Petroglyph Updates RTS Star Wars: Empire at War, Readding Multiplayer and Steam Workshop Support - Sensationalist Headlines

[quote] Indie game developer and publisher Petroglyph is proud to announce the upcoming release of a major update to Star Wars: Empire at War, 10 years after its initial launch. In collaboration with Disney, the team at Petroglyph has restored the multiplayer functionality in Star Wars: Empire at War that was previously lost when the online service GameSpy™ was shut down. Players will soon be able to seamlessly connect via Valve's Steam™ service and play in multiplayer land, space, and galactic battles as they did a decade ago. In addition, several compatibility issues were fixed, and an in-game interface for mod support has been included to support the Steam Workshop. "We have received a huge number of requests to restore the multiplayer functionality to Star Wars: Empire at War. The game's fan base has only increased with time and the user concurrency rates remain very strong, so we really felt like this was something we needed to do for all the loyal fans." -Chuck Kroegel, Gemeral Manager, Petroglyph[/quote] [url=https://www.newswire.com/news/rts-veterans-petroglyph-make-return-to-star-wars-empire-at-war-with-19892543]Newswire[/url] [url=http://steamcommunity.com/games/32470/announcements/detail/1442696667805403060]Steam Community announcement[/url]

The multiplayer balance is so broken it's not even funny, but this is a nice thing of them.

fuck yes

It's weird to see Petroglyph described as an "indie game developer."

That's nice of them to go back and do this. Me and my brother had tons of fun with this back in the day.

[QUOTE=Oblivion Knight;52637730]It's weird to see Petroglyph described as an "indie game developer."[/QUOTE] I believe any dev that exists post 2008 and isn't EA/activision/ubisoft counts as an indie dev.

The amount of hours I put into Empire at War I can safely say surpasses my time with Dark Souls. The space combat and the mods alone gave me a ton of options to go about the game.

I saw the update earlier and wondered what it could be; this is great news! I love playing this game while listening to podcasts.

Loved playing as Empire since you could just focus space superiority once the death star was built(So long as you had healthy garrisons to prevent simple raiding). Corruption had some fun units, but dear god are the corruption missions tedious. And the AI always automatically succeeds them if you're playing against them. I tend to play rebel/empire maps only because of this. Never had a chance to play MP. How did it work? Just a max of 2 players I'm guessing?

[QUOTE=Cliff2;52637774]Loved playing as Empire since you could just focus space superiority once the death star was built(So long as you had healthy garrisons to prevent simple raiding). Corruption had some fun units, but dear god are the corruption missions tedious. And the AI always automatically succeeds them if you're playing against them. I tend to play rebel/empire maps only because of this. Never had a chance to play MP. How did it work? Just a max of 2 players I'm guessing?[/QUOTE] The galactic map thing is 2 players only yeah. And horribly imbalanced. Vader's ship and the death star are blatantly meant to be unstoppable. Like I'm 100% sure the death star can't even be destroyed by the rebellion lol, me and friend tried finding a way, using Luke, using the Falcon and even red squadron but nothing ever seemed to work.

Last time I played this the corruption faction was just grossly grossly overpowered, it was kind of funny

[QUOTE=GrizzlyBear;52638051]The galactic map thing is 2 players only yeah. And horribly imbalanced. Vader's ship and the death star are blatantly meant to be unstoppable. Like I'm 100% sure the death star can't even be destroyed by the rebellion lol, me and friend tried finding a way, using Luke, using the Falcon and even red squadron but nothing ever seemed to work.[/QUOTE] It's got a weird criteria. Think you can use lucky shot with luke but it takes a while. Alternatively win the battle with luke and some fighters left alive and it should be destroyed.

[QUOTE=spekter;52638084]It's got a weird criteria. Think you can use lucky shot with luke but it takes a while. Alternatively win the battle with luke and some fighters left alive and it should be destroyed.[/QUOTE] And unfortunately by the time the DS is out and about it's usually guarded by space Vader and dozens of imperial Star Destroyers. Vader is the most BROKEN unit ever, or at least the most broken I've come across. Awesome game but the balance is dire. :v: OH and every 30 seconds or so, the Death Star can instant 1 hit any big ship you have. The Empire is scary as hell in that game.

[QUOTE=GrizzlyBear;52638051]The galactic map thing is 2 players only yeah. And horribly imbalanced. Vader's ship and the death star are blatantly meant to be unstoppable. Like I'm 100% sure the death star can't even be destroyed by the rebellion lol, me and friend tried finding a way, using Luke, using the Falcon and even red squadron but nothing ever seemed to work.[/QUOTE] yeah the game is really imbalanced. like you have to get rogue squadron in the space battle AND win it AND not have them die.... but 1) they're fucking weak and 2) if a certain amount of x-wings in the squadron go down in the fight they'll be dead in the battle report meaning you can't blow up the death star lmfaooo meanwhile the zc get a stealth hero unit that can literally go fucking right up to the ds and blow it up for free lmaooooooooooooo eaw is a mess but i fucking love it anyways

[QUOTE=Redswandir;52638111]yeah the game is really imbalanced. like you have to get rogue squadron in the space battle AND win it AND not have them die.... but 1) they're fucking weak and 2) if a certain amount of x-wings in the squadron go down in the fight they'll be dead in the battle report meaning you can't blow up the death star lmfaooo meanwhile the zc get a stealth hero unit that can literally go fucking right up to the ds and blow it up for free lmaooooooooooooo eaw is a mess but i fucking love it anyways[/QUOTE] I thought the Zann couldn't destroy the DS, merely force it to blow up the planet it's stationed outside?

[QUOTE=Icedshot;52638052]Last time I played this the corruption faction was just grossly grossly overpowered, it was kind of funny[/QUOTE] They still are even from a steam install. Just about everything about the Consortium is horribly balanced. "Alright, we'll give them a frigate that can cloak and doesn't have shields." "Okay sounds reasonable." "Oh and we'll give it two mass drivers and 4 laser batteries, ya know enough to compete against Star Fighters,Frigates,Space Stations, AND Capital Ships too!" "Sounds good to me!" "Okay so how are we gonna manage their capital ships?" "Well since they steal units form other factions along side their own, lets give them their capital ships at Tech 2." "Dude, amazing, lets ALSO give them mass drivers that penetrate shields and special abilities like a big gun that can devastate capitals and space stations, and another that can scuttle itself and deal massive damage!" "So infantry how are we gonna work it." "Dude, lets give them really had damage and grenade launchers so they can devastate all forms of infantry. Oh and they fire really fast, have decent hp." "YOU'RE A GENIUS!" "Dude, lets give one of the heroes a Rancor pet that has very high HP, high damage, and let her instantly refill all her HP as well has having a very good ranged melee attack make AT-ATs and T2Bs eat a lot of damage." "My God man,is there anything you can't do wrong." "Well also their turret encampments are proton torpedoes and mass drivers. They can kill groups of enemies with ease and make those same vehicles easy to kill." "Keep going." "Oh yeah IG-88 can secretly get in touch with the Deathstar like the thing in the EU. Without any warning he can just blow the Death Star up, taking the planet and fleet with it as well." I really hate the fucking faction. It's balance is so fucking horrid that playing against the AI requires you to play Rebellion and do raid missions to take their capital ship worlds.

[QUOTE=GrizzlyBear;52638116]I thought the Zann couldn't destroy the DS, merely force it to blow up the planet it's stationed outside?[/QUOTE] maybe i remember it wrong, but pretty sure you can use ig88 to hack into it and blow it up maybe it's sp only? idk

Awesome to see this get some more attention after all these years, with them collaborating with Disney to do this i'd hope that there's a chance of a sequel but i doubt it'll happen, really. [QUOTE=Oblivion Knight;52637730]It's weird to see Petroglyph described as an "indie game developer."[/QUOTE] They are, though. An Indie Developer is any developer that's independent of a publisher, in the sense that they aren't controlled/overseen by a publisher all the time and don't rely on them for everything.

It'd be cool if they could get this up on GOG too, but I'm perfectly fine with it. [editline]2nd September 2017[/editline] I hope this means we're getting another Star Wars RTS soon, hopefully something at least with a galactic conquest mode.

So unexpected, wanted to play the game a few months ago with a friend but couldn't get Hamachi to work as fake LAN. Neato.

Modding for this game is great, good that i can finally play online with a friend. [editline]edit[/editline] And the game now has a in game modding interface AND Steam Workshop support! Holy shit didn't even notice that.

[QUOTE=zakedodead;52637736]I believe any dev that exists post 2008 and isn't EA/activision/ubisoft counts as an indie dev.[/QUOTE] Capcom is my favorite indie developer.

I'm pretty sure EaW's main strength is its moddability, there were a lot of great mods last I played with it. The engine can support some pretty large battles, playing with scale mods and unit multipliers is fun as fuck.

I remember buying this game only for the space battles, and only downloading mods for the space battles. It was worth it.

The best thing about playing consortium was getting an army that solely consisted of ewok handlers and then take over planets through ewok space jihad

That was so fucked up and beyond brutal but I loved the effects on large vehicles and garrisons. Didn't a old review series give the expansion "3 exploding ewoks out of 5?"

This is just wonderful news. I've played the game so much when I was younger and modded it to hell Hopefully, they do another update to make some much-needed balance changes Edit: The best mod out there for the game, if you have the Forces of Corruption Expansion Pack, is Republic At War. That mod takes place in the Clone Wars Era and is nothing but great fun

[QUOTE=Retinazer;52640417]This is just wonderful news. I've played the game so much when I was younger and modded it to hell Hopefully, they do another update to make some much-needed balance changes Edit: The best mod out there for the game, if you have the Forces of Corruption Expansion Pack, is Republic At War. That mod takes place in the Clone Wars Era and is nothing but great fun[/QUOTE] Thrawns revenge is better, but yeah Republic At war is pretty fun, despite the fact it has significant balance issues.

[QUOTE=jonu67;52640437]Thrawns revenge is better, but yeah Republic At war is pretty fun, despite the fact it has significant balance issues.[/QUOTE] I 'might' have a bias toward Republic At War because I have a fond memory of me constantly refresh the ModDB page on the night the mod was to launch

[QUOTE=Kyle902;52640368]The best thing about playing consortium was getting an army that solely consisted of ewok handlers and then take over planets through ewok space jihad[/QUOTE] Not to mention getting control of the Hutt space station/pirate shipyard and flinging 25 Venators at the enemy space station