Sins of a Solar Empire Beta Diaries Seven: A player’s wish list of features

With the release date of Stardock and Ironclad Games Sins of a Solar Empire slowly drawing near, the developers have pretty much set everything in stone with all game’s features and gameplay elements paraded during the ongoing Beta 4 test phase. However, this doesn’t mean that players from making up their own little wish list of little extras they want to see included in the game before it goes live this February 4.

Read more about QJ.NET’s latest Beta Diary on Sins of a Solar Empire after the jump!

With exactly 23 days, 10 hours, and 25 minutes left before the release of Ironclad Games and Stardock‘s Sins of a Solar Empire (at least at the time this article was written), the developers have pretty much set everything in stone with all game’s features and gameplay elements paraded during the ongoing Beta 4 test phase.

However, this doesn’t stop gamers who are anticipating SoaSE‘s release by compiling their own little wish lists of the different extras they want to see included in the game before it goes live this February 4.

Considering the very open community standing behind SoaSE, the developers continually try their best to fit in as many of these suggestions as possible while still keeping into the original spirit of the game.

Here’s a rough breakdown of just some of things members on the SoaSE forums have been asking for during the past few months:

  

1. Graphical Changes

This has been a long time issue ever since SoaSE went Beta. Despite the superior visuals the game offers, many participating in the Beta testing phase have noted that the graphics still seem rather static and redundant for most of the part.

This was clarified early on by Stardock, however, that many of the graphical elements in the game – the ships, weapons, and special effects – are merely placeholders and will be changed once the game officially goes live.

Just how far the graphical improvements will change is still unknown as the developers have mentioned the “placeholders” were put in to merely simulate everything with minimal fuss, and with emphasis put in with the game physics and any possible bugs that might pop up.

2. Game Balance Issues

This one is perhaps one of the most understated items gamers can ask for in any game. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that you will always find players favoring one faction over the other and screaming bloody murder when they realize they don’t have enough “big guns” on their side compared to the other side.

With the recent addition of the Vasari faction in Beta 4, players were given a new perspective to the game as they tried out the new race’s militaristic style of play. Those who stuck with the TEC will initially find that the Vasari were given a lot of perks unavailable to their human counterparts.

The good news is that Stardock has always been open to feedback from its gamer fanbase. So you can expect a lot of future patches to include game balances to help even out the playing field as humanly possible for everyone.

 

3. Co-Op mode

The idea of a co-op mode was a fairly recent one brought up in the forums. After all, it’s quite unheard of to find an RTS game with a cooperative campaign mode.

Given the nature of SoaSE, however, it isn’t totally unprecedented. Since some of the maps can be large, a little help conquering your little space of the galaxy can go a long way.

Unfortunately, Stardock’s Yarlen mentioned that such a game mode won’t be available and the closest players will get to it is fighting on the same team in multiplayer mode. Still, perhaps this is something the developers can look into if the response from the fans become convincing enough.

4. “Lets Ships Move While They Fight!!!”

This was the amusing title of a thread posted on the SoaSE forums which reflected one of the biggest issues players wanted included in the game.

Currently, ships remain stationary when engaged in a firefight, which doesn’t really simulate a lot of realism, especially with some of the smaller ships.

While the mechanics of such game physics can be rather cumbersome to insert, we’ll just have to see if the developers can somehow pull a hat trick and get this one in before the game’s release.

5. More Mods and Maps

As it is, the game already boasts a lot of custom mods contributed by some of the more talented members on the forums.

This certainly extends the enjoyability factor of the game once you get sick of watching the same starship models get blown up again and again. Just some of the mod ideas thrown around so far includes Warhammer 40k, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, and even a Star Wars mod.

Personally, this blogger would be duly impressed if someone was to create a mecha mod (Macross, anyone?) that would be compatible with the game.

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 While it’s true that you can’t exactly please everyone, Stardock does a good job of making the fans happy by giving them a fair share of what they asked for. Still, with such an open community of players constantly giving feedback, it’s nice to know that the game is going a direction that’s at least progressive.

With less than a month to go, there are still some features advertised by Stardock that everyone has yet to see. Among these are the playable third faction, and the single-player campaign. So if you find your own wish list item bumped out of the final version, don’t feel too bad – there’s still a lot of features the game’s sure to offer that can drive you can find enjoyable.