Traitor

[DirkHowitzer]

Well, gentlemen, I will always have a soft spot in my heart(and maybe my head)for anything with the words "Master of Orion" in its title. This being said I will of course spend whatever it takes to possess my own copy of MOO3 when it arrives in stores. I think it will be very good if they can stick to the game plan but, as previously mentioned, that is improbable. I think the ideas hold very much promise.

Will it be as good as SEIV? Time will tell. This being said I resent the implications of traitor mentioned earlier. Yes I know it was all in good fun, but it still propogates the idea of loyalty at the cost of quality. I, for one, am not a fan of SEIV nor am I fan of the MOO series or Imperium Galactica, etc...I am a fan of 4X. And I, for one, will welcome anyone who attempts to better the genre whether the are backed by $10 or $10,000,000.

Now, this all having been said;-), SEIV is certainly one of the better, if not the best 4X game to come down the pike in quite some time. I believe that what we possess here at this forum, that being the suprising lack of skeptisicm, is exactly what is needed to better our genre. Rarely before have I seen a place as full of help and ideas as this. And this, I believe, is exactly what is needed to better the 4X genre. So I challenge all here to welcome with arms and minds wide open anyone who would attempt to follow in the path of 4X greatness. For without bold ideas where would any of us be now?

As for Tomgs assertation that it can only help the genre if it is a good game, I strongly disagree. Would you call Edison's first lighbulb a good light bulb? Seeing as it fizzled out after mere seconds I would argue not. But where would we be without that first attempt? In the dark. There is always something good to be gained out of even the most abject of failers even if it is merely an example of what NOT to do. To make a summary of what I've said in this post: It is the culmination of everybodies work, whether they be designers or mere players of the game with ideas, if we keep our minds opened and willing to accept even the most radical of ideas, in the end we will have what we desire.

Skepticism is NOT the answer. Not that constructive critisicm isn't helpful. And I don't mean to criticise these previous Posts pointing us back in the direction of reality, I merely hope to challenge us all to remain open minded and hopeful.

P.S.-- Whew...now I feel better;-)(Seguey now in the Creed song: "With Arms Wide Open"...lol)

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"He's dead, Jim."-- Lt. Commander Leonard "Bones" McCoy |Chief Medical Officer / USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

[This message has been edited by DirkHowitzer (edited 01 February 2001).]

[This message has been edited by DirkHowitzer (edited 01 February 2001).]

[Atrocities]

To be honest, I did not like MOO2. I hope MOO3 is better, but overall, it just rubbed me the wrong way.

*Ducks behind brick wall.*

[Malkuth]

Quote ::::Just an FYI but Hasbro Interactive is no more. They were bought out by InfoGames?
Here's a link to the story::::: End Quote


You should learn to read better they are getting the rights to Hasbro for a certain amont of years, not buying them totally out. They still have to use the Hasbro Name and will keep all current projects.





[This message has been edited by Malkuth (edited 01 February 2001).]

[solamnic76]

MOO was great. MOO2 was even greater. Also CIV was great, CIV2 even greater.

Call the Power never hit me and it was meant to be CIV3. I'm afraid MOO3 will let us down. There is none (as far as i know) former Simtex-wizard around greating MOO3.

MOO3 will be same as Call "CIV3" the Power. Nothing really same but name.

Of course, despite coming of MOO3, we still have Space Empires IV and hopefully someday Space Empires V

[Tenryu]

quote:

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Originally posted by Atrocities:
To be honest, I did not like MOO2. ... overall, it just rubbed me the wrong way.

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Interesting statement Atrocities, " rubbed me the wrong way."

That was exactly my feeling about MOO2. I didn't hate it, but I felt it wasn't nearly as good as the old orginal MOO. I remember being particularly annoyed that they'd decided I didn't need to choose my own engines. For some reason that really fried me.

Well the upshot of it all is/was that I played a lot more "Stars!" and SE3 for a lot longer then MOO2.

I can't wait for the new "Stars! Supernova" to come out, but I don't expect much from MOO3. Actually, even the design overview sounded sucky to me.

It's hard for me to understand how you can make a strategic war game and then require that we 'twitch' fast to destroy our enemies.

This 'real time' stuff in war games really turns me off. It has its place, somewhere, but as far as I'm concerned that usually assures that I DON'T buy the game.

Well, LOL! Guess I got that off my chest!

[Krakenup]

quote:

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Originally posted by Atrocities:
To be honest, I did not like MOO2. I hope MOO3 is better, but overall, it just rubbed me the wrong way.

---

Me too. I felt that they had removed some of the playability (ship design options, etc.) to make room for glitzy graphics that had no useful purpose. It was like they dumbed it down to appeal to a wider audience. I never finished my first game.

[Barnacle Bill]

MOO was basically a computer Version of "Stellar Conquest" with tactical combat & ship design thrown in. The 8-bit members of the "Reach For The Stars" series were also essentially computer Versions of "Stellar Conquest", as were a few other games. MOO II replaced most of the "Stellar Conquest" game mechanics with ones that looked more like Civ, except for how you moved fleets around.

That being said, there were a number of things about MOO that bugged me, and I thought MOO II improved:

1) In MOO it was a viable strategy to build nothing but huge stacks of tiny ships. My preference generically is for a system in which different sizes of ships have separate tactical roles and a balanced "combined arms" approach is superior to a "pure" approach based on any size. If I can't have that, I'll take "bigger is better". I hate the swarm thing, though.

2) In MOO, population and troops were interchangable. Simtex was neither the first or Last 4X game to do that, but it is another one of my "hates". My preference is for troops to be something you build & move in transports, like in SE4. If I can't have that, I'll take how it worked in MOO2: defensive troops come from a structure you build on a planert, offensive troops come with troop transports that turn into troops when you invade. If I can't have that, rather than the MOO method I'd prefer what Stellar Conquest did: no troops, the planet surrenders as soon as you eliminate the defenses due to the threat of bombardment from orbit, you have to keep a ship there to to keep control over the conquered planet via that same threat.

As to Civ/CivII/Call to Power, I can't think of anything about CivII vs Civ that I thought was a change they should not have made. Call to Power was not by the same people, though, but somehow a different company got the rights to the game name "Civilization" and did a "look alike" intended to make the buyer THINK it was CivIII. The Call to Power folks entirely missed WHY CivII was so popular for so long, which is the ability of the players to create their own scenarios & mods. Having played with that, I can say that CivII was one of the best but could have been even better. Firaxis is doing the REAL CivIII, and hopefully they will make those improvements (from their web site, it appears they at least understand the importance and are taking steps to insure no customization ability is lost). Call to Power sacrificed customizing ability on the alter of glitz. Frankly, I never even bought it after reading enough about the game to see that. This, of course, is one of the great strengths of SE4.

On 4x games in general, I think eliminating detail in the name of reducing micromanagement is a mistake. The right approach is the one SE4 uses, of letting the player choose to micromanage or delegate. You just have to get the delegation AI good enough to be "competent". SE4 still needs some work there, but I believe that MM will eventually come through.

On the RTS thing, frankly I think RTS is totally inappropriate at any scale above the tactical. R&D and Production decisions don't get made like that in real life. The only way it becomes acceptable is if (a) it moves at a fairly leasurely pace and (b) you can pause it and while paused view reports and change orders. I consider any RTS game in which R&D or production decisions have to be made while frantically clicking to control what is essentially a tactictal battle to be just a new form of arcade game, not a strategy game. An RTS tactical module in a turn-based 4X game is OK, as long as the player does not have to excercise the level of control over units that you do, for example, in SE4. In other words, you would give the sort of orders an admiral would give, not the sort of orders a captain would give but you are acting as captain simultaneously for every ship in the fleet.

[This message has been edited by Barnacle Bill (edited 02 February 2001).]