Four Add-ons Planned For Sins of a Solar Empire

With the first add-on pack for Sins of a Solar Empire arriving in just under a month, publisher Kalypso Media has announced that three more add-ons are on their way as well. Gamespot has an early look at the first add-on, Entrenchment, and a couple of additional screenshots are available at Shacknews. The game's creative director, Craig Frazer, also explained their reasoning for making small expansions rather than large ones: "If PC gaming is to survive, the industry will need to be open to change. We went out on a limb with our anti-DRM stance and it paid off really well. We tried an unusually long beta period and that worked as well. Micro-expansions are just another experiment we are trying out to improve the market. These small expansions give us the opportunity to provide highly focused, high quality content within a reasonable time frame. Micro-expansions also reduce the development risk associated with 1-3 year cycles. With lower risk, we can be far more progressive in terms of gameplay and content."

Comments

Nice game.

[ergean]

Looking forward to play it. :)

Don't tell EA

[Wiarumas]

Uh oh, $15 (approx) "Micro" expansions. Don't let EA find out about this or else Walmarts will have to double in size to handle all those Sims addons.

Re:Don't tell EA

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA,

$9.95.. not "approx"

Re:Don't tell EA

[Gr33nJ3ll0]

Should be $10.

Re:Don't tell EA

[Wiarumas]

From TFA: £7.99 = $12.91 (hey, maybe I'm taking into consideration the possibility of the USD taking a dive)

Re:Don't tell EA

[mjwx]

Uh oh, $15 (approx)

Stardock have said from the outset that each will have a US$10 price tag, so if you're talking in AUD you'd be correct but seeing as you mentioned Walmart I think that you aren't Australian. Seeing as Stardock is an entirely US company all transactions via Impulse are in USD (8 GBP is just an approximate conversion for our pommy friends), please see here for the actual price.

Don't let EA find out about this or else Walmarts will have to double in size to handle all those Sims addons.

EA already charges A$50 for the same level of content in the Sins expansion packs. Heck, EA would have charged A$50 for the content I've already gotten for free since purchasing Sins of a Solar Empire, which cost me A$77 for the collectors edition and postage which would also defy EA's A$90 minimum price tag.

Re:Don't tell EA

[mjwx]

From TFA: £7.99 = $12.91

OK as I said before Stardock is a US company and all transactions are in USD. 8 British pounds are an approximate conversion of $10 USD. Please refer to the Stardock store for more details.

Re:Don't tell EA

[crossmr]

I believe the install time on a fresh copy of The Sims 2 with all expansion packs, stuff packs, and free items (just official not fan made) is in the neighbourhood of around 5 hours.
They desperately need to come out with some "TS2 Complete" DVD (or set of DVDs that are part of a single install) to streamline this process. I'd also encourage them to allow anyone who has actually bought all of them to send them all their DVDs for a free copy.

That doesn't sound good

[KDR_11k]

Should they really tell people "hey, we're making more and more expansions for you to waste your money on"?

Periodic add-ons can be great

[MillenneumMan]

I recall the game "Total Annihilation", a popular real time strategy game from the 90s. The publisher, CaveDog, periodically would add new units to the game (something like one a month or so). While I also like it when the publisher includes map editors, it is still good to get new material from the original developers.

Re:Periodic add-ons can be great

[GenP]

Except those new TA units/maps were free.

Re:Periodic add-ons can be great

[imbaczek]

Check out Spring RTS.

Micro-price?

[Alex777]

I only hope these micro-expansions also have a micro-price.

What they ought to do is offer one pack of expansions that includes all the expansions released up to that point, with appropriate discounts if you already have a subset of the included content. I can't see a la carte expansions ever working.

Re:Micro-price?

[Raijen]

According to the preview at IGN: "The first micro-expansion is called Entrenchment, and Ironclad plans on selling it for about $10, which is a third of what a typical expansion costs."

So four expansions for fourty dollars sounds fairly inline to me at least.

Re:Micro-price?

[crossmr]

You're right. I know in Korea when they try to do these kinds of individual purchases for games its failed horribly...

Re:Micro-price?

[pasamio]

Winter Assault required the original DoW to play. Dark Crusade was the first that didn't require the original to play, and Soulstorm follows in its trend. I know if you wanted to play it on a LAN then you were limited to the races that you had (so if you didn't have the original DoW or WA with DC then you were limited to Tau and Necron). Single player I'm not so sure on, but I remember when it was initially released we did some testing with new DC against DoW:WA ones and each were restricted in LAN play to the respective races.

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[nschubach]

Anti DRM unless you want patches (and maybe addons...) and you can overlook the DRM they include with Stardock Central and Impulse... Other than that, sure. They are TOTALLY anti-DRM. /sarcasm

Four expansions?

[Tridus]

The articles only mention three. Whats this about a fourth one?

Re:Four expansions?

[stormguard2099]

well, in TFA they won't even mention what the third is about until the second on is out so I suppose they are gonna go all out on the fourth and deny its existance completely

Micro Expansions

[MonkeyCookie]

Sounds like an attempt to milk the cash cow to me. I suspect the only way these micro expansions will work out is if they also come with a micro price.

Re:Micro Expansions

[discord5]

Sounds like an attempt to milk the cash cow to me

It probably is, but then again I own the game and I've gotten more than my moneys worth of fun out of it. It's a genre I really enjoy, decent graphics, decent gameplay... It was money well spent.

I haven't checked out the contents to the micro-expansion yet, but I probably will when it gets released. It'll depend on the content and the price most likely if I buy it, but I haven't been disappointed by the Stardock titles I liked yet.

I suspect the only way these micro expansions will work out is if they also come with a micro price.

Most likely. If the price is too high they'll probably have a lot of people waiting for all of the micro-expansions to be available at a discount. That, or they just won't sell a lot.

The micro-expansion model of selling content seems to be picking up momentum, and it could be a good thing just as well as a bad thing. Personally I'd refuse to pay for something like a map-pack, and I'm pretty sure most people feel the same way, but if it adds value to gameplay or extends the storyline I'm pretty sure a lot of people would be interested if the price is right.

If it's somewhere between $10 and $15, I'd personally consider it a good price.

On a complete other note, I've recently been discovering Indie games to be quite entertaining from time to time. Indie games can be quite fun for a while and often are cheap (eg Audiosurf is just $10, and Defcon is $15). Sure, they're not as fancy as a million dollar budget game, but some of them are quite original in gameplay mechanics and can be damned fun as well.

Re:Micro Expansions

[Fweeky]

You might have a look at Sword of the Stars, from the peeps who did Homeworld Cataclysm. They just released their second expansion in GamersGate, and the original and first expansion are on Impulse.

Personally I found it more interesting than SoaSE; there's more variation between the different races.

Re:Micro Expansions

[bstreiff]

Indie games can be quite fun for a while and often are cheap (eg Audiosurf is just $10, and Defcon is $15).

Unless, of course, you want it for Mac-- in which case, it's $25. Actually, you can get all three of Introversion's games (Uplink, Darwinia, and Defcon for $33.20 for Windows/Linux, but Ambrosia charges $25-28 each for the OS X versions.

And people wonder why everyone games on Windows.

Re:Micro Expansions

[Dutch Gun]

Sounds like an attempt to milk the cash cow to me.

"Sins of a Solar Empire", while moderately successful, is hardly a "cash cow". I believe you've mistaken this article for the one in which EA is selling an expansion to Spore almost immediately after its launch, with another shortly to follow.

I suspect the only way these micro expansions will work out is if they also come with a micro price.

$9.95 micro enough for you?

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[Jephir]

As far as I know, Impulse does not contain any DRM. You can install Sins of a Solar Empire from Impulse, then uninstall Impulse and Sins will continue to work fine.

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The only thing I needed to do to download patches was set up an account on their website with my CD key. When I install the game the key is not needed.

What DRM?

If one of the future expansions

[rk]

Includes a good ground combat battle system, I will no longer worry, for I am already dead, and in Heaven.

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[FredFredrickson]

The terms of use encourage installing a single game multiple times for network play. Which would make sense, with no single player mode...

"If PC gaming is to survive?"

[ElMiguel]

Have WoW's 10+ million subscribers suddenly decided to abandon PC gaming?

Seriously, when has PC gaming been a bigger industry than in the last few years?

Re:"If PC gaming is to survive?"

[Dan667]

It is FUD from the console manufacturers. They are trying to convert the stupid and clueless to consoles so they spread this rumor.

Re:"If PC gaming is to survive?"

[Draek]

Have WoW's 10+ million subscribers suddenly decided to abandon PC gaming?

One game does not an industry make.

Seriously, when has PC gaming been a bigger industry than in the last few years?

The issue, I believe, is not about size per se but rather the fact that DRM is pissing off enough customers that the *stability* of it is in question. And once the market is deemed too unstable, the shrinking customer base is almost sure to follow.

Re:"If PC gaming is to survive?"

[T.E.D.]

That's actually part of the problem. WoW is essentially sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Who has time to try out a potentially great new game when they are trying desperately to level up their characters or reputation or gear in WoW?

If you look at it as two separate industries: the MMORPG industry and the PC gaming industry, the former is doing OK (particularly if your name is Blizzard), but the latter has been doing much worse in the last couple of years.

Re:"If PC gaming is to survive?"

[yukk]

Have WoW's 10+ million subscribers suddenly decided to abandon PC gaming?

One game does not an industry make.

That's right. That's why with only 1 major desktop O/S for PCs business and consumers alike have abandoned PCs entirely. I don't know, 10M is a pretty nice chunk of market. While what you say is technically true, WOW is just one example. It may be an outlier but PC gaming is not dead. Netcraft confirms it.

Re:"If PC gaming is to survive?"

[Draek]

That's right. That's why with only 1 major desktop O/S for PCs business and consumers alike have abandoned PCs entirely.

That's a secondary market. The closest analogy is that of OSes themselves, and besides Macs (which live in their own world anyways) and the Free UNIXen, how much activity has there been on that front for, ohh, the last 15 years? fuckin' active industry, right.

While what you say is technically true, WOW is just one example. It may be an outlier but PC gaming is not dead.

No one has said that it's dead. Only that it may be in danger of becoming so, and if the current trends towards pervasive DRM continue unchecked, I wouldn't be sad nor surprised to see that.

Re:"If PC gaming is to survive?"

[Hyperhaplo]

One game does not an industry make.

Quake?

They are

[Sycraft-fu]

$10 is the price I see for it on Impulse. Given the normal expansion price of $30-40 (for example Wrath of the Lich King is $40) that seems pretty reasonable.

About as much fun as watching paint dry

[BitHive]

I wanted to like this game, I really did, but the pacing is excruciatingly slow! You spend most of your time in information-OCD-mode, checking up on things even when you know it will take another 10 minutes until you can....click an upgrade and wait another 10 minutes. Turning up the game speed only makes it choppy and unless you are zoomed in all the way (which makes anything more than spectating impractical) every ship is displayed as a two-dimensional sprite.

Next time, if you're going to make a game that takes so long to play, you should at least make sure there are always fun things you can be doing while you wait for research and resources. 90% of the time I was sitting there "playing" I kept looking around the room, looking for something else to do.

Re:About as much fun as watching paint dry

[mjwx]

If you find SINS level of information display puts you into "OCD mode" I suggest you stick to twitch shooters like Halo and COD. Compared to most 4X strategy games SINS did a lot of self management and didn't require constant checking by the player. I have my complaints about SINS but its slowness was not one of them, they managed to get the right speed for the game, you are not constantly checking up on planets as you would in a traditional 4X game (CIV for example) and the way that Sins displays info was excellent at allowing you to manage far off planets in real time.

Sins is not a twitch game, its a 4X strategy game, so you are meant to have planned out what you are doing far in advance of it actually happening and not spend all your time "reacting". By the sounds of it you want something with the hyperactive speed strategic options of C&C3 (ADHD kid on amphetamines) which only required 2 buttons to play ("Build Tank" and "Send tank at enemy base", ad infinitum until someone loses), sins is meant to be more involved than that and Stardock did well thus far and are now trying to add more depth by adding additional options. If you find youre getting information overload from the Sins interface then perhaps this is not the game for you.

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[nschubach]

Does Sins have a sig.bin file like GalCiv? I'm 99.999% sure it does....if so, it has DRM. That file is a hardware ID that will de-activate the software if any significant hardware changes, or you copy the files to another machine without running the install to "activate" the program again. You cannot play it if you alter this signature file in any way. Try renaming it and see how fast it asks you to activate it. That is the definition of DRM by every standard. The only difference is that they hide it from you and tell you it's not there.

Riiiiiiiight....

[Lord_Dweomer]

Micro-expansions are just another experiment we are trying out to try to latch on to the sweet, sweet tit of recurring revenue streams like those filthy rich MMO's have. If we can get you to pay more overall for less content than would be found in a bigger release, we'll be rich!

Fixed that for you....

I understand there are lots of efficiencies to doing smaller releases, but one of the trends I've noticed lately with these "episodic" releases is that they give you a smaller amount of content and charge you more than what you'd normally pay for a combined larger release. Ie. $10 each for three micro-expansions that, if the content were to be combined and released as a single expansion would probably retail for about $20 total. Make no mistake, they may have done some things that won them points with gamers in the past (awesome game, no DRM, etc.) but this is SOLELY about increasing profit. That's what they are in business for.

Re:Riiiiiiiight....

[JordanL]

Three expansions at $10 a piece, so about $30 for all of them, or about average to below average for the "full" expansion, with the bonus that you don't have to pay for parts you don't want.

Re:Riiiiiiiight....

[Lord_Dweomer]

Those numbers might not have been the best choice in this instance. My point was that they are trying to make more by providing you less content. Now, to your point, there may be some consumer value in being able to only pay for the micro-expansions you want but if you buy them all, you are paying more in the long run, which is their goal.

Do the expansions fix the original game?

[PurplePhase]

I'm a harsh critic, but they really need to fix the original game before people will flock to it. Just as with all games for the last few year they may have made their deadline and maybe even kept to the spirit of their original designs, but they have to FIRST make the games usable, THEN make them interesting for there to be any chance at being FUN.

UI seems to always be the part that suffers the most.

8-PP

"Blizzard gaming" is not in any danger

[Scott Kevill]

PC gaming is.

If anything, WoW harms the PC gaming market more than it supports it. Gamers spending all their time (and money) on WoW are less likely to buy other PC games.

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[Anonymous Coward]

I copied the Sins folder from my desktop to my laptop so my friend could try it out with a 2 play LAN game. It worked just fine and nothing asked me to reactivate. Perhaps the sig.bin file is some sort of ID, but it certainly doesn't care what hardware it's on.

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[Asm-Coder]

I don't know if it has a sig.bin file, but I do remeber installing it. I didn't need to enter a cd key or anything else. I just popped in the cd, clicked next a few times, took the disk out and started playing. No hassle whatsoever.

Brad Wardell, the author of "Sins" is partly responsible for the "Gamer's bill of Rights" that keeps getting posted on /., and has a nice article explaining why he chose to forgo drm in "Sins", which I can't find right now, but I'm sure someone will post a link to.

But...b-b-but...

[game kid]

I wanted to like this game, I really did, but the pacing is excruciatingly slow!

...th...th-t-there's no DRM!!!!!!!! That makes flowers, paper money, and porno tapes bloom from thin air!

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[mjwx]

Does Sins have a sig.bin file like GalCiv? I'm 99.999% sure it does....if so, it has DRM. That file is a hardware ID that will de-activate the software if any significant hardware changes, or you copy the files to another machine without running the install to "activate" the program again. You cannot play it if you alter this signature file in any way. Try renaming it and see how fast it asks you to activate it. That is the definition of DRM by every standard. The only difference is that they hide it from you and tell you it's not there.

For the absolute last time, Gal Civ and Sins do not have DRM, they can be run, moved and installed independently of Impulse. The activations programs are called up by Impulse (Stardock Central) when updating and not by the game and if it queries to see what hardware it runs on before the game runs then that is a serious failure because I've moved a GalCiv installation from my Gaming rig (AMD X2) to my laptop (Intel Pentium M) and shock horror, it didn't stop me from starting the game (as DRM would). The only problem I had was that my laptop did not have the 1600x1200 resolution I was playing it at on my gaming box. Did you consider that it has the hardware information written a less nefarious purpose? perhaps to let the game know the maximum resolution of my monitor is perhaps? As sceptical as EA and their ilk have made me about PC gaming I cant find what Stardock are doing wrong here?

Also I can install Gal Civ and Sins from the optical media without installing StarDock Central or Impulse and play them, I just cant update the games.

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[nschubach]

That's funny because I did the exact same thing and got this message:
http://img370.imageshack.us/img370/5128/screenshotgalacticcivilex5.png

Yes, that's on my Wine box, but it also happened when I moved Gal Civ to my XP Tablet from my XP gaming box.

So, one of us is lying, one of us is lucky, or you have a different GalCiv than I do.

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[nschubach]

It doesn't matter if they guy wrote out the ten commandments. He's trying to make money and will say anything to get it. Just because he says DRM shouldn't be restrictive doesn't mean he's not using it.

The sig.bin is automatically generated on install so it appears to you as if there is no DRM, but it's there.

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Like I said, you can download it (say, from TPB) and install it without ever entering a CD key. You can even patch it, if you find the patches hosted somewhere.

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[AlamedaStone]

The sky is not falling. I first played Sins from a bittorrent copy. I already had stardock installed, and I had no problems playing in single or multiplayer.

I played it for a couple of days, and then when I realized I had a jones for some more, I uninstalled and bought a copy.

Talk about harsh DRM...

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[Mascot]

Why the hell is parent currently moderated as Troll?

What he's saying is totally right.

StarDock are _not_ "anti-DRM". They never claimed to be. They believe in the need for DRM, but they don't subscribe to the current trend of having to donate blood every time you try to start your own game.

Two truths:

1. If you buy the mentioned games in a store (ie, physical medium), you can install it on as many computers as you like. You never need to go online to activate. They'll never stop working. There's *no* DRM.

HOWEVER:

2. If you buy it online, or activate it online in order to patch it, the installation locks to your current hardware. You can install on several computers, but you cannot *move* an install from one set of hardware to another. That's plain old DRM.

These are not secrets. Mail SD and they will happily confirm it.

What SD are trying to do is to offer incentives to buy the titles. Easy access to patches, especially when SD are dilligent in providing more than just bug fixes, is of value to people. To get it though, you have to prove you own the game.

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[blanks]

You have no idea what you are talking about.

I am running the latest version of Sins, have all updates up to the latest version, plus a couple of mod and maps and I have yet to pay for it, all their updates are located on all the gaming file sites.

Saying their download system is like DRM is just plain silly. If anything its more of a great convience to have all your needed downloads in one place. Also to play online against other players requires you to have a paid for version.

L2P

[dswensen]

The plus key is your friend. Don't like the pace? Turn it up by 2x, 4x, 8x.

I play at 2x by default now, and the pace is quite brisk. Don't blame the game for your ignorance.

Re:L2P

[BitHive]

As I said in my original post, "Turning up the game speed only makes it choppy" but thanks for reading!

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[mjwx]

I can tell you what is wrong here,

its the download version not the DVD version. the download version is tied to SDC due to the nature of downloadable games (as in not having a stand alone installer). BTW the SID of the machine is stored in clear text, not exactly the damning evidence of Stardocks evil you were looking for. Easy to get around, anyone who will do this as opposed to using just using the optical media or SDC/Impulse will be able to figure out how to fix it (in addition to this you also need to transfer the information from the user directory as well, this is where all the settings for Audio/Video and the like are stored).

Why are you so interested in dragging down a company trying to do the right thing by its customers?

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[nschubach]

I'm only upset by the people touting that it doesn't have DRM when it clearly does. I only wish to educate those people.

I didn't like it, no story

[LingNoi]

I guess I am the only one that didn't like sins of the solar empire, so I expect to be modded to oblivion, but I just couldn't get into it.

Quite simply there was no story so I didn't really have much of an interest in playing.

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[nschubach]

I can download a song off iTunes without ever entering a license key for the song as well. Does that mean it doesn't have DRM?

Re:You can't knock Kalypso Media

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

That's stupid, and you're stupid.

You have to enter a password to authorize your computer, unless it's one of the DRM free iTunes files.

Try again.