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Pretty excited for this as it's one of my favorite franchises. Haven't heard much about what the story entails but I think we can all assume it'll involve some truly epic space fights.
Shadowkeepers (4000 points)
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The date on the Amazon website is extremely far into the future, and also on a Friday. That makes me suspect that the date isn't an actual one, but is instead a date arbitrarily picked by Amazon so that they'd have something in their computers for a release date.
Yeah, it's been a long time. Just over eleven months. But I'm reviving this thread anyway, because this is the HW 3 thread, and I think this will be of interest.
Here's the video trailer for War Games mode. It's a rogue-like mode, and you can play it in co-op.
It looks like they're not implementing the old art style for cut scenes.
Gearbox appears to be making a major publicity push right now, as I've been seeing all sorts of Homeworld 3 videos turn up on YouTube from various individuals. For example, video channel 'The Templin Institute', which does videos on elements of alternate worlds (usually, though not always, science fiction - there's one for the movie 'The Patriot', of all things) has just started a video series called 'The Ships of Homeworld 3'. While I haven't watched the video, the title makes me suspect that Gearbox has given the channel an advance look at the ships in the game. There's at least one video on YouTube of someone playing the War Games mode I mentioned in my previous post.
With the announced release date of February 2024 six months away, it looks like Gearbox is starting up the publicity machine.
Kind of sad that they dropped a lot of the old styling in some ways as that was very much part of what made Homeworld, Homeworld.
I also still feel like the most faithful sequel to the original game we ever got was Cataclysm. HW2 went off on a strange religious angle that felt like it was missing a chunk of story at the start whilst HW3 is going for "you are 100% humans" whilst the original HW1 was more grey on that front and Cataclysm kind of hinted you were humanoid but not human.
That said I'm keen to get back to space, esp since there really aren't any other big games like this outside of games like the X series where its more FPS with some RTS on the side and such.
So yeah gotta spend the next few months avoiding too much preview info so I can get in fresh.
Kinda amazing that are getting HW3 - I just hope it takes after BG3 and not Dawn of War 3 in terms of "actually awesome"
Overread wrote: HW3 is going for "you are 100% humans" whilst the original HW1 was more grey on that front and Cataclysm kind of hinted you were humanoid but not human.
I have a vague recollection that you got enough of a look at Karan S'Jet's profile in the original to suggest that she was probably human, though it's been a while and I don't remember for certain. Deserts of Kharak definitely removed any doubt, though. Also, the mobile game - which I suspect Gearbox is keeping at least a loose eye on - makes it clear that both the Higarans and Vargyr are human. The leader of one of the races appears without a helmet (iirc, the only unhelmeted local we've met so far), and appears to be human. The implication appears to be that everyone's human - even, presumably, the Bentusi forebears before they went nuts with the cybernetics.
And keep in mind that the mobile game is set in a distant galaxy...
Seems pretty good considering the game was designed, what? During the end of the 2000 nvidia series/beginning of the 3000? I'm pretty excited that I can run it on nearly max settings judging by what the requirements are saying.
Spoilered the infographic because it's enormous.
Spoiler:
Shadowkeepers (4000 points)
3rd Company (3000 points)
I'm on the low-medium end with my 2060, but that should still look plenty nice and chances are if I shut down a few things like shadows I can push a few other resolutions into the high setting and have it look good.
So very early thoughts after messing with the demo a tiny tiny bit.
Hud feels a little - cluttered. I'm not saying there's not important information there, but the icons are pretty big and it gets full of info bits here and there fairly fast. I think it feels more cluttered than standard RTS because they've got hud elements on all 3 sides of the screen. So you've got a top bar; a left and a right side bar. So instead of one bar you've got 3 cluttering in.
Combat and effects look great and its running pretty smooth even though I'm only using a RTX 2060
I'm running the camera in classic and it feels very similar to other Homeworld games. The maps using more 3D terrain features I think will take some getting used too and they are making a lot more use of 3D movement and attacks from different angles which can be a bit fiddly/confusing at first but I think it should prove to be a positive.
Overall it feels very classic homeworld and very true to the first 2 games, with some general fluid elements from years of advancing interfaces and so forth
Ships look great and explosions are pretty!
I might say that one negative is that it feels faster. That is damage and battles seem to be over in a flash of action whilst my recollections of earlier games were that fights were slower. This might just mean that they've got high damage settings. This likely leans into them wanting to have fast multiplayer matches one after the other with the game mode that's being shown off in the demo. So instead of slower damage taking we see super fast blazing fights.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/02/06 14:13:03
The game is available as pre-release for those who bought the most expensive editions (the Fleet Command digital, and the physical edition with the plastic mothership). So people are playing now. Reviews on YouTube seem to be positive, based on the titles (I haven't watched any). The game goes live for everyone else early this coming week.
I'm trapped in apprehensive mode. 3 is not a kind number to sequels (Sacred, Torchlight, Dawn of War 3 were all terrible releases compared to their previous versions).
Of course alongside that we've got Witcher 3, Baldurs Gate 3 which are totally opposite and absolute winners.
There's also the generally disastrous state of big game releases this year.
However, as I noted above there are a number of video reviews of the game already. So you are able to make something of an informed decision right now.
The game's demo was so poorly made it has severely dampened my enthusiasm. I will wait for at least a week after release before diving in, and only if I see nothing but positive.
SgtBANZAI wrote: The game's demo was so poorly made it has severely dampened my enthusiasm. I will wait for at least a week after release before diving in, and only if I see nothing but positive.
I think one core problem is they clearly wanted to go after the online moba/starcraft coop game formats with their demo. The problem is for most big fans of Homeworld and RTS games those are NOT the modes that attract them to the games. They are also not the standard RTS experience. If Bliz had tried selling SC2 on its coop game mode chances are people would have hated it too.
It's just a very different experience.
Couple that to general "new game errors" and issues that can arise and you've a fleet of problems that compound each other.
Right now I'm also not impressed with their CGI 3D animations in cinematics that are hitting youtube right now. They feel stiff and like "this is my first 3D" not the kind you'd expect from a big Homeworld title - and honestly a step back considering how their artistic sketched style looked .
The general fanbase reaction seems to be leaning cautiously positive with multiple asterisks to overwhelmingly negative from my experience. I am not going to grab it on release it seems.
Yeah, I was glancing at posts in the Steam forum, and they didn't look good. One player even put up a list of 12 issues with the game, ranging from"the campaign story is cringe" to "destroyers don't have a point".
Not encouraging. I'm feeling "wait and see" might be best.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/05/13 15:00:16
There's certainly a good chunk of "this could be awesome if" going around rather than "OMG this blew my socks off".
Now "This could be awesome if" can be good if the firm behind it supports it and focuses on user feedback well.
Honestly as a big Homeworld fan (it was one of my early games and the first was a blow-your-socks off amazing game even just 3 missions in!) I'm likely going to jump as soon as it goes live so long as it doesn't hit bright red reviews on steam in the first hour or two.
Though its got stiff competition because for the price I could also jump into BG3 (which seems to be fighting for game of the decade) or Horizon Forbidden West
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Eumerin wrote: Yeah, I was glancing at posts in the Steam forum, and they didn't look good. One player even put up a list of 12 issues with the game, ranging from"the campaign story is cringe" to "destroyers don't have a point".
Not encouraging. I'm feeling "wait and see" might be best.
I've noticed a lack of moderation from steam and developers for several years has -- -degraded the quality of steam forums. There's a LOT of posts these days that feel like they are made purely with a negative agenda from the outset rather than honest impressions of a game. The groups that are moderate tend to be a lot better, but some are wild-west situations where it seems everyone is more firing from the hip negativity.
Which isn't saying homeworld 3 doesn't have problems (heck I highlighted a good few playing the demo they did)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/05/13 15:02:28
Eumerin wrote: Yeah, I was glancing at posts in the Steam forum, and they didn't look good. One player even put up a list of 12 issues with the game, ranging from"the campaign story is cringe" to "destroyers don't have a point".
Not encouraging. I'm feeling "wait and see" might be best.
Unless it's misinformation, having only six maps for the multiplayer is completely bloody insane.
Eumerin wrote: Yeah, I was glancing at posts in the Steam forum, and they didn't look good. One player even put up a list of 12 issues with the game, ranging from"the campaign story is cringe" to "destroyers don't have a point".
Not encouraging. I'm feeling "wait and see" might be best.
Unless it's misinformation, having only six maps for the multiplayer is completely bloody insane.
It's cause they've put more maps into the Wargame multiplayer mode instead of the skirmish.
You can 100% see that Wargame mode has been a big focus of the design team rather than traditional skirmish/campaign work.
I've noticed a lack of moderation from steam and developers for several years has -- -degraded the quality of steam forums
Complaints about the campaign story seem pretty common on the Steam forum. There does seem to be a lot of agreement from different people that it"s "cringe". I've also seen complaints about the antagonists. Some people rate the story as about the same quality as that of HW2, while others are saying it's worse. Everyone seems to agree that the original's story was better. Also, the comments are that the story starts strong, but starts to slide in quality around mission 6 or 7.
There have been some posts from people who liked the story, but they're in the minority.
I haven't seen comparisons to Deserts, which I find surprising.
Deserts was a really niche title and also kind of a side-title. I think a lot of casual fans just don't know about it and a lot of die-hard fans treat the story in it as a kind of "what if" situation because huge landcruisers and such was kind of not a thing in the original story lore (from what I recall).
Honestly story wise Homeworld 2 already kind of messed the setting up going heavy on the religious parts and also having very little setup.
The "cringe" parts are a mess because these days any game with a female protagonist gets a bunch of anti-work commentary flooding their steam forum comment always complaining about it and it kind of makes it hard to sift the actual fan commentary from the agenda stuff.
I think universally there's a lot of "its really short" feeling going around which is a huge shame considering how impressive in challenge and length both original games had for story.
Honestly I'd have been shocked if the could have surpassed the original story, but at the same time I feel like we are in a bad spot right now (and have been for a long time) where level design in RTS games and story telling are really not coming together like they did in the 90s.
Personally I think its because levels are being made around unit unlocks and mechanics first with the story then being tacked onto those; rather than a story which has missions designed around it. There's also much more of a "campaign is tutorial" approach where hand-holding, simple objectives and often "new unit/feature is the way you win this mission" approaches that kind of dilutes a lot of RTS campaigns.
And this is something I've felt even in the Starcraft 2 campaigns which were really big (though there I'd also say its just the influence of an mmo team building an rts experience)
The comments I've read on the Steam forum seemed to agree that the first few missions were solid, and the problems with the story didn't start to become apparent until later on. So I would suspect that the protagonist isn't why the story is being called "cringe". But I haven't played it myself (or watched cutscene videos), so I don't know for sure.
I did see some comments about the campaign being short. Only having 13 levels was mentioned as a complaint. But the original only has three more (with 16), so I'm not sure that "only 13 levels" is the issue.
Is anyone planning on getting it, or have you already picked it up? I'd like to hear from someone here.
Shadowkeepers (4000 points)
3rd Company (3000 points) 
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
I look forward to game rips being released for 3D printing 
