OT: Stardocks Fantasy TBS

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by NTJedi

Actually it is "unpopular" at least in replay value as their forums rarely have posts. The game received more money because the console games are more popular amongst the kids. They've chosen to keep making sequels because it pays NOT because it's a great game. On this note they've chosen money over producing quality... so my metaphor example was accurate in my opinion.

My own opinion is that if you are trying to get your living by making games, you can't be too picky about what games you're doing, and I'm currently studying to be a game artist. One of the reasons I'd like to work for something/anything else than games is that game creation is often both boring and restricted.

Also, now that I checked what they're working at, I noticed that I know the new game you didn't like. I read a praising review of Overlord (PC, PS3, XBox 360) in a Finnish game magazine. The game had some gameplay problems, but it really did give that feeling of bullying your minions and being an evil mastermind. Wikipedia also said the same thing. It seems like it would be really fun to work in a game like that, even if it didn't make that much money.

And finally, wouldn't milking the same cow-game to the inifity (and beyond!) be more about "money over production quality"? Unless you know that they had enough (good, manageable) ideas to make a (better) sequel, I'll give them the benefit of doubt and presume that whatever they're working at is fun to make, and thus will get more work put into it, becoming better all the time.

[JimMorrison]

Actually, I'll just toss mine in..... I'd bet Overlord was "fun to make".

However, for me at least, it was pretty enjoyable to play for the first couple of hours. Beyond that point, the game becomes a bit open-ended, and you get to spend a lot of time running (slowly) back and forth, trying to figure out where there is something that you can do.

When you get frustrated with that, and find a Walkthrough just to tell you which mission to do next (you may have 5 available, but 3 of them may actually REQUIRE something from another you haven't yet done), then you might find that the whole game is actually very disappointing in scope.

It's fun at first, then it's disappointingly slow for how disappointingly small it is. It's truly a poor game that rather than just hang it up and come back to it later when I got frustrated, I just shook my head and deleted it.

Oddly, I still have AoW2SM installed on this machine. >.>


I think it's easy for a game like Overlord to get good reviews. Most reviewers don't play a game for a week before starting to type. If you can keep their interest for a few hours, and ignite their imagination as to how good your game COULD be, then people will make it look great. But really, how many people love it a year later? That is the test of popularity.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

My own opinion is that if you are trying to get your living by making games, you can't be too picky about what games you're doing, and I'm currently studying to be a game artist.

I would estimate about 5% of game developers are not trying to make a living by making games such as Illwinter. These are the developers which have the artistic heart instead of the greedy mind. From my understanding of TriumphStudios(AOW developers) they started with the artistic heart yet this has withered away.

Originally Posted by Endoperez

Also, now that I checked what they're working at, I noticed that I know the new game you didn't like. I read a praising review of Overlord (PC, PS3, XBox 360) in a Finnish game magazine. The game had some gameplay problems, but it really did give that feeling of bullying your minions and being an evil mastermind. Wikipedia also said the same thing. It seems like it would be really fun to work in a game like that, even if it didn't make that much money.

The game lacked depth and replay value. I can go into details, but I'd prefer not drifting too far away from the original topic.

Originally Posted by Endoperez

And finally, wouldn't milking the same cow-game to the inifity (and beyond!) be more about "money over production quality"? Unless you know that they had enough (good, manageable) ideas to make a (better) sequel, I'll give them the benefit of doubt and presume that whatever they're working at is fun to make, and thus will get more work put into it, becoming better all the time.

The AOW series was no where near its final stage of evolution so the sequels would not have been the same cow-game. The AOW-SM became such a smashing success because the developers were using ideas from suggestions of gamers... I help organize one of the main topics the developers were using. The community was bursting with ideas and begging for a sequel, yet Triumph lacked the vision to see AOW series proceed any further. The sad part of all of this is Triumph has chosen a new direction, yet it's clear the gaming community recognizes the Overlord game(s) have no value to stay on its forums... unlike the AOW series.
Considering Triumph builds their games for multiple gaming consoles it greater restricts development options as compared to development for only PC games.