StarDrive 2

[Zewp]

Spoiler

Source.

Haarlem, The Netherlands – February 26th 2014 – Following last year’s barnstorming debut for real-time 4x strategy game StarDrive, publisher Iceberg Interactive and developer Zero Sum Games have teamed up again to publish StarDrive 2, the revolutionary turn-based sequel, featuring real-time combat, which will be coming to Steam, other digital channels and boxed retail this year.

Iceberg Interactive is currently plotting a course for a September 2014 release for the sequel, with an SRP of $29.99, and Iceberg and Zero Sum plan to reward their fan-base with a loyalty discount of 33% on StarDrive 2 for owners of the original StarDrive.

"StarDrive 2 represents the culmination of two decades of love for the 4x genre and five years of work on the StarDrive universe. Here we have taken everything we have learned - our successes, our failures, and our passion - and made a 4x game that we are incredibly proud of,” says Daniel DiCicco, CEO of Zero Sum Games.

5 New screenshots accompany this official StarDrive 2 announcement. Check out the first images of the StarDrive 2universe here.

DiCicco continues, “We believe that fans of this genre will rejoice when they get their hands on StarDrive 2. It will bring them back to the golden age of 4x gaming with familiar strategic gameplay while using the full power of the Unity game engine to push AAA visuals. Furthermore, we are doubling down on our commitment to user-generated content with StarDrive 2 by integrating Steam Workshop support directly into the game. We are dedicated to our community and we're excited to start showing off StarDrive 2 to our fans."

For more information on StarDrive 2, please visit the official forum: www.stardrivegame.com

About StarDrive 2
StarDrive 2 is an exciting and evolutionary step forward for the StarDrive franchise. In this eagerly anticipated sequel, the core mechanics have evolved to incorporate a turn-based strategic layer, featuring spectacular realtime battles. As the galactic ruler of your race you will lead your people into a procedurally-generated galaxy, exploring and expanding your space empire to greatness. Exploit planets, navigate asteroid belts and overcome deep space dangers while handling interspecies relations to gain the upper hand. Conduct diplomacy and espionage, make alien friends that will deliver thriving trade treaties – or enemies that will seek to exterminate you at all costs. Research new technologies and design powerful warships to defend your claims. Discover the extensive lore of the StarDriveuniverse by encountering many dozens of anomalies, heroes, and galactic mysteries that will ensure no two games will ever play the same.

Features:
- Build a space empire turn by turn in an immersive, living galaxy filled with 9 alien races, pirate factions, galactic lore and mystery.
- Hire unique heroes to govern your worlds or to command your mighty fleets in battle.
- Populate the universe and colonize planets, moons, asteroid belts, gas giants, and more!
- Research hundreds of technologies, including technologies that are unique to your race. Find even more technologies through in-game events and galactic exploration.
- Build your own ships in the custom ship design mode and take them into real-time battles featuring stunning visuals and sound effects.
- Enter a Battle Arena mode for quick-fix battles against cunning AI opponents. In this mode, you will earn rewards as you fight through the challenges, allowing you to unlock new weapons, ship hulls, and ship modules to upgrade your ships and to purchase new ships to add to your fleet.
- Created with the Unity engine for simultaneous release on PC, Mac and Linux.
- Will include various Steam features such as Trading Cards, Achievements and Steam Workshop, allowing modders to create and share their own in-game heroes, events, Battle Arena campaigns, ship modules, weapons, sound effects, and more.

About Zero Sum Games
Zero Sum Games is based in Portland, Oregon, in the beautiful Pacific Northwest region of the United States. We are an independent studio with a small and dedicated team possessing a broad and diverse set of skills. Our mission is to deliver hardcore PC games to gamers looking for depth and challenge without sacrificing aesthetics.

Play it Cool!

Maybe these assholes should rather focus on adding new features to the first game, which still feels like an Early Access game, before they start developing sequels. It doesn't help that they're trying to push the next game out in about a year, which is ridiculously short.

 

[warpig]

Stardrive had it's shortcomings but I enjoyed it. Though I don't have much comparison since I haven't played many 4X games.

“We believe that fans of this genre will rejoice when they get their hands on StarDrive 2. It will bring them back to the golden age of 4x gaming with familiar strategic gameplay while using the full power of the Unity game engine to push AAA visuals.

Fuck this, Stardrive is a nice looking game. "AAA visuals" are not what this game needs, waste of time and money.

 

[Angelo85]

I bought Stardrive on release but only played a couple of hours. As far as 4X games go, I personally was not very impressed because of missing content and expected basic 4X features that weren't there.
Won't be buying this one.

 

[KoolNoodles]

I agree that Stardrive looked pretty good. The ship customization and "fighting" actually was the strongest aspect. It just need more content, better diplomacy, better A.I., etc. Still optimistic. Hope they get it right this time.

 

[Destroid]

Stardrive is incomplete, broken garbage.

 

[Trash]

So many 4x space games and none even come close to the old MoO2. Even after all these years and not one single project looks like it might even come close. What the fuck happened to that genre?

 

[Space Satan]

Why? Why can't they just clone MoO2 piece by piece, instead of fucking their bastard freaks into some unplayable monstrosity? Like making it real-time or adding retarded real-time battles, or adding another fucked-up mechanics?

 

[you know what time it is]

So many 4x space games and none even come close to the old MoO2. Even after all these years and not one single project looks like it might even come close. What the fuck happened to that genre?

Distant Worlds is quite nice, it's not a MoO2 clone though and judging by the price (100$+ for base game + 3DLCs) devs are autistic and probably related to Illwinter.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Distant Worlds is more like a Pdox game in space than your typical 4x.

But I agree with Trash - it's a genre I want to love so much, but is marred by mediocre to bad games throughout.

 

[Azazel]

Isn't Stardrive the game where the dev basically went "Fuck you, games done" and told players he wasn't adding half the features he promised during the Kickstarter into the final product, resulting in a remarkably bare-bones game that was lacking in both longevity and replayability?

I swear, the indie market is starting to burn goodwill at a faster clip than AAA ever did.

 

[you know what time it is]

I swear, the indie market is starting to burn goodwill at a faster clip than AAA ever did.

You can't win them, you either get Kickstarted "I'm burned out" assholes or you get good games (albeit slightly autistic) that no one heard about because whoever is responsible for their distribution is mildly retarded (dominions until recently, distant worlds and such) and thinks that selling them in one place (often with limited payment options) for 40$ is viable.

 

[Zewp]

In the Steam forums everyone is touting the 33% discount as the godsend solution to the fact that the game is basically unfinished and has been abandoned. Wonderful.

 

[Azazel]

The steam forums are made up of Russians and people so stupid even Reddit wouldn't take them, so that doesn't surprise me.

 

[Torrasque01]

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the dev for this is also a goon.

 

[Mustawd]

Stardrive is incomplete, broken garbage.

Just an update on this. It was released in April 2015, and the above quote basically applies to the sequel from what I've seen and read.

 

[LESS T_T]

Now the dev abandons his game dev career: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/73tu5s/stardrive_dev_quits_game_development_blames_steam/

Stardrive dev quits game development: blames Steam changes for 'destroying game companies'.

Announced on Twitter:

Steam's changes over the past few years have destroyed game companies with ~100k-200k dev budgets. Pre Greenlight, curation allowed high quality games to get exposure simply by virtue of making it onto the platform. Quality WAS your marketing.

But now, a 200k budget is utterly insufficient. You have to reserve 50% for marketing unless you have an existing presence or strike oil. I'm not complaining at all. Steam has been great to me. But I can read the writing on the wall. Bedroom-coded indie games are done.

Watching a game like Lawbreakers fail seals the deal for me. That game should have been able to at least break even. An expertly-crafted game from a hugely-respected developer fell flat on its face because there are too many damn games.

Steam's curation served to regulate the market. Without it, we are experiencing a complete oversaturation where quality is not rewarded. Instead, momentum is rewarded. That's all that really matters. Get momentum. Goat Simulator and pigeon dating simulator perfect examples.

Anyway, that's why I'm getting out. Longsword is it. There's way more money in serious industry.

The irony is that Steam opening availability to everyone made it less viable for everyone. Sure you can quit your job and follow your dream, but you have an 85% chance to fail in this market.​

https://twitter.com/zer0sumGames

Lawbreakers!

Some comments from gamedev subreddit:

I'll talk bad about him for you.

• The image he's carving out for himself sucks and has sucked; nobody likes a whiner; post dev/game-relevant stuff or get off of your game dev Twitter account. Don't be jaded about how others were successful or didn't live up to your standards of success, be curious. Why did Lawbreakers fail? It's obviously a knock-off/heavily-inspired game and late to a currently saturated genre. That's marketing and market analysis, which is something an indie dev needs to do for themselves before they even make their game if they want to be successful
• Even if his games are good, Stardrive reviews say it's unfinished and he canned Stardrive 1 for Stardrive 2; abandoning development for an unfinished game to work on another is a no-no, especially if people bought it/kickstarted it
• Stardrive 2 reviews are bad since it apparently is unfinished and he gave up on development there too
• You don't sell an unfinished game for $30 then move on to the sequel
• You don't sell an unfinished sequel for $30, after moving on from your first game, and give up on it as well

Fuck this dude. I don't see why he thinks he's worthy of success with that track record.

Reality: Statistically, in every industry, the chance of failure as a startup or freelancer is over 90%.

Translation: Game Dev wrongly believed that Steam was responsible for selling his product for him.

Additionally: A game that has value to an audience is a game that has value to an audience, especially if they are willing to put money on the line for it. So, if Goat Simulator is outselling other games... instead of saying "Goat Simulator is Trash" and shouldn't be selling more than other games... find out WHY Goat Simulator is outselling other games and learn from it. If something is doing better than them, it's doing so for a reason... a game dev or a game does not deserve an audience, and more importantly an income, just because they think they do.

 

[thesheeep]

Blaming Steam for your failure.
Impressive loss of reality sense

 

[Galdred]

Wait, is he announcing that he will stop game development after Longsword Tactics launch? It is sad as the game seemed to have quite a great potential.

Battle Brothers got a lot of flak only for announcing they would stop further development of the game after it was feature complete and more or less bug free.

 

[Space Satan]

 

[Hobo Elf]

Stardrive was shit. That's why he failed.

 

[udm]

Whoa whoa whoa let me get this straight. Stardrive 1 sucked, Stardrive 2 sucked, but it's all Steam's fault because there's no quality assurance cuz of Greenlight and something something Lawbreakers (3000+ Very Positive reviews) failed.....? Eh? This guy's logic...

Wait, is he announcing that he will stop game development after Longsword Tactics launch? It is sad as the game seemed to have quite a great potential.
At 96% positive (of not many reviews, granted), it is like commiting virtual seppuku.

I'll admit the Longsword Tabletop Tactics Kickstarter got me very interested, until I saw the tradable cards and exclusive nonsense, and then all alarms just went off. Too many red flags, and I was right.

 

[JarlFrank]

I torrented StarDrive and liked it but thought it was a little buggy. Thought about buying it on Steam then read all those reviews saying the dev gave up on the game and made a sequel instead of patching... and the sequel is the exact same unfinished thing as the first game.

YEAH I WONDER WHY YOU FAILED YOU FUCKING ADHD DEVELOPER

 

[Azazel]

He's not wrong. Have any of you tried surfing the New or Upcoming release queues on Steam recently? I did. Took me 14 fucking pages before I found a game which wasn't made in RPG Maker, a bunch of Unity assets thrown together, or Porn. Let that sink in.

Remember how the first Video Game Crash happened? That's what Steam is currently incubating.

 

[flyingjohn]

He's not wrong. Have any of you tried surfing the New or Upcoming release queues on Steam recently? I did. Took me 14 fucking pages before I found a game which wasn't made in RPG Maker, a bunch of Unity assets thrown together, or Porn. Let that sink in.

Remember how the first Video Game Crash happened? That's what Steam is currently incubating.

One problem with that is that people have a lot more money now and games are cheaper then ever thanks to bundles.
People will buy your shit game if it has steam cards in the dozens and considering the budget of these games it is enough to make a nice profit.
As for stadrive,shit developer makes 2 mediocre to bad games in a row and then complain he failed because he spend of most of his time playing games instead of fixing issues.
In fact stardrive only had success because it came in the "we want space 4x games" craze that happened a couple of years ago(remember all those other horrible space 4x games like Lords of the black sun,lords of Pegasus,armada,etc)
edit:4x games are only mainstream when it comes to franchises(civilization,paradox).If you are going indie you better make sure you actually have game play mechanics to back up your lack of aaa elements or the games sales are over.

 

[rezaf]

He didn't actually write he failed, though, did he? He wrote "it's been good for me" even.

Particulars aside, I agree with him in principle, these days, finding an interesting game on Steam is kinda like finding a needle in a haystack. So many shovelware titles that should be freeware (and honestly will never make the developer any serious kind of money anyway, having a pricetag just kills their chance to become popular with people that don't want to spend money on such games).
Assetflips, RPG maker games, tons and tons and tons of Early Access titles ranging from 5% finished EA to 90% finished EA, many of which will inevitably end up being abandoned in the end.

However you gain "popularity", you have to do it outside of steam, somehow make it that people can find your gem inside the pile of rubble that is the steam catalogue. Otherwise, your game will sink to the bottom and be forgotten.