MOO3 officially moved to Q3 2002

[Tenryu]

Too bad. I've been watching both MOO3 and Stars!SN for a long time. Last time I looked, Stars! SNG appeared to have almost gone into hibernation. A real shame. Thank God Space Empires 4 made it out the door in good shape.

I bought Reach for the Stars 2 the week it popped out but after playing it for a week or two I renamed it "Reach for your wallet 2" and haven't played it since.

[Loser]

The way I understood it (please correct if mistaken), MoO3 will use a 'focus point' system to keep you paying complete attention to _all_ aspects of the management of your empire. You have a limited amount of these points, and so can only control, personally, a limited amount of your empire.

You can spend some points to get complete control of a battle, it seemed to say, but your points might be better spent elsewhere.

This sounds very good for playing agaisnt other people, like the time limits in SMAC, but limits micro-management. Being a confessed control freak, micro-management junkie, this idea makes the game sound just a little less appealing.

Trusting any aspect ofthe empire to an AI does not sound very good. The ministers in SEIV are certainly ... impressive. But letting them do their thing is like letting my roommate (who gets a monthly check from The State for a 'learning disability') do the dishes: it means I won't have to do it, but does not mean it will be done well.

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Richard:
Might be, and I do like the QS guys, but I don't trust Infogrames as much as I can throw them. They have done some TERRIBLE things as a publisher that I am slow to forgive.

And Infogrames has a history of telling developers to put a game out now versus later, so while I am sure the game does need tweaking I am also sure that fit into the marketing plans of the Infogrames folks.

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Well, the general drift of the hints and pantomimes coming from the NDA'd members of the MOO III forums are suddenly much grimmer today. Apparently your past experience is about to be vindicated. I guess the upper management at QS waiting until the first of the month to let the hammer fall. MOO III is getting feature-slashed pretty bad in order to meet a deadline and get a product out the door, and some of the programmers and artists are being laid off.

Maybe it won't be as bad as it seems, since it is April 1st. We'll see when more details of the feature cuts are released.

[Richard]

I am not surprised. Hard core strategy games can make money, but most publishers are SCARED of them because they want to reach everyone.

Unfourtanetly the Last game that I can use an example is RTFS. It was a game that was too silly to please the hard core, and too complex for the softest of players. And thus it failed.

When you try to please everyone, you just end up failing and please no one.

Hopefully though this is not the case with this game, I want to see MOOIII.

quote:

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Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:


Well, the general drift of the hints and pantomimes coming from the NDA'd members of the MOO III forums are suddenly much grimmer today. Apparently your past experience is about to be vindicated. I guess the upper management at QS waiting until the first of the month to let the hammer fall. MOO III is getting feature-slashed pretty bad in order to meet a deadline and get a product out the door, and some of the programmers and artists are being laid off.

Maybe it won't be as bad as it seems, since it is April 1st. We'll see when more details of the feature cuts are released.

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[Arak Koba]

Hmm, I don't know if I should be happy or sad about the trepidation concerning MoO3.

If its a great game- then great! I am looking forward to playing it.

If its a bomb- then great! I get more SE4 time.

[Suicide Junkie]

Richard, what's the F stand for in RTFS? "failed" or "messed up" or something?

[Richard]

Sorry should be RFTS, Reach For The Stars.

quote:

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Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Richard, what's the F stand for in RTFS? "failed" or "messed up" or something?

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