OT: Starcraft II and Elemental

[sector24]

Yes, the same seed will give an identical land mass, just unique goodie huts and resources and neutral monsters, etc. In the current version there are about...15 seeds across all 4 map sizes? Something very small. There is of course the promise of "dozens" of map seeds coming, but still that's not quite random. To equate it to dominions, it's like having dozens of pre-set maps (Parganos, Silent Seas, etc.) but with random magic sites. I would not call that random map generation, and I don't think any Dominions player would either.

[Doo]

Space Empires: Battle for Supremacy

http://www.mpogd.com/news/?ID=6379

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

MoM II has existed in many forms since MoM 1.
Some have reached being playable, but none have reached distribution form that I know of. Most of them are good starts that get destroyed by an effort to make them multiplayer.

Unless you can give at least one link to an example of this I'm going to assume you're making this up.

Dom IV is still in discussion mode as I understand it. (note that it is not being done by Illwinter)

You mean we're sometimes whining about how much we'd like it made? I wouldn't call that "discussion mode"

IW's secret game is only alpha as far as I know and their alpha's tend to require a working knowledge of Finnish which I dont have.

They're Swedish, like me. Not finnish, completely different languages. So if you have the slightest idea where I could use my extraordinary linguistic skills to find out more on the alpha I'd be more than happy to translate for you. Or perhaps the problem is rather the whole "secret" thing? You know, them not wanting anyone, including you, to know about it.

[Zeldor]

My first impression of Elemental is that it's poor man's Civ without any soul with artists being paid in non-alcoholic beer - sovereign and unit arts are just disgusting. Nations are a joke. UI is a joke. Economy seems bland. I will play a bit more, but so far I don't like it at all.

[HoneyBadger]

The truest heir to Master of Magic that I've ever played has been Lords of Magic: Special Edition.

Not an exact copy ofcourse, but definitely similar beyond mere reminiscence. And it quite possibly
has the most sheerly beautiful (map) scenery porn in any game, ever. It's very much like playing on
some centuries old Italian master's oilpaint landscape.

The game itself is fun, and the (many) elementally derived Nations play differently, because they are different. This does affect the balance a bit, unfortunately, but not horribly so, and anyway, you can play every single Nation, ranging from the very benign to the very evil.

The focus is on heroes, which are generally incorporated very well into the game. It's a little bit like Warcraft 3 in that aspect, but to my mind, the incorporation seems even a little bit smoother in terms of the gameplay, considering LoM:SE is years older. Storywise, there isn't much, ofcourse, but the game lends itself well to making up your own story, as you go along.

The AI is also not great, and it's a fairly easy game to play, and beat (perhaps a little too much so),
but there's multiplayer support, and from what I've heard (I haven't tried it), it isn't awful. I couldn't find an item editor, though, and I don't believe the game itself has very powerful modding tools.

Even if not terribly challenging, games are long and feel suitably epic, atleast in a "better than average saturday morning fantasy b movie" kind of way (think "Krull", "Beastmaster", "Hawk the Slayer" etc. but with better special effects and slightly more coherant story.), so it's a pleasant way to spend an afternoon actually enjoying a game experience, rather than fighting for survival.

The nicest part is, I got my copy for less than 10$, and that was years ago. Unfortunately, for everyone else, it's currently around $45 at Amazon. Worth it, though, in my opinion.

Does the game have a personality? Yes, and a fairly well-adjusted one at that, I think.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

Unless you can give at least one link to an example of this I'm going to assume you're making this up.

Any that are being done semi-professionally I dont care to give you. And tho I gave up on most of them but if you put Master of Magic into a search on sites like SourceForge you can easily find large projects in various stages of completion. Feel free to join any you wish. But like I said, most tend to start off good then try to go MP and fall apart. Im still hoping for one that just completes the working-version stage before going off topic (come to think of it, isnt Elemental itself an example of that? So why did you ask?)

Actually speaking of SourceForge and any of the other Open Source or Cloud Project sites...
Anyone here who is interested in getting in as a programmer, graphics, sound, or just general idea-discussion; take any old game that you really liked and do a search of project sites like these. If you loved it then chances are that someone else did also. There are many projects trying to resurrect old classics.

You mean we're sometimes whining about how much we'd like it made? I wouldn't call that "discussion mode"

Thats funny. I thought that Dom3Mods had one.
Most of the ones I was thinking of the discussion is in IRC. Of course, I tend to be less of a cheerleader than a naysayer. And I wouldnt say that any have reached any serious levels. In fact, until at LEAST an alpha playable version exists I dont bother contacting most projects.

They're Swedish, like me. Not finnish, completely different languages. So if you have the slightest idea where I could use my extraordinary linguistic skills to find out more on the alpha I'd be more than happy to translate for you. Or perhaps the problem is rather the whole "secret" thing? You know, them not wanting anyone, including you, to know about it.

No I dont think so. I really dont picture you in the alpha group.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by sector24

Yes, the same seed will give an identical land mass, just unique goodie huts and resources and neutral monsters, etc. In the current version there are about...15 seeds across all 4 map sizes? Something very small. There is of course the promise of "dozens" of map seeds coming, but still that's not quite random. To equate it to dominions, it's like having dozens of pre-set maps (Parganos, Silent Seas, etc.) but with random magic sites. I would not call that random map generation, and I don't think any Dominions player would either.

Pros and Cons. There are times that I wish the mapgen in Dom3 would take a seed.

There is usually a seed. You just dont always get access to it. Unless it randomly reseeds in mid generation its the same whether you know there is a seed or not. Creating a true random in programming languages is a history subject all its own.

And a seed generally means at least 65535 options. Thats alot of maps.

If properly used a seeded generator can create a map hundreds of times larger than other games without adding to the size of the game, cpu load, or memory use.

[sector24]

To be honest I don't consider Sourceforge and similar projects to be successors in any tangible way. If you don't own the intellectual rights to the project, you can't make the sequel. You can certainly make something, but when everyone is a volunteer the odds of any project going all the way to completion go way down.

As far as the seeds go, I do understand how they are supposed to work. However, the way Stardock talked about them it seems like only certain seeds have valid resources surrounding the starting areas. Since not all seeds are valid, we have to rely on them to provide them for us. Technically you can delete the seed altogether and create a totally random map, or use a manual brute force attack to generate all maps and then manually check which ones work for you. I think that's only for people who want to play Elemental: War of Boredom.

[HoneyBadger]

When you've got a game so old, and so influential, as the "Master of..." games, the idea of making a true sequel at this so very late date is a dubious fantasy, at best. I'm not certain that would even be very desireable.

It's pretty easy to list the things we (plural) liked about MoM, and create a game that utilizes those ideas, while discarding the body of outdated "stuff" that 20 years of programming has improved on.

For that matter, I suspect it probably wouldn't be terribly difficult to just mod the latest version of Civilization into a more or less MoM clone, if all you want is a fairly straight copy.

Personally, my wish is for a turn based strategy game that was deeply generic, and that let you create units/structures, and harvest resources, right from the ground up, in a Spore-like fashion, maybe with some user-defineable universal physics, along the lines of a user-created tech and resource tree--discarding the trappings, and inherant limitations of "fantasy/science fiction/historical" strategy games. With a deep and broad enough level of gameplay, you could end up with something with a whole lot more replayability than any given rehash.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by sector24

To be honest I don't consider Sourceforge and similar projects to be successors in any tangible way. If you don't own the intellectual rights to the project, you can't make the sequel. You can certainly make something, but when everyone is a volunteer the odds of any project going all the way to completion go way down.

I fully agree. In fact, I mentioned it in another thread where they were discussing how great games would be if the devs listened to the community. Im not against it. But everything has its pros and cons. Open projects tend to show the other side of that argument at a high percentage.

But it still makes a good hunting ground. Sometimes one of them will actually get to a working alpha. They are often just messing around with it but once it gets there you can talk to them about going legit. Sometimes it involves giving up the games working name for a completely new one and dropping some other too-close-to-hide characteristics of the old game but if they want to continue onward to a marketable product they can.

But like I say, until they have a working playable alpha its usually not worth talking to them. 90% of them fall out before doing any real code.

As far as the seeds go, I do understand how they are supposed to work. However, the way Stardock talked about them it seems like only certain seeds have valid resources surrounding the starting areas. Since not all seeds are valid, we have to rely on them to provide them for us. Technically you can delete the seed altogether and create a totally random map, or use a manual brute force attack to generate all maps and then manually check which ones work for you. I think that's only for people who want to play Elemental: War of Boredom.

Thats sucks. Ive gotten used to developers not making good use of seeds but that sounds like not even making average use of it. On the other hand, changing out the seed-feed for a generator is something that can easily be done at the last minute so maybe its just that way now for testing purposes (I hope). Well Brads fame has always been AI, not maps.