Should I buy it or wait till it's "fixed"

Claymore · #1 January 1st, 2001, 03:30 PM

While seeming to be a great game, I am reading a great detailing of bugs and lack of documentation. Should I sit on the sidelines and see if things get "fixed" before committing some hard cold cash? Your opinion would be most appreciated.

Georg Korch · #2 January 1st, 2001, 03:40 PM

Buy it. The Game is Great, a lot of Fun and THINKING. Sure, no Manual is bad, but again, its the best Thing after MoO II, in my opinion.

zodden · #3 January 1st, 2001, 03:56 PM

Great game, poor print manual but the manual on the CD + this forum and the tutorial should get you up to speed in no time. The game is so complex even with all that, but by the time you finish your first game you will know enough to stay competitive. Its a very addictive game once you get used to how it works.

Tomgs · #4 January 1st, 2001, 07:53 PM

I would recomend to buy it if you like this type of game at all. I have posted my share of Posts that may look critical about the AI but I have gotten many hours of enjoyment learning this game. The AI may seem a bit weak if you use all the shortcuts and prefered strategies that are posted here and elsewhere but if you play the game to learn it it would take a while to find some of these limitations. Also the game is patched with new abilities and enhancements often and people post mods to the game to lengthen the enjoyment. So this is a game that will Last a long while in my opinion.

As to the game being not finished I think the great thing is it may never be "finished" there will alway be another possible mod out there and the next patch may change the "best" strategy to win. Also if all the problems this board has mentioned about the AI were fixed a new player may be a bit surprised how hard an AI can be. Of course an AI will never be able to be as flexable as a human player and in a game this complex a scripted AI will probably always have a problem adapting to all the possible combinations of ways to play this game. Right now the AI seems to be working better in the smaller galaxies. I love the largest galaxies I can have so I complain about it not expanding enough or not being agressive enough. But If it were tweaked to large galaxies maybe it would not work correctly in the smaller areas where it has to spend more time defending its starting area from encroachment.

The learning curve is maybe a bit high without a detailed manual but the reason for this I think is that the visualized market for this game at first in my opinion was the players of SEIII and their friends. The word of mouth about this game (because there was no advertisement that I know about) caused a lot of sales that were not anticipated to newcomers to the series. For those of us that have played at least one of the previous games in the series the learning curve was the interface and a bit of a new flavor and flow of the game but a lot of the tech tree was carried over with some new additions.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 01 January 2001).]

Voidhawk · #5 January 1st, 2001, 07:56 PM

Buy it. Bugs aside, half of the fun for me is installing the new patches, which not only fix bugs but will eventually add entirely new features to the game. Bear in mind too, that the reason you see so many bug reports is that many people spend obscene amounts of time playing and exploring the intricacies of the game (myself included

).

The sooner you get it, the sooner you can start enjoying it.

God Emperor · #6 January 2nd, 2001, 12:47 AM

I was in your position two weeks ago thinking, do I buy or wait. Having just about played the demo to death and become addicted, I have decided to take the plunge. As the other guys have said, the game has so many aspects, is so flexble and has so many people making mods to it that I believe that the AI issues will be resolved.

Some of the issues (eg mines) I have bumped into already and have as an interim measure decided to handicap myself until they are fixed (eg I do not use mines and play in smaller galaxies with more players to make it more challenging).

As a note, I had never heard of the space empires series before SEIV but am firmly convinced that SEIV will become the space strategy game benchmark (which has been held up to now by MOO2).

Cant wait for my full Version of the game to arrive so that I can incorporate all of the new races that everyone has been producing. Am currently using the Bab5 Earth Alliance set as a substitute for the Terran set....

ColdSteel · #7 January 2nd, 2001, 03:16 AM

Get it.

I was playing MOO2 until quite recently, (watching it crash every time I had giant fleet combat) and bitterly reflecting that Stars! Supernova Genesis was likely the only true hope left for the genre. Then I found out for the first time about the Space Empires series (and the impending SE4) on a Stars! forum of all places. The poster there swore that SE3 was great and SE4 was going to be even better and that it and S!NG were the great shining hopes for the genre. He said it was going to be MOO2 on steroids.

I've looked forward to it since then. When I played the demo I knew I had to have it. So yes, I bought the full game. And yes, it does have a just a few rough edges. But, it's a pretty polished product if you ask me. Even with a few glitches it's far less buggy than MOO2 ever was when it first came out. Microprose never did finish debugging it in the patches. SE4 has been very playable and stable for me.

And, you know what? That guy on the forum was right. It *is* MOO2 on steroids. Except different and better in many ways. It's very deep. It has tremendous replay value. It's so very customizable you can make it into just the game you prefer to play. I always did love that about the Quakes and Unreal Tournament and now we can get that high level of user customization for this genre at Last. MM is very smart that way.

It's a bLast.

The Puke Empire · #8 January 2nd, 2001, 12:35 PM

BUY IT. I complain about the AI but in fact I never won the game not even once. And am a gemini, know what that means? I get bored of things quickly...

, now think of it, this is probably the ONLY game that had kept me playing for a month! (moo II Lasted 2 weeks)

plus, this is the only game where you could blow up startrek ships with your tie fighters

. I probably paid twice as much than the rest of you to get this game, but I'm totally happy with it!

Seawolf · #9 January 2nd, 2001, 11:51 PM

If you want a game that will make you forget the time of day, forget the real world, and make you come back for more.. I say buy it and be very happy.

------------------
Seawolf on the prowl

Todd248 · #10 January 3rd, 2001, 02:09 AM

Buy it.

The game isn't perfect but it's still a lot of fun. MM will continue to support and improve the game, not just fixing bugs but adding new features. They've said as much and proven that point with SE3. I don't think you would see so much feedback about the game (positive and negative) if people didn't like the game so much.