Something Serious

[Atrocities]

I just finished reading up on Galatic Civilizations, over at Game Spot

The produce of this game have what I think is a very novel idea when it comes to keeping a game alive over time. Here, you can read it for yourself.

quote:

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As an indie, we know we can't compete with the marketing and distribution of the major publishers. But we can hopefully make up for that by keeping the game fresh. As a gamer, you probably know the feeling of seeing a good game not get purchased because it's no longer "new enough." We are hoping that if we keep the game always new, we can keep it fresh for players to stay interested in it. So we actually anticipate making many changes to the game over time.

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Oh it gets better.

quote:

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To this end, we're designing it so that Users themselves can expand the game in unprecedented ways. We're not talking about including some editor. We mean that you will actually be able to create technologies, improvements, events, United Planet Issues, etc. and just drop them into your Galactic Civilizations directory. We are creating a library on the Galactic Civilizations Web site (which we'll be relaunching in the third week of February with an all newdesign and database), where Users can share and trade these things. Those that are approved by the admins become "canon," which means that Users with those modules installed will have their scores counted in the metaverse (this is to prevent people from making things that allow them to get incredibly high scores unfairly).

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Isn't this exacatly what Malfador is and HAS been doing all along? Seems to me that someone else is now trying to steal the very thunder that is keeping SEIV in rythm. Just look at it this way, Malfador has steadily supported SEIV since its beta days, and even now, is still on the ball and keeping things alive with the up coming release of SEIV Gold.

If Malfador can keep supporting SEIV as it has been, and keep it "new" with player suggested improvements and such, I'll bet SEIV will still be an actively placed game 2 years from now. Question is, will it still be selling? I would hope so as it is one of the finest 4x games I have had the pleasure of playing.

[ 20 February 2002: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

[Arboris]

Malfador & Shrapnel are without a doubt one of the very few creator/publisher combo's that I have ever seen that is truly dedicated to their products.

Well, I'll tell you what I am going to do...

As a direct response to your post I am going to get off my duff and purchase SE IV Gold. Within minutes of this very post in fact.

Between the mod community, Malfador, and Shrapnel's enthusiastic support. The Space Empires series is here to stay.

[Bman]

I am very happy with my SE4 purchase just as I was happy with SE3 and will be happy with SE4:Gold.

That being said, I have been keeping my eye on GalCiv for quite a while. I have heard nothing but good things about it's previous OS/2 incarnation. It has a lot of role-playing elements that you don't find in any other 4x space games. For example, as you explore the universe you are often presented with questions. The different answers have different repercussions. The example always given is: You land on a planet and discover primitives living there. You can a) kill them all and colonize the planet. b) enslave them. c) only establish a tiny outpost and let the primitives live mostly alone. d) leave the planet alone.

a) gives you the most space to build but is quite evil.
b) is fairly evil. It gives you less space to build, but you get some cheap labor!
c) is pretty good of you but gives you only a small space to build.
d) is really nice of you but gives you no space to build.

And over time your choices affected how others view your empire. If you always do evil things, your empire becomes perceived as evil by the other civs. And even your graphics changed to more dark and sinister looking graphics. It sounds like a neat concept and I look forward to seeing how it works in action.

[disabled]

For MM's sake, I would keep an eye on the game and keep that 'Cease and Desist' order handy just incase...

[ June 16, 2003, 03:16: Message edited by: General Talashar ]

[Richard]

Guys Galciv has been around for a LONG time, probably as long as the SE series. I don't see any harm in another similiar game being out there....

[mottlee]

Hmmm... I looked it up and I did not find even a demo to D/L SEIV has it beat in my book