Homeworld

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This article is about a computer game. For a more general term used in science-fiction, see Core Worlds.

Homeworld

Developer(s)	Relic Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Sierra Entertainment
Release date(s)	November 15, 1999
Genre(s)	Space simulation, Strategy game
Mode(s)	Singleplayer and Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Everyone (E)
Platform(s)	Linux Mac OS X Microsoft Windows
Input	Keyboard, Mouse

Homeworld is a revolutionary real-time strategy (RTS) computer game released in 1999 developed by Relic Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment. It is best known for its full three-dimensional movement and engrossing storyline.

1 Background
2 Plot
3 Gameplay
- 3.1 Single Player
- 3.2 Multiplayer
4 Musical Score
5 Developmental History
- 5.1 Mods
- 5.2 Sequels
6 Reception
7 Awards
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

[edit] Background

The Kushan people lived on a planet called Kharak, a desert world so hot and inhospitable that only the polar regions were settled. They are a tribal society, organized primarily into independent sociopolitical entities called kiithid (singular: kiith), each of which embodies unique religious and cultural traits. For the great majority of Kharak's past, there was war between at least two kiithid at a time. The major kiith include Gaalsien, Naabal, Paktu, Sobaan, S'jet, and Manaan.

[edit] Plot

Kharak's extremely inhospitable climate eventually led many Kushan to question how they evolved on it in the first place, and DNA comparisons between Kushans and other native life eventually proved that, in fact, they hadn't. The question of where they did come from was answered by a malfunctioning satellite which accidentally scanned the surface of the planet, penetrating to a depth of 75 meters, and detected metal in the vast, inhospitable reaches of the equatorial deserts. An expedition sent to the site discovered a huge alien ship, the Khar-Toba (First City). Within the Khar-Toba was found an artifact that would change Kushan life forever: an artificially-created stone, etched with a crude galactic map. A dot on a spiral arm clearly represented Kharak; a line connected this dot to another on the inner rim, a dot labeled with a word so ancient that it predated the kiithid themselves:

Hiigara. "Home."

All but the most radical kiithid eventually united toward the goal of journeying towards the game's eponymous homeworld and discovering the reasons behind their departure. However, this was far easier said than done. No one on Kharak could decide just what the journey would entail, so the decision was made to construct a ship that could handle anything. The resulting vessel, known only as The Mothership, is over 30 kilometers on its longest axis and required 60 years to build. It demanded huge advances in science and technology (many of them back-engineered from the Khar-Toba) and every resource Kharak could muster. 600,000 colonists were frozen in cryogenic sleep for the journey, and an internal construction bay and hangar allowed for rapid construction and storage of all fleet auxiliaries. The bridge crew was staffed day and night by the best tacticians, navigators, diplomats and scientists Kharak had to offer. As no computers could be developed that were powerful or efficient enough to coordinate all this activity, Karan S'jet, a young female neuroscientist, integrated her physical body into the Mothership to serve as its living CPU. She now serves as Fleet Command.

The player receives this information via both an in-game introductory movie (rendered in hand-drawn, black-and-white animations) and, in far greater detail, through the game's manual. Gameplay begins with the launch of the Mothership.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

After an initial tutorial mission, the Mothership tests her hyperdrive by jumping to the outskirts of the Kharak system. An assistant ship, the Khar-Selim, has been on its way to the same coordinates for the last ten years, but when the Mothership arrives, only wreckage greets them. The ship has been destroyed by unidentified hostile forces (eventually identified as the Turanic Raiders), which attack the Mothership as well. After defending herself, the Mothership returns to Kharak for repairs. However, in the Mothership's absence, Kharak was attacked by the Taiidan, a large interstellar empire which now controls Hiigara and viciously opposes the Kushan attempt to reclaim their homeworld. The remaining surface population of Kharak, several million in number, is annihilated by atmosphere deprivation weapons. The Kushan race, now reduced to 650,000 people (the vast majority of which are frozen aboard the cryotrays), swears revenge and sets off after the Taiidani fleet.

During their travels, the Kushan survivors meet the Bentusi, a benevolent group of traders who provide technology and information. They also re-experience the Turanic Raiders, and encounter the enigmatic Kadeshi, who defend their chosen nebula home with fanatical zeal. All the while the Kushan continue to research new technologies and spacecraft advances, eventually amassing a significant fleet, and face increasing hostility from the Taiidan Empire.

After the Mothership and the Kushan rescue a Bentusi tradeship from Taiidan forces, the Bentusi reveal their history: the Kushan once ruled a mighty empire from Hiigara, but were overthrown by the Taiidan. The Hiigarans were exiled to Kharak (a small segment stayed in a nebula, eventually becoming the Kadeshi) and were forbidden on pain of death from entering hyperspace again (resulting in the horrific, if technically lawful, razing of Kharak). The Taiidan Emperor, claim the Bentusi, will stop at nothing to prevent the Exiles from reaching their goal. However, the Kushan have allies in the form of the Bentusi (Homeworld 2 reveals that they assisted the Taiidan in unseating the Hiigarans, fearing Hiigaran pride, but the Taiidan have become just as bad) and a groundswell of rebellion within the Taiidani Empire itself, most specifically in the form of military defector Captain Elson, who provides needed intelligence and a supplemental fleet.

In a final battle above Hiigara, the Kushan fleet, augmented by Captain Elson's forces, destroys the Taiidan Emperor and succeeds in reclaiming their Homeworld.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Gameplay

Homeworld is known both for its massive online community and single player elements. Gameplay, both single and multiplayer, is complicated beyond the real-time strategy standard by the addition of a third dimension of unit positioning. While Homeworld's user interface has a greater learning curve, it allows players full control of their ships, which range from agile strike craft to lumbering capital ships.

Each unit serves a particular function and represents a tradeoff in strength, offensive power, speed, and cost.

In addition, the player may choose to play as either the Kushan or Taiidan, both online and in the single-player campaign. The differences are mostly in cosmetic ship design, with parallel ships (the "Vengeance"-class Kushan Assault Frigate versus the "Kudaark"-class Taiidani Assault Frigate) looking different but having identical hit points, armor, speed, weapons, etc. However, each race does feature two unique units (the Kushan Cloaking Fighter and Drone Frigate versus the Taiidani Defense Fighter and Frigate), and equivalent ships often have different gun positioning, usually in favor of the Taiidan.

[edit] Single Player

The single-player campaign includes 16 missions, and uses a unique fleet inheritance concept (aka persistent fleet), in which all ships from a previous mission remain in the next. Therefore, it is possible for a ship built in the first mission to still be present at the end of the game. This feature, coupled with the limited availability of resources in each level, forces players to make hard decisions on the make-up of their fleets. However, some players find that this feature can make the game very hard, and dooms a player who starts off weak in force to failing some very tough missions later in the game. Some of these include fighting massive guardian fleets, or trying to destroy a massive incoming object whilst your mothership is stranded, with no ability to move out of the way. These missions require raw firepower, which a player may not necessarily have, requiring him or her to restart the campaign from the beginning. The flip-side of the persistent fleet is that the game becomes progressively easier if the player is skilled enough to finish a level with a larger fleet than was intended. Others missions require delicate maneuvering of your fleet, such as moving a fleet through dust pockets to protect the fleet from damage by a supernova's radiation.

The ultimate goal of the single player mode is to find the Homeworld of the chosen protagonist race. But, it should be noted that the story and vantage point will remain unchanged regardless of the player's actual choice of race. In this and subsequent Homeworld games, Kushan are the canonical "heroes".

The game was noticed for its ship-stealing mechanic. The "Salvage Corvettes" can be used (in numbers) to capture enemy ships and convert them to your control, and the player is required to do so as early as the third mission of the single-player campaign. However, it is fairly challenging to accomplish, as the game's AI (not to mention the wise player) gives immediate priority to any Salvage Corvettes involved in ship-stealing. The greatest advantage to Salvage Corvettes is that ships can be obtained in this way even after the player has exhausted the capacity of the game's built-in unit-limiting system.

[edit] Multiplayer

The multiplayer community for Homeworld was large from its very beginnings in 1999. At its peak in 2000 and 2001 there were more than 18,000 players registered to the Ladder. Several dozen clans were active at the peak, since its release more than one hundred individual clans have been founded. There are still hundreds of active players and a handful of large clans. Today the original community of dedicated players still survives at the official Relic forums and on IRC.

The general flow of gameplay online resembles other real-time strategy games, such as Dune II and the Command & Conquer series. The player scouts the map, harvests resources and builds units. Since the game takes place in space, there are obviously no 'structures' as in most RTS games; however, the Mothership, carriers, and research ships essentially serve the same purposes, allowing the player to construct and upgrade units. It further differs from many contemporary RTS games by having only one resource type, aptly named Resource Units (RUs), although RUs may be mined from asteroids or nebulae. Additionally, Homeworld does not place strict limits on unit counts as many other games do, instead having a per-class cap which allows for players to retain large groups of smaller vessels while adding more powerful ships later (many popular games, such as Warcraft, have support units which force players to compromise and strike a balance between unit classes). Also of note is the fact that the use of Salvage Corvettes to steal opposing craft allows a player to exceed this cap, though building of new craft will still be disabled until the number of craft falls below the cap.

Unusual for a game released in 1999, Homeworld's original multiplayer lobby system still functions and remains in use. The steps for playing online consist only of creating a new player account from inside Homeworld's own user interface, and patching the game itself to the newest version. However, while not literally essential, the large compilation of multiplayer maps known as the Homeworld Archive is also an important download for those wishing to alleviate the hassle of individually downloading the considerable number of fan-made maps used in online play.

Both the latest patch and the Homeworld Archive can be obtained from Jst-Online.

[edit] Musical Score

With the exception of a song by the rock group "Yes" entitled "Homeworld", most of the music in the game is ambient, matching the lonely but beautiful environment of deep space. Also worthy of note is the inclusion of Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei, the choral version of his Adagio for Strings. A 13-track CD soundtrack was bundled with the Game of the Year Edition of Homeworld and features the original soundtrack by Paul Ruskay. The re-release of the Game of the Year Edition, marked by a "Best Seller Series" stripe, does not contain the soundtrack.

[edit] Developmental History

A Kadeshi heavy-swarmer narrowly avoids a deadly ion beam

Homeworld was undoubtedly influenced by the many RTS games, books, and movies which preceded it. The epic storyline is reminiscent of titles such as StarCraft and Dark Reign. Homeworld's battles, involving hundreds of small swarming ships and dozens of larger ones, were inspired by George Lucas's Star Wars, as well as J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5. The voice of the game's narrator also appears to be identical to the narrator from the animated Sci-Fi series Robotech, further reinforcing the game's space-opera atmosphere. The concept of a large mothership carrying exiles back to their homeworld has much in common with Battlestar Galactica.

Many of the starship designs were inspired by the Terran Trade Authority books, published by Hamlyn Publishing Group in the 1970s, and illustrated by artists Peter Elson and Chris Foss. Both are honored by getting special credit mentions in the game, and one of the game's characters is named after Peter Elson.

Homeworld revolutionized the RTS genre and paved the way for later 3D RTS games such as Hegemonia: Legions of Iron and Far Gate.

There is also a strong Middle-Eastern/Islamic/Jewish influence to the feel of the game. This is evident in the music, as well as the culture of the Kushan. There is some good evidence that the Kushan practice a religion very similar to Islam. Especially notable is the Kushan name for their Homeworld, Hiigara, which strongly resembles the word Hegira, which refers to the Prophet Muhammed's historic flight from Mecca. In addition the Kushani follow a path that goes into realms similar to the areas of interest during the Jewish exodus, including Kadesh, and the background story is similar to the Babylonian exile (Kadesh itself is the hebrew word for holy). However, a lot of what is apparently an Islamic/Arab touch may in fact be secondary influence filtered through Frank Herbert's Dune series and Luc Besson's film The Fifth Element.

Homeworld is also full of symbology, with specific symbols for the Kiith in the game as well as the symbol of the Kushan, which is their ancient homeworld flanked by a pair of wings. These symbols are mostly mentioned in the historical background for the game, but in multiplayer were used to distinguish one player from another.

[edit] Mods

Homeworld was extensively modded by a large group of fans of the genre. Despite many hardcoded limitations, almost every aspect of the game was altered from the basic models and textures to the in-game interface, music and effects. The most popular mods were based on well known sci-fi series. Macross, Babylon 5, Star Trek and Star Wars mods were all very popular at the height of Homeworld's popularity, as were many other mods based on other shows and original ideas from fans. Because of the modular nature of the file system in Homeworld, even the most non-technical user could modify simple ship statistics to change the gameplay, leading to a large modding community surrounding Homeworld. After the release of Homeworld 2 many teams either migrated to the new platform or moved away from the Homeworld series altogether.

[edit] Sequels

In September 2000, Barking Dog Studios released a stand-alone expansion, Homeworld: Cataclysm. Taking place 15 years after The Return, the story focuses mainly on kiith Somtaaw, and their struggles to protect the galaxy (in general) and Hiigara (in particular) from a powerful parasitic entity known as the Beast.

A sequel, Homeworld 2, was released in late 2003. In the game, the Hiigarans (Kushan) must defend their homeworld from the Vaygr, a powerful, nomadic raider race.

Relic released the source code to Homeworld in late 2003, which allowed unofficial ports of the game to other platforms, such as Linux and Mac OS X. [1]

[edit] Reception

Homeworld was given high marks by most of the gaming community, and earned numerous awards, including IGN's game of the year award for 1999. The game was praised for its eye-catching, movie-like graphics engine, large battles, appropriate soundtrack, compelling storyline, and revolutionary 3D interface.

Homeworld is a good example of a game that exhibits aesthetic completion. Rather than going for the 'realistic' graphics that initially impress but inevitably decay, Homeworld shoots for very clean lines and textures, somewhat abstract yet visually compelling. Such an aesthetic was not easily achievable given the technology of the day, and continues to impress.