Lords of the Black Sun

[Rayfer]

Saw this one sale today on Steam for $16.74, 33% off. Searched here and found a thread for Star Ruler 2 which mentions this game, maybe a sequel, I wasn't sure.  Any comments on this space empire building game.? Appears to be an early access game.

[JasonPratt]

Early access game is early access.

Tautological, yes, but true.

(Actually I just said that to register for comment tracking, in case other people had experience with it...  ;D )

[steve58]

This was originally early-released as Star Lords.

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=8316.msg207318#msg207318

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=9937.msg251949#msg251949

...can't believe that was a year ago already.  I picked it back then, but haven't checked it out for quite a while...

[Rayfer]

Early access game is early access.

Tautological, yes, but true.

(Actually I just said that to register for comment tracking, in case other people had experience with it...  ;D )

Only here would I see the word 'tautological' used and used correctly...!  Well done.

[Martok]

From everything I've heard & read so far, I would say wait.  Even by the standards of being in an alpha/beta state, it's apparently a bit underdone at the moment. 

[Staggerwing]

This was originally early-released as Star Lords.

Does it have talking racoons?

[JasonPratt]

Green-skinned athletic space-girls? 

[Martok]

Looks like the game is now available via Early Access.  There's also a launch trailer. 

[tgb]

Looks like the game is now available via Early Access.  There's also a launch trailer. 

Actually it's out of Early Access and officially released, but by all accounts it's nowhere near ready. This is the game that used to be called Star Lords.

[RedArgo]

I never even got a chance to play the last beta release which was only a week or two ago and they still had quite a list to work on.  This doesn't instill me with confidence, but we'll see.

[Martok]

Ouchie!  SpaceSector has their review up...and it's bad.  Very, very bad. 

Overall, the game is a fundamentally flawed. The problem lies in that the game tried to cater for too many of the elements one can expect in a high-budget game but offering each of these mechanics in a very shallow manner. Combat is simple but the AI and elements of the combat system ensure the system does not offer a fully satisfying experience. This is compounded by a shallow ship customizer that seems to only exist to say there is a ship customizer.

The AI in diplomacy and empire management means the AI can easily be tricked even at the higher difficulties or be exploited easily. Opaque game mechanics that are either poorly explained or operate in a way that is counter intuitive, straight-forward colonisation that does not require any 'tough' choices to be made, and pigeonholing the player to play with a single strategy add to the list problems with the game. The game feels incomplete or that each feature was only implemented so that the feature was there.

Furthermore, the numerous technical issues make it hard to recommend the game even as an experiment. It is one of the failings of the game that is harder to forgive.

That makes me sad, although not terribly surprised -- most comments I've been hearing about LotBS the last month or two have been very "meh" at best, if not outright negative.  I was never particularly excited by (or anticipating) this game, but I'm still dismayed by how poor it's apparently turned out to be. 



What has happened to the space 4x genre lately??  Distant Worlds seems to be the one of the only bright spots at the moment.  Otherwise, it seems like the vast majority of offerings from the last couple years are mediocre at best -- or, if they do turn out decent after numerous patches/updates, were utter disasters (or at least extremely anemic) at release. 

(C'mon, Stardrive II...) 

[tgb]

What has happened to the space 4x genre lately??  Distant Worlds seems to be the one of the only bright spots at the moment.  Otherwise, it seems like the vast majority of offerings from the last couple years are mediocre at best -- or, if they do turn out decent after numerous patches/updates, were utter disasters (or at least extremely anemic) at release. 

Sturgeon's Law applies as much here as everywhere else.

(Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.)

[Staggerwing]

Sturgeon's Law applies as much here as everywhere else.

(Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.)

Whomever this 'Sturgeon' fellow is, his take on things reminds me of that of the famous writer Kilgore Trout.  ;)

[Tpek]

^
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilgore_Trout

Same guy more or less :P

[Staggerwing]

Same guy more or less :P

Yes. Next time I'll use the [humor][/humor] tags. ;)