Q: When is
Homeworld 2 going to be released?
A: The game was released in North America and Australia on
September 16, 2003.
Q: What will the
system requirements be?
A: The minimum requirements are: Pentium III or AMD Athlon 833
MHz, 256 MB RAM, GeForce or ATI Radeon 7500 video card with 32
MB RAM, Hardware Transform & Lighting (T&L), OpenGL
& DirectX 9.0 support, 1.6 GB hard drive space, 16X
CD-ROM, Windows-compatible sound card, Broadband for Internet
play, TCP/IP network for LAN play, Windows-compatible mouse
and keyboard. The game will refuse to install if the minimum
requirements are not met. Recommended system is 1.6 GHz, 512
MB RAM, GeForce 3/Radeon 8500 with 64 MB RAM.
Q: Will there be
public Beta tests, and if so when?
A: Although both Alex Garden and Dan Irish said on several
occasions that there would be "a number of tests,"
including "beta discs available at retail," on
August 12 it was announced that there will not be a
Beta test. So I guess a "beta disc" will be
available at retail, but it will be the released product, and
you'll get to pay full price to "test" it.
Q: When does
Homeworld 2 take place? Before or after the events of the first
two games?
A: Homeworld 2 is set 100 years after
the events of the first game.
Q: How many
playable races are in the game?
A: According
to Alex Garden, the game will ship with one single-player race
(the Hiigarans) and two multiplayer-playable races
(the Hiigarans and the Vaygr),
possibly with more to be added later in possible expansion
packs (don't hold your breath). Multiplayer is said to support 6 simultaneous players.
Q: Will the game
use the familiar Homeworld style cutscenes and cinematics?
A: Yes.
Q: In the
single-player campaign, will you still have a persistent fleet
that you keep from mission to mission? How many missions will
there be?
A:
Yes, you'll keep the same fleet through the 15 missions of the
single-player game.
Q: In the
single-player game, how many of the original races from the
first two games will appear?
A: The
Kushan will appear as the new Hiigarans, and the Bentusi make
an appearance. The Taiidan remnants are now a part of the
Vaygr, the primary opponent. No other races from the previous
games make an appearance. And that means no, there are no
Kadeshi.
Q: Who's doing
the music soundtrack?
A: Paul Ruskay's
Studio X, responsible for the music and sound on the original Homeworld, is
credited for the music on HW2. YES! is not planned to
be on the soundtrack. The soundtrack will feature music
performed by live orchestral musicians, instead of purely synthesized
music as in the first game.
Q: Will the
events of Homeworld: Cataclysm be ignored in the game?
A: Designer Morgan Jaffit has said that Homeworld 2 does
not specifically contradict the events of Cataclysm,
but neither does it focus on them. Dan Irish (Executive
Producer) said that the events of Cataclysm are not
mentioned in HW2, but are accepted as having happened.
Q: What new
features does the "reworked from the ground up" HW2
graphic engine support?
A: A short-list of items that are supposedly featured:
increased polycounts, increased texture size, per-pixel light glows (including a
specular "glare" feature), dynamic lighting,
specular mapping, location-specific ship damage,
bitmapped (rather than vector BTG) backdrops, dynamic shadows,
improved
explosion and particle effects, and camera panning.
Q: Will Homeworld
2 be more modification-friendly than Homeworld?
A: Relic has promised to release
tools and documentation through RDN
to help with user modding, but have yet to do so. Some of the 3D tools
require a commercial license for Maya, so how useful and
mod-friendly they will be in actual practice remains to be
seen. Personally, I doubt Sierra will offer any support
whatsoever for this game, and thus far Relic has been content
to blame their own lack of support on Sierra. I don't see this
changing.
Q: What's the
deal with the number 15 all over everything? Is it some sort
of conspiracy?
A: It's nothing more sinister than artist J. Aaron Kambeitz's
favorite number.
Q: Is it "Homeworld
2" or "Homeworld2"?
A: According to the Logo Usage Guidelines released by Relic in
January 2003:
"Homeworld 2 should not be referred to as Homeworld II,
HWII, HOMEWORLD, or Homeworld2. The official product name is Homeworld
2, however the abbreviation HW2 is
acceptable."
Q: Is HW2
multiplayer networking Peer-to-Peer or Client-Server (like
Blizzard games)?
A: According to Programmer Cei Gladstone, HW2
uses a Peer-to-Peer networking model. (If you don't understand what that means,
don't worry about it.)
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