Homeworld 3 War Games - Deservedly Delayed
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2024
- Homeworld 3 has been the most anticipated upcoming game for me for the last 20 years. This preview has shown me some positives and some negatives to the design, but hasn't changed that double decade desire to dip my digits in dat game.
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If things look weird, it's because I tried out some new editing software. Or because you aren't wearing your glasses. I don't know why you never wear your glasses.
Blow up your own space ships in the demo here: store.steampowered.com/app/1840080/Homeworld_3/
Its good that they delayed it, the demo shows the game is in a grim state. I hope they can put it on the right track, but I don't think two months is enough.
Nope, not even close. With all of the problems I've seen with HW3 it's probable best to redesign and rebuild a lot of it.
Never Pre-order...
For me the time to kill is just WAY too short. I miss Homeworld 1 where ships had some actual health and staying power and you could actually keep some of your fleet intact. I don't love we have moved even slightly beyond where Homeworld 2 was in terms of TTK.
I have no way of confirming but someone mentioned a baked in damage multiplier for "War Games" to help speed things up. I really hope this is the case because I agree, things died WAY to fast. Especially the paper corvettes.
@@jeremymcarthur1930 If that's the case, the genius who proposed war games for the demo should be whipped.
i had a lot of issues with demo, however they can probably iron out most of them, the one thing that concerns me the most is the Unit designs, the enemy ships kinda all looked like the veygar battlecruiser, from fighter to destroyer.
I don't think I looked at the enemies close enough to notice. They didn't really identify them, did they?
Ya they are all the same general shape. While its a great profile, not EVERY ship should be that similar @@AbbreviatedReviews
@@jeremymcarthur1930 i also dislike the new battlecruiser having ion turrets that cant hit the same target, like bruh.
Every game developer forgot how to make games apparently
We are getting another Dawn of War 3...
I might've been excited for Homeworld 3 if I didn't know Gearbox had anything to do with it. The Remastered collection already irked me due to its handling of certain mechanics, which are major factors in why HW1 is still widely regarded as the best in the franchise. I could sorta forgive it, seeing as HW1RM, along with 2RM, is essentially a mod for Homeworld 2 - it can be put down to engine limitations. Meanwhile, DoK by BBI was a solid entry and a surprisingly good translation of the game's spirit and mechanics into a planetside setting.
Then the HW3 Wargames demo came out and any optimism I had around it instantly evaporated.
Some of its problems are easy fixes, but they've done away with entire critical core gameplay systems that made each of the originals' gameplay compelling and deep - directional armour, attack/move (not the starcraft kind); unique situational abilities, goddamn hyperspace of all things. Calling it regressive would be inappropriate, because there's no game in the franchise that didn't have these things. No projectiles from HW1, and no modules, subsystems or squadrons from HW2 either. All these things that made the fact it's a fully-3D RTS with six degrees-of-freedom, actually relevant - and what enabled it to have any tactical depth in that context.
Sequels are meant to build on and improve - not wantonly discard and strip-down. They've had 20+ years of feedback, discourse and plenty of time to reference what made the original games good. The three-month delay is not enough time for them to add any of these core systems, and it's barely enough to refactor those that already exist.
I'm also not optimistic about the story or campaign, given what we know of the plot and that the antagonist faction is called "the incarnate". Sounds like they're leaning hard into exactly the reasons most people tend to like HW2's story less than 1's. The ship designs within each faction are also extremely same-y. Hiigaran are variations on a trapezoidal prism - "minimalistic" aka boring and uninspired - whilst all the incarnate ships look somewhere between Sajuuk and a Vaygr BC.
Assuming the majority of this holds up to release, which I feel pretty safe in doing - I'll check back a year later and see if they've made any major improvements. If not, it'll be time to type "homeworld 3 movie gameplay no commentary" into the youtube search bar after I refund to spend a few hours witnessing how they massacred my boy.
I played the demo briefly, but god the camera controls made me want to punch things, it just did not flow for me, i cant quite put a finger on it but man i hope they look into that
Honestly I feel like the extra few months won't be enough. Maybe a whole year is needed
Performance needs some work as well.
It's hard to say. They definitely need some work on performance and bug fixing. Cleaning up the UI wouldn't hurt either. But I don't think they're going to do any major overhauls to the game. And I don't think they have the flexibility to delay for too long, they did lay off a bunch of staff late last year.
@@AbbreviatedReviews realistically someone will make a UI fixing mod shortly after or even concurrent with release so that's not a huge worry. Ditto with a mod to fix the camera. The weird thing for me is I definitely remember being able to use the arrow keys to move the camera around in HW2.
great vid
You drag a square around everything you want to select and it doesn't select them all.
It only selects combat units which is super helpful. There are hot keys for the non combat ships of you can set your own hotkeys for them...
@@jeremymcarthur1930 oh righto cheers mate!
I'm just not interested in RTS multiplayer and I'm bouncing hard off the difficulty of Wargames solo. Really wishing they'd not focused on multiplayer co-op as the introduction method.
I think it's a strange choice for a demo, especially for a franchise built on its singleplayer narrative experience. I don't know why they'd use this as the focal point to leverage a game they originally intended to release in month. But I guess it's a good way to test a portion of their game that could potentially have the most issues when faced with a heavy player load.
Perhaps they lack confidence in the story quality or the campaign contains even more bugs. Doesn't bode well.
Okay then it's the big 👍 for you buddy.. Thanks for sharing!🪐
I think as a life long HW fan that I will skip this completely and just watch the cutscenes and maybe a playthrough on YT.
Saves blood pressure and fifty quid ☺
I went with the classic controls and had no problem navigating my way around the maps and fleet. It was a small adjustment to get used to the fact that Q and E raised and lowered the camera, but I got used to that too. My overall impression of the demo was pretty solid. My friends and I had a good time with it. But I am also the only one of my friends who came from the earlier games, so I know what this one is missing while my friends didn't.
It's weird to me that I can't have the classic camera style AND have my command buttons hotkeyed. The instant switch to moving along a surface rather than right clicking was a little frustrating as I have gotten to used to the movement disc over the years that it feels wrong to not have it come up when I'm ordering a movement. Even a simple key combination like Shift+RMB to open it, or an inversion to always open it and have Shift+RMB be for surface movement would be amazing. Also, along with the movement disc, going from RMB+RMB to order a move on the disc to now RMB+LMB feels very strange. It was so easy to order a quick move in earlier Homeworlds simply by just double clicking. And now that I can't have hotkeyed commands with the classic camera, I have to manually press the move button to open the disc, or find a frame of empty space to click out in simply to bring the disc up.
My other small gripe was that having units in formations didn't group them up for easy selection. Like... I couldn't click one unit in a formation and select the entire formation for quick commanding. It's just small quality of life things that have seemingly disappeared but wouldn't be hard to bring back. I'm just curious why they left in the first place.
In closing, I don't think the game is as sensationally terrible as everyone is making it out to be. It needs tweaks and tuning, not sweeping overhauls. I think the best advice I could give to the devs is to go back and play HW1 and 2 for a week and come back to 3 and record the difference in handling. Homeworld has never been the easiest game to handle, but the learning curve was never insurmountable either. I think the best of both (Home)worlds is if they just put classic controls back into the game as an option. Have it compartmentalized so we can disable/enable control features and customize the handling in a way that feels most natural to the individual player.
I'm terrible at RTS games but I sure do love watching people comment on the games.
My introduction to PC gaming was through RTS games, but I've never managed to be any good at them. I've always enjoyed the way they tell stories though, and Homeworld is arguably the best ever at doing that.
I'll be going to various locations but I won't be attacking at the same time... :(
Get this game some aloe vera.
I really like the demo
I hope I still get my collectors edition that I pre-ordered years ago, I want my dang ship
Same here. I followed up several times after Fig turned into Republic and they've said it's all kosher, but I'm still a bit nervous. I'm looking forward to propping it up next to my Homeworld Remastered Collection ship. I suppose this gives them more time to organize all of that.
@@AbbreviatedReviews I did mine on Amazon *holds breath*
Same here lol I ordered it soon as it became available but haven’t heard anything since then.
Same, preordered late may last year at a premium on amazon since they don’t ship the CE to my country, so I will have to play a few days later
The "fourth" entry to the franchise? Which one aren't you counting, Cataclysm or Deserts of Kharak?
Cataclysm was originally an expansion and I never really stopped seeing it as one even though it's standalone. And it also seems to still be dancing between being canon and not. I know they said it was supposed to be again, but then they omitted it from their little story cinematic in this demo.
Deserts of Kharak is an official stand-alone prequel.
And its amazing @@thecactusman17
@@jeremymcarthur1930 I whole heartedly agree. Also, I still consider Cataclysm to be an expansion and not an individual entry.
I found the tutorial straightforward enough. Some aspects of the controls definitely need to be reworked, like the way movement queueing has been implemented is the dumbest thing I've ever seen and almost unusable. I tried to join some lobbies for war games, but it was not possible for some reason. Also, there were only 3 available in total. It does not bode well for the game that only 3 people have hosted a lobby at a given time, and this is with the game being free. I'm afraid this will crash and burn very quickly and onlt the campaign will be usable. Depending on reviews on the quality of the campaign, it's most likely a wait for sale for me.
Well, there are a lot of demos to be played right now. I know I haven't gotten to dedicate a whole lot of time to War Games, and it's also kind of limiting in that none of the progress you make will be maintained. But we've all seen some niche multiplayer approaches fall short even in popular games (Battlemode in Doom Eternal, for one) so it's hard to say where this will land.
I want you to answer this question with honesty, What is cool about homeworld 3 ( not mention graphics) ?
I dunno, I haven't played it yet. But the aspects of Homeworld 3 I've always been excited about are the same ones that I enjoyed in Homeworld - a continuation of an exciting story that pushes you forward through mystery while working with an ongoing set of units, resources, and research trying to survive and discover new things at every turn. Also a cool soundtrack. I'll be pretty happy if it delivers all of that without any of the janky bugs or quirks from the War Games demo.
@@AbbreviatedReviews so story, because for game play I can go back to remaster as it is a better game overall
@@diego2817 Well again, I haven't played the game because it's not out yet, so I don't know if it's a better game. But yes, Homeworld 1 and 2 have better gameplay than this demo of a game mode, if that counts for anything.
I'm all for games being ready but don't put out atch demo and then a week later delay after many of us paid for the game.
Refunding until released.
it was so hard to find unsponsored video lol. game seems boring, build some units, take perks and attack move.
That's kind of the core of every RTS. The nuance comes from tactics, resource management, and the dynamic nature of campaigns or multiplayer competitive gameplay - which are all kind of missing in this game mode. But I think it has the potential to have much of that if they flesh it out.
Ya I didn't love the game mode. There is little strategy involved it was just APM. Too fast for my liking but i'm hoping War Games is not indicative of the rest.
"build some units, take perks and attack move"
Except there's no "Attack Move" command anymore, hehe.
I have enough trust that at least the major bugs will be fixed by or after release.
My actual concern is how "off" everything feels; fighters look massive, but tactical marks are invisible when needed. It can mostly get fixed by playing with the settings, but how the developer missed it?
I agree, it's BAD. Camera mechanics are garbage, I spent way more time in the game fighting the camera to go and do what I wanted and not blank inside a wall etc than anything else in the game.
Also movement commands keep trying to send units to the surfaces of distant objects rather than giving an actual radial move command without using their not at all ergonomic or intuitive navigation system.
I don't mind the 'random mission' idea option, but the very bad navigation and control and insistence that every mission and battle be around or inside a structure their camera and navigation system can't interact with effectively is ruining it for me.
Hope the next few months bring MASSIVE fixes.
I'm curious if you've played a lot of HW recently? It seems (so far in my interactions) that the people that hate it are coming straight from the other games. While I think general criticism for the game is warranted, I DON'T understand the camera complains. It's so stinking easy. If you want the radial navigation you hit W. Is your finger not already on W? I didn't use the radial all that much as I didnt need it often but when I did my finger is already in W. I found the sensor map pretty much useless though and its annoying it changes the zoom level every time you reenter it.
@@jeremymcarthur1930 Yes I replayed the HW 1& 2 Remastered Campaigns a month or two ago so the more simple but reliable radial navigation mechanics are fresh in my memory.
And no, I don't use the W for radial navigation, and no one ever has.
The radial navigation is the default right click for a 3D space movement system as your going to be giving movement commands constantly so requiring to use a keyboard hotkey for every basic movement command is not very intuitive and does not feel organic.
And the new hotkeys changing the W to be the radial nav are part of the problem people are having. Most people use WASD for the planar camera movement (rather than the middle mouse button), which allowed us to do more organic and flowing camera movements by using WASD to do planar moves while the mouse moved in other planes.
@@jeremymcarthur1930 Follow-up: " I didn't use the radial all that much as I didn't need it often" How did you give movement commands then? Did you just keep sending units to distant wall surfaces for every movement command?
@@richardthecowardlylion5289 Most of the time yes. They purposely built these levels with that in mind. And when I needed to send them to empty space I hit W since my finger is already on W. To each their own I just find it super easy.
The bugs and jank can be fixed. What cannot be fixed is the path to esports and monetisation the war games demo hints at. Also the suppression frigate is just poor design.
imagine backing the game on kick starter just years later to be told game will have denuvo. .. I am 50/50 on how much it affects decision to buy, but please please do not release unfinished game. I have seen so many favorite RTS franchises get ruined, not homeworld... not like this....
And to think I almost bought collectors edition few months ago... ufff
Thanks for quick review!
It is disappointing that they decided to use Denuvo. I can't help but look at Gearbox for everything negative because it's Gearbox and Randy Pitchford sucks, but it's still up to Blackbird Interactive to bring this to the finish line.
For some reason the more I hear about hw3 the less I am excited about it. Even though I am the supporter from the very first fig days. The whole mobile spinoff, gaas mode, talk about how their campaign narrative is going to be very character centric - all that gives me very strange vibes of a corporate-designed product with familiar IP plastered on top of it for marketing. Its basically hitting all the bullshit bingo slots. I hope to be wrong but I somehow don't have much confidence in these guys
Ya when I found out the animated concept art style videos are gone I was SOOOooo dissapointed. It was so unique and amazing looking. Now its... like every other game.
The demo was incredibly disappointing, a step down from everything when compared to HW1, a game from the 90s.
It’s actually the 5th game, not the 4th.
I'll always call Catacylsm an expansion. The best expansion. The best non-canon expansion.
@@AbbreviatedReviews personally I’ve always considered an expansion as something that requires the original game to play. Cataclysm was more of a sideline story than another part of the cannon but non the less still a part of the franchise. Cataclysm was my first Homeworld game and I love it just as much as the others. We can certainly agree to disagree here, unlike the growing trend these days I won’t get offended.
I get that, it's probably as much an independent game as any other in the world, but it started it's development as an expansion. I usually look at a followup made in the within the main games of a series and made by a different developer as an expansion, even if it's standalone. Sort of like Half Life: Opposing Force and Blue Shift.
It's also kind of up for debate as to whether Blackbird Interactive re-canonized Cataclysm. It kind of seems like they have, but they also didn't mention it in the little 'recap' video they had in the War Games demo.
But it's also not a position I hold with a lot of conviction because ultimately the only thing that matters is that it was an incredible game. I plan to make a video about it sometime soon.
I'm a big fan of the franchise, to the point that I even helped to balance HWR along with the devs, and i got to say, HW3 is a huge disapointment, I wont even buy it, so much time spent to deliver something so bad....
Let em cook.
This is a flop man... it's on trend for Relic. Every 3rd game is a fail ---> CoH3, DoW3, and now HW3. I found myself fighting the controls just trying to play the damn game. This was never an issue with HW1 or HW2, what the fuck were they thinking, and then there was UI overload and objective spam.
Well I guess it's a good thing this is being developed by Blackbird Interactive...
Cant judge an entire game mode that might not be representative of the whole game. Also I found the controls (at least the camera and most other aspects) to be incredibly easy. I don't get all the fuss. What is it exactly?
I'm telling you - Valve knew something way before this started to happen with 3rd installments in games :D
Still looks and plays 25 years old.
While I wasnt OVERly impressed with the graphics thats... kinda ridiculous.
Glad they delayed it, controls are sluggish and not intuitive at all.
They're definitely not intuitive, but I felt like they were functional if you stuck it out for a while. Which was kind of the same situation when first playing Homeworld.
I actually thought that at the beginning , but now I really like the controls and U.I.Its all about nostalgia
@@AbbreviatedReviews yes you are right
there's a bug than sometimes dont let you move the cursor so you are unable to command the ships, and is alot tiresome to be destroyed by that incarnate battlecruiser because of the cursor bug, apart of the camera, the controls, the user interface, it's a la homeworld mobile, for a phone it's good, but for a computer game is not, it's clearly than the devs are under pressure, a pressure they put themselves in and the game is clearly in development hell, one think to note in my personal experience is the name of the new enemies "The incarnate" ¿Seriously? with so much creativity and imagination the incarnate, ¿Incarnate who or what?, part of the magic of the prequels (First and second homeworld) was how the cutscenes presented the enemies, in case the taiidan have inspiration by the empire of star wars, and the vaygr is a mix of mongols and genghis khan (Makkan) but the incarnate, looks very overthinked. when they announced the game ill went super happy with the game, who's not after played the first, cataclysm and the second, but after playing this build, and their flaws and that drm, certainly am worried.
I am aware of the benefits of delaying games for a better outcome. But why did ya have to do it 4 times? Waiting this long has made me lose serious interest in the game. It's exhausting and also sad.
Considering the state that some games release these days, I don't know what the upper limit is it delays I would accept. But this one definitely needs that extra time.
I can't stand the stupid War Game mode. It is exactly what I hate about modern RTS games, it is all constant barrage of shit happening and made to be short gameplay loops for people with short attention spans. I loved Homeworld because you can take your time with it. Unit creation and research seems to be way too fast and everything dies so fast too.
Thankfully I found out about the NLIP option being turned on by default, because the unit scaling in the game was so bad. Fighters looked way too big and slow and everything felt wrong when it comes to scale. But the option dynamically scales units so they are more visible. Same stupid shit as with Age of Empires 4, it is like people have grown blind or something.
The non-linear unit scaling was present and active by default (but toggleable) ever since the first Homeworld in 1999, for the same reason it's in this game - better readability.
I think the wargames mode has potential as a kind of side campaign showing what the Hiigarans are up to while the main story takes place. I think it could open the universe up a bit. Add other kinds of missions like pirate hunting, defense of friendly stations, etc. it could add lots of replayability.
it is too complicated!