Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Thought you'd all be interested to see this one: http://www.twingalaxies.com/cgi-perl...w_aaronhall.pl It's a good read, he had a lot of interesting things to say about Space Empires and game design. Some teasers for SE5 are included as well. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Enjoy.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

A very nice and interesting interview. Good questions, good answers. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

QUOTE:
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AH: There are a ton of items on our wish list. Real-time rendered 3D graphics for ships, tactical ground combat, completely script-driven AI, orbiting planets, animated graphics, voice-overs for the races, random quests and plot lines, more detailed external events, real-time tactical space combat, those sorts of things.
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Yes, nice interview but it's the "real-time tactical space combat" in that Last sentence there that makes me shudder. Any other game I've tried with this feature was just awful to play. Anyone else feel this way or is it just me?

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Maybe it'll be in the future persistant, massively multiplayer game they're working on. You'll have your leaders (us) making the strategic decisions, and sending off our teammates to fight our battles in real-time space combat. I can just see it... "You lost your battleship doing WHAT? That's it, I'm bumping you down to escort, go patrol the perimeter!" http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

-Drake

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Nyx,

Is it too late to get in that tourny?

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Seawolf on the prowl

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Actually Drake, that's only way real-time would really work worth spit. One man, one ship. Otherwise it quickly becomes a jumble of incoherence as one person tries in a futile fashion to simulate the tactical thought of many in real-time battle. No way, no how. Boy, do I ever hate that click-fest stuff (can you tell?).

FPS games like Unreal Tournament and the Quakes I love, on the other hand. Real-time they are but it's just you making the decisions for you.

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

March 7th is the deadline to turn in your scores.

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

I could see a functional "real-time" tactical combat along the lines of the combat in Age of Empires.

You would have your various ships and you would click on them and click a point to give them commands such as "move to this point, Defend" where it would hold position and fire on anything that came into range. Or "attack" would hold position until something came into a certain range and then it would fire and persue if the other ship fled.

You can right click and drag a box to cover a group of units, ships in this case, which would then move in formation.

It's hard to describe, but if anyone here has played AOE you should know what I am talking about.

Not saying I would like that, I prefer Turn based myself. But it would be tolearable for the tactical combat part of it. It does get very messy when you have more than a dozen units or so. I would think fighters would have to be automated or you would have brain-freeze.

[This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 08 February 2001).]

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Personally, the very best tactical combat game engines I've ever seen have been the ones that were turn based and used a fixed number of "action points" for each units round of tactical combat. Each action peformed took a specific number of a units' allocated points per round. As units got more experienced, they got more action points to spend per round. Using specific types of equipment also reduced or raised the number of action points you had to spend. The best examples of this that I can think of offhand are the classic games XCOM and both of the 'Fallout' series RPGs. I've often wondered why none of the 4x games ever adopted this approach. Seems it would have been a natural fit for the tactical combat (shrugs).

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

X-COM ruled man! It was aweomse!

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

The developers of the original XCOM are working on a new project. Check it out at:
http://www.mythosgames.com/

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

You guys may want to pay this site a visit: http://www.freelancer.ag.ru/index_eng.shtml

It has lots of stuff about X-Com series, Jagged Alliance series, infos and other stuff from Dreamland and other similar games. Btw. I can't wait for Freedom Ridge to come out. It sure look like it will be a bLast (I miss that feeling I had playing UFO-Enemy Unknown).

[This message has been edited by Daynarr (edited 08 February 2001).]

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Thanks for posting about the interview. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

*quotes from interview with Aaron Hall at Twin Galaxies*

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>AH: I've been creating games since I first starting using a TRS-80 in the 5th grade. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hey, I used those in hi schools. We affectionately referred to them as Trash80's.
10 CLS
15 PRINT "HI"
20 PRINT "INPUT NAME"
25 INPUT = A
30 PRINT "HELLO"
35 PRINT A

(Ok, might not be totally accurate for basic, but its what I recall. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif )

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>AH: We had a whole line of temporal weapons on paper that would create solar systems, armageddon the entire galaxy, bring ships from the future, and so on. However, most of these had to wait due to both time and balance issues.

TG: Had to wait? Not ruled out completely? I think you just made a bunch of the hardcore players drool. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

*wipes drool from mouth.*

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>AH: That's an easy one. I would make Space Empires an on-line strategy game with a persistent world, but probably with multiple galaxies. A huge database would back the game up with thousands of worlds. And there'd be enough data to give each world its own character and appearance. Players would then build their empires, encounter each other, and battle. The history of the galaxy would be written and maintained for all to view and re-live. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sign me up brother. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif I am on board. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

That was a great interview. Thanks TG for doing it, and thanks for posting about it here. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif




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"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Patric Stewart as Captain Picard
UCP/TCO Ship Yards

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Hmmn strange screenshot on the interview page(the space empires IV screenshot in the comparisons)

The player starts his game on a sphereworld??

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Hmmn strange screenshot on the interview page(the space empires IV screenshot in the comparisons)
The player starts his game on a sphereworld??
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually if you look at the right colony screen on the right side you will see the colony type of "mining colony" If that were the starting planet it would be "Homeworld".

In another thread there is a discussion about ways to make the starting planets be ringworlds/sphereworlds though.

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

That screenshot is right off the MM homepage. When he spoke about the code coming from old generatiosn to the newer games I thought it would be cool to show how far the game's come, so I snagged one tactical screen from each edition of the game. He said that he'll try to get us a photo of himself soon so maybe we'll be lucky and be able to put a face to him too.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Hey Atrocities, pretty good from long ago memory.

I think you just left off the "$" on the "A". A$ is a string variable in this usage. You could also put a ";" between the print statements so they'd all print on the same line if you so wanted.

So okay, you can now tell how I spent my wasted youth. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Very good interview. Thanks Nyx and Aaron.

One thing that bothered me a little was that I got the feeling that Aaron wants to move the game into th real time camp at least as far as combat is concerned. I don't like that because every so called real time strategy game I ever player always made me feel rushed and stressed out trying to everything needed to be done. An impusle move system would be better imo.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Quote from the interview with Aaron I think the paradigm of the Online turn-based games will have to change somehow. The problem most have is that you play a turn a day, and then wait. However, most players want direct feedback in their games. I think more turn-based games will need the feel of an action game where you can immediately pick it up and play against others Online. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Personally, I like to play sim turn pbem games with one turn/day. Gives time to plot my moves and engage in diplomacy and write a game story if I so desire. I hope he won't remove that possibility in future Versions in the SE series. Playing others Online is also fun, but I don't want that to be the only way to play.

Overall a good interview with good questions and answers. Only one tiny little question I would have liked to see though:

Will the game ever see a currency and advanced trade with trade routes and goods? Buying and selling of ships/tech/planets/whatever on the "open market"?

But we can't have everything, now can we? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Send those over as wishes, he's pretty good about trying to include everything. And I don't think he's looking at moving into real time, he just wants a faster model for turn-based play Online. Even his Version of the massively multiplayer game that he's looking at for #5 is supposed to be turnbased. I didn't press him because he wanted to keep some secrets. I am really curious though, because when I spoke to the design team over at Firaxis about the mp Version of Civ III they mentioned that Sid wasn't happy with the way turn-based games work Online either, but he too is refusing to move to a real-time interface. I'll be very interested to see what both Aaron and Sid come up with.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Didn't you just give Aaron a huge compliment by mentioning him in the same sentence with Sid Meier. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

I could see Aaron someday ranking up there with Sid, but kind of makes you wonder what Aaron could accomplish if he had a fraction of the resources Sid Meier has had over the length of his career.

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Come on, where's you sense of loyalty? I gave Sid a compliment by putting him in the same sentence as Aaron. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

Way to go Nyx! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Interview With Aaron Hall
 

I Agree to Nyx. BTW, THIS IS A MUST READ! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

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PERHAPS THIS IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE &lt;Worf facing another critical fight&gt;