Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[lordcooper]

I've been playing a fair bit of Drox Operative lately.  It's one of the few ARPGs I've ever enjoyed.  You have an extremely upgradeable spaceship and start in a section of the universe generated according to your specifications (number of civilizations, how advanced they are, 'monster' strength, size etc).  You are given no instructions whatsoever other than a list of victory conditions that range from defeating all but one empire and then allying with them, creating a diplomatic coalition, becoming a legend (running missions for the various empires, defeating large threats to them etc), making a shit load of cash, to making every empire utterly fear you.

Empires expand on their own, fighting 'monsters' and each other depending on their nature and current views of each other.  You can influence this through propaganda, espionage, sabotage and spreading rumours.  You can try to pick the winning side and ensure their quick victory, attempt to engineer a state of equilibrium, or just flat out ignore them for the most part.  It is good and deserves your money.

[Anvilfolk]

I think this must come very close to giving the feeling that I like of being an agent (like many others) in a world. I'll give it a try at some point for sure

[DrPoo]

Could someone gift me this as a late christmas gift? I dont have a credit card and no one wants to lend me theirs

[GreatJustice]

I'm curious, but it isn't on steam which is quite annoying.

[ThtblovesDF]

Demo gets it over very well...


If the mp is a 1 to 1 copy of singleplayer, this would be massive "fun"

They need to put this on desure or steam, cause I'm not paying 20 € for a 20 $ game, because they think they have to ship a cd, which will take 3 weeks at least.

[Hanzoku]

OK, timeout avoided!

It's actually 20 euros for a 20 dollar game, digital download. Clicking the CD link adds another 10 euros to the price.

As an aside, the exchange rate is... incorrect, but I doubt they check it dynamically. According to Google, the price should be around ~15 euros before VAT, not 16.27, but I suspect they were trying for 19.99 in euros.

I think it's an interesting, fun game, but it's overpriced at 20 euros.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

This game is Space Rangers on steroids.

With Dynamic [Capital-D] missions and carried-over characters [ships] a-la Diablo, with hardcore modes, challenge scenarios, sandbox universe generation, and all around awesome times included. It is worth every single penny of yours. Do it now.

This is what I've spent the last couple of days doing.

Unfortunately, there are no adventure segments or tacked-on RTS parts. So it's not all SR. This game is extremely similar though, just play and you'll see what I mean. This is basically a more modern version with much more spiffy features added in, which I heartily recommend since it seems like the Devs won't be abandoning it. Supposedly Soldak's next project is an expansion.

[ThtblovesDF]

Bought it, no regrets...


Anyone up for MP?

[Scoops Novel]

Will it be updated after release? Best thing i could see them doing here is letting you board stations, planets and ships in some form of arpg roguelike hybrid.

[Anvilfolk]

How much did you guys enjoy Din's Curse and the like? I thought they would be great, but then despite the supposed freeformness and sandboxyness of it all the missions were all really rather alike and I found myself doing the same thing over and over to get that next level or that next piece of loot. It got boring for me pretty quickly Is this any different?

[ConscriptFive]

How much did you guys enjoy Din's Curse and the like? I thought they would be great, but then despite the supposed freeformness and sandboxyness of it all the missions were all really rather alike and I found myself doing the same thing over and over to get that next level or that next piece of loot. It got boring for me pretty quickly Is this any different?

Exactly, hemmingjay started a thread when it first came out a month ago:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=119832

Since then, JarlFrank at the RPG Codex provided the best review:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8695

In conclusion, I have to say that Drox Operative tries a fresh new approach to Diablo-like ARPGs and succeeds. At its core, however, it still is a Diablo-like. The 4X elements are just a backdrop to what is, basically, killing shit and gathering loot. You will do a lot of trading with the different space empires, you will do diplomacy with them, but 90% of the time you spend on Drox Operative you will be exploring solar systems and kill things for experience and loot.

Overall, I enjoyed playing Drox Operative - especially experimenting with different ship builds and trying out all the different weapons this game has. There never was any moment where I thought the game was amazing, quite the contrary - sometimes its shortcomings became all too apparent after a long gaming session (such as the relatively slow movement speed considering the size of the gameworld, the lack of enemy variety, and a very unstructured difficulty/level progression), but for some reason, the game managed to keep me on my chair for hours at a time. I start a session to play a little, and suddenly, three hours are gone. I blame it on the fact that it's a rather solid ARPG that attempts something that has never really been done before - putting the player into the world of a strategy game with competing factions and letting him interact with them in any way he likes.

I can heartily recommend this game to everyone who played and enjoyed any of the previous games by Soldak Entertainment. The basic principle is the same - a Diablo-like with a twist - and this is their most refined offering yet. If you enjoy Diablo-likes in general and want something that brings fresh ideas into the genre, you cannot go wrong with this, either. Anyone else should just try the demo and decide for themselves. It's a very solid game that tries something new, but it's nothing groundbreaking or breathtaking. It definitely is a much-needed breath of fresh air and shows that genre-mixing RPGs with strategy games can lead to very interesting results.

If you love Diablo-likes, and want to see one with a space theme, you'll dig it: but at no point will you ever be dazzled.  It's all procedurally generated, so there's no narrative hook to it, and the game mechanics lacks variety over the long-term.  It's a "solid" ARPG but far from "great" - B minus and definitely not an A.

[Anvilfolk]

Damn

Guess I'll have to keep waiting for that "you're just another guy in a pretty complex world" game! If this ever goes on sale somewhere I'll probably get it. Multiplayer sounds enticing!

[ThtblovesDF]

You "write" your own narrative, but if you do nothing but fly into npc mobs and kill them, I am certain you can share JarlFanks view to some degree.

Last game was Cortex, vs Lizardmen, Vs Humans - My mission was to let Lizardmen surive, so I went around and encouraged the hostilities between cortex and humans, but they where rather friendly - however, cortex and lizards where also VERY friendly with each other - so i pushed them to form a non-aggression pact and finally a mutal protection pact - then all it took was a light push on the lizard vs human relationships and we had a nice 2v1 war - i took part in the lizards favor, ensuring they took most of the spoils and sold them the tech cheaply (and not so cheaply to cortex) - while also supporting the humans vs Cortex actions.

In all honesty, just play the demo.

There are far more items and your possible layouts, weapons and approaches get very diverse as you gain higher level, right now I play a engine heavy ship with 2x AoE Electro shields and 2x Shock mines +3 Interceptors, so I ram into the biggest enemy blob i can find, drop mines and speed onwards, poping my battery banks to keep the weapons going. Before that I used a double railgun with weapon enhancements (but they keept missing) and before that I employed a fleet of interceptors + Virus Cannons + Mines.

I like it. Lvl 15 or so now.

[Grakelin]

This game is Space Rangers on steroids.

With Dynamic [Capital-D] missions and carried-over characters [ships] a-la Diablo, with hardcore modes, challenge scenarios, sandbox universe generation, and all around awesome times included. It is worth every single penny of yours. Do it now.

This is what I've spent the last couple of days doing.

Unfortunately, there are no adventure segments or tacked-on RTS parts. So it's not all SR. This game is extremely similar though, just play and you'll see what I mean. This is basically a more modern version with much more spiffy features added in, which I heartily recommend since it seems like the Devs won't be abandoning it. Supposedly Soldak's next project is an expansion.

Space Rangers without RTS sequences and poorly translated choose your own adventures?

SIGN ME UP

[Mictlantecuhtli]

There are far more items and your possible layouts, weapons and approaches get very diverse as you gain higher level, right now I play a engine heavy ship with 2x AoE Electro shields and 2x Shock mines +3 Interceptors, so I ram into the biggest enemy blob i can find, drop mines and speed onwards, poping my battery banks to keep the weapons going.Before that I used a double railgun with weapon enhancements (but they keept missing) and before that I employed a fleet of interceptors + Virus Cannons + Mines.

I'm currently using an artifact Laser+simply incredible missile drop+EMP Burst that I found that outguns any other EMP I've found till this point. Being Fringe makes it extremely easy to power-manage, since you get that nice slot for a reactor for free which automatically frees up a heavy slot for either a jet drive [at low tech] or weaponry once you get pulse drives and energy to spew out missiles/lasers/whatever.  Or another Breeder Plant [I have no idea where these come from, but they're 500+ energy reactors!] if you're insane like I am. Makes it so I can blast accurately with my left click on a main target, fire missiles with the middle mouse, and then use my right-click all I want to annihilate whatever's nearby without even bothering.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Injectors are the best engines though, you simply don't get better than a light component that gives thrust

I can wade into hordes of Drakk ships and leave with barely 1/5 of my shields down. You start to feel like an extreme badass when you get higher level. Bosses are no issue, I just need to find the last ten Drakk planets so my 3v1 war can end already and I can get a diplomatic victory.

I'm only level 12 on this character too [after my first HC failed miserably], I feel like I need to get a level 20 galaxy next time. I found too many dimensional pockets with incredible drops.

Also: Fuck armor. If you're going to get shielding, get actual shields. Unless you have regen or ship rebuilding componenets, it's a waste of time since you have to go back to the nearest planet and fix your damn armor every time it gets hit otherwise. And considering the best armors I've ever found are 150+ to plating, fuck that. I have two shield generators with 250 shields a piece on them and have not died since having them yet, I used to die often when I worried about a mix of all.