Re: Announcing Expanding Known Space from Valiant Galaxy Associates
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Hi Jeremy.
I'm liking the sound of some of those changes, especially the extra keys, however can I please make a case for the inclusion of successive story options, IE a campaign as I described in post 110.
At the moment, there is little incentive to a player to try out the AI on harder difficulties or attempt different combinations of missions and variables. yes, they will provide differences in gameplay, however ultimately defeating the computer on the highest difficulty in total war mode will give the player no more tangible or practical reward than defeating the player on normal difficulty in lightning mode, the win message is the same, the plot is the same, the background and setting of the war is the same.
Whilst Expanding known space is indeed a strategy game not an Rpg, it is a strategy game set within a wider universe, one which attempts to give players a distinct experience, hence background and timeline, background and timeline options which are intrinsically tied to the game's world and gameplay elements (players after all cannot choose their own capital or name their own factions).
As well as background, it is also true that players like myself appreciate being challenged by a game, rather than having to construct their own challenges, after all people do not simply write their own sound rts maps and play them for the hell of it, they hand them round the community, one reason why Sound Rts has largely been a far more popular strategy game than Time of conflict, even though time of conflict is arguably more complex, or on an alternate level, consider how many extra tasks have been added to Eurofly.
For myself, I know I am far more likely to play a game if I'm offered a reason for a given challenge and a preset list of challenge conditions, as opposed to simply being told "pick your poison and run with it"
Also, my suggestion in post 110 was made intrinsically with the existing capabilities of Expanding known space in mind.
I do not suggest introducing any extra factors in the creation of challenges for the player, since you manifestly have already come up with a customisable set of difficulty settings and victory conditions, I merely suggest implementing those in a more structured way to give players the longevity and increasing challenge factor of a number of tasks to complete.
If you wish, I'd be glad to assist in helping write and decide upon story text to match an increasingly difficult set set of objectives and victory conditions, using existing elements of the Vga universe and different alternative circumstances for the war's probable causes and preexisting conditions, to create an existing set of challenges for the player.
I really hope you'll consider this fact. The Blindfold games for Ios, despite some exceptional mechanics have never really met with as much acceptance in the community as they might. Part of the reason for this, is their sacrificing good game design and challenge for some idealistic model of inclusivity, by giving players access to so many games settings at the start of each title, that players have no insentive try any of them.
Of course, Blindfold games have other issues as well, and manifestly Expanding known space is a much different game, still, I'd really hate to see Vga make a similar mistake in game design here, one which furthermore would not be difficult to rectify, given that all of the elements necessary to create player challenges already exist in the games setup anyway.
I really hope you'll consider this arguement for a future expantion of the game.
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