My honest take, regarding Creeper World 3, and a suggestion

[sabinou]

Hi guys, I'm posting here, hoping my reaction will reach the right ears :)
(And I don't want to sound like I'm bitching for the fun of it, please, take it as constructive criticism ! Sometimes, critics are harder to tell than praise, and may be more useful, I believe)

I've had tons of fun playing Creeper World 3, and I know I'll waste additional hundreds of hours on it, no doubt.

I enjoy a lot the "variability" of the gameplay, the various ways in which we can win a map, the possible strategies. I also love trying to beat the high scores or at least making it to the ten twenty (it's been a week my time in Aether, Alpha zone VirgilW sector, is unbeaten, woohoo ! ^^).

And yet, I still can't help feel some disappointment, because of the main story arc.
In short ? It was too short, precisely :D

The story is very ambitious, and it was interesting, but I feel it really should have lasted much, MUCH longer.

Spoilers follow, watch out.

Scenario-wise, we could have had some additional worlds with more revelations regarding the past of mankind, practically anything in it would have been interesting.
There was no need to rush so much to reach the ending at the speed of light.

Gameplay-wise, there were extremely exciting possibilities that were only exploited once, what a waste ! For instance, how about 2, 3 or 4 worlds in which the gameplay is based on temples providing unexpected actions, instead of just two (or even, just one, I didn't feel the simple emission of anticreeper once we blew an emetter a really alternative gameplay trick.) How about more worlds in which shields are an obligation because of unexpected creeper coming out of nowhere, cutting the communication lines and forcing us to resort to mobile units a lot more ? How about more worlds in which creeper seeps in from both sides of the map ? With just one occurence of each, this doesn't feel like a finished commercial game, this looks like a technical demonstration of what can be done.

Also, how about choosing paths, a short difficult path leading to a solar system with only x planets, or another easier solar system with twice more planets, and different scenario revelations in either of them, so that we'd have to play the game twice to get them all ?
Or offer additional "branching" if we finish the earlier maps with weapons/tools that weren't available at first.

Sure, there is the alpha zone and the prospector zone.
I almost finished the VirgilW system in the alpha zone, and the prospector zone looks, what, pointless, strolling in there with no sense of purpose, and without being given directions at all (in this, I think the game is lacking, how many customers will have completely missed the whole point of the artifacts : the vast majority of them.)
Sure, there are custom maps, but in a game I like to be "taken by the hand" and led to more gaming, I don't want to wander randomly and see if my time was worth it. I want to compete against hundreds of persons in the time rankings, not just against a dozen sleepless pro-gamers I can't hope to beat (lol). I can't be the only one in that situation.

For all these reasons, I'd really like to suggest the creation of a sort of "expansion pack" for Creeper World 3, with a new "story" to play. I think it would be definitely worth it :)

[Grabarz19]

Just wait for Custom Maps to be released, and I'm sure there will be some people who will dedicate their time to making their own campaigns, now powered by the mighty CRPL which in the right hands will lead to amazing maps.

[knucracker]

Explore more of the Alpha sector as well.... there are over 100 custom maps there already.  The virgilw system is just the starting point :)

And yes, custom maps will really exploit and expand on many (all) of the themes explored in the story arc.  There will be lots of missions like the Credits, I'm sure.  Or like Farbor, or Meso (everybody loves Meso I think).  CW1 has over 6000 maps at this point.  I bet CW3 will climb past 10000 in time.

But I understand how you feel about a scripted 'official' story.  I like 'em too.  They are expensive and time consuming to create, but if CW3 keeps going the way it currently is, I may just invest in a story expansion pack....

[sabinou]

Or, Virgil, would you allow the creation, not just of maps, but of scripts too ? Meaning, not just one map, but one storyline and all ? Unless that's already possible and the news didn't reach my ears :)

[koker93]

For me Creeper world caught my attention with the story maps (Im talking CW1.)  The story was fun, challenging at times, and vastly different from any other strategy game I'd played up to that point.  I didn't get too deeply into custom maps in CW1.  Then came CW2, and again the story worlds were great.  But now I already knew how to play from my experience in CW1, so CW2 was a little easier.  Again the story worlds were great, but then I found the custom worlds.  I've never liked random maps, but the custom maps from the community were often puzzles, or patterns, which I really enjoy.  CW3 is destined to have a really awesome set of custom maps.  Some of the alpha maps are a lot of fun, and those were often created quickly to test game functions - Imagine when the map makers in the beta group start really cranking out finished maps because they aren't spending time testing the game looking for bugs!

I guess in short I'm saying that there are at least as many really great custom maps in CW2 as there are story worlds (actually a lot more,) so the game will expand a LOT the day Virgil turns on the custom map sector.

[Grauniad]

Or, Virgil, would you allow the creation, not just of maps, but of scripts too ? Meaning, not just one map, but one storyline and all ? Unless that's already possible and the news didn't reach my ears :)

Consider the news just reaching your eyes, right now, as you read this. :) If you need it to reach your ears, please ask someone to read this to you. :)

[Hairball]

Explore more of the Alpha sector as well.... there are over 100 custom maps there already.  The virgilw system is just the starting point :)

And yes, custom maps will really exploit and expand on many (all) of the themes explored in the story arc.  There will be lots of missions like the Credits, I'm sure.  Or like Farbor, or Meso (everybody loves Meso I think).  CW1 has over 6000 maps at this point.  I bet CW3 will climb past 10000 in time.

But I understand how you feel about a scripted 'official' story.  I like 'em too.  They are expensive and time consuming to create, but if CW3 keeps going the way it currently is, I may just invest in a story expansion pack....

I would pay another $15 just for that. 

I love the games (all three) but I need there to be a compelling reason to go from one map to the next -- I'm not motivated by high scores or just "I won that one" (though I AM enjoying the crazy challenges in the Tormented space).  I need a plot. 

CW1 had several map series done by the fans and I played all that I could find (though it's really hard to find them on the website). 

I love the things you can do with CRPL though.  I have played around with a little of it myself just for fun.  I see TONS of potential there.  It's going to be amazing! 

[sabinou]

Great then, I'll be looking forward to it :)

Another suggestion maybe, could it be possible to view online scores within the internet browser, and not just after launching the game and moving our ship to the proper stellar system ?

Besides, as I grow competitive over the years, I'd dream of seeing a "global ranking" feature, telling us, after a username search, our stats in each of the maps we submitted our score : time, score, and what is our ranking in each of the maps. I could even fancy an "alert by email" feature if someone steals our #1 spot, if we fall below positions 10, 20, 50... That would make the game even MOAR addictive, and would open even worst (worst as : more customers, less social life for them, lol) perspectives for the distant future in which there will be, hopefully, a Creeper World 4, the customer base would remain more loyal, wouldn't have forgotten the game ;)

[NNR_Alex]

Personally what I'd like to see, if you do add an expansion, would be a separate story from Abraxis's own.

The story we are given follows our familiar commander as he takes the reigns once more against the creeper, realizes his true purpose (regardless of which ending you chose, more on that in a moment.) and then that's it.  He goes off to do his own thing.  What about the rest of humanity?  It was nice playing as the commander again, but through the whole game we're pretty much beaten over the head with 'everything is gone and dead'.

I think doing another story for another set of survivors that are off the radar to even Abraxis and 'Lia' as they fight to find a place to rebuild their empire would be a good way of adding a beacon of hope for the end of the game.  Or hell continue the 'Abraxis' ending and what he does after the main ending to show how humanity's going to make a comeback this time.  Yeah I know we can make those maps ourselves but that's fan writing, I'd like something more official.

As for the ending we got, I have to ask you Virgil, were you inspired by Bioshock Infinite at all?  I noticed some similarities between that game's ending and this one.

[knucracker]

I've not actually played any of the Bioshock games.  If there are similarities in the endings, it is probably because we both share common ancestry with some well traveled scifi themes...

[Karsten75]

I just have to ask the OP: Do you perhaps also have a dishonest take on CW3? :P

[sabinou]

I just have to ask the OP: Do you perhaps also have a dishonest take on CW3? :P

I could have had a dishonest take, yeah, if I had been an hypocrite and only told that I had not been disappointed ;)

[mrstarware]

I'm still trying to figure out what happened?? The following contains last level spoilers.

Spoiler

So abraxis is Platius, Aliana is still alive. They're both not human... What are they? Loki?
They gain the arc (or not in the other ending), then go back in time to??? do what?
What's the odin artifacts for? Where did the thor come from?? And what's Aliana been doing for 10 billion years?  :o

[close]

I feel like the ending didn't do it for me.... Was the

Spoiler

One where the loki win explain some of this?

[close]

[thejoe66]

Hold it you might invest in a story pack I would love to see that. Also loved that you used the word expansion instead of DLC. You diverse a cookie

[Martoon]

Explore more of the Alpha sector as well.... there are over 100 custom maps there already.  The virgilw system is just the starting point :)

Holy poodle, I didn't even realize that! I finished the virgilw system right after the story missions, and assumed that was it. Somehow it never occurred to me to click the star and go out to the star map (even though it's identical to the navigation system in story, Tormented Space, and Prospector Zone). I don't know how I missed that.

Well, I'm off to play a bunch of Alpha Sector maps. ;)