OK .. for the sake of not creating my own separate thread .. this is a post of my first impressions after playing the BETA.
The game was stable and performed well on my system. I'll post the full specs in one of the other threads but in short - I'm running a 2.8 Athlon with 1.2 GB 333mhz memory - a ATI Radeon Pro 9800 and an old Audigy card. Compared to a lot of systems this is old gear but it worked well (albeit with slight crackle in the audio once or twice .. not sure if this is wiring issue though).
The basic mechanics of the game work. I didn't feel like there was a mismatch in the design - in fact I found it very playable and it was easy to forget I was in Beta. You can tell when a game has got 'it' because you go to bed thinking about it (strategy etc) and when you wake up, you make excuses to your wife why you need to spend some time alone on the pc
I've enjoyed working the diplomacy to try and help play the opposition off one another.
I've also had great fun working out strategies for cutting off enemies, blocking trade routes, pinning them back / controlling the centre etc. The game has this in the bag for me.
There are a few things I wish were slightly different though (they may well be planned but here they are anyway) -
I felt that the diplomacy was just a little bit simple and that the arrangements between nations were just a bit too fleeting. I never really felt that any of them felt a genuine desire to become allied or that you could really establish a common goal (i.e. let's form an alliance in order to eliminate a common enemy and weaken other races). Not enough depth - not enough control. The reason I think this is important as that, when the reviews come in, I believe there will be criticism for not advancing the genre - and perhaps for coming in behind games that are over a decade old now (MOO 2 for example). It may never have been your intention - but I think there will be parallels drawn regardless.
Also, the graphics are good - but a bit wasted. In the same way Homeworld was - because for all the beauty of the detail - you never get to appreciate it. More often than not the game is reduced to 'icon' view. The game plays at a very fast pace over a wide scale and it's almost always necessary to pull back on the map to see what is going on around you. That's a shame because you lose the sense that you're part of something big. You may as well be watching ants fight. This also has the effect of de-valuing the research tree for the ships / tech because you never get to see the benefits of your advancement.
Lastly - and for me most important - the game plays too fast (for my play style anyway). I like to sit there and survey my empire - plan my defences, arrange my fleets, plot the downfall of my enemies in great detail (with staged advances towards their demise). Instead, I'm left bemused - feeling like I'm playing against the clock, worrying that I'm not researching anything at the moment and clicking anything in the research tree just because I know that the AI will have selected something and be far in advance of me because I took my eye off the ball for a second. Scrabbling all my fleet together in one noose and sending them headlong in to a furball in the next system asap because I need to respond quickly .. rather than having time to select a task force and make a measured response etc.. I think you get the picture.
This last point is probably just me - but it's where I feel that turn based strategy has the edge currently. Strategy, like chess - having the time to draw your plans and execute them. I get the feeling that if I could half the speed of the game then I would have much more fun planning how to conquer the universe - I would enjoy watching the battles more and have time to look at the detail - I wouldn't feel so rushed when picking items from the research trees and could appreciate the benefits of the research elements more. Half the speed for everything - or give people the option to vary the speed, including slowcoach mode for those of us with neural pathways like the M25 on a Friday afternoon.
Well .. just some thoughts. I hope they help. Peace - no flames.
Dan
