SunAge

It looks good and i like the graphics But when thats said, it doesnt draw me into thinking "I GOTTA HAVE THIS" as its nothing new.
To me it just looks like another RTS clone, with no new kinds of ways to play

If i missed something (specialy about gameplay) id like to know

When I clicked "features" I got a list of factions and their related articles, not features. I've heard of the publisher, but never the designers. Too much information is "classified."

Unless it takes the industry by sudden storm it doesn't look like anything new or innovative. I'll try their demo whenever it comes out, but I won't hold my breath.

yeah thats what i ment to say

oh and heres the Feature page

Well I believe that one of the new things it offers to RTS is that almost every single unit has an "alternate mode", allowing it to switch out it's weaponry or function mid-game. This allows people more flexability when attempting to counter strategies.

Another this it offers is a new way of treating resources and tech, instead of just upgrading your main HQ and building the right buildings to get the newer tech, you need to secure the primary resource needed to produce that tech. So teching is not about turtling anymore, it's about expanding quickly and gathering the rarer resources.

Also, it's idea of requiring you to distribute power from your main HQ using "transmitters", which opens up a whole new weakness in expanding is a great way to combat people who just rush blindy as it leaves them wide open to counter attack. Destroying their linked transmitter, disconnects the link and all unconnected buildings go offline.

Then there's the fact that it'll run at full speed on pretty much any PC (except really old ones!), which makes it the perfect game for LAN parties and social play as no-one needs to be left out.

On top of that, there's the formation system, which seems to me that it actually has some real advantage in gameplay, rather than just looking pretty.

Yea sure, it's more of the same stuff that we used to love, but with better-looking graphics, newer features and a whole new story to enjoy! I think most RTS gamers still love to go back and play the retro old 2D games, they always seem to be more fun and have more depth than the newer 3D games.

I personally think that SunAge is righting the wrong that was made in RTS development. It went in the direction of making it more about hype and graphics than gameplay and fun. How many truely memorable RTS games have you seen in the last few years? How many have you been disappointed with? 1997 was the last year that RTS was truely golden and SunAge is taking some lessons from THOSE games.

I think it'd be a serious mistake to ignore this game. Often the best ideas are left in the dark. Atleast give this game a chance, wait for more information to come out. Sign-up to the newsletter, like I did.

Depends on the system, but it hinges on DX9 which could (note, could) be a hindrance to some budget minded, or casual, gamers. Especially if it doesn't use fixed-function pipelines, and uses shaders for unit coloring. That would require Shader 2.0.

Maybe I should just ask the developers for questions. I have browsed the forums and read things, but all I've determined is that the devs are too tight lipped while on the brink of release.

See here: "We are a small team, without a full-time press/media department. However we are doing our best to publish new info and materials in a regular basis since we opened the new site. Please check back the site next week for an update." - Julio Gorgé

Also, I found out that SunAge doesn't use pixel shaders, so most cards should run it just fine. There are very few PCs around that will not be able to run SunAge. Infact, if your PC is running Windows XP, I can pretty much guarantee that you'll be fine to run SunAge.

Atleast SunAge is a game that will run on 99% of home PCs, rather than 15% or less, like a lot of new PC games, when they are released. I still can't run Supreme Commander very fast!

meh...

COH and SUPCOM > all

Then why are you on here?

I've got to say, I'm not really interested in "old" RTS feel... I expect something innovative out of any game I play these days... that or a really good story. And RTS's don't lend themselves well to telling stories. At least not that I've seen. THey're more action orreinted really then even FPS games because you're very much in an artificial environment. You can sort of imagine yourself as the player in an FPS or even an RPG game. But when you've got a God's eye view of hundreds of units that you throw around with mouse clicks it's hard to get scared or surprised on anything but an intellectual level.


Which is to say if you don't do something interesting with the AI, UI, or some other element of the game mechanics I'm not going to be interested. Part of what makes Sins so interesting is that they're really trying to break new ground with a lot of new ideas.

interesting game, Ill have a look.

The resources looks good. Not too sure how ill cope without zoom but ill try.

meh the confirmation code to register on the forums sucks.

There's a confirmation code to register?

Meh, stuff like that never bothers me. I always give my gmail account and I get the e-mail instantly.

I really disagree with people who think SunAge isn't breaking new ground, because it is. Just because it's not flinging some buzz-words at you like "New Dual-Wielding System! Use TWO guns at once!" (eg Halo 2) which doesn't actually make the game any more fun, doesn't mean it's not "groundbreaking".

Refining old ideas, combining with new ideas and producing a brand-new while kind of familiar kind of game is a great idea. Certain parts of it are recognisable, so we can get right into it. There are new features, and only ones that add to gameplay, so we can try something new. And there are old features that have been refined, so we get the features that we know we enjoy, without the drawbacks that used to annoy us.

It's all about refinement in gameplay. Decent gameplay = fun.

I've just played an 8 hour game (I went away often.) of Sins and it's not all that fun at the moment, but it's really early beta, so I'm just waiting to see what's next. It's more fun than beta 1!!

Hey guys, bit of an update!

Julio Gorge of Vertex4 has just released a video of the pre-release party using footage from SunAge forum members Koen and Phoenix, check it out below!

SunAge pre-release footage on Google Videos

SunAge pre-release footage on Yahoo Video

----------------------

Original Pre-release Video
Original Pre-release Video (HD)

The two links above seem to crash some versions of Quicktime, so right-click and chose "save as..." to download it, then it'll work.

Just an FYI that we will be offering SunAge for sale on TotalGaming.net when it's released.

Awesome! I had no idea!

Well that's perfect for people who want to buy SunAge when they live in an obscure location (in the middle of nowhere!) like me!

Just figured you guys would be interested in knowing that SunAge has gone gold and we copies of the game are being distributed to retailers in the UK, Scandinavia, Benelux and Italy! People in other countries unfortunately will have to wait until Q1 2008... unless... you have the game shipped overseas or... buy SunAge online!

They also released a trailer! See the bottom of this message for details!

Source - Lighthouse Interactive Press Release

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Leading publisher Lighthouse Interactive and developer Vertex4 today announced that their dynamic sci-fi real-time strategy game SunAge has gone gold and is now shipping to major retail stores in parts of Europe. The street date is 30 November 2007. SunAge is an energetic RTS game that offers a unique experience, bringing modern innovation to the isometric style of real-time strategy. This PC CD-ROM game is Windows® Vista™ compatible.

Gamers across the UK, Scandinavia, Benelux and Italy can start looking for the game on store shelves at the end of this month. SunAge will also be available at various direct download websites*. Other European territories, including: Germany and France, will begin shipping SunAge to retailers in Q1 2008. In North America, SunAge will begin shipping to retail stores at the end of January 2008.

Erik Schreuder, CEO of Lighthouse Interactive said, “SunAge was one of the first games Lighthouse signed when it first opened its doors for business in 2005. Since then, the game has evolved from an indie developed game into a mature and refreshing new take on the RTS genre. It introduces some great new features and we’re convinced this will appeal to many strategy fans. We’re really excited to announce that SunAge has gone gold and it’s thrilling to see that it lives up to its promise.”

“After a lot of dedication and hard work, I am extremely proud to see that we have achieved our goal as a team. SunAge is now available for fellow strategy fans to enjoy,” said Roman Pfneudl, CEO of Vertex4. “The game has become so much more than I anticipated. The RTS community has supported us during the development process and made this experience even greater. We think SunAge has a lot to offer gamers who love to play real-time strategy games as much as we do. We hope you will enjoy it and we promise to keep on supporting the game!”

SunAge is the modern day answer for RTS fans who want the best possible overview on their troops, while trying to outsmart opponents in frantic battles where strategy and tactics are more important than ever. If you are a core real-time strategy gamer, SunAge is for you!

RECAP OF RELEASE DATES

• November 30, 2007 – UK, Benelux, Scandinavia, Italy
• January/February 2008 – North America, Germany, France, Spain
• TBD - Russia, Poland

* Direct download portals where SunAge will be available for purchase:

• Gamersgate.com
• Direct2Drive.com
• Totalgaming.net

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Also, don't forget to check out the teaser trailer!

SunAge Official Teaser Trailer

TehOwned,

Your posts account for over half of those in this thread and you haven't posted anything in any other thread so its doubtful you have much interest in Sins and your goal is to promote your game "Sun Age".

Normally I don't care if people promote other games on our forums but I very much care when that agenda leads them to say something that conflicts with my own agenda. Consider the following taken from post #12:

As anyone on this forums will tell you, I have no problem with criticism. However, I do have a problem when that criticism doesn't offer me any information about what exactly isn't fun, broken, unbalanced and doesn't include any ideas about how we could improve things. In most cases I wouldn't say anything but you've crossed the line because your criticism is tied to a promotional piece for your own game.

Post #12 is structured in such a way that it suggests "SunAge = Fun, Sins = No Fun".  Fair enough and perhaps that is the case but you could have at least taken the time to elaborate on the problem. You did find the time to continue posting a number of advertisments over the next few months; would it have been so much to ask for even a little token? After all, that is why the majority of the people on these forums are here and many of them have put countless hours into helping us out. I would be just as insulted as a member of the community as I am as a developer.

I totally understand the need for guerrilla marketing, just try and do it without slamming the other guy's game on his own forums unless you have something helpful to say. Otherwise it's just rude, unprofessional and you'll probably lose more customers than you gain.

Yeah -- that kind of behavior makes a "probably not" into a "definitely not!" for me.

Well said Mr Blair

To me this kind of advertising seems like abit desperate...


Very

Blair bringing out the big guns

Blair, I'm incredibly sorry that you seem insulted. This wasn't my intent at all and I love Sins! I wouldn't have purchased it if I didn't!

Fact was, beta 1 and 2 weren't fun. And I doubt SunAge was fun at that stage either. However, I have an awful lot of decent things to say about Sins and I apologise for not saying them.

The reason why I added that to my post was purely because I'd devoted my entire day to playtesting Sins and wanted to state it. It was really more a comment of optimism as I believe you guys have the foundation for something fantastic here.

With beta 4, I'm really starting to seriously enjoy Sins and there's still more to come.

Since this thread already had some off-topic comments of mine (and I apologise) about Sins... I will gander there to comment exactly what I LIKED and elaborate on my issues too, as you deserve it and I'd love to hear your comments if you ever get a chance to play SunAge.

The Good:
1. The Engine... beautiful but mostly... FAST... it runs FAST... this is fantastic! I was thinking Sins is like a cross between Supreme Commander & Homeworld, without the terrible FPS that I get with Supreme Commander.
2. The Scale... come on... it's cool. Who doesn't like to be able to conquer entire solar systems? Also, as to what I said above, you can spam to your hearts content in Sins and see very little performance decrease.
3. The Battles... You actually have a time to watch the battles in Sins (mostly)... which is another way it is different from a lot of RTS games. It's pretty.

As to my comments, why didn't I find it fun?

It was slow. You guys have already fixed that but here is my issue.

That game started off incredibly slow... I was building up, researching, expanding... with only the basic "pirates" (which are now called militia) to fight, whom would easily be annihilated by my Capital ship... this lasted atleast 30 minutes, perhaps more but I didn't mind that so much, that was cool. The bit in the middle was awesome, lots of gritty battles... but here was the problem... I got ahead, I started winning. Now the reason it got boring, is that the remaining 5 or 6 hours, I'd already won the battle, the AI had no chance to come back and all I was doing was mopping up his planets. In beta 1 and 2, taking over enemy planets just took WAY TOO LONG. Even undefended ones. That's all really, hence I didn't comment it. It was just too slow, way too long with nothing happening.

But like I said, that's not a problem anymore!

I actually remember being reluctant to put that comment at the end of my post, as after 8 hours of Sins, I had plenty of other undone things and didn't have time to elaborate, nor did I know what to say really... But I figured, "hey, it'll be fine if I just say I'm waiting to see what the next beta is like."

Now I read it again, it seems a lot worse than I meant it to be and I'm wishing I could go back and edit it. I like Sins from beta 1, that's why I kept going back and getting the updates. That's why I still do.

P.S. I'm very interested in Sins. I've just been lurking in this community mostly as to be quite honest, everytime I go to comment something, someone had said it already and in better words.

I actually came here originally because I'm a coder for a mod team and our next project involves Sins. I also happen to like SunAge and want to see it do well, hence, due to it being little-known, I post updates on here. I see little reason why people can't get Sins and SunAge, I am!

Finally, I apologise for making you feel insulted. It wasn't intended and my comment was poorly written. At the moment, I'm just disappointed I have to wait until 2008 to play the full game! (Oh and, I love and respect how you released such early builds to players and how solid the game was, so early in production. I've only ever had ONE real bug in Sins and I wasn't able to duplicate it. You probably already fixed it. )

MEH... Game still looks like something from 1999...

And as Blair said, talking negatively about SINS which is a new revolutionary space 4xRTS on very forums of the game site, is just about the stupidest think anyone can do.

Let me just point something out, for those of you who think I was "talking negatively" about Sins. Although I really do like the game and play beta 4 often.



Quick, simple comment. Enthusiastic about the improvements in beta 2. Honesty in that I didn't really enjoy the last few hours of those 8 hours. But explaining that it's only because it's such an early beta. My main problem was not commenting enough and commenting in the wrong place, should have put it in Beta Feedback with more detail.

It's all good, thanks for the apology and feel free to spread the word on Sun Age. I really like the idea behind the connection line system and the formation system. Any chance you could elaborate more on the connection mechanics?