Imperial_Heron wrote:

Also, I have a really cool feature for Endless Space 3 in the works. 

What if quests were less like boring events and more like HOI4 focus trees?

For example, the Vodyani could have a religious path where they continue to worship the Endless and they would eventually get the ability to revive every single Endless Spirit and incorporate them into their bodies similar to how Vodyani Heroes do it. Then we could have another religious branch where slowly but surely due to incompetent leadership on Isyara St Shaiad's part and the fact that they find out about how the Church has been controlling them, the people lose faith in the Endless and Isyara, and a second schism breaks out between the loyalist forces and the traitors supported by Isyander, you will get to choose which side you want to support. if the traitors win then Isyara and the Church of the Virtual Saints will be overthrown and replaced by Isyander and his Academy, the Vodyani will have a new technology that will unlock an improvement that will help revive the Lost, these improvements can be created using dust and the first one will be very expensive, slowly as you build more of these improvements, they will get easier to build and provide plenty of buffs to your empire. If you build a certain number of these improvements then you'll be able to revive the Lost which will give you massive bonuses and make you almost unstoppable.

-Militarist branch; the Militarist Branch will be triggered if you choose the loyalist side of the civil war. If you manage to win the civil war then Isyara and the Church of the Virtual Saints will be restored to power and what will follow will be a great purge where anyone with loyalist sympathies will be promptly executed. With the end of this devastating war, the Vodyani Church will adopt a more puritanical view of their religion and bitter from losing multiple wars will go down a more fascist path. As you descend further down the quest you will begin to discover a way to revive the Endless at the expense of the galaxy, you will unlock new ways to gather essence by means of destroying star systems and harvesting everything in them for essence to help you, the more essence you'll gain the more powerful you shall grow and this need for more essence will drive you to declare war on your neighbors, eventually, you will unlock the law "Endless Crusade" which when put in place cannot be undone, it will automatically make you at war with every other civilization in the galaxy, but you will get great buffs similar to what the Cravers get but a little bit better. If you succeed in your conquest and every Civilization capitulates, then every single star system other than your home system will be destroyed, the Virtuals will be revived on your home system giving you a Supremacy Victory. (Btw, the Militarist and Isyander branches can be unlocked if the Vodyani lose a war.)

-Scientific Branch: This branch will require you to have the hero Klev St Seiotia in order to unlock it. In the beginning, you will be tasked with sending Klev St Seiotia on her hero ship to discover new anomalies that can only be discovered by her. Some of the anomalies will be priceless virtual blueprints that indicate great artifacts lay hidden in the universe, some other anomalies will increase the presence of your Science Political Party since people will begin to see Klev St Seiotia as the Virtuals chosen, eventually, Klev St Seiotia will go toe to toe against Isyara St Shaiad herself. If Klev St Seiotia wins, then Isyara will no longer be the leader and Klev will take her place. If Isyara wins then you continue the Religious Endless Branch. So with Klev as your leader, you will continue to unlock more virtual maps that will slowly lead you to discover artifacts of the Endless that can be activated by spending Essence, these artifacts will give you great FIDSI buffs but they can only be activated if they are in your star systems. However, eventually, once you have possession of all of them, you will be able to activate them all for a lot of Essence, if you do this then you will automatically trigger a new Endless Age and you will be able to research the technology needed to achieve a Science victory. It will take 25 turns and all other factions will be notified of this, they have a choice to declare war on you and try to take the systems which have artifacts, if even one system that has artifacts on it gets taken then you will not be able to research the technology needed and you will not be able to activate all the artifacts at the same time ever again. The more people who declare war on you, the more buffs you'll receive so the galaxy will really have to work together to stop you. If you succeed then you win a Scientific Victory and become the new Endless.

-Ecologist Branch: This branch will require you to have the hero "Enav St Lyeaor". In the beginning, you will need to send Enav St Lyeaor to explore systems and find special anomalies containing Virtual Texts to back up the Church's claim that the Vodyani are superior to all other forms of life in the galaxy. After many turns of searching, Enav St Lyeaor instead finds proof of quite the opposite, he finds proof of quite the opposite. He finds proof of the Virtuals living side by side with lifeforms the Vodyani would consider lesser. After returning home, Enav slowly begins to preach teachings that are contrary to that of the Church. That all life are equals in the eyes of the Endless and no lifeform is above another, and since the Church has zero control over Enav St Lyeaor, they are unable to stop his heresy. Eventually a full-blown war occurs between Enav and his followers against the Church, if the Church succeeds then you continue the religious Endless branch, but if you succeed you continue to go down the Ecologist Path and Enav St Lyeaor becomes your new leader. Eventually, you will be faced with a choice, you can either choose to return to the former bodies the Vodyani once inhabited with your innate understanding of biology, or you can keep your mechanical forms. If you choose to return to your old form then your population type will change to "Biological Vodyani" who have more of an emphasis on Ecology and food then Religion and what not. These pops will have +50% growth and + 12 food which will make them very good at populating systems. You will unlock an improvement that will be hard to build but once built all you'll have to do is populate the system with 5 different species and you'll get huge buffs to the system, meanwhile if you choose to keep your forms you will become protectors of the galaxy and you will generate tons of influence from special laws that can be passed, the more acts you do that preserve the galaxy then the more influence you earn. You'll become the galactic police!

That would be a bit too complex for this type of game, and may require Amplitude to delve into a near completely different genre, but I would love to see a Endless themed mod for hoi4.

Imperial_Heron wrote:

DragonGaming wrote:

Imperial_Heron wrote:

Also, I have a really cool feature for Endless Space 3 in the works. 

What if quests were less like boring events and more like HOI4 focus trees?

For example, the Vodyani could have a religious path where they continue to worship the Endless and they would eventually get the ability to revive every single Endless Spirit and incorporate them into their bodies similar to how Vodyani Heroes do it. Then we could have another religious branch where slowly but surely due to incompetent leadership on Isyara St Shaiad's part and the fact that they find out about how the Church has been controlling them, the people lose faith in the Endless and Isyara, and a second schism breaks out between the loyalist forces and the traitors supported by Isyander, you will get to choose which side you want to support. if the traitors win then Isyara and the Church of the Virtual Saints will be overthrown and replaced by Isyander and his Academy, the Vodyani will have a new technology that will unlock an improvement that will help revive the Lost, these improvements can be created using dust and the first one will be very expensive, slowly as you build more of these improvements, they will get easier to build and provide plenty of buffs to your empire. If you build a certain number of these improvements then you'll be able to revive the Lost which will give you massive bonuses and make you almost unstoppable.

-Militarist branch; the Militarist Branch will be triggered if you choose the loyalist side of the civil war. If you manage to win the civil war then Isyara and the Church of the Virtual Saints will be restored to power and what will follow will be a great purge where anyone with loyalist sympathies will be promptly executed. With the end of this devastating war, the Vodyani Church will adopt a more puritanical view of their religion and bitter from losing multiple wars will go down a more fascist path. As you descend further down the quest you will begin to discover a way to revive the Endless at the expense of the galaxy, you will unlock new ways to gather essence by means of destroying star systems and harvesting everything in them for essence to help you, the more essence you'll gain the more powerful you shall grow and this need for more essence will drive you to declare war on your neighbors, eventually, you will unlock the law "Endless Crusade" which when put in place cannot be undone, it will automatically make you at war with every other civilization in the galaxy, but you will get great buffs similar to what the Cravers get but a little bit better. If you succeed in your conquest and every Civilization capitulates, then every single star system other than your home system will be destroyed, the Virtuals will be revived on your home system giving you a Supremacy Victory. (Btw, the Militarist and Isyander branches can be unlocked if the Vodyani lose a war.)

-Scientific Branch: This branch will require you to have the hero Klev St Seiotia in order to unlock it. In the beginning, you will be tasked with sending Klev St Seiotia on her hero ship to discover new anomalies that can only be discovered by her. Some of the anomalies will be priceless virtual blueprints that indicate great artifacts lay hidden in the universe, some other anomalies will increase the presence of your Science Political Party since people will begin to see Klev St Seiotia as the Virtuals chosen, eventually, Klev St Seiotia will go toe to toe against Isyara St Shaiad herself. If Klev St Seiotia wins, then Isyara will no longer be the leader and Klev will take her place. If Isyara wins then you continue the Religious Endless Branch. So with Klev as your leader, you will continue to unlock more virtual maps that will slowly lead you to discover artifacts of the Endless that can be activated by spending Essence, these artifacts will give you great FIDSI buffs but they can only be activated if they are in your star systems. However, eventually, once you have possession of all of them, you will be able to activate them all for a lot of Essence, if you do this then you will automatically trigger a new Endless Age and you will be able to research the technology needed to achieve a Science victory. It will take 25 turns and all other factions will be notified of this, they have a choice to declare war on you and try to take the systems which have artifacts, if even one system that has artifacts on it gets taken then you will not be able to research the technology needed and you will not be able to activate all the artifacts at the same time ever again. The more people who declare war on you, the more buffs you'll receive so the galaxy will really have to work together to stop you. If you succeed then you win a Scientific Victory and become the new Endless.

-Ecologist Branch: This branch will require you to have the hero "Enav St Lyeaor". In the beginning, you will need to send Enav St Lyeaor to explore systems and find special anomalies containing Virtual Texts to back up the Church's claim that the Vodyani are superior to all other forms of life in the galaxy. After many turns of searching, Enav St Lyeaor instead finds proof of quite the opposite, he finds proof of quite the opposite. He finds proof of the Virtuals living side by side with lifeforms the Vodyani would consider lesser. After returning home, Enav slowly begins to preach teachings that are contrary to that of the Church. That all life are equals in the eyes of the Endless and no lifeform is above another, and since the Church has zero control over Enav St Lyeaor, they are unable to stop his heresy. Eventually a full-blown war occurs between Enav and his followers against the Church, if the Church succeeds then you continue the religious Endless branch, but if you succeed you continue to go down the Ecologist Path and Enav St Lyeaor becomes your new leader. Eventually, you will be faced with a choice, you can either choose to return to the former bodies the Vodyani once inhabited with your innate understanding of biology, or you can keep your mechanical forms. If you choose to return to your old form then your population type will change to "Biological Vodyani" who have more of an emphasis on Ecology and food then Religion and what not. These pops will have +50% growth and + 12 food which will make them very good at populating systems. You will unlock an improvement that will be hard to build but once built all you'll have to do is populate the system with 5 different species and you'll get huge buffs to the system, meanwhile if you choose to keep your forms you will become protectors of the galaxy and you will generate tons of influence from special laws that can be passed, the more acts you do that preserve the galaxy then the more influence you earn. You'll become the galactic police!

That would be a bit too complex for this type of game, and may require Amplitude to delve into a near completely different genre, but I would love to see a Endless themed mod for hoi4.

Come on! We gotta think big! I think it's a great idea that allows a lot of player-driven narratives! One game you might have Militarist Cravers who seek to devour the galaxy to satiate their hunger, Scientific Vodyani who seek Virtual Relics to reinstate a new endless age, Ecologist Mezari who seek to spread themselves out across universe and restore the great mezari people with yourself playing as Regular Old Lumeris, in the next game you might have industrial imperialist hissho who seek to subdue lesser races through the might of their industry and superiority, pacifist sophons dedicated to discovering new things and they dont have much interest in warfare, religious vaulters who seek not only to go on a religious crusade to purify the galaxy of sin but also a moral one and you playing as pacifist cravers who seek to eliminate their hunger and become a force of good change for the galaxy. The narrative and storytelling potential is endless, Endless Space 3 could eclipse even Stellaris as the best 4x Space Grand Strategy game! Think about it!

That would be nice to see, but to go in a hoi4 like direction with a level of scale like that cant be implemented into the Endless Space trilogy, it would require a brand new game with completely different mechanics, say make it a grand strategy game called Endless Galaxy?

You guys have very good ideas!

+1 to more complex story path as:

1. right now after you play them once with a faction you already know them and they become boring fast, they should become branching stories / random to a degree to be fresh with multiple playthroughs 

2. Since Amplitude does not integrate campaigns in the classical sense with story missions for each faction they have more than enough resources to do at least these branching stories that would really be an upgrade compared to what the stories are now

Hopefully they won't do here the Humankind deletion meta and delete the stories system and add some unelated between them, small text cards, that create no story :))) :facepalm: 

DragonGaming wrote:

Imperial_Heron wrote:

GlorySign wrote:

You guys have very good ideas!

+1 to more complex story path as:

1. right now after you play them once with a faction you already know them and they become boring fast, they should become branching stories / random to a degree to be fresh with multiple playthroughs 

2. Since Amplitude does not integrate campaigns in the classical sense with story missions for each faction they have more than enough resources to do at least these branching stories that would really be an upgrade compared to what the stories are now

Hopefully they won't do here the Humankind deletion meta and delete the stories system and add some unelated between them, small text cards, that create no story :))) :facepalm: 

  

Agreed, I wish the devs would look at our posts more often. It saddens me to see the lack of love the Endless Universe has been getting.

well to be fair the Amplitude has been focused on the Endless Universe for 10 years straight, They tried to make something new and it more or less blew up in their faces, I think we'll see another 10 years of the Endless Universe shortly .

:)))) "we'll see another 10 years of the Endless Universe shortly " so funny how you put it there. Good stuff

To be fair I don't believe the problem was that they tried to do something new. The problem was and still is how they did it

     Now if you take feedback from the Opendevs and than you totally ignore it: like the game has a great base and it only needs 1-2 more years till is ready. And you can also see as a dev that the game is bugged and with bad AI and a mess in general why would you ever release it like that?

     Now if you release it like that, why ask a AAA price disregarding even the people that worked for you for free in the Opendevs by giving feedback and also now you take their preorder money and give them a trash quality beta bugged game?

     Now if you do all this and you get into that hole, why don't you update the game and give the DLCs and updates necessary for free until the game becomes 1.0 worthy and it receive very positive ratings on Steam as the other games you made have, similar to what other companies did, like the guys with "No Man's Sky" or "Cyberpunk 2077" and so on. Why going the paid cash grab route for DLC for a game you launched unfinished at AAA price while also getting free feedback/work from fans in Opendevs? I mean you just sold yourself to Sega and got all this money + the money from Sega to support you, now you have the resources and you are doing the worst job ever, even compared to when you were an independent studio

     And lastly why try to push heavy DRM/Denuvo with unreliable servers that in the future would go offline and the customers can't play the game they paid for, while never wanting to do so when you were financially vulnerable as an independent studio. But now with the money from Sega + the money from the Sega acquisition you really feel that you need more money, so you start doing these foul practices towards your own customers/fans believing you can milk more money from this while they have a degraded game experience. And when you see they don't like it, you say, cool, no problem, we'll push this even in our future games

I believe if you do these things, it does not matter if the game was a new concept or an old concept or a sequel or a prequel or whatever, you would still get a bad reception. If you do the exact opposite of all these and do a good job at making a great game (as they did with all the games before willingly selling themselves to Sega), also it does not matter if the game is a new concept or not, you will most likely get very positive ratings as you have with the other games you already made