Why I won't be buying the game - detailed report

jab2565 · #1 November 30th, 2005, 01:26 AM

Lol, I own Star control2 and I love it. That was the reason for me beat testing weird worlds. I own the original star control 2 as well, for the 3d0. You may want to escape velocity nova, it gives you a universe to explore, but there really isn't a guiding story to it.

Tanelorn · #2 November 30th, 2005, 12:03 PM

Ok, understood.

By the way, I am a huge fan of the Master of Orion series. I still play MOO2 on my laptop. Can you imagine how cool MOO2 would be if it were upgraded to Wierd World's graphics level and space battles were animated to WW's quality?

Ever consider developing a game like MOO2 using WW as a start? I'd chip in on the labor in a heartbeat if I knew someone was considering that...

Phoenix-D · #3 November 30th, 2005, 02:27 PM

WW would be a poor start to a MOO game for everything -except- graphics, really..

Fingers · #4 November 30th, 2005, 05:44 PM

Master of Orion is one of my favorite games of all time... I wasted countless hours playing it back in the day. And Rich (Ripcord O'Reilly on the forums) is a huge SC2 fan. When we originally started thinking about "Infinite Space" it's no surprise that it was going to be the biggest and most complex space 4X game ever made.

We had all those features like hundred+ star galaxies with multiple planets per star, multiple interconnected tech trees, ten races with ten ship types each ranging from fighters to two-mile-long super dreadnoughts and so on. Our planets even had several layers of different minerals you'd get access to with more advanced mining technology (core-sucking, anyone?), all kinds of stuff we all love to dream about. There's a couple of really interesting screenshots out on the net somewhere

Now, why didn't we finish this game? Several reasons. Mainly, games like MOO3 and imperium galactica 2(?) were coming out and there's no way two or three people could compete with those guys and their megabucks. Secondly the game was becoming so complex that it'd be impossible (at least for me) to write a competent AI, so it turned into a multiplayer-only title and there just aren't enough people playing these games to get together ten of them, especially given that a game might last several weeks.

So basically, it would have taken several years to complete the project and there was no way to tell if anybody would even notice it by the time it was finished, so we abandoned it. A couple of years later SAIS was born out of the work we did on "IS" using a lot of the art assets and background info etc. This time we actually did some planning and designed the game based on what we could realistically do, so it was finished before we got too tired of working on it.

It's interesting to note though, that almost all of the races, weapons and ship systems from the "big game" live on in Weird Worlds, in one way or another.

Arralen · #5 November 30th, 2005, 06:05 PM

... some names, and 3 words:

Moo2, Moo3
Imperium Galactica 2, Imperium Galactica 3
Stars!, Stars Supernova

Space Empires 3, Space Empires 4, DominionsPPP, Dominions 2

Finish that game !

Arralen · #6 December 1st, 2005, 05:27 AM

Obviously, no-one understood. Ok, silly me.

Stars!, Stars Supernova
Backed by Interplay. Died in beta due to differences between devs and Interplay. No further development, as the devs don't get their rights back: Fans offered to invest >$100.000 t get the game finished, but no chance.

Moo2,Moo3
Atari killed it by forcing a beta release.

Imperium Galactica 2, Imperium Galactica 3
IIRC it was turned into some horrible space shooter with different name, because shooters make more money then complicated 3x games. Bet this was not the devs choice.

Space Empires 3, Space Empires 4, DominionsPPP, Dominions 2
where all made by a single dev, or two.

I don't know if Aaron hired some artist or programmers for SE5 - or if there where other causes to go for big brand shelf space.

Actually, when I fist fired up WW I thought: This game, these guys have potential for a big space 3(4?)X title.

Shadowcat · #7 December 1st, 2005, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Imperium Galactica 2, Imperium Galactica 3
IIRC it was turned into some horrible space shooter with different name, because shooters make more money then complicated 3x games. Bet this was not the devs choice.

This is tangental to your point, but you actually have this one completely backwards.

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident is the titled you are thinking of, and it was indeed to be "Imperium Galactica 3" at one stage in its development. However the IG3 name and associated gameplay changes were more or less foisted onto the developers by the then-publisher and IG property owner CDV. The game did not start out with any connection (or real gameplay similarity) to the Imperium Galatica series, and once they were dissociated from the IG name the developers reverted to the style of gameplay they had intended to make all along.

Tanelorn · #8 November 30th, 2005, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Fingers said:
Now, why didn't we finish this game? Several reasons. Mainly, games like MOO3 and imperium galactica 2(?) were coming out and there's no way two or three people could compete with those guys and their megabucks.

Well, as we all know, both those games flopped big time, and I don't think there's another MOO killer in the works anywhere. I would consider going back and re-assessing your original project. There's quite a large crowd of people who like that kind of game and wish there was a game that took everything they loved about them and put it into one bag.

In my opinion, the market is ripe for a 3rd party Master of Orion clone with 2005 technology.

jab2565 · #9 November 30th, 2005, 06:54 PM

I would love to play another game like SC2, the only difference would be a random universe generator that would shift where all the planets and races were.

Fingers · #10 November 30th, 2005, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Tanelorn said:

Well, as we all know, both those games flopped big time, and I don't think there's another MOO killer in the works anywhere. I would consider going back and re-assessing your original project. There's quite a large crowd of people who like that kind of game and wish there was a game that took everything they loved about them and put it into one bag.

In my opinion, the market is ripe for a 3rd party Master of Orion clone with 2005 technology.

Well, we know that now but didn't then... In any case if MOO3 flopped after all that money and effort it makes the whole thing even riskier, and it doesn't help that any advances in technology translate directly into extra development time. Weird Worlds took us over a year and a half to complete (as opposed to six months for SAIS) and that's probably too long already.