Drox Operative Preview, Continued
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 1353
Let's first talk about some of the larger changes the game has seen since we last spent time in its universe, both positive and negative. The first major one is now when you choose a specific race, you're allowed race-specific enhancements. For example, I'm a Drakk in my game sorry, haven't tried any other races, too attached to my character at the moment and I now have an extra slot for a Drakk crewmember which I happened to have and a fighter bay, which I'd never used before. Fighters are fun times, even if their energy requirements are a bit on the high side.
The next major change, to me, is the presentation of the trade screen. Whereas in my original game, it was more difficult to differentiate between light, medium and heavy items, as well as which items might be more rare and therefore more useful, now it's all much easier to see at a glance. Items and slots are better color coded to be much easier to spot (at least it feels easier to me), and now have small colored pips which denote whether an items is normal, uncommon, rare, an artifact and so on. There are now also green plus symbols to denote an item is better than the one you have, but this seems a bit odd, as an item might have a green plus for being better in only one stat. Regardless, it's a definite improvement.
The final big change, to me, is the change of victory conditions. Previously in the game, when you had all of the races ally with each other and with you, the sector was declared won and you could move onto the next one. This is how I left the game one night. Imagine my shock and dismay upon discovering when, upon applying the next patch, that the sector was no longer won, and I couldn't move forward. This was due to a change in which a sector could only be won if you were allied with the last remaining race. This was an insanely frustrating development, and I just felt so.jolted by it that I started a whole new sector as a result. While this game is a work-in-progress, I am hoping that multiple, flexible victory conditions are added which can be chosen before a game begins, as in most typical 4X games. Having only one victory condition wouldn't result in too many replays of a 4X game, and I hate to say it, but the same is likely true here.
