First and foremost, I would like to say I thoroughly enjoy this mod. In fact, I’m amazed this is a free (assuming you have HL of course) not a retail game. This, no doubt, is currently one of the top mods out for HL2. That said however, i do have a few comments/suggestions for further improvement- I am sure you are currently looking into these. 1) When commanding, a drag and point system would be very helpful. 2) Fix clipping into buildings and structures. 3) When a commander lays down a building, an indicator that it has not been built would extremely helpful. 4) Hotkeys for commanders would also help 5) When map changes, sometimes the scoreboard won’t go away. 6) lvl 2 turrets have "issues" 7) Team members being able to blow up friendly vehicles. 8) Empires assault rifle needs some adjustments. Currently, it is the dominate infantry weapon by far. Comments about maps 1) District needs to be redesigned. Due to the nature of that map, we all now know the frustration felt by those involved in WW1. 2) In the map District, currently, there is a way to hop onto the roofs. Some view this as exploiting. If officially incorporated, rooftop battles would greatly increase the enjoy ability of this map. Currently, if played within the limits, the map lasts for hours with endless turret spamming/nade spamming, which usually as a stalemates. 3) On the map Escort, NF's spawn is open. Some savvy/ knowledgeable arty people noticed this fundamental flaw and found positions that allow you to shell these spawns with HE shells. Needless to say, NF players cried foul and try to have these players kicked/banned. Covering these spawn points or making them "shell proof" would increase the enjoyably of NF players substantially When major bugs fixed and want to increase player ship 1) Redesign website. All due respect, but the current design, in my opinion, is a disservice to the quality mod you current have. 2) Have valve list your mod as a “3rd party game” 3) Increase hype of future releases 4) Do interviews with many of the geek sites out there. 5) I found out about this mod though a friend; not good if you want to substantially increase the number of people playing this mod. This is it so far; I may have more in the future. Keep up the good work; the mod that your team designed has enormous potential and may even become the next big thing. The 4 year effort that your team has contributed to this mod has not gone in vain.
But I LIKE the website design .... Seriously though, I agree with most everything, and I think they should have a more active PR department, but that isn't the official consensus. Actually, they're kind of layed back about getting the Empires name out there--my guess is until at least after 1.06. (what is that, one month away?)
1. Agreed. 2. Agreed. 3. If you single click the building it should show a life/hp bar on the bottom. 4. Ok... 5. Uh...? Press tab. 6. How so? I never used them to know. I go lvl1 or lvl3. Never really used lvl2. 7. Very bad idea. Can I slap you for suggesting it? 8. A lot of people say that but I dont agree. People once said turrets are overpowered and scout rifles should be removed. They were all wrong in every way imo. 1. Yes it can be a long drawn out map but I personally think that is fun. Even if one side is pushed back its not really over untill its over. I just think it needs some minor tweaks to make it go a little easier without taking that "trench" feeling away. 2. Yeah that needs to be fixed asap. Thats quite annoying but Im sure its more annoying for some since I play NF usually and I havent seen BE do that yet. Can they? I know NF has a couple spots like that. 3. Yeah arty doesnt even belong in escort. 1. The website looks fine. Whats wrong with it? Its very professional looking with "cold" colors without getting too cold. I wouldnt change a thing. 2. Whats the difference? 3. ...? 4. There was one interview so far I think... 5. Yeah I agree there. We need a better way for people to find out about empires. I know alot of ex-tribes gamers who now play empires and people were in love with tribes, I was, and would be ecstatic(sp.) to get into a mod so similar to it.
omgwtfbbq! You are joking, right? Tribes was the first shooter that took us out of the claustrophobic confines of HL maps and introduced open spaces with seamless transition with interior "bases". And also, Tribes made the phrase "All your base are belong to us" famous.
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribes .. it's basically the game that spawned the "FPS intended solely for multi-play online/LAN" genre, and included RTS elements as well -- not so much base construction, but you could deploy turrets, RADAR, etc. I second basically everything that's been said here. Long time reader, first time poster, Empires rocks hard already and has much potential to rock even harder, as it were.
Like I've said a thousand times, with the exception of half life 1 and 2, if it isn't free, I probably am not playing it. Sounds like it made a huge impact on the fps genre, though.
1) When commanding, a drag and point system would be very helpful. Awesome suggestion. Scrolling left/right/up/down works well, but it would make it much easier to drag-scroll. I'd go even further and request the right-click-drag to rotate the map, instead of holding the "z" or "x" key. 3) When a commander lays down a building, an indicator that it has not been built would extremely helpful. Agreed. Showing only the outline of the building until it's completed both in 1st-person and in commander's view would help grunts and commanders alike. 4) Hotkeys for commanders would also help If you mean for research and/or selecting buildings than I totally agree. Just like the voice comms, shortcuts for bringing up various panes and selecting their contents would help. 5) When map changes, sometimes the scoreboard won’t go away. I think this bug was fixed in 1.05 but make sure to submit it again in the Bugs section of these forums if it happens to you. 6) lvl 2 turrets have "issues" Again, I thought that was fixed in 1.05 /shrug 7) Team members being able to blow up friendly vehicles. Is this a suggestion or a bug report? If it's the former than try playing on friendly-fire-on servers. 8) Empires assault rifle needs some adjustments. Currently, it is the dominate infantry weapon by far. I think the devs stated that they will be concentrating on weapon rebalancing in the furute updates. 1) District needs to be redesigned. Due to the nature of that map, we all now know the frustration felt by those involved in WW1. Although I agree that this map needs further work, I think we need to give it some time. Players will soon start developing strategies and counter-strategies that will make this map fun. 2) In the map District, currently, there is a way to hop onto the roofs. Some view this as exploiting. If officially incorporated, rooftop battles would greatly increase the enjoy ability of this map. Currently, if played within the limits, the map lasts for hours with endless turret spamming/nade spamming, which usually as a stalemates. The devs said they will be continuing working on this map, so visit the Suggestions forum 3) On the map Escort, NF's spawn is open. Some savvy/ knowledgeable arty people noticed this fundamental flaw and found positions that allow you to shell these spawns with HE shells. Needless to say, NF players cried foul and try to have these players kicked/banned. Covering these spawn points or making them "shell proof" would increase the enjoyably of NF players substantially If you played the previous versions of this map (1.0 - 1.04) you'd know that the spawn areas near the first NF flag was completely open. Not only that, but there was no walls between that spawn area and the Brenodi base. This allowed the Brenodi Atrillery to shell the Northern Faction spawn point while the FN grenadiers could lob mortar shells straight into the BE base. In version 1.05 that whole area got redesigned: the NF spawn got a roof and a new structure now separates their spawn from the BE base. The point is, the devs are continuing working on the maps, just give them time. You have good points and suggestions, make sure to post them in appropriate forums.
As far as PR and hyping the mod for release: We're waiting until more bugs are fixed, and most or all of the features that are going to be implimented are implimented. There's a lot more to do.
