Moo3 is a shareware now

[sachmo]

I am still amazed at the state of the gaming software industry today. Not only do we have people PAYING to beta games, but a company can get away with putting out software that absolutely does not work as designed and they get to walk away with the profits. Yes, you can talk about bugs in Microsoft and such, but almost every time, the functionality is there in my experience.

There are differences, obviously. With business software, there is usually a pilot period. There are evaluations before you can buy the game. We as consumers don't get that with gaming software. Still, there should be some recourse.

This stuff just chaps my hide.

[Voidhawk]

I agree, sachmo.

I really think the primary downfall of MOO3 is the lack of any sort of useful documentation. Combine this with the bugs, and a player is constantly left wondering "Hm, this feature doesn't work like I assumed it would. I wonder if I just did something wrong, or if it's due to a bug that hasn't been reported yet?" As there is no documentation to explain what some features should do, there's really no way to tell. Unless of course, you test and re-test the effects of the features for hours on end until you get the desired results. And I don't feel like I should've had to pay for the "privelege" of doing that.

MOO3 is one of those games that the more effort you put into learning it, the more enjoyment you're likely to get out of it. Unfortunately, it's just too painfully tedious for some people like me to learn without proper documentation to at least help me along.

It bugs me that I paid full price for it, but if nothing else I'll be able to show it to my grandchildren as a little piece of gaming history. "This, kids, was one of the most highly anticipated, yet ill received PC games in history!"

[ May 29, 2003, 22:17: Message edited by: Voidhawk ]

[Karibu]

I agree MOO3 was a dissappointment, but I believe it can still be reasonable game to play. Players has made mods for the game, which make game encyclopedia more useful, AI more aggressive, etc. There is actually dozens of mods, which you can find going into MOO3 Boards.

However, there is 2 major flaws in the game. First is that it is 800x600 permanently and it looks horrible in the higher resolution displays (I have 21" monitor). Second and bigger flaw of the game is, that AI makes all the things for you and you can't actually control anything. You can't choose what to research (except using those sliders what were on MOO1), you don't see how your money is generated (except complicated mathematics). This game includes 3 different taxes. Diplomacy is badly crippled, lot worse than in MOO2 (Moo2 had decent diplomacy at least). Spies and spying is bad, bad, bad...

And making those developent plans are quite frustrating too. Well, I could go on, but this all had been said many times in MOO3 forums. I personally am willing to wait the patch to see if it can save the game.

[Fyron]

Requiring tons of mods to make the game even be playable is a good indication that it is a terrible game and the developers should be banished from the game development market before they can do even more damage. Or at least harshly penalized.

[ May 30, 2003, 09:16: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Erax]

No one answered my question (I haven't found the answer elsewhere, either). What went wrong ? How could they have made such a mess out of a good game ? The way you guys talk, re-doing MoO2 with better graphics and a couple of new races would have been better than MoO3.

Infogrames used to have a good name, quality-wise (I love their Alone in the Dark series). I know nothing at all about Quicksilver.

[EvilGenius4ABetterTomorro]

I thought designing ships was still pretty good. But then you had to put them in battle in real time combat (yuk!) with very tiny graphics.
How could a company make such a horrible game? Repeated beatings with the stoopid stick!
Actually I think they meant well but didn't listen to anyone's input. NO REAL TIME COMBAT! How many times do turn based strategy gamers have to say that? We are still a force to be listened to. In the end they thought the MOO name was good enough to smooth over any problems with Real Time Combat and obscure economics. Still waiting for the "fun patch".

[Suicide Junkie]

I have to say that I belive quite strongly that real time combat is not inherently bad. I know that it is very dangerous territory for these types of games.

Developers have yet to find a formula for making consistently good RTC systems.

The one game I have in mind as a good RTC game was RoboSport ... You would write short scripts for a few seconds of combat at a time, such as "face north", "scan and fire for 2 seconds", "duck down", "run across the gap to location X,Y", "scan and fire for 2 seconds" "face towards gap" "switch to rocket launcher" "scan and fire for remaining time"

With all the orders in, the robots run and bLast and lay mines, and bust into buildings like commandoes... beautiful to watch, and I could trash the other humans I played against at 3 on 1

[Karibu]

I can answer your question. First of all, they did not have any leader in the developement group. They had artistic leader (IIRC), but no project leader. Any coder can imagine what is the result if there is no good leadership in a LARGE project. MOO3 is very large.

Secondly, they tried to achieve too much and made regrettable compromises in the way. They tried to make a game, where player would be like a real emperor. What does a real emperor do? He decides to start a war, but do not war himself. He decides that education is important but he do not build schools. You get the point.

Where did this lead to? Player makes policies, which AI uses to build up / manage planets, colonize and research. What is left to player? Designing new ship models (very crappy way, I would say), building spies one by one(you can't make them "repeat build"), diplomacy (choices are basically to offer tech trade which AI rarely accepts, increase current money and research trade and start a war), changing tax rates (when unrest goes too high, this is every turn nightmare when you first rise them and next turn lower them. Every planet separately) and most importantly: push the TURN BUTTON.

What about two most important strategy game factors: combat and science?

COMBAT: You get realtime 3D screen, where you see little dots inside pentagram. Controlling them is to click pentagram and point it to the enemyforce. That is attack. Forget the neat tactics you used in MOO2. They don't exist. Then you see little lights and little dots going around and sometimes disappearing (if out of sensor range). How far your weapons carry? You can't see any "sphere of range" or "sphere of sight" around your task force. Only way to find out is to attack. There is no any sign or knowldge how far enemy is in combat screen. Not a one. Did I mention furious clicking and scrolling? You can't see the combat area at one time. You don't have that little strategic map (like in MOO2) beside tactic map. Oh no. You scroll and click when trying to keep your forces alive and think "where the hell is my task force?"

SCIENCE: You have 6 areas of science (like in MOO1). Economy, energy, social science, physical science, biology and mathematics. All you can do is to set mentioned policies, where you emphatize research and change the percentual distribuition between the fields. What happens? You get new inventions every other turn and soon you lose your interest on those. For some bizzarre coincidence, all hand guns look same, all engines look same, all biological devices look same, all ship guns look same...

Oh, and when you have this new and fancy fleet which has mass drivers, guess if you are able to refit them to be Armor piercing mass driver? CORRECT!! You can't even give your ships a new paint after they are built!

LEADERS: You get one or two leaders early game. They die in 10 turns if you have not chosen to have supreme spying skills (spies at home defend you). Did I mention of the bug which gets your leader to get killed every turn and new one appearing the next turn? Oh, by the way, you can forget the leader experince, ship experience and YES! YES! NO SHIP LEADERS. HURRAH!

GALAXY SCREEN: You can zoom in and out. For some reason, starlanes and system names appear only when you have the maximum zoom. Actually, all the details disappear if you zoom out, expect the star colors. Try to find any specific planet in a huge galaxy. Next thing worse is to find a specific grain of sand in a football field looking through toilet paper roll.

Hmm... I think I stop here before I get sarcastic. Complete list of things you can find in MOO3 forums.

Karibu has spoken

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
I have to say that I belive quite strongly that real time combat is not inherently bad. I know that it is very dangerous territory for these types of games.

Developers have yet to find a formula for making consistently good RTC systems.

The one game I have in mind as a good RTC game was RoboSport ... You would write short scripts for a few seconds of combat at a time, such as "face north", "scan and fire for 2 seconds", "duck down", "run across the gap to location X,Y", "scan and fire for 2 seconds" "face towards gap" "switch to rocket launcher" "scan and fire for remaining time"

With all the orders in, the robots run and bLast and lay mines, and bust into buildings like commandoes... beautiful to watch, and I could trash the other humans I played against at 3 on 1

BOTF had combat similar to that. You issue orders for a "turn" and then the ships fight in real time-esque execution for a turn. The orders were not quite as complex, they were various possible attack patterns. But it worked rather well. If only all of BOTF was as good...

[ May 30, 2003, 18:54: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Karibu:
I can answer your question. First of all, they did not have any leader in the developement group. They had artistic leader (IIRC), but no project leader. Any coder can imagine what is the result if there is no good leadership in a LARGE project. MOO3 is very large.

Indeed. As the old joke goes, "'What is the definition of a camel?' Answer - a horse designed by committee."