Homeworld IP auction is over

AML

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So i just heard from team pixel (who made a bid for the HW IP) that they failed to acquire it.

Which means someone else has it now. But we still don't know who.

The other day I was visiting my friend who works for Sega and we talked about Segas recent acquisition of Relic.

He had never heard of Homeworld so I showed him some videos and i told him to play the games.

He was surprised by HW's originality and said he had never seen a game like it.

I told him that Relic originally made HW and if possible Sega should make a bid and give the IP back to Relic.

He knows the guy who was in charge of buying creative assembly and he is apparently a big fan or RTS games.

He is also the guy who spearheaded the purchase of Relic. So im really really hoping they bought the HW ip.

Only time will tell.

(In case you are wondering, I live in Japan and my friend works at Sega here. Hes one of the high up guys and im hoping i had some influence on him!!)
 
Homeworld was a great game and definitely a franchise I'd like to see updated. Fingers crossed Relic do have it.
 
The two games were good, but I think it was more the style.

The actual RTS element was not really the best in the genre. I love Homeworld, but I am not sure if they could make it and significantly improve on it. If it was released today, I think a lot of people would notice the shortcomings a lot more.
 
The two games were good, but I think it was more the style.

The actual RTS element was not really the best in the genre. I love Homeworld, but I am not sure if they could make it and significantly improve on it. If it was released today, I think a lot of people would notice the shortcomings a lot more.

What do you feel are its shortcomings? (And how would you improve on them)

For me HW has always been a good example of something different and original within an already established genre (RTS)

So it's hard for me to fault it in any way.
 
It's one of my favorite games of its era but there are a few ways I think it should be improved if an update were to happen.

For me the battles (while spectacular) felt like they fought themselves a lot of the time and when micro management was required I often found myself battling the controls; mostly due to the sheer speed of the combat.

Also the story was good but I found the pacing a bit off at times and some missions where mining and escorting were involved got really frustrating.

Finally I found that once your big ships leveled up the smaller craft became mostly pointless which was a shame as I always wanted at least a chance of an X-Wing vs. Deathstar scenario.

All that is just my opinion of course and as I say I still loved it at the time.
 
It has been quite a while since I played both. However, I think I would have the following comments.

* Even though it was 3D, the levels still played like on a 2D plane. It was hard to really turn the 3D to a real advantage or disadvantage. I always felt it was never really taken advantage of. It is a bit like the gameplay in Sins of a Solar Empire RTS, you have a what feels like a pseudo 3D environment where the level design is very 2D based.

* The 2D plane also lead to the feeling that your ships were fighting like in a more traditional RTS. The controls were not able to really make use of the 3D, I would try to make pincer movements using the Y plane, but it was too fiddly and not worth the effort.

* Fights were a little too macro orientated. It didn't really feel like tactics made a difference, you just made a ball of units and threw them at the opponents. This was even worse in multiplayer, maybe I never got good enough, but it didn't seem like micro would bring you much.

* Maps, due to the nature of space, it is hard to make a map. You cannot lay down false constraints like unpassable terrain, it is supposed to be open. They had some elements with Asteroid and Mine fields, but due to the 3D problems above, I always found them annoying trying to manouvere around especially when you wanted your ships to go over or cut threw on the Y axis.

* The level progress seemed really slow. I know the game was beautiful to look at, however, it seemed to work at snail pace. I remember giving up at a similar point in both games where I got to a level where I was just inching through minefields and moving at a snail pace to objectives.


On the 3D plane, I think it is hard to say how to make it, so that it is not just a nice looking gimmick. It is really hard to develop a control system to work in the 2D plane. Thinking about it, it is something that would benefit from controls like Kinect, something where you can work in a 3D plane with your hands, rather than 2D (mouse on flat surface).

The level design needs to be a little more exciting, with more variation.

The games certainly were landmark simply due to the graphic style and the attempt on the 3D RTS element, however, it did have some faults that could be improved on.

Watching some gameplay videos of HW2, reminds me how beautiful it is, however, also watching people fast forward missions on their videos and say how boring it was traversing across the maps, reminds me of those feelings that lead to me never completing the game.

A 3rd attempt would be welcome though, with todays rigs it could be beyond beautiful.
 
It has been quite a while since I played both. However, I think I would have the following comments. *snip*

Personally i loved the slower pace of the game. I enjoyed taking my time and building up a force. Never being sure if i had built the right kinds of ships or enough of them.

These days everyone seems to be suffering from ADD and because of that, all recent RTS games seem to do away with things like resource gathering and unit build up.

That's fine of you want things to have a faster pace or be more cinematic.
(To be honest if i want to watch a film ill watch a film...)

In my opinion single player games should be slower and make you think more/plan more.
Thats what the RTS genre is supposed to be no?

So in that respect HW was a perfect game for me. Slower pace, unit build up and resource gathering. A game should be able to take you away from reality for a while and immerse you completely into the game.

I think HW did that rather well. The story made you care about the Hiigarans. Their plight across the galaxy. Looking for resources and slowly building up a bigger and bigger fleet as the story progresses.
With a big showdown at the end.


I also want to mention multi player in HW2.

It was significantly different from the single player campaign.

Paced very differently. Much faster.


For example, if it was a 3v3 map, one person would focus on building bombers and torp frigates and attack really fast to disrupt enemy resource gathering and ship production by destroying sub systems, the second person would start working on destroyers straight away and get to work on enemy capital ships, and the 3rd person would work on only building battle cruisers and finishing the enemy off with extreme prejudice.

Each person would work on something different and only that. If the team worked well together the game would be over in under 10mins.

Anyway, very different pacing and unique play style. Quite a change from single player.

The potential for epic MP in a HW3 is there.
The 3rd dimension comes into play much more too.

I would often warp my ships behind/on top or even below my enemies and attack from different angles. Often confusing the enemy and causing them to rage quit. Pretty amazing you could do that with just a handful of ships. (think of it as psychological warfare)


I was also once able to make a complete come back after losing my mother ship and 90 percent of my fleet, and still beat the enemy.

How? by hiding my ship yard at the bottom of the map in a nebula and finishing 2 battle cruisers which i warped in right next to his unprotected shipyard and mother ship and taking him out while his entire fleet was looking for me where he thought i was supposed to be. (I won because i took out his mother ship and ship yard)

That's a clear example of people thinking in 2D in a game that has the 3rd axis of movement. Something we don't see in newer RTS games.


With the tech we have now we could make it a true 3D RTS with spectacular graphics and game play.

But at the end of the day as long as we use 2D screens with a keyboard and mouse we will always be limited by that.
 
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Reading that is making me regret never playing MP to be honest.
 
That's fine of you want things to have a faster pace or be more cinematic.

It is not so much faster pace, I don't want the pace of SCII 1v1 battles. Just that at points, it REALLY slowed down. Levels where you had to move your mothership across the map at the slowest speed ever seen in a game.

It is more like flowing pace, where you are not being bogged down in slow progress.

To be honest, the whole talk about it, is making me want to fire it up again and try to play through again. :)
 
To be honest, the whole talk about it, is making me want to fire it up again and try to play through again. :)

Same here mate.

I'm going to have to dig this out of the loft over the weekend and give it a whirl.

I think I have both of them laying about up there but I only remember completing the first one so may just start Homeworld 2 again. :smashin:
 
I'm hoping it will get an hd steam make over like age of empires 2 did!

Btw there are also some amazing mods out for HW2

Best one I played was the HW2 Complex mod

Homeworld 2 Complex mod - Mod DB

Breathes some life Into the game and still people playing last time I looked!
 
Homeworld Acquisition and Plans - Gearbox Software Community

Gearbox Software has prevailed as the highest bidder in the acquisition of the Homeworld franchise from THQ. Brian Martel, Gearbox Software's Chief Creative Officer, has great love and respect for Relic's brilliant, fun and innovative game and personally spearheaded the acquisition.

Brian intends as first priority to direct Gearbox's interest to preserve and assemble the purest form of the original acclaimed and beloved games, Homeworld and Homeworld 2, with the intent of making them accessible on today's leading digital platforms.

Please visit the Gearbox Software Forums to share with us and Brian what you think should be done with Homeworld moving forward. And, please try to get our attention if you have capability and interest to join the effort in developing or enabling Homeworld's future.
 
Homeworld Acquisition and Plans - Gearbox Software Community

Gearbox Software has prevailed as the highest bidder in the acquisition of the Homeworld franchise from THQ. Brian Martel, Gearbox Software's Chief Creative Officer, has great love and respect for Relic's brilliant, fun and innovative game and personally spearheaded the acquisition.

Brian intends as first priority to direct Gearbox's interest to preserve and assemble the purest form of the original acclaimed and beloved games, Homeworld and Homeworld 2, with the intent of making them accessible on today's leading digital platforms.

Please visit the Gearbox Software Forums to share with us and Brian what you think should be done with Homeworld moving forward. And, please try to get our attention if you have capability and interest to join the effort in developing or enabling Homeworld's future.

I hope the do better with Homeworld than they did with Aliens CM.
 
That should pay for a chunk of Borderlands 3 development.
 
After looking into it, im pretty happy with Gearbox getting HW. (bit disappointed sega didnt get it for Relic)

They are already discussing things on their web site so with any luck we will see something happen within the next year or two.

Discussion - The Gearbox Software Forums

Im hoping for a remake/remaster of HW and Cataclysm. And of course HW3
 
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Just watched a couple of you tube vids. Looks ok. I'll wait to see what they make from it new rather than buy the HD versions of 1&2 they are going to do.
 
The studio noted that it intends to "preserve and assemble the purest form of the original acclaimed and beloved games, Homeworld and Homeworld 2, with the intent of making them accessible on today's leading digital platforms."

Homeworld coming to iOS....... which actually would be pretty good. I think that touch controls could work pretty well with it, be able to spin around and zoom in a lot easier.
 
Its just been confirmed by Gearbox that HW 1 and 2 will be coming to leading digital PC platforms.

So, Steam and possibly GOG.

Hopefully they will give these games a fresh coat of paint, but even if they dont, day one purchase for me.
 
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