Homeworld returns (with gearbox)

Level1Techs INBOX.deb
1

I am unsure whether you have heard about this yet or not, but Gearbox acquired the rights to the Homeworld game series when THQ's assets were auctioned off. 

I understand from one of your older videos that you have played this game before (you described it as something like "controlling ships inside a blue bubble").

So, my question is: Are you happy to see it return or are you not bothered?

 

I couldn't find their original post on the Gearbox website, but this is their most recent one: http://www.gearboxsoftware.com/community/articles/1138/homeworld-remastered-collection-site-and-survey

2

Cool! I loved that game. It was my first modding xp. Look forward to playing it again with better graphics.

3

Older than the Earth news.

I am ok with them re-releasing HD versions.

However from the point of view of making new games:

1. Gearbox should stick to what it knows rather than defiling games it didn't pour its heart into making and has no way of understanding.

2. What makes Homeworld is the artwork, the design, the oriental/middle eastern soundtrack and ambient properly implemented, the story, the difficulty. All of these require the original artists and can't be replicated. If Gearbox tried to copy paste them, it would do so mindlessly and they would never truly fit together because replication isn't equivalent to careful passionate and intuitive balancing and seamless symbiosis. It doesn't have a soul without its original artists who know how it should FEEL and how it should FIT together. It would be like having the final Lord of the Rings movie given to Michael Bay to defile.

3. If Gearbox wants to make a Homeworld like game, make a new game/brand, don't defile the Homeworld name and the legacy of its creators.

4. The idea, as proposed in Gearbox forums, of porting Homeworld to tablets or consoles, would demand dumbing down gampleay and defiling the game. The response time decrease by reducing commands to menus or "hold buttons" to compensate for the lack of keyboard would make an atrocity, and if in turn this reflected on the PC version, i would kill someone.

5. If they are really poised to make a Homeworld game, do it with the original developers at the helm and Gearbox teams as mere helpers. A collaborative project where original artists command and don't make it without the original designers and the soundtrack guy (who incidentally worked the Strike Suit Zero soundtrack).

6. The prospect of Gearbox infusing memes and references into a Homeworld game, a fear i justly hold, makes me want to strangle someone as that is the douchest most tasteless crap Gearbox does and i don't wish to even consider it.

7. The idea of a Homeworld based FPS, as proposed in the Gearbox forums is pure blight. Wider audience bull kills, corrupts and plagues.

 

All in all, Homeworld is my most favorite games series of all time and if i see it defiled by Gearbox, i shall seek them all, i shall kill them all, i will have no mercy for their souls. Red Alert 3 was already too much of an insult, this one however would be worthy of blood shed.

4

I know it's older-than-earth news. But I only recently remembered that Logan mentioned it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfPmCQvrfsk

That's where he mentioned it.

5

This reminds me, gotta replay Descent again. Along with TIE Fighter i spent almost an equal time on Descent.

6

I remember the old dos star wars games, I lost the discs in my childhood but when I had them, they were amazing.

 

This is why we need old games on GOG and steam. Unfortunately most of them can only be obtained through torrents nowadays.

7

Yes, they could very well screw it up.Hope they dont screw up the controls or dumb it down to today levels. Or even worst free to play , mmo model with pay to win. I shall be angry.

8

mmm, I should see if i can get my homeworld to work in win 8.1.

9

My homeworld works perfectly in win7 and I even got homeworld Cataclysm to work (that was a bugger with incompatability)

10

Yes, it works. Needs alittle resolution tinkering. Woot

11

I never got my homeworld to work at 1920x1080.

It's just too stubborn.

12

 It goes as high as 1280 by 1024 32 bit. I remember i didnt have the gear for that. lol

 

13

Good to know I will have to try to get this working. I had Homeworld 2 working with Windows 7, but I can't get it to work with Win 8.1 for some reason.

Also, they are making a game that is supposed to be a spiritual successor to Homeworld called Homeworld Shipbreakers:

http://blackbirdinteractive.com/games/

I hope it turns out well.

14

Oh God, not MMO. Don't even say that.

Warcraft was ruined for me and i shit on Blizzard to this day for not continuing the Warcraft lore by continuing the single player RTS series and telling the story through it, while keeping MMO separate. Players creating story through MMO could have been incorporated into future RTS Warcraft games as "Lore Books" within the game, and influence from the MMO applied (intelligently of course) onto the main storyline that would be mainly told and advanced through the RTS SP campaign.

Of course there is also the deal with Blizzard sacking the original writer(s) and screwing up on that account, similar to how Bethesda screwed up with Skyrim and put up simpletons and morons to write it, rather than finding one of the hundreds autists out there who know Elder Scrolls lore to the deepest detail, to the point of studying metaphysics for the CHIM aspect of ES.

Sigh.

15

Blackbird Interactive are most of the original Homeworld staff. I have long ago learned to disregard brand loyalty and focus on credits and individuals who make them up. So there is some hope there. I hope they get a hold on Paul Ruskay for the soundtrack.

That's what saved me from wasting money on Bioware once it turned EAware as most original talent were sacked or moved, and what made obvious the reckoning that Mass Effect's potential would never be attained considering the more and more awful sequels whereby only about a quarter of the original staff that worked on ME1 remained on ME3 (as can be seen in credits comparisons). Even the main writers, which explains why Mass Effect 3 felt like it was written by someone who didn't write the 1st one and thus had no recollection of most of it, let alone a laid plan on how the Universe would unfold down to the last detail.

I would love to see Logan make a vid talking about this exact topic in regard to names of individuals being more important than brands as they ARE the brand.

The Jason Rubin 2004 D.I.C.E. talk was probably one of the most important talks (and premonitions that would come true - i'm looking at you EA) in gaming history. It should be viewed by every gamer that exists, full stop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhmYENdFZc8

16

I love soundtrack or what i refer to as enviromentals. It very much made you feel like your the hunted refugee in search of a new home. To me, its a work of art.

17

Yep, i just watched the vids on youtube and confirmed that Paul is their composer again.

This game is i believe an extension of the original plans they had for Homeworld 2.

Originally, as was portrayed via documents that are now lost to me (as their link in the wikis and Relic related forums are dead), Homeworld 2 was supposed to be almost 3 times bigger than the HW2 that was released, it should have sported the capability to build defenses, structures and units on the giant hulk structures in addition to your Homeworld space warfare. It also was originally planned to have a Vaygr campaign as well as the Hiigara defense force perspective (all of which would have resolved the writing issues with HW2).

I'm guessing this game is kind of them getting rid of a remorse if you consider it is on the ground.