Stellaris

[Mánagarmr]

I'd recommend Scott Manley and Paradox' own mutliplayer event. Just as a sidenote, they had 33 players in that game. 22 actual players and 10 (or 11 can't remember) AI empires. Buttery smooth.

[Wingflier]

I looked up Distant Worlds.   Best I can tell there is no connection to Paradox.  Where are you seeing that?

The developer is "Code Force" (developer of Stellaris is Paradox Development Studio) and the publisher is Matrix Games / Slitherine LTD.    Needless to say the publisher of Stellaris is Paradox. 

I never said anything about DS:U being a Paradox game. Nope, only a trained monkey would be enough of an idiot to accidentally attribute a game to an entirely different company when there's absolutely no evidence that it has anything to do with said company. So it couldn't have been me that made that mistake  *facepalm*

I'd recommend Scott Manley and Paradox' own mutliplayer event. Just as a sidenote, they had 33 players in that game. 22 actual players and 10 (or 11 can't remember) AI empires. Buttery smooth.

1. How is that even physically possible?

2. Thanks for the recommendation dude, I really didn't want to spend hours looking through Twitch streams and Youtube videos.

[Mánagarmr]

I'd recommend Scott Manley and Paradox' own mutliplayer event. Just as a sidenote, they had 33 players in that game. 22 actual players and 10 (or 11 can't remember) AI empires. Buttery smooth.

1. How is that even physically possible?

I have no idea. But they did. I'm not even joking. That whole game went by without so much as a hitch. Well, aside from "This game isn't really finished yet" bugs, but as far as network goes...it was extremely smooth. I'm guessing they were all on LAN though, as people kept coming and got interviewed in house. Still, even on LAN, that is amazing.

In addition these players were ALL hotjoined. All of them. From a savegame. I don't know who sold their soul to the devil to pull THAT code feat off...but that's impressive as all hell.

[Toranth]

I'd recommend Scott Manley and Paradox' own mutliplayer event. Just as a sidenote, they had 33 players in that game. 22 actual players and 10 (or 11 can't remember) AI empires. Buttery smooth.

1. How is that even physically possible?

I have no idea. But they did. I'm not even joking. That whole game went by without so much as a hitch. Well, aside from "This game isn't really finished yet" bugs, but as far as network goes...it was extremely smooth. I'm guessing they were all on LAN though, as people kept coming and got interviewed in house. Still, even on LAN, that is amazing.

In addition these players were ALL hotjoined. All of them. From a savegame. I don't know who sold their soul to the devil to pull THAT code feat off...but that's impressive as all hell.

They did have a couple of issues, where people dropped and had to re-join.  Have 5 minutes lost out of 14 hours of playtime in two days.  All the players were also LAN'd in the same room, so it wasn't over-the-Internet levels of awesome.
But yeah, they all hot-joined to start, then had a new player come in and take over an AI empire a few hours in.
Partway through, one of the player got eliminated by her own rebels.  She then rejoined, taking over that rebel empire, and continued to play.  Take THAT, rebels!

All in all, it looked very good to me.  It's a Paradox game, though, so I expect significant bugs and lots of rebalancing (slavery!) in the first few months.  Despite that, I'm in for the preorder.  Just the normal version, though.  I don't care enough for the short story of the extra skin, I think.  Although if the skin ends up as DLC, I'll probably get it (like all the CKII DLC I never wanted but bought anyway).

[Wingflier]

Partway through, one of the player got eliminated by her own rebels.  She then rejoined, taking over that rebel empire, and continued to play.  Take THAT, rebels!

What? THAT'S AWESOME!

Reminds me of Drox Operative. I have a lot of fond memories with that game.

[Mánagarmr]

I HAD to get the soundtrack edition. That soundtrack is amazeballs.

[Aklyon]

I'd recommend Scott Manley and Paradox' own mutliplayer event. Just as a sidenote, they had 33 players in that game. 22 actual players and 10 (or 11 can't remember) AI empires. Buttery smooth.

1. How is that even physically possible?

I have no idea. But they did. I'm not even joking. That whole game went by without so much as a hitch. Well, aside from "This game isn't really finished yet" bugs, but as far as network goes...it was extremely smooth. I'm guessing they were all on LAN though, as people kept coming and got interviewed in house. Still, even on LAN, that is amazing.

In addition these players were ALL hotjoined. All of them. From a savegame. I don't know who sold their soul to the devil to pull THAT code feat off...but that's impressive as all hell.

Considering its Paradox, they probably sacrificed some part of the code that'll return with lots of angry bugs in the future in exchange for their multiplayer sorcery.

[Cyborg]

Been playing it all night. Will give a detailed review later, but yes it's a lot of fun. I just got some antimatter missiles, about to go regulate.

[Misery]

Going to be firing it up momentarily myself;  honestly pretty much everything I've heard so far about the game makes it sound fantastic.

The one main complaint I've heard over and over again is "The AI isn't very good, it's not aggressive enough, why isn't it starting more wars with me?!?" and honestly that sounds more like a complaint from someone that's more used to typical 4X games where the war aspect goes into overload most of the time.  That being said, considering how procedural the games are, some playthroughs are bound to contain plenty of fighting depending on what kinds of civilizations you encounter.  Among other things.   But I for one am glad to hear that maybe for once, the war aspect doesn't drown out the rest of the game.

It'll also be interesting to see what modders do with this.  But also where Paradox takes it later with their usual DLC and such.

[Cyborg]

Part of it has to do with your starting race as well. If you are going to play humans, you're going to get a diplomacy bonus.

[Wingflier]

It's always amazed me in these games, that of all the factions, the HUMAN race gets the diplomacy bonus. Really, the humans? This is a race of people that is vastly more likely to destroy itself through weapons of its design over petty religious and political squabbles, than it is to be wiped out by natural causes. This is a race of people who, upon discovering the native population of some previously undiscovered continent, in basically every case, has either enslaved or wiped out said population (sometimes both)...simply because they could.

This is the DIPLOMATIC race?

[Aklyon]

You either get diplomatics or generic mcblahpants for humans, isn't that why we weren't having them in SBR at all?

Thankfully you can make your humans whatever you feel like within the customizer, or just do something else. Like Science hydras.

[Wingflier]

I'm not saying you have to make humans generic. Just give them realistic attributes. They could be religiously psychotic, actually believing that the entire universe was created for them and their people. Xenophobic. Warlike. When they would engage in intergalactic negotiations and political maneuvering, it would only be for personal gain, so much so that the person making the negotiations could seek to improve his own life to the detriment of his entire species.

On the contrary, you could make the humans hilariously fun to play.

[Misery]

Hm, I have to wonder if the reason humans are always so generic in these games is so that they're almost a blank slate; so that "if you're playing AS yourself, you can make them really be just like you!!!11".  Almost like having a silent protagonist in an RPG (and there's nothing more generic than that) and then giving them tons of those arbitrary moral choices that are such a thing these days. 

I mean, if you're playing as actual aliens, being the giant flying lightning spiders or something, it's more "roleplay" than playing as what you already are.

Or at least, that's the logic that comes to mind as a possible reason.  There's certainly a lot of problems with the idea, and it's frankly kinda derpy, but then so is the silent protagonist idea in games with pre-written dialogue where you never actually answer, but devs run with THAT one all the time.

I, personally, always play as some loopy alien race in these (when given the option).  Doing otherwise seems more than a bit boring/uninteresting.



On a side note, this game is complicated.  I'm not entirely sure HOW I blew my energy reserves so fast, but I did!  More loopiness will soon ensue, I'm sure.

Also, space amoebas.   And an anomaly that consisted of some aliens with WAY too much free time writing a random story about mercenaries on the surface of a barren planet using a giant laser or something.   I don't know who comes up with this stuff but they deserve a medal. 

[Misery]

Well, I went from having zero energy to having a massive amount of it stored, going from 0 to well over 800, and I haven't the foggiest damn clue WHY or HOW.  Just... happened.

Then some unexpected pirates occurred, wasn't really prepared, they exploded an outpost, because argh.  Formed up a big fleet and waited for the jerks to come by again, charged at them, and kablam, they were reduced to some free research points.

Also, more space amoebas.  Science ships keep having to run from the damn things.

And then some nomads came by and just randomly did an infodump, mapping out a big pile of other races elsewhere in the galaxy, none of which are even remotely near me.


And of course a variety of other events happened.  I seem to recall finding a gas giant with life on it and trying to research it but the scientist in charge killed it all instead, because oops. 


All in all.... this has been very good so far.  Normally it can take awhile for a game like this to really "grab" me but this one has done it pretty much immediately.  I feel like I'm making meaningful decisions pretty constantly (as opposed to every now and then, which is the feeling I get when playing most 4X games) and stuff actually HAPPENS.  It's kept itself constantly interesting, and from what I hear, it only gets better in that respect as you get further in.