Homeworld is a real-time strategy computer game released on September 28, 1999, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment. It was the first fully three-dimensional RTS. The game takes place in outer space where there is no gravity and ships may travel in any direction in the three dimensions. A few elements, such as asteroids, dust clouds and intense radiation may impair ship movements. The player may choose to play as either the Kushan or Taiidan, both online and in the single-player campaign. While each unit serves a particular function and represents a tradeoff in strength, offensive power, speed, and cost, the differences between the two factions are mostly in cosmetic ship design. Parallel ships (e.g. the Kushan Assault Frigate versus the Taiidan Assault Frigate) look different but have identical vital statistics and functionality. However, each race features two unique units: The Kushan possesses Cloaking Fighter and Drone Frigate, while the Taiidan produces Defense Fighter and Defense Field Frigate. Resources are gathered by harvesting dust clouds and mineral-rich asteroids using special resource collector ships. Resource collectors may return their harvest either to a mothership or a resource controller ship. The user interface is minimalistic: The only toolbar appears only when the cursor is moved to the bottom of the screen. Orders such as moving or assuming certain formations are given either from a context menu (invoked by right-click) or via hotkeys. The inclusion of unrestricted unit movement in all three dimensions adds a tactical dynamic not encountered in typical ground based real time strategy games where movement is on a two dimensional plane. Since the area of play is generally void of significant obstacles to create "terrain", there is little emphasis on the control of a certain choke point in order to establish defensive perimeters, although minelayer corvettes can be used to create them. The single-player campaign includes 16 missions, and focuses on a persistent fleet concept: All ships that survive a mission as well as all the resources possessed are carried over to the next. The ultimate goal of the single player mode is to find Hiigara, the homeworld of the Kushan. At the beginning of each mission, as well as the end of the last mission, a cutscene is played that helps develop the story. The cutscenes are black-and-white and hand-drawn. The game story is developed with aid of narrative voiceovers usually given by Fleet Intelligence and Fleet Command both on cutscenes and within missions. In each mission, the player must accomplish a number of primary objectives to end the mission. Once all the objectives are completed, the player is given the option of pressing the Hyperspace Jump button, thus ending the mission by having his fleet travel to the next mission location. The player may postpone this for as long as he wishes. Each mission pits the player against challenges including but not limited to fighting Taiidan empire. For instance in mission six, the Kushan fleet exits hyperspace to discover itself in the middle an asteroid field, some of which are on collision course with the mothership, which is unable to move during the single player campaign. The player may unlock new technology or weapon in each mission, usually earning them as a part of the story. The player may choose to play with Taiidan instead of Kushan, but the story remains unchanged. This thing also has an enormous amount of lore describing the history of your race from the stone age in a separate .PDF that came with the original game mixed with in-character manual.
Interesting stuff. Doesn't seem fully 3D since everything seems to still gravitate (hueh) around a single 2D plane, but kinda cool to see everything at least not chained to it. Kinda interested to see how the lack of cover or choke points would affect multiplayer matches, since it seems like unless you have to cover a wide area to gather resources, it'd be basically about just building the right deathball and 1-a'ing your opponent. Have you dabbled at all in Starcraft BW/2?
Moving up and down is useful since the enemies might attack from any direction, plus dealing with capital ships requires it. None of them can cover 360 degrees, so hitting them from below or above is pretty much obligatory to minimize losses. They can move in 360 though, so it's not an get out of jail free card. Since all progress carries over and resources are scarce, it makes sense to try and keep your people safe as opposed to building a metric crapton of ships and sending them to die. HW: Cataclysm had a better multiplayer than HW. As opposed to having a cap on every separate unit type the spin-off had a fixed cap on crews, which basically made sure the Starcraft-style micromanagement would exist. Different tactics of rushing, stategic economics, timed actions, fun times. I've played the original Starcraft for years, but Blizzard decided to give a subscription for Starcraft 2 exclusively for Russia and also introduce a RF only multiplayer reservations, so I never bought it. I pirated and seed it to this day though. It's a space opera (And Cataclysm spin-off is a horror space opera), watch it for that.
Cool, seems pretty interesting. Relic has a pretty impressive resume of RTS games they've worked on, and they always seem to be trying new things. What in the actual fuck? I had to look this up to make sure you weren't messing with me. That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard; they've put a lot of time and effort into building one of the best trial models I've ever seen, I can't imagine why they'd try and pull that kind of shit. I'd heard that the SC2 scene was decently big in Russia (and there usually seem to be Russian casts of major tournaments), I had no idea you guys had to put up with stuff like that. Definitely think it really sets the bar for quality though, especially in terms of variety and responsiveness. The level of asymmetry is amazing (I groan every time I play an RTS where 90% of the units are shared across the factions with just different names and skins) and the pathfinding is the best I've ever seen. I'm still only a silver league player (Gold in the less competitive 2v2 ladder), but nothing gets my heart pumping like a ladder match. Also has a pretty stellar campaign too. If you're ever looking for more video ideas, the optional objectives on the higher difficulties would give a decent challenge, and the level of depth to the sandbox would give you a lot of room to be creative with things.
That's because the guys who have invested years into this and play professionally have no choice and they can afford it.
Part 4: Great Wastelands Sexiest spaceships are now under Kushan command. The entire thing is built around a giant beam weapon. We also meet the Space Jews. [YOUTUBE]76v1a3XIHIA[/YOUTUBE] Spoiler
Part 6: Diamond Shoals Aw, we've come out of hyperspace into a meteor shower. Some kind of asteroid collision. It's not on any of the charts. Our position is correct, except... no Alderaan! [YOUTUBE]k0MJ7x5ZDKA[/YOUTUBE]
Part 7: The Gardens of Kadesh While hiding from the Taiidani Empire we meet mental door to door gun toting Jehovah's Witnesses. [YOUTUBE]DQ6wWdPqf7Q[/YOUTUBE]
