when the minimum requirements for other games actually WERE the minimum requirements!

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I found a hint about a to me totally unknown game named "Space Empires" on the MOO3 board when trying to find out how MOO3 could be turned into something that remotely resembles a strategy game (it can't).
Did a search, thought "ah, just another outdated game probably not worth looking at", downloaded the demo - and the rest is history...

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

SEIII baby. I remember when I first downloaded that thing. I had been playing stars and had realized just how crappy stars! was. So, I went looking for more games along its line and found SEIII (looking at MM's time table, it must have been right around the time it was first released) downloaded it, couldn't figure it out, deleted it. About a month later, redownloaded it, figured out the right click menu and loved it from there on out!

And now, the right click menu is gone. :cries:

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

i was one day sitting, looking through www.download.com for any interesting games' sharewares/freewares when i stumbled onto SE3 shareware. played it to death. been hooked ever since.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

STARS! IS NOT CRAPPY!

*whacks Adunn. hard*

[ July 16, 2003, 08:07: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah, I remember there were quite a few fans who refused to have anything to do with SEIV because the right-click menus were gone. Once I got used to their absense, I never really had a preference for either interface; I would be just as happy with SEIV in an SEIII interface, and vice versa. Although the SEIV interface is a bit more mainstream-friendly, I think...

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

that is the problem with computer people in general... their like grumpy old men.... i remember when.... and they really do hate evolution of games etc.... Like everything to remain the same...

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I downloaded SE2 way back in Highschool. They got me young.

SE3 was a huge improvement over SE2. It had editable datafiles. SE2 just let you have your own shipsets. And I thought that was awesome.

I dig a lot about SE4-- it has editable everything (almost) and all kinds of coolfeatures, but I really think SE3 was easier to use. SE4 certainly looks prettier, but I don't mind a spreadsheet in space. I have an imagination.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I found the link to malfadors page via a forum. Then i downloaded SEIII and getting my but kicked a few moments later. Ha, memories http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I forgot the forum though

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Exact same thing.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I was sending out my scouts, since we were refugees of the fallen Mmrshan Empire, from Moo. We arrived just in time into an alternate reality, I found a periodical on a subject indicating I have arrived in a world of SEIV galore! Woot,
translated = Hey I played MOO2, got tired of waiting for Moo3 found out about se3, and the rest is history!

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

Taz is an old gamer...he remembers when Empires was state-of-the-art.

Had downloaded SEIII demo and played with that for a while...

Then got lost in RL (Real Life) for a while...

Couple of years ago I had a LOT of free time on my hands sudden-like and remembered SEIII. Looked it up on Google and re-found it and SEIV at same time. Bought SEIV and then SEIV Gold six months later...

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

MMMmmm I think I found it the illegal way (sorry guys at shrapnel etc.)
A friend of mine had a compilation of games on a twilight cd (all cracked game, without movies etc.) Played it untill it was dark and a redheaded girlfriend beside me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif .
Then SEIV gold came out and I bought it...cost me like 65 dollar to get it shipped from the US to The Netherlands, but it was and still is worth the price http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

sparhawk

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

See I was hanging out with some friends one day and I turned to one of them and said, "You know Aaron, you ought to write a computer game..." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

No, seriously. Started with SEIII. Only shareware game I ever liked or played enough to actually buy. Played it a lot but only single player. Eventually drifted away for a year or so. Then one day I was dusting off the old games and found it again. Liked it the second time so I decided to see if he had ever come out with a new Version. Fortunatly for me that was just about the time that Shrapnel started shipping SEIV. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Geoschmo

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

Did a search on gamespot forums for space strategy games, read a review, tried the SE3 demo and the rest is history.

Gamespot website

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

huh... almost everybody here was looking to something to waste time on.

We certainly got our wish. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I posted about SEIV in nearly every thread for a while trying to get customers. Ya its a low thing to do, but after playing Moo3, it was the least I could do for the fans.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I beg to pardon. We have not wasted our time on this game. Every minute we devote to this game is a well spent minute. Therefore, never do we waste time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif :P

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

[quote]Originally posted by Atrocities:

Quote:

Originally posted by deccan: I posted about SEIV in nearly every thread for a while trying to get customers. Ya its a low thing to do, but after playing Moo3, it was the least I could do for the fans.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, you got at least one person. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Nice move, plugging SEIV on the Boards of competing games.

Re: So, how did you find out about SE?
 

I read a review in PC Gamer, then got the demo. The rest, as they say, is history. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif