Stopped Buying Firefly Games

[St_Winter]

I loved Stronghold games since the very first game. Crusader and even Stronghold 2 was my all time favorite game for such a long time. I loved the complexity of it. I loved just sitting back, playing endlessly by making a thriving medieval world. Fighting off the random attacks and seeing how well my building strategies worked against them. At one point I wrote a letter on a forum somewhere that the 3 things I'd love to see in the future was a World War 1 (Think trench warfare and having to keep up those supply lines and soldiers. The frontlines being like castle walls, the soldiers like citizens, and the trenches themselves being like the buildings in the castles. Something like that anyways, this was many many years ago.), Mythologies but not just Greek or Norse, but King Arthur, Dracula, and so on(I'm not sure if I did include Dracula actually and I cannot remember the others I suggested.), and Shogun.

To my surprise, they released Stronghold Legends. To my dismay, it was a shallow version of the game I loved. With each version of this formula of a game, it was less of itself. At this point, I'd just keep with other games that were similar. Strongholds to me was a unique experience. Not another Age of Empires.

Then, at one point, I played Dawn of War and found a new love for RTS games. Even better, Company of Heroes came out and really never looked back. It's still not the same but if I'm going to play a RTS game that's like all the others, I'm going to play the better versions.

When Stronghold Warlords came out, I was so so tempted. I was. Each sale, I'm so tempted. But now I have Age of Empires 4 and it's just so good. With the new DLC coming out on the 14th, there really isn't much of a reason to go to Warlords. It doesn't seem to have that experience that I want out of a Stronghold game, at least not the full experience. Every version seems to be a shallow version of the original that I fell in love with.

Now, all I keep seeing is new versions of the old game, the very first game. Looking over Stronghold Crusaders 2, seems to be the same thing, not enough is there to be like the original. I want to have to make all these buildings and jobs to get the end result. I want to have a thriving city and defend it. But if I'm going to play a more or less generic RTS game, I'll go play the betters.

Just seems like Firefly goes towards something we might want but then never really gives it completely. Like, they get there halfway, and want to do something either easier or go trendy. But it doesn't seem to be working out well for them, at least per reviews over the years that I've seen.

[ᴛʜ3ᴘʀᴀᴠᴀᴛᴏ]

AoE and Stronghold are quite different along with the budget they used, so I wouldn't compare them.

Ofc since "Stronghold Legends" the franchise has experienced a downfall but I've played Warlords and, even if I was skeptical about it, I enjoyed It.

[St_Winter]

Originally posted by Th3pravato:

AoE and Stronghold are quite different along with the budget they used, so I wouldn't compare them.

Ofc since "Stronghold Legends" the franchise has experienced a downfall but I've played Warlords and, even if I was skeptical about it, I enjoyed It.

Oh, I get that. I was just comparing the two because at the time, sort of felt like that's what it was trying to do. There was a lower budget title at the time that came out that would be better to compare it too but I can't remember what it was called. Knowing myself, at some point, I'll buy Warlords because I've always wanted that game, and I'm sure it'll be on a whim when I do, but so far, I kept myself from getting it because of issues others have had with it. But I still have it in my wishlist and it'll probably stay until I either get it or another game comes out doing similar but far better.

[Achilleslastand]

Agreed, they quite often seem not to listen. The fanbase has been asking for bigger maps for years and multiplayer has been having issues back to SH2, remember the waiting for players error that still isnt fixed 100%. Crusader is w/o a doubt the better of the first 2 titles and much better for skirmish/online play. Doing Crusader first should have been a no brainer.

[St_Winter]

Originally posted by Achilleslastand:

Agreed, they quite often seem not to listen. The fanbase has been asking for bigger maps for years and multiplayer has been having issues back to SH2, remember the waiting for players error that still isnt fixed 100%. Crusader is w/o a doubt the better of the first 2 titles and much better for skirmish/online play. Doing Crusader first should have been a no brainer.

For sure. I haven't even tried any of the newer titles. I stopped after I think Stronghold 3 maybe, but I've been following it this whole time and watching a lot of reviews. I really wanted Warlords and Crusaders 2 to be good but meh. And the online free to play title seems pretty mobile gamey in all the negative ways but on pc. So, I don't know. The idea sounds interesting but I know there is some pay to win stuff going on and then it sort of seems like the typical "rts" games on mobile with actual gameplay when your troops get to the enemy or randomly added "enemy" to just hangs out until you attack it. Maybe I'm just ranting at this point but I just missed the good ol days of gaming. It is starting to feel like there is a catch with games now a days. Like, I'm installing all of this content but I have no access to a lot of it until I pay for it. Just feels crummy.

[Achilleslastand]

Originally posted by St_Winter:

Originally posted by Achilleslastand:

Agreed, they quite often seem not to listen. The fanbase has been asking for bigger maps for years and multiplayer has been having issues back to SH2, remember the waiting for players error that still isnt fixed 100%. Crusader is w/o a doubt the better of the first 2 titles and much better for skirmish/online play. Doing Crusader first should have been a no brainer.

For sure. I haven't even tried any of the newer titles. I stopped after I think Stronghold 3 maybe, but I've been following it this whole time and watching a lot of reviews. I really wanted Warlords and Crusaders 2 to be good but meh. And the online free to play title seems pretty mobile gamey in all the negative ways but on pc. So, I don't know. The idea sounds interesting but I know there is some pay to win stuff going on and then it sort of seems like the typical "rts" games on mobile with actual gameplay when your troops get to the enemy or randomly added "enemy" to just hangs out until you attack it. Maybe I'm just ranting at this point but I just missed the good ol days of gaming. It is starting to feel like there is a catch with games now a days. Like, I'm installing all of this content but I have no access to a lot of it until I pay for it. Just feels crummy.

Crusaders 2 isn't bad, just quite average. And SH3 was a disaster. SH2 when released was quite buggy and took 4 good patches to make it decent. Fireflys track record after SH/Crusader isn't that impressive. And Warlords was a head scratcher, just jumping on the bandwagon i suppose.

[Machiavelli]

Nice blogpost

[Johko]

FireFly is trash company, scammed me on Stronghold 3 pre-order, never again trusting these developers.

[St_Winter]

Originally posted by Fellington:

Nice blogpost

Thank you. I sort of went on a rant but I felt like it needed to a be said. More or less.

[St_Winter]

Originally posted by Johko:

FireFly is trash company, scammed me on Stronghold 3 pre-order, never again trusting these developers.

Wow, I'm sorry. Yeah, they sort of come off that way. I think of heard of them doing something similar to someone else. So, did you ever get what you were suppose to get? Was it the game itself or some bonus?

[Achilleslastand]

Originally posted by St_Winter:

Originally posted by Johko:

FireFly is trash company, scammed me on Stronghold 3 pre-order, never again trusting these developers.

Wow, I'm sorry. Yeah, they sort of come off that way. I think of heard of them doing something similar to someone else. So, did you ever get what you were suppose to get? Was it the game itself or some bonus?

They probably could not get a refund, back then you could still buy physical copies of games and once it was opened/installed it was to late to refund. SH3 was a buggy mess and has horrible reviews on Steam.

[Sunday Driver]

Everyone overlooks Space Colony, which was great fun. Sort of Sims plus management and some humor.

[St_Winter]

Originally posted by Sunday Driver:

Everyone overlooks Space Colony, which was great fun. Sort of Sims plus management and some humor.

I didn't know of this until I looked it up the other day, looking over their games because I forgot what they titled Legends. That looks like one of their older titles. I'm sure it was good back then when most of their games were good. lol

[本]

Warlord is a really good game. I only played it in extreme difficulty, without exploit, and this is the harder stronghold game soooo far. It reminds me a lot of Crusader. Its like a really really good successor IMO. I dont understand why is it so underated, mostly for the economic/castle build/asian period aspect that is kinda less like the older Stronghold games, but tbh this is a really good game. Like an accomplishement of the Stronghold "warrior" aspect recipe. As the title say.
If you like challenge, you will enjoy this one, but play in harder difficulty to fully understand how cool the game is.

I like AoE, but i always find more souls in the Stronghold Games. Even their less good games are more intimate with the player, idk how to explain that but, thats true for me at least. And Relic Entertainment have like 300 employee where Firefly is 10 less, so its a quite unbalanced comparison..

[St_Winter]

Originally posted by 本:

Warlord is a really good game. I only played it in extreme difficulty, without exploit, and this is the harder stronghold game soooo far. It reminds me a lot of Crusader. Its like a really really good successor IMO. I dont understand why is it so underated, mostly for the economic/castle build/asian period aspect that is kinda less like the older Stronghold games, but tbh this is a really good game. Like an accomplishement of the Stronghold "warrior" aspect recipe. As the title say.
If you like challenge, you will enjoy this one, but play in harder difficulty to fully understand how cool the game is.

I like AoE, but i always find more souls in the Stronghold Games. Even their less good games are more intimate with the player, idk how to explain that but, thats true for me at least. And Relic Entertainment have like 300 employee where Firefly is 10 less, so its a quite unbalanced comparison..

I'll have to look into warlords one more time. I get it. I believe in relic first came out with company of heroes, that was their first game and didn't have that many people on board at the time. So, that's why the comparison.

[本]

Even at the time of Dawn of War for example, they where already "fighting" in another categroy. Relic Entertainment have always had more ressources and succes, for the simple reason that Warhammer was an already existing licence, that was already popular at the time, in US and around the world, so imagine comparate this with Stronghold, is quite non sense, imo.

I think Firefly are doing what they can do the best. They never had that much ressources (money/human) to equal thoses other RTS studio games. But their games have something the others dont have aswell, even if the graphic and technic is not the best. It still have the soul.
And thats why i personnally love this studio. Its kinda like the bethesda games are always late on the gen, but we like the inside content, despite the technical aspects and the bugs. (well... F4/76/SF were sad game imo, but anyway)