|
 Drox Operative demo page. (download is about 160mb) Drox Operative is an action RPG in space! from soldak entertainment just released Nov 29th. Their last game, Din’s Curse, was considered by myself and a few others to be one of the best dungeon crawlers around. Drox Operative game is currently only available (as far as I know) from Soldak's site for $20. Soldak's older games are on steam. What sets soldak’s games apart from other diablo-alikes is the best emergent game play this side of Sid Meier. In Din’s Curse when a quest giver in town tells you to hurry up and murder some demon in the hell pits below you’d better get to it. If you don’t there’s a good chance he’ll spring out of the dungeon's maw and start killing all the people in town and then you loose, forcing you to start a new game. Actually saving the town becomes a goal you care about instead of a backdrop to justify monster murdering. Drox Operative shares a lot of things with Din’s and Diablo. Every game gives you a new randomized sector. Randomized loot drops from ships you kill and planets act as vendors. A lot of the minimalist UI and inventory management is right out of Din’s (cargo bays instead of bags) but the goals and world here are much different. You’re not saving a town. You’re dropped into the AI’s 4x game. You can ally with the most dominant faction and help them take over the sector, or you can terrorize all the civilizations into submissive fear, or you can just hoard space gold for an economic victory. You are an objectivist jedi in an endless search for maximum profit and loot. The closest thing to Drox I’ve played is space rangers 2. The living dynamic game world is similar, this is just a lot more diablo-y and free-form. There are no dominators threatening the galaxy. Its just you and the other civs doing their thing. As you play you level up your ship’s crew like you would stats in any traditional RPG. (adding points to command grants you bigger ships ) Equipping your ship is a lot like EVE online. There are high, medium, and low power components. Each ship has a certain number of high/med/low slots, as you get bigger ships you get more options, but you have to manage a power grid. A lot of things seem to be inspired by EVE. Good things, not boring things. For example there are damage types like thermal and EM, and there are shield hardeners to protect you from those types. This will hopefully lead to a lot of cool and interesting ways to pimp your space cruiser. I’m no expert yet. The game has only been out two days and I didn’t play the beta, though I did play a LOT of Din’s Curse. I’ve run into goons who’ve played the older games as well and they get similar praise. The game plays in 2d and has that 90’s look all the kids are into these days. Maybe a slight step up from Din’s with some genuinely nice looking explosions, and the audio is also what you’d expect with pewpews and booms, but that’s not why we’re here. Din’s was one of those games I wish more people played. Its too easy to be turned off by Soldak’s retro web design, minimalist UI and last-gen graphics. Behind all that are really fun, absorbing games.  So far this is the space-diablo I’ve been waiting years to play. There’s even multiplayer, but if its anything like Din’s you’ve got to bring your own friends along. Try the demo and lets post about it. Steam Group! Killer-of-Lawyers posted:If you're looking for games there is a group of goons up with the game. Teamspeak info Killer-of-Lawyers posted:Got a bare bones PGS thread here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3516567 Fake edit: Since there’s nowhere to talk about soldak’s other games and they share a lot of the same ambitious scope lets chat about them in here too. I remembered seeing a thread about this game awhile ago but I couldn’t find it. Its been a few days since Drox's release so I thought we could use a new one. old beast lunatic fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Dec 5, 2012 |
#
?
Dec 2, 2012 00:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 10:23 |
|
|
Just tried out the demo of this, and it's pretty good. As was the case in Depths of Peril and Din's Curse, it takes a little bit of time to even figure out which ways are up and down in the larger meta-game. It really is like playing as a secondary faction in a game of Master of Orion. The jumpgate pass system is what really throws me right now, since I keep getting offered colonization quests in systems that the race offering the quest has no pass to offer. This either leaves me scanning anomalies and hoping for a random wormhole into the correct sector, or having to go on long round-about multisystem jaunts until I find somebody that does have the right pass. I'll probably pick this one up in the next couple of weeks or so, I really hope it finds its way onto Steam before than though, because... well you know, Steam.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2012 03:24
|
|
|
This game is pretty cool from what I saw in the demo, and I'll pick it up once it hits Steam. The last-gen graphics style looks real ugly in a fantasy setting, but it's definitely not as bad in this game. One thing I noticed, at least the demo settings (Normal, up to level 6 only) is that killing enemy ships is pretty easy even with basic weaponry. Because of that, if only to cut down on the tedium of traveling to scout anomalies and planets, feel free to allocate more resources to thrusters especially if you went and got bigger ships since they felt a lot slower to me.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2012 16:18
|
|
|
Always good to see new blood in this. This game is pretty fun, and we play it occasionally on my TS, although we haven't recently with all the other games out. Still, if you're looking for games there is a group of goons up with the game. http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Goondrox
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2012 16:28
|
|
|
Killer-of-Lawyers posted:Always good to see new blood in this. This game is pretty fun, and we play it occasionally on my TS, although we haven't recently with all the other games out. Awesome. Added the link to the OP, even though its only the fourth post down.  I'd love to try multi-player sometime. Is there a thread for your TS info? If so I'll add that too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2012 16:36
|
|
|
Got a bare bones PGS thread here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3516567 I've got a Drox channel up, but it hasn't seen people in a while. Still, if anyone wants to use it to set up games feel free. We used to have a guy who'd come by regularly to find games. Poor guy eventually stopped after we all started playing other things, but he's in the group so he'd probably come back around. I'll also find Soggy and get him to make some of you newer players admin over the group.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2012 16:40
|
|
|
I'm currently flush with games to play but I'm really looking forward to having the time to dig into this. I've sunk more time into Din's Curse than into Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 combined, and this looks like it has more of what I loved about that game.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2012 21:09
|
|
|
I hit the level cap of the demo and EMPs have been hilariously overpowered. Whole screens full of enemies die in a single shot. I still have no idea what I'm doing besides flying around occasionally hitting the emp button.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 00:47
|
|
|
dis astranagant posted:I hit the level cap of the demo and EMPs have been hilariously overpowered. Whole screens full of enemies die in a single shot. I still have no idea what I'm doing besides flying around occasionally hitting the emp button. I haven't found many enemies in the demo with more than a couple hit points, which is all the emp does. I would assume that later on, the emp is meant more as a means of dropping shields and knocking out missiles. If this game plays out anything like Din's, the first run or two with a new character is easy, but gets a lot harder once the starting level of the universe is higher than the base. Din's got positively brutal after you got to about your 4th or 5th town.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 00:58
|
|
|
Have there been a lot of improvements since beta? I was playing this a few months ago and liked the concept, but it got boring pretty fast.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 01:06
|
|
|
^^^Yeah, a lot of stuff has been added and I feel that the pacing has gotten a lot better! I have this game, but I lost my goddamned key during my transition to a new computer. :C It sucks, because I really, really, enjoy the game, but am too strapped for cash to re-buy it. edit: And I would recommend it to everyone.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 01:09
|
|
|
How do I put all my weapons to LMB?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 02:50
|
|
|
InterFaced posted:Their last game, Din’s Curse, was considered by myself and a few others to be one of the best dungeon crawlers around. The game is currently only available (as far as I know) from Soldak's site for $20. Just a slight correction, but Din's Curse has in fact gotten a Steam release. It's currently priced at 9.99 USD, with the Demon War expansion/DLC priced at 4.99 USD, and I believe it was on sale in the recently concluded Autumn Sale, so we're almost bound to see it go on sale again this Christmas holiday. Fake EDIT: Checking Soldak's site, buying from them directly is also 9.99 + 4.99 USD for Din's Curse + Demon War
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 03:32
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Just a slight correction, but Din's Curse has in fact gotten a Steam release. It's currently priced at 9.99 USD, with the Demon War expansion/DLC priced at 4.99 USD, and I believe it was on sale in the recently concluded Autumn Sale, so we're almost bound to see it go on sale again this Christmas holiday. Yeah, Poor wording on my part. Drox doesn't have a release on steam yet, but din's has been there awhile. I'll edit it to be more clear. dis astranagant posted:I hit the level cap of the demo and EMPs have been hilariously overpowered. Whole screens full of enemies die in a single shot. I still have no idea what I'm doing besides flying around occasionally hitting the emp button. In addition to what underwhelmed mentioned about the game getting harder later on most weapons feel overpowered against the "monster" ship spawns. I'm a human and my mine can clear half a screen of creep ships. The AI civ ships (they have icons hovering over them) are much tougher.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 04:04
|
|
|
Alright, gonna get a game going soon on my TS. If anyone wants to try out some multiplayer hop on. And I'm gonna stream this for people who are curious about the game. http://www.twitch.tv/KillerofLawyers edit: Huh. Apparently the game really doesn't play nice with Xplit, so that's a pretty crappy video. Oh well. Game ended early cause one guy couldn't get the right ports forwarded. I'll see about maybe hosting a multiplayer game some afternoon this week though. Killer-of-Lawyers fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Dec 3, 2012 |
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 18:52
|
|
|
How does Din's Curse differ from Depths of Peril? I got the latter in some indie bundle, and enjoyed playing it for 20 hours or so before dropping it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 22:50
|
|
|
Skilleddk posted:How does Din's Curse differ from Depths of Peril? I got the latter in some indie bundle, and enjoyed playing it for 20 hours or so before dropping it. Din's does away with the multi-factions thing entirely. You have a town, and the town has people in it, just like they did in Depths, but instead of a large overworld with lots of little dungeons in it, you have a single Dungeon under the town (think Diablo or Torchlight) You may think not competing with other guilds would make the game simpler and or easier, but it doesn't because the monsters are a lot more aggressive than they ever were in Depths. When people say that ignored quests will fail or gathering forces in the dungeon will kick your rear end, they mean it. Sometimes ignoring a quest will result in townsfolk getting sick of waiting for you, and then they will try and complete the quest. Sometimes that would-be-hero is the goddamn shopkeeper or the guy that gave you half of your other quests, and when he gets killed, you can't turn in anything or sell anything until you find a replacement. Occasionally the monsters will send a shitload of horrible bastards through a portal into town and start slaughtering the townsfolk, that means you need to drop what you are doing and get back before everyone is dead. Overall Din's feels a lot more frantic than Depths is, by the time you hit your 3rd or 4th trip with a given character, the Dungeons start to get pretty deep, and thus the quest targets get harder to find. You end up having to strike a balance between clearing levels for XP and loot, and rushing for the deeper levels to clear quests that will bite you in the rear end. As in Depths you make a character, and you can use that character in new game+++++...s. The class system is a bit better fleshed out, with each one possessing 3 complete trees with somewhat divergent abilities. You can also make a custom class that allows you to pick 2 trees from any combination of classes (getting only two trees means you are a little screwed on the passive bonuses that each tree provides though) I really liked Depth's, but I find Din's more fun to play. Being a little more straightforward of a game than Depth's makes it easier to pickup and play a round of from time to time. Underwhelmed fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Dec 3, 2012 |
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 23:10
|
|
|
I played a fair bit of Both Depths and Din's Curse, and I really like the way the guys at Soldak add twists to the normal ARPG formula. Din's Curse was especially good for giving you exactly what you want. At the outset of every 'new game+' it actually lets you customise the world that you're going into. So, if you only have like an hour to play, you can make a town with a small dungeon so that you can clear it out quickly. If you're in the mood for a more breezy world (i.e. you're hung over) you can choose to have monsters with lower aggression levels and scaled to a lower power level. The opposite is also true, and you can have a massive dungeon with super aggro monsters that are really tough if you want to really torture yourself. Even better, the game scales your reward accordingly... Speaking of which, as a loot pinata fan, the game really really shines here, You get a special chest for completing each town (tougher the town, better the chest) which makes it feel like there really is a pay-off for your work. At sticker prices of around $20, I can't recommend these games enough. Sure the graphics might not be stellar, but combat feels good and the loot is great. You can easily put 20 hours into this before getting bored, and if you're like me, you can put way more than that into it. I'll definitely be picking up Drox from them as it looks like more of the same good stuff that Soldak has been putting out.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2012 23:36
|
|
|
Thanks I'll check it out during the steam sale then
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2012 07:36
|
|
|
Got this game last night based on this thread, it's great so far. Felt a little lost at first but after a while I really did get the "Diablo in the middle of a MOO game" feeling. My home sector was full of Utopians (my chosen race also) and Dryads. I spent the earliest part of the game shuttling gifts between the two because they were too shy or something.  That winds up developing into a 3 way alliance in the home sector, which I figure was a good start. The Utopians were considerably farther ahead in the power curve and wound up colonizing almost all of the home system.I do some exploring, system 2 is empty with some unsettled planets. System 3 was home to Shadows and Brunt, which were warring among themselves and hostile to the Threesome Federation. I took some missions from the Shadow to kill off the Brunt, which got the 3 way in against them. They quickly fall. Eventually my allies declare war on the Shadows too, and I get a notice about the Cortex wiping out the Lithosoids. At this point I never met either. The war goes on a bit, then abruptly the Shadows die off, I forget who got the killing blow. The Cortex were evidently hitting them from beyond system 3 somewhere at the same time as our attacks. With all the action it took me awhile to find the gate out of system 3, and in the meantime the Utopians have been expanding a fair bit outside of the home system. I run into a Cortex scout and see they have deteroriating relations with the alliance. What I don't notice at first is that the Cortex power bar is roughly double the Utopians (and the Utopians dwarf the Dryads, so.) When I finally find the gate outside of system 3 tucked away in a small patch of fog of war at the edge of the system, I get exploring and find out they've colonized pretty much everything beyond. By this time they've declared war on the Alliance so I have to dodge around their systems. By the time I stopped playing, the Cortex had wiped out most of the expansion colonies and had made several attacks on the home system, repelled with my help. I'm not sure what I can do to (or if I can) still win. Any advice?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2012 14:28
|
|
|
metasynthetic posted:By the time I stopped playing, the Cortex had wiped out most of the expansion colonies and had made several attacks on the home system, repelled with my help. I'm not sure what I can do to (or if I can) still win. Any advice? Well, you could try to jump ship and side with the Cortex, or get the Cortex to buddy up with the Utopians (which would be hard). There's also sabotage--take any quests you can find to dump all sort of nasty viruses/poo poo you can on Cortex planets. I am not sure if you can sabotage independent of quests other than the normal propaganda stuff. Actually, using propaganda would be a decent way to muck up the Cortex, just get all their populations to riot like crazy should buy you some time.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2012 15:12
|
|
|
metasynthetic posted:
Go for the underdog win. Switching sides being viable depends on how deep a hole your relations are with the Cortex vs how much the Threesome has left to lose. The problem is, it doesn't sound like you can get in good enough with the Cortex before you sink your relations with the Threesome, and you taking shots at the Threesome will only accelerate their decline. Assisting the Cortex will quickly leave you with no ally and will leave the Cprtex as the sole remaining force which is an automatic loss for you. You may just have to lose this one if the Cortex are too burly. On the bright side, you are going to be hemorrhaging XP and loot before the last stand is over. And see, this is why Soldak games are so cool, even losing is epic.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2012 18:26
|
|
|
Underwhelmed posted:And see, this is why Soldak games are so cool, even losing is epic. Yeah, every sector (or town in din's) is a self contained story. Some are boring, some are impossibly brutal, some you pull off by the skin of your teeth. Even if you loose you get to keep your cool character and gear and try again on a fresh world. Its a really addicting formula you don't see anywhere else. I went back and played a little Din's last night. Its definitely a lot more hectic than Drox. Every random event has some effect on you and the town your trying to save. In Drox the events are still interesting, but you don't have to act on ones that aren't effecting your evil plans. Both games are great in their own way, I'm happy some new people are discovering soldak because of the thread.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2012 02:38
|
|
|
I actually turned it around and won! I kept defending the homesystem and picking off the weaker Cortex planets when I could. Managed to push the front back a system, so that the alliance and Cortex were fighting over system 2 more. Somewhere I got a treasure map quest that took me deep, all the way to the Cortex home system. I flew in, blew stuff up on the way, found that treasure map loot is apparently nothing special. Got a notice that I won by fear on the way back. What causes that, just killing stuff? I suppose repeated acts of planetary genocide might also have something to do with it. I started my 2nd game, continued with the same ship. There are a lot more options for gear in the new game. Digging it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2012 16:11
|
|
|
Tried the demo, this poo poo is pretty cool. The only thing I didn't like was how slowly my ship plodded along, though I imagine that'll get better later. My first instinct, upon reading the tooltips for the level up stats, was to put everything in the one that gives you bigger/better ships. I can't resist! 
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2012 16:44
|
|
|
I did the same thing when I first started playing the demo, but I found the biggest early limitation was power load. I focused more on Engineering early on when I got the full game and think it was a better choice.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2012 17:07
|
|
|
If your movement feels slow, note that upgrading your ship to the next class does slow you down through added weight. Also, I found out that there are thruster modules that fit in the yellow slot, so you can do something like maxing out your red slots with power load reactors and weaponry while using thrusters in your medium slots.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2012 17:16
|
|
|
I've only got 1 ship I've used in the game and I think I've kinda gimped myself by going for the ship upgrades. Although I have 4/4/4 slots now, I barely have enough power to everything I use, plus finding upgrades is becoming harder, everything I find seems to do 8-20DPS when the one weapon I'm using is 28DPS and I got it from a chest after beating a sector. Wish I could find a lower power use mine with higher damage. The one I got right now and I'm using in one of my racial slots only does something like 12DPS.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2012 17:20
|
|
|
Dotcom656 posted:I've only got 1 ship I've used in the game and I think I've kinda gimped myself by going for the ship upgrades. Although I have 4/4/4 slots now, I barely have enough power to everything I use, plus finding upgrades is becoming harder, everything I find seems to do 8-20DPS when the one weapon I'm using is 28DPS and I got it from a chest after beating a sector. Yeah, while in any other game, the logical choice might seem to be upgraded ship > other ship, each class up weighs more, which means it requires more thrust to maintain maneuverability. If you spend all your early upgrades on ship upgrades, you quickly end up with this giant turd that has a million slots in a universe full of components that are too weak to propel it. To compensate, you have to pile on thrusters (and then reactors) which eat up all the extra slots that you upgraded to get in the first place. I have actually been watching my available power level, and when I have a reactor that is able to power all my best equipment and still have a shitload of left over, I then head for the upgraded hull. It seems to keep things balanced that way. Having the space to install something is only one consideration out of several.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2012 19:53
|
|
|
Tried the demo and this game is a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Just bought it and downloading the full version now, will definitely keep me entertained for a while.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2012 20:59
|
|
|
toasterwarrior posted:If your movement feels slow, note that upgrading your ship to the next class does slow you down through added weight. Yep, see, I like that there are trade-offs for going up in ship class. Now, don't quote me on this, but I also believe it is possible to remain at a small ship class forever and still be competitive.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2012 21:07
|
|
|
On the subject of moving around, go into the game options and play with the thruster options in there. I have it set to Toggle on and Disengage and Cursor off. This way I hit W to toggle engines on/off, use AD to steer, and most importantly can start scanning anomalies or planets without stopping. You can just keep booking across space and only stop if items drop off a planet or something.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2012 21:57
|
|
|
If anyone feels like making a banner ad for this thread, I'll buy it. Game needs more attention. I may make one myself this weekend but what precious little free time I have is being spent on playing or drinking or both.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2012 03:15
|
|
|
I've been playing some Din's Curse, and out of nowhere I have started having this weird issue. Whenever I start the game up, left clicking will not move me. I can left clik on monsters or interactable objects just fine, but i cant just hit the ground to move. In order to fix the issue, I need delete the user.cfg file in the docs folder before I start a new game. If I do this, on the next startup things will be fine except for everything being back on the default settings. I read on the Soldak's forums the running in windowed mode helps for some people, but if I do that, the next time I start the game up, I can't interact with any menus at all, and can only close the game with an alt-f4. Up to today, I have never had a problem running or playing the game. It isn't a huge issue, but it is a bit of a pain in the rear end having to reset key configuration and graphics settings everytime I start it up. Has anyone seen this before?
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2012 06:54
|
|
|
metasynthetic posted:If anyone feels like making a banner ad for this thread, I'll buy it. Game needs more attention. I may make one myself this weekend but what precious little free time I have is being spent on playing or drinking or both. I might try to put one together but the ad needs some catchy text though because screenshots make it look like every other indie flavor of the week, and I think this game is more than that. I'm open to suggestions, maybe we could work in a frame about Din's too? RE: Ship upgrading. Underwhelmed's suggestion to wait to pump up command until you've got excess power is a good one. I've never had any issues like that with Din's, that's wierd... maybe somehow the settings file in (C/users/"name"/Appdata/Local/DinsCurse) turned to read only?
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2012 20:00
|
|
|
On my 3rd game now, I kind of wish there was a way to specify which factions are in a game because I keep getting the same ones. Shadow, Forge and Humans have been in pretty much all of my games so far.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2012 20:08
|
|
|
No idea if it's a bug or feature, but I've found with my Drakk ship that I can summon 3 fighters and interceptors with only the racial hangar slot equipped. At the moment, I summon 3 fighters, swap over to interceptor hangar and summon 3 interceptors. With 6 of the little bastards flying around it's great.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2012 04:32
|
|
|
I remember that being reported in the beta. We should try a big multiplayer game. I think you can even set up a quazi-dedicated server - theres a flag you can set that auto-starts a new galaxy if the current one is done
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2012 08:42
|
|
|
Had this weird situation happen late in a game. The Legion had already appeared once, so the new Legion replaced the already eliminated Utopians in the racial screen.  Then Dryad just couldn't make up their mind. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2012 14:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 10:23 |
|
|
 Sure, I'll get right on that.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2012 16:56
|
|