not really. more people prefer freedom and non-linearity.

I picked up the game yesterday, not knowing much about it other than the general gameplay concepts and was surprised it didn't come with a single-player campaign. I know a lot of RTS players are more interested in multiplayer, but this is the first one I've come across that didn't ship with a campaign. I'm not saying it hasn't happened before, but in the 10+ RTS games I've purchased they've all had a campaign.

As a (very) casual RTS player there's no way I'm going to be an even remotely competitive multiplayer opponent. I'm *bad* at RTS games, but I still enjoy them. Single-player campaigns allow incompetent RTS-ers like myself to enjoy the game and get into the lore as well.

This game is being marketed as a RTS-4X hybrid, but without some kind of campaign, it initially feels more like a straight-up RTS to me. Key word there is "initially" as I've only had the game for <24 hours. :)

Long story short: I'm definitely in the "Can I has Single Player Campaign PLZ" camp.

Thanks!

(btw, I am enjoying my first game of Sins, even though it's just a small random map, so the no-campaign aspect hasn't caused me to chuck the disc in the garbage or anything.)

Perfectly said. I remember playing through the Warhammer 40k series. I fell in love with the Imperial Guard and as we basically only play the game multiplayer now, the story and how you feel about the races stick with you. There's a purpose to fighting with them now. The campaign made is so much more fun.

I've read the threads on the Siege Frigate AI Rush/Spam and the Pirate threads, and have been paying a whole lot of attention to them. On a whole, the answer to both these quandries it to quickly build defenses and an offensive fleet, hunt them down, and kill them. This also to me is very straight up RTS behaviour, and not 4X behaviour at all.

Everything I've read post release, and have seen all points to the RTS elements of this game. To be honest, I more interested in 4X elements, but haven't been able to really grasp onto them. Granted, the exploration and expansion points to 4X, but you do this in RTS games as well (capturing strategic points in DoW and CoH, capturing or building new settlements in Kohan, AoM, AoE, etc...)

With a campaign spoonfeeding me, I could actually take the time to learn where these 4X elemments exist, and how they're implemented in the game. I'm not expecting the depth of GalCiv2 or Civ4 (although I would like it in terms of trade and diplomacy), but I am expecting more 4X elements than I've seen, and no so RTSy...

Caveat: I bought this game after reading the Joystiq interview a couple of days ago. I've played more RTSes than 4X (Civ being the only major game in the latter category). I haven't been following the development of the game or anything like that, and because I am a huge noob I've only played two-player maps so far.

The game, as it stands now, is great. I definitely didn't miss campaign mode as much as I thought I would. That said, I do think campaign play adds an extra dimension if done well--not only in terms of storyline (and obviously there's a story we haven't seen yet!) but also in terms of gameplay. Campaigns have a mission-oriented goal structure that's (mostly) absent from skirmishes. I know there are tons of people on the board who prefer the open format of skirmish play, but campaign play can be a nice change of pace.

Count me among those who found Homeworld's campaign far more involving and interesting than the skirmishes, which always felt bland and tacked-on. I'm a sucker for epic space dramas, what can I say? If Ironclad/Stardock do make a campaign expansion, I'll be the first in line.

Me neither, it's not that I don't like campaign, I beat campaign for all other RTS that I played.

The thing is Sandbox game campaign will need to be handle differently then regular RTS. In other game you tend to only have a few level of research and a few unit to unlock, so that work.

Sandbox tend to has a lot of units and a huge research tree, so some kind of dynamic campaign structure is needed, like limited research and carry over. I did play the first mission in Galciv2 campaign, but right when I see my research is reset at the second map, I said "hehe, no way I'm playing this campaign".

That one hit me as well. It was like, "What, they moved to a different chunk of the universe and just forgot?"

Good positive feedback.

Bump

The best system i've seen for this type of game (Hegemonia was very similar to this game's style in some ways) is to switch the way the research system works in single player campaign. Give the player say, 2000 research "points" on the first mission. Each item in the trees are given increasing points values and the player can then research a limited number of items per mission which are then persistent across all missions. You could probably eliminate the need to even build labs that way as well. Slight trade-off in game style, but it allows you to spread the research part of the game out over the campaign so the player doesn't get super weapons early on and then just hold onto them.

Also, for single player, it would probably be good to switch the crystals/metal asteroids back to limited quantities in them like it was in Beta, so you could better control where you want the player to expand, and not turtle etc.

Good idea.

I dont like forced or limited what reseaced, if I go for capital ship, but never want reseach small craft or something, that's my trade off, weaker small craft or unable to build at all while My capital is much stronger then what was to be rather then forced us what reseach and even reset reseach. I agress few post back about reset, it's silly my people has forget what they has learn, but so true in world, but computer memory for them anyway. If people want reseach super weapons, but lack of small craft or captial ship, let's them be, maybe it's smaller, but faster to shoot ship to ship, but lack gett this to there or something, no need to forced limited what people has to do, but rather give what people want and style fit, some like small and fast, but not everyone want small and weaker, so they skip reseach that and reseach big and fast or something that!

4X games don't have storylines. You make one up in your head. There's a reason you can rename all the important locations and ships in the game. Christ, you make me feel old saying this but using your brain isn't a freaking dead concept in the 21st century. Besides, have you seen GalCiv II's campaign? They don't translate well. All it would consist of is a wall of text followed by a small 1v1 map, repeat 20 times.

Who says they cannot have video to tell the story instead of text?

I am all for one, and of course I would love it if I didn't have to pay for it.

You get what you pay for.

Same basic "problem". Just a fancier cover for the inability to do a decent story line in a 4X format.

I was surprised of no Campaign but i never play them anyway...so sorry i could care less about a campaign. Also...the days of the campaigns are over...the days of the planetary/galactic conquests have begun (i.e. this game, Dawn of War, etc.)

I don't understand what you mean, Phalnax811. Dawn of War has a campaign.

-HM

I find it funny that so many people are opposed to the campaign element on the basis that "zomg developers might do something else for a while", especially considering they've fixed so much in the week it's been out and that the expansion mentioned is expected a year down the line. Personally, I'd like some sort of campaign added in a future expansion, although I'm not sure the usual approach might work too well (ie. you only get to have 1 of each lab in the first mission and there are a total of 4 planets in the system with one of each resource).

I think a more free-form campaign where all 3 (or maybe even 4, if they add a new race in the expansion) races battle it out in a slightly scripted Free For All, where they have set up certain key planets in the systems with timers on them (scripts meaning the AI will focus a little more on taking and keeping these). These planets and their timers would trigger certain story elements depending on who conquers them and when. Say you do it within 10 mins and you get a better/different bonus of sorts to your empire than if you did it in 20 mins. The timers will be different for each race depending on starting location, as it would be silly to expect you to conquer planet X 20 jumps away in 10 mins.

This means you can also follow your enemies' expansion into the system(s), as story elements, perhaps in the form of news bulletins shown in in the mini screen at the bottom of your UI (dunno if that is doable but it would seem less distruptive than a big cutscene).

The reason I think a campaign like this would be a welcome addition is that I'm not much of an RP'er and I know this is the case for a lot of players (hell, even extremely well supported RP oriented games like NWN have massive activity on non-RP servers compared to most of the RP ones). The best way I can add some fictional reason for me to go conquer the galaxy (other than when I feel like an evil bastard :P) is when I have something to base it on.. So far, the story gives Advent a vengeance issue, although you can so far debate how necessary it is, given they must have some massive empire out there due to the size of the fleet they show up with, as well as they only lost one planet (losing your home hurts but still..). Vasari so far don't really have anything other than they like to take stuff from others, as their storyline focuses on running from the unknown enemy and TEC are simply defending themselves.

There is great potential in the story they have set up but it also clearly features a big "TO BE CONTINUED" sign that could be resolved this way and take the story in any direction you seek.. This should make both the sandbox happy RP'er fairly happy as well as making non-RP guys like me (who also likes sandboxes btw) happy with a story that is both concluded and yet one I can expand upon in skirmish/multiplayer games if I please.

I hope people will give this post a read, even though it's fairly long, haha

i think they miss campaign big time. Game is open ended sandbox, but considering how much attention was given to bring 3 faction to life, unique voices, graphics, history behind...etc. I mean, its just seems as such a waste not to have a story behind it complete with video cut scenes, 3 dynamic campaigns with alternative endings...etc I would love to see that.

As much as i would like to play out the story of all 3 racaes im not really sure the devs should do it ... GalCiv campaign was HORRIBLE and dont get me wrong they are both great games with interesting races but im just afraid of another dreadlord-kind campaing abomination. If a player that can beat the game at the highest difficulty ( i think it was suicidal ? doesnt really matter) i should be able to beat the campaing fairle easy on the "im a retard" setting right ? wrooooong

A story line would never work in the context of the game. I keep saying this. Its stupid for a player to all of a sudden be forced from being an Emperor and instead preform the will of his admirals and advisers.

Homeworld's story was great. Personally I found the campaign to be the best part. HOWEVER THIS IS NOT HOMEWORLD. Homeworld is focused on the tactical level and has the player cast as the fleet leader, not as the emperor of an intragalactic empire.

I don't feel like reading all the posts, but as for campaigns, i was under the inpression they had origionaly wanted to have a campaing in the origional release, but eventualy decided that the game worked well as a sandbox style game, so why not give people the game, and let them play insted of makeing them wait for somthing that isn't necessarily worth waiting for? You can tell from the intro that the team behind it has a story, and they want to tell it to us. So a campain will come, and I'm sure it will be a good one, with an enjoyable storyline.

But at the moment, we do have a map editor, and i have plans to make a campain of my own for each race that will set things up to speed, and release it as a mod. I can't do real modding so it will just be a collection of galactic maps with a story, and i'll see what i can do about mission objectives, but it seems like you will have to manage them yourself, in other words, if the mission is to capture planet X then you have "won" when you capture that planet, and you can move on to the next map.

I can't say I understand all of the resistance to a campaign or series of campaigns. From what I can gather the devs decided to forego a campaign in the original release in favor of balancing, and polishing. Most would agree that this was a good decision.

For those of you who are worried that the inclusion of a campaign some time down the road would somehow take away from the devs having time to work on your own 'pet' issues you needn't worry. Knowing how Stardock works as a company I'm fairly sure we can expect a few free updates within a year and probably an expansion sometime next spring. As anyone who plays GalCiv2 knows those updates are more like expansions, and the expansions are closer to full on sequels. In short we can all look forward to far greater ongoing support than I think many of you are accustomed to.

For those who say "Campaigns don't work in 4x games." There have been been some excellent suggestions as far as having a larger map and a somewhat scripted AI. Video cutscenes and voice acting could advance the story when certain objectives are achieved/failed. There was one good point essentially saying that in a 4x game the player functions as the leader of a civilization and forcing him to follow the instructions of his admirals does not make much sense. I believe that this could be worked around by couching the admiral's instructons as suggestions and advancing the story based on the achievement/failure of their objectives. Ostensibly if you were to continue to ignore their suggestions to the detriment of your empire you could expect them to stage a coup. This may require some suspension of disbelieve but hey it's a science fiction game here.

As for those saying "Well I never play campaigns anyways and they don't add anything to my experience so just leave it out and focus on what I want." Well pish and posh says I to you. I don't play multiplayer... ever (except in mmo's) yet not once have I nor will I ever post on a forum and say "I never play multiplayer and it doesn't add anything to my experience so just leave it out and focus on what I want.

In closing some of us really enjoy being told a good story and a well done campaign does that. I don't think we are being unreasonable in hoping one will be forthcomming.