No there will NEVER be a SE:IV Platinum, because it doesn't make sense to do so and it is not good for customers. When we took on SE:IV originally part of the problem was that Aaron and Shrapnel were both in a hurry to finish it up due to fan complaints (anyone remember those
), and of course later on we got hit by some of the fans for releasing it too early
.
When the topic of Gold came out we considered just waiting for SE:5. The problem is we really wanted to support the fans in some meaningful way that would help Aaron stay in business. if you look at the PC Gamer review it points to our intent. We fixed almost every Last issue that folks complained about with the original package (ie major issues, not bugs or wanted items). We cleaned the manual up, we added some new art and sounds, we added TCP/IP play. We made SE:IV Gold what SE:IV probably should have been. So it is a good base to finish this game out on.
Aaron will continue to make patches as it is not a big deal to put in new features and issue a patch every couple of months or so while he is working on other projects.
Plus he has new things in the works with Dungeon Oddysey about to enter beta.
As far as the SE line goes the next game will be SE:Quandrant Wars which should be out by Winter of 2002 or Spring 2003. It will be something different for the series, but will be the basis for what we see in SE5.
SE:IV Gold is a good ending point because the SE series really needs to deal with the one knock to it, and that is that it is behind the times UI and graphics wise. I think SE5 will be the dream game eveyrone has wanted in the 4X space exploration universe.