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Post by tbr on Oct 3, 2019 21:21:03 GMT -6
The Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts Public Alpha has been released (if you are willing to pay a premium).
UA:D has 3D graphics and a far more detailed shipbuilder than RTW2. Nevertheless it (and the battles even more so) feels far more "arcadey" than RTW2. Of cource, it still is an Alpha and the campaign is not yet in.
But I think some things will stand even after UA:D release:
RTW2 is the "sim" which forcuses on the Fleet Admiral experience and historic modelling while UA:D has the gorgeous graphics (but for the damage textures) and possesses an intricate, in parts a-historical, intenal rule set which is quite "arcade".
Even though they are arcade quick (over in ca. 40-90 minutes game time, max. time accel is x5) the UA:D battles are quite satisfying and the AI in the "challenge" scenarios generates some quite interesting ships. We will see how battles in the campaign are generated but I cannot see how the UA:D UI and AI could cope with the larget RTW2 fleet battles sizes.
Writing of AI, RTW2 has a far better tactical AI, both for own ships and the enemy.
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Post by dizzy on Oct 3, 2019 21:39:48 GMT -6
RTW2 would be amazing if they partnered with someone that would introduce 3D graphics. It would be so nice to have 3D models and a 3D camera with tilt and zoom complete with dogfights and aircraft diving and climbing and strafing... UA has some serious eye candy 3D shots. Wow. This vid: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GshiUPC1I0A has some comparisons to RTW. UA says it plays thru 1930, so I don't think it will include carriers. So it's not RTW2 competitor.
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Post by mycophobia on Oct 3, 2019 21:49:37 GMT -6
AI tend to be trashy in most EA games so I’m less bothered by that. Shame to hear that UA went for a more Arcady route with the battles however, does not stop it from being pretty and fun, but seems more like an alternative than competition at this point.
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Post by rimbecano on Oct 3, 2019 22:35:27 GMT -6
RTW2 would be amazing if they partnered with someone that would introduce 3D graphics. It would be so nice to have 3D models and a 3D camera with tilt and zoom complete with dogfights and aircraft diving and climbing and strafing... UA has some serious eye candy 3D shots. Wow. Frankly, I'm not sure I do want 3D graphics in gameplay for RTW2. For a top-down view (rather than on-board) it just introduces visual clutter and input lag. Now, if the game were admiral-mode only and just gave you the view from your flag bridge, repeaters for your rangefinders, etc, that would be worth having 3d for. What I *would* really like to see for RTW2 would be an option to generate battle replays, that could either be played back in the game with the SAI engine, or by an external program. In that case, I can imagine that the community might fairly quickly whip up a 3D replay viewer, and while I like things the way they are for gameplay, 3D repays would be awesome.
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Post by dizzy on Oct 3, 2019 23:03:42 GMT -6
3D replays. I need a bandaid for my chin.
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Post by BathTubAdmiral on Oct 4, 2019 5:14:51 GMT -6
RTW2 would be amazing if they partnered with someone that would introduce 3D graphics. It would be so nice to have 3D models and a 3D camera with tilt and zoom complete with dogfights and aircraft ... No, no it wouldn't.
RTW2 has quite a price tag alreay, and 3D is expensive.Especially as just doing some 3D ships wouldn't do - the game would need a player-accessible library of ships parts, and a build-in 3D-editor for the player to put the ships together (Galactic Civilizations ...). Plus either pre-build ships for the AI, or some AI 3D ship builder. And it would have to run with a plethora of combinations of DX-Versions, Drivers, GPUs etc. This would easily put the game into the 60+€ price range. But would it make it a 100% better game? I doubt that. From my experience with the gaming industrie, the following is what most likely will happen: - the 3D part would be supposed to attract a wider audience (That's good, isn't it? Means more copies sold, means more money for development, right? ... oh my dear, wait 'til I'm done here ;-))
- the "wider audience" is determined as... suprise ... the group of more casual gamers (with fast trigger fingers and a short attention span - we will keep that in mind for later, ok?)
- a "reasonable price tag" is declared of ... let's say 49€
- to meet the price tag, corporate (revenue) expectations and the target groups (supposed) likings, some game features have to be altered:
- rolling for aircraft types will be streamlined out of the game (3 models for 5 types must be sufficient; maybe nation-specific models as DLC? Hey, this may work for ships and nations as well! (Civ6, anyone?))
- missions will be streamlined to 3 types: coastal attack, coastal defense (same map, just rotated), open water battle
- combat range will be shortened (graphically), so you can always see the shooter and the target in detail. (That ships get ~1km in length visually .. who cares?)
- Raiding, TradeProtection, Foreign Station and Sub/ASW will be streamlined out of the game, to get a better player experience by concentrating on what the game is about (big ships with big guns shooting big ships with big guns)
- as the big ships with big guns get obliterated by a/c, introduce a AA-mini-shooter (another DLC?)
- as there's no need for the strategic layer any longer, it's replaced by a pretty 3D (oc!) map that is completely static (apart from hundreds of little animated, useless tidbits). Missions are announced by putting a fat red cross somewhere randomly, and zooming in with a sea-sickness inducing 3D tracking view.
- oc., land bases are completely useless and can be streamlined
I could go on, but I guess you see the point ... What I would rather see is: - the most annoying, potentially game-breaking bugs fixed
- some moderately improved features (docks, divisions etc.)
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Post by dizzy on Oct 4, 2019 6:40:10 GMT -6
BathTubAdmiral No, I don't see your point... because I didn't read hardly any of it. Saying no to 3D is like saying nah, we don't need color TV, black n white is better. lol
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Post by dorn on Oct 4, 2019 7:46:56 GMT -6
BathTubAdmiral No, I don't see your point... because I didn't read hardly any of it. Saying no to 3D is like saying nah, we don't need color TV, black n white is better. lol Why almost everybody used 2D chess on PC at time where beatiful 3D is available?
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Post by iasach on Oct 4, 2019 7:47:49 GMT -6
3D graphics are a tremendous investment that in a game like RTW2 would not likely pay off, both for the developer and the (currently targeted) consumer is the message.
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Post by dohboy on Oct 4, 2019 9:32:32 GMT -6
BathTubAdmiral No, I don't see your point... because I didn't read hardly any of it. Saying no to 3D is like saying nah, we don't need color TV, black n white is better. lol More like saying "I don't need a super smart internet connected coffee maker, with ridiculous features like an MP3 player that will automatically play music it thinks will match my mood based on the brew of coffee I have selected, that costs many times more and is less reliable without offering any substantial benefit. That old reliable one that doesn't need my credit card number and email address just to brew a pot is better".
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Post by rimbecano on Oct 4, 2019 10:59:36 GMT -6
BathTubAdmiral No, I don't see your point... because I didn't read hardly any of it. Saying no to 3D is like saying nah, we don't need color TV, black n white is better. lol 3D adds to input lag, adds quite significantly to system requirements, adds tons of opportunities for bugs, and forces the player to deal with irrelevant information on top of what he needs to actually fight the battle. If I'm trying to find one of my battleships, I want a flat, one color background with my ship as a simple icon that stands out from that background. I *don't* want to be looking for an intricately rendered ship in immaculately textured Measure 11 camouflage, against the background of a dark blue sea with waves and reflections, given that Measure 11 was meant to make ships *hard to spot* against *exactly* that background. You can, of course, say "don't texture your ships with camouflage, then", but: 1) Why bother with pretty, true-to-life graphics if your warships aren't going to be painted like real warships painted for real combat? 2) Just because your ships aren't textured with camouflage just means they won't be as hard to spot, not necessarily that they'll be easy to spot. The background will still be noisier than at present, the ships will be sized true-to-life, etc. So let's save the pretty pictures for the replay when we can sit back and enjoy them, rather than the battle itself, when we want to be focusing on other things. I guarantee you that real admirals in modern naval warfare spend more of their time in combat situations (in fact, quite likely all of it) looking at high-contrast icons on map displays than at pretty pictures on external cameras. So yeah, not only do we not need 3D, but we need not to have it. 2D, for the purpose of fighting battles in this kind of game, *is* better. If you want stunning 3D visuals during gameplay, play a first-person game like an FPS or flight sim, where beautiful graphics actually adds to the game rather than subtracting from it.
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Post by dohboy on Oct 4, 2019 11:20:30 GMT -6
Command:MANO is RTW2's biggest competition as far as my playing time goes. My ideal naval simulator would combine the strengths of the two. RTW's grand campaign style and ship design are what draw me in. Command has better and more detailed mechanics in most ways IMO.
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Post by dizzy on Oct 4, 2019 13:51:03 GMT -6
Buncha Debbie downers! Pfffft!
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Post by zedfifty on Oct 5, 2019 0:02:26 GMT -6
I bought RTW in part because of its 2D graphics. If I want 3D, I play miniatures at the game convention. Since we are dreaming, a better use of a 3D graphics card would be neural-network inference for truly monster, AlphaGo tier AI. Come to think of it, I would rather have a Google TPU in my PCIe slot than a graphics card.
Now who will volunteer to supply the gobs of training data? <Crickets>
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Post by tortugapower on Oct 5, 2019 1:44:52 GMT -6
I just played the new UA Dreadnoughts, and I think it's very interesting and definitely promising! For being Alpha-1, the game is extremely polished. I did not find it arcadey -- in some ways, not many, it's offers more options than RtW. For example, you can vary bulkhead quality (something which is I guess abstracted into Damage Control tech here).
Anyway, the jury's still out on how great it will be. There won't be carriers from everything I've read, so RtW2 isn't going anywhere.
But it *IS* bloody awesome to just sit and watch UA:D combat like a movie.
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