Darwinia gains a PCZONE Essential rating! NOT 56K freindly!

[The GoldFish]

Well, people are expecting it to be an RTS, not an Action game.

The units do exactly what you say without question, including Darwinians, which sort of makes sense, I guess, if you douse it with plot.

[Phydaux]

I really find it quite surprising the number of people that are complaining about the path finding. Am I the only person on the planet that didn't expect units to find their way across levels by themselves?

That comes from their pre-conceptions. Even tho they say the game is very fresh and different... they then turn around and criticize it for not having mainstream RTS elements. They see the fault with the game rather than their ability to play it.

Did people criticize cannon fodder for it's lack of path finding? Darwinia is practally the same game

[Andcarne]

I've always considered it to be a rather important element of the gameplay. It certainly adds a bunch of difficulty.

[Iris]

Did people criticize cannon fodder for it's lack of path finding? Darwinia is practally the same game

*sigh!*....so hard to please everybody. =(

[fattierob]

I love the last line in the review

Someone please give these guys a lot of money.

[LeatherRaven]

I really find it quite surprising the number of people that are complaining about the path finding. Am I the only person on the planet that didn't expect units to find their way across levels by themselves?

That comes from their pre-conceptions. Even tho they say the game is very fresh and different... they then turn around and criticize it for not having mainstream RTS elements. They see the fault with the game rather than their ability to play it.

Did people criticize cannon fodder for it's lack of path finding? Darwinia is practally the same game

Yes but Cannon Fodder is 12 years old! AI has advanced a lot since then. I’m sure if Sensible had the time/money/knowledge to program good path finding into Cannon Fodder back then they would have! Darwinia is pricing itself at £29.99 which is comparable to a great deal of other non-indie, triple A titles so it has to stand up to those. It wouldn’t be fair to readers to cut a game too much slack because it’s coming from an indie developer (much as we love them). It’s also not fair on IV – they’ve created a great game and it should be judged against its contemporaries and not just given an easy ride.

To be honest I’m not *that* bothered about units getting stuck behind things/on slopes but I do object to them actually killing themselves by walking through something rather than around it! That’s not my “inability” to play the game, that’s just bad path-finding. Of course it’s easy enough to create a new unit, but when you’re in an intense fight and your nearest spawn point is a way away this can be very frustrating.

[Darwin00uk]

look at the path finding as another gameplay element and all your troubles dissapear.

Chill

[Rkiver]

Hey you gave a fair review on what you had experienced, what more could anyone ask for? You still gave it over 80%, and an essential rating. For any game that is high praise.

The pathfinding "quirk" adds a level of difficulty to the game, and that can only extend the playability of the game in my opinion.

[Phydaux]

Darwinia isn't exactly a generic RTS. C&C had patches of tiberium that injured soldiers. You learnt to make your men avoid the patches, not blame the game for having bad pathfinding.

IF your playing any modern RTS and tell units to wander into an enemy base, or shoot pointlessly at the ground they will... to their eventual doom. So you learn NOT to do that. (There are a few exceptions to this rule but they tend to lean on the strategy side not the action side)

If your darwinians keep drowning or your squad wanders into another virii patch you need to learn to controll your units better and not critisize the game. "A bad workman blames his tools"

It’s also not fair on IV – they’ve created a great game and it should be judged against its contemporaries and not just given an easy ride.

I'm glad you reviewd it like that. I have been plesently surprised at the high scores Darwinia received.

[LeatherRaven]

Darwinia isn't exactly a generic RTS. C&C had patches of tiberium that injured soldiers. You learnt to make your men avoid the patches, not blame the game for having bad pathfinding.

IF your playing any modern RTS and tell units to wander into an enemy base, or shoot pointlessly at the ground they will... to their eventual doom. So you learn NOT to do that. (There are a few exceptions to this rule but they tend to lean on the strategy side not the action side)

If your darwinians keep drowning or your squad wanders into another virii patch you need to learn to controll your units better and not critisize the game. "A bad workman blames his tools"

It’s also not fair on IV – they’ve created a great game and it should be judged against its contemporaries and not just given an easy ride.

I'm glad you reviewd it like that. I have been plesently surprised at the high scores Darwinia received.

Seriously, don’t let other developers hear you say that or they’ll be claiming all their bugs are ‘quirks of the game’.

“That big crash bug in the third act – well you’re obviously TOO STUPID to find a way around it.”

“That bit where one of your weapons inexplicably stops working yet stays in your inventory… well ha ha ha, you’ll just have to do without it!”

“Oh and that bit where one of your party gets stuck in a corner of the environment and can’t get out again… well shouldn’t have gone in it should you?”

This is not a case of a bad workman/woman/person blaming her tools. A tool is an inanimate object designed for one, possibly two, specific purposes. If someone had programmed a hammer to come to me I might well blame the hammer, or more accurately the person who had programmed it, if instead of trotting up to me it wandered out into the street lay down in the middle of the road and waited for a lorry to come and crush it!

Am I right in thinking that some of you guys were bug testers? If that’s the case I’m on a losing battle anyway and you’re always going to disagree.

I realise you love this game, I really do (I like it a lot myself) and I 100% support what IV are doing. But I have been reviewing for 7 years and playing games for 22 so I do have some idea of what I’m talking about. I’ve been quite specific (on here) about several of the areas I viewed as buggy/bad pathfinding. If you disagree then *okay*, but the “It’s not the game it’s YOU” argument is unjustified and unappreciated especially as 1) I certainly wasn’t the only reviewer to mention these issue and 2) I’ve take the time to come and chat to you about it.

Anyway, for those of you who are going tonight, have a good launch party, I would have been there myself – now that could have lead to some animated discussions - but I’ve just had my wisdom teeth out and would only bleed on you. So I’ll raise a lukewarm cup of tea (can’t have hot drinks or alcohol at the moment) in Darwinia’s honour.

[Darksun]

Horrible mouth pain *and* no alcohol to numb it? Poor you

But thanks for coming here, and taking the time to explain your review, I think that's really cool, especially when dealing with fanboys that have been known to publically decapitate people in #uplink

[Phydaux]

...
Seriously, don’t let other developers hear you say that or they’ll be claiming all their bugs are ‘quirks of the game’.

“That big crash bug in the third act – well you’re obviously TOO STUPID to find a way around it.”

“That bit where one of your weapons inexplicably stops working yet stays in your inventory… well ha ha ha, you’ll just have to do without it!”

“Oh and that bit where one of your party gets stuck in a corner of the environment and can’t get out again… well shouldn’t have gone in it should you?”

That is not what I'm saying. Just from the very first time I played darwinia I never expected there to *BE* pathfinding. It is why I am surprised that people have pointed it out as a problem. Your comparisons are also weak, you're comparing a major bug to the way a game plays. Tidy.

This is not a case of a bad workman/woman/person blaming her tools. A tool is an inanimate object designed for one, possibly two, specific purposes. If someone had programmed a hammer to come to me I might well blame the hammer, or more accurately the person who had programmed it, if instead of trotting up to me it wandered out into the street lay down in the middle of the road and waited for a lorry to come and crush it!

I personally think that it is a case of bad workperson blaming their tools. A computer IS a tool when it is used to accomplish a specific task. Comparing your analogy to Darwinia is like saying that a squad you told to go to the brow of a hill has decided to go the opposite way and dance with a group of spiders. That does not happen.
If the magic hammer was trotting towards you and smashed through a pane of glass, how many more panes would have to be smashed before you relised that the hammer is designed to hit things and go towards you? You might complain to the "programmer" saying that there is a bug with the hammer, and they will turn around and say "This is a function of our tool, how are you supposed to use a hammer that does not hit things? We could give you a hammer that avoids glass, but then what if you want to smash up a window?" It's the same with darwinia, you may want to plonk a load of darwinians in virii infested part of the map, or up the steepest slope of a hill, it's your choice. I believe it would be more frustrating if you wanted to attack up the steepest hill, or ignore a virii patch and go straight through only to find your squad "pathfinding" their way around the hill/virii most possibly into a worse situation. I like to have direct control in action games.

The only time I would expect a squad to dodge through scenery and shoot bad-guys without my input is on the silver screen.

Am I right in thinking that some of you guys were bug testers? If that’s the case I’m on a losing battle anyway and you’re always going to disagree.

I am pretty pig-headded but if you had a strong valid point you could sway me.

[LeatherRaven]

I have repeatedly said I don’t really have a big problem with the fact units get stuck on slopes, but it is annoying and could have easily been fixed. I have no problem whatsoever with the fact that they may walk into viri either. You can see the viri there, if you happen to have missed a few strands and they get your units then that’s your fault for not studying the terrain more closely. I am agreeing with you here.

What I do object to and I’ve said this several times and you seemed to have simply ignored it in your post is squads KILLING THEMSELVES through bad path finding. I don’t mean by walking through viri I mean by walking into what I describe as the lava on the map. They repeatedly did this when there were pools of lava in the middle of maps. To my mind that is not a ‘quirk’ that’s a ‘bug' pure and simple and I’ve seen many, many of them. I’m not sure how I can be any clearer about this?

You didn’t expect there to be pathfinding, fine, good for you, but I had higher expectations about what was achievable in this game and they were not met.

[coolsi]

The pathfinding "quirk" adds a level of difficulty to the game

That is ultimate fandom!

[Phydaux]

What I do object to and I’ve said this several times and you seemed to have simply ignored it in your post is squads KILLING THEMSELVES through bad path finding. I don’t mean by walking through viri I mean by walking into what I describe as the lava on the map. They repeatedly did this when there were pools of lava in the middle of maps. To my mind that is not a ‘quirk’ that’s a ‘bug' pure and simple and I’ve seen many, many of them. I’m not sure how I can be any clearer about this?

You didn’t expect there to be pathfinding, fine, good for you, but I had higher expectations about what was achievable in this game and they were not met.

I have not ignored your points, you just didn't make them very well. I never once experianced squads dying in pools of lava. Except while intentionally tring to kill them or mess things up.
I don't really understand what your talking about because if you can see these pools of lava, why would you send your squad through/near them?
If you've told your squad to go up the hill (and they get stuck) or through the lava (and they die) then it's your fault. If they did it themselves then it's a bug. Expecting them to work their own way through a level is your misconception.

There are areas in some of the maps where units can get stuck, but I don't see how that is a pathfinding bug? Maybe it's bad level design, or clipping problems, but what do these have to do with pathfinding? If you were actually referring to this, then its fair cop, but to call it a pathfinding bug is stupid.

Having high expectations for the game is different to having pre conceived ideas of what is and isn't going to be included. Being annoyed that your squad has got stuck in a cranny is different than assuming your squad will find it's own way around the lava. One is a bug, the other is an element of the game you thought would be included.